by Sean O'Brien
Kuarta blurted out, “Ninety thousand milligrams of salt?” She turned from the readout on which the meal specifics were displayed.
“She wanted more, but I wanted to limit it at first.”
“Let me speak to her,” Kuarta said, glancing about her for the intercom switch.
Tann himself flicked the toggle from his place near the corner of the room. “Go ahead, Doctor. Professor. She can hear you.”
“Mommy?”
“Sweetie, are you all right?”
“I want to get out of here. I want to go home.”
“Soon, dear. Mommy will take you home soon.” Kuarta rose from where she was squatting and turned to Tann. “I want her out of there.”
“We’re not done with the testing,” Onizaka said.
“Yes, you are.”
Tann’s hands unclasped from behind him as he approached Kuarta. “Doctor, you don’t seem to understand. The girl behind the glass is more than just your daughter.”
“What?” This, suddenly, from Dolen.
“She’s a member of this colony, and a potentially dangerous one at that.” Tann’s eyes did not blink.
Kuarta matched his stare. “You know what happened to her.”
“Yes. And we know what happened in the Crèche.”
Kuarta’s eyes widened. “You’d use that to keep my daughter here?”
“I’d use anything in my power to keep a dangerous mutant out of the general population. I would invent facts if it suited me. Fortunately, I do not need to. The girl has provided me with reason enough.” He did not smile, exactly, but his expression changed subtly. He was satisfied.
There was silence for a moment, then Kuarta spoke again. Her voice was almost tender, even as a deep hatred for this misshapen man swelled in her. “I know what you did to her. I know what you did to me, to all the other Ship women twenty years ago when we arrived. And now it is affecting my daughter.”
Onizaka gasped. Kuarta ignored her. “You tell me she is a dangerous mutant. But you are responsible.”
Tann snorted. “You are irrational, Doctor. I am responsible? And to what do you refer when you say you know what I did to all shippie women twelve years ago?” Tann placed slight emphasis on the number, as if to reinforce the distinction between argie and shippie. “You are inventing conspiracies out of worry for your daughter.” He turned to Dolen. “Professor, can’t you speak to your wife? Assure her we have only the best interests of your daughter and the colony at heart.”
“My wife is her own person, Mr. Tann.”
Kuarta started at Dolen at this unexpected show of resistance.
Tann, too, was taken slightly aback. “Surely, you don’t believe her wild—”
“Why not? Because I’m argie, like you?”
Tann cocked his head slightly in affected surprise. “No, because I thought you more rational than your wife. Perhaps I misjudged you.” He loaded his voice with contempt, but Dolen did not rise to the bait. Kuarta stepped forward and addressed Tann.
“The evidence is clear. Yallia’s mutation cannot be a natural one.”
“Why not?” Tann looked at Onizaka. “Doctor? Can you rule out natural causes for the child’s mutation?”
Onizaka’s unease was clear. She started to speak, stopped, then finally mumbled, “Carll, maybe we should call Newfield.”
Tann scowled at her. “Why?”
Onizaka fumbled for a response. “Well, I.…”
“You want to consult with the Commissar-General? I can tell you what he will decide. Do you really suppose that the colony can take any course of action other than expulsion of all hybrid children?”
“Expulsion? To where?” Kuarta said.
“Outside, of course.” Into the stunned silence of the laboratory Tann continued, “The child is dangerous—the incident at the Crèche shows that clearly. You’ve told me that other children will soon manifest their mutations, posing an even greater threat to the colony. Furthermore, we cannot know if the mutation will not eventually make the oxygen atmosphere of the domes toxic to these children. With all these facts in mind, I see no alternative to expulsion from the colony.”
As Kuarta listened, she watched Dolen’s face change. In a sudden flash of insight in the deep recesses of her mind, she realized that her husband was receiving a far greater shock than she. Kuarta had lived her entire life suspicious of government—her mother’s involvement in politics served to strengthen her wariness, not diminish it—but Dolen had always believed implicitly in the goodness of all who served in administration. He was the perfect citizen—conscientious, loyal, blind to fault or malice in his government. Kuarta saw his almost childlike trust in appointed authority shattered by Tann’s words. She saw something twist and break inside of him as the lines on his once-soft face hardened almost imperceptibly, and Kuarta knew he would never be the same man again.
