THE BURNING HEART OF NIGHT

by Ivan Cat

  Webs, the Subconsul of the Tally, called the next vote. "Consul Alphonse Jeej."

  Jenette turned to the man next to her. Jeej was slightly older, but still on hormone inhibitors. Long limbs and limp hair attached to a pear-shaped body.

  "Abstain," Jeej said immediately.

  The Chamber grumbled with disapproval. It was not a strictly acceptable vote. Webs looked around nervously, but since there was no protest, she called the next name.

  "Consul Jenette Tesla."

  All eyes turned to Jenette.

  Tesla did not expect her to vote with him, but he hoped. Father and daughter did not see eye to eye, he knew, but Jenette was intelligent. Being a Tesla, she was headstrong (Tesla felt a surge of pride at that). Surely she had learned from the folly of her recent flight. Surely she saw that rash action had lead to nothing—except failure and the need to be rescued. Perhaps she would finally stop fighting him and they would work together. Tesla's stomach burbled nervously. Jenette looked so much like her mother, another woman he had never been able to control. After returning to the Enclave, Tesla had been careful not to lord Jenette's failure over her. He had not confined her to quarters; in fact, he had not punished her at all except to put the tracking collar on Arrou and warn her away from the Pilot. In his mind, Tesla had made every effort to treat her with respect, like an adult, as she demanded. Maybe she would see that and meet him halfway.

  Jenette rose and voted, "Nay."

  Tesla glowered. The count was now twenty-six in favor and thirteen opposed. No clear victory for either side. But the battle was not over yet; Tesla was not the only one disappointed with the vote and he expected an objection.

  "Protest Consul Jeej's abstention!" Dr. Bigelow suddenly said.

  Perfect.

  Tesla fixed the full might of his gaze on Jeej. He had a lot of experience influencing the weak, young Consul; Tesla had nominated Jeej to a seat in the Chamber because of that very fact. "Agreed. The motion before the Body is too important to allow abstention."

  Webs backtracked on her list. "Consul Alphonse Jeej."

  Jenette also focused on Jeej, who was staring resolutely at the surface of his desk. She knew little about the Consul just above her in seniority, except that he usually voted with Tesla's majorities, and that he rarely replied to her clandestine messages. But, to keep the pressure up, she had sent Arrou to meet with Jeej's domestic several times.

  Jeej's mouth twitched. "Nnnnn," he hummed, indecisive as ever. "Hmmnnnn."

  Jenette wanted to reach over and throttle a vote out of Jeej. If she was going to lose, she wanted it over with.

  Jeej's shoulders bunched up from the strain. "Nnnnn-nay!" he blurted, to Jenette's intense surprise and relief.

  "Yes!" she cheered, giving Jeej an unanticipated hug.

  Olin Tesla watched in utter dismay.

  Webs double checked the count. "By my tally, the vote on the motion to mobilize Reserves under Prime Consul Olin Tesla's authority is twenty-six in favor, fourteen opposed. Those in favor have not achieved the twenty-seven votes required for a two-thirds majority." Webs voice cracked as she proclaimed, "The motion is denied."

  The Chamber of the Body Pure erupted into chaos.

  Prime Consul Olin Tesla had never lost an important vote in the history of the Chamber of the Body. His supporters gaped, speechless, or protested loudly. Tesla's opposition was ecstatic. There were back slaps and congratulations all around.

  Only Jenette noticed the faint harooing and joyous sparkling of light from the skylight above, or heard the yelp and skittering of claws on steel as Arrou lost his grip and tumbled off the roof of the great hall.

  Tesla felt the defeat most keenly—like a knife stabbed into his back. For not only had his daughter voted against him, but she had obviously engineered the opposition to his motion. Apart from her initial outburst, she did a good job of hiding it, but the smiles and winks aimed in her direction gave her away. Tesla had failed to appreciate how much influence she held over the Chamber. And, in doing so, he had failed the Enclave. He should have made the Consuls understand what had to be done, no matter what. That was his sacred trust, the reason destiny had kept him alive so long, to guide the Fallen to the Body Pure. Tesla did not care about himself, but now what would happen to the Dream?

