No, he’ll send the lowest ranking Monitors. Think he’d risk his fat belly and high position to these illnesses? By the Venvenagium Goddess of Inhaling, why would he?
Sesha had to giggle a bit out loud. A sect of Vens used to believe a goddess purified the air just before it went into breathing orifices, thus ensuring good health of the largest organ in their bodies. Those who did contract some form of illness or disease there just weren’t believing in her firmly enough, so she left them to their fate. These beings went into any sort of atmosphere without protection and they all died off after walking into a poisonous cloud caused by a transit accident. Thus the religion joined a host of others and became a joke. Sesha understood Shni’s reference to I’indede, comparing her to Allway.
Wish there was a way to get some antibiotic into Jeremiah… he sees Florence every two days and she tells him how to drain his testicle. He runs a fever too.
Simple, ding-a-ling… infuse more poultice and give it to Florence tomorrow for him to pack on after the drain. Maybe in tea, too.
Alerisk, Sesha swore at herself. She crouched beside the small child. Anything we can do?
Put the Med unit on receive and hold it over his mouth for sample and analysis, good, it’s done. Now turn the red ring and it will create something that will at least ease the cough and open his lungs more… its ready now, dear, spray it up his nose, doesn’t matter which side. Now for the little baby factory?
Of course,
Turn on the scanner and go slow, head to thighs. The fan-shaped beam of light played over the girl. Good… scanner says a blood sample is needed.
Moving the sleeping gown carefully, Sesha peeked, the light on the Wrist Gem serving well enough to see. There was still blood oozing from her vagina, so she reached in and dipped her finger down, getting just a drop which she smeared on a little dot that slid up.
I’m adjusting it… part of the First Aid protocol is being able to stop labor if needed. The child is too early, its lungs are undeveloped. Now… take the drop and slip your finger up as high as you can into her birth canal. It will soak in from there.
Grimacing some; Sesha didn’t like dealing with anything medical, she did as told, then snuck to the washbasin where some water and a cloth still lay, and wiped her hand well. Anna’s problem was bad but this was just as! After spritzing the air with a slow-acting antidote, the alien woman hid her implement better and went back to bed herself.
Those set with the task of praying over the sick were kept outside the whole time and while still annoying, was more muffled. Sesha, feeling naughty, would have one of the women open the window and sit by it, trying to talk to the group as if not understanding what they were doing, then finally trying out the words and syntax so comically it broke each group up into horrified snickers. When a Monitor would take her to task, she’d either cry or tantrum, so the groups were moved back a distance and the Infirmary fell to its normal quiet.
Sesha missed Anna waking up for the Reverend came calling, wanting to start her ‘education’ in the Goodness of the Lord, the campaign to convert her.
“T’will ride in thy chair, Sweet Sesha, for I will shew thee,”
“Eh?” it was common now; if she didn’t understand, that’s all she had to say. Already the women used the verbiage less and less, and several men too. All had to be ‘reminded’ to go back to the Holy Language when not around Sesha.
Allway sighed. “I want to show you some things, and tell you about them.” He himself pushed her in the chair across the wide compound to the Church building. They paused outside, taking in the view of it while Allway intoned some words in an awe-filled voice.
“’And the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Concerning this house which thou art in building, if thou wilt walk in my statutes, and execute my judgments, and keep all my commandments to walk in them; then will I perform my word with thee, which I spake unto thy father: And I will dwell among my children, and will not forsake my people. So I built the house, and finished it.’ That’s from the Holy Word, my dear,” obviously he was impressed with himself and the building. Then he opened the doors and pushed her inside.
Properly awed by its grandeur, Sesha oohed and awed as he showed her the special decorations in it.
“Yes, my dearest child… God wants His home to have the best we have to offer Him.” Hearing that, Sesha started acting scared.
“Thees ees… guh-odd’s home?” she asked in a small voice. “Ees he… he-yah now?” Her glances around were fearful.
