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A crewmember turns into the shadowy section of the corridor. A small figure walks beside it, holding the larger one's hand. It's Anthy.
Feeling a rush of relief and outrage, I run toward them. I'm angry, not with my brother, but with this adult. I want to report them to get revenge for the panic they've caused me, but I also sense it might be a dangerous thing to do. I don't recognize this person from a distance, which means I must be careful. A crewmember can assign a kid difficult tasks. They cannot cause us harm, but they can make things hard on us.
They are walking slowly toward me. I can hear a voice now. The sound is pleasant and female. It reminds me of my Mama. Does it remind Anthy of Mama, too? Of course it does. I know it, and I feel a wash of resentment. These people had no right to do what they did to our families—what they're doing to us. They are almost to me now. I stop and draw deep breaths, trying to calm myself. This person is only walking with Anthy, and he doesn't know he should not have gone with her. He is talking to her happily. I must be careful what I say and do for both our sakes.
They stop before me. Anthy drops her hand and comes over to hug me. I smile and rub his head, and look at the woman. She's smiling at me.
"You're his sister, Vivi. He told me about you."
She is pretty. That does not mean anything.
"I was worried," I say angrily.
"I understand." She nods and looks serious as if she truly does. "He looked a bit pale, so I took him to the infirmary to have him checked. He's all right now." She gives Anthy a fond look. "I know you do your best to take care of the ones in your charge. The light down here is not good, however, and I feared you might not see how pale he is. Also, you might not be comfortable asking for help." She studies me.
"Pieter takes care of us," I say stiffly.
"Yes, he knows how. There are some things you can do, though, if you know about them. There is a solarium on deck ten. You can go up and get some natural light," she explains when I look puzzled. "You are from a planet. You need sunlight. Stars are suns. Their light will make you healthier. I will suggest it to Pieter for you. And him." She looks down at Anthy and smiles.
Another twinge of anger and jealousy runs through me. Who is this person, thinking she can seek a place in Anthy's life? We do not need her. "I have to take him back," I say.
I wonder if I will tell Pieter about her. Despite my anger, I think her smile is nice. She seems kind, but that will not help me if I am punished for this. I cannot let Anthy undergo the lash. I will not. It would kill him.
"Don't worry," she says. "I will tell Pieter I took him to the infirmary. There will be vitamins for all of you children from now on. Everything will be fine." She takes a step backward. "Go back now."
I take Anthy's hand and start back down the corridor. He walks beside me silently without looking back and a rush of relief floods me. Perhaps this was nothing more than what the woman says and there will be no trouble. I do not need trouble. My charges do not need trouble.
"I see doctor, Vivi," Anthy announces suddenly.
"You be quiet," I order, jerking lightly on his arm. "You be quiet and stay with the others from now on when I'm out." I'm mad again. Tears sting my eyes. I think things will be okay this time, but this can't happen again. I grip his hand tighter and feel fear.
***
MOTHER UNIVERSE, I was flashing dark outside of deep sleep! Why—?
The damned kid! The doctors would say she triggered something in my brain—a need in me to protect her—when she romped off on this strange world, all alone. That I was still trying to compensate for my failure to save Anthy.
Angrily I shoved the dregs of the dream out of my mind and blinked in the pitch-black silence. Something hard pressed my ribs and the straps of my pack were cutting into my shoulders. And it was damn cold.
Oh, yeah. Whizbat. I must be in the belly of their storage area under the spaceport.
I moved my body carefully. No parts pinned under anything, but the curved foot of the grapple lay under my ribs, with the awaypack twisted up the side of its leg. Now that I was aware, the stone surface beneath me felt as if it was doing its best to suck my body heat out through my shipskins.
I sat up cautiously and wondered what had jerked me awake.
A metallic clack sounded in the distance. I heard a corresponding whisper of movement in the darkness.
Fear shot through me. The Mother Universe only knew what dwelled in this pit of darkness.
