“Laudae Sissy.” Jake bowed solemnly. Heat flushed his face.
“I prefer just Sissy, but I suppose you have to use a title around here.” She resumed her march back through the maze of corridors.
About every twenty paces an alcove offered an altar or a meditation bench. Most of them looked dusty and abandoned. A lot like the large ceremonial center of the Council Chamber.
More evidence that the idyllic life full of faith and spirituality presented to the public crumbled as badly as law and order within Harmony City.
Maybe the threat of invasion wasn’t as false as it sounded. Though that whopper of a lie Gregor told about the CSS being hideous snake monsters made everything he said suspect.
“Laudae Sissy, are you serious about leading an expedition to the caves?”
“Of course. Just as soon as I can find scientists and historians willing to go with me.”
“Then I have to warn you; you might find some puzzling things. Unexplainable things.” Why did he have to warn her? She’d discover soon enough that none of the bones in the caves could be older than seven hundred years.
The shock would devastate her. He couldn’t stand the thought of seeing Laudae Sissy confused and bewildered, more at sea than she already was.
Pammy, I’ve got to get out of here before I muck it up by caring.
“What kinds of unexplainable things?” She stopped and turned again.
“I cannot tell you.”
“I am the High Priestess of Harmony. You can’t keep secrets from me.”
Wanna make a bet? “I learned some things that are not in history books.”
“You aren’t going to tell me more, are you?”
“No, my Laudae.” If he did, she’d have him executed on the spot. She had the authority even if she didn’t know she did. “I will tell you that Laud Gregor lied to the HC.”
“I know that. I’ve always been able to tell when someone lies. Which lie most concerns you?” She resumed walking.
Jake looked around uneasily. Gregor could have listening devices hidden anywhere.
“My Laudae, if you must talk about this, can we go somewhere more private?”
“The dogs need a good long walk. You will accompany me.” She said nothing more until she’d divested herself of the formal robes and headdress and gathered the five mutts in her menagerie.
The daily walk had become routine. The girls usually tagged along, rejoicing in the break from their lessons. Today Sissy did not invite them.
Jake drilled Laudae Sissy on vocabulary and spelling while they walked. Ostensibly they extended the drills to the girls as well. But they were really mostly for Sissy.
The set of her chin told him today they would use the privacy to discuss more important things.
The animals barely needed leashes, willing to follow Sissy wherever she led. Two small dogs pumped their short legs triple time to keep up with the lumbering pace set by the brown-and-white mongrel and an all-black shaggy monster, named Monster, that weighed more than Laudae Sissy. Jake ended up carrying the littlest of the pack, a little white fuzzball not much bigger than his open hand.
With the dogs walking obediently, Jake could keep his eyes and ears open and his free hand on his weapon.
“Which of Laud Gregor’s lies most concerns you?” Sissy repeated her question soon after they’d cleared Temple grounds and walked city streets. She shifted the leashes so that she had one large and one small dog on each side of her. The better to keep an even pace. Dog and Monster didn’t compete for the lead that way. Lady, the little gray poodlish dog surged in front of them all, definitely the alpha bitch.
The neighborhood they walked through prospered—highly placed and Lauded Professionals resided here. Large houses with landscaped yards and tall trees lined the streets. Small, energy efficient cars sped about or parked in long driveways.
“Are the frontiers truly under assault, Laudae?” Jake asked. “And . . . and I haven’t always lived in Harmony City. I grew up on H6. Really close to the borders. I’ve seen both Marils and CSSers. The Marils are avian.”
“The snake monsters?” Sissy paused to let the dogs sniff and water a series of trees and bushes.
“As human as you and I.”
“How is that possible? Human life arose here on Harmony. Are there more lost colonies? Colonies that rebelled and now attack us?” Her hands trembled. The dogs, ever alert to the slightest change in her mood, stopped their attempts to water a tree higher than their predecessor, cocked their ears, and took wary stances.
