Jake slashed his hand behind him, batting Gregor away. The hand went right through him. He continued staring at the message. If only his code breaker still lived, Gregor would point Jake toward someone who read the secret language that had no roots with anything human.
Alas, Gregor had murdered the man because he’d figured out that the people of the CSS were as human as he was. At the time, Gregor’s actions had seemed prudent. Secrets had to be kept for the protection of all Harmony.
For the protection of My people or for preservation of your power.
“Oh, shut up. You are becoming annoying.”
No sound escaped his lips. But Jake cocked his head as if seeking the source of a faint sound, waiting for a repeat. Then he shook his head and traced a finger along some of the lines on the desktop.
Gregor slammed one fist into the other in frustration. What did he have to do?
You know.
Sissy entered the suite and hurried toward Jake.
“Can you read any of this? Get a more accurate translation?” Jake asked Sissy.
A vibration that might evolve into song hummed inside Gregor. Ah. His continuation had something to do with that message or its interpretation.
“A few words.” Sissy pointed toward an array of stick figures. “That looks like someone kneeling in prayer.”
“Got that one right off. We saw something similar in the caves.” He wrapped his arm about her waist and drew her closer.
“You have no right to touch her!” Gregor screamed.
Sissy batted at her ear as if a fly had buzzed too close. Then she leaned her head against the top of Jake’s as if she belonged there. As if they had become comfortable touching each other over many months.
He needed to sound alarms back on Harmony. Sissy could not be allowed to ally herself to this man with his false caste mark. His lesser caste mark. Who could witness this? Who would listen?
Who could hear him?
“What about this one?” Sissy pointed to another glyph. “It looks like that spiky plant and a fire. Burning the Thorn of God?”
“I don’t see it.” Jake tipped his head sideways and shook it.
“I . . . I saw something in a vision,” she said quietly.
Gregor stilled, listening more sharply. Sissy still had visions?
“Told you so.” Jake flashed her a big grin.
They looked at each other a long silent moment with deep longing.
Gregor turned his head away in disgust. Repulsive, watching people of different castes together.
What is a caste?
“Oh, shut up.”
Sissy bit her lip and looked at the message once more. “I think Adrial can read this.”
Jake slumped. “As much as I hate to include any outsiders, I do believe you are right. Mara and Roderick didn’t get much farther than you. I’ll send Security to fetch her. I don’t want anything broadcast through the station at this point.”
“I think Mac can help control her. He might help interpret the message, too.”
Jake nodded agreement. “I’ll call him through the spectacles. He can escort Adrial here. Too bad we’ll have to postpone moving to Sanctuary. Mac will make a good leader on the FCC. Eventually.”
“Adrial is more likely to come with him than allow Security to dictate her movements.”
“The first moment we can get away from Control, I have another job for you.” Jake looked up at her with hope, expectations, and emotions Gregor didn’t want to have to examine.
But the words of the Goddess in his ear kept reminding him that perhaps something he hated was best for Harmony.
Not this. Anything but this!
“Oh?” Sissy lifted her head to look more closely at Jake’s expression. But she did not move away from his gentle grasp.
Gregor pushed himself between the two, to separate them once and for all. His body passed right through them both with no more notice than a slight cold shiver from each of them.
Jake frowned at him, then deliberately turned his attention back to Sissy.
“I think you might be able to correct a problem in Engineering—find the right notes to make some parts resonate properly so they can be returned to normal positions.”
“Sounds interesting.” She wrapped her arm around his neck and dropped her head back on top of his.
“Jake, I discovered some things about Maril culture and history during my visions,” Sissy said hesitantly.
Jake looked up at her, mutely giving her permission to continue. Gregor moved closer, the better to hear and learn. This information could help settle the question of his continued spirit existence.
“Sanctuary, and I think Harmony too, were sacred to them.”
“Spiritual retreats,” Jake said. “We knew that.”
