An Officer’s Duty (17 page)

Amelia slipped her hand into her gynowife’s, gripping it. Aurelia eyed the devices warily. “Why does the thought of putting on something nicknamed the Wreath of Pain fill me with deep reluctance, Daughter?”

Aware that both mothers shared that reluctance, Ia answered obliquely.

“The difference between the Church’s methodology and my own is that the Church wants to take away the free will of its followers. To brainwash everyone into following its dogmatic beliefs, smothering logic, truth, and free thought. ‘You
will
follow the teachings of the Church of the One True God, because God says that there
is
no other way,’” she mocked dryly. “‘Every other way is a sin, and to follow any other path means condemning your souls and the souls of those who follow you into the agonies of eternal hellfire and damnation…’ And for the Church in the decades to come, that eternal hellfire and damnation will become a very real and physical fire for those condemned as heretics. Stop thinking and conform, or die.

“Or be ‘reeducated’…which for the psychically gifted will include lobotomizing certain portions of the brain in an effort to stop such abilities from forming and being used. After all, if you can read another person’s thoughts, that means someone out there is actually still thinking, and isn’t being a perfect little sheep in their flock. Or worse,” Ia added sardonically.
“The psi in question might find out what the Church Elders are
really
plotting behind the woolly little backs of that flock.”

“And
your
methods?” Amelia asked her quietly.

“My methods?” Ia asked. She spread her arms slightly. “I believe in free will. As ironic as it is for
me
to say this, of all people, I have always believed in it. I believe in people choosing the best lives possible, both for themselves and for others. But how can you make a
good
choice if you do not yet know the consequences of your decisions?
These
will show people those consequences.

“Both of the things they have done in the past,” Ia stated, lifting the Wreath of Pain, then the Wreath of Hope, “and the things they should do in the future. I need people on my side, working for my cause, because they
know
it’s the right thing to do. People who, after having been fully informed, have consciously decided to do the right thing…
these
people can move mountains, worlds, and even whole star systems when they put their minds and their wills and their efforts into it.

“So I am…I am
asking
you,” Ia said, stumbling a little over the words, because these
were
her parents, her beloved mothers, and she
knew
this would change their relationship that last little irrevocable bit, “to put these on. To
see
with your own eyes what I have seen—just a
fraction
of what I have seen—and to choose. I need you to decide of your own free will whether you will follow me as the Prophet of a Thousand Years, and
not
just because I’m Iantha Iulia Quentin-Jones, your very strange, very troubled, but well-meaning little girl.

“You raised me both to see the problems around me, and to step up to the responsibility of fixing them. You raised me to do the right thing,” she reminded her mothers. “For that, you should be proud as my mothers…but it is time to let me go and let me do it. And it is time for you to decide whether or not you’ll do it as well.
After
you have seen the choices and the consequences that await.”

Stepping around the coffee table, Ia held up the Wreath of Pain. Her mothers eyed it for a long moment, then Amelia started to reach for it. She hesitated, though. “
Um
…
gataki
…isn’t this the one you called the Wreath of Pain?”

“I need you to wear both. For the next thirty years,
everyone
will have to try on both. It’s the best way to get the right kind
of momentum going. And I need you to try the Wreath of Pain first, so that…well, so that you’ll have the Wreath of Hope to look forward to—don’t worry so much,” she said, rolling her eyes as that statement made her biomother hesitate even more. “You aren’t a mass murderer, so you won’t be seeing the points of view of your victims. You’ll just see some of the consequences of bad decisions you’ve made in the past. I won’t lie; it
will
be unsettling. But you’ll come out of it okay. My Prophetic Stamp on that.”

Aurelia let out a short, dry chuckle at that. “You keep saying that, little kitten. I suppose I ought to see if you really mean it.
Ah
…is there anything
I
should do?”

“Well, Mom should move away from you,” Ia told her, grateful when Amelia complied. “But otherwise, the only thing you need to do is be sitting or kneeling when trying one of these things. I’ve foreseen that some people might sag a little if they’re startled by what they see. Here, let me put it on you, Ma…”

The device had a subtly tapered, thicker segment on the inner side. Part of that was to help augment the psychic resonances of the device, but part of it was simply to ensure that it would fit on any head it encountered. Almost any head; the K’katta, the Chinsoiy, and the Dlmvla didn’t keep their brains in the same physiologically analogous location as most of the other currently known sentient races. But since her mother was a fellow Human—more so, given who and what Ia’s father had been—it was just a matter of aligning the ring so that it settled comfortably onto the crown of Aurelia’s skull.

Her mother sucked in a sharp breath, brown eyes widening until the whites could be seen all around them. Amelia eyed her partner warily, then looked to Ia for reassurance. Holding up her empty hand, Ia waited. Trial and error over the last three weeks had led her to this version of the torus rings, which she hoped was the final one. In particular, the Wreath of Pain was the most difficult to judge. She had tried it on her brothers, and Fyfer—who had broken more laws than Thorne—had reacted more strongly to what he saw, but neither of her brothers were lifelong criminals. Neither of them had lived all that long, period.

By comparison, her mothers had a couple extra decades of
life-choices on their consciences; the law of averages dictated they had more things to regret and atone for. They also had calmer natures than either the exuberant Fyfer or his phlegmatic stepbrother. A corner of Ia’s mind considered this one part of a proof-of-concept experiment, since the Wreath of Pain was meant to thoroughly punish only those who thoroughly deserved it. The rest of her waited tensely, uncomfortable with making her beloved parent suffer.

