“First time?” asked Captain Uisine, reaching down for the blanket the spider mech still proffered.
The naked person in the pod closed eir eyes. Gasped a few times, and then eir breathing settled.
“Are you all right?” asked Ingray. In Bantia this time, the most commonly spoken language in Hwae System, though she was fairly sure Pahlad Budrakim would have understood Yiir, which Captain Uisine had used.
Captain Uisine shook the blanket out and laid it around the naked person’s shoulders.
“Where am I?” e asked, in Bantia, voice rough with cold or fear or something else.
“We’re on Tyr Siilas Station, in Tyr System,” said Ingray, and then, to Captain Uisine, “E asked where e is, and I told em we are on Tyr Siilas.”
“How did I get here?” asked the person sitting in the suspension pod, in Bantia. By now the blue fluid had all drained away to some reservoir in the pod itself.
“I paid someone to bring you out,” said Ingray. “I’m Ingray Aughskold.”
The person opened eir eyes then. “Who?”
Well, Ingray had never really met Pahlad Budrakim in person. And e was ten or more years older than she was, and not likely to have noticed a very young Aughskold foster-daughter, not likely to have known her name when she had still been a child, let alone her adult name, which she’d taken only months before e’d gone into Compassionate Removal. “I’m one of Netano Aughskold’s children,” said Ingray.
“Why,” e asked, eir voice gaining strength, “would one of Representative Aughskold’s children bring me anywhere?”
Ingray tried to think of a simple way to explain, and settled, finally, for, “You’re Pahlad Budrakim.”
E gave a little shake of eir head, a frown. “Who?”
Ingray suppressed a start as another spider mech came skittering out of the airlock. This one held a large cup of steaming liquid, which it passed to Captain Uisine before it spun and returned to the ship. “Here, excellency,” he said, in Yiir, offering it to the person still sitting in the pod. “Can you hold this?”
“Here,” said the first spider mech, in a thin, thready voice, in Bantia. “Can you hold this?”
“Aren’t you Pahlad Budrakim?” asked Ingray, feeling strangely numb, except maybe for an unpleasant sensation in her gut, as though she was not capable of feeling any more despair or fear than she already had today. The Facilitator had said this was Pahlad. No, e’d said e’d examined the payment and the merchandise and both were what they should have been. But surely that was the same thing.
“No,” said the person sitting in the suspension pod. “I don’t even know who that is.” E noticed the cup Captain Uisine was proffering. “Thank you,” e said, and took it, cupped it in eir hands as Captain Uisine stopped the blanket from sliding off eir shoulders.
“Drink some,” said Captain Uisine, still in Yiir. “It’s serbat—it’ll do you good.”
“Drink it,” said the spider mech, in Bantia. “It’s serbat—it’s good and nutritious.”
What if there had been a mistake? This person looked like Pahlad Budrakim. But also, in a way, e didn’t. E was thinner, certainly, and Ingray had only seen em in person once or twice, and that was years ago. “You’re not Pahlad Budrakim?”
“No,” said the person who was not Pahlad Budrakim. “I already said that.” E took a drink of the serbat. “Oh, that’s good.”
Really, it didn’t matter. Even if this person was Pahlad, if e was lying to her, it made no difference. She couldn’t compel em to go with her back to Hwae, and not just because Captain Uisine would refuse to take em unless e wanted to go. Her plan had always depended on Pahlad being willing to go along. “You look a lot like Pahlad Budrakim,” Ingray said. Still hoping.
“Do I?” e asked, and took another drink of serbat. “I guess someone made a mistake.” E looked straight at Ingray then, and said, “So, when a Budrakim goes to Compassionate Removal it’s only for show, is it? They send someone to fish them out, behind the scenes?” Eir expression didn’t change, but eir voice was bitter.
Ingray drew breath to say, indignantly, No of course not, but found herself struck speechless by the fact that she had herself gotten a Budrakim out of Compassionate Removal. “No,” she managed, finally. “No, I … you’re really not Pahlad Budrakim?”
“I’m really not,” e said.
“Then who are you?” asked the spider mech, though Captain Uisine hadn’t said anything aloud.
The person sitting in the suspension pod took another drink of serbat, then said, “You said we’re on Tyr Siilas?”
“Yes,” said the spider mech. Ingray found she couldn’t speak at all.
“I think I’d rather not tell you who I am.” E looked around, at the suspension pod e sat in, the crate still surrounding it, at Captain Uisine, at the spider mech beside the captain, around at the bay. “I think I’d like to visit the Incomers Office.”
“Why?” asked Ingray, almost a cry, unable to keep her confusion and her despair out of her voice.
“Unless you have financial resources we’re unaware of,” said the spider mech, “you won’t be able to do more than apply for an indenture. You may or may not get one, and unless you have contacts here you very probably won’t like what you get if you do.”
“I’ll like it better than Compassionate Removal.” E drained the last of eir beverage.
“Look on the bright side,” Captain Uisine said himself, to Ingray, in Yiir, as he took the cup from not-Pahlad. “I’ll refund you eir passage, and you’ll be able to eat actual food for the next couple of days.”
2
Ingray leaned against the once-again closed crate, crying. Once not-Pahlad had walked out of the bay, barefoot, Captain Uisine’s blanket wrapped around em, not even looking at Ingray, she had been unable to keep the tears back.
“Did you go through a reputable broker?” asked Captain Uisine.
“Yes.” She sniffed, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “If they couldn’t verify eir identity, the deal wasn’t supposed to go through. It was part of the contract.” And e might really have been Pahlad, but the more she thought about it the less sure she was that the broker had brought her the right person. So, when a Budrakim goes to Compassionate Removal it’s only for show, is it? e’d asked, with real bitterness. That hadn’t been an act.
“Did they have a good DNA sample to work with? If that was from the wrong person, or contaminated in a way they couldn’t compensate for … but they’d have told you, surely, if the sample wasn’t suitable.”
“I couldn’t get one.”
“Ah. That’ll have been the problem, then. And even through a good broker, deals are always to the best of our ability,” said Captain Uisine. “They’d have had to go by how e looked or depended on someone else to say that yes, this was really Pahlad Budrakim. You said yourself e looked like em.”
“Yes.” She wiped her eyes again. Did not look at Captain Uisine. Obviously she couldn’t hide the fact that she was crying, but still. “Yes, e did look like em.” E might well actually be Pahlad, but there was nothing Ingray could do about that. A green glass-tipped hairpin dropped onto her shoulder and then the floor. Damn. She had never been good at putting up her own hair.