The Sisterhood

by Juanita Coulson

  “No, I don’t suppose it was.” Renee digested what he’d said and added, “So you can’t predict every little twist and turn that’s likely to come down the pike, huh?”

  Martil’s smile was shaky, lacking its normal confidence. “It was never claimed that we did.” He cleared his throat and patted his Ka-Een pendant, as if seeking reassurance. “This physical interaction was … well, perhaps a pair of humanoids, male and female, thrown together, as it were.”

  Was he having serious second thoughts about what had happened? Overriding the basics with intellectual dissection? Renee sympathized; she, too, was attempting to distance herself from that completely unanticipated surge of sexuality.

  Sure, she wasn’t oblivious. She’d found herself eyeing Martil as well as Tae and Chayo ever since she’d met them. Perfectly natural. The same way she would have checked out an interesting and/or physically attractive man on campus or one doing business with SOS. The sort of automatic assessment that occurred constantly in ordinary human contact. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, that’s all it ever amounted to: an admiring looking-over. Shopping around.

  Rarely had Renee known the type of instant — though short-lived — electricity she’d felt with Martil, moments before. But … she had gone through this, previously, a couple of times. With painfully mixed results. Those experiences nagged at her now, increasing her rush to caution.

  It probably didn’t mean anything, she thought. Except that I’ve been feeling down in the dumps a lot recently. Why shouldn’t I? Kidnapped, by accident, admittedly, from the only world I’ve ever known. And being forced to learn in a hurry that I’m permanently stuck out here. Severed from my place and time. No sure indications of what’s going to become of me. Thrown into a whole series of astonishing encounters and hair-raising adventures, without any advance warning. Having to make constant adjustments and swallow a hell of a lot of stuff I used to think was sheer fiction …

  No wonder I’m at loose ends, all down the line. Vulnerable. Isn’t that one of the shrinks’ favorite terms? And vulnerable can mean “pushover.” Lonely can easily shift into wanting physical comfort, and for physical, read sexual.

  But … with a man who isn’t even a Homo sapiens-type human? A man who responded mostly because he feels sorry for me? No!

  She was relieved — and also a trifle ego-dented — that Martil seemed as willing to let the matter die a quick death as she was. It would have been more flattering if he’d put up a protest, or at least expressed disappointment. Instead, he cleared his throat again and said, “We must not read too much into this incident. I am certain you comprehend the subconscious causes. Neither of us is to blame for the unprecedented events which brought us into this proximity.”

  “Yeah, proximity,” Renee said, mildly annoyed. “That old devil proximity. I suppose that would explain things …”

  “Not that I find you unattractive.”

  She bristled. “Just a minute, buster. If anyone’s going to pick up the options, here, it’s going to be me. Who says I can overlook your drawbacks, momentary attractiveness to me or not?”

  A sly smile brightened Martil’s vulpine features. “Ah! Of course. I forgot. I must not trample upon your rights of selection. Forgive my presumption.” Renee gritted her teeth, her temper roiling, near a bubbling seethe. The Arbiter’s smile broadened to a grin. “Shall we put this topic aside, for the time being? There are other matters to attend to.”

  Despite his cheery tone, the words were a splash of icy water over the last remnants of Renee’s mingled irritation and interest. Other matters. Like a war. She nodded, chastened.

  Martil didn’t offer her his hand, this time. He simply waved at a wall, and the two of them stepped through a door which formed itself for them, probably on the Ka-Eens’ cue.

  A few dozen yards along the corridor beyond, they were joined by Tae and Chayo. The prince tagged readily at the big blond’s heels. Seeing that, Martil and Renee exchanged knowing glances. During the layover on the Arbiter worlds, Prince Chayo’s attitudes had undergone a noticeable alteration. His bias had been softened, a lot. He no longer saw a cleverly disguised mortal enemy when he looked at Tae. In fact, he’d learned to like the tall Arbiter and often actively sought Tae’s company.

  If Chayo could bend that for, maybe there was still hope that all of the Niandians — or at least their leaders — could be made to concede the right of existence to the Haukiets.

