Loralynn Kennakris 1: The Alecto Initiative (4 page)

Somehow, that made lunch settle kind of hard on her stomach.
“Yeah. Okay.”

“Sorry,” he said gently. “Slavers love practical jokes.
Implanted slaves is a favorite. Of course, their notion of humor is blowing
something up—but I guess you know them better than I do. I am sorry”—she
wondered what the second apology was for—“but they’ve put some very nasty
ideas into some very good people and sent them to us. We have to be careful.
Please try to understand.” She nodded. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“Where are we going?”

“Cassandra Station.”

Kris hadn’t heard of it.

“It orbits the primary moon of Nedaema. In the Pleiades.”

“Oh.” The Homeworlds. Kris had seen vids. “What happens
there?”

“More of the same, I’m afraid. They’ll put you in rehab for
a couple of weeks—check for a few things we can’t. Depending on who—or what—was
on that ship with you, there may be an additional quarantine period. Give more
time for the immunocytes to kick in.” A look of distaste crossed her face.
“Yeah, I know. It’s likely no fun. But we don’t like to mix our microbes any
more than we have to. Slavers aren’t too picky about that either.”

She nodded again. Odd how after eight years, a few weeks
could seem so long. Not that she had anywhere in particular to go . . .

“. . . and somebody will go over your rights and
entitlements with you. I can’t tell you much about that—I’m not a lawyer and I
don’t want to misrepresent anything—but I’d say you have a healthy chunk of
change coming.”

That got her attention. “What?”

“Policy,” Huron answered unhelpfully. “Part of the
Repatriation Act. Every detainee”—a polite government euphemism for slave—“is
considered to be hired on the day they’re taken and owed back wages for the
length of their indenture, plus interest at median commercial lending rates.
After eight years, that adds up to quite a lot. I can’t say with certainty, but
I’d guess about a meg or so.”

“A
meg
?” That couldn’t be right. Meg was another term
for million, which was ridiculous. 

“Yes.”

“About a
million
?”

“Yes.” Smiling now.

Kris was flabbergasted. She’d never heard of so much money
in her life. No one on Parson’s Acre made close to that much in a lifetime.
Even the richest landholders weren’t worth that. “But I was only eleven.” Kris
didn’t know why that would matter, only that it should.

“Makes no difference. Legally, you were an employed adult
the moment they took you.”

“Oh.”

He seemed to take her remark differently than she meant it.
At any rate, he suddenly got very solemn. “We try to be fair, Kris. Everyone
gets treated the same—as close to the same as we can, anyway. There isn’t much
else we can do, besides kill the sonsabitches. Sorry.”

She shook her head—there wasn’t anything to apologize for.
She tried to say so, but it didn’t come out quite right. He got up as if to go
and handed her a card. It said
Rafael Huron, Senior Lieutenant, CEF
, and
had the
Arizona
’s arms embossed on it. Funny, she thought, he’d never
mentioned his first name. “We’ll be reaching Cassandra in about four days. I’ll
try to get the needle-goons to let you out of here.”

“But I thought you said . . .”

He smiled, a very becoming smile. “Oh, they’ll still run a
profile and all that—but at least you can wander around some. You’re clean.
Well, I think so—and I haven’t been wrong yet.”

LSS Arizona
Inner Trifid Boundary Zone

Lieutenant Huron was as good as his word. About
fifteen minutes after he left, the medical director, a severe-looking man,
older in appearance than anyone she’d seen so far, came in and said she could
go. He did not look particularly happy about it but if he had any protests, he
kept them to himself. They’d scheduled some tests for the next morning, he
said, and handed her a pamphlet to look over in case she had any questions. A
yeoman outside would show her to her quarters.

She glanced haphazardly at the pamphlet and threw it away as
soon as she was outside the sickbay door. The yeoman met her courteously,
handed her a black wrist strip with a small display like a cel, and proceeded
to take her to where she’d bunk. On the way, he explained some things about the
ship she was on.

The major compartments were all divided by airtight armored
hatches, of course, but a lot of the interior spaces had hatches too. Some,
like sick bay and a few other spaces that she couldn’t identify just had doors,
but the rest were all airtight and secured. She figured it was a navy thing;
there had been a lot fewer hatches on
Harlot’s Ruse
, mostly just at the
main junctions.

