Price of Ransom Read online

  “You feel,” hissed the Mule, fluid but neutral, “that because I am sterile I am also asexual, and therefore safe with these aliens.”

  “Partly,” the captain admitted, but she did not look ashamed to be saying it, merely straightforward. She regarded the Mule frankly. “You are also only half-human and therefore presumably only half as susceptible, and perhaps your sta ancestry makes you less attractive to their adolescents. I understand that the girl—the young female—has finally crossed into the first stages of adolescence, and they have had to isolate her from the other adolescent, who is a boy.”

  The Mule hissed, long and slow. “Because you respect me enough to be frank, Captain, I am not offended.” It gave a little, swift slip of sound, a sta-ish chuckle. “And it may be that you are more correct than you know in thinking that I, and they, will be safe together.”

  “Thank you.” The captain turned to examine Gregori. “I think it might be safe for you to come along as well. You’re young enough.”

  “Oh, they like me,” Gregori confessed. “The Dai said I could come play as often as I wanted to. One of the little kids is just younger than me. But she knows math and the computer a lot better, though. She’s smart.”

  “How often have you gone down there?” the captain demanded, and Gregori realized that he had just made a tactical error in speaking so freely.

  “You won’t tell me not to?” he pleaded, feeling desperate. “I like them.”

  “We’ll see,” replied the captain with an adult’s usual and deplorable ambiguity. “I’ll have to speak with your mother.”

  Gregori protested no further, knowing quite well that it would prove fruitless. Instead, he trailed along behind them as they went down to bronze deck to the three-room lab in which the je’jiri had made their quarters.

  Surprisingly, the Dai met them outside the door. She looked disturbed by something, and as soon as she saw the captain she inclined her head and waited for the party to halt before her.

  “I was just to come in search of you,” she explained in her precise Standard. As she spoke she moved her head from side to side, a subtle movement nothing like a shake of the head. Rather, she seemed to be taking in information about the three people standing before her. All the je’jiri had this habit; Gregori was almost used to it. “The male who calls himself Pinto must be removed from our rooms.”

  “Pinto is here?”

  The Dai shaded her mouth briefly with one slender hand. Gregori caught the impression of suppressed revulsion from her, but she hid it quickly. “My sister’s child has just passed into adolescence. Already we have isolated her from my son, for in this early stage the young ones have no self-control. I think that is the word.” She paused, polite, for the captain’s assent.

  The captain’s mouth drew taut with anger. “Pinto has always been lacking in self-control. Especially with regard to—attractive females.”

  The Dai regarded her with an expression too alien to interpret. “Human males are singularly lacking in this trait. It lends them a rather barbaric quality.”

  The captain laughed, began to reply, and then sobered, as if a different, less-amusing thought had occurred to her. “I came to speak with you, but let me deal with Pinto first.” The Dai inclined her head again and preceded the little group into the lab.

  It was quite stark. In the intervening days the lab furniture had either been moved out or to the walls, so that the main room gave the impression of a wide expanse of floor and air, big enough to move easily far and fast. The room was empty except for the two young children building circuitlike patterns with clip-in blocks on a flat, nubbed board, a single adult seated cross-legged on one of the high lab counters with a slim computer on her—his?—lap, and Pinto.

  Pinto did not even notice the captain’s entrance. His attention remained riveted to the door on the right side of the lab. It stood half-slid open, and a young face of remarkable, exotic beauty and a fierce intensity of expression peered around the opening at him. The sexual tension in the air was palpable.

  The adult seated on the counter glanced up, taking in the captain and Gregori and the Mule with the same slight side to side shake of her head, and then spoke a few words in their alien tongue to the Dai. The Dai replied not with words but with a brisk series of gestures with one hand.

  After a diplomatic pause, the captain addressed the Dai. “If I may,” she said, and together they looked at Pinto.

  At the sound of her voice, Pinto glanced around. It was a little hard to see because of the tattoos, but he flushed and took a step both away from the captain and away from the door in which the je’jiri girl stared hungrily at him.

  “What are you doing here?” the captain snapped.

  “I—” He hesitated.

  “Against my express orders. I thought I explained the situation so that any thinking person could understand it.”

  Pinto glanced back at the je’jiri girl. She watched the altercation avidly as if any strong emotion excited her interest. “I just thought I’d come get acquainted—” he began.

  “Pinto. She is off-limits.”

  “She’s no younger than Paisley,” Pinto retorted, hot.

  “Pinto. You are confined to quarters until such time as we need your services on the bridge, or I have time to drill into your stubborn brain that you will not and cannot bring your Ridani promiscuity into this particular community. It would be lethal.”

  “You can’t order me around like that—or make your damned prejudiced comments about—”

  The Mule stepped forward unexpectedly. “Pinto,” it hissed softly but without sympathy. “I am physically stronger than you are. I suggest you do as the captain says, if you cannot understand any reason short of force.”

  Pinto stiffened with fury. Gregori braced himself for an outburst, but instead the pilot kept silent and merely stalked out, throwing one glance back at the girl still staring out at him before he left.

