Mary Rosenblum - Horizons

“Run,” she snapped at Koi, pointing away from their pursuers. “They’ve spotted us.” She grabbed a tube thick with ripening strawberries, spun herself around and pushed off with her foot, heedless of the crushed berries and shredded leaves. She shot forward, at the edge of control, guiding herself crudely with her hands, ricocheting off tube after tube, leaving a visible trail of damage behind her. They wouldn’t need anything technical to track her. A tube thick with something round and green like guavas appeared in front of her. She pushed off with one hand, spiraled off at a tangent, utterly out of control now. Felt twin cold novas of triumph behind her, managed to grab a tube, plant her feet, and shoot away from that ‘gotcha’ gloating behind her. Intent on the narrow spaces between the leaves, she lucked out, arrowing between thickly leafed tubes into relatively clear space where the tiny plantlets must have been newly inserted. She soared through the narrow clearing and into the leaves on the other side, leaving no trace of her passage. Let herself slow. “Koi?” She twisted cautiously, expecting to find him on her heels. “I need another way down.”

He wasn’t there, and then she felt him. His terror and pain, flared like lightning in the quiet of the axle garden, with that ‘gotcha’ triumph.

They had been after Koi, not her.

Best choice; find the nearest alternative elevator and get out.

Not her problem.

Ahni pushed off, caught a tube planted to tomatoes, kicked gently off, and headed back along her trail of damage, trying to move cautiously.

She fixed on the silver knife blade of Koi’s terror. Over there. It was faint, getting fainter.

Way too fast.

She kicked off of a tube and launched herself recklessly, but it was too late. She burst from the leafy shadows of the tubes and into him into wash of light that made her squint in spite of her goggles. An elevator. The wide, matte gray portal looked odd and out of place in the lush greenery. She hurtled into the wall of the enormous tube, tucking head and shoulder, rolling, and killing her momentum with her feet and knees, bruising herself but maintaining control.

They had taken Koi down with them.

As she clung to the alloy frame around the portal, something metalic and blue caught her eye. It hung in the air in the clear space around the elevator portal, turning slowly in the harsh light. Gently, Ahni pushed off and drifted closer. A bracelet. A hotel key, she realzed. The new fad. A pretty bracelet to match your business singlet, but inside, the chip to open your door, turn on the lights and the enviro controls…

They had left the key behind.

For her.

It tumbled very slowly end over end, moving in a slow steady trajectory toward the first of the leaf-covered tubes. Ahni stretched out a hand for the bracelet as she crossed its trajectory, hesitated, thinking of all the things that could be hidden in that twisted circlet cheap plastic. Touched it.

Nothing happened.

She pluckedit lightly from the air, as ifit was a poisoned fruit. An invitation? An offer? A bright puzzle-piece to toss with all the other tiny pieces that had showered around her since that hours ago trip through the Arrival Hall, like how had Krator had known her moves seemingly as soon as she did? And how had her pursuers folwed her so unerringly? Why had they taken Koi?

Like bright fragments of glass, they tumbled, razor-edged in her mind, swirling microG slowly… to form an impossible pattern.

She knew who must have left this key.

Gently, Ahni’s fingers closed over it. She slippedit into a pocket in her singlesuit, sealedit carefully closed.

Dane erupted from the leaves a moment later, halted effortlessly in front of her, didn’t touch her. “Koi?”

She met his pewter eyes. “They took him.”

“You and your damned war,” Dane growled.

“Who’s at fault here?” Rage seized her. “You created him. You made him into something that they’ll treat like an animal. Don’t blame me for this. This is your doing!”

He stretched out a hand, damped his drift to utter stillness, face shadowed by leaves. “I thought you were getting it,” he said in a soft, flat tone. “When you saw his family. I thought maybe, one downsider could figure it out. That this is not Earth. Your rules don’t work up here, don’t you get it? We keep track of everybody now, but there have been some rough periods since the first space station got bolted together up here. Some people must have… slipped through the cracks as the orbital platforms grew.

That’s what I guess anyway. And they started living up here, maybe in storage space at first, stealing food from the primitive hydroponics we had up here back then. Must have been pretty grim.” His pewter eyes bored into hers. “You got to wonder what it was they were hiding from, down below. But that’s all I can figure out. Oh, I thought someone made them, too. Then I did a gene-scan. They’re as Homo sapience as you and I are. Your brothers and sisters, downsider. I don’t know what’s driving the changes and oh yes, they’re still changing.” His eyes gleamed. “Our siblings, downsider? Or maybe… our successors?”

Successors. A chill walked Ahni’s spine. Because he believed it. “So then you’re safe,” she said softly.

“Why hide them?”

“You threw history at me a little while ago.” Anger flashed in his eyes. “We have a history of hating anyone with a different face or hair. How many millions have we killed for the crime of being different?

What about someone like Koi? He doesn’t look different, he is different.”

“That’s in the past,” Ahni snapped.

“Is it?” Dane said softly. “Rats.”

She blinked at him, uncomprehending.

“That’s how the last supervisor listed them in the database.”

Dane drifted close, so close that she could feel his breath on her face. “Temperature, humidity, crop mass, ripeness percentages, rats exterminated. It took me awhile to figure out what he meant, when I took over.”

He had to be lying.

“He was probably afraid somebody would think he’d created them.” Dane’s tone was coldly reflective.

“Or maybe they just scared him. Because they were… different. He killed quite a few. I found a young boy in one of his traps, my first day here. Neurotoxins on a pretty toy. Very creative. There weren’t many left. They don’t reproduduce well. I think a lot of pregnancies get reabsorbed, and some infants-like Koi’s sister-simply die. It wouldn’t take much to eliminate them all. Why do they exist?” His voice dropped to a whisper.”What are they? What do they mean, downsider? That’s our question to answer, not yours. This isn’t your world. I thought you understood, so I let him take you to the elevator.”

Ahni took a breath of the heavy air. It smelled… wrong. Not like the Amazon, not like the lush tropical greenery of New Taipei. Not like Earth. “I can get him back,” she said, her words leaden. You must have a gene sequencer… an official model? With a time/date labeler? Uncompromisable?” No one was allowed to play with genes, unrecorded.

He was nodding. “Standard agribusiness model,” he said, his eyes on her face. “Licensed and tamper proof.”

She unsealed her pocket and took out the blue bracelet key. “I don’t know how many traces are on this.

Use my DNA as reference. I need the original hard copy. Signed, sealed, and presentable to the World Council if need be.” She held it out.

He took it, closed up and unreadable again. Looked from it to her “Do you want to give me a clue whose DNA you’re looking for?”

”The DNA that isn’t mine.”

“I’ll need a sample from you.”