by Alma Boykin
That evening, when a very draggy Anna slouched in from work, she smelled roasted apples and other spicy seasonal things. “Hullo, love. Supper’s ready when you are,” Rada informed her.
“Oh, good.” She sounded as flat as she looked. Anna put up her bag, washed her hands, and started laying the table. “Mum, can I take a pistol on the hike Sunday?”
“I don’t see why not,” Rada began, distracted by slicing the pork loin. “Wait,” she turned around, brandishing the carving knife. “Take a pistol on the youth hike?”
“Yeah.” Anna brushed her long, loose curls back from her face.
“Eat first, then we’ll talk about it. How many slices would you like?”
Anna peered over her mum’s shoulder. “Two please, with extra apple mush.”
“Apple compote and you can serve yourself.” Anna did just that, until the meat vanished under an apple avalanche. “Hungry?”
“I didn’t feel like dinner. Do I smell bread?”
“Yes, and there’s a loaf cooling already. Slice that and we’ll save the one in the oven for the weekend.” Rada served her own plate and set it on the table, brought the bowl of compote and a fall salad over from the counter, and sat down. She’d poured her milk already, and Anna opened a pumpkin beer for herself.
After they’d eaten and washed up, Rada unlocked the gun safe. “How rough is the trail?”
“Pretty rough. I was thinking about the revolver,” and Anna reached for the pistol.
Rada caught her wrist. “Why?” Silver eyes locked with brown and Rada waited as her daughter fidgeted.
“There was a guy at the shrine this morning. He watched Maria, Jake, and I pretty closely, kept moving closer to Maria’s spot, asked Jake about his vehicle, where we came from.” Anna shook her head. “He felt wrong, Mum. He didn’t harass us, or make a pass at any of us, but,” she looked very lost and young. “He felt wrong. And he showed up at campus just before I left for work.”
Rada’s hackles rose and she thought aloud. “Right. If it was the same person I saw yesterday, a guy who was sketching the market, he’s probably one of the tourist art types. The little museum on campus was open?”
“Yeah. And he did a nice charcoal sketch of the chapel. But Mum, something really bothered me.”
Rada studied the weapons again. She shook her head and undid the belt under her skirt’s waistband. “Here.” It was her holdout blaster. “You do not have a firearms permit for a pistol yet, and Father Pedro probably doesn’t approve of open carry on youth group activities, outside of deer season.” Anna managed a smile. Father Pedro loved deer hunting.
“I’d rather carry something larger and more, you know Mum, normal.”
Rada’s eyebrows went up. “If you do need to defend yourself, heaven forefend, you are going to have trouble if you use a conventional weapon. Use this,” and she pointed to the holstered weapon in Anna’s hands, “and no one will know what killed your attacker.” Granted, Anna would have to be at close range for it to work, but the same applied to the revolver. “And this is easier to conceal.”
“OK, Mum. You win.” Rada hugged Anna, reassuring her.
While the door stood open, Rada took a second shotgun and a sleeve of shells out of the safe. “Keep this in your room. It’s bear season.”
Anna confirmed that the shotgun was unloaded before carrying everything to her room. Rada double-checked the shotgun in her own room, as well as adding a second gas canister to her usual carry rig. Anna spent the rest of the evening reading while Rada caught up the rest of the accounts and books. “Mum, how did you get your concealed carry permit?”
Rada did not look up from the columns of numbers. “I put it into the computer system, the same way I put in my tax information and I.D.”
“You didn’t test for it?”
“Yes, I did, as an interstate transfer, not as a new holder. And I qualified with semi-auto and revolver. Age wasn’t a factor.”
“Yeah, Mum, how long have you been twenty-one?”
“Long enough not to have to put up with cheeky remarks, Miss Anna.” The young woman subsided and returned to her book.
