Randoms (17 page)

“I have no way of knowing what happened,” she said, her voice utterly calm. “I wasn't there. Maybe you could tell me about it.”

Now I was starting to get suspicious. “Are you a reporter—a data collector?”

“Yes, that's correct,” she said.

“I thought you were some sort of graduate student.”

“That was a lie I told you to put you off your guard,” she explained in her neutral voice.

“You know what?” I said. “Forget the experience from this game. I'll clean up. I'm done talking to you.”

She looked in my general direction, but not really at me “I could either produce a story in which you tell your side of what
happened at Ganar, or I could do a story on the Ish-hi and Rarel random delegates. It is a story I think they wouldn't want me to pursue.” She set her hands on the table and leaned forward as she spoke to me.

I slapped my tiles down. “I am starting to dislike you.”

“I get that a lot,” she said. “I'm told I have an abrasive personality.”

“Yeah,” I said. “You do. What exactly are you saying about Steve and Tamret?”

She almost met my eye for a second. “You don't know? They haven't told you?” When I didn't say anything she said, “Let me tell you what they're hiding, so you can make a more informed choice.”

I held up my hand. “I don't want to hear anything about my friends from you.”

“Unless you want everyone to know, you are going to have to talk to me,” she said. “I think it would be better if we went somewhere quiet. I can interview you and maybe consume some food. I think it will be mostly painless.”

“I'm supposed to have dinner with my friends,” I said.

“You mean the friends who are the subjects of a story that will expose and humiliate them?”

I didn't know what she had on them, but the thought that this weirdo might publish or post—or whatever it was—something that could hurt my friends filled me with rage. I knew at that moment that I could not allow Hluh to hurt Tamret. Or Steve. Sure, I wanted to protect my lizard pal. Of course I did, and I have no doubt that if it had been just Steve, I'd have done the same thing, but I don't think I would have felt the same urgency.

“Fine.” I almost spat the word. “I'll talk to you.”

“I thought you might,” Hluh said. “I knew you would want to protect the Rarel. Rumor has it you two are involved in an emotional entanglement.”

“A
what
?” I demanded.

“You know,” she said. “That you are sweethearts.”

“People are saying that?” It made me incredibly uncomfortable to realize that strangers, countless aliens, were gossiping about me, though I couldn't help but like that they believed someone as pretty as Tamret would be my girlfriend. “What else are they saying?”

Hluh shrugged. “It doesn't matter. Beings say many false things, but I thought that might be true.”

“It's not,” I assured her.

“You don't like her appearance?”

“Can we talk about something else?” I asked, feeling my cheeks redden.

Everyone was more or less wrapping up now. I'd earned a number of experience points, but not enough to move up to level twelve. Even so, I saw that none of the other humans had improved either, so, just to rub it in, I took two levels, moving up to nine. I added one more skill point to agility and another to intellect. The latter was a good option for the ship-operations track, but I also felt it would be useful to have my synapses firing a little quicker for my evening with Hluh.

I walked out of the gaming center with the data collector, and of course Ms. Price was not there this time. The one day I do well, she misses out. Steve and Tamret, however, were waiting outside.

“Who's your friend?” Steve asked me. “He's disturbingly green.”

“She,” Hluh said.

Tamret's ears jerked back, and she looked at Hluh through slitted eyes. “Possibly.”

“This is Hluh,” I said. “I'm going to have dinner with her.”

Tamret's expression darkened for an instant, and then she scowled at me and put her hands on her hips. “We had plans. You're going to throw us over for this vegetable?”

Hluh did not seem insulted. Nor did she seem inclined to wait for an answer. She just walked toward the exit and expected me to follow. I did.

•   •   •

Because of Dr. Roop's warning, I had not gone outside the government compound since that first night with Steve and Tamret, but Hluh wanted to eat in her neighborhood, and I saw no real reason to object. It was nice to see a little bit more of Confederation Central. We traveled by elevated train, and it didn't take long for me to see the wisdom of Dr. Roop's decision. A tall banana-shaped being with massive compound eyes had been watching some kind of moving display of shapes and colors projected from its data bracelet, and I guess it noticed I was staring at the display, trying to figure out what it signified. It was about to say something, friendly, I suspect, when it clacked its starburst-shaped mouth in—I don't know, surprise, I guess.

“You,” it said. “You are the mass murderer.”

“I'm pretty sure I'm not,” I said indignantly. I was about to say more when Hluh stepped in front of me.

“Many beings confuse him with the war criminal,” she said. “It's a common mistake.”