 The yeoman explained that if a hatch seal showed green you
could enter it. If red, it was either locked or restricted—the same went for doors.
If you really needed someone on the other side, you could ask via the entry pad
but you had to convince the system that the interruption was warranted.

When she indicated she didn’t like that idea much, the yeoman
smiled and explained, “The system’s kinda dumb. Tell it pretty much anything
and it’ll asked for consultation with whomever it is you want—unless they got
a real strong lockdown logged. If so, better respect it. People don’t lock down
here without a damn good reason.”

Getting around was pretty easy, he said: the black thing on
her wrist was a pathfinder. If she wanted to go somewhere, or got lost, she
could punch up the destination on the display and a pale lavender line in the
floor would guide her to it. If the line was red, the requested area was
restricted. “You can go there, of course—you just can’t get in.” Otherwise,
she could display a set of green lines that showed all of the places she could
go.

“Must get confusing with all these lines running around,”
she remarked. “How do I know which is mine?”

“Oh, you’re the only one who can see yours,” he explained.
“They got a some sort of neural projector built in—it shows your line just to
you. It ain’t really on the floor.”

“Oh,” Kris murmured. She regarded the pathfinder dubiously.
They hadn’t had such stuff on
Harlot’s Ruse
or anywhere else Kris had
been.

The yeoman went on merrily playing tour guide, showing her
one of the five messes, the rec-rooms, the library. He pointed out other places—most
of which were off-limits—and she listened with a scant half an ear. Finally,
they stopped in front of a sealed hatch.

“Through there has been set aside for you ladies,” he said.
“Sorry it’s a bit crowded. We’re not really equipped to handle all you lot but
I hope you’ll manage. Your bunk’ll have your name on it, and there’s a trunk
with some clothes and such. I can’t vouch for the fit, but we did what we
could.

“The head’s through the back to the left, with the showers.
There’s some regs on the wall you oughta get familiar with—the consoles have
all that info too. Bring up the bookroom if you wanna read or check out the
shows. If you need to get a message off-ship, one of us’ll pass it on to the
Exec—we’re under comms silence but I don’t know how strict. Dinner’s at
four bells; that’s in twenty minutes. We got Foxtrot mess fixed up specially for
y’all but you’re welcome at any of the others, of course—‘cept the NCO’s.
You’ll need an invite there but they’ve got the best food on the ship and I don’t
think they’d mind
you
asking.” He made it sound quite personal.

“Better than the officers?” she asked.

“Oh yes, ma’am,” he answered vehemently. “Officers is kinda
stingy, on account of they gotta buy their own food, not like the rest of us.
Plus they got to eat what the Exec likes.”

“Is that bad?”

“Depends on the Exec. Commander t’Laren’s a real good sort,
though. She’ll probably come round and look in on y’all after dinner. You
haven’t met her?”

“Uh . . . no.”

“You’ll like her,” the yeoman said confidently. “Have a nice
PM, ma’am.” He turned to go. She was confused. “Wait. How do I . . . I mean,
don’t you have to—”

“Oh no, ma’am. That’s women’s country in there. My sort’s
not allowed. Just tap on the hatch. Your strip will let you in. Then look for
the door that lights green—that’s your berth.”

Women’s country
? Kris still didn’t quite understand.
“But there’s women in the crew. They don’t have separate quarters, do they?”

“No ma’am. But you ain’t crew.”

“Oh. Well . . . thank you.”

He tipped the brim of his cap to her. “Afternoon, ma’am.”

*     *     *

Kris nudged the hatchway; it dilated with a hiss that
startled her. Moving somewhat gingerly, she stepped through into what appeared
to be a forward berthing space. Doors to what she assumed were the individual
bunkrooms opened off each side of the passageway and there was another door at
the far end. She walked slowly along, watching the door seals, until the last
one on the right lit green. She tapped the entry pad and it obediently slid
aside.

