Reunion (26 page)

“Our father. What about our father?”

“What?” Annoyed, she strained to hear him.

He hadn’t realized he had lowered his voice. More forcefully he repeated, “Our father. Anasage’s name was given. I couldn’t find out anything about the father—although I have some ideas.”

She responded with a snort of disgust. “You mean the sperm donor?” Seeing him wrought with tension, she grinned. “Well now, Brother. Maybe I have some ideas myself—and maybe I don’t. It’s a complex matter, this business of a ceremonial sire. Maybe I know something—and maybe I don’t. If you kill me, you’ll never find out.”

“You’re the one who keeps speaking of killing—not me.” He peered deep into her eyes, trying to fathom the fury that emanated so palpably from the mind beyond. “All right. For the moment—just for the moment, mind—I accept that you
may
be another sister of mine. But in the absence of the recognized commonality of a correlative father, only a half-sister, like Teleen. Whether you’re my full sister is still open to question. A few simple biological tests ought to answer that question.”

“You think so?” she challenged him. “You really don’t know very much about the Meliorares, do you?”

“As much as you or anyone else,” he bluffed. “At least now I understand the antipathy you and Teleen showed for one another.”

“Just because she was a selfish, uncaring bitch who didn’t give a damn what happened to me, why would you think I showed any antipathy toward her?”

“If you’re so much like me, what am I feeling right now?” he queried her.

“I don’t need Meliorare gengineered abilities to tell me that, Brother dear. I can see it in your face, read it in your posture. And I don’t need a mental ‘lens’ in the form of an Alaspinian minidrag to focus or amplify what abilities I do have.”

He could not, did not try to hide his shock. “How did you know about that?” At the stir of emotion, Pip had stirred slightly on his shoulder.

“As I said, my abilities are different from yours. Stronger in some ways, in others weaker.
Different.
Isn’t that a consequence typical of distinct experiments? With you, the Meliorares achieved one kind of result. With me, another. From what I have been able to discover, from the records that have been sealed and not destroyed, I get the impression our makers were not especially pleased and more than a little confused by both of us. Of course, we’ll never really know what they had in mind, what particular paradigms you and I were supposed to fill.” Her laughter was tinged with just a hint of hysteria.

“The experimenters are all gone—dead or selectively mindwiped. Only a couple of the ongoing experiments remain.” The smile vanished. “Even though I’ve done my best to terminate one of them.”

He ignored the self-evident. She wasn’t the first one who had tried to have him killed. “You knew our mother. I did not. What was Anasage like?” Did he really want to know? he found himself wondering even as he asked the question. What if the poor, dead woman turned out to be a disappointment, or worse? “I was sold on Moth, a hinterland world far from Earth. How did she lose custody of me?”

“I don’t know anything about any of that.” Mahnahmi’s certitude was crushing. “The first I knew of you beyond vague mentions by her was when you showed up that day to speak to Conda Challis. If you recall, I was more than a little shocked. As for Anasage—” The young woman hesitated before resuming her reply in an entirely different tone of voice. “—I remember a strong, beautiful, intelligent, but deeply disturbed woman—with red hair, interestingly. You got her hair; I got everything else on that side of the genetic pool. She was caring—when she had the time. She was maternal enough—when she wasn’t busy with something else. Insofar as I could tell, given my age, her relationship with Challis was strictly business. She had no feelings of warmth or affection for him whatsoever. To this day I don’t know if that made me hate her more or less.” She blinked, as if dragging herself back to the present. “She perished of a disease of many syllables. It was mercifully quick.”

“Did she ever mention anything about your father—my father?”

Turning her exquisite profile to him, Mahnahmi deposited a gob of sputum on the floor. “Your father, my father, was an injection in a Meliorare laboratory. It’s hard to develop feelings for tubes of glass and composite. Anasage never said anything about a biological begetter.”

Another dead end. Flinx lurched onward. “Why did Conda Challis continue to look after you and not Teleen when Anasage died?”

