Deviation (2 page)

Dark humor flickered in the would-be apprentice's eyes. It was faint, but Celeocia spotted it. Behind the cloth that covered the woman's mouth, Celeocia knew the candidate was smirking. Under normal circumstances, she would have enjoyed the subtle defiance in the woman. Unmarried women had two choices in life; obey or disobey. Outright rebellion led to a correctional facility, a place that held foreboding, hushed whispers of maltreatment. Celeocia knew these rumors were true. Deep down, every woman knew it. That was why so few defied the laws anymore.

At least out loud.

The Temple of the Novo Femina was tolerated on account of their acquiescence to society. Proper respect was given to men and in turn the Temple had a semblance of privacy. Their ranks were populated by spinsters, those few women who had not been wanted, and widows who had borne no children. On occasion there was a younger woman who chose the Temple over marriage. This would always depend on the family, who had the right to send the girl to a correctional facility instead.

In this case, however, the applicant was none of these.

She was a spy.

The robes gave her away. They were too rich, too new, to be from the pretend family flanking the woman. All of the men behind her were in shades of gray and black; thick padded pants that were worn here and there, and shirts that had seen mending. Civilian garments, Celeocia registered, but the most suspicious clue was that none of them were wearing weapons. Or at least, she thought, no weapons that she could see. She doubted these Makeem Loyalists would have entered the Temple unarmed.

Celeocia smiled, warm and inviting, while she memorized the face of the so-called father. The cybernetics in her left eye digitally mapped out his features, burning a copy to her memory. Annoyingly enough, the robot inside her could not locate his true identity, but she kept herself poised. She would find out who he was and everyone he was connected to later, adding the information to their network so that her own spies could be alerted. For the moment she was content to seize the opportunity she'd been given.

"She will have to be inspected," Celeocia spoke to the man, who seemed startled at the sudden attention. "The Temple has certain standards, you understand."

"Such as?" She heard the distinct pitch of suspicion in his voice.

"We do a great deal of charity work. If she is weak or gets sick easily she would be of little use to us."

"She's neither."

Celeocia kept her pleasant smile fastened on the man. Of course the girl was strong and healthy. She would have to be if she'd come from a Loyalist training yard. And Celeocia knew she'd come from a training yard. It was unlikely that they would utilize one of their own family members for a mission like this, not with so many females wallowing in the correctional facilities these days.

She found it distinctly amusing that the Makeem were trying this again. Their last attempt to infiltrate the Temple had been disastrous to their cause. The girl they'd sent swayed and double crossed them, rose in the ranks of the Novo Femina until she was named High Priestess. And that girl was Celeocia, who had a marked sense of the irony presented before her.

"High Priestess," a calm, sultry voice called her attention away from the spy.

Celeocia turned to Eanmar, her personal assistant. The vibrant claret-colored robes of the Novo Femina could do nothing to hide the puckered face that greeted her. While every woman was disfigured in some way - a direct result of genetic alterations done hundreds of years ago -- some had more unfortunate locations. Eanmar, for example, appeared to have only half a face. The left side was pristine, smooth, with a glinting green eye that resembled lake lichen. Starting at the nose, however, the beauty failed. The right side seemed to fall in on itself, twisting and bubbling with incoherent scar tissue.

It was for women like Eanmar that the female race bore the robes. Head to toe, faces masked, the robes concealed everything from view. Only after marriage, under the protection of a husband and a family name, could a woman remove the robes if she wanted. Most kept them on, clinging to them like a safety line.

Throttling down a spurt of agitation for the weakness of her race, Celeocia focused her attention on Eanmar, "Yes?"

"You have an urgent message from the enclave on Earth."

Hiding all traces of excitement from her face and voice, Celeocia nodded and said; "Of course."

This was the call she'd been waiting for. Keeping her movement deliberately slow, she made her way to the draped archway that led into the recesses of the Temple. Smooth, unhurried, calm, she paused just long enough to instruct Eanmar to inspect the applicant before she ducked behind the velvet red drapery. After four slow steps she quickened her pace, hurrying down the corridor to the communications room.

