An Officer’s Duty (8 page)

Calling an alien an animal in this day and age was therefore an ugly accusation, beneath the vast majority of sentientkind. It also squarely pegged the woman as a Church follower. Then again, the muttered growl from the proprietor, spoken in his native dialect, wasn’t entirely nice, either. Chuckling, Ia turned to face him.

“Anatomically impossible where
that
particular meioa is concerned,” she quipped, smiling with her lips covering her teeth. “But I thank you for the laugh.”

Frrrangelico’s ears flicked up. “You speak my language?”

He asked it in Terranglo, the trade tongue of the known galaxy. Ia replied in the same, shrugging. “Understand, yes. Speak? Not so much. I’m told my accent is terrible. Like I’m talking with a mouthful of topadoes.”

The owner lifted a finger, foreclaw slightly extended. “Human orrr Solarican, you’re not supposed to talk with yourrr mouth full. Now, for your help, dessert is on the house. Dinnerr, you’ll have to pay forrr…since she’ll probably be back. Or someone like herr.”

“I know they’ll be back. For dessert, I’ll have the chulia nut and chocolate cannolis,” Ia told him, nodding at the menu posted on the wall. “For dinner, the chef’s special, rauela in a Frangelico sauce with topado noodles, Sanctuary size. No mushrooms, though. And I’ll take an extra tall ice water, and some garlic bread to start.”

“You got it, meioa,” he promised. He flicked his hand, with its five fingers and thumb, bare skin on the palm and velvet-short fur on the back, gesturing forward another Solarican hovering in the archway between the restaurant’s corridor-like foyer and the kitchens. “Marranna will show you to a good table.”

Ia held up her own hand. “Actually, I’ll be eating with the kids. Just bring it to the back when it’s ready.”

Both Solaricans eyed her from head to foot. Frrrangelico flicked his ears, making his rings chink against each other. “On yourrr head, Human. If you get into any fights, dessert is no longerrr on the house.”

“You’rrre wasting your time. They won’t listen to a rrrecruiter,” the waitress added, shaking her head. Like Frrrangelico, her ears were decorated with rings, though hers were black-tipped, matching her hands and arms; the rest of her fur was a plush grey. “I’ll show you to a table in frrront.”

“I’m not here to recruit, and I don’t start fights. I’m actually one of Rabbit’s friends,” she explained. Both Solaricans perked their ears in surprise, and comprehension. Frrrangelico blinked a moment later.

“Militarrry? You must be Ia! Marranna, this is Ia, the Seerrrr girl!” He added a spate of words in Solarican, then turned back to Ia. “If you can answerrr my questions,
dinnerrr
is also on the house!”

“I’ll be paying for it,” Ia told him. “Because you won’t like my answer. You will have four, maybe five, more years, then you
must
leave. All of you,” she added, glancing not just at the other Solarican, but at the archway to the kitchens, including the rest of his staff in her gaze. “Stay six years, and it won’t be safe.”

“Five yearrrs?” Frrrangelico protested, ears flattening again. “Isn’t therrre anything we can do? This worrrld is as much
my
home—”

“Not at the expense of others, it isn’t,” Ia stated, cutting him off. He started to protest again, as did his waitress. She flicked up both hands, fingers spread and curved like claws. Both Solaricans stilled at the signal. Ia snapped her hands together, one inverted over the other, fingers forming a cage in front of her sternum.
“Arrraoull rrrall sinn ah!”

Frrrangelico wrinkled his muzzle-like nose. “You’rrre rright. Your accent
is
terrrrible. But the Starrrs Have Spoken, eyah?”

“The Stars Have Spoken,” Ia agreed. It was the Terranglo translation of the ancient oath used by the Seers—the psychics—of the Solarican race. She shrugged. “I’m sorry I can’t give you any better news.”

He grunted. “About what I’d expect, consulting an orrracle. As forrr the otherrr thing…”

“Your progeny will be healthy; that’s all you need know,” Ia stated bluntly. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to go have a talk with Rabbit and her friends.”

“Eh, go. But no fighting,” he ordered, lifting a claw again. “And worrrk on yourr accent.”

