Sanctuary (Jezebel's Ladder Book 3)

by Scott Rhine

Mercy considered pointing the finger at Toby, but the man was already gone. “It’s good fertilizer, and the wood’s not treated.”

  “The carbon to nitrogen ratio should be thirty to one. Wood shavings can be five hundred to one! You’ll kill my reaction.”

  Mercy was hungry, so she kept moving toward the mess hall. “The chicken poop should balance it. My mom used horse manure and sawdust in her roses.”

  “It’s too hot! You have to cook that for a few years before it’s safe for our greenhouse.” Rachael kept haranguing her through the line, but Mercy’s eyes were drawn to Lou as he strode into the room.

  “Hey Baaa-tease.” Lou sat down on the bench beside Toby, exaggerating the sheep sound in his last name. “How do they make virgin wool?”

  “Go away,” whispered the biologist.

  “From ugly sheep,” Lou shouted. The word ugly stabbed through Mercy like a shard of glass. Rachael stopped lecturing to stare in the direction of the brewing conflict.

  Staring at his tray, Toby said, “I’m not going to ask you again.”

  “Come on, mate. Tell us. Did you bang her like a ewe . . . I mean, like you said you were going to?”

  Mercy sank to the floor, hugging herself.

  Toby tried to punch the pilot, but the man dodged, laughing. Lou hopped off the edge of the bench and crouched playfully. “Come on, lad, you can do better than that. Did you show her your blunt-nosed mole or lecture her about the birds and the bees until she fell asleep?”

  When Toby took another swipe, Lou caught his arm and twisted it behind him. “Say Uncle.”

  Oleander broke up the fight, setting Lou to scrub duty, which left Mercy with no evening job to do. Instead of applauding her freedom, something inside Mercy felt broken, and she had trouble catching her breath. She called Olympus and offered to bring them some of the still-warm apple strudel from the kitchen.

  Zeiss wasn’t sure about this until Red said, “As long as you travel during daylight.”

  Mercy whispered a “Thank you” to the couple after the commander approved the request.

  Leaving a note for Oleander to watch the yard birds, she said nothing to anyone until she reached the top of the stairs about thirty minutes later.

  “Dominoes, we deliver.”

  While the others shared strudel, Yvette accompanied Mercy into the medical lab and closed the door behind them. “How did the field assignment go?’

  Without warning, Mercy started to cry. “Sojiro and Mary were right. I’m going to be a nun!”

  Yvette pulled the younger woman close and patted her back. “Why would you say that?”

  Mercy sniffed. “Toby is still too hung up on you. Even filtering that out, it was the worst date I’ve ever been on, and I went to MIT!”

  She described the look on Toby’s face as he killed the perfect butterfly. “Now, I worry what will happen if he ever calls me beautiful.”

  Yvette laughed. “Surely it was not so bad.” She gestured to the violet that Mercy still wore in her hair. “Give him some time.”

  Mercy thought, He creeps me out! But maybe her instincts were wrong. Maybe Toby was merely a little awkward. “I’ll try.” Privately, she was already thinking of how she could approach Oleander and try to set the security specialist up with him. Maybe punishing Lou meant Oleander liked the pale scientist.

  Cocking her head, the therapist asked her, “Is there another reason you shed your tears?”

  Sighing, Mercy said, “It’s hard. I’m used to being the best at my job. Now, I’m useless. Everybody’s better at something.”

  “Why is it important to be the best?”

  “In my family, every person has a niche.”

  Softly, Yvette said, “Had.”

  The tears resumed. Mercy couldn’t talk coherently for twenty minutes. Yvette made out sobs that sounded like, “Great mother . . . father . . . friends . . . nothing . . . everyone gone!” The only coherent sentence had to do with a tire swing she’d wanted to share with her own child. “Our mansion turned to ash. My childhood blew away. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

  “Shh,” Yvette said as she stroked the orphan’s hair. She murmured calming words, and eventually sang her a French lullaby. When her patient drifted off, Yvette poked her head out into the control room. “Mercy will be staying with us for a few days. Red, I’d like you to do the honors.”

