Harmony

by C. F. Bentley

  She needed to ask Jake about the old requisition of charcoal and saltpeter. Months old. Why was it on her desk, it should have been taken care of long ago.

  What in Harmony’s name was saltpeter? She knew salt of course. And pepper. Essentials in cooking. But saltpeter?

  Why did the kitchen need charcoal? They cooked over flammable gas piped in from the waste of one of the metal smelting factories.

  “Jake?”

  No answer. Strange. Jake always answered her call. Jake always hung at her elbow, never more than ten paces away.

  Then she remembered. Jake had been called to HQ. Another Military had taken his place for a few hours.

  Where was he? “Sergeant Morrie da Hawk,” she called.

  No answer.

  She looked around, a bubble of panic beginning to form. She was alone in her office. A quick look and she knew that her girls had not yet returned from the burial caves. The sergeant was also absent of any room in her suite.

  The corridor echoed emptily.

  Sissy ducked back inside and slammed the door. Jake had told her not to move from her quarters until he returned. For once she had to obey him. Where could she hide?

  Jake tore open his tight uniform collar as he made his way from the Temple entrance near the center of the sprawling complex toward Sissy’s quarters. He’d never realized how isolated her suite was until he needed to hurry and explain to her the significance of the paper he’d tucked inside his uniform tunic.

  Should he just hand that all-important paper to Sissy? Or should he devise some sort of prelude to prepare her?

  The shadows within a ubiquitous side altar shifted.

  Jake stopped short, hand upon his sword grip. Maybe this was just Guilliam emerging from one of his secret listening posts. Somehow, Jake didn’t think so.

  He had the sword half drawn when the dark shadow took the form of a masked man. Only his dark eyes visible in his all black clothing. In his hands, Badger Metal sword and dagger gleamed. Silver threads with a bluish cast glistened within the concealing clothes. Badger Metal armor.

  Jake gulped as he parried the first blow with his offside forearm.

  Hot pain sliced through the flesh. His masked opponent twirled and set up another blow.

  Jake used the time to get his sword free and meet the attack. Awkward. His balance was off. The pain in his offside hand upset his timing.

  Concentrate. Put the pain behind. Watch the eyes and the tip of the blade.

  Parry, riposte. Meet the next attack. Counter with a bind. Hold. Hold. Hold. Slide into a circular parry.

  He’d done this before. The exact pattern. He’d fought this assassin before. Who? When?

  In the weeks he’d worked with Law Enforcement, he’d trained with nearly every Military in the division.

  Did anyone else know swordsmanship?

  The attacker bounced back three steps.

  Jake skipped into a short advance followed by a long lunge.

  “Oh,” the assailant gasped as the tip of Jake’s Badger Metal blade nicked his ribs, just below the heart. Just a scratch, barely enough to bruise let alone draw blood.

  Jake’s thighs protested the stretch. He pushed the sword forward as far as he could.

  The assassin backed off, turned, and disappeared around a corner.

  “Coward, come back and finish this!” Jake awkwardly brought his feet together, recovered his balance.

  “Too easy,” he muttered as he raced to follow. At the next corner the man had disappeared. Jake had to get back to Sissy.

  He pelted around the opposite corner. He found Sissy’s door locked. Back off. Cradling his cut left arm against his chest, he slammed his good shoulder against the panel close to the lock.

  A splintering of wood and a pop of metal. He crashed inward, sword drawn and ready.

  Empty anteroom. Empty office.

  Hastily he searched the suite. “Laudae?” he whispered into each and every corner and closet, behind the major pieces of furniture.

  “Dammit, Sissy, where are you!” Cold sweat popped out on his back and brow. “Sissy!”

  “Here.” The tiniest of whispers.

  He followed it, fearing to find her broken and bleeding.

  His heart nearly stopped in his chest when a small, long-fingered hand slid out from beneath the bed.

  “Sissy!” He laid the sword down to grasp her hand and elbow. Oblivious to his own pain he drew her out from her hiding place.

  “You’re safe,” he breathed. No trace of blood or break.

  “Discord! What happened to you.”

