Price of Ransom Read online

  “But min Belsonn,” exclaimed Paisley. “That be wrong.”

  Deucalion blushed. “We’re in a hurry,” he said, but the excuse sounded lame. Paisley stared at him. Yehoshua chose not to press him, seeing how embarrassed he already was. They sat for a time in silence, until Kaeshima made a brief exclamation.

  “I think we’ve got it.” As if it was a good luck charm, she rubbed her rounded belly. “This may not mean anything, but I have a transfer of Dr. Vespa Tuan Farhad from her post in Xenopsychology to Rehabilitation. Seven days ago.”

  Deucalion leaned forward. “Not the Dr. Farhad? The one who worked with Soerensen on the psycholingual xenographic correspondence—”

  “I don’t know, but there can’t be many Dr. Farhads fitting these specifications. And it is an unusual transfer.”

  “Follow that up. I wonder …” He trailed off.

  “What be ya psycholingual xenographic correspondence?” Paisley asked.

  Deucalion chuckled. “I haven’t a clue. Breakthrough research into language and alien psychology. The kind of work that wins Nobel Prizes. And Farhad was young, especially to be working with someone of Soerensen’s stature.”

  “Who be—?”

  “Paisley,” Yehoshua said softly. “We have library files on League history on the Hope. You ought to avail yourself of those.”

  “Yes, min,” she replied meekly.

  “This is strange,” said Kaeshima from the desk. “She accepted a transfer to Concord prison, secure level six.” Deucalion whistled. “Temporary assignment, no fixed time limit, her former post pending for her return.”

  “Secure level six.” Deucalion shook his head. “Now, Kaeshima, tell me how we can get a message to her without alerting anyone in Rehabilitation.”

  Kaeshima smiled, not without sympathy. “Scarred forever by your childhood, my dear. Don’t bridle up at me, Deucalion. You’re the one who suggested it. Well, an old-fashioned, hand-carried note.”

  “And how do you suggest I get to secure level six without attracting attention?”

  “You could agree to be my baby’s crèche uncle and I might find an untraceable transitory message coded private to Dr. Farhad and ask her to meet you here.”

  “Kaeshima,” he answered with some exasperation. “I’ve already agreed to be its crèche uncle.”

  “Then there you are. I should have been a saboteur.”

  “Please.” He shuddered. “You have no idea what you are talking about.”

  “Probably not. How do you suggest I lure the good doctor up here?” This query brought silence from her audience. “It has to be good,” she added, “to move her.”

  “It be only right,” said Paisley pugnaciously, “that she help min Ransome, seeing as she be lovers with min Hawk.”

  “Lovers? I admit, sentiment is a nice touch, but I’m not sure it will be a strong enough bait.”

  “No.” Deucalion nodded. “That’s exactly the right suggestion, Paisley.” Paisley beamed. He stood up and went over to lean on Kaeshima’s desk. “If Hawk is pretending to be a je’jiri, and Dr. Farhad was called in for that reason—if she was even transferred to Concord prison because of his arrival—”

  “It’s the only lead we have so far.”

  “Then telling her that his mate has arrived—his human mate.”

  “Je’jiri? Human mate?”

  “I’ll fill you in later. That she has arrived and needs an urgent and private conference with the doctor. …Try that.”

  “Human mate,” Kaeshima muttered, but already her fingers tapped rapidly into the keyboard. “You’d better fill me in on the rest of the story, my boy, or I’ll make you join up for a season at my soccer club again.”

  “I’ll tell you,” he assured her.

  She finished and tilted back in her chair, stroking her belly again. Her gaze caught on Paisley. “We don’t see many orthodox here. What sect do you adhere to?”

  Paisley looked first at Yehoshua, then at Deucalion, for illumination. “What be orthodox?”

  “Your tattoos. And the locks.”

  “Bain’t all ya Ridanis got ya tattoos and ya locks?” Paisley considered her own question and shook her head. “Sure, but I seen ya Ridanis here that be only half-tattooed, or scarce tattooed at all. I reckon ya pattern be sore troubled here.” She hesitated, as if at some troubling thought. “Or ya different.”

