Emancipation

Chapter 11 : Good Deeds

Chapter 11

A good deed had finally gone unpunished for Raen, well, that happened a lot for her. She rescued people and her life invariably got better. This time she had rescued Maku's reputation by finding the basuram shipment. Her reward? Raen was a masterjourneywoman in the Baerd Guild and had accrued affiliations with six other trade and commerce guilds. It was enough to catapult her status to a certified independent courier. That led to her current circumstances.

"This will be perfect Miss Hazel!" Raen smiled at the landlady as she opened the door to the small closet of a room equipped with a bed and a dresser.

"I know it's small dear, as soon as one of the larger rooms opens up I will be happy to offer it to you. Your credentials are impeccable. You have more references than any of my other guests. The women's bathroom is down the hall, and towels are found in the closet next to the bathroom. I do request you dress and undress in the bathroom when you shower so don't forget your fresh clothing. Slippers are required in the building. I generally require my guests to leave their shoes in the entryway." Miss Hazel handed Raen a stack of bedding. "Breakfast is at seven, the morning bell is at six-fifteen though I would recommend getting and setting an earlier alarm if you want to be first to the showers."

Raen nodded at the rapid influx of information. She laid the bedding on the small bed and retrieved a fifty chit coin from her satchel. She laid it reluctantly on Miss Hazel's palm. It was the first time she had paid for her own room. She felt the electric thrill of independence alongside the icy stab of responsibility.

Miss Hazel checked the coin for validity and then laid the key to the room on Raen's palm. "See you tomorrow morning."

Raen tucked the key into the pocket of her satchel. Then she made the bed. When she was finished she sat on the foot of the bed. She should return to the guildhall and get the rest of her things. She didn't own much, a few outfits, a few books, and the satchel Honor Baggood had given her. Then she should check in with the appropriate dispatch forums to find a paying job. Raen felt very little like doing what she should. She still had substantial savings from her finder's bonus on the basuram shipment. She had enough to live on for months.

She didn't know what to do now. Raen thought about her friends still on the street. She was officially a citizen, no longer among the nameless worthless poor. She had guild affiliations, people would notice if she disappeared. That wasn't true for many of the street kids. She wished she could do something for them, that she could just hand out a valuable affiliation badge to them. They went missing, were sold, jailed, murdered because no one acknowledged them. Raen needed a business license so she could hire the street kids and give them badges that would mark their worth to the seedy underworld.

Raen pulled out her Baerd-issued com-pad. She searched the price for what she needed. It would be at least two-thousand chits to buy a business license and fifty chits to register for each badge she issued. Right now she didn't have enough to do it and still have enough to live on herself, but with some work… Raen did some conservative calculations, she could manage it within five years.

Raen logged into her banking app and transferred two-thirds of her account into long-term savings, a move that meant her money would work towards her goal for her. Raen laid back on her bed and chuckled to herself at her new life plan. It didn't even occur to her that as a business owner eventually, she wouldn't have to do the leg work anymore. This wouldn't just change the lives of numerous street kids, but also her own.


* * *

Beaoul sat communing with Toni, the Middle of Everywhen entity that was as close as she could claim to having a home. She had been with Toni for what felt like years. It was hard to register the passage of time when time passed completely without change in the infinite white abyss that was the plain of Toni that Beaoul interacted with. Toni had reassured her that less than a few earth months had passed.

Beaoul had left a few times to prove to herself she could and that she could find her way back. She slept when she was tired, and ate when food appeared in front of her, supplied by Toni. Toni hadn't provided her with an ounce of meat since she arrived. Even though, as a hellhound, Beaoul was a born carnivore if not outright cannibal she had still been entirely satisfied with what Toni provided.

Why do you feel such anger? Toni's consciousness pressed on Beaoul's mind interrupting her memory cruise.

"I, just don't know. It was how I was raised?"

That is a question, not an answer. What could you say to yourself before you're tempted to respond to anger with anger, to fear with fear, to negativity with negativity?

