Reclamation

"Every little bit is a little bit more." She sized up the contents of the tray with an appraising sweep of her eyes. "But it's not adding up to enough, you're right." She turned over an apple, checking for bruises. "The war is real and if they're primitive, they're effective soldiers apparently, and all choosing up sides. The Unifiers haven't armed them, but they're still advising. Jahidh has done his job almost too well," she said with a touch of irony. "It's going to be very bloody, Uary, and too many resources are going to be wasted. The problem is, we don't know enough to stop it. There is a possibility that genetic relatives of the female artifact will be located, but no word on how soon."

"Kethran was a total debacle." Uary rolled an apple between his fingers, feeling the tension of the skin. It was smooth, but perhaps a little too thick. That would make for a tart fruit as opposed to a sweet one. Uary made a mental note to find out if that was a deliberate or accidental variation. "But at least I've been assigned to analyze the male artifact."

"Yes." Caril prodded several more fruits. "That is an issue."

Uary ran his fingers over another sample but his mind played her last sentence over again. "What do you mean?"

"I've had word about that," she said, leaning back and surveying the whole tray again. "The only race left that we have a hope of winning is the race for understanding. Anything you learn about the male artifact will pass into the hands of the blind. We can't let them have it. We need to give the ones already on the ground a chance."

Uary felt his heart begin to beat heavily as understanding seeped into his veins. "I can't destroy the only artifact we have."

Caril touched two apples and the stall's arms extracted them from the holder to add to the bundle of purchases being assembled for her by the drone systems.

"You have to."

Uary stared at the stack of apples. You have to. He had been telling himself that since he joined the Imperialists. You have to be independent of Outsider governments when it comes to acquisition of organic resources and raw materials or you could be denied what you need. You have to turn your power outward, or it will turn inward on you. You have to have a guiding vision or all that has been done since the Flight is meaningless, just another fragment of chaos in the universe.

But surely I do not have to destroy the work of the Ancestors.

Uary opened his mouth, but a flash of green caught his eye and the words died before he could form them. Winema, the Formal Witness he had selected to be assigned to Basq, stood in the hullward entrance to the park. Basq was nowhere to be seen.

Caril tracked his gaze around to the Witness and froze. She was not the only one. All the Wives in the park had turned to single-phase statues at the sight of the unaccompanied Witness.

Winema moved with unhurried strides through the tableau until she stood six inches from Caril. Her silicate hand reached out and gripped the Wife's wrist.

"Wife Caril Hanr Sone, you are held in the eyes of the Memory for activities counter to the dictates of the Assembly and the laws of the Vitae and for directly endangering the effort of the Reclamation."

Uary knew that last sight of Caril would stay with him for a long time. She drew herself up straight and proud. The Witness walked toward the park entrance and Caril walked with her, falling into step at her side, both eyes straight ahead, ignoring everything, including her captor.

She left Uary standing by the apple stall, with a piece of fruit still in his fingers, too stunned to remember he also had appearances to keep up. His heart fluttered frantically in his rib cage. When the Witness spoke Caril's sentence, her organic eye had been fixed on Caril, but her camera lens had been fixed on Uary.

Did they know of their connection? How could they not know? But if they did know, why had they taken her and left him with that last vision and the echo of her final, almost-heretical instructions.

Destroy the work of the Ancestors? Uary wanted to collapse under the weight of that thought. He remembered when he saw the initial analysis of the female artifact. He'd gone into the chapel and said all six Graces. Her construction was flawless, flawless! And the spheres she carried were more alive than she was. They were perfect, immortal, biological constructions, irreplaceable parts of a system he could only start to guess at. He'd cursed out loud when he heard that she had escaped Kethran. Even though it would have brought Basq all the prestige even he could dream of, Uary wouldn't have cared if the Ambassador had succeeded in bringing her back, just so long as Uary could work with her again. There was so much to understand, so much that could be learned if only he could get the time.