“One of the passengers was a little girl about your own age, named Rachel,” she said. “She never told anyone what her last name was, nor where she had come from, and no one could remember when exactly she had come aboard.’
“Now Rachel was a very strange little girl. She had hair that was so blond that it seemed to be silver—just like a Nyxian, but her eyes were violet like ours are, and she never spoke. She only smiled. And it was a sad, sad little smile.’
“She also had a companion who was traveling with her. It was a man, who some said was her father, and who others thought was her uncle. No one knew for certain, and neither Rachel, nor the man, ever told them the truth. Even stranger than this was the fact that no one who met the man could ever remember what his face had looked like afterwards.”
Fryya and the other girls exchanged grave expressions. So far the story had all of the elements that they had been hoping for; a mysterious pair of figures, set against the backdrop of the terrible Plague, and full of secrets that promised something truly dreadful. They couldn’t wait to hear more.
The Bear picked up the narrative. “When everyone was finally allowed to leave the ship, Rachel and the man wandered from town to town. They never stayed long in any one place, and after they left, the men living in the towns would catch the Plague and die. Then some of the people noticed that the first men who fell where always the ones that Rachel had smiled at.”
“Knowing this, all of the towns began to keep a watch out for Rachel, who they now called ‘Silver Rachel’, and for her companion, hoping to keep them from entering. But no matter how hard they tried, town after town, and village after village, and farm after farm, were visited by the pair, and in all those places, the men died.”
The Fairy spoke. “This went on and on until not a single town or village anywhere on Zommerlaand had been spared, and the Plague had taken all the men folk away. For a while after this, no one saw Silver Rachel, or the man.”
“But only for a while,” the Bear warned his audience. “After a few years, and when things had begun to return to normal, people out on the farms began to see Rachel again. Those who remembered her, said that she hadn’t aged a day. She was also all alone now. The man was gone.”
“Where did he go?” Fryya asked.
“No one knows. He was never seen again. Then some of the wise women realized why. They knew who he had really been, and why no one had ever seen his face. You see, he hadn’t been Rachel’s father after all, or her uncle, or any other relative, but Death itself.”
A collective shutter passed among the children and Fryya leaned forwards. “What happened next?”
“Rachel continued to wander,” the Fairy answered. “She traveled the roads and highways of Zommerlaand; the big ones, and the little ones, visiting the farms and the houses. She only visited them on certain nights though. On nights like this, when the air was cold and still, and the moons were full and high in the sky.”
At this, Fryya and her companions looked fearfully past the hearth to the window outside, and the moons shining balefully over the fields in the crisp air. Anything was possible on such a night, and their eyes grew wide.
The Fairy continued. “And at every farm that Silver Rachel visited, she would come to the front door and knock.”
At the precise moment that the Biobot said this, Ingrit added her own contribution to the tale, rapping loudly on the wall behind her. The little girls squealed in terror, and Lilith promptly rewarded her wife with an elbow in the ribs. Unchastened, Ingrit merely grinned.
“Do you know what happened when she would knock at someone’s door?” the Fairy asked. The little girls shook their heads. “If someone answered, she would be gone. The doorstep would be empty, and not long afterwards, Death would come for someone in the house, or something just as bad would happen.’
“Only those who had left something out for her were ever safe. Silver Rachel always spared a home that had left sweet cakes or corn bread for her on the step.”
“And they say,” the Bear added in a low, serious voice, “that Silver Rachel still walks the roads and visits the farms hereabouts.”
The girls glanced past the Biobots to the window again, and then as one, they got up and ran into the kitchen. Grammy was right behind them.
“Mind you!” the old woman warned, “Be neat now. Don’t leave a mess for me to clean up or you’ll have more than Rachel to worry about!”
“Are they really leaving something out on the step?” Lilith asked her partner.
“That they are,” Ingrit answered. “I did the same thing when I was their age, and Grammy made sure back then that we didn’t destroy the kitchen.”
