Becker wasn't the only one among his staff he didn't trust. There was also the woman from Abendstem, Elisabeth von Bulow. She had been some sort of minor governor there and had been chill in her criticisms of the colony. “Wallowing in sentimental guilt” and “democracy verging on the anarchic” were some of her milder observations.
What would von Bulow have made of some of the “governed” on Cynthia? Like the man ben Yehuda, a civilian engineer who had violently refused repatriation to his native Ararat just that afternoon. “I left Ararat because I felt angry and disgraced when it refused to accept my family. It seemed to me that I, not Ararat, was true to its reasons for existing. Now you ask me to return and ask them to accept me, a criminal? A genocide—on Ararat? Better they think we died in the war.” His eyes had been red and swollen, and he had covered them with his hands.
Have him watched, Pauli Yeager had mouthed at Amory Neave. Prisoner and commander their roles might be, but he had obeyed.
And then there was the xenobotanist, Beneatha Angelou, who had shouted at Becker. “I'm not going to accuse myself,” she told him forthrightly. “I opposed killing the Cynthians. You can say that since I'm alive, I'm an accomplice; and I'll reply that that's unjust.” A minute afterward, her face softened remarkably. “I've got to say though, that if you try me with them, I'd be in good company. I've never known any better. Surely you have to take that into consideration too?"
All of them agreed, however: the children had to be shielded from the consequences of their elders’ acts. Granted, it was hard to see in the set jaws and angry eyes of people like Lohr and Ayelet the starved, feral “littlests” described in the colony's records, but ... but ... the children's welfare had remained the colony's chief concern.
Neave cast further for, ways out of this maze. What about a statute of limitations? The oldest Earth law on the books declared that there was no statute of limitations on genocide charges. The crime carried the death penalty. Now, that opened up possibilities. According to the rules governing courts-martial (at least as far as Neave's hasty study of them could confirm), all sentences involving the death penalty had to be referred offworld. To avoid the embarrassment of a trial, Neave could simply refuse to refer the case offworld. That would protect the fragile union that Earth, Alliance, and Secess’ now enjoyed. It would be logical, simple—but would it be just?
He had a good idea of how Yeager would react to the idea.
He sighed and had turned back to her report again when his desk communicator buzzed. With relief, he slapped the circuit open. It was his chief medical officer, temporarily stationed in the colony's crude medcenter.
"Commissioner, you'd better get over here."
"Dr. Pryor's dying, is that it?” The physician had reported that the colonists’ medical officer had collapsed from a massive stroke, the last of several, all of which had been complicated by age and overwork.
"She's been dying since we made planetfall here,” the physician said. “It's remarkable that she hung on this long. That's not what you have to see, though. It's about that ‘Thorn’ that they called in."
"Her son,” Neave agreed. He prided himself on his memory for detail.
"Some son!” A commotion rose from the other end of the line. When the physician spoke again, his voice was hushed and chastened. “Only by adoption. His name is Halgerd, Thorn Halgerd. It sounded Frekan to me. So I consulted von Bulow, who turned white, then told me to mind my own goddamned business..."
Neave's door annunciator blared into a demand for attention, admission, action—"I think she just came to tell me herself,” said Neave.
"Well, I don't envy you sir. Apparently, this Halgerd is Secess'..."
"Republic,” corrected Neave.
"And Marshal Becker thinks he's probably a war criminal."
Neave suppressed an impulse to groan. There seemed to be entirely too many people on Cynthia who could be shoved into that category already.
"But this is what's odd, Commissioner."
What was odd? Aside, of course, from how long his annunciator could continue at full blare without something breaking—aside, of course, from Neave's head. “Go on, Doctor,” he said, resigned.
"Von Bulow's just as eager as Becker to have the man killed."
It was full dark when Amory Neave started down the ramp of his ship again. Outside milled any of his crew who were off-duty, and many members of Cynthia colony, most of them young. Among them were the former “littlests” Lohr and Ayelet, whom the others consulted as authorities.
"Ayelet, you were on comm duty. What did Thorn say?” The woman speaking was tall, black-haired, and possibly fifteen years older than the woman who answered her.
