A silence had fallen around the room. Finally Salman said, “A connection sounds worth investigating, Inspector. If anything comes to any of us, we’ll let you know.”
A clear dismissal. Ched-Theree dipped her head once and left, this time without pausing. A great deal of the room’s tension left with her.
“Do we tell her?” Ben asked, voicing Kendi’s thoughts.
“It seems stupid not to,” Lucia pointed out. “The police and Guardians can do a much better job watching Sufur than the Vajhurs.”
“They’d arrest him,” Kendi said flatly. “This isn’t the first time Sufur’s been to Bellerophon, remember. The first time he showed up, he persuaded Sejal to take part in his project—unknowingly on Sejal’s part, I might add—and he helped a spy escape. Technically he didn’t break any laws, but—”
“Last I looked, helping a spy escape is breaking the law,” Tan asked.
“The man in question was spying on the Empire of Human Unity,” Kendi said. “That isn’t illegal on Bellerophon. But I know the Guardians and the police would like to talk to Sufur at great length. If we tell them he’s here, they’ll arrest him and we’ll lose any chance of finding out what he’s up to.”
“And the Guardians won’t be able to figure it out?” Gretchen said sardonically. “If they arrest him, they’ll get access to his computer and communication records and anything else in his house.”
“Not if he’s smart, they won’t,” Ben said. “And Sufur is pretty smart. It’s not hard to set up a self-destruct virus that’ll clean-wipe your system if you say the word. I’d do it.”
“We may be able to persuade the Guardians to watch him,” Harenn said.
“And we may not,” Kendi said. “They’re an unknown.”
“There has to be a connection between Sufur’s presence and the disappearing people,” Salman pointed out. “He owns Silent Acquisitions, and they’ve kidnapped people before.”
“But why would they kidnap both Silent and Silenced?” Ben asked. “The Silenced would be useless to Silent Acquisitions.”
“Perhaps he’s only kidnapping Silent and the other disappearances are coincidence?” Lucia said.
Kendi shook his head. “We’re still flailing around in the dark. I think the best course is to keep watching Sufur and wait for something to break. Something always does, if you’re patient.”
“You are counseling patience?” Harenn said. “This is a new thing.”
“I’m getting really tired of that,” Kendi said, suddenly snappish. “Yeah, I was headstrong for a long time, but Ara’s death hit me fucking hard so now and again I
think
. Is that such a big deal?”
“Apologies,” Harenn murmured.
Kendi took a deep breath. “Anyway. We need to keep Sufur to ourselves for a while. Once we know what he’s up to, we’ll turn the whole thing over to the Guardians.”
His tone made it clear that it wasn’t a question, but even Salman accepted his words with a nod.
Ben flung open the meeting room door and strode inside. The startled Councilors gathered around the central table leaped to their feet, including the Ched-Balaar. Ben didn’t pause, but his heart was pounding in his throat and he could still taste the bile from the last time he had thrown up. He strode to the foot of the table—Grandmother Adept Pyori stood at the head—and placed his palms flat on the surface.
“I’m here,” he growled. “Let’s get started.”
The Councilors stared. Ben stared back. It was the first time he had met with them, the first time he had set foot on monastery property since he had accepted the role of Offspring, and the Council was clearly uncertain. Ben began to feel uncertain himself. These people were powerful. They ran the monastery and had direct influence on both local and planetary government. Most of them outranked even Grandma. Then he saw that most of the Council was looking at him with awed expressions. He caught sight of Ched-Jubil, and his resolved stiffened.
“Well?” he said. “The Offspring is a busy man.”
The Councilors turned as one to Grandmother Pyori. She cleared her throat. “Why don’t we all sit down?”
What would Kendi do?
Ben thought of a sudden. He folded his arms. “I prefer to stand. Keeps the meeting short.”
Pyori closed her eyes for a moment. “Ben—”
“That’s Mr. Rymar.”
“We’re starting on an angry note,” Pyori said. “I don’t think we want—”
“Want?” Ben said, anger overcoming his earlier apprehension. “
Want?
Since when have the Children cared about what I might
want?
