Which Art In Hope (Spooner Federation Saga Book 1)

by Francis W. Porretto

  Her eyelids drooped. "No. I've taken over the management of the farm. Anyway, what would the point be?"

  "Chary..." He hesitated. "I can't do this alone. I'm going to need someone to watch my back. Someone young, smart, and very, very quick. Ideally, it should be someone who has as much of an interest in finding Terry and Armand as I do." He rose again. "But if you're going to be tied up here --"

  "Sit, Teodor." The steel in her tone dropped him back into his chair. She pursed her lips and scanned the kitchen, eyes lingering at each of its features, as if she were wondering whether she could trust Morelon House to anyone else's care. "Just how promising is this new idea of yours?"

  "I don't know," he said. "It's based on a change of assumptions. And I can't pursue it without a plane and a young, strong partner who's a crack shot and has nothing else on her mind. Are you available for the project, or is there no point in discussing it?"

  She nodded, eyes steady and grave. "I might be. What's the change of assumptions?"

  He leaned forward. His voice dropped without his willing it.

  "At first we thought Armand and Teresza had eloped, that they'd decided on a life apart from your clan and the baggage I loaded onto her. But after they'd been incommunicado for a while, that didn't sound so good anymore, so we decided that they'd taken a jaunt of some kind and suffered a terrible accident, something that killed them and either concealed their bodies or made them impossible to identify. What's the common premise behind those possibilities?"

  Charisse thought for barely an instant. "That wherever they went, they went of their own accord."

  "Exactly. But what if that wasn't the case?"

  She peered at him through narrowed eyes. "Are you suggesting that they were kidnapped?"

  He shook his head. "They both went armed all the time, and anyway, there hasn't been a kidnapping in several centuries. It's not impossible, but it's way, way far from likely. No, I think they were fleeing from something."

  "Fleeing? Fleeing what?"

  He scowled. "I can't say. It would have had to be something mighty big, mighty scary, and proof against whatever power they thought they could muster. But that can wait until we find them, because it doesn't matter why they fled. It only matters where."

  The sound of an engine starting penetrated the kitchen. Charisse rose and went to peer out the window. An autotiller cruised slowly past, on its way to the distant fields. The crews for which she'd taken the responsibility had set to their morning's work, the work of the Morelon clan for twelve hundred years: feeding the people of Hope.

  "And you think you know where they ran?" she said. "Alain spent several hundred thousand dekas trying to track my brother down, with no luck at all, but you, sitting in your den in Henryville, you've figured it out all by yourself?"

  He fixed a flat, no-nonsense stare on her. It wilted her.

  "Forgive me, Teodor. It's just...Well, do you really have that much confidence in your deductions?"

  He nodded. "I do. But there are at least two problems. One, getting there. Two, persuading them to come back. There might be a third: persuading their neighbors to let them go."

  Realization seeped into her expression. She put her hands to the back of her chair and leaned toward him. "You can't mean...?"

  "Think, Chary. Where's the one place on Alta where your brother would never be recognized? Where he'd be able to pass under a false name in full confidence that he wouldn't be questioned about it? Where no investigator, no matter how well paid, would ever go? Where Armand wouldn't be able to communicate with us without spilling a secret that could cost him his life?"

  Charisse's hands tightened on the back of her chair.

  "Of course," she murmured. "Of course."

  ***

  "What do we do now?" Dmitri Ianushkevich whispered.

  The

  Inner Circle of the Cabal, minus its youngest, newest member, stood silent in the little experimentation room for a long time. No one had had a thought for publication since the murder of Alain Morelon, a week before. Ianushkevich had hardly dared to call them together. He hadn't dared to summon Ethan Mandeville out of Terra's chambers at all. We've entrusted all the lives on Hope to the care of a psychotic murderess. It's unprecedented. How can I expect them to have any better ideas about how to cope than I have?

  The silence stretched painfully. Ianushkevich passed a hand over his eyes and opened his mouth to dismiss them.

  "Have there been any negative reports from the field?" Petrus asked.

  Ianushkevich stared at him in disbelief. "What does that --"

  "If there haven't been," Petrus said, "I move we carry on as before."

