Trickster. Part 26

" . . . do you want something like that?" It was Harenn's voice.

"Because the best way to steal something is to convince the current owner that he doesn't want it anymore. Once you do that, he'll give it to you outright -- or sell it to you cheap." The speaker was the leader, the Father whose name Todd hadn't managed to catch. "In this case, we need to convince the Collection that my family are worthless."

Todd froze. Didn't they know he was lying within earshot? Obviously not. Or maybe they didn't care. No. It made no sense for them to discuss plans like this where Todd could hear. So why were they doing it?

The answer, when it came, was obvious. Harenn had screwed up. The dose of hypnoral she had given him hadn't lasted as long as it was supposed to. Maybe he was building up a tolerance for it after all this exposure, or maybe she had accidentally under-dosed him. In any case, it was obvious that Harenn and the Father didn't know he was awake and listening. He shut his eyes to keep it that way.

Mr. Roon was going to love this.

"So you're going to make them sick," Harenn said.

"Something like that," the Father said. "If you get your hands on some gelpox virus, can you weaken it so that it won't make them too ill?"

"Easily. I can buy gelpox right here on the station. How do you intend to infect them?"

"Someone will have to get to the kitchen and put it in the food. Once our patients get moved down to their medical facilities, Ken Jeung will test for the virus and find it."

"Gelpox is a minor illness," Harenn pointed out. "The Collection will not try to rid itself of your family for that."

"That's why we need access to Jeung's medical database. We make a few changes to his computer so that when his scanners find gelpox, they'll say say they found something more serious. Like Selene's disease." they found something more serious. Like Selene's disease."

"Not readily contagious, but deadly within two years."

"Right. Why spend resources on someone who's going to be dead soon? Silent Acquisitions policy states that slaves who have outlived their usefulness go into a pool for cheap sale. We just watch for them and make a quick buy. The main problem will be getting inside the Collection to change the computers. We've only got three more days before we have to leave."

"What about the others?"

There was a pause. Todd held his breath and kept his eyes firmly shut.

"Others?" the Father asked.

"The rest of the Collection. All of them were kidnapped, stolen away by force or guile. This plan saves your family but it leaves the others in bondage."

A sigh. "We went through this with Sejal before the Despair, Harenn. The Children can't save everyone. The resources just aren't there."

"That doesn't make it right to leave the others behind." Harenn's voice held a righteous indignation that Todd remembered well from their marriage. He had hated it then and he definitely hated it now. He almost felt sorry for the nameless Father, who was currently on the receiving end of it.

"There isn't anything I can do, Harenn," the Father said. A pleading tone had entered his voice. "Now that we know about the Collection, maybe the Children can send another task force later to get them out. But we're just one tiny group here, and I'm not a miracle worker."

"Ara would have tried."

"Low blow, Harenn. Besides, you don't know that she -- "

"Stop. Isaac will wake any moment now. We'll discuss this later."

"No, Harenn," Father Nameless said tiredly. "We won't."

Todd lay still and tried to breathe normally. He heard Harenn approach his bed and he became acutely aware of the slightly stiff sheets beneath him, of the little current of cool air from the nearby vent, of the smell of cooking oil on Harenn's skin. His heart beat fast. Todd was afraid of Harenn, and he hated himself for it. He fervently wished he could go back in time and stop himself from marrying her, no matter what price he had gotten for . . . what had she named the kid? He couldn't remember. Not that it mattered now anyway.

"Is he awake?" Father Nameless asked. "We need to get him back in his room."

"I judge he has approximately thirty seconds left. Perhaps forty-five."

Isaac silently counted to thirty-eight and stirred. He opened his eyes and saw Harenn looking down at him.

"It is time to return you to your quarters," she said. "Now."

"What did you ask me about this time, Harenn?" he demanded as he always did.

"Nothing of importance to you," she replied. "But I suspect you will . . . enjoy the memory of your dreams."

He didn't speak as she accompanied him back through the maze of blue corridors to his tiny, boring room. The slave band around his wrist prevented him from running, though he desperately wanted to. They had almost reached his quarters when a boy who looked to be eight or nine years old dashed up to them. He had dark hair and eyes that matched Harenn's, but his face . . . Todd blinked. The boy reminded Isaac of holograms of himself taken when he was young.

"I got tired of waiting, Mom, and the computer said you were here," the boy blurted. "Are you ready for me in medical yet?"

"Leave us," Harenn snapped. "Go down to medical. Now!"

"Who's this?" the boy asked, and coughed. "The guy in the room? Rigid!"

Todd took a chance. "I'm your dad."

The boy's eyes bulged and he backed away. "Are you going to cut my throat?"

"What? No. I--" A wrenching shock made him gasp and clutch at the band around his wrist.

"You will be silent! silent!" Harenn snarled. "You will not speak to him. You will not look look at him." at him."

"He's my son, too, Harenn," Todd told her.

"You gave up all rights to him when you sold him into slavery. Bedj-ka, go!"

"But I want to see--"

"Better obey your mother," Todd said. "Or she'll shock you like she does me. She likes shocking people, son."

"The only thing that is stopping my knife, husband husband," she hissed in his ear, "is the possibility that we might still need you. If you speak to him again, you will die, no matter what orders I am given. Is that clear?"

