Harmony

by C. F. Bentley

  “I read the report on the last interview with a Harmonic merchant who left the Empire.” Jake shook his head in wonder at the ineptness of the interrogators. “They left so many questions unasked it was pitiful.” They knew precious little about the Empire of seven planets that controlled the process for Badger Metal.

  If only their lost colony had procured the formula. . . . According to Pammy they hadn’t. But they had broken through communications barriers long enough to petition for asylum and eventual membership in the CSS.

  One less lost colony to fill the folklore books. One less ghost ship to haunt the space lanes.

  “Harmony has their own creation myths, their own religion, totally different from anything from Earth,” Jake said, remembering every word of the interview. “They’ve done enough DNA manipulation to give them all caste marks at birth. The process may have achieved genetic drift. And it’s only been seven hundred years.”

  “Jump point coming up,” Mickey interrupted.

  “Thank God,” Jake added. He keyed the computer to take them into hyperspace. Even before the lights shifted to a new prismatic scale, he hit the injection button at the base of his helmet. He barely noticed the jerk and jolt to his stomach and the loss of gravity as his eyes closed and the itching beneath his skin faded to a dull irritation.

  The unquiet in his mind persisted in long involved dreams more real than reality.

  “I’ll not have Marissa as my HPS,” Gregor said firmly. “I’ll not have her disrupting all that I have accomplished for Harmony.”

  Marissa had the same training as her twin Marilee. Easy enough to manipulate her caste mark once more, bring it back to a natural Temple purple circle. She’d had the Noble blue diamond added artificially at her marriage.

  Gregor shuddered at the thought of having the lady outvote and out-maneuver him on High Council. Would she relinquish her position as a Noble in favor of the presiding position as HPS? No. Knowing Marissa as he did, she’d claim both places and both votes. She’d rule Harmony unquestioned. A true queen rather than the first among equals dictated by the Covenant with Harmony.

  Resolutely he marched across the hospital complex. He had only one solution.

  “Maigrie, Jaimey, please, I need a word with your daughter alone,” he announced from the doorway of Sissy’s room.

  “I want my family to hear what you have to say,” Sissy whispered. Her voice was raw, her breathing shallow. She truly needed the surgery, sooner rather than later.

  Gregor bristled a bit. He’d had enough of families tonight. Whatever happened to thinking for oneself?

  He forced himself to remember that independence had been bred and manipulated out of Workers. Only Temple and Noble had the spirit and intelligence to make decisions.

  Whatever else Sissy might be, she’d been raised to think like a Worker.

  “Very well.” Gregor looked sharply at Stevie who perched on the stool beside the bed, where Gregor had sat before.

  The brother vacated the seat slowly, almost reluctantly. He never released Sissy’s hand as he moved.

  Gregor assumed his place, imagining it a throne; an invisible altar and authority between him and the Workers.

  “Sissy, would you rather stay in Harmony City for your study and training?” he asked without preamble. He didn’t have the time for niceties. He had to have everything in place before Marissa could enact her ill-conceived plan to become HPS.

  “I don’t want no more schooling. I’m happy doing what I do. I make good money. Money my family needs.” She dissolved in a fit of coughing that racked her body so fiercely she couldn’t breathe. She jerked and convulsed trying to coax air in and dust out.

  Stevie immediately bent her forward and rubbed her back. Finally the spasm passed. Sissy lay back against her pillows, spent and weak.

  “Just as soon as your fancy physician says, I’ll jus’ go back to work.” Sissy set her chin and frowned.

  Gregor wanted to slap the determination out of her. He’d dealt with too many stubborn people of late.

  “You have to understand, Sissy, Harmony needs your gift of prophecy, your unique ability to bond with our mother planet and calm her temper tantrums. We need to know how you can do these things.”

  “You mean you’ll put her in some asylum and cut open her brain, just like any other Lood,” Stevie snapped. He clenched his fists as if he wanted to punch Gregor.

