Chain of Secrets

by Jaleta Clegg

  Tunisia ate in silence. I felt her eyes watching me.

  "Tears aren't very good seasoning," she said finally. I heard a slight softening of her voice. She sighed. "You surprised me. I thought you were long dead, in the riots. I had no way of knowing you survived." She stopped, clearing her throat and brushing her own tears away.

  "I don't blame you. I got over blaming anyone a long time ago." I stuck my spoon into the stew. I was hungry, despite everything. I ate a bite. It was good, seasoned with herbs that rolled smoothly over my tongue.

  She watched me eat in silence for a moment. "Tell me," she whispered, a note of pleading in her voice. "You're the only family I have."

  I felt a sudden surge of empathy for the old woman seated across the crude table from me. I reached for her hand. It was thin, bony and knotted with age, but warm. She turned it palm up and squeezed my hand.

  "Darus is still out there," I said. "Your son-in-law."

  She shook her head. "I never met him. I don't know him."

  "You don't know me, either."

  "But you're here, now. And I was the one who birthed you. I changed your diapers. I held you while you screamed with colic. You were such a tiny thing."

  I ate stew in silence. She faded into memories, staring at the flame of the candle guttering between us.

  "You had dark hair, a thick wave of it. You used to love to watch the birds, even when you were tiny."

  I swallowed hard, past a thick lump in my throat. I'd watched birds out the windows of the orphanage.

  "What do you do now? Admiral Dace?" Her voice was unsure, her words brave but the tone questioning. "You command ships?"

  "Not hardly."

  "Then what?"

  "It's complicated," I hedged.

  She waited.

  "I'm not really an Admiral. I enlisted six weeks ago." Six long weeks. Too much had happened.

  "As an Admiral?" She looked confused.

  "I told you it was complicated."

  She ventured a small smile. I returned it.

  "Then perhaps you'll explain it," she said. "The winters are long. The snows will start falling soon and there will be little to do."

  "All right," I agreed. I was unsure how to go about sharing myself, though. I'd never really done it before, not this way.

  "So what was it like, in the orphanage?" Tunisia asked. "Hot food every morning, soft beds. You never grubbed in the forest for your dinner or chopped wood to keep warm."

  I studied her wrinkled face in the candlelight. Years of hard living had left an indelible mark on her.

  "It was hard," I said. "I spent most of my time scrubbing things, floors, pots, walls, whatever. It was better than being beaten by the other girls." I fell silent, studying my own hands. I had calluses from repairing engines. The blisters from using the axe were raw and painful. "The director tried to teach us to be women. We had to embroider and sew a lot. I hated it."

  I could tell from her face that Tunisia had no comprehension of living that way. We were from two very different worlds. I stood and gathered the dishes. She let me clear her table and wash her battered dishes in silence. The warm water felt good on my abused hands.

  "What of you?" I asked when I finished. "Where did you grow up?"

  "In the valley below. I moved up here almost thirty years ago. Away from the crowds at the village."

  "Forty people do not make a crowd."

  "They do when you're used to being alone, used to the silences." She got up suddenly, crossing two steps to the cupboard. She pulled a battered box from the bottom shelf and set it on the table near the candle. "You can sew. I can't anymore."

  I bit back my protest. I still hated sewing. Tunisia pulled out handfuls of colored squares of cloth. She spread them on the table.

  "Your mother started this when she was barely old enough to hold a needle," Tunisia said, a note of sadness to her voice as she laid out the squares. "She always said she wanted a wedding quilt to remind her of the forest flowers. She loved the flowers."

  I fingered a square of bright yellow. My mother's quilt. The thought was strange, I felt as if I didn't quite fit in my skin anymore. I knew I would find out about my mother when I came here, but I hadn't imagined it this way.

  Tunisia showed me how to fit the pieces together, showed me the partially assembled quilt. I saw the pattern, a complex interweaving of colored squares, and knew I could never match it.

