Stewards of the Flame (7 page)

It was unnatural, Jesse thought, perplexed. They were not what he’d first assumed, that was evident—but they weren’t strangers to each other, either. It was not as if they lacked sexual feelings. The undercurrents between them were unmistakable. Why should they behave as if in public, when their Lodge was so evidently a loved home?

They went indoors and built a fire, gathering in a circle around it, quiet, not even speaking. Carla put her arm around him. She moved close, with warmth but without provocation. Well, this was how we were last night, he thought, and it’s too soon to go further in any case . . . and all the rest are acting the same way. And then suddenly he thought, do they know? Is that why? Have they that much regard for my feelings, that they avoid what I can’t yet share?

What a strange thing to guess. If it was true, he’d been given no sign, and certainly other colonies had no such custom. Why did he want so much to believe the best of them? They were concealing something vital, something bigger than mere motives; why did all suspicion vanish easily in their presence?

Someone turned on music—surging, soaring electronic music, not hard, yet more exciting than tranquil. His spine tingled with it. He forgot Fleet, forgot the drab years, felt he had never belonged anywhere but here, in an island lodge on an obscure planet among people who somehow already mattered to him.

“Would you mind giving up space for this?” Carla asked softly. “Is it the end of your life if you’re marooned here?”

“No,” Jesse said. “It feels more like the beginning, right now.”

~
 
9
 
~

The days passed too quickly. They swam again; they cooked food over an outdoor fire; they climbed the hill above the Lodge to view a dazzling jeweled chain of green islands. The group’s camaraderie remained strong. After a while, Jesse’s liking for its members overshadowed his clear sense of something concealed.

They did go scuba diving. Apparently it was a sport popular among them, for a storeroom in the Lodge contained a wide variety of gear. The breathing apparatus was simple to manage and not intimidating, considering his experience with spacesuits. Only the swimming involved proved challenging. Jesse felt strangely calm about it, and he found that under Peter’s direction it was possible to learn fast. The man was a born instructor, just as he seemed born to do everything else he tried with casual ease. The others all seemed to look up to him, young though he appeared to be. He was wasted on a world like this—in Fleet, he could in time become Captain not of a mere freighter but of a liner or even a colonizer. Yet Peter never spoke of ambition, never mentioned any longing for the space travel his colony’s laws denied him. What did he do for a living? Jesse wondered. But that was one of the questions that had been declared taboo.

Families were another, and it was strange that all present seemed to be without them. Most were not so young as never to have married, not unless the colony’s customs in that regard were unusual. They were healthy. They valued closeness and caring. Yet while behaving as if at home, relaxed, they did not live or act as couples. There were no private exchanges between them even to the extent of those that took place between him and Carla. It was like one big happy family, Jesse thought rather wistfully—yet would that always be enough, without relationships, without kids?

Evenings, they sat around the fire, and again Carla nestled close to him with casual warmth that on the surface was almost childlike. Beneath the surface was something Jesse couldn’t define. It was not mere submerged sexuality; he sensed that in some indescribable way she was holding back more than that, some central facet of her personal life. He had no choice but to accept her wish. It was obvious to him that she wasn’t involved with anyone else present, equally obvious that she was as eager for him as he for her. They knew each other well enough now; in ordinary circumstances he wouldn’t have hesitated. But there was something here that was not ordinary.

It was not just Carla, Jesse realized, and not just the specifics of their lives these people were hiding. There was a restraint among them he couldn’t explain. It was if they were all on guard against revealing their true selves, even while they enjoyed life with wholehearted, innocent abandon. They seemed untouched by the world outside—a term they used as one might speak of another planet—and yet connected to everything that mattered in it. Despite their strange reticence he felt he knew them, liked them, better than any people he had shipped with. God, he thought, have I missed out on life by staying in Fleet? Will they ever truly accept me as one of them?

On the last night of the offshift, they gathered in the Lodge for a more formal meal than the buffet arrangement used so far. Jesse was not sure whether it had been prearranged—he was somehow never sure of anything in the interactions between these people—but there seemed to be enough of a planned menu for everyone to sit down at the same time. They pushed the tables together. When they’d finished eating, they brought out more wine.

