The knife in Isabela Bakshi’s hand was elegantly curved and exquisitely sharp. It was of Stragori design, with a quantum blade that vibrated at a molecular level, turning the act of slicing and dicing from a physical assault into a technological achievement. As she stood in the school’s kitchen, contemplating what she could do with such a knife — the justice she could administer, the pain she could end — a faint, mirthless smile stole across her lips.
“Mrs. Bakshi? Are you ready?”
With a sigh, Isabela dropped the knife back into its tray compartment and nudged the cutlery drawer closed. No, she wasn’t ready. But she had promised to take the children out that afternoon to gather samples for a botany lesson. They were probably standing at the classroom door with their jackets on, eagerly waiting for her to lead them out into the wild. At least, she hoped that was what her teaching assistant, Joanne, was talking about.
“I’m ready,” Isabela replied, consciously relaxing her shoulders and pinning a pleasant expression on her face. “I’ve put the snacks and drinks into the cooler.”
Joanne knelt and placed her thumb on the insulated metal container’s control button. When the light beside it flashed green, she asked, “And what’s our destination?”
Their destination? At the moment it felt to her as though the Terran colony on Stragon was headed straight to oblivion. She would never say such a thing aloud, of course, not when children were present. And as far as Isabela was concerned, her teaching assistant could be counted in that category, being only sixteen years old.
Back on Earth, Joanne had rated above average on the emotional intuitiveness scale. She looked up now, her eyes brimming with empathy, and said, “Mrs. Bakshi, if you’d rather postpone this excursion, I think everyone will understand. Your husband’s funeral was just three weeks ago, and Doctor Quinian told you that you could take as much time off as you need.”
“What I need is to stay busy and be with my students,” Isabela replied firmly. “And what they need is to experience nature, not just read about it on a computer screen. Program the cooler to meet us in that clearing I pointed out to you on the satellite image the other day.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The girl’s fingers darted rapidly in the air, entering the coordinates on a keypad only she could see. For Joanne, and for a disturbingly large and still growing number of Humans on their island, this was normal behavior. They were optimized, their brains connected directly to the Stragori intellinet.
Beginning with the first arrivals on Stragon some five years earlier, the refugees from Earth had been continually bombarded by messages from Stragori government agencies — and by advertisements from Stragori businesses — touting the benefits of cybernetic implantation. According to these authorities, connectivity was the key to success and happiness in the modern-day world.
Joanne’s parents had given her the procedure as a birthday gift as soon as she reached the minimum legal age to undergo it. And now their only living child was walking around with alien technology grafted onto her neural network, and with an eighty to ninety percent chance that removing the implants would kill her. Had anyone bothered to calculate the odds that this technology could be hacked? That commands could be downloaded as well as uploaded, and that information could also travel both ways? It made Isabela shudder just to think about it.
“Done,” Joanne declared, straightening up. “All the children are dressed appropriately, I’ve packed the protective gloves and the first aid kit, and the baskets were nested together in the store room, right where you said they would be.”
Isabela mustered a smile. “Then let’s go for our walk.”
It was a beautiful spring day outside, crisp and clear. The overcast skies of winter had finally dissipated, the haze of summer was months away, and the sun hung in a vibrant blue sky, igniting growth and energizing the senses. It energized the children as well. As soon as the door to the outside was opened, a couple dozen six-to-ten-year-olds spilled through it onto the manufactured turf of the schoolyard, laughing and chattering and chasing one another in circles.
Isabela and Joanne stood together on the paved walkway, keeping watch while the youngsters blew off some steam. Their field trip today was to the Wilderness Zone of the island, half an hour away on foot, where the navigation satellite had detected a blossoming of wildflowers in an area overlooking the shore. The students would be collecting samples to draw, classify, and catalog, as part of a multidisciplinary study. They would also be comparing their findings with the plant life native to Earth.
Dr. Quinian would probably not be pleased about that last part. Isabela didn’t care. They’d butted heads quite vigorously on this subject more than once. It was no secret that the Directorate was aiming to assimilate the Terran colony as rapidly as possible into Stragori society. Keeping fresh the memory of the world they’d left behind was, in Quinian’s words, “counter-productive”. Too bad. In another thirty years, perhaps, Stragon might feel enough like home for the current generation of refugees to let go of Earth. But not today. And certainly not while Isabela Bakshi had any say in the matter.