  Gregor blanched. At the man’s suggestion as well as the implied violence. “Not at all. I have great plans for Sissy. Harmony needs her whole and healthy. I have important work for her to do that will benefit the empire.”

  “Like what?” Stevie asked suspiciously.

  “Just a few moments ago, our High Priestess, Laudae Marilee passed.” Gregor bowed his head and moved his lips in prayer. But his mind worked furiously.

  “You can’t mean . . . ? That don’t make sense,” Sissy protested.

  “Why else are you in Crystal Temple Hospital, my dear, with the High Priest giving your family permission to miss a day of work.” Gregor had to make this seem as if he’d planned it all along. “I’d hoped we had more time, could let you ease into your new life. Events have moved more rapidly than I thought.”

  “What are you saying, Laud Gregor?” Stevie faced him squarely, his chin set in the same stubborn thrust as his sister’s. “Spit it out, plain and simple.”

  “I mean that you, Sissy, are now the High Priestess of Harmony. As soon as you recover from surgery, we will move you to the Crystal Temple and begin your education. In a few months, when we have mourned the passing of Marilee and you are ready, there will be an ordination. Already, you are bonded to Harmony. When you recite your oaths and receive the blessing of the Host of Seven, you will become Harmony.”

  “No,” Sissy said, shaking her head. “That’s too much. I don’t know how...”

  “But you will learn, my dear.”

  Stevie’s eyes opened wide.

  Gregor could almost see his mind churning with possibilities. No wonder he’d been slated for extra education and supervisory roles. Somewhere in his gene pool, he’d found the ability to think.

  “That’s quite an honor, Sissy. You’ll never have to work in the factory again,” Stevie said. The ambitious one in the family. He didn’t look beyond “success” to the broader issues. He had to learn to do that before he’d make a good supervisor.

  “You can’t take me away from my family,” Sissy insisted.

  Gregor looked puzzled. They are just Workers. Of little value, he thought.

  “They are more than just Workers. They are my family. Without them, I am nothing.”

  “Without you, they are nothing. You are more valuable than all of them put together.” He had to take back control of this conversation before the girl started reading his mind for real.

  Stuff and nonsense. Just like her prophecies. He had to teach her to speak her riddles and innuendos only when he needed her too. Make them vague enough and even Little Johnny could be manipulated into making of them what Gregor wanted made of them.

  “They are my family. I will not be your priestess, your tool for manipulating the High Council.”

  Gregor reared back at that statement, shocked that she had delved so deeply into his motivations.

  “Take me from my family and you will have a worthless mutant on your hands.”

  “I promise that your family will have the right to visit you,” Gregor conceded. Small enough price to pay for having the HPS he wanted and controlled. “Whenever they are off work.” Gregor stared at the floor, avoiding her direct gaze and her ability to read his face.

  That was all she did, read expressions and postures.

  “Every Holy Day and legal holiday,” she insisted.

  “You must preside at Temple on those days.” He’d not give in to her fierce bargaining. If he showed any weakness now, he might never recover from it.

  “Then let them come to me on Holy Days and holidays.”

  G
regor paused and thought. Eventually he settled his face into a mask of decision. “Your family may come to the Crystal Temple. Special dispensation. I can arrange seats for them where they may watch you without being forced to mingle with another caste.”

  “In the mornings I go to Temple. The rest of the day I visit my family.” She reached out with her bandaged hand and knocked it against his arm to force him to look at her.

  She couldn’t suppress the gasp of pain that gesture cost her.

  “Very well. You may visit with your family on Holy Days and holidays. They may come to your private quarters.” He finally lifted his eyes.

  She caught his gaze with her own. “Promise by the life-giving rays of Empathy.”

  His hand reached for the pendant around his neck at the same time his mouth formed a protest.

  “Swear, or I get up and walk out of this hospital right now.”

  “I so swear,” he breathed.

  Sissy sank into her pillows. She closed her eyes and sucked in extra oxygen through the clear tube in her nose.