  Bigelow rose from his seat and addressed the disorganized Chamber. "The Body has spoken, and I wish to propose another motion for immediate consideration." A modicum of order returned as the scientist spoke. "You are all aware of the recent arrival of a Pilot among us, but something else has also arrived on our planet, something that is, in many ways, even more wondrous than a Pilot, but which has not been thought much about. What am I talking about? A fugueship!" Bigelow paused a moment. Expressions of sudden understanding swept around the room. "Yes, a fugueship— an unlimited source of fugue—and all we have to do to reap its bounty is recover it."

  "It's under a mountain of flame," Bragg grumbled.

  "Yes it is," Bigelow conceded, "but Pilot Karr has a plan to deal with that, a prodigious plan which if successful—as I deem it will surely be—may change the very course of human history on this planet. Imagine what unrestricted access to a fugue supply would mean for this colony."

  Jenette relished the turn of events. Bigelow's proposal was her proposal, from the secret communication that Arrou and all the other domestics worked so hard to disseminate. The words were paraphrased, but Jenette recognized them, and there was satisfaction in knowing she had swayed the Chamber. Hers was the inspiration, risk, and initiative. Bigelow winked at her. Burke beamed from his weathered face. They knew.

  "What are the specifics of Pilot Karr's plan?" Colonel Halifax asked, guardedly.

  Bigelow explained, in his flowery manner of speaking, and with just the proper amount of detail to keep the scientists happy but not lose the rest of the Consuls, Karr's plan to extinguish the fugueship fire with an explosion. "A tremendous, most stylish explosion."

  Tesla sat through it all, as if in a fog, trying to figure out where he had failed.

  Jenette knew.

  Tesla's parading of Karr around the Enclave, intended to strengthen Tesla's position as controller of access to the Pilot, had backfired. Instead, seeing so much of the Pilot had given the Enclave a false sense of security. Given any excuse, of course they would vote Tesla down. He proposed expansion and war. That was hard. Sitting back and feeling safe was easy. Denial of harsh truths was easy. Jenette had learned that the night of Trum's funeral, when all the support she anticipated had evaporated. She had learned from that experience and modified her tactics accordingly. Strong supporters received different clandestine messages than halfhearted ones. She played to strengths or fears, whatever worked the best. That was why swing votes like Jeej had gone in her favor; Jenette was not elated at the underlying reason, but she was also not going to roll over and let her father win.

  Bigelow was wrapping up. "Therefore, I propose a motion to provide our Pilot with whatever manpower he requires, drawn from a pool of volunteers," he emphasized for the weak-hearted, "as well as any material support he deems necessary to carry out his plan with all haste and utmost priority." Bigelow was in his glory, sensing the general approval. He ended with a flourish of his wrists.

  Bragg, who had been stewing for some time, could not contain himself any longer. "This is unbelievable! We have the Body Pure in our hands. We shouldn't let him out of our sight. We don't need the fugueship. We keep the Pilot here and he will be our source of fugue. Dr. Yll, you know better than anybody, am I on the wrong track?"

  "No," Yll said cautiously. "The Pilot is an excellent source of fugue, albeit in limited quantity."

  "Limited, but available, here, and now," said Bragg, mutterings of support from a few Consuls encouraging him. "He is our bird in the hand. I think that Dr. Yll's estimates of how much fugue can be safely drawn from a Pilot's body are too low. I think they might be doubled, or tripled. Who knows what we can do? Maybe Dr. Yll can come up with a way t
o pump our blood through the Pilot's body, allowing it to absorb fugue, without significant injury to the Pilot himself!"

  Hairs prickled on the back of Jenette's neck as many of Tesla's die-hard supporters began to chime in. "Yes, yes, hear him, hear him," or worse, "how much tissue can a human body supply on a monthly basis?"

  "Stop!" Tesla boomed, rising to his feet. "I will not stand for this kind of talk!"

  Bragg faltered, puzzled. "My apologies, Prime Consul, I only wanted to point out that the Pilot is the answer to all our problems, the guarantee of our survival."

  "Our survival as what?" Tesla raged. "Savages? We do not prey upon the Body Pure to attain the Body Pure! Sacrilege!"

