Did he dare violate the oldest tradition of the Covenant?
“If I travel with a full seven acolytes, then Mr. Guilliam will refuse to accompany us unless his wife . . .” Gregor shuddered at the word. Temple caste had no business committing themselves to one partner. “I cannot afford to wait for Laudae Penelope and her six acolytes to prepare for a journey as well. Just the three of us will go. The shuttle launches in two hours.”
“Y . . . yes, My Laud.” Caleb bit his lip and shook his head as he added more clothes to the trunk. “If I might say, My Laud . . .”
“No, you may not. I am still High Priest here, and I decide these things.” About time he took back control of Temple and Government.
Sissy might have run away from Harmony, but her influence lingered. Change and chaos ate away at the structure and peace of their world every day.
The Media considered themselves a separate caste now. The poor no longer existed, absorbed into the Workers. Every Holy Day service priests and priestesses read bits of the original Covenant to their congregations. And now Laudae Penelope integrated—tainted!—Worker and Professional children in the school system.
Add to that the hideous violation of tradition of clergy marrying, and Gregor wondered if life on Harmony would ever be harmonious again.
When Gregor returned from this trip, with his High Priestess in tow, life would return to normal and be under his control once more. All attempts to form an alliance between Harmony and the Confederated Star Systems would come to an abrupt halt.
And false reports of Maril incursions into Harmony space would cease to alarm the government and the people. The bird aliens didn’t dare invade. The Goddess Harmony would see to that.
Will I?
“Who said that?”
No answer.
“At last,” Mac chortled. He watched the action playing out in Control from his own terminal hidden in yet another lair. This one occupied an empty heavy-grav cabin at the far end of the same wing Control occupied.
In the levels between him and Control the technicians and maintenance trolls cowered in their beds, afraid of unemployment in Number Seven’s next round of cost-cutting measures.
Now that his brother had been deposed, Mac could scale back his interference, wait and assess how well the humans ran his station.
This was only the first step in his campaign to take over. He needed the humans to hand him the keys to the place of their own free will.
Undoubtedly, most of the workers would flee on the next ship. Their contracts with Labyrinthe Corporation guaranteed them employment on other stations if this one should fail. In the eyes of every Labyrinthian, with the removal of Number Seven from power, this station had failed.
Let them go. He sent a message to the nearest Labyrinthian transport that they would take on passengers when they finished off-loading their cargo here.
Mac watched Colonel Devlin’s movements closely as the military man tried to awaken the maintenance ’bots. Mac embedded a code into the signal that would rouse them and set them to working again, but slowly. Then he tacked on a call that would break through his firewall around the comm unit inside the maintenance workers’ quarters. They must return to work now.
His audio sensors heard them grunt and groan as they dragged themselves out of deep sleep, cursing the interruption.
“We can’t trust Labyrinthe’s employees,” Ambassador Telvino said, back in Control. He’d taken up a post on an auxiliary terminal.
Mac saw that the former admiral had begun prepping a vacant wing for the Harmony delegation. He allowed that action to proceed.
“No, you can’t trust them,” Mac agreed, though the humans would not hear his words. “They are lazy and loyal only to the highest bidder.” He sent a memo to the workers’ terminal offering higher paying employment elsewhere.
He had no idea if Labyrinthe II had places for them or not. He just needed them to desert the station.
“We have to trust them to get the repairs done,” Colonel Jake said.
“Leave it damaged for now,” Lord Lukan said. He peered over Telvino’s shoulder. “Each wing can be independently powered and air-locked so it won’t damage other, viable spaces. Send in Military Jake’s people and my own Spacers in EVA suits to gather our personal belongings. We’ll just move to this other wing.”
“Good idea,” Telvino laughed. “We’ll have to buy the station from the Labyrinthe Corporation eventually. The damage should reduce the price, on top of the proven negligence. You keeping records of all the problems, Jake?”
