I felt her surprise … felt her falter as she remembered once saying the same words to me. “It’s all right,” she whispered fiercely, “it is!” She kissed me again, stroking my hair. But she’d said it out loud. I felt her withdraw, only a little, keeping the mindlink open but taking one step back, like somebody who’d stood too close to the fire.
I didn’t try to lie to her; I didn’t dare. We’d both come too close to the truth that night in the monastery, feeling our minds approach meltdown in the fusion of our pasts. Maybe enough peace and enough faith would heal us, along with Joby. But there’d never been enough of either one in my life. My past had stolen too many things from me, too often, for too long. Too much of my life had been spent in a free-fire zone; I didn’t know whether all of spacetime held enough faith to change who I was into who I might have been.…
And I wondered how I’d ever learn to live with someone else if I couldn’t live with myself.
Miya set the hammock into gentle motion, as if by rocking us, soothing us to sleep, she could stop time itself, with all its unpredictable power. I lay motionless in her arms, letting exhaustion erase the questions that only time could answer.
THIRTY
IT TOOK TEN days for the fallout to stop falling. Ten days when we all stayed in hiding, ten days for us to fill Ronin’s head with enough understanding of the Hydrans’ situation to convince him that Tau had as much to answer for to the Community as it did to the bondies … more. Time enough for him to stop jumping whenever Miya or Hanjen used their psi. Time enough for him to stop staring every time Miya and I touched each other, every time we came out of the same room in the morning, every time he saw us with Joby, together, a family. Time enough, hour after hour, night and day, for all of us to feel his fear of the strange fade, as living with freaks and aliens slowly stopped seeming either freakish or alien to him.
(We’re all following the same Way now,) Miya thought to me, as we watched Ronin sit down to play a counting game with Joby. (He has no choice but to come with us.) And watching him, feeling what lay in his mind, I could almost believe that.
On the tenth day Wauno came back; but this time there was a gunship hovering over his transport, and Corpses behind him as he came down the steps. We all looked up together, gaping, through the frozen moment until Wauno smiled/Miya smiled/Ronin smiled and said, “FTA.” And finally I got past the shock of seeing uniforms and recognized the logo they wore.
It meant we were safe, that the end was finally in sight. They’d come this time to take Ronin back across the river for the beginning of negotiations. Tau heads were still rolling, Wauno told us; Sand, the Draco Corporate Security Chief, was back on Refuge in person, along with half a dozen Draco Board Members. An entirely new Tau Board was being set in place like game pieces by Draco, and negotiators were frantic to get things settled before their symbiotic economic systems were strangled by the FTA’s shipping embargo.
Ronin took Hanjen with him. Miya and I stayed behind with Joby, waiting. We didn’t see either of them again, but Hanjen kept Miya informed mind-to-mind about every painful millimeter of progress that was made. And all the while Naoh haunted my thoughts like a bad dream. I wondered whether she was haunting his too.
I knew that Naoh was on Miya’s mind, just like I was sure Miya was sharing with her everything we learned. But whatever Miya felt about her sister or her sister’s threats, she wouldn’t share it with me. There was a reason why a psion’s DNA gave more protection against the Gift along with the ability to use it.… The idea that life had ever been simpler for Hydrans than it was for Humans was just one more dream of mine that hadn’t survived the light of day.
It was a full month before the last square peg of compromise had been driven into a round hole of necessity: a general amnesty for members of the Satoh, freeing us to come out of hiding without being afraid that Tau’s Corpses would murder us on sight for knowing too much.
Another FTA gunship came to escort us to the ceremony that marked the signing of Tau’s revised charter and the treaty restricting their autonomy. The new agreements put them under the FTA’s thumb for the indefinite future. I’d never expected to be happy to see Corporate Security come for me, but this once I didn’t have any objections.
As we stood on the roof of Hanjen’s house, waiting to get on board, Naoh suddenly appeared beside Miya. The Corpses around us swore and fumbled for their weapons.
