C f bentley, p.31
C. F. Bentley, page 31
Gregor used the top secret code on the keypad beside the door to unlock it and deactivate the alarms. He wasn’t supposed to have that code.
Who would question the HP of all Harmony? He had a right to every secret in the empire. He had the right to keep some of them secret, too.
At the foot of the stairs Gregor slipped off his shoes. As a top military facility this building warranted the energy expenditure of an elevator. He chose the stairs, up to the tall seventh story. No sense alerting his listener to his presence with the sounds of mechanics.
Counting every step as if his life depended upon keeping track, Gregor pulled himself slowly upward, pacing himself. At the fourth floor he began to sweat. By the fifth he breathed hard. At the sixth he had to stop and wait for his lungs and heart to catch up with him. He hated getting old. No matter how fit he kept himself, the years kept taking their toll. A little here and little more there. Pretty soon the Temple would begin to whisper he had outlived his usefulness as High Priest.
Not yet. He had too much to do before he retired or died.
But the cryptographer had outlived his usefulness.
If Gregor could just get the HC to agree to his plans, he’d have the Lost Colony back under control, the frontier secured, and life could continue on Harmony as it had always done: with a High Priestess with Harmony’s gift of prophecy and every member of every caste firmly in place, obedient to the Temple and Harmony’s Covenant.
Then he could rest, retire gracefully to a beach cabin on the Southern Continent and spend his days sailing and fishing. No exile to the archives for him. He’d not finish his days as a ghostly husk wandering those dusty halls.
Time to get moving, before the city awoke.
He climbed the last set of stairs and listened at the insulated door. No sounds penetrated. He pushed it open, muffling the sound of its heavy closing behind him with a handkerchief. Almost as an afterthought he retrieved the square of white cloth.
He stepped into a narrow corridor lined with offices. Light shone beneath the door at the corner room. This time he loosed the thin blade from his belt sheath before opening the door. Electronics bleeped and blinked. His listener sat hunched over a computer screen humming lightly to himself.
The tune grated on Gregor’s nerves. Sissy’s hymn of thanksgiving that she sang at the closing of her brother’s wedding ritual. He hated that tune.
Two more silent steps and he whipped the knife across the man’s throat.
Blood spurted forward and sideways. The listener slumped into lifelessness. Gregor remained behind him, until the blood finished spraying. He couldn’t have any trace on himself or his clothing.
“You couldn’t keep your mouth shut. You had to tell someone what you overheard on CSS chatter,” he sneered at the dead man. “No one, absolutely no one, can know that we are of the same blood stock as the CSS. Human life arose on this planet, with Harmony’s Covenant intact, and nowhere else,” he muttered.
Out of long habit he spoke a prayer for the departing soul as he printed out all of the latest reports. Then he removed all traces of the long-distance listening and his name from the man’s equipment.
He wiped the military issue knife clean of his fingerprints and pressed it into the listener’s hand. A cursory examination would look like suicide. If they decided murder, and they had a way of tracing the weapon, they’d find it came from Laudae Estella’s bodyguard. But all those Military knives were alike.
Then he typed a note of regret into the man’s computer, turned out the light, and returned to the elevator. His need for silence was gone. No sense in taxing his body further by walking down the stairs.
Chapter 47
Sissy tossed and turned with endless nightmares of Discord popping up and poking his bony fingers into her back, tangling in her hair, tickling her feet. And with every touch came sharp electric shocks through her body that reflected the disruption and chaos throughout Harmony. She flinched, and factories closed. Workers were thrown out of work. She cried in pain, and riots erupted over a shortage of food. On and on until Discord ruled Harmony.
Sissy/Harmony could no longer spread her wings to fly away or give blessings.
A noise brought her out of the depths of her dreams in a cold sweat.
Bleary-eyed and anxious, she heard Jake tiptoe away from her door.
Something in the furtiveness of his step chased away the dream fog of unreality. She followed him and Colonel Jeoff up the hill.
