Chapter 3
Kira had decided that the definition of awkward had to include calling a ship from another world on a far-talker, while her parents hovered nearby, and asking to speak with a boy she barely knew to invite him over. She wondered how much harder it would have been to fight a dragon instead.
Standing outside as night fell, Kira thought that for something that wasn't supposed to be a date, it felt suspiciously like a date. "If he tries to touch me, I am going to hurt him," she told her mother.
"Don't do any permanent damage," Mari replied.
"I won't." Sometimes her mother was almost cool. "Remember not to say anything about what he told me until he indicates it is safe," Kira told her mother and father.
Something that resembled an egg the size of a large coach came into view in the sky, flying straight for the house. The egg stopped directly overhead, then dropped to land gently not far from Kira. As with the bigger Urth ship, an opening suddenly appeared in the side, this time revealing Jason seated within.
He swaggered out of the egg. "Pretty cool, huh? I, uh, brought you something." Looking both worried and bashful, he offered her a small package.
A gift? From a boy she hardly knew? Kira glanced at her mother, who indicated it was up to Kira. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she accepted it.
Forcing a smile, Kira pried open the box, which at least was reassuringly just a box rather than some amazing technological device. Inside was an earring identical to the one she had worn the day the Urth ship arrived. Kira stared at it, then at her mother. "It's…it's jewelry. Jason, I can't accept this."
"Jewelry?" Mari gasped.
Jason's worry increased. "Um…yeah…It's an exact copy of the one you—"
"The only time a boy and a girl give each other jewelry is when they are very, very serious about each other," Kira said.
"What?" Jason's brief expression of terror almost caused Kira to laugh despite her upset. "No, that's not how it is on Earth. It's just a little thing. It doesn't mean— I wasn't trying to— I mean, it doesn't mean anything. No. That's wrong. Uh, friendship. It's just to supposed to…to symbolize friendship between our…worlds," he finished with a frantic note to his voice.
"We understand," Kira's mother said, her voice calm and reassuring. "Thank you for the thought. But it wouldn't be appropriate."
"Uh…but you have to…I have to…" Jason's expression changed. He looked down at the earring, his hands moving slightly before him. "Oh. Sure. Okay. I'm sorry. I wouldn't do anything to make…Kira…feel…anything."
"Welcome, Jason," Kira's father said. "We do not mean to intrude, and will leave you and Kira to talk."
"Me and Kira?" Jason got that panicked look again. "Senior Executive Vice President Talese Groveen asked me to…to let you know that she would like to talk to you again. In person. And…and if there's anything I can tell you to, uh, reassure you about our, um, intentions, to just, uh, ask."
"We're happy to offer you the hospitality of our home," Mari said. "I do admit that we were surprised to learn that your ship did not come from any government on Urth."
Jason shook his head. "No. It's private. That's happened before, back when Earth was being explored. A lot of expeditions weren't military or government, but run by private companies that were out for profit." He assumed the sudden expression of someone who realized he had said something that shouldn't have been said.
"What does your mother's company do?" Mari asked, sounding interested and encouraging.
"Um…" Jason waited, doubtless thinking before speaking this time. "Universal Life Systems has a lot of different subsidiaries, including spacecraft, communications, and some of the biggest defense manufacturers."
"Defense?" Alain asked.
"You know," Jason said. "Weapons. And defenses against weapons. Their primary business is still genetics, though. Mostly these days that means screening and combining the DNA of parents with gene pacs that offer benefits for health and, uh…appearance." He gave Kira a quick, apologetic look. "You know, so parents can make sure their kids fit in to physical fashion norms of the moment."
"Fashion norms?" Kira asked, trying not to sound revolted.
"It's not all that different from names being popular," Jason said, sounding defensive. "It's just that instead of one year getting a lot of girls named Emma, we get a lot of girls named Emma who have the same hair and the same nose and the same chin. We do have rules. Like…people. Maybe you can buy and sell gene packs for them before they're born, but it is absolutely illegal to buy or sell a person. You can mess with the parts, but the person as a whole has a lot of rights and protections. Parents can design their kids, within limits, but they can't sell their kids, and adults can't be sold or traded. Those are the strictest laws we've got."
"Within limits?" Mari asked. "What sort of limits?"