"Lohr was the one who called him in when Dr. Pryor took such a downturn,” Ayelet said. “Lohr, did Thorn say anything else to you but that he'd come back as quickly as he could?"
Lohr shook his head, then raised macrobinoculars.
"You know how fast he flies,” said the dark-haired woman. “If she dies before he gets here, I'm afraid he won't forgive himself."
"There ... I've spotted him!” Lohr cried.
Around him, the Amherst II's crew suddenly tensed. What did they know about Halgerd that he didn't?
"For one thing, he's a pilot,” a crewmember told him. “A Secess'..."
"Republic,” snapped Elisabeth von Bulow.
"Pilot,” the man finished. “We always heard in the Alliance that they were married to their ships, or hard-wired, or something."
"Rumors,” said von Bulow. “Pilots’ rumors, designed to save face."
Neave held up one hand. That type of argument could get out of hand so quickly that he forbade it whenever possible. He had seen classified reports on the Republic's pilots, who were, apparently, successful applications of now-proscribed cloning technology. Publicly, of course, officials like von Bulow disavowed such reports.
Now he found considerable interest in observing the Abendsterner. Her pale face acquired two splotches of color high upon her cheekbones. “On Freki, they did manage to clone a few pilots,” she conceded. Her voice was chill, dissociating herself from such goings-on. “How can you expect a clone to observe the protocols of war? The Frekan pilots were unstable. Those who didn't die in combat suicided, most of them."
What protocols are those? Neave stifled the question before it could escape him.
Lohr whistled in admiration. “Just look at him!"
Neave gestured imperiously for young Lohr to hand over the macros. Yes ... here came the controversial Thorn, in what looked like an ultralight construction halfway between a glider and an aircraft. He flew magnificently, flamboyantly, swooping, banking, and dipping with superb disdain for the laws of gravity, if not those of wind currents.
He gasped as the man took one particularly risky dive, then caught himself and rose on an updraft. The moons’ light glinted off his aircraft, sparkles of silver and violet, and he had a sudden, poignant recollection of one of the holos in Yeager's report: Cynthians with ten-meter wing-spans dancing on the night winds, the galaxies on their wings glowing in the moonlight. No wonder the colonists clung to their gliders, unwilling to give up the beauty of flight, as well as its use.
"Shoot him now!" hissed von Bulow. He gestured her to silence and watched in admiration as the man touched down, leapt from his craft, and dashed toward the dome that housed medcenter.
"Get him!” the woman cried and started forward.
"Thorn, move it!” Lohr shouted, and threw himself at the Abendsterner. Ayelet, moving far more slowly, stepped into what would have been the crewmembers’ line of fire. No one obeyed von Bulow.
"My God, look at that man run,” one man muttered. “He's a filthy construct!” spat von Bulow. “Cloned, augmented ... Freki never scrupled to use proscribed technology."
At another time, Neave might have enjoyed the irony of an official criticizing the successful work of her alleged allies. Now, he found himself hypnotized by the man he had seen, taller
than most pilots, his hair, flight suit, and pale skin all gleaming in the metallic colors of the moonlight. He was almost inhumanly fast and graceful.
For an instant, he turned his face toward Lohr, and Neave was struck both by the regular features and the anguish that twisted them.
Lohr launched himself after Thorn, and Neave, shamelessly, eavesdropped.
"She didn't want to see me, is that it?” Halgerd wasn't even winded by his flight and his run.
"She wants to protect you, idiot!” Lohr snapped. “Didn't you see the ship when you touched down? Apparently the war's over, and now the place is crawling with guns and bureaucrats."
"Oh, shut up, will you!” Ayelet interrupted, her voice almost stifled. “Thorn, if you want to see Alicia alive—"
"But be careful!” the tall, dark-haired woman hissed, one hand almost touching Thorn Halgerd's shoulder. “The woman over there, the pale one. She's from Abendstern and says you ought to be shot."
