Stone in the Sky (14 page)

I was nervous that exposing him had made a mound of trouble for Earth.

“The current state of politics is fragile,” she said slowly. “It does no good for any species to ruin the status of another. But it also does no good to help.”

“Is this what you wanted to talk about?” I asked. I knew that shame was a big deal to the Loor. I knew that as the youngest of his family, Tournour had been sent out to the Yertina Feray to pay for his family's disgrace. But I didn't know much about what that shame was.

“Somewhat. We will talk,” she said. “But first, there is a message for you.”

“No one knows I'm here except the Brahar I traveled with to the system,” I said. “I can't imagine that they'd have anything to say to me. Unless they found the
Noble Star
?”

“The
Noble Star
?”

“It's a ship I'm looking for. A Human friend is on it, I think.”

“Another solo Human like you?” she asked, confused. “Not a Wanderer?”

“Yes. A true friend,” I said. “He was exiled by Brother Blue's lies. He's an ally. I've been looking for him since I left the Yertina Feray. It's somewhere to go.”

She leaned in close to my face, looking deep into my eyes in the Loor way and took my hand and patted it sympathetically. “You're welcome to signal him from here at any time, but this message is not from your Human friend,” she said and then led me inside to her office.

She pushed a button, and a screen slid out of the back wall.

It was not the Brahar. Nor was it any information about the
Noble Star
. Instead, it was Tournour who flickered onto the screen in front of me. It was a prerecorded image of him sitting in his office. He was giving a report to the Loor government in a monotone.

“Here,” she said. “This bit can't interest you. I'll get to the end.”

She moved to fast forward through the message.

“No,” I said. “Let it run.”

Seeing Tournour talking about diplomatic things and just hearing his voice and seeing his countenance reached right inside of me. Even though he was an alien, his face was more familiar to me than anyone I had ever known. After fifteen minutes or so, the official part of his report was finished.

“Personal postscript to the beings visiting the home of my cousin. Apologies for lack of communication. Arboretum quite empty. Please send itinerary and coordinates for planets or ships where I should send sweets, waters, and salts for trade.”

I turned to look at her.

“When you said you were from the Yertina Feray, I contacted my cousin immediately. He confirmed that you were not a registered citizen. He also mentioned that there was a trial order on you.”

“That's true,” I said. “I'm on the run.”

“I gathered. It was his strange subtext that convinced me I should aid you,” she said, her antennae folding toward me knowingly.

I blushed. “Tournour and I have a close friendship.”

“He and I have a strained one. I don't like to associate with his side of the family. It doesn't do for one of my position to be seen dealing with a cousin who is serving time for family shame. But when I helped you down the lane, I knew why he was so agitated when your name was mentioned. I can smell him on you.”

I wondered if all of the times that he'd used his scent to calm me down had altered me somehow.

“While all of you Humans smell like family, I know what
my
family smells like.”

My eyes stung. His
cousin
.

“By taking an alien as a partner, he's asking for more shame on his family. He'd do best to stay in exile in the long run. These kinds of affairs are more common for the lower classes of Loor.”

“I'm not his partner,” I said.

“Don't you care for him?” she asked.

I touched the frozen image of Tournour.

“He is so much to me,” I said. “But I hardly know what to make of it. He's a Loor. I'm a Human.”

“We Loor take our attachments very seriously,” she said. “I try not to judge when it comes to interspecies affairs, they are not unheard of. And you are welcome here, Tula Bane. You can consider yourself among friends.”

I took a deep breath of the sweet Tallara air.

“Now to business,” she said. “We have a mystery to solve.”

 

18

“Your information says that there are no colonies on those planets,” Hendala said. “My data says differently.”

Hendala punched in a number on the screen behind her. It lit up. There were images of Earth and five other planets with numbers scrolling by.
Killick, Kuhn, Marxuach,
Andra, Beta Granade.

“Earth's status in the Imperium is dependent on all of the good work that Brother Blue does for his people,” Hendala said. “Then again, I've never heard of a species rising so fast. Five colonies in forty years.”

“It doesn't seem fast. Earth's relationship with the stars has been going on for centuries,” I said. “Besides, it's easier to explain if you raise five colonies quickly by destroying your followers and creating false data.”

“Last census confirms. Earth. Current Human home world population, four billion. Five colonies. Killick, Kuhn, Marxuach, Andra, Beta Granade. Current colony population on all planets at 1,354,456.”

“That's impossible,” I said. “Those numbers are too high. Even if my colony ship the
Prarie Rose
had made it to Beta Granade we were only sixty-seven. Even if there were births in the last four years, even if Earth had sent more colonists out there, that colony would not be much larger now.”

She punched another button and the screen zoomed in on Beta Granade. It was strange to see the planet in front of me. I had memorized the map of it on my trip to space. The projected image of the planet orbited until it stopped at the Mur Crater where we were to have started our colony. The stats for the colony came up.

“Beta Granade, population 55,000.”

I shook my head.

“No,” I said. “Unless Brother Blue has pulled a magic trick, I can't see how the colonies had been populated so quickly.”

“You don't believe those numbers to be true,” she said.

“I don't believe that there are any Humans on those colonies.” I said. “Or at least, if there are, they are not colonies. More like outposts.”

“The law is clear. An outpost doesn't count as a colony. He must be fudging the data,” Hendala said. “But to what purpose? It's not a sustainable plan.”

I shuddered. If he could kill a whole ship of colonists, what else could he do?

“I've personally made the call for a recount for a Human colony census. Yet some Major Species representatives stopped me and persuaded me to let the matter go. So I let it go. No need to bring more shame to my family.”

Now her antennae were twitching in a way that I knew meant anger.

