by Celeste Raye
And the Federation always lied.
Always.
There was rebellion all across the universe at the moment. The Federation was fighting for its very survival. Many beings were tired of being subjugated, of being cast into class systems and depressed due to their species or gender.
She knew that, but that seemed so far away at the moment.
Revant Two was a private planet with little tech or communication with the larger universe. It was a simple place, and it had been designed to stay that way so that it could grow and thrive at a more natural rate. Its resources were plentiful, but it was near no wormholes or trade routes. It had little to offer to any who would plunder it. The nearest planet was also held by survivors of the death of the original Revant system, and they too shunned tech and other things that would make their planet appealing for space and land pirates.
They had no trade interests, no import or export products. They had no fleets but for the few ships piloted by very little, and those ships did bring in needed supplies. They needed supplies because the planet had so little to offer to any advanced race. This made it even less likely to be plundered.
It was the first time in her entire life that Jenny had felt any kind of safety and comfort. It was the first time that she had ever felt like she belonged in the world and that she had a place based on not who she was born to but what she was capable of, and her smile grew wider and longer as she moved forward, heading down the steep hills and away from the small hut that she lived in, and had helped to build as well.
The fact that she had wound up there, on that planet purchased by four brothers, the last of a royal bloodline that had once ruled over a large section of a planet now gone and dead, still seemed so far-fetched to her.
That she did belong, that she would never be forced to live in the stale air and dimness of the Below ever again: it still seemed like a wild dream, a fever dream, and she often prayed that if it was just a dream that she be allowed to sleep forever.
It often did feel like it wasn’t even real. There were times that she would wake up in the middle of the night and find herself having to concrete herself into her current place and situation by taking stock of everything in the small hut that she now lived in.
The hut was mean and simple, made of nothing more than stacked stone carefully mortared with mud and roofed with simple straw held down by cornerstones. But it was the first place she had ever been that was truly hers. Nobody had assigned it to her. There was a small window that let in light and stars shine.
The bed was a simple pallet structure, but it was the finest she had ever had. There were several shelves on the wall, and she was forever finding small things that she found beautiful, and she placed them on the shelves with real pride and often stood at the shelves looking at the small stones, the hollowed out bird’s egg, the seashells, and the delicate and abandoned bird’s nest with true appreciation and joy.
Sometimes, looking at those things, she would first shiver with joy and then the terrible fear that they were not real, that none of this was real and that at any moment she would wake again, in the six-by-ten-foot room that had been home to her and her family since her birth. The space assigned to them had been small because her father had a labor job and her mother had as well. They earned very little credits, and many of them were taken before the pay dates even arrived. The Federation took their taxes and their due for the space they occupied. They had to pay a tariff for the air pumped into the Below, for the power grids, and everything else the Federation regulated and gave, or withheld for lack of credits.
There had rarely been enough left over for anything beyond the nutro-loaf and coarse bread that so many who lived Below subsisted upon.
Her entire life had been drudgery and darkness. Was it really possible that she had escaped that?
Even when she was awake, there was many a moment when she would have to pinch herself or ground herself into her present reality by dipping her fingers into the grass or the river or by stepping into the ocean.
That last was what kept getting her in trouble.
The sea drew her in a way she could not explain. The water at the shore was shallow and warm and salty, and she would stand in it sometimes for hours just letting it lap against her ankles and legs. She had not known that it would rise so suddenly and that it could carry her out into the depths of the ocean where she would most assuredly drown and die until it had almost happened.
Marik had seen her being dragged away by the tide and he had rushed in to save her, but he had not been happy about the situation. In fact, he called her a silly little idiot.
Marik.
Her heart gave a powerful contraction as she thought about him. He was tall, taller than any human she had ever seen. He stood at least seven feet tall, and his shoulders were broad from so many years of working as a slave in the mines on a mining planet. His arms rippled with muscle, as did his chest. His waist was lean and narrow and his stomach flat but also thick with muscle. His legs were long, and everything about him sent her senses staggering every time she thought about him.
She could not continue to indulge in the small daydreams and fantasies that sometimes leaped into her mind at the sight of him. Unlike his brothers—Renall, Jeval, and Talon—Marik’s eyes were a deep brown. They had a way of looking right into hers and making her feel as if he was seeing things that she would rather he did not see.
Unlike his brothers, he had a gentle air about him despite his massive size and the scars from battle etched across his face and arms. Talon especially frightened her. He was no longer on the planet; he was gone somewhere, probably wrecking Federation ships or engaging in some bloody battle along with one of the women who had also been on the ship with her: — Jessica.
Jessica was a Capo at one point and one of the law officers whose job was to keep order on old Earth.
