The Faarian Chronicles: Exile (15 page)

Chapter 17: Blood in the Water

With relief I saw Thal grinning up at me. Next to him was a
hover cart partly full of iridescent blue and bloody red. Yech. I tore a strip
from my shirt and wrapped my dripping finger tightly before pressing the down
button on the platform. It folded itself under me and zipped down so fast I
thought I was falling.

“Ugh. That takes some getting used to,” I said, referring to
both the freefall platform ride and the gory mess that fell with me to litter
the ground.

“When Lyta and Otrere showed up without you, I was pretty
sure they’d ditched you. You were supposed to call for backup though,” Thal
chided, tossing chunks of meat into the cart as if it were no big deal. “But I
can see they were already hatching, so you did the right thing. They would have
been a lot worse as chicks.” He smiled again. “Good job. Only next time, take a
second to call before you get started, just in case they get away from you,
okay?”

"Okay,” I agreed, my stomach too queasy to give him
much of a smile back. I didn’t even want to watch what he was doing. Stepping
gingerly off the platform, I brushed it off as well as I could on some dry
grass, then did the same with my scy before collapsing it back down to stow on
my belt. I kept my fist tight around the makeshift bandage to stop the
bleeding.

“Come on, let’s go back and get you some stitches on that
finger,” he said when the cart was full. We started walking back, Thal
chattering away excitedly about the eruption, me still trying to calm my
stomach. At this point, I couldn’t remember how far we’d come.

“I almost had a heart attack when I saw you holding it. What
were you thinking?” he asked. I explained about the chicks back home and how
harmless they were.

“Well,” he said with a little frown at that, towing the gory
load, “all I can say is it’s a good thing you don’t have any major veins there.
I can remember when the women used to wear full body chain mail to protect
against bites, but it hasn’t been that bad in a while.”

"Okay, so what’s up with collecting the carnage?” I
asked with a nod to the now dripping cart. “That’s disgusting, and where’d you
get the cart from anyway?”

“You’ll see.” He gave a sly little smile. “And check out
that other button on your platform.” I looked at the octagonal plate through
the mesh, and sure enough there was a button on the other side I hadn’t noticed
with a picture that sort of looked like a cart. Glad I hadn’t pushed the wrong
one.

Back outside the Kindred, Thal filled a five-gallon bucket
with the haratchi mess before dumping the rest into a covered bin. The edge and
lid were smeared with dried blood and feathers, and I couldn’t help but notice
a large bloody paw print on the side of the bin. The cats own personal snack
shack, apparently.

Thal checked his link, took the bucket, and continued
awkwardly inside, barely managing not to slop bloody remains all over the
floor.

“Don’t worry, this’ll only take a minute,” he said. I really
just wanted to get my hand taken care of, but followed him out of morbid
curiosity.

After walking halfway around the compound, I realized that
huge fish tanks were built into the outer wall all the way around. They were
numbered and all filled with the same oddly pretty, silver fish with sunset
bellies.

“Thal, with all the restrictions on water, why are there all
these fish tanks around?” I asked. Altogether there had to be thousands of
gallons of water in the tanks.

He grinned at me in excitement. “Watch,” was his only
response.

We finally reached the tank with the number he was looking
for etched into the stone above. Thal grabbed a short ladder from a corner,
opened the lid on the tank, and poured the whole bucket in before slapping the
lid closed again. The effect was immediate and grotesque in its primal
viciousness. The haratchi remains were completely gone in less than a minute, leaving
only a pink tinge to the water.

“Cool huh?” Thal was jazzed while I was once again trying to
hold onto my lunch. “Ooh, you don’t look so good. Let’s get you to Mom, okay?”
I nodded.

 “We have to keep the fish for emergencies, but like I
said, things haven’t been that bad in a long while. The last time the moat was
filled was a few years ago.”

I tried to make sense of what he was saying. “Wait. You put
piranha in the moat?” I asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah. They take care of a horde of haratchi chicks
during an outbreak before they can get to the Kindred. You should see the video
– it’s like an explosion! So cool. I can’t wait to see it again in person!”

Thankfully we entered the drab clinic and I was saved from
having to respond as I collapsed into a chair.

After spending some quality time with Aunt Penthe getting
stitches, I trudged my way to dinner. I hadn’t noticed it walking back with the
suns on my hair, but now that I was inside, I was dragging.

Nearly everyone in the Great Hall had already heard about my
lapse in judgment with the haratchi chick. Ethem teased me, Great-Aunt Nico
huffed in annoyance on her way past, and Myrihn stopped to glare at me.

