The Druid Gene (28 page)

D
arcy urged
Tesserae71 closer so they could look at the device together. A message appeared, and Tesserae71 recognized the code it used. It was from Hain. He said that the
Vermachten
had to be in orbit around Ulream because this sort of device wasn’t capable of long-range communication.

Suddenly their future didn’t look so dire. Darcy’s mind immediately began to race with possibilities.

The message said little more than “Awaiting further instruction.”

In the days that followed, Darcy recovered from her injuries quickly by sleeping a lot and never moving far from that spot under the tree. Once she got better, she did do some target shooting with one of the laser blasters Raub had left in the tern.

There was also a lot of time for conversation. The others were curious. They’d heard the things Raub had said. Darcy explained about the druid gene and how she’d actually killed Raub. None of them seemed surprised or disturbed by this news. “So I’m not fully human. I don’t know what I am. I guess I’m a bispecies hybrid.”

“We have a word for that on Limnuac, though I doubt you can pronounce it,” Nembrotha lisped. They said the word several times, and Darcy tried to repeat it, but Nembrotha insisted every time that she hadn’t gotten it right. It sounded a bit like the word sojourner. She liked that. She hoped that she was just on a temporary journey away from home and that she’d eventually get back, with Adam.

The four of them spent a lot of time discussing what their options were, how much Hain might know or would be able to detect about what had happened between Raub and Darcy on the surface of the planet, and what Raub might have done next, had he succeeded in his deadly game to catch and kill Darcy.

Soon they had a plan.

The only one who was unhappy with this plan was the one they needed to rely on the most to carry it out. As Darcy built up her strength, she coached Tesserae71 and practiced his script with him over and over again, until he became somewhat comfortable with his role.

“She will know I am fabricating this scenario,” he lamented in the minutes before they were due to begin. “My people do not tell falsehoods. It is not in our nature.”

“That is precisely why she
will
believe it,” muttered Nembrotha.

Tesserae71’s antennae quivered.

Darcy leaned forward and captured one of his restless forelegs in her hand. “You can do it. Just keep your statements brief and matter-of-fact, like we practiced.” She eased back against the tree. “Let’s have silence, everyone. Go ahead, Tesserae71.”

He hesitated, then tapped the button to send a transmission. “Ulream to the
Vermachten
, this is Tesserae71 on the surface.”

Within seconds Hain’s face appeared on the screen. Darcy stayed out of view of the camera but kept her eyes on Tesserae71, urging him on silently.

“Report,” Hain said.

Tesserae71 responded instantly, just as they had rehearsed. “The Lovek is unconscious. I have administered first aid, but he is in need of advanced medical care. I will lift off in moments to return him to the ship and will require your assistance upon arrival.”

Was it Darcy’s imagination or had Hain’s eyes narrowed?

“What of the girl, Darcy Eberhardt?” Hain asked.

“Dead,” Tesserae71 replied instantly.

Darcy smiled.

Hain didn’t skip a beat. “And the other prisoners?”

“Also dead.”

“And how are you still alive when the rest of your cadre has passed on?” Hain’s even, breathy voice asked.

Tesserae71’s mandibles worked, but he answered a split second later. “Unknown. Darcy Eberhardt applied regen gel to a wound I sustained. It may have extended my life-span.”

“Noted. Do not delay.”

“Yes, my queen.” Tesserae71 clicked the button to end the transmission.

Darcy barely dared to breathe.

They sat quietly, staring at each other, for a long moment.

“It worked!” Nembrotha shouted, sending spittle flying.

Selpis’s mouth turned up on one side. She picked up Nembrotha and boarded the tern.

Tesserae71 extended a foreleg to Darcy. She took it gratefully, grunting with effort as she got to her feet. She was mostly healed now, though the muscles and joints in her hands were still stiff. It would take some time to get fine motor control back, she assumed. She was fully charged and ready to move on to the next phase.

“You did it. I’m proud of you,” she said.

“Hold on to that pride,” Tesserae71 answered. “You haven’t seen me fly the tern yet.”

She smiled. Tesserae71 seemed to be developing a wry sense of humor. She liked that. She hoped that she had played a role in his personal evolution. Together, they walked toward the small ship. “What was Hain saying about your cadre? What did that mean?”

“Our life-spans are short, mistress. I am the last survivor of my cadre. There will have been a great deal of turnover since we left the
Vermachten
.”

