Darkship Thieves

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  I bit the tip of my tongue, but I've never been good at keeping my mouth shut. It's just not part of who I am. I suspect it would have made my life much easier overall, let alone keeping my father untroubled for much longer if I'd been able to stop words from coming out when they wished to. "You don't need to tell me anything," I said. "We are not . . . we are not . . ." But it occurred to me that we were involved in an odd way. I'd been in his mind. He'd been in mine. What kind of link had that formed? What did it mean?

  He took a deep breath. "Sometimes, when a child is in the bio-womb, both his parents die."

  I had no idea what he was talking about and made a sound of complete confusion. He ignored the sound, or at least acted as if he'd not heard it. "When that happens, it is customary to decant the embryo. Unless, of course, someone is found who wishes to adopt it. Particularly if it's viable . . ." He took a deep breath. "When I was in the bio-womb both my parents died."

  "But—"

  He took another deep breath, noisy in the small flyer. "My father killed my mother and then himself. Normally, with us knowing what we know about heredity, and that certain . . . tendencies, if not the actions themselves are inherited . . . Well . . . In those circumstances . . ." He stopped, and took another deep breath. He was looking out his window and determinedly not at me. His fingers were playing over the dashboard, touching everything at random, very lightly. "The advised course is definitely to decant the embryo. And I wasn't . . . viable yet. But . . ." He shook his head. "My father was one of Doctor Bartolomeu's friends. His closest friend you could say. And the doctor . . ." He shrugged. "He talked to the Denovos. They adopted me in the womb. Kath . . . Kath was fifteen. Anne was twenty-five. And they hadn't planned on having any more children, but my father is . . . He likes children. They were good parents to me."

  "Why . . . Why tell me this?"

  He looked at me then. "The doctor thought I should tell you," he said. "And after thinking about it, I thought I should too, because it will help you understand the situation that I've inadvertently thrown you in the middle of. You see, my wife . . . I never told Jane about my biological parents. I knew, but . . ." He shrugged. "It all seemed like something very distant. My adoptive parents told me when I was twelve, but they are the only parents I've ever known, and as I said, they've loved me and given me as stable a home as if I were of their blood. I know . . . I know I have a terrible temper." He smiled ruefully. "As you probably know too. But it was not something I thought about much. And it wasn't so much that I was keeping it from Jane, as that I never thought to tell her. And then . . . she noticed things. During . . . during our year of marriage. And we had an argument, while in space and I told her, and she . . ." He took a breath that sounded as if he were drowning. "She didn't take it well. And her family . . ." He shrugged and audibly whimpered, casting an annoyed look at his shoulder. "Her family heard about it and assumed . . ."

  "That you killed her? Because of heredity? That's ridiculous. The doctor said something about deposing under hypnosis?"

  "Not hypnosis. Hypnotics. There are certain drugs that will guarantee one tells the truth, or at least that one can't self-censure. And I could have someone guide me through the memory of Jane's death and talk and make a de facto record, but . . ."

  "But you don't want the story of your real family to splash onto your adopted family," I said. "But . . . Kit, I think it's known. At least, one of the girls I work with . . . I mean, she hinted at it."

  "Who my father was? That he and my mother . . ." Kit asked. "Sure. But not the details. It is the details I'd prefer aren't known." He took a deep breath and I could see him attempting to force himself to relax. "And now, if you'll forgive me, I'll go to my room and lie down. I don't think I'm quite as strong as I'd like to be."

  Twenty-One

  For someone who was only half steady on his feet, Kit moved fast enough. By the time I got into the house, he was nowhere in sight. His father was in the living room, watching a holo of what looked like news. He gave me a curious look, as I came in.

  "I didn't injure Kit," I said, defensively. "It was Joseph Klaavil."

  His father smiled. "I know that. He told me." But the curious, attentive look on me continued, as if he were trying to figure out what I'd done to irritate Kit. I couldn't tell him. He said, "He'll be fine, you know? He has an iron constitution."

  "Yeah," I said. I could guess that from the fact that he'd gotten up from that sofa and torn off his IV without collapsing.

