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The Rescue Tom Draycott, the best private investigator on the planet, had to pay bills like everyone else. He was adding up the total charges for a case to send to a client while his new daughter Simone worked out a very complicated five-hundred-piece jigsaw puzzle. Simone didn’t look like her father; like her mother Lucinda, she had white-blond hair and grey eyes. Tom was a tough built, dark-skinned man with a blaster scar on his chin.
The puzzle should’ve been much too advanced for her three years. However, like her mother, Simone’s designers had given her genius level intelligence. Tom looked up with a smile when the Duc d’Orleans walked in. The Duc was a tall, slim man with a touch of grey in his light brown hair and an air of easy of command. “I didn’t know you were in town.” Tom said. “When did you get in?”
“This morning. We have a joint Clan task force meeting day after tomorrow. Didn’t you get notified?”
Tom looked a little guilty. “Probably,” he said. “We’ve had some stuff going on. It’s kind of taken up most of my time.”
“So, I hear,” the Duc said. “May I meet this young lady?”
“Of course,” Tom said. “Simone, come and make your curtsy to one of my friends.”
Obediently, the little girl got up and came over. The Duc rose, holding out his hand, and she put one of hers into it. She made a very good curtsy for her age. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mademoiselle Draycott.”
“And you as well, my Lord,” she replied. She cast a quick glance at her father who nodded approvingly and went back to her puzzle.
“Well,” the Duc said. “I see you are teaching her court manners. She did that very well.”
Tom laughed. “Well, she won’t need them at O’Teague, but I figured I might end up taking her with me out to L’Roux at some point, so she should start learning.”
“No court protocol with your new Clan?” he was referring to the switch in Clans when Tom had married Lucinda.
“No. The Scots-Irish are informal.”
The Duc studied Simone thoughtfully. “I imagine this is what your wife looked like at this age?” He asked.
“So, I am told. What’s on the agenda for the meeting?”
“Jared VanDoyle. You’ve been chasing him hard. Do you really think he’s on the planet?”
“Yes. Catching the Guild’s head guy, Lester Jones, weakened the Thieves Guild after they rescued those first children from Brisai. Isiah and I both believe VanDoyle is going to be the new leader here on Vensoog.”
“I thought he was here to grab the kids for his kiddie sex ring,” the Duc said.
Tom shook his head. “We both think that’s a distraction. The new designer children are too young to give him much of a profit margin in the sex trade. Isiah ran the numbers. Fewer predators target children three and under than they target kids between six and ten.”
The Duc had still been studying Simone in some puzzlement. Finally, he asked Tom, ”I’m sure you know your own business best, but are you absolutely sure that she is only three?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Tom said, laughing. “I had the same problem when I first met Lucinda. I thought she was three years older than she actually was. Lord Zack shocked me when he warned me off because of her age. I’m told it’s got something to do with the design genetics. It’s just Lucinda, Rachel and Simone who look and act older than their age though; the others don’t seem to have that issue.”
“Tell me how you found the children,” the Duc suggested.
“The trip out to Brisai started with a message Lady Katherine got, but first I need to tell you about Lady Ispone and what led her to join the clan. Six years ago, Lady Ispone s’Klam’y, a former Fire Priestess of The Mothers of Fire on Trellya, broke from the church and moved to Vensoog, subsequently joining Clan O’Teague. Ispone, a third daughter, dutifully became a priestess against her wishes, a path that prevented her marriage to Jolsimer. The priestesses’ only opportunity to conceive children was through the temple’s fertility ceremonies. When the reigning Avatar of The Mother Of Fire refused to allow Ispone access to her inherited family money to search for Eloyoni after she disappeared on her bridal journey, Ispone withdrew from the church. The trail led her to Vensoog, where she and Sesuna met Lady Katherine’s daughter Lucinda, who was a police officer. Lucinda introduced her mother and Ispone, and the pair of them formed an immediate friendship. Ispone, like most Trellyan women, was as tall as the average human male. Despite bearing three children, her smooth grey skin remained unlined, though her full figure had taken on a matronly shape. No signs of yellowing from age appeared in her maroon hair, which was piled on top of her regal head. The priestess’s ornate robes were more comfortable for her than the Vensoog dress her daughters had adopted. Eloyoni, who was married, had a child from her deceased first husband, who perished on Kitingzen after their escape lifeboat crashed. The exploration teams in Kitingzen frequently sought after her second husband, Isaac, a mapmaker. Sesuna, her second daughter, married Lord Rupert, and together they ran a thriving pharmaceutical business. It