Children of Scarabaeus Read online

  A screen surrounded the only occupied bed. Edie couldn’t bring herself to step inside. She viewed the scene through a crack where the screen was slightly open. Despite what she’d braced herself to see, it took her a moment to comprehend. An unconscious child. The waifish face and dark intense brows were all too familiar. As was the faint circular scar on her temple.

  A monitor display arched over the girl’s head. A med tom in one corner blinked in silent surveillance. As Edie moved closer, Natesa came into view, sitting at the girl’s side and holding her hand.

  “Hey, you can’t be here,” someone said behind Edie.

  Natesa looked up and locked eyes with Edie. Her expression changed from concern to annoyance—but the concern had looked real. Perhaps Natesa really did care about this child.

  Natesa’s gaze flicked to the medic coming up behind Edie. “No, it’s all right,” she said. “Edie, you may come in.”

  Somehow Edie managed to step behind the screen with out her legs giving way. She felt hollow inside, like all the emotion had been sucked out of her.

  “Her wet-teck overloaded,” Natesa said quietly. “We’re still not sure how serious the neural damage is.”

  Edie didn’t know what to say. I did this. How could she continue pushing away the sense of guilt with her victim right here in front of her?

  “She’s my daughter,” Natesa said to break the silence. “My adopted daughter—or she will be, when the final paperwork comes through.”

  That struck Edie as incongruous. Natesa had never displayed any maternal inclinations.

  “How did you persuade the Talasi elders to give her up?”

  “You know how those people live, Edie. How they treated you. Legally, it wasn’t hard to remove those children who displayed exceptional talents that the Crib needed. We compensated the Talasi by helping to reforest their lands. And why do you care? You’ve told me time and again that you don’t consider yourself one of them.”

  True enough. The Talasi had rejected Edie even before she was born because her mother, a visiting anthropologist from the Crib, had “seduced” one of their men—an act they viewed as a betrayal of trust.

  Noting Edie’s scowl, Natesa added, “You have no grounds to question my judgment or the actions of CCU.” She stroked the child’s arm. “Pris was one of the first students at the school, and the most promising. She’s had a much better life in state care. When you disappeared…that was very hard on me, Edie. I felt like I’d lost a daughter.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Natesa gave a take-it-or-leave-it shrug. The woman had certainly paid a lot of attention to Edie’s health and education, but only to further her own career. She’d never shown love. And now Pris was Edie’s replacement—not that Edie was jealous. Much as she’d fantasized as a child that her own mother would come back for her some day, she’d never wanted Natesa to step into those shoes.

  At least, she’d never consciously wanted that. The way Natesa doted on Pris stirred deep emotions that Edie struggled to keep down.

  “What kind of childhood are you giving these kids?” she asked. Because it was easier to deal with generalities than confront her personal feelings.

  “I realize you’ve never appreciated the opportunities I gave you, but don’t assume these children will be so ungrateful. After the difficulties you had—and continue to have—in adjusting to a new life outside the camps, we decided it would be better to raise these children in our care from the start. They will be happy and productive Crib citizens. They’ll traverse the Reach a hundred times in their working lives, to the benefit of all citizens.” Natesa seemed oblivious to the fact that her choice of words demonstrated exactly the attitude Edie so resented.

  “And their entire worth as human beings will be measured by this talent, which you’ve developed and honed. You have no idea what that feels like—to be a pawn instead of a person. Dammit, you even named this planet after her. Do you know what a burden that must be?”

  “I’m sorry you feel this way,” Natesa said with a sigh. “But I understand. I really do. I tried to protect you, but there were some things I couldn’t control. Bethany’s violent death. Your bodyguard Lukas—I know he was like a big brother to you, but in the end he let us all down. You used to run away all the time, do you remember that? Even before this whole debacle with the rovers, your loyalty was in question. You caused me many a sleepless night. Colonel Theron’s sadism notwithstanding, I intend to avoid that sort of drama with these children. No distractions. No unnecessary outside influences.”