Whizbats needed maintenance the same as every other piece of machinery, but if their technicians wore black leather, I didn't want them to catch me lying here. Besides, my body was a bit insistent on getting some water.
Wondering how long I'd been out, I climbed to my feet and stretched.
My world feeds remained dead. They were the most basic codes possible, simply giving one access to free information such as the time, news, global positioning, maps, etc, supposedly available to all citizens on any world, whether through chips or an external device. If mine weren't working, it meant one of three things: my tech was damaged; it required a system reboot; or the world system did not recognize the Human codes—and that the High Jerak had told the truth when he said I was here illegally. A reboot was my preferred solution, though that might be difficult to achieve on my own. Actually being illegal was bad, but one I could maybe work around. Damage was the scariest diagnosis; I couldn't pay the Zeeks for my regenerated arm, much less additional repairs, unless I reclaimed the Thief's Hand, saved Saura, and got back to work for the next several hundred years.
Again, the sharp clack sounded in the distance. This time a series of echoing clicks and ticks followed, running toward, around, and past me. Then a series of booms rolled forward and over me. The whizbats performed the mechanical version of coming to attention. Beneath my hand, the metal vibrated gently with power, ready and waiting. They were either preparing to move to maintenance or a new job. Wherever they went, there must light. And water.
***
THE LOSS OF MY WORLD feeds was a major inconvenience, but I had other things to distract me as I rode the whizbat up out of the dark pit, into the upper storage levels. When I finally spotted a well-lit opening, I made a daring leap off into a massive warehouse.
After hours of wandering between endless stacks of goods, I should have encountered some sign of life. I hadn't. Which meant I had to decide whether I wanted to continue wandering the floor maze until I died from thirst or move up to the transport system whipping along above my head in hope of finding a way out.
Moving walkways that transport cargo and people on flat surfaces are a great idea. Handgrips on cables that tow beings through weightless environments are a great idea. Moving walkways, or flyways, mounted high in the air above stockpiles of goods, with gravity and a hard surface twenty meters below them and no handgrips, are insanity.
The flyway was nothing more than a meter-wide belt gliding along through the open air. I only managed to stay on the damned thing by getting down on my hands and knees.
After traveling it for over an hour without seeing any indication of life, a wall or exit, I was hungry, thirsty, and my knees were sore despite the protection of my shipskins. I sure as hell hadn't made any headway toward finding the kid.
Occasionally another flyway would intersect the one I clung to. At those junctures a small, stationary platform with a control stand to one side anchored the connections. It offered me the opportunity to get to my feet and stand for a while before resuming my painful, headlong hurtle forward.
The small platforms also had the additional stability of a support post that extended down to floor. I grasped the one beside me gratefully while I looked out over endless rows of containers. A movement caught my attention. In the distance, two figures were walking along an aisle. The tall, thin one dressed in black definitely looked Endar. The other was much shorter and wore a light, neutral color. They were moving away from me.
Instinctively, I drew back behind the support, though the sixty-millimeter diameter pole would hardly shield me from view if they looked my direction. They were the first sign of life I'd seen in my hours of travel through the immense place, but my instincts warned me against calling out for help.
Whatever they were, wherever they were going, however, there had to be water. I hadn't had any fluid intake since leaving the Zeek facility, and I was feeling the effects. If I went down to the floor and followed them, they might lead me out of this place.
But I had to move fast.
The pole I gripped extended down to the warehouse floor. A collar and stub shaft linked it to a round metal plate cut into the decking beneath my feet. It was a primitive setup: the two buttons on the control panel in front of me were self-explanatory. One had an arrow pointing up beside a line meant to represent the pole; the other had an arrow pointing down.
I reached for the down button.
Something struck me hard across the back, snagging my awaypack straps and jerking me backward. One of my feet touched the moving track and shot out from under me as I snatched out for something to break my fall, but the pole was beyond my reach and I tumbled off the slideway.
