C f bentley, p.44
C. F. Bentley, page 44
Gregor sank down, deflated and defeated. “She tricked me. You all tricked me.”
“We did what we had to do, My Laud,” Penelope said. “We did as Harmony’s avatar commanded.”
“We can’t tell anyone. The people will rebel if they know she has deserted them.”
“That knowledge, like the changes to our Covenant will come slowly, bit by bit,” Guilliam mused. “We begin by abolishing the asylums and fixing those with broken caste marks. As Laudae Sissy commanded.”
“Then we integrate the schools,” Penelope added.
“We begin by putting the tablets back in their crypt,” Gregor snarled. “Laudae Sissy is gone. I am in charge now. She can’t override my decisions anymore.”
“She may be gone, but she still has influence. And she will never be forgotten,” Penelope and Guilliam reminded him, together, in one unified voice.
“Mama?” One of Penelope’s acolytes tugged at her sleeve. “We don’t feel right.” She and another acolyte of the same size removed their headdresses. Twins. Mirror images of each other.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Guilliam lifted the girl who had spoken into his arms.
Penelope crouched down and wrapped her arms about the other one.
Both girls grew rigid and still. Their eyes lost focus and turned silver. Oh, no! Not again.
“Harmony becomes elusive,” Guilliam’s charge said. “Harmony changes paths,” Penelope’s continued in the same voice without pause. As if they spoke as one being. “Harmony’s path is no longer straight.”
“It leads where we do not expect along twisted and obscure avenues.” The ground beneath them shook and quivered. The buildings around them began to sway.
The girls began to sing.
Chapter 68
Sissy made the rounds of sleeping children in her care, six acolytes plus her youngest brother and sister. She kissed each in turn and tucked light blankets around them. Then she checked their nul-g straps that would keep them in bed if the artificial gravity failed. All secure.
The animals twitched in their crates secured to the floor and the walls. Some of them slept. Some of them fought the sleepy drugs.
A soft chime, not much louder than the ringing in her ears, came through the spaceship’s communication system. “Hyperspace in two minutes.” A soft feminine voice followed the bell. “Please inject sleep inducers now for full effect before hyperspace.”
Sissy had given the children their shots only moments before. They’d fallen asleep within seconds. Only an antidote would wake them in less than twenty-four hours.
She returned to her own cabin, adjacent to the children’s room. A hard narrow bed that folded against the wall during waking time awaited her.
The warning bell came again, louder this time, as she pulled the nul-g strap diagonally across her chest. “Hyperspace in one minute. Inject sleep inducers now.” The voice became imperative, almost strident.
Sissy put her hand in the stationary glove and poised her free hand over the plunger. A long moment of hesitation.
The sterile ship felt empty and inanimate, more so than any structure on Harmony. The Host of Seven infused life into the stones and timber of every building and object made from Harmony’s raw materials. Even the metal cars and paved roads had come from Harmony and vibrated minutely in sympathy with Her.
Out here in the nothingness of space, Sissy’s body and mind felt empty, devoid of tune. She needed to find a way to connect to the universe beyond Harmony, to make it as much a part of her as her home. How could she do that if she was drugged to insensibility?
Gently she withdrew her hand from the injection glove and sat back in her bunk, legs folded beneath her, spine against the metal wall that separated her cabin from the children’s.
Angry bells that jangled her nerves and hurt her ears sounded throughout the ship. “Warning, hyperspace in seven seconds. Six, five… “
Sissy forced herself to keep her eyes open through the countdown.
“Two, one.”
The lights blinked off for the length of a heartbeat. They came back on in a softer hue, more blue than yellow. Sparkling lines shot across Sissy’s vision, fracturing reality.
The constant noise in her head, that she’d almost learned to ignore, ceased abruptly.
The absolute silence frightened her. The last vestige of Harmony deserted her.
Her mind and soul emptied.
The cracks in her vision widened, opening to new realms, new perceptions.
And out of that crack stepped her mother.
