01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor (6 page)

"Too bad," the Sister General commented with- out a trace of sorrow or pity in her voice. "Well, girl, you surely understand that that way is out now. Even if we could overlook your sacrilege to the Temple and what you saw in this room -- nobody would ever believe you anyway, no matter how you blabbed -- we can't overlook the fact that you would know. You'd be a latent rebel, never fully able to take church doctrine or discipline, uncontrollable by us or the government without extreme measures, and you're smart enough to figure ways around those. You could be the source for some major inconveniences at some point down the road, and we can't have that. When we identify a potential agent of such instability, we really have no choice."

"What could / do?" Cassie asked, half-pleading,

"Who knows? Perhaps nothing. Very likely noth- ing. But a society like ours works and survives because it is in a very delicate balance. It works primarily because its people believe it works, and believe that they live in a free democracy where jobs and promotions are based solely on merit and loyalty to the system, and that it's possible for the lowest -- or a child of the lowest -- to become the highest. It doesn't take much to upset that balance.

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That is really why we do all of this, and why we do it this way. Left to itself, this land would get periodi- cally out of balance, opening the way for radical ideas and resultant radical changes. The whole thing would collapse into anarchy, and the living would envy the dead. It's happened before, child, more than once, long ago and far away. No matter what you think of us, we take our responsibility very, very seriously and are totally bound to scripture. The church's sole mission is to preserve stability, to shore up the system and eliminate its weakest and most threatening spots, so that the Holy Mother's plan can continue. By your own actions you have made yourself a potential source of such instability, and you have learned the truth decades before you were ready to understand and handle it."

She was about to continue when a buzzer sound- ed on the projectionist's console. The controller reached over and picked up a small oblong-shaped object that was apparently some sort of communi- cations device and talked in a low tone for more than two minutes. The rest of them waited, won- dering what it was about.

Finally the projectionist was finished and she turned to the Sister General. "More headaches. That was Ranatan over at the Lazy Bull on Main Street. Seems that last year he got a new girl for the upstairs room from another dive in Anchor Thomb. Now the stringer Arden told him his chit's been called, and he's pulled an abduction to pay up."

The Sister General frowned. "Damn. Anybody we know?"

"Not on our list, if that's what you mean. I remembered her when we were checking slots- A real looker, Ranatan says, although she's got some brains. Wait a moment." She punched in a code and checked a screen.

"Anybody we can live without?" the Sister Gen- eral asked hopefully.

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"Yeah. Good LQ. and solid aptitudes, but not in anything we aren't already overstocked in. I guess we can spare her, but Ranatan owes us one now, coming up with this so late. Says he forgot about it until his marker was called."

"I'll bet," the high priestess sneered.

"One problem, though. She has a steady boy- friend, and he woke up from the sapping Ranatan's boys gave him in a rotten and angry mood. He's raising holy hell with the local cops right now. Farmhand type. Not on our list but he could easily be our third soldier."

The Sister General nodded. "Arrange it. Since there'll be something of a cover-up necessary to pacify the police and families, better use the tun- nel and bring 'em here. Keep 'em on ice until after Paring Rite, then just add her in with the crowd and make sure they leave at night. You know the routine."

The administrator nodded. "What about her and the boy?" By "her" it was clear that this meant Cassie,

"We'll keep 'em on ice until Paring Day. Use two of the cells below, ninth level. Somebody can work out cover stories for them staying in town- As for Ranatan's girl, put her in with this one until then. We'll have to check with the stringers and see who's heading in the right direction to make delivery."

"Check," responded the administrator crisply, and that was that.

RITE

The cell was not, strictly speaking, a jail, but it was clear from some of the graffiti on the walls that it had served as one many times. In point of fact, it was the kind of barren cubicle that novices used when living and studying at the Temple. Un- der other circumstances, Cassie thought ruefully, she might have been in a similar or identical cell in this very place as a priestess-in-training.

The box-like cell was roughly three meters wide and three deep, with old and rotting straw on the floor. The rear of the place contained two fixed wooden "beds" of sorts, one on each side; really nothing more than two rectangular boxes filled with more straw. In front of these were two small shelves mounted on each wall, empty now and probably for some time, although, hanging from a nail in one was a tiny oil lantern that provided some, but not much, illumination. Sitting on the floor near the door was a very old chamber pot that was cold, shallow, and rust-encrusted- The door itself was of solid wood with the hinges on the outside and a tiny window in the middle. The window was not barred, but it was barely large enough to get a hand through. The door, however, was barred, and with a very solid plank.

The wardens had stripped her completely before

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shoving her in, and had warned her that should she cause any problems while there, they would be perfectly willing to bring down some manacles and a gag, too, if need be. She didn't intend to make any trouble, though -- at least not right now. Even if she managed a miracle, where could she go and what could she do with both church and state against her? Anchor Logh was a big place, but the Sister General had been right about one thing -- the people believed totally in the system because the alternatives were so horrible. She might make it back home for a couple of days, but once her number was picked in the Paring Rite even her own parents, sad and'grieving as they might be, would turn her in.

She felt curiously ambivalent about her future. The fact was, the high priestess had been correct about her. She had seen too much, arid she had lost her faith. The system was based on the scrip- tures, and now she had caught the church red- handed circumventing its own system. If the church could do that, it must follow the scriptures only when it was convenient for it to do so, and if the church didn't really buy those holy writings, how in hell could she?

