Mourner

by Irene Radford

  They giggled and kissed. Sissy began to think it was time to go back to bed. But Jake turned his attention to the screen again.

  “Pammy, did you record that conversation?” he asked. His fingers enlarged the tactical screen and pinpointed the ship fleeing the system.

  “Of course I did, you idiot. Especially that last bit about blowing him out of the sky. Can I do it now?”

  “You’re actually asking permission?”

  A snort came as a reply.

  “Um . . . General,” Mara interrupted.

  Sissy sat up straighter, alert to her tone of voice.

  “What?” Jake mimicked Sissy in new wariness.

  “Remember that malware the Dragons inserted in the mortgage file? Well, we didn’t get it all, apparently. While you were talking to Her Royal Holiness, Mag used her signal to transfer copies of all of our data files to New D’Or. They now know as much about us as we know about us.”

  “Did she lie about him being a pirate, or is Mag trying to buy his way into forgiveness?” Sissy asked.

  Jake groaned and buried his face in his hands. “Pammy, you still there?”

  “Yeah. Let me blow those bastards to kingdom come. Please let me turn heavy weapons on them. Now.”

  “First, you can disable the ship and reel him in. Then board, wearing full, self-contained EVA gear. Relieve them of every bit of portable treasure and technology you can lay your hands on—payment for their docking fees and rent, and recompense to the telepaths for three thousand years of slavery. You can say that part of the booty is back taxes to S’reme. Then send them on their way.”

  “Then can I blow them up?”

  “Then you can blow them up. I will have nothing to do with it and must know nothing about it. Make it look like an accident or incompetence.”

  “Can we . . . um . . . get some sleep?” Sissy asked.

  “Now we have to deal with those who would desecrate the dead.” Sure enough, the private line on Jake’s link chimed.

  Admiral of the fleet Pamela Marella deployed her troops. She already wore a field uniform and needed only a utilitarian ship suit with gel armor layered between fabrics and a plentitude of weapons. She paused with her hand on the hanger.

  She didn’t have to go with her troops to take down a single pirate ship. They’d done that before, many times, though their targets were usually from Prometheus XII, with known technology. This excursion ought to add a sense of adventure to her normally boring desk work.

  On the other hand, Jake was up to something. She knew it. And he knew she knew. Which meant he wanted her kept in ignorance, diverted by the pleasure of blowing Dragon Banker pirates out of the sky. And she’d get first look at their alien technology. She’d heard rumors of an artificial gravity and precision controls that made their own look like tinker toys.

  Damnit, her people were well trained, and obedient. They didn’t create plans on the fly and run into danger for lack of plans, like Jake. She needed to keep an eye on the boy for his own good.

  She returned to her comms board and opened her eavesdrop program, selected Jake’s private line—accessible only on his link, not his desktop.

  ACCESS DENIED flashed once on her interface. The message came and went so quickly she almost didn’t catch it.

  Okay. He’d changed his password again. As he should.

  She cycled through all his usual ones.

  ACCESS DENIED.

  This warning remained on the screen a little longer.

  She tried a new set of passwords. Not even sissy opened to her.

  Locators showed him still in the office. He’d played that trick on her before. She flipped to a different program that tracked warm bodies rather than links. Two people did remain in his office. She didn’t trust that program any more. She’d trained Jake. He knew his way around her software.

  She’d installed motion detectors since he’d broken away from her control. He wasn’t supposed to know about those.

  Never underestimate the enemy. Jake was even worse.

  Aha! He hadn’t discovered this new tool. Two bodies pressed so close together they almost registered as one passed beneath the motion detector in the lobby of Jake’s wing right outside his private entrance, half the circle around from the office. They tripped the next sensor beside the upward lift.

  And wait a minute, what was that third trip? Something there but not there. Wispy.

  She zoomed in with a camera. Nothing visible to the naked eye. She tried infra red and ultra violet. There! An insubstantial wisp of smoke in the rough approximation of a human form floated behind Jake.

