Chapter Two
The second room of the lab module functioned as Shona’s bedroom while she was on a planetside assignment. She left her private comm unit hooked up in there most of the time, partly to keep it out of the way of the ship’s day-to-day operations.
Long ago, someone had discovered that if a lab was always set up inside its own unit, it didn’t have to be set up again in haste, and it could be isolated and sterilized in cases of quarantine. Laboratory modules belonged either to the Galactic Government or to the Corporation for temporary use on exploration or colony missions, but Shona’s was a new one, on permanent loan to her. Manfred Mitchell, the new CEO of the Corporation, had sent her a series of temporary short-term assignments to give medical care to various Corporation dependents. Under the circumstances, she couldn’t risk taking another available module from a dock for every assignment. Thanks to Verdadero, she had to worry that a strange lab might be booby-trapped or damaged. Also, having her module permanently assigned was useful in avoiding delays in the case of emergency missions. Locum tenens work paid well, too, and had helped the Taylors pay for part of the refit.
The one bed and the communications console took up most of the space in the smaller chamber. Cleverly designed drawers fit underneath the bed. The closet, set into the narrow space between two of the module’s bearing beams, was large enough for her uniforms, clean suits, and sweat clothes. In the three years that had passed, there had been neither time nor money to replenish Shona’s wardrobe. Now that the Sibyl was spaceborne again, perhaps they would find opportunities to trade with weavers and couturiers in various colonies. Lani, who settled with liquid grace on the bed beside her, had the slender legginess of a tri-dee model, and looked good in whatever she put on, be it rags or high fashion. Shona, with her shorter legs and more everyday hips, went for classic style and jewel-like colors. Still, she knew material pleasures had limited value to her. She would rather go naked than be without her friends and children, and felt lucky to be surrounded by them all the time. If Verdadero’s assassins ever got a chance to harm them—but no, she would fight and die to defend them from him.
Shona waited impatiently for the Sibyl to finish its jump. The promised hour crept by as slowly as the night before a birthday party, and Alex fidgeted on her lap. She played hand games with him, and sang little songs which he occasionally joined in with a tuneless crowing. Lani left her place for a while, returning with a covered bowl filled with colorful beads, and a skein of thick thread. Silently she offered the bowl to Shona.
The beads had come from an arts and crafts outlet in the Venturi shipyard mall. Shona and the others had spent a long time walking around there. Window shopping was one of the few forms of cheap entertainment they had. She and Chirwl had stood sadly outside the confectionery shop, looking in at a display of Crunchynut bars, a candy from Earth that they both loved. They were priced right out of the galaxy, since they had been imported all the way from Terra. Shona sighed, but there was still no money to buy anything but essentials. Not even her nimble brain could work out how luxury candy could be considered a staple.
In the craft store, a man with a torch and a minute pair of clippers was chopping tiny beads from glowing rods of glass. Lani, growing desperate for something to do while the refit slogged interminably on, found the demonstration going on in the little store, and excitedly hurried Shona over. In some of the longest sentences Shona ever heard her say, Lani explained a fortune-telling game played by her people on Karela in which colored beads were strung into a necklace. Though liquid credits were scarce at the time, they scraped up enough to buy a quantity of the beads. Shona didn’t dare let Lani pull an electronic transfer of funds from her trust account at Mars Bank. Luckily, the beads were inexpensive. The material was glass waste from slagged scientific equipment and the portholes of derelict ships. Trace minerals dyed the rods into every color. Charmed by the girl’s quiet, wide-eyed admiration, the craftsman indulgently fumed some of the clear beads with platinum and gold coatings out of circuit-board connections for her. She took her newfound purchases, and insisted that each of the Sibyl’s crewmen, and some of her new friends in the yardmaster’s office, pick handfuls that she strung for them.
“Each color has its own meaning,” Lani had explained to the crewmen, placing the chosen beads in a small bowl. She picked them out one by one with her needle. “I don’t look how they fall. That’s fate.” The order in which they were added was supposed to tell a person’s fortune for the rest of his or her life. The number of beads was a multiple of the years in one’s life span.
In the strain of holding her family together during the refit, Shona hadn’t wanted to look farther into her future, even in play, then to know that she would leave the shipyard safely. Now, with their journey begun again, she had no reason to let her worries interfere with a simple game that gave Lani pleasure. At the girl’s instruction, she dipped her hand into the bowl, mixing the smooth beads with her fingers, then pulled up a handful. Lani quickly held out a smaller, high-sided bowl into which Shona carefully dribbled her catch. She looked into the big bowl, and then at her choices. Curiously, she hadn’t picked out more than a single orange, yellow, or white bead in the whole, random handful, and only six golds.
