Page 44 of Xel: Broken Bond
The sound of muffled voices outside the house got both of our attention. Our time was almost up. “Sit down,” I advised her.“And listen to what they have to say. I don’t believe they’ll treat you with any kind of flippancy. At very worst, they’ll let you leave here peacefully and find another planet to live on. But I honestly think we’ll be able to do far better for you than that.”
With a sour look on her face, Rohinavon sat down, just in time for the front door to open. A heavy silence fell on the house, and I tried to imagine Aiden and Kade standing in the doorway, bracing themselves to meet this woman. With such a mess of politics involved, this was going to be a tense meeting.
Soft footsteps came our way, then my master stepped into the kitchen. “Rohinavon, this is Aiden Hill,” he introduced him. “And Kade, his dimari.”
Aiden came through the doorway, his expression resolutely blank. “Hello,” he said, eschewing any of the normal formalities that would come with meeting an important stranger. But I supposed that all the sentiments of ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you’, or ‘I’m glad you could come,’ would be out of place here. I also noticed that he didn’t offer his hand for her to shake, since she would doubtlessly be unfamiliar with the gesture. “Cole tells me you have a male infant in your care.”
“And Xel told me that you’re from the military,” Rohinavon replied, without batting an eyelid. “What are your intentions here?”
My master’s gaze shot across to me. I met his gaze squarely. “She needed to know,” I explained, hoping he wouldn’t be too angry about it. He hadn’t told menotto tell her. We’d both just assumed that that was the better option.
Aiden didn’t seem fazed by the question. When he answered, he spoke calmly and evenly. “My intentions are to find out why you’re here and what you want from us, and then assess whether we’re in a position to provide any of it. I’m aware that a female Vangravian leaving Vangal is a momentous occasion, and thatyour desire to protect a male child is highly unusual. And I have the utmost respect for you on both counts.”
“That sounds reasonable enough,” Rohinavon said. “And yes, I do have a male child with me. He’s my son.”
Aiden raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure not many women on Vangal would admit to such a thing.”
“Not openly, no,” Rohinavon agreed.
“May I see him?” Aiden asked, though I noticed that he didn’t move any closer to her. And my respect for him rose a notch at that. He would inevitably insist upon seeing the child, but he wasn’t making any attempt to intimidate her at this early stage of proceedings.
Rohinavon rose from her seat and parted her skirts, allowing Aiden to peer inside the pouch of skin at her hip to see the child.
“How can we be sure he’s a male?” he asked.
Rohinavon scoffed. “Well, you could start with the fact that if he wasn’t, then I wouldn’t have any need to flee my planet.”
“There could be other reasons for you to leave,” Aiden said, and that was honestly an idea that hadn’t occurred to me. Rohinavon could be an escaped prisoner, for example, and was just using the child as an excuse. Seeing Rohinavon’s sour expression, Aiden said, “The fact that I’m being thorough now is going to annoy you. But in the long run, it’s going to work in your favour. Because every detail I double-check is one more issue thatisn’tgoing to come back and bite us when we’re waist-deep in a political cesspool swarming with river-sharks.”
Rohinavon sighed. Then she very gently reached into the pouch and withdrew the child, turning his naked body over so that Aiden could see his genitals. “Thank you,” he said, after only a brief look, and she put the child away again. “How old is he?”
“Nine days.”
Aiden’s expression sharpened at that. “Cole said you left Vangal only eight days ago. So you gave birth just one day before fleeing?”
“Women routinely give up their male offspring within a couple of days of giving birth. No one wants to have to incubate them for any longer than necessary. We have cargo freighters visiting every city on Vangal almost every day, and plenty of them are equipped to take the male children to Eumad. In my case, I just had to make sure I was delivering him to the right freighter – namely, the one owned by the man I’d paid to smuggle me off the planet.”
Belatedly, Aiden seemed to realise he was being rude. “Please, sit down,” he said, gesturing to her seat. He took his own seat beside me, while Cole sat between him and Rohinavon. Kade made no complaint about standing, since we only had four chairs in the kitchen.
“How long have you been planning this escape?”
Rohinavon rolled her eyes. “My mother’s been on at me to have a daughter for two years. I’m only twenty-one. I don’t want to start building a dynasty yet. It’s all so completely pointless, just pumping out children to make sure there’s someone to inherit all the money and power. But almost everyone on Vangal has a son first, because then we get twenty-thousand credits for selling them to the Eumadians. I didn’tneedto have a son. My mother has enough money for a dozen lifetimes. But I said I was going to because… Well, as far as Vangal goes, it was because I was trying to buy some time. But far more important than that is…” She stopped suddenly, clamping her mouth shut. “Maybe we should come back to that bit later.” She rubbed her eyes and made an effort to compose herself, and it occurred to me that she must be exhausted. Nine days of constant alertness, of wondering if she was being followed, of endlessly looking over her shoulder…
“I started reaching out to contacts about a month before I had the fertility treatment. We can select the gender of our children, so I chose a boy. And in the meantime, I found a smuggler with a good reputation and paid him in advance to get me away from Vangal when the time came. Vangravian gestation takes three months, so near as matters, four months of planning.”
Aiden nodded, making notes in his comm, and I was a little surprised that Rohinavon didn’t comment on that. Then again, I supposed that if she was even telling him this, it meant she’d made at least a temporary decision to trust him.
“How much did you pay the smuggler?” Aiden asked next.
Rohinavon snorted. “Am I going to get into trouble for fuelling the smuggling trade?”
“No,” Aiden replied. “But if we end up taking this to the Alliance Parliament, it would help us build a case to show how difficult it was for you to leave in the first place. It lends credibility to your story.”
Rohinavon shrugged, seeming to accept the explanation. “It cost two hundred thousand credits.”
Aiden made a spluttering noise. My master muttered a startled, “Come again?” And Kade and I both stared at her with wide eyes.
“Where the hell did you get that kind of money?” Aiden asked eventually.