The Sisterhood

by Juanita Coulson

  “My Lady?” Chayo’s eyes were reddened, but he wasn’t weeping now; he was holding his mother, giving her a shoulder to cry on. A compassionate young prince. He looked questioningly at Renamos, his thoughts terribly obvious.

  “I can’t stay,” she said kindly. “You don’t need me. But Niand needs you. That large and loyal faction of yours will have to help heal the wounds. Your leadership will be vital, to your mother and to the Federation. Put them on a solid footing, for peace.”

  “My mother will have others to aid her,” Chayo replied. Not resentful. Just stating the facts, biologically determined. “Now that Zia is dead, my mother’s sister Wisi will inherit.”

  “Perhaps. Or perhaps it will be a granddaughter. There just may be a capable, highly intelligent Niandian bride in your future.” Her Ka-Een probably translated that somewhat differently than she had expressed it, but Chayo got the idea. He frowned, skeptical. Renamos went on. “You’re quite a catch, you know. Come on. Don’t be so damned self-deprecating all the time. Have some pride. You deserve to. Make the choice to stand on your own two feet, as you did when you first contacted the Arbiters.”

  A glimmer of confidence shone in the prince’s pale eyes. But she hadn’t anticipated his next reaction — a spark aimed in her direction. “My Lady, I would rather serve you.”

  Did her Ka-Een dabble in double entendre? Renamos stood on tiptoe and kissed Chayo. A friendly good-bye kiss, nothing more. He was handsome, likable, and courageous — up to a certain line. But she was keenly aware of the divisions between them, which would prevent anything heavier than a sexual dalliance. And she wanted a lot more than that. Chayo was outside her affinity. Unpossessed by a Ka-Een. Not his fault. Yet he’d always been a stranger because of it.

  “I’m sorry. It wouldn’t work out,” she said. “I’m fond of you, but you lie too much.”

  He was bewildered, though he didn’t argue. Instead, he accepted her decision, edging back a pace. Symbolic. She’d soon be edging away from him. She spoke wordlessly to her Ka-Een, tuning up for another mind-boggling leap. The matriarch lifted her head and blinked, staring apprehensively at the Earthwoman.

  “I leave you now, Most High,” Renamos explained. “I advise you to make peace. And do not rebuild the Ja-Yan device, because the Arbiters will be watching.”

  Niandians paled and blurted oaths, promising to obey. Even Chayo went through those forms, despite the fact that he knew that Niand was comparatively small potatoes on the Arbiters’ galactic scale. The prince had seen what peace meant, during his visit to those remote worlds of the Arbiter culture. As a result, he was now the Arbiters’ man-on-Niand. He’d have the strongest possible motivations for keeping his mouth shut and allowing his people to believe that the Arbiter “Big Brothers” — and “Big Sisters”! — truly were watching everything that went on here. With that daunting sword of Damocles hanging over them, Chayo could subtly guide his species toward a lasting peace.

  “We will be watching,” Renamos repeated. I lie a bit myself, occasionally, don’t I? she thought as she moved into rapport, one with her Ka-Een.

  Nothingness. And then — home.

  It really is home to me, this Arbiters’ nerve-center world, she realized. However long I live, I’m part of the team. If the team still exists.

  Out-of-synchs were eddying around her. Renamos asked, “Where are Martil and Tae?”

  A cold object touched her neck, and lethargy swept over her. She was being supported, led to one of the big hassocks, gently lowered onto it.

  “N-no, it wasn’t that much of a strain, finishing the mission. Don’t put me to sleep yet …”

  A shimmering female figure bent over her. A medic. A sequined flashlight hypo was clutched in one of the alien’s appendages. Renamos got the oddest impression that the medic was grinning at her triumphantly — the way doctors usually did when they’d slipped one over on a recalcitrant patient.

  Like giving the patient a knockout shot for the patient’s own good.

  “That —” Renamos yawned hugely, “— was a damned dirty trick.” But she couldn’t hang on to the thought. Giving up, she sank down into the enveloping warmth of what felt like tons of wonderfully soft cotton.

  Chapter 16

  ONE of the huge medical-monitor cats was lying on Renamos’s hassock bed. Sitting up, she met the animal’s examining stare and responded silently.