Thorn had been halfway inside the medcenter when the warning came. He turned around, again with that incredible speed of his, and flashed a glance across von Bulow, the crew, and Neave himself, his pale eyes flickering as if his gaze could not just record each of them, but evaluate them. Neave had never felt such a strong urge to drop his eyes. Thorn Halgerd might, as von Bulow argued, be a construct, but he had undeniable presence.
Then he straightened and turned his attention back to the Abendsterner. Quite a family resemblance, thought Neave.
"Quick, Thorn!” whispered Ayelet.
The man turned, but not before he had sketched a tiny, contemptuous salute at von Bulow. Letting her seethe, Neave followed Thorn Halgerd, ignoring the colonists’ glares, and slipping inside just as the door irised closed.
The Amherst's chief medical officer stood against the worn, sloping ivory plastic of the dome's wall. His hands were idle, his mouth set. As he saw Neave, he shook his head. Halgerd registered the headshake and hunched his shoulders as if warding off a blow. He shook his head, bewilderment blurring his too-regular features.
"Go on!” Lohr gave him a push toward the screened alcove where Dr. Alicia Pryor lay.
"Is ... she conscious?” Thorn's voice almost begged the medical officer to say “no."
He shook his head. “You can't hurt her, son. She's been waiting for you. You're all she's been waiting for."
Thorn shook visibly, then disappeared around the screen. “My dear son!” Neave heard the joyous murmur, hardly more than a ragged breath, and blinked hard, just once. There was no shame in admitting emotion, just in permitting it to blind you.
Someone touched Neave's arm, and he jumped, bitterly ashamed of his role as eavesdropper.
"Commissioner?” It was Ayelet. “Could you tell someone to ask Rafe and Pauli, I mean the captain, to come over? She and Dr. Pryor were awfully close.” Another woman might have tried to look at him appealingly, or to coax, but Ayelet's very lack of such arts moved Neave more.
"Bless you, child, this is their colony, not mine. Their arrest is only voluntary."
"Only?” Ayelet's head tilted as she listened to the murmur of voices from Alicia Pryor's cubicle. She gestured Neave to stand farther off, leaving the dying woman her privacy. “Commissioner, Pauli has decided she's under arrest. That means she'll stay put unless you say otherwise. I know it would mean a lot if you sent for her.” Abruptly Ayelet's brown eyes flashed. “And I'd say she has it coming."
The monumental, childlike integrity of this girl!
"And if I went myself, you'd be rid of an outsider, is that it?"
Her blush and wide smile cast a wildrose prettiness over her heavy features, and Neave understood what it was that the mercurial Lohr had seen in her. That, and the decency, the stability, she must have learned from her father, now under suicide watch, and the woman for whom she pleaded.
"Never mind,” Neave said gently. “I'm not insulting you. I'll bring them myself. You go on back in.” And then, because, commissioner or not, he had children of his own, he offered Ayelet what comfort he could. “Your husband and this Thorn—they'll need you with them."
"Come in, Commissioner.” Yeager and Adams sat close together, but rose as he entered. The silence in their quarters was palpable, almost restful. Neave glanced around at the simple furnishings, a blend of prefab and local workmanship, one or two fine pieces, including a woven hanging bright in colors of crimson, green, black, and gold. There were even a few printed books.
"Is it Alicia?” Rafe Adams asked, his hand dropping protectively on his wife's shoulder.
"Her son flew in a few minutes ago. He's with her now."
Pauli lowered her eyes.
"Your Ayelet sent me to fetch you."
Rafe's bark of laughter surprised them all. “That's Ayelet. Doesn't know the meaning of tact, or rank."
"She said you wouldn't leave here unless you were ordered. I volunteered to bring you. Figured they were better off without me. And I wanted to talk with you."
His eyes fell on a tattered paper book. Plato, for a wonder. Pauli saw his surprise. “Alicia let me have it,” she said in a low voice. “I'm not particularly well educated, Commissioner. Not like Alicia. Or you. Would you believe that this is the first time I've had to read, or just think, since we landed here?"
Neave raised an eyebrow to ask permission and picked up the book. The ragged pages fell open to the “Crito.” Passages were heavily underscored and noted in the crude, round hand with which he was now familiar.