“I don’t know where you’ve been or what you’ve seen since the last time I tried to have you killed, Flinx, but despite your obvious intelligence it’s clear that certain areas of your education have been neglected. I was a lot younger and a lot prettier than Teleen. Challis . . . Conda Challis was a bipedal life-form raised up from primordial slime, with habits and vices to match his internal, intestinal, mental, and moral composition. He truly liked children, Brother dear. He especially liked little girls. And I . . . I had the ill luck to be his very favorite.”

Rage poured out of her in a flood of ravaged emotion, an endless river of empathetic bruises. For the first time, Flinx understood a little of what prompted her to seethe at the entire universe. Years ago, he had not been experienced enough or knowledgeable enough to suspect the depths of Challis’s depravity. Foulness that he was, the merchant was abusing the daughter of his own mistress while simultaneously claiming the child as his adopted own. Mahnahmi’s developing years must have been a continuous and incomprehensible hell. At the same time, she had to look on while her older half-sister Teleen was taken in hand, taught, and patronized by their aunt Rashalleila.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could think of to say. On his shoulder, Pip stirred.

“What for? You had nothing to do with it. Consider yourself fortunate. Challis liked little boys, too.”

“I didn’t exactly have an easy childhood myself.” He proceeded to fill her in on selected fragments of his own personal history.

She responded to his revelations with a derisive laugh. “You had freedom, of a kind, and an adoptive parent who cared about you. While my innocence and my childhood were being treated like toilet paper, you were having adventures and exploring the worlds of the Arm.” Her voice fell even as the intensity of her anger multiplied. “Don’t speak to me of sufferings no greater than childish ineptitude. I could tell you stories that would knot your guts like a wet rag.”

“Well then, at least I can say that I’m sorry I was forced, that day on Ulru-Ujurr, to watch Pip kill our half-sister.”

“Teleen?” The young woman chuckled amusedly. “I was delighted to learn, when I once again reached civilization, of your unintended efforts on my behalf. Her death removed one more potential claimant to the patrimony of Challis’s business interests.”

He found he could not help himself. “You are one cold, calculating little bitch, aren’t you,
Sister
?”

Again the mock bow put in an appearance. “I am immune to compliments, but coming from you, I appreciate the gravity of the specific designation.” As she straightened, her gaze once more rose to meet his. “So—what are you going to do now?”

“Why are you so intent on seeing me dead?”

“Because as long as you’re alive there’s someone who can identify me as an Adept. Someone who can sense my moods, my emotions, and if they so desire, interfere with my intentions. Not to mention someone who could expose me to the authorities. I don’t like sharing the spotlight, Flinx, even if we two constitute both the audience and the act. Your presence concerns me; your talent worries me. I would be more comfortable with you out of the way.”

It was his turn to wax sardonic. “I’m sorry that my continued existence inconveniences you so.”

“That’s all right. It won’t be forever. Are you going to try and kill me now? I’m still not entirely sure that you can.” Hands on hips, she studied him out of bottomless black eyes, her voice a sinister purr. “You’re not the only innocent zygote the accursed Meliorares imbued with curious talents, you know.”

It was a direct challenge. Pip sensed it too. She rose from her resting position, wings outspread, eyes flashing, ready to strike. Flinx calmed her with commands as well as feelings.

“I don’t want to fight you, Mahnahmi. I didn’t come here for that. In case you haven’t guessed by now, I came for the personal sybfile that was removed from Earth. You took it, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Given its sensitive designation, it was safer to leave the original behind. Properly secured, of course. Like you, I have been researching my past—though not with such obsessive dedication. I found out about the work of the Meliorare Society and wanted to know more. My investigations told me nothing about a possible biological father. As I insinuated earlier, I’m not sure there ever was one.”

“When I was on Earth recently and tried to access the original syb, it struck back at me.”

Mahnahmi did not look surprised. “Information bomb. Once I had accessed, studied, and copied the syb, I thought it best to keep anyone in authority from tracking my work. None of that discouraged
you
, but then, you would have more reason than most to be persistent in trying to trace it. No one shadowed your progress and followed you here, I presume?”

“To an obscure AAnn world lying deep within Empire boundaries? Even if it was physically possible, why would anyone want to?”

