by Viola Grace
“The fit seems good. Now for the features. When you have been immobile for five minutes, the suit will begin a slow massage to keep you from having any circulatory issues. It is also fully wired with alarms and beacons to send for help if you are in distress.”
Fixer showed her where to deactivate the alarms.
“What about that other thing that we discussed when I first arrived?”
“The beacon and the transfer link? Yes. If you can manage it, the ship will be receptive. This is the control for that link.” Fixer ran her fingers to the back of Simry’s neck.
Simry found the link and nodded. “Right. Three sharp taps?”
“That is it. It will wake up the link and you will be able to ghost with the ship.”
“Excellent.”
General Brodin entered the workshop with two data pads and a sleepy expression. “If you are all ready, I have your first assignment here. You are to extract a hostage from a low-tech world. You can only bring in yourselves. No technology.”
Simry ran her fingers along the data pad and nearly dropped it when she read the location. “Morgarath?”
Brodin nodded. “One of the Citadel recruiters was caught by the locals, and it sparked an uprising.”
Simry winced. “They found the ship?”
“They did.”
“That would do it. Well, that explains why you would let N’kad take me out on this assignment. It has to be me.”
Brodin shrugged. “No other member on this base is suited for this job. You know them like no other could.”
N’kad frowned. “I am a little confused.”
Simry looked up with a grimace. “Don’t be. Morgarath was my home and a larger den of paranoia and superstition has rarely been seen. We have less than three days to find that recruiter.”
N’kad nodded. “Then, what are we waiting for?”
Reset came in with Mist at her back. “For me to authorize the trip. She is a medical case and can only be released on my say-so.”
Reset held up a palm scanner and went over Simry from top to toe. “Well, I say so.”
Reset entered a few notes into her file and turned it to face them. “Cleared for duty.”
N’kad nodded. “Right. Are we cleared to leave?”
Simry held up her hand. “No, we need robes and my cane.”
Fixer chuckled. “M’rin delivered them three hours ago when we contacted her for her opinion of this venture. They are on the shuttle.”
Simry laughed lightly and steeled herself inwardly. “Let’s go and save the recruiter from the pit.”
Brodin nodded. “Ghost and Hero of Teklan Base, good luck.”
Simry and N’kad grinned, looked at each other and said in unison. “Which is which?”
Two hours later, they were still snickering as they travelled through the star scape and headed toward Morgarath.
Nine hours and through four priority jump stations would get them to their target. Once they cleared the first jump, N’kad turned to her. “So, tell me what I really need to know about Morgarath, not just what is in the briefing.”
She ran her hands through her hair. “Right. Well, religion is their primary form of organisation and entertainment.”
“No tech?”
“Nothing beyond level two. They are still in the Iron Age but will not allow an industrial revolution. They feel it would impede their spiritual purity to have something mechanised take the place of handmade objects or performed duties.”
“What will our plan be?”
“To use the distance scanners to find the recruiter, land as close as we can, and then, I am going to become old self once again, more or less. When I left, I declared I was going to walk the world to learn why the gods gifted me with this talent. I will simply return to teach what I have learned.”
“Does that happen?”
“No, talents usually run to distant communities and try and blend in, pretending that they are powerless. No one ever comes home. This will distract the hell out of the locals and you will be able to rescue the recruiter without any additional fuss.”
“Who is the recruiter?”
“Teemya Hallow. She is an older woman with a detector talent. She can sense who and what you are from a distance. She was my recruiter and that was probably her problem. She came back to the same area.”
“Tell me about your gods.”
“Not my gods, not anymore. Morgarath is populated by animists. Everything around them is alive and tampering with that balance is considered heresy. All raw materials have to be requested from the world around, and if it objects, it will strike you down. It means that talents have a peculiar situation. We are not gods, but we are not normal citizens. The guiding premise has been that anything that happens to a talent should not be helped. No medical assistance is allowed. If we are stabbed, break an arm or a leg, it must heal as the gods decreed or not. Even other talents are not allowed to assist the healing. A guard is posted at the injured talent’s home until the life-or-death battle is over.”
Simry still remembered the glare of the man at the foot of her bed, waiting for her to die of the fever that came with the broken limb. He had looked disappointed when she strengthened.
“Why does that attitude flourish?”
“Nothing was written in the ancient texts about talents, so the priests pretend we don’t exist. We are natural, like a tree or a rock, but no one repairs them when they break, so we are given the same status.”
“So you have the same legal status as—”
“Firewood.” She sighed. “Recruiter Hallow helped me get the ten kilometers with my bad leg, both of us moving with as much speed as we could manage for fear that they would see her.”
“Let me guess...”
“Only the priests or the family of a talent is allowed to associate with them.”
“Wow. How did you survive that?”
