Kingdom of Cages (14 page)

And maybe, just maybe, he could work with that understanding. He could make a case for increased food shipments to help ease
the station’s discomfort, at the very least. Begin there, and work his way outward. The trick was going to be to placate Liate.
Conscience or no, she was quite aware that her authority as Athena’s administrator was being usurped and she resented it.
He could not blame her, but he also could not refuse to hear the petitions from Beleraja and Shontio, and once heard, he could
not leave them unanswered.

Of course, he could always offer a swap of jurisdictions with Liate, but that would mean that Offshoot, Stem, and his other
villages would be left to her strict interpretation of family regulation and privilege, and he could not bring himself to
do that either.

While all these thoughts flickered though his mind, he watched the lines of frustration ease on Liate’s face. He wondered
what she was thinking, or what her Conscience was telling her. “This is good,” she said. “We obviously need to talk.”

“You’ll let me know the result of this talk as soon as possible,” said Father Mihran. He bowed to them both, and his image
cleared from the screen, leaving Liate and Tam watching each other uneasily.

“I know you are trying to assist with a difficult situation,” said Liate. “And I know it is not your fault that the station’s
leaders insist on talking directly to you.”

Actually, it is. Because they know I will listen.
“Our communication has not been as open as it should be between a brother and sister of the same family branch,” said Tam
quickly. “I’m sorry for this, and I hope we can improve the situation.”

The answer was pat, but it seemed to satisfy Liate. “We’ll speak more this afternoon.” She bowed in farewell and let her image
fade from the screen. Tam once again faced two panels of empty glass.

Then a new image appeared. This one was a plump, middle-aged woman in a white dress with a long black vest. She did not exist
anywhere inside the dome. This was how Aleph showed herself to Tam.

“Is there any way I can help you, Tam?” the city-mind asked.

“I need to know more about the history of the dealings between Athena Station and the family,” said Tam. “In particular, I
need to tell about any judgments and rulings made between the two.” The cityminds were keepers of the family’s history, as
well as advisers to the family members. They had all the facts stored in their inorganic subsystems,
but their living brains could interpret those facts with all the wisdom gained from thousands of years of life. Perhaps Aleph
could help him find a compromise somewhere in the past that would open a door to the future.

“I’m already working on it.” Aleph smiled. “I’ll let you know what I find.”

“Thank you.” Aleph lifted her hand to Tam and let the image fade away.

Tam stayed where he was for a moment, his head slightly bowed.
All is well,
he tried to tell himself. With Aleph’s help, he would be able to persuade the committee that Athena Station needed help, not
more sanctions. But four hundred more people? Four hundred more people to help take care of? How many more would there be
before Athena split at the seams? Or worse, before some of them decided to try to land on Pandora and found out what kind
of greeting the Guardians had been preparing for them?

Tam climbed to his feet. He was head of the Administrators’ Committee, but there were limits on what he could do. “Always,
so many limits,” he breathed to himself.

Your family will help you,
said his Conscience.

“Yes, thank you,” said Tam. As soon as he spoke, he seemed to smell the reassuring scent of aloe. When he had still lived
with his birth family, their niche had been surrounded by the plants. His Conscience was trying to make him feel that everything
would be all right.

Maybe it would. Tam stood, automatically smoothing down his black vest as he did. If he could convince his family that action
needed to be taken, that what was happening up on Athena was not just the Athenians’ problem. Perhaps he could even gain some
leverage by pointing out that the station was being used by the Authority, just like Pandora was.

Somewhat reassured in spite of himself, Tam stepped out of the grove that sheltered the comm screen and started walking toward
the dome’s western edge.

The family dome of the Alpha Complex was a huge open space, as much garden as it was living quarters. Tam sidestepped a pack
of children as they barreled past him toward the play garden, followed by a smaller pack of parents and volunteers, talking
and laughing with the easy familiarity of people who had lived all their lives together. A pair of seniors worked on their
knees, aerating the roots of a newly grafted tree whose bright pink blossoms drooped lazily over their heads as if listening
in on their conversation.

