Requiem for Anthi: Anthi - Book Two (14 page)

The ship bumped and shuddered. He heard a bulkhead groan, then the rough vibrations smoothed back to normal. Other than a slight giddy sensation as though the world were falling out from under his feet, he could detect no other differences in the way the ship handled. He patted Zaula’s shoulder.

“Poor helmsmanship,” he said, thinking of the days when he’d worked as a GSI crewer. “I don’t look forward to slam with this guy at the controls.”

“Slam?”
said Zaula. She pulled away from him with an abrupt jerk. Her cheeks were stained with discomfiture.

“A human term for the process of coming out of implosion drive.”

She was pleating the cloth at her knees, her head held low so that he could not see her face under the sweep of her hair. “It is still wrong. I am not a child. If we are dying, I wish to know it.”

“We aren’t dying. We’re moving faster than light, that’s all. The patterns of wholeness aren’t broken. They just feel that way because we’re out of sync with them right now. We’re outside of time, in a manner of speaking.”

“I do not understand.”

He smiled. “It isn’t necessary to understand. It’s just a way of traveling immense distances without taking several generations to do it. Trust me.”

Scorn flashed in her face, and she turned away without another word.

Now, Asan turned around and paced his two steps across the end of the cell. He paused for a moment to glance at her. She was sleeping, curled upon one of the short benches with her head pillowed on her hands.

He knew that she had been in love with Fflir. He also knew that she had hated her husband. Her beauty was exquisite enough to steal his breath, but underneath she was scarcely more than a child, sheltered and immature. She had been cruelly handled—her broken rings were enough to tell him that—and she had no reason to trust him. Yet he felt responsible for her. From now on his plans would have to include her.

But how was he going to take this ship? He couldn’t seizert. The spaces were too small, for one thing, and he was afraid to try it while the ship moved at implosion speeds. He might reappear assembled in a new combination.

He gathered his rings and projected part of his consciousness to the bridge. He did not try to touch any of the minds there. Instead he just watched, observing the size and layout of the instrumentation.

It was bigger than a scout or a corvette. Frigate-class destroyers frequently had a double navigation board like the one here. Twins or clones sat at it, working in tandem. The helm was paired also; a man and woman in green uniforms sat there. Webbing harness hung slackly behind them. They wore linkups tying them directly to each other and the astrogation computer.

That must get confusing at times
, thought Asan to himself with a slight leer. No wonder jump had been rough. He wouldn’t have wanted to have been linked with Saunders.

He withdrew his projection and grimaced, beginning to feel worried. Even if he took the ship, he couldn’t operate her by himself. It would be too dangerous to work in tandem, and he had no illusions about getting the crew to mutiny. They were all good and proper little products of Institute programming. They would die for the creed. They would live by regulations. They had too much to lose if they didn’t.

With a sigh, he rejected the plan he’d been turning over in his mind. It had worked for him twice. This time it was useless.

What then?

He thought of Ramer, so serious and intent over his in-TANK unit. Now, Ramer was a possibility. There was something odd about Ramer.

The door opened, startling him from his thoughts. As though conjured up, Ramer stood there. An armed guard was at his side. Asan stared at the human, assessing the small, wiry build that spoke of early years of malnutrition, the narrow skull and jaw that spoke of half-breeding, inbreeding…
vat
breeding?

Asan caught his breath, suddenly certain of it. That would account for the intensity Ramer wore like a shield. It was as though he feared that if he ever let his concentration slip and made a mistake, someone would guess his secret.

Ramer’s eyes were implacable. He gestured without speaking. Asan walked toward him, aware that causing any difficulty here would get him shot. They always had Zaula in reserve.

He glanced down at her as he walked between the benches. She looked young and vulnerable in her sleep. He thought,
Even if I can find a way to pull myself out of here, I may not be able to save her too
.

Once the question wouldn’t have even come up. He learned the hard way, from childhood droning in the labs on to life in the back streets, that his own survival came first. No one else mattered. To trust other people was to be a fool.

But he’d trusted Giaa. He’d grieved for Saar. He still felt an awful burning rage at the thought of the bombed-out stronghold in the Tchsco Mountains. He missed Fflir. And he wanted to help Zaula.

