Trickster (17 page)

 
Now she had no idea if any of them were still alive, or even what their names might be. Martina had gone through three owners, and each one of them had changed her name. Through it all, she had held onto that one piece of herself. No matter what her owners had named her, she still thought of herself as Martina Weaver. Had her family managed the same thing? She had no way of knowing, and had long ago accepted the fact that she would never find out.

 
Martina paged through the electronic library again, more for something to do than anything else, and discovered she had overlooked a non-fiction book--
A True History of the Dream
by Dr. Edsard Roon. The title attracted Martina's eye. There were many versions of Irfan Qasad's story, and very few of them agreed on all points. Martina thought it interesting the way different versions conflicted. Her first owner had been a history professor who had bought her as a household servant, and he had allowed Martina to read from his library when she wasn't working. She had read a fair amount, trying to learn what had happened in the centuries her family had been sleeping. Later, when her Silence had surfaced, he had sold her for a tidy profit, but by then she had already acquired a decent background in galactic history.

 
Martina called up the book, and holographic pages appeared in front of her. The beginning was familiar stuff. Irfan Qasad, captain of a colony ship, arrived at a planet named Bellerophon and become the first human being to meet the alien Ched-Balaar, who had arrived there first. Initially Irfan and her people had been worried that the Ched-Balaar would be hostile, or they'd tell the humans to turn around and go back to Earth, but the aliens had been happy to share their new world, provided the humans fulfill one condition.

 
Martina blinked. She knew this part. The Ched-Balaar had asked their new neighbors to take part in a religious ceremony. There had been drumming in the forests and a gathering of peoples around a great fire. All the humans had drunk a special wine concocted by the Ched-Balaar, a wine that had sent most of them into a stupor. A handful of people had found themselves in the Dream. Irfan Qasad had been one of them, as had her eventual husband Daniel Vik. Here, however, Dr. Roon's version diverged from what she knew.  

 
The Atashi Records indicate very clearly that the Ched-Balaar, other-worldly beings of great power, selected only certain humans to take the holy nectar while the unworthy received nothing but thin beer. The special humans, chosen by the Ched-Balaar, would undergo a transformation. They would become blessed with Silence, and they would come to rule Bellerophon.

 But the Atashi Record also reveals that one human, Daniel Vik, used guile and trickery to learn what the Ched-Balaar were planning for their Chosen, and he also learned that he was not to be among them. This made Vik jealous, and he used more guile to ensure that he would receive a portion of the holy nectar. 

 When the night of the ceremony came, the Ched-Balaar came in procession through the talltree forests of Bellerophon to the central fire where the humans awaited them, the Chosen on the right and the unworthy on the left. Daniel Vik had been seated with the unworthy, but he approached the mighty Irfan Qasad. In her weakness for his fair face and his silver tongue, she allowed him to sit next to her. Irfan took the bowl of holy nectar from the first Ched-Balaar, drank, and passed the sacred bowl to Vik, who drank and passed it to the other Chosen while the Ched-Balaar chanted and beat their otherwordly rhythms.

 Irfan, Vik, and the Chosen fell into a stupor brought on by the holy nectar and the mysterious rhythms. They underwent the transfiguration and ascended to Silence in the Dream. But unknown to them, the DNA in Daniel Vik's saliva had tainted the nectar, leaving it corrupt. Although the Atashi Record is very clear on this, further proof is seen in the fact that Daniel Vik was weak in the Dream; he was never intended to go there in the first place. And none of the other Chosen were as powerful in the Dream as Irfan Qasad, who drank untainted nectar. 

 Martina paused. This was certainly different from everything else she had read--so different as to be laughable. That Daniel Vik had been a filthy bastard who betrayed his own wife and kidnapped one of his children away from her was widely accepted, but the idea that he had sabotaged the Awakening Ceremony was so radical it crossed the line into ridiculous. This Dr. Roon guy must have been laughed out of every academic hall in existence. And what was the "Atashi Record"? She had never heard of it. Shaking her head, Martina continued reading. 

 
Irfan Qasad very quickly grew to power in the Dream, learning even how to reach out of it and contact humans on other planets, people whose genetic structure made them kin to her, and therefore Chosen. She taught them how to reach the Dream themselves. But the other Silent on Bellerophon were weaker in the Dream because of Vik's deceitful taint. Proof of this is seen by how easily Irfan Qasad could reach the Dream; she was eventually able to do so without drugs or even trancing, while all those who drank after Vik could only enter the Dream through heavy use of both. 

 
Later, when Irfan's wisdom uncovered Vik's deceit and she attempted to correct his taint with the use of genetic engineering techniques, he opposed her at every side, his silver tongue turning her friends and even some of the mighty Ched-Balaar to his side. This corrupted even Irfan herself, who hid her experiments and produced three Silent children of Vik's issue. All were strong in their Silence, and this angered Vik so much that he became insane. He kidnapped their eldest son and fled her presence. 

 
Still angered beyond reason, Vik next raised an army to try to crush Irfan and the other Chosen. But Irfan entered the Dream and held him at bay until Vik was cut down by one of his own followers. 