The preacher sighed and sat on the bench beside her chair and took her hand. “Say g-aw-d” he instructed gently. “G-aw-d.”
She repeated the sounds carefully and soon had the word down pat. “God… he ees he-yah now?” She still sounded scared.
In the back of the church, behind the huge, ornately carved and bejeweled pulpit, Beulah was sitting, listening. Three years ago she had learned her husband had an entrance known only to him and his Head Monitors. Its entrance was accessible by walking into the small personal garden between their house and the church, which was shielded from sight by the tall fence that bordered the garden.
Every Sunday since the magnificent edifice had been completed, Beulah had entered with the congregation, but no one ever saw the Reverend come in. In the middle of the last hymn before the sermon time he would appear, striding up the pulpit steps, his hearty baritone adding depth – and noise – to the singing. It was a mystery that kept the congregation whispering about him, adding to his inscrutability. He always said he was communing with God in their special place from whence God would send him back. And it worked too; keeping the audience enthralled, waiting for the entrance.
But one Saturday night through Sunday morning Beulah had been throwing up as if she had the Ague, so her husband excused her from services. It wouldn’t do to have his own wife disrupt the services with so vile a bodily function. But after he left, his wife crept, hunched over in pain, to the window and watched as he slipped into the high-fenced off garden and pulled the small wooden latch disguised as one of the peg-nails. In shock she watched as the door popped out a little and her husband pulled it open, ducked in and pulled it shut behind him. There was no seam that she could see even after… which was why the carpenters had used short lengths of lumber when putting up the outer walls on this side.
That was the beginning of her serious doubts about his intentions. The fact that he lied to the audience and had a secret entrance was not a good thing. The Lord said he despised lying. Why did her husband have to deceive the flock instead of just coming in open and honestly? They’d love him anyway, so why make them think God was miraculously letting him appear before them?
Beulah continued the “illness” which now was brought on by a strong dose of herbs and salt water, and when everyone was at the common house for supper, she slipped into a set of her husband’s older, slimmer clothes she’d dug out of a trunk and let herself into the garden by the side door, also behind the fence. It took her a few minutes to find the right peg-nail, but she did, and thus found the entrance.
At first it was a bit dark, and Beulah groped carefully along the small walkway for several steps. It led to a small room that had a shaft of light coming in from overhead, where there was a small crude window set in. It was high enough that no one from the ground would see the window set into the roof, and was just enough to see around her.
This was a room set up for someone to use… it had candles, a personal use bucket with a cover, two or three thick pillows and a small thick rug with deep knee imprints in it. Kneeling beside it, Beulah picked it up and examined it closely. With a start, she recognized it as the prayer rug she had made for Peter before they had married many years ago! It had disappeared as they were packing what was left from the fire, readying to leave the big city, and he had seemed frantic looking for it. Yet here it was – another lie – and yet another.
A set of three pillows, ones she’d made while they were traveling here. She’d embroidere
d the Bible verses into them herself; the light blue one said “The LORD bless thee, and keep thee:” the light green one continued with “The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee:” and the light purple one had finished the verse from Numbers chapter six verses 24-26. “The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace.” It was God Almighty’s Blessing on the Priests of Israel, and she felt it was applicable for her husband.
Beulah had worked on them in secret when riding with other members of the congregation and was going to present them to her husband when the Church was finished. Monitor Philip had hidden them away for her; but when they’d unloaded the last items after all the buildings were completed, the precious bits of work were gone. It broke Beulah’s heart for she had specially purchased just enough material to make them before they’d moved away. She’d never be able to make anything like them again. But here they were too, another nail in the coffin of her trust.
The room had a stand in the middle of it, which held a peculiar looking book on it. The cover was the color of skin, but she didn’t recognize what type of leather it was when she felt it. And the back cover was softer and thinner than the front. Opening it, she discovered it was a handwritten Bible!
As she paged through it she saw there were many notes in the margins, and too her horror, slips of fine writing paper with instructions to “strike this passage out” or “put I in instead of the name there.” She realized then that The Most Holy Lord Reverend had plans to rewrite the Bible, the sin of all sins.