Demos help me, I must be getting soft
, he thought, and stepped past Ramer into the corridor.

“Not that way,” growled Ramer with a jerk of his head. “Come on. The observers want to see you.”

Asan paused in mid-step and glanced over his shoulder. He opened his mouth to make a smart remark, only to realize that Ramer’s translator was bulging in his pocket, not activated in his hand. Asan froze.
Stupid!

He tried putting on a bland look of noncomprehension, but it was too late. Ramer had read him plainly. The interrogator turned scarlet with excitement. His dark eyes bored into Asan’s.

“You understood me. You followed every word. I am shielded so you can’t read my mind. Are you quick enough to derive language comprehension from the few words you’ve heard so far? Yours is a barbarian culture, very backward, hardly likely to be skilled in modal-linguistic diagramming. Or did you already know Standard when you came aboard? Answer me!”

Asan’s mind flicked through the alternatives. Continue to play dumb, pretend he was picking up the lingo even as Ramer rattled it off, claim he’d read someone’s mind, admit he did know Standard, break Ramer’s neck.

“
Ny
,” he said in disgust, deliberately speaking in Bban which he knew Ramer’s translator wasn’t set for.
“Dilgel m’a-anhr, t chielt. T’elt u pon’at cha et gri n’ka. Chi’zan ahl!”

After the first two words, Ramer cursed and reached for his translator. Thumbing it on left him with nothing but static.

Unable to repress a grin and feeling slightly better after thoroughly insulting Ramer’s intelligence and ancestry, Asan turned and started in the direction Ramer wanted him to take. As he passed the man, however, he leaned over to put his face swiftly in Ramer’s and whispered two words in clear gutter Standard, “Vat boy.”

Ramer’s face flared scarlet again. He stiffened, glancing at the guard to see if he’d heard. With a jerk of his hand, he indicated for the guard to hustle Asan on around the corridor.

“Halt,” he said as they passed a closed door marked
NO ACCESS
. He produced a security card and stuffed it in the lock slot. The door opened. “In there.”

The guard frowned. “But, sir. That’s not—”

“Damn you, follow orders! I want a private word with our prisoner before the observers get hold of him.” Ramer transferred his glare to Asan and motioned. “Inside. Guard, give me your strifer.”

“But, sir, that’s against—”

“To hell with regulations.” Ramer snatched the weapon from the man’s hand and shoved Asan inside. “Stand guard behind us. This won’t take long.”

The door closed as lights sprang on. It was a tiny bulkhead access hatch barely large enough for the two of them. The air supply was poor, and there was no heat. Circuits, clumped in insulated cables or sealed in coolant boxes, hummed steadily. The strifer, set on maximum charge, hovered between their abdomens.

“Now,” said Ramer. Color ebbed and burned in his face. “Who the hell are you and what did you mean by that remark? You do know Omari, don’t you?”

Asan nearly laughed. He could see fear cramping every molecule in Ramer’s thin body.

“Poor interrogation methods,” he said in Tlar.

Cursing, Ramer thumbed on the translator. He looked ineffectual standing there with both hands full of instrumentation and his entire existence at Asan’s mercy.

“Damn you, just answer my question!”

“Which one? There are so many.”

“Omari,” said Ramer, sweating in spite of the cold temperature. “He’s vat grown. A renegade drone. Where—”

“I wasn’t talking about Omari,” said Asan. He gauged Ramer’s reaction, then raised his voice two pitch levels and used command tone as he added in Standard, “I was referring to you, Ramer. And you know it.”

Ramer jumped. “Demos,” he whispered. The strifer shook in his hand. “That isn’t true. You’re just deflecting attention from yourself. It won’t work. We’re—”

“How much did you pay to have your ID number erased?”

Ramer’s face whitened. He lowered the strifer as though his arms had gone limp, then forced it up again. “I can’t…I didn’t…”

“What’s the penalty these days for impersonating an Institute officer? Rehabilitation, mind scrub, or vat meltdown?”

“No!” Ramer shook his head. “Your bluff won’t work, Asan. You might as well forget it. Tell me where to find Omari and we’ll overlook this attempt at—”

“Chin
flin
, look it in/Razor’s on his way,” chanted Asan. It was the old back street warning for an approaching patroller.

