The Sisterhood

by Juanita Coulson

  A blinding light spread, and Renee saw — while knowing, intellectually, that such a thing was impossible-countless beings on dozens of worlds being bathed in that light. The light killed, agonizingly. And it went on, reaching wider and wider, destroying even the planets those beings stood upon.

  And when it was done, there was utter emptiness.

  “Look!” Martil said urgently. Renee wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, and she looked.

  The images of total destruction were gone. The hologram of the Arbiters and the Haukiet top dogs was the only illusion remaining in the auditorium. The scene showed the confab in shock. What the returning Arbiter team had depicted with that “hologram within a hologram” scenario of interstellar slaughter was a replay. How much more impact must it have had when viewed close up and personally by those Haukiet leaders! The Haukiets’ shape shifted erratically, making distressed cooing sounds. In human terms, they were reeling emotionally.

  The Arbiters had a peacemaker’s dream come true. They could grab the warmongers by the brain and the soul and hurl them right into the middle of things. No more distancing from their high-level decisions. No more abstracts of nameless casualties and body counts. No more lofty blathering about the “necessity of deep strikes into enemy territory” to protect the home world’s “sacred honor.” No more casual slaughter on a wide scale for the sake of victory — and to maintain the top dogs’ status quo. These holograms brought the combatants’ leaders face-to-face with their victims, and with their victims’ agony. The impact was enormous.

  Renee’s Ka-Een was translating the hasty exchange that had taken place at the Haukiet Union HQ. Agitation. Remorse. A total state of being appalled. “It — it must end …”

  “Immediately,” the Arbiters were saying — or thinking. “You must suppress your Yoff rebels as well as your military commanders.”

  “This will be done. At once. No more killing. It all will stop, now.”

  It did. The last of the holograms winked out.

  Renee fought nausea, a leftover from what she’d experienced during the presentation. “That — that was a hell of a lot more than just an illusion, Martil.”

  He looked a trifle shaky, too, though surely he had witnessed similar graphic reports by previous Arbiter peace missions. “Yes. It has to be. The beings controlling an interstellar conflict must be made to understand exactly what they are doing — and that their enemies are not faceless entities but people. People who can suffer, and whose suffering becomes the leaders’ suffering, through these holograms.” Martil turned and asked tentatively, “Chayo?”

  The Niandian sat in a slumped position, shuddering. “It — it cannot be allowed to happen. That last …”

  “The bright light that kills? The Bender Principle weapon. Your General Vunj would have identified it at once.”

  “As did I!” Chayo cried. “A recent development by our scientists, held in careful reserve. A weapon that kills everything in its path and requires no space fleet to deliver. But the risk …”

  Martil nodded somberly. “Desolation is the result. Light-years wide. The deaths of numberless living creatures, many of them quite unknown to Niand or Haukiet. A holocaust spreading across entire star systems …”

  Chayo grabbed Martil’s biceps, shouting, “No! It must not be! It must be stopped!”

  “So we hope. With the cooperation of Niand’s leaders and the Haukiets’. Both sides have to rein in their hatred of their alien opponents. And both have to control their more fanatical elements, Niand its Gevari, the Haukiets their Yoff rebels. We are Arbiters. We have no desire to take an active part in this interstellar war. But we may be forced to do so, should either faction decide to use the Bender Principle weapon. Those holograms of mutual destruction were for instructive purposes, but they were not merely symbolic.” Martil’s voice was icy. “Know this. The Bender Principle device is a bludgeon. The Arbiters command a scalpel. And if we must, we will use it to protect those innocent populaces. Or to avenge their deaths, if we are unable to prevent them.”

  The prince stared at Martil, shaken. Renee, too, felt as if she were suspended over a chasm. She envisioned that scalpel, that incomprehensibly advanced weapon the Arbiters controlled. Something the Niandians and Haukiets had heard about, and dreaded. Something even more terrifying than those awful Bender Principle weapons both interstellar civilizations had developed for possible use against their enemies. There was no anger in Martil. Instead, Renee sensed distress, mingled with adamant resolve.

  The Arbiters didn’t want to step in that way. They wanted to arbitrate, help the opposing species come to terms with each other, before they went past the point of no return.

