Heart Journey

by Robin Owens

  His mother flushed, threw up her hands. “Gifts. I hide holiday gifts!”

  “And Seratina’s satchel in the HeirSuite bedroom.” His sister blushed, too. “Never mind that one.” The image of sex toys flashed into Raz’s mind . . . everyone’s minds, he guessed since they all stared at her. Her HeartMate’s ears turned red and he sat stoically looking straight ahead.

  “The gilt wallet in this mainspace hidey-hole,” the Residence continued.

  “Dammit,” his father said.

  “And an item that I have been forbidden to reveal by T’Cherry . . .”

  “Cave of the Dark Goddess,” his father exploded.

  “Stop!” Raz said, carefully not looking at any of his Family. “Let me rephrase that.”

  Bunch of secretive pack rats, Del teased. I suppose you have another treasure box here, too?

  Raz didn’t dignify that comment with an affirmative answer. Del was just too used to having minimal possessions when she traveled. “We are interested in an object that resonates of a long-past human Cherry, that has been there since you have become aware of yourself. A box, perhaps, and if you can sense so far, inside the box might be old books.”

  “I am aware that there were journals,” the Residence said with dignity. “They have been spoken of often, all the hidey-holes and secret caches have been searched.”

  “All of them that we know. But what of something that is not you, but has always been with you, never moved, yet has lingering human traces.” He studied his Family, all of whom wore dubious expressions. No, not a hero this time.

  Del squeezed his hand. It was an excellent idea.

  “There is a small warmth . . .” the Residence said in nearly a whisper.

  Everyone leaned forward. “Rather like my HeartStones. Always there. Always mine.”

  “But not a HeartStone,” Raz’s mother said in her most comforting, soothing voice.

  “No. It is not in the HouseHeart.”

  “Maybe it should be,” his father said gruffly.

  “I like it where it is.”

  “May we please look at it?” Raz’s sister asked. “Please? We want it, too. We won’t ever take it away from you.” Her glance swept around the room and they all nodded in agreement with her words, even Del.

  “It is mine,” the Residence said.

  “It is ours, yours and ours, as all is.”

  “Someone is hunting it, hurting your Family looking for it.” Del’s voice was practical, and sharp.

  “Where is this thing that is all of ours?” Raz’s mother asked.

  Thirty-two

  A change in air pressure had the windows sighing. “It is behind the pantry.”

  “The original Cherry was a baker,” Raz’s mother said.

  Everyone had instinctively risen to their feet—except Del. Her face was impassive. “I’ll stay here.”

  She was his HeartMate, but neither of them had admitted it.

  “Oh, but—” his mother started, then stopped and nodded.

  So they trooped through the house to the large kitchen, through it. The pantry was large enough to hold them all.

  His father cleared his throat. “Thank you very much for helping us, your Family. Where is it, Residence?”

  “To your left, third shelf up.” The Residence’s voice had become smaller, younger, but there was trust in it.

  The shelf might have been too high to see for older generations, but Raz’s father could reach it. He pulled down a multitude of jars, grimacing as he did, handing them to his HeartMate. She frowned, too. “Your great-great-FatherDam’s gooseberry jam.”

  Raz’s sister stuck her tongue out. None of them liked gooseberry jam. His mother sighed. “These should have been thrown out years ago, but I forgot about them.” The jars were over her head. She chuckled. “Of course the Residence didn’t remind me of them.”

  Soon the entire shelf was bare, but there was no evidence of a safe or even a seam in the paneled wall. Raz’s father stuck his hands in his pockets.

  Raz said, “Residence, can you open the space for us?”

  With a slow creak and a fall of dust, a panel square swung out. Inside was a polished box of gleaming cherry.

  Raz’s father hissed a breath, lifted it out, stared at it.

  “Please shut the alcove,” Raz said.

  The panel swung shut, clicked in place. Raz put all the jars back up as his father continued to stare at the box.

  “The breakfast room,” T’Cherry said.

  It was one of the oldest in the Residence, the most intimate for a Family of four—or six. We are meeting in the small breakfast room, Raz told Del. “Residence, can you give Del directions?”

  They took their usual places around the circular table . . . and Del sat next to Raz. His parents were near the door, Raz next to his father, his sister between her husband and his mother. Del was the last one in, every footstep echoing with a creaking board . . . the Residence being nervous.

  “We’ll put the box and contents back, Residence,” his mother said. “We will want to read the journal, and perhaps viz it for copies, but we will put it back.”

  Thank you, the Residence whispered in their minds. The curtains around the windows fluttered, though the room was usually without drafts.

  Raz’s father continued to stare at the box without touching it until Del sat. Raz took her hand, saw his sister was grasping her HeartMate’s and mother’s hands. Raz put his other hand on his father’s near shoulder; his mother did the same.

  Del reached across the table to take his brother-in-law’s hand and the connection between them all snapped into place. Raz felt a vibration through his body, not only from the Family energy but from the floor beneath his soles to the crown of his head. “Residence, we feel you,” he panted. “A little less energy, please? We know you will survive beyond us, and you are one of the threads that keep us Family.”