  As soon as the door slipped shut behind him, the seated je’jiri slid smoothly off the counter and directed a string of harsh words to the girl in the outer doorway. The adolescent’s face reflected a stream of emotions—from anger to mocking humor to brief contriteness—and then she vanished back into the room behind her.

  “I thank you,” said the Dai.

  “He is still young,” said the captain. This explanation evidently satisfied the Dai, because she turned her attention to the Mule.

  “This one,” she said, “I have scented. She has ancestry of a civilized race, I think.”

  The Mule’s fluid laughter hissed quietly.

  “I was hoping,” the captain began, “that the Mule might serve as a more appropriate—more acceptable—liaison between your family and this ship’s crew.”

  As the Dai considered this, Gregori edged away from the adults over to the two children. Without speaking, or even looking up, they moved so that he had a place to sit with them. The eldest handed him a delicately traced black block to add to the growing pattern.

  Because they talked as they played and he could not understand them, it was easy for Gregori to observe both the game and the adults. With the expulsion of Pinto, the main room gained sudden life. The je’jiri adults came out of the room the adolescent girl had been banished into. They had a brief conference with the Dai and then two of them shoved a lab counter into the center of the room. The Dai invited the captain to sit on it, and the captain, without even hesitating, followed her example in climbing up on it—albeit slightly less gracefully—and seating herself cross-legged in careful imitation. Then the four other adults pulled a second counter close to it and seated themselves there, watchful. A moment later five more adults came from the other room and sat on a counter set against the far wall, separated from the captain and the Dai by the counter on which the other four adults sat. Gregori had spent just enough time with them that he was beginning to be able to distinguish male from female. The five set back from the central counter were the males. The children continued
their game, oblivious to the meeting. The Mule, after refusing a seat next to the four females, remained standing.

  “As you know, I am Eldest Sister,” said the Dai. “These are my sisters: Hand Sister, Middle Sister, Fleet Sister, and Youngest Sister.” The captain nodded at each in turn. They inclined their heads, each acknowledging. “These,” she motioned to the silent males. In a row, their blue hair was startling and almost garish. The female hair was a less brilliant shade of blue. “These are my brothers: Eldest Brother, my mate, Hand Brother, Middle Brother, Fleet Brother, and Youngest Brother.” The same courtesies, the same incline of the head, were exchanged, although at this greater distance they seemed less personal.

  “If I may ask,” began the captain.

  The Dai nodded.

  “Is it a custom among your people, that the males sit farther back?”

  The Dai showed her teeth, a feral grin. “I take no offense at this question,” she replied. “It is not so in our family that there is any separation. Your presence is disturbing to them because you are”—her hesitation was almost human itself—“You will take no offense in your turn, I hope, that I mention a condition peculiar to your species—like all human females, you are always receptive.”

  “Receptive? Oh.” The tone of her voice made Gregori actually look up from the game to examine her. To his surprise, she blushed. “I see. Yes. Well.” Her gaze strayed to survey the five males and then she looked down again abruptly, still flushed. Several of the adults shaded their mouths with their hands, hiding some reaction. “I came,” she began again, more brusquely, “to discuss the terms of your employment. I agreed to take you on because of the obligation I feel toward the man I—” She hesitated.

  “Your mate,” answered the Dai, not allowing for there to be any question.

  To Gregori’s confusion the emotion on the captain’s face seemed if anything a little like anger, and it puzzled him how she could be angry with Hawk. He got a quick, confused memory of blood and bodies lying prone on the floor, but it was too unclear for him to sort out.

  “Yes,” said the captain in a cold voice. “My mate.”

  “As well,” said the Dai, either ignoring or not hearing the coolness of her inflection, “as the proper honor obliged to a mate’s kin, we were able to assist you in escaping.”

  “Yes. Which puts me under a second obligation. But I don’t know what terms are usual for such a relationship—with you and your family signing on as crew. And I am concerned, of course, to keep the—human members of the crew safe.”

  “You have not a familiarity with the treaty laws established between my people and your League?”

  “We didn’t come from the League. We come from a place where there are no je’jiri.”

  “That is curious.” The Dai swept a comprehensive glance around the large room; her gaze lingered on the Mule before it returned to the captain. “It is better you locate such terms in your human libraries, so that you understand them completely, but I will attempt to outline the main points.”

  The captain nodded.

  “First, on your part, you will provide nourishment and care and quarters of sufficient size, enough to hold the family and permit the isolation necessary to our living. This suite is small but it will suffice, as there are separate rooms for the two lodges and a common room. Second, on your part, you will instruct your human crew in matters of protocol. Such as you and I, being both female, can easily work together, and males as well, although there may be some strife still, but controllable. But such as the young male who entered into here must be kept separated from the adolescent girl, and any females of little continence from my adolescent son. For our part, we will keep our two adolescents isolated from the main population, just as we must keep them isolated from each other. In this matter, the one you introduced as the Mule might safely act as liaison, as she currently exhibits no characteristics that might disrupt either our people or yours.”

  “She?” asked the captain softly, but she went on before the Dai or the Mule could respond. “What other terms?”

