Reclamation

"I'll give Zur-Iyal a call and see if she's willing to run a gene sample for me without going through channels. I'll see the results of that and then I'll know where it's safe to send this…person Eric's bringing in. After that, I'll have to see. Her people are from the same Evolution Point as mine, Eric said, so there should be plenty of places I could send her as long as the sequence is reasonably clean." The tank dragged at his shoulders, but Perivar didn't make a move to sit down. Unless Kiv offered him a chair, which would really be a piece of floor or counter, it was rude. Usually, they skipped formalities like that, but right now, Perivar felt the need to prove he could still observe proprieties.

"And when is…Eric arriving?"

"He just called me from the ground port. He should be here in another two and a half hours, if they have to catch the public line, two hours if they can find a chauffeur."

Kiv unwound himself from around the map table and stood on all his legs. "I will have to go explain this to my children. We are here, after all, to learn what your people will or will not do." Although his attention remained fixed on Perivar, his eyes sank deep into their sockets. "It has not been easy, Perivar."

"I know."

"It has been good, though, and I want myself and my own to be able to stay."

"I'll make sure it's over soon."

Kiv inclined his head, a gesture he'd learned from Perivar. He swiveled himself around and flowed through his back door.

Breathing another sigh, this time from relief, Perivar retreated into his own side of the workplace. As he stepped through the membrane, the gel slid off his skin, melding with its own substance again.

"Brain." He said aloud as he lifted his face mask.

"Receiving." He and Kiv had not been able to afford their own artificial intelligence, never mind an android, but they did rent time on the AI that operated their building's facilities.

"Get a real-time line open to Zur-Iyal ki Maliad at Amaiar Industrial Gardens, personal code A comma nine comma Yul Gan. Then, cross-load the active routing files on packet 73-1511 over to Kiv's map files and compare with the facilities timings and route the data back." He undid the tank catches and gratefully set it back in its rack. "And call the Roseran's bakery and reactivate my account and tell them to send down half a dozen fresh seed cakes to the kids." Another propriety. Where Kiv came from, you did not thank a father directly, you did a favor for his children.

"I have set your priority coding. Request one will be completed in five minutes. Requests two and three will be completed in three minutes. Request four will be completed in fifteen minutes."

"Nothing further." Perivar dropped into his chair and dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. The face mask was supposed to filter the light down to Perivar's comfort level, but any stay in Kiv's quarters still dried his eyes out painfully.

Eric, don't you try to play any fancy games with me, or I'll broadcast what you did to Kessa and Tasa Ad from one side of the Quarter Galaxy to the other.

Six years of relatively clean living; Perivar stared around his workplace. Thousands of packets of information delivered successfully and this was what he had. One room of hardware and two rooms of furniture. He didn't even own the walls around them. He was alive, which was definitely a plus, and if he hadn't stuck by Eric Born, he would not have been. Perivar knew that. When living on the edge had finally become too much, Eric had taken the ship, the pilot, and the ghosts. Perivar had taken the bank accounts, and that had actually seemed to be the end of it. Most of the time he kept the past in its own place and lived for the next shipment and the next deposit in his account. His open, honest, registered, and almost always empty account.

Brain beeped twice to get his attention.

"Open channel established and connected to Zur-Iyal ki Maliad."

Perivar straightened up to face the blank display that Brain angled up from the work surface in front of him. His fingers undid the catch on the bottom edge and he lifted the cover from the keypad. His memory strained to recall the watch command. His lips moved as he typed it in. The signal light on the edge of the pad blinked on. Green. No one was watching the line, at the moment. Perivar kept one eye on the signal light and touched the key to clear the view.

Zur-Iyal ki Maliad looked back at him with gold eyes half-hidden under a ragged curtain of straight black hair. The color of both was new.

"I like the look, Iyal." Perivar ran his hand through his own hair to comb it back. "Dyes or upgrades?"

"Upgrade on the hair. Stays dry in the rain. The eyes are overlays. UV screens. I'm seeing if I like them or not."