She stopped to stare at him searchingly. “You chose to help me in your final days—”

His mandibles worked. “Yes. I would do it again. And perhaps I will serve you for many more. The healing gel is not normally used on my people. We are seen as…disposable, not worth the cost of medical supplies, because there is always another worker hatched to take one’s place and we train quite quickly. But the gel seems to have given me a new vitality. Though I was slow to heal, I am now restored to a more youthful vigor. You have saved my life several times over. I hope to return the favor.” He lifted his now-healed midleg and waved it around a bit. “I thought this was impossible. I’m glad it was not.”

“You are the last Tesserae then?” she asked softly.

“I am, yes.”

“You have value to me, Tesserae71. If our plan works, I will do whatever I can to extend your life even further.”

“Thank you, mistress.”

“Darcy. Call me Darcy,” she said, her smile returning.

“As you wish, my queen.”

Darcy sighed.

They ascended the ramp and Tesserae71 climbed into the pilot’s seat.

They secured themselves and took off.

D
arcy quickly found
that Tesserae71 had not been joking about his skill in flying the tern. The issue with steering that Raub had had during the landing was only a small part of the problem. Tesserae71 also had a bit of a lead foot.

Liftoff was dizzying but the ride soon smoothed out, though the craft tended to list to one side throughout the flight. Once they cleared the atmosphere it wasn’t noticeable anymore. The real problem was putting the tern in its berth.
Vermachten
opened the door for them, but Tesserae71 made two passes, aborting each at the last moment because some angle was wrong, before the third pass was successful. Even so, they crashed around a little before coming to rest. He repressurized the berth immediately.

There wasn’t time to congratulate him or let her stomach settle after the nauseating ride. As soon as the tern touched down, Darcy leapt from the copilot’s seat and retrieved the laser blaster Raub had held on her companions only a week or so before. She was a decent shot despite the stiffness in her fingers. She hoped she wouldn’t have to use it, but she would if she had to. This was who she was now.

She sent Selpis and Nembrotha into the lavatory and crouched down next to the copilot seat. She couldn’t be seen through the windshield, and she wouldn’t be immediately visible to anyone boarding unless they were looking for her. Then they waited.

A thud sounded against the hull, and an exasperated message arrived from Hain a few minutes later. “What is the delay? I’m waiting.”

Darcy nodded to Tesserae71.

He nodded in return, his antennae waving in tandem, having adopted the human gesture and made it his own. Behind his back he held the very same shock stick he had used during their escape from the
Vermachten
. He opened the door, extended the ramp, and burst from the tern, declaring with some desperation, “The Lovek is critical and needs immediate attention!”

Hain quickly passed into the ship. Darcy trained the gun on her then rose slowly to close the door again.

Hain swung around. “You,” she said in a monotone. She lifted her woody hands from her sides, displaying their emptiness. Darcy supposed it must be a universal sign of submission in response to a show of force, even this far from Earth.

Outside there was a scuffle as Tesserae71 brandished the shock stick to keep the medically trained hymenoptera at bay. She hoped he was okay.

“Yes, me,” Darcy said tightly.

“Where is the Lovek?” Hain asked.

“He’s dead.”

“You made the killing blow?”

“I did.”

“I see. Well, that changes things drastically,” Hain said, her reedy voice never changing tone.

“Your circumstances have certainly changed,” Darcy replied. She called out, “You can come out of the washroom! It’s safe!” The others slid out of the lavatory and stood waiting.

“I don’t see why my circumstances should change. I can be of use to you. What is it that you want?”

“I don’t think so.”

“I was just an employee, Darcy. I was paid. I had no loyalty to the Lovek. If you pay me well, I will serve you just as I did him.”

Darcy frowned. She hadn’t expected this kind of response. “I don’t trust you.”

“You have no reason to. You would find me useful, however. I know where Adam Benally is, after all. And I command the hymenoptera.”

“I’ll take that under consideration. Let’s go.” Darcy motioned with the laser blaster toward the door.

Hain inclined her head, stepped toward the door, then stopped. “As a show of goodwill I will not use my anipraxic link with the kuboderan to order every hymenoptera to descend on this berth with weapons drawn. In fact, I am telling them to accept you now as the new owner of the
Vermachten
.”

Darcy scowled. She had no idea what a kuboderan was or what anipraxic meant, and that was just the beginning of a whole slew of questions. “What?”

“It is lovek law. One who kills a lovek inherits their estate. This is your ship now, Darcy Eberhardt. I certainly have no claim on it. And there is more. You own extensive networks of ships. And land on various planets. You are a very wealthy young woman.”

Darcy was dumbfounded. She looked over at Selpis, who was blinking rapidly. She looked just as surprised.