Instead of falling, however, I was whipped sideways as whatever held the straps of my pack whisked me out through the air.
My heart surged toward exploding. I twisted to look up and saw the flat metal bottom of an air bike. The dull gray paint bore no registration marks, stickers, or manufacturers' symbols to give me a hint of it, or the rider's, origin.
"Son of a bitch!" In Human warehouses workers sometimes played a game. Riding mechanical fliers, they grappled a co-worker by the safety harness and hauled them off to some distant spot. Then the victim had to make their way back to the job site without drawing the attention of a supervisor.
It was too much to hope this was a game.
So, it was time to complicate things in the way Humans did it best—by doing something stupid. Grasping my right shoulder strap with my stronger hand, I hit the chest release on my pack with the left. It snapped opened, and my body dropped a half meter as I slid out of the straps.
My hold on the right strap kept me from plummeting to the floor, but the additional length I had just added to the flier's load threw it off balance. The rider glanced down and I stared into a startled Tabisee face.
The fur was gray and missing the shock of red hair. The ruff around the face was longer and thicker than Saura's, signifying it was probably a male. He thrust out a hand, his fingers splayed in a signal: wait. I looked up at the grapple, now barely caught in one of my pack's straps, and held on.
The air bike was fast approaching what had been, for me, an aggravatingly elusive wall. The rider slowed and the bike dropped height until my feet skimmed the warehouse floor. I shrugged free of the pack straps, stumbled and regained my footing. The Tabisee set down a few meters ahead of me, my pack skittering along the floor behind him.
I ran toward him.
"You bastard son of a mother—!" I leaped, catching him from behind as he swung his leg off the flier, sending us both sprawling to the floor.
Sad fact: a spacer hitting a planet born is an invitation for broken bones. Still, I got in one good punch to his head without hearing the crunch of finger bones before hands were dragging me off him.
"What in the name of the Holy Plinth—" a female voice exclaimed in Tabi. Fingers pressed into my shoulder flesh, holding me firmly. "We do not need this!"
"Best to kill it and dump the body," the rider said as he got to his feet.
"No," the female said. "Not yet. We don't want to create an incident. It could make things difficult for us all!"
Tabisee that spoke in full sentences. That meant they were part of a downside force, where diplomacy required a full clarification of intent when one spoke.
The male Tabi looked at me in irritation. "Dahzi zhu ha," he muttered.
Oh, still with the attitude!
Interfering insect scum: I'd learned my street Tabi from Saura. "Pok kai," I snarled back, daring to tell a planetside being at least fifty centimeters taller and packing twenty kilos more solid muscle than me to go die in ignominy in the street.
I wasn't thinking at my clearest right then.
He lunged for me. The female, however, anticipated his reaction. She planted a hand in his chest and shoved him back. Then she glared at me. "Keep that up and we will kill you and endure the repercussions."
The male gave an exaggerated shrug, as if putting his muscles and bones back into physical order, and glowered at me.
I felt a secret rush of gratitude for her interference. These Tabisee were much larger than my partner, the female standing shoulder to shoulder with me. Their gravity-honed muscles bulged in sharp contrast to my skinny spacer body.
They were dressed in plain black clothing, without rank or identifying markings, but their movements and manner set off a tiny self-survival alarm inside my head. They were not ordinary laborers.
Undercover or stealth ops, then. And they were not pleased at having a Human stumble into their zone of operations, potentially draw attention to their activity.
Before I could say anything, a thick, stuffy bag slammed over my head and one of them lashed my wrists together in front of me.
"Hey," I yelped in protest. These people were supposed to be our closest allies.
"Shut it or we tranq you," the female snapped.
Tabisee tranquilizers do not work well with Human physiology, so I shut it.
"Mathet will not be happy about this," the female muttered as she forced me into a shuffling walk.
I didn't know who Mathet was, but I sure wasn't getting any happier, either.