“Fine,” she said.
Tyra folded Atara into a big hug. “I’m so happy you’re okay.”
“I wasn’t okay? What was wrong with me?”
Tyra winced, and Lucien made big eyes at her. They spent the past two days erasing Atara’s memories of the trauma she’d been through, and here Tyra was trying to remind her.
Atara looked to Lucien for an answer, and he covered his shock with a smile. “Remember how we said you needed to stay in the hospital and rest because you weren’t sleeping well?” he said.
“Because of the nightmares,” Atara said, nodding.
“Exactly. Well, now you’ve had enough time to rest, so you can go home,” Lucien said.
“But I’m still having nightmares,” Atara objected.
“They’ll go away in time,” Tyra said.
“Promise?”
She nodded. “I promise.” Tyra stood up and took Atara’s hand to walk her to the elevators.
“Will I still get to see Troo?” Atara asked.
“Yes, you will,” Tyra said. “She’ll be coming to our house to visit you.”
“Forever?”
“Well, no... just for a while,” Tyra said.
“Can’t we keep her?”
Lucien laughed, and Tyra smiled. “She’s not a pet, honey.”
“But she’s furry!”
Tyra punched the call button for the elevator, still smiling. How do you explain the difference between pets and sentient beings to a five-year-old? she wondered.
The elevator opened and they waited while a group of doctors and visitors filed out. While they waited, an incoming call trilled in Tyra’s head, and she sighed. Ellis couldn’t get back on the job soon enough as far as she was concerned.
“Acting Chief Councilor speaking,” she said.
“Mrs. Ortane, it’s Director Helios from the Resurrection Center.”
Tyra nodded, her brow furrowing at that. “It’s good to hear from you, Madam Director. I’m guessing this is about my clone’s data.”
Lucien and the girls were about to pile into the elevator, but Tyra stopped them with a hand on Lucien’s arm. He frowned, watching as the elevator doors slid shut.
“Yes. The judicial department has made a ruling.”
“I see. And? What was their decision?”
“It’s been decided that the data does not belong to you. Your clone has been granted equal rights as a citizen of Astralis, and she will be revived at once using the clone you have waiting in stasis. Of course, we’ll start growing another one for you immediately.”
Tyra nodded, her head spinning with the thought of a copy of herself running around Astralis. “What will her legal rights be with respect to me?”
“She’s entitled to half of whatever you owned at the time she left Astralis—minus half of the cost of your clone, which she will be using to resurrect.”
“I see. And what about custody of my children?”
“She won’t have any rights where they’re concerned, since they were born after she left.”
“And I assume likewise for my husband.”
“Exactly.”
“So... how do we establish what I owned at the time she left?”
“There should be bank records to help establish that, but she will have to appoint a lawyer to defend her claim to your estate.”
“Of course,” Tyra nodded, meanwhile thinking: I’m getting a divorce from myself! That’s got to be a first. “Did the judicial department offer any justification for their ruling?”
“You mean besides the fact that she and you haven’t shared the same life or body for the past eight and a half years?”
“Besides that.”
“They did offer an explanation as to why she would be given your clone rather than be forced to wait while we grow a new one.”
“And that is?”
“She’s thought to possess valuable information about the Faros, and about whatever went wrong during first contact. If there was some kind of misconduct that led to war, then she may be tried for negligence.”
“They’re looking for someone to blame,” Tyra said.
“Exactly.”
Tyra sighed. “And I suppose I can’t be held responsible for whatever happened, since she’s being treated as an individual.”
“Correct.”
“Well that’s a relief at least. Thank you for the information, Madam Director.”
“You’re welcome. Would you like to be here when she wakes up?”
Tyra frowned. Usually only family members were allowed to be present during resurrections, but this copy of her wouldn’t have any family. “Is that allowed?”
“Well, she is your clone, so I don’t see why not.”
“Under the circumstances, I think that might be confusing for the both of us. She can look me up through appropriate channels if she wants to see me.”
“As you wish. Give me a call if you change your mind. Resurrection is scheduled for one hour from now.”
“That soon? They really are in a rush to find out what happened. I’ll let you know, Madam Director. Thanks again for the call,” Tyra replied.
“Of course,” Director Helios said, and ended the comm call from her end.
“What was all that about?” Lucien asked.
Tyra explained everything as briefly as she could.
The news left Lucien slowly shaking his head in disbelief. “This is crazy. How can they make a decision like this without consulting either her or you?”
“They have to bring her back to consult with her, and I guess my vote isn’t worth much without hers. The ruling makes sense. We’re not really the same person anymore.”
“No, you’re exactly the same person—just separated by eight years of life. She’s the old you, and you’re the old-er you.”
Tyra glared at Lucien, pretending to be annoyed. “Cute. Never tell a woman she’s old. Especially when you have to live with her.”
Lucien grinned and winked at her. “Sorry.”
“Let’s get Atara home. I’m not sure how long I’ll have before Ellis calls an emergency meeting of the council.”
Lucien’s playful grin vanished, and the light left his eyes. “Duty calls.”
