Reclamation (26 page)

“They’re the only ones around who have even a small chance of making an effective block against the Vitae. They are interested in establishing a permanent, open communications network. If I help Ross with … Family matters … she works on making sure that network is one I can use and the more space there is, the more chances there are that there’ll be others like me found, or made.”

Eric blinked. “Does Madame Chairman know about this grand scheme?”

“Of course she does.”

“Dorias.” Eric leaned forward. “I don’t know how safe you are here. I don’t think Madame Chairman approves of people who are either not Human or not under Family control.”

“Never fear, Teacher, I’ve made myself extremely useful to her. She has a lot riding on my continued goodwill.”

And you’ve got a lot riding on hers.
It was easy to forget that Dorias was only six years old. His experiences and memories were mature and complex, but his knowledge of human duplicity, while it existed, was limited. He hadn’t had to plumb many depths yet. Eric debated telling him about Schippend for a moment, then decided against it.

Who knows what land of pressure Madame Chairman would lay on Dorias if she found out he knew about a member of … Of what, a conspiracy? Political opposition? Black market? What?

Eric’s shoulders started to ache from the weight on them. “Dorias, I have a feeling things are moving double-quick around me. I’ve got to get going.”

“What are you thinking of doing?”

“I’m going to try to tap into the Vitae private network so I can find out what they’re doing in the Realm.”

“You don’t pick the easy targets, do you?” A pair of lines arched in an imitation of raised eyebrows. “You know it’s physically impossible for me to get inside their net, don’t you? It’s like you trying to walk through a brick wall.”

Eric grimaced. “I know. I’m counting on being able to use my power gift to at least open a line in there. I might even be able to work the data retrieval commands. But I won’t be able to interpret anything I pull out.”

“Ah, and that would be my job?” said Dorias.

Eric nodded and then remembered Dorias couldn’t see him. “Yes. The only real problem is I can’t do my part from here. I’ll have to get close to a station or terminal that’s got access to a Vitae system. But I can’t risk a transmission from the
U-Kenai
to May 16. I’ve got no idea who the Vitae have watching for me. I need … I need to ask you to come with me.” He said it carefully. Dorias did not like data boxes. They could be picked up and carried away too easily.

Dorias’s frequency lines wriggled and bunched sharply. “There’s another possibility.” His lines smoothed out. “I could, if you can give me time, provide you with a copy of myself.”

That took Eric aback. The idea sank in and he smiled. “You’d give me your firstborn? Dorias, I’m honored.”

The frequency lines bowed upward momentarily to parody a human smile. “It would not be my firstborn, although it is certainly not something I do frequently, but yes, that is the idea. I’ll estimate the required storage space.”

Eric mentally ran through an inventory of his ship’s information systems. “I haven’t got a whole lot of the dynamic storage to spare, Dorias. I run pretty close to capacity.” He stopped. “Unless you could fit a new program into Cam.”

“The android?” There was a split-second pause. “Yes. I could do that. In fact, it would be easier to fit a program based on my own makeup into the android’s network than the normal ship systems. It’s much more flexible. I am beginning work on it now.” A section of waves and colors fenced itself off in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

“Thank you.” Eric watched his friend’s fluctuations for a moment. “How long do you think this will take?”

“Until tomorrow morning, I’m afraid. This is a precise job.”

“That’ll do fine. I have some other … inquiries I want to make. I’ll call back later, all right?”

“And I’ll keep an ear out for anything new about … you.”

“I’d appreciate that. Good-bye, Dorias.”

They broke the connection and Eric sat staring at the blank screen for a long time.
Why didn’t I tell him? He might even know what Schippend’s up to, or who he’s working for. Garismit’s Eyes, what’re things coming to when I won’t trust Dorias with what I know …

Rather than think about that, he opened his satchel and pulled out a cobalt blue box, six inches on a side, with a small display screen on the top. A hardwire jack had been set in each side. The box could have been anything at all, from a storage box to a private data recorder to a virus apiary.

Actually it was a couple of ghosts.