“Red, black, silver, purple, green, blue. Pretty, huh?” Shona asked Alex, who kept reaching for the covered bowl, placed carefully out of reach. “Oh, no, sunshine. You can’t eat these.”
“Love, adventures—many, Mama—friends, wisdom, life, peace,” Lani said. Shona watched as she brought up a bead on the tip of the needle, not looking as she chose, then knotted each into place on the thread. The girl’s fingers were deft with the small bits of glass and even-sized knots. Alex watched spellbound, his eyes huge over the thumb in his mouth.
“You’d make a good surgeon, sweetie,” Shona noted. Lani dimpled, and ducked her head over her work.
In light of Lani’s extraordinary wealth, it was surprising how much pleasure she took in simple things. Lani kept little in her tiny personal cabin except for gifts she had received from the Taylors and from Shona’s family on Mars, books, and her doll, the single relic she retained from her life on Karela. The crew had agreed to let her have the minute cubicle—a more than generous gift considering how much precious cargo could be stored in an eight-foot cube, but everyone thought it was a worthy sacrifice for the girl they had adopted as an honorary daughter. Eblich, a kindly man with five children of his own, planetside, was the particular person to whom Lani turned for paternal comfort and advice. Neither of them spoke much or often. Shona supposed that was part of the bond. Perhaps Lani’s own father had been a laconic man. In a nod to the mission of the trading ship, Lani was made to understand that she’d have to bunk in with Shona or the animals if they took aboard a load that was sensitive to temperature or needed more than the available cargo space if the price was right. Knowing Kai’s skill at shoe-horning an elephant into a cookie jar, Shona thought it was unlikely the girl would ever lose her room. Still, the theory was important for the girl to learn. Living in space had its rules, and chief among them was that you didn’t crimp your own air hose. If something paid the bills, it got priority.
Paying the bills had continued to haunt Shona’s sleep. Because of the expensive refit and the long time away from the trading lane, the Taylors were in actual danger of running out of money before they could recoup the cost of the construction. Sometimes she lay awake, seeing huge numbers play before her eyes like afterimages: mortgage, upkeep, taxes, fuel, the cost of carrying loads of cargo that hadn’t been paid for, losses, and constant repairs because of attacks. Shortly before the refit they’d lost a premium load of fresh candy because a would-be assassin’s mining laser had breached their container hull. They’d had to go back and replace the candy at their own expense. Cargo insurance paid off late, if at all. Acts of God or Nature might have been covered, but armed insurrection was not. Shona watched Lani knot one more gold bead onto the long string, and shook her head.
Lani had been awarded most of the assets that had devolved to her after the destruction of her colony, making her a very wealthy young woman. Brought up in a virtual barter economy, she had no idea of the power her money commanded, except that her adoptive parents never seemed to have quite enough of it. Nor did she understand the delicacy of the situation into which her wealth put the Taylors. She kept trying to give them money, but Shona had been firm about refusing it, insisting that the money belonged only to her, and it wasn’t as important to them as Lani was. It was difficult for a generous child, scarcely into her teens, to understand the complexities of legal battles, and how rumors could so easily ruin a reputation.
The finished span showed the red of love and the green of life plentifully interspersed with blacks, silvers, and purples, ending with red for love and blue for peace. Lani tied off the circle and offered it to her mother.
“The story of my life,” Shona said, slipping it over her head, “literally from beginning to end. Looks like I’ll die in bed. Now, if you could only assure me I’d die solvent. Which color is for money?”
Alex seized the hanging end and yanked it closer to his face to investigate, pulling Shona’s head down with it.
A hollow groaning rose through the bulkheads around them. At last they felt the disorienting drag of the ship slowing down into clear space. In the next room Chirwl finished his swim. Shona could hear him splash out of the tub, shaking the water out of his fur so that it struck the walls in a noisy shower. The adjoining door slid open, and the ottle lolloped across the floor to clamber up beside the crowd on the bed. The cat rubbed against him cozily, then turned his head to pretend they didn’t know one another. Saffie slurped her big pink tongue over the ottle’s head. Shona smiled. One big happy family. Any bigger, and the small bed wouldn’t hold them. From the intercom in the next room, they could hear the crew’s voices as Gershom gave orders, and echoed the engine noise inside the walls.
