Nina Osier - Exile's End

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Exile's End

By Nina M. Osier

CHAPTER 1

It was a fine day for a kidnapping.

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The Trade Fair was in full swing on the surface of Chaitanya, and there were scores of ships parked

in orbit around that less-than-hospitable world. The Trade Fair was held here, and not on a more inviting

planet (of which there were of course dozens - hundreds, even - within the uneven sphere of human-

settled space), simply because of its location; Chaitanya belonged to no group in particular, and to every

human in general. And just as importantly, it was somewhere near the physical center of the area regularly

plied by freighters and tankers and other such commercial starships; so gathering here at intervals that

followed the solar year of long-abandoned Earth was as workable as any such gathering pattern might

have been, although of course not every trader's House was represented at every annual Fair.

Valeria was always represented, though. Like most of the older Houses, that family held several

ships and deliberately scattered them across the established trade routes in order to cover as much territory

and consistently gain as much profit as possible. This year the old man's own ship, which according to

custom bore the House's name on its superstructure, was itself in orbit above Chaitanya Spaceport. Of

course, everyone in the trading community knew that Anders Valeria himself would probably take little

part in the Fair's proceedings; but he was there, and his ship rode in one of the more coveted orbits where

shuttle access could be had by an almost direct rise from the surface instead of by a circuitous routing in

order to avoid everyone else's orbits and everyone else's shuttles. Everyone respected Anders Valeria, and

because they knew the cause of his weakness almost everyone excused it by never mentioning it where

any of his family members could hear.

But everyone knew, of course, that Anders Valeria would spend most of his time in a wine-fog in

his cabin while his eldest child - a thirty-year-old son - ran things, for all intents and purposes as if his

father were already dead. When his fellow traders spoke of this at all, carefully out of the Valeria family's

hearing, they agreed that it was fortunate for everyone that Jock had both his father's gifts for starship

trading and his long-dead mother's calm, sober personality. If Anders had bred another like himself as his

firstborn, that ancient House would have been in deep difficulties by now. It had taken young Jock the

entire nine years since he'd completed his military obligation and returned to his father's ship to get the

House back on an even keel; it had been tottering dangerously by that time, with Anders Valeria's young

second wife dead and his attention focused solidly on chemical consolation rather than on his business or

even on his ship.

Jock would have liked nothing better than to have gone down to the Fair with his young half-

siblings, on this day when the real business was taking place aboard the orbiting ships and what happened

dirtside was for fellowship and entertainment's sake only; but he no longer had that luxury, had not had it

since the year he himself had been just turned eighteen and on his way - literally, straight from the Fair -

to Guardbase Alpha to begin his three years of compulsory military service. So he had sent twins Jason

and Xanthe, who were celebrating their own eighteenth birth-anniversary this very day, down to the

festivities with firm instructions: "Enjoy every minute of it! I wish I'd known when I was 18 that being

young doesn't last forever!"

That, of course, made his half-siblings look at each other with mingled amusement and disgust. In a

sense he seemed as ancient to them as did their father, and therefore it was not conceivable that he'd ever

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been as young as they were; and in another sense he was their brother, not their parent, and therefore had

no business making such speeches.

They were technical adults themselves, as of today, and had for the first time been admitted to any

entertainment they cared to sample; had been able to purchase intoxicants, experiment as they pleased -

and hadn't bothered with much of it, because like so many of their kind they had figured out ways to do

illegally at fourteen (or earlier) everything that today was supposed to be so new and magical at eighteen.

Jason had spent much of his time discreetly trailing after a certain golden-haired, closely-chaperoned girl;

and Xanthe had spent her time keeping an eye on her twin.

Which was why they were arguing now, uncharacteristically, as the shuttle they were co-piloting

lifted from Chaitanya's surface toward their father's ship and as night began to come down on the

hemisphere where Chaitanya Spaceport was located. No longer were they young enough for curfews, but

staying dirtside to sleep hadn't even occurred to either of them. It was almost beyond imagining, to

voluntarily sleep anywhere but in the safety of the Valeria's familiar compartments.

"Jason, you looked just plain foolish!" Xanthe told her brother now, tossing her mane of dark hair

and giving him a quick glare when her eyes weren't busy with the instrument console in front of her.

"How could you think she'd be interested in you, even if she could get away from her chaperone? Do you

think she doesn't know her father hates ours?"

Jason Valeria was not responding well to his twin's needling, because he was barely noticing it at

all. The slim, wiry young man - shorter by centimeters than half-brother Jock, and so much less

powerfully built that seeing the likeness of their faces was always something of a shock to strangers - was

doing his job as co-pilot well enough, because that came almost as naturally as breathing; but he was

thinking far more about that slender, blonde girl who'd been boarding another House's shuttle just as he

and Xanthe had boarded theirs, than about his sister's chattering tongue.

"Jason! You do know that's Kyla Robie you've been trailing around all day?" Xanthe could have

reached out and shaken him, the half-smile on his face was so aggravating. "I realize no one ever sees her,

the old man keeps her locked up like some kind of exotic crystal - but you did know that's who she is?

And you do remember what that means?"

Jason gave himself a small, deliberate shake. It was becoming obvious that his twin wasn't going to

run down until she got a reply, and he was too happy to want to give her the sort of cutting response that

she probably deserved (probably even expected!); so he was searching half-heartedly for some

appropriate word or phrase that could be used to quash her gently, when he heard a different sound from

her lips.

"What?" she said, and followed the word with another that Jock would definitely not have let her

say in his presence no matter what birthday she'd just celebrated. "Jason! My console's off-line. Have you

got her?" (Her, of course, being the shuttle.)

