Plague Wars 06: Comes the Destroyer Read Online Free PDF Page B

be fine; her presence there kept them no safer or healthier in the short term, but motherly instincts would not be denied.
    She still felt better about leaving them out there, rather than, for example, bringing them with her on the shuttle. Even the thought of bringing them in this close to Earth frightened her in a way nothing else had. If normal humans met her progeny before they were physically adult, looking like kids and talking like mad scientists, they might react as humans always had with something that threatened them: with fear. Edens or not, she wasn’t willing to take that risk. Later, when they looked grown up and were ready to pass as much older, they could be carefully introduced to society.
    Similarly, if people ever discovered Skull and his current state of being…well, since Meme were firmly in the bug-eyed-monster camp as far as the popular mind was concerned, she had little doubt that a fully intelligent Memetech ship would engender even more fear too, along with envy, jealousy and lust for power.
    Best that they were all kept well away.
    Rae put these thoughts out of her mind as she donned a skinsuit and a custom-grown outfit resembling business clothing. Dressing for the event was one way of minimizing the differences between herself and the average human; it put people at ease to see the half-alien goddess look like them. She also put her hair up and, with practiced biochemical techniques, subtly adjusted her other attributes to be less overtly attractive. This reduced her from stunning to merely pretty.
    At the airlock she greeted two functionaries sent to meet her, a man and a woman, with a polite smile, and shut the living iris behind her. She had instructed her ship to stand off from the station, ensuring no one tampered with it and incidentally freeing the port for others. Then Rae activated the low-power encrypted bioradio within her body, keeping communication open just in case.
    Motherhood had bred a certain distrust.
    Perhaps the stakes just seemed higher now.
    “Ms. Denham, the admiral sends his apologies. He was delayed. Come this way, please.” The woman speaking seemed officious, and slightly nervous.
    Rae nodded. “Lead on.”
    Used to her own organic vessels, Orion smelled to her like metal and volatiles, like a city. It made her want to seal her nostrils shut, but instead she merely reduced her olfactory sensitivity as she followed her escorts’ directions down a short corridor. Drawing to a halt before an open door, the man gestured her inside. Rae hesitated: the small room was brightly lit and seemed to have no function, with only one other portal directly across from the first.
    In response to her upraised eyebrow, the female escort said reassuringly, “It’s just a body scan.”
    “Ah.” Rae turned about to begin retracing her steps toward the docking port.
    “Wait, uh, ma’am?” The two hurried after, but her long strides made them run to keep up. Exclamations and entreaties to stop followed her until she entered the antechamber to the personnel airlock.
    Come get me, Rae sent to her shuttle, which acknowledged her instruction. Walking across the floor, she ignored the man and woman trailing to stand before a large crystal viewport, where she could observe the ships come and go in the dock. She watched as outside her shuttle nosed forward, waiting patiently for the facility’s current occupant, a light cargo transport, to finish unloading and clear.
    The two with her eventually despaired of obtaining a response from the icy goddess she now embodied. It took little acting ability to project her offendedness. Having saved all of humanity at least twice over, it seemed an unbearable affront to be subjected to such treatment.
    Shortly she heard the sounds of booted feet, and a voice she could respond to without loss of face. “Admiral,” she said as she turned, forcing warmth into her greeting.
    “Ms. Denham,” Rear Admiral Absen responded. He held out his hand to clasp