Mary Rosenblum (34 page)

Dane thought of the first guard and the cold, depthless feel of his hatred. “I think you are naive,” he said and watched the Chairrman of Dragon Home flush. “We wanted the stars, but they are going to be better at living there than we are. We, Homo sapiens sapiens have never faced real competition. Do you really think we will handle competition well? Were you able to look at a DNA analysis of that girl?” That was another score, although the man’s face gave nothing away. “Why not?” he went on. “Why isn’t it public?

And she was one of the children, by the way. She was twelve.” He looked down at his clenched fists. “If they have analyzed her DNA, they know that she is a normal human … genetically. So why am I here?

Why the silence, Chairman? We can prevent them–restrict residency on the platforms to a year. Or require birth conntrol implants.”

“What was her name?”

Dane wondered where the pain in those four words came from.

Shook his head. “I named her Aliya. Her own name for herself wasn’t a word. They don’t use verbal language much, and their names are … images. Feelings. Hers translates to Joy. They’re telepathic, Chairman. Built in, instant communication. They can learn language if they need to, Koi’s family speaks English, but they don’t use it unless they have to.”

Li Zhen stood, lifted his wrist, and touched something there.

“Let me out,” he said.

The door opened, the guard’s shape visible just beyond it. Without a word, Li Zhen strode from the cell and the door whispered closed behind him.

He should have asked where he was. Not that it really mattered.

For a long time, Dane stared at the door, wondering what had just transpired here. The hours passed, meal trays arrived, the light never changed. Slowly, the tiny bright seedling of hope that had sprouted in his chest withered and finally it died.

His guess about the reasons for the Chairman’s visit had been wrong.

AHNI USED THE LINK THAT LAIF SHOWED HER TO SUMMON Kyros, who nearly dropped dead on the spot to judge by his sputtering fury. “Thanks a lot,” his voice snarled over the link. “Kidnap his kid and then show him my hole. Why the hell did I get myself involved with you in the first place?

That’s what I get for listening to Dane. I almost hope Dragon Home security gets to you before I do.”

“Your safe place is still safe,” Ahni snapped. “Smuggling wasn’~ exactly on Li Zhen’s mind and it still isn’t.”

“I hope Dane was right about you being an empath and I hope you’re telling me the truth,” Kyros snarled. ”Not that Zhen won’t probably remember soon as all this is over. But by then I’ll be gone. I’ll send you the bill for relocating.”

“Do that.” Ahni shut down anger with a moment of Pause. “And charge me for a ride back to NYUp, will you? I need to find Noah. Do you know him?”

“No.” Kyros was calming down at least. ”What does this Noah have that you need.”

“A link to the real person behind this.” She hoped. “Kyros, I’ve got to find him.”

“What about the others?”

“They need to stay here for now.”

Silence hummed across the link and she said a small prayer that Dane had trusted him for a reason.

“Be there in a bit.” He sounded weary. “Be ready. I have to play hide and seek. I hear the system is on alert. Courtesy of the CSF. Throwing their weight around.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

“So you’re heading back and just leaving us here again?” Laif glowered at her, one arm hooked through the webbing of a storage net. He looked haggard. “And why shouldn’t he just come back and blow the lock anyway? Get his stuff and get out?”

“Because if it could stand vacuum, he wouldn’t keep it here.”

“Thank you for your comforting words.”

Ahni looked past hin. Ren was playing with Koi’s family. How many more like him, she wondered?

She’d seen that couple in the scrum field park. Maybe they went to the hub garden, maybe that was part of Dane’s secret world … playground for the new generation.

“Do you think Li Zhen can do anything?” Laif drifted close. “He really didn’t say a whole lot. You’re the one who seems awfully sure that he’s on our side. I didn’t pick up much on that band, myself.”

“He … intends to do something.”

Laif gave her a dubious look.

A silvery chime sounded in the cavernous space, saving her from a reply. “That would be Kyros.” Ahni pushed off, hurtled across the dark beyond the light toward the lock. Heard Laif shout behind her.

Sure enough, the lock irised open as she approached, closed behind her, but not before she caught a glimpse of Laif hurtling across the lighthouse. No, he did not want to be left behind. Kyros was still cocooned in his webbing. “Hurry up.”

She pulled webbing across her, had barely secured it when the little ship whipped out of the dock, pinning her into the straps. “Why the hurry?”

