The Kindly Ones

by Melissa Scott

  THE KINDLY ONES

  By Melissa Scott

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Copyright 2012 / Melissa Scott

  Copy-edited by: Anita Lorene Smith

  Cover design by: David Dodd

  Cover images courtesy of:

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  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Melissa Scott is from Little Rock, Arkansas, and studied history at Harvard College and Brandeis University, where she earned her Ph.D .in the Comparative History program. She is the author of more than twenty science fiction and fantasy novels, and has won Lambda Literary Awards for Trouble and Her Friends, Shadow Man, and Point of Dreams, the last written with her late partner, Lisa A. Barnett. She has also won Spectrum Awards for Shadow Man and again in 2010 for the short story “The Rocky Side of the Sky” (Periphery, Lethe Press) as well as the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. Her most recent novel, Lost Things, written with Jo Graham, was published by Crossroad Press in 2012, and its sequel, Steel Blues, is scheduled for spring of 2013. She can be found on LiveJournal at mescott.livejournal.com.

  Book List

  A Choice of Destinies

  Burning Bright

  Dreamships

  Dreaming Metal

  Lost Things

  Mighty Good Road

  Night Sky Mine

  Point of Dreams (with Lisa A. Barnett)

  Point of Hoops (with Lisa A. Barnett)

  Shadow Man

  The Armor of Light (with Lisa A. Barnett)

  The Game Beyond

  The Jazz

  The Kindly Ones

  The Roads of Heaven Trilogy Bk 1: Five-Twelfths of Heaven

  The Roads of Heaven Trilogy Bk 2: Silence in Solitude

  The Roads of Heaven Trilogy Bk 3: The Empress of Earth

  The Shapes of Their Hearts

  Trouble and Her Friends

  DISCOVER CROSSROAD PRESS

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  Excerpted from the Standard Planetary Register, 20th edition revised, pub/protect date CS 1425.201 PoDr. Used by the kind permission of the Conglomerate Records Office, Baldur.

  ORESTES (Oresteian, Oresteians): SEE ALSO ELECTRA, Iphigenia. Larger of two inhabited moons of Agamemnon, planet of Atreus, Rimsector Catalogue listing 47001.q. CPC # 7E7/H9SX3/EE3B(2)*. Surface gravity = 0.81 Earth. Astronomical year = 27 standard years; local year = (Conglomerate) standard year. Astronomical day = 142.32 standard hours; local day = 24 local hours/23.72 standard hours. Chronometric correction (standard) ATS.993/02. Volcanically active on 24-day cycle; travellers are advised to heed local Geo/Met bulletins. Climate: Orestes is officially classified as a cold planet, with average temperatures from 5 to 10 degrees Celsius.

  Settled 41 AnDr by G/SS Home Rule, originally intended for Agni (qv); first Conglomerate contact 993 PoDr, full Conglomerate membership 1001 PoDr. No indigenous intelligent life. Primary cities: Destiny (dos 41 AnDr, starport, riverport); Madelgar (dos 38 AnDr, starport, riverport). Primary export products: minerals (industrials, gems); woolens (luxury yarns, luxury fabrics, hand-worked clothing); furs (atossa); fish products (leva, boi-boi). Government: Orestes and Electra are governed through five overarching Kinships (Axtell, Brandr, Fyfe, Halex, and Orillon) through the Kinship Council and the Ship's Council, which supervise city, town, guild/factory, and farmstead government. Each Kinship is responsible for one Mandate, a geographical as well as governmental unit. Language Group: Ortho-urban (index of variation RS6.0095).

  Orestes/Electra are most noted for the extremely strict code of honor that defines all social relations on both worlds. Breaches of code are punished by "social death"—the offender is declared legally dead and is allowed no further contact with (legally) living beings. This code is most strictly enforced in the non-urban areas; visitors are advised that the non-urban Mandates (Axtell, Fyfe) have been declared yellow travel zones by the Travellers' Advisory Council, and should consult the appropriate TAC publications.