  Edie read a warning into that. “Is that what you think Finn is? An unnecessary influence on me?”

  Natesa’s look turned shrewd. “It’s clear you’ve formed a strong attachment to that man. Considering his background, I can’t imagine why. But from my perspective, and for the sake of the project, he’s an impediment to the mission. If it comes to my attention that he is distracting you, or otherwise undermining your work here, I’ll have him thrown in the brig.”

  “You don’t need to threaten us. Finn’s not stupid. He’ll do his job and stay out of trouble.” At least as far as Project Ardra was concerned. The cryptoglyph—that was another matter.

  “I do hope so.”

  Natesa angled her body away from Edie, dismissing her.

  “Will you let me know if her condition changes?” Edie said.

  “Yes, of course. I don’t blame you for this, Edie.”

  “I don’t blame me, either.” Her voice sounded oddly flat.

  Edie went looking for Finn.

  Deck G was built on a scale three times the size of the rest of the ship. The cavernous area accommodated room after room of ag-teck machinery and equipment for building the processing plants and skyhooks.

  Edie wandered down noisy corridors and peeked into open hatches. The atmosphere was in stark contrast to the spotless labs where the only sounds were quiet conversations and the whirring of biocyph. Here she dodged oversized machinery and skirted crates and tools lying on the deck.

  Just when she thought she might truly be lost, she ran into Winnie, who pointed Edie in Finn’s direction. She found him hunkered on the deck surrounded by greasy machinery parts. He looked up sharply, surprised by her sudden entrance.

  “Having a bad day?” He must sense that she was upset.

  Edie’s guilt bit at her, stronger than ever, and stopped her from telling him about Pris. He’d probably call the child a casualty of war, something he had faced a thousand times, and she didn’t want to hear that. She drew a breath and tipped her chin at the parts scattered around him.

  “What’s that?”

  “An oscillator from a free-electron laser system. They use it to power the skyhook’s climbers.”

  “What are you doing with it?” Her voice still sounded shaky from lingering emotions.

  “Putting it back together. I think Winnie’s testing me.” But he looked contented enough, surrounded by tools.

  “So, is this something you can handle?”

  “The work? Sure. It’s something to do.” He had to raise his voice over the clanging of work going on. “What’s wrong?”

  She felt like an idiot, bringing her personal hang-ups to him. She put Natesa out of her mind for now.

  “Um, can we talk here?”

  Despite the activity all around them, Finn’s work area was several meters from anyone. Nevertheless, he stood and drew her toward a more private corner behind a bank of floor-to-ceiling consoles.

  “Go ahead.”

  “The lab where I’m working—they have some biocyph equipment that I think I can use with the cryptoglyph.”

  “To do what?”

  “The same thing we planned to do on the Fringe, but remotely.” Her mind had been working on an idea for hours. “Create a key that unlocks the BRATs—essentially a piece of crack code that we transmit across the Reach. We fix them all in one fell swoop.”

  “That would be quite an achievement.”

 
“It’ll take some time to work out. I need after-hours access to the lab, but I can’t use my crew key. If we can steal a crew key from one of the meckies…”

  Finn looked interested but wary. “Is it worth the risk of being caught?”

  “It seems too big of an opportunity to pass up. We have no plan of escape. Natesa’s looking for the first opportunity to throw you in the brig. If she does bring in Achaiah or someone to cut the leash, I don’t trust her not to break her word and send you back to a labor gang. Anything could happen. At least this way we’ll have done what we set out to do—complete the mission.”

  She knew she was talking his language now. As a soldier, the mission was all that mattered. Still, he looked less enthusiastic than she’d have liked.

  “We may have a plan of escape,” he said.

  “Such as?”

  “I was going to wait until this evening to tell you…” He looked around, checking for listening ears. Satsified they couldn’t be overheard, he said, “There are two Saeth on board this ship.”

  Edie’s jaw dropped. “How do you know?”

