Starfire Saga, page 63
“That doesn’t narrow it down any,” Sandalari said. Wistfully, she added, “I’m afraid I don’t like it much here. Things seemed so much more honest on Caryldon.”
I agreed with her without saying so. “Everyone has an agenda here,” I said to her, “and the agendas are all different from one another. On Caryldon, we could be reasonably expected to share each other’s agendas, at least to some extent.”
Jemeret and Keli came in, and I dissolved the bubble until they were inside, then rebuilt it. “No clues,” my lord said, sitting down and calling up a drink of some kind from the table, something that hadn’t occurred to the rest of us. “It was hastily done. It felt almost like whoever was doing it was interrupted in the middle. If they’d blown out both sets of stabilizers, we’d have crashed for sure. But then, if we had been at cruising speed, it might still have succeeded.” He leaned back in the cushions as Sandalari repeated that she didn’t like it here. My lord laughed softly. “I know,” he said. “At times even treachery seems cleaner than the political games.”
Keli frowned and looked down at her hands. “I can’t guard you,” she said. “Not really. Maybe you should just send me away. I mean, I haven’t got any talent.”
“That doesn’t mean that you have no worth, Keli,” I said to her carefully. “You see things differently from the rest of us.” For some reason, I found myself looking at Jemeret when I said that. “You are part of the team, and you stay. We’ll get your friend here, the other MF guard you mentioned, to help you if you feel inadequate alone.”
She flushed. “Actually, he’s my brother,” she corrected.
“The comsole’s blinking,” Jemeret said. “It may be ringing as well. Let’s finish this quickly.”
We discussed what we had guessed about the person who was either attacking or directing the attacks against us. First—we somehow settled on a male persona, and this time Sandalari made no demur—that his methods were crude, and, though he’d obviously planned the murder of the two children, the attempt on us appeared to have been thrown together at the last minute. We would have to be endlessly watchful.
“The banquet tonight will probably involve the top two, maybe three, levels of the bureaucracy,” Coney continued thoughtfully. “If we’re theorizing our enemy is someone near to real power, but not holding it—and if he’s actually here on Orokell—then I’d say it’s likely he’d be there.” Sandalari’s lovely eyes darkened suddenly and she shifted against Coney’s side.
I read what she was thinking, and I understood. She wanted to live in a world free from fear or the necessity to hate—she might not have used that word; it’s mine—and her ideal world was much farther away here than it had been on Caryldon.
“We have enough careful steering to do around all the personalities on the Tribunal,” Jemeret said. “This complicates things badly.” He looked at me, his level gray eyes penetrating. “They want you to speak tonight, to tell them what happened on Caryldon.”
“I know.” He hadn’t had to say it, and my lord was not in the habit of saying things he didn’t need to say. “I’m pretty sure I can get it right.” That was all I had time for. Tynnanna had risen out of the grass and was stalking the comsole with a grim determination that seemed bent on committing mayhem.
“I think it’s probably ringing now,” Jemeret said.
I dissolved the bubble, and the noise of the comsole filled the room. I ran to it past the crouching klawit and cut the bell off. The messages began to play out instantly.
Anok Luttrell told Jemeret he couldn’t find the guard who had piloted the floater, and, despite the expense, he’d ordered a molecular pattern scan.
Petra Chantrey reminded me that her design students were eagerly awaiting my choice of gown.
Congratulations and welcome back messages abounded, including some I considered duty messages, from Lumeship captains, MF Brigade Commanders, member world governors, minor bureaucrats, and the like.
The MIs had patched “for your attention” a report on increased smuggling activity among the Nogdala worlds, combined with a prediction that the Nogdala system administration would do nothing to curtail such activities.
The legitimate Com authorities on Abranel had issued a long and detailed report about the extent of mishandling of transshipments and a request for guidance about appropriate disciplinary measures, since too harsh a crackdown could have the opposite effect to the one intended, while too lenient a response could fail to deter anyone else from joining in. On a small scale, such activities could be seen as pranks, as little defiances of the shiftmasters, rather than as wide-ranging episodes with repercussions throughout the system.
Tynnanna turned on his pads with graceful feline disgust at the cacophony and marched back to his grass.
I ordered Keli to put in a request under my name for information on her brother and a change of orders, and a message came through almost at once from an MF guard dispatcher. She responded to my request for the services of Gabon Idana, third-rank guard currently serving on Auburnese, by saying that his assignment would indeed be changed to my personal staff, and he should arrive on Orokell in forty hours on the Shunapi, the regular sublight vessel on the inner worlds run from Orokell to Werd to Koldor to Auburnese and back to Orokell again.
Pel Nostro called to let us know that Mortel John and Tial Borland would also be arriving on the Shunapi, and since Sinet Coleby and Lage N’Verre were already here, we could discuss our coopting them to our team at the banquet later. The three Class C’s were all on assignment and scattered among the Com worlds, but he was putting through eftel calls to them and would get them onto the first available Lumeships to bring them back.
Petra Chantrey called again to ask if there was some problem with my accessing the gown designs and offering to help if there were.
Then, blessedly, silence.