Nodding, Ia headed down the hall. To the right were the kitchens, and to the left the main part of the restaurant. Straight back and around the corner to the right, past the lavatories and a storage closet, was a room big enough for a modest-sized banquet. It was used in the evenings for business meetings by various groups, but during the afternoon hours, it was the latest place for rebellious teens to gather. Rebellious quasi-gangmember teens.

They might’ve turned themselves into an actual gang, if it weren’t for Rabbit. In fact, three gangs had started to form about six years back…but all three considered Rabbit to be a sort of honorary mascot. Shy and sweet, as adorable as her namesake, she had taken ruthless advantage of that fact to
take over all three groups and meld them into one. Ia had been there for some of it, but the shock of her gifts awakening in full had dragged her into a completely different path for her life. She did remember it involving teary-eyed looks, snifflings, and everyone caving in, not wanting to hurt Rabbit’s feelings by fighting against one of her “other friends.” The rest had been lost in the flood of preparations for the future.

Not only had Ia been busy getting ready for the future, for three of those years, she had also been off-world for the last two of them. The moment she pushed open the door and stepped inside the banquet room, over two dozen unfamiliar faces turned her way. There were another two dozen who would recognize her, but unfortunately, the closest ones were the ones who didn’t know her. Three of the nearest Humans, two males and a female, shoved to their feet and stalked toward her, blocking the views of the rest.

“I’m sorry, meioa,” the male in the middle growled, giving her a menacing look, “but this is a
private
meeting. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave. One way or another.”

“Yeah, we don’t like
military
types, around here.”

“Military—Ia?” The call came from farther back in the room as one of the older girls stood up. “Is that you?”

“Ia?”
An explosion of bodies tumbled out of the way. They made way, some involuntarily, for a very petite figure who scrambled literally over tables and chairs and bodies in her way.

Ia gave her would-be menacer a slight smile. “White hair, unnaturally tall, and no gravity weave?
You
should’ve paid closer attention whenev—
Oof!
”

She barely managed to catch the pint-sized projectile, supporting Rabbit long enough for the much smaller woman to get her arms around Ia’s shoulders and her calves around Ia’s waist. She endured the smacking kisses on both of her cheeks, returned a couple of them, then lowered the other woman to the floor…and got squeezed again around the hips and waist.

Even for a heavyworlder, Rabbit was short, barely a hundred and twenty centimeters to Ia’s hundred and seventy-five. She was proportionate, however, and if one looked past her baggy clothes, had the curves of a fully grown female. Then again, the petite woman was five years older than Ia, who was now twenty. Like a lot of people with Terran blood in their background,
Rabbit also had an Asiatic cast to her features, though hers were more prominent than Ia’s. Her face was moon-round rather than Ia’s more heart-shaped one, her eyes more almond-shaped than Ia’s, and her nose, if dusted with a scattering of freckles, was flatter and broader.

The moment she pulled back and grinned up at Ia, her other prominent physical feature was visible. Like her namesake, Rabbit had two buck teeth with slight gaps on either side, emphasizing them in a very rabbity way. The grin transformed her from somewhat plain to adorably cute. It was also an infectious smile, as unavoidable as a bright sunny day. Even knowing about it in advance, Ia found herself grinning back.

“Look at you!” Rabbit exclaimed, flipping her hands at her friend. “You may be stuck among lightworlders, but I think you added a muscle or two—ooh, your poor angel hair!” Her sunny smile switched to a pouting frown, and the implied sunlight went away as surely as the shadow of a thick cloud. “I can’t believe it’s all gone! It used to be so long…I have to touch it.”

Another flick of her hands beckoned Ia down. Obliging the petite woman, she dropped to one knee and let Rabbit run those small hands through her locks. Her hair was no longer a waist-length mass of soft white with a slight curl. Though it had grown out somewhat from the buzz cut all new recruits received, she had carefully kept it trimmed to the bottom of her ears.

Thankfully, before the constant contact could threaten to rouse her precognitive senses, Rabbit withdrew her hands. She pinched thumb and forefinger close together and wrinkled her nose. “You need to grow it at
least
one more centimeter, because it just looks wrong that way. It’s too short. And I’m not too keen on the fringe in front.”