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He hadn't. The shuttle was moving, at just the same speed as a moment earlier when Xanthe had had

it firmly in her experienced grasp; but its course was altered, and neither twin had entered any request for

that course change.

Jason tapped the comm. "Shuttle to Valeria," he said, in his surprisingly deep young voice. "Are you

tractoring us? What's going on?"

There was no reply except static. At his side Xanthe tapped her own comm, and tried for another

contact. "Chaitanya Control, this is Valeria shuttle," she said, with the outward calm of a lifetime already

spent encountering and dealing with the sometimes terrible surprises that were part and parcel to a trader's

life. "We're being tractored, apparently not by our own ship. Control, do you copy?"

More static. The twins looked at each other, then at the readouts on their consoles; and they went to

work without a word, tapping in instructions - rerouting controls - reconfiguring power circuits.

To no avail whatsoever. The comms stayed dead, the consoles stayed off-line, and the shuttle

continued lifting toward - where?

Alan Robie watched the dot on the viewscreen that represented the Valeria shuttle's progress, and he

smiled to himself in that way that his elder daughter Alana (and before her, each of the two women who

had been his wives) had learned to regard as the worst kind of storm warning. Kyla, his younger daughter

and the proverbial apple of his eye, would not have felt that shock of unpleasant recognition; but everyone

else who'd spent any length of time aboard the freighter Callon would have known that smile, just as

quickly and with just as much foreboding as would Alana or her mother Treena or Kyla's mother Dorina.

No one was here to see that smile and realize its meaning now, though, because Robie was not on

board the Callon. He sat in the control room of a just-purchased tiny yacht, with only a single companion;

and that woman, although a long-time associate, had no personal relationship with him - had never had to

work for him - and therefore saw only a smile. Nothing more. So all she said was, "You look pleased,

Captain Robie."

"I am pleased," Robie admitted, deliberately letting the small smile become a grin that distorted his

scarred face. "I've waited a long time for this."

"You're paying us well for this," the woman countered, returning his unholy grin. She did not have

his horrible facial scars, but her smile was somehow not one bit less distorted. "So. We'll take the young

Valerias somewhere very safe, and we'll release them only when you give the word. And, of course, when

you pay the other half of the fee for their - ah - detention."

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"Exactly." Robie checked his chronometer. "And now, although I don't want to be a poor host - isn't

it time for you to be back aboard your ship so you can greet them? And then get underway?"

"A moment, Captain." The woman touched her private comm, listened intently to a message that

was not audible to other ears, and then nodded in satisfaction. "I have more good news, although you may

not see it that way. The young Valerias are safely aboard my ship - and so is young Mistress Robie."

"What?" It was almost a bellow. Alan Robie reached for his associate, almost as if he would put his

hands around her throat and throttle her; but an instant later he had control again, although a vein

throbbed at his temple as he stared at her. "Kyla? What have you done to my daughter?"

"Nothing at all, Captain Robie. And as long as you keep your end of our bargain, nothing will be

done to her. But you've been known to - ah - alter agreements in your own favor in the past; and

kidnapping is an offense with a large enough penalty that I've made certain you wouldn't decide that the

safe return of the young Valerias to their family wasn't worth making the second payment. So you will get

Kyla back, when the House of Valeria gets Xanthe and Jason back. Fair enough, I think?" The woman did

not wait for a reply, did not even wait for an acknowledgment. She had risen from the co-pilot's chair as

she had spoken, and she was leaving the control room for the access tube connecting the Robie yacht to

her own shuttle. In fact, she was doing so rather more quickly than was strictly necessary.

Alan Robie gave a moment's real consideration to sealing his yacht's airlock behind her and

dumping the access tube - atmosphere, pressure, unsuited guest and all - into vacuum, before the woman

could gain the safety of her shuttle and cast off properly. If he did that now, he could claim imperfect

knowledge of what had just been done between Chaitanya's surface and a certain doubtfully registered

cargo ship orbiting a hundred or so kilometers from his current position. He could contact the small

Guardpost below, raise an alarm, have the youngsters - all three of them, his own child and Anders

Valeria's two brats - rescued before that ship had any opportunity to leave orbit. He could probably

manage to do it without even getting fined for his actions thusfar, so skillfully could he place the blame

elsewhere if he acted right now.

Which would mean giving up the revenge he'd planned for the past thirty years. If he'd had thirty

more years in which to accomplish it, he might have chosen differently; he might have raised the alarm,

because he honestly did not enjoy thinking about how frightened his daughter - that lovely, sheltered child

of seventeen - must be feeling right now. But she was in no danger, and she was not going to be in any

danger. He knew his associates, had done business with them on dozens of even more delicate matters

over a quarter of a century and more. They would not harm Kyla unless it profited them more to do so

than it profited them to hold her safely and return her to her family when the whole operation was

concluded. And he not only didn't have thirty more years to set up another attempt at Anders Valeria - he

didn't even have thirty more months. Right now he felt well enough, but the monstrous thing that was

growing inside his body would soon begin to rob him of mobility - of clear thought - of all that was

necessary, in order for him to do to Anders Valeria what he'd planned and dreamed of doing over so many

long and strangely empty years.

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Exile'sEndExile'sEndByNinaM.OsierCHAPTER1Itwasafinedayforakidnapping.file:///G|/Program%20Files/eMule/Incoming/exile'send.htm(1of153)[1\2/30/200411:55:04PM]Exile'sEndTheTradeFairwasinfullswingonthesurfaceofChaitanya,an\dtherewerescoresofshipsparkedinorbitaroundthatless-than-hospitableworld.TheTradeF...

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Nina Osier - Exile's End

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