The Sisterhood

by Juanita Coulson

  “The peace proposals are best considered now,” Martil said. His words weren’t as steady as usual. Cooperating to create the terrible images had taken plenty out of him, too. Tae, his rugged face solemn, touched the smaller man’s shoulder, sharing his mood.

  Renamos stopped her partner before Martil could really get into his laying down of the law. “Please. They need some breathing space to glue themselves together. I don’t think they have the Haukiets’ recuperative powers.” Tae smiled wanly, confirming her guess. She went on. “Let them have a short recess. If any of them balk at the negotiations later on, we’ll throw the holograms at them again — harder.”

  Martil’s eyebrows arched. “Can we?”

  She set her jaw in a stubborn line. “Yes, we can.”

  “All right. All right!” His momentary flicker of irritation and uncertainty died as quickly as it had flared up. “You’re probably correct.”

  Renamos told the matriarch, “We understand, Most High. You wish time to calm your hearts and minds before you vote.”

  “I — I thank you for your patience, Arbiters.” Onedu took the Earthwoman’s hands briefly, relaying her gratitude. When the matriarch announced the recess, many of the Niandians hurried into comfort stations and lounges connected to the big room. All of the propaganda images had vanished from the walls. Now there were only doors, providing access to privacy niches. From some of those alcoves issued sounds of vomiting and horror-stricken cries. The Arbiters’ holograms followed the assembly even into its hiding places, sickening them, hammering home the necessity of peace. For long minutes, there could be no business progress. It was going to take a while for the matriarch’s conference to be in any condition to make rational decisions.

  Gradually, things cooled off a trifle. Shaken and jittery officials emerged from the lounges and wandered about, talking to one another in muted, chastened tones. Renamos, Martil, and Tae waited on the sidelines, watching. This was a new experience for her, and an achingly familiar one for her partners. None of them felt any malicious satisfaction. Nor did they have a sense that they’d taught the Niandians a lesson. They’d simply done what they had to to save this sector of the galaxy. If reason prevailed, the ordeal was well worth it. Serious nuts-and-bolts discussions concerning a cease-fire could begin. There would be the inevitable inertia to overcome, getting the ball rolling. Undoubtedly, more people would die before the truce was finally in place. But hopefully the numbers would be fewer and fewer, day by day, until both sides were trading words, quibbling over terms in the instrument of peace and not trading bomb strikes and salvos between space fleets.

  Every minute of delay held risk. It not only meant more innocent victims in this conflict. It held the terrifying possibility that a remaining “victory or death” diehard would become desperate to the point of suicide and pull the trigger on the Bender Principle weapon.

  Little wonder they’d be desperate. Fanatics, realizing their last chance for continuing this brutal war was slipping out of their reach.

  The Arbiters had to persuade everyone to disengage as quickly as possible. A balance beam separating peace from holocaust teetered on a fulcrum — this conference. The holograms had been designed to push the scales toward peace, before irrevocable steps were taken in the other direction.

  A few yards from the Arbiters, the matriarch began holding court, of a sorts. One by one, her ministers and the premiers came by her in a shambling parade. Whispering with her. Occasionally glancing fearfully at Renamos and her partners.

  Chayo took the arm of a fat deputy premier and led him gently toward the Arbiters. The older man’s belly heaved with sobs, and tears coursed down his mauve-colored, plump features.

  “Tell them,” Chayo prodded. “Do not be afraid.”

  “Oh, if — if we had only known!” the man cried. “If we had only known. How terrible it is! Terrible!”

  Renamos nodded sympathetically. The deputy premier seemed startlingly familiar. Why did she remember him so well?

  “Those — those Green Union infants … the poor, poor things! And all those others — dying. Bleeding. Horrible! Unbearable! If we had only known. If Esher had only known, she would never have been so …”

  The nagging something that had been hiding in the depths of Renamos’s thoughts went click! Pieces fell into place rapidly, memories rocketing into reach. She grabbed Tae’s hand and shoved his fingers against her head, begging him to pick up on what she was discovering. Maybe he could hasten her train of thought along.

  “It was you,” she said. “Everybody else spoke to her just once. But you spoke to her twice.”