He looked around at their faces. Peter, Kwame, Bernie, Ingrid, Liz, Nathan . . . more than a dozen, and he knew them all now as friends. All so different, and yet they had something in common, something other people did not have. It was a kind of balance, poise. He’d sensed that in every one of them, from the start. Even in Carla! It wasn’t just the interaction of the group; they interacted as they did only because they were what they were. How, he wondered, had they ever found each other?

“Back to reality tomorrow,” Peter remarked, more as simple fact than with regret. Turning to Jesse, he said, “You’re not lost in the land of the lotus-eaters, you know.”

“I wondered,” Jesse said lightly. Privately, he had not only wondered but worried. He should be thinking of contacting Fleet, not hiding out among friends with no practical cares to concern them.

Carla, on his right, looked up at him and smiled her special smile. “Do we puzzle you, Jesse?” she asked.

He was startled; it had not occurred to him that this would be brought out into the open. He was at a loss for words. “I like what I see,” he said finally, “but it’s beyond me where you get it. I don’t know what you do elsewhere, but here you are all so—alive.”

“Perhaps,” Nathan suggested, “we want to take advantage of the opportunity.”

“To live before you die, you mean? We all try that, I guess. We don’t all succeed so well.”

“The pressures aren’t the same everywhere,” Ingrid said. “Jesse, have you ever been on a ship that was in danger?”

“I’ve had a few close calls. Nothing spectacular.” He did not say that like any officer who’d served on freighters, he had on rare occasions been obliged to defend his cargo against piracy; not only were guns illegal on Undine, but there was a strong taboo against mentioning them.

“Nothing where the people aboard were living under threat of imminent disaster, then.”

“Not for more than about five minutes, no.” Jesse thought about it. Such things did happen in Fleet; there were ships low on life support that made it home after more extended periods of peril. The experience did tend to create a bond between people. He had never yearned for quite that sort of bond.

“You’re not in any danger here,” he said, puzzled.

“Not mortal danger,” Bernie agreed, “but under this world’s laws—” He broke off, seeing Peter frown. There was a sudden silence, broken only by the sound of a plane. They were all alert to it. Undine’s moon, larger than Earth’s and with greater albedo, was full; there should be plenty of moonlight for landing on water.

“It’s Anne, probably,” Liz said. “Tonight of all nights—”

Carla froze, staring at her. Liz, seemingly embarrassed, murmured, “Perhaps not.”

“I’ll turn on the dock lights,” Peter said. He rose and went to the door, looked out, finally let it swing shut behind him.

Carla said, “Jesse, we’re all tired. Let’s turn in early.”

But they had just poured another round of wine, Jesse thought; their glasses stood untouched on the table. The fire had not even been lighted. Puzzled, he watched them head for the bunkrooms. “I’m tired,” Carla repeated. “We’ll clean up tomorrow.”

She didn’t expect him to be fooled, he realized. She thought he would be tactful enough to retire. There seemed to be little choice; he was a guest, and at the moment, obviously an unwelcome one. He was not meant to meet whoever had come in the plane. Anne? Anne’s friendship had proven false. Perhaps they didn’t want him to watch the inevitable showdown.

He followed Kwame into the bunkroom they shared with Peter. As he expected, Kwame didn’t stay long; he disappeared as soon as Jesse was in bed. But there were no voices from the common room. Nor did the plane take off again, and indeed, it was too late to fly back to the city before moonset. Jesse got up and stood by the window. There was no ocean view, since unlike most of the bunkrooms it was on the back of the building. It was strange, he thought suddenly, that a guest wouldn’t have been offered a room with a view.

He was torn. Carla did not think him dense enough to believe they’d all gone to bed; therefore she trusted him. Whatever was going on was none of his business. Yet more and more he felt that it meant trouble. Her worry about Anne had been more than disappointment. In her face just now, in all their faces, there’d been tenseness not usually visible. And they had started to speak of danger. . . .

