The Sisterhood

by Juanita Coulson

  And all of them, whether physically or mentally wounded, were in a form of horror-shock. Sinking in remembered misery, their own and that of those left behind on their colony worlds — dead.

  Renee tried simultaneously to aid the stripers and stay out of the professionals’ way. She steadied cocoons while the doctors worked. Comforted a victim here. Handed called-for gadgets to a med staffer there. Once, she got a bit too near the action; a striper was spraying one of the aerosol shots at a patient and the stuff saturated the air inside the partially opened cocoon. Renee was forced to turn aside and cough for several minutes. Whew! That medicine was foul! But if it helped the wounded, what did it matter?

  She moved on, helping. It was her sometime job at SOS’s clinic intensified, on a planetary scale. So much to be done so quickly …

  “Renamos?”

  Renee was tending to a tearful Niandian child. She finished giving the baby a drink before she turned around and saw Martil standing beside her. Tae hulked a few steps back. Like Princess Zia and Beyeth and everyone else who was assisting the injured, the men had gotten blood and bits of shimmering plastic bandages on their clothes and hands. Renee wondered why they weren’t helping people out now, at this moment? What was so important that they had broken off their humanitarian tasks and bothered her? “What do you want?” she snapped.

  “We appreciate your concern. We share it,” Martil said. “But you must remember why we are here.”

  “I know why I’m here — to help these people.” Renee glared at the pair. “Doesn’t it mean anything to you, that they’re hurting?”

  Martil blinked, visibly aggrieved. “Of course it does. And we have helped. But what we are doing is superficial. Zia is being permitted to dabble at assisting the medical personnel, as are we. None of our aid is truly necessary, though. This is a form of show, to impress upon us the horrors of the Niand-Haukiet war, from a safe and sanitary distance.”

  “It does impress the horrors of war on me,” Renee said with heat. “And it’s affecting Princess Zia, too. Haven’t you watched her? She’s bawling half the time. She really cares, cares so much it’s tearing her up. Use some of that cold-blooded practicality you’re so fond of, why don’t you? Zia’s more likely to persuade that assembly of Federation premiers to vote for peace — because of what she’s seeing here. Now go away and let me work.”

  “Renamos …”

  “Go away!” Renee deliberately turned her back on Martil, very annoyed with him.

  As she did, a number of Niandian soldiers trotted by, on their way to relieve the princess’s bodyguard. The troops didn’t get in the doctors’ path, but for a brief time they made the area extremely crowded. When they had cleared out, Martil and Tae were gone, too. Renee rather regretted that. She’d been having additional sour impulses, and had wanted to chew Martil out further. Couldn’t he see what this shipful of injured Niandians meant? The Green Union was breaking the truce! So much for their promises to the Arbiter team. And these victims were paying the price.

  A tiny stab of doubt prodded at her. Renee knew that Martil wasn’t callous. And Tae definitely wasn’t. Why had she been so quick to assume that they weren’t emotionally involved in all of this suffering, as she had been?

  “Esteemed Lady?” One of the stripers, looking anxious. “Could you … could you help me, please?”

  “Sure.” Renee got to her feet. Her back was beginning to ache from all this squatting and bending necessary to tend to people in the cocoons. She brushed hair out of her eyes and tried to hide her weariness. Odd. This moderate amount of exercise shouldn’t have tired her. Especially not after the thorough conditioning she’d been through, sleeping and waking, on the Arbiter worlds.

  The gray-and-white striper held out a hand. As Renee touched the woman’s fingers, there was a sharp, biting sensation, and she recoiled.

  “Oh! Esteemed Lady! My apologies …”

  “Forget it. It’s static electricity,” Renee said with a lame smile. “I’ve been coping with that all my life. I’m a walking Leyden jar.” The striper looked utterly blank, and Renee shrugged off any further attempt at explanations. “Just babbling. Lead on.”

  Where the striper led her to was a concourse anteroom crammed with children. For some reason, the kids had been segregated here. Renee suspected that was because these were orphans. Most of the kids were injured and all of them were terrified, badly needing soft voices and reassurances. Renee didn’t ask questions. She got busy.