"Well," Jason said as he thought, "like when designing became possible, there were some parents who wanted to do things like make their kids mermaids, because they thought that would be really cool. Do you guys know what mermaids are? Okay. But mermaids aren't a viable life-form, at least not the way people wanted them to look. That kind of thing is illegal." He noticed that Kira, Mari, and Alain were staring at him and ducked his head to avoid their gaze. "Yeah, I know. 'O brave new world, that has such people in it.'"
Kira's gaze on Jason went from horrified to questioning. "You said that last line different. Is that a quote or something?"
"Yeah, from…" Jason sighed. "Shakespeare. Those Guilds kept that from you too, didn't they? He wrote plays and poems a long time ago. He's still the greatest ever. 'Time's glory is to calm contending kings, to unmask falsehood, and bring truth to light.' That's what you did," he said to Mari.
"Bring truth to light," Kira's mother repeated, gazing at Jason. "Yes. That is important. But it can demand a high price."
"You mean the war?" Jason asked. "That's something a lot of people on Earth know about. There have been vids and stuff about it. You know, movies. Visual re-creations."
"Of a war?" Mari said. "I can't imagine wanting to see that. My husband and I have seen too much of war already. You say your mother's company makes weapons, though?"
"Yeah, but we haven't had any wars for a while," Jason said, sounding oddly apologetic. "We've got great defensive technologies back in Sol Star System. For about the last century no one has been able to figure out how to build weapons that can get through the defenses. So we haven't had any major wars because nobody could successfully attack anyone else."
"What angers you?" Alain asked.
Jason gave him a startled look. "Uh, you could tell…? It's people back on Earth. There are a bunch who say we ought to have wars, that because we aren't we're all getting soft."
"Do you believe that?" Kira asked, appalled.
"No. It's really dumb. I think, from what history I know, it's because we haven't had a big war for a while. So these people don't really know what it would be like, and think it's all glory and excitement, like a game."
"It's not," Kira's mother said, her voice gone low but very hard.
Jason eyed her, curious and wary. "You fought in a war. You were a really big hero."
"I wasn't a hero," Mari said. "I did what needed to be done, and I fought because I had to. And I would do it again, if I had to in order to protect others. But war is ugly and terrible, and it eats lives. There's no glory in it."
Jason stared at the ground. "I didn't say that. Other people do."
"That is so," Kira's father said. "I hope you tell these others they are wrong."
"Nobody cares what I think," Jason grumbled so low that Kira barely heard it.
"We care," Mari said. "Please tell Talese of Groveen that we will speak with her again as she requests."
"It's, uh, Talese Groveen," Jason said hesitantly. "No of."
"What's it mean?" Kira asked. "Isn't Groveen where she's from?"
"No, it's her last name. It might have meant something else a long, long time ago, but now it just means she's part of the Groveen family." Jason grew more animated, looking around at them. "I was trying to figure out why you guys don't have last names, family names, and I think it's because when the crew decided to take over and rule everybody they didn't want people working together against them. If you had big families or clans those could have formed natural alliances among their members and challenged the crew, or the Mechanics I guess they became."
Mari raised her eyebrows at Jason. "That's an interesting theory. The Guild tried to instill in Mechanics the idea that it was our family, and did its best to break up any personal allegiances outside the Guild."
"And the Mage Guild sought to break all ties between acolytes and their former families. You could well be right," Alain told Jason.
Perplexed, Jason stared back at him. "Really?"
"Have you spoken with others on your ship about this idea?"
"Nobody listens to me." Jason abruptly closed down, scowling. "They think it's stupid."
"Why? You ask questions that are of value," Alain said. "All questions are of value."
Jason stared at them. "But…I'm just me. And, you know, that's not saying much."
"You sound like Kira," Mari said.
"Mother!"
Jason looked at Kira and then quickly away. "I'm…I'm nothing like her," he said, sounding depressed.
Mari nodded to Alain. "We should give you two some time alone to talk," she said.
Kira watched her parents enter the house, then turned a wary eye on Jason, who was once more focusing on the air in front of him as his fingers moved slightly before him.
"Okay. We can talk," Jason said. "I figured out that earring had a listening device in it and jammed that, too, already."
"With everything you must have on that ship," Kira asked, "why did they send as a gift an earring apparently identical to one I already had?"