  I’m well. Very refreshed. No hangover. My hands aren’t bleeding. My stomach doesn’t hurt. I don’t have a headache. Report to Central that all my functions are normal. And ask them how Martil and Tae are.

  The cat jumped off the hassock and disappeared through a wall.

  Renamos grimaced in annoyance. Well, the beasts were rather primitive empath-telepaths, of course. As hospital aides, though, they were great; no waking you up to stick a thermometer in your mouth or give you a sleeping pill.

  She dressed in a silken jumpsuit that had been draped over the room’s handy valet rack. The garment was designed with a V neckline. How thoughtful, allowing her to accent her best points. Her costume complete, she headed for a wall, sensing that her Ka-Een was steering her toward one particular area in order to make their exit. As they did, Renamos almost tripped over Tae. He was lying in the hall just outside the room and playing with one of the big Siamese medical-monitor cats.

  She knelt beside him, caressing his yellow hair and putting a finger under his craggy chin. Renamos winged a suggestion that he turn his head so she could look him over, and he cooperated willingly. The right side of his face, which had been pillowed in that ooze of pink blood, was as good as new. So was the rest of him. He grinned broadly.

  “Where’s Martil?”

  In answer, he stood and reached for her hand. “I can walk, thanks.” Shrugging, Tae turned and led the way down the corridor. Renamos’s spirits seemed to skip in his wake. Martil had to be alive! She’d feel it, picking up grieving wavelengths from Tae and the Ka-Eens, if the fox-faced Arbiter weren’t.

  Typically, Tae was eating up space with his stride, and she was having some trouble matching his pace. But that was better than being bounced on his hipbone or dragged along like a comet’s tail.

  Finally, they walked through a wall into another of the Center’s “motel rooms.” Martil was lying on the sole hassock occupying this chamber. A monitor cat sat on the foot of the bed, or rather at Martil’s feet. Either the Arbiter didn’t have any reservations about nudity or the out-of-synch doctors didn’t; he wasn’t wearing a stitch, any more than Renamos had been while she was zonked out. She was mildly surprised that she felt no embarrassment at finding him naked. In fact, it seemed perfectly normal, given the circumstances.

  Martil’s chest was bright blue. Some form of shimmering, painted-on bandage. Much better than bloody-red! His vulpine face looked abnormally thin, and there were dark circles under his eyes. Closed eyes. Gently, Renamos brushed the black bangs away from his forehead, relieved to find that the skin was cool, not feverish.

  He blinked, peering up at her.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” She perched carefully on the edge of the hassock near him. Tae flopped down on the other side, making both her and Martil bounce. The cat glared, and Martil gave his friend a mock scowl of disapproval. Seeing that made Renamos want to cry — tears of joy, of release, that both men were well enough once more to play their teasing games with each other.

  Martil’s bony fingers closed around hers and he said, “I’m all right.” The cat gazed at him skeptically.

  “I know Tae is,” Renamos replied. “I fell over him outside my door.” She tentatively examined the blue paint on Martil’s chest.

  “One of our miracle drugs. Our people are very efficient, if they get to you in time,” he explained. “Actually, Tae presented them with much worse problems. He had a brain injury. And he’s lost some memories. His dirnows files will have to help him relearn those areas.”

  Renamos shook her head. “I don’t know what dirnows files ar
e.”

  “Yet,” Martil amended. “Eventually your Ka-Een will guide you into an understanding of that, along with many other facets of our culture.” He exchanged a glance with Tae, then went on, “But you have already learned a very great deal. Fortunately for us, and for the Niandians and the Haukiets. And for your people of Earth. You did superbly. I told you that when you were ready for full Arbiter status, you would be the first to know it.”

  “Actually, my Ka-Een was the first,” Renamos said. She traced invisible patterns on the hassock, feeling sad. “I was forced to kill Niandians. A lot of them. Oh, I know what would have happened if I hadn’t stopped Zia and the other Gevaris. I had to make the choice to stop them, to save billions of other beings. Back on Earth, I used to be contemptuous of those who claimed that it was sometimes necessary to sacrifice a few to save many. I found that hard to believe. I wanted to save everybody. Well, nearly everybody. But now I’ve lived through a situation where there was no option.” She took a deep breath. “The Bender Principle weapon, and its operator, had to be dismantled. I never realized I could move at a thousand — a million! — times the speed of light.”