  She magnified the resolution. Still foggy. But the “head” portion turned and looked up directly into the camera. A death’s head skull opened its mouth in a parody of a smile and laughed at her.

  In the back of her mind she heard Laud Gregor’s voice.

  Then the image dissolved on screen. The motion detectors in Jake’s wing lost all trace of the ghostly form.

  But it tripped the sensors outside her own office and reappeared right beside her.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Jake felt like something yanked his body backward, leaving an empty space where his head used to be. He had to put a hand out to brace himself against the lift frame.

  “What the hell?”

  Sissy steadied his balance, as he usually did for her.

  “What is it?” she whispered. “Is the concussion back?”

  He paused and shook his head.

  “What’s wrong? Talk to me, Jake.”

  She was plastered so close to Jake, she didn’t have much choice. At least she’d put on her purple blouse and slacks, otherwise he’d likely skip the whole agenda and take her back to bed.

  “I’m not certain. But you know that Gregor’s ghost has haunted me since he died.”

  “I’ve never seen a ghost. Gregor’s or anyone else’s. I do believe you, though. You wouldn’t lie about that, and the timing is wrong for his appearance to be a result of your concussion.” She looked him straight in the eye, weighing his words against her emotions.

  “Well he’s gone. Abruptly. But he left traces of the concussion behind.” He rubbed his eyes. The pressure was not full blown, but he knew if he twisted his neck just a tiny bit wrong, all the pain would slam back into him.

  “Perhaps it means that Gregor’s spirit knows that we will succeed and he can return to his body.”

  “Perhaps. But I doubt it. Nothing in my life is that easy. Come along, my Laudae. We have a date with some body snatchers.”

  And so they progressed through the station back to the head of the Temple wing. All six acolytes awaited them, in full mourning regalia. They carried Sissy’s uniform. She sighed.

  “That headdress is so heavy and so . . . reminiscent of the Dragons’ fine decorations that I hesitate to put it on.” She kept her hands at her sides rather than reach for the monstrosity.

  “One more thing to change,” Jake said. “You don’t suppose that there are prehistoric cave murals somewhere on Harmony with images of early Dragon visitors, and that the padded, jewel-toned brocade is an attempt to make the priests and priestesses look bigger, puffed up like a Dragon? And the headdress . . .” He took the black and crystal piece from Martha. He couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “And the headdress mimics a Dragon crest adorned with chains of precious gems and beads.” He pointed to the domed top and the veil.

  “No, no, no, no, no! Don’t even think that. Now I know I can’t wear it. But I also know why the Dragons feared and respected me in this garb. I appeared to them as an avenging angel from their past. In their minds, I kicked them off Harmony for their piratical ways, and I kicked them off the station for the same reason.”

  “One more time, my Laudae,” Mary and the younger acolytes bowed to her, hands pressed together in front of them. “You need to be an avenging angel one more time.”

  Sissy took the headdress but held it under her arm, like a warrior of old carrying the head of
a slain enemy while they processed to the docking bay below mid-grav.

  Sissy approached the frozen scene in the docking bay. Norton stood behind the coffin draped in white feathers. A cryo unit attached to the sepulcher, to keep the body from decaying any further, hummed a friendly note. Three of his pilot co-conspirators lined up next to him.

  Spacer Captain Kalek and a cohort of ship security people faced the outlaws with fully charged weapons aimed at their hearts. The blasters hummed on the same note as the cryo unit.

  “Why, Norton?” Sissy asked. She hadn’t donned the obnoxious headdress. She wanted to look this man in the eye with no impediment between them. She needed to see the truth, or the lie, in him.

  The pilot faced his captain with a bland face. “I take responsibility for my actions,” he said, standing at attention.

  “I asked you a question, Norton.” She made a point of denying him any protective affiliation with his caste.

  “Captain Kalek, I refuse to acknowledge the authority of this Lood,” Norton replied.

  Jake’s fist connected resoundingly with the man’s jaw. Norton stumbled backward, clutching his face with one hand while he flailed for balance with the other.

