by Sharon Shinn
Chapter 18
In fact, just a week later, I was presented with the most unexpected opportunity to repay my bottomless debt to the Raineys—a way I would not have envisioned if I had spent my life imagining ways I could enrich my own life and the lives of those I loved.
It was evening of a day that I had spent mostly absent from the house. I had journeyed by underground transit to the Joester power company building to invest in some additional parts. I needed these to make minor repairs to the existing equipment, but I also wanted Sinclair to begin handling the actual connectors and cables, and I thought these would be an excellent training tool for him. I rather enjoyed myself, traveling around the city that I had rarely crossed on my own, and taking my time before returning to the house. I did walk by a few shops and think, rather wistfully, what I might buy if I had even a small income. But I was just fantasizing, not repining; I was very well content with what I had in life.
When I returned to the house, I found all three Rainey siblings clustered in the family room, reading a notice on the computer monitor. Sinclair was seated before the computer and scrolling through the text, while his sisters stood behind him, watching the words skip by. They were so engrossed that they did not turn to greet me when I entered, and I instantly sensed that something was amiss.
“Is there news? Bad news?” I asked in some concern.
They all glanced back at me, but only Deborah left her station to come and give me an absentminded hug. “Hello, Jenna. Was your day productive?”
“Yes, very. But you all look so discouraged. Has something untoward occurred?”
Now Maria turned to give me a faint smile. “Oh—not really—we were rather foolish to get our hopes up in the first place. It is just that we have been left out of a legacy we thought we had a chance at. We don’t really want for anything, of course, it’s just that—well—it’s always nice to have a little extra money!”
“But, Deborah! Maria!” I exclaimed. “I have no idea what you are talking about! What legacy? What hope?”
Sinclair, who was still watching the screen, shrugged, and swiveled around to look at me. “Deborah has told you some of our history, I know,” he said. “It is, after all, how we discovered our connection. But perhaps you did not know that the founder of the clinic where the four of us were conceived has recently died.”
“No,” I said, in some bewilderment. “I do not even know who the founder is—or why I should care if he lives or dies.”
Sinclair smiled faintly. “He died a wealthy man—and, strangely enough, a childless one. He was a quirky individual who had trouble forming relationships with anyone, and although, through his efforts, thousands of people were brought into this world, it appears he could not call a single one of them a friend. He did not want his inheritance to go to the tax courts or his only blood relatives—to whom, it will not surprise you to learn, he has not spoken in decades. So he determined his heir by lottery.”
Maria took up the explanation. “About two years ago, when he knew he was getting ill, he began a systematic search for all the individuals who had been harvested at his clinic. He posted notices on the StellarNet and encouraged everyone to send in their current locations and announced that he would choose his heir by drawing a name at random. Naturally, the three of us replied at once, and we have been following the news ever since, wondering when his choice would be made known.”
“It sounds ghoulish, I know,” Deborah said. “But this was the route he himself chose.”
“I understand perfectly,” I said.
In fact, my mind was racing as my memory replayed for me that final bedside watch at my Aunt Rentley’s side. She had told me repeatedly that someone had wanted me; I could still hear her fevered voice crying, “They asked me for you, but I would not give you over to them!” It must have been the officials of the clinic, even then, trying to round up addresses of all its creations and descendants. I added, “So I suppose today the announcement was made, and none of you are his beneficiaries?”
“We really could not have expected to be,” Maria said wistfully. “Out of so many thousands of possibilities, it was unlikely that one of us would answer to the name that was drawn.”
“But who is the lucky winner?” I asked. “Someone’s life has just undergone a material change! We should congratulate this person!”
Sinclair pivoted back to the screen. “For a moment, I hoped it was you,” he said to me over his shoulder, “for the heir’s name is also Jenna. Jenna Rentley.”