 
Irfan and the other Chosen thought they were rid of Vik's taint at last, but such was not to be. His DNA had tainted the Ched-Balaar's holy gift of Silence. Only Irfan herself was pure; all others tainted. And when people learned to make ships that could travel quickly between the stars, they desired the Silent for use as communication. Pirates in search of Silent and their DNA invaded Bellerophon, kidnapping and plundering and making the Chosen into slaves. Irfan fled into the Dream to seek a solution and remained there for many years. When she returned, she told the Chosen that although their birthright was within their grasp, they would never be free of their shackles until they became as pure as she, and she laid down the Laws of the Atash: 

1. The Chosen must separate themselves from impure human society. 

2. The Chosen must dedicate themselves to purity of thought and deed.

3. The Chosen must confess their impurities to the Enlightened in order to begin cleansing themselves. 

4. The Chosen must give themselves over to obedience of the Enlightened that they may follow them into Light.
 

Martina shut the book off. Bored or not, there was only so much she could take. Was that thing meant to be a scholarly study or a religious text? For a history, it certainly glossed over or ignored an awful lot. A surviving journal from the time of Irfan Qasad had, Martina remembered, described Daniel Vik as going "insane with fury" when he found out that Irfan had genegineered their children for Silence, but there was plenty of hot debate about whether the reference was literal or metaphorical. It also completely ignored the fact that Silence itself had inadvertently led to the enslavement of so many Silent. If Irfan hadn't done her damndest to spread Silence throughout the galaxy as a method of intergalactic communication, founding her so-called Silent Empire, then two scientists separated by light years of space would never have collaborated, never have discovered slipspace, never have learned how to travel faster than light.

 
And Martina would never have been enslaved.

 
With the discovery of slipspace, humans and other intelligent life spread quickly through the galaxy, and the pokey colony ships vanished from living memory. They coasted slowly onward, their slumbering inhabitants confidently waiting to wake on a new, unspoiled world.

 
Then the slavers discovered them.

 
After almost a thousand years, all records of Martina, her family, and the other colonists had been lost or simply wiped. There was no proof that they weren't slaves, no one alive who even remembered they had existed. Dazed by the abrupt exit from cryo-sleep, the colonists had been unable to resist being shackled and herded aboard the slaver's ship. Later, they were hauled onto a space station and auctioned off. Martina had watched Utang being taken away by a slaver, though the slaver hadn't said why or where he was taking him. Then Martina had watched Evan and her mother being taken away by a woman in green. Martina had started to cry. Evan had said something to her, something about staying brave because he would find her one day, but she had barely heard him because she was crying so hard. Then he was gone.

 
Martina shook her head. It was all in the past--three owners ago, in fact. None of it mattered, and as long as she kept busy, either in the Dream or with her sketching, she didn't have to dwell on it.

 
Trouble was, she didn't have her sketchbook for drawing or her drugs for entering the Dream. There were the games and books on the computer, but Martina wasn't in the mood to read, and holographic games had never interested her. She rummaged around the computer terminal until she found the stylus, then searched the directory until she came across an art program. It activated at her command. Martina waved the stylus through the air, and it left a bright green trail in three dimensions. She nodded to herself. Three-dee art wasn't as fun as drawing, but it had its compensations.

 
Martina erased the trail and started sketching, just letting her hand go where it would. After a while, she realized she was creating pair a pair of rough portraits--a twelve-year-old boy with dark skin and eyes and a fifteen-year-old boy with equally dark skin but startlingly blue eyes. Evan and Utang. Annoyed with herself, Martina wiped the air clean and drew a series of animals. A falcon. A kangaroo. A koala bear. And all three reminded her of Evan. The koala had his eyes. The kanga mimicked his posture. The falcon shared his fierce expression. Angrily Martina wiped the holograms again and shut down the program. Then she sat down on the bed and drummed her fingers restlessly against her thighs.

 All life, why was she here?

 
CHAPTER FIVE

--
Inspector Lewa Tan, Guardians of Irfan

 
Gretchen slid through the crowd, avoiding elbows and insteps. Ken Jeung, head of the Collection's medical department, walked purposefully ahead of her. Jeung always walked purposefully, and somehow people always got out of his way. This made it hell to shadow him through the crowds on SA Station, and Gretchen's nerves were already wracked with the effort of doing so without attraction attention -- his or Security's. The fact that he was short and dark-haired didn't make trailing him any easier, since he tended to blend in with other humans.

 
The shimmering lights of FunSec jumped and capered all around Gretchen. Laughter bubbled out of casinos along with the jingling of metal chits. The only illumination was provided by the thousands of moving, glittering lights that flashed the names of the establishments or projected giant holograms toward the faraway ceiling, providing street entertainment and, incidentally, slowing traffic as people stopped to watch. Gretchen suspected the latter effect was a way of making sure people didn't breeze past the casinos, theaters, and restaurants without looking at them. Currently, a three-story tall human salsa dancer in a red dress was doing a highly suggestive routine with a tall green alien, and both were getting a lot of attention from just about everyone except Jeung.

 
Gretchen stepped around a waist-high creature with long fur and stubby legs, dodged between two humans, and sidestepped something that reminded her of a walking tree. Humans were a majority on SA Station, but only barely, and Gretchen couldn't identify many of the non-humans. Most of the different species had their own enclaves, but a great deal of mixing went on in FunSec.

 
The travel corridor was so tall and wide Gretchen found herself thinking of it as a street, complete with sidewalks, doors, windows, and vehicle traffic. Restaurants scented the air with smells of fried food, baked sweets, and other aromas Gretchen couldn't identify. Humans and non-humans chattered among themselves and with each other while dry computer voices provided translations. Music boomed overhead to accompany the holographic dancers. Vehicles zipped up and down the street, hovering just above the metal flooring. Crowded walkways made zigzags and lattices far above ground level. The only greenery came from the occasional potted tree. The erratic lighting, designed to make FunSec always feel like a night-time fun spot, left large chunks of shadow, and Gretchen used them to her advantage while following Jeung.

 
Jeung turned a corner and Gretchen hurried to catch up. By now she was fairly sure of her quarry's destination, but she didn't want to take a chance on being wrong. Her suspicions were confirmed when she reached the next street and saw Jeung mount a short flight of red-carpeted steps that led to a set of gold-rimmed obsidian doors. A uniformed door attendant touched her hat and held the door for him. Gretchen ducked into an alleyway and tapped her earpiece.