  But if push came to shove …

  “To protect the wider universe,” Martil said, his manner remote and withdrawn, “the dealer of such a death will be dealt death.”

  Chapter 6

  “TRY it again. Outside yourself.”

  Renee eyed the training weapon held in Soh’s small, dark hand. The very sight of that stinger was irritating. The Earthwoman was tired of being bitten by that low-voltage gnat.

  Outside herself.

  After three days, and a hell of a lot of sleep-time force-fed supplementary education, she was finally getting a solid grasp on the concept. Renee darted forward, zigzagging in her best touch football goal-drive form. She reacted beyond normally processed thought, her focus simultaneously on the training weapon and on Soh. At the last possible instant, Renee leapt, sliding beneath Soh’s arm, bypassing the stinger.

  The Earthwoman caught Soh under the breasts. Thumbs dug in. Renee used momentum smoothly. No wildly out-of-control, bowling-over reaction this time! She was right on top of it, in command, the tackle executed to perfection. This wasn’t a useless tumble that benefited the trainer more than herself. It was a concentrated attack.

  She flattened Soh. As they went down, Renee let her hands jolt upward until she had a tight grip on the trainer’s throat. Guarding against tricks, she planted a knee in Soh’s gut and pinned the smaller woman’s legs with her weight.

  “Very good,” Martil commented from the sidelines.

  Renee didn’t relax, though, until Soh assured her that the contest was truly over. Over the past couple of days, Renee had made the mistake several times of letting down too soon — and had been jabbed in some tender spots and thrown for a loop as a result. Now she got to her feet and held out a hand to help Soh up.

  “You have improved rapidly,” the trainer said. Renee’s Ka-Een pendant throbbed beneath the Earthwoman’s workout suit, translating. Soh’s voice was ultra-feminine, with a rich, low timbre. “I might almost trust you with my life. You have learned the true victory — to disarm without unnecessary damage.”

  “If only we could always have that choice,” Martil muttered, and Renee glanced at him unhappily.

  Soh bowed, fingers touching her forehead in a gesture of respect. “There is nothing more I can teach you, Renamos, in the time which is allotted to us. If you survive your mission, return, and we will continue these lessons.” A depressingly fatalistic remark, that, implying that survival wasn’t guaranteed.

  Her pleasure in her athletic achievement somewhat dampened, Renee imitated Soh’s graceful farewell gesture. What a gem the trainer was! An exquisite, petite humanoid with Oriental features and skin the color of brown velvet. Fragile-looking, but dangerously tough. Soh didn’t need that stinger; she could defend herself quite nicely with nothing but her bare hands, as Renee had learned the hard way. The stinger was simply a simulator, to give the student something to aim at.

  How would Evy react to Soh? Renee wondered. With envy and pride, I’ll bet. This is a black sister par excellence. Capable of going anywhere, anytime, and taking no lip from anyone. She’d sure teach some super-macho jerks I’ve bumped into a lesson …

  Depression descended over Renee like a cloud. Evy. All the people and places left forever behind. No going home again.

  She had to f
orce a smile when she waved as Soh climbed aboard a skimmer. The teardrop-shaped vehicle hovered, then soared away across rolling grasslands and copses of fuzzy trees.

  Martil didn’t intrude on Renee’s bleak mood, allowing her to work it out at her own pace. Eventually, she took a deep breath and shook off depression. Martil gestured toward the bottom of the hill they stood on. Chayo and his trainer were exercising there while Tae looked on. Renee started down the trail toward them, Martil falling into step at her side. “You have made much progress.”

  “Yeah, well …” She shrugged deprecatingly. “I wasn’t a full-fledged couch potato, even in the world I came from. But I sure wasn’t a black belt, either. It’ll take more than a few days of Soh’s training techniques to turn me into a total muscle machine.”

  “That is not the intention.”

  Eyeing him sidelong, Renee said, “I know. You’re trying to bring me to an acceptable physical peak fast. All those cram courses I’m absorbing when I sleep …”

  “Plus certain accelerated stimulations of physical potentials. Standard form.”

