Sisterhood of Suns: Daughters of Eve

by Martin Schiller

  Her motives were even more incomprehensible. There was no question in Kaly’s mind that N’Elemay’s people had been wronged. But attacking innocent civilians in a crowded magnorail station went beyond anything that she could reconcile with her memories. It was as if she had never really known the woman at all.

  Unable to stand this maelstrom of weariness, hurt and confusion, she took off her uniform tunic and cap, and set them carefully aside. Then she sat down, and tried to gain some comfort from one of the meditation exercises the Marine psychs had shown her.

  The images of what she had seen in the train station refused to be banished however. They had been etched into her consciousness like acid on metal. And she was sorely tempted to simply surrender and order herself a bottle of Aqqa. But she managed to dredge up enough inner strength to resist the urge, and opted for a shower and some food instead.

  Stripping off the rest of her soiled uniform, she placed her order with room service, and retreated to the bathroom. When she emerged a few minutes later, she felt better, and even managed to smile at the tray containing her meal. Then she realized that there was also something else on the tray. It was a small note and a plasti envelope.

  Kaly opened the note first, half-certain that it was some kind of ploy by one of the newsies who couldn’t accept ‘no’ from her guardians. When the first few words fully registered in her mind though, she felt her knees weaken and she sat down on the bed, reading the rest of the message, and then re-reading it.

  It was from N’Elemay.

  “Kaly—,” it said. “I never wanted you to become involved in any of this. I love you as a sister, and when I saw you in the train station, it was too late to warn you. All I could do was pray that Jesu and Mari would see fit to spare you, and I thank heaven that they did.’

  “I know that you hate me right now, but some crimes can only be answered with the sword of righteousness. I have no choice. The Sisterhood must pay for everything that it has done. I am fighting them in His Name.’

  “There is something else I have to tell you. They have lied to you, Kaly, and about a lot more than their so-called Sisterhood. They took someone from you. Her name was Lena, and she was someone that you once loved very deeply.’

  “She died at the hands of the ETR, and when you found her body, the shock nearly destroyed you. They convinced me that you had to be made to forget about her.’

  “They erased her. They wiped the memory of her from your mind, Kaly, and may Jesu and Mari forgive me, I helped them. I did this because I believed it was the only way to save you. So, I lied to you, too.’

  “Kaly, Lena wasn’t an angel. She was a real woman.’

  “The person lying next to you in the holo, is her. I was supposed to destroy it when I found it, but I kept it because I knew that someday I would summon up enough courage to tell you the truth.’

  “I don’t know a lot about her, but I do know that she was born on Essylt, and although the Corps has probably erased any record of her by now, if you look hard enough, you’ll find something, and you’ll find her family. They deserve to know the truth just as much as you do.’

  “Please, Kaly, one last thing; stay out of this fight. Leave Thermadon, leave the Agency, and go to Essylt. It’s safe there--for now at least. Let God’s will be done here.’

  “May Jesu and Mari bless and protect you, Ellen.”

  Hands trembling, Kaly reached for the envelope and opened it. Inside was a holopic and she recognized the scene with a startled gasp.

  It was the beach that she had seen in all of her dreams, and the same woman was propped up on the sand next to her. Her smile was something that Kaly would have recognized anywhere in the universe. It was her. Her phantom lover. She was real. She always had been.

  “Lena!” she whispered, bringing the name to her lips, and giving it the last touch that it needed to become reality.

  “Lena!” she repeated, even louder as she held up the holopic. The image was becoming difficult for her to see. Tears were blurring her vision, and she rubbed them away only to have more replace them in a constant, unending stream.

  “Lena!” she wailed, suddenly remembering everything; from the very first day that they had ever met, to the last awful moment when she had discovered her ravaged body.

  I can’t handle this! she thought, terrified at the inexorable rush of memories that were suddenly flooding in. This is too much! Goddess—please make this stop!

