Mourner

by Irene Radford

  The sound of hands clapping in a slow, sarcastic cadence startled Sissy. But she didn’t object when Jake stiffened, keeping one arm around her.

  “What now, Pammy?”

  “How very touching. Can we get over the histrionics and get back to the problem of finding Laud Gregor, arresting his kidnappers, and losing the Dragons and their invasive lizards?”

  Sissy breathed deeply and turned to face the spymaster. “I will deal with the problem of Laud Gregor. You may deal with the Dragons. I don’t know what the fuss is all about. Money is just piles of data on either the credit or debit side of the ledger. Not enough? Invent more.” That’s what they did at Crystal Temple.

  Even as a Worker, she’d never seen physical money. All just numbers in the bank, shifted around from employer to employee to merchant to landlord to Temple or Noble as part of their tithe.

  “Invent more? You can’t do that! There has to be an exchange of things of value,” Pammy spluttered.

  “Does there?” A glimmer of mischief gave an interesting sparkle in Jake’s eyes as he disengaged from the group hug. He paused half a moment to kiss Sissy’s cheek and whisper, “Thank you, my love.”

  “Jake, what are you up to?” Pammy asked skeptically.

  “Tell me, Admiral Marella, who determines what is valuable? It used to be gold and precious gems, because they are rare, pretty, and durable. But labor has value, land has value. Heck, the little rock from the planet Sanctuary that I gave Sissy is valuable because the planet is now under interdict until treaties and ownership can be worked out between the CSS and the Maril. There won’t be another such rock available for decades. It is rare and therefore precious. What if I declare it as valuable as the supposed mortgage on this station? I could just give the Dragons a hunk of rock and tell them to be gone.”

  “They won’t accept that, Jake,” Pamela insisted.

  “Jake, what do the Dragons value?” Sissy asked.

  “Have to ask Ianus that. But they seem to appreciate digital data on their computers. Mara!” he called to his assistant.

  She appeared in the doorway right behind Pammy rather than as an anonymous voice through the comms.

  “Find Major Roderick, and Sergeant Contini. Then get into the bookkeeping program.”

  “Major Roderick is still in transit from Harmony, escorting Lord Lukan’s replacement here. What am I looking for, sir?”

  “Start padding the books.”

  “Jake, that is dishonest,” Sissy protested. Her girls gravitated to their usual positions behind and around her, even Martha.

  “More dishonest than the Dragons inserting mortgage documents into our data base and backdating it to the time of the construction of the station?”

  “So there never was a mortgage?” Sissy gasped.

  “There might have been a mortgage with the Labyrinthe Corporation, but not with the station as a separate entity,” Mara said, punching her link frantically. “Those documents were filled with malware too. I’ve spent the better part of this week playing whack-a-mole with it.”

  “What’s whack-a-mole?” Sissy asked.

  “It’s a game,” Bella explained. “Fun, but kind of pointless.” She mimed holding a hammer with both hands and slamming it downward.

  “Wonderful stress relief,” Mary added.

  “Not pointless,” Sharan said with her superior nose in the air. Superior by the right of two years in age above Bella. “It develops eye-hand coordination and speed, as well as the ability to perceive patterns.”

  “Patterns . . . Mara, is there a pattern to the malware?” Jake asked. He sat and pulled up three new screens on his desktop.

  “Patterns?” Pammy asked. She tried pushing him aside at his own desk as she called up new screens of her own. “If I were the Dragons, I’d use that malware to drain your accounts.”

  “Harmony preserve us!” Mara screeched and ran back to her desk in the outer office.

  Jake thumbed on the comms. “Get your own computer, Pammy. This one is mine. Mara, we’re going to need that accountant, what’s her name? Barbara Yankowitz. Get her up here fast with her own terminal ready to network with ours. And that lawyer, Captain Ambrose Zachariah. We’re going to need them both. And Contini, he’s the best we have at killing malware.”

  Sissy shook her head. They’d forgotten her and the other problems.

