Jenna Starborn

by Sharon Shinn

  “For we have a full passenger list signed up for the next schedule, and no extra beds—not that I’d put you back in storage again after what you went through this time—and we’ve no need for more technicians, I’m sorry to say. But you’ll do well enough on Appalachia. These remote colonies are always the best place for people like you.”

  “People like me?” I repeated faintly, for I could scarcely catch my breath. I was pumping my legs on the gravicycle, and the effort was using up every ounce of strength I possessed.

  “People who don’t have anywhere else to go,” she amended, seeming a bit embarrassed. “The colonies always need bodies and they need every kind of skill. And nobody asks too many questions.”

  “I will—hope to—fit in, then,” I panted, and she made no other observations.

  It took the better part of a day to deboard the ship, because the tug could only handle twenty people at a time, and the round trip between the Anniversary and the docking bay on the spaceport took several hours. I was in the last group to climb aboard the tug, and it was with great trepidation I seated myself on the little shuttle in the company of fifteen complete strangers with whom I had shared the most bizarre voyage of my life. One or two I recognized from the cafeteria or the gym, but I had not exchanged a word with any of them before, and I could not think of an observation to make now. I sat there—freshly washed, holding my pitiful little canvas bag on my lap, and owning not a single scrap of credit—and thought dread would shatter my heart.

  It did not—and neither did the intense gravitational pressure that weighted my head and all my limbs as we dropped closer to the planet’s surface. After we landed, I came shakily to my feet and staggered down the ramp behind my fellow travelers. I emerged into a huge echoing dome of a building that served as the spaceport’s hangar. Just so did hangars look in docking ports all over the universe, and for a moment I had the eerie sensation I had not left Fieldstar at all, but merely slept away a year in orbit above that planet. Surely not—surely not all this harrowing travail had been for nothing.

  I took a few steps forward, into the bustle and the crowd, and wondered what in the name of the Goddess I should do next. It was midday, as evidenced by the sunlight pouring in through the skylights overhead, and so employment offices stood a reasonable chance of being open. My first priority would seem to be to find a post of some sort, preferably one that came with lodging—and that could not be accomplished by standing in the middle of this noisy dome, assaulted by the aviation noises above and buffeted by the human current below. I must take charge and move forward.

  I therefore spent a wearying few hours inquiring the direction of an employment office, receiving conflicting information, wandering about the crowded streets of the spaceport in confusion, and fighting off an overwhelming despair. Even the mild, springlike air and the flirtatious afternoon sun could not lift my mood—and the oncoming night merely darkened it.

  By the time I found the Appalachia New Transfer Job Opportunities Office, it had been closed for the day. A sign on the door proclaimed that it would open in the morning, twelve long hours away. I had no money to buy an evening meal. I certainly had no money to pay for a night in a hotel. I had nowhere to go at all.

  I stood for a few minutes, stupidly trying to decide what to do. I did not think I would starve, at least not right away, for Colyo had rather brusquely handed me a few wrapped packets of food with the gruff admonition to eat carefully for a few more days. I just needed a place to sit and wait, where I would be reasonably safe from both human and environmental peril.

  Back to the spaceport hangar, then. I knew it would be open and full of activity around the clock. There would be little real rest there, but I could find a place to sit, perhaps to sleep, before I tried my luck on the following day. I trudged back to the dome in the gathering dark, and wondered if I had finally reached the lowest point in my life.

  The next morning, having tidied myself as best I could in one of the public rest rooms at the hangar, I made my way back to the Job Opportunities Office. This time, since I knew the way, it did not take nearly so long, but at the office itself, I suffered a series of checks. First was the long line that moved as slowly as I had feared. Second was my impaired speech, which made it difficult for my assigned clerk to understand me. I had been directed to the room of a pale, heavy, exasperated man who was barely visible behind his computer terminal and a stack of manuals, and I had attempted to inquire for work.

  “Your name is what? What’s your citizenship status? Did you come to Appalachia for a job or on spec? What are your credentials? Lady, I can’t understand a word you’re saying.”

  Eventually I took a piece of paper and a pen and wrote my name and my educational background on a piece of paper, and handed it to him.

  “Oh. Nuclear technician,” he said, as though he thought I had claimed to be a nuclear reactor. He turned to his monitor and typed in a few codes. “Well, you’d think there’d be something, but I don’t have any listings—now, chemical technicians, I’ve got a few slots open—”

  “I only have a little educational background in chemical reactors, enough to fill in my class requirements—”

  “Say what? You know, I speak half a dozen languages, but you’re just not being clear in any of them.”

  Despair washed over me. What would I do, what could I do, in this place where I could not even be understood? I jumped to my feet, intent on rushing from his presence before I burst into tears, but the move was completely ill-advised. The blood sang in my ears and I felt my body crumple. I could not stop my faint or my fall, and I felt myself land heavily on the floor.

  I did not quite lose consciousness, for I heard the clerk’s cry of alarm and the sound of footsteps running to the room. There were questions and sullen replies, and then someone administered a cold patch to my face. Some sort of adrenaline jolt, for I felt the ragged panic surge through my veins, and I struggled to a sitting position.

