Prisoner

by Gilbert M. Stack

  The justiciar general fielded her question. “We Armenites are less enamored of lawyers than is the rest of the galaxy. We use them when coming to agreements with less honest and honorable beings, but here among ourselves we prefer straightforward conversation.”

  “But I’m not one of you,” Jewel protested. It seemed to her an obvious point, but her reasoning failed to make an impact on any of the Empyreals facing her.

  “Are you certain of that?” the physician general asked her.

  Jewel could not figure out what this line of questioning was supposed to accomplish. “Yes, I think I would know if I was actually an Armenite. For one thing, you may have noticed that my skin tone is a lot darker than yours.”

  “And yet you were betrothed to Lieutenant Kole Delling,” Farl pointed out to her.

  Jewel recognized his statement as an opportunity to return to a subject that frightened her for all sorts of reasons. “You keep referring to my betrothal in the past tense. Have the Armenites decided to terminate their agreement with my family and the Khaba Cartel?” Part of her—most of her in fact—still wanted them to say yes. But a small shameful part of her soul yearned desperately for any possible path through the threat these Empyreals represented to her.

  Farl explained her situation in the cold clinical manner that typified the few Armenites Jewel had met on this ship. “The House of Delling applied for an abeyance of the betrothal on your twenty-first and twenty-fifth birthdays because Lieutenant Delling showed remarkable potential in his schooling and was deserving of advanced educational opportunities.”

  “Really?” the word slipped out of Jewel’s mouth before she could censor it. The Armenites detested lying and she put her hand back up to her mouth hoping they would not interpret her question as an accusation of falsehood. But she was so surprised that there was an actual, comprehensible, even rational reason for the deferral that she couldn’t contain herself. Why under the Stars hadn’t they told her that reason years ago?

  Then the other thing Farl had said filtered into her brain and it was much more shocking than anything else she’d learned today. “Did you just say you did this on my twenty-fifth birthday?” That was impossible, of course. Jewel was only twenty-three standard years old.

  The justiciar general nodded in an almost kindly, sympathetic gesture. “We were prepared to move forward with the wedding on your thirtieth birthday, but your parents could not produce you. They were forced to concede that they had accepted the abeyance on your twenty-fifth birthday under false pretenses and as a result we have suspended Delling’s business relationship with them.”

  “My thirtieth birthday…” Jewel repeated. The news stunned her so totally that she continued to miss the full import of what the Empyreal was telling her. Her mind couldn’t get past the report on her age. She was only twenty-three years old, wasn’t she? How was it possible for her to have had a thirtieth birthday? She asked the only question she could think of. “Just how long was I unconscious?”

  “A clear case of false dealing,” Rear Admiral Delling muttered.

  “But I’m really not th-th-thirty…” Jewel stammered.

  “Yes you are,” Adel told her. “Or to be more accurate, you are thirty-one.”

  She glanced at her two colleagues.

  “You might as well tell her,” Delling grumbled. “It’s the only way we’re going to advance this interview.”

  When Farl did not object, the doctor continued. “Very well then, obviously more time has passed than you are aware of. When your suit lost structural integrity during your dive on the armenium mine, you should have died. But your bioware package is extremely sophisticated. It successfully shocked your body into a form of hibernation, lowering your body temperature drastically, suppressing your autonomous functions and preserving the oxygen flow to your brain while it piloted your all-environment suit back to the surface.”

  “A truly impressive piece of technology,” Delling grudgingly admitted.

  Jewel was still having trouble accepting the idea that she was now thirty-one standard years old. “But…when did this happen? I mean, I’m not…”

  “Your crew mates couldn’t resuscitate you,” the doctor continued. “Based on the actions it took when it reached the Prescott system, we assume that your bioware continued to artificially suppress your vital functions, permitting your crewmates to determine that you were alive but not allowing them to return you to consciousness.”

  “If the equipment was more cost effective,” the justiciar general interrupted, “it would solve a large percentage of our security concerns within the Hegemony.”

  “That would be a disgusting sacrilege to our sacred bodies,” Adel snapped at him.

  “I wasn’t thinking of using it on us,” Farl told her. “I’d like to use it to control the helots.”

  Both the doctor and the admiral considered that for a moment, and to Jewel’s horror, both nodded in agreement.

  “We might be able to commission a package that is less expensive,” the admiral noted. “We don’t need it to do everything the Cartelites use their bioware for.”

  Jewel’s sense of horror grew. It was like listening to her parents talk at the dinner table. If you could only mass produce the basic technology, you could hardwire people to obey your laws and buy your products. It was sickening.

  Physician General Adel picked up the story again. “So the survivors of your mining efforts put you in one of the cold sleep capsules on the colonizer ship, Genesis, and you slept on the eight year journey to the Prescott System.”

  Now Jewel understood. “Eight years,” she repeated. It sounded more real to her coming out of her own mouth. “Eight years…”

  The Empyreal kept speaking. “The Righteous Lightning was waiting in Prescott when you arrived.”

  Why had they come to Prescott? Jewel wondered. The plan was to flee for Arch. Did the others decide that seventy-two years in cold sleep was too great a price to pay for freedom? She tried to understand her crewmates’ thinking. “Is there still a Confederate naval base in Prescott?”

