Wandering Soul

by Steven Anderson

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

  “Was it the Tarakana?” Winona asked. “Did they do this to her?”

  Mom smiled. “Oh, no. They did this all on their own, her and Sam. That’s what I was looking for, to make sure.” She let go of me and stood up. “Although we do need to talk about the Tarakana once you’re up and dressed.”

  “Swim first,” Winn demanded.

  Hannah sighed. “You do know you work for me, right?”

  We both looked at her, pleading.

  “A short swim, then Tarakana while we eat lunch, then I need to get to my meeting. This election business is not going like I planned it at all.”

  “You should use your avatar.” Dad’s tone of voice told me that it wasn’t the first time he had suggested it.

  “And you should stop worrying. No one remembers me here.” She kissed him. “I’m just folklore.”

  “A composite character, composed of bits and pieces of many leaders of the rebellion,” Winona added. “That’s the story I put out for you to the local media four days ago, building on the rumors and stories you’ve been feeding into the population for the last decade.”

  “See? Perfectly safe.”

  Winona turned toward her. “I wouldn’t say that, ma’am. It would be far safer if you used your avatar.”

  “Who do you work for?”

  “You, Ms. Weldon.”

  “It’s settled then. Go swim and then we’ll talk.”

  I sent a good morning message to Sam and walked to the pool with him looking at me from the screen while we talked. It took Winona another eight tries on the slide before she got her third skip. I was there in the water with my display pad and captured it for her, which was good, because she hit her head when she arched her back as she came out and said she didn’t really remember much about it. She was all giggles though when we sat on the side of the pool watching it in slow motion.

  After watching it for the third time, Winn announced, “It’s lunch time and Hannah will be mad if we’re late. She wants to talk to you about the extra passengers you had with you on Wandering Star.”

  “I don’t want to talk about them.”

  “Why not?” Hannah asked from behind me. She and Dad had brought lunch down to us to eat poolside. Winn and I dried off and put on shirts and shorts to be more presentable at the table.

  “Is it safe to talk here?” Winona asked.

  Hannah tapped a small cube she had brought with her that was humming softly in the center of the table.

  “Is that a …”

  Hannah nodded. “Jammer. It will be more private talking here than if we were in our room, which is almost certainly bugged. Now,” she said, turning toward me, “why don’t you want to talk about the Tarakana?”

  “It doesn’t seem right to talk about them, you know?” I answered. “There’s just something wrong about it.”

  “So, would you say that the Tarakana are beneficial to us?”

  “They scare me a little, but yes. I think the way they amplify emotion and passion is very beneficial. And they’re kind and gentle. When I asked them to stay away from Sam and me they did, although Merrimac just wanted to help me. He’s my friend.”

  “Merrimac again.” She glanced at Dad. “What did he make you do, Mala Dusa?”

  I felt my forehead wrinkling as I thought about it, trying to cut through the fog. “Something with the engines. We had to stop the ship so they could move on, get on board the Vista ships before we reached Bodens Gate. It was very important.” The memory seemed incredibly distant now.

  “She killed the ship,” Hannah told my dad. Her voice seemed far away, so I concentrated on eating my sandwich and thinking about Sam. I missed Sam, but if I tried, I could almost see him when I shut my eyes.

  “Look at her, still in a Tarakana haze,” Dad’s voice was floating somewhere close by. “But why make her do it? They could have sabotaged the engines just as easily themselves as having her do it.”

  “I don’t know. It worries me. They need her to have that guilt in her for some reason, even though they’re suppressing it almost completely now.”

  “Mala Dusa? Do you know where the Tarakana are now?” Dad asked.

