“I know about the other children,” Ara said, voice still soft.
“What other-” Pitr began, but Ara raised a hand and hushed him.
“Ms. Dasa-Vidya,”Ara continued, “I know about your contract with Silent Acquisitions. I know about your other babies, and I know your husband disappeared.”
“Prasad,” Vidya whispered. Her brown face had paled.
“Who’s Prasad?” Sejal asked from the stony ground.
“He’s your father,” Ara said.
Vidya’s face abruptly twisted into a mask of rage. “How dare you? How dare you come into my life like this? After I have worked so hard to make everything safe? How dare you tell us these horrible things?”
“You’re not denying them,” Ara pointed out. “Vidya, we don’t have a lot of time. It boils down to this: the Unity guard is looking to arrest your son. We can take him-and you-off-planet to escape. We need you to decide.”
“The Unity guard doesn’t arrest the Silent,” Vidya snapped. “Slavers do. Why is the guard looking for him?”
“He is a prostitute,” Harenn said bluntly.
Vidya’s mouth fell open. Her expression said Harenn’s remark had been worse than a slap. After a moment, she whirled on Sejal.
“Is this true?” she demanded.
“Mom, I-”
Vidya reached down and grabbed him by the shoulders. “How can you do such a thing?” she cried. “When I have worked to make our neighborhood a safe place for you? How could you be so ungrateful?”
A dozen emotions washed across Sejal’s face. “Is that all you care about? It’s always about the neighborhood. ‘You have to be a good son of the neighborhood, Sejal. You have to be a model for the neighborhood children, Sejal. The neighborhood must be safe. The neighborhood must be clean.’ The neighborhood, the neighborhood. Who gives a shit?”
Vidya slapped him. Sejal fell silent. “The neighborhood let you grow up, boy,” she hissed at him. “I built the neighborhood for you, so you would always be safe.”
Something clicked in Ara’s head. “Because it wasn’t safe for Katsu and Prasad?” she said. “Because it wasn’t safe for your husband and your daughter?”
Vidya snatched her hands back and folded them in her lap. Her head bowed.
“What daughter?” Sejal asked. A red mark from Vidya’s slap was darkening on his face. Sejal’s jaw trembled, and Ara couldn’t tell whether it was from anger or tears. “Mom, what’s going on? Who are Prasad and Katsu? Why can’t I be Silent? You have to tell!”
Vidya remaind motionless for a long moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was steady. “You can’t be Silent, my son, because I arranged it to be so.”
“What do you mean?” Sejal whispered.
“Your father’s name is Prasad Vajhur,” Vidya said. “You also have two brothers, but I don’t know their names. We had to give them to the Unity.”
“What about Silent Acquisitions?” Pitr asked.
“Our original contract was with them,” Vidya answered. Her voice was flat, emotionless. “It was hard. When the Unity blighted Rust, there was no food anywhere. Prasad and I were starving, and we knew we would die soon. Both of us, however, carry the genes for Silence. We are not Silent ourselves, but any children born between us will be. This includes you, Sejal.”
“But-” Sejal began.
“Let me,” Vidya said. “Silent Acquisitions offered us food, shelter, medicine, and money in exchange for two babies. The condition was harsh, but at the time it seemed a better choice than painful death. If I had known then how difficult it would one day be, I would have let myself die with Prasad beside me.”
“But you didn’t know,” Ara said.
“I was young and we were dying.” Vidya’s hands twisted in her lap. “Less than a week after Prasad and I signed the contract, the government surrendered to the Unity, and the Unity took over our contract. It dictated new terms, and we could do nothing. The money was reduced to a fraction. The first contract promised we would have housing and medical care for a year after the second child was born, but a month afterward, we were on the street. I don’t know how, but Prasad found work as a garbage collector. We had two tiny rooms in a half-ruined apartment building, a single small income, and I was pregnant again.”
Vidya fell silent again. Sejal stared at his mother as if hypnotized.
“That must have been Katsu,” Ara nudged.