  Mira Zeiss, the Index page, kissed her friend Mercy’s cheek and woke her. “Would you like to become blood sisters?”

  Mercy nodded. “I need to belong somewhere.”

  Yvette handed them a diabetes sampling needle, and the two women pricked their thumbs and mingled the blood like summer campers.

  Then, Mira leaned over Mercy’s ear and whispered the words inscribed on the first paragraph of the first alien page read by Jezebel Hollis: We all come from the same over-world and will return there someday. Someone once said, if we closed our eyes at the same time, we’d see the same thing. That’s close. We do all go to the same plane, but with different locations and with different points of view. This multiplicity is important when defining or triangulating upon a higher truth . . .

  From his chair in Garden Hollow, Sojiro looked up to the sky. Over the radio, he said, “She’s a flower. Welcome, sister. Dream. We won’t let you fall.”

  Red and Yvette never left her side. Mercy had such vivid dreams that night; the colors were more brilliant than ever before.

  Chapter 23 – Vow of Chastity

  Mercy spent the next three days of the others’ shift with them, experiencing the support of two female empaths and a man who could ‘hear’ when his wife was awake. Feeling the Zeiss’ bond on this level made a part of her ache, but she could still share. She told them all about raising the birds and the places she’d explored in the biosphere until they had to be sick of her constant talking.

  She couldn’t believe the new colors everywhere. Even Olympus had nuances she’d never noticed before. With her new access to the Collective Unconscious, she could not only sense the presence of Actives in the same room, but Snowflake required almost no effort to access anymore. The alien interface felt like an extension of her will.

  Sojiro and Oleander came a few hours early for their shift just to give the Zeiss’ ears a break. Oleander visited with her first, telling her about the birds. “They poop everywhere, but they’re not so bad. Strut fell asleep in the pocket of your lab coat. They miss you.”

  “I hope Toby helped with the chickens while I was gone. He learned about chickens from his mother. I hear that the way a man treats his mother is a good indicator of how he’ll treat his spouse. I also noticed that he’s the only man on the mission the same age as you. He keeps his room as neat as you do. I thought you might—”

  Oleander cut her off. “No offense. I’d rather sleep with you.”

  Mercy blinked. “Okay. No ambiguity there.”

  Smiling, the older spacer said, “Don’t worry; I haven’t done . . . that since prison. I don’t prefer women, but if I had to choose, I’d want the other person to love me. I know you’d cut out your own kidney for me if you thought you could help—and you just met me. I’ve known Toby for months, and he’s more passionate about a microscope slide than kissing.”

  “Prison?” Mercy said, her voice rising.

  “They didn’t tell you? My brother blew up bank property, and I did a few years hard time until Professor Horvath sprung me for Out-of-body experiments. I was the only one out of three women to survive the first year.”

  “Wow.”

  “Does this mean you want to leave the dorm?”

  “No. I feel safe with you. You’d beat anyone senseless who tried to hurt me.”

  “Damn straight.”

  “And I can’t blame you about Toby. I just feel bad for a guy when every available woman would rather be a nun or a lesbian.”

  “Nadia said she’d rather join the French Foreign Legion.”

  “Ouch.”

  Both women laughed for a momen
t.

  Sojiro poked his head in. “What’s so funny?”

  “Do you think Toby’s hot?” asked Oleander.

  The Japanese artist cleared his throat. “Oleander is more butch than he is. Now, Herk or Z? I’d sign up for that Chippendales dream.”

  Oleander high-fived him.

  “You guys aren’t making this any easier,” Mercy complained. “Are you sure you’re not just a little het?”

  Sojiro shook his head. “Sorry, sweetie. You want to see my ideal? Come to my room and I’ll show you a video of Mikhail Baryshnikov. Mmm.”

  “I hear that,” Oleander echoed.

  In his room, he had smart paper plastered over an entire wall panel. The current image was a palace reminiscent of King Ludwig’s. Gesturing to an array of computer-linked pencils and airbrushes, Sojiro said, “Whatever color I touch it with appears on the computerized surface, but I miss the texture of real paper. On the plus side, when I hit this button, the image will be stored on a special hard drive and can be recalled at any time.”

