The captain and Dr. Roop waited in the hall when the peace officer opened the door to my father’s holding cell. It looked just like the one I had been in—pure white—and my father had been sitting, staring at the nothingness, as I had been for so many hours.
He stood up and hugged me, holding me close for a long time. Then he let me go, but he kept his hands on my shoulders and looked at me.
“Why are they doing this?” I asked him.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It won’t stand. I promise you, Zeke. The truth will get out, and there will be questions. We can fix this.” He let go and sat down in his chair. “We can fix this,” he said again.
“I don’t see how.”
“I don’t either,” he admitted. “Not yet.”
“What can I do?” I asked. “How can I help you?”
“How much do you trust Qwlessl?” he asked.
“Completely,” I told him.
He nodded. “Make sure she is aware of the Former skill system. Someone needs to make sure they don’t completely blindside the Confederation. In the meantime I’ll work on my own legal problems. These people are amazing, Zeke, and they are brilliant, but they’re not devious and they don’t really understand crime. The fact that I’ve watched a lot of Law and Order reruns makes me one of the top legal minds in the Confederation.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I’ll get you back here,” he said. “I can work the system. Just hang tight.”
I nodded. “What should I tell Mom?”
“The truth,” he said. “As much as you know. I wanted to have more time to tell you everything, about how it all happened, but I guess that will have to wait. But she hasn’t remarried or anything? You’re not just saying that to spare my feelings?”
I was withholding things to spare his feelings, but this wasn’t one of them. “No,” I said. “She dated a few times, but I think because she felt like she ought to. No one ever interested her. No one but you.”
He looked away for a moment. “It will be hard, won’t it?” he asked. “Going back to ordinary life, knowing all of this is out here?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not the world and the technology and wonders I’ll miss. It’s the people.”
He nodded. “It’s always the people.”
The peace officers came back. My father and I hugged once more and that was it. They led me out and closed the door, and he was gone. My father, the man I’d thought dead, who was alive, whom I had freed, had been taken away from me again.
• • •
They brought me back to the terminal. There were still lots of peace officers and data collectors and government officials, but though I looked everywhere, there was no sign of Tamret. I saw Steve, however, standing with the Ish-hi delegation. I hurried over to him.
He put a hand on my arm. “I’m sorry, mate. It should have worked out better.”
I didn’t know if his kind hugged, and I didn’t want to do anything culturally weird, so we just stood like that for a minute. “I’m sorry too. I got you into this, ruined your chances for your world. I never should have asked for your help.”
“Rubbish,” he said. “You did what you were supposed to do. We all did. Now they want to cover their tracks and protect themselves by punishing us. You’ve got no reason to be sorry.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“But,” he added, “if it makes you feel better, we’ll say you owe me one, yeah?”
“I owe you one,” I agreed.
He jabbed a finger at me. “Don’t you forget it, either. I mean to collect.”
“Do you think we’ll get a chance?”
“I don’t know, mate. I just don’t know.”
And then there were peace officers between us, leading Steve and the rest of the Ish-hi to a gate that would take them to a shuttle, which would take them to a ship. And they would go back to their home world.
I watched him go, sadness and rage and helplessness pulsing through me. Then I heard someone call my name. It was Tamret, and she was running toward me. She threw herself against me, and if it weren’t for the enhancements that she herself had given me, she would have knocked me over.
She pressed her face against my neck, and I could feel she was crying. “I can’t go back there,” she said. “You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know how much we needed to join the Confederation.”
I thought again about making a break for it, the two of us, together, but there were yellow dots on her shoulders, probably on my back and hers. The thought of being shot wasn’t what stopped me—it was the thought of her being shot. I’d seen Tamret struck down once already. I couldn’t see it again. Even so, if I’d believed there was a chance, even a slight chance, I would have taken it, but the peace officers were not letting their guard down for a second.
I could not save her, so I held her and let her cry. Her body shuddered, and the bravest, most reckless being I had ever met convulsed with fear.
“I can’t go back,” she said. “They’ll put me in prison, Zeke. They may hurt me. I’ll never see you again.”
“Shh,” I said. I stroked the back of her head. I was trying to think, trying to find the words, trying to find my way out of this. Nothing came to me. All I could do was to try to comfort her. I was powerless to do anything else. “I won’t let them do this.”
The data collectors were pressed in now, all around us, recording us, capturing holograms of Tamret’s misery, but I didn’t care. I was seething with rage and frustration. I was stronger than any of these beings, I was faster and I could process information better, but what good did that do me? We were still being separated and shipped off, and no matter how I tried, I could not think of a way around this.
“We can’t do anything,” Tamret said. “Once we’re back on our worlds, we won’t ever be able to reach each other. We’ll be stuck there, apart.”
“We can do anything,” I told her.
“Not this,” she said. “We can’t do this.”