“Isn’t this all rather silly?” Lilith countered, just loud enough for Ingrit to hear without the children overhearing. “Letting them believe in such a superstition?”
“Ach, nen,” Ingrit replied. “Belief is part of being a child. As Grammy says, accepting the idea that monsters are really out there is all a part of growing up.”
Lilith found herself forced to agree. The only difference between the frightening creatures that inhabited the darkened closets of childhood’s imagination, and the monsters that lurked in real life, were their names, and where they hid. The Hriss and the T’lakskalans had proven that.
Shortly, Grammy returned to the living area with the little ones in tow. “Well,” she announced. “I think our doorstep is good and safe now. I also think it’s time for me—and some others,” her eyes fell on Fryya and her companions, “to turn in.”
She received some half-hearted protests from the children, but in short order, she had them all scurrying off to their beds. The adults lingered in the living area for a while after that, but eventually they too followed suit.
And somewhere in the night, Lilith dreamt. She found herself standing in the living area, but this time she was alone, and the house was dark. Only the silvery light of Zommerlaand’s moons lent any illumination to the room, or to the fields outside.
Something drew her over to the windows, and she looked out towards the dirt road that cut down from the highway to the farm. Even though a part of her knew that it was only a dream, she was still amazed at how sharp and clear the imagery was, and her eyes traced their way up the road, taking in the rich details.
Then she spotted a small figure walking down its length towards the house. In the strange way of dreams, the girl’s progress was accelerated, and in seconds, she was standing in the front yard, just a few paces short of the steps. She was a little girl, with fine silver hair that stirred gently in the breeze, and dark, violet eyes.
They regarded each other silently, and then the girl smiled. It was a sad expression that spoke of infinite loss, and bottomless pain. With that, she vanished, and the dream faded away into darkness.
When she rose the next morning, Lilith wasn’t surprised in the least. She had after all, gone to bed with the eerie tale of Silver Rachel lingering in the back of her mind, and a part of her, she admitted, was and always would be, a child, and susceptible to a child’s fears and imaginings. Smiling at herself, she made her way down to the kitchen and began her day with a cup of tea.
Grammy was already up and about, and busy at the sink preparing breakfast. She greeted her as she took her place at the table. “Goemôrga, Lily,” she said. “Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, “Lilith replied. “Although I did have a bad dream. I really shouldn’t have gone to bed after hearing that awful story.”
“Yah,” Grammy answered. “I dreamt about her too. So did everyone else, I think. Dreams about Silweyr Rachaal are always bad luck. It’s a good thing that we left something out for her on the step.”
“It was just a dream,” Lilith countered. “And you know that there’s no such thing as luck; it’s all just probability.”
She realized that it was rude of her to challenge the old woman’s beliefs like this, but sometimes the depth of Zommerlaandar superstition truly exasperated her. All of their fait
h in spells and spirits and omens made her wonder how the women of Sunna 3 had ever managed to become part of a modern interstellar society like the Sisterhood. Their mindset was positively medieval.
Grammy however, was completely unperturbed. “The wise women know differently,” she replied patiently. “Luck is quite real whether you believe in it or not. My Gotdunna taught me that luck is like lightning. You can’t see it until it strikes, and it always has to come down somewhere. Leaving gifts out for Rachel will make sure that the bad luck she brings with her will pass us by, and hit someplace else were it does the least amount of harm.”
Lilith shook her head tiredly. “Grammy, it was just a dream, and nothing more. I probably wouldn’t have even had it if the children hadn’t asked for the story in the first place.”
“Perhaps,” Grammy replied calmly, turning her attention back to making breakfast. “Perhaps not. Some say that nothing ever happens in this life without a reason behind it. Maybe Fryya and the other little ones asked for the tale because they sensed that something bad was in the wind. Maybe the Gods even moved them to ask for it.”
Lilith sighed. “Perhaps,” she returned. “Perhaps not.”