She pressed empty hands together, with a deferential bow that didn’t hide either her nerve or her unspoken tension. “I am here for the truce,” she said in self-conscious Standard. “If there is justice now, I want to see it.” She looked at her sister. I sensed an exchange going on between them that they shut me out of. Finally Miya held out a hand that wasn’t quite steady. Naoh took it. They embraced with a painful joy that I could feel but couldn’t share in.
* * *
The signing ceremony was taking place at the Aerie, the closest thing to neutral ground the negotiators had been able to agree on. It felt like closure, at least to me, to finish this where it had started.
As we entered the reception hall I felt a prickling sense of déjà vu, seeing Sand in his dress uniform standing there among the gathered vips in their combine colors. Perrymeade and Kissindre, Hanjen, and most of the Hydran Council members had already arrived, all of them going through the same motions of the diplomatic dance. There were no other Hydrans except the three of us, representing the Satoh.
There were no Tau vips at all, at least not yet. I felt my surprise reflected in Miya’s mind as she hesitated beside me in the entrance with Joby in her arms. Joby looked around, wide-eyed as he took in all the people, the colors shifting like an oil film on water. “Daddy!” he called out as he spotted a CorpSec uniform across the room. But it wasn’t Natasa, and my hope curdled as I took in the not-so-discreet scatter of armed guards around the hall. None of the uniforms was Natasa, and even the fact that they were wearing FTA colors didn’t reassure me when I thought about why they were here.
Miya started forward again as Perrymeade and Hanjen spotted us and came toward us across the room. Naoh followed her like a shadow, staring at the details of the hall, its occupants—the wide windows with their view of the reefs, like the hungry eyes of a bird of prey gazing down on the Homeland, on the last fragment of Hydran culture and heritage. Her own eyes were slit-pupiled with unease, even though what we were doing here today should mean those things were safe after all; that in the future someone looking out at that view would see something different … something better.
I started after them, forcing myself to keep moving as my mind perversely turned my body into the center of a universe of stares. I told myself it was a good sign—that it was only happening because this time I could sense the crowd; my contact with the reefs, and Miya, had at least begun to heal me.
But too many eyes really were looking at me, at the Hydran clothes I wore because they were the only clothes I had left; at my cat-pupiled Hydran eyes in a Human face.… Suddenly I didn’t feel like a Hydran, any more than I felt Human. I felt like a freak.
Sand went on staring at me even after the rest of the room had lost interest. I saw Lady Gyotis Binta behind him, the only other Draco vip I knew. “So,” he said while Perrymeade and Hanjen greeted the others, “you seem to have taken our last conversation seriously.”
I kept my face expressionless. “You can believe that, if it makes you feel better,” I said.
He stiffened, and for a second an expression I didn’t ever want to see again showed on his face. But then he smiled, an empty twist of his mouth, as Lady Gyotis stepped forward beside him. “I never imagined,” she said evenly, “when we last met, that we would meet again under circumstances like these.”
“No, ma’am,” I murmured. “Neither did I.”
“I feel sad, somehow. It’s unfortunate that it all had to come to this.”
“I guess that depends on your point of view,” I said. “Ma’am.”
Her control wa
s good, but I saw her eyes flicker. Her hands made a series of quick gestures as she glanced at Sand. He answered her the same way, using a handtalk code I didn’t know, one that belonged strictly to vips. A look and a peculiar smile passed between them. I couldn’t even begin to guess what it meant; I only knew it wasn’t meaningless this time.
Sand looked back at me again as Lady Gyotis drifted away. “I’m curious,” he said. “Perhaps you’ll humor me about this: Just exactly what is your relationship with Draco?”
“Draco—?” I blinked, expecting him to ask me anything but that. “I have no relationship with Draco. It’s a null set.”
“Then your coming here to Refuge was simply a coincidence—nothing more.”
I glanced away, to where Miya was standing with Hanjen and Perrymeade. I watched her hand Joby into his uncle’s arms and saw the smiles on all their faces. “No,” I murmured. I looked back at him. “But if you mean, was I a croach for the Feds—no. Not until you forced it on me.”
