“Wait,” she murmured. “We aren’t out of this until we’ve cleared the building.”
Kendi checked himself, but Ara didn’t miss the look he shot at Ben, as if the young man were a rescue pod in hard vacuum. Part of Ara bristled. Although Ben had tracked Kendi down on the nets, Ara had arranged for his release, and now Kendi was all but ignoring her.
On the other hand, I don’t feel about Ben the same way Kendi does, she thought wryly. I wonder if Kendi knows how transparent he is?
Ben gave Kendi a small smile and patted his shoulder as the three of them exited the patrol station.
Outside, hazy clouds covered the sun, but the air, as usual, was mild. The sidewalk was crowded. A pair of slaves washed windows near a pile of broken concrete. Another group of slaves dug into the exposed earth beneath the cement. They did not, Ara noticed, have power tools, and their clothes were ragged and filthy. An overseer in a red uniform watched them, energy whip in hand.
The little group trotted quickly up the street. After they turned a corner, Ara ran a small scanner over all three of them.
“No bugs,” she said. “We can talk.”
“Thank all life!” Kendi burst out, ignoring the odd stares he gathered from passers-by.
“Are you hungry?” Ben asked.
“Starving.”
Ara looked at him, and then, with a glance at the crowded street, drew him into an empty doorway. “You’re looking awfully cheerful for someone who was so depressed a minute ago.”
“That was an act,” Kendi replied. “Mostly. In order to keep other…people off my back, I acted crazy. Manic-depressive. Most of the people in there are afraid of lunatics. You showed up during my depressive phase.”
“And now you’re manic?” Ben commented dryly.
Ara shook her head, still worried. Despite his explanation, she didn’t like Kendi’s cheerfulness. It was too sudden, even for him. Kendi was a child of open spaces, someone who coped with extended voyages by spending long hours in the Dream. A fortnight in a Unity prison must have been a nightmare of the worst kind.
“Let’s get you something to eat,” she said. “And you can tell us what happened.”
“I found him,” Kendi said.
“Who?” Ara asked.
“The kid. The one we’re looking for. I found him.”
Ara caught her breath. “How? Where is he? What’s he-”
“Mother,” Ben interrupted firmly. “You just said that Kendi needs to eat. I agree.”
Ara’s first impulse was still to ignore Ben and ask Kendi more questions. A glance at Kendi’s ashen face, however, destroyed that idea.
“You’re right,” she said. “I got carried away. Food first, questions later.”
“Back at the ship?” Ben asked.
Ara nodded. “Safest place to talk.”
An hour later, Kendi, newly showered and in clean clothes, sat on his bed. Harenn sat next to him, methodically probing his wounds with fingers and medical scanner. Ara occupied the room’s only chair and watched intently. Kendi winced under Harenn’s ministrations but didn’t cry out.
“You’re barbaric,” he growled.
“The Australian aboriginal tribes,” Harenn said, “are reputed to have a superhuman ability to withstand pain. I assumed this is why you refused painkillers. You do not have this ability?”
“That was before the whites tainted us,” Kendi said. His voice was still too cheerful for Ara’s taste.
Harenn ignored him. “Your concussion has healed, as have the bruises and the cut. You have cracked no ribs. There is really nothing for me to do except give you pain medication, and you do not wish this.”
“What about the boy?” Ara said from her chair. Her worries about Kendi would have to wait.
Kendi explained about the alley, the fight, and the Unity patrol. “So I was arrested,” he finished. “The kid must have taken the time to search my pockets and grab the drugs. Otherwise I would’ve been in really deep cabbage.”
“And you were not before?” Harenn muttered.
“I want to be clear on this,” Ara said. “The boy possessed you.”
Kendi nodded. “I felt that little shift you always get after someone else leaves your mind, but I hadn’t let him in. It was a possession-or something very close to it. What’s amazing is that he must have hit the patrol at the same time. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gotten away. That’s three people all at once, and two of them weren’t Silent.”
Ara gnawed her lower lip. The situation frightened her more with every passing moment. There was someone out there who could take over the mind of an unwilling person-more than one person, in fact. There was no recorded instance of a person with such an ability in the entire history of the Dream. How many people could this boy control? Six? A dozen? An army?
If, in your opinion, this child would pose a threat to the Confederation…
“Why did he not possess the men who attacked him?” Harenn asked. Her dark eyes were half-closed above her opaque blue veil. It made her look sleepy.
“I think he was going to,” Kendi said. “Then I showed up.”
A knock came at the door and Ben entered with a tray. Kendi’s head jerked around and Ara almost rolled her eyes. She knew about Ben and Kendi’s breakup, of course. She knew that Ben had done the breaking. But when she’d pressed for details, Ben had refused to give them. Ara gave a mental sigh. Ben was like his mother-too tight-lipped for his own good.
Ben handed Kendi the tray. Delicious smells of spiced beans and honeyed bread wafted up from the dishes. “Jack’s talking to a buyer,” he said. “So I made you lunch.” He looked around for a place to sit and, seeing none, took up a spot on the floor.
“You cooked?” Kendi said, genuinely impressed. “Wow.”
Ben shrugged. “Someone had to. I hope it’s okay.”
Kendi tried a bite and smiled. “It’s great. Though anything would be better than the slop I’ve been eating lately. Not,” he added hastily, “that this is anywhere close to that. I mean-”
“Shut up and eat, Kendi,” Ben laughed.
“Have there been other disturbances in the Dream?” Kendi asked.
“Yes,” Ara said. “Silent all over the galaxy are frightened. Gretchen also managed to strike up a conversation with two Unity Silent without letting them know who she was. They’ve felt the boy’s presence, and they suspect his power goes beyond normal Silence.”
“Hell,” Kendi muttered.
“They haven’t narrowed his location to Rust,” Ara concluded, “but they are looking.”
“How do we find this boy, then?” asked Harenn. “Before the Unity does?”
“I’ll go back to the red light district,” Kendi said, mouth full. “None of you knows what he looks like.”
Bad idea. Bad idea. “The guard will be watching for you,” Ara warned.
“So?” Kendi countered in that maddenly cheerful tone. “My fines are paid. I’m not on a work list. They can’t do anything to me.”
“Except follow you, harrass you, and re-arrest you under trumped-up charges like they did the first time.”
“I don’t see any other way,” Kendi breezed. “In fact, I can start looking tonight. I feel fine.”
The hell you say, Ara thought.
“Make a composite drawing on the computer,” Harenn said. “That would be simple enough. Ben could put this image into our implants and set the computer to scan for the child. Then more of us could start looking.”
“Good idea,” Ara said, shooting Harenn a grateful look.
“But-” Kendi began.
“Get to it as soon as you can.” Ara got up and moved for the door. “We can all fan out tonight. If anyone finds him, I want you to follow him. Find out where he lives. If you can get close enough, plant a tracer on him. It’ll be easier to persuade him to come with us if we know something about him. Kendi, you stay here and rest after you do the composite. That’s an order.”
“But-”
“I thought getting the child into our hands was highest priority,” Harenn interrupted. “Why aren’t we simply snatching him off the street?”
“The boy can possess the unwilling and non-Silent, Harenn,” Ara replied levelly. “How far do you think a kidnaping attempt would get?”