The Disappeared

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  The door to the meeting room opened. Mr. Kanawa faced him. “We’d like to see him now.”

  Flint nodded. The choice didn’t surprise him.

  He pushed off the wall and motioned for Mr. Kanawa to join him. Mrs. Kanawa followed. Flint escorted them down the hall to the suite.

  He knocked—four sharp, short raps—the code for the Harkins to make certain Jasper stayed in his room.

  A single rap sounded in response. Flint took a deep breath. He still had more business to do.

  “I’m assuming you’re taking custody of Ennis,” he said.

  Mr. Kanawa nodded.

  “In that case, then, I have to remind you that removing Ennis from Armstrong Dome is a violation of law. If you and your family chose to run, the Wygnin, Armstrong Dome’s government, and the government of Earth Alliance will all issue warrants for your arrests. You’d be breaking a large variety of laws, and you’d be putting yourselves, as well as your child, in jeopardy.”

  “We understand that,” Mrs. Kanawa snapped. “We’re hiring an attorney.”

  As if that were going to make things better. “I simply had to inform you now, so that you don’t do anything rash.”

  “We won’t,” Mr. Kanawa said.

  Flint nodded, wishing he could believe them. Then he opened the door to the holding suite.

  * * *

  A strange woman was holding Ennis. Her skin was so white that it seemed to glow in the dim light of the room. Ennis squirmed and fussed.

  Jamal felt a mixture of emotions run through him, from joy that his son was alive and fine, to terror that he’d lose the boy all over again. For all his bravado with the cop, he knew that his chances of winning this battle were slim.

  Dylani let out a small cry and ran across the room. The air smelled faintly of dirty diapers and pizza. Jamal glanced toward the kitchen, hoping that they hadn’t fed Ennis anything inappropriate.

  Then he smiled at himself. Right now, that was the least of his worries.

  Ennis squealed when he saw his mother and leaned out of the strange woman’s arms, reaching for Dylani. Jamal’s eyes burned. He’d have to have a private talk with the lawyer, see if there was something he could do, something that would leave his family alone.

  There had to be an out. He couldn’t be the only person in this situation desperate enough to consider anything.

  The detective, Flint, had come up beside him. “Good-looking son you have there.”

  “Yes,” Jamal said. He felt rooted to the spot. The moment belonged to Dylani. She squeezed Ennis so hard that he grunted in protest, but he was clinging to her too, his chubby fist clutching the back of her shirt.

  “You and your wife had very different reactions to your son’s loss.” Flint was speaking so softly that Jamal could barely hear him.

  “We’re different people.”

  Dylani turned. Tears were running down her face. Ennis was staring at them in a kind of wonder. “Jamal. Jamal, he’s here. He’s okay.”

  Jamal went to her, not wanting the detective to ask any more questions. He put his arm around her, cradling Ennis in the process, and tried to memorize this moment.

  He leaned his forehead against Ennis’s tight curls, and inhaled the familiar scent of talcum and baby that was his son. Part of Jamal already had believed Ennis lost to him. That the boy was here, now, seemed a kind of gift. Maybe a cruel gift, but a gift nonetheless.

  Ennis put his arms around his father’s shoulders, leaning into Jamal so hard that Jamal had no choice but to take him from Dylani. The boy was shaking. He had known something was wrong. Maybe he had even been frightened.

  Jamal put his hand on his boy’s back, patting it, murmuring words of comfort. He turned, as he often did when he was taking care of his son, and saw the detective watching them.

  Flint’s gaze was too sharp. He clearly knew that Jamal was lying. But Jamal couldn’t trust him, couldn’t tell him the truth in any way.

  Flint was required by law to support the Wygnin—and right now, Jamal couldn’t give them any advantage.

  They already had all the advantage they needed.

  * * *

  DeRicci drank the last of her coffee, tipping her cup so that the last drop tumbled into her mouth. She wished she could afford the high-voltage stuff; the Port, like the Unit, only served the cheap low-grade, low-caffeine kind. She needed something to jump-start her system.

  She certainly hadn’t had enough sleep.

  She lingered over the tray of baked goods inside the office, then took a crumb cake, poured herself another cup of coffee, and drank. Everyone could wait for her. She wanted to be alert when she faced the Wygnin again.

  Alert would be difficult. She had only gotten four hours of sleep. Instead, she had spent most of her time after she had gotten home talking with the chief of detectives and one of the low-level assistants to Armstrong Dome’s government, begging them to take over this case.

  She got stonewalled, just like she had before. They wanted her to handle it and she knew why. Deniability. If she made a mistake, they’d sell her to the Wygnin in a heartbeat. If she did everything right, they’d take all the credit.

  If she could do something else, she’d quit this job now and let them handle the fall-out. But five years ago, she’d looked at other employment options and didn’t like any of them. None of them paid as well as detective, and very few of them used her skills.

  She was stuck here. She had to make the best of it.

  She finished the crumb cake—which had some sort of synthetic sugar in it instead of the real thing—and sucked down the second cup of coffee as if it were a lifeline.

  If nothing else, she could legitimately claim bathroom breaks when handling the Wygnin got too intense.