"Probably so you wouldn't suspect there was anything different about it," Jason said, "and since they knew you liked one they probably thought you'd be sure to accept another like it." He gave her a rueful look. "This is all a set-up, isn't it?"
"What do you mean?" Kira asked.
"Wanting to talk to me again," Jason said. "You don't really like me that much."
"I…" Kira debated lying, then decided on truth. "No. But I don't not like you."
"You don't know me very well yet," Jason said, smiling slightly. "I'm sure there are a lot of guys you'd rather be with than me right now."
Kira shook her head. "Just, um, friends. I don't get to…see people too often. And I have to be careful with guys. Too many of them have tried to get with me so they can boast about making it with the daughter of the daughter."
"They're stupid if that's the only reason they're doing it."
"What?" Had Jason complimented her?
He got that panicked expression again. "Just remember what I told you. They're out to cheat you."
"Everyone on the ship? Is there anyone else on your ship that we could trust?" Kira asked.
"I don't know," Jason said. "Doc Sino, I guess."
"Dock of Sino?"
"No. Doc is short for doctor."
"Doctor?"
He gave her one of those astounded looks. "You don't have doctors? But who handles stuff when you get sick and need surgery and stuff?"
"Healers," Kira said. "We call those people healers."
"Huh. That makes sense." Jason got excited again. "You do that a lot, don't you? Instead of using some word based on some ancient concept, you just use a word that actually describes what something does. Far-talker. I thought that sounded silly, and then I thought, but that's what it does."
"You call far-talkers rah-di-ohs, right?"
"Radios. Or phones. Though I bet not many people on Earth could explain why they're called that without looking it up." He scowled. "They call you stupid. You're not."
Kira felt a thrill of anger run up her spine. "Who calls me stupid?"
"Not you. I mean, that's what most of the people on the ship call everyone on this planet." Jason waved around. "They sit there and use stuff that somebody else invented and somebody else built and somebody else programmed, and they feel all superior. But we're just jerks who happened to get lucky where and when we were born."
"Do you call us stupid?" Kira asked.
"No. I've been called stupid enough to know I don't want to call anyone else that."
Her opinion of him rose a bit. "Jason, we need to know more about whatever the other people on your ship want to do with anything they learn about Mages."
Jason frowned at her. "Why? Just don't tell them anything."
"Because we've received warnings," Kira explained. "A lot of Mages have had foresight warning that your ship was a danger to this world, but now they're also seeing warnings that it is a danger to Urth as well."
"Foresight? You believe in that?"
"It's real," Kira said. "Mechanics didn't used to believe in it either. But it's some way of visualizing or feeling future probabilities, and even though it's often hard to interpret, it does work."
"Probabilities? So…okay." Jason looked at her, puzzled. "How could anything we learn here be a danger to Earth?"
"We don't know."
"You really are worried about that," Jason said, looking at her as trying to see inside her head. "You don't know any of them, but you're worried about people on Earth being hurt. Your mother and father, why'd they talk to me like that?"
"Like what?" Kira asked.
"Like I was worth listening to, like they weren't better than me. They're the most important people on your whole planet!"
"Jason, they treat everybody that way."
Jason didn't look at her, didn't say anything for a long moment, then began speaking quickly. "There is something going on. I don't know what. I can tell they're excited. The techs and the engineers and the life-systems specialists on the ship. All I've heard is fragments like if this works and if we can do this. And one of the things I heard was we could leave, which would mean whatever this is would be more valuable than the genetic material from you and your mom. Maybe it has something to do with that Mage thing. I've been getting a real unpleasant vibe from hearing it."
"Vibe?"
"I guess that's like your foresight." Jason took a deep breath. "I'll find out what it is. And I'll let you know if it's something dangerous."
"You're scared," Kira said.
"Yeah, I'm scared. I'll have to run some risks to find out exactly what's going on," Jason said. "If I get caught, I'll really get hammered. But if this thing is really dangerous…"" He finally looked at her again, his expression a mixture of upset and pleading for understanding. "I've never done anything. I've played games and learned things and watched ugly people do ugly things to other people. It's about time I did something, isn't it?"
"Jason," Kira said, "it's not a competition. Don't go looking for trouble because…because you don't like who you think you are."
"That's easy for you to say! You've got these incredible parents who've done incredible things!"