  “Change is coming.” Her voice sounded strange, deeper in tone, echoing around the room. Multiplied a hundred times by a power she could not control. “I am the harbinger of change. We must prepare for the future and meet it face on. We cannot afford to run and hide from change any longer.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  GUILLIAM TAPPED THE STEERING wheel of his little car impatiently. Construction Workers with a huge piece of machinery backed and forthed across the street in front of him, clearing debris.

  As he watched, the front shovel of the monster machine slid under a mass of broken wood and stone, crumbled pole lights, and crippled trees in the middle of the street. Ponderously it lifted a couple of tons of destruction and swung around to deposit it all in the box bed of a truck. Then it returned for another load.

  At this rate the street might be cleared in two hours. Then the crew would have to move to the next street and the next.

  Only half a mile from the Crystal Temple. He could walk faster than this. But he’d have to leave the car. Temple property, signed out to him. In the chaotic aftermath of the quake the car might be stolen or vandalized. He didn’t want the responsibility for that. Though if it happened to someone else, the paperwork would stop at his desk.

  A niggle of temptation urged him to invoke Temple privilege to allow him to pass. Laud Gregor had no idea how much work would fall on Guilliam’s desk in order to shift Sissy du Maigrie from pu Chauncey to pu Crystal Temple. Even more work to shift all her data to change her caste. No precedent for that. No ancient myth to fall back on.

  Couldn’t Laud Gregor have waited a day, or even a few hours to make this decision; time for Guilliam to calm Lady Marissa and divert her from trying to take over for her sister. And time to prepare Laudae Penelope for the change. That formidable woman fully expected to succeed her mother, as Marilee had succeed her mother, and so on back four or five generations.

  At least he’d managed to complete the grief blessing and send both women to their homes with healing tears and fond memories.

  As much as Guilliam wanted to get started on the paperwork, he had other responsibilities. He knew he’d end up doing it all. Gregor didn’t have the vaguest idea of how much paper it took to run the Temple; how many forms signed in triplicate; the FILING!

  Worst of all, the task of informing Penelope du Marilee pu Crystal Temple that she would not be elevated to high priestess, fell to Guilliam. He sat back and waited more patiently for the Workers to finish. Anything to delay confronting Penelope.

  “You can’t possibly mean to bring that . . . that freak, that Lood into our sacred space!” Laudae Penelope du Marilee pu Crystal Temple screeched at High Priest Gregor.

  Gregor cringed and wished he could cover his ears.

  Dawn had just crept above the horizon, after a very long night. Birds sang joyously in the bright sunshine. Fresh dew coated the ground and lessened the horror of yesterday’s quake. Gregor did not want to deal with Penelope’s histrionics yet.

  “Your little pet should be taken out to the Serim Desert and left for the scavenger birds to rip out her heart.” Penelope threw her arms up in the air and began pacing back and forth, back and forth, in front of his desk.

  He let her pound excess energy into each step rather than in screams.

  Penelope crossed her arms beneath her bosom, emphasizing her cleavage. Nearly forty, she’d borne any number of children and now reached toward her prime in beauty, poise, and confidence. She supervised detailed religious education for Temple children as well as a less rigorous curriculum for the other castes, and did it with quiet efficiency.

  But in matters of politics and protocol she was anything but quiet. She invoked drama with every grand gesture and pregnant pause.

  All of her features appeared chiseled from the finest marble, long face, high cheekbones, straight narrow nose, and flawless white skin offset by her auburn hair. She looked the part to fill the vacancy of High Priestess.

  She had the maturity that should command respect. But did she have the wisdom? The charisma?

  Petite, dark-haired, olive-skinned Sissy, on the other hand, had no great claim to beauty. Just ordinary. Everything about her was ordinary. Except her charm, her smile, and those mutant caste marks.

  And her prophecies.

  Gregor swallowed the anger that boiled up his throat. He’d gain nothing by allowing his emotions to rule him and giving Penelope control of this interview. He remained seated at his desk deep in the bowels of the Crystal Temple. Outsiders had to wend their way through an intricate maze of corridors and bureaucracy to get to the High Priest of Harmony.