I lifted up her chin to look into her lavender eyes. “Tamret, I have done things I would never have thought possible, and I did them because of you. I did them for you. I swear, I’m not going to leave you there.”
She wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “Don’t say it if you don’t mean it.”
“I mean it.” And I did. I didn’t know how I would do it, but I swore at that moment that I would not rest until I was sure she was safe. All I knew was that the universe could not be this cruel. I wouldn’t let it be. I would not have everything taken away from me.
“Don’t worry, Snowflake. I’ll take care of you.”
It was Ardov. He and Thiel and Semj walked by, holding their bags. The other two looked dour, but Ardov looked grimly satisfied.
“As soon as we leave this station,” Ardov said to her, his face split open with a grin, “I am released from my vow.”
As he walked away, I seriously considered going after him and killing him. I could do it, I had the strength and the power and the skills to do it, but I knew that wouldn’t protect Tamret. Not really. The others in her delegation would report what had happened, and I could not help her if I was in prison.
“Hey,” I said to him. “You don’t want to make me your enemy.”
He laughed and didn’t even break his stride. “I can’t see how it will matter.”
“Ardov!” I shouted.
He turned around and looked at me, his expression a mask of bored contempt.
“Don’t think any distance between us will protect you. I’ve beaten you before, and I’ll do it again.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but then he changed his mind. He turned away and walked toward his gate. Then he stopped as a being approached him. It was Junup. He whispered something into Ardov’s ear, and the Rarel nodded. Ardov con
tinued toward the gate, and Junup walked away, looking pleased with himself.
“I like that young being,” he said to me. “He’s got a real future.”
A peace officer came up to us. He was one of the bull-headed ones, and he, at least, had the decency to look ashamed of what he had to do. “I’m sorry, but it’s time for her to go.”
Impossibly, unbelievably, I had to say good-bye to Tamret. I knew it, but I couldn’t make myself accept it. They can’t make me, I thought crazily. I did not want to waste what little time I had to talk to her, but how could I say what I had to say? How did I choose my words when they were all so pathetic? We were going to be torn apart, cast to our impossibly distant corners of the universe, and the cruelty and injustice of it filled me with rage as much as it numbed my mind.
I stepped in front of her again and took her hands and looked into her painfully sad lavender eyes. “Don’t you dare give up,” I said.
She threw her arms around me and hugged me until it hurt, and I hugged her back. I didn’t know what else to do but bury my face in the cool of her neck and wish that the moment could never end. How could it be? I thought. How could they do this? But there was no answer. No explanation. They were doing it, and I was powerless to stop it.
“I’m so sorry I let you down,” she said.
“You never let me down,” I told her. “Never.”
“I did,” she said. “I failed you.”
She let go of me, and then the black-clad peace officers were holding her arms, trying to lead her away. She fought them at first, but they gripped harder, and I think Tamret did not want to be bound or shocked, so she stopped struggling. She looked up at me.
“I’m so scared,” she said.
I watched, powerless, as the peace officers led her across the expanse of the terminal and through a gate. Then the gate door sealed and she was gone.
There was so much left unsaid between us, and that her last words to me were about her fear filled me with sadness and anger and the searing, almost unendurable, pain of helplessness. I thought that she was right. I really never was going to see her again.
Dr. Roop now approached me, with Charles, Nayana, and Mi Sun trailing him. They looked like they were in shock, and when I went to meet Charles’s gaze, he turned away.
They held back, but Dr. Roop walked up to me holding a black box, about the size of a hardcover book, made out of something like stiff cardboard. “As you know, this is yours,” he said. “I forgot to pack it up and put it in your bags.”
I had never seen it before, but I could tell by how he looked at me that he wanted me to have it, and that he was afraid if we said anything else, the peace officers might notice. So I took the box and held it with both hands.
“Thanks,” I muttered, too distracted to make sense of what the box meant.
“I am very sorry, Zeke. You did everything I could have asked of you. All of you were what we hoped for, and that this should be your reward is so unjust. I will do what I can to reverse things from here.”
“Do you think you can?”
“I don’t know anymore. I just don’t know. But I can promise you I will help your father.”
Hands were on me now, leading me and Charles and Mi Sun and Nayana toward our own shuttle. Everyone’s eyes were cast down. We were sad and angry. Maybe they were angry with me. Maybe they had every right to be.
A quartet of peace officers approached us, each of them holding a black injector cylinder. This was it, then. They were going to neutralize our improvements. They were going to turn us back into ordinary people.
The three other humans presented their hands for injection, but Dr. Roop blocked the peace officer heading to me. “He’s my friend,” he said. “Please allow me to do it.”
The peace officer nodded and handed him the cylinder.
Dr. Roop then gestured, waving someone over. It was Captain Qwlessl, followed by Urch. The two of them came over.
