“Did you lose someone too?” Alisa asked Leonidas. “Is that why you’re angry?”
“I’m angry because your war was pointless and made the universe a worse place rather than a better place.”
“That’s not true. People have freedoms now that they never had under the empire.”
“Freedoms don’t feed them or keep them safe. You’ll see when you’ve been out in the system more.” His tone was more reasonable now, though his shoulders were still tense. He swept his gaze back over the empty lots before they headed down another street, and she had a feeling he was seeing more than the dirt and the cranes. “You’ll see,” he added softly.
Alisa wanted to refute him, but since the war ended, she hadn’t been many places except for Dustor, which hadn’t exactly been a paradise even before the fighting began. Her freedom-loving soul appreciated that there were fewer spy boxes floating through the skies here, but she admitted that the boys’ talk of hits was alarming. Such a thing never should have happened in a policed city on an advanced planet. Still, she would wait until she had seen more of the system for herself to consider Leonidas’s words more fully. He was clearly biased, having liked the suffocating imperial system. Of course those who had thrived in it had liked it.
They entered an area where the buildings still stood, an area Alisa had walked through often before on her way to the university and later to her job at DropEx. The streets were quiet, but people still went about their business, and the moving sidewalks worked here.
Nerves returned to her stomach as she stepped onto the one that would take them to her sister-in-law’s place. It occurred to her that she hadn’t commed ahead to warn Sylvia that she was coming. She had been thinking about the need to do so as they approached the planet, but then they had been attacked, and she’d forgotten. As an artist, Sylvia worked from home, but that was no guarantee that she would be there now. Alisa almost reached for her comm to make the call, but the idea of knocking on the door and surprising her and Jelena made her stay her hand. If Sylvia wasn’t home, Alisa would comm and arrange a meeting time.
She stepped off the sidewalk in front of a centuries-old brick building with Old Earth lions roaring down from the edge of the rooftop. A mix of tall windows and roll-up garage doors dotted the front of the structure. A place for an artist. Alisa walked up a set of stone stairs to the door where a comm system waited.
“I have someone to meet,” she said, realizing Beck was right behind her, as if he expected to be invited in for tea. “Will you wait here?”
Alisa did not want Jelena to be scared by a man looming in combat armor or another man wearing a cyborg military jacket. At eight, she was probably old enough to recognize an imperial soldier; after living through the war, she might know the significance of the patch too. Not that Leonidas had followed her. He had stopped beside a lamppost, his mouth moving as he talked quietly into his earstar comm.
“Sure,” Beck said, giving her a salute.
She pressed the button for her sister-in-law’s apartment, one of only ten loft residences in the building. Unlike most of the struggling artists Alisa had run into on campus, Sylvia had always done well for herself with her paintings and sculpture.
A long minute passed, and disappointment grew within her. She should have commed ahead.
Then a distracted, “Yes?” came over the speaker, and a flash of excitement filled her. It had been years, but she recognized that voice.
“Sylvia? It’s Alisa.”
“Alisa?” Sylvia sounded puzzled.
“Yes, I’m through with my obligations to the army now. I’m here to see Jelena, to take her with me, if that’s not a problem.” Alisa doubted it would be. Sylvia would have been caring for her for about six months, but she would surely agree with Alisa’s right to take her. She might agree less with the idea of her niece being taken off to run freight for the rest of her childhood, especially if she was in a stable environment here. Sylvia wouldn’t make a fuss, would she? Alisa dreaded the idea of a legal battle, especially here on Perun, where her position in the war could and would be used against her.
“It’s good to see you, Alisa,” Sylvia said slowly, and the video display above the buttons came on. A woman of forty, Sylvia had gray mixed in with her dark hair, a lean face, and a smear of yellow paint on her cheekbone. “Did you get my letters?”
She didn’t sound that excited to see Alisa. There was wariness in her face that filled Alisa’s belly with unease.
“Letters?” she asked. “Plural? I got one, just a couple of months ago when I was released from the hospital on Dustor.”
