The Prodigal Sun (20 page)

Startled by the sudden intrusion on the conservation, Roche realized that she was standing stock-still in the middle of the garage, staring off into space. Feeling foolish, she turned to face the woman who had spoken. Cropped blonde hair, a sour face, and grey eyes stared back at her. “You Roche?”

“I am.” She automatically glanced around for the others and found Cane and Maii on the far side of the garage. Cane’s eyes scanned the proceedings with his usual attention to detail; the Surin was motionless.

“Haid wants you out of that armor before he’ll let you down. There’s a cubicle and a change of clothes out back.”

Roche flexed her fingers in the power-gloves. Although the armor had increased her sense of well-being for a while, she would be glad to be rid of it, if only temporarily. Sweat had pooled in the suit’s crevices, making her entire body feel oily. “Any chance of a shower?”

The woman nodded reluctantly. “If you have to,” she said. “But don’t waste the water.”

The woman walked through the door at the rear of the garage, and Roche followed, careful not to bump anything with the armor’s wide shoulders. The corridor was narrow and cluttered with boxes. Some of them contained weapons similar to the ones they had brought back from Houghton’s Cross; most seemed to contain provisions of a more harmless sort: food, clothes, medicinal supplies, and the like.

Although the Enforcement government allowed the inhabitants of the penal colony free rein over their internal affairs, they obviously kept a heavy hand on potentially dangerous matters, such as technology and communications. Thus far, the most sophisticated weapon Roche had seen in the hands of the rebels was a projectile rifle, and the most powerful engine one powered by petroleum. By thus keeping the population at a level barely approximating civilized, DAOC ensured that its relatively small but well-equipped force was more than capable of keeping the peace. Armed with nothing but pellet guns and cow-shit trucks, the rebels wouldn’t last a moment against the landing field’s defenses.

Yet somehow they had fashioned an extensive underground network capable of some small resistance. Utilizing the only assets available to them—ruins, untamed wilderness, and people—they had at least given themselves a chance. All they needed, she thought, was one even break, and they’d become dangerous. And, like all dangerous resistance movements, they’d probably be wiped out at the first opportunity.

Roche tried to rid herself of the thought, concentrating instead on her own problems.

The cubicle at the end of the corridor was half as large as the compartment Roche had occupied on the
Midnight.
A small toilet facility, including a shower, had been curtained off in one corner. There seemed to be no surveillance equipment or hidden entrances, just the door through which she had entered.

“Thanks,” Roche said. “I owe you one already.”

“I’ll send the Surin girl through when you’re finished.”

“No, wait.” Roche stopped the woman before she could leave. “I’d like to see her now, if possible. Don’t worry,” she added when the woman frowned, suspicious. “We’re not going anywhere.”

The woman shrugged and left the room. Roche waited a moment, then returned her attention to the Box.

said the Box.

The armor hissed, split along its seams, and allowed her to wriggle free. The pain in her shoulder was muted, manageable, as her arm slipped out of the padded sleeve. The touch of fresh air on her exposed skin made her groan with relief.

The blonde woman arrived with Maii as Roche began the difficult process of extricating herself from the sweat-stained and torn remains of her Armada uniform.

The woman pointed at a small pile by the door. “Change of clothes. You’re about my size, so they should fit. You’ll find a towel in the shower.” With that, she left Roche and the reave alone.

“Do you want a shower?”

Maii shrugged.

Roche took the hint and began to peel off her uniform, not bothering to hide herself from the blind Surin. Her skin was red where the suit had rubbed, and crusted with dirt where it hadn’t. She doubted that even an hour in a gehan mineral spa followed by a complete body scrub could make her feel clean, but a brief rinse certainly wouldn’t hurt.

The curtained-off area contained a small handheld nozzle and a recessed basin. Standing in the basin, with the valise resting just outside, she switched on the nozzle and gasped as a fan of cold water sprayed her thigh. Directing the jet across the entirety of her body, she did her best to clean herself, relishing the feel of the cool water.

She examined her skin as she washed, noting a variety of multicolored bruises she hadn’t previously been aware of. The purple-yellow blotch enveloping her left shoulder was beginning to fade, but still spread down to her breast and as far back as she could see. The joint itself was tender to the touch, and, she noted, swapping the nozzle over to her left hand, stiff. Her right side was relatively intact, apart from a couple of grazes. The water washed across the smooth line of her muscles, down her hips and thighs, curling between her toes, its caress gentle and soothing. She could have stayed within the intimate embrace of the water indefinitely, but she kept in mind the woman’s warning and, after one last scrub at her stubbled scalp, clicked off the nozzle and reached for the towel. Water was scarce on the planet, and doubly so in the port itself.

While drying herself off, she stepped from behind the curtain to find Maii standing in exactly the same position she had been minutes earlier.

“You look lost,” she said, with feeling. The girl seemed so small and helpless that, despite years of programming to loathe reaves, she wanted to reach out and hug the child.

She shuddered gently. Roche could feel something else there also, but Maii managed to suppress the thought; her words in Roche’s mind trailed into an uncomfortable silence.

“By yourself, you must feel terrible.” Roche wondered at the depth of the girl’s attachment to her ward. It seemed more than just the bond of friendship, and yet less than a physical attachment. Could the Surin and Eckandi Castes mate? It was not something she had ever heard of before.

There was annoyance in the reave’s tone.

“Then...” Roche wasn’t quite sure what to say. From what she remembered of Maii’s memories, the reave held the main governing body of the Surin Caste in no high regard. “Listen, if you and Veden are lovers or whatever...”

she cut in with indignation.

“Okay.” Roche finished toweling herself dry, then turned to the pile of clothes. The loose outfit of brown cotton pants and shirt the woman had provided was slightly baggy, but comfortable enough. She tucked her left arm under the shirt, keeping it pressed against her stomach. The valise’s cable dangled around her waist like a belt.

