Stardoc (40 page)

That didn’t make me feel better.

“Do you recognize this, Dr. Grey Veil?” I inspected the anonymous tag on the empty specimen vial I was handed. “Is this identical to the sample Dr. Mayer tested? The same blood used to inoculate Pilot Torin during the epidemic?”

Yes, yes, yes.

They never asked whose blood it was. Incredibly I was asked instead to confirm my shift hours, which rotations I’d worked at the facility, the number of times I’d pulled more than one shift. Were they thinking about putting me on per-hour compensation? I wondered. After that, they started asking me about off-duty time.

“When Pilot Torin arrived on planet from his last escort assignment, did you meet him at Docking Station Sixteen?”

My spine stiffened. This was getting into very personal territory. I nodded.

“Did you then accompany Pilot Torin to his housing quarters?”

“I don’t see how-“

“Answer the question.”

My hands clenched. “Yes.”

“After you entered Pilot Torin’s quarters, did you engage in sexual intercourse with him?”

I checked. Yes, they were serious. “That’s none of your damn business!” I said.

“Answer the question.”

“I’m not going to-“

“Answer the question.”

I folded my arms over my knotted stomach. “I refuse.”

Two of the panel members conferred for a moment.

“Very well.” The questioning veered away from Kao and on to other incidents. The whump-ball game with poor Akamm. The assault by Rogan. The Hsktskt quints.

I had to corroborate the events of every single cycle I had spent on K-2 since the Bestshot landed. The only other time I refused to answer again was when I was asked about having relations with Duncan Reever in the Isolation chamber.

“Why are you so interested in my sex life?”

No one answered me.

I was dismissed after ten hours of interview, and ordered to return to the conference area the following day. I was less than enraptured at the prospect. A Security officer drove me to my housing unit. He refused to speak to me or respond to any questions.

I wasn’t afraid. I was terrified. Also confused, suspicious, and outraged. Something enormous was looming just ahead, I sensed. But what?

Outside my quarters, a familiar figure hovered. I was surprised; I’d never seen one of them alone before.

I walked past the Barterman, but he forced his way into my rooms before I could get the door panel closed.

“Get out.”

“Colonist Grey Veil, you will barter?”

“Leave.” I was already at the display and signalling HQ Administration.

“Barter for safe passage off K-2?”

I delayed the signal for a moment. “Safe passage?”

The hood was pushed back from the square skull. The Barterman’s features were contorted by some weird expression of victory. Or maybe he was feeling flatulent. I couldn’t be sure.

“Barter for entirety of possessions. Offer is safe passage to neighboring world in immediate system.”

“Why would the Bartermen be offering me safe passage?” I inquired. “Out of the goodness of your hearts?”

“Bartermen do not have hearts.”

“No kidding.” Get the little troll out of my quarters, that was what I needed to do. The offer it made-“You know something you’re not telling me, don’t you?”

I received a smug leer. “Bartermen know much.”

“Why would I desire safe passage off this planet, Barterman?”

“Avoid League detainment.”

“They’re just questioning me because of the epidemic,” I said, and eyed the Barterman. “Aren’t they?”

“Barter?”

“Answer me!”

The Barterman said nothing.

“I refuse,” I said, then turned back to the console. “HQ Administration, I have an intruder in my quarters-“ I looked back, and the Barterman had disappeared. I shook my head. “Oh, never mind.”

A Security officer appeared the next morning to escort me. The questioning continued. The chart for every case I had treated was now brought forward, my notes reviewed. They were meticulous. I wanted to scream. Good thing my voice failed to a husky rasp from uttering my responses, or I would have. I was “allowed” a “brief period of rest” before the panel started hammering me again. A whole fifteen minutes. Their benevolence was touching.

I endured four consecutive days of this nonsense before the panel at last informed me I was through. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I laughed. I stopped laughing. I demanded again to know why I had been questioned so precisely.

All I got was, “Dr. Grey Veil. You are dismissed.”

I went straight to HQ Administration. I was Terran, I knew my rights. When I arrived at Ana Hansen’s office, I was turned away by her assistant.