  “Come, girls, I must devise a new ritual that will allow Jake to adopt Martha. And Marsh and Ashel.” She grew hoarse on the last words.

  You are meant to be a family. Let yourself be a family.

  The words popped into her head with a warm rush of joy and wellbeing. “Is that you, Goddess Harmony?”

  A feeling of assent.

  “You’re back.”

  I’ve never been away. You thought yourself alone, so you convinced yourself that I had abandoned you.

  “Our minds play funny tricks on us,” Sissy said. “Martha, would you please bring Marsh and Ashel. They need to be a part of this ritual.”

  “Jake, too,” Mary said.

  “Yes. Jake will join us in a bit, when he figures out how to deal with the Dragons.”

  “Do not deal with dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.” Martha giggled. She and Jake exchanged glances.

  “I have no idea what that means, but be careful, Jake.”

  “Oh, I will. I certainly will. I have a family to take care of now. A family to share with you.” He blew her a kiss and went back to manipulating screens.

  Sissy bounced back to her own quarters, not sure how things would work out, just that they would. Someday.

  Ianus twisted restlessly under his blanket. Automatically he pulled the woven covering higher beneath his chin.

  Better, but not right. Something . . . something fluttered in the back of his mind. Mag must need him. All his life he’d awakened easily to the first touch of the Dragon’s need.

  He threw off the blanket and attempted to roll over. His muscles betrayed him and he flailed backward.

  He awoke abruptly, no longer on his narrow cot within the telepaths’ nest aboard Diamond. This bed was too comfortable, the temperature of the room just right, the gravity light enough to avoid dragging at his weakened muscles and bones, and an easy flow of oxygen into his lungs.

  “What do you need?” a nurse asked from the portal to his chamber. She moved easily, checking graphs and monitors, adjusting the rate drugs and fluids dripped into him, and waste dripped out.

  “I’m not certain. Something is agitating the Dragons. But Mag severed his direct connection to me. I can’t get details, just vague impressions of discontent and distrust beyond his normal angry mood. I may be able to reestablish contact. One way is better than nothing.” He tried again to move and got as far as sitting up a bit straighter, aided by the nurse moving the bed up with him.

  “The Dragons are no longer your concern, Ianus,” the nurse said. She brushed his brow with cool fingers, testing the texture and temperature of his skin.

  Instinctively, Ianus reached out with his mind for the nearest telepath. The members of his nest seemed content. Three were busy compiling a translation guide for the avian Maril. Two more puzzled through communications among the Ammonia breathers. The children played silly games common to their kind. “Guess What I’m thinking.” And “Guess What I’m Going to Do Next.”

  He moved farther out to touch Martha’s mind. She hummed lightly, thinking about her most precious memories that she could leave behind like her possessions.

  Unease welled up in him. But she was not the source. Her mind was content, even hopeful.

  There was another mind he’d touched: Mara, the woman who dealt with computers as easily as he did with alien minds. Not so different, actually. A matter of understanding the process of moving information around . . .

  Wait.

  What was she doing?

  “No, Mara. Don’t use those codes. The Dragons have changed them.” He had to go to her.

  “Easy no
w. I can get Mara on the comms if you need to talk to her.” The nurse stayed his movement with a light pressure on his chest.

  “You don’t understand. If she accesses the Dragon’s database with those codes she’ll alert them to her presence. I have to go to her, guide her through the process.”

  “Control, patch me through to Major Mara. Urgent,” the nurse spoke into the comm unit built into the wall.

  “Not good enough. I have to be there right beside her. That’s the only way I can guide her quickly enough.”

  “You might as well take him there, he won’t rest until you do,” Doc Halliday said, moving into the room. She glanced quickly at each monitor.

  “The trip will kill him,” the nurse protested.

  “He’s dying anyway. Might as well let his last act be useful. I’ll get a float chair. Let’s give him a boost of carbs balanced by a big portion of protein. That should keep him going for a while.”

