Jenna Starborn (46 page)

I was afraid to search for news of him on the StellarNet, because I believed him fully capable of mining his name references with codes that would alert him to my inquiries. I did occasionally, when the house computer was free, browse through general news and society reports, hoping to come across a mention of his name, but I never found it. I did accidentally discover that Bianca Ingersoll had married Harley Taff and settled at the Taff family estates, but no list of guest names was provided in the article and I was afraid to query the computer for more details.

But it was not only Everett Ravenbeck whose fate troubled me. What had become of Ameletta since Janet and I had both disappeared? For that matter, had any news of Janet Ayerson ever been discovered? What of Mrs. Farraday, who had considered both Janet and myself to be under her care—and balancing on the border of respectability? Would she blame herself for my defection? Or her employer? Would she resign her post? What then would become of Ameletta—and Everett Ravenbeck?

Oh, I wanted to know everything, and I knew nothing, and a full year had passed. They could all be dead or scattered or struck down by madness, and I could not learn a thing.

So these were the doubts and fears and apparitions I wrestled with, every night, before exhaustion overtook me or I was able to will myself to sleep. My dreams, oddly enough, were bare of the distresses that kept me awake so long. It was as though, having suffered so bitterly every night before sleeping, my brain or my body cut off those impossible questions and allowed me a few hours of peaceful rest. I woke each morning feeling stronger, more determined to make a life for myself here on Appalachia. And gradually it began to seem as though I would succeed.

It also began to seem as though I had found a more or less permanent home in the Rainey household. That is, while my original fellow boarders moved to the nearby dorm within a week of my arrival, and new ones came in to take their places and then also moved on, none of the Rainey siblings seemed to expect me to relocate. In fact, every day I seemed to be integrated more fully into their lives—in ways that, when I was first deposited on their doorstep, I would not even have dared to imagine.

Our first bond was formed over religion. I had not been there a full week when, one night as our group separated for bedtime, Deborah drew me aside.

“Please do not think there is any obligation involved,” she said to me as the others filed past us to their various bedrooms. “But tomorrow Sinclair and Maria and I will be attending services at a local sanctuary, and we always like to invite our boarders to join us. Many of them do not,” she added quickly, “and there is no offense to us at all! But you strike me as a woman who sees a sense and majesty in the universe, and I thought perhaps you would be interested in joining us.”

Not since I had been in school on Lora had I had an opportunity to attend regular worship services, and I admit I was intrigued. “I would gladly consider coming with you,” I said. “May I ask what church you belong to?”

Deborah smiled. “Well, perhaps when you know a little more of our background, you will understand our religious affiliations, but we have always associated with the PanEquists.”

“The PanEquists!” I exclaimed in a state of great excitement. “But I am one as well!”

“No!”

“Yes! I became a convert when I was still a child, and nothing I have seen of the settled worlds has caused me to question for a moment the spirit of the Goddess or the great constant communion of the universe.”

“But that is exactly how we feel! The marvelous brotherhood of people and planets has just served to strengthen our conviction that we are all the same, every one of us, and we are all equal . . .”

We continued in this fashion for a few moments, trading the basic doctrines of the faith, and growing more pleased with each other by the moment. Naturally, I agreed to accompany all three Raineys the following morning, and when we parted that night, I was almost too elated to sleep. I had not known that Cody boasted any religious facilities at all, but that it did—and that my hosts had chosen to worship at the only church in which I could feel entirely comfortable—gave me an almost superstitious chill. It was as if I had been predestined to immigrate to Appalachia and fall into the hands of these kind and gentle people; it was as if they had been fashioned to suit me, and to answer all the needs that I had at this particular moment of my life.

We went to the sanctuary the following day, and I thoroughly enjoyed the rational speech and well-reasoned argument presented by the leader of the congregation. There were only about fifty other people present, so the flock was small, but I could not help noting evidences of intelligence and thoughtfulness on the faces of those I could see well enough to study. I realized, of course, that I had a predisposition to think well of those who adhered to a philosophy that had so completely defined my life, and yet they truly did seem to me to be a superior sort as they listened, applauded, and, later, made comments of their own.

