by Diann Read
“Perhaps,” said François. He shifted in his chair. “So you think we have a couple of—kids—down there who’re trying to do their mother a favor?”
The doctor locked her hands in her lap and looked at François directly. “I don’t think so, sir. The boy may use the language and mannerisms like a native but he made a few crucial errors in our interview. First, ganan have no concept of deceit, and he was evasive about answering some of my questions. That shows a human influence.
“Second, he said he was looking for his father. Ganan don’t mate for life, and few youngsters even know what male fathered them. None would ever consider it important to find him.”
François nodded, and toyed with the ID tag on its chain. “You believe that his mother is out there, too, then?”
“Probably. Or at least she was. I also expect that he can speak a human language. Thought patterns and language are necessarily connected. And he said that his name is Tristan—certainly not a native name.”
“Humph.” The general studied her. “Did he say anything about why and how he got out there in the first place?”
“Just that he joined the ganan when he was very small.” The doctor spread her hands. “One can only speculate from that.”
“What about his father? Did he expect to find him here?”
“No, he didn’t. He said that he didn’t know where he is.”
François glanced at the ID tag again—DARTMUTH, DARCIE—and furrowed his brow. “We appreciate your time, Doctor.”
Lansill pushed a stylus and memory pad across at her. “Nondisclosure statement,” he said. “Sign it. It verifies your understanding that what you’ve seen, heard, and said doesn’t leave this office.”
She signed it, suddenly solemn.
François nodded; the colonel opened the door for her, closed it, touched his superior’s vision with his own. François dropped the chain on the desktop and said, “Let’s look at that colonial history.”
Lansill moved to the console and called for contacts with the Unified Worlds. Several entries on the monitor index highlighted themselves. “Document number one,” he said. When its text appeared on the screen he said, “Here we go, sir,” and offered the general his chair.
It bore the date 12/6/3282 Standard Years, a month after the battle at Enach, in which the Unified Worlds had dealt its final blow to the Dominion and ended the Great War. A message originating from the government of Kaleo, one of the Unified Worlds, had been received by Comm Central, demanding the return of all passengers and crew from a captured personnel transport. When Comm Central denied having any knowledge of a lost ship, it had been included in the Prisoners of War issue at the Enach Accords. The negotiations produced an agreement which allowed each side to search, for a period of one standard year, any enemy world believed to be holding personnel who had not been accounted for.
Six weeks after ratification of the Accords, a team from the Unified Worlds had arrived in the Korot system to begin an intensive search of Ganwold and its surrounding space. The team employed every technology, every method allowed under the treaty, but no one ever uncovered so much as a trace of the missing ship or its passengers. At the end of the year, the searchers sealed the required documents confirming that no Unified Worlds personnel, military or civilian, were being held on Ganwold.
That had been almost twenty-five standard years ago, François’ estimated dating of the ruined energy pistol.
The next highlight bore the date of 23/7/3291 SY, the first entry of an incident serialized over several days’ message traffic.
A lightdrive craft had entered the Korot system with no identification signals, and Colonial Defense had tried to raise communications. Receiving no response, Defense dispatched two skirmish craft to identify and investigate. The damaged transport, bearing Unified Worlds crest and registration numbers, had opened fire. The skirmishers took out its weapons and propulsion systems, boarded, and found it under the control of masuk slavers.
The legionnaires secured the ship and made a thorough tour of it. The captain’s log listed Aeire City spaceport on Adriat, on 4/6/3282 SY, as its place and date of departure. Two lightskip points had been charted, but an officer of the bridge had dumped the rest of the astrogation program. He hadn’t lived long enough to dump the crew and passenger rosters as well. Those had prompted a search.
Only two survivors had not been taken earlier by the masuki: a young woman and a small male child who were tentatively identified as the wife and son of one of the Unified Worlds’ most decorated Spherzah. They had escaped the legionnaires as well, leaving a pair of holodiscs in the soldiers’ possession, and evidently reached the lifepods. Five had been jettisoned into landing orbits around Ganwold.