  He touched his temple. “My chip’s giving me a proximity alert. A new group of workers boarded this afternoon and the Saeth were with them.”

  “Can you communicate with them?”

  “No. The Crib destroyed most of my chip when they hijacked it.”

  “So where are they?”

  “I don’t know exactly. They must have infiltrated the project. They’ll reveal themselves when the time’s right.”

  “Assuming they’re here for you.”

  “I’m going to assume they are. But let’s keep our options open and explore your idea of making a crack from here.” He looked at her carefully. “Are you okay? You came in here worked up about something.”

  “I’m fine. There’s something else I want to do. I want to contact my old bodyguard, Lukas Pirgot.”

  “Do you have access to long-range comms?”

  “I doubt it. Can you help?”

  “Maybe. We can piggyback a call on the ship’s routine transmissions.”

  A short bell sounded in the distance.

  “Shift’s over,” Finn said. “My new buddies here invited me to join them for supper in the mess. Come with me.”

  She nodded and followed him out.

  A dozen or more meckies were all heading in the same direction—to the lifts that took them to the mess on Deck E. Edie stuck close by Finn, wondering at the strange looks she was getting and starting to regret she’d agreed to eat with him. In the mess they walked to the table occupied by Finn’s colleagues, and it became even more obvious she didn’t belong. She slid onto the bench beside Finn, knowing she was breaking some unwritten rule about teck staff mingling with workers from the lower decks. Still, the looks the workers gave her were mostly friendly curiosity.

  While Edie was politely ignored, they talked readily to Finn. He was as laconic as ever and they didn’t seem to mind. Edie admired the easy way he slotted into this group.

  “How do you do that?” she asked him on the walk back to their suite. “You didn’t give them a straight answer to anything. Even I still don’t know where you come from. But they treat you like one of them already.”

  “I am one of them. In that line of work—as long as you get the job done they respect you.”

  “Why did they ignore me?”

  “You’re a celebrity.”

  She hadn’t expected that. “I am?”

  “Yes. And you’re under Natesa, which makes you doubly important. They don’t want to say the wrong thing. They don’t know what to say.”

  Edie tried to picture herself from an outside perspective—a highly trained Crib teck using mysterious technology to reshape worlds for colonization…Perhaps she’d think cyphertecks were celebrities, too, if she wasn’t one.

  When they reached Edie’s quarters, she was eager to set up a call to Lukas, who resided, at the Crib’s pleasure, in a prison camp on Anwynn, a Crib outpost. The disinterested staff member on the other end of the line politely explained that the prisoners’ rec time wasn’t for another six hours, and that was the only time calls could be received. Edie sent the prison a line of credit so Lukas could call her back.

  “What’s your boss going to think about this?” Finn asked.

  “I already know what she thinks. But it’s not a crime to call an old friend.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, the tom access panel near Edie’s bedroom door moved. The first time, she’d ignored it, thinking it was a trick of the light filtering through from Finn’s room. Now she wasn’t so sure. Sitting up, she tapped the headboard to turn on the wall light-strip. Then the access panel bowed as if pushed from the other side. Perhaps a maintenance tom was stuck inside the tube.

  Before she had time to get out of bed, the panel suddenly flipped open and a tiny foot appeared, followed by a thin leg clad in white PJs.

  “Galeon!”

  The boy climbed out of the access tube and straightened. “Where’s Finn?” he demanded. “You told me second door on the right. I counted the panels. So where is he?” Galeon strode over to her bed and pulled back the sheet.

  “Hey!” Edie hissed. Much as his behavior amused her, it was hardly appropriate.

  Galeon spied the doorway and went for it, and she had no choice but to get out of bed and follow him.

  Finn’s viewport was open, bathing the room in reflected light from the planet. Finn was already out of bed—he must have heard the commotion and figured things out—and he stood waiting, arms folded. His imposing presence filled the room.

