She stopped abruptly because the scanner spiked. Target Five had had a reaction, a controlled flinch, and her skin was flushing as her internal fluids moved around. Target Two blinked rapidly, also flushing. Four said, “Fuck no.”
Indah said softly, “Oh, now, here we go.”
Aylen asked Target Five, “So you do know him?”
Target Five forced her expression back to blankness. “No.”
Target Two folded her arms and pushed back in her chair. “I’m finished talking. You go ahead and throw us in detent.”
Target Four said worriedly, “What about the others?”
Matif’s expression of borderline frustration snapped to calm and neutral, but he was probably lucky the scanner wasn’t pointed at him. He said, “I’ll check. Can you tell me their names? Describe them?”
Aylen and Soire both stopped to listen as Target Four described ten humans, three of them adolescents. Apparently his memory was terrible for lies but great for the truth, and I didn’t （and the scanner didn’t） think he was making any of it up.
Matif leaned forward, making sure his feed recording was getting all the details. “You’re saying these people should be with Lutran?”
“He was taking them home, to a home.” Target Four tapped the table earnestly. “We never saw him, you know, compartmentalize to make it hard for them to catch everybody.”
“Them?” Matif asked. “Who is them?”
Target Four said, “The Brehars. It’s Brehar something.”
I ran a quick public library query while the humans were fumbling to access their interfaces. “Possibly BreharWallHan. It’s a mining corporate…” I pulled more results, looking for connections. Oh, there was a big one. “It owns a system only one direct twenty-eight cycle wormhole jump from WayBrogatan.”
Indah’s whole face was scrunched in concentration. Tural whispered, “People. The Lalow was smuggling people.”
Soire was having Target Two taken to the holding cell, but Aylen’s face had gone preoccupied as she listened to Matif’s feed. Target Five watched her, frowning in growing consternation. “Miro’s talking, isn’t he?” she said in despair.
Indah relayed my info to Matif, who asked Target Four, “These people came from BreharWallHan?”
“Yeah, they were slaves,” Target Four told him. “They call it something else, but it’s slaves, right, dah? That’s what it is. Out in the rocks.”
Putting together Target Four’s story with what my library searches were turning up, BreharWallHan had a mining operation in an asteroid belt. The type of mining meant the contract labor had the ability to move around, to go from one asteroid to another, but they had no way to get anywhere else in the system, or out of it, and BreharWallHan controlled all access to supplies. But someone （Target Four either wouldn’t or couldn’t supply a name） had started an operation where contract laborers would make their way to the edge of the asteroid field, where a ship would slip in, pick them up, and take them away via the wormhole, to a point where the Targets aboard the Lalow would meet them and take them to a station where they would find the next step in their escape route.
“The corporates don’t notice?” Matif was fascinated but skeptical. “You taking out so many people at one time?”
Target Four was unfazed. “Cause we’re taking out their kids, dah. These people been out in those rocks so long they got kids older than me.”
Behind me, Tifany said, “What the fuck?”
“Wait, wait.” Matif was having a moment. “Are you saying these people were shipped to this belt as contract labor, but they’ve been there so long they’ve had families—children—and those children are being born into slavery? They aren’t allowed to leave?”
“I know.” Target Four spread his big hands on the table. “Penis move, right? That’s why we’re doing this, dah. Our grandperson was contract labor, like back in the back of time, before they got away and bought the ship.”
Aylen told Target Five, “Oh yes, he’s telling us everything.”
Target Five tried, “He has a head injury.”
Aylen was unimpressed. “He seems perfectly lucid.” Indah was subvocalizing again, talking to Aylen on her feed. “Even if you took payment to bring those people here, it’s not illegal, and it’s not illegal to be a contract labor refugee on Preservation. You can tell us where they are, we’ll get them proper help. But you need to tell us how Lutran fits in to this.”