“Jenn-Four!” Rinne punched in the Cyber’s voice. “You’ve simply got to find me a way to Deneb XII. I don’t care how or how much it costs. What do you show?”
“Not much, Councilor Rinne. All scheduled Fast services have been halted.”
“What about cargo?” Rinne tried. “Even if there are no tourists coming and going, the population still needs contact with the outside. Imports of necessities. Exports of some of their goods.”
“The Deneb Commercial Lines still plies the skies,” Jenn-Four repeated the local comm. advert. for the system. “But it does so on a reduced basis since the Cult of the Flowers introduced a limited sector closure for the entire Deneb system. And only from the Markab Lambda system, which, as you know, is still under close MC supervision. Furthermore, there are Cult guards on every commercial liner in or out.”
“I find it difficult to believe the Quinx would allow that. At least titularly, Deneb XII is under their jurisdiction.”
“Hesperian visas are accepted on the liners. Classes thirteen and seventy-five,” Jenn-Four said.
“Journalists and diplomats!” Rinne saw what it meant. Evidently the rulers of the City itself didn’t want a lot of its people traipsing around the planet while it was still so hot.
“As well as all bona fide Deneban visas,” Jenn-Four added. “Just try to get one of those!”
Rinne wouldn’t have to try. She could go around the other way.
“Jenn-Four, Inter. Gal. Comm. to Hesperia for me. Captain North-Taylor Diad.”
A few minutes passed while Rinne calculated what this communication would entail. Obviously, she would be screened by the MC Security forces. But she would have to take that chance. More of a concern was whether or not he would readily understand – and then agree to – her plan. And then, perhaps foolishly she knew, Rinne wondered if Diad would reply at all. A Beryllium bachelor – retired or not – must have had a great deal of experience with romantic liaisons in his long life. What if Rinne had been merely that to him: his Wicca World romance?
The holo snapped on, displaying the expected MC Security censor.
“Surely a woman of your importance, Councilor, must realize that due to the current diplomatic impasse, we cannot put through every comm. to Hesperia.”
“Naturally,” Rinne replied with equal frost. “But a woman of my importance also realizes that I have all the security clearances needed for just such a comm.”
“If this is urgent MC business then –”
“It is!”
“And if we may assume that this comm. will in no way endanger the Matriarchy –”
“What could I possibly do, ma’am, beyond what the MC Itself is doing to endanger Itself?” Rinne couldn’t help asking.
“Please answer the question.”
Rinne answered with the required formula.
“Given your levels of clearance, your comm. will be completed without any security censorship,” the official sourly admitted.
Rinne would have liked to believe that. She didn’t, naturally. They would listen in as a matter of course. Perhaps not to every word. They might attach her comm. to a censor Cyber that had been programmed to monitor and compare the conversation against a matrix of words and phrases, and against various codification templates. Fine with Rinne. She had another plan, no matter who listened in.
The holo blinked; then Taylor appeared suddenly. Even for a Beryllium hauler, the background was unusually sumptuous.
“Gemma? Is that really you?”
“You’ve not forgotten what I look like already?” she said, only half teasing.
“You look wonderful. Maybe,” he added, “a little overworked.”
“I am overworked,” she replied. He looked fine. She was glad she had comm.ed.
“How did you manage to get through? I’ve tried for days Sol Rad.”
“I promised not to give away any MC secrets,” she joked, hoping to irritate whatever censor – live or Cyber – might be listening in.
He laughed. “You’re still in Melisande?”
“That may be censored information,” she replied lightly. “But I should be able to tell you that I’ve managed to get a short holiday. I thought ... well, if you wanted to, we might still get together. Somewhere neutral, of course. If that’s at all possible for you,” she qualified it even further.
“You mean you and me? When? Where?”
This was key now: he would either comprehend her or not. “Do you remember where I told you when we said good-bye at the Fast terminal?” She did not have to work very hard to add sultriness to her voice so the censors would read it as “interpersonal” and thus be thrown off.
His face frowned slightly. He remembered, all right. She had told him she was on her way to Deneb XII. From her question, he must know she had never gotten there.
He half smiled now. “Gemma, I was a little distracted by our farewell, by the crowds, the haste ... Was it Enif Prime?”
He had understood her need for being roundabout and was biting. Good for Taylor.
“Silly!” she said. “You must have been distracted – Markab Lambda. Didn’t you tell me that’s where your parents had their official espousement?”
His face became serious. “I never did get around to asking you formally,” he said.
“You certainly did. But I won’t hold you to it until all this mess is over with. Let’s go anyway.”
He seemed relieved. Because she wasn’t holding him to his vow? Or because he also realized how difficult it would be for the two of them if she had?
“When?”
“There’s a Fast from here that arrives tomorrow morning, at twenty-three hours, fifteen Sidereal Time.”
He was checking the screen of his holo for a schedule. “I can get there by then. Better bring your hiking boots. It’s still a little rough there.”
“You can go hiking if you want, Taylor. I had something a bit more, well, quiet in mind. Staying in our suite at the spa there. Ordering in. Hanging up “Do not comm.” signs, you know ...” She let the tone of her voice complete the sentence. Then added quickly, “By the way, I’ve heard that I might need a Hesperian visa to enter the system.”