  The corridor led the four directly to the room with the oversize hassocks. It was busy, as usual. Hordes of the Many-Voiced out-of-synch people hurried through this area or huddled in groups, conversing in their odd, multitrack way.

  Renee accepted their presence absently, as she’d come to accept a great many peculiar things these past days. Martil had filled in some of the informational gaps for her. She knew, now, that the out-of-synchs were actually several different distinct exterior forms. Some Arbiters and staffers deliberately hid their true appearances in that fashion, either to avoid upsetting other Arbiters who might be instinctively put off by their physical shells, or to protect their privacy. Some out-of-synchs weren’t even in the big room; they were holograms, participating in Arbiter affairs via remote links. Some simply were aliens who reflected light rays oddly. Whatever their species, shape, color, or sex, they were all participants in high-level Arbiter decisions. This room was one of the key points in the interstellar peacemaking operation.

  Nevertheless, none of the out-of-synchs paid much attention to the four new arrivals. The Many-Voice rarely did, unless Martil and Tae were bringing something up for a vote or otherwise requesting a group opinion.

  The figures bustled about, eddying into shimmering clusters, the multitrack voices jabbering too fast even for Renee’s Ka-Een to handle. The scene reminded her of an alien stock market. Everyone here was terribly intent upon her, his, or its business. Understandable. They were trying to plug holes in thousands of dams being broken by clashing civilizations, scattered throughout a quarter of the Milky Way galaxy.

  Martil stopped at an empty area ringed by hassocks. Tae and the others arranged themselves in a small circle, with Martil anchoring one side of the ring. “We are ready to depart?” the fox-faced Arbiter asked.

  “It might be wisest for you to send me to Niand alone,” Chayo said. “I do not wish you to endanger your lives again.”

  “Ah! Tae and I have a mission to complete. We will accompany you, and this time we will make sure to stay close to those who can provide firm protection.”

  Chayo shook his head. “I cannot do that, as was amply proved when we were bombed at Hell-All.”

  Renee broke in. “Martil means protection provided by your mother and sister. They certainly have enough clout to fend off whoever bombed your quarters and us. If the team sticks close to the matriarch and her Eminence, the Gevari won’t dare attack. And if your mother went ahead and convened the Federation’s colony leaders, the die-hards would have to be out of their skulls to strike; they’d lose whatever support they had with Niand’s remaining fire-eaters.” Martil was grinning rakishly. On the defensive, Renee finished, “Well, you advised me to learn all I could about Chayo’s culture as well as the Arbiters’.”

  “And you have spent your time well,” he said. “I take it, then, that you intend to return with us?”

  “You — I have a choice?”

  “Of course. Wasn’t that what your feminist organization, your Sisterhood, was about? Free choices? Isn’t that what you insist upon as your philosophy of life?” Flustered, Renee said, “Yes, it is, but I didn’t know you were going to leave the whole thing up to me.”

  “Why not? The Arbiters have trained you to defend yourself.”

  “And brainwashed me thoroughly.”

  “If you prefer that terminology. We prefer to think of it as rapid subconscious education,” Martil said amiably.

  “The critical detail is — you are in the possession of a Ka-Een which chooses to remain with you. The Ka-Eens’ j
udgment is that you are capable of selecting your future course. You may live here, as you have done in recent days. Or you may be transported to a world whose civilization is somewhat similar to that of your home planet and take up residence there …”

  “Get dumped again, you mean,” Renee said, her tone sharp. “No thanks!”

  “Or you may choose to accompany us back to Niand. The option is yours. You cannot be forced to become an apprentice Arbiter. That is the way you view your present situation, is it not?” Martil waited until Renee gave a grudging nod, then went on. “You must decide of your own free will whether to accept the very real dangers involved in our work.”

  A nervous chuckle rattled in her throat. “You won’t turn me down if I decide to say yes?”

  “For reasons you will understand eventually, I hope, no, we won’t reject you.”

  Renee took a deep breath. “Then I think I’d like to tag along.”

  Martil turned to the others. “Very well. We go together.”

  “Perhaps they have missed me,” Chayo said longingly. “And Niand is my mother world. If I am to die, I prefer to die there, striving to preserve my people — and prevent the slaughter of the Green Union and the innocents on my Lady Renamos’s world.”