seemed possible that she was on the verge of becoming a grandmother once more. Before their departure from Trellya, Shalendra, Ispone and Jolsimer’s third daughter, came into being during a fertility ritual, the last time they had come together as a couple. Shalendra was now six years old. Two years after Ispone emigrated, Jolsimer traveled to Vensoog and met his third daughter for the first time. After months of marital bliss on Veiled Isle with Ispone, his duties required his return to Trellya. The night before his departure, Ispone’s womb felt heavy, knowing that he had given her a new life. Just as she was dreaming of a successful pregnancy, Hans Grouter’s operatives breached their dome. Despite the excellent security system Lord Zack and Lady Katherine had on Veiled Isle, an island embraced by the ocean is hard to patrol. Operatives kept Ispone and Jolsimer asleep and removed the recently quickened egg from Ispone’s body. The resources and knowledge of Grouter’s people enabled them to preserve the embryo’s viability until its relocation to his covert base on Brisai, situated on another of Vensoog’s uncharted lands. There, they put it in an artificial gestation chamber and started medical stasis. Stasis would continue for the embryo until Grouter’s personnel received the command to start the chamber. Her womb empty when she woke, Ispone shared her dream with Jolsimer prior to his departure, but no one else was privy to it. Then Lady Katherine showed her a vid she received, featuring five little girls on a beach, which was accompanied by coordinates. Three of the girls looked like Lady Katherine’s oldest daughters would have appeared at three. Juliette, small, dainty with fiery red curls, a porcelain complexion and green eyes. Lucinda, a tall, sturdy child with white hair and grey eyes. Violet, a small child with an Asian complexion, vivid blue eyes, and straight, blue-black hair. The fourth girl was a Syrene: possessing the same aquamarine hair, silver eyes, and light copper skin as Azalure and Meredia, two of Katherine’s daughters. Among the girls, there was a Trellyan child, a little taller and thinner than the others, with light grey skin and a short mop of maroon hair. Ispone caught her breath, staring at the girl. Three years old. Four years ago, someone had robbed her womb of its fruit. Was it possible?
“Can you zoom in on the Trellyan girl?” Katherine obliged, and the child came into sharp focus. The features were familiar. If there was even a chance… she had heard enough about Hans Grouter’s operations from Katherine to leave no helpless child in his hands.
“Brisai is the location?” Ispone asked.
“Yes,” Katherine replied. “The girls and I are getting the shuttle ready. Will you come with us?”
“Naturally,” she answered. She went back to her birthing center and packed a bag for Shalendra. “Mommy is going to be gone for a day, maybe two. I’ve arranged for you to stay with your friend Delsie while I’m gone.” Shalendra, who was a happy, confident little girl, hugged her and went back to the game she and Delsie had been playing.
“I’ll take good care of her,” Marsha promised.
“Thank you, I know you will,” Ispone told her. When she returned to the shuttle, she discovered Lord Zack had augmented the party, along with Tom and Isiah, Lucinda and Juliette’s husbands.
“The message itself was nothing but a vid file showing five little girls playing. Three of them looked just like Lucinda, Juliette and Violet would have at three. Of the other two, one was a Trellyan and the other was a Syrene. The text attached to the file said: They are three years old. I know they are planning to sell them soon. VanDoyle is coming. Help us please. A set of coordinates followed it.”
“Wow,” the Duc said. “Not a lot to go on.”
“You’re right—it wasn’t. But by the time Zack, Isiah and I got there, the ladies had half the shuttle loaded. Lady Katherine was going—with or without us. They already had Lucinda and Juliette on board for the trip. The only reason they didn’t grab Violet is she was eight hours away in Port Recovery. One girl in the vid was a Syrene though, so Lady Katherine got Azalure to volunteer.”
“How did you come to be out on Veiled Isle?”
“Lucinda and I had a long weekend, and she wanted time with her mom and sisters. The coordinates turned out to be on Brisai. How much do you know about it?”
“Not a lot,” the Duc admitted. “Mostly just what I saw the day we arrived to rescue that first batch of children several years ago. What happened after you arrived?”
“Five little girls and a dactyl just sitting there playing in the dirt greeted us.”
“No adults at all?”
“None. Zack figured someone was watching from concealment, but we saw no one.”
“Watch out when you land, Mark.” Lord Zack said. “We don’t want them running out to greet us and ending up under the sled.”
“Are they out here alone?” Katherine demanded, peering over her husband’s shoulder out the window.
“Looks that way. Please sit down until the shuttle stops, Katherine,” he requested.
When they alit from the sled, Juliette, Lucinda, Azalure, and Ispone were all greeted by excited squeals of “Mommy!” And four of the little girls ran toward them.
