Kinsmen 01 - Silver Shark

withstand a concentrated probe from an adept. To the outside world, her mind appeared very much alive, but completely inert psychically. Precisely the way she liked it.
    "Place your hands on the rail in front of you."
    Claire locked her fingers on the metal rail.
    Pale green light slid over her. Two dozen scanners recorded her temperature, pulse, and chemical emissions, assessed the composition of the sweat and oil on her fingertips, and probed her body for combat implants.
    A cold male voice announced with robotic precision.
    "Implant scan, class A through E, negative. Biological modification negative."
    "Initiating psycher pressure probe," the woman said.
    Beneath her mental core, fear washed over Claire. Pressure Probe, PPP, meant pain to a psychic mind. The stronger the psycher, the worse the agony. She had to bear it. Her pulse couldn't speed up. She couldn't wince.
    It began as a soft buzz in the back of her skull. The buzz built, ratcheting up to deafening intensity, louder, louder, LOUDER. Pain pierced her mind, as if a drill had carved through the bone, grinding, widening the hole with each rotation, turning her neurons into mess of human meat. The world dissolved in agony.
    She was gone, drowning in pain. Her reason melted. Her mind dissolved.
    She gave herself away.
    It was over.
    The pain vanished, suddenly, as if sliced by a knife.
    "PPP negative," the male voice announced.
    "Subject cleared the security evaluation," the woman said.
    She passed. Somehow she had passed.
    The soldiers lowered their weapons.
    The woman faced Claire. "You are being deported."
    "I'm sorry?"
    "We don't want your kind on our planet." The woman grimaced. "You cost us billions and forced us into a three-hundred-year war. If things were fair, we'd line the lot of you up and put you out of your misery, except that the Interplanetary Right to Life Act gets in the way."
    That's right, flashed in Claire's mind. She was a civilian and under the protection of the Right to Life Act. Breaking it meant instant trade embargo. For a planet like Uley that imported most of its food, it would mean a slow death sentence. The Melko retainers couldn't kill her or any of the Brodwyn civilians. They couldn't load them into spaceships and kick them off planet without a definite destination either.
    "Melko Corporation made arrangements with other planets to deport you," the woman said. "In your case, you're going to Rada to some kind of flower province. It's one of the merchant planets. Many kinsmen families all competing for their territories. They are cut-throat on Rada and they're only taking the duds like you, no kinsmen allowed. I don't except you'll last there long, which is just as well. Exit through that door."

Chapter Two
    "PPP Negative," the computer announced.
    Claire held onto the rail of the platform. She was swimming up a deep well filled with blinding pain. Negative. Negative. She had passed through the screening again.
    Please, please let it be for the last time.
    "You may leave the platform," Rada's Immigration Officer invited.
    She kept swimming. Almost there. Finally she surfaced and her vision returned in a rush. Claire stepped off the platform. The Immigration Officer took her measure. He was lean, dark-haired, and older, his skin either naturally olive or tanned by the sun.
    "Come on," he said. "Let me give you your orientation."
    She followed him to a small office and sat in the cream-colored chair he indicated. The officer took his place behind a light glass table. A narrow crystal vase sat on the edge of his table. Inside it flowers bloomed, whirl upon whirl of bright petals, some blood red, some yellow, some deep purple near the root of the petal and white at its end. So vivid, almost painful.
    "Dahlias," the Immigration officer said.
    "I'm sorry?"
    "The flowers. They are called dahlias. You are assigned to the city of New Delphi." Behind him the digital screen displayed the city perched at the top of a tall plateau, its sides a sheer cliff of red rock. Elegant skyscrapers of pale white stone, buildings of glass and steel, wider houses with balconies... There was no rhyme or reason to it. Trees grew here and there, bright spots of green. Claire stared.
    "New Delphi is the commercial center of the south," the officer said, "but the city itself is located in the Province of Dahlia, hence the flowers. There are other provinces as well. Large urban centers are rare. It's mostly gardens, orchards, family estates. When you hear