by Joe Pace
Follow me, he had said. Trust me.
Christine Fletcher would have followed Jairo to the far reaches of the universe, so she followed him now. It should have bothered her, she knew, at least a little, that she was so infatuated, so quickly. She had known her share of lovers, of course, but never had she known such raw ignition of her passions. She had always held some part of herself apart, in reserve, but now Jairo compelled a complete surrender, giddy and terrifying. That should have upset her, but it didn’t. She had never defined herself by her relationship with any man, and yet now the entirety of her world orbited the fiery star of him. In some irresistible way, he reminded her of her grandfather, utterly male, strong, and yet kind, too, with a depthless reservoir of love.
And it was not just him, but him and Cygnus.
You’ll have to leave him, and Cygnus, too, said the voice inside her that spoke hard and ugly truths.
Not yet, she replied to herself, shoving the voice aside, burying it beneath layers of ecstasy and immediacy.
So she followed him, as she had when he showed her the oceans and woods of this world, the fields and bakeries and markets. Now he brought her into parts of Horfa she had not seen, that no Englishman had seen. These were older districts, with rough-hewn stone walls, some even unmortared, along narrow streets where no children played; places where age lay thick and heavy. If buildings could be made of dust and memory, it was these, aching with the effort of remaining upright, leaning on one another in companionable dotage.
“You are about to see something forbidden to any eyes not of Horfa,” Jairo said, a cheery dismissal of a taboo that should, perhaps, have given him greater pause. It thrilled her and made her hesitate, but the warm hand in hers pulled her onward, inexorably, to a small open plaza of inlaid stones, a mosaic of milky white with coppery tendrils that formed an intricate pattern throughout.
“This is the Hearth,” he said, his voice low and reverential. “And there,” he pointed to a stone-and-beam structure facing the plaza, topped by three black-and-red spires that reached skyward to the heavens, twisting and entangling until the eye could not pull them apart, “that is where we are going.”
“A cathedral,” Fletcher said in hushed English, unable to find the Cygni linguistic counterpart. It was a fraction as tall as most buildings on Earth, but it dwarfed its neighbors, seeming to stretch impossibly high, spires threatening to puncture slate-colored clouds gathering in the gloaming.
“Perhaps in your tongue, Christine. This is a takat, a Faithhouse. The Takat, in truth, the first and oldest in Horfa. Come. It will be better if we go in early, before the crowds of evening worshipers.” He smiled, radiant in the half-light, and took from his pack two long robes of gray. “Put this on. We all wear them for the service. None will know you do not belong.”
Fletcher took the robe, shrugging into it hurriedly, glancing about the deserted plaza. Jairo reached out and lifted the cowl of the robe, tucking in her hair as he did so.
“Why gray?” she asked, as Jairo donned a similar garment.
“Because in the takat, there are no blue soldiers, no brown scholars. In the eyes of the Faith, we are all the same.” He indicated the massive black iron doors in the stone face of the Faithhouse. “Those won’t open for another hour or so, but I know another way in.” He held out his hand again, and in his eyes was the same message. Follow me. Trust me. Again, Fletcher did.
She trailed behind Jairo as he rounded a corner of the takat, moving quickly down a blind alley where the base of one of the spires jutted out from the wall, almost into contact with the adjacent building. Jairo pulled her behind him, squeezing through the remaining space, coming to a set of stone stairs cut into the wall, so cleverly hidden behind the tower that they would escape all but the most determined investigation. They descended these, finding at the bottom a small wooden door. Fishing in his pockets, he produced a small black key with a red stone set into its head.
“How…?” asked Fletcher, and for the first time, she felt the tiniest twinge of uncertainty.
“Very few know of this door,” he admitted. “But I’m an intellectual. It’s my business to know things others don’t. And as for the key, well, let’s say it has always been of benefit to my caste to keep an eye on the clergy.” With a soft click the key unlocked the door, which creaked ever so slightly as it swung inward. Jairo slipped into the impenetrable darkness and the odor of stale antiquity beyond. Curiosity overwhelmed her indecision, and Fletcher plunged after.