The skirmishers had destroyed the transport before tracing the pods’ locators. Colonial Defense had been instructed to take occupants of all lifepods into custody and inform the Sector General at once.
Hours later they picked up the first transponder signals. Over three days, surface troops recovered four pods, including one from a southern ocean. Each was empty. The fifth, tracked briefly by radar, lacked a functional transponder. More than two weeks later searchers had found it at the bottom of a canyon.
Unlike the others, its hatch had been opened, but all evidence to confirm human occupation had been obliterated by marauding animals. With the trail already cold, search efforts had been abandoned as futile after a few days.
But its occupants had surfaced at last. Only that could explain the Unified Worlds sidearm in the skin bag, and provide sufficient reason for its owner to evade questioning.
Pursing his mouth, François called up images of the holodiscs confiscated by the boarding legionnaires years before.
One showed a laughing young man with a toddler riding on his shoulders, gripping his hair. The other contained a wedding portrait: the same young man in a ceremonial uniform with several medals, and a girl in a pale blue gown standing in the circle of his arms, one hand resting on his chest.
François noted the young officer’s sandy blond hair, blue eyes, the cleft in his chin. . . .
He had never seen any of the Spherzah in the flesh—and quite frankly, he hoped he never would. The Unified Worlds’ Special Operations Force had originated on Kaleo and taken its name from a Kalese bird of prey, a night hunter which swooped and struck without warning. The word ‘spherzah’ translated literally as ‘talons of the night,’ and by all the accounts he’d heard, it fit the crack force very well.
François also remembered how, like a phoenix from his father’s ashes, Lujan Sergey had flown in the attack on Dominion Station when only a few years older than the youth now pacing in the guardhouse.
“Well, sir?” Lansill said at his shoulder.
François glanced away from the screen. “No question in my mind of the kid’s identity, Colonel. But we still have a few unanswered questions, like why he came here looking for his father, and where the woman is these days. If the anthropologists are correct, the kid’s not ignorant of who he is or of the danger to himself in coming here.”
He pushed himself back, rose to pace a few steps, paused to meet the colonel’s look directly. “Sector General Renier must be notified at once, in any case.”
Four
“Captain, you’re to report to the Department of Security and Investigation immediately.”
“Security and Investigation?” Reed Weil’s finger slipped off the comm button. He punched it again, caught an electronic, “—still there, sir?”
“Yes. Is it a medical situation?”
“No, it isn’t.”
He hesitated. “Can you tell me what it is, then?”
“Not over the comm, sir.”
Weil rose, finger still on the button, and said, “I’m on my way. Out here.”
He found his palms suddenly damp. He wiped them on the front of his lab coat—then took that off and removed his service jacket and cap fr
om their hook.
In the base clinic’s outer office, he fumbled the jacket’s clasps as he asked the NCO receptionist to reschedule his next appointments.
He felt surprise at finding the base commander in the Security office, too, but General François just returned a perfunctory salute and said, “At ease, Captain,” when he reported in. Shoving a handful of papers aside, François added, “We’re sending you on a new assignment. Your change of post orders are being cut as we speak.”
“Sir?”
“I apologize for the short notice, Captain. This morning I received orders from Governor Renier for the immediate transfer of a prisoner to his headquarters on Issel. Colonel Lansill,”
—he indicated the security commander— “and I have discussed it and concluded that sedating him will be the most practical method, so I’m putting the case under your charge; you may use whatever method you prefer. You’ll leave Ganwold aboard the merchant ship Bonne Fortune at twenty-two hundred this evening.”
“Yes, sir.” Weil glanced from one to the other. “Excuse me, gentlemen, but I wasn’t aware there had been a court-martial.”
“There wasn’t,” said Lansill.
Weil didn’t understand until he stood outside the cell with them later, wearing his lab coat once more. Peering through the grid in the door, he asked, “Who is he, sir? How long has he been in here, and how did he get the bruises on his face and chest?”
“He’s been here five days.” Lansill clipped his words. “The bruises are the result of his lack of cooperation under interrogation.”
