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"The Cheel wishes to know why you seek the child."
Everything felt normal except for the racing of my heart. "So, it admits the kid is here?"
Piika nodded once. "The Cheel sees her."
I would have turned and glared at the Tabisee assassin-security team behind me in triumph, but staring up their noses seemed anticlimactic. "She doesn't belong here. She's a kid, alone on a world full of dangerous people. I need to get her someplace safe." Plus, I wanted to find out who had attacked her people and me out at Idwal. I didn't see any reason to get this being involved in that.
"You have found your partner. You no longer need the child."
"No!" The statement appalled me. "This is a Human child on a world where Humans are banned. A kid. Alone! Her luck may have held out this long," which was amazing, "but it won't last forever. Someone will get their filthy hands on her! I can't let that happen. I have to find her."
"And what will you do for her?"
"Take her off this world. Find her people or someone to take her in, to feed, protect, and raise her. A family."
"What sort of family? Your first, your second, or your third?"
That was a gut punch.
Three families. I understood the reference to my parents and Anthy, and to Admiral Maxte and his wife, Mei, who had taken me in after the disaster that killed my brother. But the people this thing referred to as my second family were nothing like that. They raided my homeworld of New Bounty, killed my parents, then moved on to destroy the lives of countless children. Memories of our time held as captives by them were the stuff that sent paroxysms of horror through me when the lights dimmed to night cycle in Spacertown. Our time in their grasp was the nightmare that crawled through my brain when I woke from deep sleep.
"You don't have the right to dig through my memories." I found the air to howl in protest. But as I stared at the moss-lined pool, horror and fury tearing at me in equal measure, I was already back there.
***
"HE IS NOT YOUR KID." My arms brace the metal frame of our bunkroom door. "Go away!"
The crewwoman's mouth tightens as she looks at me. Her thin face looks tired and sad, but we have more reason to be tired and sad than she does.
We don't need her.
"Okay," she draws a shallow breath. "You are angry and upset. I understand. But your brother needs someone to care for him."
"Not you," I hiss. I push harder against the frame to hide the tremble in my arms. "You are not our Momma."
"No, I'm not. I'm sorry for what happened to your momma. And your dad. I can't help you with that. But your brother is very young. He still needs care."
We all need care—the kind our parents give us. But it can't happen now, because she and the others on this ship killed them. The thought twists up everything inside me and I fight to choke back a sob of fury. "Go away!"
She leans back slightly and her eyes narrow, as if the strength of my anger surprises her. Her head dips in a nod. "I can come in and take him. You know that's true. But it will frighten him and make things worse. He is not well. Let me take him to the ship doctor for care. Will you allow me to do that?"
I look over my shoulder at Anthy. He is a tiny lump wrapped in a blanket on a lower bunk. He is quiet, but Anthy is not a quiet brother. He talks so much he makes me crazy, and he gets into everything. Last night he refused to eat and he whimpered in the darkness. I know I cannot make him feel better, even if I hold him all day and tell him stories.
My heart races with fear.
"Okay." I drop one arm from the doorframe so she can squeeze past.
She moves quickly, going over to the bunk and lifting my little brother. She murmurs to him the way our momma did. I burn with anger because he doesn't protest. I will scold him about it when he is better. I will order him to stay away from her when he comes back.
She carries him past me and out of the bunkroom. The other kids stand by, watching in silence. They are confused about this woman who has entered our area. I glare at them, but they only stare back at me with frightened questions in their eyes.
"He's sick," I snarl at them. "Straighten the blankets on your beds."
When I turn away to hide a sudden blur of tears, I see she has paused outside the door. She nods solemnly at me. "You are a good, brave sister. The doctor will make him well." Then she walks away.
"You tell that doctor to keep his pervy hands off him," I shout after her retreating back. "That means you, too!"
***
A TEAR RAN DOWN MY face and dropped into the pool.
Great! Now the damned thing had my DNA to use against me, too. If it hadn't stolen it already. I sucked in a huge gasp of air and forced my body to sit upright again.
You think you failed your brother. A whisper swirled inside my head.
You think you're going to give me therapy? I asked the Cheel bitterly. Locked in our private conversation, I had forgotten everyone else. Save me from myself? My foster father is a kind man; he and the military both spared no expense on therapy to fix me. None of it helped. Anthy is dead. I didn't save him. I will not fail this child!
You cannot protect yourself on this world.
