Mourner: Confederated Star Systems, #3

By Irene Radford and C.F. Bentley

William Gladstone once pointed out that a culture reveals itself in how it cares for its dead.

MOURNER, the third book in the Harmony series, vividly explores how three very different cultures treat their dead when the body of Laud Gregor, Harmony’s High Priest, goes missing between First Contact Café Space Station and the Harmony homeworld. Laud Gregor cannot be regarded as legally dead until he is officially buried—which means that Laudae Sissy, Harmony’s High Priestess, cannot institute the reforms her culture desperately needs until a new High Priest is named.

Suspects abound, from the repulsive Dragons, who show up to claim the space station as lost property, to the secretive avian Maril, to disaffected power brokers closer to home. It doesn’t help that Jake Devlin, commander of the station, finds himself haunted by the impatient Laud while he navigates all these new threats and trying to solve the mystery—and to figure out how he and Sissy can possibly surmount the cultural differences that obstruct their growing love.

Add in Jake’s former boss, the evasive spymaster Pammy, and tension escalates, especially when the body seems to keep moving.

Can Harmony find peace? Will there ever be a happy ending for Sissy and Jake?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookview Cafe
• Release date: Dec 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781611385724

Irene Radford

Irene Radford has been writing stories ever since she figured out what a pencil was for. A member of an endangered species—a native Oregonian who lives in Oregon—she and her husband make their home in Welches, Oregon where deer, bears, coyotes, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers feed regularly on their back deck. A museum trained historian, Irene has spent many hours prowling pioneer cemeteries deepening her connections to the past. Raised in a military family she grew up all over the US and learned early on that books are friends that don’t get left behind with a move. Her interests and reading range from ancient history, to spiritual meditations, to space stations, and a whole lot in between. Mostly Irene writes fantasy and historical fantasy including the best-selling Dragon Nimbus Series. In other lifetimes she writes urban fantasy as P.R. Frost and space opera as C.F. Bentley.

Book preview

Prologue

Martha da Selene du Sissy Crystal Temple checked the sleeping harness of her two cabinmates. We’ve done this before, she reassured the younger girls as they wiggled into more comfortable positions on their bunks. Put your hand in the glove. Just before the ship enters hyperspace the machine will automatically inject you with sleepy drugs. When you wake up we will be in orbit around Harmony. Home. We’re going home. That didn’t come out as joyful as she wanted.

"But . . . but First Contact Café is home," Sharan, the littlest of the holy acolytes, protested. Her blond curls tumbled over her forehead where she usually insisted they be held back by a band or cap.

Maybe. We’ll miss General Jake, but for now our duty is to Laudae Sissy and she needs to be on Harmony, the center of the universe and where we were born, Martha said firmly. She took hold of Sharan’s wrist and thrust it into the rigid glove meant for a much bigger hand.

She needn’t have worried about Sarah, her other charge during the flight. The dark-haired girl meekly tightened her own harness and slipped her hand into her glove, anxious to prove that she was nearly as old and senior as Martha. But her eyes squinted and her brow furrowed with worry. Travel through hyperspace was dangerous. One ship out of a thousand disappeared. Forever. Sarah always over-thought the consequences and never took a chance on her own volition.

Martha retreated to her own bunk and made a show of strapping herself in and putting her hand into the waiting glove. She knew that next door, Mary, the oldest of the six girls who attended Laudae Sissy, performed the same chore for Suzie, the youngest yet taller and sturdier than Sharan, and Bella, the middle child in size and age, and the peacemaker of the bunch. But Mary was obedient to a fault. She would not dare stay awake through the mysterious and dangerous passage through hyperspace between the trade station known as The First Contact Café, which orbited a young planet not yet evolving life in a burgeoning solar system, and Harmony.

Home.

She presumed that Laudae Sissy in the cabin on the other side of this one performed her own rituals. She would have her youngest brother and sister with her—all that remained of her family—and her last two pets, Monster and Dog. The canines didn’t like hyperspace at all. Laudae Sissy had had to drug them before the crew could carry them aboard. But only Sissy could coax the dogs into taking pills or injecting sleeping drugs. They trusted no one else.

Martha had reasons for staying awake on this trip, even if it broke several rules. General Jake had taught her to look at rules carefully and understand them, then make up her own mind about obedience.

She counted off the minutes as the space ship undocked and slid seamlessly through vacuum toward the jump point.

An alarm bell chimed delicately over the comms. Warning, two minutes to hyperspace. Sleep drugs available now.

