26. Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Kieron’s blood went cold. “Taken?” he repeated, kneeling down so he was on Pol’s level. “Taken by whom?”
“The city magistrates! They said Mama was speaking sed … sidi … it’s something that means lies,” he said tearfully.
“So they took her away! Mother Laina says she’s already been moved to Garelle.
” Garelle was the continental capital, where Trakta’s government had been leaping into so many bad decisions lately.
“What do they want with her?” Kieron asked quietly.
He could imagine Xilinn having trouble keeping herself from speaking out against the new separations of classes, despite him bringing Zak’s body back to protect her own children.
She was a teacher and dedicated herself completely to her students.
Seeing some of them torn away from their old lives and forced down a harsher path had to infuriate her.
“Papa Kriev said she’s going to be another example,” Pol whispered, anger twisting his little face.
“I hate him! He could have asked for her back, but he’s already courting another mother and father in Garelle.
He wants to forget about my mama and change me and Szusza and Lorna’s names and everything!
” Lorna was Zak’s other biological child, with Laina.
That couldn’t be legal … then again, Kieron didn’t really know what qualified as legal right now.
Everything in Trakta was up in the air—its justice and legal systems, its healthcare, its educational institutions.
To not only not contest Xilinn’s abduction but to be complicit in it, though … “What does Laina think of all this?”
“She doesn’t care!” Pol began crying. “She told me not to speak to you at all, but I have to because you’re the only one who might be able to get Mama back.”
How in starlight’s name was he supposed to get Xilinn out of whatever hole she’d been dragged off to? It wasn’t like he’d come here with an army; he’d come alone …
Well. With a very intelligent ship, actually, but …
Oh, shit.
Distantly, Kieron heard something beeping. “Pol,” he said firmly, “we’ll figure this out. All right? We will, I promise, but right now I need to go back to the kitchen before Laina realizes I’m missing. Can you meet me behind the house in five minutes?”
“Yes.” Pol sniffled, rubbing beneath his eyes with the edge of one hand. He was six now, only six, and this was what he had to deal with. He had to be terrified.
“Good boy,” Kieron said, and before he could second-guess himself, he pulled Pol into a hug. The little boy shuddered for a moment in his arms, but he didn’t fall apart. “I’ll meet you behind the house very soon. Only come if you won’t be caught, all right?”
“Okay.” He reluctantly stepped out of Kieron’s arms, then turned and ran down the hall, his feet nearly silent on the dark floor. Kieron stood up and went back into the kitchen, picking up his cup again just as Laina rejoined him.
“It’s authentic.” She beamed at him, genuine delight on her face.
It reminded him of how she’d once looked, almost a decade ago, back when she had first married in, and things were so much happier than they’d become.
She had been more open-minded in her youth, inclined to listen to others and not just defend what she knew.
She’d even considered leaving Trakta for a brief tour of the nearest star system although in the end, she hadn’t quite been willing to risk it.
To think that now she was complicit in letting her wife wither away in some government containment facility. Kieron had to force himself to smile back at her.
“I knew it would be.”
“I’ve already let Kriev know,” she said, rubbing her hands together. “Oh, this is such a relief, I can’t even tell you. I was so worried about the children.”
“Xilinn told me she was concerned that if I didn’t find Zak, you might have to leave with Lorna,” Kieron said with all apparent sympathy. That wasn’t exactly what Xilinn had said, but Laina didn’t need to know that.
“Oh, something like that. But it doesn’t matter anymore.” She sighed deeply. “Now everything will be all right. Lorna and Szusza will be thrilled they get to stay with Ophred.” Ophred was her son with Kriev, the only child whose parentage hadn’t been in question because of Zak’s loss.
“Not Pol?” Kieron asked as innocently as he could.
Laina waved a dismissive hand. “He and his older brother don’t really get along, not like the girls do. He’ll come around. Now …”
She wanted him to go, that much was clear. “Well, I should get back to my ship.”
Laina nodded firmly. “That would be the best course of action for us all. Thank you very much for bringing Zak home. As soon as Kriev is back, we’ll gather the children and inter him with all due ceremony.”
No mention of Xilinn coming back for it even though she’d been Zak’s primary spouse. Not one. Laina had already given up on her.
That could only mean bad things for Xilinn. Kieron already knew he couldn’t leave her here.
He needed to talk to Pol. To think that a six-year-old was his main source of information regarding saving a woman’s life …
[You’re upset,] the corner of his vision read. Lizzie was talking to him. [What can I do?]
[Stand by,] he wrote back. “Please give Xilinn my best,” Kieron said as he got up to leave. “And thank you for the tea.”
“You’re welcome.” She saw him to the door, watched him walk down to the skimmer and get inside, and only went back into the house as he began to pull away.
Fine with him. Kieron directed the skimmer to the end of the street, up one level to the next section of roadway, and parked it on a median there. He’d be able to climb down and meet Pol, with no one the wiser, as long as he didn’t let the vehicle linger for too long.
[Kieron? Should I tell Elenus and Catie what’s going on?]
[Hold off on that.] He needed to know what to tell them first. Kieron left the skimmer, stepped onto the long, terraced pole that held up this part of the causeway, and walked down it to where he could see the small boy peeking out of his backyard, watching him descend with hope written all over his face.
Kieron hoped he could live up to whatever Pol was expecting of him.
***
It took less than five minutes for Pol to tell the rest of what he knew and another five for Kieron to verify what he’d said and to look into things more closely.
Then he spent one minute standing there and fuming in silence to himself as he did his best not to panic in the face of Pol’s obvious hope and fear.
