Offspring

by Steven Harper

  The ultralight’s motor cut out. Jolanda froze, then hit the restart. Nothing. A tinge of fear thrilled through her. The ultralight went into a long, gliding dive. Jolanda hit the emergency anti-grav generator. A red light told her it was malfunctioning. The fear blew into full-blown panic. A scream tore itself from her throat as the ultralight skimmed over the trees and dropped down into the forest.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “You know who I want to slap? The guy who said that a crisis is an opportunity in disguise.”

  —Irfan Qasad

  Applause thundered over Kendi as he left the platform. Lewa Tan followed. Several people in the school auditorium chanted, “Tapers! Tapers! Tapers!” Kendi turned to give them a wave and a grin. The noise swelled, and Kendi trotted backstage, where Wanda Petrie was bending over to pick up the stylus she had dropped. The grin dropped off Kendi’s face as she straightened.

  “Where now?” he asked wearily over the noise.

  “Dellton,” she said, naming a small city south of Treetown. “You’re speaking at the military base there in an hour, so we have to get moving.”

  “We’re always moving,” Kendi muttered. Ignoring this remark, Petrie took him by the elbow and led him firmly to the exit where the flitcar was parked. Tan went outside ahead of them for a quick look around. A rectangle of late summer sunshine fell onto the floor, radiating golden heat. Tan gestured from the door, and Kendi ducked into the back seat of the waiting flitcar. Petrie and Tan climbed in beside him, and Tan went up front. Gretchen had the controls. Even after signing the lucrative sim-game contract, she had continued to show up for her job as bodyguard. No words of thanks or explanation—just a clear and quiet determination to keep Kendi safe.

  Kendi watched the trees drop away, then merge into a blurry green carpet as Gretchen took them up to speed. Spring had melted into summer, but Kendi had barely noticed. It seemed like all his time was spent in the flitcar these days, rushing from one speaking engagement to the next, giving the same speech over and over until someone handed him a new one. The in-between times were spent in the studios making commercial announcements. Kendi’d had no idea that standing in front of a camera and giving a short speech could be so complicated. It took forever for the staff to choose the right clothes, the right makeup, the right lighting, the right mood, whatever that meant. And then the repetition. Say it this way. Now say that way. We need more energy, Father Kendi. We need better enunciation, Father Kendi. We need more warmth, Father Kendi. We need, we need, we need.

  The sun shone down heavily on the emerald talltree leaves. Kendi missed the talltrees, missed walking among their cool, green depths, feeling calm and protected from the hot summer sunlight. Up here in the campaign’s flitcar, everything was always hot and blue and gold. Even the flitcar’s environmental controls couldn’t keep the temperature completely even. Bright sunshine flooded the cabin with yellow heat and made Kendi’s skin itch with discomfort. He knew it was a nonsensical complaint from a man who created a desert every time he entered the Dream, but the Outback was meant to be hot. Bellerophon was supposed to be cool and temperate. The natural order had been upset.

  Fatigue pulled at Kendi’s body and bones. He was always tired now. The speaking had turned out to be more strenuous than he had through. For the last three months, he had done nothing but speak and run, speak and run, speak and run. He had returned home every night only to fall into an instant, exhausted sleep. In the morning he was up before dawn, traveling for two or three hours to another round of speeches, more monotonous dinners of tasteless food, and endless flurries of handshaking before he could flee back home to Ben and Harenn. Harenn had finally convinced Kendi that she and Ben didn’t mind if he spent the occasional night or two away from home, that nothing interesting was going to happen this early in the pregnancy. Kendi had finally agreed, but he never slept away from home for more than three nights in a row.

  Sometimes it felt like he was running for office.

  Petrie’s data pad clattered to the floor of the flitcar. She made an annoyed chirping noise. “First the stylus, now this. I can’t seem to hold onto anything today.”

  She retrieved the pad and called up a newsfeed. “gain. Kendi sighed. Petrie’s data pad ran feed stories almost constantly, and the drone of the caster had become part of Kendi’s daily life. A dinosaur farmer in Othertown supported Foxglove’s expansion plans. The search continued for a woman who had gone down in an ultralight glider crash. Salman Reza’s polls were up by three percent or down by two percent or up by four percent. Kendi wished the voters would make up their minds.