Rada started a 48-hour paramedic duty shift very early on Friday morning. Aside from the usual heart attacks, a chainsaw accident, a few false alarms, and two patient transfers, nothing wildly exciting transpired. Both Rada and Anna remained alert but relaxed, and Rada went through her weapons drills as best she could without irritating or upsetting her teammates. Early Sunday morning, when she got off duty, Rada took her computer down to the Dark Hart to charge it. She also decided to leave her sidearm in the ship. The presence of the weapon calmed the creature in the ’Hart. “You can’t use it, you don’t know how to use it, so why do you like having it here?” Rada asked the aquatic organism. It swam close enough to the surface of the fluid for her to see wet-looking orange skin. Then the symbiotic animal sank back into the translucent liquid of its home. Rada shrugged and went back to the house.
A friend brought Anna back after mass and stayed for lunch. “What do you like on your sandwiches, Tony?” Rada inquired as she sliced the bread.
“Whatever you have, Mrs. Vangadren,” Tony Anaya replied, picking a nibble off the cold pork roast.
“Stay away from the mustard in the red jar. It bites back,” Anna warned, slathering chili-spiked mayonnaise on a slice of bread as Rada brought several mustards and spreads out of the cooler.
Rada held one of the glass jars up for the humans to see. “Love, what’s this?”
“Cleaning compound. I put it in the cooler so I won’t forget it tomorrow.”
Tony laughed. “My dad puts things in front of the door so he remembers them.”
“Does it work?”
“Not really, although he’s slipped on a folder of papers a few times.” Tony spread cactus-fruit chutney on his slice of pork roast as Rada handed Anna the cleaning compound and pointed to the girl’s art-supply case. Anna made a face but put the jar in her bag.
The three ate a good lunch before Anna and Tony went back to St. Matthew’s to get ready for the hike. Rada waved them on their way. After doing the dishes the Wanderer sat down to read.
Two hours later, Rada’s phone rang. “Vangadren,” she answered it.
“Rowena? It’s Felicia. I really hate to bother you, but is there any way you can come in early?”
Rada looked at the clock. “Yes, but I can only work twelve hours, since I got off at 0600.”
Relief filled Felicia’s voice. “That’s fine. Just come in as soon as you can. I owe you.”
Rada changed clothes, gathered her kit and started checking her holdout weapon. “Ah, damn.” Anna had it. And she couldn’t carry a conventional pistol at work because handguns terrified the shift supervisor on duty. She growled under her breath as she rushed down the driveway. She could catch the lone Sunday bus if she hurried.
Panting and limping a little, Rada skidded to a halt at the bus stop. “Good. I’ll catch it,” she grinned, “and maybe before those clouds turn into rain.” She knelt beside her kit bag, meaning to get out the cheap e-reader she kept for whiling away wait time. Seconds later she heard tires and looked up to see a muddy, older, off-road truck pull to a halt at the curb. Her internal sirens began screaming as the doors opened. Before Rada could do more than get to her feet and start moving, two men grabbed her, clamping a thick rag over her nose and mouth. She fought as hard as she could but something smashed into her skull and the world turned black.
After three calls for medical aid went unanswered that afternoon, a San Mateo county sheriff’s deputy stopped by the ambulance depot and found paramedic Felicia Rosario bruised, bound, and gagged in the back room. “Find Rowena! They made me call her in,” the woman sobbed.
The sheriff never found Rowena Vangadren. Deputy Anaya stopped at Rowena’s house long enough to find the door open, the inside a mess, and no one home, then radioed for back-up. Just before noon the next day searchers found Anna Vangadren’s body, along with
those of four assailants, in an abandoned cabin near Piney Lake that looked like the setting of a horror film.
Blood, hanks of what looked like Rowena’s hair, and other things littered the floor and stained the walls. Shards of metal and ripped-up wiring suggested that someone had smashed several pieces of electrical equipment, but what they had been none of the investigators could say for certain. A fifth man had expired outside of the cabin, bleeding to death from multiple stab wounds and deep slashes, like claw marks. What or whoever had attacked him had all but shredded his face, making identification difficult. Sheriff Martin Coldpony took one look at the scene and called in the state police for assistance. The New Mexico State Police identified four of the men, all criminals or individuals wanted for questioning in other states, but their databases contained no information on the fifth man. Neither did the database for the North American Confederation’s criminal investigation department.