  “Wh-what, my Lady?” the mauve-faced man exclaimed, taken aback. “Spoke to …”

  “Her Eminence. Zia. The first time, you babbled about a trade agreement with the Sush worlds. But the second time you called her ‘Daughter of Onedu,’ and said that Esher requested something. When you did that, Zia looked around and waited for Beyeth to break through the crowd and rescue her. Because her Eminence had heard what she needed to hear,” Renamos said, an awful sinking feeling seizing her. “I thought she was just being impatient. But it was a great deal more than that. You’d tipped her off so she’d know Lady Esher and the Gevaris were set. When we arrived at the spaceport, they were ready to kidnap me and start trying to twist my point of view around to match theirs.”

  “N-no …”

  Martil leaned toward the cowering little man, studying him intently.

  “Yes,” Renamos retorted. “I would have remembered sooner, if my memories hadn’t been messed up by all those drugs they fed me. But it’s coming clear, finally. You gave Esher’s message to Zia …”

  Chayo’s expression was aghast. The matriarch, overhearing the confrontation, hurried toward the Arbiters. She and her son were both struggling to deny the obvious. Renamos rounded on Onedu, demanding, “What relation is Esher to you? Chayo called her ‘beloved of my mother.’ What does that mean?”

  “She was Premier Kilar’s second in command,” Chayo said, his voice cracking as understanding overcame his earlier refusal to accept logic.

  The matriarch stammered, “Esh-Esher was my mother-sister — daughter of my mother.”

  “Zia’s aunt.” Renamos glared accusingly at the fat man. Tae and Martil were already doing so. She said, “Zia. Esher. Equally devoted to last-ditch protection of their people, their children. Devoted to the point of utter fanaticism. Zia’s gone beyond your normal maternal caring instincts, Onedu. Taken them to deadly lengths. When I watched her, after you’d seen the holograms, I thought she was looking for a place where she could cry in peace. Instead, she was counting noses — votes. And figuring out that her faction will lose. The princess wants the war to go on.” The matriarch shook her head, appalled, mouthing denials. Renamos had no time to be gentle with the woman. “It’s a fierce desire to guard Niand at all costs. Zia’s convinced that’s only possible, now, if she takes charge and destroys the enemy totally — despite our warnings. Lady Esher wasn’t the top Gevari. Zia is!”

  “Are you certain?” Martil asked, his manner steely tense.

  “Positive! Oh, damn! She isn’t here. She’s already left the conference area, and I don’t think she went to do anything as frivolous as powder her nose. She can’t allow a truce, not from her twisted way of seeing the universe.”

  “She will seek a fait accompli,” Martil said, nodding. Common sense told Renamos that he couldn’t have used a French idiom, but that was the way her Ka-Een translated it — into terms handiest for her. She exclaimed, “There has to be a fifth Bender Principle weapon! One the security people haven’t found. Maybe one nobody but the Gevaris know about. And after she’s fired it, Zia believes peace negotiations will be pointless — because she’ll have wiped the Green Union into dust.” Whirling, she clutched at Chayo’s shirt. “Where would she hide that weapon? We’ve got to stop her, before it’s too late!”

  Mother and son hesitated for a heartbeat, staring at one another, their mutual
terror tangible. Then Onedu blurted, “It — it must be in her suites, in the southwest wing. But she wouldn’t … Chayo! Guide them there! Quickly! Save us! Save us!”

  The prince and the Arbiters raced out of the conference room. Renamos sensed rather than heard the matriarch ordering some of the royal bodyguards to form a detachment and follow. Not that they’d be of much help. By the time they got organized, they’d be long outdistanced. And the four couldn’t afford to stop and wait for that uniformed backup.

  Tae and the Ka-Eens prodded at Chayo’s mind, wanting to anticipate where all of them were heading. No luck. The prince’s confused emotional state got in the way.

  Renamos galloped, pushing herself hard to keep up with the men. They rushed through interconnecting corridors and up and down numbers of ramp escalators.

  I could kick myself, she thought. Female intuition? Hah! Zia faked me out expertly. I was too locked into my own biases. I pegged her as just a beautiful symbol, just as I would have disdained an overly handsome airheaded male fashion plate back on Earth. I’ve been thinking like a member of a cultural minority instead of like an Arbiter. I’ve got to grow up and become a full member of the team.