  “Are we still talking about them? Um, some on the Resolute, some on Sierra Vista, and Mara Vista, and Buena Vista, and soon on Mesa Vista, since one went with Sam. They’re moving on with us to the empty planets. You need to let them go. You can’t stop them and you shouldn’t try. The central worlds are too crowded now, that’s what Merrimac told me when he was wrapped around and around and around my legs.” I took another bite of my sandwich and closed my eyes again so I could see Sam. Hannah asked me a couple of more questions, but I couldn’t hear her. It was not as important as Sam or the song I was humming.

  “Shit,” I heard her say. “They shut her down completely. She’s just sitting there humming the elephant song to herself.”

  I felt Winona’s hand touch my cheek. “Duse? Tell me about the pool they had on Mara Vista.”

  “Oh, you would have loved it, Winn. It didn’t have a slide, but the display screens made it look like we were swimming under an open sky, except the sky was open space. Sam and I swam there every night after dinner.”

  “And she’s back, just like that.” Hannah was staring at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Hurry along with lunch. There’s not much time before we have to leave.”

  We finished lunch and went back up to the suite. I got dressed, casual but nice, better than what I wear to school. Winona came into my room looking ten years older, her hair tied back and a confident air about her that reminded me of Hannah.

  “Wow, Ms. Killdeer, you look like someone not to be trifled with. Are you presenting today too?”

  She giggled, ruining the illusion. “No, my role is to sit beside your mom and do instant research on anything that comes up so I can pass the information to her. It’s fun.”

  Dad came in, looking like he was ready to teach class. Mom looked like she was ready to run a world; stylish, confident and just a little bit sexy, which was kind of disturbing. She smiled at me, looking just like her statue, and I felt a sudden jolt of fear.

  “You shouldn’t be here, Mom. Someone’s going to recognize you.”

  “They haven’t yet and this is our third day of meetings. The former members of the Central Government were pushing for a delay in full enfranchisement for my citizens in the Warrens. They would have gotten away with it too, if I hadn’t been here in person to push them back.” She shook her head and then had to run her fingers through her hair to get it away from her eyes. “If anything, I should have come here sooner. Stop worrying. I get enough of that from your father.”

  Winona whispered to me while we walked to the lobby. “She’s becoming more Ysabeau Romee and less Hannah Weldon every day we’re here. It’s incredibly exciting. Yesterday when one of the ex-Central Government politicians was arguing with her, she reached across her chest like this.” Winn placed her right hand under her left arm. I looked at her, not understanding. “Your dad says she used to wear a gun in a holster just there.” She tapped her ribs.

  “Great.”

  “Isn’t it?” Winona giggled, completely enthralled.

  We entered the lobby and Dad said to Hannah, “Lots of police this morning.” His voice seemed very calm.

  “They are called Guardians of the Peace here, or the Guards.” Then, too calmly she said, “Mala Dusa, Winona, please return to the room.”

  Winona stopped and turned. I stopped, but I couldn’t turn away from what was happening. When Mom and Dad reached the front door a man in a dark suit and two women in uniform blocked them. I couldn’t hear the question he asked her, but I saw her response, the contemptuous smile and the arrogant way she looked at him.

  Her voice carried clearly to me, “And who do you s
ay I am?” Then they took my parents away.

  Winona was tugging on my arm. “We need to run, Mala Dusa.”

  “They took my parents.” I pointed. “We have to stop them.”

  “We can’t, and we won’t be able to help them at all if we don’t get out of here right now.” She pulled me toward a side exit.

  “I need to go back to the room first, I need my dress.”

  “No.” She pulled me outside. “The members of the Guard are already searching our room. Sam can make you a new dress.”

  I let her pull me along the sidewalk and into a coffee shop. We sat and Winona got out her pad and started typing.

  “Your mom has a lot of friends on the council and in the Union government. They may be able to get her released quickly. I’m sure Janus Boden is behind this. He was the one pushing to disenfranchise the Warrens.” She looked up at me. “There is one problem though.”

  “What?”

  “Your mom. She is Ysabeau Romee, and she all but admitted to it when they stopped her.” She sighed. “Did you see her when they asked her? The pride and grace in the way she was standing there? I think she would almost rather burn than deny who she is and what she did.”