Tears gathered in Aurelia’s eyes. They didn’t spill until she blinked and lifted her hands, removing the heavy, crystalline ring from her head. Sniffing, she held it out to Ia without a word. Ia accepted it, and settled the Wreath of Hope on her mother’s dark hair…then reached over and placed the Wreath of Pain on her biomother’s curly brown locks. Amelia stiffened, eyes wide and sightless. Aurelia sagged, eyes shut and fluttering as she strained to process the new images.

Experiments on her brothers had shown her that the images being seen would be the ones most crucial for Ia’s purposes. Truths would be shown about how certain tasks needed to be undertaken, and the consequences of both success and failure. That part was necessary. It wasn’t what the wreaths showed that concerned her now, but rather their intensity.

Amelia finished before Aurelia. She reached up and pushed the ring of crysium from her head. Ia stooped and plucked it from the sofa before it could flop over and land on her other mother. Her experiments had also proven it wasn’t wise to mix the two; the chaos of the dual effects had given Fyfer a painful migraine for a few hours. When Aurelia opened her eyes, sniffing hard, Ia transferred the Wreath of Hope to her biological mother and waited. And waited. Finally, Amelia opened her eyes as well, tipping her head forward so Ia could remove the device.

Aurelia sniffed again, then nodded. “Alright. I see now what you mean. I mean, I’ve
seen
some of your visions; you’ve showed me things in the past, but this…This is…”

“This is what
we
can do about it,” Amelia finished, finding and squeezing her gynowife’s hand. Aurelia glanced at her and nodded. Together, they looked at Ia. Looked to her for guidance. For approval.

For the first time, she sensed her parents were finally looking at her as a
fellow adult. More than that, they were looking at her as the Prophet. The little girl deep inside of Ia, the one who just wanted to curl up on their laps and let them stroke her hair, wanted to cry at this last loss of her childhood. Instead, that little girl curled up and faded into the shadows of her past. It hurt. Ia acknowledged silently that it hurt…and she set it aside.

“I’m glad,” she murmured, “because I really do need you. In fact, I’m going to put these rings into your hands. Yours, and my brothers’ hands,” she amended. Ia set them on the coffee table, two
clacks
. Molded though they were, the peach gold rings were still very much a hard, unyielding crystal. “Use your contacts within the community. Figure out who you think can be trusted with exposure to these.”

“What if…what if we choose wrong?” Amelia asked her. “And some Church sympathizer gets hold of one?”

Ia lifted her chin. “I’ve already considered that. If they’re really Church agents, or Church sympathizers…or anyone who is bound to betray us to them…well, they’ll just get a dose of the Fire Girl Prophecy. A rather large dose.”

Aurelia snorted. “
That
should be enough to send ’em running for the leafer-hills.”

Twisting her mouth in a wry smile, Ia nodded at the rings. “I’ll be taking them out later this afternoon, once Thorne gets back from college. There’s one more person who needs to experience them before I leave, to make sure they’re working properly. We’ll be back at least two hours before I have to leave for the spaceport, don’t worry.” She paused for a yawn, and scrubbed at her face with both hands. “
Ugh.
I got up way too early. At least my ship is already docked at Gateway Station, busy with unloading cargo for the colony and arranging for exports to the rest of the known galaxy. I can sleep as soon as I’ve been shown to my berth.”

“Do you want breakfast?” Aurelia asked, leaning forward to pick up her forgotten caf’ mug.

Ia stooped and picked up her own. “Not yet. I need to go for a run, first.” Swallowing half of the still warm liquid, she set it back down again. “The Naval Academy will be putting us through regimen training, and they’ll be expecting me to wear my weight suit, so I need to stay in shape. But I’ll cut it down to half an
hour this morning, so you can make me a really nice going-away breakfast.”

Rising, Aurelia lifted onto her toes and kissed Ia on her cheek. “It’ll be hot and waiting.”

“
Mm
, good, I can go back to sleep, then,” Amelia murmured. She closed her eyes and snuggled into the corner of the sofa.

Her wife leaned down and slapped her lightly on one bathrobe-covered thigh. “Oh, no you don’t, meioa-e! You’re a far better chef than I am, and you know it. Get into that kitchen and start cooking, love.”

Amelia grumbled something uncomplimentary in Greek, added an Irish expletive for color, raspberried her wife half-heartedly, and hauled herself upright. Relieved that her parents hadn’t changed
that
much in the wake of the wreaths, Ia headed for the door to the stairs. Rain or shine, space or ground, she had to keep herself in shape.

Edwin V’Sasselli lived in one of the apartment complexes built during the Terran–Dlmvla tensions. In fact, he lived in one of the basement-level apartments, formerly a series of storage rooms and janitorial facilities converted into living quarters. As a result, he had at the back of his spare bedroom an access door which led down into the escape tunnels for the Terran bunkers.

Of course, all such doors were supposed to be sealed with Terran military-grade locks, to reduce the chance of the colonists pilfering or vandalizing Terran military equipment. Edwin V’Sasselli had taken great pains to neutralize and remove those locks. He had taken even greater pains to make sure that the path to the door was kept clear, and the door itself hidden by a rather large, showy rug which he had hung up like a tapestry.

He never mentioned the existence of the door to anyone, never mentioned that it was unlocked, and only used it infrequently at best. So when Ia and Thorne opened the door from within the dusty, musty tunnels and slipped into that spare bedroom, set up as his office, he had no clue that anyone else knew of it, let alone intended to use it as the means for committing illegalities. Then again, Edwin V’Sasselli was something of an expert on committing illegalities, himself.

Thorne might have protested at this act of breaking and
entering, save for the facts she had given him when explaining the necessity of this one particular home invasion. When he had heard those facts, when she had sworn they were true with her Prophetic Stamp, he had agreed to accompany her. Coming here on her own would have defeated the purpose of this little visit, after all.