Eric put the box on the chair and fished a coil of cables out of his pack to lay beside it. Then he knelt in front of the comm board. He ran his fingertips around the edges until he found the catches for the circuit cover. After a moment’s scrabbling, he managed to snap them open and lift the cover away.

In some ways it would be safer to do this aboard the
U-Kenai,
but from there it would be harder to hide the point of origin for his signal.

Eric opened a flap on his tool belt and laid a pair of small screwdrivers and a delicate knife on the floor. Then he sat cross-legged in front of the board and did nothing for a long moment but study the circuits. Some of the major blocks were labeled. Some were color coded. He noted with a certain amusement that the Unifiers were using a coding system derived from the Vitae’s public standard.

He located four of the major transfer points. After that, it was only a few minutes’ work with the knife and the screwdrivers to splice a quartet of cables into the existing system.

He looked back at the squirming chair in disgust and dragged a single-phase seat over from the table and sat down in it.

He retrieved the box and plugged the free ends of the cables into its sockets.

Perivar had made this box. As soon as he had been able to pick himself up off the deck where Tasa Ad and Kessa had died, he had ordered Dorias to ransack the ship’s data-holds and gather together anything and everything about its owners. Fighting the sickness spreading from his wounded arm, he had taken the readings from Kessa and Tasa Ad as they lay dead on the deck. He had almost lost their chance of escape, but he knew he’d need their retina and finger scans, their DNA echoes, and their images. When he and Eric had ducked the other runners and climbed aboard the
U-Kenai,
Perivar had dumped all that information into this box. Eric remembered how he had paced between the airlock and the common room while Perivar bent over the box, selecting, organizing, creating. Eric laid his hand on Dorias’s carrying case and, for the first and last time, he pleaded to the Nameless for a Skyman. Perivar jacked the box into the comm board and, using the ship’s intercom, sent orders to Cam to get the
U-Kenai
under way. The android verified that the orders came from its owners and obeyed.

When Eric got onto Schippend’s line, Schippend would not see him. His screen would show him Tasa Ad standing a little in front of Kessa, who would be hanging back to act as his backup and advisor. Just as they had appeared when they lived. He could scan their retinas, if he had the equipment, and verify the DNA records of their arrival and registry on May 16. As far as the network was concerned, they were alive and well and in residence in the City of Alliances. Eric could view the runner’s images on the box’s display screen and control them with a touch.

Their projected behaviors had been so like what he had seen from their living counterparts, Eric had once asked Dorias to analyze the processes inside the box to see if he could find any sign of independent consciousness in them. He still did not know what he would have done if Dorias had said yes.

Eric cradled the box on his lap and, with one hand, called up the public directory to trace the open line Schippend had reserved.

Schippend’s face appeared on the main screen, and he was obviously none too pleased to see a pair of strangers on his screen. “This is a reserved line, and I …”

Eric touched the image of Tasa Ad and said, “Your pardon, Sar Schippend.” on the box’s display, Tasa Ad’s head inclined smoothly. “I just wanted to be certain that I would reach you,” he went on. “We have a mutual acquaintance, I believe. Sar Eric Born.”

Schippend stiffened. “Sar Born is no acquaintance of mine. I was assigned to clear his planetside IDs. That’s all.”

“He told me that you also offered to help him leave the planet if things got … difficult for him.” Tasa Ad’s face took on a knowing smile. Perivar had done a great job programming the body language. Not surprising, Eric supposed, since ghosts had been his specialty as a revolutionary.

Eric tapped the screen over Kessa and mouthed the words for her. She straightened up. “Or if Madame Chairman made them difficult.”

“What do you want?” asked Schippend.

“Credit,” said Kessa. Eric touched Tasa Ad and gave him his lines.

He waved his sister back. “If there’s someplace you or your employers want Sar Born to be, or not to be, we can take care of it for you.”

Schippend’s expression became wary. “And how is it you can manage that?”

“We are the ones who gave him passage off his home-world,” said Tasa Ad. “He owes us for a few things.”

“And we owe him,” added Kessa darkly.

“I need to clear this line,” said Schippend.

“Of course. We can be contacted at this space.” Eric cut the line, leaned back, and waited.