  Delling’s chest swelled with pride. “Our forces were in a better position to intervene than the local authorities because we knew the ship was coming. Once your bioware broadcast its plea for help, Captain Krell adroitly capitalized on your known relationship to the House of Delling to assert our right to protect the betrothed of an Armenite citizen. The Confederation forces squawked a few protests, but conceded to our position once the Righteous Lightning took physical possession of the Genesis. They never even learned about the raw armenium in the Genesis holds.”

  “They all must think I betrayed them,” Jewel whispered. She wasn’t certain how things could get any worse for her today.

  “There are differing opinions on that point among the survivors,” Farl informed her.

  Jewel struggled to pull herself together. Painful as it was, the opinions of her former crewmembers didn’t matter right now. Not even Erik’s did. She was on trial for things she didn’t quite understand yet and if she didn’t get her head in the game she was going to end up in an Armenite prison or worse. “So what exactly is my position here? You’ve referred to my betrothal in the past tense. Has it been terminated? Am I a guest or a prisoner?”

  Silence greeted her questions.

  Jewel feared her shoulders sagged as she interpreted the meaning of that non-answer. “So I’m a prisoner then.”

  “That determination,” the justiciar general informed her, “has not yet been made. We are trying to understand you, Ms. Sapphira. You have done many things which appear to us to be in violation of the agreement between your father and House Delling, and we would like to understand your motivations.”

  Jewel sighed. She felt utterly defeated and soul weary as if she hadn’t just slept for eight years. “May I have a chair please?”

  Much to her surprise, they agreed.

  ****

  “So you purposely electrocuted yourself, risking death, to avoid marr
ying Kole Delling,” the rear admiral said for what by Jewel’s count was the fourth time.

  “No,” Jewel repeated just as forcefully. They had worn her down over the past hour and a half and she wasn’t feeling diplomatic anymore. “I don’t know how many different ways I can say this, but let me try one last time. Not marrying Kole, whom I remind you I have never met, was a consequence of my actions, but not the purpose behind them. I did not believe that the Hegemony intended for the marriage to be carried out—”

  “And yet Delling had just offered sureties to the Khaba Cartel expanding their commitment of ore to Khaba refineries.”

  “That was between Delling and Khaba,” Jewel insisted. How many times did she have to say this? “It had nothing to do with me.” That wasn’t really true, but it should have been. “The Sapphiras may be major shareholders in Khaba, but they are not synonymous with the cartel.”

  “And yet,” Delling said, pushing just as hard as Jewel, “when Delling asked for their consent to delay the marriage, your parents demanded that Delling increase the supply of armenium ore to Khaba refineries as proof that they remained committed to the alliance between the two Houses.”

  “And that’s why I left them!” Jewel shouted standing up from her chair to make her point.

  “At last we break through to the truth,” Physician General Adel said. “This is what we want to understand, Ms. Sapphira. Why did this arrangement make you runaway?”

  Jewel sank back into her seat, uncertain if she’d just really damaged herself by what she’d told them, but there was nothing left to do now but let it all out. “All my parents have ever cared about was money. I am not their daughter. From the moment my father’s ship rescued those Empyreal children, I have been nothing but a commodity to them—a means of obtaining ever increasing quantities of armenium for refining and distribution.”

  Something passed between the Empyreals then, but Jewel couldn’t quite follow what it was. They exchanged the briefest of glances. She didn’t know very much about how Armenites raised their families, but perhaps she had finally struck a chord with them.

  “I’m their daughter,” she continued, “but they only saw me as a way of increasing their profits. I received an education, but it was always of secondary importance. My whole life has been about being made acceptable to the House of Delling. I had to be beautiful enough. I had to be witty enough. I had to be fertile enough to bring this alliance into the next generation. They acted like they were doing this to secure my future, as if a Cartelite daughter really needed an Armenite man to provide for her, but when they allowed the Dellings to buy an abeyance of the marriage contract they couldn’t hide the truth anymore. All that really mattered was the money. They’d have let you put me to work in an Armenite whorehouse so long as you kept them supplied with armenium.”

  The three Empyreals had listened with rapt attention as she explained. Now the physician general spoke again “And this hurt you why?”

  “Because it’s proof they don’t care about me,” Jewel snapped. “No, it’s more than that. They don’t respect me. They don’t even respect themselves. My parents built themselves up from the fringes of Cartelite society into one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the Cartel Worlds and they did it all on the strength of their relationship with Delling. Now all that they care about in the entire galaxy is maintaining that wealth and station. But what they don’t understand—what they are never going to understand—is that status is more than the number of solars in your bank account and the number of important people who attend your parties. That sort of status gets you talked about, it gets your holo in the tabloids, but for genuine respect you need something more. For genuine respect you need…” she flailed about looking for the word to describe what she was talking about.

  “Honor,” Justiciar General Farl quietly offered her the noun she was missing. “It’s a commodity in short supply in the Cartel Worlds, but I believe it is what you are searching for.”

