Clairy required no further coaxing.
“It’s all right, little girl,” she crooned, her hands meeting surprisingly warm liquid, thicker than she would have first imagined, her hands meeting slippery flesh that was difficult to hold on to. “It’s all right now.”
She prayed that was true.
Clairy pulled her from the confines of the pod, the small body slick with fluids and shiny, her downy hair clumped together, her face contorted as a sharp, indignant cry came from the tiny form.
“That’s it,” Clairy encouraged, realising she was crying herself. “You tell me all about it.” She had nothing to put her in, no warm blanket and soft nappy to secure, but she cradled her to her chest, trying to share some semblance of warmth that the chill of the room was trying to scrounge away from them.
There was a sigh, and suddenly a cloth appeared, doubtlessly from Cydrin’s pocket of endless treasures. Or weapons. Depending on his mood. It was not overly large but it did the job well enough, drying and covering her as Clairy swaddled her carefully, limbs more feeble than they should have been with no natural womb to push and stretch against. “There now, isn’t that better?”
“She will not understand you,” the man told her, someone Clairy had quite forgotten about. “You do know that, don’t you?”
Clairy glared at him. “I’m quite aware that she’s a baby, yes,” she answered indignantly. “But I’m not sure that anyone has ever spoken kindly to her, and that’s what she’s going to experience, beginning now.”
The man shrugged, eyeing them both as if Clairy was quite mad and the babe she held the ultimate inconvenience. Clairy held her a little more tightly to her chest, the baby’s face reddening from her cries, though they were beginning to settle now that she was growing warmer.
Cydrin stayed rooted where he was, and when she dared a quick peek in his direction, there was a small frown at his mouth. It was a disappointment, to be sure, as some small, ridiculous part of her had hoped that he would be moved by their small addition, would see that she had been worth saving.
Maybe he did, in some hidden part of himself. But he was eminently practical, and she was far more certain he was thinking of the logistics of Clairy’s choice and how incongruent it would be with his own. They were still in the station, with nothing decided about what would happen next. And her new little friend would be hungry, and would not understand that she would have to wait.
“So...” the man with the too-bright smile posed, rolling slightly on his heels as he regarded the three of them. “This change anything?” he enquired, looking between Clairy and Cydrin. “We going to do things my way after all?” He looked at the baby, his lip curling ever so slightly, his distaste apparent. “I guess you could leave it with me. I could... probably keep it alive until the authorities come.” He shrugged again. “Maybe she could be submitted into evidence.” He gestured, as if reading something from a viewscreen. “Article One, female-apparent infant. Born with three times more eggs than per usual.”
Clairy scowled. “You don’t know her file,” she reminded him, hoping that was true. She did not like to think of what peculiarities the scientists had inflicted upon her. She might have saved her from manipulations of her mind after her birth, but she would have to live with whatever they had done to her genetics.
If she even lived at all.
Clairy swallowed, hating the thought of it, but her life in the farming colony making it a realistic one. She had seen more than one woman with empty arms after a newborn had been there. It was a painful part of their lives on her homeworld, but one she could not shy away from, no matter how she wished to.
“I suppose,” Cydrin began, finally interjecting with thoughts of his own position. “Given the change of circumstances, it would be... more efficient to allow you to finish with your own proposal.”
Clairy took a step backward. She most certainly was not going to hand over her new friend to a stranger, one that likely would leave her alone in some forgotten corner, to wail and go hungry, laying in her own fluids and filth. The man would have no more idea of what to do with a baby than Cydrin would, and she was not going to give her to one of the doctors either.
If the man was to be believed and he truly did have them locked away somewhere.
“I’m not leaving her with him,” Clairy told Cydrin. She did not know how much longer he would be willing to indulge her adamance, but she could not seem to stop. Not when she was needed.
Cydrin turned to her, allowing the full weight of his attention to settle on her. “We are poorly equipped to tend to an infant, let alone one that has doubtlessly endured many genetic modifications.”
Clairy swallowed, and nodded her head, allowing that was true. “You aren’t wrong,” she acknowledged. “But we can do better than he can. I can do better. And I’d like to, if you’ll give me the chance.” She took an unsteady breath, wondering how she could feel so much for someone she just met, but grimaced when she realised she’d experienced it before.
She’d hated Cydrin quickly enough, but it had faded just as easily into... something else.
“You won’t have to help,” she promised him, though she wasn’t entirely sure that was true. He’d granted her access to the replicator, yes, but not to the computers that would teach her all that tending to her siblings would not have supplied—like codes for producing nappies and formula and maybe something for her to wear when space was too cold and unforgiving for an infant not quite as a plump as she should be.
He did not give a ready answer. He stared at her for a long while, his eyes only occasionally drifting to the bundle in her arms, his expression inscrutable. “I know this isn’t what you wanted,” she tried again. “Today isn’t going at all how you planned, but...” she glanced at the man still watching them, though he clearly was growing bored of their interactions. “Can’t you see that this might be better? I know you’re afraid of all this research getting into the wrong hands, of your people being used by somebody else, but...” she tried to keep her gaze from straying to the other pods where babies of varying stages of development still remained. She couldn’t save them all. Not by herself. But others could. Maybe they could find families that would love them and raise them. Maybe they would grow into proper adults, with jobs and loved ones.
