The First One's Free

by TS Hottle

  She made another tiny little cut in his skin, enough to draw blood once more. “Ask me if I care? Did you think Kai would not send me with a serrmin like you into free space without some sort of message?”

  “Think about our child, Tishla. You were my property until we reached Metis. That makes the child…” He screamed as the knife moved again.

  “So you knew before I did?” said Tishla.

  “Kai said he knew already. Said the nanites in your blood informed him as soon as you conceived. But he was afraid for you.”

  “Then you know the child is mine.” This slug did not need to know she was having twins. “As its mother, I am its heir and guardian. Now, then, tell me the real reason you came to Essenar with a poe-tay-toe. I’m most interested. I understand that little tuber started a few wars in your ancient history.”

  15

  Best waited outside the apartment block, a gray cinderblock building that recalled an earlier age, one where Jefivah was seen as a wonder instead of an armpit. He sat on a park bench seemingly engrossed in whatever he had displayed in the palm of his hand. Never mind that the wrist chip connected to the nanotat in his palm was not synched up with Metis’s local internet. To anyone looking, he was just another commuter waiting on a trambot to take him home.

  The gray woman caught his eye. Had he not been watching the building so closely, he might not have given her a second look. However, her almost human-like appearance caught his attention. At first, he thought there was something a little off, like the woman had simply had an odd skintone. Metisian women had taken to ingesting nanites that repigmented the skin, though ashen gray was not a common shade that he’d noticed since his arrival.

  No, at closer inspection, this one was definitely not human. She had a flatter nose, and her hair was snow white, not quite the platinum blonde of humans. Her posture also suggested she was not Homo sapiens. At first, Best thought she might be an Orag, a transplanted species of human that went extinct on Earth millennia before recorded history began. Only Orags resembled Euros in skintone. They were also shorter, and one sometimes had to look twice to realize (assuming the accent did not give it away) that the person in question did not trace his or her ancestry to Earth during recorded history.

  She was not one of the so-called “Grays” either. Humans had come across the short, bug-eyed creatures not long after they perfected wormhole travel at will. Their discovery had shed light on some of the legends that grew out of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Instead of fostering peace and understanding, however, the newly-spacefaring humans began capturing and torturing the Grays. The diminutive aliens now had a particular fear of any sort of medical probe.

  This woman was not one of them. For starters, her eyes, if oddly shaped, appeared to be the same size as humans. She was yet another primate species, but one Best had never seen before.

  He watched as she disappeared inside the building, thinking it best that he stay where he was until she emerged again. If his conversation with Luxhomme went the way he anticipated, it probably wasn’t a good idea to have a strange alien woman around to witness it. Not before Best could summon the police and explain himself.

  Waiting was something Best did not do well. He bored easily, often finding himself trying to read his palm tat despite its uselessness. Staring at a door where only one person had entered during the entirety of his vigil made things harder. If he wasn’t doing something, he generally needed to be asleep or watching a feed or engaged in conversation. The wait for Luxhomme to come or go only underscored just how restless Best’s mind had become in middle age.

  “So much for retiring someplace warm and quiet,” he muttered under his breath.

  A man screamed inside the building while Best pondered his options. The strange woman he had seen suddenly burst out the front door and found herself instantly chased by a police drone. Best ran across the street, dodging a taxidrone and two delivery bots before running into the building. He could hear a man moaning in pain from at least two flights up the stairway. Best skipped the lift, taking the stairs two at a time. Following the sound, he stopped on the third floor and spotted a door that that lay wide open.

  Inside, he found a very wounded Luxhomme lying on his couch, bloody and curled in the fetal position. Before Best could approach him, a deep, synthesized voice said, “Freeze. Officers are en route.”

  Best stood, put up his hands, and said, “This man needs medical attention.”

  The police drone scanned Best and said, “Best, Douglas, Citizen of Jefivah, you are under arrest for escaping lawful custody. An officer will take you to the nearest police facility for processing.”

