Offspring

by Steven Harper

  There was a collective rush for the office. Harenn ordered Bedj-ka out, and he went with poor grace. Ben sat at the desk and ordered the computer to bring up the message. Kendi’s mouth was dry.

  You were bad, bad boys, the message said. Kendi does have guts, I’ll give him that. I almost got to see them. Sorry about the gravity beam, sweety-pies, but you didn’t leave me any choice. And Ben, you flame-haired hunk—better start scaring up more cash. Maybe your grandma can pass a law making blackmail a deduction. I’ll be in touch. —A friend

  “It’s like being blackmailed by the tooth fairy,” Kendi muttered. “Let’s see if anything about this appeared on the news feeds.”

  The local lead stories included the arrest of three Ched-Balaar who were part of a drug ring, the opening of a new play about Renna Dell, one of the original human colonists on Bellerophon, and the disappearance of a baby whose parents were divorced. The father had vanished as well, and the Guardians were treating it as a case of parental kidnapping. There was nothing about a strange chase through the streets of the Ulikov sector in Treetown.

  “Now what do we do?” Ben said.

  “I think we should call the police or the Guardians,” Lucia said. “These notes are very distinct, and a linguistic profile might be able to tell us something about—”

  “No Guardians,” Ben almost shouted. “Absolutely not.”

  “As you like, Ben,” Lucia said, taken a bit aback.

  “No Guardians,” Kendi agreed, “but we might want to get someone else involved.”

  “Didn’t you say Senator Reza offered government security guards?” Harenn said. “Why not use them?”

  “They’re government,” Ben said. “Legal law enforcement. I don’t want them near me.”

  “But we need someone,” Kendi said.

  “Why?” Ben countered. “People have tried to kill us before. Besides, the blackmailer doesn’t want us dead—hard to sign checks from beyond the grave.”

  “What if he—or she—decides to get rid of the evidence?” Kendi said. “When people came after us before, it was on other planets. Even when the Dream stalker was trying to kill Ara and me, it was in the Dream. This is here, in our home. Where we’re going to have babies.”

  Ben’s mouth folded into a hard line, but eventually he said, “Who did you have in mind to call?”

  “Lewa Tan. She retired from the Guardians a few years ago and does private security work now. Best of all, we can afford her. For a while, anyway.”

  “Call, then,” Ben said. “And get it over with.”

  “Open sesame,” Kendi said. A section of walkway plank, currently raised upward like a pointing finger, dropped into place. Two startled glider lizards leaped from the house gutter with matching squeaks and sailed away.

  Inspector Lewa Tan (retired) gave it a critical look. “Is it just passworded?”

  “Password, voice recognition, and print scanner, all set into the railing,” Kendi said, tapping the wood. “The staircases do the same thing.”

  “A good start,” Tan said. “Let’s go inside.”

  Tan inspected the house with a careful eye and a quick hand on her data pad. Kendi and Ben followed. Harenn and Lucia had already left. Kendi hadn’t realized how long it had been since he had last encountered Inspector Tan. He had seen her on and off since the Dream stalker murder case, but the visits had tapered off in recent years. Now there was a great deal of gray in her black hair, though the braid that ran down her back was as thick and heavy as before. Deep lines had cropped up around her eyes and mouth, and her brown eyes were a shade or two lighter. She still moved with firm strength, and Kendi was certain she could take down most assailants before they even saw her move. Her voice had also remained the same—it grated like a rusty hinge, and she spoke like she was going to be billed for every sentence.

  “Have to replace these curtains with one-way blinds,” she said. “You should shut windows, especially on the ground floor. I’ll arrange to have mail sent to a service for checking before it comes here. Alarm system needs upgrading. My recommendation is a guard for each of you all day and at least one in the house all night.”

  “I don’t know,” Ben said. They were standing in the living room. “It sounds like an awful lot.”

  “It’ll keep you alive, Ben,” Tan said bluntly.

  “I’m used to worrying about all this on field work for the Children,” Ben said. “But not here. In my own home.”

  “Your choice,” Tan said. “You’re paying for my opinion, and I’m giving it. I’m just surprised you haven’t had any major trouble yet. Are there any weapons in the house?”

  “In the floor safe in Ben’s office,” Kendi said. “We have a neuro-pistol and a needle gun. Children of Irfan issue.”

