Enigma

by C. F. Bentley

  “Not necessarily. Our drug companies stopped making that stuff thirty years ago simply because it doesn’t go out of date, and they can’t make as much profit from it.” She tossed it back to Jake. “Give her this adrenaline patch, then another shot!”

  “She’s had three doses already.” Back on Harmony, Sissy’s physician had instructed him carefully in the precise dosage. If one didn’t work, or backlashed, a second was more than adequate. Any more caused side effects more serious than the asthma.

  “Do it. The medication needs to work double hard to combat alien pollens. Her immune system may be compromised. Do it, Jake, or lose her.”

  Jake closed his eyes and prayed as he slapped on the patch Telvino ripped open for him. With one last murmur to Harmony for help, he depressed the plunger.

  Immediately, her breathing eased. Still too wet and shallow, but no longer painful. He counted to three between each breath, then a pause, a deeper one, and three more. A rhythm. The poetry of life. A bit of color crept back into her face. Her eyelids fluttered, closed, then opened again. She fixed her gaze on his face.

  “You are stronger than you think, General Devlin. But you must forge your own path, free of the influence of those who seek to hold you back.”

  Her voice had that deep, echoey quality he’d come to expect when the Goddess possessed her.

  Jake’s heart stuttered, then beat strong and hard again. His fear eased.

  “That’s my Sissy,” he whispered.

  “What? What did I say?” She opened her eyes further, fully conscious now and breathing almost normally.

  Doc Halliday shifted closer and checked Sissy’s vitals with one of her electronic gadgets. “They’re both as stable as we can make them with field patches. Now let’s get off this godforsaken rock.” She began packing her kit, gathering up all the discarded packaging from the portable meds.

  “Oh, shit!” she screamed.

  “What?” Jake demanded, not giving up Sissy to investigate.

  Doc Halliday sniffed one of the discarded patches. “This isn’t oxygen. It’s a stimulant, probably a double dose by the smell.”

  “And?” Telvino grabbed the square of light blue tissue. He held it to his nose. Then he jerked away, pupils dilating rapidly.

  “And, if someone mistakenly gave that to Laud Gregor, it could kill him.” Doc Halliday moved faster at gathering the discarded wrappings. She inspected each before placing them into a sealable bag. Her lips pursed tight, and her movements became agitated.

  “Talk to me, Doc,” Jake coaxed, helping Sissy to sit higher, take responsibility for her own posture. Much as he hated letting her go, he knew he had to be ready to jump.

  “All the wrappings are for oxygen, except for the one adrenaline you gave Sissy,” Doc said very quietly. “Someone may have murdered the High Priest of Harmony by substituting the patch before we left.”

  “We need to get back to the FCC fast,” Jake said. “I’ve got a forensic tech there who might be able to extract the who if not the why from that patch.”

  “The same person who murdered Mr. Labyrinthe? We still have a serial killer on the loose.” Doc Halliday began directing the Military to carry Gregor aboard. “We can’t get spaceborne soon enough.”

  “What about hyperspace turning victims of that plant insane?” he asked, pointing for other people to continue the cleanup.

  “I read the report—the real one, not the one Pammy altered. Lots of people go insane in hyperspace. Mostly because the energy currents turn their thoughts inward, and they have to face their consciences. If Laud Gregor survived his ghosts once, he’ll do it again. I’ll risk hyperspace over waiting any longer than necessary to get him real drugs and that new heart.”

  “Ambassador Lukan and his party have not returned,” Telvino said. He sounded hesitant for the first time since Jake had known him.

  “Pammy’s with them,” Jake replied. He pressed the all-in on his comm. Every unit in camp beeped three times, repeated the three beeps six times. “If she ignores that, it’s her own fault.”

  “What about the two aliens?” Doc Halliday asked.

  Jake hadn’t noticed Mac slipping away. Sissy had occupied all of his thoughts and attention. “Mac is smart enough to get back here or call in.” He wasn’t so sure about Adrial. She, like Pammy, had her own agenda.