  We have to catch her. It’s no good arresting her after she’s done the deed. By then, the Haukiets will be gone — and so will humanity and all other life for light-years outside the Niandian Federation …

  There was a line of uniformed men ahead. They formed a living obstacle, blocking the corridor. And they were pointing billy-club guns at the Arbiters and the prince.

  Chapter 14

  TAE shoved Chayo against the wall and Martil and Renamos dropped flat as the soldiers fired. Red streaks sizzled harmlessly the length of the hall. With incredible speed for such a big man, Tae lunged, bowling the Niandian troops over, blocking them cold.

  Then he and Martil galloped on, Renamos in their wake, urging Chayo to hurry up and follow. He did, though looking pretty dazed. No matter. His guidance wasn’t essential anymore. They had to be closing in on Zia’s sanctuary, if those guards had been willing to kill the matriarch’s son to protect the princess’s rear. The soldiers, too, must be Gevaris. Treachery! Right here in the palace!

  Another turn in the corridor, and more guards left disabled by Tae. They were lying sprawled on either side of a door like dozing library lions. And just beyond, a woman’s body was lying at an awkward angle. Half her head was gone, blasted away by a lethal bolt from a Niandian gun. What remained showed that the woman had been spectacularly ugly.

  Renamos and Chayo stumbled to a halt and Chayo exclaimed, “Beyeth! No!”

  “She was loyal to the wrong ruling person, to the matriarch, rather than to Zia. And obviously it cost Beyeth her life. Get moving! Or she’s going to be only the first of billions. Which way?”

  Chayo gulped down his nausea and pointed.

  Running. Lungs laboring. Throat aching. Renamos’s Ka-Een pulsated in sympathy with her stress. But to her relief, they were gaining on her partners.

  Up ahead, Martil and Tae were having a grunting, panting argument with more treasonous guards. The struggle was taking place at such close quarters that guns were a hindrance rather than a help. Man-to-man fisticuffs. Chayo charged in eagerly, venting his anger and frustration in old-fashioned muscle-stretching.

  The guards weren’t alone in blocking the corridor. Just beyond that point — and in a better position to take aim with a gun — stood Pasyi, the Gevari agent who’d masqueraded as a med staffer and helped kidnap Renamos. One other escapee from the earlier roundup of rebels, Hij, was in the middle of the brawl.

  Pasyi raised a billy-club gun, her expression icy. Plainly, she didn’t care if she shot down Hij and the guards as well as the Gevaris’ opponents. Just so long as Zia, the rebels’ leader, was left free to complete their last, terrible act of defiance.

  Renamos envisioned General Vunj’s operatives, the men Pasyi had shot at the spaceport. And she made herself respond as though the weapon in Pasyi’s small hand was no more than a training stinger.

  Outside yourself.

  She steered on automatic, as Soh had taught her, touching reserves of energy Renamos didn’t know she possessed.

  Leaping. The billy-club gun’s shaft brushing harmlessly past her as she dived beneath Pasyi’s outstretched arm.

  Seizing the Gevari agent, crashing to the floor …

  I weigh more, Renamos thought, but I can’t count on that.

  The Gevari’s face contorted with rage. Pasyi fought to get her arm free to shoot her assailant.

  Renamos slammed her hands against the smaller woman’s ears, derailing the rebel’s struggles for a moment. And as Pasyi screamed in shock, Renamos grabbed the woman’s silky ponytails and used them as a sling to whip her opponent’s head onto the floor so hard that Pasyi’s skull bounced. The tiny figure went limp.

  Sucking in air, Renamos snatched up the gun and jumped to her feet. She was alone. The doorway behind her was cluttered with the unconscious forms of Hij and the guards. Somewhere ahead, around a bend in the corridor, she could hear the clatter of her partners’ boots and Chayo’s. They’d hurried on, assuming Renamos was capable of taking care of herself — and of Pasyi.

  As she had!

  But there was no time to gloat over that accomplishment. This wasn’t over. Not at all!

  She raced along the hall, cursing her short legs. She couldn’t let Martil and Tae get too far in advance of her. She was part of the team, and they were in this together.

