My vision cleared. We were in the cloak room of the convent.
I didn’t think of screaming. For one the voice was Avery’s. I might or might not be able to claim some special favor and protection from Joe, but Avery was likely to give me no quarter. For another, Mother Magdalene would just about have my hide if I got myself shot by engaging in what she called heroics.
My only worry was Mother and my sisters, and the other people in the house. It was dawning on me slowly that I’d miscalculated. I should have taken another sister with me. I’d just brought two very bad men into the convent. My heart clutched a little at the thought that Joe was a bad man, but I could hear him talking in an undertone to someone – the young people? – and I couldn’t lie to myself.
The question was, what did they want in coming back to the convent? Supposing their vehicle, despite its fortuitous positioning in the crater, really had been wrecked, what did they expect to get in the convent? Couldn’t they as easily have stolen my flyer and gone to Memphis city or elsewhere where they might hide or transact their business?
The certainty that their business was illegal and that they were in fact bad men made the presence of the eight young people something I didn’t want to think about. Unfortunately my mind wasn’t listening to my reluctance. I didn’t want to believe that after all this time, Joe – Joe, who knew what it was like – was selling young artifacts into slavery of that kind, but a glimpse of the juveniles, out the corner of my eye, told me that they had the beauty that few natural born humans possessed: their features were almost too regular and all too pleasing, their bodies were lithe and uniformly well-formed. Not a pudgy one in the bunch, nor a short one, nor one with spots. But more than that, they had the passive demeanor of crèche-raised children, beaten into submission one too many times.
My heart sank somewhere to near my boots, and I thought it would have been better if he were dead.
Avery was still holding the burner to the middle of my back, but now Joe was whispering at him, and he was whispering back.
Then Joe approached, where I could see him. He pulled my hood back, with a quick gesture. “Listen, Blossom,” he said. “Listen. We don’t want to hurt you or your sisters,” there was slight smirk at that, as though he found my presence here even odder than I did myself. “Or anyone, but you have to help us. You don’t want me to die, do you?”
Strangely I didn’t. Despite what I’d just thought, I didn’t want him to die. Five years ago, he’d given me a desperate sign, behind his back, telling me to flee, and I’d gone back, and ingratiated myself to an Earth gentleman just getting his luggage. I’d mourned Joe for five years. I didn’t wish to mourn him anymore.
I must have shaken my head because he said, “Good girl,” in that tone he used to talk in when he was trying to convince me to be calm. “Look, we need to send a coded message. Will you help me? Will you take me to the com room?”
I nodded. He whispered something to Avery, and I led Joe down the dark corridor, past the cell doors of my sleeping sisters, and the dormitories of our charity cases, to the small room at the back, where the com was. Less than an hour ago, I’d been here—
Joe sat at the com. He looked it over thoroughly, then threw the shield. We had a shield over our communications. Nothing much, understand, just enough that when we needed to send a message to the bishop in Memphis city, or get one back, no one could break it and— No, I never understood it really. What was anyone to make of our communications, except the list of obits, the list of births, an account of those helped, or a request for a confessor?
But Europa’s authorities made a big deal of not interfering with Catholic communications, possibly because the church was one of the few unified authorities in the system, or maybe because the Lucias, through unrelenting charity, commanded a lot of loyal protection against people with very few scruples.
Joe threw the shield now, and started punching what looked like random keys.
“I’m surprised at you,” I said. It was really my mouth running away with me, though I hoped against hope that I could find something which would allow me to make sure Mother and my sisters and all our refugees stayed safe. “Trafficking in joy-bringers.”
He gave me a frowning look over his shoulder, and half shook his head, but his fingers went on, busily pushing keys. I didn’t expect him to answer, but he did. “Not joybringers,” he said. “Donors.”
It took me a moment to appreciate what he’d said, and then I gasped, “Joe!”