  “Do you mean that all the Ridanis where you come from are uniformly orthodox?”

  “Sure, if you mean they all have ya tattoos as I do. I never reckoned there be any other pattern but ours.” Her expression grew unexpectedly fierce. “Even if I might have hoped it be ya true, that there be another way for ya Ridanis to live.”

  “You mean it was strict there?” Kaeshima’s interest seemed genuine enough.

  Paisley drew in her breath. “I think min Hawk treated us Ridanis no different than he treated any other soul because he didn’t know no other way.” For a moment her gaze focused on Yehoshua, and he looked away, ashamed to know that he had harbored his own share of prejudices against Ridanis in his life, like most every other citizen of the Reft, unthinking and reflexive. “I think,” and here she turned her forceful gaze on Deucalion, “that you would be sore surprised and sore angry at the way us Ridanis be treated in ya Reft, unless you got ya special people you set aside here, as we have never seen.”

  “Set aside?” Kaeshima asked. “How do you mean?” And then she interrupted herself. “I’ve got a reply. Goodness, that was fast.”

  Deucalion hurried around the desk to stare over her shoulder. “Thank the Mother,” he muttered. “Yehoshua,” he added, “You and Paisley get back to the shuttle and return to the Forlorn Hope. Dr. Farhad has agreed to meet with Lily here in this office in two hours.”

  Lily was already seated in Kaeshima’s tidy office when Dr. Farhad arrived. She had ruthlessly banished everyone except Yehoshua and Jenny from the office, including Kaeshima and a protesting Deucalion. “I want you as my witnesses,” she had said. “And I’ll need your support.” Jenny, squeezing her hand, said nothing. Yehoshua murmured something incomprehensible, feeling embarrassed but pleased.

  The door shunted silently aside and a woman entered. She paused as the door shut behind her to examine the three occupants of the office with a lively, intelligent gaze. Her hands, clasped in front of her, had a smooth, ageless cast to them, relaxed in each other’s grasp.

  “You must be Captain Ransome,” she said with a professional’s curt politeness, coming forward to extend a hand toward Lily.

  Lily stood, recognizing an authority that, in their current situation, outweighed her own. “Yes. Dr. Farhad?”

  “Yes. Your associates?” Still polite, her voice now questioned the necessity of their presence.

  “My chief officers: Jenny Seria. Yehoshua Akio Filistia. I think it is important that they hear what we have to say.”

  “As you wish.” The doctor shook their hands. She did not avail herself of Kaeshima’s desk but took a fourth chair and sat down with Lily on one side and Jenny on the other, making their group into a tight circle. “Under the circumstances, Captain, I could not ignore this unusual and rather secretive request for a meeting. Right now, I won’t question your motives for secrecy.”

  “If you’ll excuse me, doctor, information leads us to believe that your prisoner has been brought into Concord under equal secrecy.”

  Dr. Farhad smiled coolly. “He is not my prisoner, as I am not a jailer. I don’t know his status at Concord prison. I only know that he has suffered some kind of traumatic breakdown, and that I have been called in as a consultant. He is now my patient, and it is as his doctor that I am speaking to you now. I’m not interested in any other considerations but his health. That is the sole reason that I agreed to talk with you.” She paused, but it was not to let Lily reply, only to marshal her thoughts. “You claim to be his mate.”

  This dispassionate attack took Lily off guard. She could not stop herself from a brief, wry chuck
le. “I don’t claim it. I am.”

  “I hope we are speaking about the same person.”

  “Kyosti Bitterleaf Hakoni. Also known as Hawk. I don’t know if he went by any other names. At one time part of the saboteur network that fought in your war with the Empire.”

  “My war?”

  “We’re not from League space, doctor. Until a year ago, I didn’t even know it existed. But that’s another story. Here is an image of how he looked when he was my ship’s chief physician.” She handed a thin com-slate to the doctor.

