Chapter 16:
Clara stood before the window in her chamber, letting the tears fall. She had no love for Orbitary, but she also had no destination in mind either. She was uncertain about the future, and she had to get her mother out of that cryo-chamber and onto a passage somewhere. But where? Where could they go? She had her father and Joshua back now, and close by. They could go anywhere now, but where was there to go?
Her tele-call chirped. Clara answered it and found Joshua looking back at her. It was still startling, his transformation. She said, “Yes?”
Joshua said, “I just won a massive pot. Father’s at a table. Are you going to be in the hall soon? We waited for you in the chamber all night, but you never came so we figured you must have had to do something else.”
Guilt hit. She had spent the entire night trying to wrestle with the hardest of all decisions. She could stay on, but Renall would be gone. She did not know if that would make it easier or harder for her. The hall would no longer be his now anyway. “Yes.” She straightened her shoulders. She knew she had few choices. They could stay on Orbitary long enough to get more credits and then book passage somewhere else, somewhere that halls were legal and they could make more credits. They would probably have to live a very nomadic existence now, and she felt no joy in that thought. “I’ll be right there.”
She clicked off and gathered her things then headed for the hall. Her feet dragged. The last thing she wanted to do was cheat at a table, but Joshua and her father were right. And again, the hall was no longer Renall’s so she could do it and know she had never cheated the man she loved. That was something, at least.
Her head high, she sailed into the hall. The noise hit her ears, and she winced. The tables were packed. The dealer she would be replacing was in the midst of a high-stakes high credits game. No way could they let go yet and it didn’t look like the table would close anytime soon either. She drifted along the banks of the games tables, casting an eye about for a likely prospect.
Joshua lounged at a table, a tall bottle of water in front of him. The expense of that water made her teeth gnash together. He should not waste credits so easily, she thought as she slid into the seat next to his.
Joshua whispered, “What are you doing? You can’t be seen with me.”
“I am not cheating for you, Joshua, for any of us. I don’t have to.” She fumbled the key to the cryo-chamber out and set it on the table. “He gave me the key.”
Joshua regarded the key. He tilted the water into a glass and sipped it slowly and with real pleasure. He took a long breath. “What’s the catch?”
“There isn’t one.”
Joshua snorted. “There is always a catch.”
“Not this time.” Her fingers danced across the table’s top. “Joshua, what do you plan to do? I mean really do? What are we supposed to do?”
His face took on a bleak expression. “I don’t really know. I mean I know we can’t stay here. This place is a credit pit. They charge you every time you breathe it seems like.”
“That’s because they do.” The restrictive nature of Orbitary chafed at her yet again. “It would be far too easy to stay here and keep living in the rooms and working this hall but—but I don’t think that is what I want, really. We’d be chained to yet another kind of debt. No better off than we were in Old Toronto. We would all have to struggle each day to keep the amount of credits we owe low and our wins high and our losses low just so we could buy into another round.”
Joshua’s eyes fastened on the key. His finger slid it towards his body. “I know that. It’s a sucker bet, staying here. I just don’t have any idea of what else is out there, or what to do next.”
Their father appeared. His brow, much smoother and younger now that he had had the lifts and lasers applied, wrinkled as he saw them sitting together. Joshua held up the key and Benson’s face became wreathed in a smile. He took a seat. “How did you do it?”
“He gave it to me. He is selling the hall. Sold it, rather. He gave me the key and my freedom and so now…” I don’t want to be free of him. I want to be with him. But that is never going to happen. I have my family. That is what matters and what I have to deal with right now. She spoke again. “We were just discussing what we should do next. I don’t know, truly, if the new owner of the hall will want to bring in new dealers or not. Even if they do, I am not sure staying here is a good idea.”
Joshua said, “Me either. I agree with you on the fact that staying here will effectively keep us chained to the tables and to debt and we might end up in their debtor’s prison off one bad hand. I think I will pass.”
Benson nodded and passed the key back to Clara. “I also agree with that. First things first we have to get mother out of cryo. Then we can, after she has had time to readjust, sit down as a family and decide what to do.”
Clara looked back at the table she usually manned. Still busy. Still no signs of the dealer or the players letting go. And what was more, her heart was not in it.
Carding was a learned skill. She had always known that. There had been plenty of hands that she had enjoyed, but it had never been something she truly loved and wanted to do. It was all she knew.
Maybe it was time to learn something else.
She stood. “The bays are down below.”
They headed for them. The doors were, of course, locked. They each had to pay a five-credit chip to enter, something that grated on Clara’s nerves. The cryo boxes sat in long rows, and they walked along the rows softly even though they knew that no amount of noise would awaken the beings within them.
A tall being with glowing flesh and a tall, angular skull appeared. “May I assist you?”