“Yes. She was a beautiful baby, and all ours. The Unity knew she was Silent, but I managed to convince myself that the ten years I would have with her before they took her away would be a far, far better thing than losing babies I never had the chance to hold.”
“But you eventually realized that wasn’t the case,” Ara said. “So you arranged a fake kidnaping, hoping to hide Katsu someplace safe.”
Vidya looked at Ara, genuinely surprised. “The kidnaping was very real. When she was nine months old, someone broke into our rooms. They took my little Katsu. I woke up in the morning and realized she hadn’t cried all night. My first thought was that she had slept through the night, but then I found her empty bed.” Vidya’s voice had gone flat again. “Prasad was…I don’t think I can describe it. He wanted to run in a thousand directions at once. I begged him to let the guard find her, but Prasad insisted that he had a better chance, that he knew the neighborhood better. He left, and he didn’t come back. I reported him missing as well. A week later, he was still missing, and I realized I was pregnant again.”
“Me?” Sejal said.
Vidya nodded. “You. I was sure whoever had kidnapped Katsu had killed Prasad, and that they would come next for this baby and for me. So I ran.”
“You changed your name to Vidya Dasa,” Ara put in. “Easy to do, since the Annexation damaged so many records.”
“Yes. I took part of Prasad’s name and made it mine and his son’s. Perhaps that was a mistake.”
“But if your genes make every child you and Prasad have Silent,” Kendi asked, “why were you so sure Sejal wasn’t?”
“I arranged it to be so,” Vidya said.
“What?” Sejal said. “How?”
“When you were less than two months in the womb,” Vidya told him, “I found a…man. A genegineer. He said he could make a retrovirus. The virus would alter your genes and render you non-Silent.”
“A lie,” Harenn said flatly. “Such changes are only possible for an embryo less than two weeks old. For a fetus, it is not.”
“This was a new procedure,” Vidya said. “He wanted a test subject, but could find none. Making a valuable Silent into a worthless non-Silent would be highly illegal in the Unity. Because of this, he was willing to perform the procedure without payment. And it worked. When Sejal was born, the Unity doctor scanned him for Silence and found none. I was so happy.”
Sejal shifted on the cobblestones. “But I’m Silent, Mom. I touched Kendi, and something exploded in my head. He said only the Silent feel that.”
“We’ll have to figure that out later,” Ara said.
“I didn’t want my son to disappear,” Vidya continued as if no one had spoken. “The genegineer gave me secret money in exchange for permission to examine Sejal from time to time, which let me stay away from tax collectors, but the only place I could afford to live was a neighborhood as bad as the one where Katsu had disappeared. Drug dealers, gangs, and thieves were everywhere, and the Unity did nothing to stop them. But one day I realized the good people in the neighborhood, the ordinary ones, outnumbered the bad, and I remembered a thing Prasad had told me when we were walking to Ijhan during the famine. He said that our old community had been destroyed. To survive, we had to build another.
“I talked to my neighbors and united the building I lived in. Then the building next to us joined us, and the next and the next. We threw out the gangs and built a wall out of scraps and ruins to ensure they would stay out. We repaired everything we could and cleaned what we couldn’t. Our neighborhood was a proud place, and it was as safe as I c
ould make it.”
Vidya stopped speaking and looked at Sejal. “Though I didn’t make it safe enough,” she added, voice heavy with sadness instead of anger. “How could you do this thing? I thought you were a good son, a son I could be proud of.”
Sejal flinched as if he’d been dealt a physical blow. “And you were a great mother?” he snarled. “Do you know what my first memory is? Sitting on the floor at a damn neighborhood meeting. You were talking to other people and ignoring me. You’re always talking, Mom, and it’s always to someone besides…besides me. You talk, but you sure as hell don’t listen.”
“I talked and I worked,” Vidya cried, “so you would never have to worry about being attacked in the street or stolen away from your family.”
“What family?” Sejal shot back. “All my life, you were doing something for the neighborhood. When were you home to make us a family?”
“I was home always,” Vidya said, looking shocked. “The neighborhood was my job. The collections paids our rent. The neighborhood-”
“I don’t give a shit about the neighborhood,” Sejal shouted. “Don’t you know anything?”
