“Do you want those children? Their families do. Their families will want to know why all these lives were expended for the Speaker’s daughter . . . and children of their own family left in slavery.”
“Oh—all right.”
Mitch had not been to the bridge of a warship of this size; he was almost drawn out of his misery by the size, the complexity, the implications of power.
His guards led him before a woman—a woman in night-dark uniform, with insignia that he recognized as an admiral’s rank, and bright-colored ribbons on her chest. And he stood before her, barefoot and voiceless, and wanted to see in her the very image of Satan . . . but could not.
“You have a choice, Ranger Bowie,” she said, in the quick speech of these people. “Your former prisoner, Hazel Takeris, insists that you truly love your wives and children.”
He nodded.
“We are going to retrieve the other children you stole from the Elias Madero when you murdered their parents. However, your—the other men, on the surface—show no signs of cooperating with us. We are concerned that harm might come to your wives and your children, if they attempt to interfere with us . . . and we wish no harm to them. We want no child hurt, not so much as scratched. Do you understand?”
He nodded again, though he wasn’t sure he believed it.
“We do not make war on children . . . though you did. But we will have those children returned to their families, whatever it takes, and that might endanger other innocents. So—here is your choice. We can restore your voice, for you to transmit a command to your family, to release those children. Or, if you refuse, you can remain mute until your trial—however long that might be.”
He might talk again? He might have a man’s voice again? He could hardly believe it—but all around, he saw men and women listening as if they believed it.
“Our landing craft are ready to launch,” the admiral said. “If they are fired on, they will return fire. If they are obstructed, they will fight through . . . and your people, sir, have nothing capable of resisting them. So it rests with you, how this will be.” She paused, then went on. “Will you give these orders, or not?”
It was cooperating with the devil, to take a woman’s orders—a woman soldier, an abomination of abominations. For a moment he thought of the weapons hidden in the city, the chance that the other men might be able to launch them. Yet—he could almost feel against his cheek the soft cheeks of his daughters, could almost hear his children’s laughter. Kill them? Put them at risk? He had never killed a child in his life—he could not—but these people could, or said they could . . .
He nodded.
“You will. Good. Take him to sickbay, and have the treatment reversed, then bring him back to the bridge.”
He was a traitor, a backslider . . . all the way to sickbay, he trembled with the conflict inside. His guards said nothing to him, guiding him along with impersonal efficiency.
“We have to put you to sleep briefly,” the medic explained. “Just long enough to relax the throat muscles—”
He woke as from a moment of inattention, and felt a lump in his throat. When he cleared it—he could hear it. “I—can—talk . . .”
“Not to me, you can’t,” said one of his guards. “You can say what the admiral says you can say. Now come along.”
He sat where they told him to sit, and faced the little blinking light that was a video pickup, and though his voice trembled at first, it steadied as he went along.
“Jed, you listen to me. This is Mitch, and yes, I’m a prisoner, but that doesn’t matter. I want you to let the people that are landing take those outlander children with them. Prima knows which four. And send to Crockett Street Nursery for those twins, the yellow-haired sl—woman’s twins. I want all six of ’em released to the people that are comin’ for ’em. Prima, you get those children dressed, now . . .”
“Signal coming up, Admiral—”
“Let’s see it—”
It was a vid, from his home: Jed, looking angry, with Prima, well behind him, hands clasped respectfully in front of her. They were in the small living room, the one where he’d met the others so often, with the fireplace at one end and the conference table at the other.
“Mitch, I don’t believe it’s you, or they’ve drugged you, or somethin’. It’s some kind of trick. An’ I’m head of the family now, and I’m not about to let any children of this house into the hands of those—those godless scum!”
Mitch felt the sweat spring out on his face, his hands. “Jed, you have to. They’re comin’ anyway—if you cause ’em trouble, they’ll be more people dead. Children dead, most likely—”
“Then they’ll go to the Lord. I’m not—”
Behind Jed, Prima had moved. Without looking up to face the vid pickup, she had stretched out her hand and touched the fireplace poker in its stand. Mitch’s breath caught in his throat.
“—Not going to let the honor of our name be smirched because you got yourself caught like a weakling—”
Prima held the poker . . . she held it easily, in a grip strengthened by kneading bread dough, wringing out wet wash, lifting babies. He knew the strength of those massive shoulders, those arms.
“Jed, please . . . don’t risk the other children for those few—it’s not worth it—please, Jed, let ’em go.” Before worse happened, before Prima did something he would have to notice. He struggled to keep his gaze on Jed.
“If they want a fight, they can have it!” Jed looked at much triumphant as angry. “The preachers have already told us to gather and fight—”
“The preachers—!” Mitch could hardly keep talking, as he watched Prima walk softly, softly on her bare feet, coming up behind Jed, raising the poker. Horror and hope warred in him—that any woman would strike a man, let alone strike without warning—that maybe, without Jed, the children would be safe . . .
“You could stop them,” Mitch went on, struggling to make Jed understand, Jed who had never understood anything he didn’t want to. He should warn Jed; he should admonish Prima. But the children—“You could convince them, if you’d try—” And on the screen Prima looked up at last, straight into the vid pickup, and smiled. “Do it!” Mitch said, not entirely sure who he was talking to, and as Jed opened his mouth, the poker slammed into his head with all the strength of Prima’s shoulders and arms . . . and blood spurted up, and she hit him again, and again, on the way down . . .
“Prima!” he yelled, and his throat cramped, closing on more. She looked up at the vid again, her face settling into its usual calm from an emotion he had never seen before. “Don’t let them hurt the children,” he said; his voice creaked like that of a young rooster learning to crow. “Don’t let them hurt—” His voice failed again; tears stung his eyes.
Prima’s voice on the link was far steadier than his had been. “I want to see . . . what kind of people they are, you would trust with our children.”
“Be careful,” he managed to whisper. “Please . . .” He was pleading with a woman . . . pleading . . . and that was wrong, but his throat hurt, and his heart, and he wanted no more pain, for him or the children. The screen in front of him blanked, and then he curled around his misery like a child around a favorite toy.
“I want to go,” said Hazel. “I should—the children know me; they won’t be as scared. Brun would go if she could.” Brun was sedated, in regen after an attempt at the delicate surgery that might restore her voice. She wouldn’t be out for another three days, at the soonest.
“Not a bad idea,” Waltraude Meyerson said. “And I, of course.”
“You! You’re not only a civilian, but you have no role in this . . .”
“I’m the resident expert you brought along—I should get to see these Texas mythologists on their own turf. And I would recommend, Admiral Serrano, that you send a member of your family—perhaps that grandson who keeps hovering around looking hopeful.”