Surreptitiously Martha removed her hand from the glove.

Is it time yet? Bella whispered.

Yes. Touch the middle finger of the glove with your free hand. You’ll hardly feel the needle and be asleep in seconds.

Strident bells sounded over the comms, louder than before. Warning, one minute to hyperspace. Sleep drugs ready and required. The computerized voice sounded more insistent. This time the bells elevated to an annoying klaxon.

This is it, girls. Before you know it we’ll be home and we can watch our approach to Harmony in the viewscreen, Martha said with false cheer.

Neither Bella nor Sarah answered her. A quick peek showed them curled into sleep, eyes closed, locks of curly blonde and straight dark brown hair drifting over their faces in the breeze generated by the ventilation system.

Martha unlatched her harness and sat up, back pressed against the bulkhead, legs bent with her feet crossed under her knees.

A loud bong startled Martha more upright but did not disturb the girls. Warning, hyperspace imminent. Hyperspace imminent.

Then, without warning, the metal walls thinned to transparency. The bunk beneath her lost coherence. For a few heartbeats Martha hung suspended in the blackness between the stars. Alone.

She gasped, not certain her lungs and heart truly worked anymore.

Oh, don’t be such a scaredy cat. Jilly giggled from somewhere in the region of what should be the ceiling of the cabin.

You’re dead, Jilly. You died in the fire that nearly destroyed the Crystal Temple. You died and took your gift of prophesy with you, Martha stated, as much to reassure herself as the wraith drifting across her vision.

I know! Isn’t it deliciously funny? I’m dead and I’m the only thing real in hyperspace. As Jilly spoke, outlines and shadows began to form around the two sleeping girls, giving them form but not solidity. The bunks, and maybe the bulkheads and deck, became discernible, but not the ceiling or Jilly.

Jilly, there’s something I need to know. You’re the only person I trust to tell me true. Martha’s chin trembled in uncertainty. This was why she’d risked wakefulness through hyperspace.

I’m not a person anymore. The ghost sank to sit cross-legged in front of Martha, elbow on knee, chin in hand, an exact copy of Martha’s position. Her soft brown curls swirled into a cloud, or an aura of gold, around her head. The free hand gestured in a big arc to indicate the otherworldly surroundings.

You will always live in our hearts, Jilly. You were the glue that kept us all working as a team when the world fell apart and everything we’d been taught about the Goddess Harmony and her family was proven false.

Laudae Sissy resurrected the covenant tablets from beneath the high altar after I died and discovered how our religion had been corrupted for the convenience of our High Priests.

Before that. When we went to the funeral caves and discovered them so full of unsorted bones there was no room for the newly dead. The priests had buried our families in the desert in unmarked places rather than admit they couldn’t keep them in the womb of the goddess anymore.

Yes, there was that. But we fixed it. Laudae Sissy fixed it.

And then you died and nothing has been totally right since.

How so? The room grew more solid, but Jilly faded as a frown replaced her perpetual smile and good humor.

It’s like . . . it’s like a part of you invaded me.

The ghost wavered into and out of view. When she didn’t respond, Martha plunged ahead with her questions. I think I can hear people thinking. Especially when they lie. I know it. I hear what they really think.

Oooooh, that sounds fun! I could never do that.

But . . . the Goddess used you to speak words about the future.

Rhymes and riddles that meant nothing and everything. What you do is different. It’s even more special than prophesy.

It’s dangerous, and no one will believe me.

Rhymes and riddles that mean everything and nothing. Nothing and everything.

Warning, coming out of hyperspace. Antidotes to sleep drugs available upon command.

That’s stupid. If people are supposed to be asleep, how can they give themselves the antidote?

Not everyone sleeps in hyperspace. Some of us never sleep anymore. We continue to haunt you so that you’ll respect us. That’s the joke. I’m supposed to keep you laughing so you won’t cry yourself into emptiness.

Chapter One

Garrin pa Lukan pu Lukan First Contact Café carefully composed a text message. Oh how he hated affiliation with the alien space station, though that was where he was stationed now. He wanted to return to Harmony as his father Lord Lukan had. Soon. Soon Laudae Sissy and General Jake would be in total disgrace, and he’d sit on the High Council in place of his father.

That should do it, Mother, he said.

Lady Jancee da Suzzette du Lukan First Contact Café ceased her awkward pacing and rubbed the sides of her engorged belly. Her seventh child lay heavy and uneasy. Are you certain you have copied General Jake’s private transmission codes? She started pacing again, still rubbing the unborn child.