  “Our obligation to you then continues in the services we can provide.”

  “Ah. And those include?”

  “Any work that we are capable of that does not violate the prohibitions on contact with those other of your crew who might be dangerous to us or to whom we might be dangerous. We have discovered as well that we je’jiri function well within human computer systems. Fleet Sister and Fleet Brother have special capabilities in these matters and have familiarized themselves with ship functions in particular. I believe that settles all major terms.”

  “How long does such employment last?”

  The Dai blinked. It seemed a deliberate gesture, not a reflex. “Until it has ended,” she replied, as if the answer was self-evident.

  “I see.” The captain’s voice stayed carefully neutral. “I will consult our library for any further information on our agreement, but I do have one more question. Why did your last employer abandon you?”

  The silence in the room held abruptly a palpable tension. A few of the je’jiri males shifted uneasily.

  “Your kin,” said the Dai, the clipped precision of her speech even more pronounced, “possess what you call laws, but we have cause to notice how often you break them. Our last employers found a lucrative cargo at Akan Center and preferred to evict us from our rooms to use such space to transport it. We were thus cast out into what soon became the disaster. A terrible event for your kin, and the force of the strong scents it created precipitated one of our children into adolescence before her time, before my son had passed into adulthood, and we had been able to find a family with a suitable female to mate him to. That cousins should mate is—” she might have shuddered, but to Gregori it was more a sense of her powerful revulsion at such a prospect than any actual movement that conveyed the emotion to him—“impossible. But it is difficult to keep two adolescents apart under such chaos as Akan Center must endure at a time of disaster. Your arrival was of great bounty to us.”

  “Then I am glad,” said the captain quietly, “that we were able to help each other I think then, if there is nothing else, that I will leave you to get settled while I check on the rest of the crew.”

  The Dai inclined her head. “I have only one question,” she said. “But it is of little importance, merely a curiosity.” At the captain’s expectant look, she continued. “Who are the other presences on this ship? Why have they not left?”

  “What other presences?” asked the captain.

  Gregori stood up. Nodding politely, but quickly, at the eldest child, he hurried over to stand beside the Mule.

  The Dai did not answer right away. Instead, she cast her head about, that slight side to side shake, taking in some other sensory information. For a moment her keen gaze rested on Gregori. He shrank a little closer to the Mule, sure that she knew that he knew about the ghosts, too. It was clear to him that she had guessed some secret about him. She showed her teeth, as if they were accomplices, and returned her gaze to the captain.

  “The other presences,” repeated the Dai. “You have a word in your tongue—Ah, that is it. The ghosts of the crew that lived aboard this ship before you. All scents linger on after one has passed on to the next place, but theirs is strong, as if they are somehow still here.”

  It took a long time for the captain to reply. She looked caught between disbelief and curiosity. “You can smell the original crew?”

  “You cannot?” the Dai began, and then made a swift gesture of apology. “Forgive me, I forget that you are deficient in this sense. You would not be aware of them, unless they appear to you through some other sense. I thought perhaps you had seen them.”

  “No,” said the captain, still too amazed by this revelation to be anything but honest. “I had no idea. We wondered what had happened to them. We found the ship abandoned.”

  The Dai shook her head slightly. “They do not speak to us to tell us how they came to both leave this ship and not
leave it.”

  “I don’t know.” The captain shook her head, an echo of the Dai. “I don’t know.”

  By the door to the corridor, the com clicked and chimed.

  “Captain.” It was Finch’s voice. “Jenny and Yehoshua are back aboard. They’re looking for you.”

  The captain uncurled herself quickly. Recalled her surroundings and waited for the Dai to get down off the counter first. All the je’jiri slipped down to stand, respectfully.

  “I must go.” The Dai inclined her head, and Lily returned the gesture. “I will send the Mule later with any specific assignments.”

  “It is well,” agreed the Dai, and she escorted her to the door. The Mule and Gregori trailed behind.

  Outside, left alone in the corridor, the captain fingered the nearest com. “Finch, where are they?”

  “Still at the link bubble.”

  “All right. I’ll meet them there.” She glanced at her two companions. “You may as well come with me.” Her gaze paused meaningfully on the Mule. “I may need you.”

  It—she?—nodded but did not speak as they made their way quickly to the link bubble. Jenny and Yehoshua had waited there, but the captain slowed as she neared them. The expression on their faces was message enough.

  “He’s gone,” Jenny said without preamble. “No trace. I’m sorry.”

  “He was here,” added Yehoshua, speaking almost on top of her words, as if he was aware that the captain found this news distressing. “He worked in Hospital here for a number of hours and then he just vanished. No one really noticed when he left.”

  “What kind of station security is here? They have no record of him being seen? Void knows he’s noticeable enough.” The edge on her voice was as much anger as fear.

  “We checked through—what do they call it?—both the traffic manager and the Link coordinator. They said that at a place this big it might be impossible to trace him. He could have gone downside—there are three planets in this system that take traffic. One’s inhabited. Shuttles leave all the time. But they offered to keep an eye out on this station itself.”