The center of the dome held the common living and working areas—kitchens, bathing pools, class areas, and most of the comm
screens, all of it open to the dome and to all the other family members. Everyone over eighteen did have a personal alcove
where they slept, entertained visitors, and kept their personal possessions. These were staggered along the curving walls
of the dome, modeled after ancient cliff dwellings. Most of their rooms opened onto the common dome. The family saw privacy
as a villager’s notion, a stationer’s notion, and an unhealthy one at that. Privacy bred secrets, and secrets could only swell
to divide family members from each other, the city, and Pandora.

Tam sometimes wondered if it was his stunted Conscience that kept him wishing for a place where none of his family could see
him. Surely, if his Conscience worked properly, he would want nothing better than the company of his kith and kin, especially
when he was feeling troubled.

But this was all part of the gift and the burden his parents placed on him and his birth sister, Dionte. They were assured
that they were not the only ones, that there were always a few, in secret, and that they were needed to watch over the family.
There always had to be someone who could think clearly without the threat of being overwhelmed by guilt or fear. They were
to make sure that their branch brothers and sisters did not become completely suffocated by the insulation that the voices
in their heads wrapped around them.

Tam winced as he noticed his birth cousin Jolarie’s latest decorating idea for his alcove involved lurid yellow and red abstract
blobs hung from the ceiling on twine nooses. Baidra, an experimenter visiting from the Gamma Complex, waved at Tam from her
alcove where she stretched out on her bed with a reader sheet. She winked and gestured at him to come sit beside her, and
Tam waved his refusal. Not today. There was too much in his head today to play the lover.

Tam put one foot on the stair that led to his own alcove. Movement caught his eye. Dionte waited on the ledge in front of
Tam’s alcove with two covered cups in her hands.

Well, Sister, why am I not surprised?
Tam waved with feigned welcome and climbed up to her, hoping by the time he got there his smile would be a little less forced.
So, do you want to discuss the agenda for the administrators’ meeting, or the progress of the Eden Project?

“Good Afternoon, Dionte,” said Tam when he drew level with his younger sister. Dionte had been a moon-faced child, and she
had grown into a soft-faced woman. She wore her black hair in a pair of braids, which she coiled around her head and pinned
in the back. She dressed in a simple garment composed of four alternating black and white panels, with one black sleeve and
one white.

Tam waved Dionte to a richly upholstered divan. He pulled a pair of fat pillows off the bed for himself and dropped them onto
the floor.

“Basante is upset with you,” said Dionte, handing one of the covered cups to Tam as he sat by way of both greeting and greeting
gift.

Ah. We’re going to talk about Eden.
Tam accepted the cup handed down to him. “That’s nothing new.” He remembered the evening Bas-ante had come to him burbling
about Helice Trust and the possibilities locked in her genes. By now Basante had seen Tam’s report of her second refusal to
volunteer for the project.

“It’s probably not extremely intelligent either.”

Tam just sighed and lifted the cup’s lid, inhaling the steam appreciatively. Dionte’s blended teas were works of art. Tam
smelled ginger, cardamom, jasmine, green tea, and just a hint of black pepper for stimulation and to startle the palate. He
removed the cover and sipped.

“He suggested to me that you aren’t doing enough to convince Helice Trust she should be helping us,” said Dionte.

Tam lowered the cup, frowning as if the tea had soured inside his mouth. “Basante wanted to force a woman who has broken no
laws into the complex. Are you saying I should have let him?”

“He showed me the report.” Dionte uncovered her own cup and blew on the pale brown brew. The steam swirled and clouded around
her round face as she lifted her gaze to look at Tam. Amusement sparkled behind her concern. “In fact, he pressed it into
my personal system without asking me.” Tam gave a soft chuckle and nodded. When Basante got excited, he insisted that everyone
get excited.

“She is nearly perfect,” Dionte went on. “Her presence would save a lot of work.” She paused. “We would need to recruit far
fewer subjects.”