His mouth twisted again; he took a drink off a drifting tray and sipped it pointedly. The tray floated toward me. I took one too, and swallowed it down. “I see,” he said. “Then would you tell me why you have Draco’s logo tattooed on your … hip?” He glanced down, like he could see through my clothes.
I frowned, wondering whether his augmented eyes actually could. “How do you—?”
“Your contract labor records,” he said.
“It’s not Draco’s logo.” I shook my head, still frowning. “It’s just a lizard.”
“It’s Draco’s logo,” he said flatly. “Do you really think I don’t know what that looks like?”
I laughed. “I can’t even remember how it got there,” I said. “But thanks for letting me know. I’ll think of you every time I sit down.” I turned my back on him and moved away.
I crossed the room to the one small knot of people I felt safe with—the mixed cluster of Humans and Hydrans with Miya at its heart. She was talking to Kissindre; they looked up together as she sensed me. Kissindre smiled and moved away, touching my arm briefly as she made a place for me by Miya’s side.
“We were talking about the reefs,” she said, like she wanted me to be sure they hadn’t been talking about me. “Ways the research team can learn more about the healing factor at the monastery, without disturbing it.” The treaty we’d come here to witness made the last reef a Federal environmental preserve, off-limits to any combine’s exploitation.
Tau had howled at that, just like they’d howled at the new laws forcing them to begin integrating Hydrans into their Human workforce. From what I’d seen Miya do—from what I’d done myself—I knew that even if those changes ate holes in the Human population’s collective gut like acid, they weren’t simply justice—they were right, and smart, and good for everyone. I hoped that one day Tau would look back and wonder what the hell had taken them so long to make it happen. The odds of that weren’t good, but they were better than zero, which was all they’d been before.
“… about the symbiosis between the cloud-whales and the Community, and interpreting the data,” Kissindre was saying. It took me a minute to realize she was still talking about the reefs. She broke off. “You are going to work with us again, aren’t you?”
I smiled. “Try and stop me.”
“Why is this taking so long?” Naoh came up behind Miya, her hands picking at her sleeves like nervous animals. I remembered Miya’s restless hands, when I’d first met her. “Where are the Tau people? Is this some trick—?”
“No, of course not—” Perrymeade said. He didn’t finish it, as her stare set off his own doubt and concern.
“They will be here,” Hanjen said, his voice even, his eyes willing his foster daughter to believe him.
“Where’s Natasa?” I asked, looking up at Joby, who was riding contentedly on Perrymeade’s shoulders. I glanced at Miya, feeling the part of her mind, the part of her strength, the part of her love, that would always stay with him, just like I could feel the part of it that would always be one with me. I imagined what a difference it could make to both Humans and Hydrans, if they could open themselves to the possibilities I saw every time I looked into her eyes and Joby’s.
“He should be arriving with the others,” Perrymeade said. “They’ve been talking about making him the new District Administrator here at Riverton, since Borosage is being transferred—”
“Transferred?” Naoh said sharply. I knew from the look she gave Miya that she was demanding an explanation, and that she didn’t like the answer she got.
“He’s going to prison. Right—?” I demanded. “He’s not getting out of this. There’s too much evidence of everything he’s done—” I looked away from Perrymeade, searching for Ronin.
“Here’s the Tau delegation now,” Perrymeade murmured, and left my side abruptly.
Naoh watched him go, her expression darkening.
“Naoh—” Miya said. The word was both a question and a warning. She put a hand on her sister’s arm, like she was trying to anchor her in reality.
Naoh slapped her hand away without touching her.
Miya backed off, but her eyes stayed on her sister’s face.
I stopped watching them both as the new Tau Board entered the room, in the flesh this time, not virtual. All of them were strangers to me, which was good. They were as expressionless as a line of sticks.
Borosage was with them. He was still in uniform and heading a Security team wearing Tau colors.
Disbelief caught me by the throat. I jerked my stare away from him, telling myself it was just a formality, that there was no way in hell he could have survived the corporate massacre when the entire Tau Board had been deposed.
He looked toward us as they crossed the room, and his eyes were full of hate. The mind behind them was as unreadable to me as any of the Board members’ were. “Miya—?” I murmured.