  The striper hovered as the human took a sobbing toddler onto her lap. “It’s okay,” Renee said. “I’m pretty good with kids.” Smiling, the medical staffer went to take care of other children, and Renee concentrated on cheering the frightened baby she held. Gradually, its tears abated. A chubby little hand groped at Renee’s Ka-Een pendant, toying with it in infantile curiosity.

  When that happened, Renee received an impression of something poking through a fog. Troubling questions twinged at her brain, and her mind began to race.

  What had Martil said? That she should remember why she was there. That the things the Arbiters were doing were actually rather superficial, could be performed by any untrained Niandian.

  A show. The hospital ship’s arrival couldn’t have been a surprise. General Vunj had known it was coming, and had tried to shoo Princess Zia and her guests off to an area where they wouldn’t be dragged into the relief efforts. He’d said Premier Wisi’s spacegoing flagship or whatever had been delayed, to make room for the emergency vehicle.

  But … that situation must have been planned hours in advance. Had to be. Even as advanced a species as the Niandians’ doesn’t have instantaneous travel via Ka-Eens. Even when the matriarch was sending us here, didn’t she know we wouldn’t meet Premier Wisi? Was she setting up us and the princess? Trying to drag our emotions into, the upcoming peace negotiations? So we’d be swayed over to the Niandian point of view and maybe tilt the truce to favor the matriarch’s species …?

  “Kindly one …?” A medical staffer had tapped Renee’s shoulder and was offering the Arbiter a steaming cupful of what looked deliciously like coffee. Renee’s questions fizzled out, swallowed up back into that veil of fog at the edge of her mind.

  “Oh, thanks!” Renee took the coffee with care, not moving her head too sharply, lest she jerk the Ka-Een pendant out of the baby’s hands. But the kid had lost interest in the jewelry by now. Its eyelids drooped. The rosebud mouth made reflexive sucking motions. Smiling, the gray-and-white striper gently took the baby from Renee and carried it to a down-lined crib, settling it in for a nap.

  Renee sipped at the coffee, or Niandian version thereof. It tasted halfway between tea and cola. But it was just right, not too hot, not too tepid, and it lifted her energy considerably.

  When the striper asked her to assist other children, Renee was ready to go. She helped soothe a toddler while a plastic bandage was changed. Then there were other kids to calm down. Others to help out of their cocoons. Cribs to be prepared. Funny, elongated nursing bottles to coax the infants to take.

  “We need more hands,” the striper grumbled.

  “You sure do,” Renee agreed.

  “Would you bring me a fresh supply of soothant, my Lady?” The woman pointed to a medical supply room at the far end of the makeshift hospital nursery.

  Renee hurried to fetch the requested drug. It seemed like a very long way to the supply alcove. The enclosed area was as far as it could be from the door connecting the nursery with the concourse. A petite Niandian med staffer was working in the room, unpacking boxes. Her gray-and-white uniform made her look like a volunteer nurse’s aide, an effect enhanced by her hair, which was gathered on either side of her head into two long, silky ponytails. But Renee reminded herself that she shouldn’t jump to conclusions; for all she knew, this woman might be a famous surgeon among her people. “The soothant?” Renee inquired. “It’s needed.”

  “Ah! This way, Esteemed Lady Renamos.” The striper led her still further into t
he isolated room.

  Again, something nagged deep within Renee’s brain, trying to get to the surface:

  Where were Martil and Tae and Princess Zia? How had she become separated from them? Maybe she should head back into the main part of the spaceport.

  The striper opened a cabinet and took out some boxes with squiggly Niandian writing on them. Renee started to thank her, but the woman’s eyes widened in alarm. She was gazing past Renee in obvious dismay and anger. Intrigued, Renee turned to see what had drawn the med staffer’s attention.

  A couple of soldiers were out in the nursery. They were determinedly threading their way through the forest of cribs and cocoons.

  “Dirga, they are coming.” The striper was speaking urgently into a flattened pen-style radio, one much like the gadget Chayo had used in vain at Hell-All when he and the Arbiters were being bombed. Why was the striper carrying one of those? And who was she warning? Who were “they”? The soldiers? Those must be some of Princess Zia’s bodyguards, come to check up on the errant Arbiter and make sure the royal guest was okay.