“What are you doing, Jake?” Sissy asked when she caught up with them.
Jake jumped away from his crouch over one of the niches in the newest cavern. The one with the disturbing mural that had interrupted her sleep with nightmares.
It looked like they were desecrating some of the oldest bones in the complex, dismembering them under the unholy blaring lights.
“Crap,” Jake sputtered. He stood straight and tried to stand between Sissy and whatever Jeoff was doing. “Laudae, what are you doing up?”
“I couldn’t sleep. Apparently neither could you. What are you doing? I will not tolerate disrespect for our ancestors.” She moved forward, fists clenching and unclenching.
How could Jake do this? She had trusted him with her life! Now he betrayed that trust by… by…
“These aren’t our ancestors,” Jeoff said, rising slowly from his stooped examination. He held up a long slender bone, no thicker than one of her crystal wands. Much too skinny compared to other bones of that length she had blessed and relocated over the past month. “Put that back!” Sissy demanded.
“Why? It’s just the wing finger bone of a juvenile animal,” Jeoff shrugged.
“Something akin to a Maril,” Jake added. “The only ones we’ve seen… out on H6 at the edge of civilization, have wings that are just long flaps of skin beneath their arms, no longer needing the elongated fingers to support them. But that’s the warrior class that travels off planet. Who’s to say the ones they left at home don’t have fully developed wings.”
“This can’t be true! Why would our ancestors bury aliens in their sacred ground?” Sissy felt faint with outrage.
“Because our ancestors weren’t even here a thousand years ago,” Jake said quietly. “We came from somewhere else and settled this place. There were only a few Marils here. We conquered them and made the place our own.”
“No. No, no, no, no.” Sissy sat down hard upon the uneven cave floor. Her entire world rocked. She couldn’t focus her eyes or her thoughts.
And yet that disturbing mural showed Harmony with arms raised, her gown flowing away like wings…
“Have you got enough evidence, Jeoff?” Jake asked even as he bent over Sissy, testing her pulse and handing her an inhaler, if she needed it.
Sissy slapped his hand away. “How can this be?”
“Don’t know. But it is. There are no human bones anywhere in this cave older than five hundred years,” Jeoff said. He carefully placed an entire skeleton into a special box, bone by bone.
“The other caves… “
“I doubt you’ll find anything different there,” Jeoff said.
“Our civilization is older than five hundred years… ” Sissy insisted.
“Is it?” Jake asked quietly. He remained kneeling beside her, ready to assist her in any way she wanted. Except in giving her the answers she wanted.
“You’ve never lied to me before, Jake.” He remained silent.
She searched his face and posture for clues. “You aren’t lying to me now. You truly believe this.” “Yes, My Laudae.”
Was there a special significance to the way he said her title, almost like he caressed the words with his mouth?
“If you have scientific proof of what you say, Jeoff… “
“I do, Laudae. Or I will as soon as I can get to my lab in the city.”
“I will see this proof. None of us are to utter one word of this discovery to anyone. I’ll have your heads if I hear the faintest whisper of a rumor.”
“I will need three days for the analysis,” Jeoff said. And I do believe that mural is a fake. I’m running the chemicals to date the paint.”
“If the mural is a fake, or has been altered, then someone is manipulating you, Laudae,” Jake added.
“Someone wants me to decree that Discord is equal to the other gods and not just a demon. Why, Jake? To what purpose?”
“I don’t know, Laudae. But the answers do not lie here.”
“They lie in the stone tablets beneath the altar in the Crystal Temple.” She sat a moment longer, thoughts skittering here and there like a kitten chasing a dust ball. “We leave at dawn.”
“I’ll notify… “
“Tell no one. The girls can follow us later in the day. I want this mission to continue. Laudae Shanet can bless the transfer and consolidation of bones. Whoever is trying to alter our faith needs to be surprised by my return to the Temple.” And this new theory about Marils needed to be kept secret.
“Laudae Sissy wished me to inform you that she has returned to Crystal Temple,” Guilliam intoned from the doorway of Gregor’s office.
