Iteration

‘Iteration’ is part of the space saga that began with ‘In the cold of space you find the heat of suns’ and continues in ‘Tales in Tarrasade’. There is also a one-shot ‘Silver Leaf Tales: Tying the knot’.

Thanks to Small Fox for being my beta. For this story he has also been my muse, suggesting a number of the ideas that have evolved to create this arc. I know I always put this but I would like other readers to realise that Small Fox plays an important part in creating this story. He is always there, always quick to respond and always, always spots those bits that aren’t quite working before I post them. If some of you have ever thought that the writing has improved since the start of ‘In the cold of space...’ you should know it is in no small part because of him.

Thank you to those readers who have written a review and particular thanks to xxShadowheartxx, lonelylulaby, CoastalRose, lividangel, v, kanazerosukenaru, sadie237, Gingitsune, jalana, Midnight Essence, satterb, Dorkchic, disembodiedvoiceofthedying, SidonieStarr, prettypurpletiger, The Horseman of Death, cynaga, Prism0467, richon and unneeded who reviewed chapter 61. I also received some emails, which was lovely.

And Kyuubi1010, the artist who drew the picture of Kazuki I use in my profile, is drawing me an awesome picture of Shikamaru and Haru. I am an so looking forward to being given a copy of it when finished.

The very much appreciate all the support.

Apologies if the characters have grown differently in their new environment.

This is posted in the Naruto/Sasuke section because it is part of a Naru/Sasu/Naru space saga. However, it does feature many other pairings (and a few threesomes). Apologies to those who are expecting Naruto/Sasuke or Sasuke/Naruto every chapter.

---

Chapter sixty-two: Inside

---

Shikamaru was torn between his common sense, which told him to stay in his chair until they were safely in orbit, and his desire to check on Haru, who was unconscious or sleeping. He stared at the indicator light, willing it to turn from red to blue so that he could activate the artificial gravity.

Finally it turned and he flicked the switch, only to see that Ranmaru had reached Haru before he had even unfastened his straps.

“He appears to be asleep,” Ranmaru announced. “His breathing is fine, Shika-san, so is his pulse and his colour is good.”

Shikamaru relaxed a little. “Thank you, Ranmaru-kun,” he replied. He put aside his desire to check for himself and turned his attention to the display. Shikamaru had not expected the system to be so busy. There were a huge number of transporters and freighters alongside a scattering of other craft.

“There has to be a gate,” he muttered, his fingers flying over the controls. It was easy to extrapolate its position from the positions of the spacecraft. They were also comings and goings from a third point, neither gate nor planet. Given the nature of the traffic, it was probably a distribution centre; it was on one of the outermost of the two large moons.

“What would you do if you were Pein?” Sasori asked.

Shikamaru thought about it while interrogating the gate data he was collecting. “As the registered owner, I would report the ship as stolen and offer a reward,” he admitted. “I’ll create a false identity for now.”

He could feel Sasori watching him as he worked. He glanced across. Sasori’s eyes were a little too piercing and his expression too calculating. He remembered how willing Sasori had been to leave Haru behind. Perhaps it would best to remind him of the reality of the situation.

“If you are wondering just what a typed-seven is worth on the open market, Sasori-san,” he said, “I would remind you that even known space is not large enough for you to hide from Klennethon Darrent.”

“The thought never occurred to me,” Sasori assured him. “At least not as a viable option,” he added.

“Sasori-san,” Ranmaru said reproachfully and, to Shikamaru’s surprise, Sasori flushed slightly.


Shikamaru was considering Pein’s reaction. It would be bad enough that he had lost his typed-seven genius without the added insult of having his ship stolen.

“Maybe we can buy a ship and return this one,” he suggested.

Sasori blinked at him. “I have a better idea,” he replied. “We take this ship with its phenomenally valuable drive and run. Consider it payment for your services for five divs.”


Ranmaru moved towards the hatchway. “We need to find out what is on this ship. There may be a crew in stasis. They may awaken automatically when the ship is launched or Pein may be able to wake them from the surface.”