“The one about Jonah?”
Alisa nodded.
“But not the one I sent three months ago? About Jelena?”
Alisa’s feeling of unease increased to one of dread. “It might not have had time to reach me. What happened?” she asked, her mouth suddenly dry.
Sylvia sighed. “You better come in.”
A soft buzz sounded, and the door lock released. Feeling numb, Alisa might not have opened it in time, but Beck grabbed the handle for her. His face was somber behind the faceplate of his armor. She hadn’t told him about Jelena, but he was clearly catching the gist of the conversation.
Alisa stumbled over the raised threshold as she entered and had to catch herself on the wall. She found her way through the wide hallway, not seeing the polished wood floors or architectural details now. The door at the end opened, and Sylvia stood there, her face even graver than it had been seconds before.
“What happened?” Alisa repeated, searching her eyes as if the answer was within them, as if she could tear out the information with telepathy instead of waiting for an explanation.
“They came,” Sylvia said. “Three months after the war ended, when we all thought we were safe, when we were rebuilding… I was here with her. But they came, and I couldn’t stop them. They took her.”
Chapter 4
Sylvia kept gesturing to chairs, but Alisa couldn’t sit.
“What do you mean they took her?” she asked. “Who took her? The empire?”
Why would the empire want her daughter? Wasn’t it enough that she had lost her husband? There was nothing special about her family, no dynasty or money for anyone to inherit. It didn’t make sense.
“Men in black robes. There were four of them.” Sylvia perched on the edge of the sofa. “I tried to stop them, but they easily got past me. One waved his hand and made it seem… I don’t know. For a few minutes there, while they were invading my home, I thought it wasn’t such a bad thing. I’m sure this wasn’t my own thought.”
“Not your own thought?” Alisa gaped at her, her mind refusing to put together the puzzle pieces, even though the robe alone would have suggested the identities of the kidnappers.
“I believe they were Starseers.” Sylvia reached for a computer console built into the coffee table, the modern black interface looking strange set into the solid wood, the legs artistically turned, the surface elegantly engraved. “I can show you the video from the hallway. I got security to give it to me. I was trying to catch faces, to try and get enough to identify them.”
Alisa rubbed the back of her neck, but nodded. She wanted to see for herself, to try and understand. Maybe it had simply been people dressed up as Starseers. They could have counted on Sylvia being too daunted by their presumed identity to chase after them. After all, she was alone. But now that Alisa was back, it would be a different story. She would chase them. But if this had happened three months ago, where could she start? Tears threatened for the second time that afternoon, but they were tears of tension and frustration this time, not of sorrow.
“Here it is,” Sylvia said, and a video of the hallway near the front door began to play above the table. “I’ve shown the police. They put out a missing person report, and I added a reward to it for her safe return.”
“Thank you,” Alisa made herself mutter, though gratitude wasn’t the emotion at the surface of her mind. She wanted
to blame Sylvia for allowing this to happen. How could she have let strangers in to steal her little girl?
Alisa managed to keep the accusations from tumbling from her lips. Sylvia had been kind enough to take Jelena in; to throw that in her face would be unacceptable. No matter how much Alisa wanted to lash out at someone. She found herself wishing Leonidas had come in, if only so she could pick a fight with him and let out her anger.
“Unfortunately, they haven’t had any leads other than the name I gave them along with the video,” Sylvia said as the footage played. At first, the hallway stood empty, with nothing but four apartment doors and the front door visible, with the darkness of night pressing against a tall window next to it. “I heard some of them refer to the one who appeared to be the leader as Durant—I’m not sure if it was a first or last name. Durant. It’s not common, but it’s not uncommon, either. I checked the imperial and Alliance databases. There are tens of thousands of them out there. I’ve called the police every few days, but if the Starseers truly took Jelena, they have the power to disappear well and fully.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Alisa said. “There are hardly any Starseers left in the galaxy, and there’s nothing about Jelena that would make them want her.”