  Tan nodded. “Is that sling something I should know about?”

  Kendi gave Ben a sidelong look. Ben remained silent, leaving it to Kendi to take the lead as he usually did when he was uncertain. It was a part of Ben that Kendi didn’t always like. Kendi had to guess what Ben would want done or said. If Kendi guessed right, Ben got the benefit risk-free. If Kendi guessed wrong, Ben would have someone to blame.

  “The sling isn’t important,” Kendi said. “It’s unrelated to why we called you.”

  “Uh huh.” Tan leveled them a stare hard as brown glass. “I worked forty years as a Guardian, Kendi. I see a lot. I see Ben’s hurt. I see you’re moving carefully. I see new drawbridges. I hear about a rescue crew that showed up in Ulikov and found no one to rescue. Cop instincts say all the paints belong to one picture. I can’t help unless I know what’s going on. I’m confidential as a lawyer, if you’re worried. You hired both me and my silence.”

  Kendi bit the inside of his cheek. The Despair had Silenced Tan, and he wondered if her last remark was meant to be a subtle rebuke.

  “I suppose I’d be disappointed if you weren’t suspicious,” Kendi said, stalling. “You could say the events are related. We...we aren’t...”

  “We’re being blackmailed,” Ben said. “We tried to catch the person when we handed off the money, but he knocked Kendi over the rail with a gravity beam and got away. I hauled Kendi back up, but it was a close thing.”

  Kendi blinked at Ben, then averted his gaze.

  Tan folded her arms. “What are they blackmailing you about?”

  “You don’t need to know, Lewa.” Ben held up his good hand. “You’re going to quote Irfan Qasad at me: ‘The greater your knowledge, the lesser your risk.’ But it ultimately doesn’t matter why we’re being blackmailed.”

  “Tell me this much,” Tan said. “Is it because you did something illegal?”

  “No,” Ben said. “And we’ve hired Lucia dePaolo to look into it. She’s tracking leads right now.”

  “Lucia’s good,” Tan mused. “Why not call the Guardians?”

  “No Guardians,” Ben said. “And no police. That’s non-negotiable.”

  “You’re the boss.” Tan flicked her braid over her shoulder. “But I can’t be held responsible for anything that happens because you held back.”

  “Fair enough,” Kendi said.

  “When will you assign security detail?” Kendi asked.

  “Now,” Tan said, tapping her data pad. “I’ll have people here within half an hour.”

  “I should give you contact information for my publicist,” Kendi said. “She has a whole campaign schedule worked out for—”

  “Attention! Attention! Wanda Petrie is asking permission to enter by the western drawbridge.”

  “Perfect timing,” Kendi said. “Irene, lower the—”

  “Stop!” Tan barked, and Kendi subsided into startled silence. “You can’t do that, Kendi. Anybody could walk up and claim to be Wanda Petrie. Stay here.”

  Tan went to the living room window and peered around the edge of the curtain. “I see a woman with brown hair in a business outfit. She doesn’t seem to be armed. Come take a look, Kendi, but be careful.”

  Feeling a bit silly
, Kendi crept to the window and peeped outside. Wanda Petrie stood at the drawbridge with an impatient look on her face.

  “That’s her,” Kendi said. “Can I let her in?”

  “Should be all right.” Tan took out her data pad. “Have to get some security cameras installed around here, too.”

  “Irene, lower the western drawbridge and tell Wanda Petrie to enter.”

  A moment later, Petrie clicked her way into the living room with her quick, bird-like movements. Kendi made introductions and Petrie sat.

  “I’m glad to see you changed your mind about the personal security,” she said. “Good. I’ve reworked your schedule, including the workshop. Tonight Senator Reza is speaking at a Unionist rally—a small rally—and I’d like you to attend. “s a guest, not a speaker. If anyone talks to you, smile, nod, and keep quiet. Do not talk to any members of the press.”

  “Details,” Tan said over her own data pad. “Time, place, people.”

  “I’ll zap them to you right now,” Petrie said, tapping buttons. “You’ll want to talk to the Senator’s Guardian force, too, so you can coordinate with them.”