Tam snorted in disgust and considered handing the tea back.
You should realize by now I will not play along with you any more than I will play along with the rest of our family.
“So, this one time, we should be like Basante and forget the villagers are human? I can’t believe you’d do that.”
You are so used to close contact with so many kinds of mind, Sister. How can anyone be an outsider to you?

When Tam and Dionte’s birth parents had told them that their Consciences would never grow to full strength, one of the ways
in which they responded was by learning as much about the Conscience implants as possible. Dionte had turned that interest
into her calling and became a Guardian. Now she spent her life monitoring, analyzing, and creating the implants for the family,
as well as working with the organic countermeasures designed to protect Pandora and the domes from invasion or rebellion.

Dionte drank her tea, cradling the cup in her palm. “Normally I’d be the first one to agree with your sentiment. But these
are not normal times.”

“Sentiment?” he said. “Don’t tell me you’ve started believing…” He looked at the way Dionte held her face, so still, so full
of equilibrium. “You have.”

“No.” Dionte shook her head. “I’m just saying that if we don’t show the Authority something concrete soon, we really will
be under siege. They might already be moving to make good on their threat to destroy Pandora.”

The intensity of her words startled Tam and lit a spark of suspicion inside him. What if that step had already been taken?
What if that step was Beleraja’s news of her four hundred refugees?

Ridiculous. Surely, if the Authority wanted to pressure Pandora, Pandora would know it. Two thousand years of being the sole
provider of transportation and trade between the Called had not encouraged subtlety inside the Authority. Surely they would
never hatch a scheme like this.

Besides, Beleraja would never hazard lives in such a fashion. Or would she? Did he really know what she would do if she thought
her actions would bring the Diversity Crisis to a swift conclusion?

Tam looked down into his cup. The smell of spices was rich and pleasant, but he couldn’t make himself drink it. Whether or
not his suspicions about Beleraja were the truth, that was how the family was sure to interpret her actions. How would they
respond? The most likely possibility was that they would insist on the Eden Project being accelerated. The argument would
be that they should give the Authority what they wanted. Then the Authority would go away and leave Pandora in peace.

And how many would be forced into the experiment wing once that decision had been reached?

“Helice Trust might be willing to contribute genetic material to the project,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “I believe
what she truly objects to is being made pregnant with a child that she will not be allowed to keep, and possibly having this
happen to her more than once.”

“If it was her eggs that were needed, her eggs would’ve been asked for.” Dionte ran her fingertip around the rim of her cup.
“You know that the real difficulty here has been the interaction between the immune system of the mother and the enhanced
fetus.”

“Well, now that we have an idea of what we’re looking for, we can begin screening exclusively for other matches. We have four
hundred new candidates aboard Athena Station alone.” There was no question in Tam’s mind that Dionte already knew about the
refugees.

“Yes, we do, don’t we?” murmured Dionte. She took another sip of her tea and lowered the cup, lacing her fingers around it.
“Tam, I want…”

“What?” he asked warily. Hesitation was not something Dionte was known for.

Dionte gazed across the dome, as if searching for a particular face among the various gatherings of their kin. “Brother, we
are in danger.”

Tam chuckled ruefully and shook his head. “Yes, Dionte. That’s why things are such a mess.”

“You don’t understand me.” Dionte’s hands tightened around her cup. “We’re not acting like we are in danger. We are acting
like this is the old days and some bunch of colonists have come to us to ask for advice. The Authority has declared war on
us. They did it ten years ago when they dropped that bomb in the Vastness, and we decided to pay no attention.”

“We paid attention, Dionte. We surrendered. It was all we could do.”

“All we could do then,” Dionte said. “But not all we can do now.”

“What are you getting at?” asked Tam, even though he was sure he did not want to know the answer.

She still didn’t look at him. She spoke to the steam, to the tea, perhaps to herself. “I am saying there are other possibilities
for the Eden Project. We do not have to give it over to the Authority and the Called to save ourselves. There are more effective
ways it could be used.”