“Playing
games helps children learn to live by rules and learn the difference
between fair play and exploitation.”
—Irfan Qasad
The game representative flashed a killer smile, and
Father Kendi Weaver shifted uneasily in his office chair. Killer
smiles always made Kendi uneasy.
“We’re offering generous terms,” the game rep
continued earnestly. “A five hundred thousand freemark advance
against three percent royalties on the first two million copies, four
point five percent on every copy after that. You don’t have to
offer anything but your endorsement. We do all the work —
writing, developing, marketing. You just sit back and rake it
in. Easy money. But we have to know now so we can get
production moving, strike while the iron is hot.”
Kendi tapped his fingers on his desk and looked at
the holographic models on the table in front of him. One was a
representation of himself, a tall, dark-skinned man with tightly-curled
hair, a flat nose, and a whipcord build. Australian Aborigine to
the core, though Kendi preferred the term “Real People.” Next to
Kendi’s hologram stood a model of Ben. He was shorter than Kendi,
stocky, red-haired, and damned handsome, especially in the spring
sunlight that streamed through the office window.
Kendi’s office was, like most offices at the
monastery, small and cramped, with wood-paneled walls and a hardwood
floor. To combat the lack of room, Kendi kept his space
austere. His desk was bare, and there was only one chair for
guests. The windowsill, which looked out into leafy talltree
branches, had a precious few holograms on it — Ben and Kendi arm-in-arm
on a beach, a motherly woman with dark hair, a representation of Real
People cave paintings. A pair of pictures hung on the walls, both
pen-and-ink drawings of Outback landscapes.
A third hologram waited to one side on Kendi’s
desk. It portrayed a chesty blond woman, blue-eyed and
beautiful. Kendi picked it up by the base.
“Whose this supposed to be, Mr. Brace?” he
asked. “She looks familiar, but I can’t place her.”
“Ah. That would be Sister Gretchen Beyer.”
Kendi almost dropped the hologram. “Gretchen?” he spluttered. “It
looks nothing like her. What did you do, stuff balloons under her
— ”
“We had to modify her a little,” Tel Brace said
smoothly. “After all, sim-game heroes are larger-than-life.
People have expectations.”
“Anything that big would be more of a surprise than
an expectation,” Kendi muttered. “Why do you have a workup of her
in the first place? I mean, she was important to everything that
happened during the Despair, but other people were more instrumental,
you know?”
“She’s your romantic alternate.”
Kendi blinked. “Come again?”
“Part of the sim-game involves a romantic subplot,”
Brace said. “This version allows the players a choice of partner
— Ben or Gretchen.”
“A choice of partner.”
“We want to appeal to the broadest possible base,”
Brace explained. His golden hair shone in the sunlight, and a
part of Kendi wondered if HyperFlight Games had chosen Brace to
approach Kendi because of his good looks. “There will certainly
be a segment of players – male and female – who will be more interested
in playing up a romance with a woman, and we have to meet that
need. It’s a standard development tactic.”
“I see. What did Gretchen have to say about
this?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss Sister Gretchen’s
negotiations, Father. I’m sorry.”
“What are you going to call this game again?”
“ ‘Dream and Despair.’ Marketing predicts
it’ll be one of the biggest sellers in all history, rivaling even ‘The
Siege of Treetown.’ You and your family will be set for life,
Father. All you have to do is sign and watch the freemarks roll
in.”
Kendi toyed with the hologram in his hands.
Dream and Despair. An apt title. The galaxy had once been
dependent on the Dream, a telepathic plane of existence that only
telepaths known as the Silent could reach. Within the Dream,
language and distance were no barrier to communication. In a
galaxy where faster-than-light travel was cheap and faster-than-light
communication was impossible, the Silent had become essential, allowing
governments, corporations, and other entities to maintain quick
communication with outlying branches, subsidiaries, and colonies.
Then came the Despair. Terrible forces had
torn the Dream asunder, and the Silent found themselves exiled from its
haven. Bereft of the Dream’s touch, many Silent became
despondent, even suicidal. Kendi, Ben, Gretchen, and several
others had been caught in the maelstrom of the Despair, and they had
managed to keep the Dream from self-destruction, but only barely.
