A Passage of Stars Read online

  “Public disturbance.” Her voice had the bored inflection of an oft-repeated delivery. “You’re under arrest under code twenty-three oh seventy-four.”

  7 Custody

  WITH AN INCREDIBLE ACT of will, Lily maintained her silence all the way to the Security office, four sections down. Bach floated along just out of arm’s reach above her. As she walked, she knew she recognized the station ident.

  Three officers, along with the sergeant, brought her into the precinct office and led her up to the booking desk.

  “This is Remote, isn’t it?” asked Lily, putting both palms on the opaque counter.

  “Where’d you think it was? Central?” said one of the men as he went behind the desk and sat down at a terminal. Several of the others laughed.

  “Hush it.” The sergeant motioned to Lily to step back. “Where did you think you were?” she asked, favoring Lily with a hard but not unsympathetic eye.

  “Dairy,” said Lily. “I can’t understand—”

  “Got a match,” said the man at the terminal. “Bless my stars—” He looked up at the assembled black-and-gray tunics before him, grinning. “We’ve caught us a Saress.”

  “Hoo.”

  “My, my.”

  “Let’s have a closer look, then.”

  “I said hush it.” They all fell silent. “Now.” The sergeant nodded to the seated man. “What’s the record?”

  He scratched at an eyelid. “Lilyaka Hae Ransome. Twenty-five years of age. Ransome House, Apron District, Unruli system. Booked in about ten years ago on this station on code seventeen oh fifty-eight.”

  The sergeant twisted to survey Lily. “Cut loose and run again, Saressa?”

  “I prefer not to be addressed by that title,” said Lily.

  Beyond the booking desk and row of terminals a waist-high wall separated off a scatter of plastic desks. Here people had paused in their work to watch both Lily and the sphere floating above her. Beyond them a transparent wall sealed off the guard’s enclave and a row of barred cells. Lily could see into three of the cells: two were unoccupied; one held a solitary rust-skinned sta who seemed to be asleep. “What have you done with Paisley?”

  “Paisley?”

  “The girl who was with me.”

  “Oh—the tattoo.” The sergeant leaned, half-sitting, on the counter, letting a boot dangle. “She’s been put down where her kind belong.”

  “I would like to see her.”

  “With no claim on her, you’ve got no legal right.”

  Lily advanced two steps. “Claim? I don’t need a claim. She’s my friend.” Her voice carried throughout the office.

  One of the men hooted. The others snickered.

  “Shut it.” The sergeant frowned, standing again. “You’ve got enough problems, Ransome. We’ll have to hold you until we can check your current status. You haven’t reached your majority yet, and you have an outstanding charge on you. Now, let me see your papers on that ’bot.”

  “I don’t have any papers,” cried Lily, “but just try and make him work for you.”

  “She’s got you, sir,” said the man at the terminal. “I ain’t never seen anything like it.”

  “Who has?” said a second man.

  “Ransome.” The sergeant walked over to Lily and took her chin in a firm grip. Lily felt the pressure of each individual finger on her neck. “Don’t aggravate me. Sure, it’s a novelty. But we’ve got techs who can take it apart.”

  “They can try,” said Lily darkly. She jerked her head away from the woman’s grasp.

  “And we can blast it into very small fragments if you don’t program it to cooperate with us. Do you understand?”

  Lily shut her eyes, forcing herself to focus her breathing.

  Her hands had tightened to fists; she unfolded them joint by joint. “Very well,” she said. “His cooperation, nothing else. And I demand access to the legal banks.”

  “Terminal in your cell along with the usual amenities. You’ve got a screen.”

  Lily whistled. Everyone in the office stared. When Bach began to sing, several stood up and came forward.

  “Hoo.”

  “Did you hear that?”

  “What is that thing?”

  Bach, taking these interruptions in stride, finished gracefully, and Lily whistled a final, quick coda. Bach drifted down to rest on the booking desk. The men took several steps back.

