Offspring

by Steven Harper

  “I’m sorry, Ken,” he said. “I guess I’ve been acting like a prima donna lately.”

  “I’m sorry, too,” Kendi said. “I should have known you wouldn’t break your promise.”

  “I wish...” Ben trailed off.

  “You wish what?”

  “I wish you could be human in the Dream. It’d be weird to kiss a koala bear.”

  Kendi laughed again. “We’re good for hugging, though. Even with these claws.”

  And Ben hugged him. It was decidedly odd. From Kendi’s perspective, Ben was as tall as a tree, his arms as thick as branches. He smelled like rainwater and sunshine. Kendi burrowed close to Ben’s chest and let Ben’s arms surround him. For a long moment he had no worries and everything was as it should be. He never wanted to move again. At last Ben set him down.

  “Let’s try those codes again,” he said.

  They banished the Outback and called up the computer lab. Ben lay in the lounge chair, closed his eyes, and relaxed. It was almost ridiculously easy. Koala-Kendi spoke softly, putting Ben into a deep trance. He took Ben back to the night he and Lucia had broken into Sufur’s house.

  “And now you’re standing in front of Sufur’s desk,” Kendi said. “The computer is on, the data display hovering over the pad. The logarithm program activates and it generates a code. You can see the code. What is it?”

  Ben rattled off a series of letters and numbers. Kendi’s own trained memory caught and held them.

  “And now the computer displays the coordinates of the satellite. What are they?”

  More numbers.

  “And now the computer displays the coordinates of the ship. What are they?”

  Still more numbers.

  “And now the computer displays the communication codes Sufur transmitted to the ship. What are they?”

  Ben’s brow furrowed. Kendi waited, then repeated the command. Ben didn’t respond for several heartbeats. Then he abruptly opened his eyes and sat up.

  “The computer never displayed that code,” Ben said. “I never saw it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  “Shit,” Kendi said. “Meet you out there.” He shut his eyes. If it be in my best interest and in the best interest of all life everywhere, let me leave the Dream.

  Kendi felt the butt of his spear pressing into his knee. He opened his eyes. Ben was already sitting up.

  “How much time do we have?” he asked.

  Kendi checked his fingernail and swore again. “They’re going to space Gretchen in less than half an hour.”

  “Wake up.”

  A stinging slap cracked across Gretchen’s face. She shuddered and opened her eyes. The blond man was looking down at her. The lip she had split for him was almost completely healed. He slapped her twice more.

  Gretchen was cold again. She managed to turn her head and discovered she was lying in the cryo-unit. “gain. Her body ached from the hit with the gravity beam. How long ago had that been? She didn’t know. Her sluggish mind wasn’t working right.

  The blond man grabbed her by the arm and hauled her out of the cryo-unit. Her legs were shaky and wouldn’t support her. She slumped to the ground and sprawled there. It was warmer out here. She drank in the heat and let herself shiver to warm herself up further.

  “We didn’t get the signal,” the blond man said. “That means we get to space you and all the other Silent freaks. Then we’re going to slip it all the way back to S”.”

  “Boomer,” said the dark-haired woman. She was standing a few paces away. “This is a bad idea. You’ve seen how dangerous she can be.”

  “Shut up, Peg,” Boomer shot back. “The bitch clocked me fucking twice. So now she’s gonna pay for it.”

  “You got nothing to complain about,” Gretchen managed. “Improved your looks.”

  Boomer grabbed her by the hair and yanked her head back. The room spun crazily. It wasn’t the same cargo bay as before. This place was at least three times bigger, and the walls were painted an ugly lime green. Over two dozen cryo-units made a line of coffins across the floor in front of a cargo door big enough to drive a loader through. Gretchen’s captors must have shoved her back into cryo-sleep and transferred her over here. Wherever “here” was. Gretchen looked defiantly up into Boomer’s eyes.

  “I get it,” she said. “Power trip. You’re supposed to space the hostages, but you want me to be awake for it so I can suffer, that it?”

  Boomer yanked Gretchen’s hair hard enough to make her eyes tear up. “We crack open the door and I get to watch your blood boil. Should be a fun fifteen seconds.”

