by Sarah Zettel
Let Basq strive for the honor of remaining a servant to the Quarter Galaxy. She would not make that her work. Once she had thought he understood the need for the Vitae to cut themselves loose from the overwhelming caution that had been instilled in them when the Ancestors had begun the flight, but he had been blinded by his promotions and paralyzed by responsibilities until there was almost nothing left of the person she had tied her life to.
Let him glory in his service to a Reclamation Assembly that spoke of standing side by side with civilizations of babies and monsters. She would not hear them. The Rhudolant Vitae were the First Born and the First Blood of all the humans, the head of the Family, not just another member to be tricked and controlled by the Unifiers. Jahidh had found the proof and he would soon bring home the power to make the Assembly recant.
But there was not now much time. The artifacts were lost and even the Assembly was taking that loss seriously.
She leaned back in her chair and, using a key-slip she’d learned from Kelat, Caril sent both transmissions simultaneously.
Caril tried to relax the cold, hard knot that was forming inside her. She’d heard one too many stories in Chapel about the duplicity of the Aunorante Sangh. She would have died before she admitted she was afraid of what it meant to have not one, but two of them free in the Quarter Galaxy, but she could not make that fear leave her. Uary’s decision to let them get completely away was rash in the extreme, but it might turn out to be the best delaying tactic they had. If their people could move faster than Basq, the artifacts might be recovered and stored for safe study.
It wasn’t likely, but she could hope. Caril tried not to listen to Kelat’s fretting that the Imperialists did not have the structures they needed to coordinate their activities. Kelat had spent too many years buried in contracts, she told herself.
Caril rose. She had learned to live with so much, she would learn to live with this new anxiety.
After all, now that the Assembly had found the Home Ground for themselves, there could not be that much longer to wait for the Reclamation.
Or, at the very least, the resolution.
4—Amaiar Division, Kethran Colony, Hour 09:20:34, City Time.
The survival of a single being is achieved by balance of forces, the same way a planet achieves a stable orbit around a sun, and although the system may be stable for a million years and more, gravity and motion are constantly tugging, straining, pushing, and pulling. If the balance breaks, one side or the other is in danger.
Sometimes it is the sun, rather than the planet.
—Ytay Lyn from “Philosophies"
Gan Perivar leaned his chair back too fast. The back whacked against the edge of the work counter, jarring his neck and shoulders painfully.
One more year and I can afford to rent some real space. Perivar twisted the chair and checked behind him to make sure that he would not hit any of the beveled, steel poles that broke up what little open space existed between the map table and the counters. One more year. Two at the most.
He leaned back, more carefully this time, and stared at the counter. The silver-and-blue keypads were laced with shadows from the webwork of cables strung across the ceiling. If nothing else unexpected happens between now and then.
A rattle sounded over Perivar’s head and the shadows shook. A silicate capsule about the size of his torso shot through a portal from the next room. Its hooks swung it from cable to cable toward the post beside his right ear.
Marvelous. When Kiv sent his kids to speak for him, it was always serious.
When the capsule’s occupant was stretched out, she was three times as long as the transport she used. She tucked eight pairs of her legs underneath her and used the remaining pair to manipulate the capsule’s controls. Her primary hands rested on the bumpy controls for the information terminal, while her secondaries folded in the polite greeting. Two of her eyes extended down toward her primary hands. The other two focused on her goal.
Perivar squinted at the pattern of grey blotches on her smooth golden scales. This was Sha, the third-named of Kiv’s litter.
Didn’t even send his first-named. Gods, gods, gods, he is mad.
Sha used the post to lower the capsule until she was eye level with him. She extended her snout and pursed her lipless mouth. The protective capsule shut in the actual buzzing sound of her voice, but its intercom carried the signal to activate Perivar’s translation disk and transmit her message.
“My parent requests information regarding the progress of the routing for packet 73-1511.”
Perivar took a deep breath. “Sha, tell your parent…” He let the sentence die. “Tell your parent I’m coming in.”
