The Ghost Sister

by Liz Williams

  When Bel had learned in the long, numb months following Eve's death that she had been chosen as part of the mission to Monde D'Isle, she had expected many things. In the darkest hours of the night, she had thought the mission might be captured or imprisoned, even killed. During the day, she had permitted herself a few careful fantasies about becoming—well, perhaps not the savior of Monde D'Isle, exactly, but certainly part of its history. It seemed a chance to put things right again, a chance for Bel to rise like a phoenix from the wreckage of her own hopes. She had wondered whether she and the others on the mission might be treated as goddesses, marvels, or monsters. But Bel had not expected to be treated as though she didn't exist, and she had no idea why Mevennen should think such a thing.

  She was, however, determined to find out; to discover too what Mevennen knew of the ruined city and the demonic image that paced its halls. The image had looked little like Mevennen, except for the skin and the eyes, and it was this that made Bel wonder if there might be some connection between it and the colonists'descendants: no longer quite human, if Mevennen was anything to go by. But was Mevennen typical? she wondered. Restlessly, she strode through the orchard, stepping over the fallen branches, and pushing aside the leaves. And then, just ahead of her, she saw something move. The life scanner vibrated at her wrist. Bel froze. Instincts she had thought she no longer possessed made the hair crawl at the nape of her neck, and her skin felt suddenly cold. It was an animal of some kind. It was crouching at the heart of a thicket of thorns; she could see only the glint of an eye. It did not look so very big, but Bel took a careful step backward. The thing hissed. Bel stumbled on a branch and fell heavily to the ground. Cursing her own stupidity, she rolled over and hauled herself to her feet. A face was looking out between the thorns. It was dirty, and the long hair which fell around it and snagged on the thorns was matted, but it was recognizably human. Or as close as they came to that on this world. It was the face of a small child. Its pale eyes were wary. Bel released a shaky sigh of relief.

  “It's all right,” she murmured into the lingua franca.“I'm not going to hurt you.”

  The child stared at her uncomprehendingly.

  Bel crouched down and held out her hand. “It's all right,” she echoed. “Come on out. I won't hurt you.”

  The child's lips drew back from sharp teeth as it snarled. Startled, Bel jerked her hand away and the child scrambled from beneath the thorns.

  “Wait!” Bel cried, but it was gone. She had a fleeting glimpse of its ragged form shooting through the tall grass, and nothing more.

  Slowly, Bel got to her feet, wincing. She had wrenched her ankle in the fall, and it sent a sharp twinge up her shin. She made her way back through the trees to the aircar, filled with dismay. What degeneration could have taken place in this lost colony to permit a child to run wild in such a condition? Had it come from the tower? Was it an outcast of some kind or—a disquieting thought—a member of Mevennen's family? Frustrated, Bel returned to the aircar and the three-hour flight back to camp and to Dia.

  When she landed, she found that the fierce hot weather had died again. Bel would never get used to the way the weather changed so swiftly here, with nothing to govern and regulate it. Now, a band of rain was moving across the steppe, bringing the sharp smell of storms in its path. She found Dia standing at the entrance to the biotents, watching the delazheni as they moved about their tasks. From a distance, Dia's tall, straight-backed figure was as still as a statue and, despite her anxiety over the child, Bel could not help smiling. Back at the seminary, the more irreverent acolytes had nicknamed Dia the “Stonewatcher,” and indeed it was true that Dia's level gray gaze could have outstared rocks. If you didn't know Dia, Bel thought, you might mistake her for a cold person. But Bel knew that this wasn't the case. In any case, it was not befitting for Bel to criticize her elder, and she really should let such thoughts go.

  “Bel!” Dia said, turning. “You're back.” Concern flickered across her stern features, and she put a hand on Bel's arm. “You're limping. Are you all right? Is your leg hurting again?”

  “I'm fine. I fell, that's all.” She winced. “I seem to be accident-prone. Dia, I need to talk to you. There was a child, down by the river. I don't know what's happened to it, but it needs help.”