  Dead silence.

  Tesla bowed his head and stacked his fists. Shamed, the others in the Chamber copied his example.

  "The Pilot will go," Tesla said quietly. "This is not my choice of a plan, but it is a righteous plan. I hereby sanction an expedition to Coffin Island by edict." The Prime Consul's supporters shifted unhappily. "If you can marshal the spine to vote me down, go ahead, but you might as well elect a new Prime Consul while you are at it, because I will resign!"

  Tesla turned from his desk, looking suddenly old and weak, and left the Chamber through a small, back exit.

  Jenette was relieved at his intervention, but not very sympathetic. Her father wondered why the Consuls were so quick to consider using Karr for their own survival, when it was he, Olin Tesla, who had invented Sacrament. He was the one who had accustomed them to living off the suffering of another sentient species. How big a jump was it to then substitute a sentient human in place of a sentient alien?

  The colonists were stunned by Tesla's departure, especially Bragg. Olin Tesla was their lifeline. They had never known another Prime Consul, and the thought of losing his leadership was far more frightening than the possible loss of the Pilot. No one so much as proposed a vote to challenge Tesla's edict.

  Jenette lived in a one room cube in the domicile for unmarried colonists, one of many heaped up like children's blocks among sprawling meat-fruit vineyards. Flat surfaces inside the domicile were piled high with books and Khafra artifacts, every bit of information Jenette could find from before the Feral Wars. The walls were papered with holos of far-off worlds: squat temples in the mountains of Valhalla, triple sunset on Solara, a happy robot bounding through fields of whispering poppies on Chazz. Peaceful places. One day Jenette would add another holo to that gallery: a picture from New Ascension.

  Bleep, went the entry chime.

  Jenette slid the door open for Dr. Deena Marsh, a handsome young woman with olive skin, curly dark hair pulled back from a gaunt face, and a labjumper sealed to the neck. Marsh was expected. She handed Jenette a stimpaper printout. Jenette scanned the printout's complex graphs and stacks of numbers.

  "The sample was positive for fugue," said Marsh. "Hope there's more where it came from."

  "There isn't."

  "Too bad."

  "Yes. Who knows about this test?"

  "Me and my shadow," said Marsh. "And I wasn't here. I never saw that report." With a wink, she left.

  Jenette closed the door and sat on the edge of an unmade bed. Her head throbbed from the chaos she had unleashed. Arrou lay beside her, dozens of tiny scrapes on his armor from when he fell off the Chamber roof and landed in a bristle bush. His face was full of concern.

  "Jenette okay?"

  She tossed the printout on the bed. "I'm fine."

  "Want back scratch?"

  "No, thank you." She rubbed dirt from a scrape on Arrou's back. "What am I going to do with you?" she chided. She had warned him the Chamber roof was dangerous.

  "What Arrou do with you?" he chided right back.

  Knock, knock, knock, went the door.

  Jenette got up. What had Marsh forgotten?

  Arrou's head dipped low and he turned a somber blue. Jenette though that strange behavior; Arrou liked Marsh. She slid the panel aside.

  Her father stood on the balcony. "Jenette," he said, entering.

  Jenette stood aside, baffled. Her father never came to visit her. She was always summoned to him.

  "Arrou, out," Tesla ordered.

  Arrou slunk out, insult patterns washing over his back. Jenette pulled the door shut and cleared a pile of data cubes and clothes from her only chair. These she discreetly dropped on top of Marsh's printout.

  Tesla paced the tiny room, looking less the tyrant, but still giving the disorder a wintry once over. He stopped abruptly and, like Marsh, handed Jenette a folded stimpaper.

  It was Karr's official request for equipment and personnel—and right at the top of the list was her name. Karr wanted Jenette to head up the New Ascension side of the mission to Coffin Island.

  "You're not going," said Tesla.

  "But—"

  "Show me your neck."

  Jenette's mouth became a thin, hard line and she lowered her chin.

  "Your glands are tender and swollen," Tesla accused. "Am I wrong?"

  Jenette's hand went reflexively to the juncture of her jaw and neck. It did feel swollen, but she knew from close scrutiny in a mirror that her neck still looked normal. At least there was no movement under the skin yet. Her hands went clammy at the thought.

