Randoms (23 page)

“Because he can,” she said. “I don't belong to a caste, Zeke. Not anymore, and that means I have to obey the leader o
f the highest caste in my community. That's Ardov. According to our law, I have to do what he says, provided he doesn't tell me to hurt or degrade myself or others. If I don't obey him, I'll be arrested as soon as I get home, regardless of how well I do here. I pretended it doesn't bother me, because that was the only defense I had.”

I didn't know anything about the caste system in her culture. She had never wanted to talk about it before, and I wasn't about to start asking her to explain it. I felt like I understood the main points, even if I didn't know how she had ended up in such a vulnerable position.

“And ‘snowflake,' since you are so clueless, is an insult. Maybe you noticed no one else in our delegation has my coloring.”

“No one else in my delegation has mine,” I said.

She scrunched up her face. “I guess. Now that you mention it.”

It was crazy that differences in skin color had caused so
much misery and pain on my world, yet to Tamret the range from Charles's dark brown to my sunless pink was hardly noticeable.

“Is white, uh, fur so unusual? Is it an ethnic thing?”

“No.” She shook her head. “It's a recessive trait. Maybe five percent of the population is born looking like this. In some cultures we're actually considered good luck, if you can believe it.” She brushed hair away from her face, but then let it fall back, obscuring her eyes. “Not my culture. We aren't treated kindly. And Ardov is from a well-connected family with a lot of relatives in the leadership caste. He considered my being part of the delegation an insult to him and his family. That's why he acted the way he did. So I pretended not to care, and the first chance I had, I messed with him by hacking his account. But it got out of hand. Which is what you saw when you were spying on me.”

“I wasn't spying,” I said, feeling myself blush. “When I saw you two together in the hall tonight, I had a bad feeling. I thought I should check it out.”

“I know. I'm sorry I didn't talk to you about this before. I was, I don't know, embarrassed, I guess.” She put a hand on mine. “I won't forget what you did for me. Anything you need. Anytime. Any reason. You name it.”

“You don't have to thank me,” I said, feeling my face burn. “I'm your friend.”

“I know you are, and I know what it means.” She took a long drink. “My father worked for the housing authority in our city-state. When I was eight, the real estate market pretty much collapsed. There were a lot of reasons, I guess—the economy and all that. I don't really understand it, but I know it wasn't any one person's fault, but they needed people to blame. One
of those people was my father. He'd never done anything but serve as he had been asked to serve, but they arrested him. I still don't know if he was killed or sent to a gulag.”

“I'm sorry.” It was a pathetic thing to say, but there was nothing else.

“He and my mother married pretty young. And she was so in love with him.” She smiled when she said this and looked off, like she was remembering something. “It was embarrassing to me, you know, to see how much they loved each other. Holding hands and kissing all the time. And when they took my father away, she couldn't accept it, you know? People who disappear like my father don't come back, not ever, but my mother wrote letters and spoke at civic meetings. I didn't know anything about how things worked, but I knew she was making a mistake. I wanted to tell her that he was gone. She couldn't get him back, and she had a daughter, a
snowflake
daughter, who needed her, but I couldn't say it, because I wanted him back too, and because I didn't want to face what I knew was true: I wasn't enough for her. If he was gone, then I wasn't reason enough for her to live.”

“Tamret,” I said. “You don't have to tell me this.”

“Yes, I do. You need to understand.” She paused for a moment, her eyes distant. “So, no surprise, they took her. When she was arrested, I became an orphan according to our laws. I lost my parents' status and caste. And because she held our housing permit, I had to leave our home. She was dead or in a gulag—I didn't know—and I had nowhere to live and nothing to eat. Children without parents don't exist, and I was a snowflake, so there was no one lower than I was. Things were going to end up very bad for me.”

She was crying now, the silent tears streaming from her eyes. I took her hand and she squeezed it.

“My friends let me live with them,” she said. “Some of them had parents who were sympathetic, and they were kind to me. But I couldn't stay with one family too long, because of the risk. Sometimes I had to hide in basements and closets and under floorboards when people were home. I lived that way for three years, and I knew that I was never going to be anything but a burden to the people I cared about unless I could figure out a way to change things. Little things. Secret things. I learned my way around computer systems so I could shift things around, help the people who were helping me. And when the government started cracking down on dissident kids, and some of my friends got caught in the net, I was not going to let them rot behind bars or face the silencing squads without at least trying to help them. But I got caught. My government is a lot more worried about security than they are here. Anyhow, that's why I was in prison when Dr. Roop came for us.”

She wiped at her face and sniffed and seemed to will herself to stop crying. And like that, she was done. “I wouldn't still be alive without friends, so please understand that my friends are everything to me. Then I left the friends I had behind. I came here in a ship with three Rarels who hate me. I was all alone, and then I met Steve.” She grinned. “When I first saw him, I thought he was a terrifying monster, and then he opened his mouth, and about ten minutes later he was like the best friend I'd ever had.”