Now only a tiny handful of Silent could enter the Dream, and the place
had become a near-wasteland. Unable to communicate with their
allies and subsidiaries, governments and corporations plunged into
chaos. Many fell apart or went bankrupt. Some rulers
grabbed power, others abandoned it. The Empress Kan maja Kalii,
ruler of the Independence Confederation had, for example, disappeared
without a trace.
Now a company called HyperFlight Games wanted to
make a history sim-game out of it all, with Kendi as the hero.
Part of Kendi was flattered. The rest of him
was suspicious. Tel Brace had a low, smooth voice and an earnest
manner, both of flared Kendi’s nostrils. He also recognized the
elements of a good con game — a demand for a quick decision, smooth
explanations, overly friendly demeanor — and he gave Tel Brace a mental
salute, one con artist to another.
“I’ll need time to think about it,” Kendi said,
still holding the Gretchen hologram. “Consult with some people,
sniff around, you know. Leave me a copy of the offer and I’ll get
back to you.”
“I don’t know how long I can keep the offer open,”
Brace said, racking up another con game point on Kendi’s mental
tally. “The boss is riding me, you know?”
“I’m sure,” Kendi said. Now he’ll take me into his confidence,
he thought. Make me feel sorry
for him.
“Tell the truth,” Brace continued conspiratorially,
“I’m really hoping you can help me out. The economy is still bad
after the Despair, and I haven’t been able to seal any decent contracts
in months. I’m worried about my kids. Things got even
rougher after their mother left. Do you have children, Father?”
“Not yet,” Kendi said, and held up his
comp-unit. “I need time to consider your offer, Mr. Brace, so
please zap me the terms. I have a lot to do today.”
Brace managed a weak grin, one completely unlike the
mega-watt version he had used earlier. “Right. Here it is,
then.” He aimed his own comp-unit at Kendi’s. A green light
flashed on each, indicating a successful data transfer. Brace
stood up and held out his hand. Kendi rose to shake it.
Brace’s grip was dry and firm.
“Keep the holograms as our gift, Father,” Brace
said. “I hope to do business with you soon.”
After the man left, Kendi checked his
messages. His public box was crammed. Four offers for
speaking engagements. Sixteen requests for information about
himself. Eighteen sales pitches. Twelve requests to let
someone write his biography. Thirty-five people writing to say
they appreciated what he had done for the Dream. Forty nasty
letters asking why he hadn’t simply let the Dream die. Nine
marriage proposals. Two death threats. And over a hundred
solicitations for more . . . personal services.
Kendi forwarded the death threats to the Guardians,
deleted the rest, and called up the Hyperflight Games agreement to
skim. His brow furrowed. Was he reading it right?
According to the contract, he would have no input on the final version
of the game. Hyperflight would also have the right to use his
name and likeness for any advertising they liked, whether it related to
the game or not, and the agreement lasted one hundred years after
Kendi’s death. The royalties, meanwhile, came off the net
profits, not the gross take. Kendi narrowed his eyes. No
sim-game, movie, or music feed had ever made a profit, and the
companies employed teams of accountants to prove it.
Kendi sighed and shut the comp-unit off. As
the display winked out, his eye fell on the holograms lined up on the
desk, and a thought occurred to him. A bit of rummaging in a
drawer turned up a small scanner, which he ran over the base of each
hologram. When he reached Ben’s hologram, the scanner beeped
once. Kendi glanced at the readout and shook his head with a
tight smile. He looked at Ben’s holo for a long moment, then
tapped his earpiece. “Ben,” he said. His earpiece started
to connect the call, but Kendi interrupted the connection with another
tap, stopping the call entirely. He waited a moment in silence,
then spoke to the empty air.
“Hey, Ben, it’s me. Fine. Uh huh.
Well, I just met with the sim-game guy. The offer looks pretty
good, I think, but I’m a little unsure. What’s the savings
account like? Oh. Did you talk to the bank about the home
improvement loan for the nursery? Oh. That bad? What
about that contract job you were bidding on? You’re
kidding! They gave it to who?
All life, we needed that money. What kind of assholes would —
yeah, I know. Okay. Well, maybe this sim-game offer is just
what we need then. I’ll see you when I get home.”
With that, Kendi pocketed his comp-unit, exited the
office building, and walked straight into a demonstration parade.