  For more detailed descriptions of Orestes and Electra, please consult CRO publications: RSD993.501.F22, Descriptive Index Six: Worlds of Rimsector Seven; PDP 168847.228.V5, Planetary Survey Pamphlets, Third Series: Orestes/Electra; and TAC publication RS4.7001.7E7, City and Necropolis.

  ELECTRA (Electran, Electrans; also Oresteian, Oresteians): SEE ALSO ORESTES. Smaller of two inhabited moons of Agamemnon, planet of Atreus, Rimsector Catalogue listing 47001.q CPC # 7E7/T8VX3/EF3B (2/2)*. Surface gravity = 0.78 Earth. Astronomical year = 27 standard years; local year = (Conglomerate) standard year. Astronomical day = 285.04 standard hours; local day = 24 local hours/23.75 standard hours. Chronometric correction (standard) ATS.993/021. Marginal volcanic activity on 24-day cycle; travellers are advised to be aware of local Geo/Met bulletins. Climate: Electra is officially classified as a cold planet, with average temperatures from –5 to 1 degrees Celsius. Travellers are strongly advised to heed local Geo/Met Office's weather bulletins.

  Settled 2 AnDr by Orillon Kinship of Orestes (qv), as part of a feud settlement. First Conglomerate contact 993 PoDr, full Conglomerate membership 1001 PoDr, with Orestes. Electra is considered a province of Orestes (qv). No indigenous animal life above class III. Primary city: Glittermark (dos 2 AnDr, starport, iceport). Primary export products: minerals (industrials); service personnel. Government: Electra is considered a part of the Oresteian Kinship system (SEE ALSO ORESTES), and the moon in its entirety is the Orillon Mandate. Language Group: Ortho-urban (index of variation RS6.0095).

  Electra is a part of the Oresteian culture, and therefore, its people follow the extremely strict Oresteian code of honor. Breaches of code are punished by "social death"—the offender is declared legally dead and is allowed no further contact with any "living" being. Though this code is not as strictly enforced as it is in the rural Mandates of Orestes, travellers are still advised to familiarize themselves with the conventions of the code before arrival.

  For more detailed descriptions of Orestes and Electra, please consult CRO publications: RSD993.501.F22, Descriptive Index Six; Worlds of Rimsector Seven; and PDP 168847.228.V5, Planetary Survey Pamphlets, Third Series: Orestes/Electra.

  We hold we are straight and just. If a man can spread his hands and show they are clean, no wrath of ours shall lurk for him.

  Unscathed he walks through his life time.

  —Aeschylus, The Eumenides, 312-315

  Prologue

  Captain Leith Moraghan

  (Peacekeeper Drone Command, retired)

  Moraghan dreamed she had two good arms again, and the bunk beneath her was the couch of a SuperWasp fighter, the latest in a long series of in-atmosphere workhorses. She was too old to fly the tricky little ships—too old at twenty to handle the demanding link of computer, ship, and pilot—but nevertheless, there she was, strapped into the crowded cockpit. She brought it down easy, holding her breath, jockeying the machine through the thickening air toward the desert field. Then, out of nowhere, came a gust of wind, t
ilting the unstable ship. She froze for an instant, and the ship spun out of control, computers no longer able to compensate. She fought it, cursing at the top of her lungs, wrestling the stubborn controls as the world spiraled around her, and pulled it out too late. As always, she woke before the crash.

  She lay there for an instant, breathing heavily, staring up through the darkness at the bulkhead above her. Gradually, her heartbeat slowed, and she reached deliberately for her numb left arm, running the fingers of her right hand along the glove that hid the ugly scars. The doctors had done their best, but they had not been able to compensate for all the nerve damage. They had told her instead that she was lucky to have gotten off so lightly, and released her from the Drone Command. The Peacekeepers took care of their own, of course, as she'd known they would. Still, there was no place for her in active service, and she did not want a desk job with one of the auxiliary forces, Customs, or the Trade Board. That left only the mailships: undemanding, unrewarding work, but the closest approximation of Peacekeeper service she could hope to find. In the eight years since the accident, she had worked her way up to command of one of the smaller mailships on a six-week loop run of moderate importance, but she'd found nothing to replace the satisfaction of her six years in the Drone Command. Annoyed now, she swung herself out of the bunk, shaking away the sense of futility. She was doing something useful, at least; she couldn't ask for more.

