Mary Rosenblum (4 page)

Not her problem.

Ahni pushed off, caught a tube planted to tomatoes, kicked gently off, and headed back along her trail of damage, trying to move cautiously.

She fixed on the silver knife blade of Koi’s terror. Over there. It was faint, getting fainter.

Way too fast.

She kicked off of a tube and launched herself recklessly, but it was too late. She burst from the leafy shadows of the tubes and into him into wash of light that made her squint in spite of her goggles. An elevator. The wide, matte gray portal looked odd and out of place in the lush greenery. She hurtled into the wall of the enormous tube, tucking head and shoulder, rolling, and killing her momentum with her feet and knees, bruising herself but maintaining control.

They had taken Koi down with them.

As she clung to the alloy frame around the portal, something metalic and blue caught her eye. It hung in the air in the clear space around the elevator portal, turning slowly in the harsh light. Gently, Ahni pushed off and drifted closer. A bracelet. A hotel key, she realzed. The new fad. A pretty bracelet to match your business singlet, but inside, the chip to open your door, turn on the lights and the enviro controls…

They had left the key behind.

For her.

It tumbled very slowly end over end, moving in a slow steady trajectory toward the first of the leaf-covered tubes. Ahni stretched out a hand for the bracelet as she crossed its trajectory, hesitated, thinking of all the things that could be hidden in that twisted circlet cheap plastic. Touched it.

Nothing happened.

She pluckedit lightly from the air, as ifit was a poisoned fruit. An invitation? An offer? A bright puzzle-piece to toss with all the other tiny pieces that had showered around her since that hours ago trip through the Arrival Hall, like how had Krator had known her moves seemingly as soon as she did? And how had her pursuers folwed her so unerringly? Why had they taken Koi?

Like bright fragments of glass, they tumbled, razor-edged in her mind, swirling microG slowly… to form an impossible pattern.

She knew who must have left this key.

Gently, Ahni’s fingers closed over it. She slippedit into a pocket in her singlesuit, sealedit carefully closed.

Dane erupted from the leaves a moment later, halted effortlessly in front of her, didn’t touch her. “Koi?”

She met his pewter eyes. “They took him.”

“You and your damned war,” Dane growled.

“Who’s at fault here?” Rage seized her.
“You
created him. You made him into something that they’ll treat like an animal. Don’t blame me for this. This is your doing!”

He stretched out a hand, damped his drift to utter stillness, face shadowed by leaves. “I thought you were getting it,” he said in a soft, flat tone. “When you saw his family. I thought maybe, one downsider could figure it out. That this
is not Earth.
Your rules don’t work up here, don’t you get it? We keep track of everybody now, but there have been some rough periods since the first space station got bolted together up here. Some people must have … slipped through the cracks as the orbital platforms grew.

That’s what I guess anyway. And they started living up here, maybe in storage space at first, stealing food from the primitive hydroponics we had up here back then. Must have been pretty grim.” His pewter eyes bored into hers. “You got to wonder what it was they were hid-ing from, down below. But that’s all I can figure out. Oh, I thought someone made them, too. Then I did a gene-scan. They’re as Homo sapien as you and I are. Your brothers and sisters, downsider. I don’t know what’s driving the changes and oh yes, they’re still changing.” His eyes gleamed. “Our siblings, downsider? Or maybe … our successors?”

Successors.A chill walked Ahni’s spine. Because he
believed
it.
“So
then you’re safe,” she said softly.

“Why hide them?”

“You threw history at me a little while ago.” Anger flashed in his eyes. “We have a history of hating anyone with a different face or hair. How many millions have we killed for the crime of being different?

What about someone like Koi? He doesn’t look different, he
is
different.”

“That’s in the past,” Ahni snapped.

“Is it?” Dane said softly. “Rats.”

She blinked at him, uncomprehending.

“That’s how the last supervisor listed them in the database.”

Dane drifted close, so close that she could feel his breath on her face. “Temperature, humidity, crop mass, ripeness percentages, rats exterminated. It took me awhile to figure out what he meant, when I took over.”

He had to be lying.

“He was probably afraid somebody would think he’d created them.” Dane’s tone was coldly reflective.