When the door closed behind them, there was no light inside, not the scarcest hint of the dim twilight world outside. Then Jairo was there, his mouth on hers, his hands on her body, moving under her robe, and the suddenness of it made her almost cry out. When they finally broke, she was out of breath.
“You didn’t bring me all the way here to take advantage of me,” she whispered, while she ached to continue.
“No,” he replied, formless and near, still holding her, heat radiating from him. “But it will be quite some time before we can emerge from this basement and safely merge with the crowds. Can you think of a better way to spend the time, knowing that any night might be our last together?”
“In that case,” Fletcher whispered, groping for the front of his robe and yanking it open, pulling him toward her in a fierce embrace.
That was the last time.
After, they readjusted their vestments as best they could in the blackness. Fletcher felt Jairo’s finger laid tenderly across her lips. She nodded her understanding, and he moved away, leaving her suddenly and completely alone. Being alone had never held any terror for her, nor had the dark, but at that moment, she felt his absence like an amputation, and the weight of it, of all the days to come when she would be without him, fell on her.
You’ll have to leave him.
Not yet.
Light spilled into the room then, a thin spike of gray, turning the blackness into murky gloom. It was a basement, the outlines of stacked tables, bookshelves, and other such artifacts coming into half-focus around the walls. She could see Jairo, too, his hooded form huddled by the door. He beckoned, once, swiftly, and she hurried to join him as he stepped into the hallway beyond. It was empty, a bare corridor of thick stone, chilly and damp despite the heat of the summer evening above. In the space of a few dozen steps, it ended in a circular stairwell which they swiftly ascended. After a few moments, Jairo turned and leaned in close to her.
“You are not prepared for what you are about to experience,” he said plainly. “And I will not spoil it for you. Keep your hood up and your face hidden. And no matter what happens, do not be afraid. I am with you.”
These words from the man she knew she had come to love above all in the galaxy chilled her blood and set her mind racing with excitement. Most likely it was mere religious pageantry, meaningful to the Horfans and unlikely to move her, but it should still prove a fascinating cultural observance. And they were together.
The curving stairway ended, debauching into a much larger and wider hall, paneled with wood. Every inch was carved in minute detail, gilt throughout, with scrolling stonework similar in color and style to the plaza outside. Fletcher tried to examine it more closely, but Jairo was walking rapidly, and she hastened to catch up. Ahead, she could see more hooded figures, in swirling clusters, and she had no desire to lose contact with him in the gathering mob. Collectively, the Horfan mass streamed through a wide arch. Beyond was a huge hall, wider and deeper than any interior space Fletcher had yet seen on Cygnus, stretching high above to disappear into a distant unknown ceiling. It truly was a cathedral, she realized, or its analogue. Hundreds of robed natives clustered, standing, in a gray mass of humanity.
Humanity? thought Fletcher, and then, why not? There were those on Earth less human than the Cygni.
A muteness fell over the throng then, a hush of expectation. A high dais ran across the front of the long sanctuary, and there, three figures materialized from behind a massive w
oven tapestry. They were all young women. Young, or perhaps not so much young as of an indeterminate age, and beautiful, wearing hoodless robes of red trimmed with black. All had brown hair, or at least so it seemed at first, but as the light flickered along the rows of guttering torches in wall sconces that flecked the nave with gold, Fletcher’s eyes played tricks on her, casting the tresses of the priestesses in black, then red, then shimmering silver.
Fletcher began to whisper a question to Jairo, but he made a tiny shake of negation and she fell quiet. Music began, slow, insistent, thrusting, emanating from unseen musicians. The priestesses were moving in time with the glacial harmony, creating something less than dance but more than pantomime, in deliberate, exaggerated, almost sensual movement. Slowly, methodically, the volume built, pounding in an inexorable rhythm, vibrating the base of Fletcher’s skull and reaching out to her at some level below her civilized consciousness, beneath her aware self; some level more visceral, more primal, more savage.
