Enigma

by C. F. Bentley

Sissy moaned again and twisted back and forth on the cot. Whatever gripped her mind and body drove deeper hooks into her, taking her beyond his reach.

  “It’s not all bad, buddy.”

  “It looks like bloody hell from my perspective.”

  “But it’s all looks. You got a med kit with some antihistamines?”

  Basic training. “Tried one. No effect.” Jake flipped open the top of the big white box with the red cross on the lid that normally hid beneath the fold-down cot where Sissy writhed. He spared a moment to touch her sweaty brow and brush away a damp tendril of dark hair. Her caste marks pulsed and took on angry red tinges.

  Not good.

  He held up the fat packet of foil wrapped patches and inspected the expiration date. Again. They were good for another year and a half. “Now what?” he asked the survey crew, universe, and himself.

  “Double the dose every two hours,” the surveyor said. He sounded distracted, no longer interested in Jake and his problem. Not even curious about the very important passenger who shouldn’t be dirtside at all.

  “Double dose twice as often as recommended?” Jake squeaked. The packet contained dire warning about overdoses: hallucinations, elevated blood pressure that could lead to strokes and blindness, dehydration, etc., etc.

  “Trust me on this, FCC One. The plant is nasty but not necessarily dangerous if you treat it. In eighteen to twenty-four hours she’ll be back to normal. Oh, and don’t take her through hyperspace until the swelling around the penetration point is gone. The sleepy drugs will compound the side effects of the antihistamines. She’ll go insane. Seen it happen. Survey One out.”

  An ominous click and the line went dead.

  “Wait . . .” Nothing. Jake reinitiated his call. Dead air. The survey crew had reverted to their self-imposed isolation.

  “Damn stupid regs,” Jake muttered. “Damn stupid me!”

  He ripped the foil covering off another patch, awkwardly with the rapidly swelling little finger of his left hand. Not knowing what else to do, he placed one patch on her dancing caste marks. The first one already covered the wound.

  Then he settled down to wait, wondering if he dared call home. If he could get through.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Adrial walked hesitantly with the aid of a cane. She made a big show of deliberately placing each foot flat on the floor as she stepped down the corridor to the Medbay lobby. She had to remind herself to favor her right leg by limping and balancing on the ball of that foot about every fourth step. No sense in betraying her true fitness to any observers. This space station was filled with observers.

  She’d made this trek every day for three days running. Doc Halliday wanted to move her down a level to higher gravity so that her bones would grow denser, better able to withstand stress and exercise.

  With stronger bones she could venture farther afield in her quest for Spiritual Purity. So far she’d moved among the worlds colonized by the Maril, all less than half the gravity level of most human worlds. With stronger bones, she could go to Earth, home to her mother’s people, and study with some of the experts in meditation.

  Strange, none of the Messengers of the Gods had thought to try bone therapy in their teachings. They preferred bone breaking as a learning tool.

  She’d found some wonderful teachings on her reader, books she hadn’t known existed. Instead of seeking knowledge of the past, perhaps she needed to look inward and organize all that she’d learned. Then perhaps in applying those teachings to her life she might elevate her spirit enough to find the next step in her search.

  That was what Laudae Sissy said she should do.

  Leave no trace of your quest!

  The deep psychological reminder severed the thought of going to Earth. She forgot her need to look inward. Out . . . she had to go out into the galaxy to find . . . Spiritual Purity. Nothing was more important than her quest. Not even her own health and well-being.

  An odd flurry of movement ahead of her caught her wandering attention. A number of blue-coated orderlies, nurses, and doctors hovered around the doorway to another room.

  A moment of déjà vu contorted her perceptions. She’d been here before. When? How?

  “Get me a real physician, you barefaced pretender! If you can’t find someone competent, then I will speak only through Laudae Sissy,” a man shouted from within the room.

  Barefaced! That epithet belonged to Harmony, where caste defined everything.

  Only a high-powered man from Harmony would dare question the authority of a physician, even a barefaced one. Lesser classes were bred and educated to obedience and meekness.

