“What? I didn’t steal vaccine! I didn’t even know they made any yet!”
“Not vaccine they made. The original, from Earth.”
“I didn’t take it!”
Either the kid was telling the truth or he was a terrific liar. At Austin’s age, Leo had been a terrific liar. He let the vaccine drop.
“Okay, you didn’t take the vaccine. That still doesn’t tell me where you were.”
“With friends.”
“Where?”
Austin tried to push past. Leo caught him by the arm. The squad needed whatever intel Austin possessed. “Listen, Austin. I like you. But you were somewhere mysterious and Lieutenant Lamont doesn’t like mysterious. So you can tell me or you can tell him, and believe me, you’d rather tell me.”
Austin’s face changed. He didn’t recognize good cop–bad cop—no TV on Kindred. And he was afraid of Owen. Which made sense—Owen was pretty scary these days.
Austin said desperately, “I told you. I was away, with friends. Someplace secret.”
Leo loosened his grip a little and pretended a smile. “I had a secret castle at your age. Made of cardboard, in a tree.”
“It’s not a stupid castle in a tree! I’m not a kid!”
Leo realized his mistake. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m old enough to take care of my mother!”
“Where are you taking care of her?”
“Leave me alone, Leo! I’m tired!” He was blinking back tears.
“Where, Austin?” Leo tightened his grip again, just short of pain. “Who’s there?”
“Ask Noah! He knows! He followed me there once!”
“Noah followed you there? Noah knows everything?”
“Not everything! I’m the only one who knows everything! Ow, let me go, you’re hurting me!”
Leo didn’t let go. Better this for Austin than what Owen might do. “What doesn’t Noah know? Tell me that and I’ll let you go, as long as you tell me the truth. What’s at your friend’s place that Noah doesn’t know about?”
“Nothing important! Just a rusty old alien machine I found buried in sand in a cave! Well, it’s not rusty, but—it’s an alien pyramid! There! Are you satisfied? Noah knows everything else! Ask him!”
“I will.” Leo released Austin, who rubbed his eyes and then glared through the dirt on his face. “How’d you get so dirty?”
“It’s a fucking cave! Ask Noah!”
Leo believed him. Too bad he had to manhandle the kid to get the information. Although compared to what Leo had gone through at his foster homes on Terra… but this wasn’t Terra. And Leo wasn’t that kind of monster, and he didn’t want this boy, Isabelle’s nephew, to think he was. So he said quietly, “I’m sorry, Austin. I didn’t mean to hurt you. It was just necessary. And can I ask you one more question? It’s something you know and I don’t, but I’d like to. Please.”
Leo’s tone—contrite, humble—clearly confused Austin. He said nothing, but after a moment he gave a grudging nod.
Leo said, “What’s ‘moe-moe’?”
“What?”
“I might not be pronouncing it right.” Deliberately so; let Austin feel superior.
“You mean ‘¡mo¡mo^’?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you want to know that for?”
“I’m curious. It’s a word Isabelle used.”
“And you like her. You want sex with her. Forget it,” Austin said with the viciousness of the aggrieved young, “she’s having sex with Dr. Bourgiba!”
Leo let go of Austin’s arm. Immediately the kid looked scared. Leo said, “Go on inside the compound. Face the music there.”
Austin looked puzzled; he didn’t know what the phrase meant. Then he scurried away, looking back once over his shoulder, fearful, like Leo might shoot him in the back. But before Austin reached the compound, he called back to Leo, “I’m sorry!”
Leo nodded that it was okay, because it was. Austin had just needed to get back at him. Now they were even, and the next time they met, Austin would be okay with him again.
Leo radioed Owen to say there was a secret place somewhere that Noah Jenner knew about. If it was a weapons cache—and Leo doubted that, Noah was no insurgent—then it was Owen’s job to decide what to do about it. If anything. It wasn’t like they didn’t have their hands full right here, come tomorrow and the vaccination program that might happen.
Or not.
CHAPTER 14
Branch knocked on the door of Marianne’s new closet, where she had gone for a few precious moments alone with her granddaughter. Lily lay curled in Marianne’s lap, asleep. Unable to talk to Lily except for a few broken phrases of Kindred, Marianne had played finger games with her and then with Lily’s doll—small replicas of humans turned up in every known culture and so Marianne was not surprised by Lily’s doll. Now the doll lay on the pallet beside them and Marianne cradled Lily, fingers against the child’s skin, hoping that no fever would develop there.
An hour earlier, Lily and Llaa^moh¡ had received the synthesized vaccine.
So much agony had gone into that decision. Lily was half Terran—would Noah’s immunity alone have protected her? Chances were strong that Noah had immunity, but what if he didn’t? Also, might the vaccine itself harm Lily? The last thing Marianne had anticipated was using her granddaughter as a lab rat, but Noah and Llaa^moh¡ had made the decision. If Lily was going to sicken from the vaccine, her parents wanted time to care for her before they were inundated with sick children.
Later, Noah and Llaa^moh¡ would sit all night with their daughter, waiting. It had been both heroic and kind of them to first let Marianne have a precious hour alone with Lily.
“Dr. Jenner, can I come in?”
Annoyed at the interruption, Marianne called softly, “Is it important?”
“Yes!”
Which might or might not be true. “Come in.”
Branch opened the door, obviously bursting to tell Marianne something. First, however, she put a finger to her lips and whispered, “What’s all that noise in the walkway?”
“Austin is back. Marianne—”
“Austin? Does he have the original vaccine?” Bile rose in her throat. If the original, the safe, vaccine was here right after Lily had received the untested synth-vac—
“No. He says he didn’t take it. But of course he did, and now he’s lying so he doesn’t get punished.”
Marianne said nothing. She had raised difficult children—all three of hers, in different ways—and knew that difficult children could turn out all right in the end. Look at Noah, once an aimless addict, now a sort of leader to a sort of alien race. You never knew. Branch, at twenty-eight, was childless.
“But, Dr. Jenner, listen—”
“Keep your voice down, Branch, Lily’s asleep.”
“Oh. Sorry. But listen—I’ve got the transmissions from the colony ship decoded!”
“You have!” She had raised her voice, and Lily stirred on her lap. “You have?” she whispered.
“Well, partly, anyway. I figured out how to translate the signal to sound waves. Now I just have to clear the noise and—”
“You mean speech? But there’s nobody left alive on the ship!”
“No, not speech. I tried that already. It’s some other code, but not from a voice transmitter like the one we have—had—on the Friendship. From the ship itself, I think. It could be really useful astronomical data.”
Useful to whom? The spore cloud was going to commit viral genocide on the planet. Looking at Branch’s excited face, the face of youth so easily able to compartmentalize that one thing at a time could fill his entire mental universe, Marianne did not say this.
“Good work, Branch. But aren’t you supposed to be in the lab, preparing vaccine?”