Hegen shook his head. “No kill order. Not for you. And the Ventana Network, as we call ourselves, knows the truth. We hold Sardis responsible. All credible evidence points to it.”
“The recording?”
Alys looked at Val, who shook his head slightly. Some mystery Moro would share when he was ready.
“Oh, I’m sure there is one,” said Hegen, “but we also have more than enough proof of other incidents. When you were collared and near Sardis, it likely wasn’t you moving your body. He took you to parties, didn’t he?”
Moro nodded.
“Ventana people posed as servants at some of those events. We saw what was done. We recorded. We couldn’t get you free—Sardis was worlds too clever, and later, so was Kott. So don’t go leaping off buildings in penance for the things Sardis forced you to do. Promise?”
“I—”
“Promise me, lad,” said Hegen. “I’m too old and too tired to watch you kill yourself after I’ve spent so long patching you up. Promise!”
“Yes, Sero Hegen,” said Moro.
Hegen turned to face Alys. “Nine years ago, Ventana Holding was awarded to Rio Sardis because of an accounting error allegedly made four hundred years ago. But for Sardis, Ventana was just a means to an end.”
“This is about accounting?” Val asked.
“I don’t know how it’s done in the Commonwealth,” said Hegen, “but in the League, terraforming takes vast amounts of money and hundreds of years. It takes so much money and so much time, no little boatload of settlers could ever hope to do it by themselves.”
“In the Commonwealth all citizens pay a little into the terraforming fund for the good of all,” said Alys. “But we’ve rebuilt only three planets, and we’re just halfway through the latest one. The League must have completed hundreds of them.”
“Thousands,” said Hegen. “First are the companies and governments who survey for likely planets. Once they’ve found one, their surveyors figure out what needs to be done to make the world fit for humans—or how to make humans fit for that world. They bid out for settlers, who form their own holding company and pool what resources they can: money, skills, wide genetic backgrounds, and the like. There’s some business with banks, so the surveyors get paid up front. When everything’s signed, the banks own another planet. Then the settlers sell themselves and their descendants into service to their own company. In return, they get a guaranteed stake of ownership and universal income when the new world finally pays out its terraforming investment. And then everyone goes to work and hopes for the best.”
“Billions or trillions of credits later,” said Val, beginning to understand reasons for the many injustices he’d seen in Vaclav. How many of the arena fighters, who might make thousands of credits a match, had bonded relatives and friends out in the frontier?
“Many of the great aristocratic families of Cedar and other League Apex worlds started out just so,” said Hegen, “bondslaves yoked to a dream. All that most settlers want is land, a home, and some money to help cushion the bad times. On frontier worlds like Ventana, there’s even preference given to bonder families over freeborn newcomers. The bonders get free room, board, and schooling. If they’re treated fairly, they’ll never run. Not because they’re slaves but because their world is their reason to live.”
“I’m sorry,” said Alys at the same moment Val heard Cama whisper, “I’m sorry,” into his brain. From Moro’s twitch, Val guessed he heard the elemental too.
“Beg pardon?” said Hegen.
“I forced your people into slavery when I drove them off Camonde,” said Cama through Alys’s voice.
“Bah,” said Hegen. “From what I know, that planet was too many rats in a cage. You whacked our bottoms for being selfish children and sent us out into the galaxy to grow up a little. Too many folks are still fighting ancient wars. Not me.”
“But Ventana Moon was d-different,” said Moro in the deep, soft voice Val loved to hear. “We settlers thought someone started working on it a long time before the Ventana Holding Company arrived. It had a decent axial angle and a strong magnetic field. It orbited a gas giant, Peridot, close enough to the sun to keep everything in the liquid-water stage except at the poles. The atmosphere was dense enough to hold in heat whenever Peridot eclipsed the sun. Three even bigger gas giants in the outer system kept off the worst of a rich asteroid field, and Peridot and its other moons sucked up nearly anything else flying around. More life in the sea than on land. No native sentients or alpha predators. No virulent microfauna. The atmosphere just needed a little nudging with algae farms to boost the oxygen content. The soil needed enriching, but the basics were already there. Korman Ventana and his folk thought they’d hit it big.”