"That it is Mira's training talking not my real self?"

Beaoul, that is a good idea, but for it to work you mustn't treat the answer like a question.

Beaoul clawed at the surface beneath her.

Ouch!

"Oh, no! I didn't mean to! Oh! Are you going to be alright? My claws! They kill!" She had a flashback to the sight of some of Mira's enemies dying from flesh wounds inflicted by her fellow hellhounds. It was horrible. Decomposition was the cause of death. She flashed back to Seyona's death. It had been rather similar. Seyona had provided Beaoul the key which had allowed Beaoul to finally escape from the Queen of darkness.

Humor vibrated through Beaoul's mind. I am fine Beaoul. Your claws cannot harm me.

Beaoul felt no relief, the flashbacks took her again and she was trapped within her own mind reliving some of the worst moments she had experienced. She was aware of nothing else, not the infinite whiteness of Toni, not the tears rolling down her muzzle.

Why do you cry?

Beaoul rubbed her muzzle against her armpits, "I didn't tell you how Seyona died."

You said Mira Black killed her.

"Mira sprayed her with some kind of illness it ate her alive. She rotted alive, just like victims of hellhound wounds," Beaol answered making the connection real in her own mind.

She kills. That is what Seyona and I were trying to stop, if you care about Seyona as much as you seem to you could always take up that goal.

"How?"

Start with this disease. You were exposed and stand here unharmed. Perhaps you could start with this. What do you know about this disease?

"Mira plans to unleash it on a world known as Tradehub."

Then that is where you should start. Fortunately, I know just where it is… A door-shaped outline appeared in the misty foreground within Toni. Beaoul cocked her head to the side. You know how to return, how would you like to go to a new world with a purpose.

Beaoul nudged the portal door open and looked out into a darkened alleyway. "This is Tradehub?"

Yes, from what I learned from Seyona, they would find a hellhound quite alarming. Perhaps you should use your invisibility to do your explorations. It might help to keep you under Mira's radar as well.

Beaoul stepped through the portal and kicked the doorway closed with a hindfoot. It wouldn't do for some native to wander into her safety zone. She had the key to get back there hanging around her neck. She cloaked herself from view. Except for other hellhounds and possibly Mira Black, there was no entity she knew of that could see her when she hid herself. Beaoul began exploring the alien world. The whole time she mused that the idea of any world orbiting a star was alien to her. The dark compound was a fragment of a planet held within a fold of space-time miraculously saved from the destruction of the prior omniverse. Toni was a Middle of Everywhen entity also miraculously saved from destruction at the end of the prior omniverse.

The idea of a world existing naturally within a universe was alien to Beaoul. Every time she had set foot on one since escaping Mira, Beaoul had felt an unreasoning almost crippling moment of fear at the openness and lack of safety. Beaoul took several deep breaths when the moment hit her and then she forced one paw in front of another. Even hidden from view she felt safer sticking to the darkened alleyways of the sleeping city. In nearly every alleyway groups of people dressed in rags huddled in warm and sheltered corners. Sometimes the groups were made up only of young children. She skirted around the small groups and tried to take in everything with all of her natural and unnatural senses.

A few hours from planetary midnight, Beaoul encountered two men slinking down the alleyway ahead of her. They were in deep consultation, but not a verbal one. The hairier one dressed in dark gray thought to the other, Sven, that group up ahead is a likely looking one. He was clearly a sanruphrup shapeshifting servant of Mira Black.

It's a group of kids! I have seen this at work, I'm not infecting a bunch of kids! Sven was telepathically hesitant to comply. He appeared to be one of Mira's human minions dressed in a much lighter gray than his unnamed partner.

I will make sure the Mistress is aware of that. You do realize we are here to spread this across the planet. Infecting these kids will be a mercy. They'll be dead before their civilization falls.

