Challenging Destiny #25

by Crystalline Sphere Authors

  "Help me bring her inside."

  Jhyoti almost stepped back at the thought of touching the dead woman again. Surely the law required that an unexplained body—even one found in a bashravi—be reported. “Suri sen, you must report this to the Guard."

  The yighsilchi looked up at her, green eyes fierce and bright. “Do not presume to know my business!” She took a deep breath and visibly calmed herself. “They will not come."

  Then she hurried through the inner gate. A light went on inside, reflecting off the glossy leaves of the gate. In a moment she was back with a stretcher floating behind her. She manipulated it into position then touched a button to lower it to the ground.

  "Take her feet."

  Jhyoti hesitated while the yighsilchi squatted at the woman's head and placed her hands under the shoulders.

  The old woman looked at her. “Well?"

  This project was over. Should the yighsilchi spare her, Jhyoti would still have to turn to her back-up plan—comparing patterns of grief expression among the different social strata. Not as valuable an addition to the body of work, perhaps, but still valid.

  This final assignment terrified most cadets. Here they proved their initiative by choosing an assignment that would add to the body of knowledge of Kallistan culture. If unsuccessful, cadets were held behind for another year.

  If she failed, however, Admiral Dilan would deny her the stars.

  Her gaze met the yighsilchi's impatient glare and she sighed.

  She shrugged out of her robe and wrapped it around the dead woman's slippers and bare legs. Then she nodded at the yighsilchi and they lifted the body to the stretcher. Suri sen was much stronger than she looked. The stretcher rose to the yighsilchi's waist and the old woman guided it back through the inner gate.

  Jhyoti fetched her pack and stood outside the open gate, debating the value of requesting her robe back. She peered in but saw only an inner privacy wall, also white.

  She wondered what Suri sen would do with the woman. Trace her identity, of course. But then what?

  "Don't just stand there, child,” came the yighsilchi's voice. “Come in."

  As much as she had wanted to see inside, now she wanted nothing more than to escape. “I must go, Suri sen."

  "Come!” The peremptory tone reminded Jhyoti of the Admiral and she bristled. She was not Suri sen's acolyte. If the yighsilchi wished to report her for trespassing, so be it.

  Then she closed her eyes against a wave of dread.

  The dishonour of being expelled would be humiliating. The mahti, or high caste, objectors who had followed her progress would crow that bhoto—even a half-caste like her—were not fit for the Academy. Admiral Dilan would stare at her with those black, expressionless eyes...

  Thinking of the Admiral made her stomach roil. In spite of his unbecoming pride in his family name, his bias against bhoto, his arrogance ... in spite of everything she detested in the man, he was not without honour. Her failure would be a blow to him and to the Academy.

  And it would destroy any chance she had of reaching the stars as an Alliance exoanth.

  Suri sen appeared in the doorway.

  "You will make a poor exoanth if you turn away from the hard answers."

  Jhyoti stared at her in annoyance.

  The yighsilchi raised an eyebrow. “You do want to see inside, do you not?"

  After a moment, Jhyoti closed her mouth. The yighsilchi herself was inviting her in. Perhaps she could salvage this assignment after all.

  She bowed her acquiescence and followed the old woman.

  Once past the privacy wall, she stopped and stared. Where she had expected a temple of worship—incense sticks, candles and marble slabs for washing the bodies—she found steel tables, troughs and sonic cleaners. The room was vast and high ceilinged, easily six times the size of the courtyard. It was filled with laboratory equipment and ceiling-hung tools whose functions she did not wish to explore. Inside each wall were recessed screens.

  Jhyoti looked and squinted, taking picture after picture, sub-vocalizing her observations for later download.

  "This is not a temple,” she said, almost to herself.

  The yighsilchi's voice was sharp. “There are many ways to worship the goddess. She does not require primitive tools to accept our prayers. We deal with dead bodies, Cadet. Often they have died of disease—we still bathe the bodies as the ancients did, but first we disinfect them."

  Jhyoti looked around the room again, this time more carefully. The equipment was clean and in good repair, but it was not new and had not been for a long time.