They would have children of their own.
Cydrin wanted to spare them what he had endured, but his solutions had been to end their lives entirely.
Surely they could provide better than that
“There might be others doing this same thing, and you wouldn’t know it.” He opened his mouth, doubtlessly to argue, but she shook her head and he allowed her to continue. “No, you can’t know. And this fellow is right. If you take out this station as you intended, doubtlessly the third will go into lockdown. And there might not be a way in, even for you.”
“It’s true,” the man agreed, however unnecessarily. Clairy ignored him.
“But this way,” she pressed on. “Your people will get help. And they can get the rest of your people out of the other station and arrest everyone involved there.” The baby in her arms gave a slight mewl, and Clairy began to sway, trying to soothe her as best she could before her new friend remembered that her belly was empty. “I know it’s a risk. But... you took a risk with me, and wasn’t that worth it?”
She worried he would say no. That he would claim to remain as unaffected by her presence as she feared, whether because it was the truth or simply to retain some dignity in front of someone who might not understand what had transpired during their time together.
Or maybe she was just a girl with childish fantasies, who felt too much too soon.
He gave her a look, and perhaps there was a hint of exasperation there, or maybe she had merely imagined it. “You know you were worth it,” he retorted, as if irritated that she was requiring him to admit it.
She didn’t care. It was a carefully earned ground, and she would utilise what she could.
�
��I’m glad you think so,” she agreed, taking a step forward, uncaring of their audience. It was more difficult to pull the same admission from herself. There were other tangles of emotions with her own situation, pains and fears that would not have been if he had chosen to act differently, and not just her own. There were her parents, her siblings, all who had to endure terrible days of mourning because he would not allow her access to the comms. There was the horrid first week when she was certain he was simply biding his time before he would begin to abuse her.
She had regrets. Plenty of them.
But not enough to override what she felt for him. Compassion, yes. Pity during the darkest moments. But she admired him also, for his tenacity and his skill—when they were put to uses beyond deadly force.
And however foolishly, she still got a slightly giddy feeling when she thought of what he had bought for her, shared with her, simply because he did not want to experience such finery alone.
He had plenty of flaws, but so did she.
So did her parents.
Her siblings.
The company she had trusted when they hired her to welcome in their clients.
“I feel the same way about you,” she answered back, her voice much more mild than his had been. Despite it all, she did not regret the outcome of it all.
And there was nothing she could do about the past, so there was little point in fretting about it. She was certain Cydrin would agree.
He blinked down at her, as close to an expression of surprise he could manage without more deliberate effort, and she smiled at him. “I know it’s hard, but you learned to trust me, didn’t you? Even a little?”
His lips pressed to a grim line and he gave a barely perceptible nod of his head in agreement. Begrudgingly given, but enough for her. “Let...” words failed her, and she glanced at the man looking terribly bored as he watched the both of them from a short distance away. “What are you called?”
“You won’t be getting a number out of me,” the man groused, and Clairy sighed.
“I was looking for a name,” she corrected, still looking at him expectantly.
He gave Clairy a sardonic look in return. “Can’t you read?” He pointed to an embroidered patch on his chest. “Name’s Remy. Work in maintenance and everything, Martna.” He glanced at her pointedly, and her cheeks flushed with colour to be caught in an untruth, but she didn’t really care. They didn’t have to trust each other completely. Just enough to get the terrible business done of seeing so many tried for their crimes.
A sobering thought ran through her, and she hesitated in her defence of Remy’s plan. “Is what they’ve done even illegal?” she asked, wondering if all would be for naught and they’d go free anyway. Free to start again, free to dupe others desperate would-be parents into their schemes.
She was given sardonic looks from both men, and it was enough to make her feel incredibly stupid. “Why do you think all this,” Remy gestured to the laboratory, “has to be kept secret? You think governments, local or otherwise, would look kindly on assassins slipping past their borders? On learning where supplemental organs really come from?” He shook his head. “I’ll admit, I doubt they care as much where the first line comes from in their wars, but they’ll yield nicely when enough shame is put to them by the rest.” A glint, sharp and cunning. “And I assure you, I plan to shame the lot of them.”
The girl she had once been would have shivered at that. Might have seen that glimmer and shied away from it, from a lust for vengeance.
And she would have been wrong.
It wasn’t revenge he sought, at least not entirely.
It was justice.
And she would have once been too blinded by simplistic ideals to know the difference.
“Can that be enough?” Clairy asked, turning back to Cydrin. “And you and I and...” she took a little breath. She wasn’t going to name her, not in the midst of everything. She needed to think and come up with a proper something, so a placeholder would do for now. “And this little one,” she continued. “We can just go?”
