Enigma

by C. F. Bentley

  Of all the seven hundred in the Harmony delegation, only the ninety-eight Spacers and seventy-seven Military had known what to do during the emergency. And they had been safe and snug in another wing, separated from the other castes, untainted. As all castes had remained separate for too long.

  One squad of twenty-one Military had been on duty patrolling the residential wing at the time of the crash. Their cool heads and authoritative voices had organized the evacuation. But they hadn’t known how many people needed to get out. They hadn’t had time to search all the quarters.

  This latest catastrophe was just one more example of why she had to break the caste system. Or at least whittle down some of the prejudices.

  The lift platforms paused a few seconds while three strange figures in the bulky space suits with air tanks strapped to their backs stepped free. One of them gingerly carried a black wooden box.

  Sissy stopped the first figure before it had gone more than a few paces. “Are they safe?” she asked breathlessly.

  The anonymous figure remained silent as it handed her the box, bowing slightly—as much as the insulated suite would allow.

  She cradled the box against her chest. “This is only my travel kit. What about the full array of altar crystals in the Temple?”

  “Cracked beyond repair. You might be able to salvage some shards.” The anonymous voice came through the suit, distorted with electronics.

  She winced at yet another alien sound warring with all the others.

  One-handed, she fumbled with the catch on the box. Another hand reached out to help her with the nearly frozen metal. Jake’s ungloved hand with its calluses and scars protruded from the space suit.

  “It needs to warm a bit, My Laudae, before it slides easily,” he said gently, opening his faceplate.

  “I . . . I need to do a Grief Blessing,” she said quietly.

  He blanched. “Who?”

  She related the grisly find.

  “Why wasn’t I told about this?”

  “They are—were—our people.”

  “Everybody on this station is now my responsibility,” he growled.

  She looked up to him in question.

  “Both Lukan and Telvino confirmed it with their governments. They had the legal authority to confiscate the station. They appointed me to run the place, and the home worlds agreed. CSS also made me a general, if you can believe that.”

  “But is that the morally correct course?”

  “I dunno. That’s a question for you Temple folk. I’ve got to get back to Control. Your new quarters are almost warm enough. You’ll be the first one in when they’re ready. Bless and cleanse the place as you see fit. Then you can move the walls around to suit your needs.”

  She nodded, but she doubted he saw it. He’d already stepped into the lift, barely looking to see if an upward bound platform had come into view. Separated from her by caste and by duty.

  Would he ever have time to just sit and talk with her again?

  “You’ll be there for the ceremonies, Jake.” She might as well have spoken to the vast empty vacuum of space. “I need you there to share in the Grief Blessing with me,” she whispered.

  “What about my jewels?” Lady Jancee asked belatedly. “If anyone has stolen my jewels . . .”

  “Later,” Lord Lukan snapped at her. “My Laudae, do what you need to do. I want you ready the moment General Devlin authorizes entry to our new quarters.”

  “What about the survivor?” she asked, remembering the one blank spot on her careful tallies.

  “You know as much as I do. Last I heard they found a habitat hidden between bulkheads. Recently deserted.”

  Sharp grinding pain ripped across Adrial’s entire body. Her lungs burned so fiercely she dared not take more than the shallowest breath.

  All of her manipulations for rapid self-healing became undone.

  Her scream of pain sounded little more than a kitten’s mew.

  “Forgive me, Little Bird,” the strange, eight-legged being said. “I must keep you safe.”

  Adrial whimpered. She’d endured different pains at the hands of the Messengers of the Gods. They meted out equally intense tortures in punishment for her sin of carrying alien blood in her veins. Not until she completed her path to Spiritual Purity could they accept her as one of the true race.

  She must endure.

  Bits and pieces of memory flitted through her mind.

  A tank of salt water that filled one entire room of the basement refuge she fell into. Intelligent water creatures with eight legs and two longer arms peered through their glass container at her. One of them lifted an arm and flipped a switch on a translator box.

  “Lost,” he whispered. “You lost. Like us.”

  That described her situation as well as any. She didn’t know where she needed to go, only that she must leave here immediately.

  “Do you have a ship?” she asked. Somewhere in her wanderings, probably the library at Biblio III, she’d seen a holo of these creatures. Human experts thought them extinct.

  “We have ship. Await cargo.”

  “Can you take me with you?”

  “You do not ask where we go.”

  Adrial let her silence speak for her.

  “We hear of one who collects the lost. Gives them refuge, direction, and life.”

  “Who?” Adrial breathed. This sounded like the person she needed to find.

  “No name. At end of our journey. Our last journey.”

  “May I come with you?” Occasionally politeness earned her more than demands or coercion.

  And so she’d come to this alien place seeking another fragment of the puzzle of enlightenment. Someone here . . . she must find the One Person in all the universe who held the next key.

  She could not find that person if she died at the hands of yet another being who tortured her for spiritual cleansing.

  The constant jarring of her pain-wracked body ceased. She breathed in a little deeper and pushed it out again immediately. The agony in her damaged lungs persisted.

  A moment of blackness. Abrupt awakening. Angry voices.

  “Put her down, beast!” someone shouted.

