Raven's Children

by Sabrina Chase

  The pin was there, but so was something else. A datatab. He frowned. A fuzzy memory floated into his consciousness, of a voice—‌Moire’s voice—‌arguing with someone who wanted to kill him. He’d felt fingers opening his shirt pocket, and had been suddenly and irrationally terrified that Moire would see the sketch he still kept there. Then he heard her voice, close to his ear. “It isn’t much, but it might help.” The rest was a blur of images and echoing sounds he could not resolve, gradually clearing to reveal the empty dock where her ship had been.

  The door to the cabin opened, and Harrington stepped in again. He shut the door quickly when he saw the tab in Ennis’s hand.

  “If that is from our mutual acquaintance I suggest you keep it hidden. Have you had a chance to look at it yet?” Ennis shook his head. “It is well worth your time. I’ve already sent encrypted copies to several locations, with a few on time–‌delay just for luck. Her adversaries have shown their ruthless nature before.”

  Ennis managed a faint smile at this. Harrington was still put out at nearly being incinerated by Toren on Bone. He fingered the datatab thoughtfully. This was the first good news he’d had in a long time. Maybe the information would be enough to at least keep him from getting discharged.

  She’d put the data together in a hurry. Misspellings, missing words, and incomplete sentences—‌but then she’d been doing it with both hands scraped raw after climbing the air shaft on Kulvar to get away from him. First there was a terse, choppy report of the events leading to the discovery of Sequoyah, and an even more terse summary of what Cameron remembered of events afterward. She hadn’t wanted to remember; he could feel it. Another report, this of her actions in the mutiny on Canaveral. And then a few rough sketches of Sequoyah’s surface with a brief description of the planet’s characteristics and biosphere.

  One small knot of tension vanished. She was trying to help him, even after he’d nearly killed her. He hoped there had been someone on the ship to take care of her. Perhaps her son, the son she hadn’t known about. He wondered if he would ever find out the rest of that story.

  He wondered why he wanted to know so badly.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  They arrived at Shipman Point two days later. Ennis felt no remaining effects from the drugs, just impatience to report in and get it over with. He wanted to know what Fleet was going to decide to do with him. Was there any chance they would keep him in a combat post, even for a little while? He had no right to expect it. His promotion cutoff date had already passed. The choices now were a desk job or exile to life as a civilian. He shuddered.

  “I suppose I shall have to muddle on by myself,” Harrington said as they left the ship. “Unless you have changed your mind about reporting in immediately?”

  Ennis gritted his teeth. Why would the reporter be trying to find Cameron again? “I seem to recall someone saying you shouldn’t go looking for her,” he said.

  “I do have other lines of investigation,” Harrington said, with a touch of frost. “No doubt she will show up in her own good time.”

  “No doubt.” Ennis looked gloomily at the station map. The Fleet outpost was near the commercial freight area of the docks some distance away. “Perhaps you’ll have better luck without me.”

  He picked up his bag and walked away, but Harrington was still beside him. “Permit me to accompany you. I remain unconvinced of your good health after your latest adventures. Your melancholy silence is unusual.”

  Ennis took a deep breath. “I’m in a lot of trouble,” he said finally. Harrington could take that any way he wanted. “If I….‌”

  Something wasn’t right. It took him a moment to figure it out. There were a number of toughs and dockworkers hanging out at this level, and he’d paid them only cursory attention. But one had snagged his eye—‌a man who looked remarkably clean for a dockworker. He also looked familiar. There hadn’t been enough time for news of what had happened at Kulvar to get back to Toren. These must still be the original set of thugs looking for him. Another thing he could thank Namur for.

  He glanced out of the corner of his eye, saw Harrington looking at him with concern. “They’re here,” Ennis said softly. “The ones with the flamethrowers.” Not a good idea to name Toren out loud now.

  “Where?”

  “Up ahead.” The operatives were not moving. Yet. Ennis stopped and looked at his chrono, as if planning a rendezvous. “Between us and the number forty–‌five cargo hatch.”