“There were ruins on the biggest continent, only eighty miles east of our base camp,” Hegen added. “Some stones that weren’t stone, but a metal and ceramic mix. A few artifacts. House foundations. Never a hint of who’d been first on the planet. So Korman Ventana allowed the land around the ruins to be given to a bonder family named Halloran. The ruins themselves could never be developed or dug up without a vote from every adult settler on Ventana.”
“Three hundred and fifty years later,” said Moro, his voice growing harsh, “the Hallorans bought themselves free before schedule, supposedly with the proceeds of some off-world gambling no one even knew about. There was no one really rich on Ventana, but no one really poor, either. We took care of our own. Even the Founder Family lived simply and pooled its extra money into Ventana Holding’s main account. Anyone lucky enough to make serious credit was supposed to pay in some of it, so everyone’s grandchildren could be free a little sooner on Buyout Day. But Galiah Halloran didn’t see it so, and her grandsons David and Levi were worse. They built themselves a fine big farmhouse a mile from the ruins and made noises about getting out of farming and going into mining.”
“It happened a long time before you came into the world, Moro,” said Hegen. “We knew the rumors. You dug it up fresh, that last summer.”
“I’d been studying prelaw and business down at the crèche school,” said Moro. “Gran Case said I had a brain and it was my duty to Ventana to use it. Jost gave me access to all the old Ventana journals. We were trying to find a way for Ventana Holding to declare the Hallorans contract breakers and kick them out. We’d even let them keep their credits. Jost only wanted them gone,” Moro finished, his arms tightening around Val. “But they used us, and then they destroyed Ventana.”
“How?” asked Alys. “Couldn’t you get League sanction against them?”
Both Hegen and Moro shot her an identical grim look.
“League sanction started it,” said Hegen. “And this is my part of the tale. Thirty-eight years ago, Galiah Halloran sent off to the League for archaeologists to come research the ruins. She’d sent for them even before she’d sweet-talked Jost’s mother and a majority of the Holding Council into agreeing. The ruins could bring tourists, said Galiah, and tourists brought credit. Her way to repay her good fortune to Ventana. And Wynne Ventana ate it right up.
“We couldn’t fault the researchers. Nice folk, minded their business, spent hard-credits in town, didn’t cause trouble. The scientist in charge of the dig was some lanky blond fellow, always sidetracking himself but pin sharp about his work. A Camalian named Trevannis—”
Alys and Valier said at the same time, “The professor!”
“My father,” explained Val. “Spot-on, by the way. He has to wear a tracker so his graduate students can find him when he wanders off a dig. Mom only seduced him with Aunt Alys helping.”
Alys aimed a mock slap at Val. “Valier! If I had to share Lia with anyone, it was Cama’s justice it would be Maitland. Not an evil, jealous cell in him. Just not so observant about people.”
Hegen stared at Val. “I can see his looks in you. He’s a good man. I worked with him after I hired on as part of the dig crew. Within a week, no one in town was terribly nervous over his orange mask, even when he stop
ped wearing it completely. He said the ruins weren’t talking to him. He wanted to bring in a specialist who might help. Three weeks later, Professor Trevannis met her at our spaceport. Anya Weaver, she called herself. Your mother, Moro.”
Val felt Moro tremble again. “Dad never talked about her,” said Moro. “He got angry when I asked other people about her. And then, he died and I went back to the crèche. Jost’s mom and Gran Case said they’d liked her. That I had her looks. But when I wanted to know more, their voices just drifted off. Like they couldn’t remember. Or didn’t want to.”
“Anya was a little thing, barely five feet high in her stockings,” Hegen began, eyes distant in memory. “She had blue-black hair, cut just above her shoulders. Big black eyes. Pointy chin. Skin like mother-of-pearl. The few times sun touched it, we could see the faint colors shimmer across it. But she always wore a hat and long gloves or carried a UV-blocking parasol. We thought she’d be as stuck-up as Galiah Halloran, but Anya wasn’t. She was interested in everyone and everything, from terraforming rigs to blacksmithing to picking produce out on the farms. She spoke five, maybe six Terran languages, and who knows what else. She was a specialist Professor Trevannis said he knew from Cedar. When she stepped off the ship, she had a trace of an accent no one could place. It was gone two days later.