“Possibly.” Let her figure it out when she discovered that human life on Harmony was not native and fairly recent. If her scientists and historians told her the truth.
“Why should I trust you, Jake?” she asked quietly.
“Because you can tell if I lie.”
She looked at him sharply, focusing on the air above his left ear. He concentrated his thoughts on one word: Truth.
“You speak the truth, but not all of it,” she said. A puzzled frown made her look younger and more vulnerable.
Jake had a sudden urge to build a defensive perimeter around her. Don’t play hero. Just do your job, he admonished himself.
“You read well, Jake,” she said at last.
“I’m no scholar, but I can read well enough.”
“Tonight, you will teach me to read better.” She whistled to the dogs and walked on.
“Excuse me. I’m no teacher.”
“But you know how to read complex reports and tell if they are gibberish or hold a kernel of truth. I cannot. My brother comes to help me sometimes, but he is newly married and works hard. He can’t come every night. And I believe Laud Gregor works hard to keep my family away from me. I need your help, Jake.”
“Where’d you grow up, Laudae?” Jake asked. He kept his eyes roaming for signs of anything out of place. Trouble was, he didn’t know this town, these people, well enough to be certain what was out of place.
“Lord Chauncey’s industrial flats and electronics factory. I built nav units for the Space Fleet.” She examined her fingertips. “I’ve got special magnets implanted in my fingers so I can diagnose microcircuitry. Never really needed them. I just knew when they were right and complete.” She sounded sad, nostalgic.
“My family still lives and works for Lord Chauncey.” She heaved a sigh.
“How much education did they give you?” Jake asked.
“I began work in the factory when I turned twelve. I qualified for more education. But . . .” She fingered her caste marks.
“That would have exposed you to people outside your immediate circle. People in authority who would have reported you as a mutant.”
“A Lood.”
Jake choked back the nightmare of the asylum riot once more. He’d almost banished it from his sleep, thanks to Sissy’s cleansing ritual. Sissy had lived with similar nightmares every day of her life. What if she’d been one of those pathetic wretches he’d killed?
The world went white around him as he relived the horror with greater intensity. This time with a horrible variation.
“I know how to read battle reports and casualty lists. I’ll help you.” I’ll help you survive in this hypocritical, cruel world.
If he had to bring down the whole civilization to do it, he would.
A glimmer of an idea blossomed in his mind. A way out. For both of them.
Was he up to the challenge?
Sissy suppressed a yawn while she patiently memorized the words that Jake had underlined.
“Don’t you ever sleep, Laudae?” he asked around his own yawn.
“It’s only midnight,” she said. At least she thought the clock on her desk said midnight. Her eyes refused to focus that far away.
“Time you two had a bite to eat and then turned in,” Laudae Shanet said from the doorway. She carried a tray with a pot of steaming herbal tea and plates of sandwiches.
“My thanks, Laudae,” Sissy said. She reached for a meat-fill
ed sandwich. “Join us, please,” she insisted when her mentor made to leave.
“Miss the family gatherings at meals, do you?” the older woman asked. She settled into a comfortable chair next to Jake and put her feet up on the low table at the center.
“How did you know? Everyone here is so intent on privacy they never share meals.”
“Rarely gather together at all except around the pool or in bed,” Lady Shanet muttered.
Jake stopped chewing his cheese sandwich and took a long gulp of tea that must have burned his tongue.
“I miss the closeness of a neighborhood Temple and joining families in my congregation for a Holy Day,” Shanet continued. “That’s the only way Temple get families, is to adopt one from the congregation.”
“You never marry,” Sissy said.
“We never marry,” Shanet agreed. “You are one of us now. Never forget that, even if you don’t approve of our ways.”
“How sad and lonely.” Sissy couldn’t imagine going her entire life without parents and siblings and cousins and . . . and a spouse and children. The spouse before the children. Though she knew some Workers who experimented in bed before the wedding, such intimacy outside of marriage was highly frowned upon.
