There was one person she wished wasn’t there: Diana.
It was Astrid’s meeting, but it was Albert who asked Diana the question. “Diana, you’ve been with this gaiaphage-Gaia thing. Everything you know.”
Diana glanced at Astrid, and Astrid saw that Albert had intercepted that look. So had Dekka.
There was a painfully long silence. Now even Quinn and the distracted Edilio noticed.
“Hey,” Quinn said. “No secrets.”
Astrid, as calmly as she could, said, “Tell them everything you know, Diana.”
For once Diana did not see the need to be difficult. “Gaia’s body is growing fast. She needs food constantly, and she doesn’t care where she gets it. She doesn’t seem to have powers of her own, really, except for what she had as the gaiaphage: the power to reach directly into minds, especially of moofs, people with powers, and especially those she’s been connected to in the past. She can cause them terrible pain and fear and—”
“Caine? She can hurt Caine?” Dekka asked.
Diana nodded. “Probably, yes. And me. Everyone but Lana.”
“Lana?” Astrid pressed.
“Gaia hates Lana. Somehow Lana was able to shut her out. Another thing,” Diana said, carefully avoiding Astrid. “Gaia’s powers are borrowed, or derived, or whatever big Astrid word you’d like to use. They aren’t hers. She said if she kills Sam she won’t have his power anymore. Or maybe it’s just that it’s easier if . . . if Sam is alive; I don’t know. I don’t know.”
“That’s why she didn’t kill him, or Caine, when she might have,” Astrid said. If she could shut Diana down now, she might still be able to manage the conversation. “So, suggestions? Ideas?”
“Astrid,” Diana said. “Little Pete.”
“What about him?” Albert asked.
Diana started to stand up, obviously felt the pain in her battered body, and remained seated. “He’s Nemesis. That’s what Gaia calls him. He’s the one the gaiaphage really fears. That’s why she’s killing everyone: to keep him from being able to take a host body, like she did.”
“Well, I don’t know how helpful that is,” Astrid snapped. “I don’t know how we’d . . . I mean, that’s useless information.” She sounded shrill, even to herself.
Dekka said, “What is Little Pete? Are we sure he still exists? Maybe Gaia’s just nuts.”
Again, every eye was on Astrid. She could feel it. “What about Gaia’s feelings for you, Diana?”
There was an uncomfortable silence. Dekka broke it. “Astrid, this isn’t the time for you to be Pete’s protective big sister.”
“I want to know what Gaia feels about Diana,” Astrid shot back. “It might be a vulnerability we can exploit.”
Edilio had said nothing. Now he spoke. “That creature murdered dozens of kids, including Roger. We need to know everything. No secrets, no evasions, no lies.”
Astrid glared at him, but she couldn’t make it work. She ended up turning away.
“Diana’s told us what she knows,” Albert said coolly. “Your turn, Astrid.”
“I threw Petey to his death,” Astrid said quietly. “I did what I had to do; it was the only way to force his hand, to make him destroy the bugs. I killed him once. Now you’re asking me to . . . to . . .”
“We’ve all lost people,” Quinn said softly. “We’ve all been through hell. And we’ve all failed at times. Everyone in this room has scars on their body and worse ones in their . . . well, souls, I guess.”
“We’re a bunch of sheep waiting for the tiger,” Albert snapped. “There’s only one question: are any of us going to walk out of here alive?”
“Maybe you should run back to your island,” Astrid said with a vicious edge. She glanced up to see something she’d never seen before: Edilio, his face transformed by dark anger. She took a step back.
He said, “Talk, Astrid. Now.”
Astrid swallowed hard. She tried to think of something to say and failed. She was not strong enough to say no to him. She felt her resistance crumble. She felt her own surrender. The coolly logical part of her mind noted almost sardonically that Edilio had a superpower after all: being Edilio.
“Yeah,” she whispered. “Okay. Little Pete is alive. I can’t explain it; believe me, I wish I could. When I was with Cigar, in the dark, waiting for the end, hearing Cigar scream from what Penny had done to him, Petey talked to me.”
“Your imagination?” Albert suggested.
Astrid shook her head. “I can feel him sometimes. Poor Cigar could see him, a little, at least.”
“Gaia sure thinks he’s alive,” Diana said. “She says he’s weaker being separated from a physical self.”
“So we need Little Pete to pull a Gaia, take a body,” Albert said. “Fine. How do we do that?”
Now it was Edilio’s turn to flinch. Astrid had already followed that line of reasoning to its obvious conclusion; he had not. And now that he understood it, he didn’t like it any more than she did.
Not surprisingly it was Diana, with some of her old snark back, who clarified. “So we’re saying Astrid should tell her little brother to go all exorcist on some sacrificial lamb, then get him or her to kill the kid I gave birth to.”
This was followed by another long silence.