Today, she and her students would be visiting a part of the island that always reminded her of The Flats back in Americas. It was a glorious expanse of natural flora: uncurated forest, unmanicured grasses, and untamed growth of a thousand different varieties of flowering and non-flowering vegetation. And — what was most important — other than being visible to the navigation satellites in high orbit around the planet, it was free from the technology that seemed to loom over and pervade every aspect of Stragori life.
For homesick Terrans, the Wilderness Zone was a sanctuary, in many ways a balm for the spirit. It had been her and Vikram’s salvation when her brother Carlos had succumbed to illness shortly after their arrival on Stragon. Now Vikram was dead as well, and despite the depth of the void his loss had left in her life — or perhaps because of it — Isabela had purposely avoided going back to the Zone.
She’d known she would have to return there eventually, to pick the ingredients for her special recipes. There had been no demand for them since just before the funeral, most likely out of respect for her grief. But she was the only Earth Intelligence chemist embedded on Stragon, and life (and amnesia, and paralysis, and occasionally unconsciousness) had to go on. Soon the orders would resume coming in from the other three EIS cells. Today was as good a time as any to return to normalcy.
Besides, today she would have the care of twenty-five children to keep her occupied and, hopefully, prevent her from sinking into sadness about things she could not change.
Isabela’s school was one of the smallest in the district, a Junior Advanced Education facility with a teaching staff of two — herself and Joanne. It was also, by happy coincidence, the school nearest the tall fence that marked the boundary between the residential areas and the Wilderness Zone.
About a kilometer away, at the end of a long, straight gravel path, sat the first gate. As the students passed through it, they each pressed a thumb to the glowing green square mounted halfway up the gatepost. Everything was monitored on this island, especially movement in and out of fenced areas. The sensor atop the post conducted a head count. The thumbprint matched each head with an owner. The data was probably time-stamped and stored on a server somewhere. Whether and how it was being used was anyone’s guess.
Isabela had given up wondering about it. Alone or with Vikram, she sometimes “forgot” to record her identity. So far, no one had sent her urgent reminders or come pounding at her door, but that didn’t mean no one ever would. So, when accompanied by students, she played strictly by the rules.
The second gate, another thirty or so meters farther along, was the entrance to the Wilderness Zone. Once again, each member of the group was thumbprinted for tracking purposes. Isabela called a halt just inside the barrier so that she and Joanne could conduct a “bare skin check”, making sure the bottoms of the children’s pant legs were securely fastened around their ankles and covered by their socks and the tops of their boots. The cooler hovered nearby for a bit, getting its bearings. Then it scooted off to its programmed coordinates to wait for them.
Joanne led the way into the woods, guided by her invisible map. Eventually the trees thinned out, prompting some of the older children to race ahead. Less than a minute later, the entire group had emerged from the forest to line up, goggle-eyed, on the borders of a dense, richly colored carpet of vegetation.
There were more than a dozen different kinds of wildflowers growing here. Fiery orange and red flamebirds hung suspended from long, bowed stalks as though flying in formation. Dark blue nightlilies and hot pink passion flowers made a striking, velvety mosaic on the ground. Bright yellow and purple delphins with curlicued ribbon-like petals clung in pairs to tall stems that swayed in the cool breeze off the water. White whispers and pale blue chin-a-wags bunched together, looking and sounding like old women gossiping. And the fragrance! All these blossoms seemed to be competing to fill the air with their heady perfumes.
Images taken from orbit could only hint at the voluptuousness of this place. That was why her students had to experience it for themselves. How else could they appreciate it with all their senses? And how besides bringing them here could Isabela have safely reimmersed herself in the peace and deceptive beauty of the Wilderness Zone?
For a long moment, no one moved. At last, Joanne waded into the field, brandishing a pair of gloves in one hand and a basket in the other, and turned to face the class. “All right, kids, you know what the assignment is. Make sure you’re wearing gloves before you handle these alien plants. If you don’t, some of them may burn your skin, and others can make you terribly sick. Finding out which ones are safe to touch will be part of the lesson later on.
“You’ll work in pairs. When you’ve collected your samples, put them into the nearest basket. I’ll be placing these at intervals around the field. When the baskets are filled, we’ll take everything back to the facility for study. Remember, we want some of every kind of flower you see growing here, so each of you will need to pick at least six different ones.”
