THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

by Ivan Cat

  Jenette adjusted the cloth so that the coins did not show and drove away.

  The crawler idled. The fork to the left led toward the inner edge of the ring-island and the incinerator. The fork to the right led to the political center of the Enclave, the great hall, and someone Jenette had skillfully avoided for weeks.

  Her father.

  A confrontation was coming that Jenette longed to avoid. She had hoped that the triumph of Panya's imminent births would lessen the mounting anxiety, but it had not. Rather, the meeting with Burke and Panya had crystallized Jenette's convictions— convictions that were diametrically opposed to those of her father.

  The confrontation, of course, would center around Scourge.

  Everything in Jenette's life revolved around that deadly pathogen. No plant or animal on New Ascension escaped its clutches, and she was no different. Every living thing on the planet was infested. And, eventually—short of accidental death, conflict, or suicide—every living thing on the planet would die from it. The Scourge was diabolical in its evolution, able to shift its own genetic code as needed to infest plants, animals, even nonindigenous humans. It could lie dormant for years, preferring to attack after its host had reproduced, almost as if it knew that a pathogen that drove its host to extinction would soon be extinct itself. The Scourge was why everyone took hormone inhibitors, to forestall the dangerous condition of puberty and the reproductive readiness that went with it. The Scourge was why the men around Jenette feared sex and the women pregnancy. It was a terrible burden to the whole Enclave. Jenette didn't think of it as a mindless microorganism, but as a malignant force, twisting her life.

  Even the Khafra, the only life forms to strike an evolutionary bargain with the Scourge, did not escape its final victory. Feral Khafra bonded into pairs who exchanged immune venom at yearly intervals and thus ensured each other's survival; they lived healthy lives, but they all also died at forty years of age, without exception. Her father had discovered that cycle and struck a vile bargain of his own to keep the Enclave humans alive: a repulsive ritual called Sacrament. In Sacrament, humans took immune venom from force-bonded domestics. Because the humans gave nothing in return, the domestics succumbed to Scourge shortly after their third Sacrament. The colonists did their best to forget the yearly nightmare, but it was Jenette's job to place young Ferals—kidnapped from the wild because domestic Ferals did not reproduce—with human colonists to begin drastically shortened lives. So Jenette could not forget. And with each inevitable fatality it got harder and harder to carry out the assignments and pickups.

  Arrou shifted, impatient for the crawler to move. "Sad?" Jenette looked at Trum. "Yes. Burke and Panya will miss him." Arrou's alien head bobbed, a gorget of flesh swaying under his chin. "Arrou miss too."

  Trum's death reminded Jenette that she would soon be missing Arrou. They had gone through the terrible Sacrament twice already, the first time when she entered puberty at twenty-one, and the second time last year. The third time was due even as they sat in the crawler. It would kill Arrou. And the thought of losing him made Jenette very sad. "Tears," Arrou said. "I'm okay."

  "No." Arrou was looking up at the night sky. "Tears." Jenette followed his pointing muzzle. "A shooting star..." she gasped.

  A tiny fireball burned its way across the heavens, tail streaming far behind. It seemed to hang, not flashing across the sky as it should have, but taking languorous minutes to pass overhead and disappear to the southwest. Jenette was no astronomer, but that seemed far too long a time. Also, she noted, the crawler's compass was acting up, slowly turning in lock step with the shooting star's passage and then whipping back to true magnetic south when the red plume finally disappeared beyond the horizon.

  "Sign," Arrou pronounced cryptically. "Burning Heart comes."

  Jenette did not believe in signs, however strange, but she knew it was time to make a decision. Each of the many pickups she had made was a dry run for Arrou's death. At first it had been two years away, then one year, then months and weeks, and now that it loomed like the executioner's ax Jenette knew she could bear it no longer. She steered down the right fork in the road.

  "Where going?" Arrou asked.

  "To talk to my father."

  "Oh ... talk about Arrou?"

  Jenette put on a brave face. "Yes."

  "Good. Ask if Arrou can drive crawler?"

  Jenette sniffed. "You are so weird."

