by Jessie Kwak
Starla senses a landmine here. Probes at it. Their trips?
“Did they talk to you about what they did when they — ” Hali fumbles here, thinking. “About where they went on the Nanshe? Either before, or after?”
Starla seizes on the last, sensing a distinction she can take advantage of. Sometimes after. Never before. Again, Hali looks satisfied, and Starla takes a deep breath. They liked to talk about the places they visited. They would bring me presents.
Hali is repeating Starla’s sentences as Starla signs them, and a tension flinches around the room at the last. Starla feels a spike of panic. Presents. Not all of them purchased — and even those that were purchased were certainly not with legitimately earned credits.
She remembers the last gift they brought home from a trip to New Sarjun. Here. Before, Starla had always thought it sounded exotic, but now she wonders how her parents could stand to visit such a horrible place.
It had been at breakfast, a week before that last day.
Raj Dusai was already wearing his shipping-out clothes. The crew of the Nanshe didn’t have a uniform as such, just a pewter-gray jumpsuit with twin stripes across the chest in some sort of glossy black biofabric that glimmered whenever the crewmember was aboard the ship. Raj was wearing the jumpsuit with his many-pocketed flight jacket and a pair of yellowing white socks that looked out of place. His gravity boots sat beside the door.
He wouldn’t wear those on the station, of course, and there they sat whenever the Nanshe was in dock. Starla stared at them, ignoring her father, knowing that their familiar spot by the door would soon be vacant — and he would be gone.
And she would be left behind, again.
Lasadi Dusai came in a moment later, holding a package in her arms.
“Oh, good,” she said, in response to whatever Raj had said behind Starla’s shoulder. “This is for you, sweetheart,” she said to Starla, handing over the package to free up her hands. We love you, she signed.
The package was wrapped in one of the brightly colored New Sarjunian scarves her mother favored. They were too flashy for Starla, but that never stopped her mother from picking them up and then gifting them to her whenever they’d stopped on New Sarjun. Starla unwrapped it carefully. This one was a livid lime green shot through with turquoise and gold, the pattern feathered out from the center. Her mother waved her hand inside Starla’s vision. Peacock feathers, her mother told her, fingerspelling the bird’s name.
The scarf was pretty, but once unwrapped, Starla didn’t even notice it slide off her lap to puddle on the floor. Inside was a jumpsuit, just like her father and mother both were wearing. Starla gasped in delight and let the whole mess fall off her lap, leaping up to hug both Raj and Lasadi at once, all awkward angles and knobby elbows. She could go on the training voyage. They were going to give her a chance to join the crew.
Starla blinks. She takes a sip of the water. 1, 4, 9, 16 — She’s missed whatever Hali is saying to her now.
“What kinds of presents?” Hali repeats herself.
Starla shrugs. Scarves, she signs. Toys, she signs, because it seems like it’ll help them keep thinking of her as a kid even though she hasn’t been one for years.
“Did your parents ever discuss politics with you?”
Starla considers this new line of questioning, wary. What does Hali mean, politics? As in, who did they think was going to win the presidential election in Arquelle? Starla wrinkles her brow, not sure.
“Did they ever talk about the Alliance?”
Oh. Politics. Starla strains to see a clear path to navigate through this one. Not really, she signs. It’s mostly true. Her parents may not like the Alliance but they aren’t overly political about it. They keep to themselves. Maybe they target Alliance ships more frequently than those that call Durga’s Belt their home, but that was just being neighborly. No one throws a dead rat in their own air recyclers.
“Are you very close with your cousins?”
Now another non sequitur. Starla frowns. Some of them, she signs. The ones that are my age. And . . . She shrugs. They’re cousins, she signs. I like some of them, I don’t like others. Doesn’t everybody?
Hali doesn’t answer this. Starla has been given to understand that not everyone has as many cousins as she does, and not everyone lives as closely with them. And that not everyone calls every kid they know who’s about their age “cousin.” If she’s honest, she has to admit that she doesn’t actually know which ones are related by blood, and which ones are related by virtue of being part of the family on Silk Station. No one at home cared, and she doesn’t care either.