  “Just a scratch.” He nearly laughed with relief as he held her tightly. She felt so right nestled there beneath his shoulder. Her warmth, her scent. The other half of himself. “You’re safe, My Laudae. That’s what’s important. Where’s Morrie da Hawk?”

  “Right here.” The sergeant stood in the doorway to Jake’s room. “Thought I’d explore a bit. Someone conked me on the head. I just woke up in one of those little alcoves.” He rubbed the back of his neck and winced. He swayed unsteadily.

  Jake’s fist met the man’s jaw. Morrie staggered backward. “I told you never to leave her alone. Now get out before I finish the fight the assassin ran away from.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  JAKE LAY ON HIS COT waiting for the Temple to grow quiet. He stretched his full length and his feet stayed atop the mattress. Plenty of room for himself and another.

  Stop that. He had no business thinking about sex just before a mission. And sex with the one woman he craved would never happen. His job and her caste would keep them separate for all eternity.

  Unless one of them brought the entire Harmony culture crashing down around their ears. Not as unlikely tonight as it was six months ago when he arrived.

  That scenario no longer fit his plans or goals. A strong Harmony allied to the CSS made more sense. Much more sense for all concerned.

  Except for him and Sissy.

  He could hasten the downfall of Harmony just by taking Sissy to the basement archives and letting her read that early colonial diary. The writer had survived the cyclic planetary instability that lasted nearly two centuries, and then a war of attrition against the original inhabitants. A war they started because the human newcomers knew that Harmony expressed her displeasure at the presence of the Marils using the planet as a holy retreat center.

  In their human pride and arrogance, with religious fanaticism thrown in, they had completely wiped out tens of thousands of Maril religious leaders and petitioners seeking peace and renewal.

  No wonder the Marils had declared war on the entire human population.

  he big question was why they had waited three hundred years to do it.

  Better to wait a bit before letting Sissy read those accounts. How the settlers had solved their problems of reduced numbers due to drought, natural disaster, and war wasn’t any prettier. In her current mood, Sissy just might declare war on the entire Temple and Noble castes.

  The slice on Jake’s left forearm burned beneath the bandage. A stark reminder of why he was here in this bed listening to every nuance of sound, alert to danger, even when he should be getting as much sleep as he could before the next adventure, or crisis.

  Damn, he’d forgotten to give Sissy the document that he’d been given at HQ. In the morning. Too late tonight to think straight.

  He closed his eyes, only half awake, and identified the various comforting and familiar sounds. Sissy and her girls—now returned from the burial caves—saying their bedtime prayers. He could picture each of the girls making a response to a catechism question. Mary first, reciting the words by rote without feeling. Then Martha, giving passion to each phrase as if her life depended upon it. Sarah, hesitant and afraid of making a mistake. Jilly the clown twisting the words into an outrageous pun. They’d all giggle together, then Sissy would remind Jilly gently that jokes were out of place right now.

  Bella would mumble something and try to hide, perhaps suggest
ing that Mary and Martha should answer for her. Sharan and Suzie as the littlest and the youngest would pipe up that they knew the answers. They’d tussle a moment for the right to answer for Bella.

  The click of dog claws on the wooden floor. The slither of Godfrey in his glass tank with the heat lamp. A scurry of Milton as he sought the best sleeping place in the pile of blankets at Sissy’s feet. Jake never heard the cats unless they wanted him to.

  He smiled. Strange how quickly he’d become attached to the girls and the critters. Children and pets had never had a place in his life before. He never believed he’d live long enough, live a settled enough life, to accept children into his life. Perhaps one day father a few of them.

  Silence from Shanet’s side of the door. That felt strange. She and her girls, all older than Sissy’s and much less individual, were still in the mountains. Again he smiled at the adolescent need for conformity. All seven of Shanet’s acolytes strove to look, act, and talk just like their six peers. Might as well be clones of Bethy, the oldest, who took the lead in fashion and dictated catch words and slang.

  He stretched again and listened to the building beyond this little enclave.

  Shuffling footsteps in the long corridor beyond. The creak of the building settling. A gush of wind beyond his window.