Again, the sense that he was eavesdropping made Neave flush, and he laid down the book. “Let's go,” he said. “I want to warn you, though. About Thorn. One of my staff thinks he ought to be shot."
"That would be the Abendsterner,” Pauli said, her back toward him as she reached her jacket. Rafe took it from her and laid it gently over her shoulders. “She knows what he is, a successful experiment in proscribed cloning technology. So do we. Pryor spotted it in an instant. He'd ejected from his ship, and we brought him in, almost dead from the loss of the others in his group. Beneatha ... some of the others wanted to try him for war crimes. That's a laugh, isn't it? Who's the more guilty, him or us?"
She shrugged into the jacket. “Ask Lohr. They're friends, he and Thorn, yet we're pretty sure that Thorn was part of the fleet that slagged his home world. Thorn and Alicia sort of adopted one another, she'd known his ... genetic father back before the war. We think he's been happy with us. Do the Secess’ want him back?"
"He landed here after we ... killed the Cynthians,” Rafe added hastily.
It was the law, wasn't it? Neave asked himself as he ushered Rafe and Pauli out the door. Even years before the discovery of Jump, Earth agreements stated that astronauts, as they'd been called then, were regarded “as envoys of mankind in outer space” and should have “all possible assistance in the event of accident, distress, or emergency landing on the territory of another state.” The same agreement called for them to “be safely and promptly returned to the state of registry of their space vehicle."
Halgerd was as much an embarrassment to the people who created him as was Pauli Yeager's insistence on a genocide trial.
Neave had expected Ayelet to be waiting for them outside the medcenter, but found Lohr pacing there instead. His hands were hooked into his belt to stop them from trembling.
"Quick,” he said, and his voice was hard. “Thank you for bringing them.” The words came hard, but forced a small, tight smile from Pauli Yeager.
Laying an arm over Lohr's shoulder, Rafe brought him inside with them. The screen had been pushed away, and Neave stifled a gasp at how flat the white covers lay over Dr. Pryor's body. Thorn Halgerd knelt hunched beside her, his face inhumanly calm, his hands resting on the bed.
"Alicia,” Pauli breathed and went over to her dying friend.
"Sorry..."
Pauli shook her head. “That you couldn't see us through this one? I only wish we could have spared you all of it.” She bent and kissed the aged woman's forehead. �
�You thought you helped Thorn grow up. Look what you did for me! ‘Licia, I couldn't have managed without you. It's all finished now. Rest easy."
She bent lower to catch. “What's that? I'll keep Thorn safe. I promise."
Muttering an apology, Neave headed for the door and almost lurched into it. It would have been indecent to remain; he wasn't certain he could forgive himself for staying as long as he had.
He stumbled outside into a night blessedly free of the taints of antiseptic and death.
Footsteps clattered behind him. He heard a quick, urgent gasp.
"Mother!” Thorn Halgerd cried out sharply.
The door irised shut on his unpracticed sobs. Neave wished that he had not heard.
23
Slowly Pauli Yeager and Rafe Adams left the medcenter dome, their arms around Thorn Halgerd. Though he towered over the woman, he leaned heavily on her as well as Adams. As he passed Neave, he averted his face. The others also refused to meet Neave's eyes. The tall, dark-haired woman whom Neave had noted before hovered protectively close to him, while Lohr and Ayelet fanned out sideways in what Neave recognized as a flanking maneuver to protect their friends.
"I had to see her,” Thorn said. “You know I had to come back."
"I know,” said Rafe. “Just like we had to turn ourselves in."
"Construct!” came von Bulow's voice. “That's right, you!” The blond man turned toward her—that obedience was a reflex! Neave thought—and drew himself to attention.
"You don't have to!” Pauli hissed. “It's not a matter of orders and born-humans anymore, Thorn. You're ours! You broke that conditioning."
"Did I?” Halgerd's eyes seemed to go blank. One hand clasped and unclasped as if trying to hold himself back from the pull of orders he had been conditioned to obey.
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