other hand, he hadn’t seen Nileeja Vo in three decades. With a heavy sigh he turned back to the news. Several articles mentioned the blackness. Dreamers, Inc. and the Children of Irfan, among others, had declared the situation a full-blown emergency and had set task forces to studying the problem. Padric reached thoughtfully for a sweet roll. If this was indeed the result of the project, he would need to keep the fact under wraps for a while longer. Maybe he could put some quiet pressure on Dreamers, Inc. to slow their investigation. The Children of Irfan would be harder to deal with, but he’d come up with something.
Meanwhile, he needed more information.
“Meth-pa,” he said, “search for ‘Empire of Human Unity’ or ‘Unity,’ capital u, and ‘Silent,’ capital s. Exclude news released by the Empire of Human Unity itself.”
“No matches,” the computer reported.
“Meth-pa, search for names ‘Sejal’ and ‘Araceil Rymar.’ Include Unity news releases.”
“No matches.”
Padric nodded. These were telling facts. The Unity was keeping its mouth shut about Araceil and Sejal. That either meant the boy was so worthless he wasn’t worth mentioning or that he was so valuable, the Unity didn’t want word of his existence to leak out. Considering what Araceil had said, Padric took the latter point of view. Now Sejal, this valuable resource, was free and at large. Padric would have paid serious money to see the expression on Unity Premier Yuganovi’s face when he learned a ragtag bunch of monks had gotten the better of him.
Another sip of coffee, and some of the chill left Padric’s bones. Sejal was an incalculably valuable asset to whoever controlled him. Besides, if one project failed, it was best to have another.
“Meth-pa, begin transcript of Dream session. Label ‘Sejal’ and cross-reference by date and time.”
“Recording.”
Padric set down his coffee, took a deep, calming breath, and slipped into a light trance. Word for word, he dictated the conversation he had overheard between Araceil and the messenger to Empress Kan maja Kalii.
“Meth-pa,” he said when he was done, “how long would it take my slipship to reach the planet Bellerophon?”
“Approximately six days, two hours.”
And Sejal would reach Bellerophon in eleven days. That gave him five days to plan. Padric picked up his cup, which had kept the coffee hot for him, took a sip, and quite literally stared into space.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PLANET RUST
You’ll never find it if you don’t look.
Vidya Vajhur stared through the grimy window. A pocked, gray aerogel wall was the only view, but she didn’t really see it.
She had failed. All the visions, the work, the planning. Failed. Sejal had fallen victim to the same fate as Prasad, Katsu, and her two baby boys. They’d all been sucked up by the merciless Unity city. True, Sejal was still alive, was still out there somewhere on a world called Bellerophon. But he had first been sold, used, chewed up by the slums. The proof lay in his words and in the coins that lay heavy in her pocket.
He is a prostitute.
The blunt, hateful words were burned indelibly into her brain. Those words were why she couldn’t go with the monks to Bellerophon. Vidya needed time away from Sejal. Whenver she looked at him after hearing that terrible sentence, Vidya could only see Sejal in bed with…women? Men? Both? She didn’t want to know. Perhaps once she had been apart from Sejal long enough to start missing him, the images would change. But now she couldn’t bear to look at him.
Vidya forced the images away. The room was stuffy and smelled of dust, but Vidya hadn’t been able to open the window. Conversations from neighboring rooms filtered in through the thin walls. Mounted on the wall was an ancient terminal that, after some coaxing, grudgingly produced a newscast. Vidya skimmed it, looking for news of Sejal and the Children of Irfan. Nothing so far. Vidya allowed herself a small sigh of relief.
After bidding Sejal good-bye, Vidya had gone home only to be stopped at the guard station outside the neighborhood. Enyi, the neighborhood guard, had warned Vidya that two Unity guard were waiting for her in the apartment. They were doubtless looking for Sejal.
Kicking herself for not realizing this would happen, Vidya had gone to the apartment building across the street and set watch from the lobby. Less than two hours later, two Unity guard left her building and hurried away. Vidya’s heart lurched. If they were leaving, Sejal had obviously been located, but there was no way to know if he had escaped or been captured. Trying not to think about the latter possibility, Vidya dashed across to her apartment and went into Sejal’s closet. The knot and loose floorboard were exactly where he had said they would be. She pulled up the board and fished out a small cloth bag. It was heavy with kesh.
Vidya didn’t stop to count it or think about where it had come from. Instead, she flung clothes, toiletries, and a few other items into a carryall and left. She’d told the startled gate guard that she didn’t know when-or if-she would be back. Then she hurried away, putting failure behind her.
Now in the stuffy hotel room, Vidya flicked off the terminal. If Sejal and the Children of Irfan had been captured or killed, the news would have been full of the story so everyone would see the futility of defying the Unity. The lack of news meant they had escaped.
Vidya knew she herself could probably never go back to the neighborhood. The Unity guard would want to question her, see if she knew where Sejal had gone. Vidya, however, had no intention of letting the Unity get its hands on her again.
Taking a deep breath, Vidya dumped the coins out on the bed and counted them. Over two thousand kesh. A small fortune. A whore’s wages. Suddenly Vidya wanted nothing to do with the money and she was seized with an impulse to throw it away. Then practicality intervened. She would need money to live on and to get away from Rust. If she were careful, two thousand kesh would let her eat for two weeks and maybe still have enough to bribe passage off Rust.
But first she needed some questions answered.
Vidya rummaged through the carryall and removed a wide scarf that she expertly twisted into a loose hood around her head. It was a minimal disguise, but she doubted the guard would be looking for her that hard. Sejal was clearly gone, so there was no need to scour the streets for him. There was almost certainly a warrant out for Vidya’s arrest. But it was doubtful the guard would conduct house-to-house searches or cordon off streets. As long as she avoided showing her face and paid hard currency for her purchases, she should be all right.
Tucking the energy whip into her pocket, Vidya left the hotel and gratefully inhaled the fresh night air. Salt breezes mixed with the scent of old plankton, and an overwhelming sense of deja vu stole over her. For a moment she was seventeen years younger, her husband and daughter were newly missing, and she was looking for someone who could ensure the baby growing in her womb would not be Silent, would not disappear. She had failed at that, too. But that was then. Eighteen years of forging a new neighborhood and battling Unity bureaucracy had given her skills and contacts she hadn’t possessed before, and she was more adept at dealing with people. First she would find the genegineer who had altered Sejal. Vidya had been too young, too grateful to ask specific questions before. But that, too, was then.
Vidya squared her shoulders and strode off into the night.
A data pad clattered to the kitchen table. The screen glowed serenely, indifferent to the rough treatment, and the black letters of the message continued to march across the clear plastic. Prasad Vajhur steepled brown fingers beneath his chin. He had known this day would come. It had been inevitable. A part of him, however, had