  Adrial had seen those traits in Sissy, the most powerful woman in the entire empire, and she deferred to everyone, asserting her authority only when pushed to extremes. Their almost daily talks had taught Adrial much about the High Priestess and Harmony.

  Like the incident with the treaty. That story had circulated the entire station within moments. Normal Sissy, the young woman raised in Worker caste, would have listened and waited for the ambassadors to run out of stalling techniques and signed only when told to by the Council of Guardians. Pushed by her own need to organize help for her troubled planet, Laudae Sissy, High Priestess of all Harmony, avatar of the Goddess, had forced the issue and signed before the diplomats had finished arguing.

  Adrial had been more reticent about her own past with both Laudae Sissy and the medics. Secrecy had become her chief survival tool.

  She crept closer to the altercation, keeping to the shadows, letting her pale blue hospital robe blend in with the painted walls. Color and movement betrayed a lurker. She’d learned that long ago in her frequent flights from the Law.

  Orderlies hurried toward the room with a gurney. They dashed right past Adrial without looking at her.

  “You aren’t taking me for more tests until a proper physician tells me why,” said the angry male patient.

  The orderlies bullied their way past the bevy of nurses gathered at the door. In backing out of the way, one of the women looked directly at Adrial. Her gaze slid past, then jerked back.

  “You aren’t supposed to be here!” The nurse, with a Harmony Professional and Spacer caste mark, bustled toward Adrial. Roughly she grabbed Adrial’s arm and turned her away from the interesting activity. “You can’t be here.”

  “But . . .”

  “It’s time for you to rest. You did quite enough walking this morning.” With firmness in her step and her expression, the nurse nearly shoved Adrial back into her room. “Rest and stay put. That’s an order.” She closed and latched the door, then disappeared.

  Adrial opened her reader to the latest newscasts from Harmony. What she saw and heard alarmed her.

  Mac made his slow circuit of the station. At each of his listening posts he paused. The powerful Laud in Medbay no longer interested him. His heart attack had rendered him useless in the power struggles of that empire. His influence would give Mac nothing in gaining control of his station.

  He liked the idea of keeping the First Contact Café name. His siblings shuddered every time they heard the sobriquet. Mac wanted them as uncomfortable as possible.

  Extreme quiet in the Temple Complex alerted him to something unusual. No acolytes bustling about replenishing incense burners, trimming candlewicks, practicing reading from the Covenant. He listened for Lady Jancee’s strident voice chastising a servant or berating her husband over a point of trivial significance.

  Silence.

  The usual aura of burning incense and candle wax had faded. Not even the smell of fresh paint from the murals they all painted on the naked walls touched his sensors.

  If Mac didn’t know better, he’d assume the entire wing deserted and cold, awaiting activation.

  He moved on, wondering where the Temple folk had gone. A crisis of great magnitude should send them to the Temple to pray. Since the devastation on Harmony Prime they’d all spent hours in Temple praying. Sissy made sure these folk put a lot of stock in
prayer, setting as example her own hours on her knees before the altar.

  What could have happened to send them elsewhere? He’d heard nothing alarming on normal station comms.

  Quiet weeping cut through shouting voices one wing over. The sounds drew him to the conference wing where the CSS delegation shared communications and meeting rooms with Harmony. Sissy had set up miniature altars there, to pray for guidance during negotiations. Faint pockets of incense lingered.

  “Telvino, if your upstart general has kidnapped our High Priestess for nefarious purposes I’ll personally take his head,” Lord Lukan shouted.

  “Typical Harmony xenophobia. Always blame outsiders for your own inadequacies,” Telvino snarled back.

  Mac crept closer to the duct opening. This confrontation might lead him to discover a way to force these two factions to resign the station to his control.

  “Jake would never hurt Laudae Sissy. He loves her,” insisted Acolyte Mary.

  “Maybe they eloped,” whispered Acolyte Martha. A dreamy expression softened her face as she looked beyond the limitations of the large conference room.

