Offspring

by Steven Harper

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “The recipe calls for milk,” he said.

  “How much?”

  “I can measure it by eye,” he protested.

  Lucia wordlessly handed him a measuring cup and watched while he poured the correct amount and emptied it into the bowl.

  “Seems stupid to pour twice,” he grumbled.

  “You are not pouring twice. You are measuring once and pouring once.”

  She watched while he also measured out flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder. While he stirred the mixture with a wire whisk, Lucia turned to Ben, who had put a frying pan on the stove with a bit of butter in the bottom. It was melting into a golden puddle.

  “Very good,” she said. “And the right heat. Set the ham on the cutting board and slice it as thick as you want it. Don’t look at the slice—keep your eye on the part that remains, and you’ll be more even.”

  “Just for the record,” Ben said, “I’m not a bad cook. I just hate cooking.”

  “Perhaps because you associate it with being alone in the kitchen doing something boring,” Lucia said. “If you and Kendi cook together, it’ll become a family event and therefore more interesting.”

  “Maybe,” Ben said dubiously, “but what about—”

  Lucia’s hand shot out and caught Kendi’s wrist again. He was holding a spice container over the bowl of pale pancake batter. “What are you doing now?”

  “Just adding some cinnamon,” he said plaintively. “My mother always put cinnamon in our pancakes.”

  Lucia removed the container from Kendi’s hand and set it firmly aside. “I think this is why you always fail at cooking,” she said. “You make changes in the recipe before you understand what you’re doing. It’s perfectly fine to tinker with a recipe, but only after you know how the original works. Never, ever change a recipe until you’ve tried it once or twice as it’s written. Besides”—she held up the spice container—”this is chili powder, not cinnamon.”

  Under Lucia’s gimlet eye, Kendi heated the griddle and poured spoonfuls of batter into a light coating of sizzling oil. Ben, meanwhile, dropped thick slices of ham into the frying pan. The kitchen began to smell of salty meat and hot pancakes. While they were cooking, Kendi tried to turn away, but Lucia stopped him.

  “Don’t leave the stove.”

  “But they’ll be a while,” Kendi said. “I just wanted to check my messages real quick.”

  “Another reason why your earlier attempts went wrong,” Lucia said. “Let me guess—you get engrossed in something else and only remember your meal when the smoke alarm goes off.”

  “That’s the way of it,” Ben said. “One time he put a loaf of store-bought bread dough in the oven and left it there for seven hours. It was a crust brick all the way through.”

  “That was just one time!” Kendi protested.

  “And then there was the molasses cookie crisis,” Ben said, “and the donut disaster and the spaghetti—”

  “All right, all right.”

  “You’re burning,” Lucia pointed out.

  The first batch had turned black. Kendi thought the pancakes might still be salvageable, but Lucia ordered him to pitch them and start over.

  “A hint of burned taste ruins everything,” she said.

  The second batch came out golden-brown and fragrant. Ben finished frying ham while Kendi started a third batch and Lucia set the table. In the end they sat down to a delicious breakfast of crispy pancakes, sweet syrup, and rich ham.

  “A fine meal,” Lucia said. “The nice thing about cooking is that the reward is usually immediate and delicious.”

  “I hear that,” Kendi said, waving his fork.

  “And we have just enough time,” she added, checking her fingernail.

  “Time for what?” Ben asked warily.

  “To start a batch of bread for lunch.”

  Over the next three days, Lucia taught the two men how to make bread, pasta, simple sauces, fried chick-lizard, mickey-spike stew, roasted potatoes, stuffing, cookies, and more. To relieve the surplus of food, they fed Tan, Gretchen, Lars, Harenn, and Bedj-ka. One day Ben invited Mother Mee up for lunch. She accepted with pleasure and gave them a few recipes of her own. Even Gretchen grudgingly admitted that the food was “more or less edible.”

  “I’m better at this than I ever thought I could be,” Kendi admitted as they put the last of the dishes away late on the third day. “Thanks to an inspired teacher. How about you, Ben?”

  “I don’t loathe it,” he said. “Though I’ll admit to a mild dislike.”