The need for sleep tugged at Gregor’s muscles as the hour neared afternoon refreshment. But he jumped and started at every sound, too nervous to settle until he’d heard through normal media channels an official verdict on the death at the Military facility. No evidence existed to trace back to him. Yet the Military forensics teams had made enormous strides in solving the increasing number of murders and other violent crimes throughout the empire.
How? Why had violence become a normal part of their society in the last twenty-five years?
So violent had they become that he doubted he could mention in public an offer of peace and trade from the CSS.
“Laudae Estella was supposed to inform me six days before leaving the mountains,” Gregor frowned at his acolyte in disapproval.
“She didn’t. She’s here.”
“Why?”
“You’ll have to ask her.” “So I shall. Bring her here.”
“Um… I don’t believe I can do that.” The man looked too damn smug. He knew something. Gregor needed to know what. Right now.
“Why not?” Anger boiled in Gregor. He fought it down. He couldn’t allow his fatigue and nervousness to color his actions.
“Because she has ordered a construction team to open the High Altar.”
“What!” Gregor exploded upward, covering the distance to the doorway in three long strides. He resisted the urge to throttle Guilliam with his bare hands. The man cowered away from him. That was enough to satisfy him. It had to be.
One murder he could get away with. Could explain away to soothe his conscience. Two he could not justify. To himself, to the world, or to the gods.
“The High Altar is sacred space. It may not be violated by anyone. Not even the High Priestess.”
“Laudae Sissy seems to think otherwise.” “Then you will have to change her mind.”
“Not in the mood she’s in, My Laud. It’s not worth my life. But if you would sign my transfer to one of the outer colonies, I’ll consider talking to her.”
“Your life isn’t worth the trouble.” Gregor stomped past his assistant. “Summon every priest and priestess in the place. And all of their acolytes. I want witnesses to this.”
“Laudae Sissy has already done so, My Laud. A crowd of Workers and Professionals has gathered around the fence to watch. I’ve spotted three hover cams inside the fence and two more outside.”
Gregor chilled as all of his blood rushed away from his head and his hands into his feet. He couldn’t allow his plans to come to naught all for a headstrong girl.
A girl he had elevated to the highest position in all of Harmony.
He’d raised her. He would bring her down if he had to.
“I’s sorry, My Laudae,” Shan da Gan pa Darrell of the Worker caste said quietly. He shuffled his feet and held his soft cloth cap in his hands. With every word he rotated the cap, as if studying the brim would ease his burden. “I can’t do as you ask. I’s sorry.”
“Why not?” Sissy wanted desperately to hold on to her anger. In the face of the man’s misery she could only empathize with his plight. With half of Harmony City watching through the fence, and the other half through the hover cam that circled the altar, she needed to maintain an aura of calm and Nurture. She wore her majestic robes, but had left off her masking headdress, wanting no doubt in anyone’s mind who had ordered the altar opened.
“T’aint right, My Laudae. The High Altar, she be sum’at special. To tear her apart… cain’t do it.”
“I’m not asking you to tear it apart. All I want is access to the stone tablets beneath it.” Sissy tapped her foot impatiently. Surely there was some way around this man’s superstition.
“The man is right,” Laud Gregor called from the entrance to the forecourt. “The High Altar cannot be tampered with. Ever. For any reason.” He sounded as angry as Sissy had been when Jeoff had told her the black paint around Discord on the mural was only days old. The rest of the mural dated back over a thousand years. And yet the oldest human bones in the caves were indeed only five hundred years old.
Contradiction piled upon contradiction upon fakery upon malice.
And the hover cam recorded it all.
With an effort, Sissy drew herself up as tall as she could stand. If all of Harmony watched her today, then she had to show them something special. She pulled all of her previous prophecies to the front of her mind. There were a few for which she couldn’t remember the exact words; others near blinded her with clarity.
She touched the altar with her fingertips for confidence. Let the world know why she had been chosen by Harmony as the High Priestess.