  Mercy whined, “It’s not fair. I can understand and admire you. You don’t know how rare that is for a guy.”

  “You relax around me because I’m safe. Hey, I finished your royal gown. Check it out.”

  He restored a painting almost as tall as Mercy herself. It showed a princess in a blue-and-white gown embellished with snowflakes. The elegant woman could’ve been a Parisian noble in a bridal ensemble apart from the hair bound in a medieval habit. She also had a halo-shaped, blue-green aurora floating above her head. “You made me an ice princess.”

  “You’re beautiful,” Oleander insisted. “Chaste.”

  “It needs something,” mused the artist. “Maybe a bluebird or something you’re talking to, like your chicks. No, that’s too Disney. Maybe I can give you a curse that your father cloistered you to avoid? Some burning evil that the church can hold at bay.”

  “Are we talking about Lou now?” joked Oleander.

  “Can you show us what she looks like without the wimple, the headdress?” Mercy asked, admiring the detailed painting.

  “Girl, I can’t draw what I haven’t seen.”

  Mercy sighed as the artist pulled out his personal computer pad and scrolled through this movie collection, searching for White Nights. “Does it bother you . . . being alone?”

  “I’m not alone. You’re here.”

  “I mean physically.”

  “People who spend too much time in the interface can lose that drive, and sometimes even forget to eat.”

  Grunting, Mercy said, “I’m afraid I’d be just the opposite. Without swimming every day, Johnny’s cooking is going to make me cow out.”

  Both Sojiro and Oleander nodded their agreement. The artist said, “I work out with a bamboo stick for an hour every morning with one of the other guys.”

  The other woman said, “Running helps me.”

  “You could help me learn to make rice paper. When I succeed at that, I can use my real markers.”

  Mercy smiled, remembering when using licorice-scented markers was all she needed to be happy. The blossom of memory resonated with Sojiro, as if she’d hit ‘Like’ on Facebook. That was it—emotional networking.

  She sensed Toby coming in through the main door—like a miniature rain cloud, an Eeyore in the room. When he popped into the medical bay, she scampered out and skipped down the spiral stairs, glorying in the colors of the day. She waited for Yvette at the bottom, like a girl walking her friend to school.

  ****

  Toby noticed Mercy’s scent in the medical room immediately. She’d been sleeping here. When he located Yvette packing her gear to return groundside, he asked, “What was wrong with Mercy?”

  “She needed to talk. The loss of her family and coworkers has hit her hard. We had to perform an emergency page induction and stay close to her for a few days. She’s still a little . . . fragile, so Red and I will take turns escorting her for a while.”

  “Sure. Are you going to the wedding?”

  “But of course. The ceremony is scheduled for the last day of our stay here in the true sunlight of this system, three weeks from now. I would not have imposed, but as Auckland’s nurse, he wanted me to be best man. As his caregiver, I’ll need to be at his side the whole time, monitoring.”

  “I’ll be fine. Mercy promised to come back a little early and bring me cake.”

  “See you in a week, and thank you for understanding.”

  The doctor peered out the side window at Yvette as she descended the stairs. Using the zoom feature of the window, he watched the two women walk hand-in-hand. They stopped to check on the strawberries and chatted all the way back to Garden Hollow. He froze an image with Mercy tipping her head back, laughing.

  He had to know what they were discussing, so he said, “Snowflake, add sound.”

  Her laughter rang in his ears, lovely and innocent. Then Yvette, the bane of his existence, said, “So basically, you made certain no other woman on this voyage would sleep with poor Toby before you decided to enter a convent.”

  “I did it for you . . . what we discussed before.”

  “You are a sweet girl,” the therapist said, brushing the younger woman’s bangs out of her face lovingly. “Your hair is growing so long again. Let me show you how to braid it.”

  Toby howled in rage at the betrayal he’d always suspected—Yvette was ruining his chances with every other woman in the world! In his fury, he scattered the tray of instruments beside the bed.

  Red called, “Everything okay?”

  He reset the window to normal and replied, “Yeah. My nurse rearranged the room, and I smacked into an unexpected obstacle.”

  “That hurts.”

  “I’ll be ready for it next time.”