“All clear,” Shona heard Gershom say. At once, she kicked on the comm unit and booted up. The software program searched out the nearest line-of-sight beacon to the Sibyl’s location. They must have come out of warp almost on top of one, for there was an instantaneous response.
“Hurray!” she cheered. “Civilization at last.”
The small screen filled with the Galactic logo, then swirled into blackness, waiting for her to enter an access code. Shona hit the Answerback button on the top left of the keyboard. A new logo spun forward.
“One Moment Please.”
Alex bounced up and down happily.
“Look, Mama!”
“Yup, I see it.” With her baby cuddled on her lap, and Lani’s head on her shoulder, Shona felt absolute contentment as she watched her new number scroll up the screen. For security’s sake the code had been changed again, so she had written it into her communication program instead of memorizing it.
“This may take a while,” she said, stroking the girl’s silky black hair. Lani had grown so much. In no time she would be taller than Shona, who wasn’t very tall. Funny how it had worked out that though she was their foster child, Lani looked enough like Gershom with her dark, solemn eyes and small, folded mouth that people automatically thought she’d been born into the family. Alexander had Shona’s fairer coloring, with light brown eyes and hair, and a plump, pink mouth. If the poor child ever encountered real sunlight under atmosphere, he’d probably freckle like she did. He was a cheerful, loving baby who seemed to have inherited his mother’s native optimism.
Chirwl, on the other side of the bed, perused the menu that appeared next on the screen. The comm unit was the only piece of mechanical or electronic equipment, besides the food preparation devices, that he really liked. Ottles were anti-machinery, or rather non-machinery-oriented. Their culture was based on barter and philosophy, and there was nothing they needed that they couldn’t make. As one of the students sent out from his world to study humanity, Chirwl acknowledged machinery as part of the curiosities of the new race but regarded all those unnatural things with deep suspicion.
“What to do first?” he wondered. “Shall one hear the news from other places or see mail?”
“Oh, Chirwl, how can you ask?” Shona chided him playfully, reaching for the icon for personal mail. “It’s been months!”
She suffered through a long, long pause while the net found the data posted to the new number. Shona’s copious correspondence had been the source of much pain for the Galactic Bureau of Investigation agents trying to shield her. Anyone could trace her location from the beacons to which certain numbers were delivered. In the end, the GBI set up several accommodation accounts that collected her mail, splitting her trail into five to seven branches. These branches sent her messages on to other branches that eventually dumped them into the main number she used now. Shona was never certain that some of her messages weren’t lost along the way.
The diversity of letters on the list, a veritable feast after social starvation, delighted her into a wordless exclamation. Her best friend, Susan MacRoy, had sent every week. Aunt Laurel and Uncle Harry Elliott popped up once in a while on the list. Shona was pleased to see her forgetful scientist friends on Erebus had managed to hold onto the comm program she’d set up for them. Even though it was a weak link in the security chain, she’d requested that the GBI not change their access number to her during their periodic sweeps. Though each had multiple academic degrees, none of her dear friends on Erebus was capable of probing the niceties of a simple Execute file. Create artificial life, perhaps; program a video unit, no. Shona held her hands over the keyboard, enjoying herself for one moment more.
“What are you doing?” Lani asked. “Why not play them?”
“I’m just anticipating, honey,” Shona said with a grin. “—That’s long enough.” Her fingers dove toward the keys.
Susan’s face appeared on the screen. “Hi, twin! You couldn’t have picked a worse time to go incommunicado. I would give anything to be able to talk with you right now. The tri-video is in the middle of production, and everybody’s driving me crazy asking for details of events that happened when I wasn’t there!” Susan rolled her large blue eyes skyward. “Wish you could be here to help me record your life story. We’ve got the most gorgeous guy to play Gershom. I thought they were going to computer-enhance his image to make him look more like the real thing, then the Legal Department said that would be bad—make him a target for casual busybodies, you know. I mean, your pictures are in the news-files. Anyone can look them up if they want, but who says that the whole galaxy needs to know?”
“That’s for certain,” Shona agreed. On the screen, Susan’s image nodded violently as if she could hear her friend’s comment. Her long lashes dipped wickedly, inadequately disguising a twinkle. Shona recognized it was a sign Susan was about to drop a bombshell. She waited.
“Anyhow, the big headline for the day is that Dree Solana is playing you! She merely signed today, twin, so this is fresh-out-of-the-mold news.”
