Offspring (13 page)

“What the
hell?
” Ben said.

“Unorthodox,” Lucia said, “but the meaning is clear. It’s certainly no surprise.”

Kendi tasted anger and bile. “So what do we do?”

“We pay it,” Ben said. “In hard, happy freemarks.”

“And what,” Harenn said, “would prevent this person—or people—from demanding money again and again?”

“Nothing in the world,” Lucia said. “Which is why we have to act. The address is Treetown, not monastery, so perhaps we should quietly alert the Treetown police and let them—”

“No!” Ben shouted. Everyone stared at him. He was on his feet, his face painted with a sheen of sweat. “If we bring the police in, they’ll want to know what the blackmail is about. We can’t afford to tell them—the more people who know, the more likely someone will tell.”

“All right, all right,” Kendi soothed. “But Ben—you know we can’t let them get away with this. Harenn’s right. It’ll only get worse.”

“The weak point in any anonymous blackmail plan is picking up the money,” Lucia said. “The blackmailer has to be in a certain place at a certain time, meaning someone can set a trap.”

Ben sank to the couch. Kendi sat down as well, and Ben leaned into him. Kendi put an arm around Ben’s shoulders and was surprised to find him shaking. Kendi wanted to wrap his body around Ben, shield him from the fear and pain. Hatred for whoever was causing this stormed over Kendi and he ground his teeth.

“What do we do to catch this bastard?” he said.

“Can you get your hands on that much hard currency?” Lucia asked.

“I think so.”

“Then we’ll use the tried-and-true. I will put tracer units on the bag and in the currency. You and I will set watch. When Ben makes the drop-off, we will grab the person who tries the pick-up.”

“You mean when
I
make the drop-off,” Kendi said, hugging Ben harder. “Ben doesn’t need to be involved.”

Ben sat up. “Yes, I do. I want to be there.”

“Are you sure?” Kendi asked. “You don’t have—”

“I’m sure,” Ben said.

“What about me?” Harenn said. “I can be present as well.”

“You’re going to be pregnant by tomorrow afternoon,” Kendi said. “The doctor’s going to tell you to sit home with your feet up for a few days, you know that.”

“All right then,” Lucia said before Harenn could respond, “let’s find the drop-off point.” Lucia called up a map of the area. Treetown surrounded the monastery like a lake surrounding an island. Technically the monastery was its own political unit, a city within a city with its own police force, governmental representatives, and municipal works. In practice, however, Treetown and the monastery tended to blend together. Both had the same postal service and utility companies, for example, and the monastery worked closely with Treetown schools and libraries to provide education.

The drop-off address was Ulikov 10832-15, and Kendi automatically split the number into its component parts. The first three digits indicated how high up the building in question was. The lowest anyone was allowed to build was a hundred meters above the forest floor. Every meter was a level, so 108 meant the house was on level eight, one hundred and eight meters up its talltree. The 32 meant section thirty-two on a grid arbitrarily drawn over Treetown and the monastery nestled within. Each sector had a name as well—Ulikov in this case—but the post office insisted on numbers. Ben and Kendi lived in Irvine—section six—which put them out of walking distance from the pick-up point. The last two digits were simply the house number. So 10832-15 was house number fifteen on level eight in section thirty-two. Lucia highlighted the spot with a stylus. It glowed an angry red that matched Kendi’s mood.

“I don’t know that part of town very well,” he said.

“I do,” Lucia said. “It’s a poorer section, with a lot of run-down apartment houses. It’s gotten worse since the Despair. I’ll scout it out and figure out the best layout for a trap. Then I’ll get back to work on the
Poltergeist
people.”

“Did you find anything out?” Kendi asked.

“I ran a check,” Ben said. “There definitely used to be a backup file. It was erased only a week ago.”

Harenn paled. “Oh, god,” she whispered. “Ben, I am so sorry. This is my fault.”

“Didn’t we dance to that tune already?” Kendi said. “You tried to take the blame for the way Martina and Keith disappeared. It wasn’t your fault then, and it isn’t your fault now. It’s the fault of the asshole who’s blackmailing us.”