"You think that's easy?" Kira demanded. "Living with that?"
"Try living with my mom. I'm going to do this."
"Jason—"
"Huh?" he said, too loud and too abruptly. Jason's fingers danced in front of him for a moment while he shook his head at her.
The "app" must have failed again. Kira steadied her voice, trying to sound merely polite. "Thanks for coming," Kira said. "It was…fun."
"Fun?" He laughed and shook his head in disbelief, then looked at her again with that puzzled expression.
"Thanks." Jason backed away, stumbling into the side of his transport. The opening appeared in it and Jason got inside. He waved to her as the opening closed, and a moment later the transport rose into the air again.
Her mother and father came out as Kira stood looking up into the star-filled sky. "Anything else?" Mari asked.
"Not too much." Kira summarized their discussion, leaving out the parts about her personal life. "He seemed to take the warnings from foresight seriously after I explained it, and said the people on the ship have been excited about something. He promised to find out what it was."
"I hope he doesn't get into any trouble," her mother said. "He seems to have plenty of trouble in his life already."
"If he wasn't such a jerk sometimes I think he'd be fun to talk to." Kira shook her head, feeling anger rise. "I don't blame him for hating his mother. I've hardly met her and I hate her!"
"Do not hate," her father spoke firmly. "I have told you. Hate no one, hate nothing. Oppose those who do wrong, but do not hate."
"Why not?" Kira demanded hotly. "Doesn't she deserve to be hated?"
"I am not wise enough to know what anyone deserves. Kira, hate harms no one so much as the one who hates. Do not grant even the worst person such a victory over you."
"But if they're doing things that bad—"
"Then you work to stop them, without letting them harm who you are," Alain said. "Have you ever noticed, Kira, how easy it is to hate? It is like water running downhill. You just have to let it happen and it does. Is anything worthwhile ever so easy?"
Kira looked at him, her father in his Mage robes under the stars of the night sky, and at her mother beside him, emotions warring within her. "I know…that love is hard."
"Yes," Alain said. "Real love is hard. Forgetting yourself for another. Love is like fighting uphill against all of your worst instincts."
"And," her mother added, "Jason is the sort to bring out the worst instincts in someone. Thank you for making the effort to treat him well."
Kira couldn't help a brief laugh. "Yeah, that's my little version of holding the wall at Dorcastle. Being nice to a guy like Jason."
Her mother flinched. "It's not a competition, Kira."
She was about to shoot back an angry response when she remembered that she had said the same thing to Jason. And she knew that her mother's heated tone was because in her reckless response Kira had flippantly mentioned Dorcastle. "I'm sorry," she muttered. "I shouldn't have brought up…that place."
Her mother had that look she got sometimes, as if she was gazing on the faces of everyone who had died in the siege of Dorcastle. "I know you didn't mean it, Kira. You brought it up, though. Why?"
"There's so much…you can't talk about."
"What do you want to know?" her mother asked, startling Kira. "I'll try to answer this time. Do you want to go inside while we talk?"
Aunt Bev must have spoken to her. Her mother was trying to reach out. Kira hesitated. "No. I like being out here. Can you tell me more about what she was like? Sergeant Kira. All you've ever told me is she was a great person."
Mari inhaled slowly and deeply before answering. "She was older than me, and taller, and she was the best shot in the Bakre Confederation. She had an older brother who was a sailor, and she hoped to find a man for herself someday and have a family. I knew her for four days before she died on the third wall. She…she took a crossbow bolt in the forehead and died instantly."
Kira shivered again, feeling cold. "Why did you name me after her?"
"I know I told you this, but it may have been a long time ago. I named you after her because I wanted you to be as brave and as strong as she was, and even though I couldn't save her I wanted her name to live on in you."
"Thank you. For finally telling me." Kira avoided looking at her mother, knowing how sad she probably was. "I know I'm difficult sometimes but I don't want to disappoint you. Ever."
"You have never disappointed me and you never will."
Her mother sounded as if she believed that. Kira wondered if she would ever be able to believe it herself.
* * *
After the tension of the night before, the next day proved to be a letdown. Nothing happened except for her parents having more meetings, and sending and receiving more messages. Instead of working on her studies, Kira spent a lot of time staring out her window, replaying in her mind what her mother had said last night. She also kept worrying about Jason, concerned that she had prodded him into doing something that would get him into trouble and make his life even more unhappy. His life wasn't her responsibility, but that didn't mean she had any right to mess it up even more than it already was.
