“You said that—before fertilization—you wished to do your hair.” I took a chance and placed a hand on the side of her head, an act of gentle dominance. “Do you still wish it?”
She closed here eyes and didn’t move—and I thought for a moment I’d erred. Then she opened them and just nodded, slowly, resolutely. “I do,” she said.
“Then go, Josephine. Make it so. And close the door behind you. I want ... I wish to be surprised.”
––––––––
“I have to tell you,” she was saying, her voice slightly muffled by the door, “that if it’s a piece of the Ark you’re after—I think that’s quite foolish. Hespa is right to call it a thing of pure evil; what else could something be that was seeding the clouds with those awful lights?”
I approached the door of the unit and paused, considering what she’d sai
