Reclamation
Authors: Sarah Zettel
RECLAMATION
Winner of the Locus Award for Best First Novel
“An exciting new talent . . . Ms. Zettel’s confident treatment of her ambitious material shows just how entertaining the ‘grand tradition of Heinlein and Asimov’ can be in her sympathetic hands.” —
The New York Times Book Review
“This one has scope and sweep, intrigue and grandiose technologies, and grand adventure. Sarah Zettel is a writer to watch.” —
Analog Science Fiction & Fact
“In the grand tradition of Heinlein and Asimov . . . More than an exciting science fiction adventure story—it also gives us a universe, vividly imagined and thought provoking.” —Poul Anderson, author of
Harvest of Stan
FOOL’S WAR
A
New York Times
Notable Book of the Year
“Wrenchingly real.” —
The Philadelphia Inquirer
“This thought-provoking tale offers an energetic plot and a cast full of appealing characters.” —
The Plain Dealer
“An exciting, stimulating and imaginative book. Zettel handles her intriguing cast of characters, both human and AI, with style and confidence.” —SF Reviews
PLAYING GOD
“Energetic and entertaining . . . with many clever twists.” —
The Plain Dealer
“Absorbing and exciting . . . Rush right out and grab
Playing God.
” —
Analog Science Fiction & Fact
THE QUIET INVASION
“Humans, aliens and Venus itself are all skillfully portrayed here, in a pleasingly complex plot. . . . A drama of considerable moral force.” —
Locus
“A first-contact novel worth reading and relishing.” —
Publishers Weekly
“Zettel demonstrates her gift for creating fully realized cultures. . . . A riveting confrontation.” —
Booklist
Sarah Zettel
This book is dedicated to my teacher, Mr. Thomas B. Deku.
1—Haron Station, Hour 06:23:48, Station Time
2—Painted Canyon, the Realm of the Nameless Powers, After Dark
3—The Hundredth Core Encampment, Hour 11:34:25, Core Time
4—Amaiar Division, Kethran Colony, Hour 09:20:34, City Time.
5—Broken Canyon, The Realm of the Nameless Powers, Early Morning
6—May 16, in the Net, Hour 22:34:34, Planet Time
7—The Home Ground, Hour 08:19:19, Settlement Time
8—Amaiar Gardents, Kethran Colony, Hour 05:12:56, City Time
9—Amaiar Division, Kethran Colony, Hour 06:20:34, City Time
10—The Hundredth Core, Kethran Encampment, 09:46:12, Core Time
11—The Realm of the Nameless Powers, Late Afternoon
12—Aboard the
U-Kenai
, 10:04:56, Ship Time
13—Section One, Division One, the Home Ground, Hour 11:15:25, Planet Time
14—Aboard the U-Kenai, Hour 14:23:45, Ship’s Time
15—Section five, Division one, The Home Ground, Hour 09:15:25, Planet Time
16—The Lif Marshes, The Realm of the Nameless Powers, Afternoon
17—The Lif Marshes, The Realm of the Nameless Powers, Morning
18—Station Thirty-seven, Section Eighteen, Division Nine, The Home Ground, 11:20:19, Settlement Time
“W
E’RE IN.” COMING THROUGH
the cargo bay’s intercom, Hellea’s tenor voice sounded watery.
Burig let out a sigh that deflated his paunch to half its normal size. The arms on his chair tightened around his midriff to compensate. A split second later, the hum filtering through the sterile deck plates from the third level drive fell silent. Now, the
Alliance Runner
drifted on nothing but its own momentum and Hellea’s calculations.
A series of sharp clicks sounded from across the bay as Ovin opened all the restraint catches on her own chair and shoved its arms out of the way. Burig smiled. Ovin hated being strapped down. Already she was pulling out drawers and raising wire racks up around the thaw-out table, getting them ready for the equipment she would need to hang there if their find went into shock, or worse.
Burig shifted his weight so that the chair leaned him toward the intercom’s control board. He touched the VIEW key beside the flat screen set flush against the undecorated, blue tile wall. The familiar pattern of white spheres and gold lines that represented May 16’s system filled the too-small square. The
Runner
showed up as an out-of-proportion red dash floating between them. Burig rapped the image twice with his knuckle for thankfulness.
Ovin glanced curiously at him from between the forest of wires and monitor boxes she was building, but she didn’t say anything. The bay’s stark, white lights gave her profile a hard edge, despite her snub features. Burig tried to ignore her cool eyes. Instead he touched the CALL key for the bridge.
“Hellea,” he said toward the intercom, “how soon can you get me through to Director Dorias?”
“As soon as I set up a priority call for an open line,” came the reply. “Want it routed down here?”
“If you would.” Burig glanced past Ovin at the capsules. All of them waited dormant and dark in their racks, except the one humming and clicking gently by her elbow. “How far out are we?”
“This rate of drift, and all other things being equal, we’ll be putting in at Alliance Station in eight, maybe ten hours.”
“Thanks,” Burig said without any feeling. He shut the view screen off and swiveled the chair away from the wall. The restraints suddenly felt too tight around his waist. He thumbed the catches so the arms fell open to let him stand up.
“What’s the matter?” Ovin bent over the stacks of emergency gear next to the thaw-out table. Everything was switched on now, and at full ready. “Not soon enough for you?”