“Yes, sir.” The colonel mumbled something else as he worked frantically at the screens. Mac heard the curses even if Jake’s superiors did not.
“Lord Lukan, Ambassador Telvino, we can’t just leave the pilots in the damaged wing. What are those creatures anyway?” Laudae Sissy butted in.
“They look like squids,” Colonel Jake said.
The High Priestess nodded as she absorbed that information. “If the Squid people were smart enough to fly a spaceship, they were sentient. They deserve a respectful funeral,” Laudae Sissy insisted.
None of the men in Control acknowledged her.
She stamped her foot. “If you will do nothing, I will send my own people in to retrieve the bodies.”
“Not yet, My Laudae,” Colonel Devlin said quietly. “Give us a few more hours to assess the situation. Please.”
She crossed her arms and frowned. But she continued to watch over the colonel’s shoulder, pointing out things he missed on the terminal.
“I must protest the confiscation of my station!” Number Seven dared raise his voice.
“Tsk, tsk, Mother would not approve,” Mac laughed. “Rule Number 57 of Mother’s etiquette book: 57A: No need to raise one’s voice when greeting another species. 57B: No untoward noise while moving. That goes for voices raised in anger. Corollary Rule 43: Never show negative emotions in public.” His younger brother was proving himself most unworthy of the name Labyrinthe. If only Mother had lived long enough to see this.
“How I run this station is between me and my siblings of the Labyrinthe Corporation. You have no right to just take over,” Number Seven said, assuming a polite poise and demeanor. He must have remembered the etiquette book.
“We do have the right when your actions endanger the lives of all those who lease space on your station,” Jake reminded him quietly. He must have read a different book.
“Just make a list of the changes you wish made. I will run them past the Corporation,” Number Seven said. He looked oddly vulnerable without his spectacles.
“Can someone shut that whining annoyance up?” Telvino snarled. He pushed Number Seven away from the terminals.
“Done, and done.” Jake punched one screen icon in triumph. A new icon he’d just installed while Mac had mused about etiquette. “My squadron is on their way here now. Armed and carrying restraints. What’s the closest thing to a brig we’ve got here?”
“We have detention cells aboard the Victory,” Telvino offered.
“Do we really want an alien aboard your flagship, Ambassador?” Jake kept his hands busy on the terminal.
Mac had trouble keeping up with all of his work restoring the station to full operations. Where he could. Mac had a lot of overrides in place that needed to be reversed manually. Later. He’d release them one by one as he saw fit, not when Colonel Jake wanted them.
“Perhaps Mr. Labyrinthe can be confined to his apartment with an armed guard?” Laudae Sissy offered. “He is merely a deposed owner rather than a criminal.”
“Criminal needs to be decided later,” Lukan snarled. “If we were on Harmony, I’d have had his head an hour ago.”
“We may need information from him later,” Jake mused. “No sense totally alienating him. Might as well let him stay comfortable. House arrest with two armed guards at all times.”
“Disable all comm equipment in the apartment,” Telvino added. “The guards all have portables. Control contacts
them independently. Nothing through the central system.”
“You can’t do this to me.” Number Seven looked agitated. His ears flapped over his face and back again. At the same time he twisted his hands and looked about rapidly. He kept bringing up his left hand to touch the spectacles he no longer wore. Lost. He appeared lost.
“I can’t think of a more deserving person,” Mac added.
Seven armed men in the ugly gray-green uniform of the CSS stepped off the lift platforms in three groups. Ungently they strapped electronic restraints around Number Seven’s wrists and dragged him away. His screams of protest and fear echoed along the lift shaft. Only when the tram doors closed on them did silence return to Control.
“I need my crystals before anything else. I have to cleanse and rebalance the entire station,” Laudae Sissy insisted. “If they haven’t been damaged by exposure.” She hung her head sadly, lips moving in some silent prayer.
A gentle hymn followed the prayer. Reverence, awe, and gratitude filled Mac for several long moments.
