Mourner

by Irene Radford

  Not her own memory. Sissy’s. And she knew that the High Priestess itched with the weight and stiffness of her black brocade robes. She’d worn mourning too often this past year. Her predecessor. Her family. The thousands of people with mutated caste marks who had rioted in the asylum and died rather than continue living in filth and deprivation.

  Martha’s heart ached along with Sissy’s.

  And then her eyes winced at a shift in the light. She’d had a lot of headaches since her mind-listening talents arose.

  She almost dropped the precious crown. Only Mary’s steadying hand on her own prevented the disaster.

  “What is wrong with you?” Mary whispered, keeping her back to the bevy of priestesses and acolytes filling the suite. None of them acted as if they’d heard. But one never knew about Sharan. She was most adept at eavesdropping without anyone knowing.

  “Mary, you don’t want to know,” Martha muttered. She trembled all over. The beads clanked rapidly in a more discordant tone.

  “Later.” Mary deftly shifted her hands around the base of the crown and nudged Martha away with her hip.

  Martha stepped back gratefully. She needed air. Desperately she longed to climb a set of spiral stairs all the way up to the nul-grav core of the First Contact Café and float free of the weight of her own gray robe and pressure of other minds inside her own. Or was she inside other minds? She didn’t know. She just needed . . . to go back to normal.

  Jilly’s laughing voice echoed inside her memory. But what is normal? Sissy defines normal, and it isn’t what it used to be.

  Martha tried closing her eyes. But that just made the gabble of audible voices a bigger jumble and built the pressure in her mind near to exploding.

  What could she do? Where could she go?

  She took the only option available and let her trembling knees turn to liquid, collapsing in a dead faint.

  Mary dropped the mourning headpiece to kneel beside Martha, her sister in more than faith. Four gray robed acolytes and two priestesses in black dove to rescue the precious veiled crown.

  Sissy stood from the little stool in front of the mirror and elbowed shouting females aside until she had space to drop beside Martha.

  “Laudae, your robe will crumple.” Penelope squeezed Sissy’s shoulders, urging her to stand again. The formal attire wasn’t meant for any activity other than processing majestically.

  “Damn the robe. One of my girls is sick.” Sissy wrenched free of her friend’s restraint. “I’ve seen people come out of hyperspace with more color in their faces. Her skin is clammy. Call a physician.”

  “Yes, my Laudae.” Penelope blanched as she folded her hands in front of her and bowed her head just enough to show respect without dislodging her own black and gray headdress.

  “Ritual is important, but not when it gets in the way of my girls’ health and safety,” Sissy said, touching Martha’s neck pulse point. Rapid and stuttering. Not good.

  “My Laudae,” Mary whispered. “I don’t think she slept in hyperspace. She hasn’t been acting normally since . . . since her courses began two months ago.”

  “We all have upsets and strange thoughts when we first begin . . .” She had trouble forming the words. Bodily functions were not discussed openly in the Worker Caste home where she grew up. Seven children, two parents, four grandparents, and three aunts and uncles all crowded into one small apartment didn’t give one any privacy. They all knew how each person functioned and didn’t talk about it. That gave the illusion of privacy and modesty.

  “Not like this,” Mary hissed. “We were close, very close. We used to talk about everything. Now she barely says hello to me, or to anyone else.”

  “That is odd.” Martha had always chattered, engaging perfect strangers in conversation. That made her valuable in gathering information for Jake on the station. Mary listened. The younger four girls watched. Then they’d discuss it all, come to a conclusion and report. Accurately.

  “We will talk about this later. Let’s get her into bed. Bella, Sarah, cold cloths for her forehead and nape. Martha, find her nightgown in the luggage. Sharan, go see what is holding up the physician.”

  “My Laudae. The ritual welcoming. We can’t delay any longer,” Laudae Maigress said sternly, all the while bowing politely.

  “My girls are more important than mere ritual,” Sissy declared.

  A sharp intake of breath from the entire bevy was the only sound.