  V

  Aliens are raising my daughter, she and all the children born in the early years. An entire orphaned generation. And Jenette is an orphan too, but not because of the Scourge. My hands have done the deed. The Enclave demands every waking moment of my time. What will happen to these sons and daughters of our dream? I am an old man in a world of children and I fear the changing of the guard that must come.

  —from the private journals of Olin Tesla

  The great hall was a calculated, ostentatious display, even in the dark. Jenette's boots and Arrou's claws clattered on the shipmetal decking and echoed high in shipmetal arches; reflections of their very different bodies smeared across burnished shipmetal walls. The great hall was tooled out of a giant seed-colony container that had been strapped to the back of Kismet, the fugueship that had brought humans to New Ascension. It was their link to humanity's destiny and it was also the single greatest concentration of metal on a resource-poor planet. Portions were cannibalized as necessity demanded, but Jenette's father always made sure to loot unseen sections first. That way all who entered the great hall knew this was the Enclave's focus of power.

  Jenette tensed more with each step toward the imposing double doors at the end of the hall. Arrou walked lightly, uneasy on the slick deck. They passed other grand doors leading to the grand dining hall, the records vault, the library.

  Jenette jumped when the library doors groaned open.

  "How's my fiancée?" a voice greeted. The shadow of a man spilled across the hallway. No, Jenette corrected, not a man—a hormone gelding.

  "I am not your fiancée, Bragg," Jenette responded dryly.

  "Tell that to your father. In his mind it's a done deal." A too-handsome, too-young figure appeared in the doorway. Bragg was twenty-six, but would pass for fourteen on any other colonized world. He looked laughable leaning cockily against the doorjamb. "Why do you fight it? You can't win."

  Jenette grinned. "Because I don't like you."

  Bragg was undaunted. "What's that got to do with it? Didn't you hear? They made me head of the VF. You're the daughter of the Prime Consul. Together we could own this world."

  Head of the VF had never been an important Enclave position. The Volunteer Forces encompassed policing, fire control, and any other emergency services that Halifax's overwhelmed Guards could not. In the past, leadership of the VF had always been handed from one Consul member to another, an expected civic duty, however inconvenient. But Bragg had changed all that, turning it into an influential position by the sheer force of his ambition—and he was not even a full Consul, but a Subconsul like Jenette. Unfortunately, Bragg's moral backbone was sorely lacking. Power was all that counted, a philosophy that Jenette despised, but she knew how to get rid of him. Jenette moved closer, well within the unspoken boundaries of his personal space.

  Bragg froze, eyes darting over her body suspiciously. "What are you doing?"

  "I was thinking." Jenette put her arms around his shoulders. "If you're my fiancée, then I should give you a kiss." She leaned in, lips parting seductively.

  Panicked, Bragg broke free. "What are you trying to do, kill me?" You'll get my testosterone going!" He backed down the hall in terror that a fluctuation of his hormone levels would awaken the Scourge sleeping in his tissues. "You're out of control, Jenette. Your body's swelling out of control and it's affecting your mind."

  "I'm not swelling," Jenette shot back. "I'm growing into a woman. It's a natural part of life."

  Bragg wasn't listening. "Look, I'm taking double doses of inhibitor," he prattled. "I'm connected. Ma
ybe we can set you up and fix that, that—" he gestured at her chest, "—or at least stop it."

  Jenette pressed what little cleavage she had together under her zipped-to-the-neck daysuit. "Breasts, Bragg. Women have these. Men know what to do with them."

  Beads of sweat broke out on Bragg's immature face. "I've got to get out of here." He turned and quick-marched out the front doors, no doubt to take more illicit hormone pills.

  Arrou, who had seemed oblivious to the sexual innuendo, stopped preening a glowbud on his haunch and rumbled in his chest. "Grr-hruuu. Funny."

  Jenette didn't see the humor. Bragg's retreat gave her no sense of victory; he was the least of her troubles. She and Arrou continued toward the Chamber of the Body Pure. When they reached the grand doors, Jenette drew a measured breath. Remember, be concise. Don't lose sight of your argument. And don't let him bully you around.