The students waited for her to regain the margin of the field and distribute the gloves. Then, their hands protected, they partnered up, spread out among the wildflowers, and set to work with focused intensity.
Watching from the sidelines, Joanne fretted to Isabela, “Oh, dear! I should have specified that we only need stems and blossoms. Some of them are yanking out roots as well. I’d better make an announcement—”
“Don’t bother. Their gloves will keep the children safe. I’ll trim the root bulbs off before we start back home.”
Joanne relaxed and resumed monitoring the class. Meanwhile, Isabela swallowed a sigh. The roots of the plants on the island acted as natural filters and therefore contained the highest concentration of toxins from the soil. Cutting them off and leaving them behind felt like a waste of perfectly good poison. But this was a school field trip. What else could she do?
After a pause, Joanne remarked, “I think I know why you like the Wilderness Zone so much.”
“Because it is so bright and beautiful?”
“Because it’s the only part of the island that isn’t fenced in and spied upon. My parents worry about me, so I’m constantly getting pinged. But someone without implants could sneak through that gate behind us and disappear off the grid. As long as you stayed out of sight of the satellite eyes, you could literally lose yourself here.”
Isabela gave her a narrow look. “Are you having second thoughts about being optimized, Joanne?”
The girl started guiltily. “Me? No, of course not! I was just thinking out loud.”
“Mrs. Bakshi! Mrs. Bakshi!”
Isabela turned and saw three of her students racing toward her, in tears.
“What’s happened?” she demanded. “Is someone injured?”
“An ugly old man came out of the woods and ordered us to get off his property,” blubbered Carmen, the oldest.
“He says this is his garden and we’re not allowed to pick the flowers,” added her sister, Ione. And the youngest girl, Stephanie, concluded with, “He went back into the trees, over there.” She pointed with a chubby forefinger. “He says if we’re not gone when he comes back, he’s going to kill us all and eat us for dinner.”
“Oh, really?” said Isabela coolly. “Joanne, take the children to the clearing and give them their snacks. Keep them all calm and together until I return.”
“Where are you going?”
“I am going to find this ‘ugly old man’ and set him straight about a few things. And do not worry, chica,” she added, heading off Joanne’s expression of concern. “It’s my experience that bullies only threaten those who are smaller and weaker than they are, and I am neither.”
With that, Isabela set off across the field, determined to give Moe a piece of her mind.
She knew exactly where he would be.
—— «» ——
“There was no need to frighten the children,” she scolded him.
Seated on a tree stump, he tilted his overlarge, vaguely reptilian head with its randomly distributed tufts of blond hair and looked up at her. He didn’t have the lips for it, but the rest of him was pouting.
“Isn’t that what monsters are supposed to do?” he growled back.
Isabela felt her temper flare and barely managed to control it. “When have I ever called you a monster?” she demanded.
“Your students did. Bright little creatures. They knew what I was the moment they laid eyes on me. They were expecting me to scare them off, so I did. Besides, I’ve been stuck here in the woods, with no visitors for weeks on end. I’ve read and reread all the books you gave me, at least three times each. Since I can’t use technology if I want to stay off the Directorate’s screens, how else is a monster supposed to amuse himself?”
“Stop describing yourself that way, Moe! It insults everyone who cares about you.”
He stared at her for a moment. “And speaking of… Where is your little man?”
Sudden tears burning her eyes, she had to clear her throat twice before replying. “Vikram was killed four weeks ago. He was knocked down while trying to break up a fight. He hit his head and died instantly. I tried to press charges, but the tribune threw them out. She said an aging dwarf should have known better than to insert himself into such a dangerous situation. So, my husband’s death has been ruled an accident, and the men who caused it have paid their fines for brawling on the street and have put him out of their minds,” she concluded, with effort filtering the emotion out of her voice.
“I’m sorry he’s gone,” Moe murmured. “He was my friend. And I know he meant a lot to you.”
“Yes, and he still does.”
Isabela gazed over Moe’s shoulder at the shelter where he had been living for the past four years. From the outside, it looked like a carelessly stacked woodpile. Vikram had purposely engineered it that way. Isabela’s breath caught in her throat as a guerilla memory squeezed her heart. Vikram had made Moe a hiding place. For just a moment, she wanted nothing more than to curl up inside it, away from everyone and everything on this unfriendly world.
