The Disappeared Read online

  With her left hand, Ekaterina punched the pod’s door closed. She kept the pistol trained on them, even after it would do no good. She wouldn’t be able to shoot through the pod’s hull.

  She closed the panel that hid the pod and, after studying the controls for just a moment, found the nearly hidden eject button.

  The yacht dipped, and she tumbled backwards, terrified for a moment that the pilot had found a way to disarm her. She slid along the floor and banged her head against the console, but somehow managed to keep hold of the pistol.

  No one got out of the emergency panel. No one else moved.

  Then she realized that the yacht was poorly designed. The force of the ejection caused the yacht to dip. She stood. Through the side portal, she saw the pod fall away.

  She was alone on the ship.

  Her head throbbed. She only had an hour to get to safety, maybe less if the Rev didn’t listen to the instructions the pilot gave them.

  She slid into the pilot’s chair, still warm from his body, and studied the controls for a moment. Newer than she was used to. Fancier. But the basics were the same.

  Before she did anything else, she found her purse, also crammed against the console, and slid the pistol back inside. Then she put her purse over her shoulder. The gun had to stay beside her at all times.

  She leaned forward and took a deep breath. She had less than an hour now, and she couldn’t do this on autopilot.

  It was up to her.

  The panel told her one thing: they weren’t anywhere near Mars yet. They were about halfway between the Earth and the Moon—no man’s land. No one’s jurisdiction, no one’s actual control. Laws did apply here, but only laws of the Earth Alliance and its allies. Not laws of a region, a nation, or a planet.

  Bastards. They tried to sell her the first chance they got.

  Well, she couldn’t go to Earth. The Rev would expect her to do that, maybe even to go home. And the pilot would tell them she was supposed to go to Mars.

  Which gave her only one viable choice—and it was a choice the Rev would figure out quickly enough. All she was doing was buying hours, maybe even seconds.

  But as she had learned a few moments ago, seconds might be enough.

  With the help of the yacht’s computer, she plotted the shortest course to the Moon.

  Six

  The Wygnin gave Noelle DeRicci the creeps. They stood against the walls, not quite leaning on them, and watched her. Even though she had offered them chairs—and she knew they sat in chairs; she’d been at conferences where Wygnin used chairs just the way humans did—the Wygnin refused.

  They were refusing everything.

  They wanted to have control of those children again. But she didn’t want to give them the children. Humans did not belong with the Wygnin, no matter what the law said.

  The room was small, but it was the only one available in interstellar holding. There were no windows, of course. Nothing this deep in the Port had windows, and that made the institutionally gray walls seem even duller.

  The table was old, made of some cheap material that had grooves etched into it, and the chairs looked like they could collapse at any moment.

  This was not the most impressive place to bring an angry group of aliens.

  Five other police officers waited outside the door. An interpreter sat beside her, seemingly unconcerned with the Wygnin’s insistence on standing. Two lawyers who specialized in interstellar law, with an emphasis on Wygnin, also sat at the table.

  DeRicci didn’t sit. She paced. She wanted out of there as badly as the Wygnin did.

  The room would have been tiny with just two people inside. With this crowd, half of them Wygnin, DeRicci felt claustrophobic. It didn’t help that the lawyers had made this her game.

  They had explained it to her outside: Even though they were legal advisors for Armstrong Dome, they had no authority here. All they could do was advise her. According to the law, the police had to handle this, and she was the representative of the police.

  The moment the lawyers told her that, she contacted the chief and asked for someone higher up to take this case off her hands. But the chief had laughed—it sounded like a phony laugh to DeRicci—and had told her she was doing just fine.

  She was qualified for this.

  Qualified her ass. No one else wanted to deal with the Wygnin. Her only problem was that she didn’t have enough rank to order her way out of this.

  And she was too nice to dump Flint in here. He was going to be a good detective, but he was still green. He didn’t even know how to speak to the Wygnin, let alone how to deal with them.

  But protecting Flint from the Wygnin was only half of it. The other half was personal, something she wouldn’t admit to anyone.

  She didn’t want to see those children. If she had to send them to Korsve, she didn’t want their faces, their voices—them—on her conscience.

  The last hour had been a grind. The interpreter was reviewing everything that had been said, to make certain both sides had understood each other.

  Already DeRicci was at a disadvantage. She had to take Traffic’s side, and they’d already left. Their report said they’d stopped the Wygnin ship based on a tip from the ground. The immigration computer at Gagarin Dome had finally run the Wygnin identification cards, and realized there were no matches for any of the human children on board the ship. The computer sent the information to Traffic, which stopped the ship, double-checked, and agreed.

  In fact, one of the children claimed he was being kidnapped, and the Wygnin couldn’t produce a warrant to prove otherwise. So Traffic had to bring the entire ship back to the Moon. And since Gagarin Dome wasn’t equipped to handle Wygnin, they came to Armstrong—and DeRicci.

  The main Wygnin, the one who had a smidgen of English, was talking animatedly to the interpreter. Korsven was a musical language. Each word had its own tone, but the tone varied depending on where the word was in a sentence. The sentences themselves had an interior musical structure, and that structure expanded depending on how many sentences were spoken in a row.