  Sissy imagined Penelope’s smirk behind her veil.

  “Ritual defines our purpose. Ritual gives us answers to decisions large and small,” Maigress recited.

  “Small rituals when combined with ancient tradition remind us day-by-day, minute-by minute, of our connection to the Divine,” Sissy repeated a lesson in some text Jake had helped her read. “But large rituals satisfy only those watching who can appreciate the awe we intend to inspire. My welcome home, which will turn into accusation and interrogation, can wait.”

  Another collective gasp.

  “Maybe not,” Penelope said under her breath. “This is politics, not religion. Putting it off will only help the others build their anger and resentment toward you. You no longer have Laud Gregor to stand between you and political maneuvering.”

  Or Jake.

  Sissy weighed her options and duties. Nothing looked good.

  “Very well. I will go to this ritual manipulated to embarrass me. But if I must leave behind my acolytes, so shall all of you. And so shall Laud Andrew and his cabal of priests.”

  “The girl should overcome her weakness to stand beside you,” Maigress insisted. “We all have done the same throughout our training.”

  “Which makes the ritual more important than your health? No. We go unaccompanied. All of us.” Sissy marched to the door and yanked it open, without waiting for an underling to do it for her.

  Chapter Six

  The comms unit pinged quietly, as if the person on the other end was afraid to interrupt Jake.

  “Yes, Mara?”

  “General?” Major Mara asked meekly. He’d have to break her of the habit of fear. “Where should I put the dragons?”

  Not necessarily a decision anyone could make on their own. He had an unknown race coming to a station full of different races. “How much space do they need, and what do they breathe? Any special sanitary specifics?” The Glugs reportedly were allergic to water and required methane baths—no, methane showers.

  “The Dragons need heavy grav, can breathe human normal NOH, but prefer an extra dash of higher nitrogen and . . . and mercury—toxic levels for humans. Dust bathing and . . .”

  He could almost hear her blush at mentioning normal bodily functions.

  “And extra wide, dry waste chutes.”

  “Fat butts. Just like every banker I’ve ever encountered.”

  “Oh, and sir, they need one level of mid-grav and human normal air for their entourage.”

  “Now that is interesting. We’ll require the blast doors closed at all times to separate the atmospheres. I do not want poisonous mercury filtering through to other wings. Do they know how inconvenient they are?”

  Mara chuckled. “I think so. I suspect they are deliberately inconvenient as part of their strategy.”

  Jake pulled up a station schematic—and hadn’t he had a gay old time winding through six layers of encryption and passwords to find one when he took over from his miserable, xenophobic, incompetent, and miserly predecessor. The spinning shaft of the core showed white for nulgrav. A tram ran the length of the two and a half kilometer long tube with access to each habitat cluster. Each of the clusters of three or four wings sticking out of the core morphed from white where they attached to the center through shades of blue to deep indigo out to the tips where the rotation made the ends heavy grav. Five habitat levels in each of those gravity sections with a docking or storage bay separating the transition from one grav to the next. The rotating lifts and spiral staircases ran through the center, with blast doors at each grav
ity transition point.

  “A tin can with spaghetti sticking out of it,” he mumbled to himself. That’s what he’d called it the first time he saw the place from space near the jump point. That’s what it still looked like. “Is cluster 27 still empty?”

  “Yes, sir. But do you really want to isolate them at the far end of the tram route?”

  “I want them isolated to keep their mercury out of our air. Putting them in the polar opposite of the admin wings has a kind of prestige. Warm up 27C and replace the default air with their preferred atmosphere. Apparently they can breathe anything, but like to inconvenience the rest of the galaxy with their poison. We can put their normal-air entourage in 27A. Leave the buffer of 27B between atmospheres. They can move walls as they want, but they can’t change ceilings. Four meters is plenty of room for everyone else.”

  “What about . . . what about . . .”

  “They can bring in their own toilets along with their furniture. We’ve got nothing in storage to fit their butts. Have their waste channeled back to their ship for recycling, no dumping in station space. Oh, and see if you can manage to dock the ship in 27D. I don’t want them to have easy access to it if things go sour.”

