“Me?” Sejal said.
Vidya nodded. “You. I was sure whoever had kidnapped Katsu had killed Prasad, and that they would come next for this baby and for me. So I ran.”
“You changed your name to Vidya Dasa,” Ara put in. “Easy to do, since the Annexation damaged so many records.”
“Yes. I took part of Prasad’s name and made it mine and his son’s. Perhaps that was a mistake.”
“But if your genes make every child you and Prasad have Silent,” Kendi asked, “why were you so sure Sejal wasn’t?”
“I arranged it to be so,” Vidya said.
“What?” Sejal said. “How?”
“When you were less than two months in the womb,” Vidya told him, “I found a…man. A genegineer. He said he could make a retrovirus. The virus would alter your genes and render you non-Silent.”
“A lie,” Harenn said flatly. “Such changes are only possible for an embryo less than two weeks old. For a fetus, it is not.”
“This was a new procedure,” Vidya said. “He wanted a test subject, but could find none. Making a valuable Silent into a worthless non-Silent would be highly illegal in the Unity. Because of this, he was willing to perform the procedure without payment. And it worked. When Sejal was born, the Unity doctor scanned him for Silence and found none. I was so happy.”
Sejal shifted on the cobblestones. “But I’m Silent, Mom. I touched Kendi, and something exploded in my head. He said only the Silent feel that.”
“We’ll have to figure that out later,” Ara said.
“I didn’t want my son to disappear,” Vidya continued as if no one had spoken. “The genegineer gave me secret money in exchange for permission to examine Sejal from time to time, which let me stay away from tax collectors, but the only place I could afford to live was a neighborhood as bad as the one where Katsu had disappeared. Drug dealers, gangs, and thieves were everywhere, and the Unity did nothing to stop them. But one day I realized the good people in the neighborhood, the ordinary ones, outnumbered the bad, and I remembered a thing Prasad had told me when we were walking to Ijhan during the famine. He said that our old community had been destroyed. To survive, we had to build another.
“I talked to my neighbors and united the building I lived in. Then the building next to us joined us, and the next and the next. We threw out the gangs and built a wall out of scraps and ruins to ensure they would stay out. We repaired everything we could and cleaned what we couldn’t. Our neighborhood was a proud place, and it was as safe as I could make it.”
Vidya stopped speaking and looked at Sejal. “Though I didn’t make it safe enough,” she added, voice heavy with sadness instead of anger. “How could you do this thing? I thought you were a good son, a son I could be proud of.”
Sejal flinched as if he’d been dealt a physical blow. “And you were a great mother?” he snarled. “Do you know what my first memory is? Sitting on the floor at a damn neighborhood meeting. You were talking to other people and ignoring me. You’re always talking, Mom, and it’s always to someone besides…besides me. You talk, but you sure as hell don’t listen.”
“I talked and I worked,” Vidya cried, “so you would never have to worry about being attacked in the street or stolen away from your family.”
“What family?” Sejal shot back. “All my life, you were doing something for the neighborhood. When were you home to make us a family?”
“I was home always,” Vidya said, looking shocked. “The neighborhood was my job. The collections paids our rent. The neighborhood-”
“I don’t give a shit about the neighborhood,” Sejal shouted. “Don’t you know anything?”
“I know my son has been selling himself on the street.”
“I was doing it for us,” Sejal said, voice cracking. “I was trying to earn enough money to get us off this slimy rockball. Just us. Not the neighborhood, not anyone else. For once I wanted something for just us.”
Tears ran down Sejal’s face. Ara squirmed on the bench, acutely wishing she were somewhere, anywhere, else. The looks on Pitr’s and Kendi’s faces proved they felt the same way. Harenn was hidden behind her veil, and suddenly Ara realized how handy such an item must be. She cast about for something to say that could end the argument, but for once she was at a loss.
“What you did was a form of slavery,” Vidya replied in a cold voice.
“It was either that or deal drugs, Mom.”
“It was a terrible thing,” Vidya said stubbornly.
“I only sold myself, Mom,” Sejal snapped. “You sold your children.”
Kendi gasped. Vidya fell silent. Her hands stopped twisting in her lap, as frozen as her face. Sejal froze as well. His words hung in the air. Time and silence stretched unbearably. Ara wanted to crawl under one of the cobblestones.
“Take him,” Vidya whispered.
“What?” Ara said.
“Mother?” Ben asked in Ara’s earpiece. “Mother, are you there?”
“Take him with you,” Vidya repeated, still whispering. “I have failed as a mother. Take him and train him and do whatever else you do.”
“Mom-” Sejal began.
“No, Sejal,” Vidya interrupted. “You are right, and you must go.”
“Mother?” Ben said.
“What is it, Ben?” Ara subvocalized.
“It took me a while to get everything back on line after your file scramble, or I would’ve called earlier. The guard have left the ship. They didn’t find anything, but they’ve posted half a dozen officers outside. I don’t know how you’re going to get in.”
“We’ll worry about that in a minute,” Ara replied, and was suddenly filled with an impulse to rush back to the Post Script so she could hug Ben hard. “Stand by.”
“You can come with us, Vidya,” Kendi said. “You don’t have to stay here.”
Vidya shook her head. “I have…responsibilities I must attend to.”
“The neighborhood,” Sejal spat.
“No, Sejal.” Vidya got up. “I have to talk to the man who…made you what you are. There are questions he must answer. And none of you can wait for me.” She reached down and pulled Sejal to his feet. He rose reluctantly.
“Sejal, I love you, and you must go,” she said, and embraced him quickly. “And I am not leaving you forever. I will find a way to join you when I am done here.”
“The monastery is on a world called Bellerophon in the Independence Confederation,” Ara said, rising to her feet. “Once we get out of the Unity, I’ll leave notices about you. When you get out yourself, ask in any public place or on any public network how to contact me-Mother Adept Araceil-and the Children of Irfan. Eventually one of our people will hear of you and take you to us.”
Vidya nodded.
“And now,” Ara finished, “we must leave.”
Sejal and Vidya hugged once more, and a lump rose in Ara’s throat. She had said good-bye to Ben often enough, and more than once had wondered if she’d never see him again. Kendi lead Sejal away, leaving Vidya at the bench. Sejal’s face remained rigid, and Ara didn’t try to speak to him-she was sure he was controlling tears he didn’t want to shed.
As they were leaving the courtyard, Sejal suddenly stopped.
“Mom, there’s a loose floorboard in the back of my closet,” he said over his shoulder. “Put your finger in the knot and pull it up.” Then he stiffly started walking again before Vidya could reply.
CHAPTER TEN
PLANET RUST
I seen my duty and I done it.
A very subdued group made its way back toward the space port. Unfortunately, their problems were just beginning. Ara activated her earpiece.
“Ben, what’s the status on board?”
“Unchanged,” Ben said in a broadcast that encompassed Pitr, Kendi, and Harenn. “Six guards outside the ship that I can see, possibly more I can’t.”
“They figure Kendi has to come back eventually,” Pitr said as they walked.