Sure, her daughter had scored well on intelligence tests, thanks more to her bright father than her mother, Alisa was sure, but she had not been an exceptional genius. It wasn’t as if she had been floating dishes around the kitchen or whatever it was Starseer children did before they formally started studying to control their powers.
At least, that was what Alisa thought. The strangest look came over Sylvia’s face, and she opened her mouth and closed it twice without saying anything.
Before Alisa could question her, movement in the video caught her eye, and she shifted her attention to it. The front door had opened and four figures in black robes filed in, one after the other. Large heavy hoods drooped low, creating shadows that hid their features, even in the well-lit hallway. Alisa leaned down, peering in close, hoping to glimpse a face. Even if one only appeared for an instant, it ought to be enough to run it through the police databases and hope for a match. But the men either knew about the cameras or just knew that they had to keep their hoods low to remain hidden. They walked slowly, their faces turned downward, their hands in their sleeves, not revealing so much as a wedding ring that might be used for identification. All four of them wore pendants that reminded Alisa of Alejandro’s, but his was the three-sun symbol of the Sun Trinity. These were the red moon and silver star symbol of The Order, the special Starseer religion about which she knew very little.
The figures disappeared from the lobby camera’s field of view. Sylvia’s door was at the opposite end of the hall from the front entrance, and it wasn’t visible. Alisa shifted from foot to foot, waiting for them to come back into view. It only took a minute. The leader walked back toward the front door, a familiar girl with him. Her rowdy hair was tamed into two brown pigtails, there was a mole on the side of her face below her ear, and she had a cute, pert nose. Jelena.
She was older and taller than the last time Alisa had seen her, but there was no mistaking her. And there was no mistaking that she was walking side by side with the man as he held her hand and led her to the door, almost as if she knew him. How could that be?
Two more robed figures walked into view, heading for the entrance, but the last one stopped, turning back toward the apartment. Sylvia charged into view, pushed past him, and ran toward Jelena. The camera had not recorded sound, but from the contorted way Sylvia’s mouth opened, it was clear that she was yelling. Jelena paused and turned, wearing an oddly vacant expression. Her young face crinkled as Sylvia yelled, as if she was trying to remember something. The man tugged at her hand, but she turned in the other direction, almost tripping as she stepped back toward Sylvia, who had almost reached her.
The figure behind the man leading Jelena away lifted a hand toward Sylvia. Alisa thought he would halt her physically, but Sylvia jerked to a stop before she reached him. She froze like a ship caught in a grab beam.
The man leading Jelena touched her shoulder, and she turned around to follow him out the door, but not before Alisa saw that vacant expression reaffix itself on her face. It was chilling, all trace of her daughter’s playful spirit—all trace of her personality and who she was—gone.
As the men filed through the exit, Sylvia remained frozen in place. The door closed, the hallway empty except for her.
“Not my finest moment,” Sylvia murmured from the sofa, wincing as long seconds passed.
Finally, the Sylvia in the video stirred. She looked behind her and forward, confusion stamping her face. Then she ran to the entrance, disappearing out the front door.
On the sofa, Sylvia leaned forward and stopped the video, leaving the image hovering above the table. “I ran up and down the block after that, looking for sign of them,” she said. “They just disappeared. I asked the neighbors if anyone had seen them. There were people on the street coming home from work. Nobody remembered seeing them or Jelena.” She swallowed and met Alisa’s eyes. “Alisa, I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t understand,” Alisa said, losing her earlier certainty that posers pretending to be Starseers had kidnapped her daughter. “You’d never seen them before? There was no previous contact?”
“Not with me, no.”
Alisa frowned. “What does that mean? I’m sure Jelena didn’t comm them to come get her.”
“No, I doubt that.” Sylvia’s brow crinkled, as if she hadn’t considered the possibility but now was. That was ludicrous. How would an eight-year-old know who to comm even if she was unhappy and wanted to leave? Had she been unhappy? With her father dead and her mother billions of miles away?
Alisa opened her mouth to ask, but Sylvia spoke again first.