The marbled ivory tones of the Temple gave way to clean, polished metal inside the small chamber. Two chairs, both occupied, faced the east and west walls where liquid-black screens were lit with bright, white lights. She'd never worked the Comms Department, so she wasn't certain what each light on the touchable screens meant. Her expertise was in strategy and calculations. At the southern wall another thin, mounted screen flickered through static until an image started to form.

"That's as good as we can get it," one of the women reported.

"Do we have audio?" the woman on the screen asked, half her words crackling with noise.

"Affirmative," Celeocia stepped closer to the screen. "Report."

She knew the woman without having to access any data files; Rebecca Dorsan, twenty-seven years old. Rebecca had been suspected of murdering her husband, though nothing had been proven. Three days after his death she joined the Temple. Highly intelligent, an excellent pilot, she'd been given the designation Blue Twelve upon entry to the Novo Femina.

There was movement on the screen as Rebecca made a quick duck. A moment later the camera readjusted, flashing into view a crude toilet and supply shelf before Rebecca's face showed up again. From the awkward vantage Celeocia could see the girl was crammed up against the door, and some kind of pounding rattled the camera, shaking the already distorted image.

It was obvious that they had very little time.

"Report," Celeocia said again.

"Target acquired," Rebecca's voice broke into static but her mouth kept moving. Seconds later the audio came back. "I repeat; Caresse Zimmerman is Reesa Zimms."

On screen, the door burst open, and Rebecca toppled to the floor. The camera whirled three times before settling, the viewfinder giving a clear picture of the breathless moments that followed. Two men in tactical gear shoved their way into the room, weapons aimed at Rebecca. Orders were shouted, unclear amidst the scratch from the audio. Rebecca's leg, obviously robotic even in the black and white image, bent until her knee was in reach. Both men paused in shock, which was all Rebecca needed. She pulled the pin on the explosive device mounted in the robotic limb and the screen exploded into static.

Silence enveloped the communications room as the screen shut off. Celeocia lowered her gaze to the dull metal floor, giving homage to Rebecca Dorsan, Blue Twelve, a woman of vision and courage. A woman who had refused to hide behind the robes; a Novo Femina who deserved so much more than a rudimentary toilet room as a final resting place.

Rebecca Dorsan, her friend of seventeen years.

And she could not even mourn for her. Not in public anyway. It would be impossible to explain the death, not only 400 million kilometers away but several hundred years in the past.

Tense, uncertain shifting in the room forced Celeocia to lift her head. Two deep breaths later she turned to face them, her features returning to that disciplined gaze of disinterest that she'd perfected. The robotic part of her that clawed around the left side of her neck and chin helped with this, keeping muscles exactly where she wanted them.

"The man in the receiving room is a Makeem Loyalist. Identify him and process his information. I want all Novo Femina to be aware of him by night fall." She exhaled through her teeth, gave a curt nod to the room, and started for the door.

She didn't bother returning to the receiving room. Eanmar was more than capable of handling the applicant and the pain of losing Rebecca was sharp enough that Celeocia didn't trust herself around the spy. With the loss, however, was also a gain. While Rebecca hadn't managed to find patient zero, she had been successful in locating the one woman in history who could; Caresse Zimmerman.

Celeocia made her way through the maze of marble-metal-meshed hallways, ignoring the respectful bows of the women who passed. The puzzle was nearly finished. She could almost see it, completed, answers pouring around her, the great feminine movement revived; freedom at last for all women. The last piece, the Zimmerman woman, was all she needed now.

But time and finances were against her.

Rebecca had taken the last ship. It was on the other side, waiting. She couldn't buy a new one, either. There was an influx of spinsters joining the Temple, more than doubling the costs of food and lodging. The Temple was already stretched thin, even with the generous donations from some of the engineering companies. Some days, she just wanted to strangle the Scientific Community for their convoluted trade-and-sell economy.

Most civilians led simple lives, farming or working some form of trade, but were cash poor. The Community, in its brilliance, gave everything a monetary value, allowing civilians to trade for goods they would normally be required to pay for with cash. A man with a five thousand head herd of cattle could purchase a single-seat orbital class ship simply by trading their herd.

