Dreamfall (6 page)

“Kidnapping,” he said, through the ringing in my ears, “is a
serious offense. I am talking about the human boy whose data-band we found in
your possession. Joby Natasa, age three standard years, son of Ling and Burnell
Natasa. He was kidnapped by the Hydran woman employed to care for him. We
almost caught her tonight—but we caught you instead.” He leaned into my face
again. “Now, you know what I think? I think this whole thing was politically
motivated. I think you might be some kind of terrorist.” He took a step back,
peeling off his uniform jacket. “Do you still want to tell me you don’t know
what I mean—‘t”

Jeezu
—I shut my eyes, remembering the look in the
eyes of the woman carrying the child.
Her child; I’d thought it was her own
child.
She hadn’t looked like a terrorist—she’d looked terrified. Looked
like my mother, on the night she was butchered by strangers because no one had
been there to save her ....

But she wasn’t my mother. It wasn’t even her child. I’d been
nothing but a fucking mark, letting her slip me that databand. I wondered
suddenly why she’d done it to me; why she hadn’t just teleported herself and
the boy away, and left the Corpses behind.

But I couldn’t answer that any more than I could answer
Borosage’s questions. I was under arrest on a world where I didn’t know anyone,
didn’t have any rights; I was in shit up to my neck and I didn’t know how the
hell I was going to get out of it.

Borosage slapped me again when I didn’t answer him.

“I. Didn’. Know!” I shook my head. “Prove it! Use ...
truth-tester!”

“They aren’t reliable with psions. There’s only one thing
that always gets the truth out of a Hydran.” Borosage held out his hand; one of
his men put something into it. This time it was a prod. Borosage flicked it on.

I sucked in a breath. I didn’t need him to show me what one
of those could do. I had scars to remind me.

“That’s right—squirm, you little mindraper,” Borosage murmured.
“You know what I can do to you with one of these. The Tau Board is up my ass
over this kidnapping. They make me report to them every hour on the hour. They
want that stolen child back yesterday, you know what I mean? They put their
trust in me. They told me, ‘Do whatever’s necessary.’ I intend to do that ....”

The prod kissed the palm of my right hand. I cursed, jerking
at the restraints as it ate its way into my flesh.

Borosage gestured. Fahd moved in on me, pulled open my expensive
jacket and shirt. I heard something rip. “You understand us—?”

I nodded, feeling the muscles in my chest and stomach
tighten with anticipation. Wanting to kick him in the balls, except that I knew
what he’d do to me if I did.

“I’m going to hear everything you know, boy,” Borosage said.
“Or I’m going to hear you scream.” His eyes begged me to give him an excuse.

I swore under my breath, wondering what in the nine billion
names of God I was going to tell him; worse, how I was even going to get words
anyone could understand out of my mouth.

A beeper sounded on someone’s databand, loud in the agonizing
silence. I looked down at my own band with my heart suddenly in my mouth. The
call function was still dead.

Borosage clapped his hand over his databand, held it up to
his face, muttering, “What—?”

Somewhere in the world outside of this room a voice said,
... making inquiries about the prisoner, sir.”

“God damn it!” Borosage shouted. “Tell them he’s not here. I
said nobody’s to disturb us during the interrogation!”

“Administrator—”

Borosage canceled the link with a word; swore, &s his
band-phone began to beep again.

“Draco’s Chief of Security is here, Administrator,” the
voice said, overriding his shutoff.

“What?” Borosage’s face went slack with disbelief. “Why the
hell didn’t you say so? Send him in.” He looked back at me and brought the prod
up close. “You hear that, freak? Maybe you thought you were in trouble before.
You’ve got the mother company down your throat now, you half-breed mindfucker.”

I watched the room’s single door, clenching and unclenching
my burned hand.

The security field at the door blinked off. Sand was waiting
beyond it. Kissindre Perrymeade and her uncle were with him, and Protz. I
looked back at Borosage, wanting to laugh, but afraid to.

Borosage made a salute, half frowned as he saw that Sand
wasn’t alone. “Sir,” he said, “this is one of the kidnappers. We’ve just begun
to interrogate him.” He jabbed the live end of the prod at me; I cringed.