  “Blasphemy!” Lady Jancee gasped. “Laudae Sissy is the avatar of our Goddess; such base behavior is beyond comprehension. An out-of-caste relationship is strictly forbidden. Hideous. Disgusting.”

  Mac grimaced at the voice lancing his sensitive ears like a surgical probe.

  “My point exactly,” Lord Lukan said quietly. “Laudae Sissy would not elope. She must have been kidnapped.”

  “The Media hover cams are everywhere. I’ll check to see if one of them captured their departure,” Admiral Marella said with a smirk.

  Mac knew that she’d already found the record they sought. Her satisfaction told Mac the evidence was damning.

  “General Devlin checked out a shuttle and filed a flight plan to the new planet,” Ambassador Telvino said on a sigh, as if he’d repeated the statement many times. “It is not unreasonable to presume Laudae Sissy accompanied him for her own purposes. Who knows, maybe most of the populace of Harmony Prime will need resettlement or temporary sanctuary. Shuttles have accidents. Shuttles run low on fuel. Shuttles stall in hyperspace. Has anyone tried to contact the shuttle?”

  Dead silence met that statement.

  Mac scrambled back to his primary terminal. He needed to make certain communications did not reach that shuttle. Yet.

  Then one more act of sabotage, maybe something to make the two CSS battleships docked unable to support human life and unable to fly. Then he’d cut them loose from their moorings. Thus requiring a major effort to keep them out of navigational paths and fix them.

  That should convince Harmony of Jake’s unfitness to govern the station. The CSS would not accept any Harmonite to lead, since Harmony had not yet joined the CSS, only signed an alliance treaty. The Harmonites would accept no CSS citizen other than General Jake as station commander.

  So Mac would offer his own services. On condition he get the spectacles back. He couldn’t effectively run everything without them.

  Soon. Oh, so soon. Mac would make certain his brother’s dead body was on the next ship off station with a full report of his failures to their siblings. A very full report. No one would care if all of it was true.

  Mother’s etiquette book had no rule regarding truthfulness when falsehood, cloaked in a miasma of plausibility, accomplished mercenary ends.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Smooth stone walls rose up around Sissy. Glossy, polished rock reflected the benevolent light that bathed her in serenity. Mirror images of herself repeated down the tube in endless copies, each less defined, less solid than the last. She reached out, trying to gather up all of the pieces of herself.

  The images kept marching away, following the natural rhythm of the land.

  She tried to match her heartbeat to the pulse of life within the stones. Too fast. Her heart raced and pounded. She willed it to calm. Gradually the overwhelming speed slowed, stuttered, paused, then started up again melding with the life of the planet all around her.

  She grew into something new, not quite her old self, not quite a child of this world.

  Are you willing to sacrifice yourself to become one with me?

  “Who said that?” Sissy asked, though no sound came from her throat.

  Can you make the choice to become a part of me? Can you bring new life into this sacred place?

  The cave around Sissy heaved a huge breath inward.

  She knew this sensation. Sunset neared. The air outside was warmer than inside, so the cave brought in the warmth. At dawn it would breathe out.

  She shared that slow breath of life.

  Sunset? Which sunset?

  Where was she that she knew a living land all around her? No space station possessed this kind of soul. Or voice.

  “What do I call you?” she asked more politely. This time a tiny croak emerged from her dry mouth.

  What you have always called me. We are all one. We have always been one. Each new life you create here is an extension of me, of us, of the universe.

  “Harmony,” Sissy whispered. “Do I speak with Harmony?”

  That name will do, though We have many.

  “Is it You Who used to speak through me?”

  We still do, if you will but recognize it. You cannot become one with Us until you open your soul to the connected universe around you.

  The cave walls thinned, became insubstantial. Light filtered through the living membrane. Then it was gone, and she knew darkness.

  She was alone again. So terribly alone.

  And the Goddess had withdrawn from her.

  There was something she had to do . . .

