The Travels of Scout Shannon: Books 4-6

Chapter 7

7

The two women up on the screen were focusing all their attention on Emilie. Scout took a step back, then another, but no one’s eyes tracked her movement. She was unnoticed, for the moment. She looked the women over carefully, searching for any tiny detail that might give her a clue as to who these women really were, deep down inside.

First off, they looked to be in their early twenties, but in galactic central, where marshals had body modifications to fight off any kind of disease and most kinds of injury, that might not tell Scout much. They could really be that young, or they could be older than time.

The barricade and the mysterious interference in the Space Farers’ world had only appeared since the war, in the last six years. Considering that Amatheon, the surface, and the structures in orbit with all the people contained therein were at the heart of an inheritance dispute, Scout was willing to bet they were actually as young as they looked. The legal battle started as soon as they were old enough to take possession.

It was a theory, anyway.

They dressed alike in black leather pants and low-cut bodices over which they wore long scarlet robes of some shiny, drapey material. Scout was certain she knew what it would feel like in her hands if she touched it. Gertrude Bauer had worn a white shirt that had looked something like what they were wearing, and holding it had been like touching a shimmering cloud. The Tajaki sisters likely wore something even more delicate. Their dynasty was one of the largest in the galaxy, Scout had been told.

Their hair was long, longer even than their robes, and hung loosely in shimmering waves. Scout resisted the urge to touch her own hair. It was growing out, and what had once been closely shaved was now a chaos of curls with no agreement as to the direction of curling.

She wished she still had her father’s bush hat. At least the orange color was starting to fade.

Scout had assumed at first that the Tajaki sisters were twins, like Geeta and her sister Seeta, but then she started to see some subtle differences. The woman in the chair had a more buttony nose, rounder cheeks, and thin, arching eyebrows. The woman behind her had a sharper nose and cheekbones, her eyebrows thicker and straighter, low over her eyes as she scowled. The cosmetics they were wearing looked as if they were attempting to bring both sets of features to a middle ground, as if they wanted people to think they were twins. If they were matching each other’s expressions, it might have worked better.

But they would never quite pass for each other, not with those eyes. They were the same deep shade of brown, but while the woman in the chair looked like she was amused by everything that was going on and was willing to indulge Emilie and her suspicions as long as they remained amusing, the one standing behind the chair had something else going on within her eyes. Something wild and dangerous, dormant now but clearly waiting to spring to life at the first perceived provocation.

Scout swallowed hard. There’d been something similar in Malcolm’s eyes. But Scout had only ever seen him when he was coming down from the drug he had grown all too dependent on.

What was going on with this woman?

“You have heard of us?” the woman in the chair asked when Emilie failed to respond. She gave a little frown, like a stage gesture.

“I’ve only heard you mentioned once, and that was secondhand,” Emilie said. So she had remembered what Scout and Geeta had told her. “I, of course, have no way of verifying that you are who you say you are.”

“You must be Emilie Tonnelier,” the one in the chair said. “My dear Emilie, who else could we be?”

“Which one are you?” Emilie asked.

“I’m Mai. My sister is Jun,” she said. Jun said nothing.

“And you’ve been looking for us?” Emilie asked. “Who are we, exactly?”

“You and Geeta and Seeta Malini were all ensigns working for the Tajaki colonization division up until the day you left colony ship Tajaki 47, although I acknowledge you now refer to it as the Amatheon Orbiter 1.” Scout took another half step back. They didn’t seem to be aware of her at all. They didn’t even mention her. Was that a good thing or a bad thing?

“So you’re saying we’re your employees?” Emilie asked, folding her arms over her chest.

“You’re employees of the colonization division, which is a holding of the Tajaki trade dynasty,” Mai said.

Scout noted that it wasn’t a “yes.”

“I understand it is a holding under contention,” Emilie said.

“You are, of course, correct,” Mai said. “You’ve been approached to speak on that matter, haven’t you?”

“Yes,” Emilie said. “But not until after we left Amatheon Orbiter 1.”

“Interesting,” Mai said, giving a brief glance back over her shoulder to her sister Jun. “Perhaps not relevant,” she added, turning her attention back to Emilie.

Scout looked down at the dogs, holding her hand palm out to them, fingers spread wide. They knew the gesture, or at least Shadow did. It meant to stay still, stay quiet. Shadow sat in rigid attention, but Gert, bored with the lack of play, flopped down to nap until things got more interesting.

“How could it not be relevant?” Emilie was saying. “You said you’ve been looking for us since we fled Amatheon Orbiter 1, but no one had approached us yet about the legal matter. So why were you looking for us?”

“I understand why you feel distrustful,” Mai said with something that didn’t quite approach real empathy. “You were swept up in a series of events as you left your home behind, events outside of your control. But you do know we didn’t start them. We were the ones in control at the end, but we didn’t start any of it.”

“The outbreak of violence? It seems not,” Emilie said.

“I assure you, once you know us, you’ll see that’s not our style.” Mai looked up at her sister Jun, who made a grimace that Scout was very afraid was meant to be a smile.

“Do you know who did?” Emilie asked. “I lost a lot of friends that day.”

“I know—our condolences,” Mai said. “The friends you lost were all people of importance to us as well. We feel their loss, if not as deeply.”

“Do you know who started the violence?” Emilie asked again.

“Yes,” she said. “We are working to bring those people to justice. That’s why we are here. We need your help. You were witnesses.”