  He looked down at Luxhomme, who, despite obvious pain, smiled at him. “Well, hello, Dougie. How are things on Marilyn?”

  Best looked up at the drone. “Do I have an assault charge listed along with the charges from Jefivah?”

  “Negative,” said the drone. “All charges against you are off-world pending extradition.”

  “You might want to add assault.”

  “Why do you say that, Citizen?”

  “Because…”

  He punched Luxhomme in the mouth.

  16

  The humans, naturally, frowned on aliens assaulting their citizens on their own turf. Or, as Tishla had come to interpret the phrase, their Citizens. She was not a Citizen. She might have been Free, or even “free” in the language they called Humanic, but that did not mean the same thing in the Compact as it did in the Realm. The humans did not care if Tishla stood to inherit dominion over two planets or Kai’s share of his family’s wealth. They were not interested in her abilities as a geneticist nor did they care that her species could extrapolate complex languages in a matter of hours. Tishla had attacked a Citizen, changing her from an unknown quantity to a direct threat to at least one human life.

  So Tishla had to go. Instead of letting the police get rid of her, she hailed a taxidrone and hoped no one figured out who attacked Marq until after she reached her destination.

  “Laputan Consulate. Quickly.”

  The drone happily chirped its compliance and moved into traffic.

  She kept the contents of the wooden box Kai had sent along, however. It had contained everything: His personal dagger, the message explaining his plan to free her, and the now-worthless deed to her person transferring her indenture to Marq Katergarus of…

  Even with all the worlds of the Compact she now knew of, she still did not know where that strange little man hailed from. Nor, it seemed, did the authorities on Metis. They knew only that he was human, and all humans were presumed to be Citizens until proven otherwise.

  The tall golden woman looked down from the reception desk at the Laputan Consulate. “May I help you?” Her Humanic sounded rough, unpracticed. Never mind that she probably had spent revolutions on this planet to Tishla’s one and a half turns.

  “My name is…” She thought about it. She was Free, but dare she take Kai’s family name? The twins inside her kicked, reminding her she still had duties to her beloved, living or dead. “Lattus Tishla. I am a Free Woman of the Realm. I request asylum among your people and passage to Ramcat, where I may return home.”

  The golden woman looked down at her. “A Gelt. I never thought I’d see a Gelt on an Idimic world.”

  Tishla permitted herself a little smile at the Laputan word for “human.” It had to do with their creation myth. “A human defrauded me. I exercised my rights under Gelt law. Unfortunately, that conflicts with Compact law in such matters.”

  “Oh,” said the Laputan woman. “You’re her. Lucky you didn’t kill him. They’d pack you off to their homeworld and take their sweet time figuring out how to try you. Wait right here.”

  Tishla watched her disappear through a doorway. She was a giantess by both human and Gelt standards. Then again, she was likely average for a Laputan.

  The man who emerged was also a giant. Craggy-faced, he kept his coarse black hair tied back in a tail the way Lap
utan military did, even when their service had ended. “So you’re Lattus Kai’s concubine.”

  “Former,” Tishla corrected as she noticed the scar running down his cheek. “He sent me to the Compact, which means my servitude has ended. However, I carry his offspring, which makes me his heir.”

  The man shook his head, looking down at the ground. “I’ll never understand the Realm’s silly laws. And we’re a monarchy, just like you.”

  Not like us, thought Tishla. We don’t see war as a reasonable means of first contact.

  “I am Delda Rallis,” said the man. “Kai calls me Rall, which means you may call me Rall.” He pointed at his scar. “You probably noticed this. That whelp gave me this in a border skirmish when he was still a…” His eyes did a rolling motion as he paused. “Well, the humans call it a ‘squire,’ but I’ll be damned if I can make heads or tails of your feudal system. Why don’t you just sell titles like us or do away with them like the humans?” He looked past her at the window. “Well, these humans. A few of them pine for hereditary in-breds ruling them, but thank Unseen not here.”