  She should have called Flint this morning and had him beside her. He needed to learn how to do these bogus diplomatic non-detective jobs as well. It was time she stopped protecting him and started to let him do work on his own.

  Or maybe she just didn’t want to face the Wygnin alone.

  She poured a third cup of coffee and carried it to holding. The legal team sat at the table, the Wygnin lined up behind them. The team was one of the toughest in Armstrong, known for its arguments before several Multicultural Tribunal cases.

  Nadia Solar was seventy-something, at the top of her form. Beside her sat Xival, a Peyti whose translucent skin looked gray against the walls of the holding room. Xival wore a breathing mask that made her alien features seem even less recognizable. Her long fingers spread over the table like three tails coming out of her wrists.

  Wonderful. DeRicci suppressed a grimace. Now she was dealing with two different types of aliens and their customs. The Peyti weren’t fond of the Wygnin, thinking them too harsh, but the Peyti had a finely honed sense of honor which made them perfect for multicultural law. Xival’s presence was a bad sign for those children.

  DeRicci closed the door behind her, set the coffee on the table, and sat down. She felt very isolated. Seven against one. Suddenly it seemed unfair.

  She had called the lawyers who’d been here yesterday, and they had told her to report to them. Cowards. They were all cowards. So was she, if she were honest. She was just the one stuck here.

  “What did you get me up so early for?” she asked.

  Solar smiled. Her face was softly textured. She’d had some subtle enhancements that blunted the effects of aging while leaving the dignity that age could accord. Sometimes DeRicci wished she had money. She’d love to look like that in thirty years.

  “You requested that my clients bring you not just the warrant reference number, but the warrants. I have them for you.”

  Solar slid a hand-held across the table.

  “You could have sent it to my system,” DeRicci said, not wanting to go over a warrant with the Wygnin present.

  “In the interest of haste,” Solar said, “we felt it better to show the warrants to you here. Then you can reunite my clients with their children and let
them go on their way.”

  “The children aren’t theirs,” DeRicci said.

  “By law, they are.” This from Xival. Her voice grated through the mask.

  “That’s the issue we haven’t settled yet.” DeRicci wasn’t going to give any ground. She trusted lawyers less than she trusted the Wygnin. If she said the wrong thing, she was afraid the lawyers would use it against her—or the children—later.

  She pulled the hand-held toward her. The screen gave her a choice: audio or text; English, Basic, or Modified Korsven. She could read some Korsven, even unmodified which looked to the unpracticed eye like a series of equal-length sticks, but she chose the English text option.

  The warrants were old, both more than ten years. They had been issued by the same court, the Eighth Multicultural Tribunal, whose district included Korsve.

  Both warrants were short. They listed the name of the offender, followed by the sentence, and then the order of the court allowing the Wygnin to carry out that sentence.

  DeRicci didn’t recognize the name of the offender on either warrant. The sentences differed, which surprised DeRicci. One warrant—the newest one—demanded the traditional firstborn child of the above-named offender.

  The second warrant asked for a family member of choice from the offender’s family. DeRicci stared at that for a moment. The second warrant seemed to be less stringent until she thought about it.

  The second warrant forced someone to choose among the people they loved, to pick and protect favorites while sacrificing the least loved in the group—or the most hated. But what happened if the offender loved his family, loved that family to distraction? What if there were no obvious or good choices?

  DeRicci shuddered. She studied the warrants for a moment, then slid the hand-held back to Solar who waved it at her.

  “Keep it,” Solar said.

  DeRicci took her hand off it, leaving the hand-held in the center of the table. “These names are unfamiliar. The identity chips in the children do not match the family names in these warrants. There are no pictures, no histories, nothing for me to go by except the Wygnin’s word that they have chosen the correct victims.”

  “—Children—” One of the Wygnin, probably the same one that had spoken to her the day before, said. It was at that moment that DeRicci realized no one had called the translator, and the Wygnin had not objected.

  Had the Wygnin understood everything she said yesterday? Or would the attorneys translate for them later?

  “Victims,” DeRicci said. “No matter how you cut it, those children will be innocent victims of the legal system.”

  “—Opinion—” the Wygnin said.

  “Fact,” DeRicci said.

  “Detective,” Solar said, a tone of condescension in her voice. “You know that the Wygnin never make mistakes.”

  “I know that’s what the Wygnin want us to believe,” DeRicci said. “What I see before me are two warrants. I see nothing linking them to those children.”

  “Then you’re not looking hard enough,” Xival said.

  DeRicci gave her a cold smile. “As I told your clients yesterday, it is not my job to look. It’s theirs to show me that they haven’t abducted the wrong children by mistake. So far they haven’t done that.”

  “The Wygnin are a cautious people. They do not venture from their solar system without just cause. They would not come for these children if they did not know they were right,” Solar said.

  DeRicci shrugged. “That’s not my problem, and you all know it. I’m not letting human children out of here without the proper documentation.”

  “You’re being unnecessarily difficult,” Xival said.

  DeRicci put her hands flat on the table and leaned toward the lawyers. “I’ll be honest with you ladies. I think the Wygnin have the wrong children and they don’t want anyone to know it. I think they’re playing you, like they’ve been trying to play me. And I’m not letting them out of here with children they have no right to.”

