Mourner

by Irene Radford

  If Sam had tucked a portable refrigeration unit in there, it would keep a decaying corpse from smelling. That would account for Sam restoring some power to the systems the moment the tractor beam dumped him in the bay and closed the station’s hull doors.

  He pushed aside a man with a professional caste mark as he dove toward the bin. The lid resisted electronic commands, even his magnificent new override everything gadget, and Jake had to put his shoulder under it and shove upward.

  A square of fine green shirt material fluttered to the deck.

  But the bin was empty.

  Laud Gregor’s ghost floated above the deck of the shuttle bay. He shook his head in mute disapproval.

  “Forensics, I want trace swabs from this interior. I need to know if it ever contained a body.”

  Janae d’Hess leaned over Ianus, fixing her gaze intently upon his eyes and spoke to him in whispers that couldn’t be overheard by other telepathic minds. “I have heard whispers of medical wonders. What if you allow them to take your seed and preserve it? At a later time when Scylla is more receptive, she can have the seed injected into her body and bear your child: the next Keeper.”

  Ianus had to think about that. Thinking got harder with each passing hour. The blood transfusion had yanked him back from the brink of death, but for how long?

  “I do not wish any child of mine to be born a slave to Mag.”

  “Doc Halliday says she will not allow us to go back aboard the Diamond as long as she lives. General Jake thinks the same thing.”

  “Then we are all doomed. Mag will not rest until he dies if he sees humans wresting both his station and his slaves away from his grasp”.

  “Does he have weapons enough to do that? I have never seen weapons on the Diamond, and I’m the captain. I should know everything about that ship. I haven’t even noticed an asteroid blaster aboard.”

  Janae looked anxiously over her shoulder. “The medicos are taking my children in for treatment. Doc Halliday has high hopes for stopping the damage from the mercury before it hurts them any more.”

  “Then there is hope for our kind, if they survive Mag’s rage.” He took a sip of water, precious sweet and clean water, which was always at his bedside. Life among the long-lost cousins from Terra could be good. For the children. Not for him. He did not expect to live through the night.

  They may have my seed. Have them plant a good strong branch on my family tree.

  Sissy sat on the floor of her private parlor with her girls arrayed in a circle. They all held hands while a tiny cone of incense smoked on a simple Badger Metal holder with a glass chimney around it. The glass funneled the smoke upward where it spread in the constant artificial breeze stirred by the air recycling unit.

  A light, floral scent with hints of cinnamon and vanilla wafted through Sissy, calming her growing anxiety.

  She fought back a cough and a wheeze, recognizing that her lungs tightened from her own stressful reaction to events, rather than allergies to the fragrances.

  Slowly she intoned a light hymn of gratitude for all the blessings in life, including these girls who had filled part of the void left by the loss of her family.

  Mary took up the song and added her own gratitude for the joy of being back aboard the station with Jake.

  Each girl in turn personalized the hymn. Smiles came to all of them when Bella kept a true and clear note for the first time ever thanking Harmony and the universe for the return of Jilly’s bracelet and the addition of Sissy’s ear bob to the jewelry.

  At last they came to Martha, who had added her voice only on the Amen at the end of each verse and skipped her turn as the song moved around the circle. Sissy nudged the girl with her elbow, keeping her eyes on the smoke rising above the glass chimney.

  “I . . . I can’t,” Martha choked.

  “Yes, you can,” Sissy urged her. “Think about the good things. Do not dwell on the bad. There is always something good in life. We are alive. Be grateful for that.”

  Martha swallowed and began a note, a little flat but close. Sissy matched the note and drew it upward to true. Martha continued in tune, blurting out much too fast, “I thank Harmony with gratitude that She led me to Ianus and he taught me much about controlling my gift.” Tears leaked from her eyes as she clamped her mouth shut.

  Sissy drew the hymn to a close, bringing in each voice as she brightened the tune. As she leaned forward to snuff the last of the incense ashes, her girls leaned forward, tightening the circle into one big hug.