When she took her hand from his mouth, he said, "Perfectly clear." He staggered to his feet -- Harenn offered no a.s.sistance -- and added, "You call me a monster, Harenn. How is what you're doing to me any different?"

"I care nothing about what you say, Isaac." She nudged him forward. "I do not let the words of one who sells children into slavery bring doubt to my mind."

"Maybe you don't," he said without disguising the relish in his voice. "But what about Bedj-ka? I wonder what kind of bedtime story he'll ask for tonight, wife wife."

She shocked again, but it was worth it. And when he was back in his tiny room again, he made himself wait an entire hour before contacting Edsard Roon.

Kendi could see the trouble on Bedj-ka's face the moment the boy entered the medical bay. Automatically, he said, "What's wrong?"

"That guy you've been keeping in that room?" Bedj-ka replied. "I saw him with Mom in the hall. He said he was my father."

Bedj-ka nodded. "Is it true? Mom didn't deny it."

A dozen lies rushed through Kendi's head. He could say it wasn't true, that Todd was a prisoner of war, that Todd was a pathological liar. He could simply avoid the question and let Harenn deal with it. After all, he was her son.

But Kendi was captain of the s.h.i.+p, and that made Bedj-ka's relations.h.i.+p with Todd Kendi's responsibility, in a way. Besides, Kendi knew Harenn well enough to predict what she would tell him. Perhaps he could spare her a little pain.

"It's true," Kendi said. "His name is Isaac Todd, and he's your dad."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Bedj-ka demanded, then coughed hard.

"We didn't want you to get upset," Kendi replied. "It's still true that he sold you into slavery when you were a baby, and we didn't want you to be afraid he would do it again."

"You should have told me." Bedj-ka's tone was belligerent. Kendi sank down onto a rolling stool so his head was lower than the boy's, and let his arms hang limply at his sides in a non-threatening gesture calculated to avoid provoking further anger.

"Maybe we should have," Kendi admitted, voice quiet. "Sometimes adults make mistakes. But we figured you'd already been through so much. I mean, I remember how confused I was when Ara freed me. me. We didn't want to make things more complicated for you than they already were." We didn't want to make things more complicated for you than they already were."

"He said Mom shocks him a lot. He said Mom likes to shock people for fun."

"That's not true," Kendi said. "I've known your Mom a long time, and she doesn't hurt people for fun." Only when she has a reason Only when she has a reason, added a wry voice in his head. "I think he was trying to make you angry at her by telling lies. Bedj-ka, I know this is hard and it hurts to hear, but Isaac Todd isn't a nice man. He's cruel and mean. That doesn't mean you're you're a mean person. You can be the person you want to be. You don't have to be like him." a mean person. You can be the person you want to be. You don't have to be like him."

"I don't care about him," Bedj-ka said. His voice shook. "He isn't really my father. He didn't raise me."

"That's right. And your mother loves you very much, no matter what anyone might say." Kendi patted Bedj-ka's shoulder. "She'll get that cold fixed right up, too. I'll even bet she won't make you do what I I had to do when I got sick on the frog farm where I was a slave." had to do when I got sick on the frog farm where I was a slave."

Bedj-ka looked at him, interested despite himself. "You were a slave on a frog farm?"

"Sure was. Anyway, this one species of frog secreted a substance that was refined into an anti-viral drug. We slaves couldn't refine anything, of course, so when we got sick, we only had one choice."

"What was that?"

Kendi kept an absolutely straight face. "We licked the frogs."

"Blech! You did not!"

"Absolute truth," Kendi said.

"That's disgusting!" Bedj-ka said just as Ben walked into the medical bay.

"What is?" he asked.

"Kendi was telling me about how he got sick when he was a slave," Bedj-ka said cheerfully.

Ben groaned. "He's not telling that atrocious frog-licking story, is he? It's completely apocryphal, you know."

"Hey!" Kendi said.

"What's 'apocryphal'?" Bedj-ka asked.

"Look it up," Ben said with a smile.

"Before you destroy the rest of my stories," Kendi growled, "do tell me you copied the logarithms into keys."

"Just finished."

"Did you trace the line from Roon's home office?"

"Gretchen did. And we got lucky -- there's a hotel right up the street from his house. Gretchen's already got a room."

"Then let's go down there and get to work. Lucia should be back right soon with that clunker s.h.i.+p, and we have a lot to do."

Bejd-ka sneezed hard.

"But first," Kendi said, "we better get Harenn down here. Before that . . . thing thing happens." happens."

"What thing?" Bedj-ka said.

"I don't want to worry you," Kendi said seriously.

"Oh, G.o.d," Ben muttered.

"Worry me about what?"

"Well . . . back on the farm there was this one slave I used to work with who sneezed so hard, a big chunk of brain flew straight out of his nose. It landed in a pond and the frogs ate it. I had to cut them open to get it back."

"Disgusting!" Bedj-ka howled happily.

"You're going to do him more damage than the Enclave," Ben said.

Keith bent his head and Dreamer Roon himself dropped the Beta medallion around his neck. Dreamer Roon boomed, "All praise the Dream!"

"All praise the Dream," shouted everyone. Martina mouthed the words but didn't say them. Keith's face beamed with pride, an expression shared by the six other new Betas on the stage. Martina and the other Alphas, along with their Deltas, knelt on the tiered floor, exactly as they had done the first day Dreamer Roon had addressed them.