Turning back to Maii, she said: “We’re in no hurry, it seems. Why not have a shower? It’ll take your mind off things for a moment.”

“Why not?”

“You—” Roche did a mental double take. “What’s wrong with my eyes?”

said Maii.

Roche frowned. “But—”

“So whose eyes have you been using?”

“For Veden.”

Maii was silent. Grief radiated from her small form and into Roche’s mind.

She sighed. “Look, Maii. You’re exhausted, you need rest, and I don’t know how long it’s been since you slept. You
need
that shower. It’ll make you feel better, if only for a while.” Roche hesitated, then forged on. “You can use my eyes, if you want.”

“You can check, if you like.”

The reave didn’t say anything for a moment, then sighed.

“Yes, well, this time it won’t be theft, but a gift.” She paused. “Besides, we kind of need each other right now.”

Roche shrugged, knowing that, having let the reave into her head, she could no longer hide her feelings from the girl. “Just have a shower. We’ll talk about it later.”

Maii nodded and slipped out of her tunic and blindfold. Leaving the curtain open, she climbed into the basin and used the nozzle to clean her skinny body. Roche tried not to feel squeamish, and forced herself to keep her eyes on the girl as she washed.

Not “girl,” she reminded herself. Not as she knew one to be. Naked, there was no mistaking the peculiar physiology before her for that of a Pristine: the graceful skeleton, with its high rib cage; the dark, protruding nipples; the stump of a vestigial tail protruding from the cleft between narrow, corded buttocks; the fine, ginger hair—not fur—that uniformly covered the Surin’s body except at groin and armpits, exactly the reverse of Pristine hair. Girlish in form, but Exotic in detail.

As her eyes became accustomed to the sight, Roche noticed the fine network of scars across Maii’s scalp. Whoever had operated on her—the rogue doctor unnamed in Maii’s memories—had performed an intricate operation to convert the child into a fully functioning epsense adept. Exactly how it had been achieved, Maii did not remember; and Roche had never heard of the practice before. The moral question it raised may have forced the Surin Agora to ban the process while it was still in development, and thereby driven the doctor underground, where he had procured experimental subjects from the poor or the unscrupulous. Children, all of them, too young to choose. When Maii finished her brief shower, she climbed out of the basin and used the towel Roche had discarded to dry.

Then she clambered back into her old shipsuit and smoothed the hair on her hands and scalp.

she said.

“That’s okay.” Roche glanced at the door. “Maybe you should call the woman—”

“—Sabra, then, to let her know we’re ready.” Maii nodded. Roche took a seat on a box in one corner of the room to rest while she waited. The enormous bulk of the armor dominated the center of the tiny room, like a statue of a dirty, beheaded giant. Old but still reliable, it had served her and the Box well during her brief occupation, and she regretted leaving it behind. If discussions went well with Haid, she promised herself, she would retrieve it later.

said Maii, eavesdropping on Roche’s surface thought.

Roche nodded. “Any suggestions?”

Roche smiled to herself. Yes, it was appropriate. “Okay. ‘Proctor’ it is. Here’s hoping it gives us better luck than its previous owner.”

Roche laughed aloud at this. “Both.”

* * *

A security card gained them entry to an unfurnished office at the back of the building, stained from years of neglect. Sabra stepped up to a sliding door set in one corner of the room and punched a code into a keypad. The metal door shuddered for a moment but failed to open. Without complaint, Sabra repeated the sequence. On the third attempt, the door finally opened with a slight hiss. Beyond was an elevator. The woman ushered Roche, Maii, and Cane inside. With a rattle and grind of machinery, the carriage and its four passengers dropped downward. “Where are you taking us?” asked Cane. “Downstairs,” said Sabra. Her reticence could have been natural or cultivated; either way, it showed no signs of abating.

“The port is riddled with old tunnels and chambers,” said Roche, “left over from the early colonial days, before the Ataman Theocracy and COE invasions. Everyone knows they’re here, but no one apart from the resistance uses them; they’re supposed to be unsafe. According to the Box, this section used to be a university. The resistance rebuilt it, and now uses it as a headquarters.” She smiled sweetly at Sabra, who returned her gaze with obvious dislike. “And that’s where we’re going. To meet Haid, right?”

The woman shrugged. “Right enough.”

Their journey ended with a stomach-wrenching jerk. When the door slid open, it revealed a narrow, ill-lit passageway. Sabra nudged them forward, then sealed the lift behind them. Poorly maintained gears groaned as the carriage slowly returned to the surface.

“This way,” said Sabra, and headed down the corridor.

They passed through a security scanner and a corridor lined with a dozen locked doors, then entered a dimly lit chamber containing nothing but a wide wooden desk and five chairs. Behind the desk and its compulsory computer facility sat the most profoundly black man Roche had ever seen. His skin was as dark as that of an Olmahoi, with a similar bluish sheen. He was hairless, which only accentuated the color of his skin. One eye stared at them from behind an ocular lens—held permanently in place millimeters above the eye by microfilaments embedded in bone. The other was nothing but glass. His left arm, resting on the desk, lifted as they entered the room to gesture at the chairs.

“My name is Ameidio Haid,” said the man. His voice was warm, patient, and solid. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting.”

Roche nodded, accepting the apology for what it was: a formality. She settled gratefully into an armchair, the upholstery of which was ripped in various places. Cane sat to her immediate left, Maii to her right. Sabra stood to one side of the desk, unobtrusive but undeniably present. Under the dim light above the desk, Roche could see deep scars etched in Haid’s cheeks and temples. Not injuries, she noted, but surgery. Given the hollow look of his face, she suspected that items had been removed, not implanted.