I didn’t feel bad about putting it there. “What do you actually want from me?”
“I know Sarah’s in morph.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me how to stop it before she enters her fourth instar.”
Heloise blinked. Then she seemed to sag against the table, misery wiping every other trace of expression away. “You’re going to kill me,” she said. “I always knew that was a possibility. When Ingrid asked me if I’d be willing to be the decoy, she wasn’t really asking. She’s the strongest of us. Well. Was. When the little princess wakes up, she’ll be able to wipe her mother off the map. Too late for me. Sorry, Heloise. For a member of an inherently selfish species, you sure did die stupid.” She laughed, high and sharp and utterly mirthless. It was the laughter of someone facing the walk to the gallows and determined to do it without tears.
“I never said I was going to kill you,” I said.
“You didn’t have to,” she said. “You can’t stop a morph, little incubus. Once it begins, once that process kicks off, it keeps going until it’s over. Instars can last forever, depending on the external stimuli we encounter, but metamorphosis is a limited-time offer. She’s going to finish her transformation and she’s going to wake up in her fourth instar and she’s going to blow this stupid planet to kingdom come. Sorry. Guess that’s probably pretty inconvenient for you. Look at it from my perspective, though: I’m about to be dead.”
“Destroying the planet will kill the rest of us,” said Dad. I flinched a little. I’d been so focused on Heloise that I’d almost forgotten he was there.
“So what? I’m the one that matters.” She tilted her head back as far as the table would allow, glaring at him. “I’m the superior species. You filthy primates took the long route to becoming mammals, and you’re still disgusting. All that sweating and bleeding and listening to your own heartbeats like having a crappy diesel generator for a circulatory system is somehow a good thing. It’s vile. I don’t know how you live with yourselves.”
“I’m not going to kill you,” said Dad, voice mild. “You can stop trying to make me.”
“Oh, believe me, if I really tried, I’d get my way.” Heloise’s eyes flared white. “I don’t need to be able to read your mind to know what really scares you. That wife of yours. She’s human, right? Human enough, anyway. Does she love you? Or have you just overdosed her on those nifty pheromones you have?”
“Shut up,” said Dad.
“You’re not from around here either, you know. The dimension you came from may be closer than ours, and you may have arrived before we did, but this isn’t the world you evolved to exploit. You people and your high horses and your fancy morals, when you’re colonists as much as we are. We weren’t the first invaders. We won’t be the last. Or oops, I guess we will be, because when our queen comes out of her egg, she’s going to murder every last one of you fucking—”
“I said, shut up,” snapped Dad, standing. Looming, really, the can of Raid in his hand and a dire expression on his face. Heloise stopped talking, but she didn’t flinch. If anything, she looked absolutely, transcendentally triumphant, like she was finally getting what she wanted.
“You don’t know, do you?” She smiled like she’d just won something. “You can’t look into her head and see—and even if you could, maybe she doesn’t know. Maybe she thinks she loves you until she gets a head cold and realizes she can’t stand you when she can’t smell you. Are Lilu behind the push for free flu shots? Widening your target pool?”
Dad began to shake the can.
I dropped the scalpel, hurrying to put my hand on his arm. “No. Dad, no. You’re letting her control the situation. You can’t listen to her. She’s a cuckoo. Cuckoos lie.”
“All cuckoos? Because I seem to remember you making an impassioned plea for the life of one cuckoo in specific. Is she a liar, too? Or do you think you’re special? You’re not special, Lilu. You’re just one more pawn for her to push around the board. We can’t fight our natures, even when we want to. Biology always wins. Biology’s a bitch that way.”
“Mark fought his nature,” I said.
“Did he? Or did he convince you to save the fair maiden from her wicked, wicked captors and bring her right back into your nest, the way cuckoos always