Jenna Starborn (25 page)

Unfreezing from my watchful stance, I moved more slowly around the room, continuing to listen over the faint sounds of my own progress. So quietly that I first did not realize what I was hearing, the thing upstairs began a weird clicking and panting sequence that sounded less like true breathing than a faulty motor trying to cough itself to a functional revolution. I stopped again, feeling once more that unpleasant premonitory shiver down my back.
Click-click-click-pant-
click-click-click-
pant
-click ... click ... click ...

Then a rattling, jolting sound as if someone smashed a crowbar along a metal grate. Gilda Parenon heaving a pipe across the bars of a cage? “Quiet, I said! Be still! You shall not get out again tonight, oh no, no matter who else is abroad.”

And then I heard a sound that reversed the blood in my veins, and caused my scalp to lift a quarter inch from my skull. For the creature began a high, steady keening, faint but piteous, that went on and on and on and on. She did not pause to breathe-not for five minutes, not for ten—not for the hour that followed. Unbroken, unvarying, inhuman, the thin heartbroken wail continued, as tireless and unstoppable as a siren with a shattered failsafe. I sat petrified in my basement stronghold, made stupid with fear, and listened forever to the sound of that alien cry.

Mr. Ravenbeck found me sleeping four hours later. Reeder, you may ask (no one else will, since no one else will hear this story) how I could possibly have slept under such bizarre circumstances. I cannot answer this myself. I suppose my exhausted body could not endure its tightly coiled posture for longer than an hour or two; adrenaline sucked every ounce of alertness from my brain and turned my fatigued muscles to jelly. I fell asleep alone and in darkness, the sound of that hopeless whimper bleating in my ears. I woke to weak daylight clawing in through the small high windows and Mr. Ravenbeck shaking me by the shoulder.

“Jenna! Are you awake? Jenna!”

I gasped and leaped to my feet, terrified lest that animal abovestairs had gotten loose and come searching for me. My fear must have been plain to read, for Mr. Ravenbeck's face was instantly flooded with remorse and concern.

“It is only I, Jenna, come back from the spaceport to relieve you,” he said kindly. “What demons were you expecting?”

I tried to catch my breath and calm my heart. “Whichever ones are lurking in the bedrooms above me.”

He gave me a sharp look. “Ah! And what did you hear during your vigils?”

“The voice of Gilda Parenon trying to soothe—some creature who would not be comforted. Mr. Ravenbeck, what is it you keep here?”

He shook his head. “I cannot answer that, Jenna. Not now, at any rate. Someday. Suffice it to say that I am struggling to act for that creature's good—that I would let nothing harm it as I would strain every nerve to keep it from harming others. There is a story so long it cannot be told, and so brief I could say it in a sentence—but it is not a story I can tell. The words will not cross my lips. Will you accept that? Will you believe in me, and trust in me, till a later day, when I gather my strength to offer you the truth?”

I was speechless. His words were spoken with such solemnity and such desperation that I could doubt neither his sincerity nor his agony. I had never seen a man so near to complete despair. Yet he still kept a quiet dignity, a pride borne of much grief. I should have asked him a million questions—I should have recounted for him the nightmares I had just endured. And yet I nodded dumbly, too moved to speak.

He smiled, as if it cost him reserves of energy he did not have to make that brave effort. “That's my Jenna,” he said. “You are a rare angel, indeed. Someday—when I can—someday—” He shook his head, unable to complete his thought.

Impulsively I put out a hand, to silence him or comfort him or comfort myself, I do not know. “Tell me at that distant time,” I said. “For now, we both need to return to the manor and sleep.”

“I have guests to entertain.”

“If you do not plan to entertain them with news of this night's escapade, I do not know that you will have much to say,” I retorted with some of my usual asperity. “How is Mr. Merrick, by the way? Did he survive your rough handling?”

“He did, and now is safely ensconced upon his own vessel. And let me tell you, I was not half so rough with him as I would have liked to have been! But that too is part of the story that will come at a later date.”

“Come,” I said, urging him upstairs with my hand still upon his arm. “I am exhausted if you are not. Return me to the manor.”

There were no noises except those we made as we climbed the steps and let ourselves out the door. Mr. Ravenbeck conscientiously reset the lock, then helped me into his vehicle. Somewhere-perhaps on his journey to the spaceport—he had abandoned the mining car and retrieved his own aeromobile. I leaned against its luxurious seat and willed myself not to sleep until I was safely back in my room. We did not speak again until we had pulled up at the rear of the manor.

I gave him a sideways look; he smiled. “I thought we might encounter fewer people if we came in the back way, so that we might have fewer questions to answer,” he explained.

“Mrs. Farraday—the cook—Mary and Rinda,” I enumerated. “We are likely to run into all of them.”

“Yes, and they may feel free to interrogate
you,
but they would not question me so boldly,” he said, his smile growing.

“That is a comfort,” I said dryly. “Since I have done you such a great favor this day, I have one to ask in return.”

“Granted.”

I nodded. “Then I will not see you at dinner tonight, for my request is that I be excused from further interaction with your guests.”