“We were already on our way to testify,” Emilie said. Her head made a little twitch as if she had been about to look back at Scout but then thought better of it. So she too suspected the Months hadn’t noticed Scout there. Scout wasn’t sure how that could come in handy, but they weren’t in a position to squander any potential advantage.

“Were you?” Mai said with a smile.

“I suspect you know we were,” Emilie said, her voice gaining an edge.

“You are, once again, quite correct,” Mai said. “You are so very astute. I wish I had found you before you were forced to flee. I could have found so many uses for you.”

“I don’t like being used,” Emilie said.

“Come now, Emilie, you know that’s not what I meant,” Mai said with the air of a schoolteacher reproaching a student. “You have such skills. Those skills are pointless if you don’t put them to some use, aren’t they?”

Emilie shrugged.

“To your point,” Mai said, uncrossing and then recrossing her legs and shifting to lean on the opposite arm of her chair. “We do know you’re waiting here to be picked up by a third party who is attempting to meddle in our legal affairs. Not just the legal affairs of Jun and I, you understand, but of the entire Tajaki trade dynasty. I have no reason to believe you know exactly what that means, except that you strike me as someone who knows all sorts of things she should have no way of knowing.”

“I get that your family is super powerful,” Emilie said.

Mai smiled brightly. “Yes, we are. And we don’t tolerate meddlers. And these meddlers have no power at all. Not a bit. Not even, shall we say, a smidge. They’ve been caught up on the other side of the tribunal enforcers’ barricade. They are never going to get past it, I’m afraid. They can keep trying to file motions, but really they are as the buzzing of a gnat to our army of lawyers.” Then she paused, her smile wavering. “I’m sorry, I quite forgot that you grew up in space. A gnat is—”

“I know what a gnat is,” Emilie said.

“Of course,” Mai said, summoning up that smile once more. “So I hope you can see that we’re really here to rescue you. I’m sure you realize the people who instigated the violence back at your home are still looking for you. It’s only a matter of time before they find you. Clever as you are.”

“And the people who instigated the violence are . . . ?” Emilie prompted.

“Really, it would be far more comfortable to tell this long, tragic story over a meal,” Mai said. “You will be our guests.”

“Guests,” Emilie repeated dubiously.

“Of course,” Mai said. “I’m not offended that you don’t trust us. Trust has to be earned. I promise you we will earn it. But for now, know that we are here on this side of the barricade with the blessing of the tribunal enforcers and that a ménage of them are with us now. They will always be there when the two of us and the three of you are in the same room, to observe. We cannot coerce you; they will not allow it. I do hope we can persuade you to help us, however.”

She smiled again, but Scout felt an icy chill run up her spine. Three of you, she had said. Did that mean Emilie, Geeta, and Seeta? Or did it mean Emilie, Geeta, and Scout?

“I need to talk to Geeta about it first,” Scout said.

“Of course,” Mai said brightly. “She is on the marshal’s ship, and she’s heard this entire conversation from there. You go to her and talk it over, and when you’re ready, just float out of the dock and we will pick you up. The ship will stay in our hangar until you require it again. I promise you”—she leaned forward, elbows on her knees and hands clasped together—“promise you that you will be free to leave any time you wish.”

Emilie just nodded and then turned her back on the screen. The image of the sisters winked out, replaced by the previous image of the computer-labeled fleet of ships. For a moment they were still all but invisible against the black, but in the blink of an eye, they all turned on their exterior lights. Many were so small and so far away they were just dots, barely brighter than the stars behind them, but others were larger and closer. But none of them could catch Scout’s attention once her eyes fell on the central ship of the fleet.

It was massive, larger than the space station they were standing in. It gleamed like chrome, just as Liam’s ship did, but where his ship was fine as a needle, this was hulking, like a bird of prey with a thick central body flanked by two immense arms that thrust forward. It was like that ship was reaching for them, ready to tear the station apart to get at them.

Scout didn’t realize she had gasped out loud until Emilie stopped in the doorway to look back, first at Scout and then at the screen. But she seemed unmoved.

“Come on,” she said, and Scout summoned the dogs to follow her as she ran to catch up with Emilie. They didn’t speak as they jogged back through the empty marketplace and across the hangar to where Liam’s ship was docked.

Geeta was waiting for them just inside the door of Liam’s ship. Her face was grim.

“The people who started the fighting must be the other half of the Tajaki dynasty,” she said.

“I was thinking the same,” Emilie agreed.

“They seem more on our side than the others,” Scout said. She was picturing the woman dressed all in black, the woman who had more advanced body modifications even than Liam, the woman who had flung Seeta out of the station hangar and into the vacuum of space. Liam had caught her body, but it was still to be seen whether Seeta could be revived from the stasis he had put her in or if they were too late.

A look of pain and sorrow tightened Geeta’s features, and Scout knew she was picturing the same woman. Going with the Months might be a way to strike back at that woman, somehow.

But, apparently, Geeta had come to a different conclusion. “The lesser of two evils is still evil,” she said.

Emilie nodded and slipped into the pilot’s chair. “The ship and I have come up with a few options. I don’t have time to explain, but . . .”

She didn’t need to. Geeta grabbed Gert, and Scout scooped up Shadow, and they tucked the dogs back inside their little cupboard. By the time they had strapped themselves in, Emilie had closed the ship’s door and unmoored them from the dock.

And once more they found themselves pushing forward into impenetrable darkness.