Reclamation (25 page)

Eric jerked backward half a step. “How did you …”

Ross waved dismissively. “It was one of the first things our observation team noticed. Everybody’s got legends about telekinesis, or telepathy, or any of a whole host of extrasensory perception and skills. But nowhere, except on MG49 sub 1, can they be performed on a macroscopic level, on command, by a significant portion of the population. There’re other proofs, too, if you want them. Your people were not born, Sar Born. They were made.”

No!
shouted a voice in the back of his mind.
We were named by the Nameless! “The Nameless spoke of the People then. They named Royal, Noble, Bondless, Bonded, and Notouch. Each life they named became Truth and took up its place in their Realm
…” He silenced the voice harshly.

When he could finally speak again, he said, “If we’re not Family, what are you doing there? Why don’t you leave us … them in peace?”

Ross leaned across her desk. “Because while you yourselves are not Family, you are part of the family legacy, like Dorias. We need to understand you so we can welcome you properly.” She looked at him and her eyes were intense. “And you can be sure we will welcome you, where the Vitae will only enslave you.”

“You really are a believer, aren’t you?” His voice was heavy with exhaustion. This was too much all at once. Far too much.

“Yes,” she said without hesitation.

“Even though you know you’ve started a war?”

“I didn’t start the war. Isolation from the Human Family started that war.” Ice glittered in her eyes. “Reunion will end it.”

Eric’s head drooped. “I’m going to ask you one more time, Madame Chairman,” he said toward the carpet. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to speak for the Realm. I want you to say you do not want the Vitae there and that you protest the invasion. I want you to repeat it for broadcast to the Family members and attendant governments. I want you to make life difficult for the Vitae.” She paused. “You know you can see it from here.”

“See what?” asked Eric, confused.

“MG49 sub 1. The Realm of the Nameless Powers. Your sun and its companion are one of the stars in our sky.”

“And?”

“And it’s a crashing funny-looking place, isn’t it?” She touched the inlay on her desk again and Eric, almost involuntarily, looked toward the central screen. The monitor showed an extremely out-of-scale representation of a binary system; a golden primary star looming over a white dwarf. Eric watched their gentle motion. He could remember his father’s stories of
his
father’s delight at the discovery of that companion. It confirmed the Teacher’s assertion that the sun, the suns, were Garismit’s Eyes watching the Realm, as the stars were the eyes of the Nameless, watching from afar.

At the edge of the screen hovered a lopsided planet, rotating gently to display a surface of bare, radiation-burned rock. If he watched long enough, Eric knew, it would eventually display a blur of cloud cover held in place by a ragged circle of mountain. The Realm of the Nameless Powers.

“Just sits there, doesn’t it?” said Ross, resting her elbows on the desk. “All on its own, in a steady orbit around a binary star. No moon, no other planets, not even a gas giant or two for company.”

“Madame Chairman, what are you getting at?” Eric said in a strangled tone.

“I mean the Unifiers make it their business to hunt down unknown worlds. We’re very good at it … but your world … this arrangement is so manifestly unlikely for the production or support of human life that we didn’t even bother to look at it. It was an accident that we found your people at all. One of our spotters calibrated a probe incorrectly.”

Her voice was steady but her eyes practically glowed with eagerness. “You know, there’s only one world we’ve searched for that we couldn’t find.”

“Which is?” Eric tried to keep himself under control. Let Madame Chairman lead him along. Let her play her game out. When she was finished, he would still be standing here and she would have his answer in full.

“The Evolution Point for the Human Family,” she said. “We have been looking for three centuries now and we have come up empty, haven’t we? After three centuries.” She spread her hands. “I think I know why.”

Eric said nothing, he just let her go on.

“Dorias told me that your mythology is founded around the idea that a servant of the gods moved the world to a safe location.” She smiled so wide that he could see her teeth. They were white, clean, and as even as the lines of the Hangar Cliffs. “I think they didn’t just move it, I think they hid it.” She nodded toward the screen again.

“Madame Chairman”—Eric did not let himself look at the screen—“why would anybody want to hide the Evolution Point?”