  “For Arbiters.” Renee grimaced. “I can’t complain. Your high-tech gadgets even cancel out the usual aches and pains. I ought to feel like I’ve plunged into a marathon with inadequate preparation. But I don’t. I don’t even have headaches after being stuffed full of info during every sleeping session. However, do you really think all of this can convert me into an instant grad-level Arbiter?”

  “No.” She started to snap at him and Martil grinned. “Much of the required training was already accomplished before you rode the Ka-Eens’ transference beam. You were physically fit. And your ability to adapt and accept your unique affinity with the Ka-Een further stands you in excellent stead.”

  “I’m a regular superwoman,” Renee said sarcastically.

  “Hardly that! Unusual, though. Else the Ka-Eens would not have clasped onto your essence so readily.”

  Renee wriggled her shoulders, loosening up after the tension of her workout with Soh. “Whatever. Okay. I understand that the out-of-synch physicians decided Chayo wasn’t quite back up to par yet; he needed a few days of ultra-enhanced reconditioning before you could send him home to Niand. So I get the fallout, tuning up my bod, practicing mayhem with Soh.” She waved a hand, indicating acres of blue-green grasslands with their spangling of alien flowers. “I still don’t see why we travel here to get in shape. It’s so beautiful!”

  “Why should an attractive location hinder recuperation and a stretching of your athletic skills?” Martil asked ingenuously.

  “Because the scenery makes it difficult to concentrate on chopping your trainer’s jugular, for one thing. I suppose that’s the idea: teaching me, if not Chayo, to avoid distractions. It hasn’t been easy doing that, after you gave us the grand tour of your Arbiter worlds these past couple of days. Believe me, we’re impressed. Even if I suspect this ‘grass’ is really Astroturf.”

  Martil was regarding her with his patented sham-evil leer. She was becoming very familiar with that expression, and rather liked it. It made him appear hammily villainous. All he lacked was a handlebar mustache to twirl. He gestured dramatically, his rings flashing in the light of the planet’s twin suns. “Ah! We Arbiters are indeed the ultimate magicians …”

  Renee smacked his hand. “Quit bragging. I know all this is standard stuff, to you. Entire planets devoted to research. To linguistics. To physical training and leisure. To studying more advanced symbiotic relationships between the Arbiters and Ka-Eens. Cultural-cataloguing worlds. Worlds dedicated to picking up incoming messages from Out There, messages from light-years away, pleading for your help, like the Niandians and Haukiets have. You’ve put together a utopia.”

  Martil’s eyebrows arched out of sight beneath his bangs. “The Arbiter worlds are hardly that.”

  “You’ve reached the millennium, then.”

  “It took considerably longer than a thousand years to …”

  “Oh, shut up!” Renee exclaimed. “You know what I mean. This is a true rainbow coalition on a galactic scale. Perfection.”

  “No, we are not perfect. There is always room for improvement,” Martil protested.

  “Close enough to perfection as makes no difference, from the point of view of us less-advanced beings.” Renee’s depression was returning, dragging at her. “You’ve showed Chayo and me what the future could be like for our worlds — if they don’t fritter away their potentials hating their neighbors. Speaking of his world, isn’t it about time you sent him back to Niand? And returned yourselves, to finish the job? Not that these fun and games haven’t been enjoyable, but …”

  “Not merely fun. Necessary, given the ordeal the four of us went through. Tae and I have been working out as well,” Martil said, nodding.

  Renee heaved a sigh. “I’d like to think these sessions with Soh would eventually help me peel off some pounds. But the Arbiter physicians said they wouldn’t, no matter how long I trained.”

  Martil swatted her rump playfully, and she threw him a mock glare. He said, “It is simply a matter of redistribution, no more. You already carry the correct weight for your skeletal and muscular structure. Your Earth obviously is more massive than my home planet. It is true that you weigh more than I do, but that is of no consequence. It is quite natural, as is Tae’s greater strength in relation to either of us.”

  “Go with what we’ve got,” Renee muttered. She felt her ears getting warm, telling her that she was blushing. Now why should she do that? Nothing he had said ought to embarrass her, pleasantly or otherwise.

