I turned to look at her.
“When you said you were from the Yertina Feray, I contacted my cousin immediately. He confirmed that you were not a registered citizen. He also mentioned that there was a trial order on you.”
“That’s true,” I said. “I’m on the run.”
“I gathered. It was his strange subtext that convinced me I should aid you,” she said, her antennae folding toward me knowingly.
I blushed. “Tournour and I have a close friendship.”
“He and I have a strained one. I don’t like to associate with his side of the family. It doesn’t do for one of my position to be seen dealing with a cousin who is serving time for family shame. But when I helped you down the lane, I knew why he was so agitated when your name was mentioned. I can smell him on you.”
I wondered if all of the times that he’d used his scent to calm me down had altered me somehow.
“While all of you Humans smell like family, I know what my family smells like.”
My eyes stung. His cousin.
“By taking an alien as a partner, he’s asking for more shame on his family. He’d do best to stay in exile in the long run. These kinds of affairs are more common for the lower classes of Loor.”
“I’m not his partner,” I said.
“Don’t you care for him?” she asked.
I touched the frozen image of Tournour.
“He is so much to me,” I said. “But I hardly know what to make of it. He’s a Loor. I’m a Human.”
“We Loor take our attachments very seriously,” she said. “I try not to judge when it comes to interspecies affairs, they are not unheard of. And you are welcome here, Tula Bane. You can consider yourself among friends.”
I took a deep breath of the sweet Tallara air.
“Now to business,” she said. “We have a mystery to solve.”
18
“Your information says that there are no colonies on those planets,” Hendala said. “My data says differently.”
Hendala punched in a number on the screen behind her. It lit up. There were images of Earth and five other planets with numbers scrolling by. Killick, Kuhn, Marxuach, Andra, Beta Granade.
“Earth’s status in the Imperium is dependent on all of the good work that Brother Blue does for his people,” Hendala said. “Then again, I’ve never heard of a species rising so fast. Five colonies in forty years.”
“It doesn’t seem fast. Earth’s relationship with the stars has been going on for centuries,” I said. “Besides, it’s easier to explain if you raise five colonies quickly by destroying your followers and creating false data.”
“Last census confirms. Earth. Current Human home world population, four billion. Five colonies. Killick, Kuhn, Marxuach, Andra, Beta Granade. Current colony population on all planets at 1,354,456.”
“That’s impossible,” I said. “Those numbers are too high. Even if my colony ship the Prarie Rose had made it to Beta Granade we were only sixty-seven. Even if there were births in the last four years, even if Earth had sent more colonists out there, that colony would not be much larger now.”
She punched another button and the screen zoomed in on Beta Granade. It was strange to see the planet in front of me. I had memorized the map of it on my trip to space. The projected image of the planet orbited until it stopped at the Mur Crater where we were to have started our colony. The stats for the colony came up.
“Beta Granade, population 55,000.”
I shook my head.
“No,” I said. “Unless Brother Blue has pulled a magic trick, I can’t see how the colonies had been populated so quickly.”
“You don’t believe those numbers to be true,” she said.
“I don’t believe that there are any Humans on those colonies.” I said. “Or at least, if there are, they are not colonies. More like outposts.”
“The law is clear. An outpost doesn’t count as a colony. He must be fudging the data,” Hendala said. “But to what purpose? It’s not a sustainable plan.”
I shuddered. If he could kill a whole ship of colonists, what else could he do?
“I’ve personally made the call for a recount for a Human colony census. Yet some Major Species representatives stopped me and persuaded me to let the matter go. So I let it go. No need to bring more shame to my family.”
Now her antennae were twitching in a way that I knew meant anger.
“If he corners one part of the map, then he is a power in the affairs of the galaxy,” she said. “Do you know how the Imperium does these Minor Species colony spot checks now?”
“I don’t know. I never made it to a colony. I’ve never seen a colony,” I said. “I wish I had.”
“In the old days, in the League of Worlds we’d send a ship to the planet, meet with leaders, and take tours. Now we fly over the planet and scan for species life markers and biowaste. Your Human colonies, while not thriving and population poor, have been checked and verified. Every time, you miraculously just make the requirements for inclusion, and so your influence has begun to grow.”
“But where does he get the biomatter?” I asked.
And then it struck me. There were over a million Humans in space. They were the Wanderers, hitching rides from ship to ship.
“Would dead bodies display those levels of biomarkers?” I asked.
“I suppose so,” she said. “But how would he get the bodies?”
“He’s using our Wanderers. He must be.”
“Oh my,” Hendala said. “He’s a monster.”
I shuddered at the horror of it, but I knew from my schooling from Earth that Brother Blue wasn’t the first leader who had committed genocide.
“He could be dumping them on the planets with no resources, no infrastructure. They’d die there, but the biomatter would still count. He’s taking advantage of the fact that the Imperium doesn’t go to the colonies.”
“Yes. Because the Imperium is too busy fighting to stay in power,” she said. “This is not what I was expecting. It’s worse.”