Clara held out the key. “We need an awakening.”
“I see.” The key was plucked from her grip and examined. “Oh yes. This way.” He led them to a smaller room off the one they had been walking through. There were far fewer boxes there, and the being went straight to one.
Benson asked, “Why is she being kept in this room?”
The being clicked the key into a large control panel. Lights flashed. Circuits began to whirr. The being said, “Because her awakening is already paid for. The others are debtors and cannot be awakened until their debts are paid.”
Clara’s mouth dropped open. Renall had never told her he had paid for the awakening, which was expensive. She looked at Joshua and Benson. They both looked back at her steadily. They must think I paid it off. She decided not to mention it had been Renall. If she did, they would want to know why, and there was no way she wanted to admit to them that she had fallen in love again, and been betrayed and wounded yet again for her trouble.
The being said, “Ah there we are,” as an arc of blue light ran over the cryo box. The box took on a hazy glow and then Megda, Clara’s mother, sat up, her slim hands clutching the sides of the box and her mouth hanging open as she coughed hard, expelling the cryo fluid from her mouth. Her hair hung damp and tangled, and her face wore a fine misty coating of nitrolen, the chemical used to help prevent cryo-thaw.
Benson whispered, “Oh my…” then he rushed forward, all words forgotten in his haste to get his wife out of that box and hold her again.
Tears sprang into Clara’s eyes, but they were happy tears. It was a beautiful thing to watch. Her mother tottered and stumbled, her legs unsteady. That was normal. It would take her a little while to readjust. They all stood there hugging each other and talking softly for a few minutes while Megda got her bearings. The being eventually announced Megda could depart the bay.
They had to pay the credits at the door again. Megda asked, “What is that about?”
Joshua said, “This is the worst coin grubber place I have ever seen.”
Megda was clearly confused but willing to accept that at face value. They made their way along the hall. Joshua led the way to the chamber he and Benson shared. As they stepped inside, Magda’s stomach let out a low grumble. She slapped a hand to it with a wince. “Sorry.”
Clara wrapped an arm around her mother’s frail shoulders. “It’s okay. There is plenty of food here.”
“Not cheap, is it?” Megda gave her a small smile.
Clara shook her head. “We have credits; don’t worry.”
Joshua ordered food for all of them. Clara sat down next to her mother and father. They all looked at each other but didn’t speak for long minutes while Megda tried to get her bearings.
The food came. Clara picked at her tray. Megda finished her food and then Clara’s. Color came to her face, and eventually, she sat back and spoke in her old brisk tone. “So, where are we and how did we get here?”
Clara said, “Joshua and Father escaped the serio-max and used the hidden stash of credits to follow us. I was put on what was supposed to be a bride ship but wasn’t. Wreckers, who, as it turned out, were using their stripping profits to fund this hall and other business ventures, took it. The man who was on the wrecking crew discovered I was a carder when he got my file. He gave me a job here and had you body smuggled out of the prison. Father and Joshua had already escaped by then, though I didn’t know it. Once they found out where we were, they came here.”
Megda said, “I see. And where is here exactly?”
“It’s Orbitary. It’s a business planet. The halls are legal here as are tables. I have made a good deal of credits in my time here, and Joshua and Father have been busy accruing many more.”
Megda sipped at the water. Her eyes roved the chamber. “I see. I take it going back to Old Toronto or anywhere on our planet is not a good thing.”
“No.” Joshua shifted in the chair.
Benson said, “I think that is lost to us now. There is no way, even with the genetic lifts, that we can do that.”
Megda smiled. “I must admit that at first, I could not figure out who the two men with my daughter were. But then you touched me, and I knew.”
Clara’s heart gave another throb. That was what she wanted. A love so great that not even a change in facial features could hide the person she loved from her sight. She said, “But we have all already agreed that it is too expensive here.”
Just then, the credit due kiosk whirred, delivering the bill for their dinners. Megda said, “I see that. So where do we go?”
There was a tap on the door. Joshua stood and went to it. He opened the door and stepped back. “Clara, you have a visitor it seems.”
Her heart dropped. Her pulse sped up as Renall entered the room slowly. His handsome face wore a determined expression. His eyes fastened on hers and she swallowed hard. “I was going to the tables, but there was a game…”
“I am not here about that.”
Megda asked, “Who are you?”
“He’s Renall,” Clare said miserably. “He owns the hall. He is the one who had you smuggled here.”
Her heart ached as Renall came closer. He said, “I broke the pact between Morilan and myself. I…I know I am asking a lot but…I wanted to ask you again, and in private, but since this involves your family too now, here is a good time and place I believe. I want you to wed me, Clara. I realize that I am asking a lot. You would have to live on a primitive planet outside the Federation’s reach, but also outside their assistance. There is no hall there and will never be. There is—”
He didn’t get to say anything else. Clara’s chair hit the floor. Hope hit her so hard she nearly doubled over. She spoke in a trembling voice. “You broke the pact? What about the defense of the planet?”