  "Charles!"

  Petrus scowled. "Suck it up, Dmitri. Yes, she killed a man. Yes, she killed your friend. Yes, she killed our oldest and most generous benefactor. Compare that to a ninety-nine percent mortality rate should we force her off her throne. It'll help you regain your perspective." He folded his arms across his chest. "We've killed twenty-four men with our meddlings, and most of them didn't even know what to expect. I don't hear anyone suggesting that we be taken out of our positions."

  Einar Magnusson was staring at the agronomist too, but with a different sort of intent evident in his expression.

  "So your argument," he rumbled, "is that all the alternatives are worse, is that it?"

  Petrus cocked an eyebrow at the big biophysicist. "How clever of you to notice, Einar. But then, you always were our brightest boy. Are you about to tell me that there are alternatives I've somehow neglected to consider?"

  Magnusson inclined his head. "Exactly so."

  "What?"

  "There is an alternative," the biophysicist continued calmly, "that we've deliberately chosen not to think about. We foreclosed it a year ago, at the request of a man whose good will was of paramount importance. But today his wishes are no longer a constraint upon us. So the possibility should be re-examined. Especially in light of his murder." Magnusson smiled coldly. "Is that deduction bright enough to keep me high in your esteem, Charles? Or had you dismissed it for reasons you'll now share with us?"

  Ianushkevich regarded his colleague with incomprehension. "Can you possibly mean Armand Morelon, Einar?"

  Magnusson shrugged. "Who else? Have this year's screenings turned up anyone else?"

  Ianushkevich shook his head.

  "Then we go after the Morelon boy, compel him to submit to us, prepare him for the apotheosis, and dispose of Terra when he's ready." Magnusson's eyes darted to Petrus and back to Ianushkevich. "What am I missing, gentlemen? Does either of you know of a reason it can't be done?"

  "Well," Petrus drawled, "it would certainly help if we knew where he is."

  "Bosh," Magnusson spat. "Of course we know where he is. He fled over the land bridge. There's nowhere else on Alta where he could shed his identity. If he'd run to Sulla or the archipelago, we'd already know it from the radio chatter. A Morelon practically can't sneeze without triggering a chorus of gesundheits from around the world."

  "Einar," Ianushkevich faltered, "how can you be sure?"

  The biophysicist laughed. "Dmitri, have you forgotten what runs up to within a quarter mile of the land bridge? And have you forgotten how carefully it's monitored?"

  "The power cable," Petrus murmured.

  Magnusson nodded. "Applause, Charles. I expected you'd know that. The Spacehawks recall a couple on a motorcycle coming up to the right-angle turn at the northern end on the very day Armand Morelon first missed a training session. According to the officer I talked to, he was big and black-haired, and she was petite and golden-blonde. So we know quite well where they are. All that remains is to retrieve them."

  "Einar," Ianushkevich ventured, "you're talking about going where no one but an ostrakon has gone in a thousand years. Breaking an accommodation that no one has ever dared to bend. Not only would we be retrieving a man who's separated himself from our society by choice, but we'd be forcing him to surrender his whole life to us -- the v
ery people he fled from!"

  "For the good of Hope."

  "That rationale can only be stretched so far!"

  "Oh?" Magnusson strode forward to peer into Ianushkevich's eyes at close range. The parapsychologist struggled not to cringe before his giant friend. "We've stretched it quite a long way these past twelve hundred years, Dmitri. Granted, we've never coerced a man onto the throne before, but that's just because we've made lies serve our purposes adequately well. But the Morelon boy knows enough about our game not to be handled that way. So tell us, Dmitri: how many deaths from hunger are you willing to countenance before you reconsider its elasticity?"

  "We could do it," Petrus murmured. He appeared to be staring off at nothing. "Why not, Dmitri? They'd be conspicuous enough. Isn't the inviolability of the Hopeless enclave just a longstanding convention? Did anyone ever guarantee the ostrakons that no one would intrude upon them for any reason?"

  Ianushkevich closed his eyes and pressed his fists to his temples.

