Jake couldn’t allow that. If his own agenda—his, not Pamela Marella’s— were to succeed, he needed Sissy to get into those burial caves and start making new assumptions, reassessing the value of continued isolation.
“Anything interesting happening?” Laudae Shanet asked from the region of his elbow.
Jake started. Bad sign; he’d become so engrossed in his own musings he’d lost track of what was going on around him. He placed his finger to his lips. He pointed to the open window with the other hand.
Shanet nodded and raised her eyebrows in question.
“I suggest you question Bertie’s family, find out who he’s been talking to,” Sissy said. She sounded farther away, as if she had moved to the other side of the room. “Better yet, ask Jake how to investigate. He’s Military. It’s their job to find out these things.”
“We can’t trust anyone outside the HC.”
“Then why is Laudae Penelope here? Last I heard she was not a member of the HC. I suggest you return, with her, to the Crystal Temple and begin looking for answers. You might even look to her for some of those answers.”
“That is ridiculous. Penelope is selfish, vain, and disappointed. But not vindictive. She would never violate the precepts of our faith to . . .”
“Wouldn’t she?”
A long silence while they considered the possibility. Jake’s money was on Penelope as the instigator of the plot. He’d never liked the woman, or trusted her where Sissy was concerned. She didn’t need to believe in the cult of fear to use it.
Never trust the easy answer. He could almost hear Pammy’s lecture while she prepped him for this mission.
If not Penelope, then who? Who else stood to gain by Sissy’s death?
Damn, he didn’t know the personalities well enough.
“Start your investigation tonight. Back at Crystal Temple,” Sissy ordered. The quiet authority in her voice didn’t surprise Jake. It probably knocked the wind out of Gregor.
Well, not all of his wind. He had plenty left to shout.
“Tonight! Fly through the mountains at night!”
“Surely the pilots know how to do that. If not, you’d better start walking. We don’t have room for you here.”
“Our little girl has grown up,” Shanet whispered.
Jake almost laughed out loud. Indeed, Sissy had grown from the shy little mouse to a powerful woman. And she grew more beautiful every day as she became more and more comfortable with that power.
Or was it truly the blessing of Harmony shining through her?
He didn’t know anymore. And frankly didn’t care. He did know that he was falling in love with her.
Damn. Dangerous. That would make betraying her all the more painful. For both of them.
Double damn.
“Does she know that you love her?” Shanet whispered.
Jake couldn’t mask his shock.
“I don’t need to read your mind, not that I could. It’s written all over your face every time you look at her. Or think about her.”
“No, she doesn’t know, and she’d better not find out. I’m out of caste to her,” he ground out.
“Are you? Think about what her full array of caste marks stands for.” Shanet slipped away into the growing darkness.
Pammy’d have his hide for this. So what? She might think she was the puppet master in this charade. Sissy could give the spymaster a run for her money. Jake had cut Pammy’s strings the moment he realized stealing the formula for Badger Metal wasn’t the only course of action.
Now if he made Sissy realize that his agenda benefited Harmony as much or more than the CSS, then it wasn’t truly betrayal. Was it?
Sissy listened to the heavy throp, throp of the helicopter leaving. As the noise retreated to the east, she gave in to her shaking knees and collapsed into the overstuffed chair by the hearth. A wood fire crackled cheerfully. The sweet smell of the smoke drifted up the chimney.
She breathed deeply of the thin air. Easier to fill her lungs up here. The physicians had told her that at this elevation the air couldn’t retain as much moisture as it could closer to sea level, near Harmony City. Neither could it hold dust and pollution.
What would happen if she stayed up here all summer escaping the heat and dirty air of the city? She’d be healthier. Her mind and body could rest. She’d have the chance to practice her reading, with Jake’s help.
She’d be cut off from her family completely.
A shuffle of footsteps at her doorway alerted her. “Come in, Jake,” she called. No need to speak up near him. He’d hear her. She trusted him to hear her no matter the distance or the thick walls that separated them.
She trusted him more than anyone else from Crystal Temple, including Shanet who had been kind to her. Perhaps she trusted him simply because he was not Temple caste.
No, it was more than that. She trusted Jake because he was . . . Jake.
She’d faced her own share of disillusionment when she realized that priests and priestesses were as human as any Worker. Perhaps less so with their ambitions and greed. Their sense of superiority made them look down on the rest of the world, put their own wants and needs above the rest of humanity.
Sometimes in the dark of night she wondered if Temple caste truly believed in the faith that sustained her.
“True belief is the path to Harmony,” she repeated an early Holy Day lesson. “I was selected to bring the people of Harmony back to that path.”
“And what if the path divides and divides again until the choices overwhelm you?” Jake asked quietly from the doorway.
“What do you know?” she asked, startled.
“Too much and not enough.”
“A politician’s answer. I expect more directness from a soldier.”
“Perhaps my path is dividing and dividing again. People do grow. Sometimes beyond their caste.”
“Now you are a philosopher.”
“I report what I see. I have only to look at you to believe that the castes might be fluid. Change in a person does not necessarily have to go downward in caste.”