Shona gasped with delight. Dree enjoyed a reputation as a serious character actress who won drama award after drama award and could pick her parts as she chose. Anything starring Dree had automatic viewership in the billions. Susan’s career had “arrived” as the entertainment folk would say, if her first mass production could attract a lead player of that magnitude.
“I am so thrilled, every time I think about it I hyperventilate!” Susan continued. “I love working on a project with actual funding. It means I don’t have to subsist on nutri, which I hate, but not as much as you do, I know.”
“Oh, that’s for certain,” Shona said. She had a long-standing, if cordial, dislike of the food substitute. The bland substance satisfied all nutritional requirements except for taste and texture.
“Nooo-treee,” Alex echoed, making a face. Shona looked apologetic.
“Well, it is convenient for making baby food,” she said. “No doubt about that. Sorry, honey.”
“Then there’s the cutest little muffin playing Lani. Doesn’t really look much like her, but she’s a good actress. If you’re still hide-and-seeking when it airs, I’ll upload the video to you. Everyone’s going to be glued to their screens. I think you’re going to be famous. I think we’re all going to be famous. I wish I could see your face. More to come. Watch this space! I bet Alex is getting big. Send me pictures! Over and out, kiddo.”
Eagerly Shona reached for the control to record a reply, then checked herself. “What am I doing?” she asked the others with a shake of her head. Saffie raised her head and cocked intelligent eyebrows at her mistress’s self-deprecating tone. “This message is almost five months old. I’d better see everything else first.” And yet she itched to start recording. She missed Susan, who had shared part of their adventures in exile before she went back to try and interest an independent tri-video producer in the story.
Shona read the next line item in the list, a title and address on Mars, then hastily skipped the cursor over it. “I’ll listen to that later,” she told Lani. “More official notices! Boring. Oh, look at this!”
The next message was from her uncle Harry. He stared straight ahead of him into the video pickup, his plump, freckled face looking uncomfortable above the tight collar of his business tunic. Suddenly aware of the Record light before him, he cleared his throat.
“Honey, this is a quick note. I secured the addition to your loan. It’s okay. Uh, send soon. Your aunt says, give you her love. So do the kids.”
Shona whistled as she punched the Delete command. “This sure is an old message. I heard from the bank while we were at the shipyard, and we’ve been paying through our assorted noses ever since. What’s next?”
Her many correspondents had sent various parcels of news, mostly asking when she would be back on beam. Shona happily recorded quick notes to them all, letting them know that the Sibyl was flying again. Chirwl put in a few words to the scientists on Erebus, whom he considered fellow philosophers.
The bulk of the transmissions were more updates from Susan. Occasionally they were sent from the cabin in her ancient runabout, but more often from a public box in the middle of a busy space station, with men in uniform, family groups, and coveralled workers burdened with video equipment crossing in the background. The production was going well. Progress was made from one message to another regarding Susan’s attempts to charm, then persuade, then bully the producers into telling the Taylors’ story the way that she wanted. Shona approved of the way Susan seemed to grow in confidence from one note to the next. Before, pure charm and talent had been her chief means of negotiation; she had since added savvy.
“They cottoned on to the facts about Lani but couldn’t understand the human angle of the whole thing,” Susan lamented. “And all they could think of was the money—which I suppose in their cases would have been the primary reason to adopt her—but they had no business suggesting that was why you did.” Shona made a face, but didn’t comment. “I’m making friends with the video editor, in hopes that she’ll let me soften the part up, change the dialogue in the audio comp before it goes back to the director. She understood the difference, and I think she’s sympathetic. We both figure it’ll be easier to get forgiveness than permission for altering the script.” Susan sighed. “Here I am going on as if having my dream job is nothing but a nightmare. It’s not true, twin. I’m having a great time. I just hope I think the efforts are worth it in the end. And I hope you like the show. I can’t believe it airs in two weeks. Over and out.”
“Exciting,” Lani said, her face aglow.
“You said a mouthful, sweetie,” Shona agreed.
“Can one word fill a mouth?” Chirwl asked.
At last, the message following in the scroll contained the promised video. Shona let the titles run long enough to see Susan’s name in the credits as the producer, then shut it off. “There it is,” she told Alex, her eyes shining. “Your Auntie Susan. We’ll screen this later when we can all watch it. All right?”
She recorded a message of congratulations to Susan. “I am so proud of you, twin,” she said. “While I’m not sure I want to relive that part of my life, I’m looking forward to seeing it because you did it. I hope this is the first of a thousand successful projects. Much love, and out!”