Sha’s snout retracted, fast. Perivar had come to equate the action with a human gulp. Without another word, Sha reversed her course, sending the capsule back across the cables and through the portal.
Anticipating trouble, little one? Perivar got to his feet. Me too.
The workroom had three doors. One led to the hallway. One hung open to display his comfortably disreputable living rooms. The third was a sliding metal partition in the same wall as the capsule’s portal. Next to the partition stood a rack containing an oxygen pack. Perivar checked the tank reading to make sure it was full before he hooked its straps over his shoulders. Fumbling a little with the catches, he fitted the shield over his eyes and mouth.
Shrugging his shoulders to settle the tank more comfortably, Perivar slid back the partition to expose the gelatinous membrane that separated Kiv’s half of their quarters from his. The membrane had cost more than all the rest of his equipment combined, but it was worth it. Working with Kiv meant contracts from other Shessel and the Shessel had a lot of work that needed doing.
As usual, Perivar paused before the membrane, hoping that one day he’d get used to going through it.
After four years it was starting to seem unlikely.
Perivar stepped through the membrane. The gooey gel pressed against his skin, clothes, and mask and stuck, sealing him inside a flexible envelope that would screen out the ultraviolet rays Kiv and his children basked under. When Kiv stepped through into Perivar’s space, the gel kept in his body heat so he wouldn’t drop into a stupor in Perivar’s arctic climate, or drown in the flood of his oxygen. It was a good method, but not very sturdy, which was why the children used the unbreakable capsules.
Kiv was a bulky, earth-toned match for his five daughters. Uncoiled and standing straight on all his legs, he was so tall his eyes were level with the crown of Perivar’s head. A skintight, vermilion garment encased him from his neck to his last set of toes. He’d started wearing the thing as soon as the last of his children were hatched and he made the shift from female to male. Kiv had never been able to explain properly whether being required to wear clothes indoors was a mark of advancement or decline in the Shessel’s social order.
At the moment, Kiv was half-coiled around the base of his map table. Like Perivar’s it provided information about the space between the stars, but it did so in a series of lumps and indentations that shifted under Kiv’s primary and secondary hands. Only one of the other children was in evidence. Ere draped herself across her parent’s shoulders and stretched her arms so that her primary hands covered his and moved with them. Kiv buzzed and whistled at his first-named daughter, teaching her to read and understand the map in front of them.
Perivar glanced at the cables overhead. Sha must have taken the capsule straight into Kiv’s living rooms to hide with her other three sisters.
“Sha delivered your insult, Kiv,” Perivar said. “I heard it and I understood it. Now you understand this. I owe Eric Born more than one favor.”
“He’s contraband.” Kiv did not point his snout toward Perivar, or stop reading the table. “And he is running yet more contraband.”
“He swears she’s a volunteer.” Gods, I hope she’s a volunteer.
Kiv’s hands froze. “What could you possibly owe…”
“A contraband run
ner for?” Ere finished for her parent. She wasn’t being rude, she was showing how well she knew Kiv.
“He’s not a runner,” Perivar insisted. “And you don’t want to know what I owe him for.”
Kiv buzzed so softly, Perivar’s translator couldn’t pick it up. Ere shook herself loose from Kiv’s shoulders and scurried down his back. Kiv tilted his head and waited until she’d scrambled through the door to their living area before he turned ears and eyes toward Perivar. All his hands left the map board and pressed themselves tight to his long sides. At the same time, he drew himself out so his eyes were level with Perivar’s. The fluid motion took Kiv less time than it would have taken Perivar to bend his knees to sit down.
“I understand what you say. Now you understand, Perivar, this worries me. I cannot become involved in activities the human population of Kethran consider illegal. The Embassy Voice will speak against me. I will lose my license and be sent home.”
Perivar sighed and his breath made a white mist on his face mask. “Eric says the circumstances are exceptional and that it will only be this once.”