“She told Trevannis the ruin was maybe an old Sonta way station, but nothing dangerous or illegal remained. Ventana Holding could keep it pristine or develop it, whatever we wished.”
“How did she meet my dad?” Moro asked.
Forty-Two
“MERRICK DALGLEISH WAS part of the professor’s security team,” said Hegen, smiling a little wider, “not Ventana born, but we could tell Merrick knew frontier worlds. He and three other security people kept out the sightseers during the day and possible looters at night. He lived on-site in a shuttle he’d parked outside the fence. Quiet guy, not boastful, but damned fast in a fight.
“We learned that the evening Levi Halloran surprised Anya Weaver in back of the dig. No one else witnessed the start of it, but it ended with Anya crouched high on a standing stone while Merrick beat the shit out of Levi. When the rest of the dig crew pulled them apart, Levi said he’d file charges against both of them.
“‘Really?’ asked Anya, sliding down the stone like she was half-goat. ‘Let’s see who files charges,’ she said. She triggered some little bit of black jewelry on her wrist. Out projected a holo recording, strong and clear in the twilight. It showed Levi walking close and mouthing off some flustered greeting. Then he grabbed her. She’d angled the recorder upward. It caught him trying to kiss her, and her slapping him across the face with her other hand. Harder than he’d expected, because it rocked him back on his ass. Levi got up again and charged, but the new camera angle showed Anya was on the stone out of his reach. ‘I’m not for you, Levi Halloran,’ she called out in the recording. ‘It would mean your doom, to claim me as wife or mistress.’”
“What did he say?” Val asked.
“What do you think?” Hegen said. “Nothing right-minded folk would repeat, but it was clear marriage was nowhere on his mind. And by then, Anya’s recorder showed Merrick charging up the hill. Levi got thrown off the dig on his own land. Wynne Ventana made Galiah Halloran apologize to Anya. By the end of the next day, Anya Weaver and Merrick Dalgleish were inseparable in their waking hours and finishing each other’s sentences. Anyone could see he’d worshipped her from first sight. It only took Levi being an asshole to bring it out.”
“Did they—” Moro began.
“Don’t think so,” said Hegen. “Merrick slept in his shuttle, backed by more off-world guards posted by the professor. Anya slept in a private room down in Ventana Township, in the house the professor had rented. Once, in my hearing, Anya told Merrick she couldn’t breed with anyone not of her people unless she got permission from her mother. If Merrick wanted Anya, he’d have to go with her to meet her folk and have his genetics tested. Sounded too cold and clinical for love. Some human colonies are even stricter, so I thought little of it. When the professor wrapped up the dig and replaced all the earth and sod the way it had been, no one was surprised to see Merrick head off with Anya.”
“Where did they go?” Moro asked, unconsciously hugging Val closer.
Val tried not to squirm again. It was clear Moro really enjoyed Val in his lap.
Imperceptibly Val clenched his buttocks against the half-stiffened cock below him. Moro slid a hand down Val’s side, finding bare skin between the trousers and sleep shirt. Val nearly purred at the caress.
Moro hissed in Val’s ear, “Stop that.” Then he pinched.
Val set his jaw and went still as possible, willing his own response to fade, dumbstruck by Moro’s self-control as the man’s magnificent erection subsided. Slowly, to Cama’s silent laughter, Val began to comprehend how Moro had won his reserve. What it truly took to make him lose it completely.
What Moro was. What Val had married in a fit of adult honor and youthful lust.
Alys grinned at them both, Cama looking back through her eyes.
“We did warn you, darling,” Cama said silently. “This one is not a toy.”
Forty-Three
THE DOOR OPENED. Alys raised her head, nodding to the assistant in the doorway. When the door closed again, she said, “Dr. Hegen, our first batch of Camalian civilians have lifted off from Tagorska Spaceport. You’ve earned a berth with the embassy staff ship if you’re not afraid of us.”