Her parents were gone at dinner, at another meeting with Queen Sien, so Kira grabbed some leftovers and then as night fell gave up trying to work. She went to bed earlier than usual. hoping that the next day would feel less frustrating.
It felt like it was only a few hours later when Kira started awake, knowing from the silence of the world outside that it must be well after midnight. What had woken her?
A bump at her window. Kira sat up in bed, pulling her sheet around her.
It was Jason. He was standing outside her open second-floor window as if the empty air was supporting him. "Kira? I need you!" he said in a whisper.
She glared at him, barely remembering to keep her own voice down so her parents wouldn't hear anything. "Are you kidding me? You show up at my bedroom window in the middle of the night and announce that you need me? Just how desperate do you think I am?"
"Huh? What are you—?" Jason's panicked look appeared. "No! That's not what this is about!"
"Really? You visit girls' bedrooms at night for other reasons?"
"Yeah!" Jason looked around, his expression growing frantic. "Kira, please. I need help."
Either he had become an extremely good actor since the night before, or Jason really was scared. "Turn around." Kira ordered.
"What?"
"Turn. Around. I need to get dressed. And if I catch you looking I will break parts of you that will never heal right."
"Okay."
Kira, thinking that her rebellious habit of sleeping naked didn't feel particularly clever at the moment, waited until Jason had pivoted so his back was to her window. She kept the sheet around her as best she could as she struggled quickly into clothes. "All right. What is this about?" she demanded as she finished buttoning her shirt, leaving it hanging outside her jeans.
Jason turned to look at her again. She noticed he was sweating despite the coolness of the night, and was gripping a triangular object a bit larger than his palm tightly in one hand. "Can I come in?"
She almost said no, then thought about the security patrols around the house and the possibility that they might spot Jason at any moment. "Yes. As long as you stay right next to the window."
He climbed inside, gasping with relief. "Do you remember what I told you last night? About the thing I wanted to find out about? I planted some bugs."
Kira gave him another glare. "You planted insects?"
"No! Bugs! That's what we call really small things that allow us to listen in to people."
"You spied on them?" Kira said. "Using a far-listener device?"
"Yeah. Exactly," Jason said. "I was able to see and hear their conversations through most of the day. Do you remember your dad doing some Mage stuff for them?"
Kira had to think back to that first day when the ship had landed. "Yes. He said he had demonstrated a small spell."
"They scanned him while he was doing it. Not a surface scan or a shallow scan, a full deep scan. Which is hugely illegal to do without permission from the subject. Massive invasion of individual privacy. Anything derived from such a scan would have to be destroyed along with the scan itself." He held up the triangular object, dull black with rounded edges. "That's why they loaded it all directly onto this, and only on to this, so there would be no trace in the ship's systems of what they'd done. And they also ran all their analyses and calculations off this and stored them on it. This is the only copy of all that. There's no backup that might trigger a legal investigation when the ship returns to Earth."
She looked from the object back to Jason. "Why does what's on there scare you? Is it what the foresight warned about?"
"It must be. Because they saw enough of how your dad does things to figure out how to use something like the Mage stuff to create weapons that could penetrate any known defense system back at Earth."
Kira sat down on her bed, hard. "Why would they want to build weapons like that? It would break the stalemate that's kept peace on your world."
"Because if anybody makes weapons like that, everybody would have to buy them. Every government everywhere in Earth's solar system would have to buy a lot of those weapons. Because the only way to keep from being attacked would be to have the ability to hit back the same way." Jason shook his head in despair. "I heard them arguing. Some said maybe they shouldn't. Because it would shift us from all being safe behind our defenses to being constantly worried about being attacked, and if anybody misjudged a situation or miscalculated, millions of people could die. Maybe billions. I'm not exaggerating that number. I swear it. But they rationalized going ahead, because building those weapons would be worth incalculable amounts of money to ULS's defense industries and earn huge bonuses for them as individuals. Someone would invent something like this someday, they said. It might as well be them. And all ULS would be doing was manufacturing the weapons. It wouldn't be their fault if someone else misused them."
