The Sisterhood

by Juanita Coulson

  Some of her apprehension must have shown in her eyes. Martil grinned reassuringly. “No, we have no plans to dump you, as you put it.” He sobered and went on, “But you will be in danger no matter what is done. Do you understand?”

  Renee nibbled her lip and nodded. “I’m a stranger in a strange land.” She glanced at Prince Chayo and said, “If he’s representative of the local humanoids, I’d stand out like a sore thumb anywhere I went on this planet. These Gevari rebels seem to have pegged me as part of your team already. If you dropped me off, even politely, even in someplace supposedly safe, I wouldn’t have any guarantee that they wouldn’t zero in on me. And without your know-how — and that trick of detecting incoming strikes with your headaches — I’d be a dead duck in no time.”

  Martil’s jaw dropped. It did Renee good to see that. She’d flabbergasted him, left him momentarily speechless. A brief moment. “That’s … excellent. Superb summation of the problem. I begin to grasp why you have this unprecedented affinity with the Ka-Een; such quick adaptation to alien details is amazing, particularly since you have no training.”

  “Training. That’s the real sticking point, isn’t it?” she said. Chayo’s head swiveled comically as he listened to first one of them, then the other, struggling to follow the discussion. Renee nodded again. “I’m a liability to you. This lump you didn’t ask for, who can’t contribute anything to your peace mission, and can’t be parked somewhere on the sidelines until you wrap up your business.” After a pause, she added, “I’m grateful for the fact that you don’t want to park me like that. I’d get eliminated fast, if you did.”

  “Perhaps not. You have proved yourself remarkably resourceful, given the circumstances.” She started to bask in the compliment, and Martil shot her down. “Hardly an accomplished team member, however. Your naïveté and noncomprehension of details present a most serious dilemma. What are we going to do with you?”

  Tae had finished picking through Martil’s hair. Now he reached across the “egg” — no strain for someone of his size — and touched Renee’s hands firmly. A froggy grin brightened his heavy face. Nothing was said, and he didn’t put his fingers on her brow as he had earlier, yet Renee received a strong impression of encouragement. More than that — acceptance.

  “I doubt it can work,” Martil said, scowling. “Too much for her to learn, too fast.”

  The blond shifted his focus to his partner, his grin widening.

  Martil’s exasperation was an aura, filling the egg vehicle. “After all the precautions we and the prince took, it … oh, all right. All right! I see no other course, either. But I’m not nearly as sanguine as you are. Go ahead.” Tae hesitated, and the smaller man rolled his eyes, his exasperation reaching the boiling point. He heaved another heartfelt sigh and said, “Renamos, Tae wants to give you basic information regarding our mission here and this species and their crisis. It is a stressful procedure, but it will not harm you.”

  “More acting as interpreter for the Ka-Een?” Renee asked anxiously.

  “A different operation.”

  Apparently, he wasn’t going to tell her any more than that. Maybe he couldn’t. She suspected he wasn’t Homo sapiens, and Tae probably wasn’t. Prince Chayo definitely wasn’t. It might be impossible to supply all the data she needed to survive and fit in — or try to — by normal means. Renee steeled herself, squinching her eyes nearly shut, saying, “Okay. I don’t like being so ignorant, and if this is the only way to jump, I guess I’ll have to.”

  Tae shifted his grip from her hands to her head, and a tsunami picked her up, carrying her along at a breathtaking, terrifying speed.

  Illusion. She hadn’t moved. But she seemed to be hurtling along, being pelted painlessly, tumbled over and over. With great difficulty, she drew herself back, within her mind, examining the process. She wasn’t being engulfed by water but information, and it was happening so rapidly it was impossible to get a grasp on any of it.

  As abruptly as it had started, the contact ended. Renee sagged, feeling drained. She blinked, assessing. No pain. Not even a lingering trace of a headache, as she’d half expected there would be. Just the same, the sensations weren’t pleasant. She rubbed her cheekbones and muttered, “I — I’ve been stuffed with computer tapes.”