  Sissy climbing into bed, shifting position.

  A crackle. What?

  More like a snap.

  Definitely out of place. He came alert from his light drowse. He listened again.

  Then the smell of smoke drifted past his nose. Just a wisp. Not the sweet woodsmoke of an evening fire, or the softer scent of a snuffed candle. This had an acrid undertone. Chemicals.

  “Fire!” he shouted and was on his feet in less than a heartbeat.

  He thrust open the door connecting his room to Sissy’s without waiting for a polite knock. “Fire! Get the girls.”

  Thicker smoke here. Heavier air. Dark smoke curled under the doorway to the office. He didn’t need to test that door to know the main fire was behind it. He could hear the crackle of flames eating at the wood. Smell the dark threat in the smoke.

  His heart pounded and his mind gibbered in fear. The greatest worry of the spacebound. Fire, eating up precious oxygen. Fire, weakening bulkheads. Nothing but vacuum and radiation beyond. Trapped. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

  Fire!

  He forced himself to calm down. Panic used up air more quickly. He had to breathe. He had to get Sissy and the girls to safety. They were dirtside. He had places to run and hide from the fire.

  “Everyone out of bed!” he shouted as he banged open the door to the girls’ dormitory. The smoke hadn’t reached here yet. “This is not a drill. We have fire.”

  They rubbed their eyes sleepily and stared at him in bewilderment.

  “Come on now, get up. Go to Laudae Sissy. Follow Laudae Sissy out through my room into the other suite.” He flipped back their blankets and yanked each girl upright. When they resisted, he slapped bottoms and pushed them toward Sissy and safety.

  A few more steps and he could close the door on this nightmare, summon help. Turn over the responsibility to Professionals. Already he heard klaxons in the distance. Help was coming.

  He couldn’t breathe in the smoke. A tendril of flame licked beneath the door to the office.

  Instinctively, he dropped to his knees and crawled. Eyes watering, breath labored, he banged his head into something solid.

  “Godfrey,” Sissy choked. “I have to get him. And Red Bird. They can’t get out.” She tripped over him in her haste to go back into the smoke and darkness.

  “No.” Jake pulled himself up, using the doorjamb to brace his heavy, reluctant body. He wrapped his free arm around her waist and pulled her back. “You can’t save the animals. It’s too late.”

  “They’re helpless. Trapped. Alone,” she sobbed out her worst fears, his worst fears, kicking and clawing at him. Tears rained down her face.

  By sheer force of will he dragged her out.

  “Trapped. Alone.” She collapsed against his arm, back spasming with her cries.

  “I’ll get them!” Jilly said as she ran back into the smoke-filled sitting room, ducking beneath Jake’s arm.

  “Jilly, no!” he cried.

  Swallowing his own fears and weakness, Jake shoved Sissy toward the knot of her cowering acolytes and dove after the errant Jilly.

  He found her slumped against the sofa, coughing and gagging, hands burned raw from a brief touch on the metal corners of Godfrey’s cage. “Damn, I hope I can get you out in time.”

  “Jilly! Oh, no.” Sissy took the limp girl from Jake and cradled her against her chest.

  “We’ve got to get out of here.” Jake leaned against the door to Shanet’s suite. “Damn, damn, damn. It’s locked.” He shoved harder.

  Nothing happened.

  He stepped back and slammed his foot into the wood panel with a hideous yell. The panel buckled. Another kick and yell that set the girls to covering their ears, and the wood splintered around the lock.

  Klaxons in the distance grew louder. Shouts from other suites. And the roar of the fire as it gained momentum.

  Sissy pushed the girls through to the other suite and from there toward the corridor.

  “Safer to go out a window!” Jake yelled as he dragged Mary by the collar of her nightgown toward the far room.

  Still cradling Jilly, Sissy followed him. Her own breathing became labored. She was so tired. And Jilly was so still. One more little effort. Then Jake would hand her an inhaler. A few more steps.

  Darkness crowded around her as the noise and chaos grew.