She gasped. Never had she heard such a blasphemy uttered. Never. And yet . . . she had gone from Worker to Temple in a single night.
“Have you ever stopped to think why there have been no advancements in technology in the past five hundred years?” he asked, assuming a limp posture mimicking her own in the chair opposite.
“There is nothing left to invent.”
“Isn’t there? What about improvements in communications, telephones in every home and business, more televisions so that everyone can watch news events unfold or participate in everyday rituals at the Crystal Temple. In color instead of fuzzy shades of gray.”
“I don’t know enough science to speculate,” she hedged. This conversation was headed into dangerous territory, but like a mouse caught in a cat’s gaze, she had no choice but to follow his lead.
“I do know enough science to know that new inventions are swallowed up by the government, never allowed to filter down to the people.” Jake examined his fingernails.
“Why . . . ?”
“Control.”
“Lower castes need direction from above.”
“Do they?”
Sissy had to think about that one. Certainly many people she knew in Lord Chauncey’s factories and blocks of flats seemed perfectly happy having others make decisions for them. But for people like her brother Stevie, or supervisor Tyker, or . . . or herself, there was always the need to ask why.
“And while you think about that, also wonder why there are no written records older than five hundred years—that means records prior to that never existed, were lost, or suppressed.” He heaved himself out of his chair. “Good night, High Priestess of Harmony. I’ll send in your girls for their evening prayers. Sleep well. But if you don’t, then use the time to think.”
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
SISSY TOSSED OFF THE HEAVY blanket and sheet. Night air cooled her sweating body. Her f
evered mind drifted back and forth between nightmare sleep and reality. Today, yesterday, tomorrow, or some far-off realm of the mind twisted and combined.
She heard the whop, whop, whop of approaching helicopters. One crashed into the mountain above her in a fiery explosion. Another loosed a burst of weapon fire she couldn’t understand.
Winged, feathered creatures, the size of humans and with features very like her own, fought the mechanical flyers and lost. Laud Gregor shouted at her that nothing could change. Not now, not before, never again.
She must continue on this path that drifted farther and farther away from Harmony.
The crevices and ridges of the mountain became a face. Harmony’s face. The cave opening became her mouth, breathing in at dawn and out at sunset. Her glaciers melted into her tears. The tears increased to a roaring torrent, overfilling rivers, flooding out farms and cities, raising the oceans until they pushed the cities farther and farther back toward the mountain.
A mountain waiting to crush them all.
Sissy tried to climb the face of the Goddess, comfort her, stem the cascade of tears. Breathe with Her. She needed to reassure Harmony that she would bring the people back to the true path.
Laud Gregor grabbed her hair and dragged her back.
The blank walls of the asylum awaited her, ready to consume her body and soul.
Harmony protested with a quake that rent the continent into a dozen separate islands.
Her shaking bed finally brought her out of the tangled dreams. She sat up with a jolt; the moving mattress a mere memory.
Had they endured another quake? Or had the mattress shifted when Monster and Cat landed on it and crawled toward her, whining anxiously for her well-being.
She gathered them close.
“It was so real,” she murmured as she buried her face in Monster’s fur. “I felt every one of those creatures die. I felt their agony at the loss of their home.” Mere dream or prophetic vision?
Or had she viewed something real? Something that had happened, or would happen in the near future.
“What does it all mean?”
She lay back down and tried to sleep. Every time she closed her eyes, she relived the entire messy dream.
Dawn crept under the shutters of her windows. The wind sighed as it entered the cave, the mountain breathing in.
She might as well get up and face the day.
And think.
Morning brought clear skies blurred by thick humidity and the sharp actinic taste of thunder brewing. Jake felt the tension in Sissy and the girls when they broke their fast with eggs from local chickens, unleavened cakes made from half a dozen whole grains, and sweetened with an orange-colored fruit that might have been a peach when it started on Earth but mutated to something else in the terraforming process.
Sarah snapped at Sharan. Bella quibbled with Mary. Suzie cried at their noise. Martha yelled at them all to be quiet. And Jilly, bless her, quipped, “What do you get when you cross a book with a disobedient acolyte?”
“I don’t know, Jilly, what do you get when you cross a book with a disobedient acolyte?” Sissy prompted. Her usual smile was missing. Dark circles made her eyes look hollow. She hadn’t slept any better than he had.
“A sore bottom,” Jake snarled.
The girls stared at him in puzzlement.
“You’ll all get spanked with a book if you don’t stop arguing.” He smacked his fist into his open palm. The noise gave him a headache worse than the sound of the arguments. Tension clawed at his shoulders and shortened his neck.
When did he become the dad of this crew? His own father had never stepped in when Jake and his brother Lance had squabbled at the table, or resorted to wrestling in the dirt to solve their differences.
Jilly giggled and ran off, remembering to turn and bow to Sissy when she reached the doorway.
Mary dared a light chuckle. The others followed suit.
They quieted their bickering a moment.
“Finish up, girls, and then you can have an hour of free time before lessons,” Sissy said as she pushed aside her plate, still half full.
“Can we go to the caves?” Martha asked. The others all nodded in agreement.