“Oh, don’t go moral on me, Blossom. What did you expect me to do, exactly, having broken out of penal servitude on Mars? What did you expect me to undertake? Did you expect me to find a cozy place, like what you got here? No, thank you. I won’t go where people say I have no soul. And if I have no soul why should I care if they think I’m evil?”
I sat down on the spare chair in the room. My hands were still bound behind my back, or I might have been tempted to throttle him. “There are always better options than murder,” I said, and realized my prim tones echoed the way Mother Magdalene spoken.
His grin was reflected in the polished panel of the com. “Oh, come off it, honey. They’re not more human than I am, or than you are. Vat grown every one of them. Grown to provide rich elderly people with fresh organs. Nothing more, nothing less. They wouldn’t exist but for the need. According to the law, they don’t exist, since the traffic in humans for such purpose is illegal in all the worlds.”
“Organs can be vat grown,” I said. “They can be printed. You don’t need to grow whole persons.”
“Except that you do, at least if you want the organs to last. And growing them acephalous is no answer, either. They don’t grow properly and don’t develop the right way. Come on, Blossom, who are you to stand in the way of people’s attempts to survive?”
I shook my head. One thing I was sure of. “You can’t and shouldn’t kill others to survive. That is wrong.” By now I was awake enough to start moving my hands, stealthily, with the cover of the chair back, sliding one slowly against the other. They’d tied me with the belt from my habit. Not well enough, since the belt was slightly elastic. No matter how good their knots, as I slid my hands back and forth it loosened them little by little.
He frowned at me in the reflection on the panel, then said, “They really got to you, didn’t they. They and their talk of all humans being important and all that. I’ve heard all that too, you know. Only if you ask them if they’d take you they always say their order is not allowed to take artifacts.” He made a face as if he’d like to spit. “It’s all nonsense. They don’t think we’re human any more than anyone else does. And no one thinks those kids are human either. Not even themselves. They know what they’re destined for. Do you see them trying to escape? At least they’re not bound for what we were sold into. Think about it. I am being merciful.”
My hands were now free, and I was merciful too. I dove forward, towards the burner that Joe had discarded next to the keyboard of the com console so he could use both hands to message. Grabbing it I turned with it pointed at Joe.
For a moment he looked at me, and he thought he’d try something. There was a little cackle as he tried to be indulgent, but I said, “Don’t even think about it. I will not kill you. We’re told not to kill. But I know a hundred places I can burn you and at least one you’d hate to lose in Europa away from regen.” I backed up, till my back was against the wall, my burner steady, pointed at his crotch.
He blinked. The idea that I was serious must have penetrated because he said a word in a dialect I couldn’t understand. The tone of it made me think I didn’t want to understand it. Then he said, “Why? All we want is to meet with the buyers here. They take the kids, Avery and I go back to the ship and you go back to whatever you’re doing here. I’m not going to tell anyone what you really are. I’m not going to disturb your life in any way. I never meant to, you know? We’d never have laid this trap if it weren’t for the fact that we were tracked here, to Europa. The
interplanetaries are after us. If they catch us, they kill us, and those kids. All artifacts. All illegal. Yes, even Avery. No owner. The kids should never have been created, and Avery and I have gone rogue and pretended to be human. If they catch you, you’ll be gone too. Is that what you want?” he said. “You want to bring the police here?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure what I wanted, exactly, but I knew what I wanted specifically. “No,” I said. “I want you to leave and take Avery with you. Leave those children. Don’t touch a hair on their heads. You don’t have the right to kill them just to make money.”
He gave a hollow, disbelieving laugh. “I’m not going to kill them.”
“You’re handing them over to be killed. I can’t let you do that.”
“Where have you been? All over this solar system, artifacts are killed, handed over to be killed, created only to be tortured to death, and no one cares. These kids will go easy, under anesthesia. They’ll give the gift of life to real people who are in pain now. Just because it’s illegal, doesn’t mean it’s bad.”