“Mama,” Sissy gasped, amazed that she looked just as she had last seen her, dressed in her favorite brown dress sprigged with tiny yellow flowers, a grease-stained apron tied around her plump form, flour dusting her sleeves and her face.
“Oh, Mama, I’ve missed you.” Sissy opened her arms and tried to run to her mother. The nul-g strap held her firmly in place.
She ripped at it frantically, needing to feel her mother in her arms one more time.
“And what do you think you are trying to prove this time?” Stevie asked from right behind Mama. He held Anna’s hand. His spouse cradled one hand beneath her swelling belly, emphasizing the precious new life that had ended with her own in the explosion.
The explosion.
Her family showed no signs of the devastating blast that had torn them limb from limb and pierced their bodies with deadly flying debris.
Papa stepped into Sissy’s reality behind Stevie, followed by grandparents, uncles, aunts, another brother and sister. Shanet with her full entourage of seven, and finally little Jilly trailed in, too. The tiny ship’s cabin filled with the ghostly presences of all those Sissy had lost.
Lost, never to regain.
They weren’t real. They were ghosts. Figments of her imagination. Tears slipped down her cheeks.
“What are you trying to prove?” Stevie repeated the question on all of their lips.
“I don’t know. I just know that I have to go.” “Go where?” Mama asked gently. Sissy shrugged, unable to speak or think coherently. “Go where?” they all asked.
“Away. Away from Harmony. There is no Harmony left in me. The Goddess has deserted me. I have to go away to find Her again.” There, she’d said it out loud. The thing that had eaten away at her since the explosion. Since discovering the truth about the origins of her people. Since reading the Covenant and knowing how far from it her people had strayed.
“Harmony is only as far away as you let Her be,” Mama reminded her.
“I’ve lost everything, everyone I care about.” “What about Jake?”
“I forced him to leave. I cannot care for him. We are out of caste. He is not one of us.”
“And yet you love him as one of your own.”
“If we ever come together, I can never go home. Not until the caste system goes away completely. Not until prejudice against outsiders is totally forgotten.”
“That will take generations,” Stevie said. “Can you wait a lifetime to love again?”
“I’ve lost everything. I’ve lost Jake as well as all of you.”
“We are only as far away as your memories, little ‘un,” Papa said.
“We are a part of you. You came from us. Someday you will return to us. But not until you recognize Harmony within you again,” Stevie said.
Jilly stepped forward. Her eyes glazed with starshine. She looked directly at Sissy, and through her at the same time. “Did Harmony abandon you? Or did you abandon Harmony? Listen to the universe. Listen to your heart. They are one and the same.” She blinked her eyes and they cleared. Then she wrinkled her nose just like she always did before telling a joke.
She stepped back behind the adults and faded back into the crack. “What’s the joke, Jilly? Find something funny for me to grab hold of.” The softest of giggles floated through the air. “The entire universe is a joke.”
Mama giggled, too, as she stepped back into that other reality beyond Sissy’s perceptions. One by one, they all disappeared until only Stevie remained. “Remember us, Sissy. Love us. Love Jake. Love the universe as you love us and it will love you back.” Then he, too, was gone.
The loud warning bells clanged. “End of hyperspace in seven minutes. Antidotes automatically administered in four minutes.”
Chapter 69
Colonel (full bird Colonel, not just an LC) Jeremiah Devlin, CSS diplomatic liaison to the Harmony delegation, tried to take a deep calming breath. His brand-new class A uniform constricted his chest and his throat. The artificial air of the space station tasted stale, despite the slight citrus essence added to make it seem more palatable. He’d grown too used to the real thing on Harmony. At least he’d stopped itching from Pammy’s antidote nanobots. His body and coloring had returned to his normal neutral status. He felt shrunken without the added muscles. Bland with dark blond, straight hair instead of the bright yellow curls.
But he’d persuaded her to leave the caste mark, complete with the officer slash and the purple Lauding. Diminished, he could handle. A naked face he couldn’t.