You tried to take my children away from me, and now you’ve forced me to join an organization I’ve...I’ve...” He tried to pause, but the words burst out of him. A...an organization I’ve
despised
for my entire life. You took away my mother, you tried to take away my children, and now you’re trying to take away my life. Let’s get one thing straight right now,
Grandmother
—I may have joined your filthy organization and you may have my thumbprint on a contract, but you’ll never have my cooperation. Don’t talk to me about what I
want
, Pyori.”
“
Grandmother
Pyori,” Ched-Jubil corrected in shock. “Offspring or not, you do not have the right to—”
“And if that child-molesting Ched-Balaar slaver ever speaks in my presence again,” Ben snarled, “I’ll cram his head up his own ass.”
“Ched-Jubil,” Pyori said gently, “your presence causes the Offspring understandable distress. Perhaps there are other duties you could attend to right now?”
Ched-Jubil started to protest, then caught a glimpse of the stony expression on Pyori’s face. He ducked his head and withdrew without another word.
“Thank you,” Ben said, slightly mollified.
“I always said that lawsuit was a foolish idea,” clattered a Ched-Balaar Councilor quietly.
“Please sit down,” Pyori said in the same gentle voice. “I’m an old lady with tired feet, but I don’t feel comfortable sitting in...in your presence, Offspring, if you remain standing.”
Reluctantly Ben took a seat at the table. The rest of the Council followed suit, with the humans in chairs and the Ched-Balaar on floor cushions. Counting Pyori, there were six of them—three human and three Ched-Balaar. The humans were dressed in formal brown robes trimmed with blue silk while the Ched-Balaar wore brown head cloths, also edged in blue. “ll the Councilors wore rings of indigo fluorite to indicate their rank as Grandparents. Only Pyori’s ring carried the amethyst that gave her rank as Grandmother Adept, and her robe was embroidered with gold thread.
The echoing, wood-walled room seemed too large and too stark for this small group to meet in. Ben recalled when there had been nine Councilors, four of which were from species other than human and Ched-Balaar. He also recalled that when Melthine had been Head of Council, the meetings had been held in the Dream. The Despair, however, had taken the lives of several Councilors and Silenced the rest, including Grandmother Pyori. Ben wondered how much distress Ched-Jubil felt at being Silenced. He hoped it was a lot.
“Ben—Mr. Rymar,” Pyori said once everyone was seated, “I apologize for every moment of distress the Children caused you and your family, and I am, in fact, prepared to release you from your contract.”
Hubbub broke out in the room. The human Councilors leaped to their feet, their protests joining the hoots and clatters of the Ched-Balaar. Pyori picked up an elaborately twisted walking stick set with an enormous amethyst at the knob and thumped it hard on the floor. The talk died down. The humans sat again, stiff with tension.
Ben eyed her warily. “What’s the catch, Grandmother?”
“No catch,” she said, “except that before you decide, you hear me out.” She continued before Ben could reply. “Mr. Rymar, you know that your discovery has touched off a storm all around Bellerophon—throughout the universe, really. I have to admit that I feel...awed standing here, in the same room, with Irfan’s own son. I think the rest of the Council feel the same way.”
Nods and head-ducks of assent all around the table followed this last statement.
“I never wanted your awe,” Ben said.
“You have it just the same.” Pyori leaned on the walking stick. “Mr. Rymar, because of your presence, we—the Children—have been able to attract three off-planet investors to help bail us out of bankruptcy. We can now remain solvent long enough to survive until this new generation of Silent is able to begin courier work. “s a result, we can pay our people again.
“I don’t want to force you to work with us, Mr. Rymar. You said you’ve hated us your entire life because you see us as the people who sent your mother away from you when you were a child, and lately because we tried take your own children away from you. You may not believe it, but it tore my heart to let Ched-Jubil file his lawsuit. I was faced with the terrible choice of preserving one family or rescuing hundreds.”