  They arrived at the military base an hour later. Dellton was on the outskirts of the talltree forest that stretched across much of the continent, and the buildings were built on cleared ground. It was a military town, dependent on the base for most of its existence.

  Petrie escorted Kendi to a small arena. Hundreds of human soldiers wearing the green and brown uniforms of the Bellerophon military occupied the bleachers. The Ched-Balaar soldiers wore green and brown head cloths and sat in neat rows on the ground, as was their custom. A handful of high-ranking officers had chairs or sitting areas on the speaking platform. Wanda Petrie made brief introductions. Kendi shook human hands, grasped Ched-Balaar palms, and completely forgot every single name.

  A Ched-Balaar officer introduced Kendi, and the soldiers roared their approval as he took his usual position behind the usual podium. He smiled at them. Salman’s position on increasing military spending made her very popular with the armed forces. This speech would be easy.

  The sun poured down heat as he praised Salman Reza and urged their support. The words streamed out of him, but he barely heard them anymore. He made the right gestures, gave the right inflections, created the right mood. He dropped a joke here, told a poignant story there, and when it was over, the soldiers rose and shouted or clattered like rolling thunder. Then it was more handshaking, more palm-touching, and back into the flitcar with Tan and Petrie.

  “Now where?” he asked.

  “Home,” Petrie said. “We’re done for now.”

  “I’ve got news,” Gretchen said from the front seat. Her data pad was open and text crawled across the holographic screen. “The High Court handed down its decision about the mining rights a few minutes ago.”

  Some of Kendi’s exhaustion vanished. “And? Don’t keep us in suspense, Gretchen.”

  “Would I do that?”

  “Gretchen,” Tan growled.

  A ‘The High Court made its final ruling today on Bellerophon’s long-standing mining, farming, and tree harvesting restrictions,’ “ Gretchen read aloud. A ‘In a four-to-three vote, the Court ruled to relax all three restrictions, effective immediately.’ “

  “All life,” Kendi said.

  A ‘Gubernatorial candidate Mitchell Foxglove praised the ruling minutes after it was handed down. “This was the right decision for the right time,” he said in a press conference on the steps of the High Court building. “All the people of Bellerophon will benefit this time, not just the Silent, as it was before the Despair.” ‘ The man’s a walking butt-crack.”

  “I assume that last sentence wasn’t part of the quote,” Petrie said in an icy voice.

  “Ched-Pirasku?” Tan asked in her raspy voice.

  “He’s next. ‘Opposing candidate Ched-Pirasku was more cautious. “I am sure everything will work out for the best,” he said in a prepared statement. “I look forward to seeing the impact on our economy.” ‘ The guy has the personality of a damp sponge. How he survives as a gubernatorial candidate, I’ll never understand.”

  “What did they say about Senator Reza?” Petrie demanded.

  “That she wasn’t available for comment,” Gretchen said. “She isn’t even—oh, wait. This is coming from a feed owned by Foxglove. They probably didn’t try very hard to reach her.”

  “Polls?” Petrie said. Her data pad was open.

  Gretchen checked. “Latest one shows Foxglove on the rise t
o the tune of sixteen percentage points,” she reported. “Salman dropped by eight. Except among the military.”

  “No,” Petrie whispered. “God, she’s in last place now. Gretchen, get us back to Treetown. Fast! This is a crisis.”

  Her pad chimed and a hologram of Salman’s head popped up. The flitcar took off.

  “I heard,” Petrie said, her lips tight. “We’re already on our way.”

  “The bastard’s leapfrogged right over me,” Salman snapped. “The mining companies are already taking applications, and so are the loggers. Treetown’s going to be empty within a week, Wanda. Be ready for an all-nighter.”

  “Not me,” Kendi said. “The ruling sucks rocks and gravel, Grandma, but I’m so bushed I could sleep on a bed of nails. I need a break.”

  “Don’t get too comfortable at home, my duck,” Salman warned. “We’re going to need you even more if we want to catch up. Thank the wretched skies we have almost ten months before the election or we’d be fucked.”