It was a sensible idea; if Ranmaru ran into trouble he was still wearing his Akatsuki uniform, which should buy him some time.

“Hopefully Pein is still puking into a bowl,” Shikamaru commented.

“He should be dead,” Sasori retorted. He looked at Ranmaru. “You reduced the dose.”

“If he hadn’t, Konan would be dead and Hana would have ripped our heads off,” Shikamaru reminded him.

Sasori shrugged. “She wouldn’t have been where she was when she discovered us,” he countered. “She would have been breathing air into Konan’s lungs in a futile attempt to keep her alive.”

Shikamaru sighed. He wondered if Sasori was amoral or merely utterly self-serving. “Is there anyone you would hesitate to kill, Sasori-san?” he asked.

To Shikamaru’s surprise, Sasori’s eyes went to where Ranmaru was vanishing down the ladder. “A few people,” he admitted.

---

Sasori watched Shikamaru. Within minutes he had mapped the system, changed the apparent identity of the ship, investigated the gate and written programmes to monitor radio traffic and track ships. Sasori wondered what else he was doing. He said he was looking for ungated holes in the system, although Sasori had no idea how.

It really was amazing.

“I was hoping that the gate had a light speed communication relay,” Shikamaru admitted with his fingers still flying over the input pad. “They are so much cheaper these days. But it hasn’t got one. I need to get to the data streams. It may look safer to go through an ungated hole but that could put us where only Pein can reach us. In many ways it is easier to hide in a busy shipping lane.” He glanced towards Sasori. “What’s the worst case scenario?”

Sasori considered the question. “There is a self-destruct on this ship and Pein is angry enough to trigger it remotely.”

Shikamaru froze for a moment. Sasori saw his eyes unfocus. He wondered what was happening in the mind behind them. Then the intensity was back and his fingers were moving again.

“Thank you, Sasori-san,” he responded. “The chances of that, or of him being able to deactivate the ship, or him even being able to track the ship, are too high. Haru, Ranmaru and I need alternative transport. You should feel free to take this ship, along with the risk it represents.”

“What are you doing now?” Sasori asked.

“Planning to buy ships.”

“Using what?”

“Belmenth credit codes,” Shikamaru answered.

“You can remember them?” Sasori gasped, unable to control his response. The whole point of Belmenth credit codes was that they were too complex to remember. You had to put the token, with its code, into the reader. Each ship had one, even this one. When two readers connected, they transferred credit from one token to another.

“I have to use a mnemonic,” Shikamaru confessed, turning away from the control panel to work on the reader. “I bought a single series of tokens. That made it easier.” He glanced at Sasori. “It’s not stealing because the tokens exist, but they are in a lockbox that is not here.”

Sasori pulled himself together. No wonder Pein had been so paranoid about keeping Shikamaru away from any form of communication device. “Ships?” he queried.

“It always works better if you buy as big as you can,” Shikamaru explained. “Then they see you as a company rather than an individual.”

“How many?” Sasori asked.

“Not sure yet,” Shikamaru admitted. “The planet is at the stage where all the easily accessible minerals have been removed. That means that some of the mining companies are pulling out. That’s left one of the transporter fleets high and dry because they did not see it coming. They are struggling to cover their costs. I’ll pose as the representative of another fleet looking for a good deal. Set a course for the distribution centre on the second moon, the outermost one.”

“Surely the gate or a hole is a better idea,” Sasori argued.

“No, they are both too far away,” Shikamaru told him. “Pein will know we are gone long before we get there.”

Sasori did what he was told while trying to get his mind around Shikamaru’s scheme. “So you end up with, say, five transporters. How will that help?”

Shikamaru started outlining the options and Sasori began to understand just why everyone wanted Shikamaru doing their thinking for them.

---

Ranmaru crept through the ship level by level. Directly below the control room, still in the nose, was workspace; it included Pein’s office and Zetsu’s laboratory. Below that were two levels of accommodation; the top one looked like it was used by Konan, Pein and Zetsu and the lower was less personal; possibly for guests.

