Enigma

by C. F. Bentley

  “I’ve broken my share of codes, sir. We specialize in that in the Harmony Military.”

  “Find someone to relieve you there. I’ve got a special mission for you.”

  One less thing to worry about.

  “Oh, sir, Laudae Sissy tells me she expects you at the Dedication ceremony in one hour. Attendance at the Grief Blessing afterward is requested as well.”

  “Was that a request or a skillfully disguised order?” He grimaced. He didn’t have time to attend to Sissy’s every whim. As much as he wanted to be with her, he had other duties now.

  Still . . .

  “I think, sir, it was an order. She needs you to represent all of us on duty. We need you to represent us.”

  The tram chose that moment to glide to a stop. He made his weary way to the lift, then closed his eyes for the few moments needed to move down to Control.

  He tossed the spectacles to the Spacer at the prime terminal. With his own undistorted vision he read her name tag.

  “Mara du Danna.” He automatically added “pu FCC.” Everyone from Harmony was known by a first name, their same gender parent’s name, and a locator, who they worked for or where they were stationed. “See if you can copy the information contained in those spectacles to appropriate terminals. And while you’re at it, let me know how to add information to them. They’re more useful than having to call someone every time I need something.”

  “Yes, sir. And, uh, sir, does my unit belong to you now?” Her gaze fixed on his caste mark.

  “Not to me. The entire delegation now belongs to the First Contact Café.”

  “Shouldn’t that be Labyrinthe VII Station, sir?”

  “Nope. I just officially changed the name. Advise Admiral Marella of that too.”

  He turned toward the lift again.

  “Where will you be, sir?”

  “At the other end of my comm unit.”

  She glared at him but did not say that was unacceptable.

  “Sir, the medical team that recovered the survivor of the crash has video of the encounter with the phantom. Would you like to view it?”

  “Send it to the screen in my quarters. Got to grab a dress uniform for Laudae Sissy’s rituals.”

  “Sir, Ambassador Telvino had your belongings moved to the apartment in the adjacent wing at this level. There’s a footbridge across the hub. You’ll be within easy reach at any hour. Control personnel also have quarters in that wing.”

  “In other words, I have no privacy, and I’m on call twenty-four/ seven.”

  “Privacy is a thing of the mind, sir.”

  “Don’t remind me.”

  When he saw the extent of his new quarters, an entire level to himself, truly fitting for the station manager and rivaling Labby’s place for luxury, he stopped and looked around. Never in all his years of living aboard stations and battleships had he known such comfort could exist. Telvino and Lukan didn’t have this much room.

  “Mara,” he called through his comm.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Amend my request to Admiral Marella. Have her meet me in my private conference room.”

  “Yes, sir.” Was that a laugh underneath her words? “The video is available on your office terminal now.”

  Ideas percolated from his mind to his gut and back again. He almost doubled over with the enormity of it. “When I left Harmony, I knew there had to be a better way. I think I may just have stumbled into it.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Mac paused in his terrified flight from the blaster fire. He kicked loose an omnisensor with his most powerful hind leg. Then he crunched it with his pincer. Pieces scattered.

  He took little delight in its destruction. For every one he removed, he blocked the eyes and ears of Control. But he also lost his own means of tracking the inhabitants of his station. And as each one went blank on the computers, he left a trail of his progress through the ducts and tubes.

  That didn’t mean he couldn’t double back.

  He crawled forward, skipped three sensors, turned off the next five. The sensors overlapped their range. The loss of one wouldn’t affect Control’s ability to monitor this duct for real damage. Random groupings of destruction would give him blind spots to hide in.

  The hatch behind him opened. He caught snatches of conversation.

  Time to move forward. No time to close down more sensors.

  He uttered an oath in his mother’s native language. If Control heard him, they’d not understand that he wished them all a long vacation on the Labyrinthe home world. That planet had died a long time ago. Continuously spewing volcanoes in a boiling atmosphere held in by toxic clouds was all that remained.