  “What about them?” Gretchen asked. Her mind was waking up now, and although it felt as if knives were driving through her every muscle, she could move them. “The cryo-units are tight. They’ll survive in space just fine. Or are you going to wake them up, too?”

  Boomer released his hold on Gretchen’s hair so fast, she dropped to the deck plates again. Her muscles screamed pain at her.

  “Gonna crack ‘em open,” Boomer said. “They won’t feel it when the vacuum hits. But you will.”

  Gretchen’s eyes darted around the cargo bay. There had to be a weapon, a tool, something she could use. Her gaze fell on the gravity beam holstered on Peg’s hip. Peg, however, was too far away for a surprise grab. Boomer seemed to be unarmed. Gretchen lay on the floor, feigning greater weakness than she felt.

  “What’s in it for you, anyway?” she gasped, trying to keep him talking. “Why space all these innocent people?”

  “Mr. Sufur’s orders,” Boomer said. “We didn’t get the signal, which means the jig is up. Sufur is either dead or arrested, and the Corridor is done for. He still wants as many of you Silent freaks as dead as he can arrange, so we get to kill you.”

  “Boomer,” Peg warned. “We have shit to do.”

  “I’m not Silent,” Gretchen said, getting to her knees and gasping with exaggerated effort. “I’m Silenced.”

  “Silent or Silenced. Who cares?” Boomer said. “You’re still a freak.”

  Gretchen got to her feet, swaying like a drunken sapling in a stiff breeze. Over Boomer’s shoulder she saw Peg tense. “You’re a shit,” she said. “No balls, either. I should know—I kicked you in them hard enough to—”

  She lunged. Boomer was caught completely off-guard, and she plowed straight into him. Her momentum carried them both straight toward Peg. Her gravity beam was already in her hand, but she couldn’t hit Gretchen with Boomer in the way. She aimed for a fruitless moment, then tried to leap aside, but it was too late. Boomer smashed into her with Gretchen right behind. Peg flew backward and hit the floor with a grunt in the open doorway. Her gravity beam skittered across the tiles. Gretchen landed on top of Boomer. She kneed him in the stomach and the air whooshed out of him. Peg scrambled to her feet and ducked into the corridor outside the cargo bay. Gretchen rolled away from Boomer and her grasping fingers found the gravity beam. Boomer got his breath back and leaped at Gretchen with a snarl. Gretchen fired. The orange beam caught him square in the chest. With a scream Boomer flew backward, crashed into the wall, and slid to the floor. He landed near one of the cryo-units.

  Gretchen whirled and ran for the exit, but the door slammed shut. Peg looked through the thick, round window. Her jaw was set hard as she reached down toward controls Gretchen couldn’t see. “n alarm blared, and the loader door began to grind upward.

  “Peg!” Boomer screamed. “No!”

  A cold breeze rose around Gretchen. Peg shrugged and spread her hands with mock sorrow. The loader door opened far enough to reveal black space, and the breeze became a wind. Gretchen’s ears popped. She raised the gravity beam and fired orange at the window. It didn’t seem to have any effect. On the other side of the window, Peg laughed.

  The wind howled with hurricane force, dragging Gretchen backward. Grimly she increased the power and continued to fire. The cargo door grumbled steadily upward, and the four cryo-units closest to it were sucked
out into the vacuum beyond. Boomer was screaming something incoherent. The window cracked into a spiderweb, and Peg ducked away. Gretchen fired. She couldn’t draw air into her lungs. The wind howled in her ears, but she kept firing. Her entire world shrank to keeping her balance and aiming the gravity beam. The energy indicator said the power cell was almost drained. Boomer was on his feet, staggering against the wind and moving toward her. Two more cryo-units vanished through the widening opening into space. Boomer leaped.

  And then the entire door gave way with a shriek of tortured metal. It burst into the cargo bay on a fresh blast of air. Gretchen flung herself to the floor. The door sailed over her head and caught Boomer in mid-air. The wind whipped away the cloud of blood and sound of Boomer’s final scream as the door flung his half-crushed body across the bay and out the loader doors.