“I will defend it myself if I have to.” His chin came up. “I have forgotten too much of my own history, it seems. I have been a warrior before, and I can be one again.”
Megda asked, “Wait—what are you talking about?”
Benson stood as well. “Outside the Federation?”
Renall looked at all of them, but his eyes came back to rest on Clara’s. He said, “I love you. I want you to wed me. I want…”
She flew into his arms. His arms went around her. She forgot all about her family and kissed him as hard as she could. Tears and laughter both poured from her. She said, “Oh yes. I…yes!”
Then she sobered. She stepped back from his embrace and looked at her family. Worry filled her thoughts. They might not want to live on that planet, and they might not want to give up the tables and the things they knew. She whispered, “Father?”
Benson said, “I think you need to tell us about this planet of which you speak.”
Joshua leaned forward. “Yeah, you do.”
Renall didn’t let go of Clara. He said, “It is a private planet, right past a grav-pull created by a collapsed wormhole. It is not on any maps. It is unpopulated at the moment. It mimics your home planet, what your home planet was once, millennia ago, in many ways. I have been busy buying it but also busy sending all the things for those who wish to go with my siblings and me. They will need it for survival. The two other planets in that system are populated, and one is well populated with several large cities, but they too are non-tech for the most part. I took tele-call equipment to them and other things as part of a pact I made with them, so they have some tech, but for the most part, they prefer to live without it.”
Benson asked, “Are we going to be at war with the other planet due to your breaking the pact?”
Renall shook his head. “There have been, over the years, a number of brigand ships either foolish or brave enough to try to plunder there as the resources are rich, but they have been repelled every time. The weapons used by those people were beyond sophistication centuries ago, and they are still capable of firing. But they train their people to combat in ways most are not trained in. So they would be fierce foes. However, we have come to an agreement that allows me to break the pact while still maintaining their goodwill.”
Joshua’s lips turned up. “How much did that cost you?”
“A million credits,” Renall said with a grin, “And it was worth every credit too.”
A million credits. He had given a million credits for her? Stunned and shaken by that, Clara stared at his dear face. She loved him, and she knew she likely had since the moment she had first seen his face.
Megda said, “So you are telling us we could live in a place where there is no Federation to breathe down our necks?”
Renall said, “Yes.”
Joshua said, “It sounds good to me, but it’s up to you Clara.”
Benson said, “It is.”
Clara asked, “What about carding? You love it so much.”
Benson threw his head back and laughed. “Love it? Child, it was just the one thing I was good at. I taught your mother because she was pretty and able to distract the players while fleecing them. I taught you and Joshua so that you would have a way to earn some currency and because it was all I had to give you. We lived in a place where our very births made us less than. I had to try to give you something to even the score a bit. I wish I had had something else, something better, to pass on.”
Her smile was radiant. “If you had not given us that, none of us would be here right now.”
Renall’s arms were on her body, holding her and shielding her and cradling her. Those arms were her anchor and her rock and wherever he went, that was where she wanted to go as well. “I guess it is settled. We are all going to the planet with you Renall.”
He picked her up and swung her around. The sheer strength he possessed thrilled her. The happiness sliding through her heart and body made her laugh aloud in real pleasure.
He set her feet back down onto the floor. His eyes twinkled. “I don’t want to rush any of you, but it seems that the Federation may be coming to jail me very soon. So perhaps we should go.”
Joshua bolted to his feet. Benson and Megda were right behind him. Clara said, “I’m ready when you are.”
Renall said, “Then we should likely head toward the ship.”
Clara’s hand met his. They smiled at each other.
Joshua interrupted the moment by asking, “So, maybe now is the time to run?”
Renall roared laughter.
Clara said, “I think yes, but I need to stop and get my credits from the safe in my room and some clothes.”
Megda asked, “What will we do for clothes?”
Renall said, “There are outlying planets along the route where credits speak louder than the Federation’s fugitive reports. We will stop at several in order to purchase more necessary things.”
Clara knew it would be hard, that journey. She knew it would be hard to live in a place where things were so unfamiliar. But as long as Renall was with her, she was willing. Her grin got bigger and then she burst into laughter.
Renall lifted an eyebrow. “What is it?”
She guffawed out. “I was on a bride ship after all.”
He burst into laughter. Then he kissed her soundly. When he stopped kissing her, he said, “It seems so. It also seems I have inherited a family.”
The happiness in his voice filled her heart with a lightness she had never known in her entire life.
Hand in hand, they headed for the door, and their future.