  The words came out in a rush and Bel paused for breath.

  Dia said, “Bel, slow down. Come inside and we'll do something about that ankle. And then you can tell me what happened.”

  Inside the tent, Bel saw that Shu Gho was also there. She was inscribing her notes into a pad, her lips moving with characteristic concentration as she wrote. She had tied her silk-black hair into a knot on the top of her head; she looked small and neat and cool. She looked up blankly as Dia and Bel stepped through the entrance, as though she had been somewhere very far away, but comprehension dawned as she saw Bel's limp.

  “What happened?” she asked, frowning. “Not again!”

  “She fell,” Dia said, helping Bel to a chair. “Now. Tell us what you saw.”

  As succinctly and calmly as she could, Bel recounted her experiences in the orchard.

  “And you say that the child was young, not an adolescent?”

  “Maybe seven or eight. It was quite small.” Bel winced. It seemed terrible to keep describing the child as “it.” She explained, “I couldn't even see what sex it was, though it didn't seem to be wearing much. And it was so cold …”

  “I think we have a duty to find out where it comes from,” Dia said. “Maybe something's happened to its parents, or perhaps it's lost. Your contact Mevennen might be able to shed some light on it. If no one claims it, then we should bring it back to the camp for the time being.”

  Bel greeted this decision with relief, having feared that Dia would tell her to leave matters as they stood. Noninterference was not Bel's way. She faced rather more resistance from Shu Gho, whose round face had been creased in worry ever since Bel had related her tale.

  “I think Dia's right up to a point. We don't know who the child belongs to, or where it comes from,” the writer said, frowning. “But bringing it back here might be like taking a fledgling from the nest—we might do more harm than good.”

  “Oh, come on,” Bel said impatiently. “It was in a dreadful state. I've never seen a child in such a condition.”

  “Bel, this isn't home. Poverty's not uncommon throughout the Core worlds, and it could be rife here. Just because the child looked dirty doesn't mean it's being abused,” Shu said.

  Bel was about to make a sharp comment, but Shu's dark, slanted gaze was both frank and kind, and Bel bit her lip.

  “Look,” Shu went on. “I know you're worried and you're right to be, but we need a few more facts before we start interfering. Maybe Mevennen knows who the child is. We could ask her, anyway.”

  Slowly, Bel nodded. “All right,” she said reluctantly. “We'll go tomorrow; it's too late now.” She shivered, thinking of the child out in the night air.

  “I'll come with you,” Shu said. She rose rather stiffly to her feet and walked with Bel toward the biotent.

  “Has Sylvian come back from the ruins?”

  “Yes, earlier on. She had the same problem we had on landing—she reckoned the field, whatever it is, interferes with the navigational controls of the aircars. She says that the machinery's still active, but there was no sign of the holographic being we saw. Sylvian judged it safe to enter the chamber, but she wasn't able to take any stable readings from the technology itself, and she couldn't figure out how to shut it down, either—which she thinks she'll have to do in order to investigate it properly. She's transmitted its coordinates to the orbiting ship and she's planning to try to deactivate the machine from there. So we'll have to wait and see.”

  Shu fell silent. Bel glanced at her curiously, noticing for the first time that strands of gray marbled Shu's temples. They had not known each other for long before embarking on the flight to Monde D'Isle, but for the first time, Shu was beginning to look her
age. Her gaze was downcast. Bel had too much ingrained respect for an older woman to ask what she was thinking about, but Shu answered the unspoken question for her.

  “I was just wondering,” she said, “what became of my grandchildren. So much has been happening these last few days that I've hardly given them a thought—and I never thought I'd find myself saying that. It seems strange to think that they've been dead for years. It doesn't seem real, does it?”

  Her voice sounded wondering and, at that, Bel thought of her mother and everything she had left behind on Irie St Syre. She'd thought that she'd dealt with the knowledge of her situation, but now the realization that she would never see them again rushed in on her like a blow, and she sat down hard on the step that led up into the biotent.

