Steven Harper - Trickster

Later, when Irfan's wisdom uncovered Vik's deceit and she attempted to correct his taint with the use of genetic engineering techniques, he opposed her at every side, his silver tongue turning her friends and even some of the mighty Ched-Balaar to his side. This corrupted even Irfan herself, who hid her experiments and produced three Silent children of Vik's issue. All were strong in their Silence, and this angered Vik so much that he became insane. He kidnapped their eldest son and fled her presence.

Still angered beyond reason, Vik next raised an army to try to crush Irfan and the other Chosen. But Irfan entered the Dream and held him at bay until Vik was cut down by one of his own followers.

Irfan and the other Chosen thought they were rid of Vik's taint at last, but such was not to be. His DNA had tainted the Ched-Balaar's holy gift of Silence. Only Irfan herself was pure; all others tainted. And when people learned to make ships that could travel quickly between the stars, they desired the Silent for use as communication. Pirates in search of Silent and their DNA invaded Bellerophon, kidnapping and plundering and making the Chosen into slaves. Irfan fled into the Dream to seek a solution and remained there for many years. When she returned, she told the Chosen that although their birthright was within their grasp, they would never be free of their shackles until they became as pure as she, and she laid down the Laws of the Atash:

1. The Chosen must separate themselves from impure human society.

2. The Chosen must dedicate themselves to purity of thought and deed.

3. The Chosen must confess their impurities to the Enlightened in order to begin cleansing themselves.

4. The Chosen must give themselves over to obedience of the Enlightened that they may follow them into Light.

Martina shut the book off. Bored or not, there was only so much she could take. Was that thing meant to be a scholarly study or a religious text? For a history, it certainly glossed over or ignored an awful lot. A surviving journal from the time of Irfan Qasad had, Martina remembered, described Daniel Vik as going "insane with fury" when he found out that Irfan had genegineered their children for Silence, but there was plenty of hot debate about whether the reference was literal or metaphorical. It also completely ignored the fact that Silence itself had inadvertently led to the enslavement of so many Silent. If Irfan hadn't done her damndest to spread Silence throughout the galaxy as a method of intergalactic communication, founding her so-called Silent Empire, then two scientists separated by light years of space would never have collaborated, never have discovered slipspace, never have learned how to travel faster than light.

And Martina would never have been enslaved.

With the discovery of slipspace, humans and other intelligent life spread quickly through the galaxy, and the pokey colony ships vanished from living memory. They coasted slowly onward, their slumbering inhabitants confidently waiting to wake on a new, unspoiled world.

Then the slavers discovered them.

After almost a thousand years, all records of Martina, her family, and the other colonists had been lost or simply wiped. There was no proof that they weren't slaves, no one alive who even remembered they had existed. Dazed by the abrupt exit from cryo-sleep, the colonists had been unable to resist being shackled and herded aboard the slaver's ship. Later, they were hauled onto a space station and auctioned off. Martina had watched Utang being taken away by a slaver, though the slaver hadn't said why or where he was taking him. Then Martina had watched Evan and her mother being taken away by a woman in green. Martina had started to cry. Evan had said something to her, something about staying brave because he would find her one day, but she had barely heard him because she was crying so hard. Then he was gone.

Martina shook her head. It was all in the past-three owners ago, in fact. None of it mattered, and as long as she kept busy, either in the Dream or with her sketching, she didn't have to dwell on it.

Trouble was, she didn't have her sketchbook for drawing or her drugs for entering the Dream. There were the games and books on the computer, but Martina wasn't in the mood to read, and holographic games had never interested her. She rummaged around the computer terminal until she found the stylus, then searched the directory until she came across an art program. It activated at her command. Martina waved the stylus through the air, and it left a bright green trail in three dimensions. She nodded to herself. Three-dee art wasn't as fun as drawing, but it had its compensations.

Martina erased the trail and started sketching, just letting her hand go where it would. After a while, she realized she was creating pair a pair of rough portraits-a twelve-year-old boy with dark skin and eyes and a fifteen-year-old boy with equally dark skin but startlingly blue eyes. Evan and Utang. Annoyed with herself, Martina wiped the air clean and drew a series of animals. A falcon. A kangaroo. A koala bear. And all three reminded her of Evan. The koala had his eyes. The kanga mimicked his posture. The falcon shared his fierce expression. Angrily Martina wiped the holograms again and shut down the program. Then she sat down on the bed and drummed her fingers restlessly against her thighs.

All life, why was she here?

Gretchen slid through the crowd, avoiding elbows and insteps. Ken Jeung, head of the Collection's medical department, walked purposefully ahead of her. Jeung always walked purposefully, and somehow people always got out of his way. This made it hell to shadow him through the crowds on SA Station, and Gretchen's nerves were already wracked with the effort of doing so without attraction attention — his or Security's. The fact that he was short and dark-haired didn't make trailing him any easier, since he tended to blend in with other humans.

The shimmering lights of FunSec jumped and capered all around Gretchen. Laughter bubbled out of casinos along with the jingling of metal chits. The only illumination was provided by the thousands of moving, glittering lights that flashed the names of the establishments or projected giant holograms toward the faraway ceiling, providing street entertainment and, incidentally, slowing traffic as people stopped to watch. Gretchen suspected the latter effect was a way of making sure people didn't breeze past the casinos, theaters, and restaurants without looking at them. Currently, a three-story tall human salsa dancer in a red dress was doing a highly suggestive routine with a tall green alien, and both were getting a lot of attention from just about everyone except Jeung.

Gretchen stepped around a waist-high creature with long fur and stubby legs, dodged between two humans, and sidestepped something that reminded her of a walking tree. Humans were a majority on SA Station, but only barely, and Gretchen couldn't identify many of the non-humans. Most of the different species had their own enclaves, but a great deal of mixing went on in FunSec.

The travel corridor was so tall and wide Gretchen found herself thinking of it as a street, complete with sidewalks, doors, windows, and vehicle traffic. Restaurants scented the air with smells of fried food, baked sweets, and other aromas Gretchen couldn't identify. Humans and non-humans chattered among themselves and with each other while dry computer voices provided translations. Music boomed overhead to accompany the holographic dancers. Vehicles zipped up and down the street, hovering just above the metal flooring. Crowded walkways made zigzags and lattices far above ground level. The only greenery came from the occasional potted tree. The erratic lighting, designed to make FunSec always feel like a night-time fun spot, left large chunks of shadow, and Gretchen used them to her advantage while following Jeung.