Mourner

by Irene Radford

  “Why can’t they vent their rage against the borrowers?” Scylla asked.

  Ianus noted that Scylla had made a point of sitting on the opposite side of the nest from him after rejecting his offer to mate. She was young and new to the crew, having just left the nest upon the death of her mother. Perhaps later, in a few weeks when she’d grown more comfortable with her adult status.

  If he lived that long.

  “They won’t do anything against these new clients because they can’t predict the outcome. No one has ever dared to defy them,” Ianus mused aloud. He always insisted upon preserving the customs and heritage they had brought with them countless eons ago. That included speech. “Our masters do not know how many of them might come storming out of the Confederated Star Systems with guns blazing.”

  “So does one of us offer our life to appease the masters’ anger, or do we hide and wait for them to come to us?” Janae asked. She looked resolute, as if she knew what she needed to do.

  “If we wait, then more than one of us will die,” Scylla said. She shrank back against the bulkhead, so very young and vulnerable.

  Ianus’s desire for her faded. He needed a woman ready to face life and reality to be the mother of his child.

  But he had so little time.

  “I . . . I will go to Mag and offer myself,” Ianus said, every bone in his body aching. “My end is near anyway. I look forward to walking the Elysium Fields with our ancestors.”

  “You do not yet have an heir,” Timæus said emphatically, also aloud. “I have two children.” He looked at Janae fondly. “I will be the one to go.”

  “It is time, my love,” she said, squeezing his hand. “We are both ancient among our people. We will go together.”

  “No. I must go. Mag is senior. He’s the only one who needs to draw blood. He is my master. Our sacrifice must come from among his slaves.” Ianus stood slowly, painfully, resolved. At least by the end of the day his pain would end. “Don’t take any hollow asteroids as payment for your debts.”

  A bass bell tolled over the comms.

  “We approach the space station,” Janae said, also rising. She moved stiffly but not painfully. “I must take my place on the bridge for the docking. No one,” she turned a fierce gaze on each of them. “No one has permission to sacrifice themselves to dragon anger. Not yet anyway. We will wait to see how much of a threat these CSS creatures, Confederated Star Systems are.”

  I wonder if she’s dying.

  “I’m not dying, only trying to block out all the noise and voices in my head,” Martha replied before she could curb her tongue.

  “Martha? I didn’t say anything,” Mary said hesitantly.

  Martha bit her lip and closed her eyes again. It didn’t help. The flurry of images from Mary’s mind just seemed stronger.

  “Mary, you are my closest friend. You have to promise me. Swear by Harmony, swear by everything you hold dear, that you will tell no one.”

  “Tell no one what?”

  “They’ll take my head if they think I . . . I can hear what people think. I’m just another mutant who has to be eliminated.” A cold knot formed in the center of her chest that threatened to block her breathing and stop her heart. “The Nobles can’t tolerate anyone who is different.”

  “Don’t say that,” Mary gasped.

  “It’s true.” Martha had never lost anyone to the execution sword. But she knew it existed. Some of the Nobles relished watching by remote camera as their victim knelt with hands and ankles chained tightly behind them, a steel band holding their head against the block. Then they waited. The machine was programmed to drop at random the Badger Metal sword across the back of the neck. Death could come in a minute or an hour or anywhere in between. The victim never knew when. And he was alone. No comfort from family or friends or even the Goddess.

  Mary nodded.

  Martha finally dared leverage her way up to lean her head against the wall behind the narrow bed. Mary sat on the edge of the bed and fussed with pillows to help support her.

  “We have to get back to the First Contact Café. General Jake will know what to do,” Mary said. Her chin firmed in decision.

  “We can’t leave Laudae Sissy. She’s in trouble with the other priests. They want her gone so they can go back to the old ways, pretend the original covenant stones don’t exist. She has to stay here and take control again.” Martha closed her eyes and heard shouting. No words at this distance. More like the anger and confusion spilled over in a wave of noise. She pressed her fingertips hard against her temples trying to block it out.