It was the levels below that where things became interesting. In the first there was a large room with two chairs and a great deal of equipment. In the second there was another chair, more equipment and six alcoves, each the correct size to take a pod.

Ranmaru found himself starting at one of the alcoves. If the room was a mindprinter, as he suspected, then the Ranmaru who had been with Uchiha had begun his conscious existence in a place like this.

He wondered if it was also used for net-to-net transfers; they would not need a chair for a disembodied head.


He slid down the ladder to the level below. While the two levels above had been silent, this one hummed; suggesting that the equipment was active. There was a landing with a desk, a chair and an interface. Around the walls there was a line of six square hatches at about waist height.

He went to the second from the left and tried pressing the buttons beside the hatch. It slid open revealing a dark gap with a smooth floor. After some thought he put his head and torso into the gap, turned over and looked up.

The humming was much louder inside.

His eyes slowly became accustomed to the darkness. Some of the shapes were vaguely familiar and they repeated. He wished he had a light with him.

Then, all at once, it fell into place. The shapes were pods. He was looking at row upon row, column upon column, of pods. The hatches were where the pods were introduced or removed.

Who were in the pods? Were they clones, prints or people?


He wriggled out, sat down on the chair and activated the interface. There was no security; whoever had set up the database had assumed that only someone authorised would get this far.

The first page that opened was an overview showing pods stacked four high. The room contained one hundred and forty-four pods, one hundred and twenty one of which were occupied.

He began exploring the programme; there was a database entry for each.

The indexing was very clear. There were three categories: blank clones, mindprinted clones and people. He flicked through some of the records, recognising Pein, Konan, Cook, the gardener and the standard six mixed with others he did not know. He stopped when he came to an image of himself.

He stared at it. It was a blank; a clone that had been grown in sensory deprivation.

How many more were there?

Hands trembling, he typed ‘Ranmaru’ into the filter.


There were six blanks, five prints, two reprints and one person. He almost opened the record of the ‘person’ but lost his nerve and opened the ones for the reprints. One was the reprint that had failed to take. The other was the reprint he had swapped places with. It included a comment that the medical condition of the reprint was uncertain.

So it, he, had survived the overdose. Ranmaru had hoped he would die, for betraying Uchiha.


He turned his attention to the prints. One was the Ranmaru that had lived in the orphanage. There was a note saying that it was non-functional. Apparently they had damaged its brain when they had transferred its memories to the Ranmaru who was to infiltrate Uchiha.

Ranmaru remembered a time when he had memories of being in the orphanage. They were gone. Either they had not transferred during the reprinting, or they had faded.

His past would be lost, piece by piece. Even his memories of Konohamaru would be gone.


He put thoughts of Konohamaru aside and examined the database entries carefully. Each one had a number that ended in slash sixteen. If Pein had grown sixteen clones, he could account for each of them. There were thirteen in the storage pods, one had died on Tarrasade and they must have killed another to take its head. He was the sixteenth.

Maybe that was all of them. Perhaps an empath was enough of an asset that Pein had wanted to keep even the copies close by.


He took a deep breath and opened the record of the original Ranmaru. Immediately a warning flashed: Ranmaru is very vicious and has a tendency to bite.

He laughed; an odd sound in the empty room. He remembered a time when no adult was to be trusted. Adults, even most children, had only been interested in the reward they could get from the child catcher. He had bit, kicked and scratched anyone who tried to touch him.

That was why Konan, or rather the print of Konan, had used so many sedatives.


The image showed a thin child with a suspicious scowl. The estimated age was eight standards. The physical condition was described as poor. Apparently he was undersized and malnourished.

This was the real Ranmaru.


He had to check the other levels. Shika-san was relying on him. He closed the database and deactivated the interface.

On the level below there were two rooms. Each had a notice on the door: Sensory deprivation environment. He opened one of the doors. Inside were tank-sized boxes.

Within each tank would be a baby or a child growing in utter darkness with no sound, or smell, or taste, or touch; assumed to be thoughtless until a future when it would be printed.