“Got clipped by a search beam on the way in. Means they’ll have upped frequency of the sweeps in this sector. Happens automatically. Think of hide and seek in a desert, sweetheart. We better hope we find the next rat hole before a beam picks us up.”

Ahni stifled a gasp as the ship leaped sideways. Acceleration pinned her against an invisible wall briefly, then the giant’s hand released her, and she hurtled forward a third of a meter, the strap cutting painfully across her chest as they stopped her from crashing into the forward hull. Por the space of a few heartbeats she was weightless, adrift, then that giant’s hand slammed her again, forcing the air from her lungs in a grunt. Her stomach knotted and she concentrated on not throwing up.

Without warning the acceleration ended. Once more the webbbing cut into her chest and abdomen, sent her bouncing back and forth in her tether, like a ball at the end of a short elastic cord. Kyyros blanked the holofield and turned to spill her momentum. “We’re there. Go find Noah. I hope a few important gods are smilling on us and the guy knows something.” The hull opened.

The hub lock once more. Deja vu. “Can you wait here?”

“Why not?” Irony bittered his words. “They’re gunning for anything without ID out there right now. You don’t know how close you just came to meeting vacuum, girl.”

She stretched her senses to the limit, in case the CSF were still searching for Koi and his fanlliy and shot forward through the green light, aiming for the small private elevator. Her trajectory took her close to Dane’s bower and as she neared it, she felt a stranger’s attention. CSF! An instant later, Noah slipped from the bower, his pale skin reflecting the green light as he looked furtively around.

“Noah!” She shot toward him, reaching for him as she closed, urgency burning her, because she still felt the ‘aha’ attention. “They know we’re here, let’s
go
.”

Without a word they rocketed through the leafy space between the columns. They reached the private elevator, shot through the open doorway. Noah slapped the control plate, yelled “four” as they both spilled their momentum with a thud of palms and shoulders against the padded wall. Ahni rebounded, felt Noah’s hand close on her arm, stopping her sideways drift. They both hit the “ceiling” hard as the elevator dropped and Noah hissed a curse as he grabbed for a strap, missed. The small private car dropped fast and before either of them could react, the car halted.

They fell.

Ahni twisted, trying to drop feet first, didn’t quite make it. She landed hard and sideways, felt her ankle give. Pain spiked up her leg and she curled protectively as she hit the wall. She heard Noah’s explosive grunt, then a gasped curse. The elevator door remained closed as Ahni rolled to a sitting position. Noah was picking himself up, across from her, a rapidly coloring bruise on his face prommising a black eye, rubbing his shoulder. “You okay?”

“I don’t think so.” She held out a hand, let him pull her upright. When she tried to put weight on her left foot, she hissed through her teeth, her leg instantly buckling.

“Damn.” Noah caught her before she could fall, an arm around her waist. “Broken?”

“Maybe just a sprain,” she said through clenched teeth. “Let’s get out of here.”

Noah scooped her into his arms.

“No,” Ahni said sharply. “Might as well wear a sign look at me if there are CSF down here. Are there?”

Noah nodded, eased her to the floor. “Open,” he said and the doors whispered open.

Just in time. The elevator chimed a warning as they crossed the threshold and the doors instantly closed behind them with the feel of snapping jaws. Some kind of override, Ahni thought. She drew a deep breath, pain like a white hot knife stabbing upward to her hip. “Just a second.” Nobody in sight. The empty corridor suggested curfew down here, too, now. “Don’t let me fall and don’t do anything for the next minute.” She closed her eyes as Noah’s arm tighttened, summoned Pause. She looked inward, assessing the damage. No break, torn tissue, hyperflexed ligaments, lots of minor and painful damage.

Suppressed the pain response. With a sigh she opened her eyes, put weight on her damaged foot. Stood straight.

Noah was looking at her with a mix of curiosity and mild alarm.

“Thought you passed out for a second.” He looked down at her foot, now firmly on the ground. “What did you do? Heal yourself?” A hint of awe colored the question.

“I wish.” She shook her head. “I can shut out pain,” she said, “But it’s dangerous. If I touch something hot, for example, I won’t feel it.”

”You’re walking on a broken ankle.”

“Bad sprain.” She shrugged. ”Where do we go and fast?”