  I realized I was shoving my hands into my pockets in exactly the same position that Kit usually held them while he was waiting for me to get off work. But then I didn't know what to do with them, and held them awkwardly in front of me, in a vaguely Asian pose. His father didn't seem to notice anything amiss.

  "I'm sorry I didn't notice Joseph before he fired his burner," I said.

  This got me a curious glance. "You're not Kit's bodyguard," his father said. "He's a grown man. If we could convince him to put an end to this . . . Duel the man or something, then pay the blood geld since it will always be considered a murder, when a cat duels a non-cat." He sighed. "But he is reluctant to do that."

  I found my hands shoved in my pants pockets again, and this time tightened into hard fists. "He must have loved his wife very much."

  "Jane?" his father said. "I think so. It was a boy-girl thing. First time he ever fell in love, you know?"

  I knew. Or at least I suspected. I'd never loved anyone myself. Oh, I suppose Simon and I . . . could be more than friends. And I'd had lovers before, of course. But I'd not ever been in love.

  My mind was full of the images and feel of his adoration for this woman who'd killed herself because she . . . what? Found out Kit's father had killed his mother then himself? What did that mean? Did she think that Kit was condemned to follow the actions of his ancestors? That didn't even make any sort of sense.

  "Have you eaten?" Kit's father asked. In my mind he was always Kit's dad. And he wasn't even his real father.

  "I've eaten, thank you," I said. "Kit brought a picnic."

  He nodded. "I saw him assemble it." He opened his mouth, closed it, cleared his throat. "I just thought the shooting might have happened before you ate."

  "No, it was afterwards," I said.

  He returned to watching his holo. The house was very quiet which meant, I guessed, that all the children had gone to bed. And Waldron—who had been allowed to drive his grandfather's flyer until he could buy one of his own—would be out with his fiancée. I felt an incongruous wish to have Kath nearby. I had a feeling she would talk to me. Though exactly what we'd talk about and what she could tell me, I couldn't even guess. I'm confused by looking into your brother's mind. I'm wistful. I didn't even know people loved each other like that. And for someone to kill herself when . . .

  I found I'd somehow made it to my room. From Kit's room came a swelling melody. For once a recording, not violin. Of course it wouldn't be violin. How could he play with his shoulder like that?

  I stomped around the room. I didn't mean to stomp. It just seemed my steps turned into stomping. I was charged, nervous, full of energy I didn't know what to do with, and strangely very, very angry.

  If I were on Earth, I'd be going to my broomer lair right now. I needed a flight over Syracuse Seacity. I could imagine the night sky above, the city lights under me, the wind rushing around me. I could almost taste the mix of sea air and city smells. I could feel the leathers on my body, protecting me from the cold of the upper air currents. I could imagine climbing more and more, till I had to put on the oxygen mask. I could imagine my lair behind me, the hand signals. Climb, climb, climb. Simon and Max and Fuse . . .

  My hands were clenched tight. Very tight. So tight that my relatively short nails bit into my palms. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be where I understood the rules. I wanted to be where I had some control of the situation.

  I stomped from one corner of the room to the other, diagonally skirting the bed. What the hell was
I going to do? I truly was like the girl who had fallen down the rabbit hole and ended up in a world where up was down, down was up and nothing meant anything.

  I wanted to go home. That's all I'd ever wanted to do since I'd escaped my father's goons in the powertrees. I'd been looking for a way out. I'd been looking for a harvester who would take me in. Instead, I'd found—

  It was strange because I could remember my shock on first seeing Kit, remember it as clearly as if it were happening now. Those odd eyes, the shock of calico hair. Where had it gone, the instinctive repulsion I was supposed to feel at his bio-modifications? And why didn't I feel it? Why had I grown accustomed to his face, until I could read the expressions in his odd, inhuman eyes better than I could read human expressions?

  The flinching, the pain, the impenetrable reserve. And behind it all those images of lost love playing, just like he obsessively played the gems of family times in the Cathouse.

  Oh, he was the most infuriating man. My hands clenched tighter, which should have been impossible. Tight enough that my knuckles hurt.

