The Pride of Parahumans (16 page)

After three days of this siege, I was sick
and tired of it all. Appropriately, that was when the opposition
decided that they wanted to negotiate.

I received a message from Jakob stating that
he would be sending one of his clones, along with three of the
Guildmasters under his domain, to speak with me and my followers.
He wanted to meet on "neutral ground" in the primary airlock doors
separating the spaceport from the Marquez cavern. I told him that
there was no such thing as neutral ground on this asteroid, and he
may as well come out here to the bay. He agreed, but only on the
condition that each of the representatives he was sending be
allowed to bring a bodyguard. I told him that we would match each
of these bodyguards one to one and if they brought too many, the
negotiations would be called off immediately. With that, the
meeting time was set for the following day shortly after noon.

On the day of the negotiations, we set up a
large table in the middle of the cave, far enough away from the
camp that it would take time for our people to run up and grab the
negotiators, but close enough to give everyone in the camp a clear
shot at everyone else. Handling negotiations on our side were me,
Olga; and a horse by the name of Harvey, who seemed to be one of
the organizers of our little militia. Denal was acting as one of
our bodyguards. Somehow he'd gotten hold of another sword like the
one that had snapped off in Derrick Marquez's bodysuit, but he kept
it sheathed and carried a Gauss rifle loaded with armor-piercing
flechettes; clearly, he had learned something, though I admit it
wasn't much. Half an hour before the representatives were due to
arrive, we sat down and awaited their arrival.

We waited almost two hours before they showed
up. As they came, Denal and our other bodyguards held out portable
IR, UV, and radar scanners to make sure they weren't accompanied by
more than the four fully armored men we could see, as if they
needed more. They were Jerome Marquez, Georgia Wolf, and a ram who
went by the name of Nicholas Oak, all dressed in suits that I
guessed concealed body armor, as well as a familiar-looking
savannah cat dressed in the white robe of the SPPS hierarchy. A
very
familiar-looking savannah cat, I realized, as he sat
down and shot me a small wink.

"Maximus!" I exclaimed in a moment of
recognition.

"Yes. Father thought that you would be more
inclined to trust the one of us you already knew best."

I looked around at the other negotiators.
Olga and her mother were staring at one another with expressions of
mutual disapproval, while Jerome Marquez was shooting Denal a look
that couldn't be interpreted as anything less than murderous
intent. Harvey and Nicholas on the other hand, seemed to be
studying one another, attempting to guess one another's next move,
I supposed.

I turned back to the Griggs representative.
"How can I be sure that you're really Maximus? There are, what, six
of you? And Octavius helped your dad shoot me out into space and
fried my subvocal comm."

Maximus withdrew at that accusation.
"Seriously? We knew dad gave him some help passing the entry exams
but I didn't know he was assisting in executions." Noticing that
everyone at the table had turned to stare at him, he cleared his
throat and addressed my question. "Anyhow, I could remind you that
you showed me the mutation in the promoter to MOR10X-6 in the first
place. Or that I was the one who told you all that stuff about
sexual reproduction's benefits and gave you the backup I'd made of
the data Dad made you delete."

The others on his side of the table turned on
him immediately. "You did that?!" Jerome Marquez sputtered. "You're
the one who gave this creature the means to tear down the very
foundations of the society we've worked so hard to build?!"

Olga threw in her own comment. "When the
foundation is rotten, it needs to be torn down. And this society is
founded on the worst form of government known to humanity."

Georgia Wolf leaned across the table to
glower at her clone. "We have been working our hardest to treat our
clients with the respect they deserve." She pointed to Denal. "We
even took in that murderer when he gave us evidence that he had
been framed."

Denal cowered behind his mate at this
statement. Olga only laughed at it. "Please. I know that you only
decided to defend him in order to use him as a bargaining chip with
Marquez at some point." I could see her rolling her eyes as she
added. "And I've seen some of the stuff my sisters have gotten away
with."

"So what does Jakob want?" I cut in, not
particularly caring for this little family reunion that was
interrupting the peace talks we so desperately wanted at this
point.