In a hopeful mood, Shona pulled up the next message, which was from her uncle Harry’s bank on Mars. Instead of the plump, mustachioed face of her late father’s brother, she was confronted by a narrow-eyed man with black, gimlet eyes. He held up a datacube.
“Doctor Taylor, I am Chang-an Zeles, the chief loan officer of First Mars Bank. I have here before me your file, and specifically the record of your last payment. The release of funds was significantly after the due date. I have been made to understand by your uncle, a man for whom I have the greatest esteem, the personal difficulties under which you are working, but those do not free you from the basic responsibilities of meeting your obligations on time, especially since they are such substantial obligations. I have no choice but to assess late fees and interest.” He touched a button on the console in front of him. A flat graphic replaced his uncomfortably sharp features.
Numbers dropped one by one into a stark white column in the center of the screen. As the figures appeared, Zeles explained them in an emotionless voice. At the conclusion, the total bobbed up from the bottom of the frame, knocking the other numbers upward in a surprised flutter as if they hadn’t expected the kick in the backside. Shona winced at the amount even as she bristled at the implication that she was using her uncle’s position to avoid paying her debts on time. Then she looked at the date.
“Wait a minute!” she exclaimed. Freezing the message in place, she brought up her account record. “I got an ack notice back from the central database when I released the money—yes, here it is. I did pay on time.”
“You have paid but he thinks you have not?” Chirwl asked. “Who is right?”
“I am,” Shona said, with grim satisfaction. “And he recorded this in advance of the overdue date. Look at the time code.”
Chirwl curled into a ball and put his paws over his eyes. “The numbers do a dance I do not like. I think I see the very soul of the machine, and it is cold.”
Lani leaned closer. “He was early,” she said.
“Uh-huh,” Shona said. “I bet he had a lot of debtors to dun, and this went out with the queue without anyone checking. Yes, there we go,” she said, pointing to the remaining communiqués in her file.
After a short note from her aunt Laurel, she had another message from the same loan officer, looking rather more harried.
“Had to record one out of turn, did you?” Shona said to the screen, with satisfaction.
“Zeles here,” the dour man said peevishly. “I wish to acknowledge the receipt of the payment on your ship mortgage.”
“Good,” Shona said.
“We are rescinding the interest, and leaving only the late charge. It will be added to the principal. Please make note of that when remitting your next payment.”
“What?” Shona exploded. “But we weren’t late! We don’t owe anything.”
She recorded a terse message saying that since the credits had been in place before the galactic due date, “… I would appreciate it if you would rescind the late charge, too, since as you can see by the acknowledgment enclosed that the payment was not late. Thank you. Aarrgh!” she growled as she shut off the Record function. “Sometimes the personal touch is more repellent than just getting a quick notice from a computer.”
“Will you be to send it now?” Chirwl asked.
“No,” Shona said. “I’ve got a lot of gossip for Susan, I have to send to my aunt and everyone to let them know we’re up again, and Lani might have a few words to say?” The girl reddened and shook her head. “No? Surely later, sweetheart—One connect is all I dare risk, and I want to save that until we’re ready to warp again. We could be pinpointed if there’s a lot of unexpected activity from a remote beacon like this one.” Shona sighed. “I’ll be a lot happier when we don’t have to run anymore. I thought when they put you-know-who away that it would be the end of our troubles.” Lani silently looked at her hands folded in her lap. Shona reached over and squeezed the girl’s fingers. “Well, it wouldn’t do if things got boring, would it?” she asked. “One day he’ll run out of money, or influence, or he’ll just get tired of chasing us. You’ll see.”
“I hope so, Mama,” Lani said solemnly.
“I promise—Oh, no, not again!”
Following in the queue were three similar sets of messages from Zeles. Each time, to Shona’s extreme irritation, he assessed interest charges and late fees, then rescinded the interest, but not the penalty for being late, until the fourth payment due had accumulated a rider of several hundred credits in penalties.
Columns of figures swirled onto the screen and arrayed themselves in neat rows. Shona followed each calculation with a sinking heart. The very rise in the amount of debt dismayed her.
“If you persist in maintaining such a poor record of payment,” Zeles warned, “the bank may have no choice but to call in the loan.”
Shona felt the blood drain out of her face. Standing up, she handed Alex to Lani, and went looking for Gershom.
“Do you have a few minutes?” she asked him.