  “Burn?”

  Winona was back typing again. “That’s the capital punishment on Bodens Gate; death by immolation. I think that’s why your mom decided to call herself Ysabeau Romee in the first place.”

  I looked at her blankly and she touched my forehead, but gently.

  “Research, Duse. Romee was Joan of Arc’s mother.”

  I shook my head, but it wouldn’t clear. “This can’t be happening.”

  “And it won’t if we stop it.”

  I looked around at the other patrons in the coffee shop, happily going about their day. “When do you think it will be safe to go back to the hotel?”

  “We’re never going back, unless you want to burn too.”

  “What have I done?”

  “You know who she is and didn’t report it. That makes you an accessory after the fact. Me too.”

  “This can’t be happening.”

  She tapped my forehead a little harder this time. “Think, Duse.”

  “I’ll contact Grandpa. He doesn’t really like Hannah all that much, but he’ll help me. It’s going to take two and a half days for him to get my message, though. And Sam. I need to talk to Sam. Maybe RuComm can help us. Maybe we could stay at the embassy with him. Maybe–”

  “They’d turn us in. They would have to under terms of the Union charter.”

  “Well, we can’t stay here. Maybe the Mission. We can ask for sanctuary or something. I’ll contact Father Ryczek and see if I can come there now instead of tomorrow morning.”

  Winona looked at me, her head tipped. “I was wrong, Duse. It turns out that the Warrens are going to be the safest place for you on Bodens Gate.”

  I sent a detailed message to Grandpa and then a simple one to Father Ryczek asking if I could report for duty earlier than planned. I saved Sam for last. I set up our personal encryption and punched in his code.

  “Hey, MD, what’s up? I thought you were going to be at the Council meeting all afternoon.”

  “Hush, I need help and I can’t talk long. Something terrible has happened and I… I, um.” I was losing focus looking at him. The concern filling his blue eyes was mesmerizing. It made my chest hurt. “I lost the dress you made for me,” I told him.

  “Give me that.” Winona pulled my pad away from me and swung it over in front of her. “Samuel, we need you to contact RuComm and make them aware that her parents, Hannah Weldon and Theodore Holloman, have been detained by the Guards. See if there is any aid that is available because of their years of service to RuComm and the Union. Talk to the Union ambassador too if you can. Do you understand?”

  “Not really. Why would the Guards do that? I’ve been listening to the news while I was working and all they’re talking about is the arrest of some woman that killed forty-two people and ordered the killings of like a couple of hundred more back during the rebellion. They said…”

  He stopped talking and I pulled the pad back over to me. “Sam?”

  The look in his eyes had changed. “Did she do it? What they’re saying on the news, it’s very detailed.”

  “Careful,” Winona whispered to me.

  “I don’t know. I just know she’s my mom and I have to help her. Those things that happened, that was during the war.”

  “There are rules, even in war. They teach us that.”

  “Sam, are you going to help me or not?”

  He nodded. “Of course I will. Where are you?”

  “On the run.” The words sounded unreal even as I said them. “I’m going to try to make it to the Mission. Father Ryczek is a friend. I think I’ll be safe there.”

  “Good. Let me see what I can find out and I’ll be back in touch.” He disconnected and I rolled up my pad.

  “Do you trust him?” Winona asked.

  “Absolutely.”

  “Now answer me using your brain.”

  “I’ve known Sam for ten days, he’s a RuComm scientist on his first hop and a graduate of the Academy. He lied to me about how old he is because he wanted to impress me and wanted to…” I bit my lower lip. “So I trust him, but I can’t predict what he’s going to do. Something that he thinks is good for me is about all I can promise.”

  “We need to move.”

  “OK, where?” My display pad dinged and I opened the reply from Father Ryczek. “Listen to this, Winn: ‘So pleased that you will be joining us early. I imagine even the meager comforts of the Mission will be a blessing to you after a harried day. I will meet you outside the Gabriele Restaurant at 1800’.”