“I was thinking that Jonah might have had some contact with one of their temples before his death.”
“Why?” Alisa rubbed her head. “She wasn’t…” It seemed a ridiculous thing to ask, but she made herself say, “She wasn’t showing any Starseer tendencies, was she?”
She didn’t see how that could be when everyone knew those abilities were hereditary, something that the colonists who had originally settled Kir had developed during the centuries they had lived there in isolation. These days, with Kir long since rendered uninhabitable during the Order Wars, fewer and fewer Starseers were born each generation, and not everyone with the genes inherited the abilities. Alisa certainly couldn’t move objects around with her mind—or daze and kidnap defenseless children. Nor had Jonah ever done anything like that, at least not when she had been observing. Besides, children born on the core worlds in imperial hospitals were tested at birth for the gene mutations that signaled the potential to gain those abilities. Nothing unusual had come up on Jelena’s tests.
“She is about the age when those things start to come out,” Sylvia said carefully. “I know Jonah was always careful to keep his talents a secret, but I’m surprised… He never told you?”
Suddenly, the apartment seemed very still, very quiet. Alisa grew aware of a mechanical clock ticking in a distant corner of the loft.
“No,” she whispered.
“I never manifested the abilities. As you can clearly see.” Sylvia grimaced as she waved to the frozen video. “But Jonah used to play with his talents on the farm as a boy. We were lucky we were in such a rural area and that he wasn’t born in an imperial hospital.”
“But Jelena was born here, tested here…” Alisa spoke slowly, trying to wrap her mind around the idea that Jonah had kept secrets from her. Big secrets. He had been so open, always laughing, always friendly. Surely, those were not the traits of a member of a sinister and secretive order.
A teakettle whistled in the kitchen. Sylvia got up, held up a finger, and walked to attend to it. Alisa wanted to leap on her back and strangle the answers out of her. An interminable amount of time seemed to pass before she returned with two cu
ps in her hand. She offered one to Alisa, who only shook her head. She wanted answers, not tea. Jelena had been tested. She remembered the doctors doing a cheek swab.
Sylvia sat back down and sipped from her own cup. “A few days before you went to the hospital to deliver her, Jonah came to me. As a scholar, he didn’t have much money then. As I’m sure you remember.”
Alisa nodded tersely, barely keeping from growling a, Get to the point.
“He asked to borrow some from me. He was nervous and wanted physical coins, nothing traceable by the banking system. I had an inkling as to what it was about, though he wouldn’t speak of it or say who it was meant for.”
“You gave him the loan?”
“Yes. I suspect he was paying someone off at the hospital, either arranging for those tests to disappear or perhaps for there to be a mix-up. Another baby would have been retested if she came up positive.” Sylvia lifted her shoulders. “Jonah wouldn’t have done anything to harm anyone, but you understand the dangers, the chance that he—both of you—would have lost your daughter if she had tested positive. Even though there were Starseers in the imperial line, the government has always been fearful of those with the powers.”
“With good reason,” Alisa blurted out before realizing that she wasn’t just talking to her sister-in-law anymore, but with someone whose ancestors had apparently come from Kir. It was as if the woman she and Jonah had shared coffee with on a weekly basis was a stranger now. “I mean, I wouldn’t have wanted to risk our daughter being taken away, either. Is that what always happens? Happened?” She reminded herself that the empire wasn’t in charge anymore, and she had no idea what kind of policy her own people were establishing.
“The children were often taken away to special orphanages, yes. If the parents weren’t aware of the risk beforehand and didn’t find a way to hide them. Sometimes the parents had no idea. In our case, several generations had passed since anyone in the family had shown any talents. From my limited understanding of the science, the genes are dominant, so they’re passed on easily, but the Starseer abilities themselves rely upon epigenetic triggers to manifest, and despite much speculation and a couple of studies involving those in the imperial bloodline, nobody’s quite sure what exactly those triggers are. Stress is believed to be a component, a major stressor undergone at the appropriate age.”