The doctor tenses. He shrinks away as Stephen approaches, emitting a sound that’s halfway between a whimper and a sigh.
Stephen slips the scalpel carefully between Dr. Fournier’s clenched fists. The doctor opens his hands and lets the scalpel drop. But then on the second try, when he realises that Stephen is not trying to murder him, he accepts it. “You can cut yourself free,” Stephen tells him. “Probably. But you’d better not follow me, Dr. Fournier. It’s not safe for you where I’m going.”
Fournier’s eyes implore him. “Greaves, wait. Tell me—”
“He’s the hero of the spaceways, the galactic engineer! He brings the Terran Code to all the planets far and near!”
“For God’s sake! Greaves!”
But he’s gone, still singing. Captain Power’s ship was called Copernicus. He was a scientist as well as a hero, and knowledge was his greatest weapon. He would have hated Dr. Fournier, who tries to turn knowledge into things he wants.
On the mid-section platform, Stephen kneels and makes ready. He finds the scarred girl’s totem, her gift to him, and slips his little finger through the ring. The smiling man in the red hat and blue overalls dangles between his fingers.
He presses the airlock control. As the door slides open he steps out.
Into a mob. The children are everywhere, crowding dozens deep. So many! Have they brought reinforcements this time or were they always an army rather than a family?
But they are a family. The youngest press against the oldest or hide behind them, peeping out from cover. They grip onto the elbows of the bigger kids or swing from them, kicking their heels, as human children have always done. They are loved and protected, their place absolutely acknowledged.
They make no move towards Greaves. Perhaps having the door just slide open in front of them when they were gearing up for a siege throws them a little off their stride.
He holds up the key ring for them to see, and waits. He has no idea whether the little man with the M on his hat will make a difference, but once again it’s all he’s got. A ripple of interest goes through the children like a breeze through grass. They know whose sigil this is.
Then something else goes through them. The scarred girl herself, striding confidently along a corridor that opens ahead of her and closes again in her wake. The children step out of her path quickly enough that she is able to maintain a steady pace, never having to slow or stop.
She walks right to him.
She extends her hand and touches the key ring with the tip of one finger, as though she is acknowledging a kinship or a debt. They exchanged gifts. She remembers. Stephen looks down at her waist, expecting to see Captain Power’s voice box among the baubles hanging there, but it’s not. When he looks up again it’s in her hand.
He releases a held breath. He still has far to go, but he feels as though he is on the right road.
Without shifting his ground, he half-turns and points—raising his hand slowly and carefully—behind him, towards the airlock. Actually towards the mid-section platform. He has left the lights on there, so they can see. More gifts …
Baby Khan lies on his back, quiet and good, kicking his legs just a little. Beside him, swathed in an identical green blanket, is the dead boy. It’s not an equation. Greaves is not saying anything about their relative importance. He’s just saying: they’re both yours. One living, one dead, but they’re yours. See that.
Two or three of the nearest children step forward, but the scarred girl stops them again with a single syllable. She is still looking at Stephen. She makes the exact same gesture he just made, points her finger at the living and the dead, then lets it fall.
It’s probably a status thing. He has to come to her. He has to bring his offerings and lay them down before her.
He moves as slowly as he can, partly to avoid triggering any violent responses and partly to maintain the sense that this is a ritual. He steps onto the platform and picks up the dead boy.
The radio crackles in his pocket, speaks thin and broken words.
Reluctantly he sets the dead body down again, takes the radio out and puts it to his ear. “Yes?”
“Greaves. It’s Colonel Carlisle.”
Greaves considers many possible answers, settles on one that he hopes will fend off profitless questions. “I can’t talk right now, Colonel. I’m busy.”
“I know. I can see. I’m out on the parade ground, fifty yards away. If you close the airlock I think I can disperse the children without harming them.”
Greaves is appalled. “No!” he yelps. “Don’t. Please, Colonel! Don’t do that. Don’t fire on them.”
“Then what support can I give you?”
Greaves looks out into the dark. He shakes his head, in case the colonel is actually close enough to see him. “None,” he says.
“Lad, you’re going to get yourself—”
“It’s fine. I’ll be fine. This is the only way, Colonel. The only way. Don’t do anything.” He hesitates. There’s so much he can’t explain, but maybe one thing that he has to, to keep the colonel from running in with his rifle and ruining everything. But he’s bad at explanations that aren’t technical, and he is almost certain that the technical explanation won’t work here. “You know …” he tries, “with kittens … if they smell wrong, or look wrong, sometimes the mother will eat them.”
“What are you talking about?” the colonel asks.
“Rina’s baby. He has to go to his people, Colonel.”
“His people? But …”
For a few seconds there is nothing but static on the line.
Then the colonel’s voice says, “All right. I understand. Go on, Greaves.”
“That’s all,” Greaves says. “I want them to accept him. I promised Rina. And if I do everything right, it might be okay. But if you fire … Please don’t, Colonel. Please don’t do anything, whatever you see.”
He switches the radio off and sets it down on the floor. Then he picks up the little corpse again and brings it out.
The whole tribe is waiting in silence, taking their cue from the scarred girl. But a shiver of movement goes through them all when they see—or perhaps smell—what Greaves is carrying. One of the children speaks, a murmur of liquid syllables. Another makes a sound like a soft moan.
The girl inclines her head and makes a brusque movement with her hand. She clicks her tongue. Four living children take the dead one from Stephen’s hands and bear him to her. The scarred girl touches the boy’s forehead, and then her own. They lay him at her feet, as softly as if they were trying not to wake him.
Stephen goes back inside, bends and scoops up baby Khan. The baby makes a small noise in his throat. Geh. His clenched fists paddle as though he is squaring up for a fight.