Probability Space by Nancy Kress Read Free Book Online Page A

because everyone will put pressure on the government to release him. He’s a political prisoner, Amanda, and that’s not right. You can tell the whole system that. Then the government will have to let him go.”
    There were too many words. Amanda couldn’t think. Through her rising panic, she tried to sort through the words, understand what Captain Lewis was saying. Something about it wasn’t right …
    The woman—Amanda still couldn’t remember her name—thought she was hesitating for a different reason. She said, in a new voice full of honey, “You don’t have to worry about what to say in the broadcast, dear. We’ll write it out for you so all you have to do is read it.”
    “I—”
    “But not if you prefer to use your own words,” Captain Lewis said, and now his scowl at the woman was ferocious. “All you have to do is tell the truth about how you saw the government agents kidnap your father.”
    Now Amanda saw the thing that wasn’t right. “I don’t know if it was government agents. I don’t know who it was.”
    “It was government agents,” Captain Lewis said. “It wasn’t Life Now … that’s us, and we didn’t kidnap your father. Why would we? The result is that all the news holos are blaming us, and why would we do that? It just opposes people to our cause.”
    That made sense. Until Amanda thought about it. Then she said, “But … if I blame General Stefanak, then people will blame him. That would help your cause.”
    “Yes, it would. And yours, which is getting your father back. Everyone would know the government took him, and there would be enormous pressure to release him.”
    “Ye … eee … ssss, but … but I don’t know if the government did take him.”
    “We just told you so,” Captain Lewis said evenly.
    “How do you know?” Amanda said. This was familiar ground; this was what her father did with her. “What’s your evidence, Amanda? Produce your reasoning. Why do you think that” This was how science worked.
    “Because we didn’t take him, and who else is there?”
    Amanda was silent. She didn’t know that Life Now hadn’t kidnapped her father. Captain Lewis wasn’t producing either evidence or reasoning. But if she said that, it would be like accusing him, which would be rude. After all, she didn’t have any evidence, either.
    So instead she repeated, “I don’t know who kidnapped him.”
    “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” the woman said.
    “I’m sorry, but I just don’t know. I can’t say, if I don’t know for sure.” That was a fact. That was what her father would want her to do: Stick to the facts.
    “Are you saying, Amanda,” Captain Lewis said, “that you won’t make the broadcast?”
    Amanda’s stomach turned over. Captain Lewis’s face had changed, and his voice. She was in terrible trouble. She clung to the one thing she knew for sure, the fact Daddy would want her to stick to because it was true. “I’m saying I don’t know who kidnapped Daddy.”
    “Will you make the broadcast for us?”
    It took all of Amanda’s courage to say it. “I can’t.”
    “No?” Captain Lewis was pushing hard.
    “No,” Amanda said in a small voice.
    “After all we’ve done for you? All Father Emil has done? He saved your life!”
    Amanda turned to look at Father Emil, still standing in the doorway to the small galley. His face had gone white. He said, “Dennis, this isn’t what we agreed on.”
    “You told us she would make the broadcast.”
    “I can’t! I don’t know who kidnapped my father!” Amanda cried. Her head felt as if it might burst. She hated that. With as much dignity as she could gather, she got off her chair, went through the common room to her bunk, and pulled the curtain. She buried her face in her pillow.
    I don’t know who kidnapped him , she told herself fiercely, and clung to that, because it was what her father would have said and it was true and it was the only thing she was sure she