Most of the participants were human, though a
substantial number were Ched-Balaar. They carried signs, both
placard and holographic. Foxglove and the Federals: Our
Friends! Foxglove Stands for Jobs! Vote for Foxglove and
Feed My Family! Fox ’Em Mitch! The Children of Irfan Eat
While My Children Starve! The holographic signs were decorated
with images of a man with dark hair and broad, handsome features.
The humans in the group were poorly dressed.
Their patched clothes hung on them as if they had lost weight.
The Ched-Balaar had a scruffy, disheveled look, and there was dust in
their fur. One human woman had two small girls at her side.
Both were thin and ragged, and they looked at Kendi with quiet
eyes. He put a hand on the gold medallion he wore around his
neck, the one that marked him as a Child of Irfan. Their mother
followed their gaze and caught sight of Kendi in his loose brown
robes. Her jaw firmed and she raised her sign as the procession
marched past. Kendi wanted to do something for her, give her
money or the jade ring he wore. But her face was hard and he knew
such a gesture would only make her angry. A human voice broke
into song. Immediately the Ched-Balaar joined in, chattering
their teeth in rhythmic counterpoint. The procession came to a
halt as everyone sang.
We all are prisoners of starvation Fighting for emancipation! We call upon each city-nation, One union grand. Little ones cry for bread With their parents cold and dead. The Federals lead us from this dread! It’s our final stand.
A dark-skinned woman in dreadlocks and a hand-knit
scarf climbed up on a balcony rail. She raised a placard that
said Open Minds for Open Mines. Several of the holographic signs
in the procession erased themselves and called up new text. We
Can Mine Responsibly. We Aren’t Children—Let Us Work! A
Mine Is a Terrible Thing to Waste.
“We are sitting on unimaginable wealth,” the woman
shouted. “Bellerophon is rich in metal—gold, silver, iron,
uranium, and more! And yet our people starve. How did we
let this happen?”
Cheers of agreement roared through the talltree
leaves.
“Our ancestors thought they were being wise when
they laid the restrictions on mining and farming and talltree
harvesting,” the woman shouted. “Perhaps were. Perhaps they
preserved the environment. But that was almost a thousand years
ago, and times have changed. We are responsible adults, not
children. We can mine the planet’s resources without causing
harm. Mining and farming and harvesting would mean jobs for the
people!” More cheers. “Food for our children!”
Cheers. “Security for everyone!” Cheers. “Mitchell
Foxglove and the Federals opposed the mining restrictions long before
the Despair, and he opposes them now. The Unionists and the
Populists supported the restrictions, and look where it got us—frozen,
starving, and afraid. Foxglove needs our vote, and we have to
give it to him. Foxglove! Foxglove! Foxglove!”
The procession took up the chant of Foxglove’s name
and started marching again. The dreadlocked woman jumped down to
join them. Protesters both human and Ched-Balaar continued along
the office building walkway and tromped down a wide wooden staircase
that wound around a talltree trunk. One of the little girls threw
Kendi a last glance before marching out of sight.
Kendi sighed and released his medallion. The edges
had dug furrows in his palm. How could he possibly get het up
about a sim-game contract when people starved within ten meters of his
office door? He privately decided to donate a portion of the
sim-game proceeds to a charity that helped the hungry. Maybe the
First Church of Irfan. Orphans and other needy people fell under
their bailiwick.
The last of the procession cleared the walkway, and
the Blessed and Most Beautiful Monastery of the Children of Irfan went
back to moping through a crisp spring afternoon. The small
audience that had gathered to watch the march drifted away like limp
petals on a tired wind. Some were brown-robed monks—Children of
Irfan—and others were lay people who worked for the monastery, though
these days there were fewer and fewer jobs. Although most of the
people were human or Ched-Balaar, a fair number of other species fed
into the mix as well, and the air was filled with the quiet chatter of
human voices, the muted clatter of Ched-Balaar tooth-talk, and the
squeaks, squawks, and quacks of other species. Gondola cars
strung on overhead cables coasted by, and a monorail train snaked
between the massive talltree branches. Beneath the monastery’s
swaying walkways lay the dizzying drop to Bellerophon’s forest floor
over a hundred meters below. Overhead, the sun’s great golden eye
hung in a field of perfect blue, and the air smelled of green leaves.