  “We can’t. No humanoid can. You couldn’t have done it alone.” Martil was rubbing absentmindedly at the mole on his chin. Renamos smacked his hand. The monitor cat growled. But when Martil grinned sheepishly, the animal shut up, mollified.

  “You ought to have that damned thing zapped off,” Renamos scolded. “Can’t the out-of-synchs do that for you?”

  “Of course. I choose to keep it. A personal idiosyncrasy. My choice. We are free to follow our own desires, when those do not harm others.” Renamos nodded, the light moment drifting away from her and depression returning. Sensing what was troubling her, Martil said, “It had to be done. You mustn’t feel guilty.”

  “I don’t. Not guilt. Just sorrow. I didn’t kill Zia and her fanatics out of pettiness or anger or any other shallow motive.”

  Martil and Tae smiled, amused. “You wouldn’t have been able to,” Martil said. “Not for petty reasons.”

  “The Ka-Eens know when we’re ready for such a terrible responsibility,” Renamos agreed.

  Hungrily, Martil sought for the pendant lying at his throat. He held the tiny pseudo-metallic cage and its entity in a kind of one-handed embrace. “Yes,” he murmured. “The Ka-Eens know.”

  “Is it … how is Chayo’s Ka-Een working for you? Okay?”

  “Very well. We are adjusting to the rapport with far less difficulty than I would have expected. It seems eager to join with my essence. Apparently Chayo and I have something in common.”

  “You both lie a lot, for sure!”

  He waggled an eyebrow. “Plainly, it had developed no permanent rapport with him. I gather he yielded it up to you quite easily.”

  “For your sake. Yes, he did. A generous gesture, but one that didn’t cost him anything personally. Maybe he’d never needed a Ka-Een in the first place,” Renamos said. “I brought him home safely from Hell-All the same way I brought myself through to Niand riding your lead beam. My affinity with the Ka-Een essence gives me a special boost.”

  “You could not have carried me in the same way. Chayo wasn’t bleeding to death when transport occurred.”

  Aghast, Renamos exclaimed, “And you were? Lord! I was afraid it was really bad, but … I’m damned glad Chayo’s pendant worked. Even more than I was before I knew what the situation was.”

  The ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth. “Indeed. Thank you for your gifts, and your wisdom in assessing what was needed. If we ever have occasion to visit Niand again, I will thank Chayo.”

  “I doubt any of us will see Niand from now on,” Renamos said. “We’re not essential to the peace process there, anymore. Their choices have been made, finally. The right choices.”

  “We have been briefed as to what happened after we were disabled,” Martil told her. Briefed. While they were unconscious and recuperating. Just as the “briefing material” must have been extracted from her mind while she was recuperating. The Arbiters certainly had an efficient system for tidying up loose ends. A woman could get used to that — and a lot of other advantages the Arbiter culture offered. “It was well done, Renamos. All of it.” Tae nodded a second, his Haukiet blue eyes gleaming.

  Renamos stared into nothing, remembering. “When push came to shove, Zia would have killed Chayo without hesitation, if he’d tried to stop her. But he couldn’t have killed her. Too much affection. And a lifetime of conditioning as a cultural minority. I know the feeling. On Earth, I had to reach deep inside myself to break those same ground-in patterns. Unequal humanoid social systems are both pervasive and addictive. After existing under them for hundreds of generations, people assume that’s the only way things can ever be. We can’t see that whether or not biology is destiny, it’s the humanoid mind and our individual abilities that have to determine what we are and how we should be perceived.”

  Martil managed a sly smile. “You want Chayo to establish a so-called men’s lib on Niand.”

  “Maybe he will,” Renamos snapped. Then she sighed. “I’m still kicking myself a bit because I let matters get so out of hand there. I could have gotten to Zia sooner, before no options remained, if I’d just spotted her scheming. When Chayo tried to call her for help, when we were being attacked at Hell-All, she got his message, all right. She just used it to confirm that he — and we — were there, and told her Gevaris to pour it on and kill us. She sent the bomb strike on his apartment, too, after we’d first landed on Niand; he’d checked in with her, like a dutiful brother and a proper cultural minority, as soon as we entered his quarters. Why the hell didn’t I put the pieces together then?”