I nodded. “I know exactly what you mean.”

“And then you,” she said, her eyes cast downward.

“And then me.”

“This is an amazing place,” she said. “These Confederation types are the most wonderful creatures, but I think maybe you and your green data collector are right. We've been brought here for some reason, and I know that things aren't going to be calm forever. But I have my friends, and if you and me and Steve stick together, I think we are going to be okay.”

•   •   •

We didn't talk on the train back to the government compound. We didn't need to say anything. We sat in our seats, swaying with the movement, looking out the window, feeling the alien and comforting warmth of each other's presence.

I walked her to her room, and we stood in the hall outside her door in the dim night-cycle light. She took both my hands in both of hers. “This was a good night,” she said. “You rescued me.”

“I pushed some buttons.”

“You rescued me,” she said again, smiling shyly, turning away just a little.

Tamret was clever and wild and a little frightening—maybe more than a little frightening. I felt like I could spend a day, a week, doing nothing but watching her, looking at her fur, her ears, her face, thinking about how it was like and unlike a human's. I was fascinated by her, and there was no point in pretending otherwise, but was that enough? Could I just like her and admire her and want to be with her without wanting to change the way things were?

Then I thought that the time was running out. We'd started with a year, but the days and weeks would slip away. What if she liked me too? Did I really want, years from now, to look back and think about what I should have done if only I hadn't been afraid to risk—what? Feelings? Discomfort? I'd destroyed a
starship, and I'd defeated a bully with ten times my strength. Was I really too scared to tell a girl I liked her?

“Tamret,” I said.

Her eyes locked on mine.

“Oi!” Steve shouted. He was hurrying down the hallway, cinching his bathrobe. “I just got your message, mate.”

I couldn't quite keep the irritation out of my voice. “What, the one that said, ‘Help! Come right now!' that I sent like three hours ago?”

“I'm a deep sleeper. It's the Ish-hi way. Everything all right, then?”

“It is now,” Tamret told him. “Zeke saved me.”

“I helped her out a little,” I said.

“By saving me,” she said.

“So,” he mused, “all this waking me up was for nothing, then?”

“No, not for nothing.” She now took Steve's hands in hers. Just the way she had held mine. “I'm glad you showed up. Eventually. After everything was all over. But you showed up because you're my friend.”

“Right,” he said. “All right, then. Looks like there's nothing left but the talking, so I'm going back to bed.”

Tamret let go of Steve and opened her door. She slipped partway into the darkness. “Good night, boys.”

Boys. The two of us. Equal. I was such an idiot.

I watched as she shut the door, and I thought of everything I wished I had said. I wished I had told her how I felt, though I wasn't sure that even I knew. I wanted to tell her that I was there for her. I was her friend. Anything she needed. Anytime. I wished I had told her, but I'd waited too long.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I
slept little that night, replaying the fight with Ardov in my head. And going out with Tamret. That too. I felt like I was examining every word of our conversation, reading it like it was all in code and I had to decipher it. I remembered everything I said, and I cringed, thinking of a thousand ways I could have said it better, made myself seem cooler or more interesting.

Just after dawn, a knock at the door interrupted my sleeplessness. Charles was curled up on his bed, and he stirred a little. I was awake, and hoping maybe it was Tamret.

It wasn't Tamret. It was Dr. Roop.

He was fully dressed and had the gravest expression I'd ever seen on a giraffe creature. “I must speak with you.”

I went back in, threw on some jeans and a T-shirt, and followed him to his office. He sat in his chair at the other side of his desk and looked at me with huge dark eyes. “Do you have something you want to tell me?”

At this point there was probably a whole lot more I didn't want to tell him, so I figured I'd play this as smoothly as possible. “Not really,” I said. Very deft.

He sighed and lowered his long neck. Then he pointed in the general direction of his snout. “Do I appear to be foolish in your eyes?”

“Not as such,” I said, but I was still not sure what he was
getting at. He could be talking about the incident in the sparring room or about leaving the compound after curfew. Maybe I was forgetting something. I was breaking the rules with such regularity that I was having trouble keeping up with myself.

“Ardov spent much of the night in the medical facility,” Dr. Roop said. “He claims he was in the sparring room, and he set the parameters too high with the sims.”

Oh, right. The cringing and wounded Ardov. I had forgotten all about him because I was too busy trying to figure out how to talk about my feelings with an alien neko.

I thought I might as well do something that wasn't entirely pathetic. I told Dr. Roop the truth. “That's not what happened.”

“I
know
that is not what happened,” Dr. Roop said, “because I reviewed the log images.”

“What was I supposed to do?” I demanded. “Let him hurt Tamret?”

“Of course helping Tamret was the right thing to do, but I don't understand why you didn't message me. You may recall that talk we had? You were supposed to trust me.”