  Martil’s body became rigid, his eyes unfocused. Renee felt him moving into total rapport with his Ka-Een. With all four of their Ka-Eens.

  And the room with the big hassocks disappeared.

  Chapter 7

  RENEE had grimaced when the transference started. Now she unscrewed her face and peered ruefully at Martil. “I’d like that more if I knew how to turn my own pendant on, instead of depending on you to zip us all over the universe.”

  “No doubt you will do exactly that soon enough, given your affinity for our partner entities,” Martil said, grinning.

  They had landed in the palace in Niand’s capital. Glancing around, Renee saw that they were in an anteroom adjacent to the matriarch’s boudoir/HQ; visible through a half-open door were that floor-to-ceiling lighted war map and a wisp of diaphanous curtain, blocking off a corner and some furniture. Chayo moved in that direction, intending to make contact, when an ugly woman exited from there. She was carrying clothes and humming absentmindedly. But when she saw the prince and the Arbiters, chores were forgotten. She instantly dropped the clothes, shrieked, and fled back into the boudoir/HQ.

  Chayo rolled his eyes. “Beyeth has never taken out-of-the-ordinary things well,” he said. “However, she is an expert carrier of gossip. The news of our return will be transmitted to everyone in the palace in short order.”

  In the next room, vocal pandemonium was in progress. Renee heard the servant, Beyeth, shrieking and babbling excitedly and the matriarch’s stern, disbelieving tones as she attempted to calm the other woman. As Chayo led the way across the threshold, Beyeth shrieked anew and ran out, apparently rushing to carry the news, as the prince had predicted.

  “Ch-Chayo …?” The Matriarch’s expression was a chaos of incredulity and tearful anguish. “Oh, if this is a trick, a cruel image used by the Gevari …”

  Her son knelt, quickly going through the hem-kissing ritual. The matriarch didn’t let him finish. She gripped his arms, urging him to stand. Touch convinced her of the reality of his existence. “You — you’re alive! Alive!” And the two of them embraced, both weeping.

  Renee, Martil, and Tae waited on the sidelines. There were thundering footsteps approaching. Then Princess Zia, Beyeth, and a handful of Niandian soldiers burst into the boudoir. Zia froze momentarily, gawking at her mother and brother. Beyeth chattered frantically, too fast for Renee’s pendant to translate smoothly. But it was plain the faithful servant of the royal family was crowing in triumph. “See! See? I told you he was back!”

  Her shock absorbed a trifle, Zia raced forward to join the embracing matriarch and Prince Chayo. Beyeth grinned fondly, making an observer forget, briefly, her spectacular ugliness. Even the soldiers seemed delighted at this astonishing turn of events. Their chatter hung in the air, hovering around the reunited royal trio.

  “I knew those Gevari hadn’t got him with that bomb assault on the old ruined city …”

  “But how did the Prince escape ’em? According to the general’s investigation, they had the place zeroed in …”

  “Them Arbiters musta done it! I heard they had thousands of tricks up their sleeves …”

  “Yeah! Look at the Lady Renamos. She pulled it off, she and those assistants of hers …”

  Renee swallowed a guffaw. She and her assistants? Right! Martil, too, had the grace not to laugh. He and Tae waited with reasonable patience for Chayo and his female relatives to finish their emotional display. It had been a shock for Chayo’s mother and sister, undoubtedly, and they had a lot of grief-turned-to-joy to pour out. Renee glanced at the big blond Arbiter, wondering if his species would have reacted the same way. Tae smiled knowingly, answering her question without words: Yes. The Haukiets might not embrace in the same manner, and they probably had no need to speak. But the feelings wouldn’t be much different in a similar traumatic situation.

  A wall panel, not the war zone one, was lighting up. Beyeth gestured imperiously to the ranking soldier. “Transfer those calls of inquiry out to the communications staff. Inform each of the Most High’s loyal subordinates and the people of Prince Chayo’s safe return.”

  Zia had managed to pull herself out of the tearful three-way hugging session, and as the soldiers marched toward the exit she added an order: “Be certain to notify General Vunj. He will be exceedingly surprised. Correct, Mother?”