  Martha looked away, still crying, setting herself apart by more than just sour notes.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Martha stood outside the bright yellow caution tape that marked the entrance to Ianus’ treatment room. She wasn’t sure why she’d come here. Where else should she be?

  With Sissy and the other girls.

  She couldn’t. Dire thoughts of death and misery permeated Ianus and his companions—his nest, he’d called it. He wanted Martha to be part of that nest. They’d explore the galaxy together. He’d show her exotic planets and bizarre space stations. They’d meet astonishing beings, and reflect upon starscapes in silence. Together.

  But that would mean slavery to the Dragons.

  The conflict churned in her gut. She wanted and needed to be with others who had her gift. But slavery? And early and painful death due to mercury poisoning?

  No. She’d take loneliness and ostracism over that. But she was grateful for having met Ianus, sharing his unique outlook on life, laughing at his jokes, and learning that she wasn’t the only telepath in the galaxy.

  I need you, Ianus pleaded.

  She stepped past the caution tape, heedless of the soft bleep of an alarm.

  Ianus held out a hand to her. She rushed to his side and wrapped his hand in both of hers.

  A stream of numbers passed before her inner eye the moment she touched him. A very long stream of numbers. She shook her head.

  “I’m sorry, those images mean nothing to me.”

  “You must give them to the person who runs the computer with the accounts spreadsheet, profit and loss statements, business plan, investments, and expenditures.” He whispered the words while keeping his eyes on one of the monitors.

  Ah, someone was listening. Possibly someone who would report back to the Dragons.

  “Who runs the computers?” he asked insistently, letting his voice rise above the previous whisper. “Or is run by them?”

  Who had access to those computers? Mr. Guilliam handled all that for Laud Gregor, and now Laud Andrew. She tried to remember where the accounting people might work. She’d only been in the control center once. They had lots of computers for tracking traffic in and out of the station, watching security cameras, directing maintenance to trouble spots and any number of other things. “I don’t know those people,” she whispered back.

  “This Mr. Guilliam?” Ianus must have tracked her musings and latched onto the one name that came to mind.

  “He’s not here.” She shook her head vigorously. But the memory of seeing him at his desk, orderly, efficient, making sure the Temple, and the Empire ran, gave her the related image of just as orderly and efficient Major Mara in her office standing guard between the open lobby and Jake’s office.

  “I’ll be right back. I need to find a link and call Major Mara.”

  “There.” Ianus pointed to a link on a table that could be wheeled over to cross his bed with a meal or a reader—if he had the energy to read. A link, a twin to Jake’s, but not on a wrist. “In case I need to talk to him.”

  Martha grabbed it and studied the tiny buttons surrounding a two inch square screen. Gingerly she pushed the upper right corner button, like she’d seen Jake do when he needed to call his assistant.

  “Major Mara, this is Martha da Sissy du Crystal Temple,” Martha said into the device.

  “Yes, Martha. What do you need?” Mara’s voice came through crisp and clear, calm. Then she yawned.

  Martha glanced at t
he chrono on the wall. Well after midnight station time.

  “I’m sorry I woke you, Major. But . . .”

  “Is something wrong with Ianus? You are using his link. Do I need to wake up General Jake?”

  “No, no, no. We need you to come here. Ianus has important information that I can’t understand, so I can’t remember it.”

  “On my way.”

  Martha listened to the quiet around her as the bustle of daily activity wound down to soft shuffles and quiet voices.

  “I like this time of day best,” Ianus said. He flipped his hand so that she’d come closer.

  “Why is that?” She squeezed his hand, and he visibly relaxed.

  “Can’t you hear it?”

  She cocked her head and paid attention to sounds, actual sounds rather than the constant buzz of noise in her head that she now knew were other people’s thoughts. “It’s quiet.”