The two women smiled at each other, and let things go at that. It was too fine a day to belabor the point, and both of them knew that they were absolutely right.
***
Being a senior Pat-Rat officer, Signysdaater had the luxury of choosing her shift assignments, and Maya had learned that she preferred to work the second shift, from 05:83 to 09:16 hours. Her partner hated working during the morning or graveyard shifts and enjoyed the variable pace that the afternoons tended to provide.
Today, the woman had decided to patrol the Marpesia District, the part of the city that hosted Thermadon’s heavy industrial concerns and the low-income and visiting workers housing. It was also the same area that Maya had first met the kaaper, and they had even flown by the hostel she had originally stayed at before her fateful choice to find work at the spaceport.
Their shift had been greeted by typically Thermadonian weather. It had been overcast at the beginning, transitioning to a torrential downpour that finally trickled off into a weak, intermittent drizzle. It was the very duplicate of Maya‘s first night in T-Don, and as they glided silently over Ben Taara boulevard, she saw several figures that reminded her of her earlier self, moving quickly down the rain-soaked pavement, spacer’s kit-bags in hand, and on their way to the hostels.
She was just in the process of working up the courage to ask that they stop somewhere for some kaafra and the chance to stretch her legs, when a pedestrian caught her eye. The figure was dressed in the usual light jacket and jumpsuit that most spacers wore when they were downside, and her kit-bag was the conventional type, albeit a bit worn.
Physically, the woman was equally as unremarkable; she was darker skinned than some of the others that Maya had seen moving along the street, but no more so than anyone with some Kalian in their ancestry, and her shoulder-length black hair seemed to support this.
At the sight of the Metro cruiser however, the woman abruptly left the sidewalk and darted into an alley. This was definitely the mark of someone who was up to something.
Signysdaater had also spotted this. “Letz check her out,” she said. “Zhe lookz verdaag to me.” The cruiser made a sharp turn and began to fly down the alley.
By this point, Maya had come to respect the kaaper’s instincts because they were so much like her own, and therefore, generally right. The woman did look suspicious.
Being on foot, their quarry had only managed to get a little ways in, and when the cruiser’s headlights illuminated her, she began to walk away from them at an accelerated pace. Not a full-on run, but just a hair short of bolting like a frightened rabiteth.
Signysdaater switched on the spotlight mounted on the aircar’s light bar and let off a short chirp of the siren. This was another thing that Maya had learned about her partner; like a lot of veterans, she didn’t over-work the siren. She used it just enough to get attention, but without creating any more drama than was absolutely necessary.
The woman got the message and stopped, and it was clear from the sag in her shoulders that she had resigned herself to being detained—for something. The cruiser settled down into a hover, just over the pavement, and Maya got out at the same time as the Zommerlaandar, making certain that she put herself in a position that gave her the best view of their suspect, but was still close enough to use the vehicle for cover in case anything happened. She also unsnapped the holster of her energy gun.
From her Academy PTS feeds, she knew that ‘routine’ stops like this were also the ones most likely to become dangerous. It was impossible for anyone to know whom they were stopping, or what their motives were until the stop itself had been made, and many officers over the long centuries of formalized police work had lost their lives by being careless.
“Heyas, girl,” Signysdaater said, unwittingly summoning up Maya’s memory of being stopped by the woman herself. “Vat you doing out here in zis alley?”
The woman muttered something in reply and Signysdaater pointed to the hood of their cruiser. “Put za bag on za hood.”
The bag went there without incident, and when she was ordered to, their suspect stepped away from it, and kept her hands in plain sight. The light from Signysdaater’s monocle played over her next, and when the data came back, an amused smile broke across the Zommerlaandar’s face.
“’Kay—put your hands on the za hood and zpread your feet,” she said, already coming around to take charge if the woman failed to comply with her order. At this, the figure only seemed to become a little more miserable, and meekly cooperated as Signysdaater applied restraints to her wrists and then stood her back up.