  After she'd showered, washing away the last residue of the dream, and dressed, she was able to switch on her console and study the figures in the workscreen with a certain satisfaction. Her senior pilot, Darah Sabas, had flipped the mailship out of Drive with .5 li of the system buoy, for once putting them on the right side of the system for their approach. A single microjump had brought Pipe Major up to the buoy, in position for the five-day, no-drive run to the second buoy that marked the edge of the Oresteian rings. Or should that be the Agamemnonian rings? Moraghan wondered idly. They belonged to the planet, properly speaking, not to the inhabited moons. Whatever you called them, though, they were a nuisance, and she was grateful she did not have to navigate their complexities on her own.

  A yellow light flashed on the intercom panel. Sighing, Moraghan hit the freeze button and folded back the workscreen, then touched the answer key.

  "Captain here." She kept her voice even, trying not to anticipate the worst. Mailships' crews were always an iffy lot, chosen as they were from Peacekeeper pensioners either too old or too badly damaged for more active service, but the junior pilot, who had the watch, was worse than most. He had been shot up in the fighting off Thetis/Arreaias, and no matter what the psych docs said, Moraghan thought it was far too soon to let the kid handle a ship again. Of course, she added with a bitter grin, eight years ago I might've had the patience to work through it with him, too, but not now.

  "B-bridge." Tham's slight stammer was unmistakable. "D-do you want me to bounce-cast through the b-buoy, sir, or shall I use our own set?"

  "Are we still in range?" Moraghan asked, as patiently as she could.

  There was a moment's pause—Moraghan could almost see the boy checking his figures for the hundredth time—and then Tham answered, "Yes, s-sir."

  "Bounce it, then, and keep Askel happy," Moraghan answered. Routing the D-com signal through the buoy's repeaters would significantly reduce the wear on Pipe Major's own crystals, and the mailship's engineer was a notorious crystal miser, but Tham hardly seemed to notice the pleasantry.

  "Yes, s-sir. Shall I p-patch it into your cabin when I've m-made the connection?"

  "Do that," Moraghan said, and watched the lights flicker busily across the communications pad. At least he was quick enough to obey commands, even if he didn't seem capable of independent action yet. The last light flashed yellow and the air filled with the hollow hiss of the channel search. Moraghan winced, and hastily turned down the volume. It would take a few minutes for Tham to find the buoy and slave its powerful transmitter to the ship's system. The captain turned her mind away, staring at the viewscreen that filled a third of the status board backing the console. It showed the view from one of the bow cameras, real-light, unenhanced: a starfield, no different from a hundred others, millions of brillant lights against a velvet background, without even a nebula to give it color. One blue-white light showed brighter and fractionally larger than the rest: Atreus, the system primary. The planets were indistinguishable at this distance.

  Idly, Moraghan hit a function switch at the top of her keyboard, shifting from the workscreen's limited system to the main computer, then typed in the string of commands that searched the memory banks for one particular picture. The item appeared almost at once, fading into coherence on the main screen. This was her favorite view of Orestes, a picture of the system taken just outside the orbit of the inner buoy. Agamemnon was three-quarters full, its blue-white bulk, banded here and there with pale greys and greener blues, dominating the screen. Two of the three moons were clearly visible, Orestes itself dark against the planet's brilliance, while frozen Electra showed a distinct white disk against the dim stars. Iphigenia, the third and smallest moon, was out of sight behind Agamemnon. The planet's rings—not true rings, either, but an unstable, shifting mass of sub-planetary debris—lay invisible between the inner moons.

  Moraghan sighed. Before the accident—unconsciously, almost, she rubbed at the thickened wrist beneath the disguising, shoulder-length glove, avoiding the clumsy, crooked fingers—she would have welcomed the challenge of taking a ship as large and as slow as Pipe Major into the rings. Now it was physically impossible, and she did not know if she was entirely sorry to be freed of the compulsion to prove herself to herself. It was enough to watch and admire—and cringe, occasionally—while the Oresteian Port Authority pilots brought the ship into the system.