Kendi leaned on a heavy wooden railing and looked
out over the arboreal monastery. A man and a woman in brown robes
passed Kendi by, their voices barely audible. A teenage boy
walked in silence with a being that looked like a giant caterpillar,
and their steps dragged. Kendi sympathized. Before the
Despair, all the monks at the monastery had been Silent, able to enter
the Dream. After the Despair, only a tiny handful had retained
their Silence. For the Silent, exile from the Dream was like
being struck blind or deaf. Not everyone had adjusted well.
A gentle tap on Kendi’s shoulder made him
turn. Behind him stood Ched-Hisak, one of the equinoid
Ched-Balaar. Like all of his species, the Ched-Hisak was the size
of a small horse. Hay-colored fur covered a stocky body and four
legs that ended in heavily-clawed feet. A thick, sinuous neck
rose between two muscular arms that ended in four-fingered hands.
His head was flat, with wide-set brown eyes and a lipless mouth filled
with shovel-like teeth. His forehead sported a small hole just
above and between his eyes. His forelegs were thicker and
sturdier than the shorter hind legs, which gave a downward slant to the
Ched-Balaar’s back. One finger sported a green jade ring similar
to Kendi’s.
“Ched-Hisak,” Kendi said with a warm smile, and held
out both hands, palms up.
Father Ched-Hisak placed his hands over Kendi’s and
gripped his wrists in greeting. His palms felt like warm
suede. Ched-Hisak opened his mouth and his teeth clattered in a
complex rhythm punctuated by occasional soft hooting sounds from the
nasal opening between his eyes. Half a lifetime of living among
the Ched-Balaar let Kendi understand the language perfectly, though he
had no hope of reproducing it.
“I wish to make you an invitation,” Ched-Hisak
chattered after exchanging a few pleasantries. “It is time for
Ched-Nel and Ched-Pek to leave the den, and it would please me much if
you and Ben attended the ceremony.”
Kendi blinked and suppressed a small gasp. “It would
be an honor!” he said. “But Ched-Hisak—are you sure you want us
there? I’ve never known the Ched-Balaar to ask aliens to attend a
Leaving for their ch—for their younger family members.”
Ched-Hisak dipped his head once. “You and Ben
have been good and kind friends to me and my family for a long time,
and it is my wish that you attend.”
“Then we’ll definitely come,” Kendi said.
“When and where?”
“Four days from now in our home. We begin at
noon. I have hope it will be a fine and festive occasion in a
difficult time.”
“We could use some festivity,” Kendi sighed.
“It has been a difficult eight months,” Ched-Hisak
chattered. “Our entire civilization was based on every one of us
learning to reach the Dream. Now that has been taken from us.”
Kendi placed a hand on Ched-Hisak’s flank. “I’m
sorry. I’ve been so busy running around putting out fires for the
monastery that I haven’t had time to think about what the Despair means
for your people.”
“I cannot find fault with you, Kendi,” Ched-Hisak
said mildly. “You are the reason the Dream still exists, limited
though it is. In any case, there is nothing you personally could
have done. We Ched-Balaar have gone from Silent to
Silenced. That is the way of it.”
“Except it was humans that nearly destroyed the
Dream in the first place,” interrupted a third voice. “Our
ancestors should never have brought humanity into the Dream in the
first place. Now we are repaid for our kindness with exile and
despair.”
A second Ched-Balaar had approached. This one
was a little shorter than Ched-Hisak, with paler fur and startling
violet eyes. She wore no monastery ring, and a swirling, curlicue
pattern had been shaved into her pelt.
“Ched-Putan,” said Ched-Hisak. “Your words
only cause anger, and they solve no problems. Why are you
here? The demonstration has already passed by.”
Ched-Putan waved a hand. “There are so many
demonstrations and marches, it is impossible to be anywhere without
seeing one. The people—our people—have time to demonstrate
because they have no jobs.”
“More rhetoric,” Ched-Hisak said. “What do you
want here, in this place at this time?”
“I have come to meet with the Council of
Irfan. I will talk with the Ched-Balaar who walk with the
Children.”
Kendi’s eyes widened. Ched-Putan had used the
actual word for children.
