Enigma

by C. F. Bentley

  Sissy had to smile. “Perhaps the Goddess heard your prayer.” She pointed to an oddly shaped shadow in a recess beyond the air lock. “I believe Major Mara deserted and disobeyed orders.”

  “Thank every God in the universe!” Jake grabbed Sissy’s elbow and dragged her over toward that shadow with a bounce in his step. “We need to make plans. All three of us.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Pain ripped through Adrial as once again the Law found violating her body amusing. A long time had passed since they had honored the sacred breeding rituals and kept recreational sex homosexual. They’d lost all the breeding sanctuaries decades before.

  Now they perverted the divine act as a way to force her to speak. She did not know what they wanted to hear.

  Again and again they rammed shocking probes and parts of their own bodies into her. Nothing new. The Messengers of the Gods had been much more creative in testing her and preparing her before sending her on their quest for . . . for her own spiritual enlightenment.

  She detached her mind from the pain. Her body no longer belonged to her. It was the toy of the Law.

  “All we want to know is why?” the officer who observed her torture asked. He stood with arms crossed in front of his puffed chest. Feathered folds of skin draped below his arms like a half cloak.

  The feathers and wing flaps looked too small, as if this male were morphing into another species. But his blue head crest flared with full plumage.

  The other males also showed signs of melting into a more humanoid form. She had no time or attention to spare for the obvious question as yet again electricity arced from her womb to her head and radiated out to her extremities.

  “Why what?” she choked out. “What do you think I’ve done?”

  “You know what you’ve done. We know it. We have witnesses.

  “Liars. One and all. I am different from you, an easy target. A . . .” She fished in her memory for a term they would understand. “I have become the fledgling cast out of the nest because I am smaller and weaker and cannot compete for sustenance.”

  “We have recordings of you fleeing the library with a single book in your possession moments before fire consumed the entire building, its contents, and over half the occupants.”

  “Recordings can be altered. I stole a valuable book. Nothing more. Does theft justify this intense a punishment?”

  Another voice whispered to her, “Leave no trace of your passing. Destroy all evidence of your presence.”

  And so the interrogation continued. The torture. Until they tired of their game and threw her into a cold and austere prison cell, expecting her to die from her injuries as the poor victims of the fire had died.

  Adrial jerked awake. That dream . . . she hadn’t had that dream in many years. Why now? Why did it haunt her now?

  Leave no trace of your passing.

  “Spacer Major Roderick da Nevis pa FCC at your service, My Laud.” The uniformed man snapped a smart salute to Gregor, then bowed deeply from the waist. His yellow star caste mark had been ennobled but not lauded. He had no right to address the HP of all Harmony.

  Gregor smiled weakly. Laud Andrew had sent a respectful man. He knew who truly ruled Harmony and her delegation.

  He doffed his reading glasses and marked his place in the book he skimmed. An old one, and a comforting one, written by another High Priest Gregor who had ruled Temple caste and the High Council over one hundred fifty years ago. Gregor of old had made the change to the Covenant with Harmony that negated the need for Temple caste to marry and divide their loyalties between caste and family.

  Gregor of old had also lumped the Media into the Professional caste, taking away their power of independence. In their place he’d made a Poor caste, those who could not or would not work. Minor criminals had their caste marks downgraded to the Poor. Dissenters, too. A convenient dumping ground for the unwanted. No one was obliged to feed, medicate, or care for the Poor. Many died of starvation and exposure, thus eliminating malcontents from an otherwise harmonious society.

  “You are to be second-in-command here,” Gregor stated the obvious. He had not specified which man was to replace the upstart Mara, only that she had to go. Admiral Marella had conveyed the message.

  He fixed his gaze on the man, as if he cared intensely about this interview.

  “Yes, My Laud. Presuming General Jake Devlin approves of my presence, after we’ve met.” Major Roderick maintained his rigid attention stance.