Gershom viewed the dunning notices without comment. Shona watched the muscle at the corner of his jaw twitch at the veiled insults directed at them by the loan officer. The muscle sagged entirely when Zeles mentioned foreclosure. Gershom glanced at his wife, who gave him a helpless shrug.
“It’ll take us forever to get that straightened out,” she said. “It’s been months since this started to happen, and we’ve sent them no explanation because of where we’ve been. They’ll keep on adding penalty fees until we’re paying as much on them as on the principal.”
He gave her a wry smile and shook his head.
“We’ll have to pay for now,” he said quietly. “Send to your uncle to get the records straight after the fact. We can’t afford to have the bank pull the mortgage over a mistake, so we have to eat humble pie for a while.”
Her hands shaking, Shona tapped on the command for a release of credits. She went back to wipe out her tart rejoinder to the bank’s first transmission, and recorded in its place a new message pleading for someone to straighten out their accounts and read their “deposited-by” dates, since her records showed that she was on time. Thinking of their swiftly sinking bank balance made her heart follow suit. The refit had been very, very expensive, eating up all of the bonus given to her by Manfred Mitchell of the GLC, plus what she’d earned in her missions before and after Verdadero’s crime came to light. They needed to find a way to raise capital, or there was a real danger the bank would end up owning a newly, beautifully refitted trader scout-ship.
“That cuts us very close to our panic balance,” Shona said. “Next to nothing at all.”
“I will give you some money,” Lani said at once. “Pay off the ship.”
Shona hugged her distractedly.
“No. That wouldn’t be right. Thank you, honey, but we’ll make it.”
The girl looked bewildered. “Why can’t I give money to you? Why won’t you accept? I saw the bank balance.”
“We’re not hiding it. But your money’s yours, not ours, sweetie. You’ll want it when you grow up.”
“Not all of it,” Lani protested. “There’s so much. I couldn’t spend it all in my life.”
“We won’t take anything from you, and that’s the end,” Gershom said, perhaps a little more sharply than he intended. Shona, her nerves taut from the almost-fatal encounter with the killer scout, and then this financial onslaught which threatened them almost more than physical peril, jumped to her feet.
“Just a moment,” she said. “There’s no need to snap at Lani! I know how much you value our independence. That means we have to find a means of earning our way out of debt. It’s that simple.”
“Oh, it’s simple, is it?” Gershom demanded. “Suppose you tell me—”
“Just a moment,” Shona said again. She turned to Lani, who was pale with fear. “Honey, will you excuse us?” The girl fled to the laboratory, taking Alex and Chirwl with her. The animals, sensing tension, vacated the room at once. Shona closed the door, then returned to her perch on the edge of the bed. Gershom leaned over her and repeated his last question in a taut, furious voice, pitched so it wasn’t audible in the lab.
“Suppose you tell me how I can keep in touch with suppliers when the GBI keeps changing my communication code? If they can’t find me, they’ll use another carrier. They don’t care about our problems. They only care if their goods get out intact and on time. And as for buyers, there’s a thousand ships just like ours in the spaceways. Most of them don’t have families to support.”
Shona felt the blood leave her cheeks. That was an unexpectedly low blow. Gershom realized it as soon as the words were out of his mouth. She’d lost her first baby under tragic circumstances, and he hadn’t been able to be with her at the time to help her through it. They’d been hoping to raise a larger family with some measure of security while they were both young enough to have the energy to do so.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he said, sitting down beside her and putting an arm over her shoulders. She didn’t feel much like being touched, but she let him lean against her. A moment later, she’d regained her equilibrium and hugged his ribs hard. He relaxed with a sigh, and moved his hand up to cup her cheek in his hand. Shona, her fingers in a tense knot, managed a tiny, hopeful smile.
“Maybe it’s just too soon to think about another baby,” she said, with difficulty, picking her words with care. She’d started this discussion when she should have known he was vulnerable. She had wanted to share her frustrations and tensions, and by the Blue Star, she’d succeeded. “Too impractical to start another. Alex is just toddling. It would be difficult for me to handle two in diapers at once as well as a career and managing our finances.”
“You don’t have to be that brave about it,” Gershom chided her gently, blowing a teasing breath down into her bangs. She turned her face up to his, thinking again that she had married the handsomest man she had ever met, with his long dark hair, long dark lashes, and beautiful, strong cheekbones. “We ought to have another before our space moose gets too attached to being the youngest child.”