Mac prepared to retrieve the crystals, incense, formal robes, and elaborate headdress with beaded veil for her. He’d place them outside Colonel Jake’s quarters once the traffic on that level quieted.
Forcibly he banished the sense of peace Laudae Sissy’s music brought to him. He had no time for mystic nonsense. He had a station to acquire.
“On the list of things to do, My Laudae,” Jake grumbled. “But that list is getting mighty long.”
“Um, Jake,” Laudae Sissy said hesitantly. “The survivor of the crash?”
“What survivor?” Telvino demanded. He searched Jake’s visual of the damaged area. “How could anything survive that?”
“If anyone survived the initial crash, they are dead now,” Lukan said. “Readings indicate minimal life support on the entire wing.”
“But we saw one of Labyrinthe’s people carry off a survivor. An air breather apparently, who was locked behind the water-filled cockpit. Someone dressed all in white. She looked human,” Laudae Sissy insisted.
“She?” Jake asked.
“The screams felt female. In my head. I heard the energy of a female scream before the crash woke me,” Sissy insisted.
Mac drummed his fingers on his terminal. He couldn’t allow them to find his fragile little bird. Those distinctive white draperies could only come from a Maril prison. Special receptors keyed to Maril sensors were woven into the synthetic cloth. Even a Chameleonoid could not hide from the Maril wearing those clothes.
But she needed medical help beyond his abilities. How could he protect her and heal her at the same time?
“Heat sensors are registering an anomaly inside a bulkhead in cargo bay seventeen D,” Jake said. “Flooding air, heat, and pressure in that bay now. Lord Lukan, you have trauma-trained medical Professionals in your Spacer caste. Will you please authorize them to suit up and do an emergency evac? Your Military should go with them in case they meet . . . anything unusual.”
Mac abandoned his terminal without bothering to close it down. He had to move his little bird now, before the humans found her and handed her back to the Marils. Or worse, killed her outright. The Harmony Military were notoriously ruthless when dealing with aliens—not recognizing any creature without a caste mark as deserving of life.
No one. Absolutely no one had ever escaped a Maril prison alive before. His little bird deserved special protection and attention for that feat. Now that the avians were absorbing rather than annihilating the rim worlds, they’d pay dearly to retrieve the escapee. They might even agree to enter into negotiations with the humans for possession of her.
Mac wasn’t ready to let that happen.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The hours trudged onward. Sissy found jobs for herself and everyone else who didn’t have a place to sleep. Anything to keep them busy—to keep them from thinking about how near death they’d all come.
“My Laudae, forgive me for intruding,” a small, meek voice whispered from behind her.
Sissy clamped down on her annoyance at the interruption to her tally of people evacuated from the residential wing. “What do you need?”
She slipped the stylus into the handheld computer’s slot and turned her full attention on the petitioner.
“My Laudae, this man says he cannot find his brother’s family.” A robust woman with a lauded Worker caste mark pointed to a man standing behind her, head hanging, feet shuffling. His brown X caste mark looked naked without a purple circle or blue diamond outlining it. He could not approach the High Priestess with his concern. The lauded Worker must speak for him.
Sissy cursed inwardly at the barriers within the caste system that prevented basic communication.
“What was your brother’s quarters number?” Sissy asked the Worker directly.
He whispered something to the woman, still afraid to speak directly to a Temple. He must be employed in laundry or dishwashing, or some other vital job that required no out-of-caste contact.
“Five-thirty-three D MG,” the woman replied.
Sissy lifted the comm unit Jake had given her. “Temple One to search crews,” she said distinctly, still uncomfortable with remote communications and their arcane protocol. She wished she could be among the specialized crews working their way through the damaged wing, and know personally what transpired.
“Search One here,” a disembodied and distorted voice came back through the unit. The mechanics of the EVA suits altered timber and accent. She had no idea whom she spoke to.
“Search One, please check Worker quarters Five-thirty-three D MG for . . . for . . .”
