“It would have had to go to ground immediately, during the first shock of the explosions,” Lissy said. “That's the only way the spaceport could lose track of it. To vanish, you have to go below the sensor level."
“Which means it's still somewhere nearby. It couldn't launch without being detected now,” Bain said, taking up the thread of her thought. “All we have to do is figure out what areas around here are big enough to hide a ship the size of the Nova Corona. Good thinking, Lissy.” He didn't have to look over his shoulder to know the fifteen-year-old was blushing.
“I'm going to have to ask you Scouts to keep this conversation to yourselves,” Herin said. “I totally agree with Lin's assessment, but until she receives confirmation from the Commonwealth Council, she isn't going to report to the Port Authorities or Gemar officials. We're keeping this quiet, just to put pressure on the culprits."
“Why?” Bain asked.
“Because the Commonwealth and Conclave are very aware of the benefits of having Leapers working in this universe. The impending threat of losing our services could be enough to split their forces and prompt someone to turn them in.” She shifted around in her seat, facing forward again. “I want the truth, the full truth, of who attacked the administration building and why they did it. My mother's memory deserves no less."
* * * *
“I think someone is following us,” Bain whispered to Rhiann. She glanced up from the reading screen and met his eyes. “No faces yet, but I get this itchy feeling up my neck."
They were alone in a window alcove with a terminal that gave them read-only access to the history database of the museum. Rhiann sat at the long table. Bain stood beside her, scanning the open doorway where someone could come up on them with no warning. The window was polarized for privacy. They could look out, but no one could see them inside. Bain liked that little feature.
“Me too, a little,” she whispered back. “What do we do?"
“Play ignorant.” He settled down into the chair next to her and used the cover of the table and its shadow to take out his multi-dart and change the setting from ‘safety’ to ‘ready', and bring the tranquilizer darts cartridge to the top of the loading slot.
“All right. Let's entertain them. Or bore them,” Rhiann added with a malicious chuckle. She raised her voice as she continued. “There's some evidence here that the Set'ri were a radical off-shoot of the same group that was doing so much eugenics work, just before the Downfall started. They wanted to purify the gene pool, and decided that non-Humans had to be eliminated first. The other branches of their group—let's call them Pre-Gen'gineers—were content to play with all genetic resources and ‘improve’ the Human race. There's some notes in here that the Set'ri fought with the other branches because they wanted to include the Hoveni in the breeding stock, and the Set'ri wanted them destroyed."
“Sounds like a family feud to me,” Bain muttered.
“Maybe. The end result was that the Set'ri became very secretive. They stopped their public lectures and lobbying the local authorities to help them find and arrest Hoveni. They set up hidden death camps and laboratories and conducted a lot of their business by night."
“Let me guess.” Bain felt a chill as the words left his lips. “They would grab a suspected Hoveni from his bed, drag him off to the lab for tests, and if he failed, they killed him right there?"
“Pretty much. A lot of times, people who passed but who remained suspect were sterilized. Let's say they checked out at ninety-nine percent pure Human, but that one suspect gene could still get them in trouble."
“That's disgusting!” For a moment, Bain forgot the preternatural quiet that dominated the museum.
“It gets worse."
“How much worse?"
“There are references to Norbra here.” Rhiann tapped the screen. “A few Set'ri tried to gather a force to go there and wipe out the Khybors, saying they were no longer Human and therefore didn't deserve to exist, much less reproduce."
“I'm glad those Set'ri don't exist anymore."
“There's no proof that they died out. There's just enough proof that the Hoveni were more than a children's story, so we have to assume they've gone underground. Why not the Set'ri, waiting for them to emerge someday in the future?"
“The Gen'gineers sure believe the Hoveni exist.” Bain chuckled, but it wasn't a nice sound and he didn't feel at all amused. “I wish the Set'ri and the Gen'gineers would meet up with each other and have a nice little war to argue out their philosophies."