“More than that. The ritual caves represented the beginning and end of life. Coming from the ancestors and rejoining them.”
“Birthing and funeral centers. Makes sense.” Jake pushed icons around his desk, always keeping the Maril message center and dominant.
Gregor was sick of looking at it, not knowing the exact meaning of each glyph.
“Not birthing. Conception. It was a sacred ritual, too important to risk on a casual encounter or random timing.”
Gregor approved of that, especially for the limited numbers in Temple.
Jake stilled. “There’s something I haven’t told you. And you cannot repeat this to anyone yet.” He continued so quietly he might almost have whispered. A strange tale of the Maril deliberately shedding their humanity in favor of avian bodies, instincts, and language. Then he added the most damning information of all: The DNA tinkering was breaking down, much like the caste marks on Harmony but on a more drastic scale.
Gregor grew cold, colder than the chill funerary caves.
“That explains so much,” Sissy crowed. “When humans destroyed their ritual center on Harmony, the Maril withdrew from other vulnerable sacred places, erasing most of the evidence of their purpose, so they wouldn’t be tainted as they considered Harmony to be defiled.”
“We know that happened about five hundred years ago. Why did the Maril wait another three hundred to begin a war of attrition against humans?” Jake looked very tired.
Gregor felt more tired. Yet he couldn’t leave, couldn’t rest as he deserved to.
“Politics and religion don’t always mix,” Sissy said on a grin. “At the time, religious fervor may have taken a back seat to practicality. Then the DNA breakdown became more prevalent. People turned to the priests for answers. If their religious leaders are in power now, they are seeking to re-sanctify their Sanctuaries, to bring the breeding rituals back as a way of stopping the mutations.”
“They cleanse only the planets that were Sanctuaries. That’s the pattern you saw in the star map.”
“That is why they are crossbreeding, trying to stabilize before they tinker with their DNA again to reestablish their avian characteristics,” Sissy finished for him. “Adrial was one of the first experiments, to see if they could still breed. Amity was later cleansed. Maybe it was a Sanctuary at one time and her conception the first of the reclaimed rituals. That makes her special to them.”
Gregor tried to leave. He didn’t want to hear any more of this speculation. Bad enough the CSS tried to gain more power and influence in the galaxy by claiming Harmony came from Earth. Now they wanted to “prove” that the Maril did too. Would they stop at nothing to make science more important than faith?
“That’s why Adrial was chosen for some arcane mission,” Jake said.
“To find the first Sanctuary.” Sissy’s exhale whistled with surprise. It also sounded wet and wheezy, as if she still suffered from taking in too much alien pollen. “Jake, she did it. And she sent a message. That’s why the Maril contacted us today. Adrial called them.”
“So did you.”
In the back of his mind Gregor heard the Goddess sigh, Finally.
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
Sissy looked at Jake speculatively.
Jake nearly glowed from the inside because he’d figured out something before she did.
Jake could figure out if Gregor wanted to explode, or crumple in tears. “Think about it.” Jake touched Sissy’s nose in an affectionate gesture. “You traced the carvings on the cave with your fingertips. You had a vision. I’m betting you sent a psychic signal to your counterparts on Maril.”
Both Sissy and Gregor shook their heads in denial.
“Think about it. Mac has Adrial now.” Jake opened an icon on the screen. “I hope she’s sane enough to interpret this message so that we can understand it. She talks in circles.”
“The language is in circles. Remember the spiral of the creation story in the caves?”
“Yes!” Jake looked at the middle of the Maril message and began tracing the glyphs in a spiral, clockwise, from the center out. Each tiny pictograph spread out a bit so that it no longer looked like human text in lines and columns. “Adrial speaks in spirals, not circles. Because she’s been trained by Maril priests! But that doesn’t explain why she was wearing Maril prison clothes when she got here.”
Gregor hummed and sizzled. The first noise he’d made. Jake knew without a doubt he’d gotten something right. Gregor’s reaction confirmed it.