  He ripped around a corner into a narrower duct. It abutted a docking level. This passage was intended only for maintenance bots, barely big enough for him to squeeze through.

  His pursuers clanged behind him, pounding their boots as they crawled through the metal enclosure.

  No space to turn around.

  Mac stretched all eight limbs forward and back and expelled air from his bulbous torso. About half his original girth, he squeezed and pushed himself along. Darkness enfolded him. He oriented himself by the smell of disinfectant overlaid with evergreen. Ah, he approached the Medbay of the Harmony service wing.

  The whine of a blaster interrupted his plans. He heard the weapon before he felt pain in his hind end. Numbness crawled down both his primary and secondary leg on the right side. He paused and gulped. If he could slide past this next spiral down and a jog to the left he could get beyond the line-of-sight weapon.

  A second blast whined. Searing pain shot up his spine.

  He stifled a scream. His left legs convulsed. He heard his claws click against the duct but couldn’t feel them. Only a ripple of muscles up his back.

  “If you kill it, it’s stuck there and will stink up the place,” a pursuer grumbled.

  “If I kill it, we can get bots to cut it up and deliver it to the medics for autopsy,” growled another one.

  A third shot.

  Mac’s vision dimmed and narrowed to the center of the next hatch. He stretched and reached as far as he could. His fingers barely brushed the joint. Three more centimeters. He needed three more to grab hold and pull himself free.

  Three more centimeters between him and safety.

  Jake fumbled with the tight collar of his class A uniform. The fabric refused to stretch around the increased muscle in his neck and shoulders.

  “Discord!” he shouted to no one in particular as he dashed across his office.

  Late. He’d be late for Sissy’s ceremonies if he didn’t get the blame thing fastened in a hurry.

  Mara appeared in the doorway to his office. “Sir, do you need some help?” She set aside the sheaf of flimsies requiring his signature.

  “Yes, damn it. I’ve been able to dress myself since I was three years old. Why can’t I get this uniform to fit when I’m in a hurry?”

  “Because class A uniforms have always been designed by people who don’t have to wear them, so they see no problem in requiring eight hands to fasten everything. You’ll find the same problem with formal wear in any culture.” With calm and efficient fingers she closed the upright collar and began work on his cuff links.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant Mara,” Jake sighed in relief. The chrono on his desk showed he had three minutes to spare if he caught a tram right away.

  “Before you dash off, I really think you ought to take a look at the record of the survivor retrieval.”

  “Sorry, I don’t have time.”

  “Make time.” She stood between him and the door to the outer reception area. The grim determination on her face reminded him of Sissy. He knew better than to disobey. Arguing would take up three times the minutes he needed to view the record, and he’d still lose the argument.

  Mara must have seen the resignation in his posture. She touched an icon on the desktop. The two-dimensional scene sprang up on the flat surface.

  �
��Must be a Harmonite record, since it’s not a holo,” he muttered.

  The bizarre eight-limbed creature came to life. Words came from the mouths of the alien and the person behind the helmet camera. He watched the gentle placement of the female in blazing white draperies with hair and skin almost as pale. Then her captor scuttled up a wall and out of view.

  “What’s so special about that?” Jake asked. He closed the screen and dashed toward the door.

  “Think about it during the Grief Blessing,” Mara called after him.

  Sissy bowed her head to the altar, letting the beads and crystals in her veil clank together. Their chord chimed in her mind, blending with the constant ringing in her ears. The music only she could hear spread peacefully through her veins. Different music from the resonance of her home on Harmony. Still music.

  She breathed deeply, exhaling fully. The faint citrus taste of the air didn’t fully mask the metallic tang of the unnatural atmosphere. She searched her mind for a way to make the clashing scents a part of the harmonic chord of her veil and her own sensitivities.

  Dog and Monster slunk in to take positions on either side of her. Each animal pressed into her side, eager for her touch and attention.