“I see that I spoke too hastily,” he said. “I will give you this night free, but I will expect you at the table with us tomorrow.”

I opened the vehicle door and stepped out. “No, you granted the gift unheard, and now you cannot rescind it. And I thank you. Almost the dreadful evening was worth it if it has rescued me from worse torture in the future.”

And on the sound of his low laughter, I entered the back door of the manor and escaped into the lower reaches of the halls.

W
hen I woke that afternoon, it was to a sense of well-being that I could neither justify nor explain. Perhaps the hours of unbroken sleep had something to do with my feeling of quiet exhilaration, but I did not think so. What a night! A terrible night! And yet what a chance to prove my worth to Mr. Ravenbeck and spend precious moments alone in his company. I had acquitted myself well, and he had been grateful to me, and so even such a wretched adventure must be counted a success.

Still, I had to admit to a slight embarrassment when, once clean and dressed, I ventured downstairs to see if I could find food. It was well past the lunch hour, so I did not expect to find Mrs. Farraday or my other usual companions at the table, but I was not surprised to find the seneschal in the kitchen going over the evening's meal.

“Jenna! My gracious! I had begun to think you would never waken! Mr. Ravenbeck told us you returned early this morning and that I was not to disturb you on any account, but I had begun to fear you had fallen ill, and I was just wondering if I should come in and check on you.”

“No, I am perfectly fine. I do not know that I have ever slept so long, however.”

“And what was the cause of the alarm being raised last night? Do you know? I did not like to ask Mr. Ravenbeck.”

“Genevieve, could I have some bread and cheese perhaps? Oh, yes, the fruit compote would be delicious,” I said to the cook, stalling for time while I mentally reviewed my story. It seemed likely that she would not be able to follow me if I gravely answered her in technical jargon. “Yes, there was a problem in one of the outbuildings in the mining compound. An electrical malfunction in one of the switches. We had to rely on the mine tech's override command to keep the forcefields whole, which of course is just a temporary measure, so I worked to repair the damage with a few reinforced cables—”

She looked confused. “But couldn't one of the mine technicians have handled the repairs?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes, but there was also a malfunction in one of the nuclear generators at the compound, and—”

“Well, I see, I'm glad we had you to spare,” she said, waving a hand politely to stop my explanation. “It does seem hard on you, though, to have to spend your whole night bent over some—some machine instead of sleeping in your bed.”

I smiled. “That is what I came to Fieldstar for. To bend over malfunctioning machines. It was quite exciting, I assure you.”

“Really. Well. I'm glad.”

“Mr. Ravenbeck did say I could be excused from the evening entertainments for the next few days, as a payment for my extra work.”

“Oh, but Jenna! You were having so much fun!”

“I do believe I need the quiet for a few days,” I said.

She would have protested again, but Genevieve called on her attention. I managed to eat my food quickly and escape from the room.

The rest of the afternoon was quiet as, with an economy of motion necessitated by my shortened workday, I checked all my generators and cleaned out waste-disposal systems and did a quick survey of the forcefield wall. Everything seemed in order in our corner of the world.

Toward dinnertime, I made my way to the part of the manor dedicated to Ameletta, consisting as it did of a schoolroom and a connected playroom. In the latter, I found Ameletta and Janet Ayerson practicing a poem that Ameletta was to recite for Mr. Ravenbeck's guests that evening.

“There you are, Jenna. We heard you had quite a thrilling time of it last night,” Janet greeted me.

“I'm not sure that is the word I would use, but it certainly was eventful,” I said with a little laugh. “And now I have been the most slothful woman alive and slept half the day away. I am sure I do not know how I will persuade myself to fall asleep tonight.”

“Oh, I fancy boredom may lull you into a dreamlike state,” Janet said somewhat dryly. “Give yourself half an hour in the company of our guests, and you shall be quite ready for bed.”

“Ah, but I have been excused for a few days,” I said.

“How did you manage that?”

I manufactured a delicate shudder. “The strain on my nerves last night. Too much for me to bear. I need a respite.”

She laughed. “Then I shall hope for another emergency tonight that will require my special services!”

Ameletta looked from her tutor to me and back to her tutor. “But Miss Starborn is not to join us tonight? She will not hear me recite my poem!”

“I will listen to you right now, before you go down to dinner,” I offered. “That way you can practice your elocution.”

“But it will not be the same! I wanted you there with us!”

“Ameletta,” Janet reprimanded.

“I think you will find you perform quite well without my participation,” I said, touched but completely unmovable. “Come! Speak your poem for me now.”

After a few more moments of sulking, she complied, reeling off an animated rendition of a few verses about a child explorer who discovered gold on a distant planet. Janet and I both applauded and praised her when she was finished—and she did an excellent job, for she was a born actress—and this served to rescue her from the sullens.

Just as I was complimenting her again on her memory and her delivery, the little girl interrupted me. “But Miss Starborn! I forgot! What was in the package that arrived for you today?”

I glanced at Janet. “Package?”

The tutor nodded. “Did you not receive it? It was delivered by special courier this morning.”