He didn’t have to wait for long. The box screen lit up in less than a minute. Text lines spilled across it, reporting that Schippend was running his checks. He was making sure that Tasa Ad and Kessa had actually landed, that they had been checked in and verified. As long as he looked in the May 16 network, all his calls would be routed to the ghost box. If he started checking outside, he would find that Tasa Ad and Kessa had vanished six years ago. And then Kessa would just explain that being driven underground was what they “owed” Sar Born for.

Eric stretched. Between checking up on Tasa Ad and then contacting his employers, Schippend could be at this for hours. Eric used an unaltered line in the corner of the comm board to order a meal from the kitchen. He yawned. Some sleep would be good, but he couldn’t risk it. He had to be awake in case something went wrong with the ghost box. He called up his account from the clear line, saw the negative balance, and choked. If he wanted to keep his word to Madame Chairman, he’d have to drain his own accounts to the bone. The credit listing flicked over as he watched. Now, he’d have to go into debt.

When it only took Schippend three hours to open the line to Tasa Ad again, Eric was surprised. The man was nowhere near as slow as he pretended to be.

Eric activated the ghosts and tapped Tasa Ad. “Sar Schippend, I did not expect to hear from you so soon.”

“For this particular project, there is not much time to waste.” Schippend leaned forward.

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Eric said for Kessa. “Is there a way we can help you?”

“Yes. You can get Eric Born off May 16 and take him to the ship the
Morning Glory,
docked at Orbit one.”

“We’d be glad to,” said Kessa. “If the pay’s good.”

“Oh, very good. It’s Vitae pay.”

Eric almost swallowed his tongue. The ghosts froze for a dangerously long pause. He jabbed a finger at Tasa Ad and choked out the words. “I should have guessed.”

“Is there a problem?”

Kessa laughed. “No. I just prefer working with men with hair, that’s all.” All three of them laughed.

They haggled over prices then and delivery of credit, which went straight into the ghost box. Eric smiled grimly to himself as he realized he now had an easy way to pay off the outrageous bill he was running up.

He cut the line to Schippend and opened a new one to Dorias.

“Dorias. Is the copy done yet?”

“I told you, tomorrow morning, Teacher.”

“Dorias, I have got to get out of here.” He explained the conversation he had just finished with Schippend.

Dorias was quiet for a long time. “All right, Teacher. I’ll move as fast as I can. Get back to the
U-Kenai
and get Cam ready to receive a transmission.”

“Thank you, Dorias.”

Eric called for a car with a preprogrammed destination. He dropped most of the credit Schippend had sent Tasa Ad into his May 16 account.

The car arrived and Eric climbed inside. He spent the ride trying not to fidget.

It was all so ridiculous. The Realm was a dead world and a dying people and all of a sudden empires were ready to go to war over it. If they wanted the power-gifted, they could just hire a few contraband runners and take them. They weren’t exactly hard to spot. And if they just wanted the genes, Eric forced the thought through, the Vitae had had plenty of opportunities to get them from him. And if the Vitae wanted the planet? That was the most ridiculous part. There were plenty of dead rocks in the Quarter Galaxy that they could have laid claim to without anyone kicking up a ruckus. Almost as ridiculous as kidnapping a Notouch.

What would the Seablades say if they knew?
he wondered.
What would Mother say? Nameless Powers preserve me, what would that old goat First Teacher Signed to Still Water say?

That’s if they’re still alive.
He bit his lip.

The auto pulled up to the port and Eric transferred into one of the port cars. It was a good thing there was little traffic at this hour. He drove with only half an eye on where he was going.

The
U-Kenai
waited undisturbed for him. Eric boarded his ship and sealed the airlock. He let out a long breath.
Home,
he thought.
And as safe as I can be anywhere.

“Cam,” said Eric as he walked onto the bridge. “Sit down. Open interface.”

The android sat in the pilot’s chair and stretched one arm toward Eric. With the other hand, it lifted back a socket cover on its wrist.

Eric pulled a single cable out of a storage compartment under the main boards. He plugged one end of it into the comm board socket and the other into Cam’s wrist. The android did not move.