It meant we had to go on to Edison with them before returning home, but that was all right with my mother. I don’t remember too many details about her, but I do recall that she had big dreams. We weren’t always going to live in a little house in the outer suburbs of New G. Not if she could help it.
And we didn’t. My mother never returned home, and it was years before I got to visit the house where I was born.
In one explosive moment, my whole world was changed forever. As I set out the next morning across the mountains, following a tall black man and two Elokoi, I had no idea that I was taking the first steps on a journey that would carry me so much further than the city of Edison . . .
SAEBI
The little human was struggling to keep up.
As the rim of the sun cleared the horizon, Saebi watched the child stumble, before regaining her balance and pushing on. They were moving in single file, a habit they had developed along the narrow, treacherous paths of the high country. Cael was leading, followed closely by the dark offworlder, Daaryl. The young one, Aelna, had fallen a few paces behind.
Saebi increased her pace, until she was walking alongside the young girl. Reaching out a delicate, long-fingered hand, she touched her on the shoulder. For a moment, Elena turned her head and looked deep into her eyes. And suddenly, Saebi was inside, and all the hurt and all the fear were crashing against her consciousness like a wave.
Except for that first moment at the crash site, the child had shown no ability to thought-share. At times during the trek across the Ranges both Saebi and Cael had sent tentative thoughts towards her, but she had been as blind to them as any offworlder. Now, her emotions were more powerful than any the young Elokoi had ever shared. Alien emotions, more basic than words, torn from the deepest core of feeling.
Staggering under the impact, Saebi stopped walking, and the little girl came to a halt, without releasing her gaze for an instant. The wave of raw confusion was overwhelming. Saebi struggled to find a way to push against its tide. A word, a thought, a colour . . . to show that she understood. To convey that no one had to bear such suffering alone. Ever.
Saliba . . . She pushed the single word, like a prayer, into the roaring tide. Peace . . .
But it was lost in the noiseless clamour. And suddenly she realised. No words would break through. How could they? Elokoi words meant nothing to the child, and even had she known the language of the offworlders, it would be of little use. For the turmoil was deep. Much deeper than mere words.
Drawing back, she looked at the child. Nothing in her expression had altered. She still stared distantly, her face impassive, her body muscles barely taut enough to keep her erect. Even her eyes showed nothing of the storm which raged below the surface of her mind. Beneath the realm of words.
Taking hold of both her hands, Saebi closed her eyes, and, softly at first, then gradually more strongly, she sang the colours of peace. Reaching deep within herself she found a soothing Thoughtsong which spoke its love without words, and in its wake she rode the tides of passion downwards to their source, then slipped beneath the heaving surface, between the fears, the anger, and touched the core of pain. Holding to the song, she let it sing its colours outward from that centre, calming the fears, soothing the anger, until the seething tide began to ebb. And slowly, she withdrew.
A few metres ahead, catching the slightest echo of his mate’s song, Cael stopped and turned to look back. Standing beside him, Daryl followed the line of the young Elokoi’s gaze.
And so they witnessed Saebi’s first Healing.
Facing each other, human and Elokoi stood silent for a moment, like statues frozen in the act of conversation. Then Elena gave a tiny sob, and sank to her knees, and as they watched, the girl reached up her arms to the brightening sky, and cried out.
‘Mummy!’
One word, but it was like the breaking of a dam. Gently, Saebi placed her arms around the lonely child, the wall of pain dissolved and the healing tears began.
9
BREAK-IN
Genetic Research Facility, Edison
19/7/101 Standard
JANE
Somewhere in there, locked away inside those useless memory-cells, was the secret to who I was. I battered my thoughts against the invisible wall that kept it hidden from me. Staring at the picture of my parents that stood on the table beside my bed, leafing through my yearbooks, my diaries. Pictures and words. My life. Someone else’s life.
And also hidden away there was a clue. Something that would help me fathom the mystery that was Icarus.
I pored over the few notes that Singh had left behind, but they told me almost nothing. They were little more than reproductions of data that was over seventy years old. In fact, it couldn’t have been Singh’s work at all.
The guy was a first generation Deuc, and he’d specialised in agri-genetics. What I’d found were his speculations on something he’d come across in his research. And reading between the lines, I don’t think he’d been too impressed with what he’d discovered. But the notes were incomplete. Either they’d been all he’d been able to get hold of, or the rest hadn’t made it to the repository. I was at a dead-end.
Hendriks was no help. He hadn’t come in for the last couple of days, and no one seemed to know why. I stopped by his apartment, but no one answered the door, so I left a message with his door-pager and left. It struck me as odd. Hendriks might have lost his edge, but he hadn’t missed a day since I’d arrived in Edison. It wasn’t like him to break routine. He was too disciplined.
Then I went home, and it all began to make sense.
I knew something was wrong before I even opened the door. The card-lock had already been activated. The door was slid shut, but the light on the magnetic strip-reader was glowing green.
Nervously, I touched the release button. The door slid silently aside.