  Galeon didn’t heed the warning stance or the stern look. “It’s time for our game.” He pulled a small flat box from his pocket, set it on the table, and switched it on. A holo expanded to reveal a playing board and colored pegs.

  Finn looked at Edie, not Galeon, as if waiting for her to fix everything.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” Edie said. “You’ll get into trouble.”

  The boy ignored her, and she glared at Finn. Galeon liked him. Maybe he’d listen to him.

  Finn said nothing.

  Edie tried again. “Galeon, please. You’ll get Finn into trouble.”

  “No, I won’t. It’s just Pegasaw. One game.” He sat cross-legged on the deck and thumbed the controls to set up the board.

  “Did you crawl all the way here through the tom access tubes?” Edie asked.

  “Not all the way. There’s crawl space under the gravplating,” he said matter-of-factly. “And there’s ladders between the decks, if you know where to look.” He glanced at Finn looming over him. “You can go first.”

  “No. Galeon, I mean it,” Edie said. “You have to go back to bed. If anyone—”

  “Wait a minute.” Finn dropped to his haunches on the opposite side of the table and tapped a peg on the holoviz to shift it into position, which put a wide grin on Galeon’s face. “You can get anywhere on the ship from the crawl spaces and access tubes?”

  “I don’t know about anywhere. But lots of places. Except for the top deck.”

  “How about Deck B? The labs?”

  Edie saw where this was going. “Finn, we can’t ask him to…” Her voice trailed away as Galeon turned a bright-eyed look from Finn to her and back again.

  “Ask me to what? I’ll do it! I can do anything.”

  “Why not?” Finn said over the boy.

  “That would be using him…”

  “He knows what he’s doing. It’s a perfect solution.”

  “What are you talking about?” Galeon’s voice rose in pitch as he tried to get their attention.

  Edie bit her lip, shaking her head as she tried to come up with another objection. But those biocyph modules were calling her name. Surely they should take every opportunity.

  “Come on, tell me,” Galeon whined. “Tell me now or maybe I won’t do it.”

  Finn gave Galeon a long appraising look. “I don’t know. Maybe you’re not the right man fo
r a secret mission.”

  “I am! I can do a secret mission!”

  “Really?” Finn said dryly, and moved another peg. “A top secret mission?”

  Galeon put on a serious face. “I won’t tell anyone,” he breathed.

  “Finn—”

  Finn held up his hand to silence Edie. “Let’s do a test run, okay? It’s worth trying.”

  Edie ran her hand through her hair, appalled with them both for even thinking of involving a child in this. But if Galeon could get them into that lab, no one would ever know she’d been there.

  Edie capitulated. “Okay. Galeon, there’s some…secret work I need to do at night, in the main lab on Deck B. Can you get there and unlock the door from the inside?”

  “Yes, I can do that. When?”

  “How about tomorrow night, at about this time?”

  “What are you going to do there?” Galeon had lost interest in the game.

  “That’s need-to-know,” Finn said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means it’s so top secret that I can’t tell you until you need to know.”

  “But I do need to know!”

  “As leader of this mission, I get to decide what you need to know,” Finn said. “It’s your turn.”

  They played out the game, Galeon tense with excitement. Edie stared unseeing at the holoviz, paying no attention to the moves. She was ashamed of herself, using Galeon like this, and struggled to accept her justifications.

  Finn won a resounding victory, and Edie expected Galeon to sulk about it. But he shook Finn’s hand with a grin.

  “You’re good at this game,” Galeon said.

  “You played pretty well. Watch your peripheral defense strategies.”

  “I will. I’ll practice.”

  “Time to go,” Edie said, hoping Galeon wouldn’t make a fuss.

  Galeon tucked the holoviz projector into his pajama pocket and trailed Edie back into her room, then disappeared into the access tube and pulled the panel shut behind.

  Edie turned to Finn, who was watching from the doorway. “This is wrong. Using children is what Natesa does.”

  “We played a game and gave him a fun adventure. According to you, that’s not what Natesa does to children.”