  Harrington rubbed his chin and looked at his own chrono, for all the world like someone wondering if it was time for lunch. “How inconvenient.”

  That’s probably how he’d describe his own death. “Maybe we should go back and admire the cross–‌corridor,” Ennis suggested.

  “Why not?”

  They turned and walked casually in the other direction. Ennis looked up at a reflective display on one wall. The operatives were coming closer.

  “It must be our magnetic personalities,” he said dryly. “Got your weapon ready?”

  “Yes, but I don’t quite—‌”

  Ennis spun around. The Toren operatives weren’t even bothering to conceal their weapons. “Cover!” he yelled, ducking behind a big crate loader. Harrington was on the other side in a niche in the wall, his little snub–‌nosed gun in his hand.

  One of the Toren ops fired, a blast of heat and energy that seared through the open gaps in the crate loader. Ennis looked around desperately for inspiration. The bright orange stripes of a pressure zone caught his eye, and he smiled grimly.

  It took a few seconds to find the sensor, tucked behind some utility cables on the ceiling. Taking careful aim, he shot it out. Sirens blaring, pressure doors descended with a clang between them and the Toren operatives. Unfortunately, other pressure doors were blocking the exit. He hadn’t noticed those before.

  Ennis swore. “We have about fifteen minutes before someone comes to check and open the doors. Hopefully they’ll be friendly, because we can’t go anywhere.”

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to say that,” Harrington said thoughtfully.

  “Why?”

  “The builders of this particular station had a tendency to cut corners during construction. I wrote a bit of an exposé some time ago. I suppose you didn’t read it,” he said mournfully, looking like a disappointed Caesar.

  Ennis sighed. “Skip to the pertinent piece of golden prose.”

  “The maintenance accessway for the pressure doors is one continuous corridor, and the corridor hatches seal on positive pressure only.”

  “You’re joking.” Ennis stared at him, appalled. “If the access corridor is compromised, then….‌”

  “Precisely. The entire sector of the station is perforated.” Harrington pointed to a hatch on the wall, near the ceiling. “If they haven’t fixed it, I can live to write another scathing exposé.” He smiled gently.

  Ennis jumped and caught the lowest rung of the ladder to the hatch. Harrington followed.

  “I hope those goons don’t subscribe to your wireservice,” Ennis muttered as he climbed.

  “Quite.”

  At the top, Ennis propped his shoulder against the hatch door and shoved. One foot slipped from the rung, and he scrambled to regain his position. It took three tries to overcome the hatch seal.

  Harrington peered over Ennis’s shoulder. “Oh, good. Another article to write.”

  The corridor was narrow, but Ennis could see it went the entire length of the docking area. He put the hatch cover back in place as soon as they were both inside. When they found the hatch nearest the Fleet outpost, the sirens were still sounding in the distance but the pressure doors had been reopened.

  “Nobody there,” Ennis reported after a careful look through a crack. “Just a worried–‌looking noncom poking her head out to look every now and then.”

  “Right. I’ll give you cover, then, shall I?” Harrington checked his gun and nodded, satisfied. He already had his finger on the trigger and was pointing it down the la
dder that Ennis would be using. Judging from his technique Harrington had gotten most of his ideas of gun tactics from bad trid shows. Ennis winced. Harrington was trying to be helpful.

  “If you point it that way, down the corridor, you'll be more likely to hit the bad guys than me. Up to you.” Ennis hesitated on his way out the hatch. “How are you going to get out? They’ll be hunting you too, now.”

  “Yes, I think a period of quiet is in order. Somewhere else. Don’t worry about me; I know this station rather well. Now off with you, before they come back.”

  “Good luck. And thank you.” Ennis quickly dropped down the rungs to the corridor.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Moire stood at the cave mouth and looked out over the rocky bay and the forest of pseudotrees looming in the shallows. It was a view she never tired of. Sequoyah’s sun was just thinking about setting, and if you knew what to look for you could see one of the moons on the far horizon.

  I suppose we’re going to have to come up with some names if we’re going to live here.

