Kris nodded. “Sure. Good guy, but really tough. Had the nickname Mustang-hunter, for picking people out of the ranks to go to the Academy.”
Morrison nodded. “Good. I need you to get this to him.” She fished a data cube out of her pocket. “I’m going to tell you some of what’s happened today—”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Howard R. Ventoven, of Vatta’s legal department, called Ky within the hour, as promised. He had her file, he said. “We have your birth certificate on record here, Sera—or is it Admiral?”
“Sera,” Ky said.
“Thank you. We needed it to prove that the transfer of shares was within the family. And your DNA is on file as well, so proving your identity is not a problem. The difficulty—as far as citizenship alone is concerned—is the third leg of the stool. Your absence for so long, your residence in the Moscoe Confederation, and their claim that you are a citizen there, makes this a very touchy issue. I’m assuming you’ve been paying taxes there?”
“Not really. Part of the support they’ve pledged to the SDF is docking space and a certain amount of support each fiscal year. Other contributors, including Slotter Key, pledged ships and crew—”
“And the salaries of the crews—I assume they do have salaries?”
“Of course. That’s a monetary contribution as well from the major members. It’s all pooled together, and then distributed to the personnel and the supply chain.” She had waived her own SDF salary, since she had Vatta money coming in.
“Do you have documentation available?” Ventoven asked.
“Not with me, no. Until my ship left I could have downloaded it from there, but now—”
“Now Cascadia is not in the mood to cooperate with you,” he said. “Most inconvenient. And they’ve slapped that lien on your Crown & Spears account, claiming that it’s legal to do so because you’re their citizen.”
“I’m not,” Ky said again. “Not at all. Never claimed to be. Crown & Spears knows that, too.”
“Can you explain why you chose to base your SDF there instead of here?”
“They had working ansibles,” Ky said. “Slotter Key did not, at that time. Communication is essential. Also, the Moscoe Confederation is more central, connected by a single jump to many more worlds, with established trade routes between them all.”
“I see. It’s good that you had a sensible reason.” She heard a muffled voice in the background, and his reply. (“Not now. I’ll call him later.”) Then he said, “Our best strategy is to lean on the fact that you were not informed, that you had no chance to be informed after you landed, and that you’re still due the legal response time allotted, from the time you were informed of your citizenship having lapsed, which was the arrival of that summons, as I understand, in which to reinstate it. In fact, even if you had been told when you finally reached Port Major, you would still have time to make application and stop the clock. I will make that case immediately to an Immigration judge.”
“Thank you,” Ky said.
“After all, you saved those people on the shuttle. Slotter Key should be grateful, not punitive… though in law, such things do not always have the effect they should.” Another muffled sound in the background of his office, then “Yes—Nils, get me a list of the Immigration judges in the city and their schedule, please. And the forms someone would need to file for reinstatement of citizenship, and the contact numbers of the relevant officials over in the Department of Immigration.”
Ky sat down in the desk chair, the sizzling sensation in her nerves quieting. Maybe it would be over quickly. She needed to focus on her crew, those who had been unfairly imprisoned and mistreated. She needed to be able to travel—
“Sera Kylara? You’re still on? Good. I will be working on this, top priority, and will call you again as soon as I have any more information.” He cut the circuit before she could ask him about the other issues in the summons.
“Well?” Rafe lounged against the doorframe.
“He’s going to work on it,” Ky said. “Swears he’ll have some news soon. Thinks the fact I wasn’t ever officially informed until today means I should be given the allotted time to make application, and then threw in a comment about Slotter Key owing me thanks for those I saved, and hung up before I could remind him my exit visa was rescinded because of the deaths. And that was in the summons, too, at least Marek’s and Jen’s.”
“Do you really want Slotter Key citizenship? I thought you couldn’t stand it here and wanted to leave.”
“It’s my anchor, Rafe, the way Nexus is yours—”
“I was gone from Nexus a lot longer than you were gone from here. And I don’t care, really. I care about my family, what’s left of it, and I find ISC an interesting set of challenges, but Nexus isn’t home—as long as Penny doesn’t need me, I feel no pull to go back.” He tipped his head. “And you—you do feel that this is home, don’t you?”
“The ocean smelled right, even down there,” Ky said softly. “The air—I was afraid to go to Corleigh, those memories hurt—but again, the colors, the smells, the sound of the breeze, even the gravity. It’s me. It’s… right.” She looked down at the desk. “I remember this, from before. Uncle Stavros sitting where I’m sitting. Stella glowering at me from the corner over there because we were both in trouble, but she knew she’d get the most blame, being older.”
“You had a lot more family than I did,” Rafe said. “I had sisters, but no cousins around.”
“I didn’t expect this reaction,” Ky said. She looked at him. “I love being out in space. I love seeing the new places, coming into new space stations, all that… but I feel like… it’s because I have this connection to Slotter Key. That’s who I am, a Vatta of Slotter Key. I can’t imagine being from somewhere else. Didn’t it bother you at all, at least at first, when you used an alias?”
“No,” Rafe said. “I thought it was fun. We used to act out plays, when I was a child. Pretending to be somebody else came naturally to me. Didn’t you do that?”
“Sometimes…” Ky thought a moment. “And in school there were plays. But I liked being on the stage crew more than taking a part.”
Rafe struck a pose. “I was the only boy in the family so I got many different parts, sometimes in the same play. Later, playacting had a practical use.” He gave her a serious look. “You, Ky—you’ve always been yourself, haven’t you? Just yourself.”
“I suppose.” Something about that question made her feel restless. “But I’ve changed—”
“Yes, you grew up, you moved into different social roles. But—when you were first a Vatta captain, did you feel you were playacting?”
“No.” Nervous at first, yes. But certain that she could command a ship with practice.
“When we first met, I saw you as younger, inexperienced, but someone completely herself. Solid. It was clear you distrusted me—and I think it’s because you detected that role-playing I had been doing. Was doing then, in fact.”
Ky said nothing, still mulling over that central difference. Was that really what it came down to? That he was a play-actor and she wasn’t? And what did that say about their future?
“The thing is,” he said, more slowly, “I had forgotten by then what it felt like to have a solid identity. When I was a small child, I always knew who I was, but when my family sent me away—after what happened in that so-called school—that identity was gone. I had to become whatever it took to survive. And I was proud of it, because I did survive when I wasn’t expected to. I laughed at people like you—laughed about them. But you—I couldn’t ignore you. I couldn’t ignore what your sense of self gave you. When faced with a crisis—when my family was abducted and you were gone—I tried to think more like you, act more like you.”