Kiv dipped his snout. “I know you think that I’m better off not knowing this, but what did he do to earn such trust?”
No, Kiv, you really don’t want to know that. Really. “Helped me…break from my old partners. Then he kept his mouth shut and himself absent for six years.” The last, at least, was the whole truth.
The short hum Kiv gave out did not translate. He drew back on himself, shrinking and retracting his whole body. Perivar knew enough about his partner’s body language to know Kiv meant to make Perivar uncomfortable so he could understand Kiv’s discomfort. It worked amazingly well. Perivar’s skin began to curdle under the gel. “If trouble comes from this, Kiv, I swear it won’t touch your children.”
“And how under any sun do you expect to keep such a promise, Perivar?” Despite his harsh words, Kiv stretched his arms and laid all his hands on the edge of the map table. The coil of his body loosened near the base. In response, the tension in Perivar’s skin eased.
“How do you intend to proceed?” Kiv asked.
“I’ll give Zur-Iyal a call and see if she’s willing to run a gene sample for me without going through channels. I’ll see the results of that and then I’ll know where it’s safe to send this…person Eric’s bringing in. After that, I’ll have to see. Her people are from the same Evolution Point as mine, Eric said, so there should be plenty of places I could send her as long as the sequence is reasonably clean.” The tank dragged at his shoulders, but Perivar didn’t make a move to sit down. Unless Kiv offered him a chair, which would really be a piece of floor or counter, it was rude. Usually, they skipped formalities like that, but right now, Perivar felt the need to prove he could still observe proprieties.
“And when is…Eric arriving?”
“He just called me from the ground port. He should be here in another two and a half hours, if they have to catch the public line, two hours if they can find a chauffeur.”
Kiv unwound himself from around the map table and stood on all his legs. “I will have to go explain this to my children. We are here, after all, to learn what your people will or will not do.” Although his attention remained fixed on Perivar, his eyes sank deep into their sockets. “It has not been easy, Perivar.”
“I know.”
“It has been good, though, and I want myself and my own to be able to stay.”
“I’ll make sure it’s over soon.”
Kiv inclined his head, a gesture he’d learned from Perivar. He swiveled himself around and flowed through his back door.
Breathing another sigh, this time from relief, Perivar retreated into his own side of the workplace. As he stepped through the membrane, the gel slid off his skin, melding with its own substance again.
“Brain.” He said aloud as he lifted his face mask.
“Receiving.” He and Kiv had not been able to afford their own artificial intelligence, never mind an android, but they did rent time on the AI that operated their building’s facilities.
“Get a real-time line open to Zur-Iyal ki Maliad at Amaiar Industrial Gardens, personal code A comma nine comma Yul Gan. Then, cross-load the active routing files on packet 73-1511 over to Kiv’s map files and compare with the facilities timings and route the data back.” He undid the tank catches and gratefully set it back in its rack. “And call the Roseran’s bakery and reactivate my account and tell them to send down half a dozen fresh seed cakes to the kids.” Another propriety. Where Kiv came from, you did not thank a father directly, you did a favor for his children.
“I have set your priority coding. Request one will be completed in five minutes. Requests two and three will be completed in three minutes. Request four will be completed in fifteen minutes.”
“Nothing further.” Perivar dropped into his chair and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. The face mask was supposed to filter the light down to Perivar’s comfort level, but any stay in Kiv’s quarters still dried his eyes out painfully.
Eric, don’t you try to play any fancy games with me, or I’ll broadcast what you did to Kessa and Tasa Ad from one side of the Quarter Galaxy to the other.
Six years of relatively clean living; Perivar stared around his workplace. Thousands of packets of information delivered successfully and this was what he had. One room of hardware and two rooms of furniture. He didn’t even own the walls around them. He was alive, which was definitely a plus, and if he hadn’t stuck by Eric Born, he would not have been. Perivar knew that. When living on the edge had finally become too much, Eric had taken the ship, the pilot, and the ghosts. Perivar had taken the bank accounts, and that had actually seemed to be the end of it. Most of the time he kept the past in its own place and lived for the next shipment and the next deposit in his account. His open, honest, registered, and almost always empty account.