  The sound of footsteps made her turn back to the cave entrance, full of gear and people moving it. Gren Forrest was coming toward her. The engineer was looking grumpy, but that was normal for him. He was also peering up at the sky with a suspicious expression. Like most of her station–‌raised crew, he was having some trouble getting used to the concept of “outside” as a place where you didn’t need protective gear.

  “Everything OK? Having trouble with the equipment?” They’d found a lot of useful stuff in the sargasso this time; enough that she’d wanted to bring it back to Sequoyah before selling the salvaged ships. They needed to get the base camp set up as soon as possible.

  He stopped, staring out at the bay as she had done. “How long ago were you here again?”

  “Over eighty years by the calendar. Only two years for me, since we had a bad case of Einstein’s Revenge coming back.” Moire carefully didn’t think about how she’d come back. The only one alive, in a ship that was more holes than structure.

  “And Toren doesn’t know about it?” He sounded completely incredulous.

  “They know it exists. They don’t know where it is or how to get to it. Why do you think they’re so hot to find me? There’s a tricky bit of piloting to get around that gravitational anomaly; that’s why it takes so long to get here. They need someone who knows how to do it.”

  Gren sighed, his brown face gloomy. “They aren’t going to let us keep it. There’s going to be a hell of a fight.”

  Moire tilted her head back toward the cave. “Hence the equipment.”

  “Won’t do us much good if we don’t have the people to run it. Or we aren’t even here, because we’re doing something else.” He gave her a look. “Alan tell you anything useful about the place he came from?”

  She nodded. “I’ve got a mock–‌up of the section of the Kerezin dock from his description of how he got to Shintai. We should be able to find out what ships were there at that time from the stationmaster, and then we just need to find the one that shows up there on a regular basis. Shintai was on the cargo row, so Alan’s ship wasn’t there for a quick stop. Then we just need to find out where the ship is going. I’ll need your help for that part. Ever heard of a drop–‌dead loop?”

  He stared at her for a moment. “What? They stopped using those fifty years…‌oh. Sorry.” After a bit of thinking, he asked, “What would you want one of them for?”

  “I want something that will tell us how long the drive is engaged, and maybe the heading of the ship. If you’ve got something better than a drop–‌dead, that’s great. But it’s the only thing I know of that will cut out when the gravity bubble pops.”

  He ran a hand over his head, face wrinkling in thought. “I guess it would work…‌our fabricator is limited, but a drop–‌dead isn’t that complicated. Sure, I can do it. So, you’re gonna smuggle it on board or something, then get it back?”

  Moire nodded. “Then I’ll probably have to sneak on the ship and take a look at the place, to see what there is to work with and what I’ll need to bring.”

  “You? What are you going to be doing there?” Gren was compressing his lips and his face was rigid, both signs he was about to lose his temper. “Ignoring for the moment that Toren isn’t going to hand these people over for the asking, what about you keeping a low profile? Toren is hunting you, right? And what about us?” He was yelling now, his hands sweeping in sharp, expansive gestures. “You’re the only one who knows how to get here! Or to the salvage field!”

  People in the cave were glancing their direction now. Moire made calming motions. “Look, I’m not planning on leaving a note saying I did it. Besides, how can I ask one of the crew to do something that dangerous?” She grimaced, belatedly realizing that was not a good argument to use. “It’s not something they signed on for. I’ve got my own reasons for doing this.”

  “We’re stuck if you get captured. Or killed. I still think this is a good idea, and we sure need the people, but if you want to do that part by yourself you need to get everybody to agree to it.”

  Moire turned back to face the bay, thinking hard. Gren had made some good points. She had to consider the crew of Raven as well as the Created she planned to rescue. There was also the issue of the crew’s willingness to bend, if not break, the law for her. They were not entirely law–‌abiding individuals, but this might be more trouble than they were willing to risk.

  “All right, let’s ask them.”