Garrin knew that his mother was too old to endure another pregnancy. But something compelled her to try for a lucky seventh child to honor the Goddess Harmony and her family. Harmony and her consort Empathy, planet and sun, presided over their children Nurture and Unity along with their adopted stepchildren Anger, Fear, and Greed. Together they formed a natural balance in order to banish Discord.

Lately Discord had re-emerged and looked to be winning the constant war of the elements. Mother’s plan to oust the alien influences had to work. Only then would the planet calm herself and cease her temper tantrums of monstrous quakes, out-of-season-storms, and droughts.

Yes, Mother. I have bribed the proper person to steal the codes for you.

Then send the message now. Before Laudae Sissy’s ship drops out of hyperspace. Her face pinched as the child kicked from within, a kick hard enough that Garrin could see a disruption in her gown that stretched tightly rather than fall in graceful folds.

The ship has been gone for over two weeks. It may already have—

Stop arguing with me. Must I send it myself? She reached over his shoulder to grab the encoded crystal from his hand.

"I’ll do it. Just don’t blame me if it comes too late." He inserted the smaller end of the crystal in its assigned spot. Icons on the communications screen whirled as it read, accepted, and transferred the data.

Now we must go. Your bribe to the technician to leave his station unguarded can only last so long.

Yes, Mother. Garrin offered her his arm. Regally, she placed her own atop it, but leaned too heavily. He wondered if she had the strength to walk back to their own wing and her quarters.

When all the dust settles, I will see your father among the accused and you, as his eldest child, will take his place on the High Council.

Garrin thought she was trying for a reassuring tone. He’d expressed his misgivings of her plot often, and she’d dismissed them as his timidity. Instead, she sounded timid herself.

Or was she only panting in pain and exhaustion?

Not good omens for the success of their plan.

SceneSeparator-Enigma-transparent-35x35

General Jake Devlin of the Confederated Star Systems and commander of the First Contact Café stared at the spiral of incomprehensible text that bounced around his desk top. The Maril language meant nothing more to him now than it did before the translator programs had dug into it and discovered the three dimensional nature of the scrawling bird scratches.

He touched an icon to the side of the display and froze the swirling glyphs. Not just scratch marks left by bird claws, each symbol represented an entire word, sometimes a full and complex idea reduced to a few ideographs.

He’d given up dot to dot puzzles as a small child. Maybe Sissy’s youngest brother and sister could find the patterns here where an adult—a logical adult—mind could not. He could hear the children reciting a lesson in the schoolroom three rooms away around the circle of his suite. He saved the puzzle of the message to a portable unit and sauntered over to them.

The moment he left his desk behind him, the weight on his neck and shoulders vanished. This small move felt like freedom. The desk acted like a slave master, chaining him to onerous tasks.

I’m going crazy trying to make sense of this puzzle, he said.

Nanny Guilford frowned at his interruption of the children’s lessons that sounded like rhyming games to him. Sissy had found the woman among the refugees from the Maril War and suggested Jake use her to set up a school for all the children on the station. Only a few parents had agreed to trust their children to anyone outside their own immediate family. Three Maril, and five human refugee children joined the children in mid-afternoon for three hours. Those lessons were more about getting along with each other than actual school work.

So Jake employed Nanny Guilford to teach and look after the two children who’d run away from their beloved sister rather than go home to Harmony—which wasn’t very harmonious lately.

Ashel grabbed the portable and cocked her head sideways to peer at the message with one eye, then turned his head to the other side and looked with his other eye.

How do you know how to do that? Jake asked.

The Maril read that way, Marsh explained while his sister shifted the screen to another angle.

May I? Jake asked the little girl and retrieved the portable. He imitated Ashel’s cockeyed view of the messaged. One symbol resembled a carving he’d seen on the arch of a cave entrance on the planet Sissy had nicknamed Sanctuary—an ancestral spiritual retreat for the Maril that they’d abandoned, then lost. Another symbol spiraling off from the first resonated with his mind, then another and another. Something about a cave, seven beings gathered in a circle around a fire.

A meeting. The Maril wanted a peaceful meeting.

Yeah, he knew that. His translator gadget—retrieved from the vessel the now extinct Squid people had crashed into his station—told him that much. But he needed to puzzle out the message himself. He needed to understand how the diplomatic contingent from the long-time enemy of the Confederated Star Systems thought, how they reasoned, and what they really wanted.