  Harenn, meanwhile, set up a twenty-four hour surveillance schedule on Foxglove’s campaign. It wasn’t difficult—the cameras did most of the work, and Gretchen and the Vajhurs could keep an eye on the monitors from their own data pads. Ben worked on finding a way into Foxglove’s personal and financial records. Tan, Lars, and a few others continued rotated guard duty on Kendi, Ben, Harenn, and Lucia.

  More time passed, and the winter rains began. Salman’s campaign dragged in a dismal third place, and the dreary weather mirrored everyone’s morale. The trial of Willen Yaraye began, and the prosecutors dragged Salman into it, forcing her to testify. She swore that she knew nothing of his criminal connections, but the media portrayed this as an appalling ignorance rather than an innocent mistake—especially in Othertown, where the few feeds Foxglove didn’t own were trying to curry his favor—and Salman’s poll scores dropped even further.

  Despite the depression hovering over Salman’s campaign, Bellerophon itself enjoyed a lift of spirit. The news that children were once again entering the Dream stormed across the planet, bringing hope to thousands. The news spread through the Dream as well, and Kendi could feel the excitement when he walked there. Bedj-ka transferred to school at the monastery, where he took classes in meditation and memory training in a special accelerated series of courses designed to ready him for Dream communication work as soon as he was old enough. He took to the exercises as if he had been born to them, and Harenn bragged of his progress to anyone who would listen.

  No adults among the Silenced found their way back into the Dream, whether they were human, Ched-Balaar, or members of other species. Dream experts set forth a great number of theories about this, most of which followed Martina’s reasoning—that children’s brains were more resilient, able to weather the Despair better than their elders. Foxglove, of course, referred to “his” discovery at every opportunity on the campaign trail, and his popularity soared even higher.

  Ben, meanwhile, continued poking around with his computer system. Although he wasn’t able to hack into Foxglove’s records, he did discover through other sources that Foxglove was wealthier than anyone imagined because he owned most of the mines surrounding Othertown. The situation tugged at Kendi’s instincts, even if he couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong. Not that he had much time to ruminate, with the endless rounds of speeches, fund raisers, and rallies. Fewer and fewer people showed up as the months wore on, and it got harder and harder for Kendi to muster up the energy to keep speaking.

  There was no word about the missing file, and Kendi was relieved to see Ben able to sleep through the night again, though he still occasionally came out of the Dream with cuts and scratches on his hands. He brushed aside Kendi’s questions about them, saying they were side-effects of “stress relief.”

  [COMMENT1] Harenn entered her third trimester and Lucia entered her second. Harenn’s movements were slower and more deliberate as her middle grew larger and heavier. Regular check-ups showed the fetus was developing perfectly, with no complications, and the baby was expected to arrive right on time—a few weeks before the election, as it happened.

  “I am not sure which event is more momentous,” she said from the rocking chair Ben had installed in the nursery. “The gubernatorial election or this baby’s birth.”

  “Depends on whose household you’re in,” Kendi said. He aimed his data pad at the wall and thumbed it. The wall
s swirled into a talltree forest setting, complete with smiling, child-sized dinosaurs roaming among happy flowers and grinning bushes. He frowned and thumbed the data pad again. The forest disappeared and an ocean scene washed over the walls in its place. Fish and merfolk danced among waving kelp, pausing to wave at Kendi and Harenn every now and then. Bubbles made smiley faces. Kendi made another frown and aimed the data pad at the wall.

  “Just choose one,” Harenn said. “The child will not care.”

  “I want it to be perfect,” Kendi objected, gesturing at the offending room. Two cribs awaited occupants. Two dressers were filled to bursting with baby clothes, and the shelves beneath the changing table bulged with baby supplies. More shelves were filled with playthings ranging from simple stuffed toys to interactive holographic animal playmates which adjusted themselves to meet the child’s stage of development. Outside, the sun had set and dark shadows pooled under the talltree branches.

  “The main thing is that you love the child and pay lots of attention to it,” Harenn said. “Everything else is secondary. Ah—it’s moving.”

  Kendi set down the pad and knelt next to the chair with his hand on Harenn’s stomach. He felt the movement beneath his palm.