Beaoul felt Sven's jarring brush with fear at his partner's thought. Compassion of any kind wasn't a good or long-lived trait for one of Mira's minions. Marcus, I think they're a perfect test group. Just in case we're not properly inoculated, what is the incubation period?

I believe at least one of us needn't worry about our inoculation, but they won't be contagious for at least thirty-six hours. They won't even know they are sick for eighteen.

Sven nodded and pulled out an aerosol spray can. He snuck up on the group of children and began spraying them fully in the face with short shots out of the small can. He turned back to Marcus, Can we go now?} Sven seemed hopeful that his performance was enough to excuse his earlier intrusion of a sense of mercy.

The arm Marcus put around Sven's shoulder as they turned to leave left Beaoul feeling fearful for Sven's life expectancy We'll be out of here in no time. Marcus jabbed a syringe between Sven's ribs and injected him with a lightly glowing liquid. Sven began to spasm and Marcus disappeared.

Beaoul rushed to Sven's side sure there was nothing she could do for the man. She used her telekinesis to lower him to the ground and leaned over his gasping mouth. Sven, how do I get the inoculant for these kids?

"Won't save them… the only mercy is death before they become infectious," Sven whispered between gasps. He was beginning to rot from the inside out.

Beaoul sat back on her haunches hard. She recognized the smell on Sven's breath and the residue of the spray he used on the children. It was the almost exactly same disease Mira had used on Seyona. The only death Beaoul could deliver was as bad as the disease. Unless she went for the quick kill and slit their throats. Beaoul knew these kids were a timebomb, that could kill their whole world. She did the only thing she could. She began efficiently slitting the throats of each of the infected children. They were all dead and half decomposed when she returned to Sven. He was still gasping for breath. Marcus had used a deadlier and quicker strain on Sven, probably to counter whatever they had been inoculated with. Beaoul could offer him the quick death as well, but what he did, offended Beaoul's sense of mercy. Still, if she left him he might be contagious by the time some stranger came around and found him. She slit his throat too.

Having killed them all, Beaoul rocked back on her haunches and cried. Again she had killed as a mercy, at least this time she didn't have to lie to the Queen of Lies about it. She hoped she could stop this from happening again, but she had no idea if this was the only infection team. Beaoul scented the air looking for other traces of the disease. She would have to take out all of the infected before they could spread the disease to the whole populace. But first, she would weep that Mira had made her a killer again.


* * *

Fiona yawned. She put her coffee in the control console's cupholder. The day had begun the same way as any of the last hundred and fifty. She had awakened at eight o'clock ship's time which was synced with Sanctuary standard time. She didn't need an alarm it was automatic. Showering and dressing in a fresh jumpsuit, Fiona had ordered a small breakfast out of the ship's food processor. The library of foods the ship had was considered limited, but there were plenty of patterns to keep her happy with the variety. Then again she had become a creature of habit. After checking that the vessel was still on course, she brought up the night's scanner records. If any planetary systems appeared on the scans she would alter course to go back and survey them. that was fairly rare though.

Fiona stretched her whole body and then sat in the command chair to work on her report of her impressions of the last system they had explored three days ago. It appeared to be a fragment of a system because she clearly recognized the main habitable world but several of the outer planets of the system were missing and the orbital trajectories were slightly off as a result. That was the really interesting thing, Even though the Preserve was full of duplicate systems, they really weren't carbon copies. Crunchbombs had destroyed each universe differently depending on which stellar body the crunch bomb had been detonated in. Fiona had looked over the complex calculations that the mathematicians of the Preserve had reverse-engineered. Outlining the exact pattern of implosions that had been required to implode the omniverse. She had an advanced understanding of mathematics because of an encounter she had with an astrophysicist. The dark scientists that had calculated the pattern of implosions were several orders of magnitude beyond genius. It was disturbing to think that such gifted individuals would be a part of a plan to destroy all of creation.