He felt sick and shut the door quickly.


He opened the second door. It took him a moment to make sense of what he was seeing. When he did he almost threw up.

It was filled with the type of shells that contained gestators. He forced himself to enter. The shells were arranged in pairs. One of each was full and the other empty.

He counted. There were sixty occupied ones. Sixty foetuses developing into sixty babies who would be transferred into tanks to grow from children into adults.

Maybe it was not too late for the foetuses. Perhaps they could still develop into normal, thinking humans. Surely it would depend how far along they were?


He quickly checked the lower levels. Next came the level where they had entered. Other than the airlock and the landing, that was mainly general storage. Below that was a level that contained meeting rooms and some guest accommodation. Then there was a small cargo hold before the engine room.

There was no sign of anyone conscious.

He began climbing the ladder back to the control room. He needed to speak with Shika-san.

---

Haru was bored. When he first woke up being in the control room with Shi-chan and Sasori-san had been interesting but that had worn off.

He knew that Shi-chan was busy. He could tell that Shi-chan was doing typed-genius stuff. It was strange to see him doing it for more than a few minutes.

Was he a typed-genius like Shi-chan? Shi-chan had explained that there was more than one type. Shi-chan was a seven. His friend Darrent-san was a five.

Ones, twos and threes were good at one thing. Haru was not an amazing musician, or artist, or mathematician so he wasn’t a one, two or three. He certainly wasn’t a four. Fours expressed their genius through movement.

With fives, sixes and sevens it was all about thinking. It was mostly about how they linked thoughts together.

He thought about what Shi-chan had told him about sixes. Sixes used their emotions to think. Haru wasn’t sure what that meant but he knew he did not think better when he was upset, so he didn’t think he was a six.

So he was a five or a seven or he wasn’t a typed-genius at all.

Which would be fine, because even Shi-chan did not want him to be a typed-genius. Apparently being a typed-genius made you miserable.

Shi-chan was not miserable. Perhaps Darrent-san was miserable.

He sighed. He wanted to get up and walk around. He needed to wee. As soon as he thought about it he really needed to wee. He hoped Ranmaru got back soon.

It wouldn’t be soon enough.

“Is there a head?” he asked.

“I’ll take you,” Sasori-san said. “Your father is busy.”

Shi-chan gave Sasori-san a look. That was interesting because Haru had never seen Shi-chan give anyone a look before. Haku-san gave people looks. Iruka-san gave people looks. Kiba-san gave Haru and his siblings looks.

Haru wondered what Sasori-san had done that was so naughty.

“Thank you, Sasori-san,” Shi-chan decided. “That would be appreciated.”


Sasori-san went down the ladder first. Haru followed. He had to concentrate on not weeing before he reached the head. Luckily it was on the next level close to the ladder.

It was just like the head on the Oak. Haru wondered if all heads were the same.

Sasori-san had referred to Shi-chan as his father. Haru knew that wasn’t right. Perhaps that was why Shi-chan had given him the look.

“Shi-chan isn’t my father,” he explained as he came out of the head. “Papa and To-chan are my parents. Papa is Uchiha-sama. To-chan is Naruto-san.”

“Half your genes came from him,” Sasori-san pointed out.

“Half my chromosomes,” Haru corrected. “It is unlikely to be half my genes.”

Sasori-san blinked. “How old are you?”

“Five,” Haru answered. Shi-chan had said that they had been in stasis for three divs. He wondered if time in stasis counted. Was Hikaru now older than him?

“Are they all like you?” Sasori-san asked. “Your brothers and sisters?”

Haru considered. “No. Hikaru and Hoshi are Papa clever. The kits are clever like To-chan. Ryuu is more like Kiba-san.”

“Kiba-san?” Sasori-san queried.

“He is a dog-human hybrid like Hana,” Haru explained. “He’s our Guardian.”

Sasori-san smiled. If it was a smile; Haru wasn’t sure. “The hybrid that killed Orochimaru-san.”

“He had to do that to rescue the kits,” Haru argued.