  And what the hell did he mean by telling me all these things about his father, about his mother? Couldn't he just have said that something had gone wrong, that he'd had a fight with his wife and she'd committed suicide? Why would he want to tell me this? More importantly, why did Doctor Bartolomeu think that he needed to tell me that? The first time is an accident, the second is stupidity.

  I'd like to know what the good doctor thought he'd meant by that. I'd like to know what he thought this was the second time of. I'd stomped all the way to the front of my closet and glared at it. I hadn't even bought any new clothes with my earnings. So far I'd deposited all my money into an account. I had a gem which gave me access to it, and that was it. I hadn't spent a single hydra.

  My hands, somehow, shifted from my front pockets to my back pockets. I didn't want clothes. I didn't want to stay in Eden. I wanted to go back to Earth. I had responsibilities on Earth. Let Kit stay in Eden. Kit with his strange eyes, his stranger history, with this interminable feud that he refused to put the only logical end to.

  Why had Doctor Bartolomeu assumed . . . Why had he thought that Kit needed to tell me anything? Why did he think I had a need to know?

  I saw their interaction. The doctor knew him very well. Kit said that he knew we weren't physically involved.

  Oh, it was hopeless. These people didn't have morals, just like they didn't have laws. But they did, they did, all the same. They just didn't write them anywhere, and it was impossible to figure them out.

  The music from Kit's room swelled and fell in grandiose harmonies. I imagined him lying in his bed, his eyes closed, dreaming the music—being the music. His mind emptied of everything but the music.

  The music seemed to be so much a part of who he was. It wound through all his memories like a bright thread. His memories. The memories I'd gotten from his mind.

  The idea that he must, surely, have gotten memories from my mind as well, as surely as I got them from his, hit me full force. I stumbled back towards the bed, and fell to sitting on it.

  What did he get from my mind? Images and experiences offered themselves. Boarding schools blazing brightly; mental specialists held at bay with sharp objects or even shards broken off furniture; my father in a fury standing over me, screaming; my broomer lair on a rampage laying waste to a bar in Olympus Seacity.

  Oh, dear and merciful gods. What had he gotten from my mind? What had he seen? Was there anything he could have seen that wouldn't have horrified staid, self-controlled, responsible Kit Klaavil? Kit Klaavil who would rather endure fear of death than kill the brother of his late wife? Kit Klaavil who would rather risk his life, who would rather be shunned by the whole world than hurt his adoptive parents?

  I heard a sound and felt it escape my throat, and didn't know if it was a laugh or a sob. No wonder he'd said he wasn't as strong as he wanted to be. No one was. Not when dealing with Mad Thena Lefty.

  The music from his room crescendoed and fell and crescendoed again. He was probably submerging himself in the sound to wash away the unpleasant images and thoughts he'd gotten from me.

  I don't know how long I sat there thinking. It wasn't as though I was thinking from point A to point B, or that I was thinking with any modicum of logic or intelligence. Instead thoughts crisscrossed in my mind that wouldn't bear examination in the full light of day. Such as that cats married navigators. And that no one—no one on Eden—married Earthworms.

  And it was on this that I realized the crazy path my mind had taken, and I took it firmly in hand. I didn't want anyone to marry me. If, as I thought, Father was dead, then I would have to marry someone. In the fullness of time I would have to, to leave descendance to my line. But meanwhile, I would have Syracuse Seacity to rule, and a voice in the Council of Good Men, even if only as a regent because a woman couldn't hold governance of her own accord.

  But if Father was dead he deserved that I, at the very least, try to avenge him. He hadn't been the best of fathers, though it could be argued that I hadn't been the best—or anything but the worst—of daughters. Duty was duty, and I was a Patrician of Earth and had been brought up for nothing if not to do my duty.

  I had intended, in the nebulous future—or not so nebulous—after Kit went on his next run, which I understood could be spaced as little as two months or as much as six months apart, to break into my place of employment and steal a ship.

  The cargo ships that flew to Thule were a lot like Earth flyers and I'd been flying those since I was ten.

