by Sarah Zettel
“You buying or selling?” he asked. His voice was soft, almost gentle. Maybe this wouldn’t be so hard.
Don’t let him snow you. Teal cleared her throat. “Selling.”
Again, his sharp eyes swept up and down Teal’s body. “You don’t look half old enough. Who owns you?”
“Nobody,” answered Teal immediately.
The man chuckled and laid his hand on the makeshift counter. “Sorry, girl, but on Pandora, somebody owns every one of us.”
“No,” Teal snapped. “The ones who think they own me are liars. I’m on my own.”
“I see.” He nodded once, thoughtfully. “On your own and from Off-shoot.” Teal touched her tattoo self-consciously. “What would you have to sell me?”
Teal swallowed. Say it. It’s no big deal. Just say it. “Eggs.”
He cocked his head. “Well, they’d be fresh.” His eyes glittered. “But forgive me if I don’t believe that no one would care if your young body got violated. Who’s your family?”
“My dad’s in the Authority,” said Teal. “I’m trying to get back to him. My mom’s dead.”
“Look.” He laid his other hand on the counter and leaned forward. “If you want to conduct any trade, I am, at the very least, going to have to have your name.”
Teal licked her lips. She tried to think of some way to argue, but the man had already straightened up and was looking back toward the interior door with a sour expression on his face. If she didn’t give him an answer, he would leave, and she didn’t know where else to go. “Teal Trust.”
“Trust?” His head whipped around and his eyebrows inched up toward his hairline. “As in Chena and Helice Trust?”
“So?” Teal shrugged.
“Nothing.” His fingers drummed on the counter. “What you have is valuable, but also dangerous. You’re asking me to risk getting the attention of a Pharmakeus. They do not like my kind.”
Teal shrugged again. “You don’t want what I’ve got, I’ll just go somewhere else.”
“Normally, I’d tell you to do that,” he said matter-of-factly. “But there is someone on their way here who will pay me very well for what you’ve got. Good timing.” His smile seemed genuinely approving. “But for the risk and bother, I’d need at least a hundred.”
Again, Teal shrugged. “If that’s what you’ll take.”
The eyes narrowed. “What would you want in return?”
“I want to get back to Athena Station, and I’m going to need money to keep me going once I’m there.”
He pursed his pudgy mouth. “Risky and expensive. I’d have to alter your chip. Make you look nineteen so you’re legal to travel on your own. Are you worth it?” His eyes flickered back and forth, weighing the risks against the gain. At last he straightened up. “Two hundred and you go back to the station.”
Teal felt a small thrill inside her, a combination of fear and elation. She’d done it. She should have done this years ago. “Okay.”
The man looked bemused. “Okay, then. We’d better get started right away.” He stepped aside and gestured through the darkened doorway. Teal screwed a holding plate over her nerves and walked through ahead of him.
The door led to a set of unlit stairs heading down into the earth. Teal steadied herself with one hand on the earthen wall and walked slowly down. She tried to tell herself to be calm, but she flinched at every little breeze that touched her skin.
At the bottom of the stairs waited one cool room lit by a single battery-powered light. Assorted crates and baskets lined the walls. The place smelled of dust, damp, and stale spices. Teal couldn’t see any other doors.
“Now what?” she asked, trying to sound like she didn’t really care. She’d been expecting a lab, or something like it, a monitor bed at the very least.
“Now”—the man opened a basket and rifled through its contents, which seemed to be dried beans—“you go to sleep. When you wake up, it’ll be all over.”
“What?” The word burst out of Teal.
The man lifted a small box made from different-colored slats of wood from the beans. The slats turned out to be movable. He slid them in a couple of different directions, Teal couldn’t quite see how, but the box opened and he pulled out a drug patch.
“The less you know, the better for all of us.” He held out the patch. “It goes on your neck.”
“But…” But I don’t know if I can trust you. I don’t know what you’ll do to me. I don’t even know your name. You could do anything. You could kill me, or sell me to the hothouse, or anything.
The man just stood there, holding out the patch to her.
And if I don’t? What am I going to do? Go back to Chena? She’ll lock me in my room and tell me how it’s for my own good and how we can’t get ourselves out of here alive because we’ve got to try to get back at the hothousers.
Teal held her breath and took the patch from the man’s fingers. She peeled the safety sticker off the back, slapped it onto the left side of her neck, and held it down until it stuck.
“You may want to sit down.”
Teal sat. She barely reached the floor before a warm rush of dizziness overwhelmed her. She heard a sharp crack and realized, distantly, her head had fallen back against the wooden crates. Her body had gone away from her, and she couldn’t seem to care. She thought her eyes closed, which was strange, because at the same time, she was sure that she could see the man leaning over her, touching her throat, riffling through her clothes, running a reader over the chip in the back of her hand, grasping her face in his hand and turning her head this way and that, looking for something.
On some level, she was also vaguely aware she wanted to protest these things, but none of them really touched her in the distant place she had gone. Each second they seemed farther away. Her consciousness ran toward the darkness as great as the wide black sky. There was nothing to worry about there. Not the fact that she was being laid down, and her clothes removed, nothing. Soon, there was only darkness and the comfortable knowledge that she was finally, truly on her own.