The child who looked like Violet scowled at Lady Katherine, while a heavily pregnant dactyl fluttered around her, emitting reassurance. “They said our mothers would look like us. You don’t look like me.”
“That’s right,” Lady Katherine agreed cheerfully. “I don’t look like you, but I have two other daughters who do. Would you like to see a vid still?”
“Yes, I would.”
Lady Katherine tapped her wrist com several times. A vid still of herself sitting with Violet and Zahra, flanked by Violet’s Sand Dragon Jelli popped up as a holo image in front of the little girl.
“Those are your daughters?” Sahara asked.
“Well, two of them, I have many,” Lady Katherine replied.
“Do they all look like me?”
“No, just those two.”
“Okay, I guess. My name is Sahara, and this is Kynthia,” she stated, The Dactyl, who was larger than the ones owned by Lady Katherine’s older daughters’, but smaller than Daisri, settled on Sahara’s shoulder and regarded Katherine as if passing judgement.
Daisri and Saura, Juliette’s dactyl companions fluttered over to Tabitha, regarding her with curiosity. Having experienced a similar rush of emotion when she met her younger sister Patrice, Juliette was prepared for the upswell of love when the little red-haired girl threw her arms around her neck. Unlike the connection she had felt upon meeting Patrice the first time, Juliette also experienced an intense wave of protectiveness. She had knelt to receive the girl when she came running up and gathered the child to her. Saura and Daisri crooned acceptance.
“Mama?” the girl asked, hesitantly.
Juliette could hear the uncertainty in the child’s voice and felt the tension in her small body. She couldn’t disappoint her. Isiah would just have to forgive her for not consulting him first. “Yes,” she agreed. “I’m Mama. What is your name?”
“I’m Tabatha,” she said, her voice cracking.
When Juliette acknowledged the relationship, the tension went out of the small body and the child collapsed, and cried and cried, much the same way Juliette had done the day she realized Lady Katherine already knew she and the others were designer children and didn’t care. Juliette held her new daughter in silence, pushing comfort and love at her. So did the two Dactyls. When she eventually stopped crying, Juliette stood up, and the little girl tucked her head into her shoulder. It was oddly comforting, even as it was strange. Saura fluttered over and settled on Juliette’s shoulder, sniffing interrogatively at Tabatha‘s hair. She decided, as she had with Patrice, that Tabatha smelled like Juliette but was not the same person and it was a pleasant smell.
“This is Saura. She’s a dactyl.”
“Oh, like Kynthia.”
“Who is Kynthia?”
“She is a dactyl too, but bigger. She hangs around with Sahara a lot.”
“Who is Sahara?”
Tabitha pointed at the little dark haired girl Katherine was speaking to. “That’s Sahara. I’m hungry.”
“Did they feed you this morning?”
“She left bananas. She steals all our food from them, so there isn’t always a lot.”
“Them? Who are they?”
The little girl shrugged. “The bad men. We’re supposed to hide from them.”
“I see. Well, let’s get you some breakfast.”
Daisri had followed Saura over to Tabatha. She too sniffed the little girl. When Juliette had found the Singing Dactyl on Kitingzen, wounded and nursing her three kits, she had adopted her. The three kits had grown and chosen their humans, and Daisri had also adopted Patrice’s Izzibet when her own mom rejected her. Daisri missed her babies, but her mate had died on Kitingzen and since Dactyls mated for life, she had no hope of birthing others. However, she was picking up feelings of mother love from Juliette for the little girl and fell in love with another baby, a human one this time. She nudged Tabatha’s ear, pushing love and acceptance at the little girl.
Tabatha laughed and petted the Dactyl who settled on Juliette’s other shoulder. Saura gave a dactyl snort and fluttered off to investigate the other children.
Juliette had warning about her emotional reaction to meeting Tabitha because of her prior reaction when meeting Patrice. Azalure had none. An upswell of blinding emotion flooded her. That fierce combination of love and protectiveness was overwhelming, and her inner psych screamed, mine! She knelt so she was eye-level with a little Syrene child who looked back at her with identical silver eyes.
“Are you, my mother?” The child asked.
“Do you want me to be?” Azalure asked her.
“Yes.”
“Then I am.”
They stared at each other for a few minutes and then Azalure asked tentatively “Can I get a hug?”
The little girl, who was stronger than she looked, gave her a strangling hug.
She hugged her back, burying her face in the child’s ocean scented, aqua hair. Finally, she drew back a little to look at her new daughter.
“What’s your name, honey?” Azalure asked.
“I’m Lorelei. That’s Sahara,” she pointed at the dark-haired girl Lady Katherine carried. A pregnant dactyl, a little larger than Saura, fluttered around the pair.