  Penelope wasn’t an outsider. And neither were the other five priestesses and their senior acolytes who crowded into his office.

  “Harmony has spoken,” Gregor replied quietly.

  “Not to me!” Penelope persisted.

  “Then you aren’t qualified to be our next HPS.” Beneath the cover of the desktop he clenched his fists and fought for control. He’d considered creating a special position for Sissy as prophetess and allowing Penelope to elevate to High Priestess. Together they could take control of the High Council. Together they could dictate every law and action of life on Harmony.

  Together they could reclaim the Lost Colony before rebellion sent ripples of chaos throughout the empire.

  But could he control Penelope’s vote? She wasn’t quite as shallow as her mother Marilee. Fashion might occupy a great deal of Penelope’s time, but not all of it.

  Lady Marissa had ties of blood and friendship to Penelope. Gregor could not allow those ties to shift the weight of authority in High Council.

  “You trained me, Gregor. You promised me. And my dear departed mother Marilee. Tradition places the responsibility of the HPS in a direct line of descent from Harmony.”

  “That’s a new argument. First I’ve heard it,” he muttered. “I did not inherit this position from my father.”

  The archivist Ivan—so old people had forgotten his da designation— had given him little except a desire to do something more important than keep records. Someone needed to search records for precedents. Not Gregor. Opportunity passed one by while searching records.

  Gregor needed to actively mold Harmony to the path dictated by the Goddess. He made it his business to know that path, as much for his own benefit as the need to guide Harmony.

  “I don’t recall reading inheritance by Temple caste on the Covenant Stones,” he said mildly, as if it were of no import.

  “Hmmm, no one has publicly read the original Covenant Stones in living memory,” Guilliam added.

  Penelope either didn’t hear them or chose to ignore them. More evidence of her willfulness when he needed compliance.

  “Do I need to remind you that my aunt, Lady Marissa, Marilee’s twin sister, presides over the High Council until a new HPS is ordained? If she doesn’t approve your choice, she will not relinquish her position.” Penelope pla
nted her fists on the desk and leaned over so that her eyes were level with his.

  “Better the enemy you know than the one you don’t,” Guilliam whispered into Gregor’s ear from his place by the credenza behind the desk. The acolyte kept his back to the throng of Laudaes and their acolytes.

  “Miss Sissy’s total lack of education, confidence, and imagination I can control,” Gregor reminded Guilliam quietly. She’d do everything he said, precisely, without question.

  “Harmony has spoken,” he said aloud to Penelope and her women. “I interpret her signs and portents, not Lady Marissa. Miss Sissy is our new HPS. She will need assistants. I ask for a volunteer.” He broke eye contact with Penelope and looked to the half circle of Laudaes ranked behind her. Five priestesses with only a senior acolyte apiece. Most of the seven assistants assigned to each had been left behind for this volatile meeting.

  “None of you will serve the usurper,” Penelope whirled to face the Laudaes. No longer her Laudaes. Within days they must look to Miss Sissy.

  Discord! he needed to find a more sophisticated name for the girl. Something that carried the majesty of High Priestess.

  The five Laudaes, all wearing bright green dresses (they should have gone into funereal black) of various styles, all quite fashionable, cringed as they retreated as far as they could. They pressed the few acolytes, in lighter shades of green, all equally fashionable, into the walls. The short ones were in danger of suffocating.

  In a blinding flash, Gregor understood that they wore green because the color complimented Penelope’s coloring magnificently. Black made her look sallow.

  “Would you prefer I command you to serve Miss Sissy, to guide and train her through the intricacies of Temple life, to prepare her for ordination?” Gregor asked Penelope. “You are, after all, Education Supervisor.”

  “You wouldn’t dare,” Penelope sneered. “My aunt . . .”

  “Your aunt is of the Noble caste now. She has no influence in Temple. Her only authorized contact with the Temple is through the High Council.” Gregor broke out in a cold sweat. He’d spent hours last night, actually early this morning, in the archives making certain no Temple who married a Noble had come back to Temple.