The Ched-Balaar used that term only rarely. In fact, the
Ched-Balaar term for the monastery’s people technically translated as the Family of Irfan, though
everyone mentally translated it as the Children of Irfan. The
Ched-Balaar, meanwhile, pretended that the human word child meant young family
member. Kendi himself had heard a Ched-Balaar use the term
children only once or twice in his entire life.
Ched-Hisak raised his head high, and his fur stood
up in outrage. “Ched-Putan, your rhetoric takes you too
far. You use offensive language and anger all those who hear you.”
“That is my wish,” Ched-Putan responded. “Our
people have been too mild for too long. The Dream is empty,
kinsman, and you do not see that this is our chance to reclaim it.”
“Reclaim it?”
“We can preserve the Dream for the Ched-Balaar,”
Ched-Putan said. “It is nearly empty now, and we must prevent the
other species, especially the humans, from finding it again.
Mitchell Foxglove is a human, but he agrees with us, and when he wins
the upcoming election — ”
Kendi waved a hand in front of Ched-Putan’s
face. “Hello! Human standing right here. Silent
human.”
“And look what Silence did to your people,”
Ched-Putan said, rounding on him. “It made you a commodity.
Your own species kidnaps you, treats you like animals for breed and for
sale. When the slavers destroyed your childhood, Father Kendi,
did you find yourself grateful for the ‘gift’ of Silence?”
Kendi’s jaw tightened. He was about to snarl
at Ched-Putan when a warm hand on his shoulder restrained him.
“There is no point in arguing with this person,”
Ched-Hisak said. “You will not change her mind, and she will not
change yours. Your words will matter for nothing.”
Kendi fought his temper and finally beat it
back. Ara would have been proud. Still, he couldn’t resist
saying, “You’re right. As much try to persuade a maggot not to
eat rotten meat.”
“Insults only show a lack of intelligence,”
Ched-Putan said.
“If that’s your only way of calling me stupid,”
Kendi shot back, “you come up pretty light on the IQ scale yourself.”
He turned his back and marched away before
Ched-Putan could reply. A scrape of claws on the wooden walkway
told him Ched-Hisak had followed. They walked in silence for a
long moment. Then Ched-Hisak said, “I feel I should apologize on
behalf of my species.”
Kendi shook his head. “Not all Ched-Balaar are
like her.”
“Perhaps not all,” Ched-Hisak said. “But
certainly a growing number. Almost every member of my species was
Silenced by the Despair, and they want to blame someone. Just as
the humans who have lost friends and family and jobs to the Despair
want to blame someone. The Freedom Confederation Party—and
Mitchell Foxglove—is capitalizing on that.”
“Keep the species separate,” Kendi said. “I’ve
heard the rhetoric. It makes me sick. What do they think,
that after all this time, Bellerophon will splinter into enclaves based
on planet of origin?”
“Stranger and more frightening things have become
law. Slavery, for example.”
Kendi pursed his lips. “You have a point,” he
said. “I should know that people don’t change. Not even
after a thousand years.”
“They don’t change,” Ched-Hisak agreed. “They
are evil, cruel, misguided, and absurd. They are also brave,
noble, kind, and giving. We have to find the latter qualities
while we fight the former, and it would be foolish to expect anything
else.”
Kendi reached up and placed his hands on either side
of Ched-Hisak’s face in a sign of affection. “I know.
Thanks. And thank you for the invitation.”
They parted company, and Kendi’s feet took him
toward home. Before he got much further, his ocular display
flashed. A high-priority message was waiting for him. Kendi
tapped his earpiece.
“Display message on ocular implant,” he said.
His eyes tracked back and forth as text scrolled across his retina, and
a smile broke out on his face. “Well, what do you know?”
Ben Rymar sat on the floor and stared at the
holograms on his coffee table. The first showed a pretty woman,
with pointed features and a long brown braid. She wore a
form-fitting jumpsuit with a small captain’s insignia at the
shoulder. The other hologram portrayed a short, stocky man.
His straw-blond hair and enormous blue eyes gave him a boyish
look. A handsome guy. Ben puffed out his cheeks and held up
a hand mirror so he could compare his reflection with the
hologram’s. His hair was sunset red, but Ben and the man shared
the same long jaw, the same stocky build, the same square
features. Their eyes were the same shade of blue.
