Sarah Zettel - Reclamation

There were, however, ways to confuse the system. First she composed a message to the market vendors to order dinner for the Beholden and the family. Her own terminal had been co-opted by Basq’s team, so for now all the household work would have to be done from the public lines. Apart from the list, she recorded the other news briefly. Jahidh needed to know what had happened so he could plan his next move.

Then Caril arranged the keys into their new patterns with an ease that came from long practice. She waited a few heartbeats and arranged them again. Her news would flit through every park aboard the Grand Errand, bouncing back and forth for hours in the crowded lines before it finally hit a transmission point where it could be released from the internal lines and start on its real journey.

Let Basq strive for the honor of remaining a servant to the Quarter Galaxy. She would not make that her work. Once she had thought he understood the need for the Vitae to cut themselves loose from the overwhelming caution that had been instilled in them when the Ancestors had begun the flight, but he had been blinded by his promotions and paralyzed by responsibilities until there was almost nothing left of the person she had tied her life to.

Let him glory in his service to a Reclamation Assembly that spoke of standing side by side with civilizations of babies and monsters. She would not hear them. The Rhudolant Vitae were the First Born and the First Blood of all the humans, the head of the Family, not just another member to be tricked and controlled by the Unifiers. Jahidh had found the proof and he would soon bring home the power to make the Assembly recant.

But there was not now much time. The artifacts were lost and even the Assembly was taking that loss seriously.

She leaned back in her chair and, using a key-slip she’d learned from Kelat, Caril sent both transmissions simultaneously.

Caril tried to relax the cold, hard knot that was forming inside her. She’d heard one too many stories in Chapel about the duplicity of the Aunorante Sangh. She would have died before she admitted she was afraid of what it meant to have not one, but two of them free in the Quarter Galaxy, but she could not make that fear leave her. Uary’s decision to let them get completely away was rash in the extreme, but it might turn out to be the best delaying tactic they had. If their people could move faster than Basq, the artifacts might be recovered and stored for safe study.

It wasn’t likely, but she could hope. Caril tried not to listen to Kelat’s fretting that the Imperialists did not have the structures they needed to coordinate their activities. Kelat had spent too many years buried in contracts, she told herself.

Caril rose. She had learned to live with so much, she would learn to live with this new anxiety.

After all, now that the Assembly had found the Home Ground for themselves, there could not be that much longer to wait for the Reclamation.

Or, at the very least, the resolution.

Gan Perivar leaned his chair back too fast. The back whacked against the edge of the work counter, jarring his neck and shoulders painfully.

One more year and I can afford to rent some real space. Perivar twisted the chair and checked behind him to make sure that he would not hit any of the beveled, steel poles that broke up what little open space existed between the map table and the counters. One more year. Two at the most.

He leaned back, more carefully this time, and stared at the counter. The silver-and-blue keypads were laced with shadows from the webwork of cables strung across the ceiling. If nothing else unexpected happens between now and then.

A rattle sounded over Perivar’s head and the shadows shook. A silicate capsule about the size of his torso shot through a portal from the next room. Its hooks swung it from cable to cable toward the post beside his right ear.

Marvelous. When Kiv sent his kids to speak for him, it was always serious.

When the capsule’s occupant was stretched out, she was three times as long as the transport she used. She tucked eight pairs of her legs underneath her and used the remaining pair to manipulate the capsule’s controls. Her primary hands rested on the bumpy controls for the information terminal, while her secondaries folded in the polite greeting. Two of her eyes extended down toward her primary hands. The other two focused on her goal.

Perivar squinted at the pattern of grey blotches on her smooth golden scales. This was Sha, the third-named of Kiv’s litter.

Didn’t even send his first-named. Gods, gods, gods, he is mad.

Sha used the post to lower the capsule until she was eye level with him. She extended her snout and pursed her lipless mouth. The protective capsule shut in the actual buzzing sound of her voice, but its intercom carried the signal to activate Perivar’s translation disk and transmit her message.

“My parent requests information regarding the progress of the routing for packet 73-1511.”

Perivar took a deep breath. “Sha, tell your parent…” He let the sentence die. “Tell your parent I’m coming in.”

Sha’s snout retracted, fast. Perivar had come to equate the action with a human gulp. Without another word, Sha reversed her course, sending the capsule back across the cables and through the portal.

Anticipating trouble, little one? Perivar got to his feet. Me too.

The workroom had three doors. One led to the hallway. One hung open to display his comfortably disreputable living rooms. The third was a sliding metal partition in the same wall as the capsule’s portal. Next to the partition stood a rack containing an oxygen pack. Perivar checked the tank reading to make sure it was full before he hooked its straps over his shoulders. Fumbling a little with the catches, he fitted the shield over his eyes and mouth.

Shrugging his shoulders to settle the tank more comfortably, Perivar slid back the partition to expose the gelatinous membrane that separated Kiv’s half of their quarters from his. The membrane had cost more than all the rest of his equipment combined, but it was worth it. Working with Kiv meant contracts from other Shessel and the Shessel had a lot of work that needed doing.

As usual, Perivar paused before the membrane, hoping that one day he’d get used to going through it.

After four years it was starting to seem unlikely.

Perivar stepped through the membrane. The gooey gel pressed against his skin, clothes, and mask and stuck, sealing him inside a flexible envelope that would screen out the ultraviolet rays Kiv and his children basked under. When Kiv stepped through into Perivar’s space, the gel kept in his body heat so he wouldn’t drop into a stupor in Perivar’s arctic climate, or drown in the flood of his oxygen. It was a good method, but not very sturdy, which was why the children used the unbreakable capsules.

Kiv was a bulky, earth-toned match for his five daughters. Uncoiled and standing straight on all his legs, he was so tall his eyes were level with the crown of Perivar’s head. A skintight, vermilion garment encased him from his neck to his last set of toes. He’d started wearing the thing as soon as the last of his children were hatched and he made the shift from female to male. Kiv had never been able to explain properly whether being required to wear clothes indoors was a mark of advancement or decline in the Shessel’s social order.