“I’m a combat soldier. It’s not supposed to touch my collar or it’ll get caught in my p-suit’s o-ring, and I also can’t risk it getting in my eyes when I’m suited up,” Ia told her. “This is the longest I can grow it.”

Rabbit flipped her hands. “Well, just get an angle cut that’s shorter in the back and a little longer in the front, and…and, oh, a widow’s peak cut for the bangs. Something to break up that awful straight edge. You’re not a plexi toy or a robot, you know. You’re a woman. You should
look
like one.”

Ia started to protest. The timestreams filtered into the back
of her mind, showing what she would look like if she made the alterations, and how it would affect the futures ahead of her. The effect was negligible, so she settled on a sigh and a shrug. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Good!” The sun came back out, beaming with the approval in Rabbit’s smile. Turning, she waved her hands over her head, fluttering her fingers. “Okay, everybody! For those of you who don’t know?
This
is Ia. Do everything she tells you to do!”

What a way to put the spotlight on me,
Ia thought wryly.
Unfortunately, I do need it.
Quickly, while the others were still studying her, she skimmed part of her mind into the timeplains, touching and connecting lifestreams to faces.

“You want
us
to obey
her
? Slag that!” one of the teens scoffed, slashing his hand through the air. He was one of the boys from the clutch that had first risen to face her.

The boy next to him, similar enough to have been a brother or a cousin, flicked his hand at Ia’s brown T-shirt and brown pants. “Look at ’er! She’s
military
. That means she’s
government
. I don’t pay no attention to no military
skut
.”

Ia had no idea what a
skut
was, other than some local slang that was apparently now in fashion. The dark mutterings of those who knew who she was told her it was an insulting term, as did the scowl pinching Rabbit’s brow. The petite woman whirled on the two boys, hands going to her hips. Ia stopped her verbally.

“Enough.” Left hand pointing out to the side at a pair of bodies in her peripheral vision, Ia started listing names. “Cassia McWhorten. James Chong-Wuu.” She pointed with her right hand, also at people not in her direct line of sight. Her gaze remained on the two cousins. “Aru Nahasman. Luke Pettimapinneska. And the two of you, Zezu Brown and Leuron Brown-Smotz.”

“
Hm?
What do you want done with them?” Rabbit asked her.

“Line up, right here.” Ia drew an invisible line across the floor in front of her. Then remembered her brothers’ complaint, and added, “Please.”

She stepped back as she did so, leaving plenty of room between herself and the clutch of furniture dotting the banquet hall. The older members—older in terms of how long they’d been around Rabbit, long enough to have known Ia before she
had left—herded the six named bodies into place. Surveying them, with expressions ranging from puzzled on Luke’s part to wary on Cassia’s and sullen on Zezu’s, Ia nodded to herself. Stepping up to Cassia, who was only three years younger than her, she smiled gently and lifted her hand, placing it on the other girl’s brow.

Cassia’s wary look deepened. “Uhhh…what are you doing?”

That was a good question. Telepathy wasn’t her strongest gift, but Ia insinuated it into the other girl’s head. Not as anything overt, but as a background murmur, emphasizing certain thoughts.

These people are weird…and boring. Useless. Freaky, too…It was fun to rebel, but now it’s just getting too weird. Mom’s going to point and gloat about how she was right, but…she was right. These people are just idle tools waiting for the Devil’s hands—I don’t want anything more to do with them…

“I said, what are you doing?” Cassia asked, her tone sharpening.

Ia smiled at her, a plexi sort of smile, fake and recyclable. “Why, giving you my
blessing
, of course.”

I don’t want to get blessed by this white-haired freak! She’s no deacon of the Church! Mom was right—if I hang out with these people, they’ll induct me into some freakish cult! I’ll be damned for eternity!

Cassia pushed Ia’s hand away from her forehead, frowning. “
No
, thanks. I’m out of here!” Breaking away from the line, she quickly gathered up her things, a few schoolbooks, a portable writing station, a few pieces of candy, and stuffed them into her bag. Slinging it over her shoulder, she flipped her hand. “You
k’toks
can do what you want. I’m
out
.”

“Cassia…” One of the males stepped out of line, hand held out toward her.

“No, let her go, Luke,” Ia said. “I’m more concerned about you…and the fact that you’re reporting to the Church.”