“Not yet. We have to let the scientists in first. It’s been so long since anyone has ventured beyond the opening, we don’t know if they are safe,” Sissy said.
“Oh.” Suzie pouted.
“You’ll get your chance, girls. Just not today. The scientists are due right after lunch,” Jake placated them.
The girls scampered off.
“You need me for anything?” he asked Sissy.
She shook her head. Her gaze kept drifting out the windows toward the path to the caves. Then upward staring at the mountain.
“I’d like to scout the area and learn the lay of the land before we have company.”
“Go ahead.” She waved him off. Her mind had already jumped somewhere else.
He hesitated a moment. “Want to talk about it?”
“Talk about what?”
“Whatever kept you awake last night.”
“No.” She continued looking out the window. Sadness clouded her eyes. And puzzlement.
Maybe now wasn’t the time to talk to her.
At the entrance to the great room, Jake checked his weapons. Arm sheaths snug, quick release snappy. Boot knives in place. Two pair of throwing stars in each hip pocket. Dagger and sword in place. He checked each for sharpness though he knew the Badger Metal blades never dulled. Then he donned a hat to shield against glare and enhanced spectrum glasses to probe shadows.
When he left Harmony, he wanted to take those glasses with him. Better than any equipment available to the CSS troops. Standard issue here.
Another anomaly. Harmony was a mishmash of technology. First-rate for Spacers and Military where needed. Everyone else had to make do with rudimentary stuff. Society wasn’t willing to spend the energy on giving tech to the populace.
Early morning sun just topped the lower peaks to the east when he stepped outside the Temple complex. Long shadows with diffuse edges spread out behind rocks, trees, and irregularities in the landscape. Too much humidity to sharply define anything.
To the west he noted tall white clouds with dark undersides piling up. Would the sunshine disperse them or would heating the land push more energy into them?
Energy. Tech. Energy. All about control. The Nobles and Temple controlled the energy, and therefore they controlled the economy. Control the economy and the supply chain, you control the masses.
The glasses helped him peer into the shadows. He spotted a few birds, including Sissy’s red bird with the thick beak, perched in the trees. Cats sprawled in the sunshine, soaking up the sun’s energy. Dogs panted in shadows. Godfrey laid claim to the top of a rock nearby. Milton wove slithering circles around him.
Jake would have only spotted half the wildlife without the glasses.
Slowly he walked a spiral around the buildings, memorizing the land and all its obstacles. As his circles widened, he approached the path up to the caves. Heat signatures flashed on the path.
Then he heard whispers and giggles.
The girls. All seven of them tried to hide from him as they crawled up to the gated entrance. “Much more energy than sense,” he muttered to himself. “Shanet’ll have a fit if they get all dirty, scrape their knees, and ruin their clothes. Sissy won’t mind, though.”
So long as they didn’t get hurt.
He set his feet onto the winding path, keeping the girls in his periphery. One S curve after another he followed them up.
As the embankment steepened, he lost sight of them. Even his glasses couldn’t see through several feet of dirt and rock.
He turned the next corner cautiously, keeping his eyes on the next level for signs of what the girls were up to.
The next step brought him to his knees as he stumbled over something. In a flash he had knives in hand and he’d surveyed the immediate area in a full circle.
A bright giggle brought his alert level down and his attention closer to the ground. Jilly huddled in a depression in the embankment. His glasses had trouble sorting her from the surrounding dirt and rock that had masked her heat signature and helped her blend in with the shadows. With her hand covering her mouth to suppress her laughter she nearly tumbled into his path.
“Did you trip me, little girl?” Jake demanded in his sternest voice.
Jilly nodded.
“Do you know what the punishment is for such insubordination?” He made the knives disappear.
She shook her head.
Before he could think of a suitable reply, six more small bodies landed on top of him from above. Good thing he’d sheathed his knives. He fought free of a flurry of lavender skirts and white petticoats.
They all rolled right and left trying to get a grip on the ground and regain their balance. He got a foot in his chest. The armor reacted with a small burst of hardened gel.
For some reason Bella thought this hilarious and curled up in a ball of giggles. Suzie took advantage of her immobility with an assault of tickles.
This triggered the other girls to try to tickle Jake through his armored uniform.
He succumbed to a fit of merriment at their tries though he couldn’t really feel much through the uniform layers.
In turn, he found a suitable victim in Martha and let her have a taste of her own medicine.
Jake’s attempts at tickling turned into fierce hugs of love and gratitude. No way could he take himself too seriously among this gaggle.
No way could he conceive of abandoning and betraying this brood of precious little girls when the time came to leave Harmony.
Instantly he sobered. How in all the hells could he think of leaving?
Lightning split the air. A crack of thunder released the tension.
A thick shower of rain subdued their wrestling match.
“Race you back to the Temple,” Jake called. He grabbed up the two littlest and pelted back the way he’d come.
The others followed. They all landed in the foyer dripping wet, filthy, and smiling. By the time they’d shed their wet shoes, the rain had stopped and the sun reappeared. The humidity dropped and they all relaxed despite a bit of chill.
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