  Finally, inevitably, her gaze fell on the dead woman.

  She was not as frightening as in the darkness of the courtyard. Yet now Jhyoti could see the greyness of her complexion, the dried blood and bruising on the side of her face, the curious slackness of her limbs. The woman was in her middle years. She was tiny, not as tiny as the yighsilchi but close, and her hair was brown with strands of grey. She was much too thin.

  Jhyoti recorded her from head to foot. She looked nothing like the ancient mummified corpses they had been permitted to study at the Academy.

  How could anybody abandon a loved one like this?

  "Does this happen often?"

  "Some families are too poor to pay the bashravi fee and too proud to ask for charity. It does not matter to us—all are the goddess's children and must be purified before they can return to her. We find these poor souls laid out in the courtyard, in their best robes. Not like this.” She shook her head and looked away for a moment. To Jhyoti's surprise, she saw the glint of tears in the old woman's eyes.

  "Have you any idea who she is?"

  Suri sen took a deep breath and looked down at the body. “She did not come from Low Town. See how tightly the fabric of her robe is woven?” She fingered a sleeve between thumb and forefinger but Jhyoti only nodded. That robe carried too much of the woman's residual energies. She did not dare touch it.

  "Yet she is bhoto,” she said. The low braid, the traditional tattoo at the temple, the work-chapped hands all pronounced her lower caste.

  Suri sen nodded. “Yes, but she worked in High Town."

  Jhyoti stared at the dead woman as she tried to work out what the yighsilchi was not saying. The bhoto woman wore a sturdy, clean working robe. Despite the blood caking her hair, the braid was intricate. Tiny amrit loops lined her ears, status symbols among the servant class. This bhoto woman had worked as a valued servant in a High Town mahti household.

  The evidence was clear, yet it did not accord with the fact of her presence here.

  "Why was she left?” She was speaking more to herself than to Suri sen. Such valued servants held a place of honour in a mahti household. Her death would have been treated almost as that of a family member. A body washer would have been called to the house in High Town, even if the servant was to be buried in a Low Town cemetery.

  Yet this woman had been abandoned like a broken toy. Jhyoti leaned in to take a closer look at the blood on her face. The wound was in the hair around her temple. She had struck something very hard.

  Or been struck.

  Jhyoti looked up at Suri sen. “Accident or murder?"

  The yighsilchi shrugged. “She did not walk here by herself. What did you sense?"

  Jhyoti worked at suppressing a shudder. “Pain. Exploding pain and a curious sensation on my skin."

  Suri sen pursed her lips, staring at the dead woman. “We must examine her. Help me place her on the slab."

  "Suri sen...” Jhyoti spread her arms in an elaborate entreaty. “Should we not report this...?"

  For an answer, the yighsilchi slipped her hands under the dead woman's shoulders and looked a challenge at Jhyoti.

  Gritting her teeth, Jhyoti grabbed the woman's robe-wrapped legs and together they slid her onto the steel slab. Her body was stiff and unyielding. Jhyoti discreetly pulled her robe out from under the woman's legs, careful to avoid touching flesh.

  "We need to disrobe
her."

  Objections rose full-blown to Jhyoti's lips. She did not wish to remain here, did not wish to touch the woman, did not wish to learn how she had died. What she wanted was to leave this place of death and find a different assignment.

  Instead, she took a deep breath and silenced the objections. She dug one of her gloves out of her pack and put it on her bare hand before helping Suri sen remove the woman's robe.

  When they were done, they stared down at the woman. Jhyoti's modesty disappeared as she examined her. Fading bruises on abdomen and thighs. What skin wasn't bruised was a waxy blue. The underside of her legs, buttocks and shoulders were purple.

  Suri sen noticed her glance and poked at the dark skin on the underside of the woman's legs. Jhyoti swallowed hard.

  "Fixed lividity,” the yighsilchi said. “The blood no longer moves. She has been dead over twelve hours.” She pulled open the dead woman's eyelid and peered closely. Jhyoti bit the inside of her mouth and looked away from the milky eye.