“My species has the ability to be tricky,” I said.
It was a terrible thing to admit. It was true though. I had been tricky. That was how I’d survived.
“Not all Humans,” Hendala said. “Some. Him.”
“Brother Blue must have help,” I said.
“He does. The Brahar help him. The Loor help him. I’ve even helped him. He is most effective, and he is quick to see opportunity.”
“I’ve helped him too,” I said quietly. I had been so eager to help him when I left Earth. I’d helped him get here.
Hendala nodded sympathetically.
“He’s got a strategic mind. He was the first to see the merit of the situation on Quint when others were brushing it off as a rumor.”
“He has a gift,” I said. I couldn’t deny that he had a gift, although calling his sick schemes a gift made me feel ill. “I have to stop him. I have to take him down.”
“No,” Hendala said. “Don’t you see? You can’t touch him.”
“Why not?” I asked. “He’s killing people.”
“Sad and true. But if you expose him now, you risk Human lives. You put Earth at risk.”
“I don’t care!” I screamed. “He’s a monster!”
I was in a rage. She waited until I calmed down before she spoke again.
“You have to make a decsion, Tula Bane. Are you going to save your species or are you going to exact revenge and doom them?”
I wanted to kill him, but I knew I wouldn’t. Not yet. I couldn’t doom my species.
“I’m going to warn them,” I said.
“So be it,” she said.
“I need to find my friend on the Noble Star,” I said. “He can help me.”
She flipped over to the communications array and let me punch in a message. I sent out another message in a bottle, hoping that Caleb would find it.
There was nothing more for me to do on Tallara. I would have to do what my species did best.
I would have to wander.
19
Too soon it was time to go.
I would miss being on a planet.
I spent much of my last few days, when I wasn’t preparing to leave Tallara, walking on the paths near Hendala’s house.
“Are you ready?” Hendala asked as we entered the shuttle that would take us to the lower part of Togni Station on Bessen. It would be too strange for someone like Hendala to take her shuttle all the way to the top when she had a berth on the moon. I would have to make my own way up the elevator.
“As ready as I ever will be,” I said.
“I will get word to Tournour that you’ve left me in good health.”
“Thank you,” I said.
With her long arms she pulled me close and crossed her arms behind me. My arms were too short to do the same, but I did the best that I could. Then she leaned her head toward me until her cheek brushed mine.
“Once we part, I can no longer be your ally,” she said when she broke away from me. “If you contact me I will deny knowing you. I have helped you more than I should.”
“I understand.”
“You’ll be on your own,” she said.
“I told you. I’m solo.”
“That’s a hard way to live,” she said. “Make sure to let someone in.”
The shuttle lifted up into the air and bumped out of the atmosphere. The voyage would take almost a day, so I took the time to verify a hit I’d gotten on coordinates for the Noble Star. And then I went through my things.
Hendala had printed out an Imperium uniform for me, the kind that the Humans wore on Togni Station. And she had used her contacts to procure fake papers to help me get out of the system. My fake name was Safti McGovern.
“This will get you to the space elevator so that you can get to a ship leaving our system,” she said when she handed them to me. “I can’t guarantee them further than that.”
I could see Bessen getting bigger as we approached the moon, and then we were there. The shuttle door opened.
“I owe you many favors,” I said.
“We are even,” she said. “You gave me information. And information is power.”
Hendala turned back to me before she exited the shuttle bay.
“I hope that you find peace with your choice,” she said. And then she was gone. I wondered if I would ever see her again. I did as instructed and waited one hour before I left to go to the elevator.
Since we’d timed our arrival for the quiet time, the shuttlepad was empty. I threaded myself through the empty ships, not quite trusting my Imperium Alliance uniform. Trevor followed close behind me. Each shuttle I passed had its planet’s symbol on the side. It startled me when I went past one that had a bright blue Earth on it.
We landed on the outermost launchpad, so it took a few minutes before we made it out to the lower station proper. I had memorized the map to get from the pad to the space elevator.
I would have to get to the space elevator as quickly as I could to book passage on one of the orbiting ships. I wanted to spend as little time as possible on Togni Station so that I would not get caught by any Humans I might run into. I had not anticipated how confusing and crowded Togni Station would be. Trevor kept pace beside me, but it took longer than I thought to get to the elevator. There were twists and turns and hallways with contradictory signs pointing in opposite directions.
When I finally made it to the main drag, the enormity of the architecture and variety of alien species struck me. On the Yertina Feray, I had always thought that there were lots of different types of aliens, and that was strange, but here the diversity of the types of aliens went way beyond what I had previously known. There were so many of them, but I saw almost no Humans despite knowing that some lived here.
There was no way to blend in. All eyes were on me. All sorts of limbs and antennae pointed in my direction. I had always felt out of place on the Yertina Feray, but here I was self-conscious. I tried to walk as if I belonged to the Earth Embassy by mimicking the way that I’d seen Reza, Caleb, and Els walk, the kind of swagger they had gotten from their Imperium Youth training.