At the time it had never occurred to me to call Dr. Roop, but now that was kind of hard to explain. “Things were kind of crazy. I needed to do something, not wait.”

“I am familiar with the concept of the ‘snitch,'” he said. “But Ardov was hurting another delegate. Then you left him alone, without calling for medical attention, after you knew he'd been hurt.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“Right now, your infractions are the least of my problems. As for Ardov, there is no way to banish him without destroying the Rarel delegation's chances. I've had a long talk with him
to make sure he understands the consequences of his actions, but he doesn't strike me as the sort of being who is overly concerned with consequences.” He rubbed at his horns with one hand. “The selection committee really left me quite a mess.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “You've been a good friend, and I've made your life more difficult.”

“Next time, come to me with anything,” he said. “I'm on your side, Zeke.” He waved me off with one hand. I was halfway out the door when he said, “Oh, and please try not to break curfew again. If you don't mind.”

•   •   •

Ardov didn't come to class that morning, but Steve and Tamret and I passed him in the hall that evening when we were heading out for dinner. The healing facility had done its work, and he showed no sign of the beating he'd taken.

He paused, looked at Tamret, and made some weird spiraling gesture with his hands. “I have treated you badly. I beg your forgiveness.” There was no sign of sarcasm or hostility in his voice. Was it possible that Dr. Roop had actually scared him into reforming himself? Yes, there was a chance, but there was an even better chance that he was simply waiting for the opportunity to strike at us.

•   •   •

The three of us had booked time in the ship simulation suite for the next night, but when we got there, Charles, Nayana, and Mi Sun were just showing up as well. Charles, I noted, had finally risen to level ten.

“Look.” Steve pointed at them. “The primates are here.”

“Hey!” I said.

“You're one of the good ones,” he told me.

“There's no need to be uncivil,” Charles told Steve.

“We only have the suite for two hours,” Mi Sun said. “Let's not waste our time bickering with the randoms.”

Tamret put her hands on her waist. “Good call. You should use your time trying to learn how to operate a ship instead. For all the good it will do you.”

“You cannot intimidate us,” Charles said, gesturing toward the number ten floating above his head. “You enjoy name calling, but there's not one of you above level nine.”

“Have you ever considered that we simply haven't leveled our points yet?” Tamret asked.

“I don't see why you would do that.”

Tamret smirked, like she had a secret. “You never know.”

“What I know,” said Nayana, “is that the three of you are never going to catch up, so the normal delegates have to pick up the slack.”

I held up my hands in a
we come in peace
gesture. “We're all just trying to do what's right for our planets,” I said. “I know none of this is personal. We all want our delegations to get our eighty levels. I know you think leaving me out is the best way to do it. I don't agree, but I understand it. So how about we end hostilities?”

“He's trying to keep us out of the simulation,” said Nayana. “He figures if we keep talking, we'll lose our reservation.”

“He's trying to be friendly,” Tamret said. “If you weren't so stuck up, you'd see that.”

“Put your animal on a leash,” Nayana snapped.

“Hold on,” I said, stepping forward. “That's not cool.”

“Then tell her to stop meowing at me.” Nayana sniffed and turned up her chin.

“How about we settle our differences in the simulation room?” Mi Sun suggested. “We'll square off in a battle sequence, and we'll see who is victorious.”

“What are we playing for?” Nayana asked. “This needs to be worth my while.”

“Honor?” Steve suggested. “Let me know if your universal translator got that one. I know it may be a tough concept for your species.”

“Steve, you do know I am one of them, right?”

“Just go with it,” he said.

“You're so eager to take us on,” Nayana said, “because you've got Zeke. He's the only one of you who's worth anything. You'd never dare to take us on if he came over to our side.”

“We'd be down a man, wouldn't we?” Steve said.

“Then how about me and Zeke against the two of you?” Nayana proposed.

For an instant I liked the idea. It wasn't that I wanted to go up against Steve and Tamret; I had nothing to prove by taking them on, and I didn't want to beat them or be beaten by them. But suddenly Nayana wanted me on her team. I had a chance to be with my own kind, to prove once and for all that I was a valuable member of the delegation.

Then reality set in. No matter what happened, I was never going to be one of them. It was wishful thinking to believe otherwise. “No way,” I said.

I looked over at Tamret. Her eyes were narrowed and her jaw was set. She had seen my moment of indecision. She had seen that I'd been tempted to throw them over and run back to my own species. “I see Ms. Price was right about you,” Tamret said quietly.

“No, she wasn't,” I told her. I then turned to Nayana. “Me and my friends against you and your acquaintances.”

“That works for me,” Nayana said. “We'll use artifact carriers. And the winner gets all the experience points. The loser gets docked an equal amount.”

“Winner take all is fine,” I said, “but you can't take someone else's points.”