  “Who is she? What happened to her?” a dark-haired woman was demanding from her post at the door. She looked severe, serious, and completely in charge. I guessed she was the top official at this facility.

  “I don’t know! She stood up and then she fell down! You can’t hardly understand her—got a speech impediment or something—”

  “She looks like she’s half starved,” said the voice of a woman who was out of my range of sight.

  “Says she’s looking for a job. A nuclear technician,” the clerk said.

  “Well, we can’t have her lying around on our floors, no matter what skill level she possesses,” the official said coldly. “Call for Public Aid and have someone come get her. If nothing else, maybe they can give her a meal or two.”

  “Thank you—I think I do need some aid—” I tried to say, but the dark-haired woman merely rolled her eyes and disappeared from the doorway. I heard the large clerk behind the desk speaking into a transmitter of some sort, asking for a transport for a displaced person. Heedless of the official woman’s acid comment and my own considerable pride, I lay back on the floor and waited for someone to come fetch me.

  An hour later I was seated in the most hospitable environment I had seen since leaving Thorrastone Manor. (Must not think of that; close your mind; must not, must not.) It was a small, rather worn waiting room furnished with battered chairs and rose-colored walls, and the late-morning sunlight came dancing through the open windows like a blonde girl in a blue dress. I was sitting, quite exhausted, in a high-backed chair, watching a smiling young woman set up a tray of food on a table at my left hand.

  “The people at the Job Op Office said you fainted from hunger, so let’s feed you before we try to do anything else, shall we?” she said in a soothing and pleasant voice. She looked to be a year or two older than I was—in her late twenties, perhaps—and she had gorgeous auburn hair caught back in a very businesslike bun. She was dressed almost as plainly as I was, in natural-fiber coveralls that were so faded they might originally have been
any color. Her hair was her only true ornament; her face, though open and friendly, was quite plain—but somehow more trustworthy because of that. I liked her instantly, though I was usually more guarded with my approvals. Or perhaps I needed her so desperately at that moment that I was prepared to like her no matter how crass or cruel she might turn out to be.

  “I’m not sure I can eat,” I said, enunciating as clearly as I could. “I’m not sure I can keep food down.”

  She looked at me sharply. “You can’t—eat? Is that what you said?” she asked.

  I nodded. “I’m not sure. I’ve been—” It was too complicated to explain. “Sick,” I finished lamely.

  “Well, I brought you some tea and some soup,” she said briskly. “Very easy on the stomach. Let’s try it and see how you do.”

  Indeed, the bowl of soup looked more like broth, though it smelled wonderful, and tea, of course, was an invalid’s mainstay the universe over. I ate cautiously at first, then more ravenously as my stomach did not reject my offerings, and I finished every ounce of food on my tray.

  The woman watched me with a face half pleased and half wondering. “Gracious, you must truly have been starved,” she said. “Would you like more? Or perhaps we should wait a while and see how well you handle that much.”

  “Yes, let’s wait,” I said.

  She had settled in a facing chair while I ate, and now she studied me with frank curiosity. “Do you feel better now? Can we try to talk?” she asked. “I’d like to help you, but I think I need more information.”

  “I’m Jenna Starborn,” I said right away. “And you?”

  “Your name is Jenna? Is that what you said?”

  I nodded.

  “Starrin? Jenna Starrin?”

  I shrugged, then smiled. It was a manufactured name anyway; that was close enough. “Yes,” I said. “And your name?”

  “I’m Deborah Rainey,” she said, seeming to understand my question with ease. “My brother and sister and I run the Public Aid Office here on Appalachia.”

  “Public Aid Office?” I repeated, for I had not heard of such an institution. In many of the larger cities, there were facilities for taking care of the indigent and the outcast, but these were referred to by such unattractive titles as Half-Cit Rehabilitation Center and the Welfare and Reform Office, and only the lowest and most desperate creatures would think to seek shelter there.

  Though I was a low and desperate creature, and at the moment, I would not scorn any help at all.

  Deborah Rainey was answering my half-articulated question. “Yes, my brother, Sinclair, founded this facility three years ago when we first relocated to Appalachia from Newyer. Our goal had been to purchase a tract of land and begin farming, though none of us had any experience with agriculture. We were just looking for a hopeful new start on life! But Sinclair had friends who had set up businesses here in Cody—”

  “Cody?” I could not form a complete sentence, but Deborah Rainey seemed to catch the drift of my one-word question, for she answered this one easily as well.

  “Yes, the name that has been bestowed upon the major spaceport here. It has grown to be so much like a city that we have given it a real city name. Anyway, Sinclair had friends here who were already established, and who knew Sinclair from our days back on Newyer, where he also ran a charitable institution. And they persuaded him that Cody needed such a facility right away, for it was growing so fast and receiving such an influx of would-be settlers that there were any number of people getting lost in the shuffle. The Job Op Office does what it can,” she added in a careful tone of voice, “but the personnel there don’t have the time and patience to deal with people who aren’t instantly prepared to take up the rhythms of a new life. So we have found ourselves very often taking in travelers who need a period of adjustment before they can accustom themselves to their new world.”