  Kendi leaned back in his chair. The two women talked and argued about Kendi’s schedule as if he and Ben weren’t there. The air was growing stuffy, since Tan had insisted they close all the windows, and Kendi’s body still ached from the gravity beam. It felt like the room, his schedule, even his body had grown close and confining. Kendi needed to get out, get away. He shifted in his chair and caught Ben’s eye. Ben looked as uncomfortable and bored as Kendi felt. Kendi jerked his head toward the stairs and winked. Ben hesitated, looked at Petrie and Tan, and nodded.

  Feeling like a conspirator, Ben sidled toward the stairs with Kendi. He should probably stay and listen to Tan and Petrie, but the mischievous look on Kendi’s face was too...too...well, it was too cute to pass up. Ben bit his lip to hide a smile. After almost fifteen years, he still found Kendi cute.

  The two of them slipped upstairs and into their room. Kendi shut the door and leaned against it with an exaggerated sigh of relief. Ben couldn’t help a small laugh. Kendi’s sense of humor had gotten both of them into trouble a few times, but it was one of the things Ben loved most about him.

  “You’re silly beyond reason, you know,” Ben said.

  “The road to hell may be paved with good intentions,” Kendi said. “But the road to heaven is mortared with silliness.”

  “Mortared?”

  “Silliness holds everything together,” Kendi said seriously. “Without it we’d fall apart.”

  “I thought the Real People didn’t believe in heaven.”

  “I’m making this up as I go. Bear with me.” He slid his hands over Ben’s broad shoulders, careful not to jostle his sore arm. “How’s the injury?”

  “Not bad. The painkillers at work.”

  “You look like a wounded hero in that sling. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what you are.”

  The remark jolted Ben. For a few minutes, he had managed to forget the blackmailing, the failed plan, and the fact that some stranger out there knew he was Irfan’s son. His life would be destroyed under a stampede of reporters, thrill-seekers, and religious fanatics. The idea filled him with an unreasoning terror, though he couldn’t say why. In a lifetime of working with the Children of Irfan, he had faced battle cruisers, galactic empires, greedy slavers, and even a serial murderer. He had been afraid of all of them—only an idiot wouldn’t feel at least a little nervous with a Unity battleship firing missiles up your slipdrive—but the idea of becoming an intergalactic celebrity filled him with a bone-shaking terror that he couldn’t seem to shake. His gut twisted, and he wanted to creep into a dark corner like a cricket, letting the world pass him by except when he chose to make a noise.

  “Hey, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Kendi said, reading Ben’s face. “Look at you—scared and upset and everything else, and I blew the chance to make it stop. I’m so stupid.”

  “You did everything you could, Ken,” Ben said, falling into a nickname he rarely used and Kendi allowed to no one else. “Don’t beat yourself up. That’s my job.”

  Kendi ran his fingers along Ben’s jaw, something which always made him shiver. “I never got the chance to thank you properly for saving me,” he said, and bent his head to kiss Ben. Kendi’s mouth was warm on his, and it was several moments before they parted.

  “You’re welcome,” Ben said, then leaned against Kendi. “God, I thought I’d lost you. When you fell like that...I thought I’d die, too. Don’t do that ever again.”

  “I won’t,” Kendi promised, whispering into Ben’s hair. “I’m sorry.”

  They stayed like that for a long time. Finally Kendi broke away. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” he said. “I need a change of scene.”

  “Where?” Ben asked. “You know that Tan won’t want us going anywhere without her approval.”

  In response, Kendi glanced at Ben’s dresser. The top was a tangle of odds and ends. Two unmatched socks and a broken comb lay among the mess. The bedroom itself was divided in half. A king-sized bed occupied the exact center—the size was a concession to Kendi, who claimed Ben was a bed hog—and each half had its own characteristic flavor. Ben’s side was, like his den, a total mess. Clothing lay tumbled on the floor along with bookdisks, readers, and other objects. Kendi’s side was Spartan. Clothes and robes hung neatly in the closet, and a short red spear hung on the wall. The high-beamed ceiling and polished wooden floors gave the room a light, airy feel despite Ben’s clutter. Kendi fished a dermospray from the jumble atop the dresser and handed it to Ben.

  “Ah,” Ben said. “My turf or yours?”

  “Mine,” Kendi said. “You’d look sexy in a loincloth.”