“You underestimate our eminence, Brother dear. We may be the last surviving unreconstructed examples of the Meliorares’ work. It would be worth a major promotion to the representative of any Commonwealth authority who brought us in, whether kicking and screaming or stiff and silent.”

“They’ve closed the book on the Meliorare Society.”

“You think so? Then for all your travels and experiences, you’re still deathly naive, Brother mine.”

He did not argue with her, did not debate the assertion. Though he felt otherwise, he could not be certain which of them was right. Commonwealth peaceforcers could be unnervingly persistent, and who knew what probes the United Church had placed on the work of the Meliorares? It distressed him to think he might still be an unofficial fugitive, with selective mindwipe awaiting him should he ever be confronted and identified by questioning authorities.

“There’s one thing I still don’t understand.”

She shrugged diffidently. “If you’re not going to kill me, then we have plenty of time to chat. What
are
you going to do with me?”

“I haven’t decided yet.” That was truthful enough he decided, as he spared another glance for the bound Qwarm. “There’s something that’s puzzled me ever since I located the sybfile in the bowels of Larnaca Nutrition storage and traced it to your ship.” He watched her carefully, preparing to judge her response, trying to read her feelings even before she replied. “I’ve looked and looked, but try as I might I can’t find any link between Pyrassis and the workings of the Meliorare Society.”

As near as he could tell, both from her visible and emotional reactions, she was genuinely puzzled. “A link between Pyrassis and the Meliorares? It’s not surprising you couldn’t find one. There
is
no such link: no connection, not a damn thing.”

If she was lying, he decided, it was with such skill that he was unable to detect it. “If that’s so, then why did you go to the trouble of bringing the original syb containing the proscribed Meliorare data with you? If this dangerous journey into AAnn territory has nothing to do with the Meliorare Society and its work, then what
are
you doing here?”

She had laughed at him earlier, but those outbursts were nothing like the one that ensued now. She laughed until she cried, bitter tears mixed with genuine amusement. “You stupid boy! You really
don’t
have a clue as to what I’m doing here, do you?”

He bridled but kept a rein on his temper. “Oh, I have a clue, all right.” With a gesture he took in their highly advanced alien surroundings. “I just can’t figure out how it ties in to the work of the Meliorares.”

Her voice rose, echoing through the endless corridors. “That’s because it doesn’t
have
anything to do with the Meliorares, you empathic idiot!” Again her laughter rattled down through the vast empty spaces. “When you forced your way into the syb on Earth, it responded the same way it would to any unauthorized intruder. As for me keeping the data with me, whenever I travel off-world I always take a full complement of sensitive personal information along. Not because I think I’m necessarily going to need it, but because it’s too valuable and too dangerous not to keep close at hand.” Wiping her eyes with the back of her left wrist, she eyed him ruefully.

“You, of all people, should know that Church and Commonwealth are implacable when it comes to such matters. Not being able to risk the loss or discovery of such critical material pertaining to my history, I long ago took steps to make sure I would always have access to a copy, while at the same time ensuring that the original remaining on Earth was appropriately safeguarded. I wasn’t taking along information having to do with you so much as I was protecting information dealing with me. The syb you’re so desperate to see is safely locked up in my private annex on board the
Crotase
.”

“Personal recorder DNP-466EX,” he murmured.

“Armed and locked.” Her expression contorted. “Unfortunately, what applies to one of us is inevitably applicable to the other. Don’t flatter yourself that it’s otherwise.”

“All right.” For the moment, he had decided to accept her explanation. “Then if it has nothing to do with the Meliorares, what are you doing here? Did you come in hopes of finding just the transmitter?”

Her countenance changed so quickly and she looked at him so sharply that he was momentarily taken aback. “So you know about that, too.”

“It’s pretty hard to miss a transmitter two thousand square kilometers in extent. Especially if you’re standing right on top of it when it decides to transmit. It was no more than two or three days’ hike from where you were camped. While I was there, it sent out a single signal. Very fleeting, very intense. I had neither the time nor the facilities to try and analyze it.” He nodded at their softly humming surroundings. “But it was traced to this place.”