“Do you know Amit Dal?”
Starla gives her a look that says, Of course, I’m not an idiot. Amit is her Auntie Faye’s oldest son. Auntie Faye is her mother’s sister. He’s blood relations for sure.
“Did he ever talk about politics with you?”
Oh, yes, Starla thinks, but does not sign. And now she begins to realize where this is going. Amit has been deeply involved with the OIC — the Organization of Independent Colonies — and he’s tried to convince her parents to get involved, as well.
Starla wonders if she should pretend not to know what the OIC is.
She’s been thinking too long.
“Did he ever talk about politics with you,” Hali signs again.
Starla shakes her head, gives a bemused little shrug. I’m just his little cousin, she signs.
Mahr barks something at Hali when Hali repeats Starla’s words. Hali nods. “I think we’re going to talk about this some more tomorrow.” Hali gives her a smile.
This time, when Starla is taken back to her cell, the lights stay on. She wonders if she’s done well today.
She can’t tell.
Starla lies on her cot staring at the ceiling and wonders if Amit made it. If Auntie Faye made it.
If Mona made it.
She wonders if the Alliance blew up her home because they thought her family sympathetic to the OIC.
They aren’t — weren’t? — except for Amit and a few of the cousins his age. Her parents despise the Alliance, but it hadn’t seemed to be in a political way. More in a predatorial way.
The Indiran Alliance doesn’t get out to Durga’s Belt so much, anyway, there at the flickering far edge of New Sarjunian space.
Indira and New Sarjun are next-door neighbors, and the only two inhabitable planets in the Durga System. That was the bright point in the sky Starla’s ancestors had picked as their most likely seed system over a thousand years ago, and Indira had had the distinction of seeming a more likely choice to support a fragile race. The generation ship, the Ark Matsya, was still in orbit over Indira. Starla would love to see it — she can’t imagine tech that ancient crossing galaxies — but catching even a whiff of Indiran atmosphere would have been risky business for her parents, and so for her.
The other planet in the system hadn’t been colonized until centuries later, when rugged, contrary types who bridled under civilized rule decided to see what sort of living they could eke out on New Sarjun’s sun-baked crust. The centuries since had put a polish on New Sarjun’s rough edges, but it was far from gleaming.
Indira had been a bickering collection of petty states until a few decades ago. By force or by guile, the diplomats from Arquelle, Indira’s largest and most powerful country, had talked the rest of the planet into a treaty.
That would have been all well and good, but the Indiran Alliance, led by Arquelle, wasn’t content staying planetside.
Colonies on the Indiran moons were pressured to join next. Then colonies farther out. And that might have been successful, but the planetside alliance on Indira was starting to crumble, and countries who’d been amenable at first got to feeling the wrong end of the deal, feeling over-trampled and misused while Arquelle got stronger and more powerful.
And as the cracks began to show, Arquelle became more insistent that the entire Durga System join the Alliance, stretching fingers out to New Sarjun and into Durga’s
Belt, the asteroid chain just beyond, a rat’s nest of unaffiliated asteroid stations and colonies that Arquelle insisted should be registered and taxed. Arquelle and New Sarjun butted heads more than once about that, while most out in Durga’s Belt merely scoffed and ignored Arquellian tariffs.
And those who didn’t scoff? Like Amit? They joined the Organization of Independent Colonies, and started planting bombs.
Starla had gotten most of her gossip about Amit from Mona.
Mona was like a sugar cube set in a spilled pool of tea, soaking up every drop of scandal until she was full and bursting, then running to Starla desperate to spill everything she’d heard to the one person she could count on not having overheard it all first.
Starla found glimpses into this world fascinating. She’d mastered the world she experienced immediately, and was passing knowledgeable about the world she was taught about on TUTOR. But although her family, most of them, had no difficulty communicating with her, she couldn’t overhear the sharp words her aunts and uncles exchanged, the slipped secrets older cousins forgot to keep closed-lipped.