  "She was kept inside, away from insects,” continued the yighsilchi. Then she grasped the woman's hip and shoulder and rolled her up. The old woman's face blanched.

  In spite of herself, Jhyoti leaned over to see. Welts and scars criss-crossed the woman's back from shoulder to thigh.

  Anger rose from her belly, displacing the queasiness. “We must advise the Guard. This is abuse, perhaps even murder! They will investigate, find out who..."

  Suri shook her head, her expression grim. “You place too much faith in authority, child."

  "If you will not, Suri sen, then I will report it. They will investigate."

  A small smile found its way to the yighsilchi's lips. “I did not know cadets wielded so much power."

  Jhyoti closed her mouth on her outrage. Suri sen was right. If the yighsilchi could not get the Guard to investigate, what chance did a lowly cadet have? Especially a half-caste one like her. She needed to persuade someone with power.

  "Why do you care?” The yighsilchi's voice held honest curiosity. “After all, she is nothing but bhoto, while you are mahti."

  Jhyoti felt the red creeping up her neck. “Half mahti, half bhoto."

  Understanding suffused Suri sen's face. “The famous half-caste cadet."

  Jhyoti shrugged and looked away.

  "There is something you could do,” said Suri sen, “since you care so much."

  Something in the yighsilchi's soft voice sent a chill down Jhyoti's arms. She looked at the old woman. There was a strange expression on Suri sen's face, a queer kind of hope, mixed with rage.

  "No.” Jhyoti backed away from the slab and the question in the yighsilchi's eyes. “No."

  Suri sen folded her hands before her in a pose meant to convey patience. But the yighsilchi's hands shook, destroying the pretence.

  "You could help identify her."

  Jhyoti took a deep breath. “A DNA sample will identify her. A retinal scan. Fingerprints!"

  "Unlikely. I cannot even persuade the Guard to attend, let alone investigate. I have no access to equipment to obtain samples, nor money to pay a private laboratory. You may be this poor woman's only chance. The clues you find may help us identify her. And her murderer."

  Jhyoti closed her eyes, unwilling to look at the old woman—and the dead one—any longer. Murder. “Yighsilchi, you do not know what you ask of me."

  "I know exactly what I ask of you.” The yighsilchi's voice was harsh.

  Jhyoti's eyes slowly opened. Suri sen was staring at her with hard eyes. Lines of anger carved a pattern of distress over the old woman's face.

  "You live,” Suri sen continued. “This one,” she stabbed a finger in the direction of the dead woman, “this one is dead, left here like garbage. And the one who did this to her walks free."

  Almost, Jhyoti was persuaded. Then she looked at the dead woman and shuddered.

  "I cannot.” She forced the words past a lump in her throat. “I cannot, Suri sen."

  Abandoning robe and pack, she fled.

  * * * *

  Hours later, Jhyoti finally gave up on sleep. Sitting up, she swung her legs off the bed. “Lights."

  She made her way to the small desk tucked under the window. “Computer.” The monitor rose from a slot in the desktop.

  "Ready.” The screen settled on a grey background, with a dozen colourful icons superimposed.

  "Seek: legal name of present yighsilchi, Low Town Bashravi, city Nemeal, planet Kallista."

  "Legal name is Suri Manoki sen Jerrod."

  Jerrod. Not a family name with which she was familiar. Perhaps Suri sen came from a different city.

  "How long has Suri Manoki sen Jerrod been yighsilchi at Low Town bashravi?"

  "Eight years, seven months, six days, three hours."

  After pacing for an hour, she sat down and put her bare feet up on the desk. No matter how she couched the questions, the information trail leading to Suri sen was a dead end. She had come to the Low Town bashravi as a yisil fifteen years earlier and became yighsilchi seven years later, when the old one died. Letters from the yighsilchi to the government were on record: lists of deaths, requests for funding, applications for tax exemptions ... the trivia of administering a bashravi, as nearly as she could tell.

  But there was no record of Suri sen prior to her appearance as a yisil.

  * * * *

  Three hours later, she was hungry and no closer to understanding Suri sen. Every lead she had followed brought her up against the walls of the bashravi. The complete dearth of personal information on the yighsilchi could only be deliberate.