Ramer sagged, his mouth falling open. Asan stepped in fast past the strifer and twisted it from Ramer’s grasp. With his other hand, he seized Ramer by the throat and slammed him against the bulkhead. Ramer’s face twisted with pain.

“I feel the numbers,” Asan said softly, rubbing his thumb along Ramer’s jaw. “The scrub’s very expensive and very good, but not quite good enough. You never feel safe, do you, Ramer? You never make friends. You never dare get too close to the others, do you? You’re so afraid you’ll be found out.”

“No! No!” But the words were weak. Ramer wasn’t even struggling. He was panting in fear, the fight gone from him.

“Blaise Omari crawled out. You did. There are others, a few others who have minds and guts and ambitions.”

Ramer’s face turned bitter. “A programming glitch in the process. Too much mental ability. A mistake—”

Asan involuntarily increased the pressure on Ramer’s throat, strangling off his sentence. “Not a mistake,” he said angrily, old emotions clawing through him. “The vat growth computers have automatic checks to monitor that too well. There’s no way a glitch like you could be made. Omari wasn’t vat born. He came from a real womb. You did too.”

Ramer’s eyes widened. For a moment they held only a naked desperation to believe. Then he started shaking his head. “Impossible.” He was sobbing. His tears splashed onto Asan’s hand.

Again Asan increased pressure on his throat. His rings encircled Ramer, confirming molecular patterns and genetic coding.

“You are real born,” he said in Tlar. The words boomed from the translator still clutched in Ramer’s fist. Ramer jumped. Asan met those dark eyes. “I have looked upon you in truth. You are real born.”

Fresh tears welled up in Ramer’s eyes. He closed them, sagging down the wall. Asan released him and let him huddle on the floor, watching him with a sour ache of pity. Ramer had taken the hard way. At some point he’d realized he was different from the other drones on his shift. At some point he’d broken out and escaped. Demos knew what he’d done to earn enough to pay for a number scrub. Asan’s thoughts darkened with the memories of his own years of desperation and acts that still awakened violent shame. Then Ramer had managed to infiltrate the ranks of true citizens, establishing an identity, passing himself as normal, taking on a career, and living every day with the fear that he would be caught by Security.

It was so much easier to live on the fringes of society, stealing, raiding, sabotaging, and trying to break the Institute down. Asan wondered what his life would have been like living as Ramer had and nearly choked on revulsion.

“Why?”

It was Ramer, tugging at his wrist.

“Why did they lie? Why did they do that to me?”

The same questions turned over within Asan, rubbing a sore wound that had troubled his sleep ever since he’d transferred into this body and found his own real birth in the process. Someday he would have to seek the answers. Someday he would have to find out who he really was. Who his parents had been. Why he’d been taken from them and deceived into thinking himself a subgrade individual.

“Seeking answers for the actions of the Institute is like turning over a rock and watching
flin
slither out.” Asan shrugged. “I do not know. But you, Ramer, are like Omari. Both of you are victims of a terrible crime. Perhaps the worst crime the Institute has committed.”

Ramer rubbed the back of his hand across his face until the tear marks were gone. “Where is he?”

“You cannot reach him.”

“I—I mean, I need to talk to him…ask him…I—”

Asan touched his shoulder. “You cannot. He is dead.”

A banging on the door startled them both. Asan nearly crushed Ramer’s shoulder as he turned.

“You all right, sir?” came the muffled call of the guard.

“Yes!” said Ramer.

He climbed to his feet and stood staring at Asan. His face remained pale and strained. The arrogance was gone.

“The observers are waiting,” he said.

Asan’s irritation flared. “Are you going to remain a GSI puppet? Are you going to continue rimming out men’s guts with that in-TANK? It was your way of revenge when you thought yourself a vat boy. Vat borns versus the real borns, eh? Now whose side are you on?”

Ramer lifted a shaking hand to his temple. “I—I don’t know. You could be lying to me.”

“Why should I? Besides, you know I’m not.”

Ramer nodded without meeting Asan’s gaze. He bent over and picked up the strifer. He held it aimed slackly at Asan. “We have to go now. There isn’t time for more—”

“Ramer,” said Asan urgently, clasping his shoulder. “You must help me get away. Together we could take this ship, handle her. It takes at least two—”