Fiona looked up from her report after hearing a slight beeping noise from the console. Her eyes fastened on a yellow light flashing rapidly on and off. It was labeled spacial anomaly ahead. She started to alter course around it, but suddenly every red light on the panel began flashing and an emergency siren blared through the whole vessel. Then the ship began to shake. It jerked up and down and flung Fiona from her chair into the port side bulkhead. She felt sickening snaps in the arm that impacted first just moments before her head hit the deck and knocked her unconscious.

Consciousness crept back in a confusing swirl of lights, sirens, and smoke. Fiona realized she was lying sprawled out on the floor. She tried to push up with the arm she was lying on. That was clearly a mistake. The act awoke the pain from the breaks she had sustained when she crashed into the bulkhead. She managed to push herself over onto her back with her other arm, but an upright position wasn't happening with the pain and dizziness of a clear head injury. She stared up at the ceiling which had smoke gathering. The environmental systems should be able to clear the smoke. It occurred to Fiona that she should call for help, "Noburu!"

After a few moments, the android entered her field of view. "Are you damaged, captain?"

"Yeah, I think my arm is broken in several places, and I might have a concussion."

"I will return shortly." Noburu returned with a medical kit. The android ran a scanner over Fiona and then began applying an immobilizing dressing to her entire arm from shoulder to fingertip. "We need to get off the ship. The atmosphere is turning toxic from the fires. Environmental systems, fire suppression, and communications are all down."

"Get off of the ship where? I don't think I should teleport with a concussion. How can I leave the ship if all systems are down?"

"Somehow we crashed landed on a planet." It helped her to her feet and half-carried her off the ship. The area around the ship was scorched but most of the fires had burned out thanks to a driving rain. There was little to no shelter so the android propped her up beneath what remained of a tree. Noburu hurried back onto the ship and returned with a shelter kit. The kit had been damaged, it was supposed to self-erect but the android had to set the shelter up around Fiona. By the time she was mostly dried in Fiona had begun to shiver against the cold and from the effects of shock setting in. Her teeth chattered.

"Captain, I am going to retrieve more gear. Do what you can to not fall asleep again. My connection to Sanctuary was through the ship and ship communications are down. I cannot summon medical assistance. If I were equipped as a suit program I would be linked to Sanctuary's main database directly and could summon help.

Fiona wondered why Noburu had brought that up for a moment, but remembered many similar comments that left her to realize that the AI operating the android chassis aspired to become a multimorphic suit program and a partner to a field factor. "Noboru, get me out of this and I will go to who ever I need to to recommend you get a promotion!"

The android's simulated features set in an expression of gratitude and it reentered the ship in search of the necessary equipment.


* * *

"Tyrulan! Tyrulan!" Mira shouted from deep in the rented apartment on Tradehub. He ran to her side without a moment's hesitation. Somehow he managed to do his job well enough to stay in Mira's good graces while at the same time rebelling against orders completely. Increasingly he felt the division between his duties and core moral objections to them. It was wearing on him.

"Mistress!" He stood at attention in front of her with his eyes firmly aimed at the floor.

"What have you heard today from the teams?"

Tyrulan actively wanted to do the opposite of what she desired to accomplish. He couldn't afford failure but he had to keep up appearances. Ever since Mira's favorite pet hellhound openly rebelled and defected she had been much more suspicious of everyone, surprisingly except him. "Mistress, the news is the same as it has been. Something killed every last individual the teams infected last night, well before they became contagious.

Most of his recent missions had been as a personal assistant and muscle for Mira's ventures out into the omniverse. He ran errands on worlds she was attempting to destroy in various ways. Her favorite project was Tradehub. It was also her most troubled project. Mira had teams of minions infecting the destitute populations of street children with a disease that killed everyone it infected. Before embarking on that mission Mira had ordered Tyrulan to submit to a painful and exhausting infusion of some sort that acted to protect him from the pathogen. It made him immune to the strain of the plague she was using to destroy the world, or at least attempting to destroy. Somehow the children were dying before becoming infectious. The plague wasn't spreading as it should. Mira's frustration was clear. It was also clear she had no clue as to Tyrulan's hand in slowing the spread. As the operative handing of the pathogen to the infection teams, Tyrulan was in a unique position. He was in a place where he could issue harmless mock-ups of the disease disseminating devices. Fewer than half of the teams actually had active pathogens in their sprayers.