“I know my son has been selling himself on the street.”
“I was doing it for us,” Sejal said, voice cracking. “I was trying to earn enough money to get us off this slimy rockball. Just us. Not the neighborhood, not anyone else. For once I wanted something for just us.”
Tears ran down Sejal’s face. Ara squirmed on the bench, acutely wishing she were somewhere, anywhere, else. The looks on Pitr’s and Kendi’s faces proved they felt the same way. Harenn was hidden behind her veil, and suddenly Ara realized how handy such an item must be. She cast about for something to say that could end the argument, but for once she was at a loss.
“What you did was a form of slavery,” Vidya replied in a cold voice.
“It was either that or deal drugs, Mom.”
“It was a terrible thing,” Vidya said stubbornly.
“I only sold myself, Mom,” Sejal snapped. “You sold your children.”
Kendi gasped. Vidya fell silent. Her hands stopped twisting in her lap, as frozen as her face. Sejal froze as well. His words hung in the air. Time and silence stretched unbearably. Ara wanted to crawl under one of the cobblestones.
“Take him,” Vidya whispered.
“What?” Ara said.
“Mother?” Ben asked in Ara’s earpiece. “Mother, are you there?”
“Take him with you,” Vidya repeated, still whispering. “I have failed as a mother. Take him and train him and do whatever else you do.”
“Mom-” Sejal began.
“No, Sejal,” Vidya interrupted. “You are right, and you must go.”
“Mother?” Ben said.
“What is it, Ben?” Ara subvocalized.
“It took me a while to get everything back on line after your file scramble, or I would’ve called earlier. The guard have left the ship. They didn’t find anything, but they’ve posted half a dozen officers outside. I don’t know how you’re going to get in.”
“We’ll worry about that in a minute,” Ara replied, and was suddenly filled with an impulse to rush back to the Post Script so she could hug Ben hard. “Stand by.”
“You can come with us, Vidya,” Kendi said. “You don’t have to stay here.”
Vidya shook her head. “I have…responsibilities I must attend to.”
“The neighborhood,” Sejal spat.
“No, Sejal.” Vidya got up. “I have to talk to the man who…made you what you are. There are questions he must answer. And none of you can wait for me.” She reached down and pulled Sejal to his feet. He rose reluctantly.
“Sejal, I love you, and you must go,” she said, and embraced him quickly. “And I am not leaving you forever. I will find a way to join you when I am done here.”
“The monastery is on a world called Bellerophon in the Independence Confederation,” Ara said, rising to her feet. “Once we get out of the Unity, I’ll leave notices about you. When you get out yourself, ask in any public place or on any public network how to contact me-Mother Adept Araceil-and the Children of Irfan. Eventually one of our people will hear of you and take you to us.”
Vidya nodded.
“And now,” Ara finished, “we must leave.”
Sejal and Vidya hugged once more, and a lump rose in Ara’s throat. She had said good-bye to Ben often enough, and more than once had wondered if she’d never see him again. Kendi lead Sejal away, leaving Vidya at the bench. Sejal’s face remained rigid, and Ara didn’t try to speak to him-she was sure he was controlling tears he didn’t want to shed.
As they were leaving the courtyard, Sejal suddenly stopped.
“Mom, there’s a loose floorboard in the back of my closet,” he said over his shoulder. “Put your finger in the knot and pull it up.” Then he stiffly started walking again before Vidya could reply.
CHAPTER TEN
PLANET RUST
I seen my duty and I done it.
— Anonymous
A very subdued group made its way back toward the space port. Unfortunately, their problems were just beginning. Ara activated her earpiece.
“Ben, what’s the status on board?”
“Unchanged,” Ben said in a broadcast that encompassed Pitr, Kendi, and Harenn. “Six guards outside the ship that I can see, possibly more I can’t.”
“They figure Kendi has to come back eventually,” Pitr said as they walked.
“What’s the matter?” asked Sejal, who didn’t have an earpiece and could hear half of the conversation. Ara quickly explained.
