Kingdom of Cages (48 page)

Basante stared at her, momentarily mute with shock. “Dionte…” he finally choked.

Dionte walked swiftly to his side. “Be calm, Brother.” She laid her hand on his, her scent, warmth, and touch letting his
Conscience know that these were the words of family. It was good to listen to your family, and his Conscience would tell him
so, soothing him for her. “Consider what will happen when we are able to tell the family that Director Shontio is harboring
fugitives aboard Athena Station. He will no longer be able to pretend he is a victim of circumstances. He will be shown as
the active participant he is. Father Mihran will finally come to understand that we can no longer leave the station in the
hands of those who have no Consciences.” She knew the future, at least this one little piece of it. She saw it clearly and
she knew triumph at the sight. “We will be able to do in one week what none of the family has been able to do in a thousand
years. We will bring Consciences to Athena.”

Basante pulled his hand away. “You’ve placed too much faith in one successful experiment,” he said with unusual firmness.
She had trespassed too far into Basante’s area of expertise, and he would not be easily calmed this time. “You haven’t heard
anything I’ve said, have you? We need to be sure we can create this gene combination consistently. We need to study variations
in alleles. At the very least, we will need other breeders to ensure a numerous and healthy defensive force.” He glared at
her. “Or did you think we could neutralize all the Called with one boy?”

“Of course not.” She waved his words away. “But there are other considerations here. The station must be tied to the family
and the cities if we are to stay defended. The Authority must not be able to get to us through them.”

Basante bowed his head, relenting, and Dionte faced Lopera. “Your people certainly did not suggest to Teal Trust that you
would help her without some form of payment?”

Lopera pushed herself away from the wall and unfolded her arms, assuming a much more businesslike posture. “Of course not.
She’s offering payment in eggs.”

Basante’s head jerked up. “How many?”

“One hundred. Enough?” Lopera arched her eyebrows.

Basante rubbed the information display on the back of his hand, performing his own type of internal calculation. “For a beginning
anyway. Cloning will help extend the resources. Yes, yes.” Then he shrugged, as if he did not want to appear too easily convinced.
Dionte looked at Lopera, not so much reading the set of her face as remembering how many times she had held back information
before. Probably she had taken more from Teal than she had told them. Probably she was holding back a cache to see what advantage
could be bought with it.

That was all right too. The extra resources might open up extra possibilities. She would have to think about that.

“It will certainly be better than nothing,” went on Basante. “But it’s really the womb we need. The immune system. We can
create embryos until the heat death comes, but if they can’t grow to term without radical interference—”

“But there is one more Trust.” Dionte touched him again and smiled, the future taking shape inside her. “Chena.”

Understanding dawned on Basante like the light of a new day. His excited smile warmed Dionte at her core. She had him again.
She had the future. It was working. The bonds were truly, finally, working.

“So you’ll have Chena Trust picked up?” asked Basante.

Dionte laced her fingers together briefly and let the cloud of futures and warnings whirl through her.

“No,” she said, fresh understanding coming to her as well. “Your evidence that she broke out into the wilderness is good,
but it won’t convince the villagers. They are nervous right now. We’ve been taking in more donors than usual to try to replace
Helice Trust. We do not need our plans disrupted by any unrest. If we induce Chena Trust to come to us, then her disappearance
will become her own fault and arouse no fresh alarm.”

“How are you going to—”

“There’s nothing Chena Trust loves more than a chance to best the evil hothousers.” Dionte’s mouth puckered at this new wrinkle
to the future. “I’ll give her one.” More ideas came then, flickering through her mind so rapidly she could not understand
them all. Yet, they were all-important, she felt that. “Wait, wait.” Dionte stared deep into the future before her. “If we
feed her the right information, Chena Trust will even help us toward our goal. Yes, I see that. I see how it may be done.”
She forced her fingers apart so she could concentrate on the outside before the inner world, with its successes and complexity,
overwhelmed her.

Basante shook his head. “I do not like this. She’s a villager. Worse, she’s an Athenian. We do not have enough information
about her to make these predictions.”

“We do not.” Dionte laid a hand on his arm. “But I do.”