She tapped her leg. “I almost didn’t. My talent shifted from astral travel to possession during the time of my break. The priests tried to starve me out by sending my family out of the home for days on pilgrimages to nearby towns. I grabbed the guards and rode them around to bring me food, firewood, water, that sort of thing.”
“Were they aware of it?”
“No. I took them over completely and left missing time in its place.” She smiled into his surprised gaze. “I didn’t take them over for more than fifteen minutes at a time. I didn’t want to disrupt their lives.”
“Why did you bring the cane?”
Simry smiled softly. “In the grand garden of the public square, my father asked the sacred tree for a bough. It not only didn’t strike him dead, a branch dropped into his hands. It was a great scandal, but he brought it home, carved it with symbols of the sacred temples and gave it to me. I learned to walk again with it holding me up. It never loses its grip, even after a dozen trips through the sterilization protocols.”
“Why do we need the robes?”
“It will mark us as priests of a sort. Until they determine what we are, they will not risk angering the god that guards us.”
“What god will that be?”
Simry raised her brows in surprise. “The sleeping god of the broken bough, of course.”
He grinned. “Of course. What about the gods of ghosts and heroes?”
“This society does not craft heroes and to believe in ghosts is sacrilege. The soul cannot exist without a body, or so the priests say.”
“And yet, you are proof that they can exist apart.”
“True, but hopefully, you will not run into any of the priests that would debate the point.”
“What would they think of me?”
“They would consider you a demon from another plane and set you to the trials that Teemya is currently undergoing. They aren’t painful, but they are impossible to pass.”
“Were you ever tried?”
“No. I left long before it came to
that.” Simry looked out at the stars passing them, or were they passing the stars?
“So, we find her, I extract her and you distract the locals?”
“Pretty much. You will need to use your talent to do so, and I will have to keep them busy. It might involve me making a spectacle of myself, but I think I can manage it.”
“Well, you are pretty spectacular.” He winked and left the controls to enter the rear of the shuttle. When he returned, he handed her a cup of tea. “To a successful first assignment.”
She clinked her cup against his and watched the stars run by. “Here is to hoping.”
Chapter Eight
She nodded her head slightly at the building made of fitted wood panels guarded by two men.
Hero nodded next to her and quickly kissed her forehead for luck. She got up and walked through the trail onto the main road with her cane at her side. She knew the signal she was waiting for and hoped that Hero took his time in breaking the recruiter out.
As she walked with her grey robes swirling, guards stepped forward to confront her.
“Identify yourself, stranger.”
She raised her left hand and peeled back her hood. “No stranger, merely a wanderer. I am here to speak with my family. I have travelled far and have much to tell them.”
Simry knew it wouldn’t happen, but she had to try.
One of the guards knew her on sight. “Simry-Vu.”
“Simply Simry now.” She stepped forward with deliberate purpose. No one stopped a wanderer unless they left the path.
She walked slowly, using her cane, though her twisted gait was a thing of the past. One of the guards ran off, presumably to find a priest, the other walked with her.
The villagers stopped and stared as she walked in their midst. She had grown up here, the faces were mostly familiar, and they were all staring.
She moved slowly, carefully, through the pathway until she was in front of her childhood home. “Vu family, a wanderer has come visiting.”
She held her breath, and nothing happened for a moment. She counted to one hundred and three before the door opened and her well-worn mother stood in the doorway. “Simry!”
“May this wanderer enter your home?” Holding to the formalities would protect her family.
“Of course. Please come in and seek shelter in our dwelling.”
Her mother had tears in her eyes, and Simry walked into her home for a quick round of hugs behind closed doors.
Her father came in from the back, and he dropped the wood he was holding. More hugs, more tears and a lot of exclaiming over her leg later, her mother whispered that her sister Minel was the reason that the recruiter had been captured.
Minel was standing shyly nearby. “I have some skills with healing.”
Minel was the youngest; the others had already married and begun their families with no sign of talents popping up.
“Are you willing to leave, Minel?”
Minel looked to their parents, and when they nodded, she nodded. “I am. If it will save them any persecution, I will leave.”
“You can see and learn things that you never imagined. You can save lives on a daily basis once you complete your education.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
“They sent me to school. I learned, I made friends, I practiced until I was very good at what I do, and now, I was able to return here.”
Minel swallowed and raced up to her room, returning with a small leather sack.
Their parents smiled, hugged them both and cried. Simry swallowed her own tears before straightening her shoulders and gripping the cane her father had risked so much to bring to her.
He drew her aside and whispered, “Stay strong, Simry. It is for the best that Minel leaves us. Dormin and his wife have asked us to move in with them. Her father is a priest, and he will offer us protection from those who would shun us.”
“But—”
“We are your parents. We brought you into this world to live the life the gods decreed, not to have you turn around and try and hold us up. Since they have decided you will be safer away from us, we embrace that with the knowledge that you are doing what you must and you will flourish in a way you could never do here.”