Saddened and horrified, she put the Bible back and continued to explore. Then Beulah found the heavy cloth cover with a slit that she could slide through when bent over – and there were the steps to the pulpit.
She walked up them for the first time, looked out from the exalted position over the crowd of what she knew now were lemmings – not sheep being guided by a benevolent shepherd, but mindless creatures running to their doom - and fled back out the secret entrance back home where she threw up for real. After weeping for hours she’d been bedridden for days, she’d been so sick. The other women nursed her back to health – she still got sick easily – but had never told anyone, just watched and listened far more carefully. And over time had begun to wonder if there was a way for her and the Discontents she saw to get away. But nothing had presented itself, and she had begun to lose hope.
Now though, she’d used the secret entrance to hide herself away and listen to what the madman she was wed to was saying to Sesha. This way, she could counter later – carefully – things he might say that were wrong.
“My dear, what are you doing?” he asked as Sesha slowly got up from the wheeled lounge chair and began to walk around.
“Look-ing,” she lilted. Her fingers ran over her bracelet and the Wrist-Gem began visually recording as many aspects of the place as possible, such as the personal jewelry inlaid in the pulpit, the velvet hangings obviously made from women’s dresses and the lack of “Bibles” in any of the pews, so the people couldn’t read for themselves. That was a major component in any true religion – that the followers could read and research to ensure what the Preacher, Pastor or Priest was saying was true. Not here though. From what she already learned about this race, they weren’t that different than most of the races in the Alliance, just backwards, no technology yet. Give them a few hundred years and they’d be ready to join the Alliance, if they weren’t phobic about alien races.
“Do you know what God is?” he asked gently as the woman ran her hand over the silky smooth finish of the wood on the bench. Everywhere else except the Reverend’s house and here had no smoothing at all and needed pads of grasses in rough cloth to prevent getting splinters.
“He ees some-one ‘oo lives he-yah. I no see heem yet.” She started humming a tune while she waltzed slowly around, looking at everything except a corner where something large was covered with a blanket. It struck him that Sesha had never seen such wonders as there were in his Church, perhaps in any others. All meetings had been outdoors, weather permitting, and a lot of Sabbath days the lass had been sick still.
Watching, Allway felt a sense of sexual exhilaration as he had when planting God’s Seed in her not so long ago. This must be ‘virgin’ territory, as her eyes were open wide, she kept opening her mouth in an ‘ooh’ expression and she was like a child, touching everything! Again he had initiated her into womanhood, this time into the Bride of Christ, here in his Holy Temple! Such an innocent he was given for a wife! Lying with her again would be so sweet…
“Do you know what a God is?” The preacher shook off the way his thoughts were going and tried a different tact.
“He ees some-one, ‘oo lives hee-ere, isn’t he?” the puzzlement in her voice was obvious.
The Reverend sighed. This was going to be harder than he thought. “Where you came from – your home, Sesha… did any of your people go to Church or worship something – I mean someone – who was more powerful than you? Someone you can’t see, but everyone believes is there?”
The young woman sat down on the bench beside him, cocked her head prettily and tapped one slender finger on her chin. From her peripheral vision she saw the Reverend struggle to keep from reaching out and touching her somewhere. So she made it worse; she crinkled up her brow, blinked rapidly and put a tiny smile on her face as she nodded.
“We ‘ave… stor-ies… of duh pee-ples ‘oo put uzz in our vehan… ‘ow you say iz here? Oh… see-tee. ‘ow dey builded eet… zip!” she flashed her fingers up, “fas-er dan anyones do. Dey make foods yike ‘oo, from gr-ound, ‘oo know? Eet come fas’er an’ umm,” she pantomimed eating some, then rubbed her slender belly, “too. Wheen… our kilee born, dey, um… put in head?”
“Teach” Allway inserted.