  Gregor decided to keep him stiff and awkward for a while. He did not encourage casual relations among the castes. This man was a tool, nothing more, nothing less.

  “Major, you have your orders from the head of your caste.”

  “Yes, My Laud. I am to report to you before consulting with General Jake Devlin or Lord Lukan.”

  “Very good. You know that I do not need to know the registry of every ship that docks or the pay scale of every cargo handler. Only things that are unusual, odd cargoes to vague destinations, suspicious strangers, things that affect the senior members of the diplomatic delegations or the Harmony crew on the station,” Gregor reminded him.

  “Yes, My Laud.”

  “You are my eyes and ears on this station until I can be up and about again. Serve me well and I’ll laud your caste mark and perhaps find you a promotion.”

  “Thank you, My Laud.”

  “You may go. I believe General Jake is expecting you.”

  “Yes, My Laud.” He turned smartly as if to go, then paused. “My Laud, I have heard rumors of a phantom aboard. Is he one of your spies too?”

  Gregor had to think a moment. Isolated and treated in secret, he’d heard next to nothing since waking up from surgery. The twins had been his most consistent confidantes, the others coming and going on their schedules, not his. Five-year-old girls talked about other things than ghosts and monsters under their beds.

  They knew nothing of the angel in white who came to him deep in the night. She spoke of journeys and spiritual healing, as an angel should, not station gossip.

  Admiral Marella also came in the middle of the night. Three times now, without pattern.

  “I do not employ a phantom, Major Roderick. But I would hear more of it as you learn about a strange being that inhabits this station. If you confront it, tell it I want to speak to it.”

  “Very good, My Laud.” The solid door closed with a whoosh behind the major.

  Gregor dialed up a holovid of the corridor outside his room, his only window on the world of the First Contact Café. Next time Major Roderick came to visit, he’d see if the man’s computer skills allowed him to find other views, like the infamous Control or the conference rooms of the diplomatic wing.

  Later. When he wasn’t so tired.

  Jake drummed his fingers on the faux wood desk. He sidelined a vague and antique reference to Zarthan III. Almost as soon as colony worlds became available, an agricultural cult that denied the validity of mechanization applied for a place the officials labeled Zarthan III. Its coordinates were so far out they almost fell off the grid of jump points. Fifty years later they mined their one and only jump point, changed the name to Amity, and cut themselves off from Earth.

  If, as Adrial claimed, the entire population had been wiped out by Maril invaders fifteen years ago, who lived there now? Was it still habitable? If empty and abandoned, would it make a suitable home base for the CSS?

  He called up the star map, locating Amity by proximity to other systems and jump points. The map refused to give it a name. It was so far out it didn’t fall into the pattern of cleansed planets. Nor did it seem to be on the route to anywhere.

  An interesting path to follow if Adrial had remained at the top of his list of things to investigate immediately. Major Roderick now occupied that place.

  Jake read and reread the résumé displayed on the screen embedded on the desk surface. He compared it to Mara’s. He’d stashed her in his old quarters in the CSS residential wing and issued her fatigues afte
r Doc Halliday removed the caste mark. Mara was working on the spectacles full time now, trying to adapt them to human limitations and perceptions.

  “Computer competency,” he mumbled. “Competency by whose standards?” He hadn’t found anyone more competent than Mara.

  With the last statement he shifted his gaze to the compactly built Spacer standing at attention in front of him. Major Roderick had a yellow star caste mark on his left cheek, bar beneath to indicate officer status, blue diamond outline showing his authority to deal with Nobles. Did he listen to very conservative Lord Bevan on the High Council or the liberal—liberal in comparison to Bevan—Lord Lukan?

  Technically Bevan was head of the caste. But Bevan was on Harmony Prime, a long way away.

  Not a hint of a purple circle to the caste mark, which eliminated ties to Sissy. Or Gregor.

  “I was senior officer in charge of the computer systems on my last two ships, sir,” Major Roderick replied to Jake’s unasked question. He remained ramrod straight, as if he’d been born standing at attention.