  A chime sounded softly in the communications pad, and the warning light turned green. Tham had linked ship's systems to the buoy, and a channel was open. The Port Authority in Destiny, Orestes' largest city and principal spaceport, should answer momentarily. Moraghan eased up the volume on the D-com channel just as Tham announced, "C-captain, the Destiny harbormaster's on line."

  "Thank you, Idris, that'll be all." Moraghan switched off the in-ships channel. "Greetings, Harbormaster Rhawn."

  "Greetings to you, Pipe Major. You're ahead of schedule." Oslac Rhawn's voice was as deep and jovial as ever, the singing Oresteian accent subdued through long contact with the off-worlders who passed through Destiny. "What can we do for you?"

  "We'll need a pilot to bring us in-system, and that's about all," Moraghan answered.

  "You'll be landing here at Destiny, then?" The harbormaster sounded more than a little bored by the routine question. There was another starport on Orestes—at Madelgar in the Branch Mandate—and a third on Electra. Occasionally, the vagaries of Pipe Major's cargo made it expedient to land at one of them rather than at Destiny, but that was a rare event.

  "That's right," Moraghan answered. "You might want to warn the people in Madelgar to send a lighter, and the same for Glittermark, but I don't carry much for either."

  "I'll pass that on," the harbormaster answered, with patent insincerity.

  Moraghan sighed—she knew there was a long-standing hostility between Madelgar and Destiny, though she neither knew nor cared to know its cause—and said, more sharply than was entirely polite, "I'd appreciate it, if you would."

  Oslac grunted. "What's your ETA?"

  Moraghan glanced at her workscreen, confirming the figures. "We expect to reach the inner buoy in 118 standard hours. You'll have a pilot waiting?"

  The harbormaster chuckled. "Wouldn't let you into the system without one, captain." Before Moraghan could decide if he was being malicious, Oslac continued, "And you're in luck, captain. The regular duty pilot's got Dark-leave, so you get your favorite para."

  "Guil Tam'ne—ex-Tam'ne?" Moraghan asked, keeping her voice as pleasant as she could. She was not fluent in all the nuances of the Ortho-Urban dialect that was Or
estes' common language, but she knew the difference between para and para'. Both could be contractions of para'an, outsider, but the first was bitter insult. "That'd be nice—she's the best pilot I've seen out of your office."

  There was a momentary hesitation, and when Oslac answered, his tone was conciliatory. "That's right, captain. She'll be glad to hear your recommendation."

  Moraghan grunted, annoyed with Oslac and with herself. Guil was hardly a part of Pipe Major's crew. It wasn't Moraghan's job to protect her against groundside troubles, nor would Guil be likely to need her protection. "Thanks for the help, harbormaster."

  "See you in 190 hours, with a customs team," Oslac retorted, and cut the connection.

  Moraghan flicked the intercom key again. "Finished with the transmitter," she snapped, and switched off her circuit before Tham could acknowledge the order. She leaned back in her comfortable chair, watching the lights flicker from green to orange to standby blue as Tham shut down the transmitter. Guil Tam'ne—Guil ex-Tam'ne, Moraghan corrected herself, bitterly recalling the full formal phrase, para'an of Tam'ne in Electra—was the best of the Port Authority's pilots. It was perhaps a pity she was para'an—by her own choice, no longer a part of the bizarre Oresteian honor code—but it certainly made it easier to deal with Guil than with the other pilots, for whom the necessity of obeying the code outweighed all other considerations, including the sanity of the incoming ships' captains. . . .

  Moraghan sighed again, the Peacekeeper training taking over. She was being unfair, and knew it. The Oresteian code had had a solid purpose—had probably saved the colonists, who had never intended to settle frigid Orestes. It had certainly meant the difference between life and death in the first forty years after the mutiny—the mutiny that must never be mentioned—that damaged the guidance computers and brought them not to Agni but to Agamemnon. But now, over fourteen hundred years after the Encounter and development of a human FTL drive, the code was clearly obsolete, and still fully enforced. I suppose, Moraghan thought, I should be grateful they've substituted "social death" for the real thing. I wonder if the ghosts are grateful?