Jenna Starborn

by Sharon Shinn

  “Ladies, I believe we’re ready to go,” I said in a remarkably firm voice. “Mrs. Farraday, you go on ahead and find Mr. Ravenbeck, and make sure the two of you are instantly in motion. Ameletta, in a few minutes you and I will go downstairs.”

  Very shortly, we were on our way. The estate bus—a rather modest, utilitarian vehicle—had been garlanded with white ribbon and nosegays of white flowers that had no scent. The Cartells and the Soshones were dressed in their excruciating best. They were ordinary, plain-featured folk who did not look at all comfortable in their fancy clothes, but they greeted me with respect and sincerity and thanked me for inviting them to my wedding. I liked all of them at once and wished I had had a chance to get to know them before this day. Even Mary and Rinda and Genevieve, so distant these past days, greeted me with smiles and shy embraces.

  I was installed in a cushioned seat that had clearly been fixed up just for me, for an arrangement of ribbon had been erected over this one chair to create a sort of makeshift bower. The others climbed in and situated themselves, and then Mr. Soshone took off for the airlock. Once we were free of the manor, he accelerated to a good pace, and we were on our way to town. This “bus” did not ride as smoothly as Everett’s Vandeventer, but it was much less noisy and more comfortable than the public shuttle, and I did not see a speck of dirt. Mrs. Farraday’s diligence, I was sure.

  As promised, Ameletta sat beside me and held my hand. She chattered quite unself-consciously during the whole of the ride, discussing what she would do with her time while I was on my honeymoon and how friendly she would be to the interim tutor who was to arrive in two days. “I will show her all my treasures and let her play with my dolls, but only if I like her. If I do not like her, I will not do any of the homework she assigns me, and I will not talk to her either.”

  “That is not a very nice attitude, Ameletta,” I said.

  “But I will probably like her,” she added hastily. “Why, I nearly always like everybody. Are you remembering to breathe, Miss Starborn? You said I was to remind you.”

  I took a deep breath and exhaled it loudly. “No, I had quite forgotten. Thank you, Ameletta!”

  She giggled and returned to her prattling. In just under two hours, we had come into sight of the spaceport’s silver spires. The air above the town was thick with incoming traffic, bright sleek arrows suspended above the terrain or making slow spirals downward. The invisible dome that protected the whole city from the outer vacuum seemed, on this special day, almost perceptible; I fancied I could detect a chrome-colored veil flung over the spindly buildings, dancing with reflected light. But then, everything seemed brushed with opalescence—the buildings before us, the cruisers above us—even the sun, usually so sullen in Fieldstar’s sky, seemed to shimmer with a golden munificence. The world not only smiled upon me, it sparkled for me; it blessed me with its silent effervescence.

  “Are you breathing, Miss Starborn?”

  “Yes, Ameletta, I am.”

  Finally we pulled up in front of a squat, unattractive building that appeared to have been constructed of mud bricks, and we all disembarked. I felt myself moving as in a dream; never had reality seemed so unlikely. I wished with all my heart that Mrs. Farraday or—for so many reasons!—Janet Ayerson were beside me, but I had no real solace except Ameletta, and I clung to her as we entered. Mrs. Soshone went to the information terminal and requested information; its automated voice told us which elevator and which hallway to use. By now I was fairly faint with fright and anticipation, and I could only follow the others as they set off down the corridor toward the elevators.

  We were lifted in a quick sickening lurch up several stories—I could not count—but once the doors opened onto our designated floor, I was relieved beyond measure to see Mrs. Farraday awaiting us.

  “There you are, Jenna! We were beginning to wonder if you were lost. Mr. Ravenbeck has been so impatient! But I assured him everything was fine. Are you ready? Do you need a moment to compose yourself?”

  “A moment,” I said faintly.

  She shooed the others down the hall, which was wider and more brightly lit than I had expected from the exterior of the building, and talked to me so cheerfully for a few moments that I began to regain some of my equilibrium.