Nembrotha waved their sensor stalks to get Darcy’s attention. “Having worked for the Yamaah Imperial Ambassadorial Synod, I can verify this claim quite easily if you give me access to communications.”

Darcy nodded numbly. This wasn’t going how she’d thought it would. She’d thought there would be fighting. Wasn’t that what Raub had been teaching her all along—that nothing she wanted or needed in the galaxy could be gotten without fighting for her life?

When they opened the door and stepped down the ramp into the berth, Tesserae71 stood with the shock stick at his side. The other hymenoptera had stopped resisting and were quietly waiting.

“You see?” Hain asked. “Of course, these wouldn’t give you trouble anyway.”

“Why not?” Darcy asked suspiciously.

Hain called to the hymenoptera milling around quietly. “Do you recognize this woman?”

“It is our mistress!” one of them clacked.

“She has returned!” said another.

“Our namesake!” said a third.

The rest was lost in a cacophony of clicks and clacks. They crowded around Darcy, getting as close as possible without touching her. Hain watched silently without displaying any emotion.

Darcy frowned. “What…?”

Hain tilted her head to one side, her eyes roving over the insects. “This is the cadre you hatched. They imprinted on you. The Lovek insisted that they be named after you.”

“You named them after me? What do you mean?”

One of the hymenoptera piped up, “I am Darcy46, and this is Darcy3, Darcy17, and Darcy91.”

Nembrotha coughed out a chortle. “That’s not funny at all!” they cried with glee, then proceeded to giggle maniacally on Selpis’s shoulder.

D
arcy couldn’t help
but think that they were about to run into some kind of trap Hain had laid in the ship. She kept the laser blaster ready, but nothing happened. She stood by while Tesserae71 put Hain in a holding cell, and they were free to roam without opposition.

She soon learned that “the kuboderan” was a giant sentient squid named Do’Vela who served as the ship’s navigator, and after everything that she’d been through, that didn’t surprise her in the least. She wondered if anything would ever surprise her again.

It turned out that anipraxia was a telepathic network that this navigator used to communicate with the crew. Of course it was. It didn’t take long for Darcy to join this network and to begin asking the navigator a lot of questions.

Luckily Do’Vela seemed happy to cooperate. Whether this was simply in her nature or by Hain’s command remained to be seen, but at any rate Hain was currently excluded from this network in the prisoner hold, and her influence on Do’Vela was blocked as long as she remained there.

Through Do’Vela Darcy learned how the
Vermachten
had broken free of the border-patrol net and the route the ship had taken since leaving Earth. Somewhere, on one of the stops along that route, Darcy would find Adam. She asked the kuboderan to plot a course toward the last place Hain had sold prisoners. To her surprise, the kuboderan did so with alacrity.

D
arcy paced the cramped bridge
, occupied by several Darcy-named hymenoptera, Selpis, and Nembrotha. Darcy98 turned. “Mistress, there is an incoming transmission from Yamaah addressed to Nembrotha.”

Nembrotha perked up and urged Selpis forward to the communications station. Darcy stood on the other side of Darcy98 to watch. Another brightly colored baryana came on-screen and confirmed what Hain had stated about lovek law. The ambassador would forward a death certificate, which would have to be digitally signed by an official witness to the body, and the
Vermachten
would be legally hers, along with all of Raub’s other legal holdings, once the form was submitted to the proper authorities.

“Well, that’s a problem,” Darcy stated after the transmission ended.

“What is?” asked Selpis.

“No one saw the body but me,” Darcy replied.

“Fripperdoodle. I will witness. I’m important,” Nembrotha said with a wet snuffle.

Selpis’s brow ridges went up. “You would perjure yourself for Darcy?”

“I will perjure myself to stick it to the Lovek,” they answered imperiously. “It’s a mild offense, anyway. And it will come to nothing because I’m sure Darcy knows a dead lovek when she sees it. Keeping all his stuff is a fitting end to that barbarian.”

“This is surreal,” Darcy whispered.

Selpis straightened. “I would tend to agree with you.”

Darcy resumed her pacing. “Do’Vela, are there any busy ports along that route where we could stop to safely let our passengers go?”

“Certainly there are. Several, in fact.”

“How long will it take to arrive at the nearest one?”

“Not long. Less than one spin would put us in orbit around Legare.”

“Okay, I want to do that first.”

“As you wish. We will jump shortly. Laying in coordinates now.”

