Reclamation (24 page)

She cut him off with a wave of her hand. “One of the prerogatives of the job. I get to decide what I spend my time on, don’t I? Now, if you’re ready, we can go talk somewhere more comfortable.” She started toward the airlock.

Eric hesitated. Beside him, Schippend was sweating and swearing quietly into his torque. Cam stood motionless waiting for orders, and Madame Chairman waited for Eric to make some move.

The idea of leaving a stranger aboard the
U-Kenai
made Eric uneasy. He wanted to talk to Dorias and get his side of this story, but until he had his May 16 IDs, there was no easy or legal way for him to get into the system. He certainly wasn’t going to use his power gift with so many unknown factors surrounding him.

“I’ll be joining you in a moment, Madame Chairman.” Eric gestured her politely toward the airlock and walked back to the common room. He picked up the satchel he had packed with a change of clothes and a few pieces of communications hardware in case his visit became … complicated. Then he hit the combination of keys on the comm board that opened a line straight into Cam’s private ears.

“Cam,” he whispered, “once the inspection’s complete, seal the ship. Keep everything up and running.”

“Yes, Sar Born,” Cam acknowledged.

Eric nodded to himself. Some things, at least, were predictable. He shouldered the satchel strap and made his way back outside.

Madame Chairman Ross waited in the port car. Eric climbed into the empty seat beside her. “Whenever you’re ready, Madame Chairman.”

“Ross,” she corrected him. “The title’s for Unifiers and formal occasions, isn’t it?”

“As you prefer.” Eric stowed his pack under the seat. Ross released the brake and steered the little car into the main traffic lane that crossed the port. Eric kept his eyes on her to avoid having to acknowledge the stretch of empty space around the port or the open sky overhead.

Ross, it turned out, was not one to make small talk. She drove with her gaze on the shifting traffic, projecting an air of intense concentration. It was not from lack of skill, Eric decided. She handled the car well, sliding smoothly in and out of the stew of maintenance, transport, and private vehicles that flowed through the port. She was just extremely single-minded.

They left the port car at the free-standing arch that was the gateway to the main roads and transferred themselves to one of the automatic cars that waited there for hire. While Eric took his seat, Ross punched in her ID code and the address of their destination on the keypad and the car rolled into traffic.

“You have a room reserved at one of the diplomatic hostels, Sar Born,” Ross told him. “Once we have you cleared for the networks, you may use it for an hour or a year, if you require.”

“You have my thanks, Ross.”

“I hope you won’t mind if I also have your company for a while yet.” She released a catch on her seat so that it swiveled around and let her face him. “There are a few things about the City of Alliances I want to show you, and some questions I’d like to ask you.”

“I’ll be happy to be of service if I can,” Eric said.
I’ll need new employers, after all,
he added to himself,
that is if your crowd is even marginally more trustworthy than the Vitae.

The cityscape they moved through struck Eric as highly organized. The low brown-and-green buildings clustered around common courtyards. Ruler-straight streets crisscrossed the plain under the raised tracks carrying the monorail trains that provided most of the public transport.

The place had clearly been designed to provide comfort and convenience for its citizens. Eric couldn’t work out why it made him feel so uneasy.

Ross’s car had precedence on the streets. The roadway pulled other cars out of the lanes to give the chairman clearance so her transport could breeze through the traffic. Eric guessed they were probably moving five to ten miles an hour faster than the other cars.

Madame Chairman may not go in for formalities, but she’s got no problem using her privileges.

“Dorias said you’re a friend of his,” Eric ventured.

“Select circle, isn’t it?” she said in a voice more relaxed than anything Eric had heard from her yet. “I think it’s just you and me.”

“No, there’s a couple of others.” She waited for him to name names, but he didn’t.

She shook her head. “We’re almost to my offices.” She glanced at the readouts on the car’s dashboard.

“But he is working for you?”

She nodded.

“As a Family member?”

Ross considered this. “Strictly speaking, no. But I’m not a xenophobe, Sar Born. I don’t think that the creation of the Human Family means we should become isolated from the other sapient beings who share our galaxy, especially those we have created. Dorias is dedicated to the idea of a stable Human Family and I welcome him into the Alliance.”