“We can only hope.” She turned back to the screen and pressed a few buttons. A green light flashed and the screen blanked. Rhiann picked up her portable reading screen and plugged it into the download slot. The machinery hummed as all the requested data transferred to her portable screen. “Well, I've found enough to keep me busy sorting and cross referencing and reducing for the next few days. Want to get lunch before we go back to the port?"
“Sure.” Bain stepped back as she stood, and offered her his bent arm. It had become something of a ritual by now, to escort Rhiann on his arm. He rather liked how they looked together, she in her gray uniform and he in his glossy black, both trim and young and dark-haired. Bain kept his free hand resting on the grip of his multi-dart and strained his senses for the first sign of the unseen watcher on their trail.
The prickle at the back of his neck continued, cold and making the hairs stand up straight. Bain thought he heard footsteps behind them, but when he checked their reflection in the glossy wall tiles, no one was there. He led Rhiann to the stairs to get down to ground level; the lift cars were good places for someone to ambush them between floors. She didn't argue or even hesitate when he led her past the open doors of the lift car.
Several times, Bain thought he saw a shadow moving up on them, from the corner of his eye. He tried not to turn quickly, but used the weaving path he and Rhiann took on their way to the door, around access terminal pillars and couches and desks, to look back.
Nothing. No one appeared to be following them. Yet he still had that prickling sensation of unease. Lin had described it once as the feeling that someone's eyes bored holes through her back.
“How about Megavissy Carnival?” Bain said when they were outside, breathing the crisp, chill afternoon air. The sunshine was bright overhead, not a cloud in the sky, but an unseen incoming storm had sent the temperatures plummeting.
“Isn't that expensive?"
“I'll bet there are plenty of simple, good places to eat. You can't have a tourist trap everywhere in the capital city or the natives would revolt."
“That makes sense.” Rhiann nodded and looked up and down the wide street in front of the museum. “Which way?"
Bain had long ago discovered an unerring sense of direction, both planetside and in space. He didn't even have to think to know which way to go from any place in the city. All he ever needed on reaching a new spaceport was to study the general map once, and he was set, impervious to being lost. He bowed to Rhiann, gestured grandly across the street and through the park, and caught hold of her arm again. She laughed and let him lead her. The sound of her laughter alone was worth the expense of their lunch, wherever they ended up eating. Rhiann had been too serious lately. Bain had caught her wiping away tears a few times when she thought he wasn't looking. Even if he wasn't a Scout, sworn to justice and protecting the innocent and weak, Bain wanted the truth uncovered and Captain Lorian's killers punished. He wanted them to pay for every tear Rhiann had shed.
Cutting through the park, Bain made sure they stayed on the open paths, with no overhanging bushes or trees, no shadows for someone to use as cover for an ambush. There were plenty of people around, plenty of witnesses. Bain nearly drew his gun three times when he heard twigs snap behind them. Twice he turned around, fast enough to make his neck ache. No one appeared behind them.
They came to a switchback in the path, where it folded back on itself. A thick, two-meter-tall hedge sat between the paths. Bain and Rhiann turned t
he corner and continued down the incline. Now they could see the blue waters of the bay, and the first glimmer of multicolored lights from the tall building housing Megavissy Carnival.
A man yelped on the other side of the bushes. Bain gripped his multi-dart as a body crashed through the bushes and fell onto the path in front of them. The stranger was only a few years older than Bain, short and swarthy, with wide brown eyes and the beginnings of a beard. He wore a nondescript brown one-piece, a long, muddy-green vest and matching boots.
For five long seconds, the man knelt there on the path, staring up at Bain and Rhiann. He scrambled at his belt as he stood up, then pointed a black wand with blinking lights and a crystal on the end at them.
Bain flinched, drawing his multi-dart before he recognized the medical scanner. He had used enough of them in the past to know what the pattern of the flashing red, amber and blue lights meant, if he studied them from the right angle.