  Honor didn’t sound like quite the right word to Jewel. Her parents had a sense of honor. They kept their contracts—at least to the extent that their lawyers couldn’t twist them any further. But looking at the pleased expressions on Farl and Adel’s faces, she decided that she’d be smart to let that word serve.

  “I have heard enough,” Farl announced. He pushed back his chair and rose. “I give my approval to this union. Considering what we’ve found in this young woman I don’t see that we have any other choice.”

  “What?” Jewel asked. She couldn’t follow the rapid shift in the topic of conversation.

  “What?” Rear Admiral Delling echoed her. “Ren, this is absurd! What’s worse, it borders on sacrilege. This brown-skinned girl may or may not be looking for honor, but she certainly hasn’t found any yet. Are you trying to bring even greater shame upon my House?”

  Delling’s speech left Jewel more confused than ever. The judge, or whatever he really was, who logic said should be opposed to her union with Kole was supporting it. So why was Rear Admiral Delling siding against her?

  “One opposed and one in favor,” the justiciar general said. “Ina?”

  The doctor did not immediately answer her colleague. Instead, she gazed coldly into Jewel’s eyes before pivoting in her chair to stare at the wall behind her. “The bride is immature and woefully unprepared. I can’t understand why the Unity would present her to us, and yet, it clearly has.”

  “It’s a mockery,” Delling grumbled. “Don’t do this, Ina. Surely my House has borne enough already.”

  “I fear I must,” the doctor told him.

  “No!”

  The Empyreal physician turned around again. “I support this union, young woman. I think to divine the Unity’s purpose we need to see this marriage play out. Perhaps it will truly help the both of you.”

  Jewel knew her eyes were wide with astonishment, but she couldn’t help herself. What under the Stars had just happened? Why did they suddenly want her to marry Kole again? And could she get away with protesting she wanted Erik? Her parents had certainly never cared about her wishes. And under Cartelite law they didn’t have to care, at least not until she…turned…thirty…

  “Hoyt?” Farl asked while Jewel’s head spun with the sudden realization of what her eight years in suspended animation might mean to her future. “Will you change your vote to give us unanimity?”

  “No!” the rear admiral said leaving no doubt how strongly he was opposed to this course of action.

  Farl shrugged and turned to Jewel. “By a vote of two to one, we have chosen to recognize the unusual circumstances that led your family to break its solemn agreement with the House of Delling and forgive you. Are you, Ms. Sapphira, willing to put two families back on the path of honor and marry the son of the Rear Admiral’s House?”

  No! Jewel wanted to scream. There was no way she was going to agree to give up Erik. But her tongue was acting with more wisdom than her brain. Rather than insult the Armenites sitting in front of her she asked a question she hoped would give her time to think of a way out of this disaster. “Wait a minute. I don’t understand anything that is happening here. Why am I suddenly acceptable again? And how under the Stars did the House of Delling fall from the path of honor?”

  The rear admiral spoke. “The judgment and the moral character of my House has been brought into question due to recent events.”

  Jewel still didn’t understand. Armenites were supposed to be so damn forthright. Why didn’t he just come out and say what he meant in clear language? “And they think,” she said as she indicated the other two Empyreals, “that my marrying Kole can help fix this situation? Does that mean that my failure to marry him earlier is part of the problem?”

  When Hoyt Delling didn’t immediately answer, the justiciar general offered his perspective on the problem. “It’s a complex situation, but repairing your broken betrothal would definitely benefit both of your families in recovering your reputations.”

  Jewel still
didn’t understand what they were talking about. “Why does my family’s reputation need recovering? I’m the one who ran away. Shouldn’t it be my reputation on the line?”

  The justiciar general attempted to explain the nuance of the Armenite position. “Had you simply run away from home as a child that would have been bad enough. But your parents negotiated with the Dellings over the abeyance of the marriage contract in bad faith. They pretended to be able to fulfill their end of the bargain when they knew that you—an adult woman—were not in accord with their plans. They even conspired to substitute a sister in your place without properly explaining that you had been lost to them.”

  “Did you just say I have a sister?” Jewel asked. She knew it wasn’t the most important thing he had said, but it jumped out at her out of nowhere. Her mother had hated pregnancy. They must have been truly desperate to re-secure the contract for Alexandra Sapphira to agree to bare another child.

  The justiciar general nodded. “She is seven standards old now. They attempted to negotiate with Delling to substitute her for you in the marriage betrothal, but we do not accept artificially conceived beings into our Houses. And we do not negotiate with people who act in bad faith.”

  Jewel continued to sort it all out in her head while trying to keep part of her brain working on an exit strategy—something that would somehow get her out of the marriage while simultaneously securing hers and Erik’s freedom, not to mention, Ana, Meg, Jester and the others. “But you’re still willing to discuss having Kole marry me?”

  “We are negotiating with you now—not them,” the justiciar clarified.

  Jewel felt she should ask again why they were willing to do this, but instead she found herself strangely defending her parents. “I’ll bet they didn’t think of it as bad faith. They thought they could locate me and bring me back. I had only reached my majorus minor according to the laws of the Cartel Worlds. If they could get their hands on me again they could legally compel me to do as they wanted.”