Moe had been watching her. He tilted his head the other way. “Have you been able to locate my twin brother?”
Yanked back to the present, she told him, “Not yet. I’m sorry it is taking so long. A friend of mine with connections has been making inquiries. With luck, I should have some news for you soon. And I apologize for not visiting you more often. Even before Vikram’s— before the funeral, my … superiors were beginning to question the amount of time I spent out here. And the things I was seen carrying back and forth.”
A grin split his face, like a seam slowly coming apart. “Monster isn’t the only word you hate, is it? It chafes you having to take orders and account for your whereabouts all the time. Back on Earth, you were the one in charge.”
“My brother was. Carlos enjoyed being the boss of Veggieville. I was the one who occasionally pulled his strings from behind the curtain.”
“Is that what you’re doing now? Secretly pulling strings?”
Recomposing herself, she replied, “To help you, yes. And to help my students. We both know that field is not your personal garden. So, you are going to leave the children alone while they pick flowers. And I will bring you new books to read when I come back in a couple of days. Agreed?”
“Add in some more pain pills and we have a deal.”
Frowning, she reached into her pocket for the bottle she’d been carrying with her. There weren’t many doses left. The stress of the past few weeks had given her a series of grinding headaches.
She handed him the medication. “Is it getting worse?”
He showed her something that she guessed was his version of a brave face. “Nothing I can’t handle, with one or two of these,” he said, giving the bottle a little shake.
“I’ll bring you more next time.”
Now pensive, Isabela headed toward the clearing where the students were waiting. Helping Moe had been an easy decision to make. Equally easy had been the choice to become a teacher. She’d taken to the giving professions naturally, having been taught from an early age to put the welfare of others ahead of her own. But now that she’d been so cruelly robbed of the ones she cared about the most, that would have to change.
As she had told Juno Vargas back in Veggieville so many years earlier, power worked differently for women than it did for men. A man’s power was born of entitlement and built on conquest. Winners gained power; losers lost it. A woman’s power grew from the calculated unpredictability of her choices, fueled by icy rage. Rage was something Isabela had in abundance right now. She could feel it burning colder inside her with each passing day.
A power game was being acted out on this world. Once she’d learned the rules and identified the players, she would find a way to flip the board over. And then, Vikram would receive the justice that he’d been denied, and she would have the closure she needed before returning to Earth.
—— «» ——
Carefully cradling the pitcher of wildflowers in the crook of her arm, Isabela returned to her apartment at the end of the school day and found a technician kneeling at her door.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He glanced up, then returned to his work. “I’m reprogramming the lock. It’s standard procedure when there’s a change of occupancy.”
She drew herself erect and informed him frostily, “There is no change of occupancy. I have been living here for more than four years, and I am not moving.”
“You may not be moving out, ma’am, but someone else is moving in. I’m sorry for your loss, but it’s the rules. Grace period is over, space is at a premium, and double occupancy is required.”
Isabela swallowed the next razor-sharp words to land on her tongue. It wasn’t fair to abuse this man over a decision that had obviously been made higher up. So, she composed herself and asked, enunciating each syllable crisply, “Do I at least get to choose who my new roommate will be?”
He pulled out his compupad and called up a file. “It says here that you already did.”
“What? When?”
“When you first arrived here and filled out the residence form. She was your third choice, after Vikram Bakshi and Carlos Calvera. Anna Sturtevant. Does that ring a bell?”
A second later, the memory clicked in. Anna Sturtevant was Angeli’s birth name. She had apparently resurrected it when adding herself to the passenger manifest of the evacuation ship bound for Stragon.
Clearly, she’d also taken the liberty of adding herself to the Bakshis’ residence forms. Not that Isabela would object. The two women had been well-acquainted back on Earth. They’d reported to the same handler at Earth Intelligence and had been sent here on the same mission, Isabela as chemist and Angeli as operation coordinator.
Now that Carlos and Vikram were gone, Angeli was the only Terran on Stragon who knew why Isabela was really there. For the sake of the mission, that secret had to be kept. So, if Isabela had to have a roommate, she reasoned, Anna Sturtevant was the best possible choice.