“We did get a list of eight people who had access to the
Poltergeist’s
computer,” Lucia said. “As I said, I will follow up on it. I’ll also interview the spaceport staff. It may also be that someone who
wasn’t
supposed to have access broke into the ship, and the staff may have seen something suspicious. Leave it to me, Father Kendi. If there is anything to find, I will find it.”

Sitting there in his living room with her firm hands and serious face, Lucia came across as supremely confident and competent, and Kendi felt a bit better. He didn’t have to do everything himself.

“Thank you, Lucia,” he said. “But if you’re going to be carrying one of our children, I think you’d better call me Kendi.”

Lucia blushed slightly and looked less confident. “I...I will try. But it’ll feel strange.”

“Speaking of surrogacy,” Harenn put in, “perhaps we should put off my appointment tomorrow in light of everything that’s happened of late.”

“No!” Ben and Kendi said together, and Kendi managed a laugh. “I won’t interrupt our lives for this guy’s bullshit,” he said. “Besides, everything will be sorted out one way or another long before the baby is born. We shouldn’t wait.”

“Famous last words,” Harenn said, but didn’t disagree.

“We should call Vidya and Prasad,” Ben said.

“What? Why?” Kendi said.

“Well, what I really mean is that we should call Sejal,” Ben said. “Sejal didn’t lose his mutant Silence in the Despair. He can still possess people, Silent and not, willing and not. He’d be the perfect person to catch a blackmailer. And he won’t ask us questions if we tell him not to.”

“I should have thought of that myself,” Lucia said.

“Stressful times.” Kendi got up and tapped the wall. “The Vajhur family.”

“
That was quite a press conference,
” Vidya said on the viewscreen a moment later. She had long, silver-streaked hair and mahogany skin that showed stress and worry lines around the eyes and mouth. “
You looked even more foolish than—
”

“Thanks,” Kendi interrupted. “Is Sejal around? We need to talk to him.”

Vidya Vajhur’s face went blank. “
Sejal is not here. He hasn’t been for quite some time.
”

“Oh? Where is he?”

“
Away. I do not know where, exactly. It is a secret he has chosen not to share with me. I only know someone has hired him for a ‘secret mission’ for which he is being well-paid.
”

“Is this why he couldn’t help us rescue Keith and Martina?” Ben spoke up. “I talked to him in the Dream and asked for his help, but he got all evasive and finally ran off.”

“
I imagine that is the case,
” Vidya said. Her words were short and clipped, clearly angry. Kendi could understand why. Vidya had been forcibly separated from her husband Prasad and their baby daughter when she was pregnant with Sejal. As a result, she had raised Sejal alone in the roughest slums on the planet Rust in the Empire of Human Unity. Seventeen years later, the entire family had been reunited on Bellerophon. Vidya had just gotten her daughter back; Kendi couldn’t imagine it would sit well with her to lose her son.

“Do you expect him back anytime soon?” Kendi asked.

“
I have no idea,
” Vidya said.

They exchanged a few unrelated pleasantries, and Kendi disconnected.

“So much for the easy solution,” he sighed. “Now we play commando.”

The door slammed in Gary Kyle’s face. He stared at it for a moment, fuming, then picked up the baby carrier and turned toward the stairs. Mark didn’t stir from his nap, for which Gary was grateful. A screaming baby would make an already bad situation unbearable. Why did Pandora have to be so difficult? You’d think she’d be
glad
to have him take Mark on the weekends so she could have some Alone Time. That was what she always called it—Alone Time, complete with capital letters. Trouble was, two months ago Gary had discovered her spending Alone Time in company. A whole lot of company. It had ended their marriage.

Gary had kept the house, but he still couldn’t believe the court had granted Pandora primary custody of Mark. Wasn’t Gary the one with intact Silence? Didn’t he have the better income? Didn’t he spend his evenings and weekends at home? He checked the carrier. Mark snoozed peacefully under a yellow blanket.