“I am the harbinger of change,” she said quietly. The world seemed to still around her. The hover cam focused in on her. “Better to control the trickle of change than clean up after the flood.”
Jake held his breath as Sissy spoke. Her eyes remained clear of starshine. But… but the moment she touched the altar, a blue glitter seemed to cover her lightly.
Electric sparks left over from the lightning on the day of her ordination, he told himself. That was all it could be.
Wasn’t it?
The hover cam backed off, changing the lens opening rapidly, trying to focus on something elusive.
A disconcerted gasp ran around the crowd of Workers, Professionals, and Temple who had gathered to watch the battle of wills.
The moment Sissy lifted her hand, he rushed to her side, ready to hold her up, carry her if necessary.
She remained standing, glaring at Laud Gregor, or was she flaying him with her eyes.
Jake placed a hand discreetly under her elbow. She slapped it away. “I am not an invalid,” she hissed at him. He backed off. So did the camera.
Laudae Penelope stepped forward from the knot of HC members. They seemed to have pushed her. All of them together or just one of them? If only one, which one?
Her delicate perfume floated before her, something earthy and enticing. Artificial. She reminded him a lot of Pamela Marella, in her posture, her physique, and her artifice.
He suddenly lost all sense of attraction to either woman, though they were both damned beautiful. Sissy’s own natural scent of flowers and greenery filled his senses and his needs.
He wondered briefly if the watchers recognized the essential difference between the two women. Natural or artificial, confident or pompous, caring or self-centered.
Then Penelope did the totally unexpected. She melted back into the throng of the HC and pushed forward the two men who stood to either side of Lady Marissa. Noble twin sons who aided Marissa much as Guilliam worked for Gregor.
“I won’t be the puppet of the HC any longer. I won’t take the blame for their hatred,” Penelope said, just loud enough for those in the forecourt to hear, but not beyond to those at the fence.
What about the ever-present hover cam? It still focused tightly on Sissy.
Marissa’s son, no telling which one glared at Penelope, no more happy to be the mouthpiece of the HC than she was. The other kept his eyes on the ground.
Number One took a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and faced the center of the forecourt squarely. “If you, Miss Sissy, can’t control and contain coming changes,” the man said, pointing accusingly at Sissy, “we will remove the Lood taint from the sacred Temple. By force if necessary.”
Not on my watch, Jake growled to himself.
How was he supposed to do that if he planned to leave Harmony?
Chapter 48
Sissy forgot to breathe. Silence descended upon the courtyard, like a heavy blanket soaked in ice water. Sissy heard Jake loosen his sword in its sheath. No one else moved.
Finally, Laud Gregor drew in a deep breath. He turned on the entire HC with eyes blazing and fists clenched. “You are dismissed, Penelope. As are you, Bevan and Lukan.” No titles.
Sissy had the feeling something important had just happened.
“You haven’t the authority… ” Penelope protested.
“But Laud Gregor and I combined do,” Lady Marissa said. Her sweet voice wafted over them all like a warm breeze, removing the ice in Sissy’s veins.
The hover cam zipped over to her.
“Get that damned thing out of my face,” Lady Marissa screamed. She flung her arms out. Her right fist punched the vulnerable lens and smacked the device into one of the crystal columns.
It connected with a loud crack that sent shivers through Sissy. Then the camera flopped to the ground. The lens fell out and shattered.
The column looked undamaged.
Lady Marissa relaxed her face from ugly viciousness to calm grace.
“But…
but…
I’ve refused to be their mouthpiece any more,” Penelope spluttered. She looked anxiously toward Marissa’s twin sons for support. All three were victims of someone else’s prejudice and ambition.
Fully recovered from her temper tantrum, Lady Marissa smiled sweetly. “Best retire with dignity while you can, girl.” She patted Penelope’s hand as if she were a child and not a fully grown and mature woman old enough to be Sissy’s mother. Marissa jerked her head at her two tall sons to follow their cousin.