Gifts of the gods are withered branches. She had had that drilled into her, and until this moment, it had never occurred to her that she had absolutely no place in this society. As the eldest daughter, she should have taken care of her parents, but she wasn’t able to do so. She was a withered branch.
She hugged her father one more time and turned to Minel. “Ready?”
Minel took the cloak from her mother and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Ready.”
One final round of hugs and Simry left the Vu home with her sister at her side.
They walked to the center of town, and Simry walked into the sacred garden, up to the tree that had offered its branch to help her. She knelt under the tree and motioned for Minel to do the same.
“Grandfather Tree, thank you for your assistance. It has been invaluable and a reminder of my home no matter where I travel.” She kept her head bowed, and Minel followed suit as Simry said, “I ask for a piece of you for my sister to take with her as she begins her own journey.”
The tree rustled and a branch reached down to touch Minel on the shoulder.
Simry smiled then jolted in surprise as another branch touched her. As quickly as she could, she ghosted into the tree and was stunned by what she found.
Amazed, she sat with tears streaming down her cheeks as a carved knot dropped in her lap.
Minel smiled at her through her own tears. “I think it is time to go.”
Minel had a similar knot of wood in her hands.
They rose, put the icons protectively in their respective clothing, against their skin, and turned around to see the crowd of seething priests glaring at them.
“Let me handle this one, Minel.”
Her sister shifted behind her, the pale lavender braid swung as she moved.
High Priest Kado glowered at them from the edge of the walkway. “You have defiled our sacred space, Simry-Vu.”
“By the laws of your own traditions, the sacred gardens are open to all who would seek the blessings of the gods. Today, I sought their blessings as any wanderer might.”
“You used your talent to make the tree touch you.”
Simry raised her eyebrows. “You know that it is not how my talent works. I can only bring myself to walk without my body, an abomination in your eyes but still what the gods gifted me with.”
“Your leg has been healed.”
Simry nodded. “I wandered far from here and begged for help until finally I lay back and let the healing happen.”
It was the truth, more or less. She had fought Reset, but there was only one way for her leg to stay healed, and it was by forcing the body to remember its own genetic code. The sensation had been incredible and not one she would wish on her worst enemy. If she had had any secrets, she would have spilled them all during that marathon of healing.
Reset referred to Simry as having a belligerent genetic code.
“The gods healed you?”
She snorted. “I certainly didn’t do it.”
Simry leaned on her cane. “The sacred tree offered me this cane years ago, and today, it gave me its blessing for my wandering. My sister has also received the blessing, so please, stand aside and let us continue on our path.”
A blast wave of power burned through the sky. Hero had completed the rescue and it was time for Simry to take control of the situation. She moved her hand to the back of her neck and tapped three times.
Standing next to herself was odd, but she sent her other body to the beacon in the ship and woke it up. Full camouflage was on board and active. It was going to look like a travelling heatwave.
Minel took her arm and led her away from the priests, down to the path and, slowly, out of the village on the
opposite side of the approach.
While she walked, using the cane more than she normally would, her mind was picking up the fleeing Hero and the woman in his arms.
The guards tried to block them, and Minel faced off against them. “You have no right to ban wanderers. We are doing as nature has dictated. Stand aside or face the wrath of the gods.”
The air pressure around them changed, and the guards took the divine hint. Flying a shuttle at low altitude while walking was a trick she was not going to keep in her repertoire. Once was more than enough.
The path was clear, and around the nearest hill was a flat plain where the shuttle could land for a moment.
“What is wrong with you, Simry?” Minel whispered it softly.
“I am multitasking. I am not very good at it.”
The pressure wave of the ship passed over them and around the hill.
The moment the ship was down, Simry started moving faster. “Around the hill to Drebon-Hek’s field. Look for a series of wedges in the grain.”
They made it to the field, and Simry ran for the ship. She opened the door at their approach and boosted Minel into the shuttle before the steps descended.
Hero reached down and hauled her in. She took off a moment later, the ship rising with the reflective shields still on.
“I don’t know what you are doing, but the ship controls won’t respond to me.”
She locked the doors, pressurized the ship and took them into the cloud layer before dropping the shields and making her way to the front of the ship. “Sorry, Teemya.”
The recruiter was sitting in a jump seat with Minel next to her. They were holding hands with a death grip.
She slid into the command chair and pulled the ship up and out of the atmosphere by force of will. It felt weird to be driving and flying at the same time, but she wasn’t able to pull out of the ship just yet. She didn’t want to stress the systems.
By law, she couldn’t let the ship be seen, so she waited until they were behind the moon before she returned to her body completely.
The ship turned idly on its trajectory. The heading remained straight.