I looked over at Jemeret, still lounging on the couch, and he was almost coiled, radiating tension. Even Coney and Sandalari were aware of it. Keli had smiled at the announcement that her brother was on his way to us, and she seemed lost in her own thoughts or memories, unaware of the strain pulling the rest of us taut. I touched Jemeret, a gently inquiring caress. He shook his head wearily, the tension lessening slightly, but not fading. “Choose a damned gown,” he said. “That at least will get Petra off the line.”
I reminded myself that he’d been gone from this center of hubbub and power for more than twenty-five years. He had trained the Boru to make the most of their own choices, and there were only a few decisions in which he absolutely had to be involved. It was his very ability to delegate within the tribe that allowed him to be away so much. The Com was very careful to whom it gave power and what power it gave. It had given a great deal to the Class A’s. Therefore, everyone thought they could not function without us. The incessant pounding of demands was alien to him.
“I don’t know how Jasin Lebec did it all those years,” I said. “All the conflicting demands, and strands of problems and scenarios, and impasses, and personalities and whatever, all coming at him at once and then again and again.” I made myself go to the comsole and call for the holos of the design students’ offerings, signaling them to rise one by one on the surface of the couch table. I could almost picture the anxious students, each knowing that I could make a future career by choosing his or her particular design. “I don’t know how many demands I can stand before I blow up.”
“You have to stand enough,” said Sandalari firmly. “We all do.” Then she laughed, unexpectedly, and I followed her gaze.
The first design had risen on the table, on a holo image wearing my face. It made the gown I’d had to wear to the Barbin 3 banquet look starkly simple by comparison. Had I chosen to wear it, I’d have had to turn sideways to get through doorways, and there was some doubt about archways, as well. Even Keli, more accustomed to the flights of fancy that passed for fashion in the high circles of Com society, had to suppress a little giggle.
“I think not,” I said unnecessarily.
We chose a gown for Sandalari before we actually chose mine, and both of them were the simplest of the dozen options. With a fine sense of mischief, I ordered my dress in dark blue and hers in a shade slightly lighter. We registered a third choice because I’d been asked to pick the top three, and the dresses were in our bedrooms before we were finished.
Keli would wear her uniform, and the men the formal jumpsuits that most men wore on such occasions. Jemeret was entitled to several decorations on his for the assignments he’d completed in the past, and we were all eligible to wear decorations for the Barbin 3 mission, but we unanimously rejected them.
Jasin Lebec arrived after Petra Chantrey sent her thanks. “So much for her staying off the lines,” I said to Jemeret, who had finished his drink and was still sitting, tightly wound, on the couch.
“No trouble getting here?” Coney asked Jasin Lebec.
“I expect no trouble,” he answered. “Whoever’s behind these senseless attacks isn’t after me; he’s after the young. I’m past my time, and it’s not exactly secured knowledge.” He drew a small sheaf of papers from inside his jumpsuit top and gave it to me.
“Papers?” Jemeret’s surprise was completely undisguised.
“It’s not information to be stored in anyplace accessible,” his grandfather said slowly. “I was unaware of it myself until Pel gave me the documents.” I thought about what I was holding, unopened, for a moment or two, then handed the sheaf of papers to Jemeret. He flipped open the folder without hesitation. Someone might have thought I was delegating the task to him, but in truth I just wasn’t ready to deal with whatever it said.
“I take it this isn’t good news,” Jemeret began, then fell silent, reading quickly. We all watched him. There was something riveting about his concentration, and though nothing of it showed on the surface, I felt an explosion begin to build within him.
He swore one of the foulest oaths I’d ever heard, and it was only the third time I’d heard him swear at all. He looked up at me, his eyes momentarily unfocused. Then they snapped onto my face, blazing with consternation. “Those sheer idiots!” The words almost burst out of him. “How can educated people do such a—profoundly moronic thing!” I studied his face as it darkened with, astoundingly, an almost impotent rage.
I had to ask, “What is it?” as Coney and Sandalari stared at both of us, taken aback by Jemeret’s totally uncharacteristic loss of control.
Jasin Lebec waited to see if Jemeret would answer me, and when he didn’t, the older man said, “There’s a new cult springing up on a few of the worlds of the Com, Ronica McBride. No one has quite traced its origin, though the guess is presently that it arose on Nogdala 7, not one of our sterling worlds by any standards. We are also uncertain of the methods by which it spreads, though the government and the MIs are trying to analyze and confirm present information. It’s deeply disturbing to both groups, because it seems to them even more antirational than the present-day religions.”
“What are its major precepts?” I asked, still not understanding why Jemeret was so enraged.
He was the one who answered me. “It appears to have only one major precept,” he said harshly. “They’re worshiping us.”
I didn’t dare laugh, even though, just as he’d been angered by the information, I found it so absurd as to be ludicrous. “What do you mean, they’re worshiping us? Who is? How?”
Shaking his head, he handed me back the papers.