  “You had no call to do that!”

  “You insulted the HPs of all Harmony,” Jake informed him as if he were mentally deficient. “You owe her respect.”

  “No I don’t. She has no right to call herself anything but mutant! A Lood. She should have been exposed in the desert at birth.” Norton’s upper lip curled into a sneer.

  His companions exchanged anxious glances, keeping Norton between them and Jake.

  Sissy sensed their uncertainty as they retreated an extra step.

  A gentle nudge in the back of her mind, like the silken flow of cool water in a creek flowing over her heated thoughts from Martha, reminded her of who and what she truly was.

  “Regardless of your uneducated prejudice,” Sissy said, drawing on all the authority of the Temple Caste mark at the top of her array of all seven Caste marks, “I asked you a question. Simple courtesy requires you to answer me. I presume your mother taught you rudimentary manners.”

  Jake snorted. She wanted to reach for his hand, hold him close a little while. A little while longer.

  But his hands were occupied with weapons, one blaster and one very long and wickedly sharp blade.

  “Answer her, boy!” Captain Kalek shouted.

  Norton clamped his mouth shut and looked up to the ceiling as if counting the exposed beams was a fascinating procedure.

  His friends took another step away from him, trying to meld with the shadows.

  Martha directed the security people to keep them from disappearing.

  “Funny thing about the Maril Ambassador,” Martha said casually. “Green is the color they use to honor their priestly caste. White is for prisoners.”

  Norton gulped and looked at the gleaming shroud. A beautiful fabric if you didn’t know its meaning.

  “The fabric is finely woven with quite an array of interesting sensors,” Martha continued.

  Ambassador Chtackah stepped out of the shadows. She held up a tiny remote, less than half the size of her palm.

  “She says that she is most grateful to you for relieving her of responsibility of the corpse of a deceased prisoner.” Martha nodded. The Ambassador pressed her device. The white cloth flew across the bay from the top of the coffin to drape over the ambassadorial arm.

  Surreptitiously, Jake touched his link, and the lock on the coffin clicked open. The lid rose eerily as if raised by a ghostly hand. Jake stared at the drama he’d helped stage, mouth slightly open in amazement.

  Did a real ghost open the coffin?

  Sissy wouldn’t be surprised.

  Norton stared into the coffin, as gape-jawed as any of them.

  Ten Maril warriors captured Norton’s helpers—loyal to him only as long as success seemed likely—keeping them from fleeing.

  Sissy didn’t need to look to know the body was that of a sharp-beaked, black-feathered Maril warrior who’d committed the sin of failing an objective. He’d taken his own life rather than disappoint his ambassador.

  “Where . . . where is . . . is Laud Gregor?” Norton finally asked.

  “Safe,” Sissy replied. “Now answer my question. Why did you find it necessary to desecrate the dead? Not just the dead, but your High Priest, the one person in all the galaxy you should honor above all others. You are no better than the Dragons with your disrespect for the dead.”

  “Because you can’t leave here without him. You can’t go back to Harmony and change things without him. I’m saving Harmony and the empire from the likes of you!” Norton shouted.

  “Deal with him, Captain. Do whatever you decide is necessary. You have his confession. And take his followers with you.” Sissy had to turn away and blank the venom inside this man from her mind. A hymn of mourning, the first stage of a Grief Blessing, sprang to mind. She sang it full-throated, letting the music express her pain.

  Because now she had no more reason to delay returning to Harmony and leaving Jake forever.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  “Um . . . Jake, how important is Pammy to you?” Martha asked. She dragged her steps, really, really not wanting to step on the upward lift.

  “The CSS values her a lot,” Jake said. He must have picked up on her hesitation. He stopped just before boarding the lift, and preventing Sissy from moving. “Why?”

  “Because she’s waiting for you at the lift interchange in the light grav cargo bay, right where we have to transfer to the new one to get to the hub. And she has a blaster.”