A second visit to Rowena’s rented house revealed evidence of a search, with clothes, art supplies, and papers scattered all over. The searchers had failed to get into the women’s gun safe, but they had smashed two computers. The chaos provided no clues to Rowena’s whereabouts or the identity of the intruders, and after some discussion Sheriff Coldpony and the state police decided that at least one of the dead men in the cabin had searched the house, probably just after he or his associates kidnapped Rowena. Heavy rain the night of the discovery had obliterated any tracks around the house and sheds, but tread marks in the soft dirt driveway roughly matched the size of the tires on a vehicle found at Piney Lake.
Although he left the case open, Martin Coldpony considered Rowena Vangadren missing: presumed dead. It would not be the first time that animal scavengers found a body before human searchers did. He wondered if Rowena’s late husband, the one she never talked about, had been involved in criminal activities, but he never mentioned his speculations aloud. The two women’s deaths caused enough pain in the small town without his adding to it.
Father Pedro officiated at the young woman’s funeral mass. Afterwards, he shook his head, his sorrow plain for all to see. “Anna got a phone call not long after the youth group got back from the chapel. She said it was her mother and that she needed to leave before the dismissal and blessing. I should have called you and had someone go with her.”
Deputy Frank Anaya, Tony’s uncle, sighed. “We’ll never know if it would have made a difference, Father. It just might have made things even worse.”
When repeated advertisements failed to locate any of Rowena’s relatives or heirs, the county auctioned off the contents of Rowena and Anna’s house. The proceeds paid for the costs of the investigation and for a plain headstone for Anna’s grave.
I failed you. If only I’d taught you better, if only I’d been stronger. Oh Anna, I am so sorry. I failed you, child, I failed you and it killed you. Two thousand years in the future, on a planet well inside the second spiral arm of the galaxy, the being known as Master Thomas pressed his hooved forefoot against Rada’s shoulder, steading himself as he leaned forward and draped a bit of cloth over the little polished metal cream-pitcher on the tray in her lap. His staff had already hidden or covered every other mirror and reflective ornament. As he lowered the cloth, he warned, “No, Miss Ni Drako, you are not yet ready to carry what you will find reflected.” With that she knew, in what little remained of her heart, what she would see.
9: Famine, Fortune, and Justice
Chapter 1: Storm Warnings
Rada knew she looked bad. Just how bad remained unknown, because she had not dared to look in a mirror after seeing the expression on Master Thomas’ face when she had staggered into his office several days after... it. His eyes had widened and he’d been on his feet and half-carrying her to his medical consulting rooms before she could say anything. Bless him, he’d not asked any questions until after calling in an expert in maxillofacial-reconstruction. Only then, once she’d survived the necessary procedures, did he demand her tale. It had taken her several tries to tell it all and, at the end, he’d not criticized her or condemned her actions. Because he didn’t need to—he could hear and see how she punished herself for her weakness and failure.
Blessed Bookkeeper, who’d have thought I’d look forward to Drakon IV as a restful haven, Rada Ni Drako mused, checking her weapons before opening the Dark Hart’s entry-hatch. She stepped out of the timeship and peered into the midnight darkness. Neither of Drakon IV’s two moons shone. She smelled the damp, rich, and slightly bitter odor of exposed mud that meant the Zhangki River was at its late-summer low. She stretched, then began walking across the ramp of the Imperial Palace’s spaceport toward the Defenders’ barracks in the military wing of the Palace. She hadn’t gone three paces when the sound of talons on stone stopped her and a voice called, “Halt! Who goes there?”
“Commander Rada, Lord Ni Drako,” she replied.
“Advance and be recognized,” the guard ordered, and she smiled approvingly at the quick response, especially as she heard the whine of a blast rifle building a firing charge. The mammalian humanoid walked slowly toward the guard’s light, keeping her hands clear of her blaster and sword hilt as she did. The light played over her middle, the height where the head of most Azdhagi would be, then rose up toward her face. As it reached her head, the guard cursed with surprise and Rada tried not to cringe. As badly as the injury had hurt, and as much reconstruction had been required, she guessed the results would be ugly. But if the reptilian Azdhag soldier sounded like that, Rada knew she had to be hideous. A long silence passed before the guard remembered what he was supposed to be doing. “You may pass, Lord Defender. Ah, shall I notify a Healer of your arrival?”
