They talked, sometimes casually, sometimes with more seriousness, discussing events on other planets as seen on the newscasts. Laris started to realize she had a good mind. She could argue a point and make her reasons plain. And from the camps and overheard conversations at the circus on an assortment of planets, she had a hard-headed appreciation of what could be contributing circumstances to the problem as disasters unfolded. She'd been there five days when her own origins came up again.
"Logan said you came from Kowar?" Brad Quade looked at her kindly. Laris heard the unspoken part of the comment, that she did not look like a Kowar settler. They'd mostly been from the Asiatic parts of old Earth.
"I said 'sort of,'" she noted. "I don't really remember. Dedran adopted me out of the De Pyall refugee camp on Kowar. I'd been in camps for years. That was just the latest. But I was at the camp there for the last two years so I think of Kowar as where I came from, I guess."
Brad looked interested. "What do you remember from before that?"
Laris leaned her chin on her fists. "Not a lot." She thought back. "I was on a ship with others. No one I knew. I was eight or nine. We landed at Meril and I was there maybe a couple of years. Before that another camp. Ermaine I think. The camp before that they called De Pyall as well. It might have been on Yohal. My mother was still alive. I think I might have been four or five."
Storm looked up. "What happened to your mother?"
"She died," Laris said briefly. "She got sick. I think there were a lot of deaths in that camp. A woman looked after me for a while. She went to a different ship when they moved us again."
Brad's voice was gentle. "Don't talk about this if it distresses you."
The girl shook her head. "It's old. It doesn't bother me."
"Then, what do you remember about your mother? What did others call her when they spoke? Did she ever tell you stories of some place?" Brad leaned forward. "Do you remember any names, words that don't match other places you've been?"
Laris looked back—into the blank times. The times when she must have been loved and protected. When maybe she'd had a family of her own. They were still as they had always been for her ever since. Blank.
"I think I was sick when my mother was. I don't remember much about her. No names or people. Sometimes I think I dream. But I can't remember anything when I wake." She shrugged. "It doesn't matter."
Brad nodded. "But you know your name," he said quietly.
She answered without thinking. "I'm Laris. I've always been Laris."
"Yes." The tone was contemplative. "Yes, you are. Your name is the first thing you learn as a child and probably the last thing you forget. If it could be discovered where you come from, would you like to know?"
She thought about it. Knowing wouldn't cut her any slack with Dedran. But it would be nicer, good to be able to say that she was Laris of a particular place, not just a camp stray. She felt a sudden surprising flare of hunger. She'd like to know. She said so and Brad nodded.
"I'll make inquiries."
It was two days later before something dawned on the girl. If Brad started at the De Pyall camp on Kowar, the records there would show that she'd been bonded, not adopted. She thought of trying to persuade Brad to drop the idea, but it was probably too late. Anyway she could always say she'd just signed papers. That she'd thought it was an adoption. After all, she'd been twelve. Uneducated, ignorant, straight from a camp. Brad would believe that.
She was wrong but it would be months before she found out how wrong. It wasn't spoken about again until she was due to return to the circus for a day.
"Laris, we'd like you to come back to the ranch once you've seen the animals are well. Would you like to do that?" Brad's smile was gentle.
"Yes. If Dedran says I can. It's fun on the ranch." Her rare grin lit up her face. Beside her Logan bit back a sigh. He loved to make her smile. Laris smiled seldom and often tentatively, as if she wasn't sure she should. Considering what his father had discovered so far that wasn't surprising. Camp records had disclosed that the girl had been about ten when she arrived on Kowar. No known family. She'd left again at twelve.
Brad had checked how it was that a twelve-year-old had walked out of a refugee camp. He'd found her bond registered with another office. Except that the bond claimed her as sixteen. All of them could guess the reasons for that. Logan would have discussed their discoveries so far with Laris but Brad forbade it.
"I believe Laris knew she was bonded but hopes I won't have discovered that. She lied, probably out of shame; being bonded is quite a stigma on some planets. A child learns pragmatism in a refugee camp and accepting a bond was probably her only way out. Letting her know we've found out would spoil her time here. She wants to know where she came from and who she is. Leave it lie, son."
Logan had. At almost twenty-one he was discovering reasons why people could be fragile, but it had made him gentler with her. Storm, guessing at more than Logan could know of what Laris's life had been like, remained suspicious. A child growing up in the camps learned to care about their own needs first. Ethics would have gone to the wall as Laris fought to survive. He watched her with Prauo and later with the meercats and Surra. She was a natural. The animals liked and trusted her and she seemed to know by instinct what they wanted. After that thought his gaze on her sharpened; it could be he was right in his belief, that she had the true beast master empathy as well.
Maybe that was why the circus boss had bonded her. Anyone whose livelihood or passion was beasts would pay highly for someone that good. Perhaps his allowing her to visit the ranch was simply an employer making sure a valuable employee was content. He let his suspicions lapse temporarily and rode out with his wife, his brother, and Laris the next day. Tani was on Destiny, the silver three-quarter duocorn mare which was her usual mount.
Her coyotes put up a merin deer and all of them chased it laughing, not too serious in the pursuit. Minou and Ferarre joined in the spirit of it as the deer ran, their tongues lolling out in amusement. The deer doubled, twisted, and finally shook them off. She paused to look back at them from a small rise as her pursuers halted. Laris started to laugh.
"She looks so surprised. As if she thinks we're all mad." Her laugher was infectious and even Storm chuckled.
"It will keep her in practice."
"Oh," Laris said in mock-amazed tones. "So that's why we chased her. We're exercising the wildlife. Maybe we should find a few more. After all, Logan said that it's the growing season. The animals could be getting fat. Don't you think it would be a kindness to keep that from happening?"
"Couldn't we just set up a gymnasium for them?" Tani murmured. "That way they can exercise and we don't have to do half the work."
Storm looked at her. "Deer, deer. Aren't we lazy."
Logan groaned at the pun. "Puhlease. I only had breakfast a while ago. I may be sick." Laris was laughing again, a joyous carefree sound which somehow warmed them all.
"It isn't breakfast," she said sweetly. "It's as I said. Logan's just exercising the wild..." she paused and added the final word, "life."
This time they all moaned. Tani snorted. "Laris, you're being corrupted. That has to be one of the worst puns I've heard in years." Laris giggled. Storm studied her from the corner of his eye. She looked like a child when she was happy. But she wasn't. Brad said from the records she must be somewhere between sixteen and seventeen. So far he'd traced her to Ermaine. Still no more name than Laris. No planet of origin. No family listed.
He knew what it had done to him to be alone before he found his stepfather and half-brother. What had it done to her? It hadn't broken her. But things like that could warp and twist in ways which often weren't apparent to an outsider. Then too, small children could be amazingly resilient. Maybe she'd come out of the camps mind-whole. Brad thought she had, and his stepfather was a shrewd man. Storm sat back as his mount ambled after the others. Logan liked her. But Storm was very fond of his younger half-brother. He didn't want the boy hurt.