  She dropped a hand to each head, fondling ears and relishing their silky fur. The tactile stimulation blended with the music of her veil crystals. Monster moaned in near ecstasy. Dog whined and lifted his chin for a scratch.

  There! The elusive combination settled in her mind. She drank it in, finding Harmony. She had only a few moments of meditation before she met with Nobles wanting a Temple Blessing and the weeping and grieving friends and families of the lost Workers needing a Grief Blessing.

  A slight inclination of her head set the veil chiming again. She found a sympathetic note in the back of her throat.

  The bare walls of the new Temple reflected and compounded the sound. Candle flames flickered within clear chimneys. Delicate incense rose to fill the sacred space. The bare walls seemed to ache for decorative murals to enliven them and bring them into the balance.

  Miniature crystals from her travel kit awaited the touch of her glass wand. Already they quivered with music.

  The specially insulated box and cushioning had protected these precious crystals. Their larger brothers and sisters that normally graced the altar hadn’t fared so well. She thought perhaps the shards should be fashioned into beads for other veils so that their life and place in ritual might continue.

  A shift in air pressure told her that someone entered behind her. Her few moments of contemplative preparation vanished. She dismissed the dogs with a final scratch and a gesture. They retreated through her private entrance behind the altar.

  “Welcome to Harmony’s bosom. May our Goddess and Her family aid you in easing your grief.”

  “Amen,” Jake whispered.

  Sissy smiled to herself, not that the all-concealing veil would reveal her expression. Now she could proceed. Jake’s coming completed her preparations. His presence granted her more calm and sense of unity than any amount of meditation. She turned to face him, arms raised, palms out in blessing and formal greeting.

  He bowed low. A golden bird emblem glinted from each side of his upright collar. The forest green uniform tunic looked good on him with his dark hair and space-pale skin. His red square caste mark with its purple lauding seemed out of place with that uniform. It should be the red tunic of Harmony, which also looked magnificent on him.

  “You need a new emblem, General Devlin. I believe the eagle is for a mere colonel.” Polite small talk. Nothing more intimate allowed in public. She longed for the feel of his hand in hers, on her shoulder, a fingertip tracing her mutant caste marks. Any touch at all to connect them.

  “Forgive me, My Laudae. I’ve had no time to search out a star insignia.”

  She needed to grant him some tiny gift in return for all he’d done for her over the months he’d acted as her bodyguard. He’d also acted as her tutor when the teachers in the Temple grew frustrated and short-tempered at her rudimentary education prior to coming to them. Jake became more a friend than her priestly coworkers, who disdained her Worker beginnings and humble birth.

  Her vision splintered. Candlelight against crystal facets sent prisms arcing across the room. She gasped, trying to hold onto the moment, to glimpse Harmony in the unity of the universe. Strands of light connecting . . .

  The almost-vision vanished as quickly as it had come.

  “General Jake, will these suffice?” She unhooked the two star-shaped crystals that tipped the longest bead strands of her veil.

  “Laudae, I can’t!” Jake drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. “They . . . they’re black crystals, they’ve got Badger Metal braided through the matrix. Worth four times my annual salary. Each!”

  She didn’t understand the physics of what Badger Metal did to crystals, only that outside of Harmony they were incredibly rare and special. Something to do with instant communications. She heard the term “avian precision” used in connection with the black crystals and navigation systems.

  “A token of my gratitude for saving my life more times than I can count. If you must, you may return them when you get proper insignia.” She pressed the stars into his hand, closing his fingers around them with her other hand.

  Something about reforging the Covenant among the stars . . . “Please, Jake. I want you to have them. Make them into cufflinks or something.” She giggled at the thought of him wearing a large fortune on his wrists.

  “I shall treasure them always, My Laudae.” He bowed again. Then he fumbled with the eagles on his tunic.

  “Let me.” She reached up and unfastened the emblem of his former rank. Then she inserted the attachment hooks for the crystals through the fine fabric. As she lifted her face, the bead strands fell away, exposing her to his gaze.

  “Thank you, Sissy.” He leaned forward, his face very close to her own.