“To keep it from the Rhudolant Vitae?” she said archly. “Or their ancestors. I can’t say for certain, can I? We haven’t got an overall history of the Quarter Galaxy for ten years ago, let alone three thousand. We do, however, know that engineering a planetary orbit was possible for someone, at some time.” She pointed meaningfully at the ground.

Eric could feel her assurance reaching out to him, as palpable as the touch of a hand.

“You see what it means, don’t you? No one even vaguely connected with the Family would willingly let the Vitae lay sole and whole claim to the Evolution Point and the people on it. Since the Shessel were discovered, safe and sound on their own Evolution Point, there has been a reemergence of interest in the Family for finding ours. Sar Born, speak for your people, the Guardians of the Evolution Point, and you give us all a real fighting chance against the biggest stopping block to the reunion of Human Family. You could put the Vitae back in their place, just by speaking out.”

“And if I don’t,” said Eric, “then what?”

She spread her hands. “Then nothing, Sar Born. You have the use of the room and will have use of all the nets as soon as your IDs are cleared. You are my guest. I, on the other hand, am Chairman of the Unifiers and I will harry the Vitae in whatever way I can until I find out what it is they are trying to do. Why, for instance, they are kidnapping natives from MG49 sub 1.”

Eric’s mind reeled and his sense of balance finally failed. Forgetting pride, he collapsed into the nearest chair. Ross didn’t take her attention off him. Despite that, he curled his fists around his palms and pressed his knuckles against his trouser legs. He remembered looking toward First City’s walls and thinking
if you will break the law, I will break it more grandly and more permanently than you ever could,
and wishing his father could hear him, and then he remembered the tears that mixed with the icy rain, because part of him still wanted to run home and find out that none of what he had seen had happened.

He stared at the smooth, unmarked backs of his hands and fought to remember it had been ten years since he had told the Realm to go drown itself. Ten years of making his own life unburdened by the laws of the Nameless and the conflicts they bred. It was a freedom he could not, would not, just toss aside.

“Madame Chairman, I don’t speak for anyone in the Realm. I left there and I have no intention of going back, or of getting myself caught up in whatever war you want to fight with the Vitae. I have business of my own to take care of that will use up my personal resources. I thank you for your hospitality and I hope I shall not have to impose on you for long. I shall pay for what I use, I assure you.” He stood and found his knees held steady.

Ross pressed both palms flat against her desk top. “There is one other thing of which you should be aware, Sar Born.”

Eric held himself still. “Which is?”

“Two unifiers, good people, friends of mine, died when the Vitae kidnapped your kinswoman.”

Eric almost said “she’s not my kin,” but he stopped himself in time.

“There are Trustees and Board members here who want to publicize what those two died for. Do you have any idea what will happen to you, and to your world, if I let them?”

“I am sure, Madame Chairman, you will do exactly as you see fit whenever you see fit,” said Eric. “And that there is nothing I could do or say to stop you.

“May I go now?”

He had to give her credit; she had obviously prepared herself for this possibility. She did nothing more than lean back in an attitude of resignation and wave toward the door.

“You are a free individual, Sar Born, you may come and go as you like. I have no claim on you. Especially since you say you will pay for what you use. One of my clerks will see that your debts are totaled and sent to your room.”

Eric left. Behind him, Ross must have given notice that he was coming out, because the security man was waiting to remove his patches and the floor indicators were lit up with the way back to the courtyard clearly marked. An auto waited for him with the door raised.

He climbed in. The door closed. It was then he realized he had no planet ID to enter to make the thing move.

Eric leaned back in the seat, closed his eyes and began to curse. He did it slowly and methodically, using all the blasphemies in all the languages he knew. He even added some he hadn’t heard since he’d been a student in the Temple. By the time he was finished, the entire complement of the Unifiers, and the Rhudolant Vitae, and their ancestors back seven generations had been maimed, rendered impotent, ripped away from the shelter of any divinity, accused of bestiality, and blasted headfirst into the marshes the Notouch used for toilets.

A slight vibration trembled the soles of his shoes and the car began to move.

Eric’s head jerked up. A voice spoke over the intercom. “Can’t leave you alone for a moment, can I?”

