Randoms (42 page)

“Zeke, you're going home,” Captain Qwlessl said softly. “It was the best we could do for you.”

“This situation has spiraled out of control,” Dr. Roop said. “Beings are worried about protecting their reputations. No one is looking at the larger picture. There are those who wanted to put you on trial.”

I had no doubt that some of those included the goat-turtle sitting across from me.

“What about the other delegations?” I asked. “Steve and Tamret?”

“Like your delegation,” Junup said, “they are to return to their home worlds at once, and their species may not be considered for membership for a period not less than sixty standard years.”

“No!” I stood up. Dr. Roop tried to get me to sit, but I shook him off. “You can't send Tamret back. She'll be treated like a criminal. The rest of the delegation hates her, and they'll make sure she gets blamed. You must have”—I waved my hand as I tried to think of the term—“political asylum here, right?”

“We are under no obligation to grant asylum to nonaligned species,” Junup said. He remained seated, his hairy hands folded, completely undisturbed by my seething rage. “Such decisions fall to me as head of my committee, and I will not accept an application from an unrepentant criminal. I'm afraid your Rarel friend set out on this path when she chose to violate our laws. Now she must pay the price.”

“I want to see her,” I said. “Now.”

“Zeke,” Dr. Roop cautioned.

“You are in no position to make demands,” Junup said. “In a
few minutes a technician will neutralize your nanites, and your skills will be returned to their baseline settings at the time of your arrival.”

“I thought you didn't alter the skill system,” I said. “I thought that was against your principles.”

“You put yourself outside that code when you became a criminal,” Junup said. “Soon your translator will cease to function, so I need to explain our decisions now. You and your friends are through here. I've already arranged for your possessions to be packed and brought to your transports. You and the other initiates shall be cast from this station, and your father will go to prison, where he belongs.”

“Send him back with us!” I demanded.

“He is to be regarded as a war criminal, and exile is no longer an option.”

I slowly returned to my seat, but I leveled my gaze at the chief justice. The cure of my mother, which I had considered as good as in my hands, had now vanished. I thought I had saved her, but by saving my father, I'd condemned my mother to death.

I considered more extreme options. I could, I knew, knock Junup down before the peace officers by the door could stop me, but that would get me nothing. “Before you touch me, I want to see my father, I want to see Steve, and I want to see Tamret.” My voice was slow and, I hoped, a little dangerous.

Junup rewarded my efforts by looking a little uneasy, but in the end that counted for little. “No,” he said.

Captain Qwlessl jabbed her trunk at him. “You are being cruel and vindictive,” she said. “Let him speak to his father and his friends.”

“I don't have to,” Junup said, “and I don't want to, so I won't. This being has caused me nothing but trouble since he left his world, and I don't see that I owe him any favors.”

Dr. Roop leaned forward and whispered something to Junup. The chief justice's goaty eyes widened, and he scowled at Dr. Roop. Then he rose to his feet.

“Very well,” Junup said. “I'll arrange it.”

I watched the chief justice leave the room.

“What did you say to him?” Captain Qwlessl asked.

Dr. Roop's eyes widened. “I simply reminded him that all politicians have secrets they would prefer not to be revealed.”

I looked up at him. “You made an enemy of him for my sake.”

“It was no great sacrifice,” Dr. Roop said. “He'd already made an enemy of me. I just made things mutual.”

•   •   •

A little while later, a peace officer opened the door and led me out. He would, he explained, take me to see my father. Then I would go back to the main terminal, where I could say good-bye to my other friends. Then I would have my nanites neutralized, and I would board a shuttle.

As I walked down the hall, a voice inside my head kept saying that this was real, it was actually happening. I was going back to Earth without anything to help my mother. Tamret was going back to her world. My father was going to prison. I tried to silence the voice. I had beaten the odds so many times before; I would do so again. I would get us all out of this. I just needed an opportunity. I would know it when I saw it. I kept saying that, but the other voice, the one that said it was all over, would not be shouted down.

The captain and Dr. Roop waited in the hall when the peace officer opened the door to my father's holding cell. It looked just like the one I had been in—pure white—and my father had been sitting, staring at the nothingness, as I had been for so many hours.

He stood up and hugged me, holding me close for a long time. Then he let me go, but he kept his hands on my shoulders and looked at me.

“Why are they doing this?” I asked him.

“I don't know,” he said. “It won't stand. I promise you, Zeke. The truth will get out, and there will be questions. We can fix this.” He let go and sat down in his chair. “We can fix this,” he said again.

“I don't see how.”

“I don't either,” he admitted. “Not yet.”

“What can I do?” I asked. “How can I help you?”

“How much do you trust Qwlessl?” he asked.

“Completely,” I told him.

He nodded. “Make sure she is aware of the Former skill system. Someone needs to make sure they don't completely blindside the Confederation. In the meantime I'll work on my own legal problems. These people are amazing, Zeke, and they are brilliant, but they're not devious and they don't really understand crime. The fact that I've watched a lot of
Law and Order
reruns makes me one of the top legal minds in the Confederation.”

I couldn't help but laugh.

“I'll get you back here,” he said. “I can work the system. Just hang tight.”

I nodded. “What should I tell Mom?”

“The truth,” he said. “As much as you know. I wanted to have
more time to tell you everything, about how it all happened, but I guess that will have to wait. But she hasn't remarried or anything? You're not just saying that to spare my feelings?”

I was withholding things to spare his feelings, but this wasn't one of them. “No,” I said. “She dated a few times, but I think because she felt like she ought to. No one ever interested her. No one but you.”

He looked away for a moment. “It will be hard, won't it?” he asked. “Going back to ordinary life, knowing all of this is out here?”