“You…why did you do this?” Dolen said, rising unsteadily from the glass barrier, using it to support his weight.
“You keep saying that,” Tann answered, turning to look at him. “I will put it down to grief and shock, but I assure you, I had nothing to do with this. It must have been something in your shippie genes.”
Kuarta reacted without thinking. She leapt at him. The attack was not precise; as she lashed out at him, she had no plan, no goal. She merely wanted to end the words and somehow smash this nightmare she knew Tann had created.
Tann easily sidestepped Kuarta’s charging body, producing a weapon from his pocket. He smoothly brought it to bear on Kuarta as she slammed against the glass a meter away from him.
“Get back, Doctor. You too, Professor,” he said, keeping his eyes on Kuarta. “I’d rather not use this on you. As you can see, it is not a paralyzer. Your deaths would be inconvenient to explain, though not impossible.”
Kuarta’s shoulders slumped. She and Dolen moved slowly away from Tann and his weapon.
Tann kept his gaze on Kuarta and Dolen and said to Onizaka over his shoulder, “Karin, call the constables. I think it’s time for the parents to go so you can finish your work.” He waited for a few seconds, and suddenly saw Kuarta’s eyes grow large as they spied movement to his left. Tann turned in alarm, only to receive a vicious blow to the face as Onizaka brought a heavy lab chair down on him. Tann crumpled to the ground with dull thud, the weapon flying from his hand to land a few feet from Dolen.
Dolen and Kuarta watched, frozen for a moment, as Onizaka raised the chair again and brought it crashing down on Tann’s supine body. Tann partially deflected the force of the blow with his arms, but one of the chair supports struck his face. Tann’s head cracked onto the floor of the lab and he lay still.
Onizaka raised the chair yet again, but Kuarta recovered her presence of mind fast enough to intervene. “Stop! Karin, leave him! You’ve done enough.”
Onizaka stared at Kuarta for a moment, her eyes wild, unseeing. Then she seemed to recover her wits and slowly lowered the chair. She stared down at Tann’s unmoving body. “You’d better get out of here,” she said quietly and pressed the cycle button on the chamber airlock. Blowers whirred to life, pumping the airlock to overpressure.
Dolen had scooped up the weapon and now turned on the intercom to Yallia’s chamber. Immediately, the sound of hysterical crying filled the air. Yallia was pressed up against the glass, red-faced and terrified.
“Dear, you need to come out now. Go to the door and go inside. There will be a little wind, but that’s okay. Just go into the little room over here,” Kuarta tapped the glass of the airlock outer door. Yallia hurried to the airlock and entered. Onizaka closed the door remotely when she was inside and checked the airlock gauge. “Only trace chlorine in the lock. About 20 ppm,” she said and opened the outer door.
A strong chlorine smell from Yallia’s clothes made the three adults blink as the girl rushed to her mother’s and father’s arms.
“I want to go home,” Yallia kept repeating.
Onizaka smiled faintly and moved to Do
len. She held her hand out for the weapon. Dolen placed it in her hand, and it disappeared into one of the lab coat’s pockets. “I’m sorry, Yallia,” she said.
Yallia blubbered for a few more seconds and turned a tear-streaked face to her. “For what?”
“Everything.” Onizaka looked at Tann. “I don’t know why I did it.”
Kuarta started at her, then looked stupidly at the overturned chair. “What?”
“You were right, of course. About the mutation. I was just trying…I thought I could make the colony better.”
Kuarta did not try to console her. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“And go where?” Dolen answered. “We can’t hide. Tann will regroup and organize a search. While I appreciate what you did for us, Doctor, it may prove futile.” All three adults stared at Tann’s body. It took a full twenty seconds before Dolen added quietly, “Maybe one of you should check to see if he’s alive.”
It was Onizaka who knelt down and pressed a hand to his neck. “Pulse steady. He probably has a concussion, maybe a fractured skull.”