Someone gasped in the doorway behind Sand. Sand stood staring
at Borosage, at the prod in his hand, at me. The disbelief on his face was
almost as complete as Kissindre’s or her uncle’s.

Sand entered the room first, alone. The others stayed where
they were, as if they’d been put in stasis. Sand stopped in front of Borosage.
He held out his hand with the unthinking arrogance of a man who was used to
getting his way. Borosage looked surprised again, but he handed Sand the prod.
I stared like everyone else as Sand took it.

Sand deactivated the prod and dropped it on the floor. “Get those
restraints off him.” He pointed at me. His hand jerked with impatience as no
one moved.

Fahd came forward slowly to turn me loose while Borosage
watched me with blood in his eyes. I slumped in the seat as the restraints
retracted, wiping blood from the corner of my mouth.

“Are you all right?” Sand asked me, frowning.

“Guesh. So,” I said, and watched them all frown as they
heard the words come out. I felt for the patch on my throat, found it under my
chin, and peeled it off. “Drugged. Me.”

“standard procedure with Hydran prisoners,” Borosage said,
glaring at me, at Sand. “Without the drug blocking their psi, we couldn’t keep
them in detention.”

Sand’s frown deepened, but he didn’t question it. “Get him
the antidote,” was all he said.

“Wait a minute,” Borosage starting to get his nerve back. “This
is my Prison!—”

“And is this how you treat your prisoners?” Sand snapped. “Drugging
them and then beating a confession out of them?” He shot a look at Kissindre’s
uncle and Protz this time, while some part of me wondered how often he’d done
the same thing himself, or something too much like it.

Borosage’s face reddened. “No, sir,” he said sourly. “Just
the freaks.” Resentment and incomprehension filled his face as he realized that
Sand wasn’t here for the reason he’d expected; that he had no idea what the
hell Sand really wanted from him. “This ‘breed was involved in the kidnapping
of a human child by Hydran radic4ls—” Barely controlled anger stretched his
voice to the breaking point. “We caught him red-handed! The Board ordered me to
do whatever was necessary to get the child back. I was just following orders.”

Sand glanced at me again. Behind him I saw Kissindre and the
others still gaping like virgins at the door of a whorehouse. “You have
arrested the wrong man, Borosage,” Sand said, his voice as empty of emotion as
his mirrored eyes. ‘And you were just about to put him in the hospital for no
reason at all.”

“No, sir!” Borosage swelled up like he’d sucked poison. “We
caught him holding the missing child’s ID, over in Freaktown. And he’s wearing
a databand, which is stolen property, because, as you know, sir, mixed bloods
are ineligible for full Tau citizen status.”

Sand glanced at me in sudden surprise; his eyes searched out
my databand. He studied me a minute longer, running God only knew what kinds of
analyses on my responses with the cyberware behind his eyes. But he only said, “Until
about three hours ago, your prisoner and I were attending a formal reception
with these people here.” He gestured. “The reception being held up at the Aerie
for the xenoarchaeology team that your government has brought here to study the
cloud-reefs. Your prisoner is a member of that team. He has been on-planet for
less than a day. I’m sure he has some explanation for this.” He glanced at me
again, back at the sullen knot of Corpses. “Give him the antidote.”

Borosage nodded, barely. Fahd came and stuck another patch
on my neck.

I waited, silent, until enough time had passed for my speech
to come around. I said, slowly and carefully, “I went for a walk. I wanted to
see the Hydran town ....” I glanced away from their expressions. ‘A woman with
a child ran into me. She said someone was chasing her. She seemed frightened. I
thought I could help her.” I wondered again why she hadn’t just teleported
herself and the child to somewhere safe. “I didn’t know it wasn’t her child. I
didn’t know it was the Corps—Corporate Security—who wanted her, until it was
too late.” I shrugged, keeping my face empty the way I’d learned to do in
Oldcity interrogation rooms.

“You didn’t wonder about the databand?” Sand asked, his face
as expressionless as mine.

“I didn’t have time to think about it,” I said. That was
true enough. No time to wonder if I was being set up, or why.
Just because I
was a stranger? Or because she ‘d known what I was?
I remembered her
fingers touching my face, the look in her eyes .... A sourceless pain filled me
that was more like loss than betrayal.