  Yes! That was what it was like — watching Evy scroll SOS’s stat files at a speed too fast to read, until the computer found the requested area, where it would finally slow and stop.

  Except that the data buzzing inside Renee’s head refused to slow down.

  “Don’t fight it,” Martil advised. “You will absorb it gradually — hopefully in time for it to be useful in these circumstances. This is the best that can be done, on short notice.”

  “If you say so,” Renee grumbled, unconvinced.

  “Thank you, Martil, Tae,” Prince Chayo said. “This eliminates a concern. Now it is feasible for Esteemed Lady Renamos to attend the interview with my mother.” He turned to Renee and suddenly reddened. “But you should have reminded me of your needs, my Lady. This will never do. I should be severely chastised for being so remiss. Sector Fifteen,” he ordered, and she felt a subtle shift in the direction the egg vehicle was taking. She wondered what had caused Chayo’s embarrassment. Then he explained. “You must have fresh raiment before you are presented to the Most High and my sister, her Eminence.”

  Martil grunted unhappily. “I ought to protest, but she’s already in too deep. You don’t mind accompanying us to the interview with the queen?” he asked Renee.

  “Why not?” she said, shrugging. “Sure. After all that’s happened, what’s an interview with the matriarch of the entire Niand culture?”

  Now how had she known that Prince Chayo’s mother held that rank? A vision of multiple solar systems — Niand’s home world and widely scattered colony planets — danced in her brain. Bits and pieces of background, bubbling to the surface.

  “You will absorb it gradually …”

  Hey! This was a great way to master a course in a hurry! She could patent this and make a fortune — if Tae would rent himself out as an instant-learning device.

  Except there was no one to sell such things to, here. Chayo and the Arbiters knew far more than she ever could. No doubt everyone on this planet, in this civilization did. She was likely to come off as a total dunce, even if she did succeed in absorbing the needed info. It was going to take much more than the basics to be useful to a team of peace negotiators, wasn’t it?

  She focused on another, comparatively minor topic, one of personal interest. “Since I’m going to get a new wardrobe, thanks to the prince, would you mind telling me what happened to my old one? Half of what I was wearing evaporated en route to the Ka-Eens’ landing point.”

  “The landing point is the administrative center of the Niand Federation,” Martil said. “But, to answer your question, Ka-Eens only transport selected organic materials. I presume you were wearing some nonorganics. Those would have been lost in transit.”

  “Oh.” Plastics, and all that other synthetic stuff. Renee eyed Martil’s and Tae’s clothes curiously. The materials didn’t look organic, particularly not Martil’s glittery shirt, but obviously they must be, or they’d be half-naked, too, as she was. At least now she knew why she was sitting in this “egg” barefoot and wearing what amounted to skirt-and blouse-shaped doilies.

  Martil rubbed absently at his scalp. She felt obliged to inquire, “How’s your head? Were you cut much?”

  “Only a little,” he said. “I can be repaired while Chayo’s people are garbing you properly to meet the queen.”

  Queen. And Chayo was a prince. She’d heard the terms several times now, but still was having difficulty connecting them to real people. Princes were supposed to be figures in Hollywood productions. Cardboard actors in white-uniforms and gold braid, not cute men with butterscotchy complexions wearing floppy hats, baggy jumpsuits, and capes.

  The “egg” stopped with no deceleration that she could detect. All at once, they
had arrived. The reappearing oval door looked even less appetizing from the inside looking out. Chayo led the way and turned to take Renee’s hand. But Martil exited ahead of her, earning a glower from Chayo. As Renee stepped over the vehicle’s threshold, she wondered if all the spongy seats disappeared when the riders left them. She refused to look back and find out if they did. Naive, was she? Well, she’d do her best to avoid acting like she’d just dropped out of a tree.

  Though, in a sense, I sort of did, didn’t I? she thought.

  Chayo took her elbow, guiding her to an orange-lit archway and up a ramp. Martil and Tae tagged along in their wake. Renee heard their wet boots squishing. At the top of the ramp, a perfectly ordinary-looking door opened automatically. The thing was a positive relief after encounters with Liths and traveling eggs.