  "You can finish it," Tunisia said. "It can be your wedding quilt."

  "I'm not staying that long," I said before I could think better of it.

  Tunisia's face went still, her hands clutched at fabric squares between us. "Well," she said, her voice cracking, "I guess you never really knew me. I can't expect you to feel a duty to me. I didn't do right by you, when you were small."

  I reached out impulsively and laid my hand on hers. She glanced up at me.

  "It's too late to change now," I said. "I can't stay here. I have a life to live. I have family I haven't seen in too long."

  "Your father?"

  "Among others."

  She looked puzzled, so I explained. I told her about Jasyn and her annoying brother Jerimon, and how they adopted me into their Gypsy family. I told her about Clark and Ginni. And Clark's sister and Beryn and the others who had crewed for me. They were my family. I told her about Lady Rina and her fortune telling cards. My hands stitched squares together while we talked.

  Tunisia slowly relaxed. She laughed with me over my stories. I deliberately avoided telling her about the troubles I'd been involved in. I stuck with the small stories, the ones that were happy and bright. I didn't fool her. But she let it pass without comment.

  We went to bed late, when the candle was burning low. She still prodded me out of bed before sunrise the next morning.

  We spent the day scouring the woods for herbs and nuts and other edibles. She told me of growing up in the mountains. She loved them, even now, I sensed it in her words and her smiles as we climbed up a wild valley.

  We spent several days sharing our lives. It was peaceful, a healing rest for me. But I knew that I could never be happy in that isolated cabin for long. The life was too hard, too subsistence. And it wasn't my life. It was Tunisia's.

  Clouds began to build over the days, thick gray swirls that grew heavier and colder. Tunisia predicted snow soon.

  We were in her cabin. She was showing me how to make a poultice for burns. I was completely inept. It involved cooking.

  "No one ever taught you to cook?" she complained as she tried to rescue my pot of poultice. It was thick, lumpy and gummy, and smelled scorched. Hers was creamy and pale green and smelled of mint.

  "Jasyn and Clark won't let me cook," I said without thinking.

  The surge of homesickness hit without warning. I tried to blink away tears before Tunisia noticed. I shouldn't have bothered.

  "You miss them." She patted my shoulder. "Why did you ever leave?"

  "I had to, and then things got so out of control I had no choice."

  "Tell me what you left out the first time."

  "I can't," I said wearily. "It's classified."

  "And who am I going to tell your secrets to? The wind? The birds?" She patted my shoulder again then turned back to her poultice. "Healing is an art. Herbs can help the body. Talking can help the mind."

  "I made peace with my past," I said, a bit sharply.

  "Then why does it still hurt?"

  I stepped back as if slapped.

  "You've told me the good stories, now tell me the rest. Share the whole story. You've left out something important to you."

  I looked away from her. Maybe she was right. I hadn't told her anything about Tayvis, the pain still felt too raw from losing him. Maybe talking would help.

  "There was a man," I started.

  "We've always been unlucky in love," Tunisia said, understanding more than I thought possible from so few words. "Look at your mother." Look at me, were her unspoken words.

  "Wha
t of your husband?" I asked, suddenly curious.

  She stiffened. "We were talking about you."

  "I'll share if you will."

  "You're in no position to be making bargains."

  "Neither are you."

  She rounded on me, spoon held like a weapon. Her glare was fierce. I met her eye to eye. Something in my look stopped her, gave her pause. She lowered the spoon. "You've touched death."

  "More than I want to remember."

  She turned back to her pot, stirring it vigorously. The only sound in the cabin was the dull thunking of her spoon and the crackling of the fire. She finally put the pot aside.

  "It has to cool now," she said. "Tell me of this man."

  "If you'll tell me about my grandfather."

  She studied me for a very long moment. I sensed her story was as painful as my own. She finally nodded.

  "I suppose you have a right to know." She turned away from me, crushing new herbs into her mixing bowl.

  I watched her work. I didn't know what to say, how to even begin explaining who Tayvis had been to me.