The being clicked at me again. “If it truly were that vile human applicant, I would be forced to wash my eye lenses, lest I be corrupted with his evil.”

“Man, I'm so glad we saved you from that,” I said. Then Hluh was pulling me off the train before I could say anything else. She led me to a district where all the buildings were low and had open patios. There were huge trees, with thick orange leaves the size of car doors, but they seemed to be light because they fluttered like flags. At least half the beings in the neighborhood were of the same species as Hluh, with green skin and protruding cranial ridges. It was a whole district of Martian Manhunters. What would my father have thought about this? I wondered. Many of the beings were laughing or speaking in animated tones, so it seemed safe to assume that Hluh's affect was not specific to her kind. She was just a dud.

We sat at an outdoor café where patrons ate and drank. Some strange creatures that looked like acorns with arms and legs were deriving sustenance from listening to bowls of what appeared to be carbonated water. Hluh turned her data bracelet to record, leveled her glowing white gaze at me, and said, “Tell me why you killed all those Phands.”

“The Phands murdered the Ganari, and they were trying to kill us. The bridge crew were injured, and I was the only one around who could operate the weapons console, if only barely.”

“But you fired ten dark-matter missiles. Does that not suggest a desire to murder?”

“It suggests,” I said, “a desire not to
be
murdered—and the desire to see my friends and the crew of the
Dependable
not be murdered.”

“Is your species familiar with the concept of mercy?”

And so it went. Hluh threw leading, hostile questions at me, and I answered. After a while I stopped waiting for her
questions and just talked, telling her what had happened, why I had done what I did, and what I was thinking about. I figured if I was going to break Dr. Roop's rule and spill my guts, I might as well present myself as favorably as possible.

When we were done, I told her I would find my own way back to the compound.

“Thank you for speaking to me,” she said. “And let me know next time you want to play Approximate Results from Endeavors. You're not terrible at it.”

“Just tell me you'll keep your word—you won't write about Steve and Tamret.”

“I never said I wouldn't post a story about them,” she said, her voice utterly expressionless. “Just not tonight.”

“But I thought if I helped you with this, you would leave them alone.”

She looked genuinely puzzled. “I don't recall saying that.”

I stood up, put my hands on the table, and leaned toward her. “Do not post any stories about them. Do you understand me?”

“You appear agitated. Are you feeling ill?”

“Are you really this dense?” I asked her.

She blinked a few times. “You would prefer I did not post any stories about the Ish-hi and the Rarel. Is that right?”

I may have done some hair pulling here. “Yes, Hluh. That is, in fact, right.”

“What can you offer me in exchange for sparing them from hostile public scrutiny?”

So I made her an offer—an extremely stupid offer—and she accepted it.

•   •   •

When I got back to the room that night, Charles was lying on his bed, doing the reading assignment for the next day. He looked over at me, his eyes lingering for a second on the number 9 above my head, the same as his, but he didn't say anything.

I was too agitated from my night out to sit still. What kind of secrets could Steve and Tamret be keeping? How did Hluh know? Was it the same secret or two unrelated things? I thought about going and knocking on their doors, but demanding my friends tell me secret stuff about themselves didn't exactly seem like a good move, especially since Tamret seemed to be angry with me for going off with Hluh in the first place.

I went over to my desk, not really sure what I intended to do, but wanting to look busy so Charles wouldn't see that I was upset. As soon as I sat, I noticed that my Martian Manhunter action figure had been moved, and since I hadn't done it and we didn't have a cleaning service, it meant that Charles had been messing with my stuff. I didn't exactly want to look at the figure's green skin right then, so I decided to put it in the drawer. As I reached for it, I noticed that the cardboard box that held my mother's locket also seemed askew. When I picked it up, it felt light, so I took off the lid. The locket was gone.

Maybe if I hadn't already been on edge I would have been calmer about it, but I don't think I would have taken it in stride under any circumstances. My mother had given that locket to me. She needed me, right now, and I'd left her behind because it was the only way I could try to save her. That locket had been her way of telling me she was okay with what I was doing, and Charles had no business touching it, let alone taking it.

I would have thought he'd be watching me, knowing I had
discovered what he'd done, but he was absorbed in his reading and didn't see it coming. I grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him off the bed, so he fell on the floor. Everything that had been building up since I left Earth—being ostracized by my peers, destroying the Phandic ship, saying good-bye to my friends on the
Dependable
, being thrown to the wolves by Ms. Price, and not being able to make any sense of why Tamret tolerated Ardov—all of this boiled over in to a single act of rage.