  I knew I could fly the cargo ship to Earth. I'd seen maps enough since I was here, and calculating where Eden was on its irregular but predictable orbit was a matter of memory and spacial reasoning, both of which were my strong points.

  Oh, I knew Eden's fears of betrayal. And I wouldn't betray them. No. Not because of Eden. I didn't give a hang about Eden, in the end. With their fear of Earthworms, their strange non-law laws, their certainty of being in the right, they were no better than Earth and they might be worse. But I did care about Kit, who had saved my life. And for his family who had sheltered me for a month—even his father who seemed eternally concerned over whether I'd gotten enough calories and had quite enough water to bathe in.

  I wouldn't do that to them. I wouldn't betray them in exchange for their kindness. But there were many places on Earth I could land undetected and burn the ship. Most of old Europe was depopulated. And from there I could find my way to a communication device and call for rescue. Once I was on Earth . . .

  My body ached for the sun of Earth, for wind on my face, for the sight of the ocean.

  I had intended to wait, but this wouldn't do. For all I knew, from what the doctor had said, that only married couples could communicate telepathically with each other, Kit would now feel obligated to marry me. As though I were some Victorian maiden and he'd compromised my honor. It sounded exactly like the stupid sort of thing the infuriating man would decide he must do. Like . . . keep alive an idiot who was trying to murder him.

  And he must not be allowed to marry me. No. There was misery. And then there was the sheer torture Kit Klaavil and I could inflict on each other. And no one deserved that. Not even Kit Klaavil, not even my—admittedly troublesome—self. Marrying me would be the shortest route he could take to his natural parents' end.

  I threw the closet open again and picked out a black tunic and a black, fitted pair of pants. The gem that gave me access to my entire account, such as it was, went into my right-hand pocket. The burner I had taken from Joseph Klaavil—and that no one had thought to ask me for—went into my left-hand pocket.

  A change of underwear or spare clothes seemed unnecessary. Any ship I could take would have a vibro unit. And I would be alone, so why bother changing clothes beyond vibroing?

  There was a side entrance to the house by Kit's room. I took it, as I went silently out into the night to steal a collector ship.

  Twenty-Two

  I couldn't
take one of the family flyers. Not that it was possible for me to do so without tampering with the genlock. Of course, if the genlock was like on Earth, you could bypass it completely, so I probably could do that. But it would take too long, it might set off an alarm—or two—and even if everything went as perfectly as I could hope for, it would be a really bad thing for it to be discovered before I left. Without it, they might think I'd simply gone somewhere in the house and was taking in a virtus or swimming in the pool on the lower level. The thing was that without a careful search for me, they would never know I was gone. And they had no reason to do a search for me.

  But I'd learned something, in the times Kit had been unable to pick me up. You could call a cab from various points in each neighborhood and from each public building. There were these little towers that looked remarkably like miniatures of the traffic control towers on Earth. You could punch your details in them, and where you wished to go and an automated flyer would come, which would drive you to your destination without your contributing anything to the flying.

  The vehicles were safe, Kit said. And he should know, because he dodged any number of them while flying across town. On the other hand, at the time I was leaving the Denovo compound even most bars, certainly most restaurants and almost all public buildings were closed or staffed by a skeleton crew. Enough that I wasn't too afraid, even as the flyer came to the Center and dodged the inevitable late-night partygoers and people returning from visits.

  It parked me in front of the Energy Board Center and let me out, after I swept my gem through the reader, paying for the ride. I knew at night the building was unattended. I didn't know if it would let me in. The genlocks had been programmed for me, but that was during the day.

  However, as I pressed my thumb to the gen-reading membrane on the side door—which I normally used when coming to work in the morning—it popped unlocked for me. So far so good. I slid to my locker, got my work suit—a bright yellow and made of some material that eschewed stains. If someone caught me wandering around the complex and I were properly attired and carrying my tools, I could claim I had come to work early because some problem in one of ships under retrofitting bothered me. If all else failed, I could claim that I had been sleep-walking. And the tools might come in handy in space. And I happened to know that Kit had paid for them.