Darkship Thieves-ARC

by Sarah A. Hoyt

  I drank. It could be poison, but I had to drink, because I had to be able to breathe and the damn egg wouldn't go down. I drank, then drank again, then I hiccuped, then I drank once more. The egg remained, but now allowed some air through.

  Doc Bartolomeu knelt by the chair, his hands on the arm, looking up at me, as if I held some kind of magical power. "Are you sure? Are you sure you got it from his mind? That he didn't kill her?"

  I nodded. "You're only thinking he did because his father killed his wife," I said, hearing disdain in my own voice. "Kit loved this woman . . . his wife. Loved her madly. I got that from his mind, too. I . . . Shared his mind and she was in his mind as she died. She was in mind link with him as she died. He was begging her to come inside, trying to suit up to go get her."

  "Cruel," the Doc said.

  "He didn't know I was getting it. He was mostly unconscious when I got that."

  "Not Christopher," he said, impatiently. "Jane Klaavil. She wanted him to remember forever."

  I hadn't thought about it that way, and suddenly I felt a wave of anger at the dead woman so strong it made me nauseous. Doc Bartolomeu seemed to read it in my eyes. "Yes," he said. "And no, it's not a surprise. I thought at first . . . you see, Christopher is not quite a son to me, but well, he's the . . . genetic twin of a very dear friend. I thought that I was only behaving as though no woman were good enough for him. But the more I've had time to think about, I think a more disastrous match couldn't have been arranged if it had been done on purpose. I think that's what attracted Christopher to her.

  "He knew himself to be brighter than his classmates. Not . . . not Jarl's level of brilliance, but then he hadn't been forced. I think the potential is there and that it's the same. He felt odd and out of place. And in his family, he knew he was adopted. Jane was . . . uncomplicated. She was the first one in her family to be ELFed. Her family are working class—manufacturing workers. They're . . . It seemed . . . these things do, like an uncomplicated choice, a way to be something other than himself?"

  I nodded. In a way I felt that way often enough, looking at the families of Father's employees, at couples on the street and dreaming that I was them, that I could become that simple, that uncaring. Not that I thought they truly had simple lives. I was sure that had I known them better I would have seen all sorts of complications. But the dream could be a very powerful attractor.

  I'd never thought I could abdicate my life as a patrician, but if I could, I would have.

  "I told Christopher he was a Mule when he got engaged. I advised him to tell his wife. After all, Navs and Cats communicate, mentally, and in a marriage it's sometimes hard to control what the others get. But . . . He couldn't do it. I suppose because he was afraid she would talk . . ." He shrugged. "He told me he let her know after a year, when she wanted to find out why they weren't conceiving a child. She very much wanted children. The next year . . . He hasn't told me, but I can guess well enough what it was like. She was the type of woman who sulks and cries, none of which Christopher takes well to."

  "He sulks too," I said.

  He smiled. "Ah, yes, but it's a different type of sulk, isn't it?"

  I shrugged. "He gets over it if I mock-fight him in the exercise room."

  "Oh, definitely things would have gone much better if Jane Klaavil had just aimed a kick at his gonads and got over it . . ." He seemed to mean it. "But she didn't seem to be type, so she would cry and act wounded. And Christopher is stubborn. I don't know what precipitated the crisis, but I suspect it had spun all out of control."

  "And after she died he refused to depose under hypnotics and her family accused him of killing her, and rumors started leaking out, each more outrageous than the other . . . And he became a pariah."

  "But . . . why didn't he depose?" I asked.

  "Well . . ." the doctor said. "I thought he might be guilty. I didn't push him. But I think it was the Mule thing. Not just for himself, but because people would look funny at the Denovos for adopting him and . . . well, when I broke it to him he was a Mule, I told him I was one also. I told him the whole story, as I told you, just now."

  "But would that have to do with his wife's death?"

  "I suspect the final argument was about what he was, and that Christopher is afraid . . . you know, that it will come out. These depositions are public. Open."

  "Oh. So he can't, but the only reason people can imagine for it . . . is that he killed her?"