  “On your authority, sir.” Meaning if the Dragons didn’t like his arrangements, he took the blame.

  He discommed with a wave of his hand. Then he sat drumming his fingers on a clear section of desktop he’d arranged for just that activity.

  “Mara, I need legal and accounting up here now,” he ordered. Pammy he’d call himself. He wasn’t certain he wanted her cowboys involved in this operation, but he wanted her weird genius for sniffing out conspiracies. Now what favors could he trade for her full cooperation?

  Gregor’s ghost rose up through the desk. He shook his head emphatically, the most communication Jake had seen from him since he’d died a month ago. His eyes showed only fathomless black holes. If Jake looked deep enough he found distant stars speckling the emptiness.

  And a coffin draped in green brocade drifting among them.

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Gregor closed his eyes and evaporated slowly.

  Suddenly, Jake knew that Gregor’s coffin was empty. His body had never made it onto the ship bound for Harmony and his funeral. The casket now floated in hyperspace where no one could ever find it. Or had another ship stumbled upon it? Someone like the dragons?

  “Wait a minute, Gregor.” The ghost stopped fading but did not fully coalesce. “You just gave me a butt-load of information by telepathy. There has never been a scientifically proven telepath in all of human history.”

  Yet.

  “I do not want to go there. Maybe I’m just going crazy. Crazier.” Jake shook his head to clear it of the stray thoughts and concentrate on what he needed to know: Who had stolen the body?

  Someone who didn’t like change. Lord Lukan seemed an obvious candidate. He had a lot at stake in keeping the Caste system intact and himself in charge. But Jake knew the man, had worked with him congenially in negotiating the treaty with Harmony. Lord Lukan seemed to like the changes Sissy had caused.

  Who else? Lady Jancee embodied the fanatical conservative element from Harmony. At seven months pregnant and growing frailer by the day, she didn’t seem a likely candidate to break the seal on the coffin, lift the body out and hide it, then reseal the coffin. Physically she couldn’t do it.

  Who would she hire? Her son Garrin, who had been his father’s assistant, seemed likely. But he seemed incapable of independent thought or action. And he was clumsy, with short, fat fingers that couldn’t perform the delicate action of working the seals. He’d have to hire help.

  “Mara, I want security to keep an eye on Lord Garrin until further notice,” he called through the door. He didn’t trust the comms.

  “I’ll notify Admiral Marella . . .”

  “No. I want my own security on this. Keep Pammy out of it.”

  That left the question of who had dumped—been bribed to dump—the empty coffin while everyone on board Star Runner supposedly lay in heavily drugged unconsciousness?

  Not everyone sleeps in hyperspace. You don’t.

  As Sissy and the other Laudaes processed toward the High Council Chamber, a cross corridor that should have been brightly lit looked dark and unused. She stopped. The rest of her party stumbled at the abrupt change.

  “Why is this corridor dark?” Sissy asked as she angled her footsteps to her right.

  “What do you mean, My Laudae?” Maigress asked, keeping her head turned away from the dimness.

  “The old chapel where the Covenant Stones are stored. Why is it dark? It should be open and welcoming with strong light.” Sissy searched the walls right and left for sign of a light switch. None. The walls were bare. At one time, here in the oldest part of Crystal Temple, the lights used to come on automatically the moment someone approached.

  “The original Covenant Stones are beneath the High Altar in the forecourt as they have always been,” Maigress said, as if teaching a child a lesson by rote.

  Darkness crowded the edges of Sissy’s vision. A prophecy lay waiting for her to grab it and allow Harmony to speak through her. But it just waited, not pushing her to speak.

  “You mean the High Council returned them to their protective vault? I ordered them to remain open to view at any time by anyone. Passages from them are to be read to every congregation every Holy Day.” She had to say something on her own. Maybe the goddess guided her, maybe not.

