Page 103 of Freedom Mine
“But it’s not your dream either, is it, Jace?”
Jace ran his fingers through his hair. “Not really. It’s given me a purpose to be proud of, but nothing’s the same without Kayo. We’ve been a team for so long.”
“Then you’re leaving?” She thought she’d fall apart if he said yes. She needed help finding a way to get Kayo back. Kayo thought her strong, but she wasn’t sure she could do it alone.
“I’m not leaving without Kayo. I’m just waiting for you to find something in those books we can use. You did such a good job researching before. You’ll find something.”
She appreciated his confidence in her, but there was nothing useful in those books. But Jace was right about one thing. Leaving Kayo behind wasn’t an option.
“They’re staying too,” Jace said, indicating Ranth and the other men still dancing and slapping each other on the backs. “For a while, at least. They want to help.”
Alli looked at the photo she’d been holding. It seemed there was as much camaraderie here now as when Mac had been in charge. She wished she could tell Kayo about the strike, their freedom, and how they hadn’t forgotten him. But mostly, how he hadn’t failed Mac or anyone. He’d succeeded in more than freeing these men. He’d given them back their self-worth along the way. They’d stayed human, because of him.
When she turned the photo over, she spotted the names of the men. Mac, Kayo L. Variz. Huh. What was the ‘L’ for? Navdel, DrillBit, Perthal, Boulder, and Garitt. Garitt? Alli flipped the photo over again. On the far left, the older man, she knew was Mac, and that was Kayo standing next to him, so the names seemed to be in the order of what was listed on the back. That would mean the man at the end, the one that was as old as Mac was Garitt. That made no sense.
“Jace?” she showed him the names on the back of the photo. “The Garitt I met is as young as you and Kayo.”
“Gotta be a coincidence, or maybe Garitt’s one of the other men in the photo?” he questioned out loud as he looked at the men carefully. “Let’s see. I knew DrillBit, Perthal, and Boulder. Never met this one. Listed as Navdel. The old guy in this photo was Mac’s closest friend. Met him once, but I don’t recall his name. He had trouble walking so he never made it up to the mines where I spent most of my time when I wasn’t sleeping in the longhouse.”
“Do you know where he lived?” she asked.
“No, but I got the impression it wasn’t far. He showed up on a harkifa once. While they’re good for carrying heavy loads, that’s only for relatively short distances. And this guy was pretty big, as you can see.”
“Do you think he’s related to the Garitt here? His father maybe?”
Her senses were tingling, and too many questions and possibilities were running through her head. “Can you log me onto the net so I can research?”
Jace withdrew the datapad from his pocket, held it up against the chip in his neck, and handed it to Alli. She raced inside and got to work. Once she figured out how to navigate the net and access planetary birth records, she found the listing for Hawk Garitt, born Sector 2, Varkos. There were no records of a wife or kids. When she accessed the records of the Department of Property and Slave Transfers, she found the tract of land next to Kayo’s listed for Hawk Garitt had been transferred to him by his father, Yeeks Garitt twenty-seven years ago. The property had not been transferred since. And there was no death record listed for Hawk Garitt either, though she found one listed for Mac, so she knew she was accessing the records correctly.
Alli showed the information to Jace in the kitchen later that night. “So, what are you thinking? That Hawk Garitt is up in the house somewhere and has another relative doing the work for him? Nothing illegal about that.”
“I couldn’t find any other relatives for Hawk Garitt, at least not with the name Garitt. What if the man we know as Garitt is a fraud?”
“Can’t be. He’s bought slaves over the years. I’ve been to auctions, seen him scanned for payment.”
An image of Tieg flashed before her eyes. “What if they scanned Garitt’s chip, but not Garitt, therealGaritt? Tieg had a black market chip. The guy we know as Garitt could be someone else entirely.”
“Black market chips are stolen and given out randomly. They don’t even check gender. Tieg could have just as easily been given a chip with some woman’s identity and he wouldn’t have known it until he was scanned. Not a chance someone got Hawk Garitt’s chip and worked his way to Varkos and took over his property without anyone noticing.
“Wouldn’t the person have to be from Varkos? I mean, when I was brought with the other slaves to Varkos, they checked retina scans against our chips to make sure they matched. Everyone was checked, Jace. Slaves, pilots, handlers. The authorities didn’t miss a single person on that ship.”
“You have a point. But still, he’s purchased slaves over the years.” Jace squirmed. “Hells. Retina scans aren’t performed for slave purchases from the auction houses, only for private transfers between individuals.”
“A slave,” she said, her mind trying to wrap around the possibility that Garitt was actually a slave that had acquired Garitt’s chip on the black market.
“It makes sense, but proving it is the problem.” Jace shook his head. “We need more than guesses, Alli.”
“Then we keep digging until we have evidence that you can take to the Magistrate.”
“Solid evidence,” he said, frowning. “The Magistrate wasn’t too pleased with me the last time. “We may only have one shot, assuming he agrees to see me again. And right now this is sounding far-fetched. Having a black market chip is one thing, but taking over the identity of the man to whom the chip is registered sounds crazy. How would anyone pull that off, especially when the man’s active in the community and has a property full of slaves?”
“If the man was one of Garitt’s slaves, he was already in place to assume Garitt’s identity. Some slaves know everything about their owner’s business, sometimes more than the owner. If a slave took Garitt’s chip and his identity at the same time, he could live and function as Garitt, purchasing anything on the planet, even transferring property. But he couldn’t leave Varkos, not without passing the retina scan.”
Jace shook his head. “Mac was friends with Garitt. He would have known if someone else tried to take his friend’s identity.”
Alli’s shoulders sagged as a sense of defeat threatened to overwhelm her. Jace was right, and she was reaching for straws. Damn, her theory had felt so right, but maybe that was because she was desperate. Every time she envisioned Kayo in a cage, she found herself devising more and more dangerous plans to help him escape. None of them ended well. She wasn’t a trained soldier, and Garitt’s had too many guards. Even if she asked the men here to break him out, they’d be risking their lives. She couldn’t ask them to do that.
One glance at Jace sent a shiver down her spine. He was deep in thought. “What is it?” she prompted.