  “Hi, Baby,” he said as he always did. “I’m your Da.”

  “Bedj-ka is becoming more and more impatient,” Harenn said. “He wants very much to be an older brother.”

  “We’ll have to remind him of that when he’s a teenager and complains about getting stuck babysitting,” Kendi grinned.

  The baby stopped moving. Kendi stood up and surveyed the walls. “All right. We’ll go with the underwater theme.”

  Ben poked his head into the room. “Hey you guys—Gretchen’s here.”

  “What? Isn’t she on surveillance duty?” Kendi said.

  “She said she left early because she has big news, but she won’t spill until we’re all there. Hurry up!”

  “Help me out of this chair,” Harenn said. “Medical science may have overcome many of the discomforts associated with pregnancy, but the laws of physics have not changed one bit.”

  Kendi gave her a hand and they headed for the living room. Kendi’s curiosity was piqued. He had almost been ready to give up the surveillance on Foxglove’s people as a bad job. Still, he kept his excitement in check. They had had false alarms before, and this was probably one of them.

  One look at Gretchen changed his mind. She was pacing about the living like a nervous blond lion, a mixture of excitement and agitation playing across her square-cut face. Ben was sitting on the edge of the sofa beside Tan.

  “All right, Gretch,” Kendi said. “We’re here. What’s going on?”

  “I was following Foxglove up-close and personal instead of using the spider-cams,” she began. “I saw him go into the house he uses in Treetown, and there weren’t any reporters around. A while later, he snuck out the back door by himself. Not even a bodyguard. He was wearing a rain hat and sunglasses, and I only knew it was him because I recognized the way he walks.”

  “Cut to the chase,” Tan said. “Some of us are old.”

  “Right.” Gretchen took a deep breath. “He took the monorail and a gondola to a little house near the border of Treetown and the monastery. He went inside. I climbed up a level and watched from there. “bout half an hour later, this woman came out.”

  She tapped her data pad and conjured up the image of a Ched-Balaar.

  “She looks familiar, but I couldn’t quite place her, so I did a computer search. Ben’s face-recognition software turned up an ID image. She’s a judicial clerk at the High Court.”

  “So?” Kendi said.

  “So?” Gretchen’s tone was incredulous. “Don’t you see what this means? It means Foxglove has connections with someone at the High Court who probably knew what the mining rights decision was going to be several days before it was officially handed down.”

  “In other words, he knew how the Court voted before the decision was made public,” Kendi said. “Which is why he bought all those mining companies when he did. He knew they’d be worth billions.”

  “It’s the source of all that money,” Gretchen said, “and how he managed to buy Othertown in everything but name.”

  “It’s not enough evidence to bring any kind of charges,” Ben mused. “Though Grandma can probably use it. Did you get any images of him going into the house?”

  “Yeah.” Gretchen grimaced. “But he was in disguise and you can’t really tell it’s him. Won’t hold up. But now that we know where to search, we can find evidence.”

  “Nice work,” Tan rasped. “I don’t suppose you got any footage of Foxglove leaving the house? Maybe he’s recognizable.”

  “Not really,” she said. “Here, I’ll show you.” She tapped the data pad and the scene with the holographic house sped up. The house’s door popped open and Gretchen returned the image to normal speed. A human in a rain hat and a long coat emerged, turned to speak briefly with a barely-visible figure in the doorway, and walked away.

  “See?” Gretchen said. “You can’t tell for sure that—”

  Ben leaped out of his chair. “Back that thing up! Back it up!”

  “Ben?” Kendi said. “What’s wrong?”

  In answer he snatched the pad away from a startled Gretchen and reset the image to the beginning. “gain Foxglove emerged from the house in his rain hat. Ben froze the hologram, then zoomed in and enlarged it. His lips were drawn into a tight line.

  “Ben, what—?” Kendi began.

  “Shut up,” Ben snapped. “I just have to—oh. Oh my god.”

  He set the pad on the coffee table and backed away as if it were a bomb. Kendi and the others turned to look. Harenn and Tan looked puzzled. Kendi gasped. The display showed the image of an old man, hawk-nosed and white-haired.