  But it didn’t stop. It kept coming at her in an awful, remorseless stream and she was spared none of it.

  Overcome by a smothering wave of anguish, she clutched the image to her breast and slid off the bed onto the floor. Unchecked, the memories kept assaulting her, battering at her consciousness and overwhelming her soul until it felt as if she had been crushed down to nothing.

  An eternity passed before she was finally able to stand. When she did, it was slowly, and she looked around the room with eyes that only perceived loss.

  Then her gaze fell on her uniform tunic and cap, and her grief was replaced with anger. An anger more profound than any she had ever felt towards anything in the universe except the Hriss. Everything inside of her focused down into a single white-hot point of focused rage.

  They lied to me! she thought. They had known all along. The Corps had known, the RSE had known, her government, everyone that she had ever trusted. They had all known.

  She couldn’t accept what N’Elemay had done, and never would, but she did understand one thing with a dead certainty; unlike the others, Ellen had told her the truth. They hadn’t.

  They had also done something far, far worse. Something even more irredeemable than any of N’Elemay’s crimes. They had taken Lena away from her.

  Shaking with uncontrollable fury, Kaly went over and grabbed up her uniform tunic. She began to pull at it until the fabric gave way with a loud, satisfying tearing sound. Then she threw the ragged pieces of the garment to the floor and stomped on the fragments with her feet.

  The peaked cap joined it next, and Kaly ground it down, heedless of the injuries that its metal decorations were inflicting on her bare soles. All that mattered, all that she wanted just then, was to destroy it and everything that it represented.

  Finally, overcome with exhaustion, she crawled back over to the holo and cradling it in her arms, clambered back up into the bed. For a time, she slept, fitfully.

  When she awoke again, she found enough presence of mind to bandage her damaged feet with a pair of towels. Once her wounds had been staunched, she called up room service again with her psiever.

  A few minutes later, the attendant arrived, bearing a bottle of Aqqa and one glass. If she noticed the blood that had been tracked onto the carpet, or the ruined uniform, she said nothing about it, and Kaly didn’t offer her any explanation. She just took the bottle and closed the door in her face.

  ***

  By the time N’Elemay returned from the train station the hour was late. Because of all of the police activity in and around the disaster area, she had been forced to take a very circuitous route back to the safe house, and she didn’t expect to find very many of the Faithful there when she arrived. Sister n’Avenal had ordered most of them to leave before the bombing, and N’Elemay had been certain that the Redeemer had been one of the first to be relocated.

  She was wrong though; the Redeemer and Sister n’Avenal were still there, and waiting for her, with only a few bodyguards to keep them company.

  “My Lord,” she stammered in alarm. “Why are you still here? It’s not safe!”

  “I stayed to speak with you, Sister n’Elemay,” he said, looking more beautiful than ever. He beckoned to her, and she came to him right away, dropping down to her knees.

  When he placed his hand on her head, she shuddered with ecstasy, and waited to hear what he had to say.

  “You have done a great thing for me this day,” he told her. “You have dealt a blow that our enemies will never forget. There is more work to be done though, and
on a much grander scale.”

  Her eyes fluttered open. “What work, Lord? Ask me and I will do it.”

  “Of that I have no doubt. Know that I have had a vision,” he replied. “God wants us to pursue our crusade against the unbelievers with an even greater vigor, and he has moved our friends in the ETR to help us. They in turn have been in contact with another party who also understands the holiness of our purpose.”

  For some time, N’Elemay had been aware of the Church’s dealings with the Loyalistas, but she couldn’t imagine who else God might have called to come over to their side, and she was deeply puzzled. “Who, Lord?”

  “The Hriss,” he said. “They too have suffered at the hands of the Sisterhood, and they are willing to give us the tools that we need to smite our common enemy. They ask nothing from us except that we use them wisely. God has indeed worked a miracle here. He has turned demons into angels in order to ensure our victory.”