  “Take her in,” said the sergeant. She surveyed the little robot. “Huh,” she said, lifting her wrist com. They led Lily back past the transparent wall and put her into the cell next to the sleeping sta.

  “Where’d you get that thing?” asked one man as he locked her in with a few keystrokes.

  “My father’s garage,” replied Lily, her back to him as she went to sit on the single cot that graced the room. “Can I get something to eat, and a drink?”

  “Hoo,” said the man, leaving. “What a push.”

  A different guard, a young woman with the same slanted eyes as Lily but much darker skin, brought her a large carton of juice and a packaged dinner. Lily watched in silence as six people dressed in non-Security clothes came in and carried Bach out.

  She sighed and pulled out the terminal, plugging in her screen. Numbers flashed on. She called up the legal banks first, but she gave up on it and called up a program on Remote system instead. Beyond the dark plastic bars of the cell she could hear the desultory conversation of the guards.

  “Betting on the races?”

  “Got one riding on Jehane’s Blessing.”

  “That old wreck?”

  Remote came up on the screen, turning in the blank background. The unbroken yellow of sand flat traced vast patterns over most of its surface. Crews sank deep wells for its rich petroleum reserves, and cities grew, well-protected, in its hot sun. Lily tried to imagine a cloudless day on Unruli, but it only served to magnify her frustration.

  “—and how they got it past the registrar with that name—it’s cursed strange.”

  “Jehane’s luck, they say.”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  A pause.

  “Still.” Lower now. “I heard Forsaken went over to him.”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Last mess. Just a rumor, though.”

  A short laugh, half-snort. “Not fancy likely to shout it about on the network if it’s true, is they?”

  Lily punched off the Remote program and stood up with a long expulsion of breath. The sound of her movement quieted the duty guards. She began to pace. Heredes’s words kept time with her: “Waiting takes the most discipline.”

  “Curse this,” she said aloud. She halted in the middle of the cell and came to ready position. With a quick glance she gauged her space; she had already gauged her mood. “Half-moon,” she said, bowing, and after the appropriate time began the kata. She did it five times before she felt satisfied enough to take stock of her surroundings again. The guards were both staring at her. Even the sta, having awoken at some undetermined time, watched with undisguised interest and, as she stood catching her breath, rose to its feet and walked over to the bars. Lily smiled, tentatively, but her smile faded as the sta leaned up against the bars. She had never had trouble before knowing which honorific, male or female, to use when addressing one of their kind. Now, suddenly, she was unsure; this sta was unlike any she had ever seen before.

  “Saressa,” the sta said; its sibilant growl had a pure pitch that unnerved her. “Have you any more of those dances that I might regard?”

  “Certainly, essta—” She faltered.

  The sta’s expression assumed an alarmingly human mask of self-mockery. “Having been incarcerated here on charges of itinerancy and public drunkenness, saressa, I appreciate but do not require your politeness. Just the art, if you please.”

  One of the guards wandered up. “Humor—ah—him,” he said. The other guard snickered. The sta seemed not to have heard.

  “I appreciate your interest,” Lily said.
So she did kata along with several other techniques, punctuated by her brief answers to the sta’s brief questions. After that, he—a designation Lily doubted, although “she” fit equally poorly—excused himself and went back to his own cot and lay down. Lily stretched, cooling down. The guards had gone back to their computer. In the washing cubicle she found a sonic cleaner for her clothes, a sonic shower, and a waste port. Afterward, on the couch, she levered the terminal out to face her. After all, to make progress one had to study the opponent’s movements.

  The legal banks told her nothing. She called up the docking banks and scrolled through them: “Berth Ir02, Majesty Bell. Ir07, Franklin’s Cairn. Ge12, Wisstargoss—sta, here. Ge21, Pester.” The names blurred together. “Ac02, Half-Barked. Ac05 …” Then she saw it, three places down—berth Ac08, no name except Cha, just the ident number, and—for a moment she lost her breathing. “Tagged out. Approaching system out-window. Course logged for XYZ 74.01.050 jump point: Bleak House, Station-only system.” Lily stared. They had gone. Had not even come in to pry her loose from Security.