He’d bet his Badger Metal stars that Adrial held the clues to Gregor’s ghostly existence.
Or maybe she held more information about where this message came from and how the Maril discovered the CSS planned occupation of Sanctuary.
Jake had to get her isolated before she did anything else that might jeopardize the station.
Adrial stared, stunned at the message scrolling around the screen of Jake’s terminal in his private office. She hadn’t the mental clarity to look for an alternate meaning in the words. She had to tell the truth, no matter how much it bewildered her.
Mac, the ghosts, all of those people she could no longer run away from, made her think too much. She could no longer retreat into forgetfulness or flight.
“When Laudae Sissy touched the glyphs by the ritual cave, she set off a psychic signal to their priests. They wish a meeting and offer a language tutorial to facilitate negotiations. Failure to respond within the passage of a day will be assumed as a declaration of war. They prepare battle wagons for violation of their most sacred beginning place,” she read out loud.
The Messengers of the Gods would take care of eliminating the memories of her stay here. If she escaped in time, they’d allow her to continue her progress toward Spiritual Purity.
Jake jumped to his feet from the chair beside her. He paced anxiously around and around the desk like a dog herding woolly beasts. “Mara, have you got that translator off the Squid ship?” he called into his wrist comm.
“You have no need of that archaic device. I can translate for you,” Adrial offered, knowing she wouldn’t be around long enough to do that.
Jake glared. “Mara, that is our top priority. The Maril are sending a tutorial to help us along.”
“Working on it,” came a muffled reply.
“Control, get Telvino and Lukan up here, now,” he spoke crisply into the comm without pause.
“Sir, the ambassadors are in closed conference,” the voice from Control replied.
“I don’t care. This is more important. Tell them to get their asses up here or get left out of the biggest diplomatic coup of the century.” He slapped the desktop to close the link.
“You need a language expert to compose a tutorial to exchange with them,” Laudae Sissy said.
“I can do it,” Adrial insisted. Perhaps that was the next step in her quest, facilitating communication between two warring peoples. Only a spiritual leader could do that. Only… she. Her quest neared its end.
“Right. I bet Pammy has someone on tap.” Jake spoke as if he hadn’t heard Adrial. As if she didn’t exist. Or he couldn’t remember her. He aimed a fist toward the comm again.
“Jake . . . do you really want to involve her?” Sissy asked.
“I have to. She’ll find out anyway. Wouldn’t surprise me if she knew already.”
Adrial let the conversation flow around her.
Mac watched her silently, carefully, from a place near the door. He would remember her passing.
“They are coming for me,” she whispered to herself.
“Are you so important that the Maril are willing to talk peace with their greatest enemies just to apprehend you?” Mac whispered into her ear as he moved silently and swiftly to her side.
Leave no trace of your passing.
“I have to leave.” She stood and smoothed her white gown, not the one with the sensors woven into it, the new one with white embroidery at the hem and cuffs that Sissy had given her. The gown with many deep and hidden pockets and wide sleeves to secrete special tools.
“You aren’t going anywhere until we get a reply sent off,” Jake said. He shifted his pacing to stand between her and the door.
Why did he remember her now? He was supposed to forget. They all were. She couldn’t leave them alive if they remembered!
“But I have to . . . um . . . use the necessary.” She took one step toward the exit. In her mind she already had her few belongings packed and had negotiated passage on a ship. There was a cargo vessel bound for Labyrinthe Prime that night. Would the captain give her space in the hold in exchange for sex? Probably not. She’d have to find another form of currency. Unfortunately, Mac’s race only worshiped money. She’d have to trust the damaged propulsion system to erase all evidence of her passing here.
“In there.” Jake nodded his head toward the innermost rooms of his private quarters.
She already knew she’d find no exit from there. The vents? Not without Mac’s help.
He seemed more interested in moving icons around the oversized spectacles that covered half his face.