"Right," Maximus started. "He wants you all
off this rock." I just stared at him blankly for a few seconds.
"He's chartered a fleet of passenger liners to move you and all
your supporters to Ceres."

"An entire fleet?" I asked incredulously.
"For just a few hundred of us? Sounds a bit expensive."

Nicholas Oak finally spoke up. "It's not just
the small army you have gathered here. We're estimating that with
all the rioters scattered across the asteroid and the non-violent
followers of yours, there are possibly five thousand
'reproductionists,' as some of us have started to call them."

"Five. Thousand." I had no idea there were so
many parahumans who believed me, much less that they were willing
to fight for the right to use my invention.

"Yes," Maximus confirmed. "And Dad wants them
all out of Vesta by the end of the week. So badly that he'll spend
a small fortune to get them out of his way."

"Sounds like a very generous offer," I mused.
"But I'm afraid I can't go to Ceres, as I'm sure you can recall
why."

"Then go to Hygeia or something. I don't care
so long as you're not interfering with our rule over these
habitats." Marquez's statement seemed rather angry, but it sounded
sincere, like he really thought that this was the best plan for
dealing with us, which actually made me suspicious.

"We can order the ships to go anywhere within
their range," Maximus stated. I perked up at the word "we." He
seemed to notice, because he then said, "I'm coming with you."

He pulled at his SPPS robe and began to tear
it off. "I no longer feel safe here," he said as he tossed the
discarded robe to one of the bodyguards.

We stared in amazement as the now naked
feline walked around the table to stand next to us. Our own guards
training their guns on him.

I turned back to the remaining Guild
negotiators. "Tell Jakob we accept his offer." I moved to stand up,
wincing a little as the hole in my side was forced to bend. "And I
believe that concludes our meeting for today. Goodbye."

Georgia Wolf, Jerome Marquez, and Nicholas
Oak gave us a last parting look of displeasure before getting up to
leave. Once they were gone, Olga turned to Maximus. "What are you
thinking?! You're a clone of Argen's sworn enemy entering a camp
full of people who want to overthrow your father! How long do you
think you'll survive here?!"

Max grimaced as he tried to formulate an
answer. Finally he settled on this: "You're a clone of one of my
dad's lapdogs. They seem to accept you just fine."

"They know that I'm HoundOfGod; they're well
aware that I'm on their side," Olga responded rather emphatically.
"And for the record, House Wolf has a reputation as one of the…
the…" her gaze drifted downwards as she trailed off. Suddenly, she
slammed her palm over her eyes and said. "Somebody give him some
pants; that's very distracting."

At this command, Denal walked up behind his
mate and put his arms around her possessively. A low hissing sound
began to utter from his throat. Seeking to diffuse the situation, I
undid my kilt and held it out to Maximus. Now everyone's eyes were
on me instead. "It's not like I have anything to hide," I retorted.
Then I moved to change the subject. "So, Max, what's the catch that
you didn't want to talk about in front of the goons?"

As Maximus struggled to put on the kilt, he
spoke again. "Well, they didn't tell me anything, but after seeing
that video of yours, where he confessed to engineering my
grand-progenitor's demise, I expected that he had somehow sabotaged
the ships he chartered."

Harvey, Denal, and two of our bodyguards
mouths dropped open in shock. I had expected as much though, and if
Olga was surprised, she didn't show it.

"And what do you suggest we do about it?" I
asked.

Max shrugged. "I do have quite a few qcoins
in my personal wallet." He held up his wristpad, which, aside from
my kilt was the only thing he was wearing. "I might be able to
purchase some old freighters and habitation modules to take us
wherever we decide to go."

"Let me see," I said, and he pulled up the
qcoin wallet on his pad. I read the number, and my eyes went wide
open in shock. "This may be enough for the habitat modules and a
down payment on a junker freighter to carry them. We would need a
lot more to buy one outright. And it might be enough to transport
3,000 people."