  “So he knows what’s happened. How far is the Gabriele Restaurant?”

  I tapped on the name and the pad gave me a map. “Almost ten kilometers, located in the old customs building on the edge of the Warrens. Looks kind of sketchy. Italian themed food.”

  “Let’s go. It’s 1500 now and it will be a long walk in these shoes and with the extra gravity.”

  “An autonomous taxi would only take a few minutes.”

  “As soon as you put your hand on the payment pad the doors would lock and we’d be on the way to the Guardians of the Peace. Think!”

  I looked at her, trying to make sense of it. “OK.”

  We started walking, first past office buildings and little open parks, then apartment buildings and empty lots. The sun was starting to get lower and the buildings we passed were turning to bars, pawn shops and ‘dance’ clubs, the apostrophes around ‘dance’ flashing in lurid colors.

  “Are we almost there, Duse? My feet hurt.”

  “Less than a kilometer according to the map.” There was a group of men with a vicious looking dog in front of a building with steel mesh covering the windows watching us walk by. “I think we should have risked the taxi.”

  “We’ll make it. Keep your shoulders back and walk fast.”

  We walked fast, but Winona was limping and I could see the stain of blood soaking through the outside of her left shoe.

  The Gabriele Restaurant didn’t look much better than the businesses we had been passing. It was made of crumbling concrete blocks splattered with paint in random designs that might have been intentional, but probably weren’t. I felt completely out of place; too young, over dressed, and my body woefully under-designed for the gravity. People were staring at us.

  We found a table off to the side and as far away from the bar as possible. Our waitress seemed confused that we were there at all.

  “Hi, I’m Tammy.” I looked at her name tag, which read Giselle. “So, what brings a couple of city girls like you two out to the Gabby on such an evening as this?”

  Winona was busy examining her foot, so I answered for us. “The food
, of course. We hear that your lasagna is excellent.”

  She ignored me, looking at Winn. “What happened to your foot, honey?”

  Winona looked back at her, eyes very big. “I underestimated how much walking I’d be doing today. It was a long way from City Center to here.”

  Tammy / Giselle stared at us, eyes narrowed. “You walked here from Eindhoven? Listen kids, I have a tip for you. Sometimes people run away from the Warrens to the city. No one runs the other way, got it? Do your parents know where you are?”

  I had a good answer for that, but decided to just stare at the menu instead.

  When I looked back up at her, she must have had some sense of the despair that I was feeling because she sighed and shifted her weight from foot to foot a couple of times as she evaluated what to do with us.

  “Fine, what can I get you? You do have money, right? This is a cash only outfit.”

  “Cash? I’ve never carried cash in my life.” I looked over at Winn and she placed a stack of octagonal coins on the table.

  “I’d like to try your lasagna, please.”

  “And you?”

  “Anything but lasagna. What do you recommend for me?”

  She smirked. “Other than getting your ass back to Dulcinea where you belong? Try the baked manicotti, it’s not bad.”

  “Thank you, that sounds fine.”

  When she left, I whispered to Winona, “How did she know I’m from Dulcinea?”

  Winn laughed. “Do you own a mirror, Duse? On this planet you are unique and exotic. You stand out.”

  I sighed. “At least you had some cash. Why do you have cash?”

  “I got them as a souvenir. I hope it’s enough. I don’t think we’d enjoy trying to work off a debt here.”

  When Tammy / Giselle brought us our food she also handed Winona a square bandage, maybe ten centimeters on a side.

  “Thank you, ma’am, you’re very kind.”

  She nodded. “I’ve a daughter that’s always getting herself into trouble. Maybe someday someone will show her a kindness when she needs it. I’m off in a half hour, so if you need anything else be sure and let me know before then.” She smiled at Winona. “You or the princess.”