I felt the floor shudder under my feet, and for a moment the room went black. I must have flung my arm out, seeking a handhold, for I felt Deborah’s fingers close over mine as she drew me quickly to her side. “Jenna! Are you ill?” she asked, and as if distantly, I heard the echoing voices of her brother and sister.
“No—I—let me sit a moment,” I gasped, and staggered to an unoccupied chair. Deborah knelt before me, chafing my wrists, and Maria hurried over with a glass of water. I took a few sips and exerted all my will to focus my mind, and then I looked up to encompass them all with a glance.
“I am Jenna Rentley,” I said.
There were the expected exclamations. Deborah actually fell back onto the floor; Maria pressed her hand to her mouth as if to hold back more cries of wonder. Sinclair stood a few paces behind his sisters, an aloof blonde god, looking down at me with an expression very hard to decipher.
“You, Jenna?” Deborah said at last, the first one out of all of us to muster a coherent sentence. “You are the founder’s heir? But if your name is Jenna Rentley, how is it we did not know it?”
I swallowed some more water and set the glass aside. “I did not mean to keep secrets from you,” I said. “I have not used the name Rentley since I was a child—in fact, I never officially used it at all. Like you, I was commissioned by a woman who decided, once I was in her care, that she was not so certain I suited her after all, and she never formally adopted me. I left her house when I was ten years old, and from that time on I chose to go by the name Starborn. It is the name under which I graduated from Lora Tech, and the name under which I sought employment. Jenna Starborn is who I am. But Jenna Rentley is the name by which the clinic would know me.”
“So you are the founder’s heir!” Deborah exclaimed next, excitement thrilling through her voice as she began to realize what my confession meant. “You must contact the clinic immediately!”
“But if she has never gone by the name Rentley,” Maria said, “will they believe her? Will she be able to prove her identity?”
“A simple DNA test will establish that,” Sinclair said, speaking for the first time. “There are lawyers here who can make sure you are properly identified.”
“And—Jenna! Do you realize? You are now a wealthy woman!” Deborah said. “I truly rejoice for you!”
“Rejoice for all of us,” I said, sitting up straighter as I regained some of my strength. “For we are cousins, do you not remember? Whatever is mine, I will share equally with you.”
“Oh, Jenna, no!” Deborah said, and at the same time, Maria cried, “Jenna, you must not! That money is for you!”
“Nonsense,” I said firmly. “Why, you three have shared your home with me for these past months, and asked nothing of me in return. You gave me a home when I had none—hope when I had none—family when I had none—and I have prayed to the Goddess so often for a chance to pay you back. We have all inherited the founder’s money. Oh, what a day this is for celebration!”
They argued a few more minutes, even Sinclair advising me to think over my decision for a few days, but I was adamant. Once I heard the sum of money involved, I was more than adamant—I was almost terrified. “I could not possibly spend so much in three or four lifetimes!” I declared. “I must split it into quarters, or it will go completely to waste! ”
Once they accepted that my offer was sincere—indeed, immutable—the Raineys also began to rejoice on their own behalf, discussing in excited voices the improve
ments they could make to the house and the possibility of buying additional property. Indeed, we all soon realized that, even split among the four of us, our legacy was substantial enough to allow us all to purchase citizenship, and we debated whether that would be our best use of funds—for the Raineys, at least, had only two more years of residency on Appalachia before they would qualify for level-five citizenship on that planet. It was something to consider, we all agreed, but we would think it over long and hard before spending the money on something we had all lived for so long without.
During our discussions, more than once I caught a contemplative look on Sinclair’s face. His sisters noticed it too, for now and then I saw them casting grave looks in his direction. I guessed that he was thinking how he could use his inheritance to fund his homesteading expedition to Cozakee or some other frontier planet, and that his sisters were not happy to realize that his dream had suddenly become a much more likely eventuality.
“Well, we should not spend every last credit before we actually have the money in hand,” Maria finally said decisively, reining us all in. “For I suppose there may be some problem, after all, and the authorities might not recognize Jenna without a legal battle. We must, for a while at least, continue as before—but with a white glimmer of hope before us, a ray of the brightest sunshine!”