As usual, Lopera Qay kept them waiting. Dionte watched Basante prowl the confines of the bare red rock cave that Lopera used as a reception chamber. Basante never liked being out of the complex. He felt a combination of guilt that he might do something to disturb Pandora, and distaste at being at the mercy of an uncontrolled and unthinking environment.
In truth, she could not blame him for his restlessness. She did not want to be here either. She needed to be in the complex, tracking the progress of Tam’s new Conscience. She needed to understand why Aleph was becoming so balky. She needed to continue her work with Father Mihran and the Senior Committee. Four committee members were scheduled for Conscience examination and adjustment in the next ten days. She needed to be there for those, to ensure such adjustments were made that would start the potential for tighter bonds between themselves and her, the rest of the family and the city-mind, and to be sure she had the perceptual balances properly adjusted.
But she also could not let Basante meet with Lopera alone when she did not have a clear idea of what that meeting would be about. Their summons had been curt and most uninformative. Lopera had no doubt done that on purpose.
As she expected, Basante reached the inner door and found it locked, as usual. He turned to Dionte, all righteous indignation. “I fail to see why she insists on making us wait and wasting everyone’s time.”
“She gets to display that she has power over two people from the hothouse,” said Dionte, taking care to keep her voice mild. “It is not something many villagers get to experience.” She smiled at him, trying to radiate calm. Basante’s Conscience was probably giving him trouble. This was definitely not a place where a good member of the family should be.
The clanking of a mechanical lock cut off any further conversation. The interior door opened and Lopera Qay strolled in. Lopera was always very careful never to let Dionte and Basante see her in a hurry. Further power games. Dionte let them all pass. After
all, Lopera was performing a crucial and dangerous service for them. They could allow her some games.
“Your timing’s good,” said Lopera, folding her arms and leaning one shoulder against the rough rock wall.
“Your message was both urgent and enigmatic.” Dionte spread her hands. “How could we refuse?”
“I hope nothing has happened to your trust,” said Basante irritably. “Although I can’t see what would be so important that you would have to call us out. It is not easy for us to get here, you know.”
The corners of Lopera’s mouth curled up. Dionte stared. That expression meant something. What was it? The sensation of forgetting something incredibly important staggered her.
Sly. It was a sly smile that spread across Lopera’s face. How could she not know that, even for a second?
“Funny you should use the word ‘trust,’ ” Lopera was saying. “I called you here because we seem to have one of your Trusts.”
“What?” exclaimed Basante.
Instantly Dionte laced her fingers together, activating her internal systems. Her implant had picked up on the word “trust” and had accessed the appropriate information.
High probability that the rain forest intruder was Chena Trust, as predicted by Basante, but she has been reported safely returned to Off-shoot and Basante file secured pending future requirements.
Subfile personal notes: With C. Trust becoming more active, increasing attention needed to keep her out of hands of opposition (access family meeting notes 25-20-2073). Becoming harder to rationalize leaving her in village (access Constable report 25-27-2073 and Bas-ante personal report). May have to preemptively sequester (access preliminary action notes).
No reports on Teal Trust (most recent constable report awaiting input and assimilation), but increased communication between Elle Stepka and various contacts in village Stem (files available and fresh information pending) observed from time of rain forest infiltration.
Outside her, she heard Lopera saying, “Young Teal wants to go back to Athena. She’s come to us for help.” Lopera’s smile became positively indulgent. “Do you want her?”
All annoyance vanished from Basante’s face and his eyes shone with eagerness. No, Dionte corrected herself, greed.
“Perfect,” he breathed. “This is perfect. We can work with her here. I can direct the experiments remotely. Dionte, if you can shield communications and set me up…”
Possibilities flitted through Dionte, directed by her Conscience and her instincts. She smelled scents of warning and imagination, creativity and fear. Her ears rang with inner voices, both imagined and remembered, whispering to her, only to her, with their wisdom and possibilities. So much information, so many ideas, dizzying with their speed and intensity, opening her up, making her alive, truly alive to the world, to her responsibilities, to the future, the true, good future that lay before them, that lay in the voices and possibilities surging through her.
And for a moment she had not been able to understand the smile on Lopera’s face. Dionte shivered.
But Basante was rambling on and giving orders to Lopera, who wasn’t even looking at him. She watched Dionte. Lopera knew where the decisions lay; she always had. An isolated villager she might be, but she was not stupid. She was skilled and she was practical. That was precisely why Dionte had chosen her to keep Eden. This memory and caution came to Dionte, and she knew she would have to choose the immediate future and speak it into being before Basante got too carried away.
“No.” Dionte broke her connections and waved away whatever Bas-ante had been saying. She would catch it up later from the recording her Conscience would have made. Her ways of understanding were shifting. That was all. All was well. She could still do what she needed to. “Help her go. Help her hide so that we hothousers cannot possibly find her.”
Basante stared at her, momentarily mute with shock. “Dionte…” he finally choked.
