see the miracle for themselves. It didn't even seem to matter to most of them that she was... difficult. She was welcome. More than welcome. Again, I felt a little of that bitter jealousy. But that was silly. She was human. She represented hope. She belonged here. She would be here long after I was gone.
Lucky you, Mel whispered sarcastically.
Talking to Ian and Jamie about what had happened was not as difficult and painful as I'd imagined.
This was because they were, for different reasons, entirely clueless. Neither grasped that this new knowledge meant I would be leaving.
With Jamie, I understood why. More than anyone else, he had accepted me and Mel as the package deal we were. He was able, with his young, open mind, to grasp the reality of our dual personalities. He treated us like two people rather than one. Mel was so real, so present to him. The same way she was to me. He didn't miss her, because he had her. He didn't see the necessity of our separation.
I wasn't sure why Ian didn't understand. Was he too caught up in the potential? The changes this would mean for the human society here? They were all boggled by the idea that getting caught-the end-was no longer a finality. There was a way to come back. It seemed natural to him that I had acted to save the Seeker; it was consistent with his idea of my personality. Maybe that was as far as he'd considered it.
Or maybe Ian just didn't have a chance to think it all through, to see the glaring eventuality, before he was distracted. Distracted and enraged.
"I should have killed him years ago," Ian ranted as we packed what we needed for our raid. My final raid; I tried not to dwell on that. "No, our mother should have drowned him at birth!"
"He's your brother."
"I don't know why you keep saying that. Are you trying to make me feel worse?"
Everyone was furious with Kyle. Jared's lips were welded into a tight line of rage, and Jeb stroked his gun more than usual.
Jeb had been excited, planning to join us on this landmark raid, his first since I'd come to live here. He was particularly keen to see the shuttle field up close. But now, with Kyle putting us all in danger, he felt he had to stay behind just in case. Not getting his way put Jeb in a foul mood.
"Stuck behind with that creature," he muttered to himself, rubbing the rifle barrel again-he wasn't getting any happier about the new member of his community. "Missin' all the fun." He spit on the floor.
We all knew where Kyle was. As soon as he'd grasped how the Seeker-worm had magically transformed into the Lacey-human in the night, he'd slipped out the back. I'd been expecting him to lead the party demanding the Seeker's death (I kept the cryotank always cradled in my arms; I slept lightly, my hand touching its smooth surface), but he was nowhere to be found, and Jeb had quashed the resistance easily in his absence.
Jared was the one to realize the jeep was gone. And Ian had been the one to link the two absences.
"He's gone after Jodi," Ian had groaned. "What else?"
Hope and despair. I had given them one, Kyle the other. Would he betray them all before they could even make use of the hope?
Jared and Jeb wanted to put off the raid until we knew if Kyle was successful-it would take him three days under the best circumstances, if his Jodi still lived in Oregon. If he could find her there.
There was another place, another cave we could evacuate to. A much smaller place, with no water, so we couldn't hide there long. They'd debated whether they should move everyone now or wait.
But I was in a hurry. I'd seen the way the others eyed the silver tank in my arms. I'd heard the whispers. The longer I kept the Seeker here, the better chance that someone would kill her. Having met Lacey, I'd begun to pity the Seeker. She deserved a mild, pleasant new life with the Flowers.
Ironically enough, Ian was the one who took my side and helped hurry the raid along. He still didn't see where this would lead.
But I was grateful that he helped me convince Jared there was time to make the raid and get back before a decision was made about Kyle. Grateful also that he was back to playing bodyguard.