Awakening on Orbis (13 page)

“So does this mean that Switzer is my brother or something?”

“You both share my genetics.”

Wow! Too much. I needed to get out of here.

“You, however, have proven to be a much better candidate. I abandoned him for you.”

“I want to see my sister,” I whispered.

“But we are not finished.”

“I was finished a long time ago,” I replied. “In fact, I want to go back to the rings. You said Ketheria is all right, didn’t you? I want to go home.” The word struck me as odd. I had never referred to the rings as my home before. “I need time to swallow all of this.”

Quirin did not reply.

“Look, I’ll come back so we can talk again,” I lied, purely to let him believe that I was considering the situation.

“Certainly. If you remained, however, and if you studied, you could jump back to the rings yourself.”

“I said we would talk some more. That is all I can offer you right now.”

“There is no way you can fight this,” he warned me.

“I can find a way.”

“Then I suggest you act quickly. It is dangerous on the rings for your sister.”

“Then keep her here.”

“The awakening must be allowed to continue. She must do so among those whom she will enlighten.”

“Or those who will kill her.”

“We must not interfere.”

“You are
way
beyond that,” I reminded him.

The door to Quirin’s room opened, and a Space Jumper stepped in, someone I had never seen before. This Jumper was not as militarized as the others and was dressed in a sleek grayish material. His belt, however, was still prominent.

“He will return you to the rings,” Quirin said. “Your sister will be fine. She will follow you there shortly.”

“Good-bye . . . Quirin,” I said. There was no way I could call him Father, not now.

“Good-bye, son.”

The Space Jumper returned me to Ketheria’s room on Orbis 4. We did not speak even once, and that suited me fine. I was eager to get back to my own room, lock the door, and open my parents’ files. For so long I had wanted to see what was on those restricted documents, but now I had almost forgotten about them. When Madame Lee destroyed the copy from the
Renaissance,
I had thought that was the end of it.

What would I find now? I was almost too afraid to look.

“JT!” Theodore stopped me as I stepped into the corridor outside Ketheria’s chamber. “Where’s Ketheria? Is she dead? Where did she go?”

“She’s fine. The Trust has her.”

“Is that where you went?”

I nodded.

“All those Space Jumpers!” he exclaimed. “Everyone is talking about war. So many people saw how easily they moved about the rings. The Citizens are really going crazy. Queykay arrived with the entire Trading Council. They put all these new laws into place. You can’t even move from ring to ring now. They said it was to protect the Scion, but Hach was furious. They took him with them when they left.”

“Where’s Max?”

“She’s with Grace and that guy — what’s his name?”

I shook my head.

“Come on, I know Max will be glad to see you. They’re having a meeting or something. Max has Grace getting everyone together.”

Theodore tried to guide me in the direction he was going, but I pulled away.

“I can’t,” I told him.

“Why not?”

“There’s something I’ve got to do first.”

“Fine,” he said, turning back in my direction. “We’ll go after that.”

“Alone,” I said.

“Oh.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I understand. We’ll come by later. Max will want to see you when she finds out that you’re back.”

“I don’t want you to tell her you saw me,” I said.

Theodore just looked at me. “What’s wrong, JT? Let me help you.”

I shook my head. “Not this time. It’s not like that.”

“But —”

“I’m sorry. Really.” I turned and headed toward my room. “Don’t tell her, all right?” I yelled back.

But Theodore did not respond.

Inside my room, I sat at the edge of my sleeper and slipped the disc from my pocket. I ran my finger along the impression that circled the face of the disc. I pushed in and grabbed a random file.

It’s true!

I pulled out of the storage device. The residual burn of Quirin’s entry still sparkled against the inside of my forehead. It would fade, I knew, but the knowledge would stay with me forever.

Was
I
specimen 1325b? I had to be. When Theylor admitted that I had been genetically altered, I never once thought it happened on the
Renaissance.
I assumed it was when they replaced my arm, or when I almost drowned in the cooling tank on Orbis 2.

If this was true, then Switzer must have been specimen 334. What did they do to him? Did Quirin start to turn Switzer into the Tonat and then stop? If Quirin had never touched Switzer, would he be like the other kids from the
Renaissance
? Out of the two hundred children born on that ship, Switzer was the only one we feared. He was a monster, and they had made him that way. It was not fair.

If success continues, I will destroy specimen 334 prior to the standard schedule.

They had planned to flush everyone on that seed-ship. The thought horrified me. Where were all of our parents? Were they already dead? This didn’t make sense. Quirin said my mother was still on Earth.

“JT?” Vairocina’s voice whispered inside my head.

“Yes,” I replied, welcoming the distraction.

“I was hoping we could talk now.”

“It’s not a good time.”

“But I think it is too important for you to wait any longer. I’ve located the information you requested.”