What threat did Anne hold over Carla, perhaps over them all?

Carla didn’t want him to know. She was aware that if he knew, he might make some effort to protect her. And if he did that—if Hospital politics were involved, as they must be—his case might be reopened. It was vital to his continued freedom for the Hospital to forget about him. Hacking, she’d said . . . she had altered Hospital records. Disclosure of this would mean trouble not only for her, but for him; his name might be restored to the pickup list. She wouldn’t risk that, nor would she allow the group to chance it. They would make some sort of deal with Anne, one she did not want him to know about.

Quickly, decisively, Jesse put his clothes back on and went outside.

The Lodge was deserted. Even the illuminated dock was empty. Some distance away across the water, beyond the rocky area used for swimming, he saw a dim cluster of bobbing lights.

They were in the boats, then. He’d heard no powerboats tonight, but the ones from which scuba diving was done also had oars. What point was there in rowing? They couldn’t go far, and indeed, as he watched the lights, he saw they were going nowhere. It was almost as if they were anchored.

He didn’t know how to manage a boat, and in any case, an approach by boat would be seen. But if he followed the shore trail beyond the swimming beach, he could stay hidden by trees. There was a chance that from there he could learn more.

It was dark; the moon was by now below the horizon. Jesse wasn’t used to trails or wild growth—his sole experiences with them had come in the past four days. Several times he stumbled, and as he passed the swimming area, sticking to cover, branches lashed across his face. The cluster of boats, on the opposite side of a boulder-strewn point from where they’d swum, was close now. He did his best to move soundlessly. Voices carried to him on the breeze.

Jesse couldn’t make out words. But there was a woman’s voice—not Carla’s—and then Peter’s. And then, astonishingly, the group spoke in unison. The cadence sounded like poetry.

Abruptly, the lights rose higher, and he could see that they were candles. Held by raised arms, their flicker illuminated the center boat. Peter and Bernie were standing up, between the seats, and lifting something. The boat rocked; he could hear it bump against the others, though people in each were holding on to its gunwales.

The lifted object was long and evidently heavy. It seemed to be a bag of some kind, a stiff sack that retained its shape as they pushed it over the stern. It was about the size of a person’s body. Jesse stepped onto the rocks and leaned forward through willowy branches in order to see better.

Oh, God. It
was
a body—it could be nothing else. The sack splashed and sank, sending out small waves that broke on the rocks at his feet. Incredulous, not wanting to accept the implications, Jesse knew that he’d witnessed a burial.

The wet rocks were slippery. His mind was far from them. As his feet slid out from under him, he grabbed at a branch; it gave way. With an involuntary cry, he fell, and black water closed over his head.

~
 
10
 
~

The water was deep at this point. Deep enough even at low tide to hide bodies, Jesse realized, fighting panic. He sank through darkness, trying desperately to move as he’d learned while scuba diving, though he had too little swimming experience to get far without fins. There was no bottom. Nor was there any sensation of rising; having no sunlight above made a difference, perhaps. Ultimately he floundered, aware that his arms were breaking the surface. Then a spotlight hit, and Peter was pulling him toward the boats.

He gulped air, gratefully. He should still be afraid, he thought. His suspicion of trouble had not been mere imagination; on no world could it be routine to dump a body overboard under cover of darkness. The mysteries here were a good deal more ominous than he had guessed.

Carla had tried to keep him from learning them. Had her wish been to protect him? Was she herself in danger from what she knew? It was a reasonable speculation. Yet he could not bring himself to fear the others; Peter’s grip was, inexplicably, comforting. In spite of everything, he found he felt safe with Peter.

Oars were stretched out to him. Strong hands helped him aboard. As he watched, the candles—fixed to buoyant bases—were put over the side to float away, evidently as part of the planned ceremony. Wet and shivering, dazed, Jesse huddled on a seat, wondering what he could possibly say to Carla.

“Well, we didn’t suppose you lacked initiative,” Bernie told him, without anger. “But it was only fair to give you a choice about getting involved.”