  Ben blushed, then laughed and lay down on the bed, feeling a little better. He watched Kendi retrieve his own dermospray from a drawer and press it to his forearm. A hiss, a thump, and the drug drove home. Kendi took down the spear and fitted the sharp end with a rubber tip. He bent one knee and fitted the spear underneath it, creating a pirate peg-leg for himself. The rubber end of the spear pressed against the floor. If Kendi had been outdoors, the sharp point would push into the earth to give the spear stability, but that wasn’t possible indoors. Once Kendi was sure of his balance, he cupped his hands over his groin and closed his eyes in the traditional meditation pose for the Real People of Australia. No matter how many times he watched Kendi do this, it amazed Ben that he didn’t fall over.

  Ben pressed his own dermospray to his arm and felt the small thump. With a final glance at Kendi, he shut his eyes and lay back. After a moment, color swirled before his closed eyes, and he felt a warm languor spread through his limbs—the drugs at work. Ben concentrated on his breathing, emptying his mind, reaching upward and out.

  The colors faded and cleared. Ben opened his eyes. His sling was gone, and he was standing on a white tile floor in the middle of a computer network. Organic data processing units twined up like vines, their DN” matrices glowing green and blue. Keyboards, microphones, and holographic displays made neat rows on gleaming metal surfaces. Lights flashed. Transmission lines and data portals opened in all directions, ready to transmit or receive.

  It was the Dream.

  Despite a thousand years of study, no one knew exactly what the Dream was, though the prevailing theory held that it was a plane of mental existence created from the collective subconscious of every sentient mind in the universe. The Silent—people like Ben and Kendi—could actually enter the Dream, usually with a boost from a drug cocktail tailored to their individual metabolisms.

  In the Dream distance meant nothing. Two Silent who entered the Dream could meet and talk, no matter where in the galaxy their bodies might be. The Silent could also shape the Dream landscape, form it into whatever environment they desired. In Ben’s network, every wire, every matrix, every chip was a sentient mind in the solid world, and they took on those forms because Ben wished it. Or perhaps Ben saw the Dream as a compu
ter network because his own mind wanted him to see it that way. Philosophies differed, even among the Children of Irfan. Ben only knew it gave him a headache to think about it.

  Before the Despair, the Dream had been full of whispering voices, the voices of millions upon millions of Silent. These days the Dream was quiet, like death, and a tiny handful of whispers skittered amid the hum of Ben’s ventilation system. The silence was eerie, and it felt like the Dream was in mourning.

  Ben shook these thoughts aside. He was supposed to meet Kendi on Kendi’s turf. He concentrated for a moment and banished his network. A rush of Dream energy swirled around him, stirring his hair and clothes like a whirlpool. The network vanished, and an empty gray plain took its place. In the distance, earth merged with sky at an ill-defined horizon. The air was still and just little stale. It was the default condition of the Dream.

  Ben shut his eyes and listened to the faint whispers on the air. Practiced Silent could single out individual voices and track them down, and Ben was picking up the trick quickly, almost as if he had been born to it.

  Maybe I was, he thought, unsure whether he was being resolute or wry.

  One whisper, close by, felt familiar as his own voice. Ben opened his eyes and trotted toward it. His footsteps were muffled, as if he were surrounded by carpeted walls instead of empty space. Just ahead of him, the landscape changed. Rocks and hills came over the horizon, and Ben caught a whiff of hot, dry air. The sun appeared, a hard gold coin that radiated harsh heat. Sandy soil appeared a few steps away. Ben halted and reached out to touch the place with a mental finger.

  ~May I approach?~ he asked in the ritual greeting.

  ~Get in here,~ Kendi replied.

  Ben took a step forward and braced himself. When two Silent met in the Dream, they had to decide between them whose mind would shape reality. Unless one Silent were willing to let go, the Dream would warp as both minds pulled at it, sending the landscape into a Dali spiral. The stronger mind would usually win out, but experience had an impact as well. Ben let out a deep breath and released his expectations. Another rush of Dream energy, and Kendi’s turf surrounded him on all sides. Sandy soil peppered with scrubby plant life stretched in all directions around him, and the sun continued to pour down liquid heat. It was the Australian Outback, or Kendi’s Dream interpretation thereof. Ben had never visited the real thing.