I hadn’t thought about it that way. I never, ever want to be compared to Matilda and her kind.
“Maybe you have a point.”
“Thank you,” he says. “But I didn’t come to that decision on my own. I was guided to it.” He pauses, thinking carefully about his next words. “Let me help you, Em. The gods want to guide you—I can be their voice.”
Of course. With Aramovsky, it always comes back to power.
“I don’t need anyone’s voice to guide me.”
His eyebrows rise. “Oh? Then maybe I don’t understand what O’Malley is doing when he whispers in your ear.”
My face flushes hot. “O’Malley is not whispering,” I say, even though I know that’s exactly what O’Malley does. “I listen to everyone. He has good advice.”
“Oh? So was it really your idea to have Bishop reconnoiter for spiders?”
He noticed the same thing I did. Is he saying O’Malley manipulates me? That’s ridiculous…isn’t it?
I shake my head. “I make the final decisions”—I hold up the spear—“because I have this.”
“Yes, you have the spear. The spear that the God of Blood guided into your hands.”
He wants to pretend it wasn’t the people who voted me leader, but rather the will of his invisible friends? I will never get through to this boy. He is a danger to us, a wedge that can divide us all.
“I’m sick of your God-talk. Where exactly are your gods, anyway? Why don’t they just show themselves and help us?”
Aramovsky’s expression is so condescending I want to slice it off his face.
“Em, how can you be so blind? We traveled on a ship that moved between planets. We were created in that ship, designed to live on Omeyocan when those that designed us cannot. We are standing in a city that was made for us. If you need more evidence of the gods, Little Matilda, then—”
My spearpoint at his throat, a blur of motion that my hands perform before my brain even engages.
“Don’t call me that,” I say, my words low and growling. “Don’t you ever call me that.”
Aramovsky stays very still. He tries to appear unafraid, but the point of my spear is just below his Adam’s apple. I could push forward (it would be so easy and you’d be forever free) and shut him up for good.
The same way Bishop shut up Aramovsky’s progenitor.
I remember the black body crawling, the broken thighbone plunging into its back. That sickened me, made me want to run…
A hard shudder shakes me. What am I doing? My temper again. I almost killed this boy. I pull the spear away, set the butt on the floor.
Aramovsky rubs at his throat. “Unless you intend to stab me again, may I go?”
“I didn’t stab you.” I say it sharply, defensively. I feel stupid, clumsy and out of control.
He lifts his fingers from his throat: they are traced with a thin smear of red. “The God of Blood approves, Em.”
“Get out.”
Aramovsky leaves.
I’m sure of it now—he wants to lead. On his own if he can, or by controlling me.
Be careful with Aramovsky, O’Malley had said. He’s tricky.
O’Malley was right about that. But is O’Malley trying to control me just like Aramovsky is? Am I really in charge, or is O’Malley shaping the way I think?
Spingate seemed so upset in the meeting. I’m going to check in on her first, then I’ll find O’Malley. I have to know if he’s hiding information from me.
There are little kids everywhere. Running around, goofing off and generally getting in the way. The shuttle is big, but we have far too many bodies in here. I’ll find a way to put them all to work.
They are even on Deck Two, where the labs are. The lab doors are closed. I heard Spingate’s voice coming from behind the door of Lab One. She’s yelling at someone.
I knock.
“Go away,” she shouts.
“Spin, it’s Em.”
A pause. The door slides open. Gaston steps out. He’s wide-eyed, frazzled. He closes the door behind him.
“Em, save me,” he says quietly. “She wants help, but the work she’s doing is way beyond me. I was trained to fly, not to do biology research. I need to be in the pilothouse—I think I’ve found weapons systems.”
My heart surges at this good news. “You mean like bracelets?”
He shakes his head. “No, weapons that are part of the shuttle, that it can use on outside targets. Like missiles.”
I vaguely know what a missile is. I can’t see how it will help us unless he can aim it at a spider.
He takes my