  “It can’t be,” Kendi whispered. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “Who is it?” Tan demanded. “I don’t recognize—”

  “It’s Padric Sufur,” Ben said. “The bastard who killed my mother.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “Enemies, like lovers, always eventually meet.”

  —Daniel Vik

  No one spoke for a long time. Finally Gretchen said, “That’s what he looks like? I’ve never seen him before.”

  “I’d recognize him with my eyes shut,” Ben said in a cold and terrible voice that speared Kendi with alarm. “Gretchen, what’s the address? Where can we find him?”

  “All right, all right,” Kendi said. “We aren’t going to do anything just yet.”

  Ben’s jaw tightened so hard it looked like granite. He sat on the sofa, rigid as a statue with an explosive inside. Kendi swallowed and turned back to the hologram. It was definitely Padric Sufur.

  Kendi had never actually met Sufur. Neither had Ben. But some time after Ara’s death, Ben had dug around the computer systems and produced several images of him. He hadn’t said why, and Kendi, still caught in the throes of his own grief, hadn’t pressed for details. He had simply assumed Ben had wanted to put a face to the name.

  Padric was one of the wealthiest—perhaps even the wealthiest—being in the known galaxy. He had funded a laboratory that used the genes of Sejal’s father Prasad to produce twisted Silent children. Their Silence had been as powerful as their bodies had been monstrous, and when they came into their full power, they set out to destroy the Dream forever. This was as Sufur had wanted it. In his view, the Dream was the chief source of warfare, allowing commanders to communicate with their troops over interplanetary distances. Destroying the Dream would be the same as destroying war. Unfortunately, Sufur had been unaware that destroying the Dream would also create a backlash that would, over time, destroy all sentient life everywhere.

  When Sufur’s destructive children attacked the Dream, the first thing they had done was remove every Silent in the universe from the Dream. A great many went insane at the separation. Large numbers had committed suicide out of despair. Kendi had almost be
en one of them, but Ben and Harenn had gotten to him in time.

  They had not gotten to Ara. Ben had discovered her broken body on the forest floor, shattered from the leap she had taken off her own balcony.

  The Vajhur family, meanwhile, had managed to put the twisted children’s bodies into stasis chambers, effectively snatching them out of the Dream before they could fully destroy it. The stasis chambers currently lay on the ocean floor on the planet Rust, forgotten by everyone except the Vajhur family, Kendi, and Ben. The team of geneticists that had created the children for Padric Sufur were either dead or fled. Padric Sufur himself had been nowhere near Rust during the Despair and had escaped unscathed but for the loss of his Silence. Kendi knew Sufur numbered among the Silenced because Kendi had personally scoured the Dream for the man’s presence and found not a single trace.

  Now, however, he was apparently living on Bellerophon. Kendi rubbed his chin, feeling oddly calm. Ara had been both mentor and mother to Kendi, and by all rights Kendi should be the one rushing out the door to confront Sufur—or worse. Instead he felt perfectly in control, his mind cool and calculating. Why had Sufur come to Treetown? What possible business could he have here? And why was he consorting with Mitchell Foxglove?

  “Let’s blow the lid off him,” Gretchen said. “Call the Guardians, call the police, call the feeds. They’ll be all over him. Or I can take him out. One shot’s all I need.”

  “Stand in line,” Tan said without a trace of irony or humor, and Kendi remembered that Sufur’s plan had Silenced both Tan and Gretchen.

  “No,” Kendi said. “We aren’t going to kill him.”

  “Why the hell not?” Gretchen demanded.

  “We need learn what he’s up to,” Kendi said. “Look, I hate him as much as you do—”

  Gretchen rose to a terrible height. Her face was red beneath yellow hair. “How the fuck can you say that to me, Weaver? You can still reach the Dream. You kept your career. You are still Silent. Sufur took everything away from me. Everyfuckingthing I had—my Silence, my job, my friends. I don’t care how many game contracts you arrange because you feel guilty, you don’t have the right to hate him as much as I do. You never have the right. I want Sufur dead. I want to watch him squirm and shit blood at my feet before I crush his throat, and I want to record it so I can watch it over and over again and laugh my fucking head off while everyone I know pisses on his grave.”