“Sorry,” the man stammered, as his gaze dropped to the multi-dart now pointed at him. “I thought—I thought you were someone else.” He turned and ran down the path. It turned only a short distance away, and in a few seconds he was out of their sight.
“How weird,” Rhiann murmured.
Bain swallowed a yelp when he suddenly realized that no one should have been running around with a medical scanner like that. Especially when he couldn't recognize the pattern of the lights; it meant the scanner was doing something a normal scanner wasn't supposed to do.
“Gen'gineer,” he snarled. “Come on!” He shifted his grip on Rhiann's arm to her hand and ran, dragging her behind him for the first three steps, until she started to run also.
The man ahead of them let out another yelp. Bain heard the distinctive smack-thud of a fist hitting a face. A squawk escaped their quarry. Then, silence. Bain skidded to a stop at the turn in the path ahead of them. Whatever waited around the bend was hidden by more of those inconvenient, tall bushes. He gestured for Rhiann to stay behind him, held his multi-dart at ready, and stepped around the corner.
The Gen'gineer—if he was a Gen'gineer—lay sprawled on his back, unconscious, with a darkening bruise on his cheek and blood from his nose trickling down his cheek to the pavement.
* * * *
“Gen'gineer, definitely,” peace forcer Captain Marshan said. She nodded and ran her fingers through her close-cropped, iron-gray curls, then consulted the data screen her aide handed her. “His prints and retina scan matches our records. He's a known Gen'gineer, one of their recruiters, and a clumsy idiot, to boot. He's been caught proselytizing more times than we can count. Talking isn't a crime, even when he gathers crowds of gawkers. They mostly laugh at him until he starts shouting obscenities at them, then we can move in and force him to close down for disturbing the peace. Finally, he's given us something we can arrest and prosecute for.” She nodded, smiling a little more at Bain and Rhiann.
Around them, the peace of the park had finally returned. The peace forcer team had arrived only a few minutes after Bain asked Ganfer to call them. The Gen'gineer moaned and fluttered his eyes as he fought back to consciousness when the peace forcers checked his identity. When the confirmation came through, they gathered him up and carried him away, leaving just their captain to talk with Bain and Rhiann.
“You Scouts do good work, for all you're so new,” she added. Her gaze roved over Bain's uniform, lingering on the patch on his shoulder.
“Thanks.” Bain grinned, sensing the woman's approval and the beginning of support from the peace forcers. “Only, it wasn't me. Someone pushed him through the bushes at us, then caught up with him and knocked him out when he ran from us."
“You have invisible friends, then.” She shrugged. “However it was done, it was a good job. I'm just sorry you still need guards to move around on Gemar, Mistress Rhiann."
“I'm not,” Rhiann answered with a smile and shrug. “It gives Bain an excuse to go sightseeing and study at the museum with me."
“Uh huh.” The woman's smile changed, with that knowing expression Bain had seen Lin wear every time he appeared with Rhiann. He didn't know if he really disliked the twisty sensation in his stomach that expression gave him; he only knew it made him distinctly uncomfortable, with the sense that he was missing something very important.
* * * *
Because the Gen'gineer had been following Rhiann with a genetic scanner—very expensive, and rarely seen outside highly advanced research facilities—his presence was considered a threat to her and to Leapers. Lin, as the investigative tribunal, had charge of handling anything having to do with the Leapers.
Bain and Rhiann stood to the right of Lin's chair at the long desk in her office. Herin sat to her left, silent and watchful as the Gen'gineer, Timkin Caar was brought in for questioning and judgment.
“You're a Spacer, aren't you?” the prisoner asked almost before the peace forcers escorting him in released his arms. He stood less than a meter from the edge of the desk, his arms bound behind his back, leaning forward slightly with an eager light in his eyes.
“I am Free Trader Captain Lin Fieran, investigative tribunal, authorized and empowered by the Commonwealth Council for this emergency,” Lin answered slowly.
“But being a Free Trader makes you a Spacer, right? A pure-bred Spacer, not one of those mixed-bloods?” he persisted.