  Shu Gho sat down beside her. After a moment she said, “You know, my eldest granddaughter was your age when I left, no more than twenty-four. She even looked a little bit like you; all that lovely gold hair. Her mother was from Eir-lin, too—like your own, isn't that right?”

  Bel nodded numbly. Then she said, “When we came out of the sleep, I thought—it all seemed such a wonderful adventure. And it still does, only …” Her voice seemed to trail away.

  Quietly, Shu said, “Honeymoon's wearing off? Yes, I know what you mean. First there's a great sense of euphoria and then you realize you're going to be here for the rest of your life.” She spoke calmly but firmly, letting the words sink in. “You know, Bel, I haven't said this before, but I admire you for coming here. I don't mean to be patronizing; I think you're very brave.”

  Looking down at her hands, Bel murmured, “Do you? I think I'm a coward. You know what—what happened?”

  “To your lover? Yes, I know. Dia told me.”Shu's simple statement seemed to put even the wreckage of Eve's death into perspective for a moment, to reduce it to something that could be discussed and analyzed and mourned. Bel took a deep breath. “When Eve died … I just wanted to leave Irie. I just wanted to run away. And so I did.”

  “Sometimes running's the right thing to do,” Shu said.

  “But now it seems such a long way to run … and I can't go back, can I? You're the brave one, Shu, not me.”

  “My life is at an end, Bel. I've got maybe ten or fifteen years left; I've done everything I wanted to do, except this. To spend the rest of my life in unknown territory, not just sitting in my comfortable study writing articles about Irie St Syre and the Core worlds … But I still get scared. I still have doubts.” She gave Bel a shrewd look. “Well,” she added. “You'd better get some rest. I won't hold you up any longer.” She stood up to go.

  Bel just nodded, and from the answering smile, she knew that Shu understood.

  As Bel prepared the aircar for takeoff next day, Shu Gho settled back in her seat and closed her eyes. It wasn't only the colonists on whom she could exercise whatever anthropological understanding she might possess, Shu thought ruefully, but the members of the mission themselves. She supposed that she was functioning essentially as a kind of anthropological fifth columnist. Similar rules applied: the interaction in microcosm between conflicting belief systems and different ontologies. Dia's visions; Bel Zhur's spiritual Path and the personal tragedy which was still governing the girl's life; Sylvian's biological reductionism masked beneath the conventions of faith; and Shu's own quantum anthropology all contributed to the morass of understanding. At the moment, to Shu's jaundiced eye, their little group seemed even less explicable than the natives.

  That morning, she had found Dia standing by the bio-tents, watching the delazheni gather plants. The Guardian'austere face seemed bleached by the light. She was frowning, and Shu was not surprised. It wouldn't be long before the rations started to run low, and then they would be forced to rely on the planters in the biotent and to look for other food. Gaia will provide, said Dia firmly. Well, maybe, Shu thought. The delazheni had been bringing plants to Jennet Sylvian for analysis, and there were a few possibilities, compelling Sylvian to curtail her study of the ruins for the time being and concentrate on survival. To Shu's eyes, Dia walked around with a perpetual air of disapproval, as though the colony's failure to provide even the basics of civilization, at least as far as ReForming went, was more of a disappointment than a disaster.

  If worse came to worst, they could probably return to the ship, which now sailed in orbit between the moons, but it was hardly an infinite resource. Shu suggested to Bel Zhur that they might think about hunting—she had eaten meat before, after all, or at least the farmed stuff from the Racks, but Shu doubted whether any of them would have the faintest idea where to begin insofar as actually catching anything went. Bel had just looked at her and echoed Dia, with that air of spiritual armor that Shu was beginning to find more than a little irritating: “the goddess will provide.” Shu was tempted to retort that her understanding was that the goddess helped those who helped themselves.