Tyra scowled. This again. “You of all people should get that. You’re the chief of security for Fallside, for Etherus’ sake!”
“Etherus has nothing to do with it, and I’m not the chief of anything anymore. Fallside is a wasteland, remember?”
“That’s like saying I’m no longer a councilor.”
“It’s different. You still represent the interests of your constituents, whether they’re alive or dead, but the dead don’t need policing.”
“They’re not dead.”
Lucien waved a hand. “Waiting to be resurrected—same thing.”
“The situation is temporary. We’re rebuilding. As soon as Fallside is permanently sealed and the atmosphere is restored, people will start coming back, and you’ll be back on the job.”
Lucien shook his head. “We still have to find a planet with an appropriate atmosphere to supply the missing air. That could take some time.”
“I’m sure that will be one of the first things we discuss at the emergency council meeting.”
“Sure. And anyway, the argument is flawed. My job isn’t like yours. I don’t have to work all day and all week, never showing up to spend time with my family. If my job were like that, I’d quit.”
“That’s what you think I should do? Resign?”
Theola began fussing, and Atara jerked impatiently on Tyra’s arm. “Let’s go!” Atara said.
Lucien nodded absently, and Tyra was left to wonder if he were nodding his agreement with Atara’s sentiment or hers. He punched the call button for the elevator, and they waited in a heavy silence. A split second later the doors opened and another group of people piled out.
“So, where’s home now?” Lucien asked, changing the topic to ease the tension.
&nbs
p; They walked into the elevator together and Tyra breathed out a quiet sigh, wishing she could expel her frustration along with the air in her lungs. “I found us a three bedroom rental in Winterside.”
Lucien’s nose scrunched up. “You couldn’t have picked a place in Summerside?”
Tyra mentally selected the ground floor from the elevator’s control panel. “I couldn’t be sure how long Atara would be in the hospital, and I thought we’d want to be close to her. Besides, Winterside is the only city with enough vacancy to house all of the people who evacuated Fallside, and I have to be close to my constituents.”
“It has enough vacancy because no one wants to live there,” Lucien said. “They should just make it into another Summerside.”
“Their economy would crash. They’d lose all the tourists going there to ski and experience winter.”
It was Lucien’s turn to sigh. “Well, I guess I could take the girls sledding.”
Tyra nodded. “That’s a good idea. It might take their minds off things.”
“Blaba!” Theola interjected enthusiastically.
“My sentiments exactly,” Lucien replied, and kissed her cheek.
Chapter 20
The Specter
OUTBOUND FROM FREEDOM STATION...
Lucien stared at his hairless blue skin in the bathroom mirror of the quarters he and Addy shared aboard Katawa’s ship. He slowly shook his head. “I think this disguise would even fool my own mother.” The words rolled easily off his black tongue, and he knew instantly what they meant, but it still sounded to him like someone else was speaking—a fact which the mirror seemed to confirm. Besides being blue his face was more angular than his real one, and his head was completely bald—along with every other part of his body. A holoskin did most of the work, projecting a hologram seamlessly over his body from the glowing golden bands on his arms and legs—Faro jewelry modified to conceal advanced holo projectors. As for his hairlessness, that was unfortunately real. He’d had to practically bathe in a foul-smelling depilatory gel, but Katawa assured them that the effects would last for at least six months.
Lucien walked from the en-suite bathroom to the sleeping quarters that he and Addy shared aboard the Specter.
They’d left Freedom Station just a few minutes ago, having spent the past two days since meeting Katawa sharing a hotel room at his expense while he stocked his ship and got it ready for visitors. During that time they’d used a helmet-shaped device that Katawa called a Mind-mapper to re-train their brains to speak Faro. After that, they no longer needed the translator bands to speak with Katawa, since Faro was his native language, too.
Lucien found Addy sitting on the edge of the bed, frowning at her reflection in a handheld mirror. She was as bald as he was, and her face was also more angular than it used to be. She looked up as he approached, staring at him with a face that was now only vaguely familiar. At least her eyes were still green.
“I’m ugly!” she said.
Lucien went to sit on the foot of the bed beside her. “You still look beautiful to me.”
“Liar.”
He placed a hand on her bare shoulder, and squeezed reassuringly. They were both wearing Faro robes. His was beige and just covered his shoulders, leaving his arms bare, while hers was white and purple and held itself with a strap around her neck.
The robes were adaptive and surprisingly comfortable. When it was cold they expanded, growing long sleeves, pants, and hoods, and when it was warm, the garments retreated, becoming thicker, but shorter and more porous.
“I mean it,” Lucien said, making a point of examining her. She was still beautiful, despite her lack of hair and her now-alien features.
“Then you’re blind.”
He held up his hands in surrender. “I give up. You can always turn off the disguise while we’re on board the ship.”
“That’s not any better. At least this way I look alien enough that being bald isn’t so bad, but if I turn off the skin, I’ll have to wear a wig—and I don’t have one. How do you think they tell each other apart? The males and females?”
“Not all of them have a gender. According to Katawa, Abaddon and the Elementals are all neuters.”