  Dr. Farhad took it without comment and examined it in silence, her lips pursed in concentration. The dusky skin on her face was as smooth as that on her hands, but something in her manner gave away, as it had in Master Heredes, her great age and greater wisdom. The slightly flat features of her eyes and broad cheekbones bore a similarity to Lily’s, suggesting some long-distant common ancestry. “Yes, it is Kyosti,” she said, handing the slate back to Lily. Her use of the name surprised Lily: everyone else she knew, even those who had known him before, called him Hawk. Dr. Farhad sat back in her chair, hands reclasped in her lap, and regarded Lily shrewdly. “Why are you here? What do you want?”

  “I want him back.”

  The doctor’s composure remained unruffled by this outburst. “Let me ask you a few questions, Captain. How long have you known Kyosti?”

  Lily shook her head. “Let me see. About two and a half years.”

  “How long have you been lovers?”

  “As long. Within a week, about.”

  “It is unlikely, to say the least, that he would have acted so quickly, or given in to your interest so soon.”

  Lily smiled, wry again. “He wasn’t conquered by my vast charm, I’m afraid. He did it to get the protection of the man I was traveling with at the time.”

  Jenny gasped. “Damn my eyes. The squirrelly bastard.” Yehoshua refrained from comment.

  “He was trying to get away from Concord Intelligence,” Lily added.

  “Concord Intelligence? I don’t understand. A moment ago you said you weren’t from League space.”

  “This wasn’t in League space. Surely you know he was in Concord prison for over twenty years, had just gotten out and was taken with an expedition to—” Lily halted. Something she had said had finally gotten a reaction from the doctor.

  “Twenty years in Concord prison!” Dr. Farhad’s agitation took the form of unclasping her hands and lifting them to straighten the already immaculate coil of black hair pinned up at the nape of her neck. “I was never informed of this. It is not noted in the files I was given last week—” This time, when her lips pursed, her disapproval was evident. “I can assure you, I will be speaking to Rehabilitation about this. That is unconscionable. Now.” The matter was dismissed but clearly not forgotten. She fixed her severe stare on Lily once more. “In the time he has been your lover, have you noticed, any—strange behavior?”

  Yehoshua coughed behind his hand. Jenny sighed and looked somber.

  “He killed one of my former lovers,” Lily said in a flat voice. “And attempted to murder the second. Luckily I only had two. And I believe I know what precipitated—whatever condition he’s in now. He thought I had been killed. In response—” Coming so calmly, the words took on a surreal aspect to her. She could still see the blood. “—he killed—how many?”

  “Fifteen,” said Yehoshua.

  “Fifteen people. It was—ugly. He ripped their throats out, just like a je’jiri would.”

  “Ah.” The doctor’s expression lightened. “Now I begin to understand. First you must understand, Captain, that you mistake the agency. Je’jiri do not go berserk. Only humans are berserkers. Mix them, and you get a volatile brew, one that, like oil and water, is never soluble. His attachment to you—if you are his mate, as you say—is of necessity bound by his je’jiri ancestry. But such furious violence is all too human. That is why he has retreated into this je’jiri guise.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Dr. Farhad nodded, making a decision. “I think you will need to see him for yourself. If you will come with me.” She rose. “I can admit only you, Captain. Your associates will have to stay here.”

  “Lily—” Jenny began.

  “No, Jenny. I’ll go. Go back to the shuttle. I’ll meet you there. I do have one more question. Doctor, you call him Kyosti. Somehow I get the impression that you’ve known him, or of him, before now.”

  Dr. Farhad smiled for the first time, but it was a sad smile, touched with irony. “Some fifty years ago, Captain, I was an ordinary social worker in the city of Helsinki, on Prokiya Four. I was called in on the case of an adolescent boy of seventeen who had committed a horrifying series of murders. Father dead, mother unknown, family indifferent. The old story. Until I discovered that he had only been living with his aunt and uncle for six years, and that they had concealed—out of shame—the fact that he was that rarest of things, a half-breed. Instantly I changed my entire treatment of him. My original area of interest was in xenopsychology, but I had never been able to get even an entry-level post in either the public or private sphere. Thus, social work. And now, everything changed. I made a brilliant reputation working with that poor, troubled child. I won a university post, and later graciously accepted a position in Xenopsychology Research here at Concord. Yes, I know Kyosti quite well.” She went to the door, and it opened before her. “Why do you suppose I was called in now?”

