by Maren Smith
“Then they shouldn’t have wandered too close,” Amshal said, eyes narrowing.
“From what I gathered during their interrogation, I believe they were in some kind of stasis-sleep and unable to correct their course in time. But that is irrelevant.” Rowth continued on to his next point. “So then they crashed, and when they ventured from the ruins of their ship, how were they greeted? By screaming pedestrians and two frightened field officers who opened fire without provocation.”
“Were they better shots, we wouldn’t now be dealing with this problem,” Unem muttered.
“No, but under the circumstances, one can hardly fault the creatures for running,” Ymarl told him. Neighboring Councilman, Stimin, nodded and rumbled agreement.
“Or us from chasing!” Amshal drummed his spot-aged finger against the table. “They brought weapons to our world.”
Cancy startled beside him. “Were weapons actually found?”
“No,” Rowth told them. “No evidence of weapons was found, either on them or at the crash sites.”
“The ocean exploded!” Amshal shot back. “Forgive me, General Magistrate, but you were not there. You didn’t see what happened, but I did. I was on that beach. My great-great granddaughter was on that beach.”
Rowth might not have been on the beach, but he had been sipping his morning coffee on the back terrace of his home, watching the sun come up over the ocean, when all the pieces of their crashing shuttle shot past his house, trailing long tails of black smoke behind it. He’d been close enough to smell the burning plastic and fuel fumes, to feel the rippling vibrations of the shockwaves, and to hear that nightmarish growling-whooshing of their rapid descent. He’d felt the ground shake through the floor tiles under his feet at that first impact, followed by the much more violent underwater explosion that had rattled the very cliff face that his house was built into.
He’d also heard the wail of distant sirens, both over the tree-lined hills that separated his semi-secluded stretch of cove from the rest of the upper-class estate that made up his neighborhood and also through every newsfeed in his house as he’d raced from room to room in search of keys, identification, tablet and car, in that order, because even in an emergency he was nothing if not methodical.
And then he’d seen the devastation, first on the mini-NeVi monitor in his car as he’d sped down the winding road that took him from the spacious housing estate in which he lived, through the five-mile stretch of less private beachfront neighborhoods and back into the city. He’d followed the emergency vehicles right to the first scene and had, in fact, arrived at the mall faster than some police units. It had been his bellowed command that had put a stop to the panicked bombardment of lethal rounds being fired directly into the mall in which Mira, Blythe, Lily, and Sarai had taken refuge. It had been his directive that spurred police to exchange guns for tranquilizers and nets, before sending in groups to rescue trapped tourists and civilians and hunt the creatures down. And just as soon as the commotion died down and the news found something else to feed its ever-hungry audience, it would be on Rowth’s orders that all officers involved would receive commendations for a job exceedingly well done. The two panicky idiots initially responsible for shooting up the mall would, of course, be included. And then demoted just as quietly as he could manage it all the way down to bridge toll-takers. It took real skill to fire that many lethal projectiles into a building as fully occupied as the mall had been without hitting a single person. That kind of ‘skill’ ought to be demoted.
Now was not the time to mention any of that, however. Because in addition to all the other repeating feed-clips that had been repeatedly looped on every available news channel these past six days, Rowth had also seen the clip of Amshal dressed in an old man’s swimming trunks, dash into the ocean surf to grab up his toddler descendent while that infamous chimney of exploding water leapt into the sky behind him. They loved to show that clip in slow motion, fully emphasizing Amshal’s wide, panicked eyes, his beard and belly both bouncing with the kind of indignity that no superior Councilman wanted immortalized on the daily feed, especially not two weeks before his official retirement from service. At 158 years of age, of which no less than sixty-seven had been spent on the Council of Nine, plus forty more spent working his way up through the ranks to achieve such a distinctive position, to end his career like this was nothing less than humiliating.
