Kingdom of Cages (44 page)

“What?” Then, the words sank in and made sense in her mind. “No. How? She didn’t get sick?” Nan Elle shook her head. The only
other possibility dropped into Chena’s thoughts. She took one shaking step forward. “You didn’t let the hothousers take her!
You said we would be safe with you.”

“No,” said Nan Elle, shaking her head again. “The hothouse did not take her. She’s run away.”

Chena tried to say,
That’s ridiculous,
or
She’d never do that! She’d never leave me!
But all the words jammed in her throat.

“I tracked her to Stem.” Nan Elle snorted. “That wasn’t hard. Where else is there to go from here?” She muttered this more
to herself than to Chena. “But from there?” The old woman shrugged her skinny shoulders.

“But she can’t have just… run,” stammered Chena. “I mean… why would she?”

In answer, Nan Elle held up a piece of paper. It had been folded in half. Chena snatched it out of her fingers and flipped
it open.

Inside, in Teal’s shaky writing, was scrawled,
I’M GETTING OUT
.

“No.” Chena’s knees shook and she groped for a stool. “Teal, you idiot! You terminal idiot!” She screamed the words, as if
they could reach her, as if she knew where Teal was.

The paper crumpled in her hand. “Okay, okay.” Chena took a deep breath, gesturing to cut Nan Elle off although she hadn’t
said anything. “We’ve got to find her. Farin knows everybody in Stem. She’s—”

“No,” said Nan Elle softly.

“What?” demanded Chena. “She’s my sister! I’m responsible!”
She thinks she can make Dad come back and care about us. She’s sixteen! How can she still believe that shit? How air-brained
is she?

“She is gone, Chena.” Nan Elle took the paper from Chena’s hand. “She wanted to go and she left. We must let her go.”

“No!” Both her hands knotted into fists. “She is my sister! I am not letting her go!”

Nan Elle took a deep breath now and gripped her stick a little more tightly. “You are going to have to, Chena. She left the
day after you did. I have been searching for her for over a week. She could be anywhere in the world, especially if she went
to that tailor the way she had planned. She may even have really managed to get back up to your station. I cannot find her.”
Chena heard the bitterness in her voice, anger at her own failure.

Chena felt her chest clench. Her eyes stung and she couldn’t seem to hear properly. Her mind filled with blood, blood and
loss and fear.

Nan Elle looked up at her. “I swear to you, I did try.” For a moment she looked a thousand years old. “I was afraid she might
simply run, so I took what I could find of her money to keep her here. But it did not work.” She rubbed her forehead. “I even
contacted Administrator Tam, but I have had no word from him.”

The words broke a dam inside Chena and she began to cry: huge violent sobs that shook her whole body and drove her to her
knees. She curled in on herself until her head rested on Nan Elle’s lap. Teal was gone. Teal had left her all alone. She had
tried so hard. Everything she had done, and Teal, stupid, vapor-brained, selfish, precious Teal, had still gone away and left
her alone.

“That’s right, Chena.” Nan Elle stroked her hair. “You cry. You cry, and let her go.”

She heard the words from a distance. Ringing in her ears, she really heard Teal’s voice, saying,
We have to go get Dad now. Why can’t we tell Dad?

Teal, I’m so sorry,
she thought with all the strength she had, trying to force the thought out into the whole wide world.
I should have tried harder. Please, come back and let me tell you I’m sorry.

But there was no answer.

T
EAL TRUST HAS FOUND A NEW TAILOR IN STEM
.

Tam ran his palm across his hand display, wiping out the message instantly. The walls of his private alcove seemed to have
grown eyes and it took him a moment to shake that feeling. At the same time, he silently thanked Nan Elle for taking the risk
of using the convoluted web of communication connections they had mapped to get the message to him. News of a new tailor in
Stem meant a new lead in his long search.

For five years, Tam had been trying to understand how Dionte had managed to steal the Eden Project, and where she could have
hidden it. She had to have arranged some way to keep it alive and viable, otherwise what would have been the point of cutting
it out of Helice Trust? She must be planning on using it to advance her cause against the Authority and the Called.

But what had she done with it? She could not have just given it to another hothouse. The records would be too easy to check.
She could not have placed it openly in a village, for the same reason. But the villages did harbor loose networks of people
who specialized in concealment, such as the Pharmakeus and tailors.

Nan Elle had been quietly running down her connections among the Pharmakeus. None of the Pharmakeus, however, had heard so
much as a rumor of a child who had been brought out of a hothouse rather than taken into one. That had left the tailors.

An idea struck Tam now, making him sit up suddenly straighter on his pillow. He uncovered his data display, subvocalizing
a new command. A fresh file spelled itself out on the tiny screen. Yes. There was, right now, a young woman from Offshoot
in the involuntary wing. She had put herself up for the genetic draft and had been accepted after an initial screening. However,
a further check on the records discovered artificial alterations to her genetic makeup. Basante was supposed to be interviewing
her to determine the disposal of her body right, but he had not done so yet. Tam still had a chance to get to her first.

Tam jumped to his feet and started down the stairs. It was unlike Basante to be slow to interrogate anyone who came within
his purview. Whatever had distracted him must be important. Possibly some errand on Dionte’s behalf.

I’ll have to find out.

Tam reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up to see Basante striding eagerly toward him, as if summoned by his thoughts.

“Tam, we have her!” he shouted eagerly, grasping Tam’s data display.

“Have who?” Tam pulled his hand away, looking down at the display automatically.

“Look at it!” Basante stabbed his finger at Tam’s display. “It’s Chena Trust.”

