“George finally brought my daughter to me not because he’d changed his mind, but because as everyone here knows there’s a good chance we may be looking at war between the Outworlds and the rest of the Commonwealth,” Katy continued. “He was on his way to Terra, and he didn’t want to risk taking her there; and even he realized that if war did come, Madeleine would be safer here with me than alone on Kesra. No one ever knows when the Kesran government may suddenly decide to kick a long-resident human or other ‘alien’ family out. They have a history of doing that without warning and without reasons that make any sense to us.”
More nods. Some of these people had traveled and some had not, but all of them were sufficiently educated to know that her assessment of Kesran xenophobia was on target.
“The starship was on its way to Terra when it was turned back toward Narsai by a corporate marshal’s hail. All of you have heard, I’m sure, about the destruction of the buildings at my family’s farmstead yesterday?” Katy drew a breath. She suspected that was the only reason her father had been able to put this historic meeting together, because commissioners and councilors alike had been outraged by that event but hadn’t known how to respond to it. Narsai had no weapons. It had depended on Terra’s fleet for its defense ever since the earliest days of settlement, and its internal law enforcement mechanisms made no provision for dealing with an off-world organization committing offenses on Narsatian soil. Could the actions of a Terran corporate marshal even be considered criminal here, or were those actions just as legal on Narsai as on Terra? That was a question on which Commonwealth law had never been tested, because this was the first time a marshal had come to Narsai—on an enforcement action, anyway.
“The marshal had sense enough not to try to arrest my cousins, the farmstead’s proprietors. He took the gen, a gengineered woman escaped from service, that he’d been sent to track down and recover; and he also took my foster son, the Sestian human man who’s lived in my household even since my own sons were killed. And he had a right to do that, because our legal system offers Dan Archer no more protection than it offers to my husband.”
Now Katy deliberately reached out and took Lincoln Casey’s hand. It was important for them to see her acknowledging her connection to him, for them to know that whatever happened she would never abandon her mate in favor of her ties to her birth family.
She said quietly, “Technically I’m just as guilty as they are. Dan brought that woman to my home yesterday morning, half starved from being stranded alone aboard a lifeboat for eighteen months—for so long that if she hadn’t finally made use of a stasis tube, she would have died. She left the ship she was assigned to, as the first gen to be used as a Star Service officer instead of as ordinary crew, because she was pregnant by a nongen. By Dan Archer. They were lovers, before he and all the other scramblers were thrown out of the Service.”
“I didn’t think a gen could have sex unless it was designed to be a courtesan,” remarked one of the older commissioners, who was chief operating officer of Narsai’s central communications system. Since his observation came closer to being a question, he was not out of order; and the looks on other faces around the circle clearly indicated that he was not alone in that belief.
“A gen is just a person like any other, except the DNA that went into that individual was chosen by a scientist in a lab instead of being part of a random conception. A gen isn’t an android, or an extra-smart animal, or a clone whose brain development is deliberately curtailed so that it’s ‘alive’ only to serve as a spare parts source.” Katy looked at each face in that circle, in its turn; and she held Linc’s hand tightly, on her knee where their entwined fingers could be seen by everyone. “Somewhere on our world right now, there’s a woman with three babies inside her who’s wondering whether she’ll be allowed to carry them or if they’ll be taken out of her by force because they have a ‘genetically inferior’ father. And whichever way it happens, she’s also wondering if those babies are going to be allowed to live and grow up—or if they’ll be killed mercifully—or used by the corporation that owns her and owns them, in ways she’s probably trying hard not to think about.”
Every woman in this room was a mother. Each Narsatian woman had her child, even if that required medical intervention to accomplish, because it was a cultural obligation. Most had carried their own pregnancies, and had known at least once the same moment that Katy had known four times over—when the scans that had been done while the baby was in the womb were finally confirmed, when a warm little body was put into her arms and she could inspect her child for the first time. Ten fingers, ten toes; lungs that drew breath, a voice strong enough to squall….
Relief, of the sweetest kind imaginable. And now each woman in this circle was shuddering at the thought of what it would have meant to have that little creature torn out of her arms, and taken away.
“I understand that our system doesn’t protect her, or her babies’ father, or the children she’s carrying,” Katy said now, and looked from face to face again. “And it’s true that if she were a Narsatian woman, she would be encouraged by her physician to have the extra fetus selected out; but we no longer insist on that, it’s optional now when the third child is part of a multiple pregnancy. Our law is silent on whether or not I did anything wrong by aiding her, but because I’ve accepted recall to the Star Service I’m accountable now to a different authority—and if I were to do what my duty says I must do, I’d be calling that corporate marshal and making arrangements to surrender. Not just myself, but my husband also, for whatever action the Terran courts or the Judge Advocate General might want to take against us.”
“You aren’t going to do that, I hope, Katy?” That was her mother’s voice, asking the question with concern but still managing to sound very much like a councilor.
“No. I’m not sure what I am going to do now, actually, because claiming Narsai’s protection for myself but letting my husband go if the marshal asks you to allow his arrest is completely unacceptable. So is just leaving that pregnant gen, and my foster son, where they are now. But all those issues involve only a few individual beings—and I’m sure each of you is very much aware that the fate of a few people isn’t all that important compared to everything else that’s happening right now.”
There were nods all around the circle. And when Romanova stopped talking, the commissioner who headed Narsai Control spoke up and claimed the floor.
“Many of us expected that the Rebs would tap you as one of their leaders, Katy,” she said bluntly. “I’ve never understood wanting to fight with anyone, about anything. That’s why we have the relationship with Terra, that’s why we make our payments to the Commonwealth. So that they’ll keep the Star Service operating, and people like you will be there whenever there’s an invader that has to be kept back from our space.”
Romanova nodded. Although Narsai had not faced the possibility of invasion in generations, other Commonwealth worlds had experienced such threats within her lifetime; and there had also been armed conflicts among former Terran colonies, located far away in other sectors. She and Linc had been in on many of those battles, from the time they were new-made ensigns serving under George Fralick’s command until she had attained flag rank. And even after that there had been several years when she was a rear admiral commodoring a starfleet, not a vice admiral stuck in an office.
She responded, “And as long as our people are content to let it be that way, Jangbu, Narsai won’t have a reason to join the conflict. The problem is that if the Rebs do start a war, Narsai is a natural base for Commonwealth forces just as Mortha is the natural base for the Rebs.”