  “There’s Lord Lukan and his escort now.” Telvino pointed toward the river.

  Jake peered over the edge of the plateau to watch the two men picking their way uphill along a narrow game trail.

  “Where’s Admiral Marella?” he called as soon as they were within earshot.

  Lukan paused and looked over his shoulder. “She was right behind us a few moments ago.”

  Telvino cursed more fluently than Jake.

  “Pammy, get your ass back to base right now or I leave you behind,” Jake broadcast on all frequencies.

  “You wouldn’t dare,” a whisper came back on a tight privacy channel.

  “You want privacy for your flyboys to come and go—let them come get you. I’ve got two casualties who need Medbay an hour ago. Come back now or stay and collect your psychedelic plants for the next week until I can get someone to come back.” He closed his comm.

  “Let’s get packed up. We leave the shelters, everything else goes home,” Telvino commanded. He followed his own orders, tucking his instruction readers back into their folders and throwing extra foam packets into their crate.

  Sissy waved weakly to Jake. He knelt beside her. “I’ll carry you, My Laudae.”

  “Not just yet. Jake, I need a bit of this planet. A rock, some dirt, something to link me to the Goddess here.” Her words came out slowly and deliberately with too many long breaths between.

  “Make it a rock, and wash it clean of pollen before you let her touch it.” Doc growled.

  “Sissy,” Jake said quietly, leaning as close to her as he dared. “The Goddess is everywhere. You taught me that. You don’t need a physical link. You are the link.”

  “Not anymore.” She looked away, trying to hide her tears.

  “That’s what Gregor led you to believe, My Laudae.” He settled on the ground, legs crossed, holding her hand. “He’s a useless old man with dreams of his youthful vigor and power. You’ve spoken prophecy any number of times since leaving Harmony. Including about ten minutes ago.”

  “I don’t remember any of them.”

  “You didn’t always when you were on Harmony. Trust me, Sissy. You are still the avatar of the Goddess. You’re just suffering growing pains as you lead all of Harmony beyond their isolated fears and prejudices. You are reforging the Covenant with Harmony at the First Contact Café. Out among the stars, just as Jilly prophesied.” He patted her hand and rose, using Gregor’s rock as a brace.

  The tiny raised markings jumped out at him. He’d seen their like deep in the funerary caves on Harmony, in the oldest sections that had been used by Maril spiritual leaders before they were slaughtered or pushed out by the Harmony colonists.

  Surreptitiously he recorded the markings with his comm unit. Not the best images, only two-dimensional instead of holovid. Enough to check against the survey.

  Pammy had put a hold on the archaeologists coming. Did she know about some ruins or evidence of previous occupation? This could throw a laser screwdriver into the whole plan.

  Or forge a new pathway to peace and diplomacy. Reforge the Covenant among the stars.

  Sissy and her prophecies had started him thinking beyond his temper.

  Damn. That prophecy may have been for him as much as for Sissy. He had a lot of work to do.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Leave no trace of your passing.

  “This place reminds me too much of my home,” Adrial said on a shudder.

  She leaned into Mac as if for protection. Surreptitiously she used the movement to turn off the beacon she’d just used on her comm link. She wasn’t supposed to know how to use it on that particular frequency.

  �
�How so?” Mac replied, looking around in admiration of the natural landscape. He walked slowly along a path only he could see. Adrial thought he looked as though he neared the limits of his strength and stamina. Still, he kept moving forward, guiding her and assisting her over the rough spots with an oddly charming courtesy.

  Not since she had fled her childhood home had anyone helped her or cared for her. Always the exile. Always alone.

  Leave no trace of your passing. Even in the memories of those she encountered.

  She sighed with regret. She’d learned to like these people. Especially Sissy and Mac.

  “The density of the forest,” she replied to Mac’s question, not willing to reveal the pain of her memories.

  “The survey assures us that no large carnivorous animals dwell within these forests,” Mac said. He held out a primary hand—the one with actual fingers (four of them, no opposable thumb) instead of a pincer—to help her over a fallen tree trunk covered in moss.