VIII. Rethinking the Past
We went to the banquet as if our lives had not, in a space of about four hours, become infinitely more complicated. The papers in and of themselves were not overly grim—the MI predictions were what gave it all such appalling implications. The gist of the new cult—which appeared to be calling itself Becois, in honor of Jasin Lebec—was that the holders of talent were actually saviors: we could do all sorts of things impossible for ordinary, talentless humanity, including the classically popular returning people from the dead. Therefore, the conclusion went, if prayed to correctly and propitiated enough, we should be able to provide for them, to guard them from the ravages of the Drenalion, and to help them gain immortality. Cult members were proclaiming that belief by, among other things, acts of defiance against government rules, especially those sacrosanct ones related to production quotas—many of which affected the tariffs due to the Com itself. So far, the production totals had not dropped enough to be significant, but Jara Deland had pulled forecasts that could be seen as alarming enough to generate an incursion of the Drenalion.
There was an interesting similarity to what was happening around Ananda, but there was no way they could be related, since Veroun, Calendola, Grieco, and the two Nogdala worlds were far from Ananda and unlikely to have encountered any of the Ananda materials or troublemakers. It was probably a case of synchronicity, of people being smart enough to realize economic protests were likely to be more successful than social ones, that a provider society puts more value on what it provides than on those to whom it provides.
The time span estimated on the problem of this new cult was still fairly comfortable, for the Becois were as yet a small movement. But Jemeret had brought me back when the adherents of the cult thought me lost to them and then restored Coney after Barbin 3. Those two acts had combined in the popular imagination to reinforce the belief that we could do anything.
I destroyed the documents after we read them, and Jemeret bubbled us all, to caution us to behave as if we knew nothing of this latest snarl in the fabric of our plans. It could not be presented to us as a Class A assignment, though it fit many of the conditions for one, because the appearance among worshipers of the objects of their worship would be unlikely to have the desired effect no matter how much we stung them.
“We have a lot of things to try to accomplish tonight,” my lord said, biting back whatever anger he was still feeling. “We have to put aside for now the knowledge that muddled Becois thinking may give the government and the MIs an excellent motive for choosing to get rid of an entire group of people out there. Sometimes I think the MIs have been waiting for years for the right group of scapegoats to make an example of. The Becois might be behaving idiotically, but they don’t deserve to die for it.”
“You don’t think,” I asked slowly, “that the government or the MIs would want to use this talent-worship as an excuse to reorganize itself and do away with talent in the Com, do you?” I wasn’t sure if I regarded that possibility as terrible or wonderful.
Jasin Lebec answered before anyone else had the opportunity. “Not the MIs, surely,” he protested. “They’ve always been strong supporters of talent and absolute insisters on the need for talent to help the government.”
“But we’ve never been responsible for anything that interfered with their efficiency before,” Jemeret said, then added, “Never mind. We have too much to try to do without adding to it.”
“We’ll have to deal with it sooner or later,” I said. I ignored the fact that Jasin Lebec and Keli were present, even though I knew they would not understand what I meant by my next words. “We were told to go on living, and if we’re to do that, we have to do it in the best ways we can. That’ll mean halting the insanity of people thinking we’re worth worshiping.”
It was the closest I’d ever come to mentioning the starfire out in the Com, but it had always been at the edge of my consciousness. I often found myself gazing at Tynnanna, as if he would somehow recognize my hunger and become a channel for the starfire to speak to me, but good sense told me that contact would only happen when the starfire was ready, not when I was.
Jemeret dissolved the bubble, and the four other people went to dress. I called up an amazing amount of meat protein for Tynnanna, left it on the couch table where it formed, and went to join my lord in the bedroom we were sharing. He had showered quickly and dried himself, and he was lying naked on the bed, hands behind his head. I stripped out of my jumpsuit and used the eliminatory’s sonic cleanser, which was not nearly as sensual as the feeling of hot water sluicing down my body, but was considerably faster. When I returned to the bedroom, he was watching me, so of course I went to curl up beside him, tucked into the circle of his arm.
He’d buried the anger, shoving it deep into his being, into that inchoate knot he bore down below the surface of his mind.
I bubbled us. “I figure four Class A assignments, and perhaps another which isn’t,” I said.
His lips grazed my forehead. “Until what?” he asked.
“Until I can tell them I really want to go back to Caryldon with you.” Even as I said it—
“You know it’s not that simple, love,” my Lord Jemeret said. “I want to break the hold the MIs have over the Com and set us free to become what we should have been years ago. I can’t go back to Caryldon until that’s accomplished.”
“You can, but—”
“No, I can’t,” he overrode me. “I’ll never give them another one of our children.” It was a flat statement, uncolored by anything other than bald determination.
I shifted a little, fitting myself more strongly against his hip. “You haven’t a plan yet, have you?”
“Not a hint of one,” he answered readily enough.
“Well, what if they demanded more children? What if bringing the children here is the only way to save the people who live in the Com? Jemeret, they’re worth saving.”
For a long time he said nothing. At last he said slowly, “I think we’ll have to make it possible for them to save themselves, and then let those who can, do it. The MIs should be gone for that to happen.” He looked down at his hand, stroking my hair. “You started it when you gave your speech on Barbin 3. The people of the Com haven’t been responsible for one another for a hundred years now, maybe longer. If they can learn what you—” He tapped my cheek with his forefinger. “—want them to learn, they have every chance.”
