Gina snorted, undeterred from her story. “They had one last problem. What was I actually going to do in the temple? The Sisters have an image they like to project. Aloof, spiritual workers for the Goddess. I just didn’t fit in, limping around and dribbling under my mask. Plus, all you see of a Sister is her eyes, and mine didn’t even point in the same direction. They decided they didn’t dare let me have any contact with the general public, so they sent me off to the temple library, which is traditionally where they put the Sisters who are too dense to be trusted to perform the public ceremonies. They thought I’d fit in. It’s typical. Walk with a limp, slur your words, and people think you’re an idiot. It was their mistake.” Gina looked at Kim. “Do you have any idea how many books are in the temple library?”
The question was clearly rhetorical, but Kim answered anyway. “No.”
“Hundreds and thousands. Now, do you want to guess how many ever get read?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“None. At least, none before I went there. It’s actually forbidden. A mortal sin. Only the Chief Consultant is allowed to read them, and she never bothers. The library contains the entire wisdom of the Elder-Ones. Supposedly it’s information left to assist Celaeno’s children in achieving the destiny the Goddess has planned for them, and it will all be revealed, bit by bit, if and when the Sisters think the time is right.”
“How will they know when to reveal the information if they don’t know what it is?” Kim asked.
Gina waggled a finger. “A good question, but not a wise one to ask the Chief Consultant to her face. Anyway, these other two Sisters and I worked in the library, sweeping the floors, dusting the shelves, taking a book down, wiping the outside and putting it back. But never actually opening the cover of a single volume. The other two were hard put to read their own names, so they probably weren’t tempted. Plus they believed they’d burn in hell if they did. But they’d chosen to be Sisters. I hadn’t. My parents had been skeptical about religion, and they’d passed it on to me.”
Gina paused for a moment in thought, as if reconsidering her last words. “Actually, all Imprinters tend to be a touch skeptical. It comes somewhere in your third year of training, when you realize that the Sisters don’t understand what they’re talking about. Imprinters have to be given real information. You can’t be fobbed off with half-truths. Embryos can’t be imprinted by faith alone, so the Sisters have no option but to let you read some of the books the Elder-Ones left. And then you realize that a lot of the prayers are...inaccurate. That’s the politest word for it. Perhaps that’s the really dangerous piece of information they didn’t want me to take out of the temple, and why they keep the Imprinters so repressed and isolated. They might say the temple is to care for and protect the Goddess’s chosen ones, but in fact, Imprinters are little more than slaves.”
“Oh, I know,” Kim cut in. “Remember, I said I was...acquainted with an Imprinter.”
“Yes, you did.” Gina frowned at her. “That was the truth? You weren’t joking?”
“No.”
“Umph. Perhaps we could hear your story later. Maybe tomorrow.”
“Because you won’t get a word in edgeways while Gina’s telling hers,” another voice called out cheerfully.
“Ignore them. They’re just bored because they’ve heard it all fifty times before,” Gina said to Kim after sending a dismissive gesture in the general direction of her followers. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes...in the library. I started to sneak peeks at the books. It wasn’t easy, as we were never supposed to be in there alone. Still, as I’ve said, the other two Sisters weren’t very bright, and I could wangle the odd half hour every month or so.”
Gina’s lips compressed in an uneven line. “And those books! They lined shelf, upon shelf, upon shelf, all looking identical from the outside. Same size, same color, and they all had the same words on the spine: Celaeno: Encyclopedic Database Download, and a number underneath. I’ll never forget the first thing I read from them, the day I finally built up my nerve to do it. I snuck a book off the shelf, opened a page at random, my heart pounding, expecting to discover some arcane knowledge...and what I got was a section about the chemical structure of nylon. It was such a disappointment. I know I was expecting something mysterious, but not that mysterious. I still don’t have a clue what nylon is. And there was lots more of the same. After two years, I was pretty disillusioned and would have given up, except that breaking the rules was the only excitement left in my life.”