  Korsven was extremely difficult to learn and it had taken DeRicci nearly a year to learn the greeting she had spoken in the terminal. Even though she had two years of Korsven as part of her police training, she still couldn’t follow this conversation.

  “They say they have a warrant,” the interpreter said.

  The interpreter was a woman. She had had a lot of enhancements, most of which DeRicci found creepier than the Wygnin. Her hair and skin were a matching gold, and her eyes were gold-lined. She didn’t look like a Wygnin—no human could—but she looked like some of the humans who had been recovered from the Wygnin. Damaged humans, many of whom spent the rest of their lives institutionalized.

  DeRicci had no idea why anyone would emulate that. To her knowledge, the interpreter had never been to Korsve let alone been held prisoner by the Wygnin. It was all part of a cultural trend DeRicci didn’t pretend to understand.

  “They didn’t produce that warrant for the border guards,” DeRicci said.

  The lawyers were watching and recording everything. They looked more nervous than she felt.

  The Wygnin stared at all of them. DeRicci could feel the personalities behind the gaze, the constructed emotion, the purposeful sadness. She had built a barrier around herself so that she wouldn’t allow it to touch her.

  She knew that much at least.

  The Wygnin spoke softly. The interpreter didn’t look at them either. She was watching DeRicci. “They say they don’t need a warrant.”

  “They said that in the terminal, and they’re wrong. As I told them there, they’re on human soil now and in our turf, we require warrants. We consider that proof.”

  The Wygnin leaned forward slightly, as if its upper body were pushed by a strong breeze. It continued to speak.

  “They say all you have to do is look at your records. You will see that the children belong to them.”

  DeRicci cursed silently.
That was probably true. And if it was true, then it would only be a matter of time before the children left the Moon for Korsve.

  “It’s not my job to look up records,” DeRicci said. “You have to provide the information. That’s how our rules work.”

  “Technically—” one of the lawyers started, and DeRicci kicked him under the table. She knew what he was going to say. Technically, warrants were on file, and she could look them up if she wanted to.

  But she wasn’t going to. If these bastards wanted to take children as punishment for some crime their parents did, then let them work for it. She wasn’t going to help any more than she had to.

  “Technically?” the interpreter asked.

  The lawyer cleared his throat. He had obviously rethought what he was going to say. “Technically, the detective has a point. If we took the word of every person who claimed the right to someone else’s child, we would be losing children off the Moon all the time. And not just to the Wygnin. Humans often claim each other’s children in custody battles, and then there are the Fuertrer….”

  DeRicci tuned him out, resisting the urge to kick him again just to shut him up. She thought lawyers were supposed to be good liars, not dry idiots like this guy. No wonder he was working for the government instead of branching out on his own.

  The Wygnin spoke again, and the interpreter nodded. “Both children belong to the Wygnin per rulings from the Eighth Multicultural Tribunal. They can cite the reference numbers if you would like. The rulings in both cases happened more than a decade ago.”

  “Again,” DeRicci said, threading her hands together. “It’s not my job to look this crap up. They’re supposed to do it and provide me with the information. If they need local legal counsel, I’m sure we can find some for them. But losing two children is not something we take lightly, and—”

  “Careful, detective,” one of the lawyers said quietly. Fortunately the interpreter didn’t translate that, even though at least one of the Wygnin probably understood it.

  DeRicci chose to ignore the advice.

  “It can’t be something we take lightly,” DeRicci said, more to the lawyer than to the Wygnin. “For the very reasons your friend there cited. We need every detail to be exact. If we fail in this, we could hurt ourselves with our own people. Surely the Wygnin understand that.”

  The interpreter did relay that to the Wygnin. The lead Wygnin moved its head down and up, in an attempt at a nod.

  “Would you like outside counsel?” DeRicci asked. “I’m afraid we don’t have Wygnin here, but we have people who specialize in representing aliens on the Moon. I’m sure one of them would be willing to help you.”

  Again, the Wygnin moved its head up and down.

  “I’m going to take that for a yes,” DeRicci said to the interpreter.

  “It is,” she said.

  “All right. Then I’m afraid we’ve got to do things by the book.” DeRicci hated this part. This was what everyone else had been avoiding, this moment of confrontation.

  She faced the Wygnin. The force of their magnificent eyes met her head-on. In addition to the sadness—which she was convinced was mostly manufactured—there was a deep anger. It threaded through her own. She imagined that emotional shield around her growing even thicker. She couldn’t lose her temper now.

  “The border guards brought you here under suspicion of kidnapping, which is a crime in Earth Alliance. Do you understand that?”

  The Wygnin raised its flat hands and spoke. DeRicci resisted the urge to look away. When the Wygnin used gestures, it was a sign of agitation.

  “He’s insisting that they have the proper warrants,” the interpreter said.

  “I know what he’s insisting.” DeRicci had to struggle to keep her own voice calm. Why the hell did she have to do this? Why couldn’t someone else handle this mess? She was a detective, not a diplomat.

  A detective with such a spotted record that no one cared if she were forced to leave the force. No one would care if she crossed the Wygnin either. She was someone no one cared about, period, and the entire department knew it.