“Yes, it is sad. And can get lonely if you let it. I’m surprised you didn’t call our way of life indecent. It is by Worker standards. Military, too,” Shanet said.
“Yes. We take pride in our families, in training them to serve the empire,” Jake said quietly. He looked embarrassed.
“Temples claim they don’t need marriage,” Shanet said. She slumped down, putting her hands behind her head and settling in for a nice long chat.
Only this wasn’t one of the late night chats about history, rituals, government, and gossip. A tension in Shanet’s neck and shoulders, despite her casual posture, alarmed Sissy.
“The entire caste is supposed to be one family,” Shanet sighed. “Could be true if Gregor didn’t move us around so much, never letting us get attached to a congregation, or each other. He claims it’s so the congregations can’t develop a cult of personality. I wonder sometimes if it’s so we never learn to trust anyone enough to band together against him.”
“Is there disquiet in the provincial Temples?” Jake sat forward, attentive and wary.
“Some.”
“You have more to say, Shanet,” Sissy prodded.
“Lots more. But for now I have a . . . let’s call it an amusing tidbit of gossip.” She, too, sat forward, worry lines radiating from her eyes.
“In other words, a warning,” Jake said. He immediately sat up and scanned the room.
“Rumors fly here at Crystal Temple,” Shanet said, almost casually. “We live for gossip.”
“I know,” Sissy snorted. She’d used the rumor mill herself several times to learn what her teachers forgot to tell her.
“Hottest rumor now is speculation as to when you will take a lover, and who it will be. Bets favor Laud Gregor getting to you first. He’ll want you to have children. And he’ll manipulate their caste marks if Temple doesn’t dominate at birth.”
Sissy forgot to breathe. Shame warred with anger inside her. She’d never even thought about that outside of marriage. Oh, she’d thought about it when she met a handsome man. But always, always, she pictured a wedding first.
“Maybe I shouldn’t be here for this discussion.” Jake’s face flamed.
“Stay, Lieutenant. There’s more to protecting this girl than just keeping an assassin from doing someone’s dirty work.”
“Like what?” Sissy asked.
Jake sat down again.
“Like hurrying up the expedition to the burial caves and keeping her in one of the country Temples for a few weeks. Let the heat die down. Give her time to find her feet before she makes that decision. And it should be her decision. I don’t want her taking in the first offer just to get it over with. I may be Temple, but I believe there should be love and respect involved. Not the randy dalliances we see here.”
“I think you should accompany us, Laudae Shanet,” Jake said quietly. “I cannot interfere in caste matters. Only in her physical protection.”
“Jake says we’ll find some things that can’t be explained in the caves,” Sissy said. The stack of papers in front of her were equally unexplainable.
Her eyes blurred every time they strayed to the pile of battle reports and casualty lists. They didn’t make sense. The numbers were off. She might not read very well, but she knew numbers and patterns.
Patterns.
“Jake, did you notice the duplication of names on these lists?” She held up a sheaf.
“Some . . . but in large numbers there are often duplications. Especially among Military where units stay together. The residence name after a family name becomes meaningless. We usually don’t bother with it.”
“Duplication to the point where the same ten names are repeated three times in the same order? Seems to me in the heat of battle people would be wounded or killed randomly.”
“They would.” Jake and Shanet shifted to read over her shoulder.
“Here.” Shanet pointed. “I served as Chaplain to this unit ten years ago. They didn’t die in battle on the frontier, they accompanied the Lost Colony three years ago. No one has heard of them since.”
“He’s sent you fake reports,” Jake growled.
“Because there have been no battles. He wants to add the Military to the Spacers, and push Workers into support roles for them both for some other reason,” Sissy mused.
“Maybe he knows the Lost Colony isn’t lost. Maybe they’ve separated themselves from Harmony and the caste system.” Something guarded in Jake’s hooded eyes alarmed Sissy. “Or he could be planning an offensive against the Marils, or the CSS,” Jake suggested.
