Heritage of Flight (39 page)

"Oh, shut up, will you!” Ayelet interrupted, her voice almost stifled. “Thorn, if you want to see Alicia alive—"

"But be careful!” the tall, dark-haired woman hissed, one hand almost touching Thorn Halgerd's shoulder. “The woman over there, the pale one. She's from Abendstern and says you ought to be shot."

Thorn had been halfway inside the medcenter when the warning came. He turned around, again with that incredible speed of his, and flashed a glance across von Bulow, the crew, and Neave himself, his pale eyes flickering as if his gaze could not just record each of them, but evaluate them. Neave had never felt such a strong urge to drop his eyes. Thorn Halgerd might, as von Bulow argued, be a construct, but he had undeniable presence.

Then he straightened and turned his attention back to the Abendsterner.
Quite a family resemblance,
thought Neave.

"Quick, Thorn!” whispered Ayelet.

The man turned, but not before he had sketched a tiny, contemptuous salute at von Bulow. Letting her seethe, Neave followed Thorn Halgerd, ignoring the colonists’ glares, and slipping inside just as the door irised closed.

The
Amherst's
chief medical officer stood against the worn, sloping ivory plastic of the dome's wall. His hands were idle, his mouth set. As he saw Neave, he shook his head. Halgerd registered the headshake and hunched his shoulders as if warding off a blow. He shook his head, bewilderment blurring his too-regular features.

"Go on!” Lohr gave him a push toward the screened alcove where Dr. Alicia Pryor lay.

"Is ... she conscious?” Thorn's voice almost begged the medical officer to say “no."

He shook his head. “You can't hurt her, son. She's been waiting for you. You're all she's been waiting for."

Thorn shook visibly, then disappeared around the screen. “My dear son!” Neave heard the joyous murmur, hardly more than a ragged breath, and blinked hard, just once. There was no shame in admitting emotion, just in permitting it to blind you.

Someone touched Neave's arm, and he jumped, bitterly ashamed of his role as eavesdropper.

"Commissioner?” It was Ayelet. “Could you tell someone to ask Rafe and Pauli, I mean the captain, to come over? She and Dr. Pryor were awfully close.” Another woman might have tried to look at him appealingly, or to coax, but Ayelet's very lack of such arts moved Neave more.

"Bless you, child, this is their colony, not mine. Their arrest is only voluntary."

"Only?” Ayelet's head tilted as she listened to the murmur of voices from Alicia Pryor's cubicle. She gestured Neave to stand farther off, leaving the dying woman her privacy. “Commissioner, Pauli has decided she's under arrest. That means she'll stay put unless you say otherwise. I know it would mean a lot if you sent for her.” Abruptly Ayelet's brown eyes flashed. “And I'd say she has it coming."

The monumental, childlike integrity of this girl!

"And if I went myself, you'd be rid of an outsider, is that it?"

Her blush and wide smile cast a wildrose prettiness over her heavy features, and Neave understood what it was that the mercurial Lohr had seen in her. That, and the decency, the stability, she must have learned from her father, now under suicide watch, and the woman for whom she pleaded.

"Never mind,” Neave said gently. “I'm not insulting you. I'll bring them myself. You go on back in.” And then, because, commissioner or not, he had children of his own, he offered Ayelet what comfort he could. “Your husband and this Thorn—they'll need you with them."

"Come in, Commissioner.” Yeager and Adams sat close together, but rose as he entered. The silence in their quarters was palpable, almost restful. Neave glanced around at the simple furnishings, a blend of prefab and local workmanship, one or two fine pieces, including a woven hanging bright in colors of crimson, green, black, and gold. There were even a few printed books.

"Is it Alicia?” Rafe Adams asked, his hand dropping protectively on his wife's shoulder.

"Her son flew in a few minutes ago. He's with her now."

Pauli lowered her eyes.

"Your Ayelet sent me to fetch you."

Rafe's bark of laughter surprised them all. “That's Ayelet. Doesn't know the meaning of tact, or rank."