She tapped a control on her data pad, and a series of holograms popped up in the center of the table. A thin, ragged child tried to warm his hands in front of a meager fire. A Ched-Balaar whose ribs showed through her fur rummaged in a garbage heap for food. A human mother held the hands of two small children as they stood in a long, long line at a soup kitchen. A shaky town of tents and crude lean-tos stretched out across the forest floor, the people looking hopeless and afraid. Ben swallowed hard. Every night he slept in a fine, soft bed. His and Kendi’s house had been nearly destroyed, but there was no question about whether or not they and Evan would have food to eat and a warm place to sleep. He had given plenty of money to charities, but he had never walked through the downbelow tents or visited the bread lines. In all the fuss over the election and his revelation, he had forgotten how bad it had become for some people. For many people.
“Some of our Silenced brethren have left us to work new trades in Othertown’s mines and on the farms,” Pyori continued, “but many have remained in Treetown, barely surviving. Infant mortality rates have soared. People—children—die of simple viruses and bacterial infections because there is no money for medical care. But thanks to your presence, we can once again provide food, housing, and medicine to these families. We can put them to work, give them their lives back.”
Pyori nodded and the Ched-Balaar Grandfather sitting closest to Ben set a data pad and a small box on the table in front of him.
“Mr. Rymar, I’ve signed an agreement that releases you from your obligation to the Children of Irfan. It also states that you and Father Kendi will keep permanent adoptive custody of the babies and the embryos. “ll you have to do is sign.”
“What’s in the box?” Ben asked.
“Open it,” Pyori said in that same, relentlessly gentle voice.
Ben did so. Light glinted off a gold ring set with a circle of seven small stones—ruby, topaz, amber, emerald, lapis lazuli, fluorite, and amethyst. One stone for each rank of Child. It was beautiful, and its symbolism was clear.
“It’s up to you,” Pyori said, “whether you want the agreement or the ring.”
Ben stared at the ring. After a long time, he set it down and picked up the data pad. Pyori bit her lip. Ben pressed his thumb to the pad. The agreement erased itself. Then he picked the ring back up and put it on. Every Councilor sighed.
“Thank you, Mr. Rymar,” Pyori said.
“Call me Ben,” he said. “So. What’s this Offspring business going to be about?”
Kendi-the-bat flitted restlessly through the Dream. His keen ears picked up whispers, tiny threads of the minds around him. Many were familiar—Ben, Bedj-ka, Keith, Martina, even Harenn and Lucia, who weren’t Silent but whose minds were familiar enough to him that he could sense them without even trying. Now, however, he was looking for something he had never touched before. He was looking for a sensation.
Before the Despair, Kendi had been a tracker non-pareil. He had, for example, been the first Silent to sense Sejal’s strange talent at work in the Dream and he had managed to pinpoint his location to a single city on a single planet. Pretty good, considering he’d had an entire universe of Silent minds to sift through. Nowadays, however, his hold on the Dream was weaker and it was harder to find people. Last night something had told him to flee his own house, and Kendi suspected his subconscious had picked up something his conscious had missed. Now he was flitting through the Dream trying to see if he could figure out what it was.
A stark round moon outlined the sand and rocks of the Outback in hard silver below Kendi, and the desert air was cold beneath his wings. Faint whispers coursed on the still air, and Kendi concentrated hard, trying to separate out each one. The phenomenon had to be local to Bellerophon, so he worked at tuning out the noise that came from other planets and star systems. His mind automatically rearranged the Outback to reflect this, soundlessly warping the landscape into a box canyon that encompassed Bellerophon and deadened the sounds from everywhere else. Kendi fluttered back and forth across the canyon in a cris-cross pattern, listening, smelling, even tasting. Every rock and stone, every leaf and stem on the stubborn plant life was a mind on Bellerophon, and he did his best to check—
Kendi caught a strange double echo which immediately faded as he moved away. He flipped around and backtracked, flittering left and right, until he caught the sound again. It was the voice of someone in the Dream whispering to someone in the solid world, and the whisperer was whispering from outside the canyon. The mind on the receiving end felt familiar to Kendi, but he couldn’t place who it was—the whisperer was changing the person’s thought patterns and interfering with Kendi’s impaired ability to recognize who it was.