  The corridor ended in a long ramp escalator. Renamos jumped onto it and kept running, swaying wildly as she tried to maintain her balance.

  At the foot of the ramp, the men were arguing with a closed door. Or Martil and Tae were. Chayo stood to one side. He looked somewhat punch-drunk. No wonder! He must be under assault by an emotional and intellectual avalanche. His sister — a traitor. The traitor! He’d been the peacemaker, risking his neck to bring the Arbiters into this and stop the war. And all the time Zia had been working behind the scenes to keep the war going on a bloody marathon to destruction.

  Tae’s enormous strength mastered the door, and it gave suddenly, locks snapping. He and Martil rushed forward.

  Thanks to her position on the descending ramp, Renamos could see over their heads and past them, into the chamber beyond. Zia stood there, out of the men’s reach, and she was pointing a billy-club gun. They had no weapons, though Chayo did. He must have picked one up from the supply dropped by the guards the three of them had overpowered earlier during their mad dash.

  But he wasn’t moving! Wasn’t making any move to counter his sister’s murderous defense.

  “Stop her, Chayo! I can’t shoot from this angle!”

  It was too late. A dazzling red glare lit up the scene in the room for a fraction of a heartbeat, and Martil and Tae fell.

  Pain ripped at Renamos. Pain more awful than anything she had ever borne, had ever imagined. Not physical pain. Worse. Deeper. Part of her very being ripped out of her. Part of her … essence.

  But what remained forced her on. She reached the bottom of the escalator, leaped off, running into the chamber beyond the broken door. The red afterglow from Zia’s shot still brightened the room. When she had fired, something had resisted the deadly bolt with awesome, alien strength before it collapsed, and the radiance was the fallout of that resistance.

  Renamos dodged to one side, ducking behind a bank of Niandian machinery. She peered around a corner and tried to draw a bead on Princess Zia.

  Chayo was entering the room, crossing it. He was wide-eyed, walking like a zombie. And he came between Renamos and his sister. Behind him, Zia was raising her arm, pointing. And Chayo followed her, moving further into the chamber, still shuffling like an automaton or someone trapped in a hypnotic spell.

  The two of them halted by a large display, a Niandian computer of some sort. Renamos knew with terrifying certainty what the thing was.

  But now Chayo had stepped aside, and she had a clear view
of Zia. Renamos rose and aimed the Niandian gun she’d confiscated from Pasyi.

  If only I can make this thing work! she prayed, desperately.

  And abruptly, she knew how. Skills she alone couldn’t have commanded. Fire lanced out of the weapon’s tip, streaking toward Zia. Halfway there, it was stopped. Splattering against an invisible barrier, splashing to the floor, a beautiful shower of melted red energy.

  Renamos emptied the billy-club gun in vain. Zia didn’t even glance around at her. The princess was busy. Bending over that computer. Chayo gawked at her and took one tentative step in her direction. His sister turned to him, fury etched on her lovely features.

  Abandoning the useless gun, Renamos ran to the invisible barrier. She couldn’t hear what brother and sister were saying, but she could see them quite clearly. Chayo put out a hand, pleading. Zia slapped him so hard that his teeth popped. Then she was screaming at him, though no sound reached Renamos on the other side of the force field. Chayo dropped to his knees, bowing his head, his lips moving in a mumble of apology and his hands clasped in abject submission.

  He couldn’t do it, could he? The weapon he’d been carrying lay on the floor, forgotten.

  She was his sister. His absolute superior. He loved her, and he’d spent a lifetime being poured into a cultural mold that prevented him from breaking the psychological hold binding him. He couldn’t defy her, overpower her, kill her. Not even to save the peace.

  Zia’s hands were on the computer once more. Her lips were moving, too, but not in apology, as Chayo’s were. The princess was sending the command, setting an irrevocable process in motion.

  A process that would destroy the Haukiets and all other life within their sphere of influence and between their stellar regions and the Niandians’.

  Earth. A cinder. Evy, Susan, Tran Cai, Maria, Deputy Mayor Lupez, gone. Never knowing what had hit them. Innocent victims. A few among billions, perhaps trillions of innocent victims of Zia’s “victory or death!” hatred.