“What about internal bleeding?” Kuarta asked, still clasping her daughter tightly.
“Can’t tell. I’ll have to get him to Valhalla Hospital.”
“Couldn’t you just treat him here?” Dolen asked.
“I wouldn’t chance it. This isn’t an operating room, Professor. He’ll need to go to the hospital.”
“Then what happens?” Dolen asked. No one answered.
“I want to go home,” Yallia said again and started crying anew. Kuarta and Dolen looked at each other, helplessly.
“Why not?” Kuarta said. “We can’t run, and it’s better than staying here. Maybe Ma will have some luck with Newfield,” she said, not believing her own words. Dolen hesitated a moment, then nodded.
So Kuarta and Dolen, because they could not think of anywhere else to go, took their daughter home, perhaps for the last time.
The trip home was uneventful: Tann’s swift action and secrecy in apprehending Yallia now worked to the Verdafners’ advantage. No constable stopped them as they took the wirebus back to New Chicago in the early morning. Yallia slept fitfully in her mother’s lap as the wirebus glided smoothly through the outskirts of Valhalla and into the transfer tube joining one Dome complex to another.
“Should we call Jene?” Dolen whispered when the wirebus left Valhalla Dome. The two had been almost completely silent while in Valhalla, as if speech itself would somehow call attention to them and result in their recapture.
“I don’t know. I suppose so,” Kuarta said. She carefully dug out her phone from her belt sheath and handed it to Dolen. He hid the phone behind his hand and spoke quietly into it, careful not to wake his daughter.
“Jene Halfner,” he said, and the phone automatically connected him. He heard Jene’s recorded voice tell him she was unavailable right now. Dolen said, “Urgent,” and the phone connected again. Presently, Jene’s voice came through the receiver.
“Dolen?”
“Jene, we’ve had an…event. We’re headed back to New Chicago. With Yallia.”
“What? How?”
Dolen chose his words with care. In his newfound attitude towards his government, he suspected everything. Someone might be listening in. “That’s all I can tell you now.”
There was a short silence before Jene said slowly, “All right. I’m still with the Commissar-General. I’ll be in touch when I’m done.”
Dolen could not resist one question. “Any progress?”
“Some. I’ll finish here soon.” She clicked off and Dolen put the phone in his own pouch, thoughtfully gazing off towards the green-tinged landscape.
“Anything?” Kuarta whispered.
“Not really. She’ll come home soon.” Dolen looked back out on the landscape. Would his daughter live out there, in the swirling green gas? Would she be the only one?
Kuarta stroked Yallia’s hair and noted it had a definite copper tinge that it had not had mere weeks ago.
* * *
“Before I leave you, sir, I wish to make it clear one more time that I intend to bring this matter before the general Assembly in special session. I fully expect you to call the Assembly soon. If you do not, I will contact Commissars personally to bring the matter into the open.” Jene found Newfield surprisingly haggard even though he was younger than Jene herself. It struck Jene suddenly that Newfield was not a natural leader. He had been placed into this position on recommendation from the last Commissar-General, a man whom Jene had never served under but who had a reputation for listening overmuch to his advisors instead of his own conscience. Already, murmurings of a similar nature had begun to surface about Newfield.
“I understand. Commissar Halfner, you seem to think that I enjoyed presiding over this mess. Nothing could be further from the truth. I expect this crisis to ruin me politically. I don’t know what I could have done differently, but I know that any solution I applied would have resulted in my ruin. But better, I think, for that to happen than the colony itself to be jeopardized.”
Jene had come into the meeting full of fire, blazing away at her superior without hindrance. And he had listened to her. He had made no statement defending his actions other than to say, repeatedly, “I had to make a choice.” Even under the circumstances, Jene could not but feel pity for the man before her. His had not been the hand behind this, Jene knew. Newfield was simply weak. Tann controlled him.
Jene’s voice lost some of its hardness. “I would like to return to my home now, sir. Is there anything else?”
“No. We’ll keep good care of your granddaughter, Jene,” Newfield said with sincerity. Jene kept her face impassive.