Brain beeped twice to get his attention.
“Open channel established and connected to Zur-Iyal ki Maliad.”
Perivar straightened up to face the blank display that Brain angled up from the work surface in front of him. His fingers undid the catch on the bottom edge and he lifted the cover from the keypad. His memory strained to recall the watch command. His lips moved as he typed it in. The signal light on the edge of the pad blinked on. Green. No one was watching the line, at the moment. Perivar kept one eye on the signal light and touched the key to clear the view.
Zur-Iyal ki Maliad looked back at him with gold eyes half-hidden under a ragged curtain of straight black hair. The color of both was new.
“I like the look, Iyal.” Perivar ran his hand through his own hair to comb it back. “Dyes or upgrades?”
“Upgrade on the hair. Stays dry in the rain. The eyes are overlays. UV screens. I’m seeing if I like them or not.”
“Handy when you’re out in the field so much, I guess.” Iyal spent most of her time with the institute’s livestock, and it showed. She was a big, round woman. A casual observer might have mistaken her bulk for fat, but only until she moved. As she leaned across the table and folded her arms, muscles rippled visibly beneath her sun-browned skin.
“What can I do for you, Perivar? Or is this social?” The UV screens did not hide the mischievous glint in her eyes.
Perivar chuckled. “Iyal, Iyal, what would your husband say?”
“‘Is he still any good?’” They shared the long laugh. It was an old joke, but it felt good.
“Actually, I need a favor, Iyal.”
“Oh?”
“I need a gene scan run. Nothing fancy. Just make sure the specimen’s clean and healthy. You know the kind of thing.”
“Oh yes. I do know.” She drew back abruptly and Perivar thought of Kiv doing the same thing, not five minutes ago. “I didn’t think I was doing that ‘kind of thing’ for you anymore.”
“It’s a one-off, Iyal. I’m tying down a loose favor.”
Iyal’s sigh ruffled her new hair across her forehead. “Once, Perivar.
That’s all the old times are good for right now. We just got a whole shipment of kids from the Vitae’s university. If I don’t keep myself clean, one of them’s going to be earning my pay.”
“Once.” Perivar laid two ringers over his heart. “The promise goes from here to the gods.”
Iyal just watched him. “The Rhudolant Vitae are making sure everybody comes down real hard on…the competition…these days. I hope you’re still in shape.”
“Wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t. Check your hard mail bin tonight, Iyal. I’ll have the sample in it.”
“Good enough. Take care, Perivar.”
“And you, Iyal.”
She watched him thoughtfully for a minute longer before her hand reached out to her control panel and his screen went blank. Because he didn’t request another line, the display lowered itself until it was flush with the counter again.
So, I lied, he said silently to the space where the display used to be. I wouldn’t be doing this if I was sure Eric would keep his mouth shut about me if I didn’t.
Gods, gods, gods. I’d forgotten about this. Don’t trust anybody. Can’t trust anybody. Everybody’s dangling something over you, unless you’ve got something to dangle over them, and even then it’s who’s got more and what’s worse. Abruptly, he found himself laughing. I’m getting old. And cowardly.
It wasn’t a general warning that Iyal had brought up about the Vitae, although they were the main reason her job was in danger. Thanks to the talent-mongering Vitae, Amaiar Gardens was one of the few independent gene-tailoring houses left on Kethran.
Kethran was an artificial ecology. A hundred thousand details of the environmental balance had to be constantly monitored, maintained, and replenished. A population surge coupled with an unexplained drought had the Senate screaming for help. The Vitae had quietly offered to take over the administration of the ecology for a comparatively reasonable trade and land contract. They’d moved the majority of the government employees into labs and farms they themselves subsidized, and in three years they had made themselves indispensable.