Darcy62 confirmed that the course had been calculated and that a jump sequence was under way. On the central viewscreen a transparent, swirling, circular object formed, distorting the space around it. This gyre grew in size until suddenly the mouth of it pulsed and swallowed them up. Darcy gasped as a familiar but strange feeling rippled through her. And then they were somewhere else and Darcy62 was telling her that the remainder of the journey would be through standard space.

Darcy wondered if she would ever get used to this.

The door to the bridge opened, revealing Tesserae71. The hallway beyond was filled with hymenoptera, most of whom were of the slightly smaller, younger Darcy cadre.

“My queen, we await your leisure,” Tesserae71 said.

Darcy exhaled noisily. “Okay. Let’s go see what happens next.”

She made her way down to the prisoner holding chambers with Selpis, Nembrotha and the group Tesserae71 had brought. A hymenoptera pinned a voice-amplification device to her jumpsuit. She hadn’t washed yet, slept, or even eaten anything. She was still covered in mud and leaf fragments. Traces of Raub’s blood and her own still stained the front of her clothes from their fight in the rain.

She stared at the sea of faces, separated from each other in their tiny cells, each one of them unique in fascinating ways, hailing from a myriad of worlds, in all colors and sizes and shapes. By her reckoning, they all looked confused or alarmed or even hostile. She was about to shock them.

“I am Darcy Eberhardt. Some of you may remember seeing me here, as a captive alongside you. Like you, I was taken from my life and placed for sale. I am here to tell you that you are now free people. This ship is en route to a place called Legare where you will be free to disembark and find your way home.”

Complete silence answered her words.

“You have other options as well. You can stay on the ship and work for me. I seem to own it now. If you have loved ones who have been sold by the previous owner of the ship, please bring that to my attention. We will document your cases and do what we can to help you find them.”

Someone sniggered.

In the back someone else yelled, “Is this a joke?”

“Not a joke.” She turned to Tesserae71 and nodded. He nodded back and turned off the fields around every cell, except for Hain’s. Then Darcy stepped into the nearest cell, extended a hand to the feathery person inside it, and gently helped them over the barrier. They stood staring at her, dumbfounded.

“I won’t put up with fighting between you. If you pull anything, your freedom will be revoked until we reach Legare. No exceptions. If you don’t like someone, stay away from them. The hymenoptera will not be your guards anymore. They will be serving as peacekeepers. Got it?” She’d meant to say police, but the chip reformed the word into something a little different. She liked it better anyway.

No one else left their cell. They didn’t believe her.

Darcy held out her hands. “Come on, now. It’s all right. We’ve set out some food in the hallway. You can have as much as you want.”

Still no one moved, but a low murmur rose as the prisoners voiced their disbelief to each other.

She crossed another barrier and led another prisoner out. Then another. She motioned for the hymenoptera to do the same. Selpis joined in too. Soon a few individuals took tentative steps outside their geometrically shaped holding cells. More followed. The rooms filled with a roar as the prisoners congratulated each other on their good fortune. And slowly, a few at a time, people began to leave the confines of the room to see if there really was food in the corridor.

Darcy remained on her guard, walking the perimeter of each of the holding rooms, watching the crowds milling about with an eye out for discord. All sorts of people had been held in these cells. Some of them could have been from opposing factions or criminals of just about any flavor. She didn’t want anyone to get hurt because she’d let them go.

Nembrotha had told her she shouldn’t have released them from the cells until just before she dumped them on Legare, but that seemed heartless to her. She felt they needed some time to get used to the idea before they were forced to face a new challenge. She had no idea how hard it was going to be for some of them to get back home. There were some, like Selpis, who would have no home to go back to. And what would happen to them?

“Why do you look so unhappy, Darcy?” said a soft, toneless voice.

Hain.

Darcy had been lingering in the corner where Hain was being held. Some part of her was afraid the other captives might want to take revenge on Hain, and Darcy had a feeling that Hain might yet be useful. She didn’t want violence of any kind, regardless.

Darcy met her eyes. “Do I?”

Hain swayed to one side like a reed. “I would think you’d be jubilant, having set all these people free, and yet your expression seems to reveal that you are distracted, worried. What is it that you worry about?”

Darcy’s eyes narrowed. “How do you feel about me setting them free?”

“How I feel makes little difference.”

There was something so odd about staring into such an expressionless face, listening to such a bland voice. Hain seemed to cultivate the perception that she existed divorced from any emotion. And maybe she did. “Why not?”

“You seem to think that I was free to choose this life for myself.”

“Are you telling me you weren’t?” Darcy asked.

