Steven Harper - Dreamer

“I’m trading in genetics,” she said. “Viable embryos and such. Vidya and Sejal seem to be prospects.”

Fen whistled. “The paperwork on that must take you months.”

“It does,” Ara said shortly. “But it’s high profit, low volume. Can’t ask for more. Look, Fen, I have to-”

“This wouldn’t also have anything to do with that Silent everyone’s talking about around here, would it?”

Cold goosebumps rose on Ara’s neck. She went stock-still. “What Silent?” she asked casually.

Fen folded his arms. “The one they’ve posted a big reward for. Haven’t you been watching the news?”

“No,” Ara said faintly. “I haven’t had time.”

“There’s a powerful rogue Silent somewhere on Rust,” Fen said. “And the Unity wants him. Bad. Problem is, they don’t know what he looks like, or even if it’s a he. All they know is that he’s young and he’s somewhere on Rust. And now you’re here sniffing around this boy Sejal Dasa. A connection?”

Shit shit shit. Ara struggled to remain calm. “Coincidence, Fen. You just told me yourself Sejal isn’t Silent. I’m interested in his genetic potential.”

“I see.” Fen’s tone made it clear he didn’t believe her. Ara’s heart lurched. Would he turn her in? She couldn’t leave Rust without Sejal. And time was growing short. They had to get Sejal off Rust, and fast.

“Look, Fen, I have to go,” she told him. “What you told me about Sejal and Vidya changes things, and I have people to contact. I really appreciate your help.”

“So when do we take our walk?”

Ara blinked at him. “Walk?”

“On the seapad. Remember? My price for helping you? How about tomorrow?”

Ara felt genuinely flustered. Not because Fen was pressing her for a romantic interlude, but because of its timing. So much was happening now and so quickly, the question felt out of place. Once she got Sejal on board, Ara intended to hurl the ship into slipspace as soon as humanly possible.

So promise him, she told herself. Even assuming you’re around long enough for him to cash in on it and if he lays a hand on you, all you have to do is give him one hard push and he’s sea monster meat.

“Tomorrow it is,” Ara agreed. “Why don’t we meet at the restaurant at seven?”

A huge smile spread across Fen’s wizened face. “See you then. Glory to the Unity.” And he signed off.

Ara was getting immensely tired of that phrase.

“Peggy-Sue,” she said. “Open intercom to Ben Rymar. Ben, can you raise Kendi?”

“I’m not on the bridge, Mother,” Ben replied. “Let me get up there first.”

Ara sat back and thought while she waited. Stress tugged at her gut, but she pushed it firmly aside. They were doing all they could to find Sejal, and the Children still had the best chance of getting to him first.

Vidya “Dasa” Prasad had voluntarily given up her children. Ara shook her head. How could she do such a thing? Unbidden, Ara’s mind flicked back to Ben’s implantation. Five years after Benjamin Heller’s death, Ara had become aware of a growing desire-need-for a child. She had told herself she was being ridiculous. She was Mother Araceil Rymar of the Children of Irfan, youngest person ever to attain that title, with a clear shot at also being the youngest to make Mother Adept. She was powerful in the Dream, had personally taught half a dozen students, was a widely-recognized expert in transcendental morphic Dream theory. Her life was full, she was busy, her friends and students loved her. She didn’t need anything.

But Mother Araceil Rymar of the Children of Irfan wanted a baby.

Still, Ara put off the idea another year, until a casual conversation with Mother Adept Salman Reza, Ara’s own mother, changed her mind.

“I don’t need a baby right now,” Ara complained. “But-oh, Mother-I want one like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Well that’s the key right there,” Salman said. “Those who need children make poor parents. Those who want them make fine ones.”

It seemed as if the universe were siding with Ara’s mother. Two days later, Ara and her compatriots were encased in vacuum suits, inspecting a derelict ship they had found while tracking down rumors of an illegal Silent slave ring. The ship orbited the moon of a gas giant and appeared to have taken heavy damage in a firefight. It was Ara’s guess that the ship had been transporting Silent slaves and had run afoul of other pirates. The ship was completely empty. Cargo and crew had either been evacuated, captured, or blown into space. Ara had just been about to leave the cargo hold when she came across a star-shaped metallic object the size of a basketball. It lay forgotten in a corner. She caught her breath, recognizing it as a cryo-module for embryos. The readout said they had been frozen in the same year Benjamin Heller had died.

Back on her own ship, a medical scan revealed that the module contained eighty-seven embryos, a dozen of which were still viable, and all of which carried the genes for Silence. Grandfather Melthine, Ara’s superior, was uncertain what to do with the embryos once Ara returned with them to Bellerophon. They could not be placed in artificial wombs and grown to maturation-it was well established that Silent fetuses invariably withered and died under such conditions. And were they Silent children waiting to be born, or simple clumps of cells? Hundreds of years of debate hadn’t changed-or solved-the issue. In the end, Melthine ordered the embryos placed in storage until someone could come up with a solution he liked.

Ara decided to end the debate for at least one embryo.

“Do you want a daughter or a son?” asked the doctor on the day of implantation.

“Let the universe decide,” Ara replied, and grinned as the doctor dramatically covered his eyes with one hand and plucked a tube from the module. Nine months later, Benjamin Rymar was born, red hair, blue eyes, and all. Ara held him tight and whispered happy greetings in his tiny ear.

As time passed, Ara discovered motherhood wasn’t exactly what she had expected. In some ways it was more, and in other ways it was less. She exchanged field work for teaching and was surprised at how little she regretted it. There was laughing and singing, night feedings and toilet training, sleepovers and bullies. Ben’s speech developed late, as was expected of a Silent child, but Ben’s tenth birthday came and went, and Ben showed no awareness of the Dream, no ability to hear the little whispers from the minds that created it. A worried Ara ordered batteries of tests. The monks who conducted them, however, could only shake their heads. Genetically Ben was Silent, but some unknown factor of environment kept him from expressing that trait.

Guilt had weighed Ara down for months. Had she done something wrong while she was pregnant? Was it something she had done or said to him? In the end, she’d been forced to accept that there was no way to tell. For all she knew, it was a side-effect of being frozen as an embryo for so many years. She supposed that it didn’t really matter. Ara wouldn’t have traded Ben for a truly Silent child, nor would she have given him up. Not after she had fought so hard to have him in the first place.

So how could Vidya give her babies to the Unity? And would her history make her easier or harder to persuade? The memory of a crackling energy whip played across Ara’s mind, and she had the sinking feeling it would be harder.

PLANET RUST

Kendi burst into the hotel lobby barely thirty seconds ahead of the guard. The desk clerk, a short man with a horsey face, looked up, startled.