“I thought I told you to stay with Lyta and Otrere. Couldn’t
even follow a simple order, could you? Had to make me look bad.” She probably
got in trouble for the General’s newly-arrived daughter getting hurt on her
watch. If she weren’t such a jerk, I might have felt bad about it.

Thal tried to help. “Sunny did a great job,” he said. “It
was her first time even seeing a haratchi nest, and that one was huge!” But no
one seemed to listen.

My mother only looked at my swollen, bandaged finger and
pursed her lips together in disapproval before she disappeared into her office
with a tray.

Thal led me over to a table with his mother and some other
people I didn’t know. A few I’d met on patrol that day, and a few others I
recognized from dinner the night before. The twins smacked my bite, pretended
it was an accident that I got left behind, and sat with Myrihn.

“Hey,” Thal said, noticing me glancing over at them. “Don’t
pay attention to them. They’re always hard on the newbies, and everybody makes
mistakes starting out. That’s what training is for. You’ll catch up.”

“And everyone gets bit sometime,” Penthe added. “It will
heal.”

I smiled at them in thanks and ate dinner quietly, trying my
best to be invisible.

After returning my dishes to the kitchen, I went looking for
my mother’s office. Not that I wanted to search out the woman who hadn’t
bothered to take any time for me in the last fourteen years – I didn’t remember
my first year with her – but it was necessary.

Besides getting advice from Andi on how to handle the twins,
I still had to let everyone back home know that I had arrived okay. And I had
to tell Dad about the crappy way mom was treating me. He’d get me out of this,
and hopefully Andi could help me get back at the twins before I left for home.

Chapter 18: Communications Glitch

As I trudged down the echoing stone hall to my mother’s
office door, I started to go over what I would say to her and stopped in my
tracks. What do I call her, anyway? Vaeda? General? Mother? Mom? I scratched
that last one off the list. Judith was the only mom I’d ever known.

When I finally came to the door, it was cracked open and I
heard voices inside – a meeting in progress. I sat down in one of the chairs
outside to wait. Through the opening, I could hear discussion over farm
shipments and crop prices and - was someone growling? That seemed
inappropriate. Those giant cats must have been in there too. Despite Thal’s
reassurance that the cats were nice and would never attack anyone, I wasn’t too
sure about them.

"Okay,” my mother’s voice was resigned, “I’ve got an
email going to my ex anyway. I’ll explain the situation. Maybe he can find us
some extra space on a cargo ship that comes his way.” Her ex? I’d never heard
Dad call her that.

A nasally voice spoke up. “What I want to know is why it’s
our job to feed every transient who comes through? We need to sell
all
our crops, not give half of them away every week.”

After seeing Anatolia for myself that day, I didn’t like the
whiny tone of whoever was speaking.

“Because Myrihn, we can and no one else will!” a male voice
I figured must be Ethem’s replied. “What are we supposed to do, let them
starve? Ship them back where they came from? We all know the National Council
isn’t doing a thing to help these people. And some of the other Kindreds pay
almost nothing to people who aren’t family. If they’ll hire them at all.”

As the debate moved on from local food deliveries to how to
advertise and sell more crops at the upper class markets in Glass City, my
attention wandered until my ears perked up at Dad’s name.

“The test seed from Daniel, that Teague and Myrihn managed
to, ah… bring… through customs for us, should help. These are varieties that
our competitors won’t be able to easily ship in to undercut us.”

“If we can keep them from getting eaten by pests, that is,”
someone grumbled. “And not just the haratchi. These things are going to attract
every bug in a hundred miles.”

“Yes, they’re not genetically modified ‘super seed’
engineered by greedy FarmTech scientists, but that’s the point,” my mother
said. “
These
crops will at least produce viable seed for next season, so
we won’t have to keep buying it every year while FarmTech triples the price on
us. They’re going to drive us into the ground if we don’t get away from them.”

“Well,” someone said hesitantly, “what about that deal The
Foundation offered us?”

My mother grunted. “They keep it quiet, but FarmTech is the
for-profit arm of The Foundation. Fleecing the farming community is one of the
ways they fund all that so-called life-saving research the Foundation does. So
why would they cut off their own funding source by offering us free seed and an
end to our water rights dispute with Glass City?”

“Because they’re getting desperate?” someone asked.

“Exactly. The
philanthropic
Dr. Souchie,” even
without seeing her face, the sarcasm was clear in my mother’s voice, “wants an
in here at the Kindred and there is no way we're going to give her one.”