My reputation as the Butcher of Ganar notwithstanding, I'm not a violent person. I like blowing away Covenant grunts as well as the next guy, but video games are only pretend. In real life, I don't get a charge out of hurting anyone or anything, and so once I had Charles on the floor and he was at a complete disadvantage, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with him.

“Where's my mother's locket?” I asked, hoping he didn't notice I was slightly confused by what I'd done.

“I have no idea what you mean,” he said, raising his arms to protect himself.

“What is this about? Are you mad because I'm a better gamer than you, so you took my stuff to get even with me?” I took a step back. “That locket has been in my family for like a hundred years. Maybe you didn't realize it was important, but I want it back. Now.”

“I do not have it,” he said, pushing himself away from me. He risked rising enough to sit on his bed. “You are lucky I do not choose to report your actions to Dr. Roop.”

“That's right,” I said, my fists balled as I tried to rekindle my anger. “Go tell Dr. Roop. Tell him I attacked you, and then we can tell him why.”

Charles looked down as he considered this scenario. “I did
not take your things,” he said, not troubling himself to raise his eyes as he spoke.

I understood how it was with him. He couldn't admit it. He was embarrassed, and my continuing to threaten him would only make him bear down, maybe throw the necklace away. I needed to give him an out. Maybe I needed to give myself one as well, because I wasn't prepared to beat a confession out of him.

“Fine,” I said, heading back to my side of the room. “I'm tired. Maybe I forgot where it was. I'll look for it again in the morning.”

“Perhaps,” he agreed, “that is a good idea.”

It took me a long time to fall asleep that night. I lay awake listening to Charles breathing the breath of someone also lying awake, maybe waiting for me to fall asleep. It was so stupid. If we were normal people, normal roommates, we would be able to talk about this, and about all the fantastic things we did and saw, but he had made his choice, and I could do nothing about it. So I lay there, wondering about my mother's health, telling myself that she would be okay. I'd get back, and she'd be just fine, and then the Confederation would provide a cure, and I would never have to worry about her being sick again.

I finally did fall asleep, and in the morning, when I opened the box, the locket was back where it belonged. That was the good news. The bad news was the message waiting for me on my data bracelet. Dr. Roop wanted to see me at once.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I
sat in Dr. Roop's office and watched the interview that Hluh had posted on her news feed.

This is the part of the story where the naïve young hero realizes that he has been tricked by the antisocial, green-skinned reporter into saying things he didn't quite mean, which show him in a negative light and make his life far more complicated. Actually, it didn't happen like that. I wasn't at all unhappy with the interview. I thought I came across pretty much the way I had hoped I would—like someone who had been put in a bad situation and did the best he could, someone who regretted taking lives, but regretted even more the violent attack on his friends that made his actions necessary.

When it was over, Dr. Roop sighed and leaned back in his chair. “What made you think doing this was a good idea?”

“I never wanted to talk to her,” I told him. As soon as he had summoned me, I'd known what we were going to discuss, and I'd already decided what to tell him. “The data collector said if I didn't do the interview, she was going to write about Tamret and Steve instead. She said she had some secret they wouldn't want to get out.”

Dr. Roop leaned his neck forward and began to rub worriedly at his stubby horns. Then he looked up at me and, meeting my gaze with his big, giraffelike eyes, said, “That is not good.”

“Is there really something she could use against them?”

“Yes, there is. Both of them—”

“Stop,” I said. “If they have secrets, they can tell me if they want. I don't need to gossip about my friends.”

“Very well.” He leaned back in his chair. “Zeke, I truly wish you had not spoken to this data collector.”

“I think we covered this. I didn't have a choice.”

“I see.” He leaned forward and held out both his hands, as if weighing invisible objects. “So here we have not wanting to embarrass your friends. And here we have the fate of a galactic civilization based on the principles of mutual respect and nonviolence.”

Dr. Roop was being sarcastic. That made me nervous. “I don't see how my talking to this data collector threatens the Confederation.”

“You don't have to see it,” he said. “I told you not to talk to anyone. I told you remaining silent was important. Why didn't you contact me when she threatened you?”

I had no answer for that. I simply hadn't thought to do so.

He closed his eyes. He looked tired. Sad. I hated that I had put him in this position. “Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me?” he asked.

“No,” I said, and I meant it.

“Next time, please don't act alone. I could have protected Steve and Tamret.”

“I'm sorry. You're right.”

He sighed. “What's done is done. We can't change it. And to be truthful, you spoke well, and you didn't give your critics any new ammunition. I think we have neither lost nor gained, but please don't speak to any more data collectors.”