Burig leaned against the table and watched Ovin run through her checks. She kept her attention focused on the readouts as tightly as if she had a full hold and this was her first run. She had only stowed the loose systems that might be damaged in the event of a rough reentry into the system. Everything else had stayed up and running for the whole trip. Captain Notch had bawled her out about wasting power at the beginning. Ovin had replied that if Notch wanted to risk the cargo, wanted to risk a life, he could drop the ship into a black hole, but he wouldn’t do it by intimidating her.
Burig had hidden his smile. Nobody tried to tell Imeran d’or dyn Ovin anything about her specialty more than once. It wasn’t worth it.
“I’m just going to be really glad when we can hand her over to somebody else,” Burig said. “This is too close to contraband running for me.”
“Got a flash for you, Subdirector.” Ovin looked down at her charge. “This
is
contraband running.”
Burig sighed again. From here, he could see through the polymer shell of the active capsule to the woman inside. The ragged patchwork she wore as clothing looked incongruous trapped under the network of tubes and wires that fed her drugs and nutrients and monitored her condition. The translucent blue of the tubes reflected against her clear, brown skin, making long pale streaks that ran perpendicular to the scars on the backs of her hands. A respiration mask covered her mouth and nose, but Burig couldn’t see her chest move at all.
“Well,” said Burig, not taking his gaze off the still figure, “it’s not like she’s really Family.”
Ovin pursed her thin lips and watched the data on the support screens. Her trained eye picked out the details of heart rhythm, eye movement, respiration, and brain activity. “That’s not what we’re telling the rest of the Quarter Galaxy.”
“Until we know what we’ve got and why the Rhudolant Vitae are so interested in them, we’ve got to say
something.”
Burig stared at the screens. Technically, he knew what most of the symbolism stood for, but the jumble of letters, numbers, and colored lines kept flowing into fresh formations before he could make any real sense out of it. “This is not just another batch of cradlers’ descendants who’ve forgotten how to bang the rocks together. I’ve got an itch in the back of my head about this. This could be the future of the Human Family we’re carrying.”
“Or its past.” Ovin drew her fingers across the polymer right above the woman’s cheekbone. “That place is crashing
old.”
Burig remembered the ragged canyon wall with the deep grooves wind and rain had gouged into the bare, rust red stone.
“Crashing’s the word for it …”
The intercom’s chime cut off the rest of his sentence. Burig rounded the thaw-out table and perched on the edge of the chair just as the screen lit up again. This time, it showed the image of Director Dorias Waesc. Burig had never met him in the flesh, but whenever he saw the Director on screen he thought of Dorias as “the Medium Man.” Dorias had a medium build, medium brown skin and hair, a face suggesting medium age, and a sense of humor that was moderately acute.
“Good to see you, Subdirector Burig,” said Dorias. “How’d things work out?”
“Lu and Jay came through for us, Director,” Burig said with more enthusiasm than he felt. “We got what we went after.”
“How’s he doing?” Dorias’s image leaned closer to the screen as he tried to see across the room.
“She”—Burig slid the visual unit out of the wall and swiveled it around so Dorias could have a better view—“is knocked out in a life-support capsule.”
Dorias frowned. “Was that necessary?”
Burig shrugged. “It was how we got her from Jay. I thought it’d be easier to leave her in there until we got someplace that might require a little less explanation than an intersystem ship.”
Dorias did not look convinced. “She is a volunteer, isn’t she?”
“That’s what Jay says.” Burig tried to read what was going on behind the Director’s eyes. “Is there a problem?”
“No,” said Dorias. Burig was pretty sure he was lying. “You’re what, five hours out, six?”
Burig shook his head. “Eight to ten.”
Dorias rolled his eyes. “All right. I’ve had a request from Madame Chairman to keep you on the line until you get in-system, so I hope you and your relief are feeling talkative.”
Bung looked across at Ovin. Her mouth tightened until it was nothing but a thin, straight line.
“Expecting something to go wrong?” Ovin called toward the screen.
“Always,” said Dorias. “It’s part of my job.”
Like anybody on May 16 is going to be able to
do
anything about it,
thought Burig.
Dorias must have read his mind or the set of his jaw. “And if anything does go wrong, maybe we can’t help, but we’ll need to know about it as soon as it happens. We don’t want to risk losing an emergency burst to interception.”
“By the Vitae?” Burig asked.
“Who else?” said Dorias calmly.
Burig mouthed “told you,” toward Ovin. The entire project had been padded with excessive caution from the beginning. The
Runner
had been registered as an independent cargo ship. Except for Ovin and Burig, it was crewed with contract fliers from half a dozen disparate systems, none of which called themselves Family. May 16 had been watching Vitae movements nonstop from the moment they left dock. All normal. There hadn’t been even a twitch in the
Runner’s
direction. Despite that, Burig couldn’t bring himself to believe they were home and clear yet.
“So,” said Dorias, settling back, “what did you think of the Realm?”
“The Realm?” Bung’s eyebrows rose.
“MG49 sub 1,” said Dorias. “Its people call it the Realm of the Nameless Powers. Didn’t Jay give you a history lesson?”
“That’s Cor’s job,” Burig reminded him. “She was out playing native. We didn’t get to hang about to say hello.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he realized how harsh his words sounded. “We didn’t stay grounded very long. That place … it’s not exactly easy to get off of, you know. Especially with the number of eyes and ears the Vitae’ve got in orbit. Has there been any …”
The shrilling of the ship’s alarm cut through his sentence. Reflex jerked Burig’s head up.