  “Are you sure we are on the right path?” she asked looking around in dismay. She didn’t remember that pile of boulders, or the vine climbing that broad-leaved tree and choking the life from it. Animals weren’t the only predators.

  “This direction takes me where I need to go.” He looked away.

  “That’s not what I asked you.” Suddenly a spiritual path didn’t matter as much as getting safely back to base camp. She’d accomplished what she needed to do after examining the glyphs at the cave mouth. “We shouldn’t detour or delay. General Jake called the all-in.”

  “Do not worry. I will return you safely in time.” He quickened his pace, not nearly as much as she knew he was capable of.

  “What are you looking for? This planet holds no more mysteries that interest me.”

  “But we brought a mystery with us that worries me.” He stopped, scanning all directions with his ears wide and twisting to catch subtle noises she couldn’t hope to detect. “Wait here a moment.” He jumped against an especially thick tree trunk and climbed.

  In moments he returned to her side. “This way.” He took her hand and pulled her ungently in a new direction, slightly to the left of their previous path.

  She’d have headed off for base camp on her own if she thought she had a prayer of finding it. Sending that beacon had distorted the signal back to where she started from.

  “What are you looking for?” she insisted, stopping short so he had to stop as well or drop her hand.

  “Shhhh.” He held up one finger to her lips in a universal signal for quiet. An oddly intimate gesture when accompanied by his lopsided smile.

  “That’s it? No explanation?”

  “Hush, or we frighten her away.”

  “Her who?”

  “I said quiet,” he whispered in a harsher tone. The first severe words he’d ever said to her.

  She obeyed out of shock.

  Then he pointed toward a thinning in the forest. A bit of brighter light poured through the diffusing leaves. A clearing.

  Adrial had to wonder whether it was natural or carved out by the Maril.

  They crept forward a few steps, allowing the moist ground to mask the sounds of their movement.

  An uneven open space lay before them, filled with tall grasses and some spiked plants. At one side stood Admiral Pamela Marella. She seemed deep in conversation with her comm. She spoke loudly in urgent tones. But she was too far away for Adrial to understand her one-sided conversation.

  Adrial checked her own unit. The admiral wasn’t using one of the standard frequencies within their group.

  Mac cocked his ears to pick up words Adrial missed.

  After a few moments Admiral Marella closed her comm and marched out the opposite side of the clearing.

  Mac nodded and pointed back the way they had come.

  “What was that all about?” Adrial asked when they were clear of the admiral’s range.

  “I do not understand all she says, but I must warn General Jake.”

  “Warn him of what?”

  “Plans he will not like.”

  He said nothing more as he dragged Adrial rapidly through the woods.

  She had no time to think, to plan, even to wonder how this would affect her quest.

  Sissy held the smooth rock Jake had found for her in her left hand, absently rubbing it with her thumb. Jake had chosen well. Shiny bits of color peeked through the rougher exterior. Sort of like the way the Goddess revealed bits and pieces of herself when you least expected it.

  Could Jake be right about her connection to Harmony and Sanctuary? “All things are one, present at the time of the beginning of the Universe, continuing in ever evolving combinations of matter and energy.” She quoted one of the texts that she had found on her reader.

  In the beginning was God. God exploded and became the universe, Harmony whispered into the back of her mind. Or was that the ever present chiming along damaged nerve endings in her ears?

  Jake lifted her into his arms and carried her into the shuttle, disrupting that thought. As much as she liked being held by Jake, she was getting tired of her fragility. She wanted to walk, to run, to explore this place on her own.

  Gently, Jake reclined her seat directly behind his pilot’s chair, so that her feet came up and her head rested at a forty-five degree angle. Her breathing became easier almost as soon as the shuttle shut her off from the outside.

  Doc Halliday directed the two Military to place Gregor across the aisle from Sissy and adjusted his seat to the same angle. The High Priest turned his face to the bulkhead, as if resigning from contact with other people as well as his position within the Temple hierarchy. The physician took a place between them, medical bag between her feet and half open.