  “—Have—right—” The Wygnin said.

  “I’ll take this to your superiors,” Solar said.

  “I’ll bet you already have,” DeRicci said. “I’ll bet they said to you what they’ve said to me, that I’m the one responsible for this case, and all dealings go through me.”

  Solar’s eyes narrowed. Xival’s long fingers bent upwards, a tiny gesture of discomfort.

  “Which means,” DeRicci said, “that I’m holding onto those children until I’m so positive that your clients are incapable of making a mistake that I’m willing to send those children to hell.”

  “—Korsve—not—hell—”

  “Probably not when you’re Wygnin,” DeRicci said. “But you’re planning to destroy everything they are. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  “Detective,” Solar said. “Speak to us.”

  But DeRicci was looking at the Wygnin, the one who had spoken to her. The golden eyes held her, and she felt the contempt as if it were her own.

  The Wygnin spoke rapidly in Korsven. Xival sighed, then translated, “Taking the children punishes the family. But the children will receive a great honor. They will become Wygnin.”

  “I know,” DeRicci said. “Whether they want to or not.”

  She walked to the door. Then turned.

  “Contact me when you have real proof of your claims. Otherwise, I have more important work to do.”

  She slammed her way out, then paused in the hallway to catch her breath.

  The warrants were here, which meant that the proof—if there was any—wasn’t far behind. She hoped that the parents got here soon and that the parents could afford good lawyers.

  Because there wasn’t much more she could do and keep her job.

  Eleven

  The spacedock dome closed over the yacht. Ekaterina felt a jolt as the yacht landed inexpertly on the flooring. The yacht skidded a bit—she had come in too fast—and then stopped moving.

  She rested her face in her hands. For a moment there, she hadn’t been sure she would survive the landing. Even with someone from the Space Traffic Control talking her through as best he could, and the ship’s automatic systems taking over most of the landing procedure, she had still felt the shakiness of it all. The way the yacht had spun when she tried to slow it down; the tilt when she’d shifted to the automatic controls; the groans coming from the metal as the stresses of the atmosphere change inside the Port’s main dome hit the yacht too quickly.

  Well. She wasn’t dead yet.

  The thought spurred her. She sat up and unbuckled her safety harness. She had no idea how long she’d been at the helm of this damn yacht, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

  However long it had been, it had been twice that long since she’d eaten, and she couldn’t remember the last time she slept. If she didn’t take care of herself, her body would do that for her. She could already feel the effect of fear, space flight, and stress on her overtaxed frame.

  In all her wildest imaginings, she hadn’t expected to be here, alone, without help. She had expected a new life—something easy and comfortable, unfamiliar but possible. Not this. Never this.

  She stood, clutching the console for support. Before she went any farther, she picked up the hand-held that Jenny had given her. On it was her fake name, and the credits that were supposedly in her account.

  That might get her somewhere—if she could get off this ship and out of the Port. The Rev would be here any moment, and they would be able to take her from the Port. But most aliens didn’t have visas that allowed them outside the Port, especially if they hadn’t planned on landing here.

  It had been a long time since she’d been to Armstrong Dome, but she was familiar with it. And she was lucky to have landed here. She knew the laws, she probably even knew a few inhabitants, most of them people she had defended, people who wouldn’t mind bending the law. If she had gone somewhere else on the Moon, she might not have been so lucky. She’d only been out of Armstrong once, for a client in Gl
enn Station—and then she hadn’t seen much outside of the high-speed train, the expensive hotel, and the courtrooms.

  She had to concentrate. She opened her purse one last time, unsealed the lining and slipped the laser pistol into the pouch especially designed for weapons. Now her purse wouldn’t bulge, and a cursory search wouldn’t reveal much.

  It was a risk, but it was one she had to take. She didn’t want to go anywhere without that gun. It had saved her life once. She was hoping it would do so again.

  Voices sounded through the communication system, asking her for things she didn’t have—registrations, identification, passes. She ignored them.

  She would have to play this right. She would only get one opportunity to escape this Port.

  Her exhaustion and hunger would serve her well.

  She put a hand to her head and staggered to the main exit. If someone had gotten in, they would see her movements as consistent.

  Ekaterina punched the button that deactivated the airlock door, and heard a hiss as whatever lurked between the airlock and the main door was exhaled out of the ship.

  Then the airlock doors opened. Her breath caught. One more step forward. She stepped inside, reached for the main door, and released it.

  Instantly she was facing police-issue multishot rifles. Five people, all wearing environmental coverings, held the guns on her. She held up her hands to show she meant no harm and stepped backwards.

  “Please,” she said. “I have to get out of here.”

  “Not yet,” someone said. The voice was muffled by the environmental protections. “You haven’t been able to give us registration or anything approximating a ship’s log. We don’t even know if you have cargo. You have to go through decontamination, and the ship can’t be touched until HazMat goes through it.”

  “I don’t care about the ship,” she said. “It’s not mine. Please, I told someone my story. The Rev took the crew. I’m afraid they’ll come for me. All I want is to be away from the dock, away from the ship.”