  It didn’t work. La, la, la, la, la she sang to herself. Her heart slowly returned to a normal thumping rhythm and she focused on what Mary said, and not what she thought.

  “Sissy won’t have control over anything until they elect a new HP to replace Gregor. The priests and priestesses don’t trust her. They’ll ignore her and do what they want.”

  “And if she goes to the Media Caste and tells the empire everything?” Martha’s head cleared as she sought a path within the tangled maze of her mind.

  “What . . . what if his body was dumped into hyperspace?” Mary asked. “What if we never find the body?”

  “We could fake a funeral with a sealed coffin. Otherwise . . . chaos. Civil war. Discord will gain ascendance over Harmony—as the false mural in the funeral caves predicted.”

  They stared at each other in fearful silence.

  Sissy marched through the long tunnel that led from the Crystal Temple complex into the open courtyard surrounded by a tall openwork fence. As she neared the end, lit by diffuse daylight, she slowed her steps.

  Majestic. That’s what Jake would advise her. Gather all the strength and power of your position and your pride together into your core and own it. You are High Priestess. Remind them of it with every move you make.

  “Majestic,” she repeated to herself. But she was not majestic. She was just Sissy of the Worker Caste who’d spent most of her life hiding her mutated caste marks.

  The people loved her simplicity. She represented all castes. That was one reason the elegant name “Laudae Estelle” that Gregor had tried to give her did not stick. She wasn’t elegant. She was just Sissy. So Sissy she would be.

  Two steps before emerging from the tunnel she removed her headdress and veil. She hated the thing so much that she shoved it into a dressing room alcove to her left. Then head high and steps firm, she strode into the open air.

  Five priestesses and three priests stood behind the High Altar with an array of seven crystals in front of them in an odd mixture of colors and sizes in random order: symbolic of their contempt for her. Or the chaos that surrounded them with out-of-season storms, quakes, and strange tides that either flooded or left estuaries high and dry.

  Making note of the hover camera marking every gesture and recording every jarring crystal note, words spoken with sarcasm, and off-pitch hymns, Sissy shoved her way to the center just as Maigress was about to tap the center crystal to signal an end to their brief ritual of “welcome.” Sissy grabbed the wand from her and threw it against the fence.

  It shattered into a dozen discordant pieces.

  Without a word she rearranged the crystals, tallest in the middle, radiating outward in a half circle to the smallest on either end. At the last moment she swapped two end pieces. Only then did she draw her own glass wand from her sleeve and tap each crystal in turn.

  The single notes swelled to reverberate against the crystal columns that supported the overhanging roof. The notes blended into a chord as harmonious as the wind in the trees and the sunlight sparkling on the river.

  She felt her anger dissipate and her tense shoulders relax and once more she found Harmony in life.

  But not in the Crystal Temple.

  She fought her anger and released a clear and sweet note from her closing throat. With resolution and a firm grounding of her bare feet on the paving stone, she lifted her voice in a hymn of gratitude for all that Harmony gave
Her people.

  With the hover camera recording everything, her friends and allies joined her at the altar, elbowing aside her enemies. Together, they removed their concealing headdresses and lifted their joyful notes and songs of praise until they drowned out the sourness of the usurpers.

  Finally, Sissy tapped each of the crystals in reverse order, largest to smallest. As the last lingering chime faded she bowed her head in prayer. She let the silence linger as a half-heard echo in the memory of all who listened, either here before the High Altar, the heart of Harmony, or by remote television broadcast.

  The silence stretched until it became almost painful. When the still-veiled priests and priestesses began to shift and shuffle, she lifted her head to face the hover camera.

  “I return to Harmony, my home, in gratitude!” she announced for all the world and the six colonies to hear. Her heart swelled with love for all that home meant to her. Her eyes filled with tears. She let them spill.

  Then she turned abruptly and departed the forecourt.

  The hover camera caught it all.