  Gretchen tried to crawl forward against the rushing air, but her strength was giving out. It was all she could do to keep herself from being swept backward to join Boomer and the lost cryo-units. Desperately she checked the gravity beam. A tiny spark of energy was all that was left. With a flick of her thumb, she set the beam on reverse, raised a shaky hand, and fired into the hallway beyond. A green light shot from the beamer and hit the corridor wall. Nothing happened for a moment, then Gretchen felt herself being dragged forward by the beam. A cramp spasmed her hand, but she grimly kept her grip. The beam pulled her out of the cargo bay and into the corridor. Then it sputtered and died.

  Gretchen rolled to her left, away from the open doorway. Peg was nowhere to be seen. The wind, focused by the tight confines of the hallway, shoved at Gretchen like a living hand. She managed to crawl to the control panel next to the door and slap the emergency close. The loader door, which was halfway open, ground back down again, more quickly than it had gone up. In a few moments, it boomed shut and the horrible wind stopped.

  Gretchen lay panting in the corridor, her lungs filling with sweet, still air. She felt as if every inch of skin were bruised, and when she rubbed a hand over her face, her palm came away smeared with blood from dozens of tiny cuts and scrapes caused by flying debris. In that moment, the only thing she wanted was the chance to collapse like a rag doll.

  Grimacing, Gretchen forced herself to her feet. There was no time to rest. Peg had no doubt already alerted the rest of the crew, and Gretchen wasn’t going to fool herself into thinking that Peg was the only other person the ship. Even a skeleton crew would consist of at least four people. Gretchen staggered down the lime-green corridor, clutching the empty gravity beam. “s she saw it, Gretchen had two options—try to hide or try to take over the ship. Although hiding had the advantage of giving her a chance to rest, it had the disadvantage of requiring her to know the layout of the ship. Trying a takeover in her current condition—wounded and unarmed—had its own set of difficulties. Dammit, why was everything in her life so hard? She wanted to howl and beat something—preferably Peg. Or Sufur.

  Okay, get a grip, she told herself. You have to keep moving so the crew can’t find you. They’re probably already on their way down here. Maybe you can bluff them with the gravity beam. They won’t know it’s empty.

  Gretchen reached an intersection and cautiously peered around the corner. Another empty hallway stretched ahead of her. Where the hell was everyone? She couldn’t believe Peg and the as-yet-unseen crew were willing to let her wander around the ship. So why weren’t they down here looking for her?

  Hard tension stole down Gretchen’s spine. “No!” she whispered, and forced her screaming body into a run. Her heart pounded. There had to be a staircase or an elevator someplace. She had to find the bridge before—

  “Attention! Attention!” said a computer voice. “The ship will enter slipspace in thirty seconds.”

  “Shit!” Once the ship entered slip, it would be untraceable, destroying any hope of rescue. Peg and her crew knew that full well, which was why they were readying the ship for the jump into slipspace instead of trying to catch Gretchen. She found an elevator and slapped the control. No response. Peg must have locked her out.

  Overhead, an intercom speaker chimed to life. “So there you are,” said Peg’s voice. “Don’t worry, Gretchen—we’ll come down to get you soon. Don’t bother fighting. There are eight of us up here and we’re all armed.”

  Gretchen remained silent, unwilling to give Peg the satisfaction of an answer.

  “Get ready,” Peg said. “We’re entering slip in five...four...three...two...”

  The floor lurched, flinging Gretchen to her already bruised knees. Thunder rumbled over the ship, vibrating the plates beneath Gretchen’s body.

  “What the hell?” Peg said, apparently forgetting the intercom was still open.

  “Attention alien vessel,” interpolated a new voice. “This is the Bellerophon military ship Irfan’s Pride. We have you in our gravity beam and you are hereby ordered to stand down.”

  “Aw, shit,” Peg said, and Gretchen began to laugh.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “The end is where lovers meet.”

  —Daniel Vik

  Father Kendi Weaver picked up the empty cup. “More tea?”

  “No,” Gretchen said. “But we would like one of Lucia’s croissants, please.”