  "What is his name?" Tunisia asked, her back to me as she worked.

  "Was," I said, more harshly than I intended. "He's dead. He died a few weeks ago." I sat heavily at the table and picked up squares of my mother's quilt. "His name was Tayvis."

  She worked quietly, letting me talk at my own pace. I told her much more than I intended. Her silence was sympathetic. It drew the memories from me.

  I told her about meeting him, which involved explaining Dadilan and how I got stranded there. I told her what little I knew of him. I told her how he made me feel. I told her about Trythia and the last time I'd seen him.

  "Lowell told me he was dead," I said, my voice shaky. "Now you know everything. At least everything important about me."

  "No," she answered, "I'm just beginning to know about you."

  A wind gust rattled in the chimney. The fire cracked and spat.

  "What about you?" I asked. "You promised to tell me about my grandfather."

  Her fingers traced the seam I'd just finished. "You do fine work."

  I didn't push her. I let her find her own words, like she'd done for me. She was right, talking to her had eased some of the loss I felt. There was still an aching hole where my heart had been. But I had people to fill it with. If I could ever find my way off this planet.

  "I was young, then," she said. "I used to walk the forest by myself. They called me strange, touched by the forest spirits. Perhaps I was."

  I sewed in silence while she chewed over her memories.

  "I met him one spring, high in the mountains. He called me a sprite. I asked him what that meant. He told me a sprite was a magical being who lived in a flower. He promised me many more tales, if I came to talk to him. I met him in the meadow whenever I could. He told me the most incredible stories."

  She lapsed into silence, a wistful smile on her face. I sewed more squares together. Outside, the wind howled and snow began to fall.

  "He was one of the Spirits. I was warned not to trust them, that they tricked us poor folk, that they only brought harm. I should have listened, but by then I was in love with him. He told me his name was Noruti'Nei, which meant dreamer. I think he was in love with me, too. He called me his mountain sprite. I never believed he would harm me.

  "Spring turned to summer. I met him almost every day. I asked him about his people. I told him I would never consider marrying a man if I didn't know his family. He was gone for a week. I thought I had lost him by asking. I kept visiting our meadow, hoping he'd be there, waiting for me. A week is forever when you're young and in love."

  She limped over to her shelf and stirred her herb mixture.

  "What happened?" I asked, impatient to hear the rest of her story.

  "He came back. He told me he had asked his elders about me. They refused to give him permission to bring me to his home. He said we would have to be careful. We would have to hide. It wasn't enough for me. I kept asking him to see his magical home. He'd told me stories. I was naive enough to believe him. I kissed him and teased him and made promises that I would keep if he would only show me his people and his home. He'd made me curious."

  "Something we have in common," I muttered to myself. My own overactive sense of curiosity had gotten me into a lot of trouble. Tunisia didn't hear me, she was lost in her past.

  "He finally agreed to show me one of their secret places. It was high up the mountain, hidden in a tiny valley. It was magic. No one could enter unless they were one of the Forest Spirits. I was disappointed when he showed me. It was only a spaceship, a cramped one at that. He thought that since I lived here, in the mountains, that I'd never seen or heard of ships."

  I was almost guilty of the same. It was hard to believe that someone who knew about technology would still choose to live in such primitive conditions. But Tivor hadn't given her much choice. Here she did have freedom, in Milaga she would have none.

  "I pretended to be amazed anyway. I gave him what I'd promised."

  She was silent, remembering. I stitched the quilt, wondering what her promise had been.

  "Autumn came," Tunisia said after a long pause. "It took everyone to harvest enough to keep us alive through the winter. It was weeks before I could go back to our meadow. He wasn't there. I never saw him again." She moved her pot to the fire, pouring in a measure of water. The room smelled of herbs, fresh and clean and wild. "I was disgraced when the villagers found out I was expecting a child. I was unmarried. It was an abomination. I never told them who the father was. They thought it must be one of the woodcutter lads.