Maybe. The Endar would turn my life into hell if they found me. The Earth Alliance's economic agenda would be set back hundreds of years. The Tabi could suffer severe retaliation. But this was not about me, the Tabi, or the EA.
This is a big, dangerous place, I snapped, full of people who are ready and willing to exploit a child.
You have experience with this threat. It was a statement of recognition.
I— Fury flashed inside me. What I experienced is not for sharing with you. I just want to get the kid someplace safe. The last sentence twisted into a plea.
My anger dissolved away. I saw Piika watching me from across the pool. "I didn't..."
Piika raised her free hand to stop me speaking.
She touched the water and a slow light slid out across the surface.
As it brightened, I realized an image was coming into focus. I caught fleeting impressions of a market similar to the one above us. A face flashed, the front of a stall, bright clothes, fruit. It was as if I was fast-searching images on a computer screen. It reminded me of viewing a piece of 3-D art. I saw the side angle of a face, a mouth front on; the bottom of a basket and the fruit it carried. The flow ran quick and dizzying—an array of flashes that somehow fit into a comprehensible whole. Then everything stilled to focus on a stone wall with a child sitting atop it, munching a piece of fruit.
"That's her!" I leaned forward, catching the edge of the pool with my hands to keep from pitching into it. The visual pieces jerked and settled to a clear image.
"Well, how about that!" Duff murmured from behind me. "You're not crazy after all."
The kid took another bite of fruit and chewed it slowly while she glanced around. She did not appear distressed. At least not nearly as much as I was, seeing her. "Is this real? Is this happening now?"
"It is happening as we see," Piika said.
"How? How are we seeing it?"
"The Cheel," Duff said.
Piika smiled serene agreement.
"Who's taking care of her? Is she free to move around?"
"The child moves freely." It seemed oddly surreal for the tiny Frairy child to refer to another of similar age in such a removed fashion. Then I realized the Cheel must have reverted back to speaking through her.
"Without anyone? For over ninety days? How is she getting food and shelter?"
"She takes what she needs."
Takes? Odd turn of phrase. "Others are sharing with her."
"She takes, but only what she needs."
I frowned. "Is that how it works here? She can take what she needs and move on?"
Duff gave a derisive snort behind me. "Moneyworld," he said.
Yeah, that's what I thought. This place wasn't any different from any other place I had ever seen. So, the kid was stealing her way along and sleeping wherever she found shelter. She was living on the edge of society, where the dangerous and desperate lurked, just waiting for her kind. My concern heightened.
Something intruded over the image and Piika raised a hand to quiet my protest. For a frustrating moment, the image gyrated and lurched, then it cleared in scattered segments until the backs of two people came into view. Two Frairies, a male and female, superimposed over the kid on the wall. They walked, heads bent close in whispers, bodies pressed side to side in the way of young lovers. When they leaned against the wall, the kid gave them a disinterested look. They did not even spare her a glance. The couple talked for a moment, snuggled close, then the boy laughed and broke away from their huddle, rolling his back against the stone and almost pinching the kid's leg against the surface. She silently sidled out of contact and continued eating.
"They treat her as if she's not even there," I said, pushing down anger at their indifference. Of course, they couldn't know she was alone and lost, but, he didn't have to be rude... "If there are no Humans on this world, why do they treat her like she's part of the background scenery? Like she's invisible?"
The two Frairies talked and giggled, their heads bent together for a few more moments, then in large, dark blurs, they pulled away from the wall and moved out of the image. The kid barely spared them a glance.
Saura, Shoff, and Meeroush, along with Duff, had worked their way down beside me. They were leaning forward, intently watching the kid finish her fruit.
"Maybe it's young love. Who knows?" Duff said.
"How far away is she? I'll go out and bring her in." I straightened.
Shoff exchanged a glance with Meeroush and I realized I didn't have a place to claim as 'in'.
Then I could use Duff's network...
"Whoa, Flygirl," Duff exclaimed. "It doesn't matter if the population is ignoring one Human kid. She's not stirring up trouble, which is more than you can say. You are not going out there."
"I can with your help."
Piika smiled. "It would not be prudent at this time."
"Prudent? Prudent for whom?" I demanded. "She's a kid—she is a kid, right?" Piika nodded. "Alone on a strange world. I—we—need to bring her in."
"There is no 'we' in this," Duff said. "You think you need to bring her in. You are wrong. She is not a priority."
"Then make her one!"
"This world has other, bigger concerns. Earth Alliance's arrival for a meet and greet before their membership vote is imminent. So, no."