  “Yes, truly quiet. Few are awake, the sleeping ones dream. Little of it intrudes, and I can be me. Just me and my own thoughts. No one else’s. I don’t have to find a joke in everything to keep my nest from falling into the depths of despair.”

  She smiled in new appreciation. “If I didn’t have duties during the day, I think I would spend my waking hours wandering the station at night.” Without loosening her hand from his, she hooked a rolling stool with the toe of her soft ship boots and pulled it closer. She’d barely perched on it and opened her senses to appreciate the quiet when Mara bustled in.

  She wore casual slacks and shirt, no uniform. Martha truly had awakened her in the middle of her all too brief off-duty time.

  Jake was restless and relentless. Working for him couldn’t be easy.

  “What do you need me to know?” Mara asked, facing Ianus directly.

  Did she know that face to face, eye to eye contact made a stronger link between minds?

  Martha decided she was just being forthright and polite.

  Then Mara staggered backward, a hand covering her eyes. “Slower,” she demanded when she righted herself. “Slower, and let me record it as it comes.” She lifted her left wrist and pulled a tiny stylus from the front pocket of her shirt. Carefully she began poking at the link.

  “I didn’t know links could record information,” Martha gasped.

  “Most can’t. Now hush,” Major Mara said, continuing to punch numbers and letters. They scrolled across the tiny screen in a continuous stream, the same sequence that she had received, unable to interpret.

  “A fifty-five character long password, impossible to guess, and none of my decryption software will extend that far,” Mara said on a long exhale. “And this will get me into which computer?”

  “You’ll know when the time comes.” Ianus lay back, looking paler than usual. He closed his eyes, his ragged breathing the only indication that he was still awake.

  One of the monitors began to beep softly, a steady sound that increased in volume and speed.

  A male nurse dashed into the room and began fiddling with screens and drips, watching graphs change rapidly. “You have to leave now,” he ordered.

  Mara grabbed Martha’s hand and dragged her back out the way they’d come. “I need you to go back to Laudae Sissy for now,” she said. “And don’t tell anyone about this. Not yet anyway. We don’t want the Dragons to suspect that Ianus just gave me a back door into their accounting.”

  Jake rolled over, barely aware that he no longer dreamed. He encountered a lump beside him. Had one of Sissy’s dogs crawled into bed with him? He was too sleepy to care, and snuggled into the warmth of the other body. He liked his room cool while he slept. Old habits from his days growing up on Earth.

  The lump snuggled back and threw an arm over him.

  Arm?

  His eyes flew open to find Sissy asleep beside him, pressed up tight against his body. He’d dreamed of this moment for so long, so fruitlessly, that he had to pinch himself to make sure he was awake. While he was at it, he checked to make sure he still had underwear on. If anyone on Harmony found out they’d spent the night together . . . with or without having made love, her entire life, career, authority as HPs was in jeopardy. Out-of-caste affairs were forbidden for everyone, especially Temple females.

  He checked the corner for signs of Gregor’s ghost observing and disapproving. No sign of him. Jake had noticed that the shade didn’t like the cool room. He craved warmth. Another reason for turning the thermostat down.

  “You don’t have to get up yet,” she whispered, nuzzling his neck.

  Oh, he was already up. Uncomfortably so.

  He glanced at the chrono on the night stand beside him. Zero-six-thirty. He was usually at his desk by this time because he couldn’t sleep. Mara normally came in around zero seven thirty. Nothing scheduled until eight. Dare he indulge in his wildest fantasies? She seemed willing enough.

  “What are you doing here, My Laudae?” he choked out around a suddenly dry throat.

  “I got lonely,” she murmured.

  “I’m always lonely without you.” He placed a gentle exploratory kiss on her brow.

  She responded by kissing him full and long, probing his mouth with her tongue, begging for entrance.

  He tasted tears.

  “What?” He tried to pull away, succeeded only in shifting to dry her cheeks with his tongue.

  “I want one time with you, to carry the memory with me for the rest of my long lonely days on Harmony.” Her hands began exploring his back.