  "Your mother was born in the spring. By then I'd married the miller's son. He was handsome enough. He loved me, or so he said. He was willing to save my reputation by claiming the child as his. He did love her. Your mother. My little Liri. She was all I ever had to remember Noruti'Nei."

  She straightened, leaving the pot to simmer. "Now you know more than anyone else."

  There were things about her story that nagged at me.

  "Darus, my father, said that Liri's father married them."

  "The miller's son," Tunisia said. "The man I married. Liri never knew the truth. I didn't have the heart to tell her. Jurak died in prison not long after the riots. They caught him in the city. He didn't have the papers to prove who he was." She sighed. "I learned to love him, through all those years. I never could give him the son he wanted. We didn't have any children."

  She stirred the pot. I sensed she was through talking. I still had one more question.

  "You said he took you to a ship?" It bothered me. It didn't fit with the rest of her story.

  "Some kind of escape pod, I think. I tried to go back once. I couldn't open the door."

  I felt my chest tighten. I could guess who my grandfather had to have been.

  "The thing that attracted me to him," Tunisia said, "were his eyes. They were silvery green. A color I'd never seen before. Haven't seen since, either."

  The truth struck me, like a bolt of lightning.

  "The Hrissia'noru," I said. It explained an awful lot. "The lost ones of Jericho."

  Chapter 18

  The knock at the cabin door was loud, a sharp rapping. Militarily precise, Paltronis thought as she got up to answer.

  "Downshift to Tivor in one hour," the young ensign informed her.

  "Thank you," Paltronis said to his retreating back. She let the door slide shut.

  "There's something wrong on this ship," she muttered.

  Scholar glanced at her. He sprawled on the lower bunk, his comp pad spread over his belly. A ball of colored light played above it, floating in the air.

  "You're right. Now can you guess what?" He grinned.

  She glared. "I'm not in the mood for your games."

  "Then I suppose I'll just have to tell you, although it's more fun if you try to guess. Help pass the time."

  "Scholar," she threatened.

  "One moment and I can show you." His finge
rs twisted through the ball of colored light, tugging threads loose and reweaving them deftly together.

  They made an odd pair. Paltronis was short, compact, a weapon even without being armed. Scholar was long and lanky, giving the impression that he exercised only when he couldn't avoid it. His hair was a thatch of pale browns. He was extremely gifted at breaking into coded messages and networks. Few knew of him or his connection to Lowell. It kept him safe. He had needed persuasion to leave his nest on Ophir to come to Tivor. If it had been for anything other than Dace, he wouldn't have come.

  His fingers twisted the ball of light into a tight knot. It flashed blue then blinked into the shape of a normal screen.

  "Here," he said, tracing a line of code. "Internal communications."

  "Just tell me," Paltronis growled. It had taken longer than she expected to find Scholar and make the arrangements.

  "They aren't planning on reporting back," Scholar said. "That's what the stop at Tebros was all about. They transferred off the crew who didn't want to defect to the Federation and picked up some others who did. The captain's behind it."

  Paltronis chewed her thumb, a nervous habit she only engaged in when she was deeply troubled. "Why didn't they leave us at Tebros?"

  "It would have tipped their hand," Scholar said. "As it is, they are already under suspicion. The captain had to make her move soon. Leaving us there would have been a dead giveaway."

  "So they take us to Tivor where Patrol presence is almost nil, and then make a run for the Federation."

  "You got it."

  "Are you certain they're going to let us leave?" Paltronis winced as she bit too deeply and drew blood from her cuticle.

  "They aren't going to kidnap us, if that's what you're asking. And no, they didn't leave a complete plan in their internal memos. I'm guessing and inferring from what cryptic messages they did pass."

  "Something you're very good at."

  "And you're not," Scholar said with a good natured grin. "Brains and brawn, Lowell knows his stuff."

  "So you're saying I'm stupid?" Paltronis asked, deceptively mild.