“It’s bad,” I said. “They’re people. Just as we were people in the crèche, Joe. And you will not hand them over to be killed. You say no one cares, but I care. And now that they’re under my roof, I can’t let them die like that. Get up, Joe.”
He got up.
“Turn around, Joe,” I said.
He did. I half expected him to do something – to try to grab me, to fight me. But he probably still remembered our tussles where, while he might be stronger, I was faster. I tied him. I wasn’t stupid enough to use elastic material. I tied his hands together. I put my burner in the small of his back. “Did you send the message for your buyers?” I asked. He nodded. His lips were pale, and there was a very odd look in his eyes. Once, on Mars, I’d seen a dog who’d been run into a corner, and was surrounded on all sides by hostile people. He’d had the same look in his eyes.
“Walk out, just ahead of me,” I said. “Don’t run or I shoot you.”
He walked. Just ahead of me. He walked slowly down the hallway the way we’d come. I opened the door, careful to hide behind him. I spoke from behind him. “Avery,” I said. Take your burner and slide it towards me, on the floor. The floor is smooth and it will slide easily. If you don’t, I shoot Joe.”
A flash of light, a scream, a smell of burning, and Joe tottered to the side, and I saw Avery grinning at me, his burner still glowing from flaming Joe. Joe sagged against the arm I’d put out to support him. He’d fall if I let him. Avery smiled, a wolfish grin, “That dumb artifact? He don’t mean nothing to me.”
I must have fired. I’ve confessed it, in fact, but I have no memory of lifting the burner, of aiming it, of shooting. I just realized my arm was lifted, and Avery was falling. There were eight kids, in the room, staring at me. Joe was on the floor, probably dead – I had no time to check – and Avery was most certainly dead.
From behind me, in the cool dark hallway came a clearing of the throat, a gentle voice, “Blossom,” the voice said. “What is this?”
It was Mother Magdalene. I was almost weak with relief, but had to tell myself the danger wasn’t past. Turning around, quickly, I told her the essentials. Not of my past with Joe. Not about what I was. There would be time enough for that, and now I knew I’d tell her before defiling the convent with my professing. But I told her what Joe and Avery had been doing, what I’d tried to do to get them to leave, and the traffickers in human organs even now headed for our door.
Mother Magdalene is sixty, with white hair and pale blue eyes and looks like everyone’s favorite grandmother. I’d never seen her look shocked. She didn’t look shocked now. She said, “I see.” And then. “It would seem to be imperative to hide the young people.” She looked them over. They stood still in a group, their hands in front of them. “Are they brain damaged or on some drug? They don’t seem to react.”
“No. They’re perfectly normal,” I said. “You see, in the crèches they beat us until we—” I stopped, realizing what I’d said.
Mother Magdalene didn’t look even slightly surprised. “I see,” she said again, and then she clapped her hands as she did when she was trying to get the attention of the novice group. “Children, come with me.”
“Where?” I said. “Where are you taking them?”
She shook her head. “Better if you don’t know.” And to what must be my alarmed look, “No, I won’t harm them. Surely you know better, sister. You, go wake sister Anne, and sister Dolores. Take these men to the morgue. And tell Sister Dolores—”
“That you want her to help defend the convent?” I said.
Mother Magdalene smirked. “Heavens, no. How would we do that? No. Tell sister Dolores to let any men inquiring after the children or these men in, and show them the morgue and the rest of the convent. The two men shot each other, and they had no children with them. That is our story. And you, go to bed. Sleep or pretend to sleep, so long as you remember if anyone should ask you’ve never been out of the convent today.”
I probably would never be allowed to profess, but I had given my word to obey, and I went to bed and stayed there. I was vaguely aware of the door opening, of voices outside, then the door closed again softly. I must have fallen asleep because, presently, Sister Dolores was shaking me, reminding me I would be late for early service.