  Kendi selected a plump, flaky croissant from the platter and efficiently sliced it in half with a bread knife. The entire household was gathered here in Salman’s living room. Gretchen, bandaged like war hero, had commandeered a chaise longue. Lucia was overseeing the enormous amounts of food piled on the coffee table. Tan lounged in her usual spot in the doorway. Ben and Harenn shared a sofa with Evan and Ara in their laps, and Salman occupied an armchair. She looked older, and tired. A great deal of her usual energy was absent, and Kendi found the change distinctly odd. He put the croissant on a small plate and started to hand it Gretchen.

  “We prefer our croissants with orange marmalade,” she sniffed.

  Kendi made a mock bow. Ben laughed and jiggled Ara on his knee.

  “Do not become accustomed to this,” Harenn admonished. “I have the feeling that Kendi’s goodwill will not last.”

  “And we intend to milk every last drop until it runs out,” Gretchen said airily. “Not so much, Kendi. We have to watch our weight.”

  Kendi gave her the plate with another mock bow and sat on the thick carpet. The little yellow lizards chirped softly and skittered about their cage.

  “I’m just glad everything’s over,” Kendi said. “The election results may have sucked, but at least we don’t have to worry about them anymore. Sufur is dead—party scheduled for tomorrow—we stopped his weird little scheme, and the doctor’s said Keith is already getting better. Now all we have to do is finish moving into the new house. Me, I don’t think I’m ever going out in public again.”

  “So what are you planning, Grandma?” Ben asked. “You’ve been really quiet.”

  Salman cleared her throat. “The race took more out of me than I thought,” she said. “I think I’m just going to finish out my term in the Senate and retire. Maybe I can be a professional great-grandma.”

  Ben reached over and squeezed her shoulder. “You were always a great grandma.”

  “Thank you, my duck.” But her tone was wan. “At least this entire incident has brought Ched-Pirasku around to my way of thinking. Sufur’s scheme made it abundantly clear to everyone that Bellerophon can’t afford to cut back on the military.”

  “How are the kidnap victims doing?” Lucia said. “I forgot to ask.”

  “They’re fine,” Gretchen said. “The Irfan’s Pride found the cryo-units Peg blew out into space, no problem, and the rest were just sitting in the cargo hold. Most of the people didn’t remember much after Boomer-boy and Peg knocked them out. The whole thing was actually harder on their families. And me.”

  “We’ll be forever grateful to you,” Kendi said. Gretchen snorted and took a big bite of croissant.

  “Once you’re on your feet again, Gretchen,” Tan rasped from the doorway
, “I’ve got a continuing assignment for you, if you want it. Election’s over, but the Father and the Offspring will still need guarding.”

  Gretchen swallowed her croissant. “I’ll think about it. Right now I just want to sleep for a month. In fact, I think it’s time for our royal nap. Would someone be so kind as to help us upstairs?”

  Lucia rolled her eyes. “Come along then, your majesty. I’ll be glad to help.”

  “The babies need to be changed and put down for their naps,” Harenn said, also rising. “Ben?”

  “Let me take Ara up,” Tan said suddenly. “I want to hold her for a while.” When she realized everyone was staring at her, she added, “What? I can’t be a grandma, too?”

  Gretchen hobbled out of the room with exaggerated care on Lucia’s arm, followed by Tan and Harenn, bearing babies. Kendi plucked Gretchen’s plate from the coffee table and stuffed half the croissant into his mouth.

  “I can’t believe you want to retire, Grandma,” Ben said. “It’ll be...I don’t know. Weird.”

  “I’m an old lady, love,” she said. “Things aren’t the same anymore.”

  “Change is the only constant,” Kendi said, swallowing. “Even in the Dream.”

  “Is that a Real People saying?” Ben asked.

  “Probably.” Kendi reached toward the coffee table, intending to set the plate down. “The Real People said just about every—shit!” His hand slipped and the plate tumbled toward the floor. Salman automatically reached for it, then snatched her hand back. The plate struck the side of the table and broke in half. The rest of the croissant landed marmalade side down on the carpet. Kendi ignored it. His eyes met Salman’s for a long moment. She stared defiantly back.

  “Grandma?” Ben said softly. “Did I just see...?”

  Salman didn’t move. Kendi glanced pointedly down at the old woman’s lap, then met her gaze again. “Grandma?”