Space Stations

Alonza waited as more people entered the lounge and settled themselves on the cushions around her. Among them were two Linkers, dressed in long white formal robes and kaffiyehs, each with the diamondlike gem on his forehead that marked him as one of the few who had a direct Link to Earth's cyberminds; the two men sat together, and those making their way past them nodded respectfully in their direction. A few of the people were eating small rolls and pieces of fruit, and drinking from small bottles; Alonza, feeling very hungry, wondered if she could risk begging or stealing some food. Nearly every seat was taken by the time she started worrying about Amparo.

Her mother should have been here by now, Alonza thought. Soon all these people would begin to board the suborb, and somebody else would wonder what she was doing here.

Already a gray-haired man was watching her with a puzzled look on his face, while a guide wearing dark blue overalls and a badge hanging over his chest had come by a couple of times already, slowing down to glance at her both times.

A space in the back wall opened. A man came through the opening and stepped to a counter as the doorway behind him closed. He wore a dark blue shirt; like the guide, he had a badge that said “Port of San Antonio” on the top and “Nueva Republica de Texas”

on the bottom. Alonza knew how to read a little, and she had seen those words often enough to recognize them immediately.

The man peered at the screen of his console, apparently checking the passenger list. That meant that everyone here would be lining up in a few minutes, having their bracelets scanned and their identities and credit confirmed, and then heading for the doorway that led to the field outside.

She was suddenly frightened, afraid to move from her cushion. Then she saw the guide walking toward her with another man at his side, a tall thin pale-haired man in the black uniform of a Guardian, with a stun wand hanging from his belt.

“Is your name Alonza Lemaris?” the man in the Guardian uniform asked.

She nodded. If he knew her name, it meant that her mother had been caught.

“Come with me,” the man said.

They took her to a small room. The guide left them there alone, and the Guardian asked her a lot of questions, keeping his hand around his wand the whole time, but terrified as she was, she knew that Amparo would want her to say as little as possible. “I'm waiting for my mother. She told me to wait there for her. She told me not to get lost.” She kept saying the same thing over and over and at last the Guardian stopped pacing and sat down in front of her.

“Listen to me, you little bitch,” he said angrily. “We've already got your mother on assault, credit theft, and ident theft. If we put her to the question, we can probably get a lot more out of her, but she wouldn't be the same afterward, and you're the only one who can stop us from doing that kind of damage to her. So you can begin telling me about what kinds of things she's been up to, and we'll find some work for her to do while she's serving her sentence that won't be too hard on her, or else we can start interrogating her until she breaks down and confesses. She won't be of much use to anybody after that.

Some people get so messed up in their minds afterward that they end up killing themselves.”

“I want to see her,” Alonza said softly.

“You won't see her until after she's finished her time, and that's going to be long from now. Get this through your head—you'll probably never see her again. The only favor you can do for her now is to tell me exactly what she's done, what you've seen her do, what you've done together.”

Amparo had always been terrified of getting caught, of being interrogated by Guardians.

They would put a band on your head, her mother had told her, one of the slender silver ones like the ones people used to access a mind-tour, and then they would dig into your mind, force you to confess, find all kinds of ways to hurt you and make you scream in pain until you told them the truth. That was why it was so important never to get caught; better to be dead than in the custody of Guardians preparing to question you.

“She didn't do anything,” Alonza insisted, staring at the gold lieutenant's bars on the man's shoulders. “She told me to wait for her, that's all.”

The Guardian stood up and slapped her in the face. The blow shocked her more than it hurt her. “You're a stubborn one,” he muttered, sounding almost pleased. “I guess we'll let you visit with your mother after all.”

He led her out of the room, gripping her arm tightly. A hovercar with another Guardian was waiting for them. They rode through the hallways of the port to another room, where two more Guardians were waiting with Amparo.