I promised him I wouldn't.

“And I suppose there's no reason to keep you in the compound,” he said. “The story is out, and the other data collectors will leave you alone.”

I was getting ready to go when he asked me the question I'd been dreading. “How did you get her to agree not to post about Steve and Tamret in the future?”

“Yeah,” I said, running a hand through the mop of my hair. “There's the tricky part. I kind of promised her I would keep talking to her, and she could post more stories about my progress over the course of the year. I probably should have mentioned that.”

“Probably,” Dr. Roop agreed, rubbing his horns again. “I think I need to send some messages now. You'll please excuse me?”

•   •   •

At breakfast, Steve seemed pretty even-tempered about the whole thing, but Tamret was not bothering to hide her irritation. Her lavender eyes had bloodshot streaks in them, and she looked like she hadn't slept, or maybe like she'd been crying. I wanted to ask her about it, but she seemed in no mood for my sympathy.

“Why are you such an idiot?” she inquired. “I can't believe you talked to her.”

“It just kind of happened.” I swirled my spoonlike utensil through my porridgelike food.

“What, do you have a crush on her or something?” she asked, stabbing at a piece of fruit-like food with her forklike utensil.

“No!” The question took me completely by surprise. “She has the personality of a potato.” I knew I sounded ridiculous, but I felt trapped and frustrated. Even if Tamret didn't know
my reasons—which she did not, because it would have felt like bragging to tell her—I was in no mood for her to give me a hard time about what I'd done to protect her.

“Then why did you talk to her?” Tamret demanded. Her voice was low, her eyes narrow, and her nostrils flared. She tensed her fingers, and the sharp tips of her claws protruded. The whole effect was extremely intimidating.

“I felt like I didn't have a choice,” I said, hoping she wouldn't press the issue.

“Have you seen what they're saying about you on the news outputs?” she asked. Her small whiskers seemed to be vibrating with irritation.

“No,” I said. “I mean, Hluh mentioned that it wasn't positive, but I didn't think to look.”

“You are so stupid,” she said, her voice a little too loud. “That creature's report was fine, but other outputs have picked up the story. They're calling you a killer, a murderer, a war criminal. Most beings in the Confederation think you should be on trial for what you did.”

I gripped the side of the table. The idea that billions of beings knew who I was, and wanted me to be punished, had never really sunk in before. It made me dizzy, and Tamret was yelling in public, with beings looking on, because I wanted to protect her.

“Can you just leave me alone?” I said. “I don't butt into your business.”

“I don't have any business you need to butt into,” she said, her voice low and dangerous.

“What about Ardov? How come you put up with how he treats you?”

“
That's not your concern,” she said, jabbing a finger at me.

“There you go. It's not my concern. Just like this isn't yours.”

“I don't think you can look after your own concerns,” she snapped. “I think you've pretty much proved that.”

“Why do you care?” I asked, maybe more loudly than I should have. “What does it matter to you? It doesn't affect your life. Dr. Roop is mad at
me
, not us. My talking to data collectors doesn't do you any harm.”

“Because we're supposed to be on the same side,” she said, her voice getting quieter, and more frightening for that. “We're supposed to look after each other, not go running off with data collectors and spilling our guts. By [
the third-tier revenge deity
], Zeke, maybe next time ask your friends before you're about do something that will mess up your life.”

I was actually shaking with frustration. My fingers were white from the force of my table clutching. She didn't get it, and it wasn't her fault that she didn't get it, but I had become furious with her for blaming me for trying to protect her. “Can you just leave it alone?” I snapped. “Worry about yourself, and keep your hairy business out of my face.”

Even as I opened my mouth, I knew I should shut up, but it felt so good not to keep everything bottled up, just like it had felt good to throw Charles on the floor. And like getting rough with Charles, once I'd stopped laying into Tamret, I didn't know what to do.

Her eyes had become moist. She set her jaw hard and rigid. “You know what? I don't feel like eating.” She stood up, leveled a sad look at me, and walked away.

Steve watched her go and then turned his Komodo dragon gaze on me. “I hate to point out the obvious, but you just
insulted the physical appearance of a girl from a culture with so many revenge deities they have to rank them.”

I shook my head, furious with myself. “I lost it. I was so frustrated that she was giving me a hard time over what I did for
her
—for both of you. The data collector said if I didn't talk to her, she was going to write about you and Tamret.”

“About
us
?” Steve sounded genuinely confused. “What about us?”

“I don't know. She offered to tell me, but I didn't want to hear it from her.”