Mona gave her a glimpse into this intriguing silence, flipping salacious signs from her lithe fingers, her facial expressions and posture so perfect that Starla always knew exactly who she was mimicking. Scribbled diary conversations, giggling late at night, rapid-fire texts teasing out secrets about the rest of the family —
The family.
Her parents.
Starla doesn’t realize she’s crying until the water spills from her eye sockets, streaming into her ears. She jams the heels of her hands into her eyes, knowing they must have her on surveillance and ashamed to let them see her weak.
Starla knows she’s never going back to Silk Station.
She’s on her own, now, just as her parents, wherever they are, are on their own.
She can’t sit around forever.
But she can plan.
Chapter 6
“Major Ximena Nayar is perfect,” says Toshiyo. She’s starting with the positive news, as is her preference, but Jaantzen can tell by her forced optimism there’s bad news, too. He glances at Manu, who’s watching Toshiyo with over-eager interest. Jaantzen guesses Manu knows what the bad news is.
Jaantzen braces himself and waits.
They’re sitting around the conference table in the upper office; Toshiyo pulls up Nayar’s file in the center of the table. There’s no picture.
Manu leans in. His hair is an electric orange today, glowing against his midnight skin — he’s darker even than Jaantzen — and his nails are painted an opalescent sherbet to match. He’s been draped in black for weeks, and Jaantzen suspects this return to vividity is in honor of Jaantzen’s failure to kill Coeur.
“She’s a requisitions officer, stationed at Redrock Prison and overseeing the supplies,” says Manu.
“Where’s the picture with this file?” Jaantzen asks.
Toshiyo ignores him and swipes to the next page.
“We have reason to suspect she’s turnable,” says Manu. “She was born here in Bulari, but her father was Arquellian, an officer in the Indiran Alliance stationed on New Sarjun. That gave her dual citizenship, and she eventually joined the Arquellian navy, then the Alliance forces. Because she was born here she’s primarily been stationed on-planet, though she’s seen combat, too.” Manu scrolls down. “Most notably the slaughter at Teguça. After that, she put in for a transfer back to New Sarjun. She took a command cut to take her current position, though she’s retained her rank and security clearance. This suggests that Teguça soured her for fighting.”
“And according to my contact at Redrock Prison, it soured her against the Alliance,” says Toshiyo. “She’s not bold about it, of course.”
“High enough rank and clearance status that she can command even the prison warden,” Manu says, “and enough connection within the prison that she can pull some favors if she needs to. But enough out of the main chain of command that she can act without as much suspicion. We think with the proper persuasion she would help us.”
Manu’s nodding as he says it, eyes wide and trustworthy like a waiter bobbing his head as he asks if you want dessert.
Jaantzen steeples his hands over his lips, leaning back. “She sounds ideal,” he says. He waits for the bad news.
Manu and Toshiyo exchange a look. Toshiyo swipes at the desk, and an image of Ximena Nayar fills the screen.
That rust-colored skin, those high cheekbones and fierce black eyes, and even though she’s not smiling in this image, he’s certain that once she does he’ll see a ferocious flash of gleaming white teeth, that million-mark smile aged by ten years.
“Coeur,” Jaantzen says.
Toshiyo clears her throat. “Nayar is Thala Coeur’s older sister.”
Jaantzen’s processing this. “Does she hate her sister as much as I do?”
“They have the same mother, different fathers,” says Manu; it’s not an answer to Jaantzen’s question. “We think she’ll work with us.”
Jaantzen’s staring at that face, marking the differences: it’s all steel and grit where Coeur’s is elastic and mirthful, but they have the same bones, the same eyes. “And does she hate her sister as much as I do?” he asks again.
Manu clears his throat. “By all accounts, they’re friendly,” he says.
“Then we’re not working with her,” Jaantzen says. “What are our other options?”
Manu and Toshiyo share a look. “They’re slim, boss,” Toshiyo finally says. Her nails click against the desk keyboard and another three files show up, replacing Ximena Nayar’s face. “Gia’s still friendly with some of the guards from when she did time there, but none that have maximum security clearance.”