  A soughing came from the hallway.

  “Residence, that’s enough. Stop acting like a distrustful child,” Raz’s mother scolded.

  The lights flickered at the reprimand but then brightened and remained steady.

  Raz’s father cleared his throat. “All right.” He lifted the lid; it came easily and emitted a slight whoosh as a long-ago spell gave way and left the scent of rosemary . . . bread made with rosemary and sea salt, an old Family tradition.

  The Cherrys sighed.

  Raz’s brother-in-law licked his lips. “Smells good.”

  “I haven’t made that in too long,” Raz’s mother and sister said in unison, then smiled at each other. His sister gave a watery sniff.

  T’Cherry lifted a book out. “There’s two,” he said. He passed the first one to his wife, took out the second.

  “We don’t have time to read all the entries tonight.” Raz’s mother stroked the cover of one and the connection among the Family diminished. Raz’s sister put her free hand on her mother’s shoulder and once more all let out a sigh as they became connected—everyone.

  The books didn’t look like books made on Celta. Four centuries old. Raz’s heart pumped hard at the thought.

  “Could you just read near the front and the back to see if she mentions any map? Flip through it for a drawing?” his sister asked.

  But his father already was skimming the pages. “Plenty of little drawings, faces, the ship . . . Lugh’s Spear.” He stopped and stared. “Broken.” He whistled. “Lucky there weren’t more casualties.”

  Del’s grip nearly crushed Raz’s hand. He squeezed back.

  The pages fluttered faster, sped by Flair instead of fingers.

  “It appears that mine is the first.” Raz’s mother turned to one of the opening pages, frowned. “The entries are hard to read, old script.” She lifted her chin. “But I can do it.”

  It wasn’t often that Raz was reminded that his mother had been a scholar; she’d always been such a charming hostess and caring mother.

  She cleared her throat and began hesitantly, pausing be
tween sentences, then continued smoothly.

  All of my life I’ve lived on the Ship. I was born here and thought I’d die here like the generations before. I would look out the portholes at the black and white of the darkness and stars, the other colors I sensed but could not really see, and knew that the Ship was my home.

  Like the two other Ships I could sometimes see out the portholes . . . the shining things not shaped like Lugh’s Spear.

  I didn’t believe in the “mission” to get to another planet, a home world that was like those pieces of rock that we would occasionally pass.

  I didn’t believe that there were actually “golden ones,” people who had boarded on Earth and not been born on the Ship, those who were whispered to sleep until we reached a planet. Which no one believed we would. Even kids knew that we were off course and there would be no planet.

  Then word spread that there was a mutiny on Nuada’s Sword and one of the most golden of the golden ones was awakened to handle this.

  Everything must have changed there, because it affected us here. One of the few golden ones that traveled with us, instead of the newer Nuada’s Sword, was awakened, too. He did have a golden glow around him. They said it was the remnants of the liquid in the tube that he slept in for so many years.

  But they were wrong. I saw him once, the new Captain, walking in the hallway. There was a glow to his skin, but his aura also glowed. Golden.

  And today for the first time in my memory, the Ship didn’t just automatically alter course to avoid something, but turned. And we faced a green-tinged brown and blue and white sphere. I was in one of the viewing lounges when we turned and saw it for a moment.

  They said it would be our new home. Celta. Named centuries ago back on Earth.

  I am terrified.

  Raz’s mother paused.

  “Imagine seeing a whole new world from a spaceship.” Del’s hushed voice sounded dazed.

  Raz’s sister shivered. “I’m quite happy here on the ground.”

  Raz’s mother set the book facedown on the table and went to the kitchen, came back with a tray with carafes of caff and cocoa and six mugs, poured and doctored each cup. When Raz took his he found caff hot and strong and sweet, perfect. Del’s dimples showed as she sipped her cocoa.

  His mother drank deeply of her own caff, then picked up the book again and began to read.

  The Ship broke!

  “Landing” was horrible! I was gathered with my bunkies midship, like everyone else, in those rooms built to sustain stress. We were tossed around like dice in a cup. I have bruises everywhere and terror still lives in my heart.

  Screaming and yelling started, but Captain Hoku controlled it. Said in that deep, calm voice of his that only the lower hull had been breached, that only people in Section Four who hadn’t gone to their safe places were hurt and dead. I don’t know that I believe him.

  Doors all around the Ship opened and we were told to exit in an orderly fashion, taking only what we could carry.

  I ran with the big satchel I’d made, taking these diaries.

  Out into the light—a different light than I’d always known. Someone said it was too blue or white or something. But there were no walls! Even in the great greensward in the Ship, there was the hint of distant, curved metal walls.

  Nothing surrounds me now. Anything could come from the sky, or from around me.

  People fell down on the ground and screamed and shouted and cried.

  I did, too.

  Raz’s mother paused, turned a page, and continued.