“No, thank you, corporal. But please inform the head of the Guard that I’ll be at sunrise practice,” she replied, already walking toward the Palace.
“Yes, Lord Mammal,” he said, and then resumed his rounds.
The Wanderer was careful to turn her head more than usual as she went through the hallways. She’d smashed into enough obstacles and door frames already, thank you. Rada nodded to the few servants she saw on night duty, then let herself into the Lord Defender’s official quarters in the wing where mid-ranking nobles lived while at Court. She divested herself of her weapons, took the last of the antibiotics the bone specialist had prescribed, and rearranged the cushions on the sleeping platform so that her head would stay higher than her heart, again per doctors’ orders. Rada lay down and closed her eyes, feeling the lid on her now-blind side scraping over a bit of debris. More bone or glass working to the surface, she sighed, then composed herself and fell asleep, hoping that she wouldn’t dream.
She was up before sunrise the next morning and put on her light practice armor before going down to the Palace Guard barracks for practice. Now she would find out just how much relearning and effort her blindness would cost her. Since the Azdhagi nobility favored one-on-one blade combat to settle “philosophical differences,” she’d be at a terrible disadvantage until she learned to compensate for her new weakness.
Ni Drako strode into the barracks, acknowledging salutes and ignoring stares as she cut through the officers’ wardroom to get to the outdoor practice area. She was one of the first out and she found an unoccupied corner and began warming up, stretching carefully before starting the most basic of blade drills and exercises. Her muscle memory remained true, and even without seeing herself Rada could still attack and block. However, when she faced off against one of the noncoms, the reptile had her at a serious disadvantage. Part of her difficulty stemmed from slow reactions as a result of her still-healing body, Rada knew. But her obvious disability invited attacks from the right and it took four losses before she first read, anticipated, and managed a draw against the sergeant.
“Thank you sergeant,” she said, saluting the reptile. “Good bout.”
He returned the salute. “You’re welcome, Lord Defender.” The mottled green Azdhag turned his attention to some of the new recruits who had st
opped what they were doing to watch the Lord Defender. “You find something interesting, cadet?” He asked in a dangerously deferential tone.
“Sergeant, I thought the Lord Defender was better than that,” the young brown quadruped said.
The sergeant advanced until he was muzzle to muzzle with the speaker. “Well cadet, if I poke your eye out, bash in your muzzle and then hand you a blade and tell you to defend yourself, just how well will you do, hmmm?”
“Uh, not very well, sergeant,” the cadet admitted, sinking a little closer to the dirt.
“Correct. Now, I suggest you get back to what you are supposed to be doing, before I find something for you to do.” His ‘suggestion’ generated a flurry of activity as the cadets scattered back to their assigned practice patterns on the double.
The senior Palace Healer was waiting in Rada’s office and all but pounced on her as soon as the Lord Defender opened the door. “Lord Mammal, your servants informed me that you had been injured. What happened?” the purple-robed female demanded, sniffing Ni Drako carefully for signs of possible infection or pending illness.
“The bone under the eye shattered upwards, along with the colored glass lens I was wearing.” Rada didn’t try to put Healer Shay off, because the female would not leave her prospective patient until she had done her duty. Instead Rada sat down at her desk and let the Healer examine her.
Shay rose onto her hind legs, tail tip swishing a little as she inspected Rada’s eye and cheek. “Try to look over this way,” and the Healer watched the motion. She pressed against the skin around the eye, and waved her talon in front of the blind eyeball. “Whoever did the primary work did a good job on the micromuscular reconstruction,” she admitted grudgingly. “But the debris will cause you problems, my lord, until it all works out. Assuming your tissues behave like the mammal books describe. And I recommend you find a way to cover the eye.”