Merchants had initiated the contact. But they’d sent Chtackah, a senior diplomat with credentials as long and wide as her wings.

Peace had never been high on the Maril’s list of priorities. Casualty and damage reports from their latest raid on a medical station in Sector 9 proved that.

But all had been quiet since then. And that raid had been more about taking three doctors and lot of data hostage to guarantee this meeting took place.

His wrist comm unit beeped. He noted the channel and decided he’d better not ignore it. Thanks, kids, but I’ve got to get back to work.

Please make an appointment next time you need to interrupt lessons, Nanny admonished him.

Yes, Ma’am.

When he returned to his slave master desk, he averted his eyes from the Maril message, hoping to see something different when he looked back. Yes, Major Mara?

General, sir, she replied in her slow drawl, left over from her days as a member of the Harmony Military. She no longer wore that uniform, or a red star caste mark, but speech patterns remained for a lifetime. There’s a live message for you streaming in from Labyrinthe Prime.

About time. Have they finally acknowledged we had reason to confiscate the station? Like their representative’s total incompetence to the point of lethal negligence. How are we on the lawsuit seeking recompense for the loss of life and damage to the station?

Our legal team is still arguing wordage with their legal team. I’ll channel the signal to your desk top, sir. She discommed without further courtesies. Unusual for someone raised on Harmony, where courtesy, status, and staying within caste kept the empire—well, harmonious. In theory.

An alien face flashed on the open screen on the inclined desktop.

Jake touched the corner with his finger and dragged it to the center of his vision field, displacing the Maril document. He tried not to show his alarm as the face resolved into a green scaled muzzle with patches of brilliant vermillion, orange and blue on cheeks and forehead. Beady yellow eyes with vertically slitted pupils focused on him quickly.

No emotion showed on the face, unless the vermillion patches flashing to yellow and the blue patches deepening to dark teal meant something he couldn’t fathom.

Then a bright voice—he couldn’t tell if it was a husky female or a high tenor male—spoke in a language he didn’t understand. The reptile hadn’t moved its pointed maw other than to flick a forked tongue in and out.

Excuse the translation, the apparent female said again. I do not receive you well over this distance. She had a slight Mediterranean inflection, Jake thought. The Bankers of D’Or have business with the governor of the station.

"General Jake Devlin, Confederated Star Systems, commander of the First Contact Café, Jake introduced himself with a slight nod of the head. How may I help you?" At last count, he’d never heard of reptilian aliens. But then this call originated at the Labyrinth Prime Space Station. Who knew what kind of species came and went from there on a regular and unreported basis?

Your mortgage is overdue, the female said. He decided he’d defer to female by default. The avian Maril used females as diplomats and comms officer, why shouldn’t reptiles? Her voice dropped suddenly deeper and more clipped, as if not her own. Again the mouth had not moved on the image that filled his screen.

"I was not aware that confiscation of the First Contact Café came with any encumbrance. Our contract with Labyrinthe Corporation and interplanetary law within the CSS allowed us to remove the negligent and potentially criminal representative of the corporation. Any mortgage that exists must be paid by the Corporation." He moved to terminate the signal.

A mortgage exists. Labyrinthe refuses to pay, as they no longer possess the station. And it is a station, not a planet, therefore your laws do not apply. Prepare to evacuate within twenty-four of your hours. My triad of Bankers D’Or will repossess at that time. The lizard flicked its tongue twice, and the signal dissolved into a mass of incomprehensible pixels.

SceneSeparator-Enigma-transparent-35x35

Garrin crept through the dark reaches of an empty mid-grav docking bay in the civilian’s maintenance wing of the space station. Few ships unloaded cargo there. Replacement parts, machinery, and tools necessary for keeping the station running lay scattered in random clusters. The space might look full but the spaces between the crates belied the illusion. More off the record business took place here than actual storage.

Passenger docking bays had soft fabrics, colorful wall panels, and clear lighting to discourage clandestine activities. So did the reassuring presence of security guards. Instead of conversations preparing for departure, he heard only the constant click and whir of the lift rotating transport platforms up and down the length of the wing.

He peered around some plasfoam containers stacked above human height in awkward piles, draped in cargo netting. They created a maze of hiding places. Spotty lights in the center of the bay made the distant stacks appear to be amorphous monsters.

Perfect for a clandestine meeting. This wasn’t his first.

He shuddered in revulsion at the taint upon his honor and his soul of this foreign place. This alien place.