Old Earth was in chaos. The war had begun there and rebellion had been vicious. Much of the planet had been destroyed centuries before and now even more of it was gone due to the war between the Gorlites, the Federation traitors, and the humans and those who had assisted them during that uprising.
The uprising that Jessica and Talon had started!
The very idea of all that fighting made Jenny shudder. Her soul was too gentle and she knew it. Her heart quailed at the very idea of war.
And why wouldn’t it?
She had watched her parents be dragged away, kicking and screaming and begging for their lives, by Capo officers when it had been discovered that her mother had found a way to first collect and then plant seeds in small containers that she hid along no longer used corridors of the Below.
Those small plants, mere herbs and the occasional vegetable, had sometimes been the only thing that stood between them and starvation or illness.
That small bit of freshness from those herbs, that green and textured crispness, was often all that stood between Jenny and despair. It was the knowing that there was something that could grow down there after all that made it better.
And the herbs did prevent illness. Her mother had also managed to first collect and use and then grow things that could create medicine. Her mother had been daring enough to go above ground to get the things that she needed. She had done so with the help of a book that she had Jenny memorize, teaching her how to read from it and how to identify things from it before Jenny was barely old enough to talk.
Her mother had used those things to feed them and quite a few of the people who lived Below. She had used the things that she collected from her excursions, illegal and dangerous as they were, above ground to make medicines that would help those who were in need. She gave the medicine to healers and to those who could not afford to go to the pharmos.
But in the end, it had been a healer who had turned them in. A healer who had been so desperate to save his own life and to get the treatment that he needed for the disease that was killing him that he had gone to the Capo and betrayed her mother.
Her father had, of course, attempted to intervene, to save the life of the woman that he loved. His own death had been assured by that. Jenny had been held back by concerned neighbors and Ben, the man she had been engaged to.
Ben’s strong arms had wrapped around her, and his warm breath had washed across her cheek and ear as he had whispered, “You cannot save them, Jenny. You will simply die too. You must stay with me.”
She had stayed with him. Not only because he was right but because she could not bear to witness the public execution in the center of the Below’s business district.
That was how the Federation operated. They made examples of people who were simply desperate and starving. They killed them but not before they tortured them to try to discover if there were any others engaged in the same activity that they had been caught in.
Her parents had known quite a lot about what happened there, but they had kept their silence. They were stronger than she would’ve been; Jenny was sure of it. She had heard of what happened to people in the interrogation rooms, and she was sure that even if she had not known any of the things that the Capo asked, she would’ve made some things up in an effort to end the torture.
The sound of the wind rushing toward her, flattening the grass and making the leaves of the tall trees rustle and clatter together, the hushed roar and murmur of the ocean on the shore and the sound of the flying creatures above as they called and sang while they made their way across the sky, jerked her out of that terrible past and into the present.
Her eyes went to the small buildings erected along a shining stretch of sandy earth. Everyone was given a job. Everyone did whatever work they felt called to do or were capable of doing. She had yet to find her niche, and so she kept getting bounced from one task to another.
She did not really mind that. She had discovered that she enjoyed learning things and not having one specific skill meant that she was accruing quite a few.
Her mood soured though as she considered that she was now being sent to the buildings where Marik tended to the ill and injured.
Marik was a natural healer. She knew he had abilities beyond any that she could imagine and that working with him would be an honor. There were many who had tried and who did well. Not that many stayed on because Marik had said that their skill level wasn’t quite up to what it should be in the case of emergency. That while they knew simple healing that would stand them in good stead if someone was injured while they were working on another task, and they could help them there, he would prefer to continue to try out new people.
It was not just that Marik was hard to please. He and his siblings had decided that it would be best if everyone knew some simple healing. At the moment, it was only the small town made up of less than seventy-five huts and a few other buildings on the planet.
That would change though; there would be new life born of those who were already there, and others would come. The population would spread out, and healers would be necessary in every place, even if all they knew how to do was tend to the smallest and mildest of injury and illness.
She was fairly sure, given her background, that she would enjoy the work if only she did not have to see Marik!
Her feet, bare and browned by the sun, carried her through the soft grass and wildflowers. There was a small track, barely visible, running through that grass now. The track had been made by feet, not by tools and she regarded it as she went.
How long would it be before massive cities like the ones on Old Earth took over this planet as well?
None of them wanted that. Not the siblings who had purchased that planet and brought what remained of their families and those most loyal to them there. Not those who would come along. She did not want that either. She liked the fact that things were so simple there.
Jenny knew that it would happen eventually, but she hoped that it would be a long time in the future. Every day was a struggle for survival, but she was used to that. The struggle there on Revant Two was a vastly different struggle than the one she had known on Old Earth.