“Well, I wish you bloody well had wanted to hear it from her,” he said, “because I don't know what it could be.”

“You don't have any secrets?”

He thought about it for a minute. “Not really, unless you mean my run-ins with the filth.”

“With the
what
?”

“The filth, mate. The plods. Bizzies. Coppers. Law enforcement, like the peace officers they have hovering about here.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, closing my eyes and running my hands over my face. “Are you telling me that you're some sort of criminal?”

“Well, that's putting it a big forcefully, yeah?” he said, leaning back on his stool. “I just had a few scrapes is all. From time to time I might have been inclined to take an [
automobile-like vehicle
] that wasn't precisely my own. Just for fun, mind you. Not for money.”

“You're a car thief,” I said. “Aren't you too young to drive?”

“I'm not going to refuse to steal something just because I'm not old enough to use it legally,” he explained as though my objection were absurd. Then he suddenly looked up. “You
know, that could be what she was on about. Tamret had some legal problems of her own.”

The surprises just didn't stop coming. “What sort of legal problems?”

“Something to do with hacking,” Steve said. “Before you arrived on the station, we got to talking, and she told me that she was in jail for unauthorized computer manipulation, or something like that, when her number got picked for the delegation, and that got her sprung.” He rubbed at the back of his head. “What about you, mate? You ever been nabbed?”

I shook my head. “No way. I'm squeaky clean.”

“We'll fix that,” he said, but he looked worried. “Makes you wonder, doesn't it?”

“Wonder what?”

“Well, it's rather long odds that two of us would be dicey, yeah? So it makes me wonder if maybe we're not so random as they say.”

I couldn't imagine why the selection committee would have deliberately chosen criminals, but it seemed like the deck had been stacked, and in ways that made no sense. I was starting to get uncomfortable.

I shook my head, not knowing how to process this new information. “Do me a favor and don't tell Tamret about all this, okay?”

“About the two of us being dicey? She already knows.”

“No, about me talking to Hluh to protect you two.”

He cocked his head, and this time tasted the air with his tongue. “Why not tell her?”

“I don't want her to feel like she owes me a favor or anything.”

“But you want
me
to feel like I owe you a favor?”

“I didn't do it so you would owe me a favor. I did it because we're friends.”

“Then why tell me and not her?” he asked. “I know you just insulted her and called her hairy, and she looked like she'd never forgive you, but I thought you two were friends.”

“We are, but I don't want you to tell her,” I said, feeling exasperated. “It's a mammal thing, okay? Can we leave it at that?”

•   •   •

Later that day, Dr. Roop took us to the computer lab to learn how to write and replicate Former code. Needless to say, this was another task at which I failed miserably. Tamret gained a level, moving up to a nine, and when I noticed that, I should have gone to speak to her. It would have been the perfect time to try to patch things up, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. How do you apologize to someone for calling her hairy when she is, in fact, covered with hair? The challenges faced by those who live among the stars are many and various.

When we were done, Dr. Roop asked me to follow him back to his office, and sitting there, waiting for us, was my green friend Hluh.

“Hi, Zeke,” she said, like we were old pals.

“What's she doing here?”

Dr. Roop closed the door and sat behind his desk, gesturing for me to sit beside Hluh. “This is your mess, Zeke. I'm just trying to clean it up.”

I sat down next to Hluh.

“Did you like what I posted?” she asked me.

I didn't answer. She was too clueless to hate properly, but that didn't mean I had to be friendly with her.

“I've made an offer to Ms. Lahhluh Hlahluh Luh,” Dr. Roop explained. “She will continue to speak to you and follow your course through the initiation year. I can't give her unfettered access to the training facilities, but she can talk to me and to you, Zeke. In exchange, she has promised to post nothing about what she learns until after your year is completed.”

This was actually a pretty good deal. “Is this agreement legally binding?” I asked. “Will she get in trouble if she violates it?”

“Citizens of the Confederation don't violate their agreements,” Dr. Roop said.

“Never?”

“It is so rare, it is not worth discussing,” he said. “But yes, if, unfathomably, she were to renege on her agreement and post in a way not specified by our terms, she would face serious legal charges.”

“Okay, then,” I said. “I agree.”

“I'm so pleased,” Dr. Roop said, “but I was not asking you. I was letting you know.”

Hluh and I left Dr. Roop's office a few minutes later, and I stopped her in the hall. “You really won't go public with anything I say?” I asked her.

“I can't. Weren't you listening?”

“Just double-checking. Can I ask you to investigate some things for me?”

“Things to do with your attack on the Phandic ship?”