the cargo bay to the cockpit. She sat with her back to the bulkhead, a portacomp she’d found somewhere on her lap. He saw star charts visible on the small comp screen as she touched one after another with her finger, as if plotting a path through the universe. Sweat glistened on her face and bald head. Her bloodshot eyes looked fevered, but not with illness. She did not look up when he approached, but raised a hand to stop him from speaking. He ignored her.
“We need to speak, Seer.”
“Not now.”
“Now.”
Her brow creased in frustration. He alone among the clones did not regard her as his superior, though he knew to step lightly.
“Speak, then,” she said, and closed the portacomp.
He stepped past her and closed the hatch to the cargo bay, cutting off the moans and cries of the others.
“You must have secrets to share,” she said to his back, her voice all seductive mockery. “I can’t wait to hear.”
He steeled himself with an inhalation and turned to face her. “The most recent coordinates in the navicomp lead to a planet called Fhost. Data show it to be a backwater and very near. The onboard comp indicates that there is a medical facility in the primary city. There will be meds there. We know the mix the doctors gave us. We can get more.”
She was shaking her head before he’d even finished. “No, Soldier. It’s not science, not doctors, that will save them now. Or you. It’s faith that will save us. All of us. And Mother.”
“They’ll need meds. Soon. So will you. The symptoms of the illness are manifesting more quickly. The madness will, too.”
“Do you think me mad, Soldier?”
He shook his head too quickly. “No.” He almost added, “Not yet,” but resisted the impulse.
“I sometimes think that you are, for not seeing what is before your eyes,” she said.
He dared not pick up the conversational thread she’d left dangling. “Whatever we flew through sped up the onset of the illness. It will kill us all.”
A sly look entered her dark eyes. “Not you, Soldier. Never you. The doctors made you perfect. In body and mind.”
“Seer …”
“But not in spirit, Soldier. You are not perfect in spirit. In spirit, you are the least of us.”
He ignored the insult. “Some of them have only hours. You and Hunter have days. Maybe. I already burned through half the meds. The children are suffering. Unless Mother is very near, everyone will be dead before we reach her.”
If we reach her, he thought. If there is a Mother.
She slid up the wall to her feet and stepped toward him, eyes burning. He could feel the heat generated by her lithe body through the ragged fabric of his shirt. “Do you feel her? Mother?”
He swallowed, looked away as he lied. “Sometimes. I think.”
She ran her fingertips over the bare skin of his arm, and he tried and failed to deny the charge her touch put in him.
“Poor Soldier, made faithless by the ingenuity of others. Fear not. I will show you the way. You will see and you will believe.”
The heat of her belief and the proximity of her body penned him in, left him no room for a reply. He stood before her, frozen, the subject of a silent inquisition. She stared into his face, her eyes measuring him and, he feared, finding him wanting. His hand twitched near the hilt of his lightsaber. She seemed not to notice and her face broke into a smile. He could not tell if it was sincere or false and his inability to tell worried him. She had become skilled at cloaking her emotional state from the others. She took emotion from them, but gave none of herself.
“In time, Soldier. You will believe, in time.”
She looked away from his face, and he managed to take a breath. “Meanwhile?”
“Meanwhile, set a course for Fhost. You’re right. We need meds. Mother is not close enough for us to get there in time.”
The import of her words struck him like a blow. “Then … you know where she is?”
She smiled and looked away. “Already you are beginning to believe.”
He stared at her, having no words, then turned and walked toward the cockpit. Her belief—or maybe his—pulled a question from him. He asked it over his shoulder.
“What does she say to you?”
He heard Seer inhale deeply. “She says … come home. Home, Soldier.”
He nodded and walked away.
Before he’d cleared the corridor, she called after him, “What do you think the