  ****

  On his next infraction, the women in the kitchen ordered Lou on an expedition with Mercy to locate and map hives that had honey. Such an expedition had to start in the fields of flowers.

  Lou kept his eyes on the narrow path the entire way around the mountain.

  “What did you say to get Rachael so peeved?” Mercy asked.

  “You know Johnny’s latest experimental Chicken Cordon Bleu?”

  “With the Guinea Pig bacon? That just seems wrong.”

  “I know. Because to of the ham and cheese, I called it ‘Chicken Not a Jew.’”

  She burst out in a laugh, but covered her face immediately, ashamed that she found him so funny. “She’s usually pretty thick-skinned about religion. You probably hurt Johnny’s feelings when you were making fun of the new dish.”

  “Well boo-freaking-hoo.”

  After that, Mercy had to prod him into chatting. “So . . . I heard from my sister that Mira had her cap set for you before she and Z got together.”

  A little more swagger crept into the pilot’s walk after that. “I didn’t notice at the time.”

  “She wasn’t pretty enough?”

  Snorting, Lou said, “Red was like a guy with tits. She was a pilot, for God’s sake. Rumor at the time was that she and Horvath had a thing going.”

  “Her own aunt?”

  “We didn’t know that. Red was just . . . one of the guys.”

  “How was Vanessa different?”

  “She was the first girl since I entered college who didn’t sleep with me on the first date.”

  The admission surprised her, and led to a dozen other questions. What did men really want in a woman? “So, virtue is important to you?” she asked, trying not to sound too interested.

  “That part was Red’s fault, actually. She broke Vanessa’s nose, and I had to rush her to the hospital. They used narcotics during surgery and for the pain, so I couldn’t touch her for two weeks. I may be a lot of things, but I won’t take advantage of a woman who can’t say yes.” Something inside Mercy fluttered at the captain’s chivalry.

  “So Vanessa was more girlie than Red?”

  Lou closed his eyes briefly, savoring the memory. “Vanessa was the Ho
ly Grail of dates—an underwear model. She had the body of a porn star. I kid you not. I will never score like that again, as long as I live. Every time I see lace, I’ll remember that woman.”

  Mercy could feel her face heat up until her ears turned red. She could never measure up to that standard, although her sister Maggie might have. “Um . . . so Yuki was just a fling?”

  Pulling out a pair of binoculars to scan nearby trees for bee activity, Lou said, “I still have standards. Yuki was world class and an acrobat in the sack. My entire old unit would’ve drooled over her and called me a show-off bastard bringing her to visit. I wouldn’t have been ashamed to take her into any officers’ club on any base in the world. I might have even invited her to my folks’ Christmas party.”

  “Past tense?”

  Lowering the binoculars, Lou said, “They haven’t told you yet, have they?”

  “Told me what?”

  “Her arm is definitely coming off.”

  Mercy put her arm to her chest. After a moment to process, she asked, “Why should that end your relationship?”

  He wrinkled his lip. “People would stare at her for the wrong reason.”

  She wanted to smack him with the spear.

  When he noticed the change in her posture, he asked, “What? Red looked at me the same way when we discussed the issue. I’m not as evolved as the rest of you—public opinion matters to me. I don’t want someone losing their sick over my date when I take her to a restaurant.”

  Several biting replies came to mind, but she resisted all of them. Instead, she hinted gently. “I was diagnosed with breast cancer when we first boarded the ship. If Sensei hadn’t fixed the errors, I would’ve needed a mastectomy. Would you have gone on the honey-hunting trip with me if I had one of those?”

  Lou considered. “Depends. Was it a full amazon job or just a snip with implants afterwards?”

  Turning on her heel, Mercy left the pilot standing in the field alone.

  “What?” he demanded.

  ****

  Toby started plotting his revenge for the next time he could ambush Lou—the night of the wedding. If the fool drank before his shift, Toby could strap the pilot into the Snowflake and make it look like Lou cooked his own brain by accident. With any luck, there would be hours of begging before he died. He’d need a way to block the radio headsets, though, so no one else would hear the pleas. The silence of subspace would mask things quite nicely—no one could come looking during the blackout.