“Just exiting those rooms, Temple One. Sorry to report five bodies.”
The Worker raised stricken eyes to Sissy. His mouth worked, but nothing came out.
Sissy wished she could have told him of his loss personally, in a gentler manner than hearing the abrupt words from a stranger over electronic equipment.
“Thank you, Search One. I’ll arrange for funeral care of . . . of the lost ones. Temple One out.”
The lauded Worker wrapped an arm around the grief-stricken man. Sissy rejected caste prejudice and added her own hug of comfort. “Go ahead and cry,” she whispered. “We all grieve with you. Your loss is our loss as well.”
She steered them toward a shadow near a narrow corridor that might give the illusion of privacy.
“Will . . . will you perform the Grief Blessing, My Laudae?” He lifted his gaze briefly, then dropped it abruptly at his presumption.
“Of course. That will be the first order of business, as soon as we have a temple set up in our new quarters.”
How many times had she conducted that most sacred of rituals for her people?
Dozens of times. Thousands of rituals if she counted the mass funeral she’d presided over for the slaughtered inmates of an asylum in Harmony City. No one else thought the “Loods,” or logs of wood, as the inmates were called, worth the bother of a religious ceremony.
Sissy, with her multiple caste marks, knew that she might well have been one of them. She might have become so desperate from the neglect, the filth, the abuse, and the starvation that she too would have thrown herself on a Badger Metal sword wielded by one of Jake’s men rather than continue. She too might have become so desperate that she’d tear a Military limb from limb to get away from the asylum.
She would rather have been sent to Lady Marissa’s factories in the desert, where death came quickly from overwork and dehydration.
But she had been saved from that because of her bond with Harmony that gave her the gift of prophecy.
That bond had been severed when Lady Marissa’s agent had set off a massive bomb in an attempt to murder Sissy. The bomb had robbed Sissy of more than just her hearing. Lady Marissa had murdered almost all of Sissy’s family and many of her childhood friends and coworkers.
Sissy had lost her gift of prophecy along with her connection to the Goddess. Her primary qualification to be High Priestess, Harmony�
�s avatar, had vanished in an instant of blinding light and shaking ground.
She’d regained most of her hearing. The ringing in her ears had become a constant companion she could almost ignore most of the time. Nothing could restore her family.
Laudae Penelope, once her enemy in the Temple, had become her friend and had performed a Grief Blessing. Only after that ritual could Sissy begin to heal in mind, body, and spirit.
Lately Jake and her girls reported that Sissy spoke prophetically, even though she didn’t remember doing it.
“I consider it an honor to grant you a Grief Blessing,” she whispered.
“Thank you, My Laudae. You bring us hope,” the woman said as she pushed the man to sit with his back against a wall. Then she stood with her back to him, blocking him from the view of others. He could grieve in private.
Sissy’s comm unit beeped. Others needed her. She shouldn’t linger to comfort this anonymous man. Still, she paused to squeeze his shoulder even as she answered the call.
“Temple One, we’ve finished with MG 1. Moving to MG 2.”
Despite her own bone-deep ache of fatigue, she proceeded with her head count of the evacuees. Making certain no one else got left behind.
Morning, by the station clocks, had come and gone.
She handed her computer with its neat charts to Lord Lukan, who stood beside the staircase that spiraled around the lift. He’d folded his hands inside his blue nightrobe and seemed to doze on his feet. He nodded acknowledgment of the data, then returned to his doze.
Lady Jancee, his wife, fidgeted nearby. She’d had several hours of rest while her spouse helped sort out the confiscation of the station.
Sissy’s conscience twitched uneasily. Did they have the right to take the station away from Labyrinthe? Certainly the man had been criminally negligent. He might face charges for murder when this was all over.
She was surprised they’d lost only the five Workers, a man, his wife, their two children, and the wife’s sister. Undereducated Workers, who’d probably never been informed of emergency procedures because they were disposable. Or their supervisors considered them too stupid to remember the drills.
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