  Doctor Bartolomeu nodded. "Exactly. You see where that leaves him."

  I did. It left him in hell. The only way to get out would cast him into a bigger hell. Maybe it was because I was so tired, but I really didn't seem to give a damn that he was a Mule born. Through my mind, trickling, was the thought of what Kit had endured, to protect those he loved. What was there more human than that?

  "Are you sure . . ." I asked, confused, unfocused. "I can't kill Kaavil?" But even as I said it, I realized I would just be adding to the guilt Kit carried. I sighed. "Well, at least I can beat him up."

  The doctor looked at me and smiled. "That's the spirit."

  "Why did you think . . . Oh, you wanted me to understand what is happening with Kit . . ." He must have put something in the water, because my thoughts were calming and getting more coherent.

  Doc Bartolomeu nodded. "In a way. I also wanted you to understand . . . I wanted you to know. He should have told you, but I didn't think he had the courage, so . . ."

  I nodded. "And you're not afraid I'll talk?"

  "Curiously?" he said. "No. The other reason I told you is so that you understand the depths and confusion of the rumors about Kit."

  "And to that," I said. "It's added bringing an Earthworm who starts the destruction of Eden Power collectors."

  Doc Bartolomeu shrugged. "I'm getting very tired of people blaming themselves for what they can't help. After three hundred years, it's grown rather old."

  I understood that, but still, I wished he would understand I messed up whatever I touched. It was a gift, of sorts. One I could do without. If only there was something I could do to compensate Kit.

  Doc Bartolomeu rose. "I'll give you some of those tablets now, and a data gem about duels. You have a reader?"

  "Kit gave me one."

  "Good. I want you to sleep, though, before you send any message to Joseph Klaavil. And I want you to think whether you really want to return to work at the center. You can help me, you know? I always have . . . work. And I can pay you, if that's your worry."

  "No. I like mach—" The idea formed in my sleepy brain all in one piece, without my remembering assembling the thoughts to get there. "Doc? Since I mind-linked to Kit, could I depose under hypnotics? To clear Kit?"

  Doctor Bartolomeu turned, holding a little glass jar full of pills. "They could only ask you what you got from his mind," he said slowly.

  "Which means they couldn't ask me what the conversation before was or what caused the argument, because I wasn't there. I know nothing about that. Not of my own experience."

  The thought drove the duel and any worry about it from my mind. It was now merely a distraction on the way to this grand scheme to clear Kit's name. If I could, I must do it. Even if I suspected Kit would hate me for it.

  Thirty One

  Nothing in Eden was as straightforward as it sounded. The duel took a month and a half to arrange.

  In that time, the brownouts started, reducing all of Eden to semi-darkness for hours a day. It was more difficult to institute things like powerpack rationing when one didn't have government. The Energy Board did what ti could by raising prices to exorbitant levels. I didn't notice that much economy at the Denovos, but less insulated families had to be hurting.

  With the list of presumed missing ships growing by the day, only a handful came back: Steve and Laurie Shay in the October Fury, Francis and Miho Turner in the Gramondou, Steve and Patti Ludwig in the Darolme. All of them with less than half a cargo of powerpods in their hold. And all greeted like heros, which I supposed the
y were.

  The willingness to go back out had grown such a rare thing that Ru and Rob Knox's decision to go back out in their ship a month after arriving had entitled them to various interviews in nightly broadcasts. Rob Knox had, famously, declared that the ships from Earth were like rats guarding the cheese of energy and they wouldn't keep Edenites cowed. No one laughed. Perhaps he was a little insane, facing going back into peril.

  And when Tom and Kate Golding chose to take the Hairball back out, we were treated to a holo of a green haired—I hoped artificial—cat eyed gentleman and his wife climbing the stairs to their ship under massive acclaim from what sounded like hundreds of gathered friends, shouting "Hurray for Captain Silkfur McFluffly." Anne had giggled on seeing it, so maybe it was an in joke for Cats and Navs, but I wondered what the rest of the world made of it.