  She forced her arms down to her sides.

  Now Tesla sat on the arm of the chair, arms folded. "No Sacrament. No mission."

  "I won't."

  Tesla frowned. "I'm going to tell you a secret, Jenette. Against isn't good enough. You have to be for something in order to succeed. Against is the coward's way. Against is bitterness and failure and a misspent life. That's why I voted for your motion to assist Pilot Karr's mission."

  "Dr. Bigelow's motion," Jenette corrected.

  "Your motion," Tesla asserted. "Let's get to the point. It took guts to vote me down. And it took guts to take off in the crawler," stern fatherly disapproval met her eye. "But it was stupid."

  "Maybe," Jenette begrudged.

  The half-concession mollified Tesla a little. His conversation spun onto a different track. "You know what this Enclave needs, Jenette? It needs a new generation that stands by its convictions— not like the simpering toadies I see in the Chamber every day. My convictions took me to the top. Yours will, too."

  "I don't want to get to the top."

  "So you say. There won't be any choice when the time comes, believe me." Tesla fell quiet a minute, as if reliving distant memory, but soon enough he was back to business. "I've arranged a different domestic for your Sacrament. Not as good as Arrou, but it will keep you alive. You can head up the mission to Coffin Island. We'll take the tracking collar off Arrou. You can even take him and dump him on another Feral island to die of starvation, whatever you like."

  Jenette was surprised by her father's concession, but held steadfast. "If it's wrong to kill Arrou, it's wrong to kill any domestic."

  "Nothing comes without a price, Jenette. Nobody will fight your crusade if you're dead. Please decide. I'm feeling very tired."

  "Decide tonight?"

  "Now."

  It felt unreal. Her father was talking to her like an equal. She hesitated. "There is another option." Digging into a bedside drawer, Jenette retrieved a medipak filled with the substance that she had told Marsh didn't exist. Unzipping the seal, she offered it to her father.

  Tesla took a sniff: jasmine, burned jasmine.

  It was the shriveled strips of Karr's burned flesh.

  "The Body Pure," Jenette said.

  Tesla grimaced. "Haven't you been paying attention? Weren't you in the Chamber tonight?"

  "The Body Pure doesn't mean the same thing to us, Father," Jenette confessed. "I subscribe to the principals, but it's not a religion to me."

  "More sacrilege," Tesla said numbly. "Where did I go wrong?"

  "I didn't choose to come to this planet; I was born here. I'm just doing the best I can."

  Jenette pulled out a strip of oily skin. Before her father could react, she popped
the stringy strip into her mouth and chewed. She swallowed, clapping a hand over her mouth to keep it down.

  "You see, Father," she gagged, "you won after all."

  Tesla rose, looking older than ever, and let himself out the door. "Nobody won. I lost a vote and you lost your soul. May the Body forgive you." To Arrou he said, "Don't call a doctor."

  "Not call doctor? About what?" the alien asked from the balcony.

  "You'll see," the old man said. "She will sleep now and you won't be able to wake her up, but she will be okay."

  Arrou padded into the cubical. Tesla shut the door. When she was sure he was gone, Jenette bent over, jabbed her fingers down her throat and vomited into a waste bucket. Then she curled onto fetal position on her bed and prayed that she had been quick enough, that she would not sink into a fugue-coma and that she would live long enough to accomplish what had to be done.

  PART FOUR:

  Coffin Island

  XXIV

  It is always the same when They find her, at her weakest, after the Geldings have slunk away, tails—if nothing else useful—between their legs. The Geldings are soft. As They are soft. The Geldings are smoothfaced. As They are smooth-faced. The Geldings are not-men. And They are not-men. They are made of perfume and secrets. They are made of unsatisfaction and fantasy fermented. They are born of lust.

  They are the night women, wearing night masks that Geldings never see in the light of day.

  "Come," they coo, all curls and tresses, accidentally touching her as they circle. Predatory feminine essences. Fingers accidentally brushing her flushed skin, teasing, promising. The unsatisfaction is on her— They know—the fermented fantasy strong in her blood.