Then another woman came onto the stage, taller and perfect. Looming like a vague, slender giantess, she raised long arms draped in jagged red. The lesser dancers melted away behind velvet black curtains as the music reached a holy crescendo followed by absolute silence. The audience’s breathing came in regular, modulated cadence as if they were not many individuals but one communal creature, poised in avid anticipation. The head priestess spoke, and as she did, her words were rhythmic, archaic, and difficult for Fletcher to follow. At the same time, they felt as familiar as the blandishments of a hundred other faiths, words of pronouncement and prescription, their literal import less gravid than their effect on the gathered faithful. Fletcher had never been a pious woman, though the Ochoas were nominally Catholic, but she was not immune to the charisma of the priestess. It acted like a physical force upon the worshippers as she wove together ancient stories with guidance for modern life. Fletcher began to feel warm, then drowsy, as the words washed over her like lapping poetic waves, until the congregation shouted in responsorial unison, repeating the mantra “Horfa is chosen” two, three, then four times. It was then, in the midst of such fervor, that Fletcher felt the raw soul of the Horfan people unvarnished before her, with such beauty and power that tears came to her eyes and it was all she could do to keep from falling to the floor or embracing Jairo then and for the rest of her life.
Eventually the services ended and they departed along with the other parishioners, her heart swollen with love for this place, these people, and this person. Still in their dull robes, she pulled him into a shrouded alley and stared at him with incredulity.
“Why did you show me that?” she asked.
“It is the heart of who we are as a people,” he replied with a stormy flash of gray in his pale blue eyes. “And I would have you know our heart. My heart. Because custom demands that I shouldn’t, and I don’t want any custom or taboo between us; no secrets or regulations. Limitations are for lesser loves than ours, Christine.” He kissed her, and she responded, there in the shadows of those ancient walls, fiercely and long, and as they broke their breath mingled in the cool dusk air.
“Your scientists have almost finished their work,” he said huskily. She nodded in response, unable to speak. “You will be leaving soon?”
“The…the ship will, yes.”
“And will you be on it?” His gaze was searching, powerful, and she had to look away, down, anywhere but into those eyes of melting ice.
“I have no choice, Jairo. Desertion is the worst crime there is in the Royal Navy, short of mutiny. Captain Pearce couldn’t allow it.” A bold and sudden idea seized her then, and she blurted it out. “You could come with us! As a cultural and scientific ambassador from…” her voice trailed off as she saw his shaking head.
“I can’t, my love. I can’t leave my work here, my obligations, any more than you can yours. You know I am slated to succeed Arkadas in leadership of my caste when he retires in a few years. I would leave the task to someone else, but I fear how weak the intellectual influence would be under less prepared leadership. And this is something I have long desired and worked toward.”
Fletcher sighed, a sigh that became a laugh that became a choked sob.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to leave,” she said, softly, gathering his gray robe in her fists and pressing her face against his chest.
“But you must, as you say. Just as I must not.” He put a hand under her chin and forced her face up, gently, and smiled at her. “Do not cry that you are leaving. I would cry if you had never come. And I meant every word I said about lesser loves. This is not the end for us, Christine Fletcher. We will see each other again, I know it.”
She stepped away from him then, pushing her knuckles into her eyes, taking a long, slow swallow of the clean night air. Her mind was full of the vastness of space between here and Earth, of time and distance, and it threatened to swallow her whole. She battled back against the yawning chasm of despair before her, pushing it back one more time.
“You have been so generous and helpful,” she said, desperate to change the subject. “And have asked so little for yourselves in return.”
“We’re a generous people,” Jairo said. “Of what you’ve asked for, we have plenty to give. And it has certainly been the pleasantest month I have ever known.”
“Even so.” Fletcher pulled free of him again. “We’ve gotten what we came for. I would feel bad if all you got in return were technological advances you likely would have made for yourselves in a few decades. I wish there were something more tangible we could do.”
“If you’re going to insist,” responded Jairo, “there is one thing I will admit to being curious about.”