“Excuse us, Captain,” said one of the peace officers. “He needs to be injected and removed from the premises.”
“Will you prevent me from saying good-bye to my friend?” she asked.
“Briefly, then,” the peace officer said. “There is a schedule.”
I looked at the captain. “Don’t you let them return those Phandic ships.”
“No, I won’t.”
Urch reached out and took the black box from my hand. My first instinct was to snatch it back, and he must have seen my alarm, so he met my gaze as if to steady me. Then he gestured toward the captain with his head, as if I should continue the conversation. He, meanwhile, was running one of his sharp fingernails along the bottom of the box. Carving something? I had no idea.
I looked at the captain. “My father’s worried about the Phands looking for Former tech. He thinks it might be some kind of specialized military skill tree. Talk to him about it.”
She nodded. “I will.”
I said, “Thank you for everything. When I get home, I’m going to tell my mother about you, and she’s going to be so glad you were here to look after me.”
“I think I’m the one who should be glad there was someone looking after me,” she said, and she took me in her arms and gave me a huge hug, She felt warm and safe, but I knew it was all being taken away.
“Can you help her?” I asked. “Tamret?”
She looked over at the data collectors, who were recording all of this, every word we spoke.
“I’m sorry,” she told me. “She’s outside Confederation space. There’s nothing I can do.” The words were harsh and cold, but there was something about her gaze when she spoke that made me wonder if she was trying to tell me something. Was that too much to hope?
“Time to go,” the peace officer said.
Urch handed the box back to me and then put a hand on my shoulder. “Safe travels, my friend.”
The two of them walked away. Dr. Roop shook my hand, human-style. He looked down at me with his big yellow giraffe eyes, and I felt sure he was trying to tell me something, just like the captain had been, but I could not read it. Then he put one of his hands to my face, a curiously tender gesture, one I hadn’t anticipated. “Remember,” he said.
I wanted to ask what it was I was supposed to remember, but I couldn’t make the words come out.
“I need your hand,” Dr. Roop said.
I held it out.
“Your father used to say that there are always possibilities.”
“Yeah,” I croaked. “He would say that, wouldn’t he?”
“Have a safe journey.” Then he pressed the injector to the back of my hand, and I began the process of turning back into someone of absolutely no importance.
• • •
Wordlessly, Dr. Roop shook my hand again, and then the four of us were led to our gate. We passed through the door, and then through a tunnel, and then onto a shuttle. When it launched, we would leave Confederation Central, and we were never to return again.
A peace officer stood by the shuttle door, making sure we strapped in. “In a few minutes your nanites will dissolve into harmless organic matter that will pass safely through your system. This means that your translators will not function. The crew on the ship taking you home know this, and they will do their best to communicate to you what you need to know.” He then held out his hand. “I need your data bracelets.”
Once he had them in hand, he stepped outside, and the shuttle door whined closed.
My three companions sat, all of them looking down. I wanted to say something, but what was there to say? I looked at the rest. Charles’s face was set in stony resolve. Nayana was crying. Mi Sun looked like she wanted to kill someone.
• • •
My fellow humans said nothing during the voyage. I sat still, not looking out the window, feeling myself diminish, become something less. My sight and
hearing were the most obvious, but I had less power, less energy. My muscles seemed to work differently. I was like a deflating balloon. I was now simply Zeke Reynolds. Nothing more.
When we reached the ship, a stick-insect alien led us to our quarters with a series of gestures. It made an eating gesture and pointed to a door down the hall. And then it left. It had nothing more to say to us.
I turned to go into my room.
“No one blames you.”
It was Mi Sun. She stood there, still looking furious, with her arms folded. Her English was heavily accented but quite good. “We are all angry, but not with you. We chose to go with you because it was the right thing. We all did the right things.”
“Thanks,” I told her. “I appreciate you saying so.”
“They punished us,” she said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that we did something important. We made a difference for trillions of beings. Thank you for letting us do that with you.”
I was too stunned to speak, and so I simply nodded.
“You probably wish to be alone,” Charles said. “I understand that, but if you want company, we’ll be in the common room. If it’s the same layout as the other ship, it should be that one there.” He pointed.
“Thanks,” I said again. “But I’ll just lie down for a little while.”
“If you change your mind, you know where to find us,” he said.
Nayana, who had said nothing, now gave me a very quick and awkward hug.
I turned away from them and went into my cabin.
• • •
I sat alone, looking out the viewscreen, holding the dark cardboard box in my hand. I could not bring myself to lower my eyes, and so the station receded and I watched the swirling clouds of the great gas giant, their beautiful hues as they wound their slow way across the planet’s vast surface. The station grew smaller until it was hard to see the details, until the dome was indistinguishable from the metal, until it was no more than a tiny disk, a slim coin cast against the vastness of nothing and everything.