Weil winced. “May I ask what he’s done to deserve Issel?”
The security officer’s voice and features turned hard. “You have no need to know that, Captain. Your duty is to get him to Sector General Renier alive.”
The security briefing he’d received burned in the back of Weil’s mind. “Yes, sir,” he said, and paused. “I recommend medical stasis. It’ll guarantee his controllability and prevent trauma due to lightskip travel.”
The colonel only said, “Humph,” and motioned to the guard. “Open it up.”
The door grated back. Two armored soldiers pushed up from behind Weil, but he motioned them away. “No. Let me try it alone first.” Ignoring the way one man shook his head, he stepped into the cell.
He didn’t see the native, crouched on the bench beneath the window with his knees drawn up to his chest, until his eyes reflected a dull yellow light out of the shadows. Weil hesitated, then turned his attention to the youth who sat on his heels with his back to the wall, his face showing suspicion between the bruises. Weil took only a few steps, then dropped down in a squat—a less threatening posture—and said quietly, “I’m not going to hurt you, kid. Can you understand that?”
The youth glared at him and shifted like a predator gathering for a spring. Purple swelling practically closed his right eye.
“Thugs!” Weil said under his breath. He put out a hand, empty palm up. “Look, kid, I want to help you, okay? Will you let me close enough to help you?” Still crouching, he advanced a few steps.
Like a cornered animal, the boy showed his teeth and hissed at him.
Weil paused. “It’s all right, kid. If you don’t take it easy they’ll be in here beating you up again. Understand?”
When he moved, the boy raised his hands before his chest, palms forward, fingers curled like claws. Restraints had chafed his wrists raw, and his left hand appeared swollen and discolored; the fingers didn’t curl well.
“Watch it, Doc,” someone behind him said. “That’s a warning.”
“I’m sorry, kid,” Weil said, showing his empty hands in return and sidling nearer an inch at a time. “It’s okay. It’s okay. I can help you, if you’ll let me.” He drew close enough to detect fear behind the defiance in the blue eyes. His hand closed, gently but firmly, on the boy’s right wrist.
A hissed threat distracted his attention to the native crouching in the shadows—
—directly into a blow across his face that bowled him backward, cheekbone throbbing, skin burning with deep scratches. The boy shot to his feet, hands still curled, his eyes wild.
Weil hadn’t even picked himself up before the legionnaires lunged in, closing on the prisoner from both sides. The youth launched himself at one soldier, a tackle at the waist that threw him to the floor. The native lunged at the second, staggering him under a rain of cuffs at his helmet. The man tore at the clinging fury until he freed one hand enough to grasp his nightstick and lash out. It connected with a crack like a rifle-blast above the scuffling. The gan crumpled, mouth bleeding.
The youth saw it and stiffened. Horror etched his face, drained it of all color. He gasped out an alien word, screamed it over and over as he tore at his opponent with hands like claws.
Watching as the boy fought to free himself, teeth bared and limbs flailing, Weil couldn’t help wondering if he was entirely human, if there might be as much alien biology as upbringing behind his attack.
The legionnaire, larger of build and obviously heavier than the youth, found leverage with a foot and wrenched himself over. Straddling the boy’s chest, pinning his arms, he panted, “Here—you go—Doc. He’s—all yours!”
Weil dropped down beside them, but glanced up at the sound of footfalls. Lansill and François stood over him.
The colonel motioned at the second soldier. “Put the cat boy outside the electrifield—if you haven’t killed him already.”
“Yessir.” The man hauled the limp native up over plated shoulders.
On the floor, the youth kicked and strained against his captor, screaming that alien word.
“Get the drug into him,” Lansill said.
Weil reached into his coat pocket for a plastic packet. He pulled it open, revealing two pads like coins made of stiff gauze. Peeling the backing from one, he reached for the prisoner’s face.
The youth twisted his head away. The soldier, knees planted on his upper arms, leaned forward to seize him by the hair. The boy stiffened, paled under the shift of weight, choked on a gasp.
“You’ll break his arms!” said Weil.
“Yessir. You want him hitting you again?”