Togni Station was a marvel. It was bustling with aliens. There were windows that went up to a domed roof. Every inch was a building with walkways stretching from one side to another, stories high in the air. Every square was packed with recharging stations, communication hubs, water cafés, nutrient pak vendors, and every other type of store that you could have need for. There were brightly colored flags emblazoned with planets waving in the air, as well as brightly lit signs announcing the offices and embassies that the buildings held. You had to know where you were going because it was easy to get lost.
I was very glad that Hendala had insisted that I program the map into Trevor so he could guide me through the madness.
It was overwhelming. On occasion an alien would say hello to me, as though they knew me. I nodded back at them knowing that they thought I was someone else. It was obvious that the average aliens didn’t even know that we had different skin tones or eye colors or kinds of hair. They probably didn’t even know what gender I was. They all thought that we Humans looked the same, and I was glad to use that to my advantage.
I had purposely made the path to my destination one that wouldn’t take me past the Human Embassy, but I now could see it would have been nothing to be scared of. Just a flag in a window. I had to admit to myself after observing the grand scope of the aliens here who were mostly far from being Minor Species, it was impressive Brother Blue had been able to raise the Human profile the way he did. It made me begrudgingly proud of our species in that we were smart enough to be even minor players in such a galactic tapestry.
Finally Trevor and I arrived at the entrance to the space elevator. From here it was two large doors set in a massive metal structure that went all the way up through the dome to the sky. Looking up at it made my head spin.
I went to the ticket counter.
“May I assist you?” the Dolmav behind the counter asked. He was different looking than Thado; more blue, with larger eyes and blowhole.
“I need to connect with a ship headed for these coordinates,” I said.
“I’ve got one ship headed two systems over. To the Nomi system. That’s the closest I’ve got going out right now,” the Dolmav said, shaking his large, slick head, his double chins making wet slapping noises. “Or else you can wait a few days or weeks to catch something going closer.”
“No. I’ll take that ship,” I said. “I want to be on my way.”
“You have papers?” he asked.
I pushed forth the currency chit that Hendala had filled and the travel pass and Imperium ID she had prepared for me. We had figured that it was good for three days, at most, which was just barely enough time to get me out of this solar system. Once out, I would ditch the ID.
“Going home for a visit?” The Dolmav asked, not knowing at all where Earth was. I had to remind myself that he was just making small talk. I wasn’t prepared for small talk.
“I’m from Earth,” I said. It was as close to the truth as I could get.
“You’ll have to pay for the robot as well,” he said, looking over at Trevor.
I had expected that it would be handled like baggage and wouldn’t be a problem, but it was clear that Trevor was my companion, and I learned that most robotic companions traveled as passengers. I nodded, knowing that it would nearly wipe me clean of currency chits.
He nodded and pointed me toward a gate.
I got on board the elevator and strapped in, a single Human among a bevy of aliens. I gripped the arms of my chair as the elevator lifted. It went so fast. A clock counted down the hours that it would take us to get to the top.
I was leaping into the darkness.
20
The shuttle port at the top of Togni Station was small but felt less cramped and chaotic than lower Togni Station. Aliens were exiting and entering the elevator, rushing off to catch their transports
down to Bessen. Bright signs displayed the shuttle and elevator departure and arrival times. I searched for the name of the ship I was to join up with, the Jinjon.
Here, in this place, I was just one of hundreds of aliens on my way to somewhere else. Some were traveling. Aliens with too much baggage and families were arguing about little annoying things. Some were commuting. Workers with cases were reading datapads, worrying about something at some office. It could have been any kind of transport hub on Earth. It was such a far cry from the reality of my past few years that it took me a moment to adjust to the fact that this space travel was a normal day-to-day reality. It was hard to believe that passes were hard to come by and that the Imperium was actively pushing outward. But even in times of war, people moved about. And Togni Station was the center of it all because it served Bessen.
“That way,” a Per said to me even though I hadn’t asked it anything. My eyes followed to where one of its arms was pointing.
Wanderers.
There were about sixty Humans huddled together, all different ages. Some were old. Some were children. Most were in between. Even from this distance, I could see that the older they were, the more they were covered in tattoos.
“I’m not with them,” I said. “I have a ticket.”
I showed him my pass to the Jinjon and indicated my uniform to show that I was separate from those other Humans.
“What do I care?” The Per made a movement that looked like it was shrugging all four of its shoulders. And then it wandered off to catch its own transport.
I had never thought that much about the Wanderers other than the fact that they were an embarrassment to Earth. Who were they? Where they’d come from? How hard had it been for them? I knew that they were the descendants from the first intergenerational ships. Those were doomed travelers who’d made it out all the way to first contact and then, desperate and ill-prepared for colonization, had tried to come home. They led the aliens back to Earth, and then Earth had shunned them, not letting them repatriate. But some of these people must have been colonists. They must have been abandoned by Brother Blue, too.
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