“If he corners one part of the map, then he is a power in the affairs of the galaxy,” she said. “Do you know how the Imperium does these Minor Species colony spot checks now?”

“I don't know. I never made it to a colony. I've never seen a colony,” I said. “I wish I had.”

“In the old days, in the League of Worlds we'd send a ship to the planet, meet with leaders, and take tours. Now we fly over the planet and scan for species life markers and biowaste. Your Human colonies, while not thriving and population poor, have been checked and verified. Every time, you miraculously
just
make the requirements for inclusion, and so your influence has begun to grow.”

“But where does he get the biomatter?” I asked.

And then it struck me. There
were
over a million Humans in space. They were the Wanderers, hitching rides from ship to ship.

“Would dead bodies display those levels of biomarkers?” I asked.

“I suppose so,” she said. “But how would he get the bodies?”

“He's using our Wanderers. He must be.”

“Oh my,” Hendala said. “He's a monster.”

I shuddered at the horror of it, but I knew from my schooling from Earth that Brother Blue wasn't the first leader who had committed genocide.

“He could be dumping them on the planets with no resources, no infrastructure. They'd die there, but the biomatter would still count. He's taking advantage of the fact that the Imperium doesn't go to the colonies.”

“Yes. Because the Imperium is too busy fighting to stay in power,” she said. “This is not what I was expecting. It's worse.”

“My species has the ability to be tricky,” I said.

It was a terrible thing to admit. It was true though. I had been tricky. That was how I'd survived.

“Not all Humans,” Hendala said. “Some.
Him.
”

“Brother Blue must have help,” I said.

“He does. The Brahar help him. The Loor help him. I've even helped him. He is most effective, and he is quick to see opportunity.”

“I've helped him too,” I said quietly. I had been so eager to help him when I left Earth. I'd helped him get here.

Hendala nodded sympathetically.

“He's got a strategic mind. He was the first to see the merit of the situation on Quint when others were brushing it off as a rumor.”

“He has a gift,” I said. I couldn't deny that he had a gift, although calling his sick schemes a gift made me feel ill. “I have to stop him. I have to take him down.”

“No,” Hendala said. “Don't you see? You can't touch him.”

“Why not?” I asked. “He's killing people.”

“Sad and true. But if you expose him now, you risk Human lives. You put Earth at risk.”

“I don't care!” I screamed. “He's a monster!”

I was in a rage. She waited until I calmed down before she spoke again.

“You have to make a decsion, Tula Bane. Are you going to save your species or are you going to exact revenge and doom them?”

I wanted to kill him, but I knew I wouldn't. Not yet. I couldn't doom my species.

“I'm going to warn them,” I said.

“So be it,” she said.

“I need to find my friend on the
Noble Star
,” I said. “He can help me.”

She flipped over to the communications array and let me punch in a message. I sent out another message in a bottle, hoping that Caleb would find it.

There was nothing more for me to do on Tallara. I would have to do what my species did best.

I would have to wander.

 

19

Too soon it was time to go.

I would miss being on a planet.

I spent much of my last few days, when I wasn't preparing to leave Tallara, walking on the paths near Hendala's house.

“Are you ready?” Hendala asked as we entered the shuttle that would take us to the lower part of Togni Station on Bessen. It would be too strange for someone like Hendala to take her shuttle all the way to the top when she had a berth on the moon. I would have to make my own way up the elevator.

“As ready as I ever will be,” I said.

“I will get word to Tournour that you've left me in good health.”

“Thank you,” I said.

With her long arms she pulled me close and crossed her arms behind me. My arms were too short to do the same, but I did the best that I could. Then she leaned her head toward me until her cheek brushed mine.

“Once we part, I can no longer be your ally,” she said when she broke away from me. “If you contact me I will deny knowing you. I have helped you more than I should.”

“I understand.”

“You'll be on your own,” she said.

“I told you. I'm solo.”

“That's a hard way to live,” she said. “Make sure to let someone in.”

The shuttle lifted up into the air and bumped out of the atmosphere. The voyage would take almost a day, so I took the time to verify a hit I'd gotten on coordinates for the
Noble Star
. And then I went through my things.

Hendala had printed out an Imperium uniform for me, the kind that the Humans wore on Togni Station. And she had used her contacts to procure fake papers to help me get out of the system. My fake name was Safti McGovern.

“This will get you to the space elevator so that you can get to a ship leaving our system,” she said when she handed them to me. “I can't guarantee them further than that.”

I could see Bessen getting bigger as we approached the moon, and then we were there. The shuttle door opened.

“I owe you many favors,” I said.

“We are even,” she said. “You gave me information. And information is power.”

Hendala turned back to me before she exited the shuttle bay.

“I hope that you find peace with your choice,” she said. And then she was gone. I wondered if I would ever see her again. I did as instructed and waited one hour before I left to go to the elevator.

Since we'd timed our arrival for the quiet time, the shuttlepad was empty. I threaded myself through the empty ships, not quite trusting my Imperium Alliance uniform. Trevor followed close behind me. Each shuttle I passed had its planet's symbol on the side. It startled me when I went past one that had a bright blue Earth on it.

We landed on the outermost launchpad, so it took a few minutes before we made it out to the lower station proper. I had memorized the map to get from the pad to the space elevator.

I would have to get to the space elevator as quickly as I could to book passage on one of the orbiting ships. I wanted to spend as little time as possible on Togni Station so that I would not get caught by any Humans I might run into. I had not anticipated how confusing and crowded Togni Station would be. Trevor kept pace beside me, but it took longer than I thought to get to the elevator. There were twists and turns and hallways with contradictory signs pointing in opposite directions.