Reclamation

"You're welcome to it." Dorias reeled in the leashes for both modules and sent them back to storage.

They did not talk about debt. They did not talk about blackmail or the damage they could do to each other. It was the same with Perivar, and with Eric. Without each other they were alone, and the fact was, alone it was impossible to survive. Dorias knew. He had tried.

Schippend leveled his drooping eyes at Eric. "We're processing three hundred new arrivals right this minute. Your information will have to wait in the queue with everybody else's." Without another word, he resumed his meticulous poking at the U-Kenai's control keys, looking for viruses or contraband software before he issued Eric a permit to hook into May 16's communications system.

Eric bit down the urge to order the bureaucrat to move his lumbering body like he had a brain under his skull. Instead, he brushed past Cam, who stood motionless in the back of the bridge, and stalked toward the open airlock.

May 16 was an impossibility. May 16 had a stable, planetwide climate, something which was about as likely to occur naturally as fiber optic growing on an evergreen tree. In a feat of engineering that had even made the Rhudolant Vitae blink, somebody had given the planet a solar-synchronous orbit and a perfectly adjusted tilt and rotation. It was always spring, wherever you went and whenever you arrived. A lot of planetologists spent a lot of time arguing about how it had been done. No agreements had ever been reached, because whoever was responsible for the place had neglected to leave even their name behind.

The Alliance for the Re-Unification of the Human Family had discovered it, unpopulated, and had promptly adopted it as their base. They said it was a symbol of the need for the establishment of the universal Human Family. Once, here, on this spot, someone had been able to engineer an entire planetary orbit, not clumsy terraforming or even more clumsy domed colonies, but an entire orbit and possibly an entire planet. Now they were dead and dust and all the current inhabitants could do was try to recover old knowledge.

Eric leaned against the outer threshold of the airlock and breathed the fresh, moist air. His eyes restlessly scanned the port that surrounded the U-Kenai. The vast, bleak expanse of concrete under the cloudless sky made it impossible for him to really relax, even in the soothing warmth of the day. Other ships sitting in their own bays broke up the horizon and the cargo haulers that chugged between them helped fill up some of the space, but there was too much left over. He could barely see the sharp, artificial lines of the Hangar Cliffs in the distance. Pride kept him from circling to the other side of the U-Kenai, where he could stare at the City of Alliances. Its carefully planned and meticulously maintained buildings made a border wide enough to fill in the ten-mile-wide plain that had been leveled by whoever had originally owned May 16.

It wouldn't have been enough, anyway. Nothing was ever enough to kill the last trace of agoraphobia that nibbled at the edges of his mind. Eric had been secretly grateful that his assignments from the Vitae kept him mostly on space stations. He frowned at the port and his thoughts at the same time as he remembered tearing through Haron Station with Aria on his heels.

I wonder what she's looking at right now. Eric's gaze traced the orderly forms of the distant cliffs. / hope she's got the sense to listen to Perivar and do what she's told. I hope…His thoughts pulled themselves up abruptly as he realized what he really hoped was that he'd get the chance to find out what had happened to her.

If I live so long…Eric cast another glance back toward his bridge. Schippend was muttering something into his torque.

I hope whoever Dorias drafted to get me into the city can wait awhile, he added sullenly. He could appreciate, in theory, the Unifier philosophy that living human beings ought to deal with living human beings. He could also understand their desire to keep both their people and their machines free of ailments caused by contact with outside sources. He ruefully rubbed the spot where he'd been injected with an armful of antivirals and antibiotics. In practice, however, their philosophy combined with their caution made for a customs process that could stretch on for hours.

One of the smaller, open port cars whirred up to the U-Kenai's bay. A squared-off woman from a cold climate climbed out of the driver's seat.

"Sar Eric Born?" She squinted in the bright morning sun.

"I am." He straightened himself up.

"You'll be accompanying me once your processing is completed."