There was something of the woman in Ben’s face as
well. Ben made mental comparisons. Same eye shape, same
mouth, same nose.
Ben set the mirror down and drew his knees up to his
chest. The base of the woman’s hologram was inscribed with the
words Irfan Qasad. The base of the man’s hologram said Daniel
Vik. They had died almost a thousand years ago, and they were his
parents.
He sat on the hardwood floor for a long time, trying
to wrap his mind around this impossible concept. Irfan
Qasad. Captain of the colony ship that brought humans to the
planet Bellerophon. First human to speak to the alien
Ched-Balaar. First human to accept the Ched-Balaar’s gift of
Silence and enter the Dream. Founder of the Blessed and Most
Beautiful Monastery of the Children of Irfan.
Daniel Vik. Yeoman to Captain Qasad and
eventually her husband. Second human to enter the Dream.
Father of Irfan’s children. Genocidal maniac who had tried to
murder every Silent on Bellerophon.
Ben got up and went to the kitchen, poured himself a
tall, tart glass of juice and took it out onto the balcony that ringed
the house. The early spring sun had finally chased away the heavy
winter clouds. Voices, both human and Ched-Balaar, chattered,
clattered, and hooted in the distance. Beyond the balcony
stretched the talltree forest, with its hundred-meter trees above and
giant lizards below. Neighboring houses peeked out from the
branches one tree over. The original colonists of Bellerophon had
taken to the trees to escape the local lizards—inevitably dubbed
“dinosaurs”—and their Treetown descendants had never gone back to the
ground. Some of the structures, built of iron-hard talltree wood,
were reputed to date back to the time of Irfan Qasad herself.
Irfan Qasad. Ben set the juice glass on the
balcony rail. The news felt unreal, as if it had come to someone
else, as if—
“You are brooding,” said a voice behind him.
Ben spun, upset the glass, and caught it just before it fell over the
rail. Juice spattered the leaves below.
“Harenn,” he yelped. “You scared the life out
of me.”
“Perhaps I should scare some life into you,” said
Harenn Mashib. She was leaning against the door jamb, her dark
eyes half-closed, her arms folded. At her feet lay a star-shaped
piece of computer equipment. “I knocked, but no one answered.”
“I didn’t hear.”
“You hear very little lately,” she observed.
“Kendi has noticed, you know. He asks about you, wants to know if
I have any idea what bothers you, and then I have to lie and tell him I
know nothing. I dislike lying to him, Ben, especially about
something so important.”
“Straight to the point,” Ben grimaced. “And
pulling no punches.”
“You have to tell him.”
“I will,” Ben protested. “I just . . . it
hasn’t been the right time.”
“This begs the question of when the right time will
come.”
Ben sighed and boosted himself up to sit on the
balcony rail. Harenn remained in the doorway. She was a
shortish, pretty woman whose choice of clothing ran to voluminous, and
she covered her hair with a blue head scarf.
“I don’t know,” he said finally. “How do you
say something like this? ‘Hey, love, I just thought you ought to
know that Harenn found out who my biological mother is. Can you
believe it’s Irfan Qasad?’ Sure.”
Harenn picked up the bit of equipment and brought it
over to the balcony. “That information will not change Kendi’s
feelings for you. And it does not change who you are.”
A crisp spring breeze ruffled Ben’s hair. He
took the cryo-unit from Harenn’s hands and stared down at it. The
information didn’t change who he was. The problem was, he didn’t
know who he was. Or maybe it was that he did know.
System lights blinked in a familiar pattern across
the readout. Ben knew the cryo-unit itself wasn’t a thousand
years old, unlike the embryos frozen inside. Those embryos were
mere clumps of tiny cells, yet they managed to raise countless
questions. Why had Daniel Vik and Irfan Qasad created them?
Who had stolen them away? Why had the thief later abandoned them?
Ben knew part of the story, of course. Ara
Rymar, on a mission for the Children of Irfan, had found a derelict
ship orbiting a gas giant. A brief examination had proven the
ship empty except for the cryo-unit. Back on Bellerophon, Ara
decided she wanted a child of her own and had one of the embryos
implanted in her womb. Nine months later, Ben came into the
world, red hair, blue eyes, and all.