  “I’m explaining to him the things I’m required to do because of the circumstances.” DeRicci folded her hands over her stomach. She didn’t want to show the Wygnin any agitation at all. “Can you make that clear?”

  “I don’t know.” The interpreter sounded uncertain. “There are some things that are hard to explain.”

  DeRicci narrowed her eyes. “Try.”

  The interpreter licked her lips and began speaking. DeRicci watched her, wondering what the interpreter thought of all of this. Her appearance marked her as one of those strange humans whose sympathies lay with the Wygnin on most things. Did she envy the children their chance at going to Korsve? Or did she understand that if the children left the Moon, their chances for a normal human life would end forever?

  The Wygnin spoke in response, and then the interpreter sighed. “He says it is his belief that their warrant takes precedent over our procedures.”

  “But not over our laws,” DeRicci said. “Remind him that according to our laws, he has no warrant. Not yet anyway.”

  One of the attorneys shifted in his chair. DeRicci ignored him. She knew she was on thin ground. She was going to stay there until it fell away beneath her.

  The Wygnin spoke again, this time without waiting for the interpreter. DeRicci almost nodded. She’d known that the bastard understood more than he was letting on.

  “He will go to the Armstrong government. He will protest to the Multicultural Tribunals,” the interpreter said.

  “He will need his warrants for that,” DeRicci said. “I am cooperating to the fullest extent I can.”

  Not technically a lie. She didn’t say to the fullest extent of the law.

  “I have offered counsel for them.” DeRicci continued, trying to sound reasonable. “But until this matter is settled, the children remain here and the Wygnin must be held under guard. I cannot bring either side together until I’m sure that all the legal requirements are met. I’m sure the Wygnin can understand that. After all, their laws have strict requirements as well.”

  “Detective,” one of the lawyers said, his voice filled with caution.

  If she had known they were going to interfere with her bluffs, she would not have allowed them in the room. Next time, the lawyers waited outside.

  She didn’t even acknowledge him. Instead, she went to the door, signaling the end of the meeting. “If this matter is settled in the Wygnin’s favor, the Earth Alliance as represented by Armstrong Dome will be happy to turn the children over to the Wygnin.”

  The interpreter was repeating everything she said, but her gaze was now on the floor. No one was looking at the Wygnin. No one except DeRicci.

  “Until then, I will make sure you’re comfortable and your needs are met. If you need anything, let us know.” She paused, staring into all those golden eyes. It took all of her strength to do so. “And remember, if you decide to leave the children here, you’re free to go at any time.”

  DeRicci let herself out of the room. The lawyers followed. One of them caught up with her. The nervous one. The one she’d kicked.

  “Dangerous game you’re playing,” he said.

  “How would you feel if it was your kid the Wygnin had?”

  He shrugged. “I wouldn’t’ve crossed the Wygnin in the first place.”

  “What guarantee do we have that these parents did?”

  “The Wygnin are careful. They usually don’t make mistakes.”

  “Usually?” She increased her pace slightly. “You want someone to lose a child because the Wygnin are usually careful?”

  “If the Wygnin see you as an impediment, you could get in trouble.”

  “With them or with Earth Alliance?”

  “Try all of the above,” he said. “And throw in Armstrong Dome and your department for good measure. Do you really want to risk your career on this? Or worse?”

  Then he walked past her. The other
lawyer passed her too, shooting her a look over his shoulder that seemed like sympathy.

  DeRicci was shaking. The lawyers were right. She knew they were right. But she couldn’t stand this part of her job. The laws weren’t right either.

  No child should be forced to pay for his parents’ crimes. No matter what Wygnin law said. No matter what the agreements were between cultures. No matter how the damn courts ruled.

  The courts didn’t have to handle these things. Neither did the lawmakers or the diplomats who made the agreements. Even the heads of government, the chiefs of police and departmental supervisors stayed away.

  Leaving people in the field to handle it, and to suffer if things went wrong. People in the field who had no clout, no authority, nothing except a law they didn’t believe in.

  She was glad she hadn’t seen those kids. At least their faces wouldn’t haunt her when she failed.

  * * *

  The children had to stay in holding. It was a depressing gray suite in the basement of the Armstrong City Complex. The suite had no windows, a single door that led into a narrow hallway, and black reflecting wall that hid a viewing booth beyond.

  The furnishings in the living area were sparse: a dilapidated couch, a thin rug, and some pillows thrown into corners. A toy box sat beneath the reflecting wall, but most of the toys were broken.

  Jasper didn’t seem interested in them anyway. He was more concerned about the fact that his border guard had left. A couple from Social Services had arrived. Flint had met them before on human cases here on the Moon.

  Opal and John Harken. They specialized in taking care of children in crisis, particularly children who had to remain in police custody while battles shook out. Many children got to go into foster homes, but it seemed like an increasing number didn’t. They had to remain in this dismal suite or one just like it while parents fought over jurisdiction or until claims from people in outlying colonies were answered.

  When Flint had arrived, Opal Harken had taken the infant from him, and put him into the crib kept in the nearest bedroom. Flint had watched her—had watched the boy, actually—as if he could protect the child by staring at him.