“Sewah, yes, ‘ow to cuh-are foh us an’ do what ees… itre… um, ‘oo say do guh-ood, say yes, no no,” She crinkled her face, trying to explain.
“Perchance you mean ‘hon-or-a-ble’? Someone who is always good to everyone?” When he saw her smile he knew he’d figured it out. A surge of triumph rose in him. If this kind of communication kept up, he’d be able to teach her enough to seem like she believed. Oh, Sesha would be a perfect mate…
Sesha acted as if she didn’t notice the emotions running across his face. She continued with her innocent chatter, her tale of home. She let her face fall some, as if remembering the story made her sad. “Den… dey go fah an’ ‘ave nev’r tum ba-ck. Wan’ dem too, bu no. My terise – um, pee-ples,” she lifted her hands, holding thumbs up. The right thumb traced a path in the air and the left one followed. “…’at dey do b’cause we yar… iote’alepe… um,” she struggled for another word, “gr…ate…fool to dem foh do foh us.” She kept her words stuttering and unsure, the ‘th’ sound as a ‘d’ and her tone lilting, keeping the foreigner learning another language slant foremost in Allway’s mind.
“That’s kind of like us,” he was thinking fast. “Except God is always with us, but we cannot see Him. He is all around us even now.”
Sesha gasped and clutched her clothing to her tightly, scooting suddenly to the side of the bench and curling into a small ball. She pulled her feet onto the seat and tried to scrunch against the wood tightly.
“No, no, dear,” the Reverend hastened to explain. He held out his hands and then laid them her, one on her shoulder and one on her head. “He doesn’t do anything wrong. He can’t, for he is God. He has seen us from before we were born, dear. He knows how many hairs we have on our head, even!” Perhaps, he thought, it was the comforting tone of his voice, for she relaxed some and lifted her head from her knees. Slowly, carefully she put her feet back down on the floor and looked directly at the Reverend, a bit of a puzzled look on her face.
“An’… ever’where else?” she asked piped innocently, moving her hands to cover her groin area despite the fact that both of them knew she was almost hairless there.
The preacher had to fight a wave of desire when she asked that. He stiffened and
withdrew his hands, and half turned away, clenching his jaw tightly.
From behind the pulpit, Beulah covered her mouth to prevent a gasp from escaping. For a moment she feared for Sesha’s safety, and then it got worse.
“And why ‘e yook at odder pee-ples when is… nay-keed? ’Heem no ‘ave why-f to, um,” she chattered the names in several languages, and wrinkled her brow, finally using a gesture that would force him to use the word. Time to push some issues here for her information. Things were sliding into a passive type of walk, and Sesha’s chance to save her crewmates was sliding by with it. She didn’t know how much longer they could wait!
“You mean consummation of man and wife?” he croaked and Sesha nodded.
“God mus’ yook at odder pee-ples, ‘e ‘as no one to…” her finger again went into her curled fingers, moving in and out.
The man had to get up and walk away, so Beulah retreated into the curtains so she wouldn’t be seen. She could see his face, as there were several gaps in the steps and walls that let her see through, but just little bits. He was struggling, she knew, to keep from just grabbing the woman and doing what he wanted.
And Beulah was right. The Reverend Peter Allway wanted to take the woman, desperately, but he knew he couldn’t here, at least not yet. First, she knew Beulah was his wife and might not consent to… being consciously laid with. Except for her sweet mannerisms, she hadn’t shown a single sign of sexuality… she didn’t even flirt or act coquettish! Just childlike and naïve.
Secondly, he had to remind himself, it still wasn’t soon enough for her to realize she was possibly pregnant, as innocent as she seemed to be. It was just going on 90 days since their rescue of her till this day of the Lord, he’d been numbering them, and her form was much less developed than the women here – smaller bosom and slender hips, although her waist was so tiny… so maybe she wasn’t fully developed yet… he turned back after taking a deep breath and shoving away the desire. When the time presented itself the act would be all the more wonderful.
Weathering Storms Page 26