“Lorelei, that’s a beautiful name.”
“I’m hungry,” the child announced. “She left some bananas for breakfast, but I don’t like them.”
Azalure frowned. “Is that all you had for breakfast?”
“Yes. She steals what she feeds us from them so sometimes there isn’t much.”
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Tracy. She sort of takes care of us.”
“Well, we have plenty of food. We’ll get you something to eat immediately. Mom.” She called. “All these kids had to eat this morning were a few bananas. We need to get them breakfast.”
Lady Katherine nodded, rising with the little dark-haired girl in her arms and headed back toward the shuttle. “Mark,” she called to the pilot,” help me get out the table, some chairs and the camping cook stove we brought.”
Four years on the Police Force had given Lucinda plenty of experience in interrogations. She didn’t like what she needed to do, but she couldn’t allow sympathy for the little girl to deter her. They needed answers, and she intended to use her skill and experience to get them. The little girls were plainly innocent victims, but someone had known enough about her family to use them, and the connection to VanDoyle and Grouter. Practically everyone on Vensoog had heard about VanDoyle; Lord Zack had had him Patrol Posted after the attempted kidnapping of the first rescued children from Brisai, but very few people knew about Grouter. If she was lucky and skilled with her questions it might be possible to extract some answers.
She sat down cross legged on the ground in front of the little girl with her eyes and her hair who looked back at her with the alert, sharp intelligence she saw in the mirror every day. Agra perched on her knee. Her mate, Razuel had followed Tom when he and the other men went exploring.
“My name is Lucinda,” she said.” what’s yours?”
“Simone.”
“Simone, what did they tell you was going to happen when we got here? Who did they say I was?”
“She said our mothers were coming. We would know them because they would look like us.”
“And what did you think about that?”
“We are test-tube babies. Test-tube babies don’t have parents.” Simone said scornfully.
Lucinda nodded. “That isn’t exactly true; you and the others are Designer Children—not test-tube babies. How the genetics are assembled distinguishes a test-tube baby from a Designer Child. You share genetics with me. Grouter demanded the same characteristics for you as he did for me. Our designs are as close as that of a mother and child.“
Simone frowned. “So, can I consider you my mother?”
“Yes, if you wish.”
“Do you want to be my mother?”
“I would like that very much but only if you want it too.”
Simone stared at her for a long moment before she spoke. “I want it.”
“Welcome home, daughter,” Lucinda told her, holding out her arms, finally allowing herself to feel the bond and love she had suppressed while she questioned Simone. Suddenly, she had an armful of tightly clinging child. A few tears leaked out onto her collar.
Agra came and sniffed the little girl’s hair and face, purring.
Ispone stared at the little girl who stared back at her.
“Are you my mother?” she asked.
Ispone held out a hand and the little girl put hers into it. At the touch of skin to skin, Ispone felt the same quickening she had felt when she first touched her other daughters.
She took a deep breath. “Yes,” she said. “I don’t know how it happened, but you are the child they stole out of my womb the night before Jolsimer left to return to Trellya.”
“What is Trellya?”
“Trellya is the world we come from. We only joined O’Teague Clan a few years ago.” Deciding more information might confuse the child, she asked, “What name did they give you?”
“Isacari. It means—”
“Beautiful bird. Come, let’s get you something to eat. I heard the others say breakfast was only a few bananas. I’ll bet you’re hungry.”
Isacari gave her a wide smile. “Yes!”
Juliette tapped her com. “Dad, Isiah, Tabatha tells me there are some bad men around here. They were told to hide from them.”
Her father answered calmly “OK, we’ve got this.” He tapped his wife’s com. “Katherine, Tabatha told Juliette there are some men around and since the children were told to hide from them, I’m guessing they aren’t nice guys. I want all of you to get to the shuttle; you’ll be safe there. Isiah, Tom, and I will go looking for them. I’ll leave Mark there to pilot the shuttle in case you need to get out of there in a hurry.”
A few bananas weren’t much to start the day on, and all the children were hungry. Lady Katherine handed out some sweet muffins Ispone had baked to take with them before she got busy mixing breadfruit for pancake fingers. The men came by just as she pulled the first pancake fingers out of the camping oven. Zack grabbed a couple, stuck them in syrup, and then stuffed them in his mouth. “Umm-umm,” he said. “Best pancake fingers in the known universe.”
Katherine snorted. Dipping a napkin in Sooka’s water bowl, she dabbed at her husband‘s face and sticky fingers. “I swear you’re messier than the dactyls,” she told him.
He laughed. “Tom found something on the scanner. We’re going to go check it out. You girls stay close to the shuttle. Once you’ve eaten, it would be better if you stayed inside the it just in case we turn up something nasty.”