At the conclusion of the service, there was a small reception, and the Rainey sisters introduced me around. Sinclair had immediately fallen into conversation with a rather stern-looking older man, but Deborah and Maria made sure everyone else in the hall learned my name. I was shy among so many strangers, and made very little attempt at conversation, but I smiled a great deal and hoped that I appeared pleasant.

One of the last people to whom I was introduced was a small, frail, blonde woman with an otherworldly countenance and a sweet-tempered smile. “Oh, Jenna, you must meet Rianna Joester,” Deborah said as she and her sister led me over to the ethereal beauty. “She is one of our greatest friends—both to us personally, and to the Public Aid Office in the guise of a benefactress. Rianna, this is Jenna Starrin, our
new
friend. She's the one repairing our generator.”

The name Rianna chimed in my memory, but I could not recall why. The young woman held out her hand and gave me a smile that seemed almost wistful. “Oh, yes—Sinclair has talked of you to me,” she said in a soft and lovely voice. “He seems to admire you greatly.”

I laughed a little nervously. “Really? Sinclair always seems a little too aloof to experience much admiration of mere mortals.”

Deborah and Maria laughed, and Rianna smiled again. “Yes, Sinclair's attitudes and ideals make him hard to fathom sometimes,” Rianna said, “and harder to reach. But he is an excellent man.”

“Of course. I completely agree,” I said hastily.

“Rianna, you will join us for dinner one night next week, won't you?” Maria asked. “It has been so long since we have seen you, but it has been so busy at our house!”

“I will be happy to come over,” Rianna said. “And I know my father is curious to see how—Jenna?—has proceeded with the generators. He too spoke well of you, after your visit to his office.”

This was said with absolutely no malice at all, and yet I had the curious feeling that Rianna Joester had not been entirely delighted to hear my praises sung by two of the men in her circle, and I could not help but wonder why. The mystery was cleared up a few minutes later, however, as Maria and Rianna went off together to greet another acquaintance. Deborah, always more inclined to share secrets than her sister, drew me aside with an impish smile.

“She's pretty, isn't she? Sinclair is just enraptured with her, and I am certain she has feelings for him as well. But they are very different creatures and they find each other complete and unsolvable mysteries. It is funny and a little sad to watch them together—as you shall see, when she comes over next week. Maria and I just love her, for she is so good-natured, but she is quite the materialistic girl! And Sinclair, you know, cares for very little except whatever dream he happens to be entertaining at the moment. So they watch each other and—and—circle around each other, and never get even very deep in a conversation. I wonder what she thought when Sinclair told her about you! She must have been consumed with curiosity!”

Indeed—and now I remembered where I had heard her name before. Deborah had thought Rianna might lend me some of her cast-off clothing, and Sinclair had been incensed at the suggestion. Oh, yes, I could see why Rianna Joester might be just a little perturbed to hear the name Jenna Starrin spoken of with unalloyed approval!

A few nights later I was able to observe for myself the truth of Deborah's remarks. The boarders (there were six this night) had all been served in the kitchen, while the Raineys, the Joesters, and I had a late meal in the formal dining room. It was still a casual affair. Maria, Deborah, and I had cooked everything, and we served everything too, though for the most part serving dishes were handed around the table family-style. Leopold Joester and his wife, Tasha, were both outspoken and high-spirited individuals who seemed to feel an equal zest for every topic introduced, and it was clear that Deborah and Maria liked them very much. Their son, Harmon, did not have quite their force of personality, but he had a pleasant face, an engaging smile, and a great deal of common sense, which made every one of his contributions to the conversation worth listening to. Rianna, who seemed to resemble neither her brother nor her parents, was much quieter—indeed, much of the time she seemed to be lost in her own thoughts and not even conscious of being in the same room with the rest of us. Sinclair Rainey alternated between adding his measured arguments to the discussion, and watching Rianna with such intense and brooding concentration that I wondered she did not faint from the attention.