“I’d be honored. Shouldn’t we be moving faster?” Hegen asked.
“We’re leaving in stages to keep from spooking the Terrans even more. And it takes time to shut down the embassy systems.” Alys’s fierce smile flashed in her dark face. “I’m not willing to leave our technology lying around for looters. The Sonta aren’t due until late this afternoon. This is a story we need to know. Now, you believe Merrick went with Anya to meet her family?”
“They returned to Ventana three years later and asked Wynne to accept them as freeborn settlers. Anya looked softer and happier. Merrick had been fit enough when he left, and handsome in a quiet way. But he came back with his brown hair longer than Moro’s, and a little black steel ring in each earlobe. He showed more muscle than when he’d left. He’d always been a calm one, but now his silence had an edge.”
Hegen nodded at Moro. “He moved like you do. A fighter. He made Levi back down and run the first time they met in town. By this time, Galiah Halloran had died, and Levi as Halloran elder protested letting the Dalgleish family stay. Anya and Merrick pledged a decent amount of money into the Ventana Holding account, another way they shamed Levi. Merrick became a Ventana Holding sheriff. Anya put some credits into a half share of the old Waterside Tavern on Bank Street.”
“My mom ran a bar?” Moro considered this. The Waterside was the best tavern in town when he’d been growing up.
“She was good at it. Kept a fine stock, knew how to mix nearly any drink asked for, cooked bar nibbles better than most name-day feasts, and sent people home safe when they’d sucked down too much booze. She kept them from drinking too much in the first place. The other owner, Jilly Winda, said they’d lose customers, but Anya told her they’d keep more customers alive for longer. I think people stopped by to have one drink, eat a little, relax, and just look at her. Anya Dalgleish was too beautiful for most people to rightly understand, but watching her made them feel good. She and Merrick lit up when they crossed paths in the day or went home together in the evenings. Seeing that made nearly all of us smile and think the world a better place.”
“Not all,” said Moro. “Levi, for one.”
“He stayed out of the Waterside,” said Hegen. “But three years before you were born, two of Levi’s hired freeborn hands came in for a few too many drinks. I wasn’t there, but I heard about it later. A quiet night, not too many in the bar. These two got fresh with Anya, and she warned them to leave. One of them told her she was coming up to Halloran’s place with them. Levi wanted
to talk to her. The other man aimed a pulse gun at her. A few seconds later, the gunman was twitching on the floor with four inches of paring knife in his right eye. Anya had dropped below the bar. The talker came around the bar after her. She stood up with a big black gun aimed right at his face. He ran. She shot a hole two feet wide in the main door, behind him.”
“She shouldn’t have pulled her shot,” said Moro.
“None of us knew it then. Sheriffs came. Merrick took himself off the case because of his bad past with Levi. Levi claimed he’d asked his hirelings no such thing. The talker was sent off planet fast.” Hegen bowed his head over the empty coffee cup. “Things might have gone better if she’d shot both of those idiots, and Levi.”
“You knew my parents,” said Moro. “There were twenty-five thousand people on Ventana, and only eight thousand of them in or near Ventana Township. But I’ve never seen you before.”
“You always had such a mind on you, lad. Your father’s gift for seeing through everything, and your mother’s bloody-minded stubbornness. I’m someone you knew, a little,” said Hegen. “But I had to change everything when I found a sponsor to get me into Kott’s traveling circus. New face, new name, new life. Can you let it go, for now?”
“Does it change the story, me knowing you?”
“Hardly. Past is past. You were born on Ventana, lad, and some part of Ventana will always stay with you. You see, a year after Levi sent his fool hireling away, Anya and Merrick summoned me, two other medics, and Doc Carson to their apartment. She said to us, ‘I’m pregnant. I won’t begin to show for over a year yet. Can you help me conceal it?’”
Under Val, Moro’s whole body tensed again. “What?” Moro whispered.
“She said she’d try to get off Ventana before the babe was due, but if not, there were things she needed medics for. Then she told us why she’d be carrying Merrick’s babe for two years instead of nine months. She was Sonta.”
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