  Tishla reached up and traced the scar down Rall’s face. “So this is the wound he gave you.” She took out the dagger, still secured in its sheath. “Then you recognize this.”

  Rall’s somewhat amenable expression vanished. “A man sends me a fine weapon like that, especially a Gelt, it means he’s sending a message.” He picked up the dagger and admired its sheath, ornately carved ivory from a large reptile predator that prowled the forests of the Throneworld. He slid the dagger out and stared at it. “And if Kai is sending this very one to me, then he’s calling in a favor. Which means he’s worried he’s about to die.”

  Tishla started to speak, but her throat tightened, cutting off her voice.

  Rall nodded solemnly. “Then again, lovely thing like you, he probably wanted to Free you since it’d be easier than to have you stay willingly. Tell me, are you the real brains behind his estate?”

  That made her relax in this strange alien’s presence. “He confides in me. I agreed to be purchased in exchange for my honors in genetics. I help him govern his colony.” She omitted the second world Laral and Marq promised to secure for him. For all she knew, the people there probably fought back.

  “Oh, dear Presence, he’s gotten into planet wrangling. Bet he’s at war with one of those Warrior Caste idiots, too.” He motioned for her to follow him. “Come on. Let’s see if I can find out what’s happened to him. Then we’ll see about getting you home. I may even take you myself.”

  “Don’t you have duties here?”

  “What duties? Selling humans round trip packages to Laputan space? Tell me, have you ever been to the Guardianship outside of Ramcat’s orbital city?”

  *****

  The authorities came looking for her a few hours later. Delda Rallis stalled them as his staff tried to bundle her into a taxi to the spaceport. She could overhear what the police were saying as they rushed her out the door.

  “We cannot find Marq Katergarus,” said a female officer, one who sounded like she could roll a few Warrior Caste types in a fair fight. “And we know the Gelt woman came here.”

  “This consulate is sovereign territory,” said Rallis. The door closed behind her before she heard whatever else was said.

  The taxi smelled of various human body odors, none of which Tishla found pleasant. Already battling evening sickness from her pregnancy, she feared she might vomit if she had to stay in the cab too long. Rall’s assistant, whom Tishla soon learned was called Chosay, piled in with her. “Spaceport. Diplomatic entrance. Drive.”

  Tishla noticed an intense light scanning both her and Chosay’s faces. “Gelt detected. This passenger is a fugitive.”

  “This passenger is under protection of the Laputan Guardianship. Now move it, or your owners will be guilty of a felony under Compact law.”

  The taxi sat there as its primitive AI turned that little fact over in its quantum-rigged mind. Then it pulled out into traffic.

  “It can’t report you,” said Chosay. “You’re under a diplomatic umbrella, at least until someone intervenes.”

  “Intervenes?”

  “If they think you killed that man…”

  “I cut him, but just enough to scare him. On a Gelt world, he’d not only be dead, but I’d be able to present his scalp as evidence if I were tried.” She looked around. “Do you know what happened to Marq Katergarus?”

  “We do. After you attacked him, the police had some questions for him.”

  Tishla’s blood ran cold at the mention of the planet. “Why?”

  “Have you heard of another entity called ‘Juno’?”

  “No.”

  Chosay looked at her strangely. “Me, either, but apparently, they want to talk to him really badly.”

  Tishla wondered what exactly it was Marq had tricked Kai and Laral into. “Do you know anything about ‘potatoes’?”

  Chosay laughed. “Yes. We fought a war with the humans over them. Why?”

  *****

  For the second time in a week, Best found himself sitting in a jail cell. This time, a pair of women from Metisian Homeworld Security questioned him. Jail was bad enough. The officers’ lilting accents alone set him on edge. But the voice of one of the officers, becoming shrill when she lost her temper, set his teeth to grinding.