As Gary carried Mark out of the apartment building and onto the walkway, he worked to clear his thoughts of anger. Mark was just a baby, but Gary was sure he could feel the tension between his parents, and Gary was determined that his child should be as unaffected by it as he could manage.

Unfortunately there was no doubt in Gary’s mind that Pandora would bad-mouth him to Mark once the boy was old enough to talk. A breeze stirred his brown robe, and Gary sighed. Maybe he could find some kind of evidence proving Pandora was an unfit mother. She took Mark into
bars
, for god’s sake. How could the court possibly—

“Excuse me, Brother. I seem to be lost. Can you direct me to the monorail station?”

The speaker was a blond man. A dark-haired woman stood near him, looking around and trying to get her bearings. It wouldn’t be easy to lose them—so many of the street lights were out these days.

“I’m heading for the station right now,” Gary said, glad of the distraction. “It’s not far. Just follow me.”

“Thanks,” the man said.

“What a
darling
baby,” the woman said. “Yours?”

“My son,” Gary said, unable to keep from smiling. “He’s nine months old tomorrow.”

“What a sweetie,” the woman cooed, bending over the carrier. Mark slumbered on. “And so handsome. But where’s his mommy?”

“Divorced,” Gary said shortly. “Look, if you want to catch the next train, we should probably—”

Something cold pressed against the back of his neck and Gary felt a thump. He spun in time to see the man lower a dermospray. Gary stared at him, uncomprehending. Then a wave of dizziness hit him. He barely had time to set Mark’s carrier down before he dropped like a stone.

In the morning, Kendi, Ben, and Harenn coasted in a gondola toward the medical center. Kendi usually loved the gondolas. The pulleys on the overhead wire were silent, allowing them to slide from station to station without a sound. It was like floating among the talltrees and houses in a balloon. The walkways and balconies hummed with human voices and Ched-Balaar chatter. Fresh-smelling spring breezes swirled gently around them, bringing the relaxing scent of flowers and bark and leaves. Today, however, Kendi felt unsettled. He and Ben had spent a restless night, neither able to comfort the other very well. Ben had wanted to be held, but Kendi found himself unable to lie still for long.

Today they were supposed to be excited. But Ben looked pale, Kendi felt tense, and Harenn worked her jaw. They spoke little. Ben held the star-shaped cryo-unit in his lap.

Dr. McCall was a round woman topped by a fluff of pale hair. Kendi and Ben stepped into the hallway outside the examination room while she gave Harenn a final check-up and got her onto the table and draped in a green sheet. Then Ben and Kendi re-joined her, standing near Harenn’s head. Her face was placid, her hair hidden by a surgical cap. The room was a bit chilly and smelled of antiseptic.

“Ready to become pre-parents?” McCall asked merrily.

“Ready,” Kendi said, and took Ben’s hand. Ben reached down for Harenn’s hand, and she gave him a small smile.

McCall touched a control on the cryo-unit, and the top slid aside. With a hiss of cold steam, a metal ring rose a few centimeters above the unit. Eleven cloudy ampules poked upward. Kendi peered at them, though he knew he wouldn’t be able to see anything.

“The readouts say there are six boys and five girls,” McCall said. “Do you have a preference for sex or for which embryo you want implanted?”

“Let the universe decide,” Ben said. It was the same thing Ara had said on the day of Ben’s implantation. Kendi squeezed his hand and Harenn nodded.

“As you like,” McCall said. She plucked an ampule at random and closed the cryo-unit. The ampule went into an instrument that looked like a cross between a pistol and a syringe. “We just have to wait a few moments for the bio-implantation unit to thaw the—ah! We’re ready. Please relax, Ms. Mashib. You’ll feel a slight pressure but it shouldn’t hurt.”

Harenn took Kendi’s other hand and squeezed it. He grinned down at her, feeling like he should say something important but unable to think what. Harenn was being implanted with his child, his son or daughter. In nine months, he’d be a father. So would Ben. Harenn would be its mother, and Kendi liked that idea.