  14 Ghost

  THEY TOOK ELEVATORS, ONE long pneumatic tube ride, and finally walked down the only drab corridors Lily had seen in League space to reach secure level 6 of Concord prison. A second tube ride and four seemingly casual checkpoints punctuated the trip. The security here was unobtrusive but thorough. Lily wondered if unseen security scanned and probed them as well. Dr. Farhad remained unconcerned and led her through it all with impressive aloofness. Whatever her origins as an ordinary social worker, she had clearly grown accustomed to the privileges that attend one who gains status as a great mind. It occurred to Lily that the security leading to level 6 was organized solely to keep prisoners in, not—as it would have been in Reft space—to keep visitors out as well.

  “You’re quiet,” said Dr. Farhad as they passed through two keyed doors into a large observation room. A single technician turned from the main console and acknowledged their entrance.

  “I’m nervous,” Lily admitted, following the doctor forward to a long wall of clear plastine that overlooked a series of small, sparsely furnished rooms.

  The first room was empty, the second contained an unfamiliar je’jiri male, and the third. …Her eyes skipped back to the second room.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered.

  “Oh, it is,” replied Dr. Farhad, cool and composed at her side. “Blood, retina, fingerprints all confirm it.”

  Lily knew it with the immediacy of primeval instinct: she was looking at an alien, not a human. He sat, not in a chair or couch, but on a high counter, legs crossed, back straight: just as the je’jiri clan had sat at her conference with the Dai. The set of his shoulders, the tilt of his head, the way his hands held the thin com-slate balanced on one knee, all bore the stamp of an alien musculature. The unruly mop of his hair stood out startlingly blue against his pallor: He was as pale as a ghost, too pale to have human skin. He was no one she knew.

  Lily stared. Slowly, painstakingly, she constructed bone and muscle to find an echo of her Kyosti, but it was a difficult match. There were certain physical resemblances, purely structural. Any likeness ended there. He sat with the perfect stillness of the hunter, studying the screen.

  “It has been difficult to communicate with him,” said Dr. Farhad, jarring Lily out of her scrutiny, “because he only speaks and responds to the je’jiri tongue now. I speak a few phrases, not well—it is a difficult tongue conceptually for us. Of the two specialists who live on Concord, one is currently on assignment and the other has only been available twice for short periods. He was not, in any case, ve
ry communicative.”

  Lily tore her gaze away from Kyosti—it was too painful to look at him. Dr. Farhad’s curt professionalism was easier to deal with. “Have you tried je’jiri?”

  “Yes.” The doctor moved away from the overlook. The technician moved swiftly to let her sit in the chair that, poised in front of a long console, allowing her to observe all three rooms and access an impressive bank of screens and keyboards at the same time. “There is a clan currently in residence here. They agreed to send one male. He arrived and spoke with Kyosti for some time, but when he returned he informed me that there was nothing the je’jiri could do. When Kyosti’s mother sent him to his father’s kin, just before puberty, evidently she severed all clan ties, so that he has in fact no kinship within the je’jiri kin system at all. He was considered by their lights too dangerous—too primitive and violent, if you will—to be allowed into je’jiri society.”

  “They call us violent? After what I’ve seen them do?” And yet, looking out at him, there was a surface edge of serenity to him now that had never existed before, a veneer of calm. She doubted somehow that it ran very deep. “Perhaps I’m beginning to understand why he is trying, however unconsciously, to protect himself by becoming je’jiri.”

  “Perhaps you do, at that,” replied the doctor. “However, it is no protection. I thought I had helped him, when he was a boy, to find a balance, to integrate both halves, but it was a makeshift cure, I fear, and one that has clearly disintegrated.”

  “When I met him, I think he was trying very hard to be human. To not be je’jiri at all.”

  “No better solution. Concord has record of two other cases of half-breeds. One committed suicide at age eighteen. The other died recently after eighty years in a catatonic state. Kyosti has done very well.”

  “Very well,” Lily echoed. The statement seemed incongruous to her, seeing this person—this creature—that had somehow inhabited Kyosti’s body. “What happened to him as a boy? Why did his mother send him away? Surely it was a cruel thing to do.”