Kim watched Gina’s face as she spoke. The ex-Sister’s gaze was fixed on another time, another place, her audience temporarily forgotten.
Gina sighed and continued speaking. “But then one day, I discovered the index. That’s what the numbers on the spine were. If you wanted to know about something you could look it up, and the index would tell you which book and page number to go to. It meant I could be a bit more directed in what I read. So I thought, concentrate on what I know most about—biology. Which was when I became really confused.” The elderly hands waved, trying to convey the sense of the emotion. “I mean, I know human biology. I have been inside a blood cell, wandered through a central nervous system. Most of what was in the books was right on the mark, and other parts were totally surreal. Prostate glands. I read a section on human prostate glands; but humans do not have a prostate gland. So I gave up on biology.” She drew a deep breath.
“Then I discovered there was a whole section on history, which threw me completely. The Elder-Ones lived at the dawn of time. What history did they have to write? So I chose a reference at random, and got the Franco-Prussian war.” Gina tossed her hands into the air, miming despair. “Then I saw the date: 1870-71.”
“But...” Kim’s forehead knotted.
“Exactly! It’s over a thousand years into the future. For a short while, my little skeptical soul was in revolt as I considered the possibility that the Elder-Ones had given a detailed breakdown of what was to come. Then I remembered prostate glands. So I picked a date I knew about: 320. Did it mention the floods in Landfall? Did it hell! The Gupta dynasty reunites India. That’s what it talked about, and that’s when I gave up with the whole thing. I decided the reason the library was out of bounds was to hide the fact that the Elder-Ones were a bunch of deranged lunatics. I would have gone back to the dusting, except that I got a kick out of imagining what the Sisters would say if they knew I was reading the books.”
Kim’s expression was somewhere between a smile and a frown. She was not sure where the story was going. The other women around the fire were showing only cursory interest. It was clearly a tale they were all very familiar with. Kim looked at them. Their ages varied between fifteen and sixty, with Gina the oldest by a good ten years. On the faces of the group was a familiar intensity, born of desperation, though it was well hidden beneath a show of humor. They were all armed and clearly used to living in the wildlands, but Kim was certain they were not vicious criminals. She had seen enough of that sort to know the signs. Her attention shifted back to the speaker.
“I must have been working in the library for nearly ten years when I came across something else. By then, I was the senior Sister in the library, which isn’t very senior, as Sisters go. But I had more chances to read, and it was the only entertainment I got. I’d developed a liking for geology. It all seemed to make sense. There were no imaginary rocks, although most of the examples were from imaginary places. When I saw a reference to a cold place called Iceland, I thought they were being figurative, but what the hell was it supposed to imply if somewhere was a new Zealand? And what would an old one be like?” Gina raised her hands in an exaggerated shrug.
“However, there was one room of the library I’d not paid much attention to. It didn’t look very impressive compared to the rest, just cabinets full of hand-written paper. And I guess I assumed that if the contents hadn’t been put into the books, then they couldn’t be very important. But it still needed dusting. Which is what I was doing one day, when I saw th
e word Iron Pyrites on a folder. It’s a mineral formation that I’d been reading about the week before. So the next chance I got, I went back and had a look at it. They were the first reports from the Elder-One, Peter McKay.”
“The patron of miners?” Kim queried.
“Yes, that one. He had been a geologist...and did you note the word I used?”
“Geologist?”
“No, he.”
At the confused expression on Kim’s face, Gina laughed. “Never mind. I scoured through the drawer of reports, and was just about to close it when I saw some other books, almost hidden, lining the bottom. The papers were all clipped into folders, but these books were the wrong size, so they had just been placed in the drawers. I took them out and found they were four volumes of Peter McKay’s personal diary. And then I thought, nobody apart from me knew they were there, so nobody was going to miss them. I hid the diaries inside my robe and took them back to my room and read them at my leisure. And suddenly everything made sense.”