She wondered again about the stringers who'd invoked such horror in her- It was obvious that they knew it was all a sham, for they participated and even profited by it. Perhaps that explained their callous attitude towards everything and everyone. They knew it was all phony, strictly busi- ness and cynically amoral. If you knew that right from the start, as they most certainly did, and you also knew that there wasn't a damned thing you could do about it, what sort of person might you become? The answer to that one made stringers at least understandable as people, although she still couldn't agree with or like anyone who assisted so eagerly in perpetuating the fraud for personal gain.

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The church equated disorder with evil. The Seven Who Wait really personified that disorder, and, thus, were depicted as the ultimate evil. Did the Seven, in fact, exist, or were they a convenient invention of the church to scare people with, she wondered? Perhaps it was a grisly sort of joke on all of them, even the church. Perhaps this was not some testing ground but Hell itself, and they were in fact the fallen angels, suffering pain and an- guish and being reborn again and again, forever, into eternal punishment, with Heaven so tantaliz- ingly in sight and always totally out of reach, everyone living rigid and mostly unhappy lives because they were working towards ultimate sal- vation -- an ultimate salvation that would be for- ever denied them. Now that made sense -- and would be the ultimate joke. Perhaps this is the secret the stringers knew, that it was all for nothing and that nothing really counted.

She shivered, only partly from the damp chill of the cell. Well, if that were the way of World, then something, however minor, could and must be done about it. If the angels rebelled against the Holy Mother and created disorder, and if those angels now ran World, then it was time they got a little disorder of their own. It was not in stability that hope lay, but in rebellion. Somehow, some time, she swore to herself, I will help be the instrument of that.

Strong words from someone who knew that she was to be cast into the Flux, a prisoner and slave, in a matter of days, and who was now pacing a tiny cell, stark naked and alone.

How long she was there, alone with uncounted tiny vermin and her own sour thoughts, it was impossible to say, but occasionally the heavy bar that kept her door securely closed would move back and a warden, backed up by another, would enter, leave a bowl of foul-smelling gruel, a cup of

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water, and check the chamberpot. She'd also slept, off and on and fitfully, although she was never quite sure for how long. The small oil lamp contin- ued to bum, and she was afraid to turn it off for fear it would remain that way.

Still, three "meals" into her imprisonment, the door opened again, but it was not for food. She just stood there, amazed, as two wardens tossed another naked figure into the cell. "Let your room- mate there tell you the rules," one warden sneered, and the door was slammed shut and barred once more.

Cassie stared at the figure now picking herself up off the floor. "Lani? Oh, Holy Mother of World! Not you, too\"

The other got up, frowned, and stared at her. Finally something seemed to penetrate the shock. "Cass?"

Quickly Cassie helped her friend over to one of the beds. "Sit here, or lie back/' she soothed. "There's mites and everything else in here but they'll get you no matter where you are so you might as well be as comfortable as you can,"

It took some time for the small, attractive girl to get a grip on herself, but Cassie was patient, know- ing that time was the one thing they had plenty of. Eventually Lani was able to talk about it, sort of, in small bits and pieces, and the story came out.

The truth was, there wasn't much to tell. After leaving Cassie at the fairgrounds, she and Dar had headed for the youth hostel. On their way they'd come close to the bright lights and raucous sounds of Main Street, and both had, more or less on impulse, gone over there. It was just curiosity, really -- the area was always denied them in the past, and now that they were The Age it was open to them both. Open, yes, but dangerous. They had finally gone into a bar, just to see what one was like, and had been befriended by this nice young

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fellow working there. He'd been very easy to talk to, and extremely nice and friendly without being anything more than that, and eventually he of- fered to buy them one drink each just to celebrate their coming of age. It seemed so nice, so reason- able. . . .

Nor, in fact, was there much more to the story. She had more or less awakened in a room much like a hotel room, but she felt too dizzy and sleepy to see much or tell much about it. She was con- scious only of being bound, somehow, and of sev- eral people coming in and out at various times, some giving her sweet-tasting things to drink that put her out once more, others just standing there and having some sort of conversation or other that she couldn't follow, although she seemed to think it was about her. Finally somebody came in with a novice's white robes and bundled her, still drugged, out a back door and down a series of back streets to some sort of tunnel, and through there to here. She was just coming down from the drugs, and just realizing her status.

"I've been abducted!" she suddenly said, sitting up straight. "Oh, Holy Mother protect me from my sins! Abducted!" She started to shake a little, and began sobbing quietly. Cassie felt sorry for her and let her cry it out, giving what comfort she could. Finally Lani seemed to realize Cassie's own situa- tion. "You -- you've been abducted, too!"

Cassie sighed. "Not quite, but I might as well have been." Quickly she outlined her own story, and why she was now there. "So, you see, I'm above board from their point of view. I'll be picked in the Paring Rite. You won't. You'll just -- disap- pear."

Lani shook her "head in shock and wonder. "What's to become of us after that, Cass? What can we do?" Another thought suddenly struck her. "Poor Dar! He must be worried sick!"

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"Yeah, just like us," Cass told her. "He made such a fuss they copped him, too. He's probably somewhere in a hole like this one until Paring Rite, then they'll let him out just long enough to get picked. It's less messy that way."

Lani still could not quite accept it. "The church in league with stringers and kidnappers. ... I'm sorry, Cass, it's just so -- hard to accept, even now. And -- why me?"

Cassie sighed. "You were handy. You were, sorry to say it, foolish enough to walk into a joint with your bracelet showing, and the bar owner owed a favor to some bar owner in an Anchor far away. I saw them operate. Lani. They put in orders for people -- size, shape, physical stats, you name it --  like they were ordering a horse or new plow."