  Everyone else piled in and settled. Admiral Pamela Marella came last with a huge carrysack bulging oddly. She’d closed the top drawstring tightly so that none of her treasures peeked out.

  The acrid, sweet, musky sap of the Thorn of God nearly overwhelmed Sissy’s senses. In an eye blink Sissy saw again the seven niches around a fire ring, felt the satisfaction of a properly completed ritual that left new life growing within her, the lightness of soaring through the skies, then the heavy downward spiral as life changed, fleeing the relentless and uninformed march of the enemy.

  Would that happen to her? If she brought change to Harmony and broke the caste system, did she also doom her people to a society without Temple guidance? Did she already represent the severance of the people from the Gods?

  The edges of the shiny stone cut into her palm where she clutched it too tightly. She jolted awake, fully aware of the metallic smell of the shuttle and the taste of acid sap on her tongue.

  “Doc Halliday?” she whispered, reaching out to touch the woman’s arm. “Did you record the inscriptions we found?”

  “Most certainly.” She handed Sissy the electronic device.

  Sissy stared at the squiggles and lines dancing across the screen in a graceful arc from right to left without truly seeing it. She already knew their secrets.

  “Long, long ago the Maril used that cave as a place of dreaming with their Gods and with their ancestors. They all became one in a breeding ritual. Where life began in a blessed act, so it ended in another. We’ll find their bones and murals inside, just as we did on Harmony. The place is sacred.”

  “We’ll send trained scientists back to study. Maybe we can learn something useful about our enemy,” Doc Halliday mused, taking back the reader.

  “I must go with them,” Sissy insisted. “They no longer seem like the enemy to me. More like a variation of ourselves.”

  Doc Halliday looked at her strangely, then jerked her gaze toward Jake. He shook his head slightly as he rapidly ran through preflight checks.

  “Why did the Maril abandon this planet?” she asked no one in particular.

  Had a few survivors come here from Harmony when humans forced them out of their spiritual homes?

  Or had the avian creatures left here for Harmony?

/>   She had to know more about their culture, their religion, and the actual time line of their movements.

  If anyone within the CSS knew, it was Adrial. Sissy cringed at the thought of milking the self-centered creature for more information. How many convoluted circles must she follow to glean facts from her?

  Then her heart sank as she realized that the CSS could not build here. They could not violate the Holy Island.

  She had to content herself with a little piece of shiny rock.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Adrial closed her eyes. A tiny jolt to her entire nervous system signaled their entrance into hyperspace. She didn’t understand why everyone fussed so about the jump that bypassed the normal time/space continuum.

  Nothing strange had ever happened to her in the hundreds of jumps she’d done over the years, with or without sleepy drugs.

  With a sigh of contempt for the lesser beings who feared hyperspace, she opened her eyes and looked around.

  Strange. The bulkheads seemed to thin to translucence. Her companions became skeletons; softer tissue glowed as pale afterimages. She’d never witnessed this before.

  She hoped this was yet one more clue on her path to Spiritual Purity.

  As she watched, a thin wisp of life rose up from Laud Gregor’s body. No surprise. Jake must have used the double-dose stimulant patch on him that she’d substituted for one of the oxygen patches. The drugs would propel his heart to beat far too rapidly and strongly for the damaged muscle to support. A necessary precaution. She never knew when she’d have to disable an enemy. Best to have a supply of odd weapons at hand.

  She tucked the purloined vials of Oxydigitalin deeper between the seat cushions. By the time someone found them, few would remember she had sat in that particular seat, a different one from the journey to the planet.

  She did not regret the priest’s passing. He had no true spirituality and couldn’t teach her anything important. He’d cut himself off from Harmony long before coming to the First Contact Café.

  That is what you think. What you think is not always the truth. Laud Gregor’s shade stood over her. Deep holes in his skull where the eyes should be became wells absorbing all light.