  “Tell him the rest, Martha,” Sissy said.

  “And Pammy killed Sam by triggering an electromagnetic charge on the shuttle hatch. He was ready to surrender and tell you everything. And she couldn’t let him tell you that a Maril warrior was waiting for him outside the Dragon lair when he retrieved Laud Gregor’s body. And she told him to run fast and run far. But you caught him first.”

  “Breathe, Martha.” Sissy rubbed her back in sympathy. “Remember to breathe.”

  “Breathing,” Martha confirmed, drawing in as much air as she could manage in a single gulp.

  “She’s got a blaster. So do I,” Jake said, firming his jaw.

  His determination slammed into Martha like a fist to the gut.

  “You’re going to kill her.” This was why she really hated being a telepath. She hated to know what Jake was thinking right now. Hated the hurt deep inside Sissy even while she held to the hope she could talk Jake out of it.

  A deep breath. A note that matched the vibration of hurt within her. Another note to brighten and sweeten the first. Together they became a silly children’s rhyming song that helped blot out the thoughts of the two people she loved the most.

  One, two, buckle my shoe. Three, four, shut the door . . .

  “I won’t kill her unless she forces the issue,” Jake said on a long exhale. “Hell, I’m not even sure I can arrest her on the evidence of a telepath.”

  “But we found the body with the Maril . . .”

  “Circumstantial at best. What is her intent, Martha?”

  “At this distance I can only read a confidence in her weapon and a determination to use it if she has to.”

  “If she has to.” Jake slapped his own weapon strapped to his hip. Then he smiled and drew a badger metal blade from inside his sleeve. “She won’t kill me unless she has to.” He gestured them back, away from the lift. “Give me five platforms before you follow me.”

  Then he stepped onto the next platform headed upward.

  Sissy wrapped her arm around Martha’s shoulders when she made to follow Jake on the next rotating platform.

  “He said to wait,” Sissy reminded her.

  “But he’s my dad. He’s going to be my dad. I have to help him.” Martha leaned into the hug. “I can’t lose him now.”

  “And neither can I. We’ll follow him three platforms behind, n
ot five,” Sissy reassured her.

  “Do you suppose he knew we’d do that? That he said five so we’d wait at least three?” Martha chuckled through a sob that clogged her throat.

  “Probably. Now here’s our ride upward.”

  Jake bailed from the lift at the top of MG. One more level up, the platforms would transfer over and back down again. He imagined Pammy waiting for him and Sissy as they stepped off one lift, walked three meters to the left and stepped onto the next upward bound one. He was supposed to be preoccupied with Sissy, newly united and about to be separated again. Perhaps for all time.

  Did Pammy know that he had filed papers this morning with the CSS to adopt Martha?

  He stepped onto the spiral staircase that wound around the lift shaft. It should end on the back side of the lift next to the last downward platform, behind Pammy. Should. Never plan on should.

  Pammy had trained him. She knew to be on the lookout in all directions. He shifted to the outside where the steps met the support of the railing, less likely to creak and betray him.

  And there she was, just like she shouldn’t be, eyes nearly glued to the lift shaft, her back to him and the blaster leveled at where he should emerge.

  Five careful paces forward.

  “Looking for me?” he asked, pressing the edge of his blade against her carotid artery.

  Her body stiffened. But she kept the blaster aimed at the lift. “How long before your beloved and the telepath come into my range?”

  He pressed the blade a micron deeper against her skin. “Another tiny fraction and I’ll draw blood. How much depends on the steadiness of my hand. Do you really want to make me nervous?”

  “I know where the body is,” she said, calmly.

  Jake flicked his eyes around the cargo bay. Ah, there by a stack of crates awaiting transfer to the next cargo vessel headed to Harmony Prime, hovered a tall column of mist with a green tinge. “Did Laud Gregor’s ghost show you the cryo unit in the food prep area for this wing?”

  An almost imperceptible pause. “Ghost? Now I know you have lost your mind and are no longer fit to run this station.”