  Jhyoti stopped pacing as something occurred to her. Suri sen had mentioned previous unclaimed bodies.

  "Computer."

  "Ready."

  "Data search: Low Town bashravi. List of bodies, identity unknown, last fifteen years. List by date reported. Silent mode."

  Two columns appeared on the screen under the headings of male and female.

  "Delete male column."

  She was left with a list of over sixty dates, averaging four unclaimed bodies a year.

  "Sort by age of deceased.” And a moment later, “Seek patterns."

  This time, the computer took close to a minute. When it was done, only one pattern had been identified. Three entries flashed on the screen. All three women were approximately the same age when they died, were all about the same shape and size and had brown hair and green eyes. The first one appeared days after Suri sen arrived at the bashravi; the last one had died five years ago.

  The woman over whom she had tripped made four.

  Jhyoti stared at the screen, her glass of juice forgotten. A niggling suspicion rose to the surface of her mind and thinned her lips.

  They had been found at five-year intervals, on the same day. Today's date.

  * * * *

  The following night she returned to the Low Town cemetery armed with a map in her palm reader. It took most of the night, but she found all the graves of the unclaimed women. They all showed signs of recent attention: incense sticks planted around the grave, a fresh coat of colourful paint on the marker, offerings of rice and flowers. Families honoured their dead, even if they could not claim them. Only three showed no overt signs of familial attention. Their markers were beacon white, with the dates of demise carved in black.

  She touched each one and like waves in a cavern, felt the overlapping echoes of old grief and indifferent attention. The one who had planted the marker had cared about the loss of these women. Those who had looked after it since had no emotional attachment to the dead.

  Three markers, three women. All dead on the same date, five years apart. All beaten?

  "You left your things."

  Jhyoti jumped, but some part of her had expected the yighsilchi. She turned to face the old woman and they stared at each other in silence. The yighsilchi looked as if she had not slept.

  "These women,” said Jhyoti.

  The yighsilchi remained silent, her green eyes black in the darkness o
f the cemetery. To the south, light flared as a shuttle left the atmosphere to rendezvous with its orbiting ship.

  "What links them?” Jhyoti finally asked.

  She compared the woman before her to the holo of the woman in her middle years who had first come to the bashravi. That woman's eyes had held quiet joy. The woman who stood before her in the lonely cemetery carried pain in her eyes. Jhyoti controlled an impulse to touch the yighsilchi's cheek.

  Without a word, Suri sen turned and threaded her way out of the cemetery, heading for the bashravi. Her white robe gleamed palely, its hem hiding her feet so that she seemed to float among the grave markers.

  After a long moment, Jhyoti followed her.

  Inside, all the tables were empty. Suri sen went directly to the far wall and pressed a palm-sized indentation. A narrow bed slid out of the wall, revealing a shrouded body.

  Jhyoti clutched the palm reader to her chest as if it were an amulet, then replaced it in her belt and removed the sampler. She had taken the small tool from the Academy equipment room without authorization, her retinal scan left behind for anyone to trace.

  "What is that?” The yighsilchi's voice sounded strained. She looked at the sampler, her face expressionless.

  "It is a sampler,” said Jhyoti. She pulled down the shroud to reveal the woman's face. After a quick glance to make sure it was the same woman, she looked away. She ran the sampler over the woman's arm, then replaced the tool in her belt.

  "Now what?"

  "Now I return to the Academy. My computer is equipped to analyse small samples of raw data—it should be able to identify the DNA and run it through the Academy database."

  Suri sen held Jhyoti's gaze for a long, long time. Finally she nodded and looked away.

  * * * *

  Two hours later, Jhyoti sat back in her chair and stared at the computer screen.

  Dhareel sen Bikstra.

  The woman on the screen smiled serenely into the camera. How had such a one ended up at the bashravi, unclaimed?

  "Computer—” She stopped. What to ask? “Last known address of Dhareel sen Bikstra."

  "Last known address is House Attines, Nemeal."

  House Attines. It belonged to one of the oldest, most respected families on Kallista.