“It’ll work out,” Shona said firmly. “We managed to get through refit. We got away from that contract killer. We can manage without taking money from Lani.”
“We’ll have to,” Gershom said meaningfully. “I don’t want to risk having the authorities remove her at the last minute on a technicality.”
“I’ll ask Mr. Mitchell for a loan. Perhaps the Corporation could advance me some money.”
“They owe you a great deal for saving their necks,” Gershom agreed. “And for hurrying to do their assignments no matter where for three years, without complaint. A small loan shouldn’t be out of line.” He threw a glance at the closed door. “Was there anything in the messages from the Child Welfare Bureau?”
Shona scrolled upward through the menu of her messages. “Yes. I wouldn’t let Lani see it, but since you’re here we’d better know the worst.”
The female caseworker’s face was familiar. Shona and Gershom had dealt with her almost exclusively for the past three years. She was remarkable chiefly in that she never showed any signs of emotion whatsoever. “Captain and Dr. Taylor, I must inform you that the final hearing on your adoption of the child Leilani has been postponed once again …”
“What?” Gershom exploded. “Why?”
“… friend-of-the-court brief filed by Mr. Brogau Din van Keyn, on behalf of the Anti-Exploitation Watch. Mr. Din van Keyn points out that it might be harmful to the child’s psyche to be adopted by a couple with no permanent home …”
It was Shona’s turn to protest. “In this century? There are millions of people living on spaceships. There are people who’ve never been in planetary atmosphere!”
“Shh,” Gershom said, rewinding the frames. “I thought I heard a buzzword. Yes.”
“… whose financial obligations are too great to properly support a child, and may thereby subject her to unnecessary emotional strains.”
“There it is,” Gershom said. “They still think we intend to use her as a cash cow. Until they can prove otherwise, they’ll delay the final paperwork.”
“Damn them,” Shona said. “The GBI promised they’d expedite the adoption three years ago. See here, we can prove we haven’t taken a millicredit from her. We love her, not her money.”
“Yes, but to other people it’s an obvious attraction. Probably the way they’d treat her in our place. I admit it’s a great temptation, especially when she keeps pitching her fortune into our laps, especially now when we could use a friendly loan. But we don’t dare. I didn’t like the rumors I heard after that last hearing.”
Shona nodded, rubbing her temples with her fingers. They had carefully kept any details of the case from Lani, except to let her know that it was still under consideration, but their lawyer had suggested that it would be wise to make certain their actions reflected their intention to give the girl a good and stable home, regardless of her financial expectations. In light of the extraordinary amount of money Lani was heir to, some members of the panel viewed the Taylors with perhaps understandable skepticism. They were cautioned that any irregularities could result in having Lani immediately taken away from them. Lani was terrified at the prospect of losing her foster parents. Shona and Gershom vowed that they would not let that happen, no matter what it cost them. Shona regretted that in this case it might easily cost Gershom his precious ship. She bit her lip.
“Was there nothing but bad news in your mail?” Gershom asked lightly. “What does Susan say?”
“Oh!” Shona said, sitting upright under his arm. “There’s one more message from her. Stay and see it.” She read the Galactic time signature. “It’s only two weeks old. I’m nearly up to date.” She let it play.
The data transmission didn’t open with Susan’s face. Instead, it began with a clip from the Galactic News. Shona stopped it and ran it back to make sure the codes were correct. They were. She let the disk run.
A reviewer from the Galactic News appeared on-screen.
“Five stars for neophyte producer Susan MacRoy,” the blue-haired woman gushed. “The story of the brave young woman who single-handedly defeated an ice-hearted murderer whose greed threatened to envelop the galaxy is a wow. This docudrama is based on news events of a few years ago involving the GLC that made the inhabitants of boardrooms tremble across the civilized universe. If bad guy Veringer is anything like the original he portrays, then the real number is a skunk who deserves to stay in deep-freeze for the rest of forever. Hot script, hot direction, and fabulous casting. Look for this one to pick up awards galore at the Stellars!”
Susan’s face replaced that of the reviewer. “What do you think? Can you believe the great review? There are lots more! The disclaimer at the beginning of the video says ‘Some of the facts in the following dramatization have been altered to protect the innocent,’ and people have been all over me to know what’s real and what isn’t.” She giggled. “I don’t intend to tell. It’s fun knowing something no one else does. We got great ratings, and I’m getting job offers from all over. I owe you and Gershom one fabulous dinner the next time I see you. Hope it’s soon. Love.”