****
It seemed wrong to Pearce that Jane Baker, the greatest star-mariner Earth ever produced, had come to rest here. A spreading pilapus tree, looking very like an elm, shaded the simple and lonely stone marker. It was quiet here, nestled alongside the sandy beaches of a vast ocean. It was all very pleasant, and all very wrong.
“I always imagined you at St. James,” Pearce murmured, aware that he was speaking only to rocks, trees, wind, and himself. “A statue in Trafalgar, alongside Nelson’s column, or maybe at the Admiralty gates.” He smiled, and let the fantasy play out, picturing in his mind how some sculptor would try to depict the great Captain Baker, try to make her look all stern and proper, maybe a hand shading her eyes in some nonsensical, fanciful nautical pose, or else seated primly and erect in the captain’s chair. No, he thought. The immortal Jane Baker should be on her feet, leaning over her helmsman’s shoulder, adjusting the Drake’s trim, her plain face aglow with focus, joy and genius. The galaxy would never see the like again, in flesh or marble.
“If you had to be lost on duty, it should have been out there, with a deck under your feet.”
He sighed, knowing that such a thing would have meant the deaths of other star-mariners, perhaps even his own. He had not been an intimate of Captain Baker’s; he wasn’t one of her three-voyage veterans like Captain Clark or Commandant Martinez, or the scores of ables who had flocked to her roster whenever she slipped moorings. She had been a walking deity to him, a god made bone and blood, the woman who landed on a comet to make repairs and came away whole, the woman who had mapped endless parsecs of the galaxy, the woman who had tackled space scurvy and relegated it to history. The woman who fell at Cygnus. And now she lay here, under a strange sun, under strange dirt.
It was wrong. But, he thought, what isn’t these days? He sat stiffly in the grass, still very much aware of the slightly stronger gravity of Cygnus. It made breathing a bit more difficult, moving a bit more tiring, and he had never adjusted the way some had, like Christine Fletcher. The thought of her made him a little sad and more than a little angry. Something was very amiss with that woman. It had begun as soon as the Harvest was under way, and had only gotten worse during their stay on Cygnus, as she spent more time in the company of Jairo.
A huge shadow fell across P
earce. Squinting, he looked up. Orpheus Crutchfield loomed overhead, blotting out the sun and much of the sky. Even in the heat of the day, the sergeant wore his full uniform. Every buckle and button was fastened, every strap in place. If ever there was a spit-and-polish officer, it’s this one, thought Pearce. Two of the machrines flanked him, like mechanical henchmen.
“Yes, Sergeant?”
“Sorry to disturb you, Captain. It’s Luther-45.”
“Yes?”
“He’s gone, sir. Missing.” The sergeant, Pearce noticed, was trembling, ever so slightly, either with anger or concern, or both. Pearce stood, a little too quickly, and nearly stumbled.
“Damned gravity. No, I’m all right, man. What the hell do you mean, missing?”
“Just that, sir,” Crutchfield said. “Luther didn’t return from his scheduled duty this afternoon, and I can’t locate him on the tracker.”
“What duty was that?”
“He was assigned to Lieutenant Fletcher, sir. In the city.”
“I see. Well, there must be some plausible explanation.” Pearce tapped a stud on his communication wristlink. “Fletcher, please respond.”
A few moments passed, as Pearce ground his teeth, his jaw working side to side in noiseless agitation. He disliked being made to wait by a subordinate, especially one in whom his trust and confidence had been so severely frayed. Eventually, there came a brief burst of static, and Fletcher’s voice, somewhat out of breath.
“Fletcher.”
Pearce ignored the omitted “sir” and the increasing throbbing in his head.
“Running, Lieutenant?”
“What?” she responded. “No, nothing like that. Just…just stepped away from my bracelet for a moment.” There was a rustle in the background, muffled voices. What the hell was going on? Background racket from Horfa, perhaps?
“While on duty?” Silence was the only response, and Pearce plowed forward. “Fletcher, is Luther-45 with you?” Again, she only replied after a long pause.