Adrial dashed into the inner rooms. The moment she had privacy, she whipped out the comm unit Jake had given her on Sanctuary. Telvino was supposed to have collected it, but in the chaos of Gregor’s death, she’d hidden it.
She opened a frequency to a Promethean Pirate scout nosing around the edge of this solar system.
Sissy’s small hand closed around hers, effectively closing the frequency. “You can’t run again, Adrial,” she said softly.
“They will kill me! I’ll never find Spiritual Purity. I’ll never commune with the Gods. All my searching will be for nothing.” She wrenched her hands free of Sissy’s strong grip. The comm unit remained in Sissy’s possession.
“Sometimes you have to face the enemy to get to the right path.”
Sissy’s voice had that odd disembodied quality again.
Adrial began to shake. Her teeth chattered.
“Shouldn’t you take your own advice?” she shot back to the High Priestess.
Sissy gasped. “Perhaps you are right. But that does not solve your problem.”
“Do not stand in my way, Laudae Sissy. Please do not be the one to impede me.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you. I shall regret your death. The Gods always make sure those who stand in my way die.”
Sissy drew in a sharp breath. The air reached only the shallow surface of her lungs. She felt her body closing down in its desperate search for air.
On the edge of her next inhalation came a whiff of the acrid, sweet smell of the Thorn of God.
“Is it the Gods who kill, or you, Adrial?” she asked, already knowing the answer. Her words came out softly, barely audible. All she could manage.
“I . . . I . . .” Adrial’s eyes lost focus, and her chin trembled. Tears shimmered along her lower eyelid. With each stammer she inched around Sissy toward the door.
Ploys. All ploys to get her way, Sissy reminded herself.
She braced herself against the flood of emotion coming from the woman. Fear, anxiety, pain.
A flash of memory: the agony of endless torture. She crumpled in on herself from the pain
, until it became a part of her. She didn’t know if she’d feel whole again without the agony invading her bones. And through it all a commanding voice repeated over and over again:
“Tell no one of your purpose. Tell no one that you seek the planet of Sanctuary. Our spiritual home. The first and most important of our ritual sites. Tell no one. You will know the signal when you find it.”
Then an electrical jolt through their bodies to reinforce the message. Sissy straightened from her shared pain. She understood now. Misinterpretation. Hundreds of deaths caused by a misinterpretation of a language that worked in spirals and metaphors.
Misinterpretation gave Adrial the clear conscience to become truly dangerous to anyone she perceived blocking her path.
Fear sharpened Sissy’s perceptions. A hot rush of adrenaline gave her more room in her chest for breathing. She made sure she kept a good distance between herself and Adrial.
One step backward, two, a third took her into the office.
“The Gods always put the weapons in my hands,” Adrial finally said. Her eyes narrowed in cold calculation.
A stick bearing three thorns, each longer than Sissy’s palm, appeared in Adrial’s hand.
“Harmony protect me,” Sissy whispered as her breathing closed down again.
Adrial looked at the thorns with wide, puzzled eyes, as if she hadn’t known that she had pulled them out of her sleeve.
“Sissy!” Jake shouted.
Sissy sensed him dashing to her side.
“Don’t touch her!” Adrial shouted. “The Messengers of the Gods commanded me to . . . to find . . .” Her words drifted off. Confusion puckered her brow and pinched her sharp features. “I can’t tell you what they commanded.”
“What did they command?” Mac asked, having climbed the wall behind Adrial.
“I have to find the truth.” Adrial’s gaze cleared and sharpened. “I can’t let anything stand in my way. You are in my way, Laudae. You see, Sanctuary gave me this plant to protect myself from you. She knew you’d try to prevent me from finding Her.”
Sissy backed up again. Blackness crowded the edges of her vision. Adrial in her white on white dress, her moonlit hair in a soft halo around her pale face, seemed to glow as bright as any sun.
Enigma Page 36