“Yeah,” I said. “But it's not the world and the technology and wonders I'll miss. It's the people.”

He nodded. “It's always the people.”

The peace officers came back. My father and I hugged once more and that was it. They led me out and closed the door, and he was gone. My father, the man I'd thought dead, who was alive, whom I had freed, had been taken away from me again.

•   •   •

They brought me back to the terminal. There were still lots of peace officers and data collectors and government officials, but though I looked everywhere, there was no sign of Tamret. I saw Steve, however, standing with the Ish-hi delegation. I hurried over to him.

He put a hand on my arm. “I'm sorry, mate. It should have worked out better.”

I didn't know if his kind hugged, and I didn't want to do anything culturally weird, so we just stood like that for a minute. “I'm sorry too. I got you into this, ruined your chances for your world. I never should have asked for your help.”

“Rubbish,” he said. “You did what you were supposed to do. We all did. Now they want to cover their tracks and protect themselves by punishing us. You've got no reason to be sorry.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“But,” he added, “if it makes you feel better, we'll say you owe me one, yeah?”

“I owe you one,” I agreed.

He jabbed a finger at me. “Don't you forget it, either. I mean to collect.”

“Do you think we'll get a chance?”

“I don't know, mate. I just don't know.”

And then there were peace officers between us, leading Steve and the rest of the Ish-hi to a gate that would take them to a shuttle, which would take them to a ship. And they would go back to their home world.

I watched him go, sadness and rage and helplessness pulsing through me. Then I heard someone call my name. It was Tamret, and she was running toward me. She threw herself against me, and if it weren't for the enhancements that she herself had given me, she would have knocked me over.

She pressed her face against my neck, and I could feel she was crying. “I can't go back there,” she said. “You don't know what it's like. You don't know how much we needed to join the Confederation.”

I thought again about making a break for it, the two of us, together, but there were yellow dots on her shoulders, probably on my back and hers. The thought of being shot wasn't what stopped me—it was the thought of her being shot. I'd seen Tamret struck down once already. I couldn't see it again. Even so, if I'd believed there was a chance, even a slight chance, I
would have taken it, but the peace officers were not letting their guard down for a second.

I could not save her, so I held her and let her cry. Her body shuddered, and the bravest, most reckless being I had ever met convulsed with fear.

“I can't go back,” she said. “They'll put me in prison, Zeke. They may hurt me. I'll never see you again.”

“Shh,” I said. I stroked the back of her head. I was trying to think, trying to find the words, trying to find my way out of this. Nothing came to me. All I could do was to try to comfort her. I was powerless to do anything else. “I won't let them do this.”

The data collectors were pressed in now, all around us, recording us, capturing holograms of Tamret's misery, but I didn't care. I was seething with rage and frustration. I was stronger than any of these beings, I was faster and I could process information better, but what good did that do me? We were still being separated and shipped off, and no matter how I tried, I could not think of a way around this.

“We can't do anything,” Tamret said. “Once we're back on our worlds, we won't ever be able to reach each other. We'll be stuck there, apart.”

“We can do anything,” I told her.

“Not this,” she said. “We can't do this.”

I lifted up her chin to look into her lavender eyes. “Tamret, I have done things I would never have thought possible, and I did them because of you. I did them
for
you. I swear, I'm not going to leave you there.”

She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “Don't say it if you don't mean it.”

“I mean it.” And I did. I didn't know how I would do it, but I swore at that moment that I would not rest until I was sure she was safe. All I knew was that the universe could not be this cruel. I wouldn't let it be. I would not have everything taken away from me.

“Don't worry, Snowflake. I'll take care of you.”

It was Ardov. He and Thiel and Semj walked by, holding their bags. The other two looked dour, but Ardov looked grimly satisfied.

“As soon as we leave this station,” Ardov said to her, his face split open with a grin, “I am released from my vow.”

As he walked away, I seriously considered going after him and killing him. I could do it, I had the strength and the power and the skills to do it, but I knew that wouldn't protect Tamret. Not really. The others in her delegation would report what had happened, and I could not help her if I was in prison.

“Hey,” I said to him. “You don't want to make me your enemy.”

He laughed and didn't even break his stride. “I can't see how it will matter.”

“Ardov!” I shouted.

He turned around and looked at me, his expression a mask of bored contempt.

“Don't think any distance between us will protect you. I've beaten you before, and I'll do it again.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but then he changed his mind. He turned away and walked toward his gate. Then he stopped as a being approached him. It was Junup. He whispered something into Ardov's ear, and the Rarel nodded. Ardov continued toward the gate, and Junup walked away, looking pleased with himself.

“I like that young being,” he said to me. “He's got a real future.”

A peace officer came up to us. He was one of the bull-headed ones, and he, at least, had the decency to look ashamed of what he had to do. “I'm sorry, but it's time for her to go.”

Impossibly, unbelievably, I had to say good-bye to Tamret. I knew it, but I couldn't make myself accept it.
They can't make me,
I thought crazily. I did not want to waste what little time I had to talk to her, but how could I say what I had to say? How did I choose my words when they were all so pathetic? We were going to be torn apart, cast to our impossibly distant corners of the universe, and the cruelty and injustice of it filled me with rage as much as it numbed my mind.

I stepped in front of her again and took her hands and looked into her painfully sad lavender eyes. “Don't you dare give up,” I said.

She threw her arms around me and hugged me until it hurt, and I hugged her back. I didn't know what else to do but bury my face in the cool of her neck and wish that the moment could never end. How could it be? I thought. How could they do this? But there was no answer. No explanation. They were doing it, and I was powerless to stop it.

“I'm so sorry I let you down,” she said.