  There were guards posted in the corridors beyond. Some, like Chayo, had butterscotch-colored complexions. Others were darker, with shiny skins resembling burnt caramel.

  Why do I keep thinking of food-oriented colors? she wondered. Because I’m hungry, that’s why. About now, I should be sitting down to a late supper, not trotting around in the bowels of a palace.

  This was a palace, she recognized with a start. She was getting another dribble of info from Tae’s instant-education process. A big palace. They walked along corridors for minutes, took an open-sided elevator up to a higher level, and walked some more. They rode an airport-style moving platform for a while, got off, walked further, rode another elevator. Renee couldn’t keep track of all the twists and turns and she had no idea where they were in relationship to the place where they’d climbed out of the “egg,” let alone how far they were from Prince Chayo’s wrecked apartment — or in what direction. She rather doubted Martil or Tae knew. Little wonder that the Arbiters had needed a native guide.

  Then a disquieting thought struck her. What if the original attack, there in the street, and the destruction of Chayo’s apartments were staged events? What if he was actually a traitor? He could be leading them into some sort of trap. But if he wanted to dispose of them, that could have been done earlier.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Did she expect it to? Well, she’d sort of hoped things would start making sense. If they didn’t, she was in even deeper trouble than she’d imagined.

  Finally, they reached their destination, a suite staffed by a half-dozen matronly women. Their leader nodded to Chayo and muttered a ritual greeting. She didn’t bow or otherwise kowtow to him, Renee noticed.

  Chayo hadn’t been shamming modesty when he’d said he was of small importance in the Niandian government. Technically, he wasn’t. This was a sort of parliamentary matriarchy, a peculiar mix of antique, hereditary families and elected authorities. And the queen’s son couldn’t inherit, though a woman Chayo married might. There were further details, simmering in a mental pot just beneath the surface of Renee’s conscious thoughts. More of Tae’s cram course info. But she couldn’t quite peg what else was different about Niandians, from her way of looking at a culture. Well, maybe it would come to her, in time.

  “The Esteemed Lady Renamos was attacked by the Dolian renegades on her journey here,” Chayo was telling the matrons. “She cannot be presented to my mother in such damaged clothes. Please attire her as befits her station.”

  “Of course! Oh, poor ravaged dear!” Renee smothered an urge to glance behind her for a suitably disheveled female matching that description. Then she eyed Chayo admiringly. What a liar!

  The matrons’ leader gestured offhandedly. “Prince, you will find clothes for my Lady’s servants in the anteroom.”

  Servants? Martil and Tae? Oh, sure!

  Chayo and the Arbiters retreated and walls materialized, seemingly out of nothing, isolating Renee with the Niandian matrons. She had no time to panic at being separated from the men. The women swarmed around her, solicitous, positively toadying. It was a startling experience, one that made her vaguely uncomfortable, being the recipient of such treatment. That simmering subliminal pot gave her another glimpse of Niand’s rigid internal pecking order. Chayo’s introduction had placed “Esteemed Lady Renamos” very high on that status ladder, and the palace wardrobe mistresses were reacting accordingly.

  The women helped her undress, dumping the pitiful remnants of Renee’s skirt and blouse into what she assumed was an incinerator chute. They ushered her into a luxurious “comfort station,” a touch she appreciated greatly. Then there was a cubicle full of “instant shower”; it smelled wonderful, left her skin silky soft, and took the stink out of her rain-soaked hair and fluff dried it. Slowly, Renee began to relax, wallowing in this sybaritic experience. Now and then there was a faint twinge of guilt, but only a faint one. Evy would have sniffed at the routine, dismissing it as the trappings of sex objectivism. It felt marvelous, though, being fussed over like a movie star.

  The oldest wardrobe mistress ran a small measuring device around Renee’s body and rattled off a stream of gibberish numbers. Those weren’t her dimensions, she was sure. Not in base ten. But the Niandians had eight fingers, not ten, and that must have made a difference, centuries ago, when they were inventing their number system. Following orders, the subordinates scurried to select the clothes the boss lady decided on. Renee hoped they had her size in stock.