Xilinn was being held in a government-run “retreat” for dissidents.
It wasn’t quite a prison—the people confined there lived in individual, small apartments and had access to green space—but it was surrounded by a security fence, patrolled by armed guards, and allowed no communication with the outside world.
Her implant had been deactivated, showing her as “unknown” whenever someone reached out to it.
But that wasn’t the worst thing. Even her husband’s own complicity in turning her in—he’d put up no fight when she was removed from their home, offered no protest, all in an effort to smooth things over with the couple he was currently courting—wasn’t the worst thing.
The worst thing was that she, and everyone else in the retreat, were about to have their citizenship revoked and be sent off planet in one week. And once they were gone, they would never get back onto Trakta.
It was the worst kind of catch-22. Without citizenship and with a record of protest, they wouldn’t be able to return home.
But with the stigma of being a person from Trakta, the Alliance wasn’t going to be eager to welcome them onto any of their worlds either.
If they were given formal refugee status, things would change, but even with Lizzie’s help looking, Kieron couldn’t see any sign that they were going to be so formally dismissed.
Instead, it seemed like all these people—over two hundred—were going to be shoved onto ships, something many of them had a deep, desperate fear of—and jettisoned into space with no guidance or help.
They were going to lose their collective minds.
“Kieron?” Pol’s hands, tugging at his sleeve, were enough to pull Kieron out of the silent communication he’d been engaged in with Lizzie. “Is Mama going to be okay?”
“I don’t know,” Kieron said honestly, then winced as Pol immediately began to cry. “Wait, no, that—hang on, it’s okay, just …” He pulled the kid into his arms and shushed him as he wailed. “No, really, it’s going to be okay. I’m going to help her.”
“How?” Pol demanded tearfully.
How indeed? [Lizzie, can you come up with an assessment of the facility where the dissidents are being held? Use whatever processing power you can spare from controlling your measurable radiation for this; it’s an emergency.]
[Yes, Kieron. Shall I tell Catie and Elenus what’s happening as well?]
He sighed. He didn’t want them dragged into something that was none of their business, but … maybe if it was Kieron’s business, it was their business too. Definitely if it was something he was going to involve Lizzie in, they needed to know about it. [Yes, but don’t give them too many details.]
[All right, Kee.]
Kieron looked back at Pol. “I’m not sure yet, but I promise I’ll do everything I can to rescue her.”
“Can you bring her back here?” Pol asked.
“No,” Kieron said with a sigh. “I’m afraid not. You … you know Papa Kriev and Mama Laina are courting another couple, right?”
Pol scowled. It was an unfairly cute expression on his little, round face. “It’s all they talk about,” he grumbled. “Parsen and Xivi all the time, gross. They have three kids too.”
“You’d be a much bigger family with them around,” Kieron noted. “It would mean more playmates, right?”
“No, because they’re all old kids. Like, ten! And they go to schools that are far away from home, and now Papa Kriev and Mama Laina want to send me and Szusza and Lorna and Ophred to schools like that too!” He crossed his arms grumpily. “I won’t go. I’ll run away first.”
“You can’t do that.”
“Yes, I can!” Pol pointed at the forest. “I can run away in there! I’ve done it before—I got lost for a whole day before Mama found me! She said it was lucky she caught me before nightfall because otherwise I could have been eaten by a cavernous tree.”
“Um.” Kieron tried to parse that sentence. “A carnivorous tree?”
“Yes!”
Actually … Kieron scanned a quick breakdown of Trakta’s flora and fauna in his implant and shuddered.
Xilinn had been right to be worried. There were actual carnivorous trees in this forest, highly prized for the many pharmaceutical compounds that could be derived from the digested remains of their victims, usually an indigenous monkey-like species.
If Pol ran in there, and no one went after him …
“You really shouldn’t do that,” Kieron said.
“I will!” Pol insisted, actually stamping his foot on the ground. “I will if I can’t see Mama again soon! I will, I will, I—”
“Okay, okay.” Kieron held up his hands. “I need to figure out a way to help your mama, though. That means no running off yet, not even if your other parents are talking about her like she’s never coming back. I won’t leave the planet until I make sure she’s safe.”
“You promise?” Pol asked.
“I do.”
“Okay.” The child took a deep, wobbly breath. “I promise to not run away, then, even if Papa Kriev and Mama Laina are shitheads.”
Kieron blinked. “Where did you hear that word?”
“From Devin at school! He says that about his other parents all the time,” Pol said proudly.
Not for the first time, Kieron wondered how harmonious many of these group marriages really were. He’d done the right thing, refusing Zak’s offer to bring him into this one even though it had hurt at the time. He’d never have been able to keep so many people from going after each other’s throats.
“Pol!” It was Laina, in the backyard a few dozen meters away. “Where are you? It’s time for dinner!”
“Go with her,” Kieron whispered. When Pol began to shake his head, Kieron elaborated, “I can’t look for your mama if I’m here watching you. I’ll stay in touch, though, I promise.” How, he wasn’t yet sure, but he’d do it.
“You have to,” Pol whispered fiercely.
“I will.”
“Pol! I won’t ask you again!” Laina shouted. “One more delay and you spend your next day off cleaning the family shrine!”
“I’m coming!” Pol shouted, then turned and ran for his house. Kieron watched him go, then climbed back up to his skimmer.
“To the port,” he said when it prompted him about his destination, then sat back and rubbed his temple with one hand.
He was going to have a lot of explaining to do to Elenus when he got back to Lizzie.