“The Lovek found me after I stole this ship and allowed its crew to die a horrible death on my homeworld. He drew up a contract. He agreed not to turn me over to galactic authorities or to hurt my people if I worked for him. I became an indentured servant at that point and would have been for his entire life. There was no sense in refusing to do anything he commanded. He gave me the run of the ship and the illusion of freedom as long as I maintained the charade that I was the one behind every order so that he could maintain his solitude and anonymity. Even if you keep me in this cell, you have freed me. From him.”

Darcy frowned. Hain had allowed people to die and stolen a ship. If that crew had worked for Raub though, Darcy could guess they’d been up to no good. This information painted Hain in a new light. “How do I know you aren’t just saying this?”

Hain fluttered her hands in a way that Darcy felt was akin to a shrug. “You’ll find the contract in his quarters.”

“Why didn’t you just kill him then? You’d be the one who owned everything.”

Hain’s eyes drooped a little. She looked back at the circulating crowd of prisoners. “He planned for that. If I were to file a death certificate, a large bounty would be set on my head and terrible injury would come to my people. He would brook no disobedience from those who served him.”

Darcy nodded.

She believed Hain. She wouldn’t be foolish. She’d check into this, but if Hain’s story was true, then Hain was just as much a victim as any of them were. She motioned to three hymenoptera nearby and asked them to release Hain, keep her well guarded, and follow her. Then she rounded up Selpis, Nembrotha, and Tesserae71 and asked them to come along.

Raub’s quarters were gross. They were decorated like something out of a hunting lodge crossed with a whore’s boudoir from a bad Western film. There were actually furs and skins on the bed, and she didn’t doubt that they were authentic.

The documents were on a tablet computer. Nembrotha pored over them and declared that all of the digital seals looked authentic and they could send an inquiry to verify them.

Nembrotha waved their sensory stalks at Hain. “It seems you may not be the vicious sadist we all assumed you to be.”

Hain remained poised. “I urge you to investigate the digital seals. And I would like to offer a simple suggestion and my assistance. If you deem that effort worthwhile, I would ask that you confine me out of reach of the other prisoners until after we leave Legare.”

Darcy leveled a hard look at Hain. “Go on.”

“I suggest that you consider giving each prisoner a small sum as a travel allowance. Without some currency, they will quickly find themselves in a more dire situation on Legare than they ever were in here. As Raub’s legal proxy I can transfer some of his considerable wealth to a bank on Legare and have chits made up for each one of them in whatever amount you feel is fair. That will give them a better chance of survival and of getting home.”

Darcy conferred with Selpis and Nembrotha and decided on an amount. They watched intently while Hain made the arrangements via the computer console in Raub’s quarters. According to her two companions, Hain didn’t do anything fishy.

“That was a good idea. I should have thought of it,” Darcy said. “I will confine you to your quarters until after Legare. If any of the other prisoners stay behind, they’ll be informed about the situation.”

Hain bowed her head. “Thank you, Darcy. I hope to be of service to you again soon.”

Darcy picked up a tablet and asked Hain to open the file that showed her genetics. Then she had the hymenoptera escort Hain to her quarters and set up a watch outside the door.

She pored over it carefully. She’d been too shocked the first time to fully comprehend it all. The things she wanted to know were there. There were alien genes on both sets of alleles. That was how she’d gotten the full complement. She’d inherited druidic traits from both parents—one more than the other, but they were both carriers.

How common could this be on Earth? How many others were there like her? Were there many? Or was she unique? A freakish coincidence?

Nembrotha stayed on the tabletop, poking at the computer terminal with the two small tentacles on the front of their foot and occasionally one of their sensor stalks, composing another message to inquire about the veracity of Hain’s claims.

Selpis sat down on the floor wearily, eschewing the bed and the rest of the gruesomely draped seating. “Who will you send to the bank tomorrow to retrieve the chits?”

Darcy sat down next to Selpis with her back against the bed. “I was hoping to send you and some hymenoptera.”

Selpis shook her head. “That won’t do. Not with that sum of money.”

Darcy turned to look at Selpis. “Why not?”

“Tesserae71 tried to explain it to you. Insect species are treated as less than, Darcy. It wouldn’t be safe. They’d be targeted.”

Darcy huffed and shook her head in disbelief.

“What is it?” Selpis asked.

Earth was not unique. The rest of the galaxy also found ways to revile individuals for reasons that had nothing to do with their own actions or their character. Out here, the color of her skin no longer mattered, but she’d taken on a far-worse impediment. She was a dangerous druid who would be imprisoned if anyone detected her genetic makeup.

Darcy sighed. “The hymenoptera and I have more in common than I thought.”