I did not offer much to the general conversation until Leopold Joester dragged me into it. “Here, now, Miss Starrin, you seem like a sensible creature,” he said. “Do you not think that we as a society, and people as individuals, require some sort of systematic form of classification and government if we are to operate in any kind of coherent fashion at all?”

I glanced from him to Rianna, who sat toying with her food at the far end of the table. “I take it you are not, as your daughter is, a member of the PanEquist faith?” I inquired.

“No! It is not without its attractions, I admit—though I think its attractions would loom largest to the impoverished and the unemployed—but I cannot accept some of its basic precepts. I don't have trouble with the idea that we're all equal at a cellular level, but I don't think you can discount the evolution and accretion of those cells into beings of greater and lesser importance.”

“Hence your desire for a society in which everyone is assigned a class and adheres to the standards for that class.”

“Exactly. Doesn't that make sense? If we are all part of a whole, which I
do
believe, isn't that whole served best when each limb or organ carries out the duty that it best knows how to perform?”

“But that doctrine leaves no room for personal growth,” I said, for the moment abandoning the tenets of PanEquism to address this challenge. “Assuming we all have a role to play in the universe, and I am born to be a—a foot and you are born to be a head, that does not allow me the chance to learn and improve and achieve a better station in life.”

“Ah! But you are assuming that a head is a preferred station! Perhaps it is not—perhaps it is just different, not better,” said Leopold Joester.

Harmon spoke up in his quiet voice, smiling slightly. “Hierarchy is implicit in the argument,” he said. “If you are to assign roles, one will inevitably be superior.”

“And that is the human condition, anyway,” I added. “Everyone desires to improve his lot and gain some ascendancy over his peers. No one desires to take a lesser position. And thus, when you divide people into categories, everyone will be measuring his worth against his fellows', and discontent is the only possible outcome.”

“Whereas, if you begin with a premise of universal equality,” said Sinclair, unexpectedly entering the fray and voicing the PanEquist principles, “you erase envy, and you erase strife, and you create cohesion.”

“But there is no such thing as equality! Not in the real, actual world—which none of you zealots appears to be living in!” Leopold Joester exclaimed. “Even if you obliterate class and monetary privileges, you cannot discount the hierarchy created by intelligence and ability! Miss Starrin can repair a nuclear generator, and so can I. But my daughter cannot, and no one else sitting at this table can do so. That gives me and Miss Starrin the edge in that particular talent. Can you claim equality with us? No—or if you did so, it would be disastrous when you attempted to repair the failed connector!”

“Yes, but differences in ability should not be allowed to determine differences in worth to society,” Rianna said, speaking up in her quiet voice. “It should be because of her very existence that Jenna is valued, not for her technical skills. Those are the qualities she offers to the general good, and we all have such qualities, but they should not determine whether or not society deems us worthwhile to live.”

“Well, I don't see why not,” Leopold Joester said, and instantly every voice at the table was raised against him in friendly mockery. The big red-faced man laughed, held up his hands for silence, and then plunged back into his argument the minute he had the floor again.

It was, for me, a wonderful evening of rare intellectual excitement. My mind had not been so stimulated since the days of my early debates with Everett Ravenbeck—and, oh how I wished he could be sitting at this table with me this night! How much he would have loved the quick repartee and the refusal to concede a single disputed point!

But I must not picture Everett beside me in my new life. I must not think of Everett at all.

The conversation continued well into the night and appeared to please everyone as much as it pleased me. Everyone except Rianna Joester, perhaps. For though she spoke up from time to time, and usually appeared to be following the argument at hand, she never seemed wholly engrossed in the discussion. That wistful look that I had remarked upon before appeared almost a permanent fixture on her fine features, and it deepened every time she glanced in Sinclair's direction. Which was often. It was obvious there was some kind of bond between them, though of a troubled nature, and I could not help wondering exactly what the obstacles were that would keep the two of them apart. Perhaps on some future date Deborah would again feel inclined to gossip, and then I would learn more.