Tyrulan was as curious as Mira was about who or what was stopping the rest of the infected from spreading the disease. The main clue was that the children were all found with slit throats or various other blade-like injuries. Someone was going along behind the infection crews and killing the infected, with a brutal sort of mercy. Fortunately for Tyrulan, he knew nothing about that fly in Mira's ointment. He could honestly approach her with no knowledge of why the infected children were dying before they could infect others. She never asked him why the numbers of infected dead were so much smaller than the numbers of infected by the teams. He probably would have been unconvincing in lies on that subject.

Mira slammed her hand into the arm of the chair she sat in. "Damn it! Damn this whole misbegotten planet! Why won't these vermin just die like they are supposed to!"

Mira's frustration wasn't a good thing for those around her. In the last several days at least three of the teams had suffered painful deaths as Mira just stared them down. "I don't know mistress! Perhaps we should call in more infection teams. The numbers have fallen."

Mira glared at him. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to rub her nose in the fact that she had killed off so many of the assigned teams. "I already have. Including some teams to attempt to infect some of the more affluent members of the population."

"Yes, mistress, except…"

Her eyes reflected a flare of rage, "Except what!"

"I apologize mistress. I just thought that you felt infecting the poor would leave more convincing evidence of a natural source of this plague. Doesn't infecting the rich as well leave us open to being noticed by the factors."

Her anger cooled, "I appreciate that you have brought this up. I see that your inexplicable failure has made you cautious. I reconsidered the plan. The sheer mortality rate of this disease has the potential to alert the factors. The thing is they will have to make themselves vulnerable to the disease to investigate. Being they can teleport anywhere in the omniverse before they become contagious, including the Preserve. There is a good chance they will spread the disease much further than even I have planned. I doubt that even their infectious disease expert will find what she needs to stop this disease before it decimates the omniverse and much of the Preserve."

"I did not know mistress. I apologize for doubting you would have considered all contingencies! I fully expect to be punished for my failing you."

"You have failed nothing, Tyrulan. It is clear that your intention was to ensure the success of this mission. Please return to the compound to retrieve more of the canisters. I have many more teams arriving shortly."

Tyrulan nodded and rapidly retreated from the room. If only she knew. He planned on gathering more dud canisters than armed ones this time. The increase in teams needed to be countered somehow. He couldn't afford to overwork his unnamed ally.


* * *

It had been months, but Brenda had finally found enough time to check out the coordinates fed to her by Tyrulan. Brenda carefully explored the compound under her typical veil of invisibility. The youngest of this creche included unweaned infants. They had probably been taken from their mothers at birth. Brenda lingered in the nursery. Simple human caretakers fed the infants with minimal extraneous contact. These children would grow up with trust and attachment issues. Brenda made a note of the ratio of infants to caregivers, there were at least ten babies for each caregiver and they worked in shifts. At this early stage of development, the caregivers weren't openly cruel just simply tending to neglect. Brenda observed the nursery for a full week getting the schedule down. It would be the first area she would clear.

Next, She located the area devoted to the species version of toddlers. In the original species, the ruphrup, children of this age still clung to the fur or robes of their elders. Not always their mothers but adult members of the extended family. The natural ratio of caregivers to children among the ruphrup was two adults and three to four adolescent siblings or cousins to each infant or toddler. Kindness was key. The stark brutality and neglect of these children disgusted Brenda. When she saw the caregivers encouraging the children to torment the younger and weaker children she wanted to scoop up the vulnerable and bullies alike and teach them the value of community that the ruphrup had shared with her.