“You may have a new job, but never forget that your ass still belongs to me,” Admiral Pamela Marella whispered beside him.
Not any more, Pammy. Not any more. I belong to the universe. And to Sissy.
Was Pamela Marella still smarting that he hadn’t come to her bed, despite several vague and then very obvious invitations? He didn’t care. The ship from Harmony would dock within minutes. He dared not hope he’d see Sissy again. At best, he might hear her voice in a carefully worded and coded message.
Anything, any contact at all was better than the emptiness in his heart and his gut.
“Why meet them here on Labyrinthe Seven Space Station, Admiral Marella? These people are going to have enough trouble dealing with us barefaced humans. A station filled with aliens may just send them running.”
“Neutral territory. The First Contact Cafe is privately owned.” She gave the human nickname for the giant station poised at the intersection of a whole bunch of crossroads across this sector of space.
“And,” she continued, “this is just a substation of the original. Only four different species allowed. They all have to keep to their own atmosphere specific wings. These seven arms of the station are leased indefinitely and jointly to the CSS and Harmony. Three for us, three for them, and one for meeting rooms and communications. No aliens allowed without invitation, not even the owner, or any of her alien children,” she explained.
“We need our own planet for Headquarters. Not a tin can with spaghetti sticking out of its sides.” That’s what the station looked like from space. Each one of those strands of spaghetti was over three kilometers long and half that in width. Only a third of the arms were occupied at the moment, waiting for new expansion in this sector.
The entire rig rotated at tremendous speeds to generate gravity, heavier at the ends of the arms, nul-g at the center where the transport pods ran.
Somewhere in another wing, A’bner Labyrinthe, owner of the station—or one of her daughters, no one could tell the difference—controlled atmosphere and pressure to suit the different species. Little mingling among species at any of the seven First Contact Cafes. A’bner herself handled most cross-species and cross-language negotiations.
But not this one. This was Jake’s party, even if he wasn’t head of the delegation.
“We’re looking for a home for the Confederation,” Pammy reassured him. “But habitable planets in neutral territory that no one else already occupies are few and far between. Then once we find a place we have to build. Give us another year.”
“By that time we’ll have hammered out the details of an alliance with Harmony,” Admiral (retired) Telvino, the new CSS ambassador to the Harmony Delegation said from Jake’s other side. He didn’t look any more comfortable in his civilian suit than Jake felt in his uniform.
“Always thought there was something fishy about your death, Jake,” he continued, staring at the bay doors where the Harmonites would appear quite soon. “Pammy may have given you a new identity and promotions, but you are my liaison now, not her spy. You stay out of the spy business from now on.”
Jake raised his eyebrows at Pammy. Who outranked whom in this case? He’d have to wait and see how things developed. Quite possibly, his loyalty would land firmly beside Sissy and no one else. She outranked everyone.
Even if she never came here, Sissy was Harmony, and Harmony was Sissy. And Harmony was the spiritual center of the universe.
An enlisted man with communications markings on his uniform collar hastened forward, saluting in the general direction of all three of them so that no one was slighted.
Telvino returned the salute and accepted the flimsy proffered by the man. “A list of the delegation. You recognize any of these names, Jake? They all look like gobbledygook to me.” He passed the sheet to Jake, barely glancing at it.
Jake instantly separated out first names, parental names, and locators. “Lord Lukan, their ambassador, is the son of Lady Marissa. Last I heard, he had succeeded his mother to the High Council. That makes him more than an ambassador, close to most senior Noble in the empire. The next five names are his assistants. I haven’t met any of them.”
“How can you tell?” Pammy read over his shoulder.
“First name, then the da or du indicates son of or daughter of the next name. Pa and pu, also masculine and feminine indicate who they work for, or where they are assigned. The five assistants all have Lord Lukan’s name at the end with the addition of Labyrinthe Space Station. They will be Noble caste. Any Worker caste they bring with them as servants have only his name as their locator.”