  They walked back together, under the furtive and curious glances of the others. Moire sent one of the repair team to gather everybody together. The crew had grown considerably since they’d quit using Ayesha and switched to Raven. She couldn’t immediately recall all their names; the new crewmembers hadn’t been with the ship long. The senior crew from Ayesha—‌Fortin, Gren, Montero—‌knew about her time jump and the exploration ship that found Sequoyah, but the rest of the crew didn’t.

  They were watching her now, seated on the cave floor and crates or perched on the hydraulic struts of the landing craft.

  She told them how Bon Accord had landed in the cave they were in now, all those years ago, to try to repair damage sustained on the way in. How the repairs hadn’t quite worked, and how Toren had found her in the wreckage of the ship and tried to get the location of Sequoyah from her.

  “Turns out there’s something else they’ve been doing in their spare time,” she continued. “When the exploration teams left Earth, they left reproductive tissue behind in storage. Toren found it, and they are doing things with it we never planned.” She pointed at Alan. “I didn’t have a son when I left Earth eighty years ago. I do now. Toren used my tissue to make him, and they’re making others, in secret. I only know this because Alan escaped. I want to find the place they are doing this and stop them. Rescue the others that Alan left behind and get them to join us. Alan has already been a big help, and if we are going to keep this place we will need even more.”

  A repair crewman stirred. “So what’s the problem?” he asked, indicating Gren.

  Gren scowled. “She wants to do it on her own. She’s too valuable to risk.” Gren was probably thinking of the last flight of Ayesha, where Moire had been the only surviving pilot and their last hope of survival. He wouldn’t forget that in a hurry.

  “We have another pilot,” Moire pointed out. “I can show Kilberton how to get here and to the sargasso.” They should do that anyway, just in case. Kilberton had already shown he could be trusted, and then they could get multiple ships carrying cargo to Sequoyah.

  “But how could they even think to attempt such a thing?” Kilberton asked, perplexed. “What you describe is gene theft. The Index will show it.”

  “She’s not in the Index.” Yolanda stood, her dark eyes snapping. “Those bastards thought about it real careful. Remember? She left Earth before the Index was even started. To prove gene theft you go to the Index and match the person’s genes, and she ain’t there.”

  The
repair crewman nodded. “That’d explain it. They’re desperate for workers, and you can’t steal that many without people noticing.”

  Moire turned to Gren, puzzled. “There aren’t enough people in the Fringe for all the work,” he said quietly. “It’s not just web pilots. Sometimes people can’t hire anybody, so they…‌steal them. And there are slavers to do it.”

  She’d heard that term before, and thought it was a joke. Now she understood why her crew was starting to look angry. They knew better than she did what Toren had been doing, and why.

  “If you don’t want to be involved, just say so. I will be breaking the law to get these kids out, and it could get violent.”

  “Comes to that, Toren’s breaking the law even worse,” said the repair crewman over the general muttering of the crew. “Slavery’s same as murder, and gene theft is almost as bad. Can’t always call for the heavies out in the Fringe—‌sometimes you have to do it yourself. ”

  She looked at the faces of her crew and saw only agreement there.

  ¤ ¤ ¤

  Nooreen Meniran narrowed her eyes. Something was up, and she was going to find out what it was. She could smell the fear. The silence in the conference room deepened, until the muted thrum of the jammer was the loudest noise she could hear.

  “So, we have no further information on Cameron. This cannot be allowed to continue. When she was on that Fleet ship we at least had her pinned down, but now she could be anywhere. Not only did she steal one of our ships to escape, the next representative we sent managed to screw up so monumentally even those monkeys in uniform noticed!” She took a deep breath, trying to control her temper. “What of the officer?”

  Viello adjusted his vest to lie more smoothly. “Unconfirmed sightings. Our people are still looking. We have to be careful; Fleet suspects something. There are indications Umbra might be involved.”

  Meniran mulled this over for a moment, then made a decision. They couldn’t afford any more wasted time. Cameron could be anywhere, doing anything by now. And if Umbra even began to suspect the existence of the Long Range Plan, they might ask other, more awkward questions. “Send out Kolpe Anders.”