But Celeocia did not have a five-thousand head herd of cattle. She didn't have a five-thousand head herd of anything. The charity work that the Novo Femina provided was stringently recorded by Makeem Loyalists; all payments made to the Temple were done by trade, never cash. The only way Celeocia got anything done was by subterfuge, hiding what little cash they had in various places.

Pausing on the pentice joining the main temple to the living quarters, Celeocia caught a glimpse of cobalt in her peripheral vision. Moving to the marbled railing, she saw the answer to her problem. A landing pad of creamy textures cut a wide, open circle into the otherwise dark shades of purple that were trademark of terraformed Mars. In the center of the landing pad, looking noble and clean and everything she'd ever needed, was the Lothogy. Hedric's ship. Her son's ship.

They'd come here for more than one type of repair, she knew. Hedric was mourning for his recently lost wife; Mesa.

Strumming the railing with sharp, rapid taps Celeocia had to fight another sort of pain. The pain only a mother could understand. Hedric's loss cut her as deeply as the death of Rebecca. Still, she knew what she had to do. She didn't like it, but it was necessary.

Hedric would understand in the end.

***

A myriad of colors smattered against the ivory-toned walls, tinting the small room with shades of twilight. Hedric sat on the foot of the double bed, elbows on his knees, hands clasped before him, unable to see either the room, or the fading light. He'd been there, motionless, for hours. From the door he could make out the hushed conversation of his crew. Twice he'd heard someone shuffle to the door as though they might enter, but both times the person had opted to walk away.

It had been the right choice on their part.

Hedric didn't want comfort or company. He wanted the silence, the chance to seethe. A secret part of him hoped that somewhere in the silence he would hear her voice again. Maybe their love, their connection, was strong enough that she could call out his name from the Netherworld. Just once, just enough for him to lock the sound of her voice into his memory.

It was romantic fancy. He knew this.

Mesa was dead. Not just dead but annihilated, her body shredded into particles and evaporated like moisture in the desert.

And it was his fault.

He'd known when he took the job that something was going to happen. They'd been too lucky for too long, the odds were against them. Hedric had felt that foreboding down to his very bones but he'd ignored it. For the life of him he couldn't figure out why. They didn't need the money. The ship was in perfect condition. Every crew member had been paid; they had no outstanding debts with any of the engineering companies.

That was what bothered him the most. Mesa was dead for no reason. He could have turned the job down, taken the crew someplace warm and comfortable. Hell, they could have retired four years ago.

But no, he'd taken that weasel Quimbly's job.

Infiltrate the Borden Company - which Hedric loved to do anyway. Matthew Borden was such an arrogant son of a bitch that it was nice to agitate him from time to time. This particular mission had been locating all data on "MRD's" - Magnetic Repellant Devices - the newest project for the military faction of the company. If they had all the facts straight, the nasty little bomb would act like a Frag grenade, only the fragments it let out were designed to disengage the magnetic field around the hull of a ship.

While it wasn't normal for stellar battles to ensue, the growing tensions between the Makeem and Novo Femina seemed to suggest that a religious war was imminent. The Scientific Community was doing its best to keep the two factions from killing each other, but on the whole the Community was not adept at political maneuvering. Members were recognized for their own contributions, for their furtherance of technology in existence, and they were not altogether bright when it came to matters of the faith.

Hedric had the inescapable nightmare of what an MRD could do if Borden was successful. With the magnetics gone, he could see the hull of his ship as it collapsed under the pressure of its own weight. Unprotected, the Lothogy would implode, jagged bits of metal slamming inward, crushing everyone inside.

His thoughts were interrupted when the door opened. Hedric glared at the intrusion, prepared to order whoever it was out of his sight, but stopped. His mother gave him a small, compassionate smile, and closed the door behind her. Instead of approaching him, she walked to the large bay window, her burgundy robes lightly scraping against the floor. She looked imperial, formidable, and deserving of every ounce of respect her title as High Priestess commanded.