Page 71 of Commander’s Mate
I read the line again.
NONCOMPLIANT.
He had been fourteen.
My mother’s cousin had taught children irrigation mathematics in Waysatu.
His family kept bees.
Taren hated honey.
That useless detail came back with perfect clarity.
He had complained through an entire feast because someone had glazed root meat with honey, and my sister had told him he could starve if he was going to insult the cook.
Now some slaver had written noncompliant beside his life.
“What else?”
Tivid hesitated.
“Say it.”
“We have twenty-three probable Farseek matches with enough identifiers to build family links. Five juveniles.”
“Alive?”
“At transfer.”
“Current?”
“Unknown.”
“Dead?”
“Unknown.”
“Stop saying unknown.”
His face tightened. “I cannot manufacture certainty for you.”
I closed my eyes.
“No.”
He was right.
“Continue.”
“One likely match is from your home district. Female. Meya Maktu.”
My eyes opened.
The world stopped.
“No.”
“Tissue-clan identifier is incomplete.”