  N’Elemay was astonished, and instantly found herself at war with herself. The idea that the Hriss were now to be considered allies of her Church was almost too incredible to believe, or willingly accept.

  But miracles were often complex and confusing things, she reminded herself. If God had moved the Hriss to do this, then it was not her place to question his will. She would fight alongside them because her Church had demanded it. “Yes, Lord,” she finally said. “I see.”

  “Go to the ETR for me,” he said. “Arm yourself with what the Hriss provide you, and then return here to continue your great work. God will show you every step to take, there and back, and he will surely armor you throughout your journey with his love.”

  “I will, Lord,” she promised. Pausing only to kiss his hand, she rose, and left the room with Sister n’Avenal.

  Mikal smiled as they left. The little adventure he had just dispatched N’Elemay on would not only deal damage to the enemies of her silly religion, but it would also convince the Sisterhood that their only intent was to foment domestic terrorism.

  Even the Conversâzi would be misdirected, and forced to divert precious resources away from Storm to guard against future attacks. With their attention focused on other fronts, his kind would finally have the opening that they needed to take the Secret for themselves.

  ***

  News about the bombing came to Jon from the lips of an excited Novice. The woman was ecstatic, and breathlessly told him about the ‘great blow that Sister n’Elemay had struck against the worshipers of Shaitan’.

  Walking into the living area, he encountered a group of Sisters who had gathered around the holo to watch the coverage with undisguised glee. They waved him over, and reluctantly, he joined them. But he was only able to stomach a few minutes of it before he simply had to leave.

  It was the footage of Kaly n’Deena that had forced him from the room. She had been accosted by reporters, and had refused to give them an interview. Despite her torn uniform, and the soot on her features, she was still very much as Jon remembered her. Her eyes had changed though. The shadows in them had become deeper, and filled with more anguish.

  In their feeding frenzy, the newshounds had shown her no mercy whatsoever. Lacking any input from their victim, they had resorted to offering up her life story to their viewers, building an icon from its foundations. No more than twenty Standard minutes after the event, Kaly n’Deena had become “The Heroine of the Concordance Massacre”. She was presented to the Sisterhood as a simple ‘every-girl’ from a remote agricolony; having answered her nation’s call to arms, only to return from the ETR to rescue the victims of the bombing. She was the perfect stuff of myth, and he felt deeply sorry for her.

  He also felt guilty about what had been done to her in the Church’s name. It was one thing to attack strangers—faceless, anonymous statistics that could easily be overlooked in favor of a greater cause. It was something else again to see someone that he knew being hurt.

  Of all the women on the Athena, only Kaly and her lover Lena, had ever shown him any kindness, and he had never forgotten their charity. Now, thanks to his own people, she had suffered, and if the news had its way, she would continue to do so. It only served to underscore the doubts that had been gnawing at his soul over the last few weeks.

  There was no question that the Sisterhood itself was utterly wicked, or that it had committed terrible crimes against his Church. He also had no doubt that Sister n’Elemay believed that she was one of God’s chosen instruments of vengeance, and at times, he had even envied her for the purity of her faith. It was also equally certain that the Redeemer believed in N’Elemay, and supported her efforts wholeheartedly.

  The problem lay with the means that the Church had used to exact its justice. Despite the abuse that he had experienced at the hands of the Sisterhood, nothing had changed the essential fact that he had once been a Marine, or that his mission had been to defend the innocent and uphold the good. Although he was no longer a Marine, his commitment to righteousness remained unaltered. Kaly, and all the others who had been in that magnorail station, hadn’t deserved what had happened to them. They had been innocents, despite what the Sisters believed.

  The Scriptures didn’t offer up any comfort either. ‘Thou shalt not do murder’ was as plain as God’s light, and it left no room for argument, or negotiation. Yet, they had killed, and if N’Elemay had her way, they would kill again on an even greater scale. When she had told him about it, the Novice had called the bombings ‘good’, and the Sisters had even offered up prayers of thanks to Jesu and Mari for all the carnage.