As if on cue, a muted buzzing sounded on Newfield’s desk. He said to the air, “Go ahead,” and the Valhalla Police Captain’s head and shoulders materialized in mid-air before his desk.
“Sir, Captain Sheihr speaking.”
Newfield narrowed his eyes. Jene did not move. The Commissar-General either did not mind that she was still here or had already mentally dismissed her. In any case, she would listen in unless ordered to leave. “Yes?”
“Sir, I’m at Valhalla Hospital. Staff called us to respond to…an unusual case. Doctor Karin Onizaka has asked to be placed under arrest for assault on Carll Tann.”
Newfield leaned in to the hologram. “Explain that.”
“Sir, Tann is under doctor’s care now. I am told he suffered blunt trauma to the skull and received a mild concussion as a result. I think they’re checking his brain function now. Doctor Onizaka says she hit him with a chair.”
“Why?”
“She won’t say, sir.”
Newfield considered for a moment, then said, “I want to speak with her.” Sheihr’s head and shoulders moved out of pickup to be replaced by Onizaka.
“Yes, sir?” she said. Jene thought she could hear satisfaction in her voice.
“What the hell is going on? Why did you attack Tann?”
“He was going to put the Verdafner child outside.”
“What?” Jene exploded.
Newfield snapped his head up and looked at Jene. “We’re done here. I’ll call you if I need you.” Jene nodded and left the office. As she backed out the doorway, she saw Newfield bury his head in his hands for a moment before turning to face Onizaka’s image again.
* * *
“So there was no fracture?” Tann asked the doctor.
“No, but you had a fairly serious concussion. You might want to stay here for a few days.” The doctor knew there were special circumstances in this case—the Valhalla police had been all over the ward, and their arrest of Doctor Onizaka was the talk of the entire hospital. Still, he did not let that cloud his treatment recommendations.
“That does not suit my needs, Doctor, though I thank you for your care. Now, is there further therapy you wish me to participate in? If so,” Tann continued before the doctor could respond, “please contact my office at your earliest convenience.
” Tann slid off the exam table and suppressed a wince. His head still throbbed even through the pain-blocking medication he had been supplied with. He smiled as best he could at the doctor and strode from the exam room. Four burly Valhalla constables were waiting in the hallway, their captain among them.
“Where are they?” Tann snapped, turning sharply as he left the exam room and heading towards the hospital exit. The constables fell into step behind him even as the captain shuffled to Tann’s side.
“We don’t know, sir. No one saw them leave.”
Tann’s lip twitched in irritation. “All right. I want all of Valhalla dome searched. Discreetly, Captain. Begin by contacting any constables who might be on patrol near the transfer tube. Perhaps one of them saw something.” Tann knew how unlikely that was, but it was worth trying.
“Sir, what if they’re not in Valhalla?”
“Oh, I rather think they are not, Captain. But you do your job here, just in case. While you’re checking on the transfer tube, I want you to place Commissar Halfner under arrest if she is still in Valhalla. Look in her office first.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Remember, Captain—discretion is paramount here. We don’t want to alarm the public.”
“I understand.” The captain added, “What about Doctor Onizaka?”
“She’s already in custody. Leave her for now, but I want her isolated from all visitors.”
“All visitors? She has the right to visitors as she pleases, sir.”
“I’m rescinding that right as of now.”
The captain’s stride faltered a moment. “I—I don’t think you have the authority to do that, sir. I’ll have to contact the Commissar-General.”
Tann shrugged casually. “Go ahead. I’m sure he will be happy to hear from you. He’s got a dangerous mutant loose in the colony somewhere. I’m sure he’ll want to discuss jurisprudence with you. Oh, perhaps it would be wise to select a successor before you call him, just in case.”
The captain cleared his throat nervously. “I’ll see to Onizaka, sir.”
“Good.” Tann dismissed the officers with a wave of his hand and continued out of the hospital. His memory was fragmentary—he remembered having the accursed shippie women right where he had wanted them for twelve years when all went black. He had awakened in the hospital and had to be filled in by that imbecile police captain.