“What about these names, almost a separate list,” Pammy pointed to a second column, equal to but separate from the Noble entourage, and just as lengthy.
“Temple caste. They’ve sent a highly ranked priestess from the Crystal Temple to oversee the negotiations, make sure any compromises don’t stray from the spirit of the Covenant with Goddess Harmony.” Jake’s heart sank to his stomach. Laudae Penelope du Marilee, pu Crystal Temple/Labyrinthe Delegation. Her six acolytes and a passel of Worker attendants.
Not Sissy.
She hadn’t come. She couldn’t separate herself from Harmony.
He knew they could never be together, not as he longed for them to be.
He could only adore her from afar.
Now he wouldn’t ever see her again.
He was almost sick to his stomach with disappointment.
A series of announcements over the comm system announced the arrival and docking of the big commercial transport from Harmony.
Jake and Telvino watched the proceedings with professional assessment from a large screen set into the wall beside the bay doors.
“Whew, she’s big,” Telvino whispered through his teeth.
“Luxury cruise ship designed for transporting Nobles around the empire. No discomfort or cramping allowed,” Jake managed to say around the lump in his throat.
“Good pilot, hit the docking rig dead on first try,” Telvino said, admiration verging on awe coloring his voice.
“Spacer caste. Born and bred to do nothing else. Probably the son, grandson, and great grandson of expert pilots. They cut their teeth on this kind of work,” Jake explained.
They waited endless minutes while the rig locked on to exterior hatches, bays pressurized and matched atmospheres. Gauges on the side of the screen showed the progress of the invisible processes.
At last a soft bell indicated the bay doors ready to open.
A Noble, probably in his forties, with hair graying at the temples, pale skin, and bright blue eyes that matched his diamond caste mark stepped through first. He wore a formal robe of blue, not terribly different from priestly garb, subtle differences in cut and padding, more formfitting, less anonymous. No headdress or veil. With hands clasped in front of him he bowed slightly.
Telvino withdrew his outstretched hand and mimicked the bow, no deeper, no shallower. An equal greeting an equal.
Good move, Jake thought.
They introduced each other. Lukan brought forth his chief assistant, Garrin da Lukan pa Lukan/Labyrinthe Delegation. “His son,” Jake hissed into Telvino’s ear. More bows. Telvino introduced Jake.
Pammy seemed to have faded into the bulkheads like a good spy, unnoticed but observing.
Then a slender woman in formal purple-and-gold brocade robes with a full headdress and veil of purple and sparkling crystal beads, with no shoes, made her way to the front of the pack, followed by six young girls in similar but lighter garb.
“Laudae Penelope,” Telvino said, bowing more deeply to her than he had to Lord Lukan.
A monster of a black dog broke free from the air lock and dashed forward. He barked and jumped at Jake, begging for pets. A brown mongrel followed along with a white puffball and a small gray yapper. They all demanded immediate and glorious attention.
Jake’s entire being smiled in relief. He raised his eyes from hugging all four dogs at once and captured the gaze of the woman. He’d know this priestess anywhere. He’d know Sissy by her posture, her lightness of step, by her scent, by a dozen different ways. She could never hide from him. He gave up questioning why she was here, why she used Penelope’s identity and kept her own hidden.
“Jake!” a little boy and his sister screamed and hurled themselves into his arms.
“Marsh. Ashel,” he crowed in delight, swinging them around. He held them tight, drinking in their warmth, their scent, the feel of their little bodies trusting and loving him.
That confirmed it. Only Sissy would bring her brother and sister along with six acolytes and four dogs and who knew what other kinds of critters that hadn’t debarked yet. He nodded and winked to the little girls.
He thought his swelling heart would burst with joy.
The girls bowed formally to him, then erupted into their own version of hugs, telling him all about the journey in a hurried babble he could barely decipher.
Sissy looked around, the crystals in her veil swinging and catching the light, sending out wild rainbows. “This place has no soul. We need to perform rituals to give it one. We must forge a new Path of Harmony on a proper note.”