Weil glared at him. He pressed the pad to the boy’s temple. He couldn’t meet the youth’s eyes, wide with fear, as he turned his head to apply the second patch.
The youth’s rigidity subsided in moments. His clenched hands uncurled, his bent knees sagged. He lay turning his head from side to side, blinking, his panting reduced to sighs.
“That’s good,” the colonel said behind Weil, and unclipped an audicorder from his belt. “Sit him up against the wall, Gerik.”
“What, sir?” Weil stared up at him.
The soldier caught the youth under the arms and propped him against the wall. His head lolled; he shook it, tried to lift it. He barely managed to hiss when the colonel squatted in front of him.
“Now then, Tristan Sergey.” Lansill drew two pendants on a thread from an inside pocket and dangled them before him. “You can stop playing ignorant; we know who you are. We’ve had these for several years. Do you know what they are?”
The youth’s eyes widened, fixing on the slowly revolving holodiscs. He swallowed.
The colonel’s sudden slap snapped his head to the side. “Answer me, Tristan! Where is your mother? Why did she send you here?”
“Sir,” Weil said, “the drug’s disoriented him.”
The colonel scowled at him. “It’ll also break him, Captain. We need answers.” He faced the youth again. “Where is she, Tristan?”
“Sick . . .” the boy said, “fr’m th’ coughing sickness. . . .”
“Why did she send you here? Where is she?”
“Ou’ there . . . man’ nights away. . . .” Tristan shook his head, trying to hold it up.
The broad hand struck the other side of his face. Last daylight through the window grid showed a red print there. Lansill tapped the patch adhe
red to his temple. “You’ll give us answers sooner or later,” he said. “It’ll be easier for you if you don’t keep me waiting. . . . Now, why did you come here?”
The youth sagged, his eyes showing confusion. “T’ find . . . m’ father.”
His interrogator grasped his chin, jerked up his head. “Your father. Where is he? Where are you going?”
“Don’ know.” Tristan tried to shake his head but the hand at his jaw prevented it. “I don’ know. . . .”
“And why must you find your father, Tristan?”
Weil recognized the drug’s effect in slurred words that spilled without reservation. He knotted up his hands.
“Gotta help ‘er. She’s sick,” Tristan said. “Gotta . . . find ‘im t’ help ‘er. . . . Don’ know where ‘e is.”
Weil cringed when the colonel slapped the boy once more, but it roused him only enough to shudder this time. Lansill switched off the audicorder, rocked back on his heels, rose up. “Give the doctor a hand with him, Gerik.”
“Yessir.” The soldier let the boy slump sideways to the floor and motioned at a cohort to bring in a med sled.
“With your permission, sir,” Weil heard the colonel say, “I’ll set up a low-level aerial search for the woman.” Weil didn’t glance up, just eased the youth onto the sled and drew its cocoon over him.
“Good,” the general said behind him. “Governor Renier doesn’t want her taken into custody yet, but she must be kept under surveillance in case that becomes necessary.”
When Weil straightened, turning the sled over to the soldiers, the general had already gone. But Lansill stood in the doorway. “The shuttle lifts in two standard hours, Captain,” he said.
* *
Weil clenched his teeth, watching the soldiers place the comatose youth on the ER surgical table. Only when they withdrew to stand near the door did he move away to scrub.
He removed the boy’s aboriginal clothing, washed him, shrouded him in the metallic chill of a hypothermic sheet. Reaching over the table, he uncoiled wires from the monitor bank in the medical capsule that waited like a coffin on a wheeled cart. He switched on its computer, scanned the temperature control and life support units, and put the thermostat on its lowest setting.
He applied cardiopulmonary sensors to the boy’s chest, poked a thermocapsule down his throat, then catheterized him. Placing intravenous shunts in his external iliac artery and vein required minor laser surgery. Weil eyed the vital signs monitor when he had finished, noting blood pressure and body temperature, pulse rate, respirations, and blood chemistry. The computerized infusion system purred on, managing oxygenation and dialysis and the boy’s electrolyte balance.