Following the message were more of Susan’s reviews, each as enthusiastic about the video as they were damning of the villain, a facet of the show that not one reviewer failed to mention.
“Evil personified!” one male dressed in silver lamé declared. “Absolutely wretched evil.”
Shona and Gershom looked at each other. “What did she put in that video?” Shona asked.
“We’d better see it,” Gershom said. “Let the others back in, and we’ll all watch it. I know that Ivo wanted to.”
The picture ended with Dree Solana in her torn shipsuit, standing in the midst of her loved ones and embracing the dark-haired child, while the white-haired villain was hauled off to justice. Triumphant music rose over the audio, blaring trumpets in their ears. The final credits flickered on the screen, all fading to a simple blue-black emblazoned with the logo of the video distributors. The Sibyl’s crew sat back and let out a collective breath. Lani scrubbed tears off her cheeks with her cuff, and glanced up at the adults. Shona shook her head solemnly.
“He’s not going to like that,” she said.
“Maybe he will not see it,” Chirwl said.
Shona shook her head. “He’ll see it.”
* * *
The scene on the screen tank held still on a single frame, that of a man with thick white hair, his mouth frozen in a scream as two other men in conservative dress dragged him from an opulently appointed office suite. Looking on at the white-haired man’s humiliation were a tall man with long black hair; a skinny, elderly male with rheumy eyes; a burly stevedore, his light brown hair clipped almost to his skull; and a short light-skinned woman with a lush, bow-shaped mouth. Jachin Verdadero stared and stared at the screen, feeling the blood mounting up behind his eyes until the picture was blotted out in a haze of rage. The three-dimensional quality of the holotank made it seem as if all he had to do was reach out to touch the characters. He wished he could. He would joyfully strangle the young woman who had put him here. He snatched up a handy datacube to smash through the Plexiglas front, and then remembered what the prison guard had told him. The next time he destroyed anything in his cell, it would not be replaced.
Not that the suite of rooms to which Verdadero was confined bore any resemblance to a cell. As chambers of incarceration went, these were palatial. They were furnished expensively with every luxury, every comfort, every need a rich man might conceivably desire to hand, except a latch on his side of the door or a communications console that was connected to the outside world.
The elaborate combination unit that functioned as a video system, message player/recorder, music console, and personal computer was not hooked up to anything but a power cable. Verdadero played datacubes brought in that had been downloaded for him, then carefully screened for content. Anything he brought out of the cell was screened, and wiped if found suspect by his so-far incorruptible guards. There was no appeal. His sentence was a long one, and his keepers often verbally wished he would become used to the idea of continued vigilance and settle in to model prison life.
Verdadero chafed at any bonds, no matter how slight. By whatever favor his attorneys had gleaned from the corrections system, his physical confinement was bearable. That he was unable to physically travel the galaxy mattered little, but the incarceration of his mind and will irked him. That was the single bond he endeavored to break. So far, he had been unable to circumvent the justice system’s boundaries.
The video and its reviews, tendered to him after a gigantic bribe, hurt his massive ego.
“They will pay for this,” he vowed. First the downfall itself: a financial setback he could handle; even a loss of time was acceptable. He was a businessman, he understood failure of ventures, and the stripping of planetary assets was risky at best—but the humiliation he suffered at the hands of that chit! That child! Verdadero ground his teeth, and stared at the video screen. The screaming male carried away to trial and imprisonment was him. No matter that they gave it another name, the soul was his. All his pride had been stripped away.
“They’re gonna be laughin’ at you from here to the frontier, Jaci,” his guard said impertinently. The broad-faced redhead had entered silently behind him, had watched him clutch the datacube and release it.
Verdadero turned, and with incredible self-control, favored Duncan with a politely blank look. He refused to rise to the man’s bait. The guard was an amateur at torment. “I made too good a target, a stereotype, Mr. Duncan. Even the mindless panderers of the entertainment industry couldn’t resist that.”
Duncan, deprived of his fun, made a sour face. “Yeah. You ready for your walkies, Jaci?”
Verdadero nodded. He glanced at the time displayed in the corner of his player screen. Just past the lunch hour. Domitio should be in the exercise yard. His contacts on the outside were happy to take Mr. Verdadero’s money to keep sending messages around the net. It was time to increase the reward on the Taylors for subjecting him to such incredible humiliation. No, time to double it. With all the appearance of docility, he preceded Duncan out of the cell and waited while the guard locked the door.