She didn’t have a destination to offer. Didn’t have a future to dangle before him in enticement. She felt a little lost, but equally hopeful.
“You can be free of them, Cydrin,” she urged, hoping he could see that. “Just... come with me, and we’ll leave all of them behind.” It wasn’t that simple. Couldn’t be. Especially when she was the one insisting they take along one of the newest experiments for care and attention.
“Let’s just go home and figure out the rest together.”
Maybe it should bother her that she referred to his ship as home rather than the too-small dwelling she had shared with her family, but she refused to feel guilt for it. It was his home, and she wasn’t certain what was coming next, and she could offer him some semblance of stability rather than quibble over semantics.
The baby was going to fuss again soon, though she seemed momentarily content with opening and closing her mouth in periodic intervals, pink lips working as muscles learned they had a function in this new, arid environment.
There were no more pleadings she could give, and she did not want to trespass into hounding.
So she had to wait.
And hope.
Until finally.
Finally.
Cydrin answered.
17
Cydrin was less than satisfied, though he would not admit that to Clairy. He wanted to oversee every last dealing, wanted to confront the researchers on this station, to watch as they understood they had been thoroughly beaten.
He comforted himself that not all of them could possibly have been on duty at once, and his usage of the gas would certainly have affected some of them.
But when Clairy looked at him so pleadingly, his priorities had a tendency to shift in her favour, regardless of what he wanted.
He was uncertain whether that should trouble him more than it did, but there was little time to dwell on it at present.
The addition of the little orphan girl was... inconvenient. He had no concept of what it took to care for a neonate, so Clairy would be quite on her own in that respect.
And what would he do? If he listened to Clairy and the fourth-generation, then he would be aimless, without purpose or mission. And that... that was intolerable.
Clairy had yet to broach the possibility of returning to her homeworld, but doubtless it was coming. She would remind him that he had no need of her any longer, not if he chose to extricate himself from any of the Project’s influence.
But that wasn’t true, was it? He had only chosen that because of her. If left to his own devices, he would most assuredly take himself to the third station and, no matter how foolhardy, make an attempt to destroy them as well.
He would be killed for his efforts, but was that such a terrible prospect in comparison to a listless existence, with nothing to occupy his time and attention?
“You are awfully quiet,” Clairy noted as they made their way through the front doors and toward his craft. He had no great affinity for the disguise it bore, too sleek and shiny to be efficient. He would change it back again soon enough.
“There is little to say,” he answered stiffly, his muscles still urging him to turn back around. The work was unfinished, and it felt foolish to the extreme to trust a man he had just met, regardless if their births were of similar circumstance.
But Clairy had asked. And he had relented. And only good things had come of listening to her, hadn’t they?
His head began to ache, whether a phantom pain or a reality of too much time spent breathing in recycled air through the mask, he did not know.
Clairy had threatened to give the neonate her own if he did not procure another one, and begrudgingly he had pulled an additional unit from his supplies. It had been an afterthought, but he tended toward over-caution, and scenarios had plagued him of being caught in a situation where one malfunctioned and he would be forced to choose between his own wellbeing and protecting Clairy.
So two more had been replicated and placed within the confines of his kit.
The neonate looked absolutely ridiculous, and though Clairy had looked at him sharply when he had muted the sound, her cries of distress muffled through the apparatus, he did not engage it again. She would quickly succumb to the lingering gases without intervention and so her protests were unnecessary. She simply lacked the brain function to understand that.
He accepted Clairy’s glare with grace, and she jostled the infant about in an attempt to soothe her. He could not understand how bouncing and producing the rhythmic shushing would prove effective, but he allowed her to make the attempt, the combination more likely to comfort Clairy rather than her charge.
Clairy currently worried at her lip, evidently dissatisfied with his answer regarding his silence. “I just don’t want you to be mad at me,” she countered. “To resent me.”
They came to the ship door and it opened at his touch, having long abandoned the protective gloves that had allowed them to remove the neonate from her damaged pod. “And if I told you that I do, would that change your decision?”
Her eyes widened before she glanced down at the flooring, her cheeks likely pinking from his rightful observation. “I’m sorry,” she said instead. “Not for saving her, or asking for your help, but that you didn’t get what you wanted.”
He shook his head, but stepped aboard his craft and waited for her to do the same. He did not believe her. Not fully. Clairy could not have altered her opinions so quickly that she would truly be sorry that he had not succeeded in destroying an entire station and all living things upon it. Even if that was what instinct and desire demanded was the proper course.
He wanted to resent her for that, and perhaps a part of him truly did. But the rest...
She was simply being Clairy.
And he was Cydrin, who saw the world as a much darker place than she, where violence had its place, and a useful one at that.
She did not immediately enter, instead staring at him carefully. If he closed the door, she would be separated from him, left on the station she had helped convince him to save, though that was perhaps not the proper word for it. There had been clemency of a sort, but he had not rescued it from peril. He had no love for what remained, for the work that could continue if the authorities failed to prosecute those responsible.
Designation 261 (The Wholeness Project) Page 23