Basante looked down at her hand on his sleeve and said nothing.

“Well, now,” interrupted Lopera with false cheerfulness. “If you’re all happy, I assume you’ll be wanting to see Eden?”

“Of course,” said Dionte. “How is our project?”

“A pain,” said Lopera bluntly. “Hopefully, someone’s found him for you by now.”

The color drained from Basante’s cheeks. “Found him! What’s happened to him?”

“Nothing. He’s a bored five-year-old boy. He wanders around.” Amusement sparkled in her eyes. “Also, I don’t think he likes
you. Something to do with all the needles.”

“You careless nit! Do you know what could happen to him in this warren? He could drown in the lake. He could fall and break
his neck!”

Lopera straightened up, all amusement and tolerance gone. “What do you want me to do? Tie him up? Lock him away? You want
him to be healthy. How healthy is he going to be if he’s caged?”

Basante wasn’t listening. He stalked forward until he was barely an inch from Lopera. “You don’t understand what’s at stake
here, do you? If we lose him, we lose the entire world. Do you realize what that means?”

That’s far enough.
“Basante…”

But in his anger, Basante did not hear her. “It means the planet will be gutted. It means the Authority will assume total
control of us all, and then what do you think will happen to your pitiful, smuggling, tailoring, criminal little life?”

“It means I’ll have a new boss,” said Lopera calmly. “Don’t push me too hard, or I might start thinking that’s a good idea.”

For a moment Dionte thought Basante might actually hit Lopera. This was not the kind of reaction he was trained to believe
he deserved from villagers. His pride and his Conscience were doubtlessly in conflict, and that could make anyone irrational.

“Enough, Lopera. Please, Basante, cool your temper. We need each other, and these arguments do no one any good.” She pulled
Basante back a couple of steps. “Lopera will not let us down.”
Because she does not want to risk the involuntary wing.
“We have five years’ worth of proof for that.” She watched his face and shoulders relaxing. “Lopera, perhaps you can take
us to Eden and show Basante his fears are unfounded.”

“Of course.” Lopera also relaxed visibly and gestured for them to precede her out through the inner door.

Dionte took Basante’s arm and walked with him through the doorway, not giving him a chance to stop and say anything else to
Lopera. They could not afford for him to upset Lopera and her people too much.

Not yet.

Light seeped into Teal’s darkness. She became aware of its warmth on her eyelids, turning the blackness first gray and then
red. She felt… swollen. Her head felt so heavy she didn’t think she could lift it. Her dry, woolly tongue filled her entire
mouth. Her belly was aching and distended, and her breasts felt like a couple sacks of water sagging against her rib cage.

With an effort, she fluttered her eyelids open. Above her, she saw dimness, lit by one pale yellow light that seemed familiar
somehow. Scents wormed their way into her brain—dust, damp, stale basil and cinnamon.

She was in the basement under the dunes. She hadn’t moved at all.

The realization gave her the strength to sit up. Pain stabbed through her midriff. She groaned and clutched at her stomach,
slamming one hand out behind herself to keep from falling back down. It landed on something soft, and the sensation expanded
Teal’s world a little further.

She wasn’t sitting on the floor anymore, but on a pallet, the kind they used in the dorms. A thick white sheet covered her.
Clothes lay in a neat pile beside the pillow, with her comptroller sitting right on top. Teal snatched it up to check the
time and the date.

Three days. What strength she had vanished from her fingers, and the comptroller dropped into her lap. She’d been down here
for three days. Had she only been down here? Or had they taken her somewhere? There were no memories in her head from the
time she first saw this place up to now. Panic seized her, bringing on another wave of pain. She clutched the sheet to her
chest and doubled over, squeezing her eyes shut against the tears.

It was then she realized her breasts weren’t just swollen, they were too big. Her hips and buttocks too. Everything was the
wrong shape.

Have to make you look like you’re nineteen,
the man, the tailor, had said. The implications hadn’t quite filtered in then. They’d rebuilt her body.

Teal couldn’t tell if it was that realization or the leftover drugs in her system that made her feel sick.