“What information?” I stood up and paced the room.

Vairocina formed to my left. “You asked me to gain a better understanding of your transfer to the Citizen Hach,” she replied.

“I did, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I forgot. Did you find anything?”

“Yes. It seems that Charlie had made arrangements for his possessions to be distributed through an advocate.”

“Is that normal?”

“Absolutely. Advocates are usually appointed by the Trading Council to ensure a fair and honest allocation of assets in the event there are no relatives.”

“Like that would ever happen. No wonder I ended up with Hach.”

“No,” Vairocina interrupted. “The unusual aspect is that Charlie had
already
chosen an advocate well before he died. In fact, the same cycle he became a Citizen and only moments after an enormous sum of chits was transferred to his personal holdings.”

“Who? Who did he assign?”

“Well, it wasn’t a single person really. . . .”

“Who, Vairocina?”

“The Descendants of Light. Drapling signed the transfer. Drapling is also the one who then bequeathed you to Hach.”

“What?”

“The Descendants of Light. The trans —”

“I heard you. I just can’t believe it. It doesn’t make sense. Charlie was no fan of the DOL, especially Drapling. I even heard them fighting once when I was half-conscious. I’m sure it was Charlie and Drapling. This just doesn’t make sense.”

I sat down on my sleeper and hoped the room would stop spinning.

“Is there anything else I can find for you, JT?”

“No,” I said, “but there is something you can do.”

“Certainly.”

“Can you tell Drapling I need to meet him? It’s an emergency.”

“I’ll do it now.”

I pushed back into the storage device. This time I discovered a small interface along with the hidden data.
Only a softwire would find this interface,
I thought. The interface displayed a projection mode, which I initiated, then pulled out of the device and sat the metal disc on the lid of my sleeper. Using my softwire, I interacted with the display projected on the wall in the same manner I would with an ordinary O-dat. I opened another file at random.

Zinovian class? Was that Madame Lee? Did she trick him? I opened another file.

Ketheria and I were supposed to arrive on the rings as the same age. I tried to think of Ketheria as seventeen, just like me. It was too weird. What would she look like? I retrieved the first file I had opened. What did the words
zygote
and
cleavage
mean? Were Ketheria and I twins? Impossible!

“JT?” Vairocina whispered inside my head.

“Did you find Drapling?”

“He will meet you at the Center for Relief and Assistance.”

“When?”

“Whenever you are ready.”

“I’m ready now.”

“I want to see Switzer,” I told Drapling. We were seated in the same room underneath the Center for Relief and Assistance.

Both of Drapling’s heads converged on me. “I’m sorry, but that is impossible,” he stated.

“I’m learning quickly that nothing is impossible. I want to see him, Drapling. He shouldn’t be there. What happened to Switzer is not his fault. In fact, it is more the Rings of Orbis’s fault than his.”

“Your friend is a criminal, a wormhole pirate. He will never see the surface of the ring for as long as he lives. Your request is denied.”

I stood up, marched over to Drapling, and leaned in close. Any other person would have shrunk back into their seat, but Drapling remained indifferent. “Listen carefully,” I whispered. “This is not a request. I don’t need your answers anymore. I
know.
Do you understand me? I met with Quirin. He gave me the missing files. As far as I can figure, you guys sent him to snatch a bunch of embryos from Earth and grew your own Scion. Except your plan didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, and now you have all of
us.
Switzer isn’t just a friend; he’s my brother.”

“Technically, I believe you would call him a half brother. You share only the genetic coding of Quirin. You and the Scion share a common human egg.”

“Shut up! No matter how you spin it, the life Switzer now has is directly the result of
your
actions.”

“This means nothing. You feel this way only because you have been adjusted to exhibit a greater care for your sibling. For Ketheria,
not
for Randall Switzer.”

I pulled back and stepped around Drapling. It took eight strides across the shiny floor to reach the door. I
pushed
into the control panel and locked it. My old feelings for Switzer were gone.
Now
I wished that I had helped him steal the
Renaissance
when we first arrived.
Now
I wished I had let him escape on Orbis 3. I had to make it up to him before I did anything else. It was not right for him to be forgotten and left to rot away in some cell. I wanted to apologize to him. I wanted to apologize for everything.

I turned toward Drapling. He hadn’t moved a muscle. “I know about the Descendants of Light,” I told him. “I know that you helped Charlie become a Citizen. Yet I was wondering if Theylor and the other Keepers know everything. If I remember correctly, when Theylor came to greet us on the
Renaissance,
he was expecting to find a ship filled with adults. Or was that a ruse as well?”

Drapling did not respond. Instead he looked toward the glasses at the far side of the room.

“Is something wrong, Drapling? Was that information restricted? I don’t know what it means yet, but I think I can use it.”