  Knowing the caste system, he might have been.

  “A large part of the job as my second is sitting in Control, monitoring communications and traffic. A lot of those communications are encoded, encrypted, and in exotic languages. Are you prepared to delve into those communications for the safety of this station and all its inhabitants?”

  “You mean spying, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “When necessary. I . . . um . . . downloaded a Maril translation program from HQ and studied it extensively. A strange, symbolic language. I can pick out a few primary nouns and verbs. I’ll need a few more months to fully understand grammar and learn how they think.”

  Jake raised his eyebrows at that. “You hacked into HQ computers and stole an encrypted, top-secret program!”

  “From a remote location, sir.” The major allowed himself the faintest of grins.

  Jake whistled through his teeth. This guy could be as good as Mara. If Jake could trust him. And being Spacer, he dealt with scientists on a daily basis. He’d know propulsion systems or know people who knew them.

  They still had a month, maybe two, before the station broke orbit. Jake had upped his evacuation date to two weeks to make sure it took place in an orderly and peaceful manner.

  He dared not share that plan yet. A stray word, a hint of potential danger, and the entire station populace would panic and desert the place, like rats leaving a dying ship.

  “This is not Harmony. We carry blasters here. You willing to take the dishonorable route and shoot an enemy rather than run him through with your sword?” Jake noted that the Spacer carried only a dagger on his hip.

  “I’m Spacer caste. We are allowed blasters when dealing with lesser races.”

  “Meaning nonhumans. Not all of our enemies look different from us. We have a murderer running loose who could be anyone, alien or human, CSS or Harmony. Circumstantial evidence points to someone in the Harmony Worker force.” And to the CSS spymaster.

  Major Roderick looked him square in the eye without blinking. “I will train with the blasters, as will any of Harmony’s officers stationed here. But I would request cross training for CSS officers to use swords.”

  “Excellent point. We’ll set it up. I’m trying to build a team here, Major. Your loyalties have to be to the station and the team that tries to keep it running despite sabotage, criminal activity, phantoms living in the ducts, no budget, and coercion from both our governments. Do you understand that? Can you comply with that?”

  And suddenly, he had an idea of how to deal with the thorny problem of Mara’s desertion. The treaty that needed to be signed now would probably obligate him to turn her over to a Harmonite Spacer for prosecution.

  “Yes, sir.” He snapped his spine even straighter and saluted. “And may I add, sir, that I’ve heard rumors of the phantom. If I may, I think I know how to set a trap for him.”

  “He has access to our computer systems and security cameras. He’s worked around every trap we’ve set for him. He also seems to have a genius for languages and codes. And he knows this station better than the people who designed and built it.” Jake leaned back in his too comfortable chair and studied Roderick.

  “He hasn’t encountered one of my traps, sir.”

  “What do you have in mind?” Jake gestured toward the visitor’s chair, inviting Roderick to sit.

  Roderick nodded and planted his butt on the very edge of the chair, legs at right angles, as if he’d been built by a mathematician addicted to geometrical angles.

  Quickly and succinctly, Roderick outlined a scheme so simple and yet so fiendish, Jake was reminded of some of his own youthful pranks.

  “Stow your gear in the level above this one, Major, and report to Control in an hour. I’ll meet you there.”

  “I thought I’d be housed with my own caste, sir.”

  “The FCC is your caste now. Can you live with that?”

  “I think I must, sir.”

  “Good, then find me a propulsion engineer. Preferably a genius of a propulsion engineer.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “Lord Lukan.” Jake waylaid the ambassador en-route to the latest treaty meeting. The man had aged a decade overnight. He and Sissy had worked well past breakfast time trying to organize and implement disaster relief for Harmony City.

  Jake had given them a number of the Zarith V refugees as clerks, comm techs, and cooks to make sure they ate. They accomplished miracles in diverting independent ships. A lot more needed to be done but couldn’t be until they officially signed the treaty with the CSS.