“My ... pedigree has nothing whatsoever to do with the charges against you."
“But it has everything to do with them. You idiots are interfering with my assignment, and slowing down the betterment of the Human race!"
“You're here for judgment and punishment,” the peace forcer guard on his left warned with a growl in his low voice. “You'll only make things worse for yourself if you insist on calling your judge an idiot."
“Oh.” Caar flushed dark red and ducked his head a moment. “Sorry. I forgot."
“You have a record of forgetting quite a few little details, like others’ right to privacy.” Lin sat back in her chair and considered the man over her steepled fingers, with her elbows resting on the wide, carved arms of the chair.
“I wasn't going to actually take any samples from her,” he protested, and gestured at Rhiann with his chin. “I was going to get close enough to do a scan, and leave it at that."
“From your record, and that of your organization, I find that last statement hard to believe."
“Well ... all right, if we found something interesting we would have come back for samples."
“The two men who kidnapped Rhiann were talking about taking one of her ovaries,” Bain said. He kept his face and voice neutral, though he wanted to laugh when Caar jerked and stared at him. “They argued over whether it would cause them more trouble to kill her, or keep her unconscious while they ran their tests."
“An entire ovary would be wonderful,” the man breathed. “Captain Fieran, we've never been able to get any decent samples of Spacer genetics. Would you consider donating one of your ovaries for the cause?"
“What?” Lin slowly stood, managing to tower over the man even though physically she was nearly a head shorter than him. She glared, silent, her mouth set into a flat, hard line, her face deathly pale.
“How are we going to breed the new race if we don't have ovum to work on?” Caar pleaded. “You have to understand—"
“I understand that I have a responsibility for the safety and upbringing of any children of my genetic line. Anyone who would give a child into your keeping deserves death for the ultimate in child abuse. I understand your kind is repeating the same stupidity that contributed to the Downfall. I understand that your philosophical ancestors, the Set'ri, dedicated themselves to exterminating any genetic line which didn't fit their criteria."
“But we're not like them,” he whispered.
“No, you're worse, because you didn't learn a single lesson from the mistakes of history. Because of people like you, children live in terror of being classed as mutants, made into slaves, robbed of their rights as Humans. Because o
f people like you, deformities are made worse in an attempt to capitalize on genetic warp for new, unusual talents. The Human genetic code is re-written so often under your hands, all immunities are lost so that everyday germs become life-threatening, and people die in misery and pain. People innocent of any crime, but punished all the same."
“But—"
“You are condemned by your own words and actions.” Lin sank back down into her seat. “The scanner found in your possession was reported as stolen from the Commonwealth Upper University two years ago. You'll spend ten years in a restitution camp, working to pay back the value of that equipment, and another ten years repaying the time and services lost to the people who legally own it."
“But—"
Bain thought the Gen'gineer gaped like a stranded fish. He bit his lip to keep from laughing. It would be a nasty laugh, he knew.
“Fi'in gave us intelligence and common sense, and made us responsible for wise choices. No one has the right to make decisions that will harm others. A sacrifice is only noble when it is chosen by those who will suffer. When a handful of arrogant fools decide to sacrifice thousands for an ideal which history proves is dangerous and unattainable, the ‘sacrifice’ becomes genocide."
“You're wrong,” the Gen'gineer whispered. His face was pale and his lips trembled and he swayed on his feet.
“Prove it.” Lin leaned forward, resting hard on her elbows on the table. She waited, staring into Caar's eyes.
He wilted under her glare. His lips moved, but no words escaped him. Finally he couldn't take the challenge and condemnation in her gaze, and hung his head.
“Take him away to await transport to Centralis,” Lin said to the peace forcers. The two officers gave her head bows and the one on the right wore a crooked smile as they took the Gen'gineer by his elbows and turned him around to leave the room.
“Catharsis?” Herin murmured when the doors had slid closed again, leaving the four alone in the room.
Gemar [Sunsinger Chronicles Book 9] Page 8