“Sasori-san!” Ranmaru scolded from the ladder. “Stop interrogating Haru-chan. Ha-chan, what have we told you about talking to strangers?”

Haru had not known that Sasori-san was a stranger. He had helped them escape and Shi-chan had trusted him enough to take Haru to the head.

“I will look after Haru now,” Ranmaru told them. “Sasori-san, please tell Shika-san that I did not find any sign of immediate danger but that I need to speak with him in private as soon as he can spare the time.”


They went down to the galley on the level below and looked in the cupboards to see if there was any food. There were ration bars. Ranmaru cut one up into small pieces for him and poured him a cup of water.

“How are we going to get home?” Haru asked him.

“Shika-san will work it out,” Ranmaru told him. He then sat in the chair next to him. “You know I am not the Ranmaru who lived in Tarrasade and on the Oak?”

Haru nodded. “It’s hard to remember,” he admitted. “You are just the same.”

Ranmaru looked at him and Haru knew there was something wrong.

“Pein gave me that Ranmaru’s memories. But they aren’t real memories and they are going to fade away,” Ranmaru told him. “Soon I will not remember being in Tarrasade or on the Oak. Soon I will not remember Konohamaru or Biwako-san or even the other children.”

“You’ll remember me,” Haru suggested.

Ranmaru smiled at him but his eyes were sad. “Of course. This Ranmaru has been with you. Haru-chan, Konohamaru will want his Ranmaru back, not a different one who doesn’t remember him.”

Haru remembered how sad Kono-kun had been when Ranmaru had died. “Maybe having you will make up for losing the other Ranmaru,” he suggested.

Ranmaru shook his head. “I don’t think it would work out. It would be both too similar and too different.”

In a strange way Haru understood. “You aren’t coming home with us,” he guessed.

Ranmaru hugged him. “I can’t, Haru-chan. I am sorry.”

---

Shikamaru found Ranmaru and Haru in the small galley two levels down. Haru ran to him and Shikamaru lifted him up so that they were eye to eye.

“There are only ration bars but there are lots of them,” Haru told him. “There are three different flavours. I chose the berry one.”

“Good, we won’t starve then,” Shikamaru answered. “Haru-chan, I need to talk privately with Ranmaru-kun.”

“I could go back to the control room with Sasori-san,” Haru suggested.

“No,” Ranmaru retorted before Shikamaru could respond.

“Sasori-san interrogated me,” Haru announced.

Shikamaru sighed. Sasori could not even be trusted to take a child to the head.

“Haru-chan can wait in one of the cabins,” Ranmaru suggested. He went over and opened the door to what looked like it was Konan’s room. “It will only be for a few minutes.”

Haru perked up at the opportunity to explore. Shikamaru hoped that he did not find anything too interesting.

Ranmaru shut the door to Konan’s cabin and came back to the galley.

“There is a problem with just giving the ship back to Pein or destroying it,” he said and then started to explain.


Shikamaru did not want to hear that there were sixty foetuses, or that they might be young enough not to have suffered the effects of sensory deprivation. Allowing Sasori to risk his life by taking Pein’s ship was one thing, but endangering the lives of sixty innocents was something else entirely.

“I need to ask you a favour, Shikamaru-san,” Ranmaru continued.

Ranmaru always called him Shika-san; he was about to say something important.

“The original Ranmaru, the feral child, is on this ship in a pod. He is still only about eight standards. Please take him with you. Please ask Sasuke-sama to accept him.”

Shikamaru did not hesitate for a heartbeat. “I promise, Ranmaru-kun. We will raise him.” Then he addressed the unspoken part of what Ranmaru was saying. “You are not coming,” he added. “You know about reprints.”

Ranmaru nodded. “Sasori-san told me.” He smiled but it was more than a little forced. “I shall spend what little time I have with Sasori-san. I know he likes me. Who knows? Perhaps I can persuade him to develop some ethics.”

Shikamaru doubted that. “We will miss you,” he confided. “You, not the other Ranmaru.”

This time Ranmaru’s smile was genuine. “Thank you.”

---