Kira studied Jason, appalled, hoping she would see falsehood in him, some sign that he was lying about any of this. But she saw nothing but desperate truth.
"It's all on this Invictus Drive," Jason said, his voice as grim as his expression. "Without this, they can't do anything."
"You're sure of that?" Kira demanded. "They can't remember enough to recreate their work without it?"
"No way," Jason said, shaking his head. "I took a look at it, and it's just like I heard some of them comment. This stuff is incredibly complex. Without the reference of the scan of your father's work, there's no way they could rebuild it."
"Then destroy that thing!"
"I can't. You can't. It's called an Invictus Drive for a reason." Jason turned a bit, waving toward the night outside. "Drop it in a volcano, and it wouldn't even notice. Drop it in the deepest water, and the pressure wouldn't hurt it. Fasten it to a bomb, and it wouldn't even be dented. If we could shoot it into a star, like your sun, the fusion explosions and intense radiation would do the job. But there's no way to do that."
"Why can't we hide it?" Kira asked, belatedly realizing that by saying "we" she had taken partial ownership of the situation.
"It's got a beacon tied to biometric detectors. A transmitter. If it isn't within ten meters of at least one member of the crew, the beacon automatically activates, and my mom's ship finds it within seconds."
Kira studied the object that Jason held. "I guess you're a member of the crew?"
"Yeah. By default. If they had taken time to look at the list of authorized holders they would have deleted me, but they were probably in a rush when they initialized it."
"You have to be within ten meters? That's about five lances." Not very far at all. "Can they call that thing? Make it tell them where it is?"
He smiled shakily at her. "I knew you'd be smart enough to ask about that. Normally, yes, they could broadcast a call and it would answer. Unless the Invictus Drive was set to quiet mode, which is what they did to make sure that inspectors back on Earth wouldn't discover it. They didn't think they'd ever have to look for it themselves."
Kira bit her lower lip as she thought. "What if your mother knew where you were, but you were being protected by people from this world? What would she do?"
"She wouldn't care about me," Jason said, "but the drive, that's another thing. There are so-called defensive weapons on the ship. Stuff way beyond what you guys have. She'd use those weapons to get me and the drive back, and justify it by saying you kidnapped me or something. She'd destroy whatever she had to. Trust me."
Once again he wasn't lying. "You must have some idea of what to do," Kira said. "You came here and said you needed me."
"There's only one thing that might work," Jason said, his voice growing desperate again. "I have to hide myself. I have to find a place on this world where I can hide and keep the drive hidden until the ship is forced to leave. They'll look for me. They'll use every tool they've got. They can find me using the same biometrics, if they get sensors close enough to me. That's why I need to find some place a long way from here to hide, where they wouldn't think to look. That's why I need you. I'll probably have a little trouble blending in. I need some quick tips on how to talk and act and…everything. Oh, and where to go. And how to get there."
She stared at him. "Quick tips? How long do we have?"
"Maybe a couple of hours."
"A couple of hours. Jason, if I had a couple of years I might be able to teach you enough for you to blend in here. What you're suggesting is impossible. You wouldn't last half a day. Everybody you interacted with would immediately know you were…very different."
"But I have to," Jason insisted, now despairing. "It's the only way to keep this information away from them. If I don't, ULS will build those weapons and sell lots of them, and those weapons will get used and… You were right, Kira. This stuff is a huge danger to Earth. Kira, please. You're so smart and…and…awesome. You must know a way I can make this work."
"You must have me confused with my mother," Kira said. "Jason, there isn't any way you can do it. You'd need—"
She suddenly realized that there was a way.
Kira gazed out the window into the darkness behind Jason, thinking.
Thinking about how she had spent most of her life feeling sorry for herself because she wouldn't have the chance to do anything important. About all of the people who might die back on Urth if the greedy, selfish crew of the ship brought back the secret for weapons that no one could stop. About her mother simply saying I had a job to do.
Her mother couldn't get involved in this. Lady Mari had to be neutral, the fair and disinterested person everyone could look to. Mari couldn't draw the world, any part of it, into a conflict with Urth. Especially not when she'd be trying to keep an object stolen from the Urth ship away from its legal owners.
And her father was the same. Master of Mages. Lady Mari's Mage. He had to avoid directly confronting the Urth people as well.