“And when can I expect Ms. Sturtevant?” she asked.
The technician had been eyeing what she carried in her arms. Now he shifted position, as though preparing to duck. (Madre! Throw one vase at one delivery person and you are branded for life, she thought irritably.) Slipping the compupad back into his pocket, he replied, “Her belongings have already been transferred inside, so she knows about the move. My guess is, she’ll be coming here directly when her work shift ends.”
Two hours later, Isabela heard the apartment door chime and slide open. Leaning from the kitchen into the living room, she watched as a familiar figure strolled in and dropped onto the beige and barely-green sofa.
Angeli was wearing her hair differently. It was darker and much shorter — a flattering style, Isabela thought. And she was dressing like a businesswoman now instead of like an agricultural worker, and wearing lip rouge, and painting the lids of her pale blue eyes to bring out their color.
“I like your new look, chica,” she called out.
Gesturing for silence, Angeli reached into her pocket and pulled out something that resembled a gem-studded brooch. Then she noticed the blinking green light set into the lid of the small metal box on the side table. “Is this what I think it is, Bela?”
“If you mean is it a signal jamming device, then yes.”
Angeli slipped the brooch back out of sight. “I should have realized you’d have one of your own.”
“Carlos detected the microphones in our apartment right after we arrived. He requested a change of quarters for us but was turned down. So, he and Vikram built that to ensure privacy at appropriate moments. You found covert technology in your place as well?”
“Four remote ears. They’re easy enough to block when necessary. At first, I thought the Stragori had pegged us as spies. But then I sent the other agents out to do some door-to-door work, pretending to be safety officials on a random inspection tour. They sampled residences in each district on the island, and found listening devices in just about every room they entered.”
“Could they tell whether the microphones were live?”
“According to the reports, they appeared to be, but I was never able to determine what, if anything, was happening at the other end of the feed. The problem is, if we simply kill or remove them, we could be blowing our cover. These mics are well-hidden, and concealed surveillance is something ordinary folk wouldn’t even think to check for.”
“So, it is business as usual. We remain careful while continuing to do our jobs,” Isabela summed up.
“As for my outward appearance,” Angeli reminded her, “don’t get too attached to it, Bela. It’s just my way of getting into character.” Glancing around the room, she made a face and added, “Pale neutral colors? Your house in Veggieville was full of energy, all bright gold and shades of blue and orange. But this place… just looking at it makes me want to yawn.”
Isabela returned to the kitchen counter, where she had been slicing vegetables with a quantum-bladed knife nearly identical to the one at school.
As the first Terrans to arrive here had been dismayed to learn, the soil on the island was not just alien, it was also dangerously toxic to Humans. Plants might grow here, but very few were safe to handle, and none of them were safe to eat. Therefore, all the produce at the island markets was imported from the mainland.
The Stragori versions of carrots and celery were nutrient-rich but much too bitter to be eaten raw, and too tough-skinned to be cut with an ordinary kitchen tool. A little like herself right now, she mused darkly.
“To paraphrase someone I know,” she said, raising her voice to be heard in the next room, “it is just a temporary accommodation. The apartment was already furnished and decorated this way when we moved in. Changing it to suit our own tastes would have required an investment of time and effort, which neither of us felt like making after Carlos passed away. Fortunately, a bland environment is easy to remedy. Whenever I find it difficult to bear, I bring home something colorful to liven it up. Like those flowers on the coffee table.”
Angeli came to stand in the doorway. “I’m afraid that may not be enough. If you intend to complete your mission, then you’re going to have to demonstrate a much stronger commitment to this place, Bela, and soon,” she warned. “Once the Stragori fleet is at full strength again, they’ll be ready to ferry revenants back to Earth. There’s a lot of civil unrest on the mainland, and considerable resentment building toward those of us who resist assimilation. If it continues, the Directorate may not be able to guarantee the safety of neutral aliens anywhere on the planet. Humans who still identify themselves as Terrans will probably be sent home.”
Home? It was a concept without meaning for Isabela, now that Vikram was dead and the Veggieville that she and Carlos had shaped and overseen together no longer existed. But the three of them had been entrusted with a vital role, backing up the efforts of all the other EIS agents on this world. Those operations were still ongoing. And what about Moe? And the students in her care? And Joanne? She couldn’t just abandon them. She wouldn’t!