  “I cannot pay you,” I said instantly. “I have no credit.”

  “No, no, we are entirely funded by the business owners of Cody,” she said quickly. “We provide a service to the city by keeping wanderers off the street and helping displaced travelers recover their senses. And most often, after a stay of a few days or a few weeks, these travelers become the energetic, productive people they were when they left their home planets, and they take new jobs, and they are quickly absorbed into the economy of Appalachia. It is very satisfying work.”

  “Then I can stay?”

  “Yes, Jenna, you can stay. As long as you need to.”

  I could not help myself. I started crying. Deborah Rainey leapt to her feet and came around to hug me, patting my disheveled hair and murmuring reassurances into my ear. It did not matter that the reassurances were generic, for she did not know what my sufferings were and how to allay my true fears. Her words seemed genuine, and her embrace felt sincere, and I felt safe as I had not felt in over a year.

  That night at dinner, I joined Deborah Rainey, her sister, her brother and their other temporary boarders in a communal dining room. Maria Rainey looked much like her sister, except that her face was several years older and her hair not quite so lustrous. Still, her expression was just as warm and welcoming, and I immediately liked her as much as I had liked Deborah.

  Sinclair Rainey, on the other hand, seemed to have been constructed from an entirely different set of raw materials than his sisters. His face featured fine modeled cheekbones and a firm, determined chin; his oakblonde hair formed soft curls that he had cropped as short as he could, though nothing could entirely subdue their gaiety. His eyes were such a brilliant blue that I would have sworn they were enhanced, except that five minutes in his company led me to believe he would scorn such personal embellishments. For he had the expression, attitude, conversation, and courtesy of an aesthete—a fanatic—a man called to a mission that he would serve with so much passion he would forget the needs of himself and the ones he considered that he loved. I did not know what his mission was, but that he had one, I was willing to swear that very first evening.

  The other guests were, like me, rather beaten-down and disoriented casualties of a long space voyage and no clear plan of action. Three of them formed a small, miserable family—father, mother, and son—while the fourth was an older man of somewhat rakish mien who spoke wistfully of his days on some planet I could never definitively identify. The family members I assumed had come to farm, but I was not certain what the older man’s claim to employability might be. In any case, I was not required to converse with him. Maria Rainey spent most of the evening listening to his rambling talk with every evidence of interest on her good-natured face. The rest of us made short, hopeless attempts at discussion, but mostly applied ourselves to our food. Which was very good and caused no rebellion in my stomach at all.

  After the meal, Sinclair Rainey disappeared and the sisters invited the rest of us into a small parlor where, they said, there were books, games, monitors, and other entertainments. The others gratefully accepted this possibility of a few hours’ distraction, but I excused myself, and went up to the small bedroom I had been allotted. Within a few minutes, I had washed my face, breathed a prayer of heartfelt thanks to the Goddess, and fallen deeply asleep.

  The next morning, I presented myself in the kitchen as soon as I was awake and sensed the house astir. Maria and Deborah Rainey were already there, moving in comfortable silence from the freezecase to the bakeshelf as they put together ingredients for a morning meal.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.

  Maria almost dropped a bread knife, for she had not seen me come in, but Deborah smiled and motioned me forward. “You may come and keep us company,” she said. “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, very.”

  “That’s an excellent sign!”

  Maria asked, “And nothing you ate last night disagreed with you?”

  “No, it was a wonderful meal. Thank you both so very much. But I would like to do something to prove my gratitude—or earn my keep.”

  Deborah la
ughed. “I told you, nothing like that is required. We are funded by the city.”

  “Yes, but I am not accustomed to sit back idly while others work to take care of me,” I said, noticing as I spoke how much clearer my words sounded today. And, indeed, neither sister seemed to have trouble understanding me, for they both smiled.

  “Very well, then, you may mix up this batter if you wish. Do you like to cook, Jenna?” Maria asked.

  I obediently took a bowl and a spatula and began folding in ingredients. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it.”

  “Never!” Deborah exclaimed. “Why, where have you lived that you have never had to cook for yourself?”

  And, the unspoken question hung in the air, how have you fallen on such hard times that you now must work like a servant girl?

  “I have not enjoyed a luxurious life,” I assured them. “I have lived in grand houses, but they were not my own. I grew up as the ward of a lady with much wealth but very little heart, and then I lived at an educational institution where all the food was prepared for us by cafeteria workers. From there I went to work in a great manor where all the meals were served by a cook who did not like others to meddle in her kitchen.”

  “I cannot decide if such a life sounds adventurous or sad,” Maria commented.

  I smiled somewhat bitterly. “At times it has been both.”

  “Here, when you have done with that, you may chop these into the finest pieces you can manage,” Deborah said, setting a knife, a chopping board, and a mass of small vegetables beside me.

  I was bemused by the sheer volume of work laid before me. “All these, for just the eight of us staying in this house?”

  The sisters laughed. “Oh, there are only five of you who are our guests here, but we run another small facility nearby,” said Maria. “At the moment, I believe there are ten others staying at the dorm house.”