  Her father's bad-tempered domestic, Toby, lay to one side of the doors. Toby was the only domestic bigger than Arrou. Toby snarled. Arrou did not flash the secret signals to him.

  Jenette reached for the entry cord, but before her fingers even touched the braided fibers, and before she was quite prepared, a remote latch clicked. The heavy doors swung open on silent hinges, revealing a circular chamber as imposing as the hallway was ostentatious. Jenette wanted to run. Fortunately, Arrou picked that moment to speak up.

  "Break legs," he hissed.

  "Thanks," said Jenette, some measure of courage returning. Holding her head high, she stepped through the portal.

  Arrou remained behind. Nonhumans were not allowed in the Chamber of the Body Pure.

  Jenette marched through a ring of desks. Each was constructed of spun ceramite with rich green fiberplast glazing. High-backed chairs behind the desks were matching in color, cut from hard wood, and highly uncomfortable on purpose; her father liked everyone alert and on edge. Engraved upon the Chamber's metal floor was a stylized spiral of galaxy arms, inset jewels mapping human worlds, mysterious old Earth at the center and the Zone of Interdiction around it. Jenette's desk was to her right in the four o'clock position. She toyed with the idea of checking it for official correspondence, but abandoned that charade. Those who came to the Chamber of the Body Pure after session invariably came to see the man in the raised desk at the twelve o'clock position. The seat of government was his private office.

  The sign on that desk said, simply: Tesla.

  No one mistook whom it referred to. When colonists said Tesla they did not mean J. Tesla, who was Jenette or Subconsul Tesla, and they did not mean H. Tesla, who was Helena or the deceased Prime Lady. They meant Olin Tesla, Prime Consul, the democratically elected leader of the New Ascension Enclave for the last twenty-three years. Those years had been good to him, his tall, brutish body becoming leaner—although no less strong and imposing—his icy eyes becoming sharper and wiser. When colonists looked at him they saw the man who had single-mindedly, and almost single-handedly, lead their colony back from the brink of extinction.

  All Jenette saw was the overbearing tyrant who made her life a living hell.

  She stopped before his raised desk, unsure of the next move.

  Without looking up from his paperwork, Tesla stacked his fists over his heart. "The Body must be Pure."

  Jenette went through the motions of stacking her own fists over her heart. "The Body must be Pure."

  "Jenette," Tesla said, still not looking up. "Glad you could finally spare a minute. Come up and greet your father properly."

  Jenette obediently stepped up onto the platform, walked around the desk, and gave her father a peck on the cheek. Order of dominance established, Tesla jogged a sheaf of stimpaper and slipped it into a folder. Jenette noticed another folder beside the first, with her name on it. No doubt it contained a litany of her recent transgressions. Ammunition to be pulled out and used against her.

  "I don't have the monthly domestic assignment report," Tesla observed, picking that folder up.

  "It's done—" Jenette began.

  Tesla cut her off. "Then where is it? I should have it. The same goes for your evaluation of Ferals gathered in the last raid." Jenette opened her mouth to explain, but Tesla raised a finger, again cutting her off. "Never mind. I'm not interested in excuses. Just get me the reports. Oh, and..." Tesla used the finger to tap through several screens on a desktop mindercard. "Another problem: sixteen messages from Consul Trurl regarding the behavior of the new domestic you assigned. Get him off my back, would you?"

  Jenette stewed a few heartbeats before responding. "Is that all you have to say, father? A reprimand because Consul Trurl is too lazy to train his own domestic?"

  It was just typical.

  "Trurl never votes against us," Tesla reminded sternly.

  "And he never will," Jenette objected, "but I don't have the time to baby-sit him. In case you haven't noticed, we're just about to have the first births on this colony in ten years. Orchestrating that, in addition to my other duties, has taken every waking minute of my life for the last nine months. None of the other subconsuls put in that kind of effort. How about some credit?"

  "You are a Tesla," the Prime Consul scolded. "I expect you to work harder and do better than the other subconsuls."

  "And so that's why you second guess and subvert every decision I make?"

  "I do no such thing."