"You can't leave her out there. I don't care how well she can hide!"
"Why? What's so important about the kid, Zant?" Duff's eyes were suddenly sharp.
There was a lot of impatient shifting of bodies around me as they waited for my response.
They would kill me if I told them she was a telepath.
"Child is telepath," Saura said.
"Saura!" My horrified protest got lost in the gasps and alarmed ear flicks around me.
"Vivi. Is only way we can secure their help."
"You brought a telepath here?" Duff's voice rose. "All those questions... That explains it!"
"No—" I fought to explain. "I didn't know."
Shoff and Meeroush had moved back a pace toward the steps to the plateau. Their ears were pressed back tight to their skulls.
"Take us out of here, now," Shoff snarled. She made a sweeping gesture toward Saura and me. "Feed that to Cheel babies." Her foot was on the first step.
"Wait," Duff said.
On the plateau his men dropped into a crouched, distinctly aggressive posture, prepared to act against the outraged Tabisee if ordered.
"Now!" Shoff demanded.
"Shut up!" Duff bellowed.
The faint echoes of his voice rolled back at us in the silence.
"Yeah, this is a twist," he said. "An unexpected, bad twist. But we won't solve it by falling apart."
"Not falling apart. Not a Tabi problem." The Tabisee security team was already on the second step back up.
"She is searching for something," Piika spoke for the Cheel. "The pattern of her movements reveals that. If the Human interferes," she continued, despite a new round of dismayed reactions, "we cannot discover what she seeks. We must leave her to her own devices."
The kid in the pool continued to eat. When she finished the fruit, she tossed the core and slid off the wall in a blur of movement. I realized that sometime since walking off the Ritto ship she had replaced her white garment with colorful play clothes similar to Piika's. She slung a small bundle over her shoulder, tossed her white hair with a shake of her head, and walked out of the image. The Cheel moved to follow her in a pixilated mass of color shot through with bits of her back that stayed in focus longer than the rest of her.
I tore my eyes away from the image, everything inside of me twisting with horror at what the Cheel suggested. "She's a little kid!"
"Child has survived almost one hundred days on own, Vivi," Saura pointed out. "Perhaps okay few more days, until Cheel discovers what seeks."
"What would a Human child be searching for here?" Duff asked. "It doesn't make sense."
"You think she's a threat?" Of course, it would be Shoff asking that.
"It's worth investigating." And Duff answering.
My heart jerked with panic when I turned back to see a map of T'lek T'la had replaced the image of the kid. A thin red line began at the spaceport and ran into the city. Realizing it had to be the Cheel's record of sightings of the kid, I leaned closer over the pool.
At first, she wandered near the spaceport, the trace erratic. Then she moved into the city. It made sense; she had to go where food, water, and shelter were available. There were occasional short, deviating excursions along the line. Where they occurred, she consistently returned to her former path, moving steadily deeper into T'lek T'la. There was a massive area of the city beyond her current point, but it looked as if she was definitely moving with a destination in mind.
The Tabisee security team had drifted back to the pool edge. "The pattern is not random," Meeroush observed.
"The Cheel agrees with your observation. But it is not telepathic; it does not know where she is going," Piika said.
Everyone turned to glare at me except Saura. She was studying the red line.
"How could she be searching for something when she's never been here before?" I protested.
"You are familiar with this being?" Shoff asked.
"No..."
"Then how can you say where she has been?"
That took me aback. How did I know she had never been here? Because she was a kid. A Human kid. And I knew what a Human kid was capable of doing, having been one. I started to snarl a reply, but Duff interrupted.
"The Cheel has eyes on her. If it says leave her out there, we leave her out there and wait to find out what goes on."
"What are you talking about? The longer she's out there, the greater danger she's in. Bring her in and let an adult—someone with real resources—do the searching for her."
"There's no guarantee we will learn anything from her if we bring her in," he said.
Saura had moved to my side in the press of bodies on the projection. "You are putting too much of past into this," she said softly.
I wanted to argue back, but I knew she was right: I was reacting from my gut feelings. I sighed. "It's only...she wouldn't be here if it weren't for me."
"Would not be alive if not for you. Is surviving. Is well. But cannot ignore child is seeking something. There is much sensitive information on world. Can affect us all. Let people do job."
Again, she was right. But I couldn't help that it went against everything inside of me. "Okay," I said, "But I'm part of this! I talk to her when she's pulled in, and she's coming with us off world."
She tipped her ears in silent agreement. For all that was worth.