  “Stand aside, Esteemed Lady.”

  The little gray-and-white striper was holding one of those billy clubs with the gold-wire tracery. She pointed it, and a red streak shot from its tip, lancing across the supply room. It caught one of the soldiers just as he stepped through the door. He clutched at his head and fell, flopping grotesquely, like a dying fish. In the nursery beyond, injured kids watched the scene with the intent, silent stare of the very young. Blood spread out under the fallen soldier’s body, running over the doorsill.

  The second bodyguard crouched behind his buddy and aimed a billy club weapon at the striper. Another fiery lance zapped across the room, in Renee’s general direction this time. The bolt chewed pieces out of the supply cabinet.

  “Here, Lady.” The little woman yanked at Renee’s arm, dragging her into a cramped cubicle standing next to the cabinet.

  “What the hell …?” Renee protested. None of this was making any sense. Particularly not a shoot-out in the middle of a hospital emergency room!

  “They are assassins, Lady. Do not be fooled by their uniforms.” The Niandian was muttering into her flattened pen-style radio again. “Do not fear, we will —”

  The second soldier charged, firing his billy-club gun. Either he was in too big a hurry to take aim, or he was afraid of accidentally hitting an Arbiter. Every red bolt went wild. The gray-and-white striper, on the other hand, was an excellent shot, a dead-eye. The finger of red fire caught the man high in the chest. He staggered back, dropping his weapon, his eyes glazing. A hideous, gaping hole was where his heart and lungs should have been.

  “Oh, my god!” Renee gasped, sickened and appalled.

  Her stomach lurched, and she and the striper were somewhere else.

  Chapter 9

  THEY were standing under the open sky with yellowish grass underfoot and funny-looking, droopy trees dotting the prairie landscape. A couple of gleaming towers were directly in front of … in front of where Renee was.

  Where was that?

  Dazedly, she glanced to one side, and regretted the action. Her guts and middle ears were in a turmoil. Gulping down a wave of nausea, she saw that she and the woman with the billy-club gun were standing in a tile-walled three-sided closet. One just like Princess Zia had led the Arbiters into earlier. Then, they’d moved in a second from the palace to the spaceport, maybe half a globe away. This time, Renee seemed to have stepped — without knowing it — into a matter-relay terminal at the concourse and come out here.

  Farm country. Cultivated fields surrounding her. Maybe those towers were grain elevators.

  The gray-and-white striper still held her oddly shaped gun ready. And with her free hand she gripped Renee’s upper arm. Firmly. A steely touch. Renee wanted to tell the woman that she could let go. I’m not planning on running, at least not until my stomach quiets down, she thought.

  She didn’t get the chance. Her stomach flip-flopped once more, and once more they were somewhere else. Renee was rapidly developing a bad case of heartburn.

  This time, they had landed in a big room aglow with blue lights. A bunch of Niandians waited apprehensively in front of the cubicle. As the gray-and-white striper shoved Renee ahead of her, out of the tile-lined box, the welcoming committee relaxed, smiles blossoming. Immediately, the striper released Renee, and she smiled, too, a bit apologetically.

  She ought to! There’d been no need for the rough stuff!

  Had there?

  “Oh, Esteemed Lady Renamos, you have escaped them!” A skinny man clutched her hand, kissing it. Then he dropped to his knees, doing the same to the hem of her dashiki. A plump woman beamed at Renee fondly. Her mood was infectious, warm, maternal. How relieved she was! Her baby, home safe from the wars!

  What wars? What the hell was going on?

  All of these people had the same rich ivory complexion as did Matriarch Onedu. The blue lights didn’t help their looks at all. In fact, the effect added painfully to the queasiness assaulting Renee’s innards. That light on that tint of skin made the entire group look like beached fish. Her stomach flopped anew, and Renee said shakily, “I — I’d like to sit down, please.”

  “Of course, of course!”

  They led her to a divinely soft sofa, plumped pillows for her, fussed, and offered her a drink. She shuddered, her nausea flaring. “It’s only cold water,” the skinny man said.