“Check her bag,” she said to Maya, and then to their prisoner. “Iz zere anyzing in zere zat vill hurt my partner?”
This elicited a headshake. Just the same, Maya reached into her back pocket and put on her gloves. These were made of ‘stick-proof’ pleather, and at a psiever command, special ridges along the knuckles could also become rigid, allowing the gloves to double as the high-tech equivalent of the ‘fighting nucks’ that she had once employed on the streets of Ashkele.
Thus protected, she upended the bag, but nothing incriminating fell out of it. She had expected to find drugs, or possibly a weapon, but only produced a rather disappointing pile of clothing, harmless personal items and a battered pathminder that was clearly labeled, “Property of Bel Sharra Memorial Spaceport”. Maya put this aside, momentarily puzzled.
“Vat’s your name?” Signysdaater asked their prisoner. “You’re real name. ‘Cause if you’re ‘Juta Helgasdaater’, zen I’m Laara Lampa.”
The woman burst into tears, and uttered a string of words that were only half intelligible through her bawling and a nearly impenetrable accent. What was understandable, was a combination of very poor Standard and fluent Espangla.
She was an illegal immigrant, Maya realized. This was a recent phenomenon, brought on by the war with the ETR and the subsequent collapse of the Republic’s economy. Thermadon had become a magnet for women from the defeated star nation, who came to the Sisterhood seeking jobs that no longer existed at home. Some of them managed to emigrate legally, like the ones she had seen at the Embassy in Nuvo Bolivar, and others, who failed to qualify, chose illicit means to gain their entry.
This also solved the mystery of the stolen pathminder. When they paid to get themselves smuggled into the Sisterhood by a corrupt merchanter captain, the illegals were often outfitted with a phony bio-chip, an equally ersatz inocular, and a pathminder which had had its ownership codes stripped out.
This way, a psiever-less woman could pass for a legitimate citizen and negotiate her way through a society that ran its devices on thought. In addition to their mapping functions, pathminders had a built in interface in them that allowed alien visitors to activate psiever-driven appliances. At least the ones at the average spaceport did.
Signysdaater repeated her question. “Vat’s your name? Vere do you live?” Her inquiry only produced the same dismal results however, made even worse by the woman’s weeping and trying to answer her between ragged gulps for air.
“Let me try something,” Maya interjected. She faced the woman squarely. “We know that you are an illegal,” she told her in Espangla. “What is your real name? Things will only go worse for you if you don’t cooperate with us.”
The illegal managed to bring most of her tears under control and nodded. “My name is Jauntiya Zavaala. Please—I’m not a criminal. I just came here looking for work—my family—my family needs the money---my brother was the head of our family, and he died—in the war.’
“The people said that if I paid them, that they’d get me here, and that they had work for me—but then they stole all my money and left me with nothing. Please---“The rest of what she had been about to say was lost in a fresh round of weeping.
“Where are you staying?” Maya asked her. ”What’s your address?”
The illegal didn’t answer, but her eyes betrayed her when they flicked briefly towards a plastiboard box propped up against the side of the alley. This was ‘home’.
She relayed this information to Signysdaater.
“Vell, rookie,” the Zommerlaandar returned. “Zis iz your call. Ve can take her to Cuztoms at za Port and zey vill ship her back. Or ve can take her over to N’Rina Boulevard and give her to za Zisters of Zelene. Zey have a shelter zere, and zey may help her.”
The Sisters of Selene had recently become involved in the problem of illegal immigration. They advocated for them, offered them shelter, and when they could, lent their assistance in helping them to gain legal citizenship.
Maya considered the wretched figure and her ‘residence’ wilting away in the damp shadows. At one time, not too far in the past, she would have just taken the illegal to Customs and been done with her. The woman had a sad story, but the galaxy was filled with sad stories.
Sisterhood of Suns: Daughters of Eve Page 45