The mass was said by a priest who does a circuit of Parishes and worship houses between Memphis City and Calamus Crater. I took my place in the choir of my sisters, and he made it fast, but not so fast that I didn’t discover, in the mass of amorphous Europa refuse the fresh faces of eight young people. Mother couldn’t have hid them there; too easy to find. But now… now we could feed them and care for them, and find them a different place to sleep, away from the derelicts, and… I didn’t know, but I knew Mother would take care of it.
Only one thing marred my joy at their rescue and at having got out of the night’s troubles with so little tragedy. No, two things. The first and most important one was that Joe had died and, worse, Joe had died thinking himself unworthy and not human. The second was that I’d have to leave the convent. Now Mother knew what I was. I had no soul. I’d never be allowed to profess. The idea of losing this community, this sisterhood, cut through my soul like knife through flesh, but it had to be done. I couldn’t wish myself on the Lucias as one of them. Perhaps they’d let me stay on and look after the poor and afflicted.
After mass, I went to see Mother and told her that. It all came out in a rush, the story of what had happened to me and Joe, and what we’d done, and what I’d done to survive, and what I was, the story of Joe’s last words to me, of my sorrow he’d died thinking himself not human. And then I said I knew I could never profess, but I’d stay and serve, and help the poor. It didn’t matter I had no soul, did it? I could do real good for real humans.
I’d caught Mother in her cell, writing something on a notebook. She had the archaic habit of using real paper and real pencils, her one luxury, sent to her from her wealthy family on earth. She started tapping the pencil on the paper as I spoke. “Blossom, you know the story as well as I do of the man who was beaten by robbers and left to die, and whose wounds were bound and who was treated like family by a man from another tribe, a man he too would not consider human. The reason for the prohibition… Most artifacts are so damaged that the soul within them is afraid to show itself. No. Put another way, they are like your friend Joe or even more like Avery. They hate themselves so much there’s no love left in them. But you risked yourself for those children. You are willing to serve the poor and unfortunate, even though you have no illusions about them. I’d say, Blossom, that your soul is in right order, and if you wish to profess the order will be happy to have you.”
I couldn’t believe it, there was a roaring in my ears, and I almost missed the next words, “And your friend Joe will be all right, sister Anne says. We had him in the morgue, until the traffickers left. Safest place to hide him, and he was cold enough in the refrigerate
d drawer. But we brought him out immediately, we applied regen. He was in shock, but he’ll live. Whether his soul will live too, I don’t know. If you want some moments with him—”
I wanted some moments with him. I found him in the white infirmary, very pale, his hair the only shock of color amid the white bed, the white covers, the white walls.
“Blossom,” he said, and smiled a little. The smile was bitter. “You thought Avery would care for me? That he wouldn’t shoot me?”
I nodded.
“Why?”
“He was your partner in this venture,” I said. “Wasn’t he? How long?”
“A year, two.”
“Poor man,” I said.
“Me?”
“No, him. To work that long with you and not care, not know you’re human. He must have felt very sure that no artifact could be human. He must have hated himself very much.”
He blinked at me. “If your Mother Superior found out—”
“She knows,” I said. “I told her.”
“And she’ll let you stay?” I said.
“She’ll let me profess,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “And you want to? You could come with me, Blossom. We could—”
“Run from place to place, looking for a humanity that always eludes us? I’ve found my home, Joe, and my place.” I took a deep breath. “Mother says you can stay here until you’re well. Until you’ve recovered. And then we’ll find … what you want to do. She says she has connections. She can give you ID papers. You can be free.”
“Free?” he said.
“Free from self-hatred and the fear they’ll discover you’re not human. Free from the fear of not being human.” I pulled back his disarrayed hair. He felt cold to the touch. “You see, the thing is, we are humans. Humans also are never sure they are… real. Usually they find their humanity in others. When you see others are human and worth caring for, then you too must be.”
Here Be Dragons: A collection of short stories Page 10
