The seсora looked up at the commander and let loose such a stream of invective that he shrank back against the curtain momentarily, but only to gather strength before he began arguing with her. Their voices filled the chamber; Rose covered her ears with her hands. Mercifully, the itching had subsided completely. She dared not blink the screen back on, so she cowered between them as they argued fiercely over her head. One of the young toughs stuck his head in but retreated as the seсora turned her scolding on him.
Through it all, her father watched, half amused, half ready to take action, but frozen. It was only his image, and his image could not help her.
In the church, the screaming had subsided and now Rose heard whimpering and weeping as orders were given.
'Go! Go!'
'But where-!' The slap of a gun against flesh was followed by a bruised yelp, a gasp, a sob, a curse-four different voices.
'Go!'
Shuffling, sobs, a crack of laughter from one of the guards; these noises receded until they were lost to her ears. The Sun-seekers had been taken away.
'Are you going to kill them?' she whispered.
They broke off their argument, the commander frowning at her, the seсora sighing.
'We no kill-we do not kill.' The seсora spoke deliberately, careful over her choice of words. 'They bring us better money if the parents buy them from us.'
'But kidnappers always get caught in the end.'
The commander laughed. 'Fatalism is the only rational world-view,' he agreed.
'In the stories, it may be so, that these ones are always caught,' continued the seсora. 'We take a lesson, a borrowing, from our own history, but this thing called ransom we use for a different purpose than the ones who stole the children in the old days.'
'What purpose?' Rose demanded. She had gone beyond worrying about cliches. 'I see the poverty you live in. Are you revolting against the inequality of League economics? Is this a protest? Will you use the array to help poor people?'
The commander's sarcastic laugh humiliated her, but the seсora smiled in such a gentle, world-weary way that Rose suddenly felt lower than a worm.
'Hija, I am the inventor of one of the protocols used in this solar array that powers the ship you children voyage on. These protocols were stolen from me and my company by operatives of Surbrent-Xia. In much this same way as we steal it back, but perhaps not with such drama.' She gestured toward the poster and the stunningly handsome blond man who stared out at them, promising dreams, justice, excitement, violence, and fulfillment. 'No beautiful hero comes to save me. The law listens not to my protests. Surbrent-Xia falsifies their trail. They lay certain traps for me, and so the corporation and patent laws convict me, and I am dropped into the prison. There I sit many years while they profit from what I helped create. All these years I plot my revenge, just like in this story, The Count of Monte Cristo, no? Was not your father starring in this role a few years ago? So now we have the array in our hands. I leave-have left-markers in my work. Like this stain upon your cheek, those markers identify what is mine. With these markers, no one can mistake it otherwise. With this proof-'
'And the children to draw attention to us,' added Marcos.
'— we will get attention to this matter.'
'But you'll be prosecuted for kidnapping!'
'Perhaps. If we get publicity, if a light is shined onto these criminal actions made by Surbrent-Xia ten years ago, then we are protected by exposing them. Do you see? Surbrent-Xia 'got away with it'-they say this in the telenovelas and the acties, do they not? — they got away with it last time because it was hushed.'
'They kept it quiet,' said Marcos. 'No one knew what they had done.'
'But why did you have everyone beat up? What did Akvir and Zenobia and Yah-noo and the others have to do with anything or what anyone did ten years ago?'
The old woman nodded, taking the question without defensive-ness. She seemed a logical soul, not an emotional revolutionary at all. 'We have not harmed them, only bruised them. It is in answer to-it is in-'
'— retaliation-' said Marcos.
'That is right. Excuse my speech. I have been many years in isolation on these false charges. The world, and my enemies, did not play nice with my relatives in the old days. We are not the only ones who play hardball. An eye for an eye.'
'But they're innocent!'
'They are all the children of shareholders. That is why they come to ride on the beautiful ship, to be made much of. You do not know this?'
'I just thought-' She faltered, knowing how unbelievably stupid anything she said now would sound.
I didn't know.
Hadn't her father talked and talked and talked about the Sun-seekers, how very sunny and fashionable they were? Hadn't she run away to get his attention, so he would be surprised she had gotten into some group so very jet, so very now, even with her disfigurement?
'They are lucky you came to them,' continued the seсora. 'Of what interest are the children of shareholders, except to themselves and their parents and their rivals? But you are the child of El Sol. When you came aboard, everyone is watching.'
'Good publicity is good advertising,' added Marcos sardonically. 'This is what we all want.'
Right now, she just wanted her daddy.
'It still doesn't seem right.' They hadn't bitten her yet. They hadn't bruised her, not more than incidentally. 'To hurt them. They aren't bad, just-' Just pointless. 'And what about Eleanor? I mean, the other ones.'
'The other ones?' asked Seсora Maria.
'The competition,' said Marcos. 'We don't have a positive ID on them yet, but I presume they are working for Horn Enterprises. Horn wants the array, too.'
'Horn filed a wrongful use claim against Surbrent-Xia for theft of their cell transduction protocol.'
'Which came to nothing. But they had a grievance, too, and plenty of markets out-system who won't ask too many questions about whether they have patent rights. This is so much useless speculation, now. We got the array. They did not.'
How could they analyze the day's nasty work so dispassionately, as though it were the script of an actie in development?
'You killed two men! Eleanor was really nice to me!' Another second and she would be blubbering, but she held it in, sniffing hard, choking down the lump in her throat.
'We killed no one,' said Marcos angrily. 'Just two hurt, in the Zona, but they are only stunned.'
'There was blood.'
'There is always blood. This other, this Eleanor-no se. There was a hover that flew off once they saw they had lost.'
'What about me?'
Seсora Maria gestured.
Rose eased up to her feet, wincing with pain as her knees bent. 'Ow.'
'We should let this pauvre go home. She can use the call-up in Anselmo's house.'
'The Constabulary will come,' said Rose.
'Not soon,' said Marcos. 'Your flight plan registers a stop at San Lorenzo to visit the museum. They do not know otherwise. They will not be expecting you to leave for some hours. We have time.'
'Andale,' said Seсora Maria.
Marcos shrugged, sighed, and motioned with his gun for Rose to follow him. Perhaps he wasn't the commander after all, or perhaps he was just behaving as men ought-as her mother used to say: respectful toward the etsana, the grandmother, of his tribe.
The house belonging to Anselmo sat riverside, one door facing the road and a second overlooking the bank. A small receiver dish tilted precariously on the roof, fastened to the topmost beam. They had to walk up two steps made of stacked concrete blocks to get onto the elevated wood floor inside. Like the entire village, the little one- room hut was untenanted, except for a burlap cot without bedding, a table, and a bright yellow molded plastic
