Sarah Zettel - Reclamation

“Does she?” said Eric carefully.

“And if she is making things difficult for you, Sar Born, I’ll be glad to help you leave May 16. Immediately.”

Eric’s back stiffened and he wasn’t able to keep his surprise from showing. He also couldn’t help noticing the greedy look in Schippend’s little blue eyes.

“Thank you for the offer, Sar Schippend,” Eric said. “I’ll have to consider it.”

“I am on the public lines, Sar Born. One is open for you.” Schippend climbed into his car and was gone.

Garismit’s Eyes! Eric rolled his own toward the heavens. “Anyone else?” he demanded. The street remained quiet, except for the traffic rushing past.

The hotel did not have a main doorway. Instead, the hatches for six separate access elevators faced the sidewalk. Eric slid his ID card into the labeled slot and a door opened to let him inside. He watched the shiny, gold walls as the elevator rose for about thirty seconds, glided sideways, then forward, then rose again. He did not touch the key that would have turned the cabin translucent and allowed him to see the panorama of the City of Alliances spread across its perfectly flat field.

When the door opened, it led to a comfortably furnished room, about twice the size of the common room on the U-Kenai. Instead of a window, the outer wall was taken up by an elaborate comm center, with all its keys labeled in three different languages.

“Very nice.” Eric dropped his pack on a table.

He sat in the comm screen’s chair and tried not to squirm while it adjusted to fit the contours of his body. He opened the line to Dorias’s home space.

The screen filled with the blur of shifting colors cut by rippling, horizontal lines that was Dorias’s idea of a self-portrait.

“Hello, Teacher Hand,” Dorias said, and the lines jumped, matching the frequency and intensity of his voice. Dorias had never completely dropped Eric’s title. You taught me I could make my own choices, Dorias had said. I choose to remember your earned name.

“Hello, Dorias. I hope you’re doing well,” he added with more than a trace of irony to his tone.

“Quite,” replied Dorias blandly. “Better than you are, I think.” He paused. “Eric, I’m sorry. I didn’t know this would happen.”

“I’m sure you didn’t.” Eric slumped and the chair undulated against his spine. “I’m sure Madame Chairman didn’t give you any reason to be alarmed about what might happen once I got here.”

“Teacher Hand, that is unfair.”

“Is it?” asked Eric bitterly. “Your friend is a schemer and a fanatic, Dorias.”

“Of course she is,” replied Dorias calmly. “It’s fanatics who get caught up in events like this. Normal people know when to give up and go home.”

“Thank you very much,” Eric muttered.

“You were the one who told me the power gifted were trained to be fanatics in the Temple.”

“I know. I know.” He sighed. “What are you doing here, Dorias? What could you possibly want with these people?”

“They’re the only ones around who have even a small chance of making an effective block against the Vitae. They are interested in establishing a permanent, open communications network. If I help Ross with…Family matters…she works on making sure that network is one I can use and the more space there is, the more chances there are that there’ll be others like me found, or made.”

Eric blinked. “Does Madame Chairman know about this grand scheme?”

“Of course she does.”

“Dorias.” Eric leaned forward. “I don’t know how safe you are here. I don’t think Madame Chairman approves of people who are either not Human or not under Family control.”

“Never fear, Teacher, I’ve made myself extremely useful to her. She has a lot riding on my continued goodwill.”

And you’ve got a lot riding on hers. It was easy to forget that Dorias was only six years old. His experiences and memories were mature and complex, but his knowledge of human duplicity, while it existed, was limited. He hadn’t had to plumb many depths yet. Eric debated telling him about Schippend for a moment, then decided against it.

Who knows what kind of pressure Madame Chairman would lay on Dorias if she found out he knew about a member of…Of what, a conspiracy? Political opposition? Black market? What?

Eric’s shoulders started to ache from the weight on them. “Dorias, I have a feeling things are moving double-quick around me. I’ve got to get going.”

“What are you thinking of doing?”

“I’m going to try to tap into the Vitae private network so I can find out what they’re doing in the Realm.”

“You don’t pick the easy targets, do you?” A pair of lines arched in an imitation of raised eyebrows. “You know it’s physically impossible for me to get inside their net, don’t you? It’s like you trying to walk through a brick wall.”

Eric grimaced. “I know. I’m counting on being able to use my power gift to at least open a line in there. I might even be able to work the data retrieval commands. But I won’t be able to interpret anything I pull out.”

“Ah, and that would be my job?” said Dorias.

Eric nodded and then remembered Dorias couldn’t see him. “Yes. The only real problem is I can’t do my part from here. I’ll have to get close to a station or terminal that’s got access to a Vitae system. But I can’t risk a transmission from the U-Kenai to May 16. I’ve got no idea who the Vitae have watching for me. I need…I need to ask you to come with me.” He said it carefully. Dorias did not like data boxes. They could be picked up and carried away too easily.

Dorias’s frequency lines wriggled and bunched sharply. “There’s another possibility.” His lines smoothed out. “I could, if you can give me time, provide you with a copy of myself.”

That took Eric aback. The idea sank in and he smiled. “You’d give me your firstborn? Dorias, I’m honored.”

The frequency lines bowed upward momentarily to parody a human smile. “It would not be my firstborn, although it is certainly not something I do frequently, but yes, that is the idea. I’ll estimate the required storage space.”

Eric mentally ran through an inventory of his ship’s information systems. “I haven’t got a whole lot of the dynamic storage to spare, Dorias. I run pretty close to capacity.” He stopped. “Unless you could fit a new program into Cam.”

“The android?” There was a split-second pause. “Yes. I could do that. In fact, it would be easier to fit a program based on my own makeup into the android’s network than the normal ship systems. It’s much more flexible. I am beginning work on it now.” A section of waves and colors fenced itself off in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.

“Thank you.” Eric watched his friend’s fluctuations for a moment. “How long do you think this will take?”

“Until tomorrow morning, I’m afraid. This is a precise job.”

“That’ll do fine. I have some other…inquiries I want to make. I’ll call back later, all right?”

“And I’ll keep an ear out for anything new about…you.”

“I’d appreciate that. Good-bye, Dorias.”

They broke the connection and Eric sat staring at the blank screen for a long time. Why didn’t I tell him? He might even know what Schippend’s up to, or who he’s working for. Garismit’s Eyes, what’re things coming to when I won’t trust Dorias with what I know…

Rather than think about that, he opened his satchel and pulled out a cobalt blue box, six inches on a side, with a small display screen on the top. A hardwire jack had been set in each side. The box could have been anything at all, from a storage box to a private data recorder to a virus apiary.