“Really, I didn’t know –” Then stopped himself, bright as a newly minted credit.
“I’d hate to have only a day or two Sol Rad. and be sent back because I didn’t have the right visa.” She tried not to whine.
“I should be able to get one,” he said.
He had understood, the dear male, understood and agreed to help her. In return for spending time with her. Well, that was only fair. Especially as she very much wanted to spend time with him.
They barely had time to repeat the schedule times, when they were told the comm. was at an end. Taylor blew a kiss at her. Which Rinne caught.
When his holo was gone, the same MC Security censor reappeared on Rinne’s holo.
“Would you like us to log in that particular party, in case of future urgent calls?” she asked, cattily.
“Yes, please,” Rinne said sweetly, then added, “On second thought, perhaps not. A woman of importance never knows when a better offer may arrive.”
“As you wish, Councilor,” the holo said and snapped off.
Doubtless, she went immediately to tell her colleagues about the sheer nerve of those high-placed MC women, using highly censored comm. lines to arrange weekend trysts with Beryllium multibillionaires. Her colleagues would doubtless listen to every savory detail, shake their heads, and then complain bitterly at the unfairness of life, even in the Matriarchy.
And then forget the actual content of the comm. which was what counted the most.
“Councilor!”
“Yes, Jenn-Four?”
“You asked me to notify you if there was any news from Deneb XII on the Inter. Gal.”
Rinne sighed. She would have preferred to think about a few days with Taylor, even on Markab Lambda.
“Would you like me to record it for later playback?�
��
“Why not?”
A half hour Sol Rad. of daydreaming later, Rinne asked to see the recording of the Inter. Gal. News. It was worse than she had guessed. Gn’elphus, the Interstellar Metropolitan of the Church of Algol, had arrived on Deneb XII and had immediately called a meeting of the local Maudlin Se’ers. How he had managed to slip through MC Security was unknown. Despite the red-suited guards everywhere, thousands of Denebans had jammed into the usually sparsely attended edifice used by the Se’ers to hear Gn’elphus rail against unnatural activities in their very midst. The aged Se’er had riled them up to a fever pitch. He had done all but declare a holy war. Afterward, adolescents and younger women had called a demonstration in front of the Alpheron Spa, and when the MC had banned it, they had rioted, shooting down a perfectly innocent sand-skimmer and using it to try to ram through the spa’s gates. The security guards had been forced to use stunners. Even so, they had had a great deal on their hands. Only a dozen or so rioters could be arrested. Scores more had been temporarily paralyzed but pulled to safety by cohorts and finally even by horrified adult onlookers.
Naturally, the Deneban Council had comm.ed the Quinx, and both governments had lodged a formal complaint to the MC through the Orion Spur Federation. Naturally, the Matriarch had – at Her leisure – replied that She paid little attention to “local skirmishes” and considered the matter one for the Tourist Board – which everyone knew had titular control in the Matriarchal Council but was otherwise completely inappropriate to the incident. The most controversy that the Tourist Board had faced to date was liner rate stabilization and accommodations inspections. The Tourist Board’s leader turned out to be a very old woman who had been put into the position in lieu of retirement, and who suddenly revealed unsuspected depths of loyalty and aggressiveness. She declared the incident to have been provoked by Hesperian Oppositionists. Spouting language not heard since the Bella=Arth. War, she vowed to protect the spa with the entire might of the MC.
A supposedly neutral reporter then interviewed two stunned local adolescent women who had been in the fracas on Deneb XII. They managed to overcome some of the longer-term effects of the stun to declare rebelliously that they would be back to take the (slang term deleted) spa, and destroy its (slang term #2 deleted) inhabitants. Their parents stood behind them, grim-faced.
Ewa had been dreaming. But even within the dream, she had known, and had once even said, “This is a ridiculous dream.” As were most of her afternoon nap dreams. Even so, it had continued. As they always did, lately.
Then she was being shaken awake. Janitra. Excitement on her face. “Wake up. It’s happening now.”
Ewa tried to pull herself out of the quicklime of the unnatural sleep.
“It’s happening now!” Janitra repeated.
“She’s having it now?”
“Right now. Come on!”
Ewa snapped awake, found her robe, let Janitra rapidly finger-comb out her hair. “Come on!” Janitra pulled at her.
“You’re sure they won’t see us?” Ewa asked as they tried to appear relaxed on the conveyance down to the second floor, the first floor.
“I told you. I found an unused office with full live holo into the labor ward.”
This was the tricky part: where they might be stopped. Ever since the interrupted Inter. Gal. Comm.s, Alpheron Spa had been rife with red uniforms. These lower areas were the most crowded, and many of the less noticeably showing women like herself often came here for their “constitutional,” which meant parading around the garden and flirting with MC Security ladies, and then laughing at how flustered and “butch” the guards became when they got a response. Last night, however, there had been some sort of unpleasantness outside the spa. Ewa had clearly heard the distant shouting of many angry young voices, then the hollow thuds of stun-shooters. This morning no one knew anything. Many women, like Janitra, slept so heavily that they had not even heard anything. But the MC guards didn’t appear indolent and bored anymore. They were so busy recovering from whatever excitement they had encountered, they almost failed to notice Ewa and Janitra.