As the children matured and began volunteering to behave cruelly and abusively toward each other, they graduated into a brutal and abusive conditioning process. They weren't much further into development than a human kindergartener, but they had been irretrievably damaged by the process. There was no way they could adapt to life among the people of the Preserve in a healthy way. The truth was that this was a triage situation. Brenda had to focus her efforts on the children she could help. She chose the next night to act.

After the infants were securely locked into their cribs for the night, and the caregivers went off duty, Brenda entered the nursery. "Ulu, open a stasis portal," Brenda whispered to her suit. A shimmery portal seemingly a puddle of vertical quicksilver opened near the center of the room. Brenda went around the room unlocking cribs. She gently wrapped the babies in their thin blankets and then passed them through the portal into a future moment where they could be properly cared for by Preserve personnel. She emptied the nursery in about twenty minutes, well before the night caretaker would come through checking that all was as it should be. After the last infant was passed into stasis, Ulu closed the portal without the need for instruction. Next, she went to the dormitory dedicated to the toddlers. Brenda had made note of the weaker children and made sure they entered stasis first. This was easier, she merely awoke the children and instructed them to go through the portal. They had already begun the process of being conditioned to obey. She hesitated before collecting the crueler children, but only briefly. These children were all still young enough to adapt to a life of freedom. When she was done, Brenda headed to the administrative offices for the creche. She laid her hand on the side of one of the computers attached to their network. Ulu went to work copying all of the data she could. Hopefully, there would be notes on all of the children, including their names and ages. But even more hopefully the computer network would hold the coordinates of other similar creches.

Having rescued and acquired what she could from the creche, Brenda teleported back to the Preserve. Incoming traffic was relatively light. Brenda quickly found her way to medical check-in without having to use her privilege as a chief. She soon wished that privilege extended to her relationship with Mae, as Mae arrived in the portal room shortly after Brenda did. It was clear Mae's course was directly for the exam table Brenda occupied.

"Brenda, your suit ratted you out. What in all the worlds am I supposed to do with one-hundred- thirty-eight sanruphrup children? You didn't even warn me that you were going to, 'liberate,' more of Mira's potential servants." Mae growled softly while stroking her son in the sling she carried him in. "Are you intending to rescue members of every race Mira enslaves?"

Brenda smiled impishly, "I just might! It sounds like a good plan to me!"

Mae sighed, "At least you brought them here in stasis. That gives us time to prepare things to properly deal with them."

Brenda's expression changed to a deadly serious stare, "I have seen what Mira was doing to these children. They have been, 'dealt with,' for far too long by people that do not care about them as individuals! If that is all you intend to offer them I will leave the Preserve and never come back! These children have been neglected at best and brutally abused at worst. You will provide for them all the love and resources they need to become balanced individuals."

"Absolutely, I apologize. I don't know what I was thinking," Mae replied. She ran one hand through her hair and rubbed her son's back soothingly at the same time.

Brenda allowed herself to back down. It had been a long time, if ever since Mae had been in the field. She honestly didn't even know what was happening out there. Brenda sighed, "I'll try not to bring in any more refugees for a while."

"I'd appreciate it."


* * *

Mae diapered Nemo in the nursery. He was a good boy. He rarely cried or fussed. Of course, Nemo was usually pressed up against her chest by a carry sling. She sensed he was comforted by her heartbeat and her voice. It was almost like he was still in the womb. Mae fastened the last tab on the diaper and nestled Nemo back in the sling. He nuzzled around for her breast. Mae adjusted her blouse so he could latch on without revealing her breast beyond the sling. He latched on and his little grubbing noises as he suckled made her chuckle. She hadn't actually nursed Lyla for long, just a week or so. Then she had left Imhay and Lyla on the farm where Imhay had raised her on a bottle. Nemo had the benefits of nursing for over a month already. The closeness between them was so much stronger than the bond she had with her daughter. It didn't sacrifice Imhays relationship with Nemo though. At many points in the day, Imhay would take Nemo in a sling on his chest to run errands and work in the garden behind their apartment. Mae liked to think Nemo seemed relieved when Imhay transferred him back to her.