  Tiny numbers flashed. The screen scrolled on automatically and, after the proper time, scrolled again and again. Why should they have tried? She was a mere nuisance, a momentary pest. They had what they wanted and they had run with it, as they had, surely, meant to do all along. The screen scrolled on.

  “Ransome.”

  Lily started around. The white-haired sergeant had returned, stood with a satisfied expression examining Lily.

  “You’ll be happy to hear a first-run boat came in from Unruli. Your parents have sent out a tracer on you. Good thing, Saressa, we happened to pick you up. You must have had quite a head start. Did you stow away?”

  “What do you do with me now?”

  “It has to go through channels. You’ll be sent back like you were the last time. And I suppose the Sar will pay your fines.”

  Lily said nothing.

  “Rich kid,” said one of the guards to the other.

  “My robot,” said Lily.

  “If Ransome House has papers, the ’bot’ll go back with you. I don’t mind adding, Ransome, that Tech is plenty interested in that ’bot. And they have questions for your parents—ah—I should say, the Sar and Saress.”

  “He’s mine,” said Lily, but her protest sounded feeble even to her own ears. She would lose everything. “And what about Paisley? She should go back with me.”

  “Paisley?” The sergeant shook her head. “Who is Paisley?”

  “The Ridani girl.”

  “Oh, yes,” the woman replied, enlightened. “Your—ah—friend.” Her expression hardened. “Listen, Ransome, you seem to have a pretty cozy view of the Reft. An itinerant tattoo who is not only without a pass away from her legal system, but is found with a lethal firearm of unknown design under a code forty-two oh twelve, not to mention in a public disturbance, is not going to get a free trip back to whatever hole she sprang from. Do you understand?”

  Now Lily stood. “I gave her that weapon,” she said, advancing to the bars. “The blame is mine.”

  “Touching and noble. The tattoo will get the usual.” She turned away, signaling to her aide, and left.

  Lily grabbed the bars. “I demand to know—” The guards laughed and returned to their computer. “I want—” Her words emptied into uncaring silence, and she stopped, knowing that no one would reply.

  “Saressa.” The low, fluid voice of the sta startled her. “You claim a Ridani as a friend?”

  “Is it a crime?” she asked bitterly, staring out the transparent wall into the precinct office beyond, where the sergeant spoke into a com-link.

  “Unusual, certainly,” replied the sta, unoffended. “Admirable, in its way.”

  “And damning, for Paisley. I don’t even know what the ‘usual’ is.” Her hands tightened on the bars.

  “Indenture, I imagine.”

  Lily let go of the bars. “No.” She looked at him. He stood almost next to her. Rust-colored did not quite describe his skin. Red-hued, perhaps. His mane hung lankly without the stiffness it should have had. “She’s just a child. Fifteen at the most.”

  “Old enough. I believe it’s five years to the State for itinerancy, for a Ridani. More with the weapons conviction.”

  “Esstavi, how do you know all this?”

  That humanlike expression, so out of place on a sta’s face, and yet not so at all on his, settled there again. “Having been brought in on similar charges, and being entirely unable to pay the fines levied on me given such charges, I find myself well versed on the penalties. Of course, being of slightly more respectable origins”—here his tone took on heavy irony—“I have received only two years indenture to work off. I believe in this District they send us to Harsh.”

  “But how can that be, esstavi? You have family—” At his expression, she paused. “But all sta have—everyone knows their clans never fail them.”

  For an answer he raised both hands. At first Lily saw nothing to remark in them, for they were much like her own, only with a hint of scales.

  “Saressa,” the sta said. “Perhaps your reticence does you credit.” He turned a thin-maned back to her and returned to his cot, shutting his eyes. Eyes too human for a sta.

  One of the guards snickered and, when Lily caught his eye, made an obscene gesture with his hands and looked pointedly over at the unmoving sta.