But then I saw that Natasa had come in with the Tau delegation. He broke away from the formation, and his rigid, unsmiling face came to life as he spotted Joby and started toward us. Miya didn’t answer me as Joby’s attention drew her own to his father.
“Daddies!” Joby cried, looking from me to Natasa, delighted. Natasa’s smile widened; he held out his arms, and then Miya’s concentration was entirely focused on making their reunion all it should be. I glanced at Naoh, went on watching her as she watched Borosage. She looked at him the way prey would watch a hunter … or a hunter would watch prey.
The Tau vips flowed into the waiting mass of Draco vips, FTA observers, and Hydran Council members, until they were all one indistinguishable mass of shifting colors and loyalties. They greeted each other with the hollow goodwill of the profoundly relieved. All of them were hoping their separate ordeals were finally over; all of them were trying to believe that even if this wasn’t a position they’d ever wanted to find themselves in, it was better than the alternative.
A chime sounded, signaling that the ratification ceremony was beginning. The crowd began to move toward the wide doorway that led into the main hall, where the treaty waited at the center of a showy tech display, each segment glowing on a separate screen, hypertext ramifications and clarifications ringing them like haloes of enlightenment.
I leaned against a pillar, closing my eyes. The playback of a synthesized voice I recognized as Ronin’s began to recite the terms of the agreement aloud, in case anyone here hadn’t bothered to study it beforehand. I felt the terms of Tau’s penance wash over me like cool water, leaving a pristine surface of possibility. Tau and Indy media hypers were everywhere in the crowd assembled here, recording every nuance as Humans and Hydrans laid the foundation for the future they were about to share, like it or not.
I checked off the terms of the treaty against the agenda in my head, my respect for Ronin climbing a notch with every need that was met: lifting of restrictions on technological exchange between Humans and Hydrans, amnesty for all imprisoned Hydrans, rehab and training programs, quotas for integrating Hydrans in
to the Human workforce, no more tampering with the magnetosphere to redirect the cloud-whales’ journeys. And for the contract laborers, strict regulation of work safety conditions at all Tau installations, with FTA inspection teams on-site for the indefinite future.
Tau had argued that they couldn’t survive restrictions like that; that their economy would collapse. The FTA’s response had been, Adapt and try, or die now. Draco had had to back them up or lose more face—and face more trade restrictions on the rest of its hegemony. Caught between those pincers of power, even Tau couldn’t squirm free.
I listened to the members of the new Tau Board mouth optimistic platitudes as one by one they touched the display, committing their approval to the permanent record. I wondered how surprised they’d be if it actually turned out to be better.
“I suppose you think this is all your doing,’breed?” a voice said behind me.
I turned around, suddenly face-to-face with Borosage. I barely controlled my urge to smash in his face—to wipe that smugness off it, to force him back behind the invisible line he’d crossed into my personal space. “Yeah,” I said, forcing a smile instead. “Pretty much.”
“I should have killed you when I had the chance,” he muttered, his face barely changing expression. He glanced away. “Too bad you won’t be staying on Refuge long enough to see what really happens to all your big ideas—”
“What makes you think I won’t?” I folded my arms, leaning against the pillar again.
“You’re being deported, genetrash.”
I sucked in a breath, held it, while the words tried to paralyze my brain. “I think you got it backwards,” I said finally. “You’re not going to be around to see it all work out, because you’re about to do some heavy time, you drug-dealing, sadistic piece of shit.”
He shook his head, a smile spread over his face like a stain. “Not me, boy. Fahd’s taking my fall … I’m still standing. I’m not stupid. I knew the Board and that cocksucker Sand would try to download the guilt onto me. I could see where it was all leading. They thought they’d take me down, but I got them first. I have my ways—” He tapped the metal half dome covering his head. “I have records of things you wouldn’t believe; things they never even suspected I knew about them.” I realized that he must have spent his drug profits hotwiring his brain with undetectable snoopware. “I know where all the bodies are buried—and who wanted them dead. Why do you think I’m still here, boy, when not a single member of the old Tau Board is?”