Dionte walked swiftly to his side. “Be calm, Brother.” She laid her hand on his, her scent, warmth, and touch letting his Conscience know that these were the words of family. It was good to listen to your family, and his Conscience would tell him so, soothing him for her. “Consider what will happen when we are able to tell the family that Director Shontio is harboring fugitives aboard Athena Station. He will no longer be able to pretend he is a victim of circumstances. He will be shown as the active participant he is. Father Mihran will finally come to understand that we can no longer leave the station in the hands of those who have no Consciences.” She knew the future, at least this one little piece of it. She saw it clearly and she knew triumph at the sight. “We will be able to do in one week what none of the family has been able to do in a thousand years. We will bring Consciences to Athena.”
Basante pulled his hand away. “You’ve placed too much faith in one successful experiment,” he said with unusual firmness. She had trespassed too far into Basante’s area of expertise, and he would not be easily calmed this time. “You haven’t heard anything I’ve said, have you? We need to be sure we can create this gene combination consistently. We need to study variations in alleles. At the very least, we will need other breeders to ensure a numerous and healthy defensive force.” He glared at her. “Or did you think we could neutralize all the Called with one boy?”
“Of course not.” She waved his words away. “But there are other considerations here. The station must be tied to the family and the cities if we are to stay defended. The Authority must not be able to get to us through them.”
Basante bowed his head, relenting, and Dionte faced Lopera. “Your people certainly did not suggest to Teal Trust that you would help her without some form of payment?”
Lopera pushed herself away from the wall and unfolded her arms, assuming a much more businesslike posture. “Of course not. She’s offering payment in eggs.”
Basante’s head jerked up. “How many?”
“One hundred. Enough?” Lopera arched her eyebrows.
Basante rubbed the information display on the back of his hand, performing his own type of internal calculation. “For a beginning anyway. Cloning will help extend the resources. Yes, yes.” Then he shrugged, as if he did not want to appear too easily convinced. Dionte looked at Lopera, not so much reading the set of her face as remembering how many times she had held back information before. Probably she had taken more from Teal than she had told them. Probably she was holding back a cache to see what advantage could be bought with it.
That was all right too. The extra resources might open up extra possibilities. She would have to think about that.
“It will certainly be better than nothing,” went on Basante. “But it’s really the womb we need. The immune system. We can create embryos until the heat death comes, but if they can’t grow to term without radical interference—”
“But there is one more Trust.” Dionte touched him again and smiled, the future taking shape inside her. “Chena.”
Understanding dawned on Basante like the light of a new day. His excited smile warmed Dionte at her core. She had him again. She had the future. It was working. The bonds were truly, finally, working.
“So you’ll have Chena Trust picked up?” asked Basante.
Dionte laced her fingers together briefly and let the cloud of futures and warnings whirl through her.
“No,” she said, fresh understanding coming to her as well. “Your evidence that she broke out into the wilderness is good, but it won’t convince the villagers. They are nervous right now. We’ve been taking in more donors than usual to try to replace Helice Trust. We do not need our plans disrupted by any unrest. If we induce Chena Trust to come to us, then her disappearance will become her own fault and arouse no fresh alarm.”
“How are you going to—”
“There’s nothing Chena Trust loves more than a chance to best the evil hothousers.” Dionte’s mouth puckered at this new wrinkle to the future. “I’ll give her one.” More ideas came then, flickering through her mind so
rapidly she could not understand them all. Yet, they were all-important, she felt that. “Wait, wait.” Dionte stared deep into the future before her. “If we feed her the right information, Chena Trust will even help us toward our goal. Yes, I see that. I see how it may be done.” She forced her fingers apart so she could concentrate on the outside before the inner world, with its successes and complexity, overwhelmed her.
Basante shook his head. “I do not like this. She’s a villager. Worse, she’s an Athenian. We do not have enough information about her to make these predictions.”
“We do not.” Dionte laid a hand on his arm. “But I do.”
Basante looked down at her hand on his sleeve and said nothing.
“Well, now,” interrupted Lopera with false cheerfulness. “If you’re all happy, I assume you’ll be wanting to see Eden?”
“Of course,” said Dionte. “How is our project?”
“A pain,” said Lopera bluntly. “Hopefully, someone’s found him for you by now.”
The color drained from Basante’s cheeks. “Found him! What’s happened to him?”
“Nothing. He’s a bored five-year-old boy. He wanders around.” Amusement sparkled in her eyes. “Also, I don’t think he likes you. Something to do with all the needles.”
“You careless nit! Do you know what could happen to him in this warren? He could drown in the lake. He could fall and break his neck!”
Lopera straightened up, all amusement and tolerance gone. “What do you want me to do? Tie him up? Lock him away? You want him to be healthy. How healthy is he going to be if he’s caged?”
Basante wasn’t listening. He stalked forward until he was barely an inch from Lopera. “You don’t understand what’s at stake here, do you? If we lose him, we lose the entire world. Do you realize what that means?”
That’s far enough. “Basante…”
But in his anger, Basante did not hear her. “It means the planet will be gutted. It means the Authority will assume total control of us all, and then what do you think will happen to your pitiful, smuggling, tailoring, criminal little life?”