  I am calmer, not so scared that I can’t take writestick to paper and record my thoughts, and my fears, and my doubts. I’d always thought that I was a strong woman, but I shake nearly every minute of every day. I know nothing will ever be the same and I fear—everything, even people.

  People I’ve known all my life have changed. Some broke and can’t deal with the sky and the dirt and the trees and the horizon in the distance. I feel like that, too, but I will not beg to go back into the Ship.

  They say we will have a gathering tonight, and everyone who wishes will speak and we will all decide on options. That is very strange. Me, a baker, having a voice in how the Ship—how the settlement is run? It makes me shake more.

  I yearn to go back and live in the Ship. Many of us do. But the golden ones speak of making a town. So far no one has been allowed to reenter the Ship, our home.

  I don’t know what to do. Everything is too strange. The shakes have come again and I can’t write.

  Raz’s mother’s voice ended on a wobble. She leaned against his father, as his sister and husband angled together.

  Del sat straight in the chair beside him. He put his arm around her shoulders and she relaxed a little.

  “How awful, I never thought . . .” Raz’s sister said.

  Her HeartMate murmured love words, stroked her hair, said, “It all worked out. After all, we are all here.”

  “How courageous she must have been, they all must have been,” Raz’s mother said.

  “Especially the generational crew,” Del said. “The cryonic folk had it easier, the FirstFamilies.”

  “Yes,” Raz’s father said heavily, “those who survived the sleep.” He leaned over and kissed his wife and HeartMate tenderly on her lips. “Can you go on? I’m fascinated.”

  “We all are,” Raz said, his hands itching to hold the diary, to read, to act out this most personal Family memory.

  Raz’s mother nodded, glanced down at the page. Raz’s father pulled his chair closer, followed her gaze as if he would read along with her.

  His mother jolted in her seat, and they all stared at her.

  After a long breath in and a short one out, his mother continued.

  The Ship is gone!

  We all woke to this terrible noise, this rumbling, breaking shaking noise! I staggered from the tent with the others and saw the ground give way and the Ship tilt down and more ground cover it up. Some people ran to it and were lost, too.

  My home is gone.

  “She saw it go down,” Raz’s father said. Everyone else exclaimed, too. Raz wasn’t sure what came out of his mouth. Del’s voice cut through the babble.

  “Did she leave a map, give any directions?”

  “No,” his mother said. “Still no map. More about her feelings and less about her surroundings.”

  Del frowned, said slowly, “A woman like her, who’d lived on a starship all her life, might not be good at distinguishing flora and landmarks. You shouldn’t hope for a map.”

  “Certainly we haven’t seen anything at first glance,” Raz’s father admitted. “Skip to the end of your book, darling.”

  Raz’s mother nodded.

  I have thought long and hard. This is a pretty place, but I want more people. Hoku, he says not to call him Captain anymore, told us that the crew and most of the colonists—those who paid for the Ships and the trip and slept in the cryonics—have begun to build a big city where Nuada’s Sword landed. Their machines work.

  I don’t know what a city is.

  But I know what walls are and I think walls are a good thing.

  The walls of Lugh’s Spear are gone forever.

  The walls of the shelters—houses—being built here are not big enough for me. They only surround one group of families.

  I will go with the two-thirds of us to this new city of Druida.

  I only shake a couple of times a week now. But they are not our Ship “weeks” anymore. They are longer.

  I had no say in that.

  Raz said, “So she ends that diary when she ended her time at the settlement near where Lugh’s Spear landed.”

  “Seems so,” his father said, opened his own book, cleared his throat, looked down. With a shake of his head, he said, “I can’t read this. I thought I could at first, but the letters are all squiggly.” He smiled at his wife, then at Raz. “You two were the ones who studied the old language.” Puffing out a breath. “Just for this moment, eh? In case
we found the diary?”

  His wife elbowed him with a mock frown. “I thought that was why you married me?”

  “Yeah, I was trying to work out the script on those old cards. The divination cards! Raz, you still got those?”

  “Yes. They weren’t harmed in the break-in in my apartment. The pouch was opened and they were scattered, but the deck’s complete.”

  “Lucky.” His father’s breath whooshed out. His thick brows lowered. “But there isn’t much info on the cards, is there, just drawings and the ancient script titling each card?”

  “That’s right. Though I found a couple with Lugh’s Spear in the background.”

  “Really?” asked his sister. “Which ones?”

  “Eight of Cups and”—he lifted Del’s hand to his lips—“The Lovers.”

  His sister frowned. “Change.”

  “Ah, right,” Raz said.

  “Cards,” his father murmured. “She might have mentioned them in here.” He tapped the volume, then reluctantly slid it over to his wife. “You might see if a ‘search volume’ will find it.”

  “I’ll read the opening page first,” his mother said.

  I did a sketch of the one now calling herself Dame Sea—after that old belief system they talk about all the time—and she liked it and gave me more paper. Now I can earn my way on this trek. People, those beginning to call themselves the FirstFamilies, and the upper echelons of the crew, are paying me for my sketches.