  The matriarch held Chayo’s face in her hands, gazing at him like a woman wakening from a nightmare. “What? Oh, yes. Vunj will be surprised, to say the least. As are we! But he will be grateful as well. Oh, my son! How wonderful it is to see you again!” She groped for a chair, blinded by a new rush of tears, and her children and the servant hurried to aid her; for once, the automatic chair the floor produced wasn’t quite in synch with the matriarch’s thoughts, and she needed help to settle herself into it firmly.

  Other servants were peeking in all of the doors by now, muttering among themselves. A few of them tried to catch Chayo’s eye, and when they did, waved at him eagerly: “Welcome home!” He was visibly gratified, and somewhat amused, by the storm of attention his return had brought.

  Zia comforted her mother until the older woman’s tears dried. Then the matriarch lifted her head, staring at Chayo. “We … oh, we thought you were dead! Vunj’s top recovery units searched and searched the ruins of Hell-All, after your garbled message to your sister was finally deciphered. But there was nothing! Only newly created wreckage. We could not even find your body … or the bodies of the Arbiters.”

  A muscle twitched on Chayo’s jaw. “The Gevari rebels did their best to destroy us. Were it not for the talents and technology of my Esteemed Lady Renamos and Martil and Tae, I would be dead. And so would they.”

  “I — I thank you, Lady Renamos … Arbiters Martil and … and Tae.” The matriarch held out her hand to Renee, wanting to touch her son’s rescuers. Responding, Renee took the woman’s bony fingers in her own. The ruler smiled, blinking away a few tears clinging to her lashes, and said, “Please. You must call me by my personal name, my dear Renamos. I am Onedu.”

  “I am honored for the privilege, Onedu,” Renee said, returning the matriarch’s warm smile. Contact! And progress! And she hadn’t even needed Tae’s big hand sending vibes through her back to establish such a solid Arbiter-Niandian link!

  Matriarch Onedu sat up straighter, her eyes flashing with a surge of anger. “Be assured, my son, that when the Gevari’s foul treachery was discovered, there was vengeance taken. A most severe vengeance. It reached far out into our Federation, to a number of key colonies where the Gevari had been most active of late. You should be pleased to hear that you have a most loyal following, Chayo.”

  “Fiercely loyal,” Princess Zia confirmed. “And large.”

  “When
the news spread of the outrage committed against you and the Arbiters, your faction rose and was in the forefront of the retributive strikes. Not even Vunj could temper their anger. You must immediately go on the Niandian communications link,” Onedu said, “and show our subjects that you live. Oh, how relieved they will be!”

  Martil broke in, asking bluntly, “Are we to take it, from your account, that the Gevari rebels have been eliminated?”

  Onedu labored to drag her attention from Chayo. She looked blankly at Renee for a moment, then at Martil, and said slowly, “No, I would that were true. But their power has been drastically diminished.”

  “Their numbers have been slashed,” Zia added. Her tone was somber. “It was … a very bloodthirsty business, that vengeance of Chayo’s faction.”

  The matriarch nodded. “The Gevari who remain have gone very far underground, politically. It is ironic. By their murderous assassination attempt, they turned much of Niand’s opinion toward peace efforts — the thing the Gevari have most opposed. It is no longer popular to be known as one of them, or even to share their sympathies.” Her features brightened as she looked up at Chayo once more, and again she patted his face lovingly. “This son of mine has ever been cherished by the majority of the Niandian people …”

  “That’s good to hear,” Renee said. “But as long as there are any Gevari rebels still running around out there, we’ll have our peace negotiations cut out for us. All too frequently, beleaguered fanatics react to official suppression by even more violent last-ditch tactics to keep the war going.”

  Martil leaned toward her and whispered, “Didn’t I assure you that you were properly prepared for this mission?”

  “You did nothing of the sort,” Renee lied, sotto voice.

  Inwardly, she was replaying what she’d just told the matriarch, and finding it all too true. Fanatics. Do or die. An attitude that if they weren’t going to be allowed to play their war games anymore, they’d blow up the whole damned place, and everyone in it.