  Meanwhile, my own matter crept forward. For a world that had no laws, they had a lot of traditions, cultural assumptions and hoops to jump through. Even though the duel was not technically to the death, it was a serious event that had to be prepared for and witnessed.

  By the time it was all ready, Kath Denovo was ready to be my witness, having arrived back when we'd all but despaired of seeing her again. She brought me no news of her brother, but also she and her husband hadn't been disturbed by the tractor ray and had arrived with a full load of powerpods. They said they'd seen the Earth ships move through powertrees, searching, but they hadn't been found. And Kath had assured me that Kit was an even better pilot than she was and that she was sure he was all right.

  I knew there was a reason I liked the woman. She was also the only one who found out I was sleeping in Kit's room, on the floor, with my hand on the violin.

  I don't know what tipped her off to this—her room was down the hall and perhaps she chanced to see me enter Kit's room—or perhaps she was coming to Kit's room for some reason of her own.

  All I know is that I woke up, on the day of the duel, with Kath calling me, "Thena?"

  I'd opened my eyes to find her standing at the door, staring at me. "That can't be comfortable," she said.

  I'd blinked at her. I'd only been able to sleep like that for over a month, so at that point I wasn't thinking of comfort so much as that this was what worked. Even with doc's tablets, if I weren't right there, touching the violin, my subconscious refused to turn off and let me sleep.

  She'd hesitated at my look, then said, "You've been doing this since he's been gone?"

  It was a question, but I felt I wasn't giving her any news when I nodded. "You could sleep on his bed, really," she said. "I don't think he'd mind."

  "But what if I push the violin down from the bed?" I'd asked. "In my sleep. He'd mind that."

  She hadn't argued, but that night, after the confusion and legalities of the duel, I'd found a sleeping bag on the floor, next to Kit's bed. And she told me to leave the violin case out of the closet, instead of bringing it in and out. Whether she told the rest of the family, I don't know. I never asked.

  I'm not going to describe the duel itself, mostly because there is nothing to describe. Joseph Klaavil not only wasn't at the self-defense level of the various young men who ran the military schools I'd terrorized. He wasn't even at the level of the various very neurotic psychiatrists who had ineffectively tried to convince me that I did not want to hurt them.

  Partly he was that neurotic, partly, though he seemed to like burners—even if he was very bad with them—he had no idea what to do with his fists. I'd walked in, amid a circle of spectators, walked up to him and floored him with a single punch—which shouldn't have been possible since he was taller than I.

  I'd walked out, amid the silent crowd—since the duel had taken place at the center—and back to the flyer in which Kath and I had flown home.

  "It won't put things to rest, you know?" Kath said. "He will still try to fire on you."

  "I know," I said.

  "It's because of Kit," she said.

  "I know," I said, all the while wonder how much she knew and how much I could tell her. So I told her the one thing I could tell her, "Doc Bartolomeu is arranging for me to testify under hypnotics."

  We were flying over the suburbs at that time, which is a good thing, because she swerved all over the peaceful little road, almost hitting the false ceiling. "Testify?" she asked. "About what?"

  "About Kit," I said. "And his wife."

  She was looking at me as if I'd taken leave of my senses. "But you weren't there!"

  And then I realized she had departed by the time Kit had been hurt and I'd had to drive him to Doc's. I told her about it. The hit—which made her foam and again almost hit the holographic ceiling while she gave me her considered opinion of Joseph Klaavil. I think that weasel was the nicest thing she called him.—the mind merge and the drive to the doctor. I didn't tell her that Kit had ripped up his IV to interrupt the doctor before he could talk to me, but clearly she'd learned the aftermath of the incident, because she said, "Oh, so that's why he was bleeding after stopping you from stealing the ship." She grinned at me. "I told John Wagner it was nonsense to think you'd shot him."

  I was suddenly very glad I'd never told her that I'd tried to kill him within minutes of entering the Cathouse. Though frankly, knowing Kath, she was very likely to tell me that he'd brought it on himself by tying me up. She both loved her brother, her husband and her sons, and had an absolute certainty that there was something very odd about the male brain and that sometimes this required drastic measures.