  But she was just as bad, she admitted to herself. She had expected a great many things of Monde D'Isle, including a number of worst-case scenarios. At absolute best—or so she had thought—they would find a well-regulated, developed society along the lines of the one they'd left. Neatly Re-Formed and governed, at its environmental optimum. Shu had never really believed this, but at least it had been a possibility. Worst case, they'd find no one left, or a society that had degenerated back to old Terran forms of mismanagement: wars, petty fiefdoms, civil repression—all the mechanisms of control. Perhaps they'd even find a patriarchy,though there weren't many of those around any more. She wondered what it would be like, to suddenly find herself in a male-dominated society without the benefits of hormone regulators, and shuddered. More and more, the artificiality of their life on Irie St Syre was being brought home to Shu. It seemed so easy to be spiritual in a place that was perfectly tailored to one's environmental needs, and Shu wondered just how long artifice, and therefore spirituality, would last.

  Now, the vehicle was gliding down the long river valley; they were almost at the tower. Shu risked a glance and saw that Bel's hands were white at the knuckles as she gripped the aircar's controls. It was that glimpse of the child, of course. Bel had never seen real deprivation before, and it seemed to have hit her hard.

  “I must say,” Shu said with deliberate fatuousness, as though she were remarking on nothing more important than the weather. “I'm looking forward to seeing this tower of yours. And to meeting Mevennen.” Bel flushed miserably, but Shu pretended not to see. Hoping she didn't sound too patronizing, she went on. “It's such a hard thing to do, to try to understand another culture, especially one as alien as this appears to have become. You think you know what's going on, but you can't ever be sure, can you?” Bel was silent. “Let's try and find out a little more before we jump to conclusions,” Shu added.

  Bel shot her a doubtful glance and said tightly, “Any culture that would treat a child so … We have to do something, Shu. These people seem so far from the grace of Gaia.”

  “Perhaps they've found their own kind of grace,” Shu said, but Bel didn't seem to hear. “What do you want for this world, Bel? If the goddess appeared and granted you three wishes—what would you ask for?”

  Bel Zhur raised her head and stared through the view-screen. “I'd ask her to save the people of Monde D'Isle,” she murmured. Looking at her sharp profile, Shu thought of the old tale from Earth: of Jeanne d'Arc, the maid of OrlÉans who heard the voice of God. The words seemed to stick in her throat.

  “Save them?” Shu asked. “From what?”

  Bel Zhur blinked and the console crackled with static, as if in response.

  “From themselves,” she said. “From their own damaged natures that could allow a child to exist in such a state. What else?”

  What else? Shu didn't like to provoke an argument by saying that attitudes such as this should be left to the goddess alone. Instead, she was silent.

  “And it's so—extreme here,” Bel said, rather petulantly. “Always too hot or too cold. I don't like the cold.” Irie St
Syre was always warm and temperate, its gentle weathers obeying the hand of humanity.

  Shu said, “Well, I'm sure we'll get used to it, once we've found out a few more things. And we've still got Sylvian working on whatever the technology in the ruins is, so— That's the tower, isn't it?” Shu craned forward to get a better view. She could feel a tight knot of excitement bunching her stomach. The aircar drifted down to land on the river-bank in a grove of dark trees. The drive system powered down with a whir.

  “All right, Bel,” Shu said, trying to sound professional and calm. “Lead the way.”

  Cautiously, they made their way toward the open gates of the tower. The scanner showed no life signs. There was no one to be seen as they stepped through into the courtyard. It was very quiet. Shu gazed up at ancient stone and wood, at the shadowed balconies. At the far end of the courtyard lay stalls: some kind of stabling arrangement, Shu surmised. She crossed to the stalls and peered cautiously in. The stalls were empty of straw, their floors bare stone, but the walls bore a faint glaze of something rusty and red. There was a faint smell which Shu recognized as meat; the animals were carnivorous, perhaps. Dia, a vegan like all her Sect, wouldn't like that …

  Shu turned to find Bel hovering at her shoulder. “No sign of Mevennen?” she asked.

  “I don't know where she is.”

  “Perhaps we should go inside,” Shu said, though a thread of unease plucked at her at the thought. “Inside” meant going farther from the safety of the aircar.

  “Perhaps,” Bel said doubtfully, evidently sharing her thought.