“But all she’s asking in return are a few blood samples for
her research. What’s the harm? Isn’t that a small price to pay for what she’s
offering?”

“There’s no way to know what exactly she’d be able to do
with those samples,” someone else argued. “She only talks about the research
she wants people to know about.”

“And, if we start owing her now, we’ll owe her forever,”
Teague’s deep voice added.

“Exactly,” my mother agreed. “If she starts interfering in
our water rights, pretty soon she’ll be holding those over our heads too. She
won’t stop until she’s experimenting on us like some of her lab rats. I’m
sending an official ‘no’ to her so-called generous offer, and warning her not
to trespass here again.”

Jeez, paranoid much?

“But what if the other Kindreds take the deal and get their
seed for free?”

“Well, then they can deal with the fallout,” Teague said.
“And that’s why we’re switching seed now. So once those test plots are planted,
we’ll need everyone to keep an extra-close eye on them, because they
will
attract every bug and haratchi for a hundred miles. Hopefully some will whorl
out.”

“Good. It’s a plan,” my mother’s voice announced suddenly. “Sarosh,
you work on some signs for our produce at the Glass City markets. Recruit as
much help as you need. Show them who we are and all the reasons why our crops
are better than our cheap, genetically modified competition.

“Ethem, keep giving a meal to anyone who comes to our doors
hungry. Have them do some chores in exchange if you can. Myrihn’s right, we
can’t afford to hire everyone, but make sure your team keeps an eye out for a
few good workers to help us expand production soon.

“Alten, Myrihn, Thekla, and Layale, you four get to work on
how we can expand the underground watering system to the new fields on the
southeast side. I want a report on how much the supplies will cost and ideas of
where the money might come from in two days. Don’t tell me 'can’t'.” The quiet
warning was delivered with a hard edge. “I want us all to work on ideas for
native crops to plant there along with the new seed next cycle. Maybe then
we’ll be able to hire more hands.”

I heard murmurs and growling sounds of agreement from around
the room.

When the door opened, I jumped up to stand on my chair with
my back pressed to the wall to get as far away from those giant cats as
possible. Each cat strolled side-by-side with one of the warriors, making
throaty rasping sounds I’d never heard a cat make, when they saw me. It sounded
remarkably like laughter.

Alten, my mother’s obviously pregnant second in command, the
only one not wearing dusty fatigues, and last in the lineup, paused as she
waddled her way past. “What are you doing?” she asked, looking at me as if I’d
officially lost it. “Just… go on in.” She shook her head and waved me into the
office. As soon as I stepped through the door, I spotted Micha, sitting
docilely next to my mother’s chair at a very old, wooden desk.

“Uh, hi,” I said as I stood next to the door, ready to bolt.
Micha nodded at me regally and purred loudly.

Wait, what was I here for again?

My mother looked up from whatever she was doing on a device
resembling my link, but bigger, like a tablet, and motioned me to a chair in
front of the desk. I cautiously walked to the chair furthest from Micha and sat
on the edge of the seat, hoping she wouldn’t knock me over and lick me again,
or worse.

“How did she…” I stopped and turned reluctantly to Micha.
“How did you do that yesterday?” I asked. “Speak into my head, I mean.”

She peered into my eyes, almost mesmerizingly, and seemed to
shout her answer straight into my brain.
Our
symbiots allow Ahatu to communicate telepathically, but since Faarians aren’t
telepathic yourselves, we have to speak very deliberately and loudly to be
heard by anyone other than our warrior partners.
She nodded at my
mother.

I rubbed my throbbing head and nodded my understanding, not
about to ask her anything more for risk of brain cell loss, and turned to my
mother. There were so many things I wanted to say to her. I didn’t know where
to start.

“Dad would never call you his ex,” I blurted. It tumbled out
of my mouth without actually thinking about what I was saying.

Her lips thinned. “No, perhaps not. Your father and I had to
accept a long time ago how things stood between us and move on. He deals with
it in his way, and I deal with it in mine.” I didn’t want to tell her, but I
didn’t think Dad had ever moved on.

“Well, why didn’t you ever write to
me
?”

“What?”

“I heard you say that you write to Dad, but he never showed
me any emails.”

She sighed wearily. “Daniel and I never did see eye to eye
about you coming here. I made some promises to him when I left that I was never
able to keep, but I did what had to be done at the time and that’s just the way
it was.” Her chin rose arrogantly. “We kept in touch about you, and how things
were progressing here. It was his choice not to show you my emails. I’m sure he
didn’t want to get your hopes up about meeting me.” Micha laid her head on my
mother’s lap. The General started scratching the giant animal behind her ears
and Micha closed her eyes and started to purr in a deep rumble. My mother’s
shoulders seemed to relax and she continued.