“Or maybe they just scared him. Because they were … different. He killed quite a few. I found a young boy in one of his traps, my first day here. Neurotoxins on a pretty toy. Very creative. There weren’t many left. They don’t reproduduce well. I think a lot of pregnancies get reabsorbed, and some infants-like Koi’s sister-simply die. It wouldn’t take much to eliminate them all. Why do they exist?” His voice dropped to a whisper. ”What are they? What do they mean, downsider? That’s our question to answer, not yours. This isn’t your world. I thought you understood, so I let him take you to the elevator.”

Ahni took a breath of the heavy air. It smelled … wrong. Not like the Amazon, not like the lush tropical greenery of New Taipei. Not like Earth. “I can get him back,” she said, her words leaden. You must have a gene sequencer … an official model? With a time/date labeler? Uncompromisable?” No one was allowed to play with genes, unrecorded.

He was nodding. “Standard agribusiness model,” he said, his eyes on her face. “Licensed and tamper proof.”

She unsealed her pocket and took out the blue bracelet key. “I don’t know how many traces are on this.

Use my DNA as reference. I need the original hard copy. Signed, sealed, and presentable to the World Council if need be.” She held it out.

He took it, closed up and unreadable again. Looked from it to her “Do you want to give me a clue whose DNA you’re looking for?”

”The DNA that isn’t mine.”

“I’ll need a sample from you.”

She held out an arm and he pulled a sampler capsule from a pocket of his singlesuit, popped it open and scraped the inside of her forearm lightly. Pocketing it, he turned, gently prodding his body around with one bare foot. “Signed, sealed, and delivered, comming up.” And he arrowed away.

She followed, barely keeping him in sight. He wasn’t really trying to lose her, wasn’t trying not to lose her, either. She thought about Koi’s delicate bones and organs that had never known even moon’s gentle gravity, much less the 0.8 Earthnormal at the Level One. Tried to ignore her estimates on his survival.

When Dane vanished into an alloy-gray cluster of cylindrical pods nested among tubes and leaves?it would be the gene lab and probably the control center of the garden?she waited outside, drifting in the fierce flood of energy from Sol, nearly able to
hear
the growth of the thick, oversized spinach leaves that brushed her arms and legs lightly. Tiny lives hunted and feared and satisfied hunger all around her.

Xai waited for her on the other side of that hotel door. That’s how they had known her every move?she and Xai knew each other that well.
I cried for you. I meant to kill for you.

Why, Little Brother? Ahni watched a crystal bead of salt water drift from her face. A tiny creature like a dragonfly soared from the leaf shadows to snag the droplet in trailing legs, then vanished.

IT DIDN’T TAKE him long to sequence the sample.

“I found one major trace and a lot of contamination. Whose is it?” He tilted his head.

She was surprised he hadn’t guessed. “Our father’s clone.”

When you didn’t wear a chip, you could do a lot. Cloning a child wasn’t exactly legal, but … it happened. “I was an accident.” She shrugged. “My mother was pregnant when he was implanted.”

“But?” He broke off. Shrugged. “I sent a copy to your email,” he said. ”You should check it. This is the half-twin you said was dead?”

“Yes.” She bit off the word. “His … body was destroyed in an accident. We identified him by … DNA traces at the scene.” Blood. His blood. “You have the documentation?”

“The original, legally encrypted and sealed file. Suitable as evidence in front of the World Council.” He held out a small data sphere and the hotel key.

She slipped the sphere into a secure pocket in her singlesuit, slipped the bracelet over her wrist. “Thank you,” she said formally. “I will go get Koi now.”

“I’m coming with you.”

She shook her head. “The trained dogs who took Koi will let me by,” she said. “Not you.”

“Downsider, this is my world,” he said quietly. “You need me.” She didn’t have time to argue, simply hoped he didn’t get hurt as he followed her to the elevator. It read the bracelet and stopped at Two. The doors whispered open and a purple arrow glowed to life in the matte blue carpet of the elevator lobby, fine as a brushstroke. She followed the arrow and as she stepped across it, another one lighted a few meters ahead. The corridor was busy but not crowded. The murmur of emotions filled the air like whispering as Ahni followed the beckoning arrows. A vendor in a wide stretch of hallway lined with shops sold skewers of baby vegetables from a cart. She caught the scent of curry as she strode past.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Dane pause to buy one, obviously not interested in her or her path.