  “Thank you, Mariah. May the gods walk with you. But I think they already do since you glow with blessed healing.” Ianus drew in a deep breath preparing himself for the arduous journey. His last. But in the end, if he was successful, he’d win the freedom of his people.

  “Doctor Mariah Halliday, I wish to be buried on Earth.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Martha sat on the deck of the room she shared with Mary. A circle of her most precious possessions lay in front of her. A pretty agate she’d found on the path to the funeral caves, a bright red feather shed by the bird Sissy had rescued, but lost in the fire, a vivid purple scarf Sissy had given her on her last birthday. That was precious because it had been a gift from Sissy, something of her own passed on to a cherished acolyte. Not much to sum up her life. What was the most precious thing she owned that she must now sacrifice in the ritual Sissy had devised to make her truly Jake’s daughter?

  Temple Caste didn’t own things. Everything they had was supposed to belong to the Temple and was merely loaned to the member.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do all alone in this big room,” Mary said, looking around at the big space, with room enough for all six girls. Her eyes took in every detail, as if committing them to memory before she had to leave forever. “Do you have to go?”

  “You know I do. I can’t go back to Harmony. Ever. Too many people know I’m a telepath. They will either kill me or enslave me. Jake offers me life without judgment and the freedom to learn everything I can, for things I want to do to help the peace process. Communication is the key to that.” Martha spouted the words she’d memorized.

  “What if you kept your talent a secret? You could rise to HPs . . .”

  “It’s already too late for that. Besides, you are in line for that job. You and Laudae Penelope’s twins. I don’t want the responsibility.”

  Martha stared at her few precious possessions. Each one evoked a memory, joyous or sad. What else did she have to offer?

  “It’s my memories of you and Sissy and the other girls that are most precious to me. How can I sacrifice those?” She looked up at Martha, images blurring with tears.

  Mary shook her head, also crying.

  And then the constant static of outside thoughts in her head grew quiet and still. A silken cloud of communion, dominated by a single thought, a single person brought peace to her mind.

  “Ianus needs me,” she whispered, all else forgotten. “Tell Sissy I have to help him guide the battle against the Dragons. He’s so frail, and failing. I have to help him.”

  She rose and fled barefooted as fast as the gravity allowed. She left behind her emotions as well as her memories. Nothing else mattered for now, beyond helping her friend and teacher.

  “Pammy, are you in or are you out?” Jake asked while he paused for breath. He had six spread sheets, five data bases, and the damnable mortgage file all open on his desk. He was armed and ready for battle. A different kind of battle than he’d ever faced before. This time he had his station and his family at stake.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What? The great spymaster uncertain?” Jake looked up in alarm. He couldn’t stop now. He’d bet his all and had to play it out to the end.

  “I don’t know if I’m more valuable here, or at my own computer trying to play havoc with the Dragon’s data.” She straightened and firmed her chin. “This is my station too. I have to help get rid of the Dragons. Then we can fight about control, just you and me.”

  “Okay. Go run interference from your office.”

  “Or do it from here. I brought an extra terminal,” the lawyer said as he entered with two mini comps under his arm. “I’ll be in the conference room. Don’t know what I can do other than advise on the legality of your actions.”

  “You can draw up the most convoluted but precise lawsuit against the Dragons D’Or as a race and a corporation.”

  “Yee haw! Just what I always wanted to do. But will they acknowledge our legal system?”

  “Who cares? They quote their legal system ad nauseam. You get to do the same right back at them.”

  “How about if my first act is to demand a copy of their legal code.”

  “Whatever. Handle it.” Jake turned his attention back to his desktop. Numbers and columns had started to move. Very large numbers disappeared in black columns and reappeared in red columns.

  “Here we go, folks. Time to play whack-a-mole,” he shouted so all could hear in the various rooms of his office.

  “Not whack-a-mole, fox and hounds. We are the hounds, and the fox never escapes,” Ianus said. Doc Halliday guided his float chair to the center of the office so that he had line of sight to all the participants.

  “An odd metaphor,” Jake said to the boy.