  “We cannot have other castes tainting Crystal Temple at their whim. Nor can lesser castes be allowed to copy the Holy Laws and probably misinterpret the writings. Access has to be closely monitored and limited to Temple Caste only.” Maigress sniffed haughtily.

  “The High Council has defied a specific order from me!” Waves of heat banished the darkness around Sissy’s vision. She yanked off the heavy headdress and veil, tucking it beneath her left arm, as she’d seen pilots do on board the First Contact Café.

  “My Laudae, such disrespect for your regalia!” Maigress sound appalled.

  Sissy ignored her as she sought the nearest intercom box. Here in the oldest parts of the original Crystal Temple and Government Palace, she had to walk quite a way. Much of the area had been damaged by a fire meant to kill Sissy and her acolytes. Finally she found a telltale blemish in the plastered walls. She slapped it more forcibly than she intended as anger continued to roil in her stomach, tightening her breathing. So much dust from the continuing quakes and reconstruction! She had no helper to slap an inhaler into her mouth. She rummaged through the hidden pockets of her formal robe for one and came up empty. She’d manage on her own.

  “Mr. Guilliam!” she yelled into the small miracle of electronics denied the Worker Caste housing where she’d grown up.

  She tapped her foot one hundred counts, while she waited for her command to penetrate every corner and crevice of the temple complex. When no reply crackled through the box, she spoke again, less loud, less angry.

  “Mr. Guilliam, where are you?”

  “Here, My Laudae.” His voice came through the disguised speaker. It echoed and sounded hollow. When he spoke again his tones had returned to the normal distortion of electronics. He must have changed a setting to privacy between them rather than broadcasting into every room. “How may I serve?”

  “I have just been informed that the Covenant Stones have been moved from public display back to their closed chamber beneath the High Altar.” A niggle of discomfort made her gnaw at her lower lip. How could she, Sissy du Maigry da Chauncy of the Worker Caste expect the haughty Temple Caste to obey her?

  Because Laud Gregor had made her High Priestess.

  But Laud Gregor was dead and his body missing. Nothing could be right again on Harmony until she found him and buried him properly within the womb of Harmony.

  “Mr. Guilliam, do you know where the Covenant Stones are currently?”

  “No, My Laudae, I do not.”

  “If
you do not know, then who does?” Sissy said, as much to herself as to the man on the other side of the intercom.

  “Look to those who have the most to lose by keeping them visible and memorable.”

  “I presume you made fair and honest copies?”

  “I had Little Johnny take photographs.”

  Sissy had to think about that. Think like Jake. What would General Jake Devlin suggest? Something sneaky.

  “Contact Little Johnny of the Media caste. I must interview him privately as soon as the welcoming ceremonies are concluded.” She slapped the intercom again to disconnect. When she looked around to gather up the parade of priestesses, she only saw Penelope’s back, far ahead of her, almost to the forecourt.

  With unseemly haste, Sissy gathered up her robes and hastened to catch up.

  “What’s happening?” she whispered to Penelope.

  Her friend stood as still as death, staring at the tunnel entrance that led to the forecourt and the High Altar. “They’ve started without you and banned the public from viewing your welcome home,” she murmured. “How can they welcome you home without you, or the public as witnesses?”

  Chapter Seven

  “One of us is going to die for the audacity of the Earthers,” Janae muttered on a tight telepathic line to the entire nest.

  Ianus didn’t think any dragon would bother listening to, or understanding, their chatter. Still, one never knew what they were capable of when this angry.

  They paced their own suites until they’d circled the chambers an unlucky seven times, then they spilled into the corridors, slamming fists in the bulkheads, snarling and biting at each other, and leaving deep claw marks in the decks.

  The slaves all lifted their heads and listened telepathically to their masters pacing. At this rate, steam should be leaking from under doors. But no dragon worthy of a Banker’s triad would waste the moisture, not on a ship where every drop needed conserving and recycling. Water was more precious here than back on their dead home world, a place only Mag and two other full-sized bankers had visited.