He did it well. She felt a small relief, because the dogs would be ruthless.

A North American-style coffee shop bustled, the patrons here mostly business travelers. A pair of young Asian men in cheap business singlesuits played virtual mahjong above a tiny game projector, their faces identically intent. But the smaller one with the Guangzhou face couldn’t mask his reaction as she passed.

Dragon Home dogs? That surprised her. Wheels within wheels here.

Beneath her feet, the arrows beckoned her left, down a side corridor lined with mid-range hotel rooms.

An elegant pot of ferns decorated one entry. The purple arrow winked out as she stopped in front of it.

She sensed the Mahjong players behind her in the hallway, not attacking, just watchful. No sign of Dane.

Good. This was not a game for amateurs.

She didn’t bother to touch the door pad. The Dragon Home dogs would have let him know.

She could feel him on the other side of the door.

It slid open and the physical reality of his round tawny face with pure Taiwanese features?unlike her own face shaped by her mother’s mixed geneset?shocked her. His hair was slightly mussed, as if she had interrupted him in a moment of relaxation. She met his eyes, closing up her emotions, her control so tight that it was nearly Pause. “You look very healthy.” She said it in Taiwanese, made it an insult with her tone, watched the skin tighten over his broad cheekbones. He said nothing, simply stood aside, ushering her into the hotel room.

Banishing a twinge of unreality, she noted the basic no-frills carpeting and furnishings. Roughing it. She swallowed a sudden desire to laugh, felt the flicker of her half-twin’s anger.

“I did not expect you.” He turned aside to a basic kitchen wall.

“Tea?”

She nodded, so polite.
He
should have come. Their father. It was
his
duty to restore the balance, to personally exact the vengeance for his more-than-son’s death. Xai spooned tea into a small clay colored pot, touched a wall-set spigot to fill it with steaming water. From the garden, filtered by mangos,
mei
qing choi,
and spinach? She accepted a steaming cup and it came to her suddenly - why the man in the elevator lobby had fumbled his attack. He had expected
The
Huang.

“You would have killed our father?”

He concentrated on his tea, lips tight, but he could never hide from her. Ahni set her tea down, untasted.

“There was no other way!” Xai spun away from her, flung his cup at the wall. It didn’t shatter, bounced off. “He’s never going to let me do anything. He just sees me as a younger, more energetic body that can run around doing what he orders it to do. I’ll never be anything but a
vehicle,
a body he can use. I’m not even human to him. At least you get to be a person, my mongrel little sister.”

His words stung like a slap. “You’re wrong,” Ahni said.

“Don’t give me that empath stuff. You don’t know.” He turned away from her. “What am I, little sister? A spare part.”

“Xai.” She stared at him. “What are you saying? Our family is grieving.”

“Join me.” He faced her. “We can take it all away from him. We can be bigger than he will ever be.”

“What about Krator Family? What about the small people who get hurt because our father thinks Krator Family killed you?
You
have gone to war with our father.”

Xai shrugged. “Make up your mind, little sister.”

The interview was at an end. Ahni could feel the Dragon Home dogs beyond the door.
Once we played
together,
she thought. “I came to offer you a trade, elder brother.” Her voice seemed a stranger’s. “You give me the deformed child you took from the axle and I’ll cancel the automatic send to our parents of the sealed, time-dated, and legal-encrypted DNA analysis from that hotel key. Surely you realized that a NYUp employee who was manipulating plant genes would have licensed equipment for genetic documentation in place? You touched the key, little brother.”

He hadn’t thought of this scenario. Perhaps he had been too sure of her answer to his invitation. His surprise that she would be that clever was revelatory and humiliating in the same instant. “It won’t change anything if you send it,” he said finally.

“Don’t underestimate our father.” She smiled, without mirth . “He is
you,
remember?”

Xai was thinking hard behind a slight sneer. There was no way out. She’d worked out all possible actions. Even if he killed her the file would go to their father .