"She said you wouldn't leave here unless you were ordered. I volunteered to bring you. Figured they were better off without me. And I wanted to talk with you."

His eyes fell on a tattered paper book. Plato, for a wonder. Pauli saw his surprise. “Alicia let me have it,” she said in a low voice. “I'm not particularly well educated, Commissioner. Not like Alicia. Or you. Would you believe that this is the first time I've had to read, or just think, since we landed here?"

Neave raised an eyebrow to ask permission and picked up the book. The ragged pages fell open to the “Crito.” Passages were heavily underscored and noted in the crude, round hand with which he was now familiar.

Again, the sense that he was eavesdropping made Neave flush, and he laid down the book. “Let's go,” he said. “I want to warn you, though. About Thorn. One of my staff thinks he ought to be shot."

"That would be the Abendsterner,” Pauli said, her back toward him as she reached her jacket. Rafe took it from her and laid it gently over her shoulders. “She knows what he is, a successful experiment in proscribed cloning technology. So do we. Pryor spotted it in an instant. He'd ejected from his ship, and we brought him in, almost dead from the loss of the others in his group. Beneatha ... some of the others wanted to try him for war crimes. That's a laugh, isn't it? Who's the more guilty, him or us?"

She shrugged into the jacket. “Ask Lohr. They're friends, he and Thorn, yet we're pretty sure that Thorn was part of the fleet that slagged his home world. Thorn and Alicia sort of adopted one another, she'd known his ... genetic father back before the war. We think he's been happy with us. Do the Secess’ want him back?"

"He landed here after we ... killed the Cynthians,” Rafe added hastily.

It was the law, wasn't it? Neave asked himself as he ushered Rafe and Pauli out the door. Even years before the discovery of Jump, Earth agreements stated that astronauts, as they'd been called then, were regarded “as envoys of mankind in outer space” and should have “all possible assistance in the event of accident, distress, or emergency landing on the territory of another state.” The same agreement called for them to “be safely and promptly returned to the state of registry of their space vehicle."

Halgerd was as much an embarrassment to the people who created him as was Pauli Yeager's insistence on a genocide trial.

Neave had expected Ayelet to be waiting for them outside the medcenter, but found Lohr pacing there instead. His hands were hooked into his belt to stop them from trembling.

"Quick,” he said, and his voice was hard. “Thank you for bringing them.” The words came hard, but forced a small, tight smile from Pauli Yeager.

Laying an arm over Lohr's shoulder, Rafe brought him inside with them. The screen had been pushed away, and Neave stifled a gasp at how flat the white covers lay over Dr. Pryor's body. Thorn Halgerd knelt hunched beside her, his face inhumanly calm, his hands resting on the bed.

"Alicia,” Pauli breathed and went over to her dying friend.

"Sorry..."

Pauli shook her head. “That you couldn't see us through this one? I only wish we could have spared you all of it.” She bent and kissed the aged woman's forehead. “You thought you helped Thorn grow up. Look what you did for me! ‘Licia, I couldn't have managed without you. It's all finished now. Rest easy."

She bent lower to catch. “What's that? I'll keep Thorn safe. I promise."

Muttering an apology, Neave headed for the door and almost lurched into it. It would have been indecent to remain; he wasn't certain he could forgive himself for staying as long as he had.

He stumbled outside into a night blessedly free of the taints of antiseptic and death.

Footsteps clattered behind him. He heard a quick, urgent gasp.

"Mother!” Thorn Halgerd cried out sharply.

The door irised shut on his unpracticed sobs. Neave wished that he had not heard.

23

Slowly Pauli Yeager and Rafe Adams left the medcenter dome, their arms around Thorn Halgerd. Though he towered over the woman, he leaned heavily on her as well as Adams. As he passed Neave, he averted his face. The others also refused to meet Neave's eyes. The tall, dark-haired woman whom Neave had noted before hovered protectively close to him, while Lohr and Ayelet fanned out sideways in what Neave recognized as a flanking maneuver to protect their friends.