“You always come to the aid of complete strangers, in a—”
Sand broke off, looking at but not into my eyes for a second too long, “when
you know nothing about the situation?”

“Yes,” I said, looking back at him. “If it looks like they
need my help.”

“I wouldn’t have thought Oldcity taught that kind of lesson.”
He raised his eyebrows.

“It didn’t,” I said, still meeting his stare.

Sand made a motion that might have been a shrug, whatever
that meant. “The situation here tonight was not what you thought it was,” he
said.

I sat waiting, but no one said anything more. Slowly I
pulled my shirt together and refastened it, pulled my jacket back onto my
shoulders. My hands kept fumbling the job. I glanced up, meeting Kissindre
Perrymeade’s pale, tense stare. I looked away again, wiped half-dried blood off
my chin. As I got to my feet, every muscle in my body tightened against the
blow that would knock me back down into the seat.

It didn’t come. ‘Am I free to go now?” I looked at Sand,
ignoring Borosage. I took a step toward the door.

“Is his patron here?” Borosage said, looking straight at me
but speaking as though I wasn’t in the room. “The prisoner is a mixed-blood. I
can’t release him until I have his work permit on file, and get assurance from
his human patron that he’ll be kept out of trouble in the future.”

I swore under my breath, saw Borosage’s goons go on alert as
I swung around.

“He’s a citizen of a Federal District, Quarro—” Kissindre’s
uncle said, too sharply. “He’s not subject to Tau’s resident alien laws.”

“I determine Tau policy in this sector.” Borosage’s jaw tightened,
as if Perrymeade’s tone had pushed him one centimeter too far. “I’m responsible
for enforcing the laws here, and until I’m told different by the Board, anybody
who sets foot here is subject to my interpretation of those laws. All
individuals of Hydran heritage,” he spat the words like phlegm, “are required
to have a human patron who will assume responsibility for them. Otherwise they
are not permitted free access to areas under Tau’s dominion.”

“I’m his patron,” Kissindre said, pushing forward. Her lips
were a white line. “I’ll certify any data you want.”

“Open record,” Borosage muttered, to some dataport on him or
somewhere in the room. An ugly smile pulled at his mouth. ‘And just what sort
of use will you be making of this individual of mixed blood, Mez Perrymeade?
Would that be professional, or recreational_?”

Kissindre blushed blood-red. Janos Perrymeade muttered a
curse and stepped forward.

Sand caught Perrymeade’s arm in a hard grip, for as long as
it took Perrymeade to control his temper. Sand’s expression didn’t change, but
I saw Borosage mottle with anger and realized they must be
communicating—arguing, probably—subvocally, wearing some kind of boneboxes.
Humans had to rip open and rewire their bodies with artificial circuitry to
give themselves even a pale copy of the psionic abilities a Hydran was born
with. Even Borosage must need some kind of augmentation to let him do his job. I
studied his alloy skullplate, wondering just how altered he was.

At last Sand looked at me again. “You’re free to go,” he
said tonelessly. “This regrettable misunderstanding has been cleared up. Draco
offers you its sincere apology for any discomfort or embarrassment this
incident has caused you. I’m sure that since your interference in a Security
action resulted in the escape of a kidnapper, you will have no complaints to
file about your treatment here.” He stared at me, deadpan, with unblinking
eyes. Finally he looked at Borosage again.

“Our regrets,” Borosage said, cold-eyed, flexing his hands,
and I wondered what it was he was regretting.

I didn’t say anything, knowing enough to keep my mouth shut.
I saw the anxiety that filled Kissindre’s face and her uncle’s as they watched
me. I nodded finally, swallowing my anger like the taste of blood.

I moved across the room, not quite steady on my feet, until
I was standing in the doorway, with the barrier of Sand’s body separating me
from Borosage and the Corpses behind him. Kissindre’s uncle offered me a hand.
I shook my head. I turned my back on the chair and the restraints and the prod,
and the ones who’d used them on me, and left the station.

We were out in the street again—the perfectly clean, quiet,
well-lit street. I looked back at the station entrance, its dark mouth open in
a perpetual
oh
of surprise. It was no different from the entrances to half
a dozen other buildings along the street. Somehow that was more frightening
than if it had had
prison
written all over it. “Fucking bastar6fs—” I
said, and reaction squeezed my throat shut.