This made sense to all of us, and we soon realized that we were exhausted from joy and speculation. It was very late, and none of us had eaten dinner yet, so we all trooped into the kitchen and munched on leftovers and now and again let the forbidden topic creep back into our conversation. Then someone would put a hand to his or her mouth, and we would all laugh and look guilty, and someone else would strive to introduce a more mundane subject. In this way, we ate our scrambling meal and ended the evening in the highest of spirits. As soon as we had consumed our food, we made hearty and affectionate good-byes, and we all went up to our bedrooms to spend the night in dreaming wonder.
I, Reeder, felt the greatest sense of wonder of all. For here I was, an orphan in every sense of the word, a creature recently so close to total obliteration that even now I sometimes could not believe I was safely back among the living. And I had—through some unimaginable combination of luck and fate—been thrown in the path of three of the few individuals to whom I could claim some connection, however remote, and we had developed an emotional bond so fierce that I did not believe it could be severed. And now—again, through some strange, impossible twist of fortune—I had been placed in a position to better myself and honor them beyond my wildest hopes. Jenna Outcast, Jenna Friendless, had become Jenna Beloved and Jenna Blessed. Who could doubt that there was a Goddess who ordered the machinations of the universe? She had tested me severely, but she had rewarded me magnificently, and I knelt beside my bed for a very long time and offered up heartfelt prayers of thanks.
As Sinclair had foreseen, identifying myself as Jenna Rentley was a task for which I needed the help of the legal community. Leopold Joester, not surprisingly, was the one who directed us to a lawyer, who put into motion all the necessary activities. I had to go to a health center and submit to a series of tests, and the results of these were transmitted to the lawyers at the Baldus clinic. Meanwhile, on my behalf, my new legal advisor contacted the lawyer who had served my aunt Rentley when I was a child, and he readily confirmed the basic background facts of my adoption. The officials at Lora Tech outlined that I had been admitted as Jenna Rentley and graduated as Jenna Starborn. Since there had been no other name change in the interim, I did not need to call in any witnesses to account for the intervening years of my life.
“And the best part of all of this,” Sinclair observed to me one evening when we were supposed to be studying but were in fact, once again, discussing how we might dispose of our new income, “is that the news services that are carrying this story are only referring to you as Jenna Rentley, for that is the official name of the heiress. I have not yet seen any of them post the addendum of your altered name.”
I looked up a moment, discomposed, for it had not previously occurred to me that my good fortune would also result in my complete exposure. He smiled as reassuringly as he was, with his austere face, able to do, and patted my hand. “Do not worry,” he told me. “As I said, your identity is so far still protected. I think you will not be found.”
“I hope not,” I said. “But I never realized till recently how a name might make your fortune—or betray you.”
“You could change your name again,” he suggested.
“I don’t know that I have any desire to do that,” I said.
He shrugged. “You might marry. If you took your husband’s name, Jenna Starborn might be eliminated altogether.”
“I rather like her,” I said, laughing. “I do not know that I want to see her eliminated.”
“Very well, then. If you took a husband’s name, you would be less likely, perhaps, to be found.”
“It is true that I have no wish to be found,” I said. “For I have come to rest in the place I will want to stay.”
“Stay forever?” he asked, almost idly. “I confess, the idea of a relocation appeals greatly to me. It does not to you?”
“I have relocated three times in my life, and each time the change resulted in a great improvement,” I allowed. “So if I were to move a fourth time, I suppose I could expect to, once again, affect my life in a positive way. But I must say, I would need a strong inducement to make such a change.”
“Change itself I have often found a strong inducement,” he said. “If I were you, Jenna, I would be thinking very hard about what I might do with my life, now that I might do anything with it. There are opportunities before you that I do not believe you have even considered. Keep your mind open, and I think you will see the universe is a much larger place, full of so many more opportunities, than you are used to believing.”