  But she did look at me, frowning a little. I expected her to say that she was relieved Kit hadn't killed his wife, but frankly she didn't even ask if he had. Just went on to, "I'm glad you can do that. Kit will be glad to be out from under that mess." And then she'd patted me on the arm, in a reassuring way—swerving to almost hit a fence, then correcting at the last minute. "And it's so good that you can communicate just like a nav. And are good with mechanics. You can pretty much do everything a nav does. Very useful to him, aboard ship. If only you had the visual memory to remember the power tree maps and development."

  I didn't know whether to laugh or cry at her serene assumption that Kit and I were going to be a flying—and life—team. I found myself blurting out, "I can. I mean . . . I can do the maps."

  She'd flashed me a huge smile, and patted me again. "I knew how it would be from the moment you two came in. I know my brother. He'll do better with you."

  I don't want to give the impression that Kath was a bad pilot. She did drive through the traffic in downtown Eden as ably as Kit did, and she managed not to hit anything even while gesturing wildly. It was just that as far as Katherine Denovo was concerned, there were far more important things in life than staying on the correct path at every minute. Things like jumping to conclusions about one's brother's love life, for instance.

  Not that she was alone in that. Kit's mother, Tania Denovo, had come flying in, two weeks after Kath. She started dropping her clothes off at the door, just like Kit did—making me realize where Kit got it—and smiled vaguely at her husband as he picked them up and tried to introduce me.

  "I heard at the center. Isn't that just like Kit? He always was eccentric. Only an Earther would do for him."

  Though this serene assumption that I was engaged to Kit in all but announced fact disturbed me a little, I did find myself liking all three women in the family. Anne was the quiet one, her silences, like Kit's, filled with observation, sometimes interrupted with the one word that either changed the tenor of the conversation or caused everyone to erupt into laughter. Exuberant, talkative Kath was always ready to jump into the conversation and say what she thought of anything and everything—even when she manifestly knew nothing about it. And then there was Tania—who was like a combination of her daughters. Her conversational gambits could take you completely by surprise, until your realized she had jumped two or three points ahead in the conversation, having disposed of all other points in her mind.

  All three of them seemed determined to
find me clothes. Daring clothes, interesting clothes and demure clothes. If I let Kath have her way, I'd dress like a Cat, and my protests met with an assurance that "Kit will like it."

  At any rate, their absolute certainty that Kit would come home—that he was even now speeding home to us did me good and sustained me when he was a day late. Two days and I started feeling frantic. Three days and the only thing that kept me what could pass for sane—under a dim light and if one squinted—was that I had the deposition at the end of the week.

  By the day of the deposition, I was frantic. I concentrated on fear of the process rather than on counting the minutes, the hours, the days that Kit was late.

  The deposition was to take place at the judicial center. You will ask what the judicial center was doing in a place that had no laws. Well at least that's what I asked. Kath had looked at me as if I were completely insane. "Well . . . we don't have written laws, but we do have customary laws. Laws don't need to be written or come from a central body to apply." And when I admitted that I supposed it was true, she'd shrugged. "The center is where they have jury trials. And where depositions like this take place."

  "Jury?" I said.

  "Well, you can have twelve people weigh in on your question, when you can't prove it one way or the other. They ask you questions and then they state the opinions and their reasons. This is published, and usually is enough to squelch bad opinion." She frowned. "If the judgement is favorable to you, that is. We tried to convince Kit to do a jury trial a year ago, but he said they'd hang him, which is weird, because they really couldn't. Well, not without paying a serious bloodgeld fine. He said he'd rather be tried by twelve than carried by six, but that he still had no intention of being hanged." She'd looked at me, her blue cat eyes wide and puzzled. "I think my brother reads too much."

  We were at breakfast and she was drinking quantities of clear, sickeningly sweet bug juice, the main caffeine vehicle around these parts. I was drinking tea because Doc Bartolomeu had been sending over packets of the finest Oolong. I was fairly sure it was synthed, not grown, but I couldn't care less. The idea of drinking a liquid that came from the poop of bioed bugs made me shudder, and I didn't care how hygienic they told me it was.