“My apartment.” He jerked his chin. “This way.” He offered her his arm and she leaned on it, trying to spare her injured foot as much as possible.

“They posted a curfew,” Noah said, as they made their way down the nearly empty corridor. ”You’re supposed to have a reason to be out or face house arrest. I got stopped on the way to the elevator, but I’m listed as a temp employee of Admin, so the woman let me go. Here.” He paused at an unmarked door, palmed the lock.

“Nice and close to the elevator,” Ahni said gratefully.

“Yeah. Convenient. Dane found it for me.” He helped her across the threshold.

She hadn’t been in a residential apartment up here. Noah’s was spare, with the curved walls of the upper levels, painted a soft salmon color. Wall hangings in shades of bronze, gold, pink and green picked up the color of the walls, giving the space a warm, bright feeling. A folding futon bed stood open and a kitchen wall faced it with a low table and a pile of floor cushions in between. The lights set into the floor and upper walls filled the room with the yelllow light of a summer afternoon.

“Sit here.” Noah guided her over to the futon. “Get your foot up.” He grabbed a cushion stuffed it under Ahni’s outstretched leg, then turned to the kitchen wall. Her ankle was already badly swollen. “Here.”

Noah returned with a thin towel filled with ice. He set it down and worked her flat heeled slipper off her foot. “That looks bad.” He wrapped the compress around her foot. “You better not walk on it.”

Ahni brushed that aside. “What were you doing in the bower?” “Looking for Koi. They’re gone. I guess the CSF rounded ‘em up. My fault. If I’d told him about Cleo and the Con in time … ” He buried his face in his hands again.

“They’re safe, Noah,” she explained rapidly, fended off his eager questions. ”Noah, all we can do for Dane at this point is to find the people behind this and prove that it didn’t happen on its own. That’s the only way to keep any shred of Dane’s plans alive. And we’re running out of time.”

“Yeah, right, got it.” He wiped his face on his arm, hard and angry now, edged with purpose. ”You were right. It was classic Taiwan language, wasn’t even a tough encryption. What did he think, that nobody would ever try to read it?”

“Probably.”

“I think it’s a blackmail file … it’s got a ton of information on it. Hang on.” He crossed the room in a single stride, picked up a holodesk from the floor beside the low table, nearly threw it down on the futon beside Ahni. “On,” he snapped. “Dot-file open. This is the asshole who talked Cleo and the others into diddling the Con.”

A face appeared in the field, next to a full view of a skinny man standing straight and relaxed, his eyes seeming to focus on Ahni’s face. Three dimensional letters glowed golden in the blue mist. As Ahni moved her head, the letters seemed to move with her so that they were always readable. Del Schriner-Gerard. Ahni recognized the narrow, mixedEuro face with the hard, focused stare. He had stabbed the tourist and had started the riot near admin. An ID code icon shone silver beneath his name.

”That’s the one!” She clenched a fist. ”We give the ID to the CSF. No matter how good he is, they’ve got to at least have DNA proof that he was involved with the murder. There’s our wedge.”

“There are two more.”

The holo shimmered and reformed. The man’s face, an African-euro face looked vaguely familiar, but the connection eluded her. Again the holo shimmered and reformed.

Ahni sucked in her breath and stared, all thought suspended. Tania’s broad fair face smiled at her, the honey colored hair tossed casually over one shoulder. Her dark eyes seemed to look into Ahni’s, and her smile taunted.

”You okay?” Noah touched her arm. “You know her?”

Ahni laughed a single, hard note. “I thought so.”

In a flash of connection, she recognized the African-Euro man.

Xai had hired him as Security at the family compound. He was Gaiist, she remembered. Xai had joked about it.

“Ahni?” Noah touched her arm again. “So what is this about?”

“I don’t know yet.” But she had all the pieces now, just needed to see the picture. Ahni pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes until red light webbed the darkness there. “We need to go to the CSF

commander with this and give them my brother’s name as well.” She touched the holo base, blanked it. “I need to talk to Li Zhen again.” Because Xai was indeed playing a double game here, and Li Zhen didn’t know it. And what the hell was the game? Two Gaiists. What interest would the Gaiists have in the platforms? It also occurred to her that Tania was quite capable of the meticulous planning that had gone into the agitation campaign on NYUp. Tania and Xai?