“Don’t tell me there were no weapons,” Amshal growled, rheumy eyes flashing with an excess of the grumpy disposition that made him so good at his job when it came to sentencing Endermere’s most hardened and remorseless felons. “I know a bomb when I see one. The entire beach is littered with dead fish and shattered coral.”
“Their fuel cells overheated,” Rowth supplied.
“And killed millions of fish and coral!” Amshal snapped.
“And two holiday divers,” Ferrar spoke up.
Amshal pointed across the table at him, victory adding volume to his voice as he added, “And two holiday divers!”
And scared the swim trunks off one old man and his however-many-greats grandchild where it could be caught by the daily news.
“Someone,” Amshal announced, jabbing the table with his finger again, “should be held responsible for that.”
“I agree,” Rowth said. “In fact, I believe we should hold all responsible for that accident accountable for their actions.”
Amshal smacked the table in victory, but even as his mouth fell open to gloat, he suddenly stopped. More than one Councilman turned to look at the shiny bronze plaque that crowned the wall above the door that led back into the judges’ private lounge: Be Ever Fair And Balanced, For Are We Not All Accountable?
At the head of the U-shaped table, Breen drummed his fingers one last time before he stood up. He came around the far side of the massive table, patting Amshal’s shoulder as he sat gaping for a response. Hands clasped behind him, Breen came to the defendants’ box and stopped. For several long seconds, he stared at Rowth.
“I could put them in jail,” he said finally.
“Yes, you could.” Rowth nodded.
“I could put you in jail with them.”
“My argument today has been rather… unpopular.”
“I would say seditious,” Breen coolly agreed. “But then, the argument could also be made that we have been… far from impartial.”
“It could,” Rowth diplomatically agreed.
“We cannot put them in jail and I will not set them free, so… what exactly are you suggesting we do?”
“The Mekron,” Rowth reminded him. “We foster them out. The Mekron set the precedent and being of a juvenile age makes all the argument we need. If we move quickly and quietly, it can be done before anyone has time to question it. Also, we must select the households carefully. We must consider only those who can pass a high-security clearance—police, military, judges…”
“Magistrates?” Breen countered.
“I would never suggest a burden I myself am not willing to shoulder.”
“Of course not.”
“In fact, I would offer to shoulder the most expensive burden of all.”
“The injured one?”
Rowth inclined his head.
Breen’s eyes narrowed even more. “Why?”
“Because while it would be infinitely easier to put a bullet in each of their tiny heads, such a solution is as unjust—”
Amshal scoffed.
“—as it is wasteful. Think.” He lowered his voice for Councilman Breen alone. “Think. This is twice now that we have been invaded. Once is coincidence, twice, an epidemic. How many more times will we be taken by surprise before either our technology catches up with the rest of the universe or a race without conscience simply wipes us out? We have an opportunity here that the Mekron, consumed by their illness, could not fulfill. I would see us take advantage of it.”
“You believe our technology could benefit from befriending these women?” For the first time, the accusat
ion in Breen’s too-sharp eyes softened as he considered this new angle.
“I think we might find some of what they know useful, and for that reason alone, we should be willing to consider leniency. Especially in light of the fact that none raised arms against us at any time during their capture. Also, the realization that they are now stranded here amongst us for the remainder of their lives should help to make them pliable.”
Breen stared at him, long and hard. It was impossible to look at him and not see the gears and wheels of his thoughts ticking into turn after turn. A methodical man in his own right. “They will need to be separated.”
“So they cling to us rather than one another, I agree.”
“What knowledge does this injured creature possess?”
“Compared to that of the other engineers? Virtually nothing,” Rowth answered smoothly. “As near as I can understand it, she studies plants and animal life. I believe she was intended to be a farmer.”
Breen blinked. “We don’t need an undersized alien farmer.”
Rowth shrugged. “As I said, she is the least necessary and, quite possibly, the most costly to keep healthy and contented. However, that does not warrant a death sentence, nor should she be allowed to socialize unguarded with just anybody. And since I don’t know a damned thing about engineering, my offer to keep this one seems a logical fit.”