Isabela paused to steady her hands and her voice. “Do not worry, chica. In spite of all that’s happened, there is more for me here than there is on Earth right now. I plan to stay where I am needed, for as long as I am needed.”
“I guess we’ll be going to a store on the mainland, then, to pick out new furniture. I know someone who can give us a deal, since I’m related to Dennis Forrand.” Jerking herself erect, Angeli spun and looked around. “Where’s my stuff, Bela?” she demanded.
“It was cluttering up my living room, so I borrowed some anti-gravs and moved it into Vikram’s work space. You can sleep on the sofa tonight. Tomorrow, you can help me turn his office into a bedroom.” She swept the last of the vegetables off the cutting board and into the cooker, sealed the lid shut, and selected “Stew” and “Meatless” from the programming menu. Then, picking up a bottle with one hand and two stemmed glasses with the other, Isabela stepped past her new roommate, rounded the end of the sofa, and sat down, inviting her with a glance to do the same.
“Did you look inside any of the containers?” Angeli inquired.
“No, of course not. I respected your privacy.”
Isabela set the bottle and wine glasses down gently on the long packing container that a previous occupant had repurposed as a coffee table. Angeli had moved the jamming device, she noted. It now sat in front of them, next to the vase of frilly orange damselflowers that Isabela had picked during the field trip earlier that day.
Damselflower was one of the few naturally growing plants whose stems and blossoms could be safely handled without gloves. However, it had properties similar to those of the digitalis purpurea of Earth. A powder made from its parts could be slipped in small amounts into a target’s food or drink to induce a whole range of noxious effects, including temporary arrhythmia. (Why this should be one of her most popular recipes, she preferred not to speculate.)
Only half joking, Isabela added, “And I knew what you had been up to lately and wanted to have deniability if someone came to arrest you.”
She charged the first glass, then moved the mouth of the bottle to the second one and froze as a sudden thought occurred to her. “Am I going to need deniability?” When Angeli didn’t reply immediately, she rephrased the question. “Are there stolen goods in those containers?”
“Not exactly. They’re datawafers containing encrypted files that I copied during my various stints in the Data Management office.”
“They’re restricted?”
The other woman shrugged. “Like I said, they’re copies, made during a download requested by a user with valid and appropriate authorization. The originals are still on the servers, so no one is going to miss them. However, in the unlikely event that someone decides to initiate a forensic analysis, trust me, the trail won’t be leading anywhere near you or me.”
“And you are certain that no one suspects you’ve been doing this?” Isabela persisted.
“Please, give me some credit! Anna Sturtevant has embraced her new life on Stragon and has been training diligently for promotion from her entry level job as a data clerk in the Directorate’s office. I’ve also been taking extra courses at the Technikum to improve myself and my computer skills, whatever they’re offering that doesn’t require optimization.
“The big hats on the Directorate’s staff must have a very low opinion of Terran intelligence. Maybe it’s because of my accent when I speak Stragori. Or maybe I’m just really good at acting dumb. Anyway, I’ve figured out how to co-opt a data request without leaving anything traceable behind. I’ve been careful, Bela. By the time anyone is able to figure out what I’ve done, I’ll have gone off the grid. You’ll have total deniability, and your cover will remain solid, I promise.”
It was nice to hear that things were going as planned for somebody, at least. Isabela poured the second glass of wine and lifted it off the table. “I am pleased to see you again, chica. It has been a long time since you last slept under my roof.”
Angeli picked up the other wine glass. “When we tested Juno Vargas. That was in 2374, so it’s been … about thirty-two Earth years. Wow. That is a long time.” She took a sip, then let out a sigh. “The experts are all telling me I’m in the prime of my life right now, but it doesn’t feel like it. Some days, I’d swear I must be a hundred years old. I was sorry to hear about Vikram, by the way. I didn’t know him that well, but I know you cared deeply for him. And this is going to sound cold, but there’s a silver lining to his passing. Now that you and I are sharing the apartment, we’ll be able to confer privately face to face, instead of having to arrange dead drops or accidental meetings in public places.”
She was right. It did sound cold. Savagely redirecting her thoughts, Isabela said, “Speaking of that, I saw Moe earlier today. His pain is worsening. I don’t think he has much time left. Please, tell me I can give him some news.”
