“We are under orders to take you.” Yu was staring at her in contempt. She hadn’t created those clones to have a child. She had created them as a buffer, to keep herself away from the Gyonnese.
Children, be they human or Gyonnese, didn’t matter to her.
She raised that damn chin even higher. “Show me the legal document giving you that right, and I’ll come freely, so long as you let me contact my attorney.”
Nafti was watching all of this in confusion. He held his arms out slightly so he could grab her if he needed to.
“We don’t need a legal document.” Yu was going to take her. He knew that now. And he didn’t care what the Gyonnese did to her.
At least the child would be all right. In fact, the child would be better off without her.
Shindo’s chin came down. Her eyes were wild. She had finally realized that Yu meant to take her, no matter what.
“You need a warrant,” she said. “The Gyonnese are part of the Alliance. They have to go by Alliance law, just like the rest of us.”
Stupid, arrogant woman. As if she cared about the law.
“If you went by Alliance law,” Yu said, “you would have given up the true child fourteen years ago. Humans flout this law all the time, with their Disappearance Companies that aren’t prosecuted for secreting criminals away and giving them new identities. The Gyonnese decided if you people can do that, they can hire a Recovery Man.”
Shindo lunged toward the front of the house. Nafti didn’t even have to run after her. Instead, he just wrapped his arms around her, imprisoning her against him.
His grip was so tight that tears came to her eyes.
“You’re coming with us,” Yu said.
“Let me contact my lawyer.” She didn’t struggle like her daughter. She must have realized how futile struggling would be.
“If you had one, you’d’ve sent a message through your links by now.” Although Yu knew better. He’d blocked link access this close to the house. “And he couldn’t help you anyway.”
“Kidnapping is a capital offense in human societies.”
Yu shrugged. “We’re just taking you for questioning.”
“Against my will.” Her voice rose in panic.
Nafti inclined his head toward the back, silently asking if Yu wanted him to drag the woman away.
“What did you do to Talia?” Shindo finally asked. It had taken her long enough.
“Nothing,” Yu said.
“But you said—”
“I said we found the tag.”
“How?” Shindo’s voice broke. Now she was going to pretend that the daughter mattered to her. Although it was much too late to convince Yu.
“Just a little touch behind her head,” Yu said. “She’ll wake up soon enough. Then she’ll miss you and go to the authorities and someone will find our message attached to your door, and they’ll know that you’re a mass murderer, who has so far managed to escape justice.”
Her face was flushed. “Gyonnese law supercedes here. That’s Alliance precedent, and under Gyonnese law —”
“The Gyonnese have true laws and false laws,” Yu said. It was one of the many quirks of their civilization. He’d had trouble with that from the moment he started working with them. “They seem to thrive on more than one system. And while they prefer the known universe to see their true laws, sometimes they have to rely on the false laws.”
“Like now,” Nafti said into her hair.
“But Talia…” Shindo said.
“You don’t need to worry about her any more,” Yu said, as if she had ever truly worried about the girl. “Now it’s time to start worrying about yourself.”
“I’m not going to be able to listen to this any more,” Nafti said. “I have a headache.”
He’d been saying that since they got back to the ship. They had imprisoned Shindo in a cargo bay and she’d been pounding on the door ever since. Even though the ship was large, the sound echoed throughout, thrumming into the bridge like the base line of a particularly bad song.
“I mean it,” Nafti said. He rubbed his bald head for emphasis. He had cleaned the tattoos off his face and removed the whitener from his eyes. Now his skin was dark and pristine and his eyes a deep, royal blue. “I’m getting sick here.”
So was Yu. His head ached as well, but he wasn’t sure if it was from the woman pounding below or Nafti’s reaction to it.
“All right,” Yu said. “Go down there and make her shut up.”
“Do I hurt her?” Nafti had been frustrated ever since they got back from Shindo’s house. Every time he’d come close to hurting her, Yu had stopped him.
“No,” Yu said. “Just bargain with her. Or tie her up. Or something.”
He didn’t care as long as it got done. He had more important things to think about.
Like getting off this rock. It hadn’t been hard to get Shindo to the ship. In fact, it had been surprisingly easy. No one questioned the way they hauled her to the vehicle, hauled her out of the vehicle, and dragged her through the port.
He supposed they figured if she really needed help, she’d send a message through her links. But he was using a small handheld that blocked any link communications. The device had limited range—it literally had to be on the person it was blocking—so no one else’s links were effected.
To passersby, she looked drunk or crazy or both.
Valhalla Basin’s port had its own departure customs, and they were almost as annoying as Bosak City’s. Yu monitored the equipment, and finally the promised holoimage appeared in the center of the bridge floor.
The image showed his cargo ship in yellow, the ship ahead of his in green, and all the ships behind in red.
Yu had to acknowledge the notification. He brushed his hand across the top of the board, then got a timeline in response.
Not long until liftoff.
Then, in the little holoimage, the top of the port swiveled, and an opening appeared above his ship. His board confirmed: the first stage to liftoff had occurred.
His stomach turned. The moment he left Valhalla Basin with Shindo, he would have committed a major crime within the Alliance.
He had his defense ready—he had holoimages of the Gyonnese confirming the work as well as their promise that they were acting under the advice of their own legal counsel.
He was going to argue—if he had to—that what he had done was no different from a Tracker recovering a Disappeared.
Even though he had a hunch the Earth Alliance would see this differently. It certainly felt different. He kept thinking about that poor girl, stuffed in the closet, and wishing he had set the controls to free her sooner than twenty-four hours from the moment he left.
“Hey, Hadad?”
Yu jumped. He’d never heard any voice on the ship’s speakers before except the voice of the ship herself. But this voice belonged to Nafti, and he sounded hesitant.
“What?” Yu made sure he sounded as annoyed as he felt.
“Um, this woman down here, she says the cargo hold is poisoned.”
Yu punched a button to the left of the no-touch board. Nafti’s ugly bald head appeared next to the image of the ships awaiting liftoff.