The gears continued to click and turn as Breen stared at him and thought. Eventually, he grunted. He started back to his chair and then paused. Glancing back at Rowth, his gaze just as cool and as sharp as ever, he asked, “Do you really think they are juveniles?”
Rowth held the powerful man’s stare without flinching. “Does it matter? None of them have reached the age of emancipation and conscription. Therefore, by law, they are juveniles and can, without regard to their consent, be given into the custody of their parents. Since their parents are not here, it is only proper that the State step in to provide them with adequate care. Also, considering the circumstances, it might be wise to revoke their rights until such a time as we have gleaned all useful information from them and a determination can be made as to how safely they can be placed out amongst the rest of society.”
“Such a determination could take…” Breen let his mouth shrug for him. “…a lifetime. That makes no never mind to you?”
“The fostership program is and should be a life-long commitment.” Rowth straightened his shoulders, hands still clasped behind him. “All society’s children are worth that effort, are they not?”
Except that, these weren’t children and Rowth knew it. They were adult females with more than their fair share of defiance, pride, and stubbornness—character traits that would only worsen once each realized she might never regain her freedom. Not many men were up for that kind of challenge. As for himself, as injured as Brinley was, he should have no trouble bending her to his will. He was a General Magistrate after all. Anyone with any sense at all knew he was a man to be both cooperated with and feared. Give Brinley time enough to accept her lot and Rowth had no doubt that she, also, would fall into line.
“A motion for leniency has been requested,” Councilman Breen called as he retook his place at the head of the table. “How say you all?”
As one, the Council of Nine intoned, “Agreed.”
And just like that, for the second time in his adult life, Rowth became a foster parent. Of a human this time.
Splendid.
CHAPTER FOUR
Brinley sat on the passenger seat of Rowth’s personal transport vehicle: angry, bruised, and unapologetically manhandled. Her wrists were handcuffed in her lap and the spot on her chest where the tranquilizing dart had struck her felt swollen and sore. Someone, evidently, had considered her dangerous enough to require the knockout shot and to necessitate that it be administered by six burly SWAT-like prison guards, who then none too gently escorted her from her hospital bed to the car. But, at least, she was out of the prison hospital, away from that unfriendly doctor, and she had clothes (albeit made of itchy blue paper). Supposedly, that meant things were improving.
Or, at least, as much as things could improve while being held captive by gigantic dick of a lawyer who turned their uncontrollable accident into what the newsfeeds kept calling The Trial of the Century. She shot Rowth a sideways glare. Not that she’d actually gone to trial. Oh, no. She only found out she’d had one about a half hour ago when she came out from under the sedation enough to stop drooling on herself. That was also when she found out about the sentencing. She was not a happy camper. She was, in fact, still a prisoner.
A prison of one devastatingly good-looking guard, but still a prisoner.
She tried not to, but her gaze shot sideways again, sweeping over Rowth in the seat beside her. He was all dark hair, dark eyes, and tall as fuck. Seven feet if he was an inch, he towered over her. Even sitting, he towered over her. And his voice… she’d always been a sucker for voices as deep as Rowth’s. She tried not to think about it. She could afford to be a sucker for any part of Rowth. Not while he was still her captor and she was still handcuffed, and God only knew what had happened to the other crash survivors. Had they been given the same “foster kid” sentence?
Foster kid?! Really?
“This is stupid.” Brinley shifted in her seat in an attempt to smother the budding thump of physical interest that kept trying to spark each time she looked at him. That thump made it difficult to remember she was mad at him. Looking at her bound wrists made it easier again. The paper gown crinkled as she ground her hips into the seat. “I said, this is—”
“I heard you the first time,” Rowth soothed, not looking up from the television-like monitor set in the dashboard. “I thought the comment rhetorical.”
The vehicle took a hair-pin corner at break-neck speed.