  “I don’t know exactly what has come over me,” I said, fanning myself with my hand as if that would do any good at all. “I am so happy! And yet just as we pulled up in front of the Registry Office, I began to feel as if I could not move or breathe or think—”

  “Yes, the exact same thing happened to me,” she said briskly. “I believe it is required of a bride. Your wedding completely changes the direction of your life, you know, no matter how greatly you desire it. I think that moment of doubt and faintness comes from all those imagined and now impossible futures all pressing in on you at once. It is your last chance to experience them, you see, and they all want to be lived at that moment.”

  This fanciful analysis from the so-practical Mrs. Farraday made me laugh out loud, which for the most part restored me to myself. I was still a bit shaky, but my limbs seemed to have regained their normal function, and my lungs appeared capable of inhaling and exhaling without a direct command from me.

  “Is our room prepared?” I asked, taking her arm.

  “Everything is ready,” she said.

  “Then let us proceed.”

  A few short steps and we entered the room that was to be my wedding chapel. I took a brief, comprehensive look around. It was painted white, and filled with white cushioned chairs, and hung with white curtains, and so it seemed lit with an internal radiance that was very appropriate to the circumstances. Our small coterie of friends had gathered in the front few rows of seats, near to the dark-paneled podium that would appear to serve a multitude of uses. Everett Ravenbeck was standing right before this lectern, staring with some impatience at the doorway. Beside him stood a small, gray-haired man with a pleasant demeanor and a book in his hand.

  Everett’s face lightened at the sight of me and added its own considerable radiance to the room. “Ah!” was all he said, but it was so heartfelt that it made me smile. I continued to cling to Mrs. Farraday as we walked slowly down the aisle between the rows of seats. When we reached Everett’s side, she rather ceremoniously transferred my hand to his, and took her seat somewhere behind us.

  “Miss Starborn, I take it?” the registrar asked me in a kind way. Up close, he looked older than seventy, weary and wise, and I liked the sound of his voice.

  “Jenna Starborn,” I said, my own voice surprising me with its firmness.

  “Good. Unless anyone has any questions, I am ready to start.”

  “No questions,” Everett said with a certain arrogance. “Let us begin the ceremony.”

  The gray-haired man opened his book, glanced inside it, and then looked up at us again. “It is customary before performing the marriage,” he said, “to first ask the participants if there are any legal impediments to their union.”

  “There are none,” Everett said.

  Ignoring him, the clerk turned to me and said, “Miss Starborn, are there any reasons why you could not be lawfully joined in marriage to Everett Ravenbeck? Are you married already to someone else?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Are you a class-A felon who has been denied a range of societal privileges, including the right to marry?”

  “No.”

  “Are you possessed of a gene flaw that has been determined to produce heinous offspring and thus caused you to be interdicted from procreation?”

  “No.”

  “Are you of an alien race that has been forbidden to intermarry with humans?”

  “No.”

  “Then you are free to marry?”

  “I am free to marry.”

  The clerk then turned to Everett and repeated this series of questions, to which he received identical responses although in a much less docile voice than I had been able to summon. I squeezed his hand in an effort to co
unsel patience, but this failed somewhat of its intended effect as, in return, he gripped my hand so tightly that I felt the bones protest.

  “I am free to marry,” at last Everett said—growled, more like.

  “Very well. Inasmuch as the state of marriage is a complex one involving financial, social, emotional, spiritual, and physical bonds, and inasmuch as marriage is—”

  “Stop the ceremony!” cried a voice from the back of the room.

  I turned to a satin-draped pillar of ice.

  “Continue,” Everett ordered the clerk.

  “I think I must see—”

  “Continue, damn you!”

  “Stop the ceremony, I tell you!” the voice repeated, sounding greatly agitated and growing breathlessly louder as the speaker rushed forward. “There is an impediment to this marriage!”