Around the fire, other conversations had stopped. All eyes looked in Gina’s direction. This, Kim realized, was the crux of the story.
“Virtually everything the Sisters tell us about Celaeno, and Himoti, and the Elder-Ones is wrong. And the parts that are true are completely distorted.” Gina paused and met Kim’s eyes in an intense, earnest stare. “The Elder-Ones weren’t semi-divine. They were our ancestors, or at least, they came from the same place our genetic ancestors came from. They were pretty much the same as us. Nothing like the statues in the temples, just a bit more diverse in appearance. They used to live on another planet, under another sun. The original Earth, the place where humans first came into being. Their science was unimaginably more advanced than ours. I couldn’t even make sense of it from the books. Particle accelerators, field-floatation tubes, nylon, and all the rest. But they were able to make ships that could travel between the stars, and that’s how they got here.”
“But...” Kim paused in utter confusion. “If that were true, it couldn’t be kept hidden from people.”
“Why not? Who, apart from the Sisters, have access to records from the Elder-Ones?”
“You think the Sisters are deliberately spreading lies and keeping everyone misinformed?” Kim was skeptical. She had no love for the Sisters but found it hard to believe they were all involved in a great conspiracy.
“It’s not deliberate. Since they don’t read the Elder-Ones’ books, I suspect none of them, not even the Chief Consultant, actually know the truth. If they did know, I think the library would have been destroyed long ago, but the people with a stake in keeping the truth hidden no longer know what’s in there to hide. Mind you, I’m not sure I’d have ever made sense of it without the diary. There is just too much information to be able to pull it together and get a sensible picture. The library was the Elder-Ones’ bequest to us. It was the history of the first Earth. It described its countries, its culture. The Elder-Ones left us the information so we would know something of our true home world.”
“So you don’t think we were brought here by Celaeno?”
“Oh, no. In fact, I know for certain that we were. It’s just that Celaeno isn’t what they say she is.”
“And what is she?” Kim asked.
“I’ve already told you. She’s a ship.”
“A boat?”
“A starship. The Celaeno was built by people on the first Earth to carry them between the stars. She’s not a goddess. She’s not even alive. She’s a thing made out of metal and...whatever it is you build starships out of. Maybe nylon. She was named the Celaeno like a barge skipper calls her boat the Daisy-lee. Our ancestors made her to carry them to a new world, but they never intended to come here. They never intended to lose contact with the first Earth. But when traveling in the spaceship, they were all held in a sort of artificial sleep, and while they were asleep, the spaceship got lost. They were stranded here on this planet without the resources to recreate all their technology, so they did the best they could.”
“The unborn Elder-Ones,” Kim said in a sudden excitement. Not that she was convinced, but a quote clicked with her. “In her belly slept the Elder-Ones, who were not born of this world.”
“Exactly. They weren’t born on this world. But that doesn’t mean they hadn’t been born somewhere else.”
“But don’t...” Kim stopped in confusion as she tried to pull her thoughts together.
Another woman leaned forward and said, “I wouldn’t bother asking too many questions now, or Gina will have you up all night. It’s part of her quest to spread enlightenment through the world. She needs no encouragement at all to talk non-stop for hours and bore everyone silly.” Despite the words, there was no mistaking the affection in the woman’s voice when she spoke of her leader.
Gina nodded, a little sadly. “Yes, you’re right. I do talk too much. And look at where it’s got me.” She indicated the camp. “And I’m afraid I haven’t the time to finish my story properly, as we have to be up before first light tomorrow. But to put it briefly, I was still young and naive at the time. Not quite naive enough to think that if I went to the Chief Consultant with my discovery, I’d be hailed as the savior of the world, but naive enough to think I could make a difference. So carefully, very carefully, I started spreading the word. And after another twenty years I had a small network—”
“The heretics!” Kim interrupted, remembering the commotion that had only just been dying down when she first joined the Militia.
“Ah. So you have heard of us.”
“I’d heard you’d all been captured and executed.”