"The Cheel will watch, and the Frairy will advise us immediately if there is a change. We are leaving now," Shoff announced.
"Not without Zant and Blue Girl," Duff said.
Shoff swung back toward Duff, her teeth bared. "Best to kill Human now," she said.
"Not your Human to decide destiny," Saura was abruptly in front of her. She stared up at the taller female, her body rigid with fury. I was surprised the armor at her neck didn't bulge with the raised hackles I knew lay beneath it.
"I cannot expect an inferior genetic deviation to understand the intricacies of diplomatic reality, schaa drika," Shoff said dismissively.
Whoa! I recognized 'drika', because Saura frequently used it to describe the people we encountered out on the Rim. It translated into Hume as 'space monkey'. 'Schaa' was new, though. My translator told me it was the Tabi word for 'pampered'.
The red pouf of deathhawk on Saura's head stiffened and bushed out. "Step up, Ground Pounder. We see who understands intricacies of reality."
"You step back."
My partner was two-thirds the size of the Tabisee assassin.
"Saura..." I started.
Her right ear twitched for my silence and claws gleamed through slits in her black gloves.
A few steps away Meeroush watched his partner with overt interest. "Hey," I said to catch his attention.
He looked over at me. "They are evenly matched," he told me calmly.
I wasn't sure if he meant it as a simple observation or to assuage my rising upset at the thought of the two of them going head to head. Whichever, it did not help. "Stop them," I told him.
"Aw right, aw right," Duff actually walked between them, something I was neither brave enough nor stupid enough to do. He extended his arms, flat-handed, toward each of them. "Sort out your problems on your own turf. But you pulled Zant in; she's going home with you."
Meeroush nodded. "We will take them back with us,"
His partner gave him a glare, her ears slanted back, but she didn't argue.
When the Cheel did not add further comment through the Frairy child, Duff shrugged. "It's decided then."
Decided, yes, but no one here was walking away happy.
The group climbed back to the plateau level. For me, it felt as if I had moved one step ahead by proving to the others the kid really did exist, and two steps backward by the revelation she was a telepath, and then sideways with the discovery she was moving across the city with what appeared to be some unknown purpose.
And I had reluctantly ingested a serving of sentient green vegetable.
I just hoped what Duff told me about the water from the Cheel's pool was true.
A hand slipped into mine and Piika smiled up at me. She meant the action to be comforting, I know. I felt sort of rotten wondering how much of it was a child's innocent action and how much was Cheel manipulation.
Meeroush laid claim to my other arm in a hard, black-gloved grasp and Piika's fingers slid away. Before I could react, he had zip-tied my hands in front of me and was wrapping another strip around Saura's unresisting wrists.
"You don't have to do this," I protested. "We can work something out..."
"You put the Tabi Empire at risk," Shoff hissed at me. "You will cooperate."
"She doesn't put you at risk," I flicked my eyes toward Saurubi.
Shoff gave a dismissive sniff and turned away to watch Duff's men lay out a disk similar to the one they had used in the tunnel.
Duff came over to my side.
"Why didn't we use those to transport in," I asked him.
"Nothing transports in to the Cheel. And it controls what transports out."
"People stay down here?" The thought of trying to live in this dead, cold silence sent a deeper chill running through me. "Where do they live?"
"They don't."
"What happens to them?" I had a feeling that if I found myself down here again, I would find out firsthand.
"Compost," he said.
"What's that?"
"Plant food." He grinned, but there was no humor in it. "Lucky you. You're going back with your friends."
"Yeah. About that..."
"The Tabisee are the EA's closest allies. Plus, remember up in the marketplace? They came looking for you."
A few steps away, Shoff made a sound of disgust. "Can't let Endar have her."
Yeah, I held no illusions on that. If the Endar got their boney fingers on me again, they would recover my memories back to my birth. The Tabisee couldn't afford that.
The threat to my partner made me angry. Damn Thok, the MoMo—and me—for getting her into this!
We stood in silence while the Frairies finished assembling the shift ring. When the last piece clicked into place, one of them nodded at Duff.
"Set your destination and scramble it," he told Shoff. "We don't want to know where you take her."
She gave him a dark glare as she stepped inside the ring. Saura followed her.
"The kid—" I tried to reason with them all one last time.
"We'll keep the assassins updated on her status," Duff said.
But would they give me updates? Before I could protest, Meeroush clasped the back of my armor and hauled me into the transport ring with them.
Duff waggled his short little fingers at me as we shifted out of the Cheel's domain.