“Oh shit!” Brinley grabbed, her hands latching on to the dashboard, the door handle and finally find the “oh shit” handle sturdily built into the roof right above the passenger window. It hung down in easy reach of even a handcuffed human and Brinley made good use of it, grabbing on tight as the gravity and velocity worked in tandem to slide her out of her seat and into Rowth’s lap. What her captor called “driving”, she considered one involuntary hiccup away from sending her back to the hospital. “Can you slow down at all?”
“We’re fine,” he said, not looking up from the monitor.
“We’re not fine!” she shot back, her temper spiking. “You’re going to kill us both!”
Stifling a sigh, Rowth adjusted the speed and the vehicle obediently slowed. “Better?”
Brinley grudgingly let go of the handle. “Yes, thank you.”
Guilt hit her chest not far from the sore spot left by the tranquilizer dart. Should she really be thanking her captor? For all she knew, Sarai, Mira, Lily and Blythe… they were all dead, and Rowth was the man responsible for it. And she was thanking him? She bit the inside of her lip and swaddled herself in anger again.
Rowth’s car—if she could even call it such—was little more than a giant silver bullet with windows, bucket front seats, massive trunk space in the rear, and no discernable brake pedal. She knew, because she’d been looking for (and reflexively stomping on) one since she regained her senses. It had no wheels and instead of roads, followed one of two railway tracks set roughly ten feet apart. The left track was the one they traveled, zipping past other vehicles as they shot out of town at breakneck speeds that blurred the landscape and gave her a headache each time she looked out the window.
It must have given Rowth a headache too, because her captor barely looked out the windows. With one hand resting on the joystick positioned hip-level to the right of his seat, all of his attention remained glued on the six-by-ten inch news display that ate up the center of the console. Now and then, he took his hand off the joystick long enough to tap the monitor, changing the channel from one press release to another, then back again. Her audial-language transplant had trouble keeping up with the fast-talking reporters a
nd once the commentators got involved—forget it. The more they shouted and argued and spoke over one another, the more her ears tried to interpret the sound as wordless roaring.
She didn’t want to watch, but her gaze never strayed away for long.
“If you wanted to kill me, you should have just let them do it,” she muttered, adjusting her grip on the handle as they approached another curve in the rails.
“If I wanted to kill you,” Rowth corrected, “I would have ordered the man who fished you out of the ocean to put you back where he found you. I chose not to harm you then, much as I choose not to harm you now. By all means, keep talking. Maybe that will change.”
She glared at him. He pretended all his attention was absorbed by the media program just as it switched clips. Brinley’s stomach clenched tighter when she saw the feed of her crash fill the screen—the flaming remnants of her section of ship already fast disintegrating even before it hit the water, the shaky hand-held clips of her being pulled from the ocean and laid out in the bottom of a huge man’s boat. He kept looking at whoever was filming. He looked horrified, but it was hard to hold that against him. “TV Brinley” was so badly injured that she barely looked human. She was just… a bloody mess with a vaguely human head attached to it. Her stomach clenched and queasily clenched again, and it only got worse when it started playing clips of her shipmates’.
“Can we please shut that off?” She swallowed hard, wanting to look away but for some reason, unable to.
“Keeping an eye on what is being said about you in the media is part of my job,” Rowth said. “Give them time to come up with another scandal. You and your friends will be forgotten soon enough.”
Her stomach clenched again. Clips of the crash switched to their subsequent chase through the mall. The capture part was awful. Brinley looked away before she had to see Sarai being shot with tranquilizers again. Brinley hated watching her fall. They always showed it in slow motion, reveling in the painful detail of multiple darts hitting her back, the skidding fall as she tumbled right over the second floor railing and, despite the frantic grabbing of Mira and Lily, both of whom convulsed as they too were darted, down she went with a mighty but soundless crash onto the food court tables one floor below. That she didn’t have more than a bloody scuff on her chin after that was nothing short of a miracle.