“Administrator Hansen is currently in interview,” I was told, but Negilst’s eyes were frightened.

All I could do was wait. Not long, either. When I reported to the FreeClinic, I was detained by yet another Security officer and ordered to report to a League starshuttle the next morning.

“What for?” I asked, and I was handed a disc.

I took it back into an exam room and pulled up the data. After a quick scan I was speechless. The Barterman had been right after all. I removed the disc and strode to the MedAdmin section.

Dr. Mayer was reviewing charts when I opened his door without knocking and tossed the disc onto his desk.

“I’m being deported. Taken back to Terra,” I said, while he put down a chart to pick up the disc.

“Courtesy of the League.”

“That’s not possible.” ‘t

“Read the disc.”

While Dr. Mayer examined the order of detainment and deportation, I paced the narrow confines of his office. It was a closet. I was surprised he wasn’t a raving claustrophobic.

“There is no explanation listed. They can’t force you to return to Terra, unless you are a criminal.”

“I am.”

“Explain.”

“Joseph Grey Veil’s experimentation,” I said, “and his precious Genetic Exclusivity Act. My existence violates Section nine, paragraphs two through four, I believe. Someone knows about me.”

“I see.” Mayer removed the disc, and his strong fingers snapped it into four pieces. I stopped pacing.

“We will not, of course, allow your parent to do this.”

“What does he have to do with this? He wouldn’t report me. That would be like telling on himself.”

“Now that his field research has concluded, he wants you back.”

That looming sense of revelation was here now. “Field research?” I said.

“Cherijo, sit down.” I dropped into the chair before his desk, and braced myself. He was calling me Cherijo, it must be pretty bad. “I’ve been performing my own investigation of your transfer, from the moment you arrived. Yesterday I discovered the real reason why your application was approved. Your father is responsible for you transferring to K-2.”

“Hardly. He didn’t even know about my transfer until after I arrived here.”

“On the contrary, he did.” Mayer sat back in his chair and folded his hands, then hesitated.

“Tell me,” I said.

“Before you filed your application, he contracted with PQSGO to have you transferred here to K-2.

You have been kept under constant remote drone observation since you arrived. Security vids, audio monitoring, the lot. He probably tapped into your terminal use as well. AH sanctioned by the League.”

That explained how they had knowledge of everything I had done from the moment I’d set foot on K-2.

Some remote drones could be as small as Terran roaches. I would have never seen them.

Dr. Mayer went on. “Yesterday I was contacted by one of my more influential friends in the League. He warned me not to become involved in the matter. I demanded the facts. This is what I was told.”

There could be only one reason. “It’s all been part of his experiment, hasn’t it? That cold-blooded son of a bitch.” I gripped the sides of my chair with tight hands. “He sent me the anonymous package with all the evidence about his experiment.”

“No doubt it was part of his plan. He chose K-2 as a viable site for the experiment to continue. Your life here has been just another series of tests to confirm his theories.”

“How his perfect physician would perform under stressful conditions in an alien environment,” I said.

“Who else is involved?”

“No one here on the colony, I believe. Your parent would not have wanted to risk discovery. Even when he was a student, Joe was intensely guarded about his experiments.”

“And now he wants this experiment back.”

“Yes, I’m afraid he does.”

“I’ve never done anything he hadn’t planned for me to do, have I?” I stared at my hands, at the bruises and cuts from my fight with Reever. “So much for my magnificent get away.”

“You couldn’t have known.”

“He had it all plotted. Hell, he probably forecasted my reactions. Ran statistical analysis of the probability of every variable.”

“He didn’t predict the epidemic.”

I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “He must have figured some type of exotic bug would take a shot at my immune system.”

“Joe is an exceptional scientist,” Mayer said, but not with admiration. “He remains a poor excuse for a human being.”

I thought of the direct communications from Terra, the act he had put on, the mental anguish I’d suffered.

All for nothing. “Yeah, well, Joe can go to hell.”

“There’s undoubtably a large section reserved for his exclusive occupation.” Mayer gazed steadily at me. “What will you do?”

I stared at the broken disc between us. “What can I do?”