Janitra – and now Ewa – had a hint of what the melee had been about. People outside were protesting the births within. But why? Finally Janitra had gotten a traveling merchant who visited the spa with her trinkets to say. Or, rather, Janitra had tried to understand what the local Bella=Arth. was trying to say. But once past the usual patois of haggling and bargaining, she fared poorly. What the Bella=Arthropod said – cautiously, in private – to Janitra seemed so odd, so incomprehensible, that she came away with the belief that the babies being born here were special children. Unusual in some way.
“We know that. Did it elaborate?” Ewa asked.
“The Bella=Arth. kept using a term used to mean ‘more.’”
“More what? Intelligence? Beauty? Maybe that’s why we’re here on Deneb XII. Something in the soil or even in the atmosphere. Both our fetuses are larger than usual. Could that be it?”
Janitra had shrugged. Then, an hour Sol Rad. later, she had reported the existence of the room above the labor ward. She’d chanced across it while lost once after a radiocentesis in a nearby lab. It was Ewa who had decided that they would see for themselves exactly how “more” their offspring would be. Janitra needed no persuasion.
The way there was unguarded. Even so, women in med. uniforms could be seen crossing the passage. The two pregnant women would say they were lost, or on their way to a lab. No one would notice.
No one did. They made it through the passage and to another one and another one, and finally to the room. Janitra would enter alone. Act surprised if it were occupied. It wasn’t. They entered, found the holo-dials, and sat down to watch. The scene was perfect, and it was obvious they had just arrived in time. The mother was floating above the pad, her body angled correctly, her legs separated by other air-beams. The two women could see the astonishing distention, hear the mother’s short gasps, then make out a dark wet head emerging, then the shoulders, two arms, the raw wet scrunched-up little face that looked up unseeing, as yet, but with apparent astonishment, annoyed, waving its little fists. The mother continued to labor, aided by air-beams, still breathing hard.
“It’s beautiful,” Ewa said.
“Perfectly,” Janitra agreed.
Now the long torso was emerging, the hips ...
The office door was thrown open. A pewter-haired woman in a med. uniform. They turned to her, found out.
“What are two doing here?”
She charged in, shut off the holo.
“We just wanted to –” Ewa began.
“You’ll have your turn soon enough,” she said to Janitra. “Who’s your proctor here?”
“Maly’a. But she didn’t know.”
“I’m bringing the two of you to her office for an explanation of this right now.”
She herded them out of the room and through the passageway, going in the direction they had come from. They had just turned the second corner when they saw the door to the garden slam shut – but not before they’d heard MC guards yelling.
“Eve! They’ve gotten inside!” two medicos shouted, running past.
The older woman turned around and followed her colleague into an elevator. She held other women out while Ewa and Janitra were shoved in, the doors closed. The lift went to the top floors of the spa.
At floor sixteen, two MC guards grabbed the two pregnant women, walked them down a loggia, around a corner, to a waiting sand-skimmer. One of a dozen parked at the edge of the roof tarp, also filling up with pregnant women. From this high up, the noise below was distant, but still loud enough that Ewa thought it greater than last night. Hordes of people, sounds of stunners and other – more lethal – weapons.
“What do they want?” Ewa asked.
“Where are we going?” Janitra asked an MC guard as they were put into line for a seven-passenger skimmer.
“Where you’ll be safe.”
“But I haven’t packed anythi
ng!”
“No need to. You’ll be back in an hour or so.” The edgy guard tapped her into the skimmer.
The skimmer hood closed. The pilot at the front wore double earplugs and was speaking low and rapidly. She wore a sidearm. The other pregnant woman in the backseat with Ewa and Janitra was quietly weeping.
“Don’t worry,” Ewa said. “We’ll be back in an hour or so.”
“We’ll all be dead!” the woman sobbed.
“Someone shut her up!” a woman in front said, hard. Just then, there was a loud noise ahead, and one of the skimmers loading ahead of them on the roof tarp exploded. Women screamed.
Their own skimmer pilot shouted, “I’m leaving!” then back to them: “Belt up, ladies!”
The vehicle shook once, lifted, and spun out beyond the walls and over the city. More explosions passed them, evaporating like smoke nearby. Ewa thought, I don’t believe this is happening.
“Why are they doing this?” she asked Janitra, the sobbing woman, anyone.
“We’re going to one of the Arth. nests,” the same hard-voiced woman said authoritatively. “We’ll be safe there. You know that some Wasps held out for months in those tunnels before they were ordered to eat tainted pupa.”
They were out over the more industrial areas of the city now, long low buildings like tilted-over tiles on a yellow-gray board. Ahead, she could see another three or four skimmers. All MC, thank Eve!
Suddenly there were more explosions around them. Their pilot was shouting into her voicer again, and the skimmer was moving in a sort of up-and-down and zigzag motion.
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