But if Kira told them they would feel obligated to try to help. Her parents, who had already given so much, would take on the burden of this as well, a burden that Kira would have handed to them because she wouldn't accept it for herself. And if either of them did get involved, if Queen Sien got drawn into it, too, and tried to keep that drive thing from Talese Groveen and her minions, the Urth ship had weapons which might kill many people here on Dematr. Innocent people, caught in the line of fire.
That left her. The only person that Jason could trust, and that had any chance of hiding Jason from everyone else. Because Jason was right. He and that drive would have to be hidden, and Kira was the only person who had a chance of making that happen. She felt her life balanced on a knife edge, knowing that every tomorrow would be changed by whatever happened now. She could not be afraid. Not when something this important had to be done.
"Kira?" Jason had no trace of sullenness or anger to him. Just fear, and hope she could tell was centered on her.
"Sorry," Kira said. "I was just thinking. How long would the ship look for you before it had to leave?"
"Before it had to leave? Maybe a couple of years if they stayed as long as possible and got food from the local environment."
Stars above. Why couldn't he have said a couple of months? Kira nerved herself and took a deep breath. "If we're going to have any chance of not being caught, we're going to have to leave right away."
He gave her a puzzled frown. "We?"
"You can't do this alone. It has to be done. So, it's my job, too."
"No." Kira hadn't thought about how Jason would react, but she was still surprised when he shook his head angrily. "No way. That wasn't why I came here. I can't expect you to do something like that."
"You didn't ask me to do it," Kira said. "But there isn't any alternative. You have to hide. You need someone with you, someone from this world, who knows it and can help you blend in. Do you know anybody else we could turn to?"
"No, but—"
"I don't want to do this. I don't like you that much, and I'm not looking forward to spending a long time in your company. But if I don't, you fail."
He looked angrier. "I know I'm not fun to be around, but I'm not useless."
"That's not what I meant," Kira said. "Do you think I can handle myself? What do you think my odds of blending in would be if I tried hiding on Urth?"
"Lousy." Jason made a helpless gesture. "Kira, your mom and dad are the most decent people I ever met. I don't want to repay them for that by stealing their daughter!"
"One, you're not stealing me," Kira said. "No one is. I am choosing to do this. Two, my parents have shown me that being decent means doing the right thing. Even if it hurts. They'll understand. I'm…I'm sure of that. Three, we're wasting time."
She grabbed her pack and began loading it. Not too much. They'd have to travel light. A spare shirt and jeans, spare socks, underwear, first aid pack, water bottle, the box of spare ammunition…
Kira noticed Jason's eyes widening as he watched her strap on her shoulder holster. "Do you really think we'll need that?" he asked. "It won't do any good against the personal defense screens anyone from the ship would have."
Kira shook her head at him, fighting down qualms at the idea of having to shoot at other people instead of targets. "Your mother isn't why we might need this. The downside of having me along is that some of my mother's enemies might recognize me, and if they do, they'll come after me."
"You mean…real gun fights and stuff?"
"Not if I can help it. The pistol is if I fail to avoid situations where I need it."
"Oh. Um…I'm going to need clothes they can't track."
"Yeah," Kira said, looking Jason over and for the first time noticing that both his belt buckle and chest insignia were missing. At least he'd had the sense to leave those behind. "You'd need something that looked like you belonged here, anyway. There aren't any clothes here that would fit you, though. Oh, wait." She dug in her closet, surfacing with an old Mage robe. "Father let me have this." Kira spun around, facing away from him. "Get all your clothes off and get those robes on! Hurry!"
It seemed to take a ridiculously long time before Jason spoke again. "How does it look?"
She turned to see, nodding. "Yes. Once we get among people, keep the hood up and your face hidden inside it. We'll have to find you common clothes because Mages attract too much attention sometimes and some of the symbols on those robes identify them as my father's. Any other Mages will be certain to notice that. But this will do to get us started."
Kira scooped all of her Tiae Crown coins into her wallet, wishing that she had more. Her knife, a sailor's knife like her mother's, went into the sheath at her belt. Her good outdoor coat. Not fancy, but tough and warm. She spotted an old neck chain in her drawer, made of woven steel by a new workshop wanting to impress Kira's mother. "Can you put that drive thing on a necklace?"
"It's got a loop, yeah."