After breakfast, the children drifted off into sleep. Katherine helped Mark put up the table, chairs and other camping equipment they had brought, storing it in the cargo space in the shuttle's side.
Leaving Mark to put up the remaining chair, she lifted Sahara in one arm, scooping up the tired dactyl with her free hand, and took them both inside the shuttle.
“Why don’t you introduce me to my new granddaughters’ girls?” Katherine suggested. She laid Sahara down in a seat, tilting it for maximum comfort.
“This is Tabatha,” Juliette told her, stroking the red curls. Daisri had snuggled up to Tabatha, making Juliette’s lap a little crowded.
“She told me her name is Simone,” Lucinda looked down at the white-haired child sleeping in her lap.
“And this is Lorelei,” Azalure added. “I think we should check their genetics when we get back. If I’m right about her having my DNA, she should have had a twin. Syrenes are usually born as twins.”
Katherine nodded. “If you are right, I wonder what happened to her sister?”
“I can ask her, but she may not remember; she’s only three.”
“You could be right. We need to investigate who has been taking care of them and if any records exist. This,” Katherine changed the subject, caressing the hair of the other girl. “Is Sahara. If Violet weren’t barely twenty, I would assume Sahara might be considered her daughter. But I think twenty is too young to start motherhood. I told Sahara she was my daughter. Ispone, who have you got?”
The Trellyan woman shifted a little in her chair. “This is Isacari. She is my new daughter. Katherine, we need to get these kids home.”
“I agree,” Katherine said, tapping in her husband‘s com code.
“Did you find the men you were looking for?” She demanded when he answered.
“No,” he said, “But we found something else. Something we definitely don’t want to leave behind for VanDoyle to find.”
“What is it?” Ispone asked.
“Well, I could be wrong,” Zack replied, “but it looks like an embryo set up, like the destroyed ones we found on the original compound where they kept the kids. That Grouter seems to have been anal about backups. We need someone with a lot more knowledge than I have of these things to look at this operation.”
“Did you use anything like that on Trellya?” Katherine asked Ispone.
“We might have used something similar to help prevent premature births,” Ispone said, doubtfully. “I would need to see what you found to be sure.”
“Then you’re the closest thing we have to an expert,” Zack interjected. “Mark, get everybody inside then come to these coordinates. Try to keep under sensor range.”
“Ok. Everyone here?”
Juliette and Lucinda both pushed a call and when Agra and Saura came fluttering back into the shuttle, Juliette said, “Ok, Mark, we’re all here.”
He closed the doors and took off, barely skimming the ground.
Katherine pushed at the pregnant dactyl, who had been exploring the inside of the shuttle, to come and lay down beside Sahara, who threw an arm over her and pulled her close. The dactyl whuffled at her hair and snuggled in, closing her eyes.
Ispone had settled in a seat with Isacari in her lap. Katherine settled into one opposite her friend. She looked across at her.
“Who is she?” she asked.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Ispone responded. She let her hand drift through the maroon curls on the little girl’s head. “But somehow this child is my daughter; mine and Jolsimers.”
\“That’s incredible. Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. You haven’t born a child yet, but I have born three. The night we made love before he left to return to Trellya, my womb felt very full. I knew then he had given me another child. But I dreamed that night about the child and the pregnancy and then just before I woke, three people came, and they took the child out of my womb. The next morning, I was empty. I thought at first it had all just been a dream: the quickening, pregnancy and losing the child. But Katherine this is that child. I know it.”
“Are you saying someone got onto Veiled Isle and took the child without anyone seeing or hearing them?”
“It’s nothing against your security, but I know that is what must’ve happened. There is no other way for this child to be here and be who she is.”
“Why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know.”
Katherine frowned. “This set up with the children feels like one of Grouter’s deals. He wanted to raise children to take over the work he did for the Guild. The girls tell me he ran burglaries, racketeering, fenced stolen goods, a lot of stuff. But he wouldn’t have let these children go. They’re too young to be of use to him yet and they’ve had no training. His people have the proficiency to have taken your child out of your womb, and the capability to take care of the child afterwards. But I don’t understand what purpose it would serve. You have no connections to the thieves Guild. Does Jolsimer?”
“I wouldn’t have said so,” Ispone said thoughtfully, “but I know he dealt on the black market. After our families refused to allow us to marry, he was angry and feeling reckless. That is when he hooked up with them. If They wanted to put pressure on him to do something he didn’t want to do…”
“You need to talk to him,” Katherine said.
Ispone nodded. “Yes, I do. And he needs to know that I have our child safe.”
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