“So?” Sejal said. “I can hold off six people, no problem.”
All four monks halted on the sidewalk and stared at him. “You can?” Ara said.
“Sure.”
“Why didn’t you hold off all the guards at the hotel, then, instead of just making one punch the other?” Kendi demanded.
Sejal shrugged. “I can’t do more than one off the top of my head. I need some time to concentrate. Hard to do that when people are throwing lamps and crashing through windows.”
“Sejal,” Ara said carefully, “how many people can you… handle at once?”
Another shrug. “I don’t know. The most I’ve ever done is eight.”
Ara’s stomach went cold. What was Sejal’s maximum? Ten? A dozen? A thousand? An army? Ara imagined a troop of grim-faced soldiers all unafraid to die because someone else was controlling their very thoughts. Could this boy who had cried at his mother’s feet do something like that?
But he was a boy, Ara reminded herself, who had been selling himself on the streets for money. A boy who grew up without a father and felt neglected by his mother. The perfect recipe for trouble.
Their disguises were still in place, so getting into the spaceport proved relatively easy. The place was crowded, as usual, and guard were everywhere, though none gave Ara and the others a second glance.
“How close do you need to be, Sejal?” Ara murmured over her shoulder. Sejal’s collar and shackles were still in place and he walked a pace behind her.
“I need to see or touch them,” Sejal replied in an equally low voice.
They made their way to the landing field. Harenn trotted off ahead and returned to report that the six guards were still there and that she had found a vantage point that might work.
They ducked and weaved their way across the field. The harsh smell of fuel hung in the humid air, and the sun had fallen low in the sky. Eventually, the familiar gray wedge of the Post Script became visible ahead of them. They stopped behind an empty loader and peered around it.
“Is that it?” Sejal asked, pointing. A half dozen guards were waiting by the ramp that extended up to the hatchway, their black and scarlet uniforms unmistakable.
Ara nodded.
“All right.” Sejal strode toward the ship.
“What’s he doing?” Pitr gasped.
“Don’t move,” Ara ordered. A small cynical part of her wo
ndered if the guard would open fire. That would certainly solve her problem. In any case, there wasn’t anything she and the others could do but watch, unless they wanted to take on six armed guard with their bare hands. Sejal, in his shackles and ragged robe, stopped fifteen or twenty meters away from the guard and stood with his arms folded.
“What are you doing there?” a guard shouted, but Sejal didn’t answer. “You, slave! I said, what are you doing there?”
Sejal remained silent. The closest one, energy rifle at the at ready, came forward.
“Listen, boy, when the guard asks you a question, you better-” The guard stopped, frozen in place. Behind him, the other’s faces went slack. Sejal’s gaze was fixed, unmoving.
“Go!” Ara said. “Kendi, you get Sejal.”
The group needed no urging. They sprinted past the motionless guards and all but tumbled into the hatchway when it opened at Harenn’s touch. Ara glanced over her shoulder. Kendi was leading Sejal across the aerogel asphalt. The boy moved slowly, as if in a daze. Ara wanted to scream at them to hurry up, but she kept her mouth shut. It took forever for Sejal to cross the threshold of the hatchway. Ara was starting to slam it shut when another voice shouted, “Wait!”
Reflexively Ara stopped. A figure darted through the hatchway. On the asphalt beyond, the guard hadn’t moved once. The figure slammed the hatchway shut, and Sejal blinked myopically.
“Who-?” Pitr asked.
The figure turned. It was Chin Fen.
“Fen!” Ara gasped. “Why the hell are you here?”
Fen smiled. “Because you owe me a walk on a seapad leaf?”
“Mother,” Ben’s voice said over the intercom. “The guard know something’s up, but they don’t know exactly what. They’re demanding entrance to the ship.”
Ara gestured, and Pitr grabbed Fen from behind. The moment he touched Fen’s bare arm, Pitr gasped, though he didn’t let go. “He’s Silent, Mother. I got the jolt.”
A knife appeared in Harenn’s hand, and she flicked it to Fen’s neck. The blade made a scraping sound on his skin. Fen’s brown eyes went wide.
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