For a moment I stood there with my mouth open, unable to move. The room was in chaos. The furniture was torn apart, the contents of my drawers were spread across the floor, and all the holographs on the walls hung at bizarre angles, where someone had looked behind them for something.
Whoever had done this had gone. It was a small room. There was nowhere to hide. I moved inside to check the damage. My bed had been stripped. Even my parents’ picture had been torn from its frame. My diaries were missing, and my punchboard.
Amazingly, the communicator still worked. I punched the number for Security and talked to the image of a young man with a dark mole on his chin. I told him what had happened, then sat down on my ruined bed to wait for them to arrive. And as I sat, I tried to piece things together.
On Earth, I might have believed it was just a burglary. In New Geneva, even. But not in Edison. In Edison, no one was unemployed. Edison was Research Funded; everyone had everything they needed, and a lot more besides. This person – these people – had been looking for something, and I had a pretty good idea what it might have been. The sheets of plastic, safely locked inside the bag which I still held in my hand.
But how did they know about them? I had told nobody except Hendriks, and he . . . had disappeared. What had they done to him? How far would they go to keep secret whatever it was that my research had accidentally uncovered?
A movement at the door made me spin around in shock, but the man just smiled. He was tall and bulky and he wore a green Security uniform. Stepping inside, he took a look around the room, pausing from time to time to pick up an object or straighten a chair. ‘Anything missing?’
I shook my head. ‘My diaries and a punchboard. Nothing of value.’
It was true. The punchboard had nothing in its memory that couldn’t be dragged out of the mainframe in a few minutes, and as for the diaries, apart from sentimental value (and I didn’t remember enough about my past to be sentimental), I didn’t need them. I’d read them already, so they were all there inside my head. In that sen
se, I still had total recall.
‘Your diaries? It wasn’t some rejected lover, was it?’ I didn’t like his tone, and shot him a look.
Anyway, the question was a joke. Since arriving, I hadn’t had time for a date, let alone a relationship. It suddenly occurred to me that I was nineteen years old, Earth standard, and as far as I could remember, I’d never even kissed a boy . . .
‘No. No rejected lover. I really don’t have any idea who might have—’
I trailed off. The guy wasn’t interested. He’d file the report and nothing would happen. I could tell. I moved across to the window and looked out. ‘I guess it was silly even to call you. Whoever did it was probably looking for valuables. They definitely picked the wrong apartment. I’ll call you if I think of anything else. If you can arrange for them to change the code on my lock, I’ll come down later and pick up a new keycard.’ I spoke without looking at him, hoping he’d realise I wanted him out of there.
He took the hint. When I turned back from the window, the door was closing, and he was gone.
And so was my bag.
I’d put it down beside the chair when the guard came in, but when I turned, something made me look down. No bag. He must have taken it.
I ran across to the door, hoping to catch him before he made it to the lift, but the door wouldn’t move. I punched the release and it just stayed put. I ran my card through the scanner. Nothing.
Rushing across to the communicator, I called Security again. A bored woman answered. She identified herself, and I cut in before she could ask what was wrong. ‘This is Jane Sukoma-Williams from four-twenty-seven East. I called a few minutes ago to report a break-in. Well, the guy you sent up has—’
The woman looked confused. ‘Four-two-seven East? We haven’t had a report from any apartment in the east wing all afternoon.’
‘Of course you did. I called a few minutes ago and talked to one of your operators. He had a small mole on his chin. How else would they know to send up a guard?’
Even as the words came out, I already knew the answer.
‘Nobody called.’ The woman’s tone was short. ‘I’ve been on the switch since three, and I’m sure I’d remember.’
I tried one last shot. ‘Does any of your operators have a mole on his chin?’
‘You don’t listen too good, do you? I’m the operator, and I don’t have a mole anywhere.’
I backed off. ‘Well could you please send up a guard? I’ve had a break-in.’
Before she could reply, I hit ‘terminate’ and watched the screen go blank. Then I sat down and waited again.
Nobody called. And yet I’d talked with a man, and they’d sent up that bogus guard. If I hadn’t talked to Security that first time, that meant . . .
Just how organised were these people? And how much danger had my discovery placed me in? Hendriks was missing. Was I next?
The door pager cut into my thoughts. ‘Ms Sukoma-Williams? You called Security? Could you open the door, please?’
‘Can you open it from your side?’ I spoke through the intercom. ‘They’ve done something to the release. I can’t get it to slide.’
This time, the guard was younger. Not much older than me.
I showed him the mess and described the bogus guard, and he put out a Security alert. We both knew it was pointless. The impostor was long gone. And so were Singh’s notes.
A few minutes later, he had the communicator panel off the wall and was fiddling around with its guts. Wires and printed circuits, and – ‘Here’s our villain.’ He whistled as he pulled out a tiny object, wafer-thin, no bigger than my smallest fingernail. ‘Very neat.’ I was looking over his shoulder, and he turned his head so that his eyes were just a few centimetres from mine. ‘Do you know what this is?’