  The hologram vanished and Petrie shut her data pad with a snap. Her face was pale and her lips were drawn tight over her teeth. Her eyes glittered above a sharp nose. “We can’t allow her to lose,” she said, half to herself. “We just can’t.”

  Kendi patted her shoulder. “You look more upset than Grandma. Listen, Wanda, it’s just one election. Grandma could always run again in five years if she doesn’t—”

  “No!” Petrie spat with so much vehemence that Tan reached for her sidearm. “She has to win this election, Kendi. No matter what, Senator Reza has to get the governor’s chair.”

  “Hey, I want her to win, too,” Kendi said, “but it’s not life and death.”

  “Maybe not to you.” Petrie pecked out every word. “If it weren’t for the Senator, I’d be...I’d be on the street. I had a dead-end job with a...a boss who made me miserable, and I couldn’t afford to quit. Not after the Despair. And then I got sick, and my boss wouldn’t pay the medical expenses. Then he fired me on top of everything.”

  “What kind of job did you have?”

  But Petrie barreled on. “Senator Reza was speaking at the hospital when they discharged me. I still don’t know where I got the courage, but I marched up to her and asked for a job. It startled her so much she said ‘yes,’ and I ended up in her office pool. I worked sixty and seventy hours a week for her, I was so grateful, and she promoted me closer and closer to her.” Petrie’s eyes took on fire. “I’ve seen her at her best and at her worst. She yells and howls at her staff sometimes, but did you know she donated half a million freemarks to an orphanage run by the Church of Irfan?”

  “No,” Kendi said.

  “Of course not,” Petrie said. “It’s because she won’t tell anyone. It’s PR gold, but the Senator said she won’t use it because it would be exploiting the kids. She wants what’s best for them, and she wants what’s best for Bellerophon. I won’t let her lose this election, Kendi. Foxglove and Ched-Pirasku will have to dance a waltz on my grave first.”

  The heat in her voice made Kendi recoil for a moment. She sounded like a religious fanatic praising a prophet. “With you on her side,” he said with newly-learned diplomacy, “I don’t see how she could lose.”

  Petrie spent the rest of the trip pecking at her data pad. Kendi half-dozed in his seat and was jarred into wakefulness only when the flitcar landed next to the drawbridge. Gretchen, Tan, and Kendi got out while Petrie took the controls. She gave a curt farewell and took off.

  Down beneath the trees, darkness was already falling. Tan lowered the drawbridge. Kendi caught sight of Grandmother Mee putting away her gardening tools in her house below theirs. He waved at her and she returned the gesture. A pang of guilt touched him. He knew she was Silenced and lonely, but he hadn’t spoken to her since the day the drawbridges had been installed. These days, the campaign ate up most of his time and the rest was given over to Ben and Harenn. Bedj-ka, too, for that matter. Maybe he and Ben could invite Grandmother Mee up for dinner.

  “If you two don’t need me tonight,” Gretchen said, “I’ll head home.”

  Tan gave assent, and Gretchen trotted off toward the monorail station.

  “Don’t know how you do it,” Tan rasped as the drawbridge ahead of her lowered itself.

  “Do what?” Kendi said.

  “Inspire people that way. Woman made three-quarters of a mil on that game. Between that and her future royalties, she could retire. But she still wants to guard you.”

  Kendi’s face grew warm. “I think it keeps her busy. Takes her mind off being Silenced, you know?”

  “I do know,” Tan said grimly and stood aside so Kendi could enter the house.

  The sound of many voices engaged in conversation met their ears. They encountered Lars sitting alone in the living room. He merely nodded as they passed. In the kitchen they found a lively group gathered around the table. Ben, Bedj-ka, Harenn, Martina, and Keith were playing a card game. Hands of holographic cards hovered in front of each player. Martina flicked one and it fled to the discard pile. Bedj-ka brushed it with his finger and it rose to join his own hand. Lucia was at a counter mixing something in a bowl. Kendi stuck his finger into the mixture out of general principle and Lucia rapped his knuckles with her spoon.

  “Wash your hands first,” she said. “How did the speech go?”

  Kendi licked his finger. Salty and spicy, with a sour cream base. Had to be some kind of snack dip. “Fine. I’m wiped, though.”