A knock at the nursery door stirred Mae from her blissful maternal thoughts. She realized she had just been standing there stroking Nemo's cheek as he nursed. Mae sighed, covering Nemo and her breast. "Yes?"

Over the speaker Janine's voice interrupted Mae and Nemo, "Chief, we're having issues with the sanruphrup refugees. Several foster parents are having trouble with hygiene. They simply don't know how to keep the babies properly clean. It is difficult to get them to suckle from the types of bottles most of them tried. Some of the toddlers are having difficulties understanding the rules in their foster homes. Hellhound foster parents have less trouble and the hellhounds are more naturally destructive!"

Nemo fell asleep suckling and the nipple fell out of his mouth. Mae adjusted her clothing. Mae stepped up to the door and it opened for her. "They are an alien species what are they expecting?"

"I don't know Chief."

"What is Brenda doing right now? I'd like to meet with her on this. She is our resident expert on the species." Mae walked with Janine to the conference table.

Janine tapped at her tablet. "According to her office program, she is holding office hours right now. Do you want me to call her in?"

Mae started to nod until she remembered she was no longer prohibited to teleport. Illoa suggested not teleporting Nemo yet, but she could leave him with his father. "Send her a message that I will be stopping by shortly." Mae headed out the sliding glass door to Imhay's garden. It was full of carefully cultivated Tanerian crops. The Tanerian species might be extinct, but Imhay had gone a long way towards saving their almost purely biological technologies. She began looking through the sometimes ten-foot-tall green and growing things. She finally found him reclining on a living bench happily munching on a sandwich.

"Hey, honey, lunch break?"

Mae salivated at the smell of the sandwich each component had been harvested fresh from the garden. Then with minimal processing like slicing or smushing and spreading on the other components, it had been assembled on the bench. There were plenty of leftovers sitting on a cutting board next to Imhay for another sandwich. "I would love to have lunch with you, but I have to go talk to Brenda about the refugee children she dumped on us."

"You want me to watch Nemo. No problem. I'll watch him. How about I make you a sandwich and leave it in the stasis cupboard for you when you get back?"

Mae smiled as she prepared to transfer the sling to him. "That would be awesome! He's eaten and changed. He should be good to go until I get back."

"If we need anything we'll call you, and you can be back in a blink. No worries." He settled the sling around him and made sure Nemo was properly supported.

Mae stared at the two for a long moment and then teleported to just outside of Brenda's office. Mae wondered why it was that Brenda was smart enough to have an office outside of her home but she was not? Mae knocked softly. The speaker concealed above the door projected Brenda's voice, "Coming Mae." Moments later the door slid open. "So, what exactly can I help you with?"

"The foster parents for the sanruphrup children are having problems. Between whatever the dark was doing and the fact that the children are of a new species, our foster families are having hard times adjusting."

Brenda nodded, "I have been thinking about it. The dark creche workers were all human. Maybe if we had foster parents that looked more like them they would adjust better. They might not default to expecting neglect and abuse."

"So what, we assign them to developmental pals that have pseudo-sanruphrup forms?"

"We could do that, or I could try to convince some ruphrups to join us in the Preserve. They could teach the children about the culture their species was stolen from."

Mae nodded at that idea. "I could clear space on Earth-Prime for them. What do you think, a small city?"

Brenda shook her head, "No I was thinking more of giving them a whole planet to settle. If possible I was going to attempt to convince most of them to join us. We're going to need a lot of foster families, big ones. At least two adults and five to six adolescents for each refugee child. To be honest I have eleven more creches I am planning on stripping of their most vulnerable."

"Eleven! More! When were you going to tell me you were thinking of bringing over a thousand orphans into the Preserve in short order?"

Brenda bit back a tentative smile. "At tomorrow's staff meeting."

Mae opened her mouth, closed it, and then systematically licked the back sides of her teeth. "What kind of world do we need?"