“Do as you wish. But I’m taking your sister with me, like it or not. She’s not safe here. These people tried to kill her—and they’ll try again.”
“I’ll come if I want to,” I interject, annoyed he didn’t ask.
“Oh really?” he raises a brow. “So what do you want? Go beg your Regent for mercy? Or run off alone?”
“Maybe she doesn’t have to run,” Kiran says. “I can protect her.”
“No, you can’t,” Prax and I say in unison.
Because we both know the only way to keep Kiran and his little family safe is for me to disappear. If they think he’s still clueless, they won’t target him.
Decision made, I spring into action.
“Kiran, go home and message channel 59. Pretend I was headed your way and never showed. Make something up.”
He’s pale. Scared for me. But he understands—he has to protect Meg and Sanjay.
“Are you sure? What will happen to you?”
“I trust Prax. If anyone can help us survive out there, it’s him.”
“He better. Or I’ll find him and—”
“Relax, Human. I’ll take care of her.”
Kiran nods, resigned, and I grab a change of clothes.
“How will we stay in touch?”
“Oh right!” Prax exclaims. “Kiran, I unlocked a few things in your housing system. Here’s how we’ll communicate. It’s more like a mailbox—no real-time contact. There are some recharge stations along the way to Arabia Terra, and a few transit units for colonists between cities. We won’t sleep there—too risky—but we can leave messages.”
There goes my hope of safe overnight stops…
Prax opens an obscure program from Earth’s archives. We stare in disbelief at a file on… hermit crab mating habits?
“This one’s rarely accessed. Only one doc in the folder. The Confed locked your systems in view-only mode, but I’ve disabled that. You can now add, edit, and delete from any unit.”
Problem is, the keyboard is unreadable. Some kind of alien script.
“Slow down, Kitty. This is total cat-scratch to me,” Kiran groans.
“Ah, sorry—it’s Catanian, the Confed’s writing system. My implant lets me read and speak it.”
“That’s nice, but we don’t have implants. What now?”
“Unfortunately, this is the only language accepted for Polarian systems. You’ll need to memorize this code to unlock the interface. After that, you’re good.”
We study his demonstration carefully. The code’s short. With a few tricks, we learn it fast. I’m relieved we’ll still be able to stay in touch.
Kiran practices it a few times, then turns to me.
“I need to get back to Meg and Sanjay. Take care of yourself, shrimp,” he says, hugging me tight.
“You too. Protect them. And remember—you know nothing about the Palace.”
“Of course. Be safe. And hey, Kitty—why that folder, exactly?”
“Like I said, no one ever checks it. But it’s also important,” Prax grins, eyebrow raised.