  “Because none of us is perfect,” Martil said. “We should have detected her plot ourselves. But we did not.”

  “I’m female!” Renamos cried. “I should have felt it.”

  “Spoken like a cultural minority? Relying on your alleged female intuition. What did you just note? That it was individual mind and ability which should determine a humanoid’s status. And her or his ego, I might add. Zia was a fanatic,” Martil said, his expression grim. “And fanatics are notoriously difficult to fathom.”

  “And yet, there’s a part of me that knows how she ended up in that victory-or-death corner of hers. She suffered from an excess of caring, of matriotism, in Niandian terms. Her own point of view became the only one possible. She cared so much it blotted out any possibility of compromise. Zia couldn’t back off, rein in her anger, and see if there wasn’t a path out of the problem that wouldn’t harm others — and her own …”

  “She had not learned the true victory, as Soh puts it,” Martil commented. “No unnecessary blow.”

  “One gets caught up in the passion of caring,” Renamos went on, opening an old wound, letting the pain flow out of her being. “Seeing the enemy all around. The callous. The abusers. The drug dealers and amoral criminals who feed on other people’s miseries. The politicians who are only interested in maintaining their authority. The cheating businesspeople, endangering the public. Everyone who forgets what being a member of an intelligent species is all about.”

  “But you did not resort to an attempt at wide-scale murder, as Zia did,” Martil consoled her. “You would not have done so, even had you possessed Zia’s power and her weapons. That is not your nature. It never has been.”

  Remembered anger, from a previous life, and final twinges of uncertainty faded. Renamos said, “Well, I had good guidance. My parents. Evy and my friends. You weirdos. With so much help, how could I fail to learn my own potentials and learn how to live without trampling on other beings’ choices.”

  “Indeed!” Martil exclaimed. “And you chose to complete the mission as it had to be completed. Now Niand, Haukiet, your origin planet, and countless others have the freedom to make their future choices. And in time, many of them will achieve the free culture of the type we Arbiters enjoy.”

  “If Earth doesn’t blow itself up first,�
� Renamos said, growing gloomy again. “Or destroy the ozone layer and create an uninhabitable greenhouse world. Or poison its water and soil past reclamation. Or overpopulate itself out of a food supply. Or …”

  Martil’s eyebrows disappeared under his bangs. “What a marvelous species you come from! How did someone of such a background ever adapt to our system? After all, the Arbiters can offer you none of the ‘privileges’ to which you are accustomed — including the position of a cultural minority.”

  Stung, Renamos said, “I’ve got news for you. Both of you. I refuse to be a cultural minority, on Earth or here! And this Arbiter team is now really balanced. My Ka-Een is female. So ha!”

  “You’re being chauvinistic,” Martil chided, his eyes twinkling mischievously. He was exceedingly weak, yet. If he tried to get out of bed, no doubt that monitor cat would yell for help, telepathically, and the doctors would zap Martil with a hypo and make him behave. Nevertheless, the fox-faced Arbiter’s sense of humor was fully recovered, and his tongue worked just fine.

  “I am not being chauvinistic,” Renamos said, irked. “Not really. And if I am, it’s a special brand of chauvinism. Long overdue. Call it Renamos pride, and get used to it. I intend to hang on to it indefinitely, as far as I can go into the future.”

  Martil shammed a weary sigh. Tae laughed, his huge body shaking and making the hassock jiggle like a waterbed.

  Underlining her point, Renamos went on, “You grabbed me off my world, away from my friends and coworkers. Now you have to provide a viable replacement. I don’t know, exactly, when I stopped thinking of myself as Renee Amos and became Renamos of the Sisterhood of the Nine Worlds. But that’s what I am now. And I’m going to remain Renamos. Permanently.”

  “Since we can’t send you back, I suppose we’ll have to make the best of it,” Martil said. The twinkle in his eyes resembled twin stars. “Even if you do have this quaint, cultural-minority instinct to fight for your rights before checking to see if you might already possess those rights. Or indeed if they are rights which you really want to have. You might prefer to discard them, and assume other, much more desirable ones. Such as total choice, and a partnership in an Arbiter team.”