“Or he knows about the unrest in the provinces and needs the troops to suppress a rebellion,” Shanet said.
“I’ve got to stop him.” Sissy tucked the stack of papers under her arm and headed for Gregor’s suite.
“You can’t.” Jake grabbed her shoulder. “Not yet. He’ll deny everything and blame some innocent clerk for the error.”
“You do need more proof, my dear,” Shanet added.
“But he’s . . .”
“Been playing these games a lot longer than you have. Wait until you explore the caves before you confront him. Please, Laudae, don’t do this yet,” Jake pleaded.
“And what will I find in the caves?”
“More proof that he’s lying to you and to everyone.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
"LIEUTENANT JACOB DA JACOB,” Guilliam whispered to the passing Military.
“Mr. Guilliam.” Sissy’s bodyguard paused and bowed slightly, stiffly, as if he resented the disruption of his errand. He carried a stack of books and a sheaf of documents awkwardly in his left hand, leaving his right hand free to draw a weapon. Even now he caressed the hilt lovingly.
“There is something I must show you.” Guilliam looked around, the passage to Laudae Sissy’s quarters was empty but for the two of them.
“Can it wait? Laudae Sissy . . .”
“Is quite busy packing. She won’t miss you for quite some time.” Guilliam tried a smile.
Jacob da Jacob looked like he didn’t believe him.
“I just checked with her,” Guilliam offered.
“These books . . .”
“Will be quite safe outside her door. You may leave them. I’ve given orders that no one use this corridor until Laudae Sissy has departed for the mountains.” Guilliam wished he’d been tapped to go with her rather than Laudae Shanet. He longed to return to the caves. They didn’t have to be his home caves. Any cave would feel familiar, comfortable, welcoming.
A warmer reception than he was receiving from Penelope of late. She had a lot on her mind and wasn’t willing to talk to him until she figured it all out.
“This is important, Lieutenant. What I have to show you pertains to what Laudae Sissy will find in
the burial caves.”
“What do you know?” His head reared up, gaze wary.
“Follow me.”
“If we are going to be coconspirators, you might as well call me Jake.” He set the books and papers on the floor beside the closed doorways.
The sounds of girls and women laughing and arguing lightly filtered through the panels. Jake looked as if he wanted to be a part of that intimacy but feared it as well. As should any normal male. Guilliam had learned long ago that he couldn’t penetrate something so intensely feminine as clothing discussions. And the more females involved, the less he had a chance of understanding.
“Follow me, Jake. And my close friends call me Gil.” He led the way back into the old part of the Temple where the stones were thick, the mortar crumbling, and nooks and crannies prevalent.
“Where are we going?” Jake kept close behind him, eyes constantly searching.
Gil decided to take a different path to the archives, a longer and more convoluted one. He turned down one short corridor, then crossed to another and doubled back to his starting place. Another circuit through a different path, all looking the same unless you knew what to look for, and Gil knew precisely what to look for.
By the fourth time around, he hoped that Jake was thoroughly lost and confused. Only then did he slip into one of the little alcoves that sheltered a dusty altar.
“Kind of close quarters,” Jake said as he squeezed between the altar and the wall.
Gil grunted. He’d lost another button.
Jake peered over his shoulder trying to see how Gil manipulated the stones.
Gil coughed heavily, nearly doubling over. He used the movement to cover how he pressed a button at the rear of the altar. No sense in revealing all of his secrets to this overly inquisitive bodyguard.
“I don’t see any Badger Metal in the candlesticks or statuary,” Jake mused.
“This sector of the Temple is old. From before the invention of Badger Metal,” Gil said. The scraping of stone upon stone almost drowned out his words.
“I thought Badger Metal was a gift from the Gods, at the beginning of time.”
“Um . . . ah, here we go. The passage is narrow. You may light one of the candles and bring it with you.”
Harmony Page 25