 Maybe it was going to get crowded; it wasn’t at the moment.
There appeared to be room for at least thirty people but right now only a dozen
or so women clustered about; five talking quietly in a small group, a few more
silent with their heads together, two reading alone on their bunks. They all looked
up as Kris walked in. Some looked away again, some seemed startled, some smiled
in a timid, jerky sort of way. Kris nodded slightly to those who made a
pretense of greeting and ignored the rest. She didn’t know any of them. That
wasn’t surprising. She’d been a deck slave, one of the privileged few who had
freedom of the decks and mixed with the crew. There had been a few other deck
slaves she’d known casually; not what you’d call friends, exactly—her status
as the captain’s property tended to put a damper on that—but people she might
eat with or talk to when they had a little time to themselves. None of them
were here, though. She wondered if they were still alive.

These people must have been transportees. Slavers tried to
keep deck slaves and transport slaves apart—too much information got passed
around otherwise—and mostly they succeeded. Nonetheless, Kris had managed to
get to the holding deck a few times and talk to the transportees. But not this
trip.

She found her bunk, marked with a narrow white card that
said KRIS. That made her frown; the others she’d seen had the occupant’s full
name spelled out. Was her name just too long? That seemed unlikely—they must
think she preferred it. There was a foot locker under the bunk with the
promised change of clothes. A couple of dark blue jumpsuits, matched for height
and nothing else, a comb, a shower kit with a towel and assorted toiletries.
Pulling out a jumpsuit, she realized it was a man’s. Her nose wrinkled.
Glancing around, she verified that everyone else seemed to be wearing something
that looked like standard issue—but women’s standard issue.

What the hell’s going on here?

She wasn’t
that
tall. The brunette reading by herself
in the next bunk was at least her height, and
she
got real clothes. Piqued,
Kris rummaged around in the locker some more. No underwear.

Well, that figures.

Still, it was an improvement. She wanted a shower and to
wash her hair. Laying the jumpsuit and the kit on the bunk, she stripped off
her old clothes. Suddenly. the room became very quiet. Kris stiffened. Just
what the hell were they looking at? In the unnatural silence, she thought she
heard a few whispered comments followed by tense warnings to hush up. Her ears
burned.

Slowly, she stuffed her worn clothes in the foot locker’s
laundry compartment. What good that would do, she couldn’t guess. Even with the
bloodstains mostly gone they were pretty well trashed. She picked up the kit
and jumpsuit, grabbed the towel and walked slowly to the showers.

The shower was a standard ultrasonic weightless model, newer
than the one on
Harlot’s Ruse
, but basically similar. There were some
regulations on the wall about water use: one wet-down, one rinse, seven minute
limit per day—that sort of thing. The allotment was positively lavish compared
to what she was used to and the shower seemed leisurely almost to the point of
sin. She kept one eye on the timer, reveling in the slowness at which the
seconds ticked by. She washed her hair with painful thoroughness and stepped
out refreshed not one second earlier than necessary. Briskly, she dried off and
worked the kinks out of her hair before getting dressed again. When she tried
on the jumpsuit, it fit about as expected: too tight across the breasts and
hips, baggy in the waist, short in the inseam. Belting it helped the second
problem somewhat, tucking the pant legs into her boots solved the third, the
rest would have to be endured. Finally, she went back to the bunkroom. It was
empty now except for the tall brunette in the bunk next to hers. As she walked
in the brunette looked up and smiled as if she meant it.

Kris had seen plenty of beautiful girls, but none to match this one
with her dark changeable eyes, heavy waves of sable hair touched with copper
and exquisite latte skin. Even more remarkable, Kris could detect none of the
telltale signs that her looks were the work of a visosculptor, even a gifted
one. Not a colonist certainly; a Homeworlder—and a rich one too. She
appeared to be no more than a year older than Kris but she probably was; her
skin had the hyper-healthy sheen that marked her as a rejunvenant. Kris wasn’t
used to rejunvenants. Out in the colonies, people had to make do with simple
postpausal geriatrics. The woman’s voice, when she greeted Kris, had a soft liquid
accent Kris couldn’t place.

“Hi,” Kris answered, a little uncertainly.

The woman swung her feet off the bunk and offered her hand.
“You’re Kris, right? I’m Mariwen. I’m sorry about the others—they all went to
dinner early. I think they’re a little bent.”