  He was right on the mark when he noted that she outweighed him. By now, Renee had learned to take for granted a number of facts that would have startled her out of her shoes not much over a week ago, reckoned by Earth’s calendar. Martil was humanoid, but he wasn’t human. He was taller than she, and a great deal thinner, and lighter. One of the cram courses she’d been force-fed while she slept informed her that his race’s bones were spongier than Homo sapiens’. In a pinch, she could no doubt pick him up and carry him. Not that she’d need to. With his Ka-Een working symbiotically with him, Martil could travel anywhere he wished in the proverbial blink of an eye.

  The Ka-Eens. Info on them had been considerably more vague than the general nuts-and-bolts stuff about the non-Ka-Een Arbiters, their work, and their interstellar complex. Often, Renee speculated that the Arbiters themselves weren’t entirely sure about some of the details on the Ka-Eens. Those entities were definitely alive. But according to the Arbiters’ own record banks, Ka-Eens didn’t correspond to any other life-form encountered in the galactic quadrant. And contact between them and other species had to be initiated by the Ka-Eens rather than by the humanoids or other beings wishing to be “possessed” by one of the near-omnipotent entities. Puzzles. Like a lot of what Renee had been exposed to on this complex of widely separated Arbiter worlds. There were gaps in her condensed education; she hoped those gaps would be filled, gradually, as some of the force-fed data seeped into her conscious mind.

  “Listen,” she said, “there’s something that’s been bothering me ever since we arrived here. And you keep dodging my questions about it. If the Arbiters knew they were going to be dealing with a biologically determined matriarchy on Niand, why didn’t they send female Arbiters instead of you and Tae? Chayo’s mother and sister didn’t appreciate that at all. In fact, it was almost an insult to them.”

  Martil hesitated, reluctant to reply. Finally he said, “I am afraid hearing the reasons behind the makeup of our Arbiter team may wound your ego. Your species ego, as it were.”

  Baffled and trying not to show it, Renee said, “Try me.”

  “Very well. The Niand-Haukiet war isn’t considered important enough to pull female Arbiters off their more critical assignments elsewhere. Warring races must accept Arbiters as Arbiters, not as caterers to their special local biases. Tae and I happened to be the first available Haukiet-humanoid team when Prince Chayo’s appeal for aid reached u
s. To be blunt, it’s surprising that we had any teams free on such short notice …”

  Renee halted. Agreeably, Martil halted, too. She stammered, “N-not important!”

  “Not really. No. I said it might wound your ego.”

  “Ego, hell! That’s not what’s bugging me. It’s the innocent species — like humanity — that are going to get squashed if the Niand-Haukiet war doesn’t stop.”

  “Indeed. They will, if the combatants do not come to their senses.” She recoiled, outraged, but Martil caught her hand, holding her fast. “That doesn’t mean that the Arbiters wouldn’t care if that occurred — and care deeply. Sometimes, though, such tragedies do occur. Often, we never learn of the disaster, not even after the event. The galaxy is so vast, and belligerent contacts among the star-roving species are, unfortunately, all too common. There simply are not enough Arbiter teams to go around. We constantly send out our message, offering our services to help negotiate peace. But some degree of technological sophistication is needed by the client races in order to translate our signal; we are unable to anticipate every single language out there. And when a communication reaches us, as Prince Chayo’s did, it sometimes arrives too late. The destruction has taken place before we have even a chance to intervene. You must consider the larger picture, Renamos. The galactic picture.”

  Dismayed, she nibbled a fingernail. “I — I’m trying to. But it’s so damned much to cope with all at once.” Crosscut drawings of the Milky Way swam through her mind’s eye. “How far are we from, say, Chayo’s home world? Right now. At this very moment.”

  “How shall I describe that? In what terms?”

  “Light-years.”

  “Those mean nothing to a Ka-Een,” Martil said. “And Ka-Een are our sole measurement of actual travel distances. If they could operate alone, there would still be a need for us ordinary Arbiters. The Ka-Een are unique entities, and their very uniqueness prevents them from fully understanding the motivations and actions of lesser species. The Ka-Eens’ possessed partners, like Tae and me, must assess the situation presented by a mission from the viewpoint of the particular client races involved. Only then, and with strict neutrality, can we make our mutual judgments.” He took a long, deep breath. “But, to address your basic query: As light travels and is computed in what I comprehend of that measurement, we are approximately ten thousand light-years from Niand.”