Free Offspring by Steven Harper Page A

he reached the store. Mrs. Porfax, the aging owner, nodded to him from her counter near the door. Carl found what he was looking for and brought it over to her, feeling slightly embarrassed. Mrs. Porfax glanced at the item, and Carl felt his face heat up.
    “Do you need anything else?” Mrs. Porfax asked, opening a brown bag.
    “Not today,” Carl mumbled.
    “Five freemarks and twenty, then.”
    He paid her and left quickly. Outside he opened the bag and looked in. The small carton of gourmet chocolate ice cream seemed to look accusingly up at him. I’m too expensive , it said. You shouldn’t spend the money .
    But Larissa loved it so much, as did he. After everything they’d gone through, they deserved a little treat together now and then. Didn’t they?
    “Hey, friend. Spare a freemark?”
    Carl closed the bag and looked up. A shabby man and an equally shabby woman stood at the mouth of an alleyway near the store. The man was holding out his hand.
    “Sorry,” Carl said. “I don’t have—”
    The woman gave a low cry and doubled over. The man spun and caught her, though her weight was an obvious drag on him. Carl automatically stepped forward. He took the woman’s arm and helped the man lower her, moaning, to the ground.
    “What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
    “Sometimes she gets like this,” the man said. “We don’t know why. She hurts.”
    The woman looked up at Carl with pain-filled eyes. Then her hand whipped around and Carl felt a thump against the side of his neck. The woman’s hand came away. She held a dermospray.
    “What—?” Carl said. And then his world went black.

CHAPTER THREE

     

“Never get into a public argument with someone who has a microphone.”
    —Irfan Qasad
     
     
    Morning found Kendi in his office at the monastery. Arranging the leave of absence had indeed been easy. The Council of Irfan wanted Salman Reza to win the election, wanted her to win it very much, and the members had quickly agreed that Kendi’s endorsement of her campaign would greatly increase her chances.
    Kendi cleared out his mail—fifteen sales pitches, ten biography offers, twenty-eight fan letters, one death threat—and made sure the monastery’s other working Silent knew they’d have to handle his communication caseload. It didn’t take nearly as long as he’d thought.
    His eye fell on the sim-game holograms lined up across his desk. Gretchen’s upper torso looked as improbable as ever. Ben’s image was smiling. Kendi looked at the holo with a tangle of emotions. Ben was Kendi’s rock, his grounding point, the love of his life, and the eventual father of his children. Ben was Irfan Qasad’s son. Ben was also Daniel Vik’s son.
    So what? Ben was Ben. His real mother, the one who mattered, had been Ara Rymar. Kendi knew that, but it still hit him at odd moments that Ben had originally been—created? put together?—almost a thousand years ago by the universe’s greatest hero and its greatest villain.
    He wanted to tell someone. It was a powerful secret, and a part of him wanted to let a few people in on it, see the startled and amazed looks on their faces. Keith and Martina wouldn’t tell anyone if he asked them not to, and it—
    No. Ben didn’t want anyone else to know, so no one else would know. Kendi needed to concentrate on something else.
    He picked up the Ben hologram, set it in the hallway, and shut the office door. Then he tapped an empty space on the wall. “Sister Gretchen Beyer,” he said, and the wall screen glowed as the computer made the connection. Gretchen Beyer’s blond head popped up. She was a plain-faced woman, tall and raw-boned, nothing at all like the busty beauty on Kendi’s desk.
    “Hey, Kendi,” Gretchen said after initial greetings. “What’s going on with you?”
    Technically Gretchen was supposed to address him as “Father Kendi,” but Kendi rarely pushed the issue. He and Gretchen had been through too much together for that sort of