  “So you be slippin’ your leash, Mister Best? Is that what you’re sayin’? Hmm?” The dark-skinned woman interrogating him had given her name simply as Andra. When Best mentioned his role as Jefivah’s Minister of Agriculture, it only served to set her off even more. “According to our information, ye’re supposed to be in the custody of a man who answers to the title ‘Grand Dimaj.’ Where is this Grand Dimaj? Hmm?”

  “The Caliphate,” said Best, who found the sterile white interrogation room stifling. The bright overhead lights didn’t help, either. He suspected they contributed to Andra’s foul mood. But not as much as they did his headache. “When I left him, he was performing a religious rite.” By screwing a human sex doll who resembles his goddess, he added silently.

  “And you don’t respect a man’s right to his own faith? Hmm?”

  “Andra,” said the other woman, who had introduced herself as Agent Jovann. “Allow me.”

  “Athena, I don’t think…”

  Jovann put a hand on Andra’s shoulder. “Give me a minute. Okay? I don’t think you’re getting anywhere badgering Mr. Best. He’s not even our suspect.”

  “He’s someone’s suspect,” she said and left the room, slamming the door behind her.

  Jovann looked severe in her tight black suit, her gray-tinged hair kept so short as to almost be mannish. Best could see, however, the hair had been tinted gray intentionally. Her skin looked too smooth to have been through more than one rejuvenation treatment, if any. Actually, he didn’t know if Metisians even indulged in rejuve.

  She sat down on the table near Best, draping a leg over it. Had she worn a skirt, Best might have found himself staring at the leg. But Jovann wore a black pantsuit instead. It made Best feel like a schoolboy who’d been caught pumping cartoons onto the desks of his classmates.

  “Andra has a problem with authority. Especially when it’s been abused.” Her accent, though similar to Andra’s, was more monotone. Best had heard Luxhomme speak that way sometimes, which only confirmed his suspicion that Luxhomme’s Etruscan residency was a sham.

  “I haven’t abused my authority,” said Best.

  Jovann looked down at her right palm, which told Best she was a lefty. “Really? Says here you were suspended after allowing seven weapons of mass destruction to disappear from naval custody and charged with negligence. It also says you were in the custody of a ‘Grand Dimaj,’ whatever that is, and that you failed to present your credentials, suspended as they are, to the governments of either The Caliphate or Metis. And the Compact Home Office here has no record of your promised visit. You might have shown up here legally as a Citizen, Mr. Best.�
��

  “Why do you think I’m here, Agent Jovann?” said Best.

  Jovann fingered the nanotat on her palm. Behind her, a square appeared on the wall that displayed a photo of Luxhomme. “You are looking for this man, whom we know as Marcus Leitman. That’s his birth name, or at least we think it is.”

  “You don’t know? He was born here.”

  Jovann smiled coldly. “He says he was born here. Humanity is so fragmented that someone can be born on a world and there be no record of it. Families leave for other worlds. Some even leave the Compact. For all we know, he could have lived among the Zaras in the trees, and we’d have no way of knowing.”

  “And what did that… that…”

  “The gray woman? What did she want? She likely wanted to kill Leitman. Or Luxhomme. Or whatever he called himself to her. She did beat the hell out of him.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t say much about it but the woman was enslaved on her homeworld. Apparently, her master sent her to Metis knowing that, once a person sets foot on a Compact world, human or alien, they are freed. Seems her people recognize that as liberation under their laws. From what we could gather, Leitman failed to mention the transfer of ownership, and she didn't take the omission well”

  “What will happen to him?”

  “Nothing. He broke no laws. He made no claim on her to our government or any other human authority. As far as those on Metis are concerned, he’s done nothing wrong. Nothing we can prove, anyway. He did, however, book passage on the next liner to Jefivah.” She looked down at the ornate watch on her left wrist. “Which departed forty-five minutes ago. They should be at a hypergate by now.”

  Lovely. Luxhomme or Leitman or whatever his name was had fled to Best’s homeworld while Best himself sat in this cramped little room being interrogated.