Well, she certainly speaks dogma fluently, and she knows how to talk without saying much.

He tried another tack. “I got a message from Dorias telling me to contact you.”

“Part of a message, you mean,” Ross’s mouth twitched. “He told me the transmission didn’t arrive intact. Yes, I asked him to get in touch with you. We wanted to offer you a contract for your services as a systems handler. Dorias says you’re even better than he is.” She lowered her eyebrows. “It’s difficult to believe anyone could be better than a living piece of netware.”

What do you want to hear, Madame Chairman?
Eric wondered.

“Dorias has some limitations I don’t,” he said, watching her face closely. “Then again, I have some limitations he doesn’t. Who’s better depends on the job you have in mind.”

“That will come when I present the formal contract.” She pulled her gaze away from his and set her jaw at a different angle.

“Dorias also said it was the Unifiers who originally removed Stone in the Wall from the Realm.”

“Stone in the Wall?” Ross repeated the syllables awkwardly. “Is that her name?”

“One of them.” Eric ran his hands down his thighs. His palms were itching where his sun tattoos had once been.

Ross turned her bland face toward him. “Yes, we asked her to come to us as an emissary. The Vitae kidnapped her en route.”

You’ve had that line ready for hours, haven’t you, Madame Chairman?
The itch in his palms intensified and in the back of his mind an outraged voice demanded to know where she had the gall to interfere with the life of one who had been named by the Nameless?

“Here we are.” Ross pointed toward a domed, green glass complex behind a wall of milk-and-coffee stone. “I should warn you, Sar Born. There’s going to be a bit of a scene when the car stops.”

The car turned a corner smoothly and rolled through the slated, iron gates into a walled courtyard. The car stopped and the door opened itself.

The “bit of a scene” turned out to be a small army of assistants and security personnel that swarmed out of the grandiose buildings that fenced the yard.

“Madame Chairman, I’ve got the report on the …”

“Madame Chairman, you have an appointment with the …”

“Madame Chairman …”

“Madame Chairman …”

Ross stood like a statue in the middle of the zoo and let a big man in a grey uniform peel off her security patches and replace them with fresh ones. She seemed to drink in everything at once, occasionally rapping out a monosyllabic reply. “Yes.” “No.” “Go.”

“Sar Born, if you please?” One of the security men stood at his elbow with a set of patches in his hands. Eric nodded briefly and let the man press one patch against his translator disk and the other against his temple. The wires tickled briefly as they adhered to his flesh.

Ross’s mouth bent in what might have been a smile of approval or smug satisfaction. The expression passed too quickly for Eric to read.

“With me, if you please, Sar Born,” she said. The crowd parted quickly as Ross strode toward the nearest door.

Eric gathered his wits. He followed Ross through the arched doorway flanked by a contingent of administrators and guards who had been selected from the army either by prior arrangement or telepathy.

The halls inside the complex were a combination of history lesson, bureaucrat’s nest, and academic monument. On this side, the green glass was stained with a myriad of colors to depict the cities of a hundred different branches of the Human Family. Guides in black-and-blue coveralls pointed out individual scenes for gaggles of onlookers, lecturing them on the derivation and significance of each. The public access terminals were as much sculpture as they were information sources, each one done up as a different style of architecture. The Unifier administrators hurried around these obstructions without giving them a glance.

Security herded family tour groups to the side as Madame Chairman and her entourage breezed past. The professionals stepped aside, occasionally remembering to give some kind of salute in acknowledgment of their leader.

Finally they reached a lobby fenced by walls of translucent silicate. Half the entourage stayed respectfully outside while Madame Chairman and her most select group tunneled themselves through the doors. The lobby was filled with worktables and around them clustered Unifiers and petitioners gabbling away in a dozen languages.

And unmistakably waiting for Madame Chairman stood two Rhudolant Vitae.

Eric froze. The Vitae leveled their attention on him like a lead weight. They marked him. No question. Ross did too. She was watching him.

She had known. She had known they were going to be here and she’d paraded him right up to them.