  Admiral Pamela Marella pressed her back hard against a support pillar in the docking bay between light and midgrav in 27B. A sound similar to a dog’s nails skittering across the floor piqued her curiosity as well as her wariness. This wing was supposed to be empty in preparation for the Dragon vessel Diamond still three hours out. The airlock remained closed and sealed. This wing was supposed to remain empty even after the Dragons docked, as a buffer between the Dragons in C with their toxic atmosphere and their entourage of humans in A.

  But her sensors had picked up an anomaly spinning away from the huge Diamond.

  Slowly she drew a deep breath and released it equally slowly. Her shoulders relaxed and her vision sharpened: an old trick from her training as a raw recruit more years ago than she wanted to think about. She needed to keep her instincts honed and her senses alive with active field work. Otherwise she’d sink herself into the bureaucracy of her position. So today she patrolled and prowled dressed as another anonymous docker.

  She’d taught Jake the same breathing trick when she brought him on board as an operative in her extensive network.

  He’d escaped her control. Temporarily.

  A blob of white materialized on the opposite end of the bay. Pammy blinked her eyes to clear them of fuzziness the latest corrective surgery hadn’t corrected. The blob resolved into an upright shape, walking/running on two hind legs that bent oddly. It came closer, pausing every few steps to turn its long and sharp lizard maw on a strangely mobile neck in every direction.

  A white lizard, naked except for a flimsy white sarong that barely covered its obvious maleness, scouting the empty bay—not an albino since the eyes were an uncanny shade of green. It could only be an advance scout for the Dragon delegation.

  The anomaly must be its scout ship, tiny and low powered, not capable of jump, so it didn’t show up easily on station sensors.

  Pammy held her breath, not knowing how keen his sense of smell and hearing were.

  Another pause and look around, then it hopped aboard the lift and rode it upward.

  Pammy stepped free of the shadows when it passed out of sight. On tiptoe she followed the lizard upward, careful to stick to shadows when she emerged in the zero G area of the hub.

  The lizard hopped about, prancing from foot to foot as if the deck was hot.

  Pammy tested the flooring. Her thin-soled ship boots remained cool.

  A tram arrived and stopped in front of the lizard. The doors irised open and the lizard jumped back, hissing loudly. His long, forked tongue flicked out and in, tasting the air.

  The tram remained in place, hatch open and inviting until the lizard jumped backward. The tram sensors registered the lack of a waiting passenger, closed the hatch and turned the tight half circle of electromagnetic rail at the end of the line and headed back toward the admin wings at the other end of the station.

  When the tram came parallel to Pamela’s hiding place, showing its backside, a large glyph of Harmony glowed in fluorescent paint.

  The lizard hissed again and hid his eyes in the crook of an elbow until the symbol of the goddess passed beyond view. Then it stepped forward again to await the next tram, hopefully a newer one that Laudae Sissy had not had time to bless.

  Pamela mentally filed away that bit of information.

  Nine minutes and thirty-seven seconds later another tram glided to a stop. The lizard entered this one without hesitation.

  Pammy keyed her link to summon an emergency tram. It arrived in less than two minutes. The beauty of emergency cars not dependent upon rails for power or direction, it could hop over other vehicles in its way. Five quick taps on her link with the proper code ordered the tram to follow the lizard, no matter what traffic lay between them.

  Chapter Eight

  Sissy bowed to the Crystal Temple staff gathered before the closed doors of the High Council Chamber. A little girl of about eight, the daughter of the head housekeeper, stepped forward, offering Sissy a single flower.

  “Thank you. May Harmony bless you.” She knelt in front of the child and tousled her unruly curls. “And may you bathe in Harmony’s light for your faithful service.” She stood slowly and smiled at each one in turn.

  They returned her smile and faded back into the shadows, unseen and unheard by the majority of Temple Caste.

  Clutching the flower to her chest, she waved for Guilliam and another acolyte to open the double doors bound in brass. Guilliam flicked his fingers in a signal she interpreted as a need to speak privately. She nodded acknowledgement.

