Reclamation

What do you think I am? asked Eric from memory again. It was his old voice, heavily accented and awkward. Nothing like the smoothly educated tone he'd used today.

Cargo, thought Perivar. Checked over, labeled as clean and delivered, or too dirty to fix and dumped.

Certainly not a person who would look at him like Aria was, vaguely expectant, waiting for him to do something.

"Want to sit down?" he gestured to a chair.

Her eyes tracked his hand and a puzzled expression wrinkled her brow. "Thank you…I don't know how to call you." The translation fell a long way out of synch with her real speech.

"Perivar," he told her. "My partner is Kivererishakadene. Kiv's the name you have to remember there. The rest of it belongs to the children." Perivar nodded to the two in the capsule.

Taking that as some kind of cue, Ri raised the capsule back up to the ceiling cables and rattled back toward their own side.

Kiv stretched himself out toward the membrane. "Have you borne your children yet?"

Perivar shot Kiv a look, uncertain whether he was being really absentminded this time, or if he was trying to pay Aria back for her shocked stare by making her uncomfortable.

She sank onto the edge of the chair Perivar had offered her. "Four living," she said quietly, and Perivar translated it for Kiv.

Kiv's subtle ripples told Perivar he was trying to make the mental readjustment. The only thing more alien to Kiv than a male without children, was a parent who lived away from them. Even though the kids theoretically understood humans' strange ways better, Ri and Sha piled on top of their sisters as soon as they got out of the capsule, as if the idea that a brood and parent could be separated would magically tear them away. Kiv automatically coiled himself around them, buzzing softly.

Perivar turned his back on his partner. "We need to get a blood sample," he said to Aria, "so we can find out what we can do with you."

"Eric told me." She held out her arm without changing her expression.

Yeah. Perivar shook himself. Now where'd I put…No, I threw that all away. Let's see…He pulled open a corner drawer and found a utility knife and a piece of plastic wrapper. He tossed them both in the heater and set it on sterilize.

When he turned back around, she was still holding her arm out, waiting patiently for him to draw blood.

He laid the knife against her fingertip and pressed down. The skin broke and the blood welled scarlet around the blade. Aria didn't even flinch.

Perivar, we just got the answer. The sample's clean. Tell the client. Perivar, sample's no good. We're going to have to dump 'em. Perivar, sample says they'll be able to take it for at least a year down there. Let the client know we 're bringing them in.

He wiped her cut off with the wrapping and dropped her hand.

Perivar, I don't think you understand what you're doing…You'll do what you're told you damned barbarian or you're dead…Try me, Skyman, just try me.

Leave me alone! he shouted to the memory voices.

Perivar taped the wrap closed around the bloody smear.

"Brain. Get a courier cart up here, on the double; I've got a package for Zur-Iyal at the Amaiar Gardens." He and Iyal had never stopped sending each other things; souvenirs or jokes or small presents. One more package wasn't going to generate any more attention, even from the watchful Vitae.

"Priority rating assigned. Request one will be completed in five minutes." The voice from the ceiling startled Aria but not badly. Perivar slid the sample into a wrapper and dropped it into the hard mail bin. Reluctantly, he turned back to Aria.

"There's not much for us to do until we get an answer on this. You can wait in here." He led her into his living rooms.

Perivar picked a few old schedule printouts up off the sofa and said, "Make yourself comfortable," before he walked out into the workroom again. He closed the door behind him.

"All right." He strode back to the map table. "Where were we?"

"Perivar…"

Perivar touched two keys to clear a space in the corner of the display for schedule data. "I think I remember seeing that Haron Station will be supporting a six-layer open channel between…"

"Stop this."

Startled, Perivar looked up. On the other side of the membrane, Kiv and all five of the kids stared at him, eyes and ears focused entirely in his direction. For the first time in years, that attention made his skin crawl.