  The door to the experiment room swung open. Three pairs of eyes swerved to watch Ethan Mandeville step through it.

  The graduate student moved jerkily, as if he were resisting each step. His lips were bloodless, drawn tight over his teeth. His face was a mask of pain. His hands were pressed to his sides, as if held there by fetters they could not see.

  "Terra has sent me," he gasped.

  He staggered forward to stand at the center of the gathering.

  "She knows you plot against her. She suspected you would after the...execution of Alain Morelon." He shook as if he'd grabbed a high-tension wire. "She will permit it to go no further."

  He tottered and turned toward Ianushkevich. "You are still valuable. Though you were on the verge of succumbing to temptation, you resisted. Also, she cannot spare you. Therefore, you are pardoned."

  His eyes fixed next upon Charles Petrus. "You were tempted, but the idea was not yours. And she needs you to watch the fields and ensure that all remains well. So you too are pardoned...this once."

  He turned precariously to gaze upon Einar Magnusson.

  "You crafted the plot. You planted the seed of rebellion in our midst. You have no further work to do for your Goddess. None she can trust you to do. Therefore, you will be punished."

  Mandeville's eyes rolled up in his head. He collapsed in a heap.

  Einar Magnusson's pale face filled with blood. His hands went to the sides of his face as his eyes widened in sudden pain. A tremor started at his boots and moved rapidly through the length of his big body. His face went from a rosy flush to a bright, frightening red, and then to a crimson so deep that it was all but black.

  His carotid arteries exploded. A moment later, he fell face-forward to the floor. His life's blood fountained over the room in a slowly diminishing flood.

  Chapter 31

  Armand passed his hand lightly over Teresza's forehead and hair. She gave no indication that she noticed. Her eyes remained closed.

  The kidnapping and rape were ten days behind them, but her vitality gave no sign of returning. She'd barely shown enough animation to eat and drink. Almost all the rest of the time, she slept, or feigned sleep. His attempts to rouse her telepathically had garnered the same response as his spoken words: none.

  Various of their neighbors had come to call. She'd slept through most of the visits, and had ignored the others, declining to engage her visitors even so far as to say hello. Armand had made apologies for her, accepted the expressions of sympathy, and thanked each caller with all the courtesy at his command. The pity that shone from face after departing face had come near to unmanning him.

  Maria Simpson had been worst of all. Armand had choked her husband to death while she watched. He hadn't felt that pitch of rage even toward Marchesand, who'd conceived and orchestrated Teresza's abduction. But he'd done it, and not with psi: one man's strength against another. He'd left Simpson's body lying in the dust before his house while his wife looked on. Yet the very next day, Maria came to Teresza's bedside to tend to her.

  The widow had spoken no word. She bathed Teresza from a pail scented with mint from Teresza's own garden. When Teresza was clean and freshly gowned, the widow brushed Teresza's hair and set a fresh flower behind her ear. She capped her ministrations with a thing Armand had never seen before, a thing he hoped never to see again: she knelt by his wife's bedside, made a steeple of her hands, bowed over them, and prayed.

  Armand could not bear to witness it. He retreated from his own home and waited outside his door until Maria Simpson was finished. She emerged, pail in hand, nodded to him, and departed as silently as she had come.

  Even for that, Teresza had not roused.

  Is it time to try an invasive measure? She wouldn't like it, but I can't let her slip away from me this way.

  He wasn't sure he could effect a change even with his powers. He could prod her endocrine glands, stimulate her metabolism, make it impossible for her to sleep. He could inflict all sorts of minor discomforts upon her, hopefully forcing her to rise just to deal with the tickles, itches, and stings. But there were no guarantees, except one: the longer the woman he loved remained unresponsive, the slimmer grew his chances of reanimating her, freeing her from the shell in which her essence hid.

  Maybe the next time she wakes and eats.

  He rose and went out of their hovel, abruptly incapable of sitting still any longer. The sky was slate gray. The clouds were roiled by a northern wind with a frosty edge. It promised a cold spell to come, a threat to the crops Teresza had planted before the incident. He'd have to spread tarpaulins over the young plants before nightfall, lest a frost destroy her labors and their hope of a summer bounty.