  With a deep breath for fortitude she stepped into the chamber to face the assembled High Council.

  These people hadn’t wanted her as HPs when Gregor elevated her from Worker to Temple Caste and ordained her. She had the Caste Mark, therefore she was eligible. Now that Gregor was gone, members of the Council actively worked to make her redundant. Or they outright ignored her.

  How long before they held a clandestine and illegal election among themselves to replace her?

  “There is the matter of Laud Gregor to discuss,” she said before Maigress could mangle the opening ritual. “Please dismiss your acolytes.”

  As gracefully as she could, she smoothed the skirts of her robe and took her seat at the head of the table. A podium blocked her view of the rest of the assembled priests and priestesses along its length. When the High Council met here she used the podium for her crystals and wands necessary for opening and closing prayer rituals. She rarely sat in those meetings.

  “Um . . . er . . .” Laud Andrew cleared his throat. He sat at the far opposite end of the long table where the High Priest should sit. He wasn’t HP yet, only Gregor’s deputy during his absence.

  “If you think you must address me face to face, then move the podium,” Sissy said blandly. “Otherwise I remain hidden in mystery, much as your veils conceal your face.” To her left Lord Lukan covered his mouth to hide his soft laugh. No one else moved.

  “Two representatives of Temple, and five Nobles. No one else should be present.” Sissy firmed her voice.

  “My brother is not a member of the council,” Lord Beven insisted, glaring at his twin. “Lukan is a diplomat. He chose service at the First Contact Café rather than serve here.”

  “But I am back, and I am senior to you by almost an hour. You may leave now, Bevan, and take Laudae Maigress with you. She no longer has a wand to perform the opening ritual.”

  Sissy did not watch the scuffle as Mr. Guilliam forcibly removed the extra people from the chamber. Instead she studied the crystals set upon the podium with a frown.

  “Laudae Sissy, if you will?” Lord Lukan gestured to the crystals.

  “Very well, I follow traditional ritual and will open with a prayer.” She shoved her heavy chair back a few inches and stood. She could barely see over the top, or reach the crystals. “This is not my podium. Do you plan to replace me as well as Laud Gregor? He is not legally dead
and neither am I. I stand before you to hold you accountable to Harmony. But the Covenant Stones have vanished from their chapel. Until they are returned to their proper place the Empire no longer walks in Harmony.”

  Suppressing the awful feeling that she’d do something irreversibly wrong, she turned her back on the assembly and stalked toward the double doors, the only exit.

  “Have you wondered that the storms and quakes began almost to the minute you hid the Covenant Stones from the people of Harmony? Did you ever think that now the truth is out, if you change one thing from the original covenant, everyone will know you for the power hungry tyrants you are?”

  She slapped the door with the flat of her hand.

  A long pause, then someone turned latches and lifted the heavy crossbar that guaranteed privacy. No real guarantee—Gil had spyholes and recording devices in hidden alcoves all over the Temple complex. How long before he sent the recordings of this disastrous meeting to the Media Caste?

  “Perhaps Harmony’s temper tantrums resulted from your departure for the First Contact Café?” Laud Andrew countered.

  “Yes, I have considered this many times. I obeyed prophecy. I sought to bring Harmony’s blessing to our allies. Allies we sorely need to withstand invasion. Better to control the manufacture and distribution of Badger Metal than to have it stolen by aliens.” She whirled to face her enemies before they could think of another accusation.

  “Laudae, we meant no insult,” Lord Daniel said.

  Sissy paused to listen to the ancient man who appreciated the little courtesies she showed in respect for his venerable presence. Stability. An anchor for all of them.

  “My Laudae, during your absence Laudae Maigress has led our opening and closing prayers,” Lord Daniel said meekly.

  Sissy had to pause and swallow her ire before turning to face the Council. “I gave Laudae Penelope the honor of conducting the prayers.” Penelope stood only an inch taller than herself. She’d use the same short podium.