“You’re with me, Sar Born,” she reminded him as her security men opened up the doors to what Eric assumed was her inner office. One of her nameless assistants stepped up to the Vitae, explaining in cool, polite tones Madame Chairman would be with them as soon as possible.

The doors swung shut behind them, leaving Eric and Ross alone together in an airy, comfortable office. It had two walls’ worth of windows and a third full of monitor screens that showed scenes from the City of Alliances, maybe real-time, maybe historical. Eric wasn’t sure.

“Please, sit down.” Ross gestured toward a stuffed, stationary chair and took her own seat behind a desk that looked as though it had taken a half acre of forest to build.

Eric ignored her invitation. “What do you want from me?”

“Your help,” she said simply.

“And you had to show me the Vitae to make sure you’d get it?”

She didn’t even miss a beat. “I had to show the Vitae you had come to meet with me. I’m hoping it will help slow them down.” She ran her hands across the desk top. “Have you seen this yet?” She pressed a silicate key inlaid in the natural wood.

The video on the center monitor blurred until there was nothing left but a mottled grey background. Eric’s spine stiffened. The greyness shifted and stretched until it became a pair of Vitae, one about ten centimeters and four kilograms heavier than the other.

The shorter one dipped his, if it was a him, chin in acknowledgment toward whatever camera had made this recording. Eric’s brow furrowed. The Vitae did not use gestures like that, in public anyway.

What is this?

The taller Vitae spoke. “I am Ambassador Ivale of the Rhudolant Vitae. With me stands Ambassador Asgaut. We have been authorized by our representative assembly to make this recording and see to its distribution across the Quarter Galaxy.

“We are asking any and all individuals who hear this in their official or private capacities to respect the Rhudolant Vitae’s claim of the world designated MG49 sub 1 by the Meridian system of Coordinates.”

Eric felt the lids on his eyes pull themselves back as far as they would go. He was vaguely aware that the harsh, ragged sound under the sudden ringing in his ears was his own breath.

Ambassador Asgaut spoke. “We do not ask for any group’s approval. We are not requesting permission for this endeavor. We are publicizing our intentions so that, in future, the system may be treated as Vitae territory subject to our laws and governance.”

“We thank you for your attention,” said Ivale.

The image faded to black.

Eric’s knees shook. His eyes couldn’t focus properly on the still, dark screen in front of him, and he had to fight to even keep them open.

“They’ve never done anything like this,” said Ross coolly. “The Vitae don’t claim worlds. They buy or trade for what they want until a culture’s under their thumb, in case they need its resources for something.

“I was hoping you could tell me what’s so fascinating about a place that is so old and decrepit it doesn’t even have a proper atmosphere on three-quarters of its surface?”

Eric turned around as quickly as his weakened legs would let him and raised his eyes so he could see her.

“What is being done about this?” he asked hoarsely.

“Not much.” Ross leaned back, resting just the tips of her fingers on the edge of her desk. “I wonder, Sar Born, if you have any idea exactly how powerful the Vitae are? They do a significant percentage of the building, maintaining, and managing for the known members of the human race. Most of their clients are willing to simply let them have MG49 because they can’t afford to upset them. Some of them are even eager for them to get it, because they think whatever it is the Vitae found there will eventually be up for sale.” She eyed him carefully. “They don’t even care whether it’s contraband or not.”

Eric’s gaze drifted toward the blank screen again. Faces flashed in front of his mind’s eye. Lady Fire. Heart of the Seablade. Arla.

Ross sighed. “Sar Born, whether or not you understand that it’s in your interests to cooperate with the Human Family, I can’t say, can I? But you should see that both our kind have an enemy in the Vitae.”

Eric’s eyes widened again. “What do you mean, both our kind?” he croaked.

Ross kept her gaze focused on him. “When we discovered what seemed to be a culture of the Family on MG49 sub 1, the Alliance sent a delegation to begin the process of reunification. We were extremely startled to discover for all the superficial matches, your people aren’t really Family. Telekinesis, for example, is not something that has ever evolved naturally for any branch of the Family, although several have managed to induce very weak forms of it through genetic engineering.” She paused. “Whoever worked with your ancestors was rather more successful, I gather.”