Victory Conditions by Elizabeth Moon

up to be a good girl, and I’ve never been in any real trouble before. Now—the station police know that I refused to do what my parents told me—”
    “And the police agreed you shouldn’t go home to them,” Stella said, trying to interrupt what looked like a dive off the guilt cliff.
    “But they’ll still think I’m a rude, disobedient child,” Zori said. “I didn’t ask them permission first.”
    “Zori, you may have saved millions of people—billions—from death and brutality. I think your not asking permission doesn’t loom very large against that.”
    “My grandmama won’t think so,” Zori said. “Or my uncles…” Her voice trailed off.
    Families. There was always someone ready to dump on the young one who made a mistake.
    “You don’t suppose,” Zori said, “that they’re all in it?”
    “All?” Stella said.
    “My uncles. His brothers. His mother. I can’t believe my mother’s family…they never really liked him…” For a moment in those dark eyes, Stella saw knowledge of family pain no young person should have.
    “I think you’ll have to leave that up to the authorities,” Stella said. “The important thing for you is to know that you’re safe here, and you have people who care about you.”
    “They shouldn’t care about me,” Zori said. “My father is a monster—a traitor.”
    “Your father is not you,” Stella said.
    “My mother…they say she’s an accessory…but I don’t think she is…I don’t think she knew.”
    “You can’t know what she knew,” Stella said. She had both liked and pitied Zori’s mother, and hoped for the best, but she could not promise anything. Cascadian authorities would do whatever they would.
    “I can’t…Toby…it would be bad for him. I should go somewhere. Somewhere far away.” She burst into tears again.
    Stella sighed. In a fit of frustration she now recognized as justified, her own mother had once told her that if she ever had children of her own, she would deserve whatever trouble they brought her. Apparently that bit of universal balance was going to land on her even though the child wasn’t actually hers.
    “Zori, you know Toby loves you.”
    An agitated jerk of a shoulder; Zori was curled into a ball now, face buried in a pillow. “He shouldn’t,” she said, her voice muffled by tears and the pillow both. “I loved him—”
    Stella parsed this as referring to Ser Louarri, not Toby. “You were a child; children love their parents unless the parents are brutal.”
    At that Zori shivered. “I thought he loved me. He said—”
    “He probably did…which is more than my father did.”
    “You—I thought you had a good family! Toby said—” Zori’s tear-stained face came out of the pillow.
    “I meant my birth-father, Zori. Didn’t you hear about that, shortly after I first arrived? My connection to the pirates is even closer than yours. My birth-father was one.”
    “Really?” That had her attention. “Toby didn’t tell me that.”
    “Yes. The people I thought were my parents adopted me. And they were good parents…” Even if she was still angry with them for not telling her the truth. “Now,” she said, pushing that memory away. “You need to wash your face and go have a hot mug of something so you can sleep.” Could she slip something into Zori’s mug? Probably not. “You and Toby both need rest.”
    “I can’t possibly sleep,” Zori said, then yawned widely.
    “I think perhaps you will,” Stella said. “Let me get you something to sleep in…” Zori had come with only the clothes on her back. Stella went to fetch one of her own night shifts, and when she came back, Zori was already asleep. One down, she thought, and pulled the cover up over the girl, who barely stirred.
    Toby, in the living room, wasn’t tired at all. “Is she all right? Can I help?”
    “She’s finally gone to sleep, Toby. The most help you can be is to be quiet.” Stella yawned. “I don’t suppose you feel like