Although a simple scan had revealed that all the
embryos were Silent, Ara had never bothered to run a full genetic
comparison on Ben or his frozen siblings. No point. The
derelict ship had been nowhere near Bellerophon, and it seemed unlikely
such a scan would reveal any relatives at the monastery.
After Ara’s death, however, Ben had gained custody
of the cryo-unit and its contents, and once he and Kendi had decided
they wanted children together, it seemed the most natural thing in the
world to turn to the cryo-unit and tiny riches within.
Ben had always wanted to raise his brothers and
sisters as his own children, wanted it with an ache so intense it
sometimes awoke him late at night when the only sounds were Kendi’s
deep breathing and the secret cry of unborn infants.
Kendi, however, had been less poetic and more
practical. Unknown to Ben, he had asked Harenn to run a full
genetic comparison to make absolute sure everything was all right with
the embryos. The results had wrenched Ben into a strange and
different universe, one where truth hung above him like hungry sword.
“I am tiring of lying at your request, Ben,” Harenn
said. “I lied to Kendi when I told him that the database yielded
no parental matches. I lied to him when he asked me if I knew
what was bothering you. Lucia has joined in these lies, and she
finds it a strain because she still holds the famous Father Kendi
Weaver in awe, and she fears what will happen when he learns she has
concealed the truth from him.”
Lucia dePaolo. Ben ran his fingers over the
familiar shape of the cryo-unit. Lucia and Harenn had volunteered
to be host mothers for the embryos, and Lucia had been present when
Harenn had broken the news to Ben.
“You are causing your beloved great pain with this
secret,” Harenn said, “because he believes you are unhappy about
something. You must tell him so his pain will end.”
“It’s not that easy, Harenn,” Ben protested.
“If this information gets out, do you know what will happen to
me? To them?”
“Tell me what you think will happen.”
“Devastation,” Ben said bitterly. “God, Harenn
– Irfan Qasad is the most famous human being in all history. She
changed society across the universe. Without her, humans would
never have entered the Dream. People have built religious cults
around her. Hell, Harenn – Lucia and her family worship Irfan as
a goddess.”
“They worship her as a mortal incarnation of
divinity,” Harenn corrected gently.
“You know what I mean,” Ben said. “If this
came out, half the universe would show up on the doorstep to have a
good gawk, a quarter would probably want to kidnap me and the children
for study or worship or whatever, and the last quarter would probably
try to . . . ” He waved a hand.
“Assassinate you,” Harenn finished. “Because
Daniel Vik was your father. Or because some people like to target
the famous.”
“It won’t affect just me. It’ll affect the
kids. They’re Irfan’s children, too, and they’ll get the same
attention. And I don’t want to be famous. It scares me,
Harenn. Enough people already know who I am and what I did during
the Despair. Everyone calls me a hero. They stare in public
and they ask questions and I hate it. I don’t want this for me,
and I don’t want it for our kids.”
“I still fail to see the problem,” Harenn
said. “Telling Kendi is not like telling the world. He
would not give the secret away if you didn’t wish it. Kendi will
be the father of these children, Ben. Perhaps not biologically,
but certainly in all ways that matter, just as Ara was your mother in
all ways that matter. He deserves to know.”
“I know,” Ben sighed. “Every time I try to say
the words, they won’t come. And no, I don’t want you or Lucia to
tell him.”
“You have a deadline,” Harenn said. She took
the cryo-unit from him. “By the end of the week, my body will be
ready to receive your first child. I will not go through the
procedure if Kendi remains ignorant of the baby’s nature.”
A door slammed inside the house and a voice called,
“Ben?”
“Out here, Kendi,” Ben called back. Then, to
Harenn, “Not now.”
“As you say,” Harenn replied. “But you have my
opinion and my deadline.”
Before Ben could say more, Kendi strode out onto the
balcony with an excited bounce in his step. Kendi favored the
brown tunic and trousers often worn by the Children of Irfan, and the
jade ring on his hand indicated he had reached the rank of
Father. Like Ben, he was in his late twenties, but the excitement
on his face made him look younger. Ben found himself sharing the
excitement, even though he didn’t know what it was about. Kendi
could still do that to him, communicate a mood by his very
presence. Ben liked that. He kissed Kendi hello, then
backed up a step. Kendi’s eye fell on the cryo-unit in Harenn’s
hands and his face went tight.