“The kitty cat knows how,” Nayana sneered. “Ardov told me that she was siphoning off his points, which means she can tinker with the system. So let's play with real stakes.”

“Works for me.” Tamret folded her arms across her chest and glared at Nayana. “The winning team splits the points between them. The losing team gets an equal penalty.”

“Forget it,” I told her. “You are not doing that. You'll get caught, and then you're out of here. That doesn't help you or the Rarels. It's not worth it.”

“I won't get caught,” she said. “And your human friends have to promise not to tell.”

“You can't trust them,” I said. “We're a totally untrustworthy species.”

“I guess you are,” Tamret said, glaring at me, “but I'll take my chances.”

“This is not necessary,” Charles said. “It is dishonest, and I don't wish to see anyone get into trouble.”

“I don't see why this is worth breaking the rules,” Mi Sun agreed.

“We're doing it,” Nayana said. “I want to put these losers in their place once and for all.”

Everyone was against this except Tamret and Nayana, and yet somehow we were all going ahead with it.

•   •   •

We went into our suites and synched our systems, which would drop us on opposite sides of a gas giant orbited by twelve moons, which ranged in size from a large asteroid to atmosphered worlds larger than the Earth. Both teams were to be in artifact carriers—so called because they were often used to whisk Former artifacts away to safety as soon as they were discovered. These vessels were not much larger than transport shuttles, built for speed and defense. They were reasonably well armed and had powerful shielding and tunnel drives. Most importantly, they could easily be manned by three beings.

It was never in doubt that Steve would take command. He had defeated Nayana before, and we were counting on him to do it again. He also took the helm position. I was on his right, operating the weapons console. Tamret, on his left, was running navigation and comm. Once the sim kicked in and our HUDs created the illusion of being on a real artifact carrier, we were spaced a little farther apart, but I was happy to see our positions remained more or less the same, particularly since I was not next to Tamret. She was still angry I'd considered Nayana's offer, if only for a second.

As soon as we dropped in, Steve worked the console and angled us up hard as he hit the throttle. I felt a slight pressure as the inertial compensators kicked in, knowing they were the only reason we were not jelly on the backs of our seats—or would be if this were real rather than simulated. Steve then turned us hard to port and gave it more speed. “I love how these things handle,” he said dreamily. I had a sudden and clear vision of Steve the reptilian car thief.

“Oh, and check for the enemy,” he said as he dipped suddenly
downward, moving us dangerously close to an ice moon's gravity well.

“Let's see where they're hiding,” Tamret said as she worked her console, searching for Nayana's ship.

“You want to take it easy?” I said as Steve suddenly banked hard to port. “I'm not going to be much use to you if I'm puking.”

“I'm sure even puking you can thump those tossers,” he said, and then pulled up fast at an uncomfortably steep angle.

“Found them,” Tamret said. “Sending coordinates to your consoles.”

An outline image came up at once of Nayana's ship, which was still a good fifteen thousand miles distant. We were down near the gas giant's south pole; they were circling above the north.

“If we see them, they see us,” I said. I checked my data bracelet. “The clock's ticking, and if this ends up a tie, it will be a waste of time for everyone.”

“Right,” Steve said. “Tamret, can you check that sun for unusual activity?”

“Sure.” Then, after a minute, she said, “Yeah, this star is really flaring. How'd you know?”

“Thought I recognized that planet,” Steve said. “I ran this exact sim with Dr. Roop a few days ago. He showed me a little trick. How long until the next radiation spike?”

“Two minutes, seventeen seconds,” she said.

“Zeke, have we got missiles?”

“No,” I said. “They're not standard on artifact carriers. This ship is made for speed and safety, not fighting back.”

“Too bad,” he said. “Maybe this won't work.” He smacked the console. “Except it will if we have a plasma lance.”

I checked. “Yeah, but it's designed for minimal cabling. Six miles in vacuum.”

“Not nearly enough,” he said.

“Enough for what?”

“Hold on,” Steve said, ignoring me. “You know how the cables on plasma lances work, right?”

“Sure,” I said. I'd tried to learn as much as I could about ship weaponry after being branded a war criminal and all. “It's some kind of quantum effect. They convert the ambient atoms floating in space into solid matter.”

“If we were on a physical surface, like one of these moons, would we be able to produce more than six miles of cable?”

I checked the calculations. “Yeah,” I said. “With enough engine power, we could produce hundreds of miles of cable, no problem.”

“We won't need hundreds, but we'll need quite a bit,” he said. “Here's my idea. We're going to go to the far side of that icy moon here, and the instant the solar energy spikes, we're going to drop straight down. With a little luck, the radiation will conceal us, and to them we'll have simply vanished. They'll likely need a minute or so to figure out what we've done, but by then we'll be on the moon's surface, and we'll have cut power.”

“If we cut power, we'll die,” I noted.