“Yeah, they’re also half machine. I’m talking about the natural-born Faros, the ones we’re trying to imitate. Look at me! If their women are all this ugly, it’s no wonder the Elementals decided they could do without.”
Lucien smiled and shook his head. “You’ll get used to it.”
“I doubt it.”
“I’m going to the bridge,” Lucien said. “You coming?”
“I guess I can’t hide in here forever.”
The door opened for Lucien as he approached, and Addy slid her hand into his as they walked out.
Katawa’s ship was old and run down. The corridors were badly lit and discolored with patches of rust and greenish stains that looked suspiciously like they might be alive.
Lucien heard a water pipe drip-drip-dripping in the distance. The sound echoed through the ship, making it impossible to tell where the leak was.
The deck thrummed and vibrated underfoot, setting Lucien’s teeth on edge and assaulting his ears with the constant roar of an over-stressed reactor and drive system. They walked beneath a rattling ventilation duct with a squeaky fan.
“This ship is falling apart,” Addy said.
Lucien nodded. “That should help keep us safe from pirates. No one’s going to bother boarding a piece of junk like this.”
Addy snorted and rapped her knuckles against a bulkhead that had rusted straight through to the compartment on the other side. “And what’s going to keep us safe from the ship?”
How do you get rust in space? Lucien wondered. “Might be a good idea to sleep in a pressure suit.”
Addy gave him a rueful smile. “And here I was planning to sleep naked.”
“Actually—sleeping in a pressure suit would probably be overkill,” he amended.
Addy grinned. “Too late. You put the thought in my brain. On the bright side, it won’t be long before you can walk around without a holoskin.”
Lucien shook his head. “How’s that?”
“Because you’re going to turn blue all by yourself.”
“Very funny.”
They reached the bridge where they found Garek—also bald and blue—and Brak, a living shadow in his shapeless smock. It covered every inch of him, including his head. Lucien found himself wondering how the Gor could breathe—or see—in that disguise. Katawa sat cross-legged in the pilot’s chair, not yet wearing his shadowy garment. He still wore the same loose-fitting black tunic he’d been wearing when they met him.
“Where are we going?” Lucien asked as he stopped behind Katawa’s chair and looked out at the handful of stars he could see from the cockpit. Out here, at the edge of the universe, they were so close to the Great Abyss that space seemed even more desolate and forbidding than usual.
“To the Gakol System,” Katawa replied.
“Where’s that?”
“In the Gethari Galaxy.”
“And that is...”
“In the Tosivian Supercluster.”
Garek shot Lucien a smirk. “I got the same runaround a few minutes ago.”
“Maybe I should ask a different question,” Lucien said. “How far is the Gakol System from where we are now?”
“More than five million light years.”
“And how long is it going to take to calculate a jump there?”
“Two hours.”
“Five million light years in two hours. That’s...” Lucien trailed off as he ran the numbers in his head.
“Over five times faster than Astralis’s jump tech,” Garek put in.
“Incredible,” Lucien said.
“And this bucket is apparently slow as far as Faro ships go,” Garek said. “Katawa was telling me one of their top-of-the-line destroyers can calculate more than two thousand light years per second. That’s seventy-five billion light years in jus
t one year, which is about the distance from here back to the Red Line.”
Lucien didn’t miss the meaningful tone in Garek’s voice. If they couldn’t find this lost Etherian fleet, taking one of the Faros’ ships and running back to Etherus for help was a good backup plan. Although, something told Lucien that if Etherus hadn’t already gone to war with the Faros to emancipate all the other sentient races that they’d enslaved, then he might be equally indifferent to the enslavement of a bunch of faithless human scientists. All of which raised the age-old question: how can a good God be so seemingly indifferent to suffering?
“What’s the Gakol System like?” he asked, putting that troubling thought from his mind.
“We will soon see,” Katawa replied.
“You mean you haven’t even been there before?” Addy asked.
“No.”
“Then how do you know to look there for this lost fleet of yours?”
“Because it is the last location where the fleet was rumored to have been.”
“Ten thousand years ago,” Garek replied dryly.
“Yes.”
“By now that trail is colder than space,” Garek said.
Lucien frowned. “You said you kept notes of your search. I’m assuming that most of them are rumors like this one.”
“Correct.”
“So how many rumors have you collected?”
“The ones that I have been unable to investigate, or in total?”
“The ones you haven’t already checked,” Lucien replied.
“Five hundred and sixty-two.”
“That many?” Addy blurted.
“The guy’s been searching for ten thousand years,” Garek said. “That’s not a lot of leads considering how long he’s been at this.”
“I was a slave for much of that time,” Katawa said, as if he felt the need to justify his lack of progress.
“It could take us years just to follow up on all of these rumors!” Addy said. “At that rate it could be a century before we find anything!”
“That would be wonderful,” Katawa replied. He turned from his controls to face them, his giant black eyes blinking and his small mouth slightly agape. “Do you really think you could get such fast results?”
Dark Space Universe (Books 1-3): The Third Dark Space Trilogy (Dark Space Trilogies) Page 37
