Sarah Zettel - Reclamation

At the moment, Kiv was half-coiled around the base of his map table. Like Perivar’s it provided information about the space between the stars, but it did so in a series of lumps and indentations that shifted under Kiv’s primary and secondary hands. Only one of the other children was in evidence. Ere draped herself across her parent’s shoulders and stretched her arms so that her primary hands covered his and moved with them. Kiv buzzed and whistled at his first-named daughter, teaching her to read and understand the map in front of them.

Perivar glanced at the cables overhead. Sha must have taken the capsule straight into Kiv’s living rooms to hide with her other three sisters.

“Sha delivered your insult, Kiv,” Perivar said. “I heard it and I understood it. Now you understand this. I owe Eric Born more than one favor.”

“He’s contraband.” Kiv did not point his snout toward Perivar, or stop reading the table. “And he is running yet more contraband.”

“He swears she’s a volunteer.” Gods, I hope she’s a volunteer.

Kiv’s hands froze. “What could you possibly owe…”

“A contraband runner for?” Ere finished for her parent. She wasn’t being rude, she was showing how well she knew Kiv.

“He’s not a runner,” Perivar insisted. “And you don’t want to know what I owe him for.”

Kiv buzzed so softly, Perivar’s translator couldn’t pick it up. Ere shook herself loose from Kiv’s shoulders and scurried down his back. Kiv tilted his head and waited until she’d scrambled through the door to their living area before he turned ears and eyes toward Perivar. All his hands left the map board and pressed themselves tight to his long sides. At the same time, he drew himself out so his eyes were level with Perivar’s. The fluid motion took Kiv less time than it would have taken Perivar to bend his knees to sit down.

“I understand what you say. Now you understand, Perivar, this worries me. I cannot become involved in activities the human population of Kethran consider illegal. The Embassy Voice will speak against me. I will lose my license and be sent home.”

Perivar sighed and his breath made a white mist on his face mask. “Eric says the circumstances are exceptional and that it will only be this once.”

Kiv dipped his snout. “I know you think that I’m better off not knowing this, but what did he do to earn such trust?”

No, Kiv, you really don’t want to know that. Really. “Helped me…break from my old partners. Then he kept his mouth shut and himself absent for six years.” The last, at least, was the whole truth.

The short hum Kiv gave out did not translate. He drew back on himself, shrinking and retracting his whole body. Perivar knew enough about his partner’s body language to know Kiv meant to make Perivar uncomfortable so he could understand Kiv’s discomfort. It worked amazingly well. Perivar’s skin began to curdle under the gel. “If trouble comes from this, Kiv, I swear it won’t touch your children.”

“And how under any sun do you expect to keep such a promise, Perivar?” Despite his harsh words, Kiv stretched his arms and laid all his hands on the edge of the map table. The coil of his body loosened near the base. In response, the tension in Perivar’s skin eased.

“How do you intend to proceed?” Kiv asked.

“I’ll give Zur-Iyal a call and see if she’s willing to run a gene sample for me without going through channels. I’ll see the results of that and then I’ll know where it’s safe to send this…person Eric’s bringing in. After that, I’ll have to see. Her people are from the same Evolution Point as mine, Eric said, so there should be plenty of places I could send her as long as the sequence is reasonably clean.” The tank dragged at his shoulders, but Perivar didn’t make a move to sit down. Unless Kiv offered him a chair, which would really be a piece of floor or counter, it was rude. Usually, they skipped formalities like that, but right now, Perivar felt the need to prove he could still observe proprieties.

“And when is…Eric arriving?”

“He just called me from the ground port. He should be here in another two and a half hours, if they have to catch the public line, two hours if they can find a chauffeur.”

Kiv unwound himself from around the map table and stood on all his legs. “I will have to go explain this to my children. We are here, after all, to learn what your people will or will not do.” Although his attention remained fixed on Perivar, his eyes sank deep into their sockets. “It has not been easy, Perivar.”

“I know.”

“It has been good, though, and I want myself and my own to be able to stay.”

“I’ll make sure it’s over soon.”

Kiv inclined his head, a gesture he’d learned from Perivar. He swiveled himself around and flowed through his back door.

Breathing another sigh, this time from relief, Perivar retreated into his own side of the workplace. As he stepped through the membrane, the gel slid off his skin, melding with its own substance again.

“Brain.” He said aloud as he lifted his face mask.

“Receiving.” He and Kiv had not been able to afford their own artificial intelligence, never mind an android, but they did rent time on the AI that operated their building’s facilities.

“Get a real-time line open to Zur-Iyal ki Maliad at Amaiar Industrial Gardens, personal code A comma nine comma Yul Gan. Then, cross-load the active routing files on packet 73-1511 over to Kiv’s map files and compare with the facilities timings and route the data back.” He undid the tank catches and gratefully set it back in its rack. “And call the Roseran’s bakery and reactivate my account and tell them to send down half a dozen fresh seed cakes to the kids.” Another propriety. Where Kiv came from, you did not thank a father directly, you did a favor for his children.

“I have set your priority coding. Request one will be completed in five minutes. Requests two and three will be completed in three minutes. Request four will be completed in fifteen minutes.”

“Nothing further.” Perivar dropped into his chair and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. The face mask was supposed to filter the light down to Perivar’s comfort level, but any stay in Kiv’s quarters still dried his eyes out painfully.

Eric, don’t you try to play any fancy games with me, or I’ll broadcast what you did to Kessa and Tasa Ad from one side of the Quarter Galaxy to the other.

Six years of relatively clean living; Perivar stared around his workplace. Thousands of packets of information delivered successfully and this was what he had. One room of hardware and two rooms of furniture. He didn’t even own the walls around them. He was alive, which was definitely a plus, and if he hadn’t stuck by Eric Born, he would not have been. Perivar knew that. When living on the edge had finally become too much, Eric had taken the ship, the pilot, and the ghosts. Perivar had taken the bank accounts, and that had actually seemed to be the end of it. Most of the time he kept the past in its own place and lived for the next shipment and the next deposit in his account. His open, honest, registered, and almost always empty account.

Brain beeped twice to get his attention.

“Open channel established and connected to Zur-Iyal ki Maliad.”

Perivar straightened up to face the blank display that Brain angled up from the work surface in front of him. His fingers undid the catch on the bottom edge and he lifted the cover from the keypad. His memory strained to recall the watch command. His lips moved as he typed it in. The signal light on the edge of the pad blinked on. Green. No one was watching the line, at the moment. Perivar kept one eye on the signal light and touched the key to clear the view.