  “Be quick, General Jake, I haven’t much time.”

  “I have two documents for you to file in your official capacity as Ambassador from Harmony, sir.”

  Lukan raised his eyebrows in question.

  Jake handed him two sheets of paper. “Computer versions are on file in my office, verified with thumbprints and retinal scans. You will note the signatures are witnessed by Admiral Marella and Ambassador Telvino.”

  “Curious.” Then he read the top document. “This is outrageous. Unprecedented! And I’m certain totally illegal.”

  “On the contrary. I have a lawyer among the Zarith V refugees who assures me he can quote chapter and verse of precedent in a dozen different legal systems.” Jake bit his cheeks to disguise his impudent grin. He had to make sure the ambassador took this issue very seriously. Mara’s safety and life depended upon it.

  Lukan flip the page and read the second document. “I don’t believe this.”

  “I am. Major Mara is now barefaced. She has renounced her citizenship in the Harmony Empire and her position within her caste. I have granted her First Contact Café citizenship. As long as she stays onboard this station, you and your enforcers have no right to touch her. Any attempt to kidnap her for purposes of return to Harmony for prosecution will be met with resistance. My people are authorized to shoot to kill.”

  “You can’t do this.”

  “I have done it. I have granted like citizenships to all of the Zarith V refugees who choose to stay here and work.”

  “You’re setting up an independent state!”

  “Maybe. We’ll see how things work out.”

  “Major Roderick remains your second-in-command.”

  “For now. I have other work for Major Mara.” Primarily those blasted spectacles that made the wearer dizzy and only clearly displayed one bit of data at a time. “You may consider the FCC totally neutral. All law-abiding races and cultures are welcome. Trade is duty free and free of customs inspection by anyone. Docking fees and rents pay our expenses.”

  Jake turned away whistling a jaunty tune Sissy’s girls had taught him. “Oh, and, Ambassador, your rent on three and one half wings is due at the end of the month. Glug banks, the same ones used by the Labyrinthe Corporation for their shadow bookkeeping separate from the Bankers of D’Or, have set up an independent account in the name of the FCC. I’ll honor previo
us contracts, but if you wish to renegotiate, please make an appointment with Major Mara.”

  Mac finished reading the last of the text on Adrial’s reader. Ancient propaganda. All peace and harmony and doing no harm. She read philosophy so deep and convoluted that Mac couldn’t begin to make sense of it. Not worth the energy to maintain on the reader. He considered deleting the books.

  His little bird found joy and a kind of peace reading the meandering thoughts of long-dead philosophers. He should leave them for her.

  She slept soundly in her narrow hospital bed. Physician John had moved her from light-G intensive care to mid-G rehab. Her bones had mostly mended; her strength did not. He’d read all of her scans and tests. Something seemed out of pattern with them. He didn’t have the medical knowledge to know what he saw in some of those reports.

  Mac wandered the perimeter of her small room, as he did every night during the hours that humans slept. He had little need for sleep now that his nervous system had rerouted around the damaged areas. The blaster damage had caused him to lose only a little strength and agility in his secondary lower limbs.

  “You need better food for thought, my little bird, if you are ever to achieve your quest,” he muttered as he brushed a stray strand of starlight-pale hair off her face. He tucked the reader into the folds of his trousers. “I’ll be back.”

  If he had the spectacles General Jake had stolen from Number Seven, Mac could have accomplished all his chores within a few seconds.

  He bent as if to kiss Adrial’s brow in farewell, thought better of it, and exited up the wall and through a duct.

  At his primary terminal, hidden between levels in the Control wing, Mac accessed a database begun by his mother and continued by her many progeny—but not yet found by the humans. In her quest to control the universe through trade and offspring, she’d stored every work of literature from every race she could find. Mac transferred a few Earth documents to Adrial’s reader, truly ancient pieces from the Hindu and Buddhist traditions.