  He let his own hands roam from her shoulders, down her spine to lovingly cup her bottom, barely covered by some silky stuff that might be a nightgown. Something about her words chilled him. “Did something happen? When are you leaving?”

  “Not yet. But soon.” She pulled his face to hers. “Love me, this once, and make it worth a lifetime of emptiness.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “The Maril are looking for an advantage in their negotiations with CSS,” Sergeant Ray Rogers, one of Pamela’s spies in the control wing, whispered as they casually strolled around the commercial restaurant wing looking for breakfast.

  Pammy had been up all night, again, and really needed coffee. She was almost to the point of exhaustion where coffee couldn’t revive her. Not quite. She always had artificial stimulant injections available (illegally since they were supposed to be prescription only, but she wouldn’t give a physician power over her by controlling a prescription).

  She turned into a small place with an open grill that quickly prepared breakfast meats and eggs. Breads if you wanted them, though they had to be toasted as they were usually two days past stale.

  Everything on station was either stale or powdered and reconstituted like the bacon and eggs. The hydroponics gardens were the only thing that worked well—lettuce, squashes, berries, and a few dwarf fruit trees. Jake had plans to expand, wanting the station more self-sufficient.

  “The Maril came to the CSS with an offer of peace. What kind of leverage do they need?” Pamela asked, covering her words with the rattle of cutlery and plates at the head of the cafeteria line.

  “Point of pride with them,” Ray said. “They are telling themselves that we came to them with an offer of genetic aid in return for peace.”

  “They are the beggars here, not willing to admit that they were once human. Now that their genetic enhancements, like wings and feathers, are breaking down, they need us to restore them to the state they want to call normal,” Pamela mused. She paused long enough to place her order at the grill.

  “We need them if the Dragons become violent over this mortgage issue,” Roy said.

  “But they don’t know that yet?”

  “Not unless we have a mole talking to them.”

  “Or they have listening devices and their own spies.” Pamela had her own sensors in the Maril quarters.

  “Rumor has it that they are very dependent upon the Universal translator General Jake gave them. Their honor won’t allow them to lower themselves by learning a lesser language.”


  “If you believe that, I have an invisible flyer from Labyrinthe I’ll sell you.”

  Ray raised his eyebrows. “You think . . .”

  “I think they’ve been chasing Laud Gregor’s body as much as we have.”

  “Could be.” Ray tapped his chin as he picked up his order at the end of the line and headed for the condiments counter, where he dumped a lot of salt on his “eggs.”

  She spotted a corner table isolated by a real shrub—one notorious for chewing up tons of CO2 and spitting out copious amounts of O2—and gestured Ray toward it. That plant was one of Sissy’s improvements, and a welcome one. The HPs of Harmony wanted real green all over the station to help scrub the air.

  “They must know we value that corpse, or we wouldn’t be turning the station upside down and inside out looking for it,” Pamela continued, adding salt to her own eggs, the bacon too. “If they found Gregor, then they could trade it for just about anything Jake has to offer. He’d grant a lot of concessions in weapons and access to Harmony and their Badger Metal factories for return of that body.”

  “Other than the genetic research Doc Halliday is conducting on Harmonites, what do we have to offer?” Ray asked. He took a cautious bite of his eggs and added pepper. “The telepathic Dragon slaves to replace the imperfect translator!” Ray chortled.

  “I’ve heard rumors that some highly-placed Maril in their government caste have borne children without beaks, normal mouths, and voice boxes that could speak Earth Standard. If they cultivate those children, rather than kill them as Harmonites would with any ‘deformed’ child, then they wouldn’t need the translator or telepaths.”

  “Point of pride. Honor,” Ray reminded her. “They aren’t about to allow those deformed children to live, and they want genetic scientists to keep any more from being born.”

  “No quick fixes there. They need something to get them through genetic testing,” she said. Ideas whirred, but no logical plan formed.