  But had it really been ‘good’, he wondered? Was God truly pleased? He didn’t think so.

  It didn’t help that he had seen something in Mikal fa’ Lynda that had also been troubling him. Ever since becoming his lover, there had been moments—brief and fleeting ones to be sure—when he had detected something unsettling. Something evil that lurked under the surface of the man that the Church considered to be their savior, and God’s representative in the flesh.

  Jon was too sensitive a psi to ignore it. If his darkest fears were telling him the truth, then they had all been deceived by Shaitan on a scale that was larger than his mind wanted to admit. The very notion of this was just as unsettling as Ellen n’Elemay’s bombs, and twice as painful.

  Consumed by doubt and anguish, he entered his small room and knelt before the shrine there. “Jesu, Mother Mari,” he whispered. “Show me the way. I am beset by uncertainties like a man wandering in a dark and trackless wasteland. Open my eyes so that I might find the path to righteousness and slay the demons of disbelief.”

  No answers came though, and his thoughts continued to torment him like the reporters that had swarmed all over Kaly. Then at last, he realized what he needed to do.

  Rising from the shrine, he left his quarters and asked after Sister n’Avenal. He understood that he was taking a terrible risk, but he needed her wise council, and the chance to confess his crisis of faith. She had always been his confessor, and of all the Sisters that attended the Redeemer, she was the only one that he truly trusted. If Jesu and Mari still cared for him, they would act through N’Avenal, and help him back into their light.

  When he found her at last, Sister n’Avenal was more than happy to set aside some time for him. And as always, she listened as he poured out his heart to her, making no comment, or indicating her own feelings. At the end, when he begged her for her blessing, she gave him the same serene smile that he had come to know so well, and placed her hands on his head.

  “My son, I know that your doubts are legion,” she said. “I bless you now in the name of Jesu and Mari, and I tell you that your heart has already seen the light. As terrible as it is, it is already guiding you on the path that God intends.”

  Jon was surprised by this and started to look up, but she stayed him, and slid her right hand down to his neck. “I sensed the turmoil growing in you many weeks ago. Now, because I care so deeply for you, I will help you as much as I can. May Jesu and Mari watch over you on
the journey that lies ahead.”

  He felt a small, sharp pain in his neck, and then vertigo overcame him. As she helped him down, he collapsed to the floor.

  “W-what h-have you d-done to me?” he stammered. His body felt like it weighed tons, and everything was spinning.

  Sister n’Avenal made no reply, and simply shook her head slowly. Just as she had told him, she had seen the signs in him and had half-hoped that his crisis of faith would pass quietly.

  It hadn’t, and time had run out for him. If Ellen n’Elemay caught even a whiff of his misgivings, she knew that the woman would kill him without any hesitation. So would the Redeemer. Why this hadn’t already happened, she couldn’t even begin to guess at. The only answer was the divine intercession of Jesu and Mari.

  Poor Jon, she thought, reaching down to stroke his head tenderly. You really have no idea, do you?

  The neoman knew far more than he realized. He could provide valuable insights to the RSE into the Redeemer’s thoughts, and lend an intimate glimpse into N’Elemay’s mindset.

  He could also supply details about the safe houses that they used, and the procedures that they employed to move undetected from one location to the next. And he had heard enough, mentioned in passing, for a seasoned interviewer to piece together important clues about N’Elemay’s next move against the Sisterhood. Without realizing it, Jon fa’Teela had become a very dangerous man, now doubly so because of his doubts.

  His only chance for survival was to be taken away to somewhere safe. He had to be relocated to a place where the Faithful would not be able to find him, and placed in the care of people who would value him for the knowledge that he carried, and use it, and him, wisely. People that she could trust.

  She had seen the same things that he had, and undergone her own crisis of faith. She no longer believed in the path of violence that they were following, and she understood what its outcome would be. N’Elemay and Mikal fa’Lynda were leading them all to their doom.