  Tan leaned against the door jamb. “The High Court ruled the mining restrictions invalid.”

  “We heard,” Harenn said. She had just started her second trimester, and was showing. Ben said she was already fending off guerrilla attacks from total strangers who wanted to rub her stomach. Ben himself was looking more relaxed and happy than Kendi had seen him in a long time. No one had contacted them about the contents of the stolen disk in the past three months, and Ben had finally written it off as a random mugging, just as Kendi had.

  “I assume Senator Reza is unhappy,” Harenn added.

  “Good guess.” Kendi kissed Ben hello, then impulsively kissed Harenn’s cheek as well. “Mom,” he said. Harenn laughed. Her face was rounder these days.

  “Ew!” Bedj-ka said, and discarded.

  “Keep the comments to yourself, junior,” Kendi said.

  “Less talk, more play,” Keith said. “I’m up ten points.”

  Lucia set the bowl of dip on the table along with another bowl filled with deep-fried ben-yai leaves. Several hands went at once to the treats and the crunching began. Kendi sat on the counter, surveying all these people in his home. Children would only increase the size of the crowd. But everyone here, with the exception of quiet Lars, was someone Kendi considered family. The idea of his and Ben’s house becoming the hub of an extended family network filled him with a joy he couldn’t describe.

  “Did you have dinner?” Lucia asked. “I’ve noticed Petrie isn’t big on keeping you fed.”

  “I can call Maureen’s,” Kendi said.

  Lucia waved a hand at him. “Sit, mighty Father. We have leftover mickey spike pot roast and gravy. I baked bread this morning, and Ben didn’t eat all the fruit salad, so I’d say you’re good for a hot sandwich with gravy and a fruit cup.”

  “Your drippings gravy?” Kendi said. His mouth was watering.

  “Of course.”

  “We must do something to keep this wondrous woman around,” Kendi remarked to no one in particular. “Maybe we should—”

  “n alarm buzzed through the room. The talk fell silent as everyone looked around, trying to locate the source. Abruptly Ben bolted to his feet and ran from the kitchen. Kendi followed. He didn’t recognize the sound, but the expression on Ben’s face left no doubt that it was bad news.

  Ben ran into his den and grabbed the star-shaped cryo-unit from his desk. It was buzzing unhappily. Ben tapped at the controls, then glanced up at Kendi, face pale.

  “What’s wrong?” Kendi demanded.

  “One
of the embryos is degrading,” Ben said. “It’s going to die soon.”

  “All life,” Kendi whispered. Implications flashed through his mind. The dying one was only a single embryo out of the ten left. Cryo-embryos degraded and died all the time, and it was a small miracle that these had survived so long. But Kendi knew all the embryos were important to Ben, that he wanted to give life to each one. To Ben, losing one of these embryos would be like losing a child.

  “Is there anything we can do?” Kendi said.

  “How much time is left?” Lucia asked behind him.

  Ben checked the reading. He looked ready to cry. “An hour, maybe less.”

  “Then we’ll have to hurry,” she said briskly. “Harenn! Can you make the call? We need to run.”

  “On it,” Harenn called from the kitchen.

  Lucia grabbed Kendi by the arm and towed him toward the front door, gesturing for Ben to follow. “Move!” she said. “Quick!”

  “Call who?” Kendi said, bewildered. “Run where?”

  “The medical center,” Lucia said. “There’s only one way I know of to save that embryo.”

  “Implant it,” Ben said.

  Forty-five minutes later, Lucia lay draped in green on a medical table with Ben and Kendi standing beside her. Dr. McCall’s plump fingers worked with quick efficiency, examining Lucia and readying the implantation equipment. The room was eerily quiet. A light on the cryo-unit flashed a frantic warning—Ben had silenced the buzzing alarm. Kendi swallowed. Last time they had visited this room, the atmosphere had been cheerful and optimistic. Now it was grim and filled with worry.

  “I think we’re ready,” Dr. McCall said. She opened the cryo-unit with a hiss of escaping steam, plucked a frozen ampule from among the ten still contained inside, and inserted it into the implantation device. “Please relax, Ms. dePaolo. You’ll feel a slight pressure but no pain.”