“Which is only slightly more true than the story that we used to eat babies. I’m afraid some of us were killed, but the rest of us fled west with a few sheep and plows and things, and we’ve been living out here ever since, trying to stay one step ahead of the Sisters. We’ve managed quite well up until now. But a few months back, we got word that Domia’s mother was dying. We still have contacts in the homelands who pass us news about things we need to know. So Domia went back to see her mother one last time and was caught by the temple Guards.” Gina’s face was grim. “I know none of us want to think too much about how they did it, but somehow they forced her to tell them where we are.”
“The major has a map,” Kim said.
“Really? Poor Domia.” Gina sighed and her head dropped. “She wouldn’t have betrayed us easily. Anyway, we’re stuck. We can’t afford to desert the farm right now. The crops are all planted, and if we don’t get to harvest them, we’ll starve this winter.”
Kim was staring at the ground, thinking rapidly. Regardless of whether the rest of Gina’s story was true, it made sense of the way the mission had been organized. Reinforcing religious doctrine was a job for the Guards, and they would not hesitate to kill every last heretic they found. But if the Rangers had been sent alone, they would surely have thought twice when, instead of armed bandits, they met farmers in their fields.
Kim looked at the heretic leader and asked, “So what are you going to do?”
“We’re going to attack the column tomorrow, before they can get to our farm.”
“How many women do you have?”
“What you see here.”
Kim was incredulous. “You’re going to attack a hundred Guards with a mere dozen women!”
“Well, we have a plan. Actually, we have several. They all depend on circumstances, but it looks like we’re going to be lucky with one of the better plans for tomorrow. And there are some more of us up ahead, with other plans, in case this one fails.”
“You’re hoping to inflict serious injuries?”
“Yes. I’m afraid they won’t turn around if we settle for just asking them politely,” Gina said ironically.
“There’s a squadron of Rangers in the company.”
“I know. And I don’t mean it as flattery when I say that in some ways, they worry us more than the Guards.”
“They are my friends.”
�
��I’m sorry.” Gina’s voice made it clear that the regret was genuine. “We won’t be able to distinguish between them and the Guards, and our lives are at stake. If I had the option, I wouldn’t even kill the Guards. Their only crime is to believe a set of lies they’ve been told ever since they were babies. But we aren’t going to lie down and let them butcher us.”
Kim’s head dropped. She looked despairingly at her bound hands. She bore the heretics no ill will, but she had to warn Chip if she could get the chance. Not that it seemed likely. Even as she sat considering her options, she saw the rest of the heretics were making their preparations to sleep. Gina came and put a hand on her head.
“Right, I’m going to send you to sleep now. Do you have any last question?”
Kim bit her lip and then shrugged, but as the waves of drowsiness swallowed her, she mumbled, half-heartedly, “You didn’t explain how prostate glands fit into it.”
Chapter Fifteen—Choices and Options
A stiff breeze from the north sprang up overnight and was gusting over the hillside and shaking the bushes around the campsite when Kim was awakened before dawn the next day. For some reason, this seemed to please the heretics enormously, and they all offered congratulations to the weather-wise woman who had predicted it the day before. For her part, Kim would rather have done without the chill wind in the cold hour preceding daybreak.
Both moons had set, so nothing challenged the brilliance of the stars. Kim studied them as she huddled by the snapping fire, eating the hurried breakfast that was offered to her. She hardly knew what to make of Gina’s story, but it was a strangely moving thought that other people might be walking on planets beneath those distant suns. Kim’s gaze traveled across the glittering heavens as she tried to analyze her thoughts.
Religion had never been a major preoccupation of hers. In fact, like most Rangers, she had deliberately adopted an irreverent manner, in contrast to the Guards. If pressed, she would have said she believed the teaching of the temple. It would take a lot to accept that Celaeno was just a mechanical creation, a ship. Kim did not know if she could believe it, or if she wanted to.
The Temple at Landfall Page 15