“He agreed that you should learn about your heritage, but I
don’t think he believed you would ever actually come here, especially when I
had to cancel several times. He was also very concerned that we had the
haratchi under control before you came
and
I had to concede to having
you here only a few years, and after that you would get the choice of where you
wanted to live. He’s pretty sure you’ll choose Earth.” Her lips turned up in
the barest hint of a smirk, as if he had another thing coming. As if.

“And I get to go home to visit every year, right? I mean,
that’s what Dad said.”

“Yes,” she said with an air of exasperation, “you may visit
when we go for supplies.” Thank God. And I was running away as soon as I got
there, until they gave up and left me.

“Well, so like, why didn’t you ever come visit us? I mean,
if you sent for supplies every year, or whatever?”

She put down the link and looked up again, with something in
her eyes that looked like… well, something like regret, maybe. “Because I know
how difficult it would have been for all of us. And after it became clear that
your dad and I would never be able to live in the same place again, he asked me
not to.”

“What?” Dad asked her not to come?

“You would have seen me for one day and then I would have
left again. It wasn’t enough time to get to know each other. It wouldn’t have
been fair.”

And this was? I felt the flash go through my eyes and didn’t
even care. Didn’t she mean it would have been too hard for
her?

“So instead, you just decided to stay a complete stranger
for fifteen years? And then, as if having no mother weren’t bad enough, I
suddenly have to go live with a woman I’ve never even met? A bunch of people
I’ve never heard of? And I’m supposed to be okay with that? That makes no
sense!” By the end, I found I was shouting at her.

Micha’s purr stopped during my outburst, her blue eyes open
now and a displeased grumble rolling up in her chest. My mother rubbed Micha’s
head soothingly, her eyes shuttered against revealing whatever she might have
been feeling.

“I don’t need to explain my actions to you, Veridian. And
I’m not going to fight with you. I made the best choices at the time for all
concerned and that’s all you need to know. Now, what did you come here to ask
me? I have a lot of work to get through still tonight.”

I stared at her angrily. That was it? She couldn’t even
bother to work up enough emotion to argue with me? I sat back in my chair,
deflated. I’d completely forgotten needing to ask her how to email Earth, and I
didn’t want to ask her for anything now.

I looked away and glared blankly at the large electronic map
hanging on the wall nearest me, grinding my teeth. Multi-colored lights marked
spots here and there on the terrain, some of them blinking.

“They’re haratchi emergence zones we’re monitoring,” she
explained while I glowered at the map. “I brought sonar equipment with me when
I returned from Earth. Excavation proved useless, the vibrations from digging
to their burrows just caused them to move underground, and we ended up digging
up the countryside following them around. But sonar worked to map them and
estimate when and where the next outbreak would occur, so we could be on top of
them when they emerged, before they lay their eggs. It’s been the most
effective strategy to date, allowing us to protect a much larger area than
before.”

She folded her hands on the desk and stared at me
expectantly after her explanation, waiting for me to say something. “Veridian,”
she finally sighed in exasperation, “you got your stubbornness from me.”

Screw that. I did not get
anything
from her.

“Just ask what you came to ask already.”

“Do those books you sent me tell how to email Dad?” I ground
out. “I promised I’d email when I got here. I should’ve done it yesterday.”

“I already let him know you got here safely, but sit down.
I’ll teach you now so you don’t have to come back later.”

In other words, don’t come back later.

She turned her device toward me and I was stunned to see
pictures of me scrolling by in the background. It was the first un-businesslike
thing I’d seen from her. Me as a toddler on my first pair of skis; me as a tiny
blur doing back flips; me, Andi, and the neighborhood girls at my tenth
birthday party; me and Sensei with our scys; me grinning and holding flowers
atop the podium after I’d finally become a nationally ranked gymnast two years
ago.

She cleared her throat. “Your father has always been good
about sending photos,” she said quietly. Oh. Huh. I didn’t know what to think
about her keeping pictures of me either. It didn’t fit with what I knew of her.
I shook my head and tried to concentrate on learning how to email Earth.

After five awkward minutes of Link 101, I realized that the
little device could do practically anything; way better than an iPhone.

“Wow,” I said. “I mean, how does it
do
that?” I
pulled one corner of my screen like taffy, to expand it to notebook size like
she’d shown me, and then shrank it back down simply by pushing it back.

She shrugged. “The polymer stretches.”