  One more thing to worry about.

  Defiance was unusually quiet for midday. It had been stunned, near to paralyzed, by the attack on its best-loved citizens. That, too, had persisted for an unnatural time. The village had never been a beehive, but the norm for that time of day was far busier than the few lethargic labors he could see from his front knoll. It was almost as if the village had gone into extended mourning...a presentiment that Teresza would not recover.

  The thought chilled him.

  She has to recover. I brought her here. I bear as much of the guilt for this as any of her attackers. If she fails...and dies...I'll be to blame.

  He was about to return to Teresza's side when a stooped female figure, a woman past the flower of youth, rounded the neighboring hut and walked toward him, a cloth-wrapped bundle in her arms.

  He stood still as she approached. She was unknown to him, who'd thought he knew every person of Defiance by face and voice. She was short and frail of build. Her face spoke of a beauty eroded by hard use and inadequate care. Her dull brown hair was pulled back into a tight bun. Her shift was woven of the common rough cloth of the Hopeless peninsula, made from the flaxlike fronds that grew along the northern wash. Only her large brown eyes held a spark of life. She wore no shoes. She walked with a considerable limp to starboard, as if she'd once broken her right hip. Whatever was in her arms, she clutched it tightly.

  She stopped a few feet away and regarded him dubiously.

  "Hello?" Armand said. "Can I help you?"

  She jerked her head back the way she'd come. "Folks back that way say this'd be the home of Allan Morrison. Would that be you?"

  He nodded. "It would. To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Miss...?"

  "Nora Desjardins."

  "Well, Miss Desjardins, what can I do for you?" He eyed the bundle in her arms. It appeared to be squirming slightly.

  "Y'already done it, sir."

  "Hm?"

  "Killed Alex Lockley."

  Armand's face colored. "Well, yes, but have you heard about the circumstances?"

  She nodded. "Not that I needed to. Rapin' bastard was the scourge of Victory in general and myself in particular. Y'have our thanks."

  Victory's an eight mile walk from here. "Miss...Nora, did you come all the way here for that?"


  She shrugged. "Would have been reason enough. But I got another, if you don't mind." She held out the bundle, and he automatically accepted it.

  It was a baby. Newborn, from the size and weight. Its eyes were closed. Upon feeling the change of grip in passing from Nora's arms to Armand's, it cooed and waved its arms feebly. Automatically, he put out a finger and ran it gently down the infant's cheek.

  "What's his name?" Armand murmured.

  "Hers. Valerie."

  "She's beautiful, Nora. How old is she?"

  Nora Desjardins barked something that might have been a laugh. "Four days. Bore her four mortal days ago. Alex Lockley's third get sired upon me, and the only one to live."

  He was seized by realization. "Nora, you shouldn't have walked all this way so soon after!" He put out his free arm and tried to encircle her with it. "Come inside and have some soup with us. My wife Terry will want to meet you and Valerie. She's napping, but she'll be awake presently."

  I'll see to that.

  She backed away. Dumbfounded, he let his arm fall to his side. There was no alarm in her eyes, but she was plainly determined to be away.

  "No need, sir. Y'have my thanks, and my gift. I'll be back to my own affairs now. And tell..." Her voice broke, and she looked away.

  She means to leave her child with me! "Nora, I can't --"

  "You must." Her eyes flashed with resolution. "I can't do for her. I got nothing. Anyway, she's all I got to give you. But tell your wife...tell her Victory sends its regrets."

  "Regrets?" he whispered.

  "For not killing the bastard sooner. Before he got to you and yours."

  Armand stood with mouth agape, Nora Desjardins's baby cradled in his arms, as she limped away, rounded the curve between the hovels, and disappeared from view.

  ***

  Teresza woke reluctantly, each step up the stair of consciousness bitterly begrudged. The waking world held nothing for her. If she could, she'd sleep till her last day, and wake only long enough to tell Armand good-bye. But a swelling hunger and a curious weight on her chest compelled her to depart from the refuge of sleep. She cracked her eyes open with care, anxious about what she might see.