"Well, how many ships do our supporters
have?" Denal asked. "We might be able to cram a dozen people into
our ship, and I think we have the capacity to haul enough modules
for twenty more."

"At the moment," I said, "I'm more concerned
about where we'd go. You and I cannot return to Ceres, and I get
the feeling that these people will want to follow us wherever we
go."

"How about Pallas?" We turned to Harvey. This
was the first time we'd heard him speak since the negotiations
began. "It's pretty close in size to Vesta, but there are no
permanent settlements due to its erratic orbit. Any colonists would
be cut off from the majority of the Belt for months at a time."

"But that happens to be what we want now
isn't it?" I stated. "But how would we get there if there's no
permanent settlements?"

"I own a small cargo hauler," Harvey replied.
"I think I could transport maybe fifty people in habitat modules.
And to answer your question, Denal, the people down here have at
least partial ownership of maybe five mining ships like yours and
eight cargo ships of various sizes. We could load them up with
habitat modules, use the mining ships to land them on the surface
of Pallas, and dig tunnels for more permanent habitation-or seal up
the ones already dug by prospectors."

"You've thought this out, haven't you?" I
suggested.

"Always helps to have an escape plan," the
horse told us. "But if that sheep was telling the truth about there
being nearly five thousand of us out there, we are going to need
that freighter this clone was talking about." He pointed at
Maximus.

I looked at Maximus as if expecting him to do
something. Finally I told him, "Transfer the money to Olga. We're
going shopping."

Chapter
16

We found a trans-system rated freighter older
than me for a down payment of a mere one million qcoins, about half
of what Maximus Griggs had given us. The dealer took some
persuasion to give it to a bunch of "zealots who would be taking it
far beyond any resemblance of civilized space," though. And to be
fair, there was a decent chance that we wouldn't be able to make
very many of the quarterly payments on it.

The habitat modules, equipped with cabins,
carbon dioxide scrubbers, and algae tanks sufficient to support two
to twenty people apiece, were much easier to acquire, though most
of the ones we could find were intended for temporary mining camps
rather than building a long-term settlement. Just to be safe, we
also bought some inflatable air tanks to give us extra space to
move around in once we got to the planetoid.

When Olga posted our plan online, we got over
four thousand replies expressing interest in leaving with us. They
brought another pair of mining ships and a trio of cargo ships with
them. It took three days to find all the ships and equipment our
little colony would need to get started, followed by another week
to prepare it all for the journey. It was during this step that the
first problems began to emerge.

Four days from our scheduled time of
departure, I found myself and Olga in one of the maintenance
crawlspaces on our "new" freighter while Denal showed us something
he had spotted while certifying it as spaceworthy. The object was a
small cube about ten centimeters to a side and welded onto one of
the support struts. "What is it?" I asked.

"Cutting charge." Said Denal curtly. "At a
pre-set time or a signal from a detonator it will send a blast of
hot plasma through this beam and sever it neatly. Could cause the
entire ship to fold in half if it blew during or before a
burn."

"They sabotaged it this quickly?" Olga asked.
"We've only had it a week! Who would have been able to put it in
place?"

"I think I know," said Denal. "He may not
have picked this one out, but Maximus was there when we bought
it."

"It was his money we used," Olga objected.
"He had the right to know what we were using it for."

"There you go again!" Denal swung himself
towards his mate in the cramped space of the crawlway. "Ever since
he joined us, you've been defending him every time I suggest that
something's going on." He drew in right up against her face. "And
don't think I haven't seen you sneaking peeks at his butt."

"Jealous?" Olga sniggered.

Exactly what was going on? It was starting to
remind me of some human movie I'd seen a while ago, though exactly
which one escaped my mind for a while. Then I registered a strange
musky scent coming from the feuding couple, and they suddenly began
to grapple with one another, bouncing around in the tiny space
banging into the walls. As I watched, I noticed their mouths
attempting to close around one another's, biting each other's
muzzles. Then I spotted Olga pulling Denal's dick out of his pants,
and it clicked. "You two, what are you doing?!"