“Well, I was able to call in a favor or two from contacts with access to restricted data, and the good news is that he does have a twin.”
“But there is bad news?”
“He’s on Nandor, in the custody of House Trokerk.”
Isabela nearly dropped her glass. “In custody? He’s a criminal?”
“No, but— How much do you know about Nandrian rituals?”
She shrugged. “I’ve heard a great deal about them, but I know very little for a fact.”
“Well, in the course of my inquiries, I was given some interesting information about one in particular. About fifty-five years ago, Stragon entered into a formal alliance with House Trokerk of Nandor. The ritual that sealed the alliance was supposed to be a blending of gene pools. Between two Nandrian Houses, it would have been a simple matter of cross-fertilizing eggs. For an interspecies alliance, that was not possible. So, the Stragori scientists figured out how to splice the genomes of the two races together, creating Homo saurius. In their laboratory, they made two hybrid infants, one to give to the Nandrians and one to keep for themselves, as living symbols of the alliance between them.”
Isabela paused thoughtfully. “Moe is a living symbol and his twin is on Nandor. This is becoming extremely complicated.”
“Yes, it is, even more than you think. What does Moe remember about growing up here?”
“He hasn’t told me everything, I am quite certain. However, he says he was well-treated. His guardians gave him everything he needed, including a formal education. In all ways, he was raised as if he were the only child of a high-ranking Stragori family. Until he learned about his twin and expressed a desire to find him. That was when things changed.
“Bars went up on the windows, and a lock was installed on the outside of his bedroom door. He lived in confinement for most of his life after that, provided with every creature comfort but constantly feeling incomplete somehow. When the Directorate ordered the relocation of everyone on the island to make room for Terran refugees, he saw an opportunity to escape to the Wilderness Zone, and he took it.”
“Does he remember having any contact with Stragori children his own age?”
“Not that he has mentioned to me. Why?”
“Because the folder where the lab records and the alliance ritual information are stored also contains an incident report with an order from the Directorate appended to it. I wasn’t allowed to copy anything, but the report and the order were very kindly decrypted for me to read. Moe wasn’t locked up just because he found out about his twin. He’s a chimera, Bela, part Stragori and part Nandrian, and Nandrians have a lethally venomous bite. Moe’s guardians were ordered to take safety precautions because he apparently became excited one day and bit a Stragori child who’d been brought to the house to play with him. The child was rushed to a Med Services center but was pronounced dead on arrival. After that, Moe was allowed no more young visitors, only adults. And anyone who might come into contact with him had to wear specially reinforced clothing.”
Stunned, Isabela sank backward against the sofa. “Was he told the other child was dead?”
“No. He was deemed to be incapable of understanding what he’d done. Truthfully, if he’d been just an ordinary chimera, he probably would have been destroyed after something like that. But he was special — a living symbol of Stragon’s connection with the Nandrians — so they had to protect him. The bereaved parents of that little boy were handsomely compensated for their loss and were sworn to secrecy. It probably ate them alive, knowing that his killer could not be punished.”
The irony of her situation was not lost on Isabela. Still, she countered, “Of course he was punished. How could he not be? His caregivers must have looked at him differently afterward, must have whispered things they thought he could not hear. Why else would this child have become convinced that he was a monster?”
Angeli let out an exasperated breath. “Perhaps because, by most definitions, he is one.”
Isabela’s vision clouded with tears. “Moe is an intelligent, articulate being who has accepted the fact that he is dying. Two months ago, he entrusted us with his final request. Now Vikram is gone, and I am the only friend he has in the world. Moe is counting on me, Angeli. So I am begging you. Please! Tell me there is a way to put Moe and his twin in the same room together.”
Angeli set her wine glass down and stared at it as though daring it to move. Her lips pursed, then deked side to side a few times. “It may be doable,” she admitted at last. “I made a friend a couple of years ago. He’s been working closely with the Directorate and has a history with Daisy Hub, which, according to his sources, is also allied with House Trokerk.”
“Is allied? I thought the station was destroyed during the war.”
“It was badly damaged, but it’s been rebuilt. This isn’t going to be easy. But if we can get Moe off the island and all the way to Daisy Hub without anyone finding out about it, we just might be able to grant his wish. And if we do, Bela, you are going to owe me so large…!”