This was all very bewildering, especially as he spoke with such passion that it was clear he wanted me to be profoundly moved. I did not know what to say, so I nodded dumbly, and in a few minutes we returned to the lesson I had planned for the evening.
But it was not to be expected that Sinclair would not return to this topic. In the days that followed, as we got our daily updates from our lawyer keeping us apprised of the legal tangles we must unknot, Sinclair often found a chance to speak to me in private. He began to tell me, in quite vivid detail, of the beauties of the world Cozakee, which had just been opened up for colonization. He spoke of the advantages of homesteading, the exhilaration of wresting a new life out of foreign soil, of creating an empire from an empty, unused world. Most often these conversations occurred rather late at night, while we were still studying and everyone else had gone to bed, and I was often so fatigued by this time that I wondered if I was imagining how much pressure Sinclair was beginning to exert to make me consider emigration. It seemed as though he wanted me to share his sentiments, but perhaps he merely wanted me to understand them; and my confusion on this point made me respond more cautiously to his enthusiasm than I could tell he wished.
I did not say anything to his sisters about our conversations. With them, I talked of the furniture we would buy, the clothes we would purchase and the luxuries we would indulge in as soon as we received our money.
“Which should be any day now,” I finally had the chance to tell them when I had gotten the good news from our lawyer. “For I have been confirmed as the heir! All the tests were approved and I have been officially named! We should have our money by the end of the week!”
Of course, that was a cause for jubilation, and the arrival of the credit transfer—which was instantly divided into four portions and deposited into our four separate accounts—gave us another reason to celebrate. We had a veritable feast that night, catered by the finest restaurant in Cody, and attended by the Joesters and various other city officials who had shown an interest in our progress. Maria, Deborah, and I were attired in simply marvelous dresses of outrageous hues and construction. Mine a
ppeared to be made of cobalt-blue synthetic feathers and came complete with a hat that added four inches to my height. The Rainey sisters were dressed with equal flourish. I could tell that Sinclair did not feel we had made our first purchases wisely, though he did not, as I had expected, spend his time at Rianna Joester’s side to complain of our frivolity. In fact, he did not speak to her once that I observed during the whole evening, though everyone else mingled with great liberality.
This was so unusual that I whispered of it to Deborah when I got a chance. “What has occurred to cause a coolness between your brother and Rianna? Usually they are talking all night—or at least staring at each other, trying to think of things to talk about.”
“They have had a falling out, I believe,” she whispered back. “A couple of weeks ago. He was telling her about Cozakee, and she told him nothing would induce her to leave her family, and ever since then, he has not had two words to say to her. I believe it has caused them both unhappiness—but there is a pair I cannot decide whether I want to see matched up or separated, so I take no hand in their quarrels.”
“There is another member of the Joester house who seems eager to be upon good terms with the Raineys,” I teased, for Harmon Joester had not been able to keep his eyes off Deborah tonight. Indeed, her gold-and-flame-colored dress, which revealed far more of her bosom and thigh than Deborah was used to exhibiting, was a perfect choice for her. It set off her lustrous auburn hair and her full, inviting figure, and it was so bright that it was almost impossible to look away from.
She laughed, blushed, and lowered her eyes, but she did not seem at all offended. “Well, fine clothes do make a fine lady, no matter what our sermons might try to teach us to the contrary,” she said. “I do feel beautiful enough tonight to attract the attention of any number of Joesters!”
I leaned closer and whispered in her ear, “I do not believe it is your dress that draws him. I believe it is your soul.” And she laughed again, and blushed even more deeply, and I abandoned the topic, but she did not speak a disclaimer. Indeed, rather late in the evening when the larger group had broken into smaller gatherings for more intimate discussion, I saw Deborah and Harmon in close conversation, by turns looking so serious and so merry that I could not imagine they were discussing anything less comprehensive than the idea of a future spent together. I hoped with all my heart that it were so.