in ill-concealed disgust and then, on her own initiative, shifted Cwansi over toward Xy. Automatically Xy took the child, although he kept a wary eye on Morgan lest she have some sort of extremely adverse reaction.
Morgan made no sudden moves. Not that that meant anything. All she had to do was concentrate and she could wreak untold havoc, and none of it involved doing anything other than perhaps frowning slightly. She was that much in charge of what was transpiring, and not only did she know it, but she knew that everyone else around her was aware of it as well.
“You’re testing my limits, are you, Robin?” she asked. There was no anger in her voice; if anything, she sounded amused.
“I’m not a child pushing back against her parent anymore, Mother. I’m a grown woman, and you and I need to talk about what’s happening. I figure it will be easier if someone else is holding Cwansi for a few minutes, and I trust Xy to do so without, you know, dropping him.”
“He’s your son, Robin,” said Morgan judiciously. “I wouldn’t think of gainsaying you. So…” She paused, letting the tension in the room build up for a short while before continuing, “… why are you here? And why did you,” and she turned to Soleta, “bring her here, along with these two others? Are you her bodyguards? Her co-conspirators? What’s going on here that you’re not telling me? Are you here to congratulate me on my clever use of the transporters? I could have sent you to the transporter platform, but I felt this was so much more efficient, to have you brought straight to the bridge.”
“I appreciate the saving of time, Mother. We all do. But this is… well, this is a serious matter.”
“You seem nervous, Robin,” said Morgan. “You’ve lost four-point-two kilos and your heartbeat is up. Are you sure you’re keeping yourself in good condition?”
“Nervous?!” Robin practically screamed. “Are you kidding me? I seem nervous? That is a masterful understatement, Mother.”
“Thank you, dear,” she said, ignoring the sarcasm.
“Mother, you blew up a planet! On your own!”
“Could we be a tad less melodramatic, please?” Morgan admonished her. “I didn’t blow up any planets. I simply targeted the surface for a while and wreaked havoc on a people,” she hastened to add, “who certainly gave you a bad enough time.”
“You still slaughtered innocents! You betrayed Captain Calhoun!? How could—”
“This has been asked and answered. Oh,” and she reached toward Robin as if to touch her face, “you’re getting so upset about all of this. You really shouldn’t. Tension makes for bad breast milk.”
Robin pulled away from her and stepped back warily, watching her. “Don’t touch me.”
“Oh, now, honey, don’t be like that.”
“And don’t talk to me that way. Don’t use terms of endearment. Don’t talk to me like you’re my mother.”
“Well, of course I’m your mother. Don’t you understand?” Her arms were outstretched, but Robin was coming no closer. “I’m doing all this for you.”
“No,” and Robin shook her head in determination. “Not for me. Never for me.”
“Mother is just trying to take care of you. I want to make sure that I’m there for you. Always.”
“You’re not my mother!” Robin said with rising fury. No one else on the bridge dared move. Everything that they had been through, everything that they had endured, was coming down to this moment, this confrontation. “Don’t you get that? You just think you are! You’re just engrams with delusions of life! But you’re clearly not her, no matter what you may believe!”
Morgan looked stunned that Robin would say such a thing. With a hoarse whisper, she said, “How can you, of all people, say that?”
“Because I, of all people, know what my mother would really do. And the real Morgan Primus, the woman who was my mother, had absolutely no trouble with leaving me behind. She abandoned me and never gave it a second thought.”
“I gave it plenty of second thoughts!”
“And then she did it. She left me far behind and let me think she was dead. And I hated her for it,” she said furiously. “For the longest time, I did. And it took me a long time to come to terms with that. And after we finally put our relationship back together, she died—”
“But I lived—!”
“No. No, she died, and a one in a billion happenstance made it seem like she didn’t, and I…” Robin’s voice caught, and she pushed through it, determined not to break down. “And I