I shook my head. Unless I’d been introduced to it since my arrival, it could be something I’d seen every day of my life, and I wouldn’t recognise it.
‘It’s a highly sophisticated ether-link transceiver. See those two tiny plugs?’ I nodded. ‘They attach to the circuit board. Switch this baby off, and the communicator functions normally. But if they use the remote to activate it, the unit becomes part of a closed-circuit loop. No matter which button you punched, it would ether-link you instantly to any unit with a matching transceiver.’
It began to make sense.
‘So when I called Security, all I did was link-up with their “operator”, and they sent their man to finish the job. And Security knew nothing about it.’
‘Exactly.’ For a moment, he was silent, his eyes holding mine, as if there was a question he had trouble framing. ‘Like I said, this is really sophisticated stuff – and it isn’t cheap. Do you mind me asking . . .’ He paused, but only for a moment. ‘Why would anyone want to spend that kind of money, go to all this trouble, just to take your bag? Why couldn’t they just knock you over the head and grab it?’
I hesitated. But I didn’t trust him enough to let it all out. ‘I don’t have a clue,’ I said as convincingly as I could. I could tell he didn’t believe me, but he kept his suspicions to himself. A thought struck me.
‘What’s the range of one of these things?’
He smiled and shook his head. ‘Not small enough to be of any use to you. The other unit could be anywhere within 20 or 30 clicks of here. Or anywhere on the planet, if they have a satellite link-up.’
‘But it couldn’t. Don’t you see? That guard was here within a minute of my call. He must have been in the building. In this wing.’
He nodded. ‘He would. But the base you talked to could be anywhere. That’s the thing about this type of ether-link. As long as you set them all on the same ether-frequency and match the digital recognition code, there’s no limit to how many units you can include in the loop. You could be talking to your “operator” kilometres away, while your “guard” could be right next door, using a portable mini-communicator, set to receive. You wouldn’t see him, but he would be able to tune in on everything you said, and know just when to arrive. Like I said, it’s pretty sophisticated.’
I stood up and moved across to the bed. I must have looked as miserable as I felt. Against this sort of organisation I felt helpless. How long before I went the same way as Hendriks?
I looked up. He was standing less than a metre away. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
His eyes were a dark brown, and I liked his smile, but. . . ‘I can’t. I . . . I just can’t.’
‘Don’t trust me?’ He sat down on the bed next to me. ‘I can’t blame you. After all, we haven’t been introduced.’ He held out his hand. ‘Denny . . . Woods.’
Something about the look on his face made me smile slightly. I shook his hand formally, the way they’d taught me at the retraining centre. ‘Jane . . . Sukoma-Williams.’
‘Great name. Old Earth?’
‘Old Earth. And you?’ I knew we were just making conversation, but I could feel the barrier melting.
‘Deuc. Third generation. My greats came out on the first C-ship.’
And so it went. We talked for about twenty minutes and I felt myself slowly relaxing. The situation was still there and I was no closer to solving the smallest part of the puzzle, but sitting there talking, I managed to push it to the back of my mind for a while.
Twice his pager buzzed, and twice he answered curtly that he was still checking out the break-in. Then he would smile and carry on speaking. I got the impression Security wasn’t the career he’d set his heart on. When I raised the question, I saw his face close over slightly.
‘No. I guess you could say it was my “fallback” position. What I wanted was a Funding in geology, but the only area they’re interested in is mineral exploration and mining. And that wasn’t what I was interested in.’
‘No?’ For most of the conversation, I had just been throwing in the occasional word. To keep him talking. I like
d the sound of his voice and the way he looked at me from time to time. It struck me that since I’d arrived in Edison this was the first real, one-to-one conversation I’d had that didn’t involve my work.
‘No. Unless they can turn a profit from it, they don’t want to know. How many seismologists do you know?’
It was one of those moments I’d come to dread. It was a word he expected me to know. One I should have known. After all, this was Edison, and I was a Funded Researcher. For a moment I was tempted to try to bluff him with an answer like, ‘Not enough.’ But for some reason, the reply froze in my throat and I heard myself saying, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know what a seismologist is.’
Then, before the look of surprise on his face had a chance to turn itself into a question, I went on, ‘I probably should know. I probably did know once, but you see . . .’ I hesitated. It was too late to go back now, and something in me wanted to tell him. ‘You see, there’s a lot that I don’t remember. I have Nixon’s Syndrome.’
It was out.
I watched his face for some sign of change. I’d seen it before on the faces of my colleagues when I told them. Usually when I came across something that a Researcher in my position should have known. You’d think I’d grown a second head, or something, the way some of them looked at me. Research is a cutthroat business, and everyone is constantly on the lookout for any sign of weakness in an opponent, so I’d learned to avoid mentioning it. Too late, of course. Research is also a very small business.
Denny just looked at me closely for a moment, then rolled his eyes. ‘No shit?’
I breathed again. For some unknown reason, his acceptance meant a lot more than it should have.
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