Kira passed him the necklace so he could thread the drive onto it, screw the clasp closed tight, then pull it over his head.
What else? "I need to tell my parents what's going on. They need to know. I'll leave a note."
"How?" Jason asked. "I thought you guys didn't have that stuff."
"What stuff?" She sat down at her desk, grabbing a pen, ink, and a sheet of paper. Jason gaped at her as she dipped the pen in the ink and rapidly wrote out a description of what he had told her and her own plans to help hide him. I know you will understand why I had to do this, Kira wrote at the end. It's my job. I love you both.
She centered the note on her desk, noticing that Jason was still watching her in amazement. "What is it?"
"You wrote a note on paper," Jason said, as if he had just witnessed something hard to comprehend. "For real."
"Seriously? That impresses you?" Kira paused to think, her eyes on the map of Dematr above her desk. "Your mother knows you've been here, so this will probably be the first place she comes looking for you. The farther away we can get before anyone knows you're gone, the better."
Jason pointed out through the window. "I've got the flier, and it will be at least another hour before the ship realizes it's gone. We can use it to go someplace not too far off, and then I can send it back to the ship with orders to wipe its route memory just before it gets there."
"We need to go north," Kira said, tapping the map, remembering her own trips and the stories her parents and their friends had told. "And we need to stay around lots of people so we can hide in crowds, at least at first. Your flier can take us over the security patrols around this house without raising an alarm right away. There's a town that's grown up where the road from Pacta Servanda meets the Royal Road, and a train station there for the new rail line heading into the Bakre Confederation. We'll take your flier to the outskirts of that town, get you some common clothes, get rid of the Mage robes, and head for Debran and then Julesport. From Julesport we can take a ship across the Sea of Bakre."
Kira paused, looking at the map. Many of her mother's enemies who had stayed in the west had gone to ground, blending in with everyone else. They could be anywhere, or so she had been warned more times than she could count. But there were two places that Kira knew she had to avoid.
"We need to stay away from the Empire, and this city called Ringhmon, but there are places in the northern parts of the Western Alliance and the areas north of Ihris where we ought to be able to hide, and if I need to contact Mother and Father I have relatives near Ihris who can get word to them. What do you think?"
Jason shook his head. "Why are you asking me? I've never done anything like this."
She frowned at him, trying not to sound angry. "I'm asking you because we're partners in this, and because you know everything about the Urth ship and what it can do."
"Yeah, but…" Jason shrugged, his expression shifting too rapidly for Kira to follow. "I don't know."
"Yes, you do! Stars above, Jason, you've got a good mind! Why are you afraid to use it?"
He stared at the floor, unhappy. "Maybe because all my life I've been told my mind is below average. Nobody listens to me."
"I'm listening!" Kira insisted. "I need your help on this!"
Jason looked at her, baffled. "Um…okay. Uh…they only have a few drones they can send out to look for me, and you're right about being in crowds being better for hiding my biometrics. Yeah, they'll send the drones out around the ship first, then out here. They can manufacture more drones with the printers on the ship, but that'll take time. And they can't make enough to cover everywhere. If you think up north there is best, we should do that."
"Good. Let's get going," Kira said, standing again and putting on her pack. She did her best to sound confident, trying to reassure Jason and deny the worries tightening her guts when she thought of everything that might go wrong.
But millions of lives. Maybe billions. She couldn't let that happen. Her mother had put herself between the Great Guilds and the world, her father had literally almost given his life to save her mother, and she would either do this or go down fighting.
Speaking of which… "Jason, just so we're clear, we may be partners for getting this done, but we are not partners in any other way. If you ever touch me without permission I will beat you bloody."
Jason shrugged. "Sure. I'm used to that from girls. Most of them are a little more diplomatic when they threaten me with bodily harm, but I understand."
She couldn't help smiling. "Then we shouldn't have any problems." Her smile faded as Jason stepped out the window, where Kira now saw the Urth flier waiting, its big egg-shaped outer surface somehow changed to a dark shade that blended with the night.
A small platform extended out from the opening in the flier, giving Jason something to step onto before he entered the device. Inside, Kira could see a few seats and odd objects fastened to the floor and the walls.
Kira took a deep breath, thought again about whether this was the right thing to do, then with her heart pounding with anxiety followed Jason into the dark.