On Revant Two, everyone shared. Food was distributed equally and evenly. Those who could not hunt or gather or go out onto the waves of the ocean and boats were not denied food because they too had a purpose and a task and everything and everyone contributed to the whole.
On Old Earth, the struggle was for power and just to live. The death of those who had less was so common that those who lived in the Below rarely had time to mourn one death before another one came. In many ways, they had become desensitized to the deaths of their family and their neighbors.
Here, every loss was counted. Just a few days ago an older and frail being had passed away. There had been much ceremony in burying him, and they had all sat around for very long time in the center of their little town listening to those who had known him speak of him and his deeds.
That last part was what touched her heart the most. Here people were remembered not for what they had accrued or what they were born to but what they had done with their lives.
The building was right in front of her now. She put a hand up to the carved wooden door and pressed just slightly. It opened, and she entered. The building had a long central hallway that led both east and west. Small rooms had been placed along the hallways for patients. She could hear voices coming from the eastern side of the building, and she headed that way, the simple blue dress that she wore flapping around her knees as she went.
She rather liked the dress. One of the beings, a gentle and shy creature named Willow, of indeterminate race and species, had begun to make them for the women there on the planet. Willow spun the fabric out of simple things and dyed it with berries and grasses. Jenny had never owned a dress before, and now she had three. She preferred it to the stark tunic and trousers that were given out to every citizen of Old Earth.
Marik stood in a room, conversing with several others. His dark eyes lifted from the thing he was looking at and he stilled.
Again that feeling came back. His eyes were probing deep into her heart and mind and soul, searching out things that she didn’t even know herself yet. Jenny looked away quickly.
Marik’s voice was soft and calm. “Jenny, I’m glad you are here. Come in. Today we have no patients, so we are just discussing ways to treat things.”
Her bare feet whispered across the floor, and she came to where the rest of them stood. On the long table that had been set up there in the room sat a variety of small bowls. Many of the ships had carried in furnishings and other supplies, and even now Talon brought a great deal of things to them that they had much need of.
Her head tilted to one side as she regarded the bowls. “What is this?”
Marik said, “We are trying to figure out a way to stretch the medications that we have here. There’s never enough, and even though the supply ships will probably bring us more at some point, we're going to have to begin supplying those who would create colonies further away from this one.”
Jenny lifted her eyes to his. “And you do not want to rely too heavily on having it brought into a supply ship.”
Marik’s lips lifted his cheekbones. His face lit up. Her heart gave a hard and heavy pound in her chest, and she looked away quickly.
The image of Ben came back up in her mind.
Ben was not much taller than she was, and very slender due to the diet that those who lived in the Below were allowed. His hair had turned gray while he was still in his teens, and they were slight but there were wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. His skin, like the skin of all of those who live there, was incredibly pale and slightly gray.
He was kind, considerate, and funny. After her parents died, he had hidden her for weeks just in case the Capo decided to come back and take her and execute her due to her familial connections.
That had not happened, but what had happened was even worse. She had been put on a ship and sent away.
Her eyes went back to the bowls. A frown creased her high brow. She asked, “What is this?”
&nbs
p; Marik said, “It is the bark of a tree. It’s known to reduce coughs and other things.”
Jenny’s heart began to pound. There was a secret about her family that she had never told anyone. It was not so much the herbs growing in the small pots that had gotten her parents killed. It was the way that they had gotten the seeds that had begun those things that had done it. And it was not just the seeds either; it was her mother’s vast trove of knowledge, the knowledge of growing and green things that could only be found above ground in the cities massive parks. The parks that were only to be used by those who lived above ground.
She shook her head. “It’s the wrong tree.”
Marik looked at her, one eyebrow tilting up. “It looks like the tree that I found in the database book.”
She nodded. “They do look alike, but it’s not the same tree. See the bark? See how the lines in it go in a sort of waving pattern? That pattern is the wrong pattern. It should look more like this.” She used her fingers, and traced along the bark to show them what she meant. She added, “Not only that, there should be a white powder here below the outer layer of the bark, but there isn’t any. If there’s none of that there, then you can’t use the bark for what you want.”
Marik asked, “How can you be sure?”
Jenny’s head lowered. Fear started up, and she had reminded herself that she was no longer on the planet of her birth. That here the knowledge that she held, the knowledge that she had grown up learning at her mother’s knee was not just valuable but needed.
Jenny said, “I don’t know if there’s a difference because we're no longer on a planet that I know, but I do know that without that inner layer, that white powdery stuff, this bark is maybe not useless, but not the bark that you’re looking for.”
Marik leaned back against the wall. His eyes glowed with interest, and she had to look away again. He always did funny things to her heart and emotions. That was wrong. No matter what, Ben was still the man that she loved and was engaged to.