  “Put her on the gurney right now or we’ll shoot,” another voice commanded.

  “Please, I did not mean to hurt her,” her captor said.

  “You’re killing her,” the first voice said.

  “No . . . I would never . . .”

  “Put her down and we might be able to save her.”

  “Who?” Adrial whispered.

  “Medical Professionals from Harmony.”

  “Harmony.” That resonated in her pain-fogged memory. “I must find Harmony.”

  “You heard her, beast. She wants to go with us.”

  “Very well, I entrust her safety to you. Temporarily. But be advised I will watch over her.”

  A scream of agony ripped through her as her captor shifted her from his arms to the gurney. Instantly a layer of gel floats cradled her in a cocoon, as if she floated in zero G.

  Then a scuttling sound akin to the click of an insect’s feet dashing up the wall. A barrage of blaster fire.

  “You can’t kill me,” the beast called back. “I will watch you. If anything happens to my little bird, you all die.” Then the slamming of a hatch.

  More blaster fire.

  She cringed, wondering when the next whining bolt of energy would take her life. She hurt so much and struggled so hard for air that death seemed almost welcome. Almost.

  She could not allow herself to die until she’d found Harmony. The One who collected lost beings and gave them light and life was here. She knew that to the depth of her soul.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Three hours late, Mr. Guilliam. Explain yourself.” Laud Gregor tapped his foot impatiently as they waited for the Spacer crew to finish loading the last of Laudae Penelope’s luggage and that of her six acolytes.

  Six, a mere six: another change Sissy had brought about, realigning th
e symmetry of seven. She claimed that Goddess Harmony had a consort and five children for a total of seven; therefore a priest or priestess should have six acolytes for a total of seven. Gregor maintained the old style of a priest and seven acolytes.

  Penelope and her six were seven people too many on this trip.

  “You know Laudae Penelope. She cannot travel light, and making the decision of which dresses to bring and which to leave is not a simple matter.” Guilliam shrugged. His square body rested easily against the padded seat beside Gregor at the front of the shuttle.

  “I had numerous communications to send as well,” Guilliam continued. “Our abrupt and unannounced departure left many loose ends that needed tidying.”

  Gregor grunted in reluctant approval. Guilliam may have developed an independent streak since Sissy began overthrowing conventions, but he did his job efficiently. He did his job better than anyone else at the Crystal Temple could. For that reason alone, Gregor had kept him as an assistant far longer than he should.

  “Since your attention was occupied with other, more weighty matters, I took the liberty of redeploying the fleet with a deeper concentration around Harmony V. That is the sector with the most activity reports regarding the Maril,” Guilliam continued.

  “You took protection away from Harmony VI!” Gregor shouted.

  A subtle shift in the vibrations at Gregor’s feet told him the shuttle neared launch. Did he have time to dash out and change Guilliam’s orders?

  “A difficult decision, I’m certain you have pondered long and hard, My Laud,” Guilliam said, bowing his head. “Previously the Maril have been sighted most frequently around Harmony VI. Now they have changed tactics. We must as well.”

  “It’s a decoy to force us to move troops away from their real target.” Gregor lowered his voice so as not to alarm the others. Heat infused his face and sent his heart racing. A sharp ache spread outward across his chest toward his left arm.

  Caleb fumbled for the packet of pills he always carried. Gregor took two of the little white pellets and placed them under his tongue.

  The pains eased almost immediately, and his heart resumed a normal rhythm. He took several deep, calming breaths before continuing. “Everyone knows that the route from H5 to H Prime is convoluted and heavily fortified. They’d have a much easier route to our homeworld through H6.”

  “Perhaps. But they know we are waiting for them at H6, reluctant to move our forces from there. So they stab at the more vulnerable H5 to test our reactions. A strong response will force them to rethink their strategy.”

  “An unpredictable strategy,” Gregor reminded him.

  “A delayed strategy. We need time to build up our forces and get the treaty in place so that we have aid when the Maril choose their next target.”

  The vibrations increased as the engines boosted more power.

  Gregor cringed and clasped the armrests tightly.

  “Considering how you hate travel, My Laud, I’m surprised you did not delegate this mission to another,” Guilliam said politely.

  “Delegates tend to loose track of their mission. I cannot trust this to another. As it seems I cannot trust anything to you.” Gregor firmed his resolve and did his best to ignore the flare of pain in his joints as the shuttle thrust forward on the landing strip, increasing its speed.

  “Delegates do tend to lose themselves in Laudae Sissy’s smile,” Guilliam mused. He glanced to his right and gazed fondly at Penelope. Twin girls shared the seat beside her.

  The prophetic twins, Gregor noted. The girls who, by rights, must be trained to replace Laudae Sissy.

  Unfortunately, neither of them was old enough to take on the responsibilities of full ordination. He already directed much of their education, overriding the lessons suggested by Penelope, the Director of Temple Education. When the girls passed their tenth birthday, Gregor could legally separate them from their parents. Not before. Five more years before they made Sissy redundant and therefore useless.

  But he knew his way around the rules as well as or better than Guilliam.