  "You do!" Jenette felt herself sliding down the slippery slope from reason to emotion. This was not the battle she had come to fight. But it was too late to put on the brakes. "I held those reports back on purpose. In fact, if you really want to know, I falsified them and I've been falsifying them for a whole year. You never would have let me place triple-A-rated domestics with the Hedrens. You would have played favorites."

  "I do not play favorites," Tesla objected. "The assignments would have been made based on what is best for the Enclave. And I will not be spoken to in that tone, young lady."

  "And I won't be patronized! If you don't like my performance, why don't you fire me and find someone else to do your dirty work? In fact, don't bother. I quit!"

  "Don't be childish."

  "Why not? You treat me like a child. To you I look fifteen, so you treat me like I'm fifteen. But I'm not! I'm twenty-three years old!" Jenette felt the flush of blood to her face. Why did it always have to be like this with her father? Why was conflict so inevitable? "The pills you made me take make me look like this, but that's not my fault. I'm an adult and I wish you would treat me like one. I'm not your little girl anymore!"

  For some reason, Tesla looked sad. "No, I guess you're not, but we are a lot alike, aren't we?"

  "We're not alike at all."

  Tesla grunted. His weathered hands pulled a document from the folder with Jenette's name on it. He shoved it at her. "Here."

  Jenette looked at, but did not take the official seeming piece of stimpaper. "What's that?" she asked suspiciously.

  "What you wanted," her father replied, going back to his paperwork. "Your credit. You may not be performing to your full potential, but you are performing above average. Stimulating birth rate by manipulation of Feral placement was a smart idea. Wish I had thought of it myself," he conceded. "In any case, the punishment for smart ideas is more responsibility. I've decided you are ready. As of this date you are now the full Consul in charge of population expansion, in addition to your present duties. I've already informed the Body." Tesla shoved the document into Jenette's stunned hands. "The appointment is by edict. They can't object and you can't refuse."

  Jenette's head swam with sudden, unexpected happiness. She could not believe it. Her father was actually rewarding her for a job well done? Nothing like this had ever happened before.

  "And you can't quit," Tesla added, with the trace of a smile.

  All thought of quitting was gone from Jenette's mind. Promotion to full Consul. Wow. "I don't know what to say," she stammered.

  "Say nothing," Tesla said bruskly. "You earned it. You got it. Now just one more thing: you reschedul
ed your Sacrament. Why?"

  Jenette's happy bubble burst.

  "You thought I wouldn't find out?" Tesla probed when she did not reply. "I know everything that happens on this colony. I knew about the Hedren pregnancy despite your false reports, but I gave you some rope. I hoped you wouldn't use it to make a noose around your own neck." Tesla skewered Jenette with a frown. "I'm waiting for an explanation."

  Jenette sighed. "As if you really wanted to know."

  "Try me."

  "All right," Jenette said, ordering her thoughts. This was the battle she had come to fight. She would never be able to muster the courage again, so she might as well have at it. In a calm, measured voice she began, "Sacrament is wrong, father. It's wrong to keep domestics as slaves. It's wrong to kidnap them from their parents and use them in Sacrament. It's institutionalized genocide and every citizen of this Enclave knows it. They bury their heads in the sand, but they can't ignore it. It's murder. In my opinion, if we continue to practice Sacrament, our colony will morally decay. It's got to stop."

  There, she had said it.

  Tesla's face twitched, but he did not fly into a rage. He put down his stimpaper stylus. "Domestics can't be murdered," he said in an even tone. "They are a resource. They can only be utilized. "

  "They are not a resource," Jenette disagreed. "Khafra are a sentient species. They think and feel. They have their own language and they have even learned to speak ours."

  "Monkeys were taught to speak thousands of years ago on Earth," Tesla insisted. "That doesn't make them sentient. Are their thoughts productive? Do they write books? Do they make machines and colonize the stars? No."

  "Khafra are not monkeys. It's wrong to kill them for our own selfish reasons."

  "Survival," Tesla explained, "is inherently selfish. It is our most basic, selfish right. The Body of humanity has survived from savanna to continent, from planet to planet for millennia precisely because it is selfish. It is our duty to survive. The Body was seeded on this world to survive, no matter what the cost."