Tam looked. There was too much data for the display alone to handle, so his Conscience began whispering in his ear, summarizing
statistics and providing descriptions of video clips. Basante had given him a mote camera report, so the data were mostly
chemical analyses and percentages. But there were also visual data showing a blurred yet unmistakably human figure crashing
through the rain forest with such force and clumsiness it made Tam wince. Basante had spliced all this together with readouts
and video clips of Chena Trust, and overlaid that with a running commentary outlining every similarity between the two data
sets that he could draw.

He’s been taking lessons in thoroughness from Dionte.
Nan Elle had warned him she might be poaching aid against the fever in Offshoot. She had, however, neglected to tell him
she would be sending Chena to do the work. Probably because she knew what his reaction would be.

Chena is only free as long as she keeps herself in the clear. There are those inside Alpha Complex who are looking for excuses
to bring her back here. If they put her on the project, Elle, I don’t know how long she’ll live.

“We have her,” announced Basante, shaking with excitement. “She’s lost her body right. We can pick her up anytime.”

Tam shook his head. “I don’t agree. These results are inconclusive.” As Chena’s administrator, Tam had the final say regarding
any change in the status of her body right.

“I don’t believe this,” murmured Basante. In the next instant, his face bunched up and he shouted, “How can you stand there
and ignore these results?”

Around them, family members halted on the paths, and heads turned. An argument between two family members was, of course,
everybody’s business, because harmony was everybody’s responsibility.

“Is everything all right, Tam? Basante?”

Tam did not take his eyes off Basante. He just held up his hand. “We’re fine,” he said. “Just a disagreement about some data.”
Bas-ante’s face flushed angrily, and Tam felt a twinge of sympathy. Bas-ante had been involved in his own search. None of
the other infants produced by the project had measured up. Their fate maps all predicted death from various autoimmune diseases
before they reached adolescence if radical intervention was unavailable to them. Tam was ready to believe a great deal about
Basante, but he could not fault his dedication and sincerity. The stress and worry wearing him thin were genuine.

That knowledge, however, changed nothing. He was not going to give Basante Chena Trust. He had utterly failed her mother;
he would not fail her.

“We can settle this easily, Basante,” said Tam calmly. “I’m willing to call a meeting of the Administrator’s Committee so
you can present your data to all of us.”
Breath and body of my ancestors, let that give me enough time to ask the questions I must and warn Elle.

“That’s perfectly reasonable.” Tam’s uncle Hagin, bluff, smiling, and always ready to help, stepped forward from the dozen
or so people who had stopped to listen to the quarrel. “What do you say to that, Basante?”

Basante was still shaking, but all the excitement had drained out of him. His skin had gone paper white. “I say… I say…”
his hand went to his temple over his Conscience implant as he struggled to get the words out over the severe chastisement
it was surely giving him. After a few seconds, he gave it up. “Yes, of course. Perfectly reasonable.” But his hand still rubbed
his temple, and his angry eyes still said he knew what Tam was really doing.

“I’ve always loved your enthusiasm, Basante—” began Hagin.

“You’ll excuse me.” Basante turned and shouldered his way between the watching family, his hand still rubbing his temple.
A couple of their kin hurried after him, anxious to help.

“Are you going to tell me what that was all about?” Hagin asked Tam with lifted eyebrows.

Tam gave Hagin a watery smile, and, because he did not feel like listening to his Conscience berate him, he also gave a partial
truth. “The Eden Project. What is it usually about with Basante?”

“True.” Hagin’s laugh was short. “But it’s his dedication that has kept the project going since—”

Tam held up his hand, indicating that his uncle did not have to finish the sentence. “I know. I’ll find him and apologize
later, Uncle. I promise.”

“I know you will.” Hagin clapped him on the shoulder. “Now, judging from that furtive look in your eyes, I’m going to guess
you have work you want to get to?”

“Always.” Uncle Hagin’s life was so simple, thought Tam with sharp-edged envy. That which helped and supported the family
was right. That which divided the family was wrong. For him, there was nothing else, and here Tam stood, not only hiding the
truth from him, but trying to get away from him.

He also realized he was smelling old yeast and shook himself mentally.

You should talk freely with your family,
his Conscience reminded him.

Tam flashed Uncle Hagin another smile and made his way through his gathered kindred. Despite his Conscience’s insistence,
they were not the ones he needed to speak with now.

Dionte watched Basante pace back and forth across her work area, clearly sick with fury. She needed to calm him down quickly.
She had all the aural privacy screens up, which meant they could not be overheard, but they could still be easily seen by
everyone else working in the experiment wing. They were already drawing stares from the experimenters in the next station,
and if one of them did something to alert Aleph, Aleph might notice she could not currently locate Dionte and Basante on her
own, which would cause the city-mind to look for flaws in herself that Dionte could not let her find. Aleph could not know
that there was a way to make her deaf and blind.

“Five years!” Basante thumped his fist on Dionte’s keyboard, making all her monitors squeal in confusion. “Five years, and
we still have not been able to produce another viable infant. What is he thinking? We need one of the Trusts back. We need
detailed readings for every stage of her pregnancy, including immediate preimplantation and postnatal. We need—”

Dionte crossed swiftly to him, taking his right hand and pressing it between her own. Her Conscience activated the modified
sensors under the skin of her palm and immediately set to work opening the connection between his data display and his Conscience
implant.

Calm him,
she ordered her Conscience, and her implant passed the order to his. As Dionte watched, his shoulders relaxed and the furrows
smoothed from his brow. She could practically smell the scents of fresh air and jasmine being conjured for him as his Conscience
whispered into his mind that he was with family, that he must relax. He must trust his family. He must trust Dionte.