“Dorias.” A wave of relief washed over him followed fast by a wave of anger. “Dorias, were you listening to what your Madame Chairman said?”

“I was. We’ll talk when we get to your room. I’m making it safe for us now.”

They gave me a bugged room?
Eric began cursing through his teeth.
The Vitae first, now the Unifiers. Who do these people think they are?

The car traveled three kilometers’ worth of tidy city blocks and finally parked itself in front of a three-story, brown brick building built like an abstract sculpture made of uneven blocks. The silver cables of access elevators stretched between its widespread wings. The car door raised itself and Eric picked up his bundle. As soon as he stepped onto the pedestrian walkway, the car door closed itself up and the vehicle drove itself away.

A second car pulled up in the spot his had vacated. Eric looked back automatically and saw Schippend heave himself out of the vehicle.

“Sar Born,” he puffed. “I have your IDs, Sar.”

Schippend held out four flat squares of shiny polymer embossed with his name, the location of his ship, and his arrival date. One was labeled for access to public transportation, one for the libraries and other public buildings, one for automatic access to communications networks outside his ship, and one for drawing on the credit he’d been required to transfer to a May 16 account.

Eric tucked the squares into his tunic pocket and sealed it. “Thank you for your help, Sar Schippend.”

“I apologize for the delay.” Schippend’s eyes glittered. “Madame Chairman frequently makes things difficult for people who don’t give her her own way.”

“Does she?” said Eric carefully.

“And if she is making things difficult for you, Sar Bora, I’ll be glad to help you leave May 16. Immediately.”

Eric’s back stiffened and he wasn’t able to keep his surprise from showing. He also couldn’t help noticing the greedy look in Schippend’s little blue eyes.

“Thank you for the offer, Sar Schippend,” Eric said. “I’ll have to consider it.”

“I am on the public lines, Sar Born. One is open for you.” Schippend climbed into his car and was gone.

Garismit’s Eyes!
Eric rolled his own toward the heavens. “Anyone else?” he demanded. The street remained quiet, except for the traffic rushing past.

The hotel did not have a main doorway. Instead, the hatches for six separate access elevators faced the sidewalk. Eric slid his ID card into the labeled slot and a door opened to let him inside. He watched the shiny, gold walls as the elevator rose for about thirty seconds, glided sideways, then forward, then rose again. He did not touch the key that would have turned the cabin translucent and allowed him to see the panorama of the City of Alliances spread across its perfectly flat field.

When the door opened, it led to a comfortably furnished room, about twice the size of the common room on the
U-Kenai.
Instead of a window, the outer wall was taken up by an elaborate comm center, with all its keys labeled in three different languages.

“Very nice.” Eric dropped his pack on a table.

He sat in the comm screen’s chair and tried not to squirm while it adjusted to fit the contours of his body. He opened the line to Dorias’s home space.

The screen filled with the blur of shifting colors cut by rippling, horizontal lines that was Dorias’s idea of a self-portrait.

“Hello, Teacher Hand,” Dorias said, and the lines jumped, matching the frequency and intensity of his voice. Dorias had never completely dropped Eric’s title. You taught me I could make my own choices, Dorias had said. I choose to remember your earned name.

“Hello, Dorias. I hope you’re doing well,” he added with more than a trace of irony to his tone.

“Quite,” replied Dorias blandly. “Better than you are, I think.” He paused. “Eric, I’m sorry. I didn’t know this would happen.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” Eric slumped and the chair undulated against his spine. “I’m sure Madame Chairman didn’t give you any reason to be alarmed about what might happen once I got here.”

“Teacher Hand, that is unfair.”

“Is it?” asked Eric bitterly. “Your friend is a schemer and a fanatic, Dorias.”

“Of course she is,” replied Dorias calmly. “It’s fanatics who get caught up in events like this. Normal people know when to give up and go home.”

“Thank you very much,” Eric muttered.

“You were the one who told me the power gifted were trained to be fanatics in the Temple.”

“I know. I know.” He sighed. “What are you doing here, Dorias? What could you possibly want with these people?”