  She smelled fresh air. A cool breeze caressed her face. Someone took Jilly from her. She missed the heavy burden. Then she was climbing through a window and tumbling on the damp grass of the Reserve. Her girls crowded around her, crying and bewildered. They needed comfort more than she did.

  But she couldn’t breathe.

  “Jake?” she gasped.

  He pounded her back. “Sorry, love. I didn’t think to grab an extra inhaler.”

  “Jilly.” Sissy forced herself to crawl toward the unmoving lump on the grass. The rest of her girls followed, clinging to her nightgown, crying and sobbing worse than she. “Jilly.” She touched the charred and bloody thing that had been Jilly.

  Jilly’s eyes fluttered. She drew in a shallow breath, coughed it out again.

  “Don’t try to say anything. Help is on the way.”

  Sissy spotted uniformed people pouring into the Reserve from a doorway near the center of the Temple. They carried big boxes and had packs and cylinders slung on their backs. Jake waved them over.

  “Laudae,” Jilly whispered. She grasped at Sissy’s garment, tangling the fine fabric in grubby hands.

  “Don’t try to talk, sweetie. Help is coming.”

  “The Covenant is broken,” she said in a hollow voice, unlike her own. Her eyes glazed as she stared upward toward the stars. “The Covenant can only be restored out there. The stars are the answer.” A huge rattling last exhalation. Her head lolled and her eyes went vacant.

  “Jilly!” Sissy screamed in anguish. “Not my Jilly.”

  “What in Discord’s name did she mean?” Laud Gregor asked as he ran ahead of the medics with oxygen and bandages.

  The rest of his words were drowned out by a whoosh of flames. The roof of Sissy’s bedroom collapsed.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  GREGOR THREW HIMSELF ATOP Sissy, hoping against hope that she had suffered no further damage. As much as he hated the things she did, she was still more valuable to him alive than dead.

  “We’ve got to get out of here!” the bodyguard croaked. He coughed out the last word. Soot smudged his face. He had a scrape across his cheek that went nearly to the bone. He didn’t look capable of saving himself. Yet he still gathered up the six remaining girls and shoved Gregor aside to reach for Sissy.

  “I’ve got her. You take care of the little ones,” Gregor said, pul
ling himself upright.

  “She’s my responsibility, My Laud.” He looked grim and determined.

  “You can hardly stand, man. Let me take care of her.”

  Lieutenant Jake continued to pull Sissy upright. He paused and took a deep breath before lifting her into his arms. The breath turned into a deep cough that nearly doubled him over.

  Gregor waved over the medics. “You can trust me to take care of my High Priestess,” Gregor whispered into Jake’s ear.

  The man looked up with wary eyes as a medic strapped an oxygen mask over his face. Grimly he pulled the mask aside. “Anything happens to her, anything but good, and I will kill you, My Laud.”

  Gregor fell back one step. The man scared him as few things in life did. As High Priest he might be above the law; that didn’t matter to Jake. Jake, Gregor had a feeling, made his own laws. Duty and honor were more important to him than caste or hierarchy.

  “We will sort this out later. For tonight, I take you all under my personal protection,” Gregor replied, sensing that appealing to the man’s honor was the only way to get through the smoke and confusion.

  “Come, Sissy, my girl.” Gregor put his shoulder beneath the girl’s arm and hoisted her up.

  “Jilly.” She half reached back for the dead girl.

  “The medics will bring her.”

  “She was special.”

  “All of your girls are special. That’s why I chose them to serve you.”

  “No. More than that. Jilly was touched by Harmony. The Gods chose her to succeed me.”

  Gregor paused in his trek across the grass toward the pool, a safe barrier between them and the raging fire.

  “Her last words . . .”

  “Were prophecy. The Covenant is broken. It can only be reforged out there.” Sissy looked up toward the stars.

  “Do you know what that means?” Gregor had an awful feeling he did know.

  “Not yet, but I will.”

  Gregor had little doubt of that. She had an uncanny knack for seeing the truth behind a facade. He had to make certain he controlled what she discovered as the true meaning behind Jilly’s prophecy. For that, he had to keep Sissy close. Very close. In his suite at least, in his bed if possible.