  “You make me sick,” said Lily. She went back to her cot and stared at the still-scrolling screen. His hands. Four fingers and a thumb. Human hands. She stifled an urge to look across for confirmation.

  After a bit she slept. When she woke, she found a meal, which she dutifully ate. In the next cell the sta seemed not to have moved. Two new guards sat, playing a game with counters on the table. She pretended to read Remote’s information banks for a while, went through her entire repertoire of kata and after, having nothing else to do, went into the cubicle and cleaned up again. Came back out. Sat on the cot. Scrolled through the legal banks. Attempted not to think of Heredes, and his fate. Failed. Or of Bach. Or Paisley. Failed miserably. Did kata.

  A sudden influx of uniforms into the outer office distracted her. A new Security officer arrived, with the white-haired woman, in civilian garb, in tow. Six red-uniformed government troops detached themselves from the larger party and came back to her cell as a Security officer opened it. Lily took one step back. Four entered, surrounding her, and propelled her forward.

  “My screen is back there,” said Lily. Two more fell in behind her; one placed a hand on her back. “That’s my credit, my ID. How am I supposed to—”

  “Come along.” She cast a desperate glance back. The two Security officers watched with interest, but without sympathy. The sta, behind his—or was it her—bars, had risen and now stared after Lily with a sta-ish, and therefore unreadable, expression on her—or was it his—strangely unfinished and contradictory face.

  “Where are you taking me? What is this for? Where is my robot?” Outside, a small vehicle waited under the awning, one solid door propped open. “This is illegal.” She tried to sit down. They simply picked her up and shoved her into the back. The door shut.

  Darkness shuttered her. She felt along the wall: two meters square, padded, one handhold. The handhold proved necessary when they negotiated locks. She did not bother to hammer on the walls. Eventually the vehicle halted. This time, prepared, she went with humility.

  They led her through an empty warehouse into a small, bare room with one chair and left her there alone. white walls were on three sides, on the fourth, a surface black and smooth as obsidian. The lights of the room dimmed, and shapes took form behind the black wall: two women and a man seated on a higher level. Lily stood up immediately.

  A chime sounded above. She heard the sputtering crackle of the intercom coming to life.

  “Please sit.” The disembodied voice came across as almost inhuman, but distinctly female.

  “First of all,” said Lily. “I intend to file a complaint as
soon as I reach Unruli. Second, I will file a writ of action against Remote Station Security and their Technical division for the recovery of my personal property. Third, a protest to Central HOL protesting the treatment of a young Ridani who spent a brief time in my company. Do you understand?”

  Behind the wall, the male figure leaned over to talk to one of the women. The intercom crackled.

  “You are identified here as Lilyaka Hae Ransome, a female of twenty-five who has been reported missing from Unruli system. Let me inform you, first, that this report, along with all trace of your recent activities here on Remote Station, has been erased. Per the request of Intelligence. You no longer exist in government computers.”

  The static died away.

  There was a long pause.

  “What do you want me for?” said Lily in a very quiet voice.

  “Second. You claim ownership of a robot of unspecified and, in our records, nonexistent make. Have you any explanation for this?”

  Lily said nothing.

  A new voice, male, came in. “The Remote Technical division has none.”

  One of the female shapes passed a com-screen to the man.

  “I found it in the Ransome House garage.” Her voice echoed, falling back on itself, in the close room. “And that’s the truth, whether you choose to believe it or not.”

  They conferred.

  “Third.”

  Lily halted, center again.

  “The young Ridani.”

  “Paisley!”

  “Did she speak to you of Jehane?”

  “Jehane?” Lily opened her hands out in exasperation. “This is ridiculous. Jehane is some fairy tale, some story her people tell.”

  “She did mention Jehane?”

  “She told me some old legend. I think that name was in it once or twice. Can I see her? I want to put on record that the weapon she was carrying was my property—that I gave her—” She faltered. Behind the wall, they leaned together. Static crackled then bled away.