Not at all fooled, the Hellhounds streaked by, going straight after the fleeing saucers. Which left the three of them floating alone in space.
Amy watched the Jackdaw expand into a long cylindrical ramscoop, with an arsenal of smart-nukes, and minimal crew quarters. Operating on gravity drive, the Jackdaw swept them up into the ramscoop, where automated grapples reeled them in.
Crew members helped Amy out of her suit and gave her ship’s coveralls to replace her sodden scarecrow clothes. Dorothy helped her change into the strange, smooth, zip-sealing fabric. Now nothing of her world remained. Viewscreens showed the world she had left behind, looking like a great gray donut, hanging amid incredibly distant stars. Hard to believe that everything she knew was wrapped up inside. She asked Dorothy, “What will happen to me?”
“Hard to say.” Dorothy sympathized with her dilemma. “But you can stay with me until you make up your mind.”
“With you?” That sounded wonderful.
“I have a place in Kansas system,” Dorothy explained. “Which is where we’re headed. Eventually.” Right now they were headed nowhere. Jackdaw was in close orbit around the habitat, keeping watch on her world. Amy shook her head, admitting, “I don’t understand any of this.”
“Few folks do,” Dorothy agreed. “Your world is a stolen habitat stashed in a dead system. Navy intelligence thinks it’s a nest of slavers, and that’s why Jackdaw keeps watch on the system. But they had no proof, so they asked for a Peace Corps investigation.”
“That’s you?” Apparently peace and war went hand-in-hand.
“Exactly. I was supposed to take a closer look, and try to get evidence. DNA samples, that sort of thing.”
“Like when I spit in that tube?”
Dorothy nodded. “You are related to five known slavers, either killed or DNA-identified—men who raided and kidnapped for profit.” And who dealt in gene-altered oddities like Dorothy. “Two cousins, a paternal uncle, and both your grandfathers.”
Father always said that before he “bought the farm” he had lived off-world; now she knew what he had been doing. And why family arguments never fazed him, so long as they were not settled with a blaster. Dorothy took her hand, a strangely parental gesture from someone a head shorter, saying, “You are living proof that this is a slaver haven, where retired slavers go to raise sons for ship’s crews, and girls to pass around and enjoy.”
It was fairly horrific to hear your world reduced to those terms, but this all started with her running away.
“What will happen now?”
“Maybe nothing. In Kansas system there are folks who say that what happens out here is not our business.” Dorothy did not think that way, having been saved from a slaver creche herself. “These are mostly retired slavers, absolutely bent on avoiding the law. Why not let them live out their golden years in peace? Civilized worlds only act when our own interests are at stake—that’s what separates us from the barbarians.”
Dorothy sounded sarcastic. Amy just stared at her world, orbiting through the void, all turned in on itself. Mom and Dad, Tuck and Nathan, Lilith, Delilah and Dot, all lived in there, along with everyone that Amy had ever known, everything she had ever seen before she turned thirteen. Hard to believe it. All Amy knew for sure was that one day she was coming back for Dot.