"I had to see her,” Thorn said. “You know I had to come back."

"I know,” said Rafe. “Just like we had to turn ourselves in."

"Construct!” came von Bulow's voice. “That's right, you!” The blond man turned toward her—
that obedience was a reflex!
Neave thought—and drew himself to attention.

"You don't have to!” Pauli hissed. “It's not a matter of orders and born-humans anymore, Thorn. You're ours! You broke that conditioning."

"Did I?” Halgerd's eyes seemed to go blank. One hand clasped and unclasped as if trying to hold himself back from the pull of orders he had been conditioned to obey.

"Yes, you did. Remember? And besides, you can't obey those Orders. You know what they'd mean for you. And Alicia made me promise to keep you safe."

But von Bulow was advancing on the newcomer, who took one step back, then recollected himself and tried to make a stand. He was taller than she and, as Neave knew from Yeager's report, far stronger and faster; but he seemed to cower before her.

"The law,” Elisabeth von Bulow stated, “requires that people of one state party shall render all possible assistance to the astronauts of other state parties,
then return them safely and promptly
..."

Pauli edged out from under Thorn's arm and stalked over to stand before the Abendsterner. “...to the state of registry of their space vehicle. I know the old precedents from Earth too. I've had ten years to study them. That treaty also states that we should have been notified of phenomena discovered in outer space which could constitute a danger to the life or health of astronauts. You see how well it was enforced."

"The Republic has a legal right to the return of...

"Thorn Halgerd—"

"Halgerd AA-prime—” Pauli and Thorn spoke simultaneously.

"The Republic,” Pauli mimicked coldly, one eye on Neave to see how far she could go, “unless we are all being deceived, no longer exists. However, the planet Freki has a right to the return of one of its citizens. Should Freki request it, and the
citizen
consent.” She darted a quick glance at Thorn, his cue if he was able to take it.

"He's not a citizen!” snapped von Bulow.

"I note,” Pauli observed, her voice low, sly even, “that even you call him ‘he.’”

"No,” agreed Thorn Halgerd. “I wasn't a citizen. I was what you called me. A construct. Forced to obey orders, even if they meant my death ... or my brothers'. Damn you all, you made a thing of me and of my brothers! And then your people sent us out to kill men who might have been us. Who
were
us, cloned from the same genefather. I can't forget them either, the men they were, for we
were
men, even deprived of a normal life by the tanks and your damned conditioning. Ever since these people took me in, it's been worse. Now I can't forgive you for killing the men my brothers should have been with my friends to help them. All that promise, and you killed them. At least I had a chance to hear Aesc before he died.

"If you return me to the Republic, they'll probably terminate and dissect me. Not ‘kill.’ You
kill
humans, not property. Things like me.” He turned to Pauli, who clasped his arm with both hands, then to Neave.

"Commissioner, these people shared their humanity with me. As long as I'm alive, I'm not leaving them. I claim asylum."

Neave turned his head in time to catch Pauli Yeager's imperceptible nod.

"What about his crimes against humanity?” asked the Abendsterner.

"For slagging
my
homeworld?” Lohr cried. “He didn't know what he was doing. Your people did. Besides, what's that to you? You gave the orders. You wanted that done. And when it was done, when
he
did it, you threw him away. For thanks, you would have killed him. Well, we caught him, and we're going to keep him."

Pauli walked forward. “The poor commissioner,” she laughed sharply, ironically, and held out a hand to Neave. “He's been looking for technicalities since he landed here, and we've been too stubborn to give him any. Relax, Commissioner. Just this once, here's a technicality for you. Thorn doesn't need asylum; he's got citizenship. Thorn Halgerd's the son of an Alliance national.” She raised her chin at von Bulow, mischief gleaming in her eyes. “The late Dr. Alicia Pryor adopted him legally. I've had it on file for years. Lohr's right. You threw him away, and we took him in. You have no claim on him now."

"Citizenship can be revoked,” von Bulow insisted. “There are precedents: people accused of war crimes can be stripped of citizenship, extradited..."