  She held her breath, not daring to hope he might kiss her. Surely one kiss did not break the laws against out-of-caste and out-of-culture relationships. Surely. If only he’d kiss her. Just once. All she asked of the Gods was one kiss from the man who held her heart.

  Jake closed his eyes and straightened. A grimace of near pain crossed his face. “Forgive my impertinence, My Laudae.” He turned on his heel and retreated to the bench in the far corner, facing the door, not her or the altar.

  A gentle note wiggled its way through layers of drug mist and mind fog. Half-remembered scenes of happiness with her mother brought Adrial a little closer to that lovely bit of music. Just a single note that needed others to swell into a full chord.

  She tried to hum the tone that would complement it. Her mind thought it knew which note it should be. Her voice betrayed her. Flat. Atonal. Harsh.

  “Wh . . . at?” That shrill bird’s croak could not have come from her throat.

  She waited, barely aware of herself. All she knew was the single, lost, and lonely note.

  Then a second joined it. Not the one Adrial had sought, a better one. Together they swelled and became much more than the combination of the two. The beginnings of an entire family of notes.

  She felt herself sigh. That small act of breathing loosened the layers of darkness from her mind and weight from her body.

  A third note. Yes! The one she had thought of first.

  Dull aches and sharp slices of pain intruded upon her appreciation of the peace and joy of the fragile music.

  Not again, she sighed in resignation. A part of her remembered a cold and dark prison cell, bruises and burns on the most intimate parts of her body.

  This was different. She’d dreamed of escape. The dream was so real she’d heard the whine of blaster fire, smelled the garbage in the alley she hid in. Felt the press of a metal door against her back, that door giving way. Tumbling into a dimly lit room with scabrous creatures huddled around a single candle flame and a giant saltwater tank . . .

  She opened her eyes as the fourth note dr
ifted around her, seeking its mates, climbing toward them until it blended and augmented.

  Panel lights above her. Soothing blue walls with delicate murals of a peaceful woodland scene graced with blessing runes in front of her. She tried turning her head and found it immobilized by a soft collar that pressed against her chin. An annoying drip to her left played a counterpoint to the music that soothed her.

  This was no Maril prison. She smelled hospital.

  Flashes of memory returned. A strange creature carrying her. Extreme pain and weakness. Shouts, blaster fire. Blessed sleep and relief.

  She still hurt, but in a different way that made no sense.

  A fifth note circled around her.

  Movement in her peripheral vision. She shifted her eyes as far to her left as possible. She caught fragments of ghostly figures in a tiny holovid processing across the bedside table that could swing across her body for convenience.

  Definitely a hospital fixture.

  Her hand flapped, trying to move the table and the holovid closer. The music originated there.

  “Here, let me get that for you,” a man said, barely above a whisper. He rose from the chair behind the table and moved into her line of sight. He wore a black uniform with extra pockets on sleeve and thigh and chest. But what riveted her attention more than the holovid and the music was the red square blotch on his left cheek. A single red line ran below it, the whole encircled with a blue line.

  “I’m Lieutenant David da Jason pa Lukan Labyrinthe . . . er . . . make that FCC.” He bowed slightly as he slid the table across her bed. The holovid now played between them.

  “Quite a sight watching Laudae Sissy,” he said. “That’s her in the funeral black robes. High Priestess of all Harmony, and she’s here on this remote outpost. She blessed the new Temple while you slept off the anesthesia. Now she’s granting us all a Grief Blessing. Used to be those were private for family and close friends. Now she opens them to everyone, recognizing that we are all diminished by the loss of one of our own.”

  Adrial couldn’t make a sound. Her gaze lingered on the anonymous figure in padded black and gold brocade with an elaborate headdress of the same material. Strands of sparkling gold, purple, crystal, and black completely covered her face. Anyone, even a man, could have hidden behind that costume. How did this David person, with a string of incomprehensible names, know that the High Priestess of all Harmony brought forth those magnificent tones?