Torch of Freedom

<Not sure,> Genghis replied, his fingers moving with unusual slowness. <He's . . . nervous. Worried about something.>

'Worried,' Judson repeated. He reached up and ran his fingers caressingly down Genghis' spine. 'A lot of two-legs worry about a lot of things, O Bane of Chipmunks,' he said. 'What's so special about this one?'

<He just . . . tastes wrong.> Genghis was obviously trying to find a way to describe something he didn't fully understand himself, Judson realized. <He was nervous when he got off the lift, but he got a lot more nervous after he got off the lift.>

Judson frowned, wondering what to make of that. Then the newcomer looked up, and Judson's own mental antennae quivered.

The man in the brown shipsuit was trying hard not to let it show, but he wasn't looking up at the crowded arrival concourse in general. No, he was looking directly at Judson Van Hale and Genghis . . . and trying to make it look as if he weren't.

'Do you think he got more worried when he saw you, Genghis?' he asked quietly. Genghis cocked his head, obviously thinking hard, and then his right truehand flipped up in the sign for 'Y' and nodded in affirmation.

Now, that's interesting, Judson thought, staying exactly where he was and trying to avoid any betraying sign of his own interest in Mr. Brown Shipsuit. Of course, it's probably nothing. Anybody's got the right to be nervous on their first day on a new planet—especially the kind of people who're arriving here on Torch every day! And if he's heard the reports about the 'cats—or, even worse, the rumors—he may think Genghis can peek inside his head and tell me everything he's thinking or feeling. God knows we've run into enough people who ought to know better who think that, and I can't really blame anyone who does for not liking the thought very much. But still . . .

His own right hand twitched very slightly on the virtual keyboard only he could see, activating the security camera that snapped a picture as the brown shipsuit sank into the chair in front of one of the Immigration processors. However nervous the newcomer might be, he was obviously at least managing to maintain his aplomb as he answered the interviewer's questions and provided his background information. He wasn't even glancing in Judson and Genghis' direction any longer, either, and he actually managed a smile when he opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue for the Immigration clerk to scan its barcode.

Some of the ex-slaves resented that. More than one had flatly refused when asked to do the same thing, and Judson found it easy enough to understand that reaction. But given the incredible number of places Torch's new immigrants came from, and bearing in mind that the mere fact of ex-slavery didn't necessarily mean all of them were paragons of virtue, the assembly of an identification database was a practical necessity. Besides, the Beowulf medical establishment had identified several genetic combinations which had potentially serious negative consequences. Manpower had never worried about that sort of thing, as long as they got whatever feature they'd been after, and that lack of concern was a major factor in the fact that even if they were ever fortunate enough to receive prolong, genetic slaves' average lifespans remained significantly shorter than 'normals' ' did. Beowulf had devoted a lot of effort to finding ways to ameliorate the consequences of those genetic sequences if they could be identified, and the barcode was the quickest, most efficient way for the doctors to scan for them. There wasn't much that could be done for some of them, even by Beowulf, but prompt remedial action could enormously mitigate the consequences of others, and one of the things every citizen of Torch was guaranteed was the very best medical care available.

Given that no slaveowner had ever bothered to waste prolong on something as unimportant as his animate property, much less worry about things like preventative medicine, that guarantee was one of the kingdom's most ringing proclamations of the individual value it placed upon its people.

'Is he still nervous?' Judson murmured, and Genghis' hand nodded again.

'Interesting,' Judson said softly. 'You may just make him that way because he's one of those people who doesn't want anyone poking around inside his head.'

This time, Genghis nodded his head and not just his hand. Treecats were constitutionally incapable of really understanding why anyone might feel that way, since they couldn't imagine not being able to 'poke around' inside each other's minds. But they didn't have to be able to understand why two-legs might feel that way to grasp that some of them did feel that way, and if that were the case here, it would scarcely be the first-time Genghis had seen it.

'Still,' Judson continued, 'I think we might want to keep an eye on this one for at least a couple of days. Remind me to mention that to Harper.'

Chapter Fifteen

'You called?' Benjamin Detweiler said as he poked his head through the door Heinrich Stabolis had just opened for him.

Albrecht Detweiler looked up from the paperwork on his display and raised one eyebrow at the oldest of his sons. Of course, Benjamin wasn't just his son, but very few people were aware of how close the relationship actually was.

'Have I mentioned lately,' Albrecht said, 'that I find your extreme filial respect very touching?'

'No, somehow I think that slipped your mind, Father.'

'I wonder why that could possibly be?' Albrecht mused out loud, then pointed at one of the comfortable chairs in front of his desk. 'Why don't you just park yourself right there, young man,' he said in the stern tone he'd used more than once during Benjamin's adolescent career.

'Yes, Father,' Benjamin replied in a tone which was far more demure and chastened sounding than Albrecht recalled ever having heard out of him during that same adolescent career.

The younger Detweiler 'parked' himself and folded his hands in his lap while he regarded his father with enormous attentiveness, and Albrecht shook his head. Then he looked at Stabolis.

'I'm sure I'm going to regret this in the fullness of time, Heinrich, but would you be kind enough to get Ben a bottle of beer? And go ahead and open one for me at the same time, please. I don't know about him, but I feel depressingly confident that I'm going to need a little fortification.'

'Of course, Sir,' his enhanced bodyguard replied gravely. 'If you really think he's old enough to be drinking alcohol, that is.'

Stabolis had known Benjamin literally from birth, and the two of them exchanged smiles. Albrecht, on the other hand, shook his head and sighed theatrically.

'If he's not old enough yet, he never will be, Heinrich,' he said. 'Go ahead.'

'Yes, Sir.'

Stabolis departed on his errand, and Albrecht tipped back his chair in front of the window with its magnificent view of powdery sand and dark blue ocean. He gave his son another smile, but then his expression sobered.

'Seriously, Father,' Benjamin said, responding to Albrecht's change of expression, 'why did you want to see me this morning?'

'We just got confirmation that the Manties' survey expedition got to Verdant Vista six weeks ago,' his father replied, and Benjamin grimaced.

'We knew it was going to happen eventually, Father,' he pointed out.

'Agreed. Unfortunately, that doesn't make me any happier now that it's gone ahead and actually happened.' Albrecht smiled sourly. 'And the fact that the Manties ultimately decided to let Kare head the team makes me even less happy than I might have been otherwise.'

'One could have hoped that the fact that the Manties and the Havenites are shooting at each other again would have made them a little less likely to cooperate on something like this,' Benjamin acknowledged dryly.

'Fair's fair—' Albrecht began, then paused and looked up with a smile as Stabolis returned to the office with the promised bottles of beer. Father and son each accepted one of them, and Stabolis raised an eyebrow at Albrecht.

'Go ahead and stay, Heinrich,' the senior Detweiler replied in answer to the unspoken question. 'By this