  The nose of the shuttle lifted, the wheels left the runway. The flight was committed. None of the passengers could escape now.

  “I am immune to Laudae Sissy and her wiles,” Gregor said, keeping his tone mild and conversational. “She will manipulate me no longer. Nor will she use you to circumvent my orders. The moment we reach the ship, I will commandeer communications and rescind your orders.”

  “If you say so, My Laud.” Guilliam maintained his bland face that might agree or just as easily disagree. No way to read his feelings. The guise had proved useful to Gregor over the years. He’d miss the man’s efficiency and his lack of ambition.

  “When we return to Harmony, you will find it time to retire, Guilliam.”

  “I will not be separated from my wife, My Laud. According to the Covenant Tablets, you cannot separate us.”

  “No, I can’t. But I have already signed the orders to transfer Penelope to an isolated funerary temple on the Southern Continent. You will be demoted to the resident priest’s lowest acolyte. I believe the job entails filling incense burners and cleaning toilets. The twins will, of course, remain in Crystal Temple school and nursery.”

  Guilliam sat stiffly in shocked silence for several moments. Then, as the shuttle leveled out and gravity lessened, he gulped several times.

  “If you wish to be rid of me, why did you bring me along on this trip?”

  “So that you could not change the orders I left behind, nor work to find my replacement. And so you could not try to rule in my name without me. By the time I return with Laudae Sissy, docile or dead, I will have regained complete control over both Temple and Government, without your interference.”

  Jake gladly shed the bulky EVA suit inside the tram. He’d rather have a flight jumper and helmet. Much more maneuverable and comfortable. Unfortunately, he’d left his old outfits behind when he took this transfer to the diplomatic corps. He contemplated borrowing one from a pilot stationed aboard or on the Victory, currently docked at the CSS military wing of the complex. He had most of the pilots, along with their tech crews, already scheduled to work Control—they knew about docking and schedules and defensive grids. They wouldn’t be flying for a while.

  But he needed some of them to patrol the vicinity, and make certain the First Contact Café had no blind spots in its sensors. If he was very, very lucky, he might schedule himself to lead one of those patrols.

  Just a little stroll around the solar system to keep his skills active.

  Unfortunately, he seemed to be needed in every crevice of the station at the same time. He’d better find time to change into a clean uniform. He probably didn’t look very authoritative in jeans and a sweatshirt with mismatched socks and athletic shoes. Hmmm, he noticed one sock was white and the other black. No wonder his feet felt funny and off-balance.

  One more thing to add to the list of things to do.

  Top of the list was trained personnel. He’d take them from Harmony, or the CSS, or Prometheus XII, the pirate planet, if he had to. Anyone who could fill the roster. And not just Control people who knew their way around sensor arrays and computers. He needed medics, maintenance experts, merchants, tailors, cooks, and bartenders. And a partridge in a pear tree. A priest or two to serve the multitude of faiths wouldn’t hurt.

  And armed troops. No. He amended that to civilian security personnel.

  Just by beefing up the civilian sectors he could increase trade and cargo transfers and fill the place in a month. Rents would go a long way toward paying salaries and supplies.

  In the current tight political situation, the First Contact Café might become a haven outside the war zone. He’d almost bet that once word got out, traders would move their business here just to get away from the percentages that governed Labyrinthe stations and the security restrictions of military space stations.

  Hmmm. Something more to think about.

  He wondered how Labby could have
interpreted the diplomatic lease so narrowly as to not allow much of anyone but the two delegations on board.

  The place was a mess.

  “Stupid,” he muttered. His comm link interrupted before his words became a tirade. “What?” he growled into it.

  “Incoming ship, sir,” a female Spacer said respectfully.

  “Are any ships expected?”

  “Not on any ledger I’ve managed to access, sir.”

  That was another problem. Labyrinthe had so tightly encrypted and protected vital and random bits of information contained on the computers, no one could put it all together without the spectacles.

  No wonder main terminals awoke to anyone without a password. A hacker couldn’t find anything useful.

  He pulled the spectacles out of the EVA suit’s pocket and crammed them on his nose.

  Instantly a dozen images burst into view around the periphery. His senses wavered, and his empty stomach threatened to revolt.

  He had to close his eyes, think about what he searched for, and then look slowly into each sector separately. Not difficult as long as he concentrated on one image at a time.

  But there was so much!

  Ah, there was a glyph for schedules. He touched it on the outside of the lens with his index finger. A short list of ship traffic scrolled across the center of the left-hand glass.

  “What’s the ship’s ID?” he asked Control.

  “CSS light cruiser.” Then the woman rattled off a string of codes.

  “It’s not on the schedule, but I recognize the Champion by her number. Admiral Marella should be aboard. Send her my compliments and ask her to meet me in her quarters as soon as she docks.” Pammy didn’t know it yet, but he was about to shanghai her entire crew.

  “I wonder if there’s a way to download what’s in these spectacles into a more convenient terminal.”

  “What’s that, sir?” the woman in Control asked.

  “Sorry. Private musing. I forgot to close my comm. Who’s the best hacker on station?”

  “Harmony or CSS?”

  “Doesn’t matter. We’re all on the same side now.”