Darkship Renegades (37 page)

ALMOST THE END OF THE WORLD

We almost had a civil war then. I know nothing about it, because I was unconscious and in a regen tank. I’d got shot three times, most of my hair burned away, and without regen I’d have been one-armed forever. I was out for a week, but I heard about it afterwards.

I think the only reason war didn’t happen is that everything had been so public. No one could say we’d accused Castaneda in secret, or that it had been us who had shot Doc.

There were many duels in the coming days, and two of them took out the two men who’d shot Doc Bartolomeu. Kath took care of one, and Kit another.

Kit had been quiet and detached through everything. He’d helped prepare Doc’s funeral. He’d gone through Doc’s belongings and closed Doc’s house, leaving in it anything that couldn’t be sold. He stood as principal mourner at the funeral while Doc was cremated and his ashes deposited in the rose garden where the Denovos’ dead were placed.

Kit didn’t cry or even look sad, and I suppose most people thought he didn’t feel much. But Waldron’s death had left a hole in the family, and most people didn’t hear Kit play his violin at night, the lonely notes crying like lost souls, until he grew too tired to play anymore. I came back from the regen center in time to hear this. I came back in time to go with him to the reproductive center, accompanying Jennie to consult about the baby she and Waldron had in the biowombs. I’m glad she decided to keep him and that she has that consolation. Right now it looks like she’ll never get over her grief, but Kit says it passes. Maybe it will. I don’t know. Maybe everyone will heal, too.

While at the center, we found that Doc had left two embryos in deep-freeze. We think they’re his own male and female clones. Kit has inherited control of these. We think we’ll gestate them soon and raise them with our children. No, they won’t be Doc, but a little of him should be allowed to go forward into the future. Something of his should have a chance at a normal life.

I wasn’t aware that Kit had challenged one of Doc’s killers who had escaped. The first I knew of it was when Kit came back, looking grey and haggard, and put the engraved burners we’d brought from Earth in their storage case in our room, then sat on the bed. “It is done,” he said. “He is avenged. In the end, whatever Jarl intended for me, I was Doc’s son, as much as I was anyone’s. He loved me for what I was and raised me, and wanted me to be happy. I was the repository of his hopes for the future. And I owed him a son’s duty.”

And then he covered his face with his hands and cried.

Over the next few weeks, things worked themselves out. Most of the people in the conspiracy were either quasi-innocent or misguided. A few truly bad apples were told they could choose to either leave for the Thules or continue to live in Eden under public shunning. Or fight duels for their honor. A few fought duels, but most of them left for Ultima Thule, where I was given to understand by Tania the locals had ways to deal with anyone who tried to make a grab for power. At any rate, the most power they were likely to get was over a couple hundred people, if that.

Some of the Thule colonists decided to feed the powertree in exchange for a share in its eventual fruit.

You see, it had been decided that the powertree would be private property and not common. Part of this was because everyone had finally looked at the Energy Board and the Water Board. Institutions of Eden, they’d been around so long that no one had ever questioned on whose authority they levied fines, or hired people, or decided who could and couldn’t fly.

I guess everyone had assumed they were some form of shared proprietorship among the hereditary members of the board. Turned out they were wrong. Going far enough back in the history of the two, it became obvious that they had originated from emergency panels and that the first collector ships from which the fleet grew had in fact been common property, owned by all citizens of Eden.

And that ultimately was the problem, because when something belongs to everyone, it belongs to no one, and those who administer it in a supposedly selfless manner end up being the ones who own it.

Over the centuries, the families in charge of the boards had enriched themselves under the cover of public service. It had never caused much problem because greed was a relatively clean desire, like lust. It was for something that people wanted to have, to acquire, to enjoy, and which might affect other people but didn’t enslave them.

But then there had been Fergus Castaneda and his desire for power, which he’d decided to gratify by means of the Energy Board. Desire for power is not clean. It doesn’t stop till you’ve stripped power from everyone else, and made them your slaves.

And now, we’re going to have three water companies and two energy companies, and the powertree that is growing nearby but not too near will be owned by Kit and the people who tend it.

The water companies were formed by people who bought the ships at public auction, the profit to be distributed to each Edenite. Now Cats and Navs can choose which company they want to work for; companies will have their independent training programs, and if a Cat and Nav want to fly independently, that’s all right too, provided they own their own ship and pay dock fees—and arrange with an energy company to buy their powerpods.

Kit and I are not working independently. Yes, eventually the little powertree will grow, the fruits will ripen, and people who harvest them will pay us a share. Eventually, our children will be wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. But right now we owe really quite a lot of money to the Energy Board, which got transferred as debt to the people whose ships we damaged.

Doc’s estate had come to Kit. We’ll keep it for Doc’s children; Kit thought we owed it to them. So, we barely had money to purchase even the
Cathouse
. Fortunately Kit’s family decided to buy half a dozen ships, including the
Cathouse
, and start their own family enterprise. Which is how we came to be in the
Cathouse
, a month later, headed for the powertrees.

WHERE THE HEART IS

Kit was playing the violin. I liked that. It reassured me every time he played it, because it was so obvious that he was alone in his skull.

I knew there were memories there that had nothing to do with science or knowledge, memories that he would never share with me. And his playing tended to the sadder melodies. But that was fine. As long as he was the only one playing that violin.

We were in the bedroom, and he stood, playing, while I reclined on the bed and listened to him.

As the last plaintive note sounded, I said, “Kit.”

He lowered the bow. “Yes? Hey, want to go to the exercise room? You haven’t wanted to mock-fight for a while.”

“I don’t feel like it,” I said.

“You’re getting fat,” he said, but grinned.

“Am not. Okay, maybe a little. Do you mind terribly?”

He sat on the edge of the bed, and patted my hair. “No. You have a while to go before I mind.”

“Yeah,” I said. And as I thought of our last trip to Earth, I thought of Doc and Jarl. “I think we’ll name our firstborn Jarl Bartolomeu.”

“What?” Kit said. “What if it’s a girl?”

“Especially if it’s a girl. Think of the surprise.”

He laughed and kissed me and said, “Well, no reason to worry about that. I’m sure in the next few years I can convince you to come up with a more sensible girl name.”

And he probably could at that.

I’m just glad to be home.

You’re very strange, and we’re not home,
Kit said.
We’re in the
Cathouse
.

Which is home,
I said, and explained, slowly, because I could see he didn’t get it.
Home, Kit, is wherever you are.