Shaking, she pushed the sheet back and reached for the clothes. She tried not to look down as she dressed. She really did
not want to see what they’d done to her. The things they’d left weren’t her old clothes, which of course would now be too
small, but they were close enough, and they were clean. Underwear, bra, loose brown trousers, a soft gray tunic, and gray
woolen socks. The boots were her old, creased, familiar pair. Those, at least, still fit just fine, and somehow that made
her feel better.

In fact, she felt well enough to realize she was incredibly thirsty, and the pain of hunger added itself to the general pain
around her midriff.

“Can I come down?” called someone from the top of the stairs. A man. The tailor.

“Yeah,” Teal tried to say, but all that came out was a hoarse croak. The tailor couldn’t possibly have heard, but he came
down the stairs anyway. Teal didn’t have time to be angry before she saw the jug and bowl in his hands. He set them both down
in front of her and stepped back. Teal lifted the jug with shaking hands and drank. Water, sweet and clear, poured down her
burning throat. She drank until she thought her lungs would burst, forgetting that the man was even there.

Finally she lowered the jug and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Thanks.” She set the jug down and reached for the bowl. It was the very familiar porridge she had hated in the dorms. She
didn’t care. Right now it smelled wonderful. She picked up the spoon and started shoveling food into her mouth with a speed
that would have had Chena rolling her eyes. Her muscles protested every movement, but she didn’t stop or slow down. The food
was all that mattered.

“As soon as you’re done,” drawled the tailor. “You’re going to have to go.”

That actually stopped her. Teal swallowed the mouthful she had. “Go? Where?”

“The docks,” he said patiently, but Teal heard the strain under his voice. “We have to get you out of here and up the pipe
quickly. We couldn’t find a permanent new chip for you, so you’ve only got an overlay in your hand, and it’s going to decay
quickly. Until then your name is Collie Od, you got that? Collie Od.”

“Collie Od,” Teal repeated.
You couldn’t get me a
good
name?
Teal swallowed again. “I’m not sure I can walk,” she admitted.

The tailor gestured dismissively. “You’re going to have to. Get yourself together.”

The food and water had worked enough on Teal that she had enough strength to get angry. “What’s the hurry? You didn’t do the
job right?”

The tailor frowned. “You didn’t think there might be people looking for you? You’re valuable and you vanished. That’s enough
for the hothousers to get the cops to arrest you on suspicion.”

“On suspicion of what?”

“Whatever they want.” He shrugged impatiently. “Now let’s go. I do not keep contraband in my store. You either walk out of
here or I drug you and you go out in one of the baskets.” He spread his hands. “Your choice.”

The thought of being knocked out again turned Teal’s stomach. “Give me a second.”

“A second is about all I can give you.”

Teal scraped the last of the porridge off the bottom of the bowl and crammed it into her mouth. Then she swallowed all the
water she could hold. Gasping for breath, she set the jug down again. A glance at the tailor’s face told her she could not
delay any longer. So she tightened all the muscles in her legs and stood up.

Pain shot through her entire body with an intensity that rocked the floor under her. Her hips were too wide, the ground was
too far away. She could not find her balance, and the more she teetered, the more pain ran up and down the muscles in her
legs and diaphragm. She couldn’t stand, but she couldn’t let herself fall either, not in front of this man and in the face
of the realization that this had been what she wanted, what she had come here for. Her muscles screamed in protest, making
the entire world sway and spin, but she tightened them anyway, and she remained on her feet.

The tailor didn’t even bother to nod; he just turned around and started up the stairs, assuming she would follow. Teal clenched
her teeth and forced her rubbery, too-long legs to walk forward.

She made it up the stairs, slowly, and shaking all the time as if she were about to fall apart, but she did make it. Outside,
the cool wind off the lake touched her skin and made her shiver, but also made her feel better somehow. She drank air in great
gulps as she followed the tailor down the boardwalk toward the shore. They passed the dune houses, with their deep-set windows,
and Teal stole glances at them as she passed, trying to catch her own reflection to see what she looked like now. She didn’t
have much luck, but it kept her mind somewhat off the pain in her guts.