“Put a stop to this. Petition the Council with an emergency request and have yourself declared a sentient being.”

I was dumbfounded. “I’m not considered sentient?”

Mayer smiled bitterly. “No, my dear. You are a clone. Created, modified, trained, and being observed during an extended experiment. You are not classified as human or sentient. You are Joseph Grey Veil’s property.”

Dr. Mayer accompanied me to HQ Administration to demand an emergency hearing before the Council.

I never knew the chief could drive like that. On the way over he signaled Assessment from his glidecar and told the charge nurse to round up everyone who worked regular shifts with me and send along whoever could be spared.

“Cheering section?” I asked.

“Character attestants,” he said. “They can cheer after we win a favorable ruling.”

The clerk who examined our hastily prepared petition frowned. His six eyes looked at both of us as though questioning our sanity.

“She’s sentient, isn’t she?” The clerk yawned and dropped the disc on his-desk. He was a bherKot and slipping into a pre-nocturnal state of relaxation, his colors fluctuating slowly. “Humans are classified-“

“She’s not human,” Mayer said. “File the petition.”

“The Council is finished with the day’s-“

I grabbed the disc and looked around me. “I don’t have time for this. Where are they?”

The bherKot managed to get to his feet and grumbled as he snatched the disc back and led us down a side corridor.

“They aren’t going to like this,” he said as he signaled the entrance panel. The chief shouldered past him and stepped up to the audiocom.

“This is William Mayer. You must hear this petition at once. Lives are at stake.” I lifted an eyebrow, and my boss shrugged. “Lives could be lost,” he added in a mutter that wouldn’t transmit. “Especially if I lose one-sixth of my physician staff.”

“Nice touch.”

The Council granted us access, and we marched in.

“Drs. Grey Veil and Mayer, welcome.” Council Chief Douglas seemed bemused. “How may we assist you?” Dr. Mayer offered the petition disc and gave a brief description of its contents. Douglas’s smile faded rapidly. “If Dr. Grey Veil is not human,” he said, then cleared his throat. “Er - exactly what is she?”

“As a being genetically enhanced during embryonic development,” Dr. Mayer said, “she is currently unclassified under the standard system.”

“Why have you brought this matter before the Council?” one of the other members wanted to know.

“What does it matter whether she is classified today?”

I answered that one. “If you don’t recognize me as a sentient being, I will be forcibly removed from this planet tomorrow.”

“Deported? For what reason?”

That was when one of the Allied investigators strode into the room.

“The Allied League of Worlds wishes to present an emergency petition,” he said as he approached Douglas.

j

Behind him, a detachment of armed guards spread out to surround me and Dr. Mayer. “Detainment and deportation of a non-sentient to its owner and planet of origin.”

Gee, wonder who he was talking about?

“I assume you refer to Dr. Grey Veil?” Douglas inquired as he took the disc with the second petition.

“The petition identifies the non-sentient by that designation, yes.”

“Excuse me.” Douglas and the other Council members observed me with little interest. Had I already lost the respect of other sentients? “We were here first.”

“My petition negates the one being presented by Dr. William Mayer.” The Allied investigator was smug.

For him it was already decided.

Douglas may have been Council chief but he was also Terran. I was the embodiment of everything human beings feared: a mutant experiment, artificially conceived, scientifically enhanced. I was surprised the man didn’t immediately award the Allied rep his petition.

That was when the home team arrived.

The chamber door panel slid open again, and a line of medical staffers filed in behind the guards around me and Dr. Mayer. I saw Ecla, Dr. Dloh, Dr. mu Cheft, T’Nliqinara, and even Dr. Crhm from Pathology. Nurses and orderlies who had worked with me during the epidemic. Former patients.

Security officers involved in transporting patients to the groves. Finally there was no more room in the chamber, and a line began to back up and out the door.

I smiled at the Allied rep. See? Even the non-sentient hunk of property has friends. Lots of them.

Nurse Ecla stepped forward and made a particularly cutting gesture. I didn’t know she knew that sort of language. “We are here to speak on Dr. Grey Veil’s behalf.”