  “Sissy, wake up now,” Jake coaxed. He’d seen the flutter of her eyelids, heard the mutters escaping her mouth. His jackhammer heart throttled back to a steadier pace.

  Beneath the antihistamine patch, her caste marks took on a new luster, shining with an inner light that shimmered against the normal crystal sparkle. Something strange was happening to his Sissy—something he couldn’t explain, something that scared him to the bone.

  Sissy twisted away from his gentle finger tracing the line of her cheek. She murmured something that sounded negative.

  “Come on, my love. Wake up now. We have to get back to the station.” He firmed his grip on her shoulder.

  “No,” she replied, very distinctly.

  “Yes, Sissy. I know you’re tired. I know your hand still hurts. But we have to go home.” He grabbed both of her shoulders and pulled her upright. Her head lolled, and she kept her eyes closed.

  Eighteen hours the survey team had said. Eighteen hours for the toxins to leave her body. He’d counted every minute of those eighteen hours along with the ship’s chrono. She’d been unconscious for eighteen hours.

  Lord Lukan and Ambassador Telvino must be frantic. If they hadn’t torn the station apart looking for her, they’d tear it apart in frustration.

  Jake hadn’t been able to get a single message out or in. He presumed the isolation provisions for the survey team jammed communications.

  “I can’t leave,” Sissy whispered.

  “We have to go home,” he insisted.

  “The First Contact Café is not home.” Her eyes flew open, and she fixed him with a stubborn gaze.

  Uh-oh. He’d encountered that look before. At least a stubborn and determined Sissy wasn’t unconscious, possibly dying.

  “I once swore to protect you with my life, My Laudae. I didn’t swear to let you throw yours away,” he countered, just as determined. His fear for her overrode his need to do anything she wished.

  “I can only survive with a living planet all around me. The station is soulless.”

  “I thought you covered that with a ritual when you first arrived?” He twisted her, forcibly so that her back rested against the bulkhead of the shuttle and her feet dangled off the cot.

  “Not enough. I have to stay here, Jake. The Goddess has never spoken to me with as mu
ch clarity as She does here. I have to stay. I have to reforge my connections to Her.” A fat tear welled up in the corner of her eye.

  Damn.

  “Later, Sissy. I promise I’ll bring you back. But you’ve been very ill. I have to take you back and have the medical team check you out. What good is reconnecting with the Goddess if you die in the process?” This time he hauled her limp body to her feet and began frog-marching her toward the cockpit.

  “If I die here, then I will truly be one with the universe,” she sighed. But her eyes had sparked to life when she spotted greenery on the real-time cockpit screens. “If I die on the station, then all will be lost. My soul will be lost and left wandering alone, unconnected, separated from Harmony forever.”

  “You aren’t going to die. Not yet anyway.” Jake pushed her down in the copilot seat and strapped her in.

  “My soul will be empty until I return, Jake. This planet is more my home than Harmony ever was. From this place I can reach out to the universe and find all the ways we are connected to each other and to the Goddess. All of us, every race, every planet.” She leaned forward, gazing intently at the green meadow surrounding them.

  “And you will make it your home. Just not quite yet.” He strapped himself in and slammed the throttle open. He had to get her out of here fast. Before she woke up enough to take matters into her own hands.

  He had no doubt she’d find a way to stay if he delayed a nanosecond longer.

  “My Laud, do you really want all of Harmony to know of your frail health, your inability to return to Crystal Temple for some weeks to come?” Major Roderick asked. “Keeping secret your presence on the First Contact Café is essential. I cannot authorize a Media person to come here to talk to you.”

  “The man I brought here will report what I tell him to report. He will also ask questions when I do not feed him a certain amount of carefully edited material. What have you told the Media?” At least he hoped the Media man had come to his senses after refusing lauding of his caste mark.

  Silently he cursed Sissy for revealing the original Covenant Tablets, which showed the Media as a separate caste and made no mention of the poor. They kept printing the truth without Temple bleaching of the facts.