  “Well, that might taste good, about now.” Renee took a long pull, hoping the liquid would wash the acid out of her mouth and quiet her guts. It did, some. Feeling somewhat better, she asked, “Would someone mind telling me what this is all about?”

  “Those men who attacked you at the concourse were assassins, Esteemed Lady. It was most fortunate that Pasyi was assigned there today to help the innocent victims of the Green Union’s aggression. If she had not seen the danger to you …”

  Renee peered owlishly at the gray-and-white striper. Pasyi was grinning, as if to say, “That’s all right; you don’t need to thank me. Just doing my job, Ma’am.” The woman was as petite as the Arbiter-trainer Soh, and even more deadly. Especially while she was wielding that billy-club gun. The thing was a hell of a lot more lethal than the harmless stinger Soh had used to teach Renee to defend herself.

  Pasyi had either ditched the alien gun or holstered it. It wasn’t in sight. Renee tried, not too successfully, to forget the weapon, and what it had done to the two soldiers.

  “Why? Why would they want to kill me? I’m not any Niandian’s enemy.”

  The plump, matronly woman sat beside her, patting Renee’s hand affectionately. “We know you are not, my dear, but others are so witless, so fanatically prejudiced that they cannot accept that. Permit me to make myself known to you. I am Esher, and your family is mine. No matter that those murderers struck at you. You are safe now.”

  “Why did they want to kill me?” Renee repeated plaintively. Wasn’t anyone listening to her? It was nice to be coddled and pampered like this; but confusion had made her head ache, and her guts were still boiling. Ominous churnings going on down there.

  “They tried to kill you because you will see the truth, and judge fairly,” the motherly woman explained. “We respect your judgment, Esteemed Arbiter. Unhappily, those Disloyalists do not.”

  Renee wanted to tell them that she wasn’t really an Arbiter, just an apprentice, a tagalong. If they had a warning for the Arbiters, they should be delivering it to Martil and Tae.

  That thought jolted her. “My companions! Are they …”

  “Oh, quite safe, my dear. The Disloyalists had no need to move against them, of course. They are mere men.”

  Of course. This was Niand. And Esteemed Lady Renamos, mere apprentice in the true order of things, ranked head and shoulders above Martil and Tae. In Niandian eyes, she must be calling the shots. After all, she was female.

  Their tacit assumptions and attitudes were overwhelming. It was light-years past any reversal of c
ultural power roles Renee had fantasized. And right now, it wasn’t welcome. She’d have been glad to hand over all vestiges of her alleged authority. Let capable male hands take the reins and make the decisions. Martil and Tae had the experience to deal with this situation. Renamos of the Sisterhood of the Nine Worlds sure didn’t. Not while her stomach was declaring World War III and her head was spinning like this.

  She took another long drink of water. “I — I’m sorry. I don’t feel well.”

  “Oh, my dear. My poor dear.” The Lady Esher looked around, saying angrily, “Those vicious hooligans! How they have distressed her. Quickly. Bring us a covering. This child must rest.” She soothed Renee, encouraging her to stretch out on the comfy sofa, shushed the rest of the Niandians looking on, and lulled the Arbiter to sleep.

  Or was it sleep? Sleep mingled with voices that appeared to come from the waking world all around. Dreams that were not quite dreams.

  We will have it at last. Hard pressed. But they have not defeated us. They never shall.

  She will be a marvelous living weapon for us.

  Do you not think it is too much, too fast?

  No, she is strong, this alien. You will see. She will help us succeed.

  Succeed at what? But Renee couldn’t hang on to the question, and for a long time she floated in nothingness.

  Coming back to herself was a struggle, worse than any waking-up session she’d ever gone through. Swimming through tons of maple syrup and sticky tape. She pushed tiredly at the fluffy blanket the Lady Esher had placed over her. Renee’s yawn became a soft groan. Her head hurt far worse than it had before she’d gone to sleep.

  And the voices were still there. Not dreams. In the room with her.

  Moving unsteadily, she forced herself into an upright position and squinted at her surroundings. Nothing had changed. The same ugly blue lights. The same bunch of ivory-skinned Niandians.

  “Are they ready?” The skinny man waggled his chin and gazed worriedly at the gray-and-white striper, Pasyi.

  “Very nearly, yes.”