  There was a commotion behind me—I think Mr. Cartell and Mr. Soshone leaped up to intercept the intruder—but I could not turn to see. I could not think. I could not see. I could not move. This time, for real, I could not breathe. I heard Everett shout something at the registrar and the registrar answer somewhat heatedly. I felt hands flailing about, beside me, behind me, causing a dark disturbance in the luster of the room. I heard the sounds of blows landing and chairs overturning. Everett continued arguing with the clerk, who ignored him, and who peered around our two bodies to watch the scuffle going on behind us.

  “Stop the wedding, I say!” that stranger’s voice cried again, but this time I fancied he was not a total stranger. I thought I had heard that voice before, and I thought I could identify him if I must. He sounded even more winded now, as if he had been involved in some athletic contest and now were struggling against forcible restraint. “This man cannot be married—he has a wife already.”

  At this, I felt myself dissolve. The personal forcefield that kept my atoms in place gave way and loosed the particles of my body into the undifferentiated air. I could not sway or swoon; I did not have enough mass to react with such purpose. I disintegrated into the white light without a trace.

  But still I could hear.

  “Married already!” I heard the clerk exclaim. “But then he cannot be legally wed today!”

  “Exactly! He must be stopped!” the stranger panted.

  “Oh, Mr. Ravenbeck! Shall someone call the civil guard?” This from Mrs. Farraday.

  “He’s a liar! We’ll take him outside and take care of him, sir.” Mr. Cartell or Mr. Soshone, I could not tell.

  “Beat me—kill me—it does not matter! It does not alter the truth. This man is a married man, and he attempts today to become a bigamist. His wife is still living, and I know her whereabouts, and I can prove her existence.”

  The more he spoke, the more certain I became. This intruder, this man who had come to destroy my life, was Mr. Merrick of Wesleyan-Imrae, a man Everett Ravenbeck had seemed to both despise and fear. I knew, absolutely and without question, that he spoke the truth.

  “Mr. Ravenbeck, I asked you once before, but this time I beg that you answer me honestly,” the clerk said soberly to the man beside me. “Are you legally free to marry? Do you already have a wife?”

  There was a moment’s electric silence while the whole room suspended breathing in order to hear the reply. I could feel Everett Ravenbeck’s eyes upon me, but I could not turn to look at him; I would not have been able to see him even if I tried.

  He did not answer either question. Instead, with an abrupt, jerky motion, he slewed his body away from the registrar and gruffly addressed his small crowd of well-wishers. “There will be no wedding today,” he said in a black voice. “Let us all return to Thorrastone Park.”

  We traveled back in the same configuration in which we had journeyed into town, except that Mrs. Farraday rode in the estate bus, and Mr. Merrick took her place in the Vandeventer. I would not have liked to be in that car at that time; I could not imagine what vitriol would be exchanged between those two men. As for myself, I could feel nothing except surprise that my limbs had moved, my body had obeyed me, and I had been able to walk with any kind of steadiness from the building to the street. There had been a long, horrible wait while the vehicles were fetched from wherever they had been docked. Everett had several times tried to take my hand or catch my eye, but I could not see him; I could not feel his touch. I believe it was Mrs. Farraday who stepped between us, turning me away from him.

  “Jenna,” I heard him say, but I did not look at him.

  And then we boarded and we endured the interminable trip back, and I did not know if my fellow passengers were utterly silent or if the coach was rife with whispering. I sat on my cushioned bridal seat, under my canopy of white ribbon, and felt nothing.

  The stop at the airlock seemed to jolt me back to consciousness. I felt my blood surge forward in a rapid race, and all the color of the world seemed to lock back into focus. My arms tingled as they regained feeling, and a sense of complete dread tightened my ribs in my chest.

  “Oh, Mrs. Farraday,” I breathed, “what will we discover now?”

  Our bus was following the Vandeventer, and it went straight toward the bungalow where, one fateful night, Mr. Merrick had been mauled by an unknown creature and I had kept a fearful vigil in the basement. Gilda Parenon’s place. Somehow, from the first day I had met her, I had known she would be a malevolent influence on my life. I could not, even now, see how that could be so, but I felt it for a certainty.