  “Oh, my Lady’s poor hair!” Poor hair! Thirty-five bucks for that set and comb-out. Not good enough. The lead matron began attaching wigs and falls to the Earth-woman’s mane.

  Wasn’t this makeover and refitting taking rather long? By now, Martil was probably chewing the furniture with impatience. Renee had always been disdainful of clothes-horse women. The type who tried on fifteen outfits and primped endlessly while their dates and friends had to wait. That wasn’t the Sisterhood’s style, at all. They were new women: practical, businesslike, no behaving like a sitcom caricature of a bubble-headed female whose main interest in life was marching to the fashion moguls’ tune. Huh-uh!

  Just the same …

  The matrons helped her into a cleverly designed body stocking with convenient Velcro closures at strategic locations. Her hair was expertly styled. A dashiki top finished off the procedure. Then one part of a wall converted itself into a mirror, and the other walls disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared earlier. Martil’s, Tae’s, and Chayo’s reflections flanked Renee’s in the mirror. Tae was patting Martil’s mop into place with a “there! that’s that” air, so apparently they’d had time to do some first aid on the smaller man’s scalp cuts. The chief wardrobe mistress sniffed at the men, annoyed that they, too, hadn’t changed into “fresh raiment.” By turning down the available services, they had cast a slur on this palace department’s efficiency.

  The matrons had certainly performed wonders in Renee’s case. She was dressed in yellow, her makeup was lovely, and her hair had been brightened to auburn and enhanced with those falls and wiglets. These miracle workers had shaved ten pounds off a figure Renee considered dismayingly lumpy. And the V-neck dashiki did great things for her frontage. Well, that was her best feature, and when you got it, flaunt it. At this rate, Evy would read her out of the Sisterhood as a backslider.

  No. Don’t think about Evy. I’m not going back. Can’t. Ever.

  “Very good,” Martil pronounced after surveying Renee. “Though it would be better if we were on our way to meet a patriarch, not a matriarch.”

  Chayo took her elbow and steered her out of the wardrobe suite and into a hallway. Renee discovered that the clothes “worked.” They moved the way clothes ought to move. Brightening, she said, “I think I’ll keep these.”

  Martil waved a hand, shushing her. They were twisting and turning through corridor after corridor. Secret passages? The back entrance to the queen’s inner sanctum? This network of halls didn’t match Niand’s other futuristic aspects. Finally, after a lengthy walk, Chayo stopped at a well-guarded door and motioned for Renee to go ahead.

  “If you don’t mind, I’ll pass on ‘ladies first,’ this time.”

>   “Proceed,” Martil snapped. “You’re in this with us now, remember? Follow the local customs.”

  “If it wasn’t for the honor of the thing …” Renee began, joking to hide her nervousness. “But what do I do? What do I say?”

  “Smile, and stay close to Tae.” The blond’s huge hand planted itself in her back, propelling Renee through the open door. She had expected a Ruritanian boudoir. Instead there were Liths, utilitarian furnishings, just a few diaphanous draperies, and a wall lined with floor-to-ceiling electronic maps with winking lights.

  All the room’s occupants were female, and most of them wore the same dashiki-style clothes Renee had been dressed in. A bit of her nervousness eased when she saw that. One remarkably ugly woman appeared to be in charge of the inner sanctum’s servant corps; she and they were fetching, carrying, and generally catering to the remaining two Niandians.

  “Honored Mother …” The women who were the center of attention turned at Chayo’s approach, and he knelt and kissed the hem of the elder’s dashiki. Renee winced inwardly as the matriarch stroked Chayo’s head absently, as she might have a pet’s. There was something deeply unsettling about that scene. Ritual satisfied, Chayo rose and gave the younger woman a brotherly hug. She nodded condescendingly as he murmured, “Did you get my message, Zia?”

  “You may go, Beyeth,” the matriarch ordered the ugly woman. The chief servant and her subordinates withdrew with ill grace, their curiosity radiating from them like perfume. Beyeth glared sternly at the Arbiters before she closed the outer door behind herself.