don’t.
Anyway. Once we got down to the planet, Fen checked with the authorities and found out that my face had been removed from the “watch for this guy” list. We figured that the guard on Rust either doesn’t know I’m not in the Confederation anymore or it doesn’t think I’d be stupid enough to come back. It’ll make it easier to get around, that’s for sure.
We landed at the spaceport. Fen’s picture still is on the guard’s shit list, even if the soldiers have never heard of him, so he has to stay on Sufur’s ship with Chipk. Sufur phoned someone to arrange transportation, and we went out into the city.
It felt weird. I’d been gone for weeks and I hadn’t ever figured on seeing Ijhan again, but here we were. The sky was the same familiar red, the buildings gray and cracking, the cars buzzing up the street and flitcars in the air. But I didn’t feel like I’d come home. I felt like a visitor.
The guard was everywhere. They carried rifles instead of pistols and they wore body armor instead of uniforms. My Jesse voice kept nudging me, telling me to run and hide, but I made myself ignore him. Running would just make them wonder what I was up to, and I was completely safe with Sufur. I hoped.
Crowds of people were wandering around on the sidewalks, just like always, but it felt different. People kept their heads down and they didn’t look at the guard. They didn’t talk much, either. Most of the noise came from the cars and from ships screaming in overhead. It made me nervous, but Sufur just stood at the curb, cool as you want.
Anyway. A ground car finally showed up and we got in the back. The rear windows were tinted so you couldn’t see in or out, and I couldn’t see who was driving because there was a barrier between the front and back seats. I had no idea where we were going. I turned to Sufur, and he seemed to know what I was going to ask.
“It’s a precaution,” Sufur said. “Only a few people know exactly where the lab is.”
He was sitting as far away from me as he could. I was really starting to wonder about it. He didn’t act that away around Chipk. And how come he doesn’t look human in the Dream? Sufur’s a real weirdo, and I was wondering if I should take my first year’s salary and run like hell when I got the chance.
We didn’t talk on the trip. After a while, the car stopped. A second later, there was a thump against the door I was sitting by.
“You can get out,” Sufur said.
That was a relief. I opened the door and found a tunnel. It was made out of flexible white plastic or a polymer. Ribs held it open. The tunnel’s end narrowed enough to fit right up against the car, and I couldn’t see outside. The air smelled like damp rubber.
“Go on,” Sufur said.
I got out and had to duck until I got to where the tunnel widened. Then the tunnel suddenly clamped shut behind me. I heard the door slam and the car buzzed away. I was suddenly scared.
Told you, my Jesse voice said smugly.
“It’s all right,” said someone behind me. I spun around. It was a little blond guy with a big mustache. He was playing with one end of it, twirling it tighter and tighter. Behind him the tunnel bent downward
“So you’re Sejal Dasa.” The blond guy extended the hand that wasn’t twirling the mustache and I shook it automatically. He wasn’t Silent, but he looked excited. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you. I’m Max Garinn. Mr. Sufur told me to take you down to the base, but right now I have to hurry and get this tunnel contracted before the guard notices it.”
I felt a little better, but my Jesse voice wouldn’t let up. I stayed wary as Garinn lead me downward. The tunnel walls bowed inward between the ribs and I touched them. They were cool and bulgy, like a balloon filled with water. I asked Garinn what that was about.
“We’re heading under the ocean,” Garinn said. “The submersile is just ahead.”
The tunnel leveled out and ended in a round hatchway. We stepped through onto a metal floor in an airlock. Garinn cycled the door shut and pushed a button to retract the tunnel, then took me to another room with a couple chairs in it and a porthole. He gestured at me to sit down, and I sat.
“Wonderful,” he said, still twirling that damned mustache. “We’ll be on our way soon, but I need to get a blood sample from you.”
My Jesse voice dinged the alarm bells. “What for?”
“DNA indentification.” He had already taken an injection gun from his pocket. “We need it so the lab’s computers will know who you are.”
Jesse was yammering at me, but I couldn’t think of any reason to refuse, so I let him take the sample. He almost sprinted away with it. A minute later, motors hummed and we were moving. I watched the ocean skim past the portal. It was really interesting-beds of red plants and weird fish I’d never seen before. We moved at a pretty good clip, always staying close to the bottom. I started feeling restless. Unless Sufur had lied, I was going to see Mom and meet my dad and my sister. I wondered what they’d be like.
Eventually, we got close to what looked like a big mound of rock or coral. The tunnel extended toward it like a big white worm and attached itself to something on the rock. I was confused until I figured out the rock pile was hiding the base.
Garinn lead me up the tunnel, though an airlock, and into a carpeted corridor. The walls were rounded and painted bright, cheerful colors. Garinn walked beside me, one hand playing with his mustache, the other in the pocket with the injection gun.
“You probably want to see your family,” he said. “I’ll take you to them.”
I started getting nervous again. Garinn lead me through a whole bunch of corridors. We passed lots of doors and other hallways, but didn’t meet anyone else. I got completely lost. Finally Garinn stopped by one of the doors and pressed the chime. My mouth was dry as sandpaper. What did my dad look like? Was Mom really okay?
The door flew open and Mom was standing there. She cried my name and hugged me. I was so glad to see her, to know she was safe. I had completely forgotten that we had had a big fight the last time we were together. A little tear leaked out of my eye, and I hoped no one would see it.
Behind her, over Mom’s shoulder, I saw a man and a girl. Both of them had black hair, though the man’s- Dad’s? — was going silver. I stared at them, uncertain what to do. Mom was still hugging me. The man smiled a little shyly and the girl didn’t react at all. She looked familiar.
Finally Mom let me go. She looked at Garinn, who was still standing there. “You can go now,” she said. Then she pulled me inside and slammed the door in his face.
“There are people you need to meet, Sejal,” she said. “This is your father Prasad Vajhur.”
I looked at him. The moment was here, the one I had thought about for a long time. I was meeting my dad. When I was little, I used to fantasize that he would pick me up and swing me through the air or wrestle with me on the floor, and that was the first thing that came into my head.
“Hi,” I said. I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Sejal.” Prasad-my dad-said it like he had never said my name before. He started to stick out his hand, then pulled it back with a confused look on his face. I was wondering what to do too. Hug him? I didn’t even know him. Shake his hand? Seemed a dumb thing to do with your own father.
Mom took over and saved us both. She took me by the shoulders and turned me toward the girl. She looked about a year older than me. “And this is your sister, Katsu,” Mom said.
“Hello,” Katsu said. Her voice was low, like Mom’s.
“Hi,” I said again.
“Let’s go and sit down,” Mom put in.
We went into the living room. It wasn’t much bigger than the one in the apartment back in Ijhan. Two windows looked into the ocean, and I saw more red kelp waving in the water. I sat next to Mom on the couch. Katsu sat on the floor and Prasad took an easy chair.
“Sejal-” Prasad said.
“Why did you leave?” I blurted out. I was suddenly pissed at him. I had lived my whole life on Rust in a damn slum, and only after I finally manage to leave does he show up.
Prasad looked pained. He explained about Katsu being kidnapped and how he came to the lab. Then Mom explained how she had found Max Garinn, the virologist who had altered my genes and screwed up my Silence.
“Max Garinn?” I said. “The guy who brought me here? He’s the guy who changed me?”
Mom nodded. I felt creeped out. “He took a blood sample before we even got here,” I said. “He said it was so