  Everett was at the bus door, rather impatiently handing down each passenger as we disembarked. I could not help but put my fingers in his when he reached for me, and once possessed of my hand, he would not let it go.

  “We do not need all of you,” he said in his rough way. “Someone take the little girl back to the manor house. You, Merrick, and you, Mrs. Farraday—come with us. And Jenna, of course. The rest of you be gone to tell what tales you will.”

  And with that ungracious dismissal he hauled me to the front door as the others fell helplessly in step behind us. At the door, he assaulted the keypad, punching in numbers as though he hated them, and then he dragged me through the open door.

  We entered the same wide, comfortable room I had first seen on that midnight visit here nearly three months ago. Gilda Parenon, who was sitting in front of a viewing monitor, scrambled to her feet at the sight of so many uninvited visitors crowding into her domain.

  “Sir!” was all she said.

  Everett nodded at her. “You know all these people, I believe—Merrick, Mrs. Farraday, Miss Starborn. They have come to see your charge.”

  “Sir?” she repeated, puzzled now.

  “Your charge, your patient, your project—my wife,” he said in a foul, bitter voice. “They have come to view her.”

  Of all the people in the room, only the two of them could speak. The rest of us were dumb. “It’s a good time for it, sir. She’s quiet, and the new circuit suppressor seems to be working just fine. I haven’t needed to jolt her for two or three days now.”

  “Excellent. Her brother will be happy to hear it.”

  “So you’d like to see her now, sir?”

  “This instant.”

  Gilda Parenon led the way down a broad corridor to a room on the far end of the house. Everett followed her and I, still in his merciless grip, followed, with the others behind me. My brain was in a painful whirl. Jolts and circuit suppressors were expressions commonly used to describe electrical projects, not human beings. And human beings, even the maddest and most intractable, were rarely confined to such ferociously solitary quarters, without benefit of therapy or reconstructive socialization.

  Gilda Parenon paused at this inner door long enough to enter yet another complicated sequence onto the keypad. This door, like the one to the outside, like the walls to this otherwise homey cottage, was built of a sturdy steel alloy that could scarcely be breached—certainly not by mere human strength. A deadly cold was beginning to settle in my stomach, but my mind refused to put together the pieces.

  We steppe
d in a single huddle through the door into the room beyond. I caught a quick glimpse of a windowless, nearly featureless chamber before my eye fell on the central attraction of the room—a fortyish, pretty, vacant-looking woman sitting serenely in a straight-backed chair. She was dressed in rose-colored cotton coveralls, her hands were neatly folded in her lap, and her eyes, which were fixed on an invisible object at about the height of Everett’s face, showed no change when we entered. Her head was banded with a blue electrical glow that emanated from two posts embedded on either side of the chairback—the circuit suppressor, I knew immediately.

  “Everett! How inhumane!” Mr. Merrick burst out. He broke free of our group and made straight for the chair as if to find the switch and cut off the power. Everett stopped him with a single violent shove that sent him stumbling away from the motionless woman.

  “Humane—because otherwise she hurts herself and those around her,” Everett said brusquely. “Never fear, she is released several times a day for exercise and variety. You can see the steadiness of the routine suits her. Her color is good and her readings, when you check them, will show all her systems stable.”

  “Yes, but—to chain her to one spot like this, like some kind of wretched animal—”

  “She is wretched,” Everett interrupted. “But she is safe, and she is cared for, and that is all you need to worry about.”

  Mr. Merrick took a step toward the woman—his sister, as I supposed, since Mr. Everett had declared the creature had a brother. “Can she hear me? Will she respond? Can I touch her?”

  Gilda Parenon volunteered the answer. “She can hear, all right, but the suppressor keeps her from talking. She’ll remember anything you say, though, if you talk to her now.”

  Mr. Merrick came to a stop directly before the statue-silent woman. “Beatrice,” he said, in a soft, almost crooning voice. “I see you’re better than you were last time I was here. Do you remember me? I brought you some of those games you like—new ones, very fast.” He glanced over his shoulder at Everett. “I suppose you let her play such things now and then?”