Jaantzen scrolls through the guards’ profiles, frowning. They may come in handy, but none have the clout they’ll need to pull off either a release or a rescue. He’s never bothered to cultivate a relationship with anyone at the Alliance prison colonies. He assumed he’d never need it. He’ll die before he ends up there, and if he’s smart he’ll be able to protect his people, too.
As Raj and Lasadi should have been able to do.
Jaantzen remembers laughing over wine with Raj and Lasadi — and Tae. Talking safety nets and fortresses — “We’ll set up a child exchange,” Lasadi had said, “We’ll let you take her when she’s a bratty teenager,” and Tae, laughing, “Be careful, we’ve got two bratty teenagers in training to send your way.”
Over the years Jaantzen had understood that the Dusais weren’t just networking with business partners outside of Silk Station, they were engineering a safety net for their family to land in should the inevitable come.
Jaantzen hadn’t understood, then, that Silk Station wasn’t their fortress. Even when Raj had shown him diagrams, the way whole wings were actually spacecraft ready to launch at short warning, the escape pods in every home. The Dusais had never meant to hole up there and fight, they’d meant to scatter to the breeze and land soft as they could.
If Jaantzen had understood, he might have spent more time building safety nets and less time building his fortress, his stronghold, which in the end was so easily pierced.
He may not have understood in time to save his own family, but he can still do something for the Dusai girl.
“Who else?”
It comes out angry, and Toshiyo and Manu both tense up. Toshiyo’s fingers are hovering over the keyboard like she’s thinking, but he’s seen this before, her freeze response triggering at his anger. Some self-preservation technique built up during her indenture, maybe.
He takes a deep breath. “Manu?” he asks to give her time.
“We’ve learned they have a civilian social worker seeing her. A woman named Hali Fernanz. Tosh?” he says gently.
Toshiyo’s fingernails clatter again, and another file appears in the center of the desk, a doughy woman with steel-gray hair in a short, harsh bob.
“We think she’s a weak point,” says Toshiyo, back in the rhythm. Jaa
ntzen takes a deep breath. “She’s got a spotless record, and by all accounts seems to be a good advocate for children in the Alliance’s prison systems. I doubt she’ll do anything illegal, but she seems the type who won’t want to see a girl locked up for her parents’ crimes.”
Jaantzen nods slowly. A woman like that could be useful, but her conscience makes her slippery. It’s much easier to work with someone whose loyalty he can buy.
“The officer in charge is Lieutenant Mahr,” adds Manu, and Toshiyo flicks Mahr’s profile onto the screen. “Reassigned to Redrock Prison seven years ago after misconduct charges in the regular Alliance forces.”
“What did she do?”
Manu shrugs.
“I haven’t been able to break the classification around that yet,” says Toshiyo. “But I did find something else. I broke into her bank accounts on a whim, and the Alliance isn’t the only one giving her a paycheck.”
“Who else?”
“I’m not sure,” Toshiyo says, obviously annoyed by her inability to give him an answer to that. “I’ve got a trace out on the account, hasn’t turned anything up yet. Too many layers. But it’s always the same amount: five thousand marks. And it’s irregular. Every few months or so.”
Jaantzen is intrigued. “What service is our Lieutenant Mahr performing for a mystery party every few months?” he asks. “Can you cross-reference that with records at the prison and see if anything comes up?”
“Already did it, boss.” It’s why she’s worth every penny he’s spent on her — her and her arcane equipment.
Toshiyo pulls up yet another screen. “There’s a couple things that match,” she says, drawing up the highlights as she talks. Manu leans in, curious — apparently they haven’t discussed this yet. “There’s four deposits. Three match with the prison’s grain shipment, and two match with interdepartmental sensitivity training seminars, but I’m guessing both of those are pure coincidence. Because all four match with this.”
She pulls up another screen and Jaantzen leans in, deciphering the list of names. “Death records,” he says, and Toshiyo nods. She’s highlighted four, each of them one day after the date of a deposit into Mahr’s account. Each of them listing the cause of death as “Unknown.” They are the only four records to do that in an otherwise well-documented list.