  “One I gleaned from your literature. What is a fox and hound, anyway?” He grinned tiredly. Only his eyes seemed alive and vibrant.

  “Hunter and hunted,” Pammy said, face buried in her own interface plugged into the conference table. “I prefer being the hunter.” She stabbed something on the table top and laughed. “Blocked the sucker. Cortini, can we reduce power in the Dragon lair?”

  “That’s not exactly playing fair,” Barbara Yankowitz, the accountant, said without lifting her face from her own screens on the table.

  “Who said fair is part of the rules of engagement?” Jake replied. “If they can cheat, so can we. Can’t do much about spin gravity, but we can drop the temperature and dim the lights.”

  Pamela desperately longed for all of the controls on her own computer. But she needed the network in Jake’s office to keep on top of her task.

  Do what you do best, Pammy. Make life miserable for the Dragons, Jake had commanded her.

  He probably thought only in terms of environmental control. Pamela decided to hit them where it hurt most: Pride and Wallet.

  She dug into the docking database. In a side file she found a list of fees the station legitimately charged incoming ships, single digit credits for the station to hold a bay or wing for the incoming ships. She quadrupled that and taxed an extra fee, triple the holding fee, for short notice. A fee for specialized temperatures and atmosphere. Oh, Jake was losing money on that one. She multiplied that by a factor of one hundred. Then an extra fee, quadruple the original, for hazardous material, extra air locks, toxic waste disposal. What else? Strain and stress on the lifts due to extra weight. Oh, and a modesty fee for blurring offensive body parts in the recordings of all activities outside assigned wings.

  The credit column on the station side started looking fat enough to pay off the mortgage without anything else.

  Not much else she could do in that area.

  Then as she watched all of those fees drained away and reverted to normal.

  She tried again to pad the account.

  Use code MDO1065839Diamond.

  She didn’t know where that thought came from, but she tried it. In this arcane world of telepaths and dragons out of legend and a mystical priestess flitting about earning the adoration of all, she’d had to put her sk
epticism away some time ago.

  Acknowledging that she’d retired her suspicions was something else.

  The debit and credit columns reverted to the adjusted numbers she’d given them.

  Lock it with Crystal9385601DOM.

  That transmission carried a more feminine lilt. A glance toward the center of the office showed Martha, Sissy’s annoying acolyte holding the hand of the reclining Ianus. Confirmed, the girl was also a telepath. Pamela made a mental note to have the girl’s brain scanned and compared to the other telepaths.

  Later. When she had time.

  Under the heading “Clean Up” she started adding fees for deploying security, hiring Maril mercenaries, and corralling the poisonous lizards in the recent dustup. What else could she add?

  Oh yeah, deploying the holographic image of Harmony. Might as well make the Dragons pay for their own weird superstition. That fee she transferred to the Harmony Temple wing. Just in case.

  “Turn down the heat in the lair another three degrees C,” Jake ordered.

  Right. Extra fuel consumption for abnormal heat levels. That was a good one.

  That fee disappeared as fast as she could enter the numbers.

  New code. HDO65839Saphire.

  It worked.

  Lock it with Glass93856DOH.

  She started to see a pattern in the code changes. First one began MDO—Mag D’Or—then a string of numbers and the name of the ship. Locking it gave a lesser value rock and reversed the numbers and finished with initials for D’Or Mag.

  The next set was a lesser number, and Hes’s initials and gemstone.

  Interesting.

  Martha shifted position so she had Major Mara in her line of sight. Numbers moved and shifted in other files. Jake and the accountant got the same look of intense concentration, and more numbers moved.

  They might win this one yet. They just needed a bit more time for the lawyer to come up with his legal documents.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “I can’t do this anymore,” Ianus wheezed.

  Martha gripped his hand more tightly. “Just give me the information. I’m passing it along to whoever needs it most.” Fatigue dragged at her limbs. She needed to sit. This mind walking was hard work. She’d never had to sustain contact and sort out the various “feeds” of information for this length of time.