His blue diamond caste mark proved his nobility and his superiority over the lesser beings he must deal with. Mother assured him of that often. He would never learn to accept this station in neutral space far away from the Harmonite Empire—the center of the universe.

The bay smelled more human and less like the unwashed bodies of the aliens from the CSS. Garrin refused to believe the evidence created by the CSS linking their heretical past to that of beloved Harmony.

Are you here? Garrin asked into the dark.

Yes, came the clear reply. One of the lumps resolved itself into the rough shape of a bulky man. He stepped into the edges of a pool of light. He wore gray coveralls, the uniform of the dockers’ union, and slapped a length of pipe menacingly into one hand.

Garrin stepped back in alarm.

Did you bring the credit chit?

Did you do as you were told?

The docker nodded, his face too shadowed to discern expression. Garrin couldn’t tell if he lied or told the truth.

How do I know?

Want me to show you?

Garrin shuddered. Yes. There has been no news of the deed.

There won’t be.

The Media branch of the Professional Caste will not be informed by us.

Absolute heresy that Laudae Sissy had allowed the Media to form their own caste. He refused to acknowledge the breech in the covenant with the Goddess. The upstart High Priestess had given them the black bar caste mark of the poor and incorporated the poor into the Workers.

I have other sources of information. Remember, I have your name and your worker ID number. If you have lied to me, I will find you. In my world, your head would be forfeit for lying to a member of my caste. Garrin drew himself up as tall as he could make himself, projecting authority, as his mother had taught him.

We aren’t on Harmony, the worker sneered.

No. But I have authority. I will have you taken there. You know the punishment.

The worker laughed.

Show me the body, Garrin insisted.

When the time is right.

Now. I need to know you have done what I ordered you to do.

You didn’t order, you bribed. I did. Now pay up.

I’ll have you—

"Yeah. Look, I told the truth. Check your sources. After you give me the chit. I need the money. Now." He slapped the pipe against his hand again. The whack of metal slamming against flesh reverberated against the crates.

He fished into the pocket within a pocket of his casual blue robe for the plascard and handed it to his contact. Pure cash. No account numbers to trace it to. Just insert it into any terminal at any pay station. Just as you said.

The docker nodded and grabbed the card. Then he disappeared into the darkness. His footsteps faded quickly.

Where’s Laud Gregor? Garrin called after him.

Look in the last place you’d expect to find it. The disembodied voice echoed from the depths of the bay.

Garrin hastened onto the rotating platform of the central lift that would take him upward through the light grav levels to the Zero G center of the station. There a tram would whisk him to the clean safety of his own wing.

Chapter Two

Laudae Sissy, High Priestess of Harmony and all her colony planets, held her breath. The shuttle touched down with barely a bump. The aircraft hovered, then eased over to the verge of the landing field. She released the pent up artificial air in her lungs on a long, relieved exhale.

She’d flown in shuttles and space a grand total of six times. Would she ever get used to the scary exhilaration? Jake took it for granted. She admitted to herself that she felt safer when he piloted her.

Behind her seat, Dog and Monster each opened an eye in query, keeping their muzzles resting on their forepaws. Neither animal showed much interest in life yet, still groggy from hyperspace drugs. Crewmen had had to carry them from her bunk to the shuttle. Not so much a problem with Dog, the brown, short-haired mongrel with a skinny tail and floppy ears. Monster, on the other hand, had taken two strong men to maneuver from his space cradle. The shaggy black water dog weighed more than Sissy did.

We’re home, she whispered to the dogs. Monster thumped his heavy tail once in response. Then he closed his eyes again, not reassured. Three weeks in hyperspace that felt like only a long night of sleep, Sissy continued, to reassure herself more than the dogs.

How had Jake, General Devlin, commander of the space station First Contact Café, occupied himself during that long period of time? She touched her lips once again with a tentative fingertip. She relived the glorious moment when Jake had kissed her. Long and deep. In full view of any who cared to look. For those few heartbeats the universe had fallen away and only the two of them existed.

All thought of caste, cultural, religious, and planetary differences ceased. She and Jake belonged together. Neither of them had figured out a way to make that happen.

The hatch irised open and a ramp extruded from the vessel. The end of the exit rested solidly on green grass. Sissy fumbled with the catch of her safety harness.

Slow and steady works faster than hasty and clumsy, Mary, eldest of Sissy’s six acolytes, admonished. Her strong, long-fingered hands flipped the latch in one sure movement.

Thank you, Mary. Sissy nodded her head in proper protocol even as she bounded from her chair toward the opening. She paused at the top of the ramp to breathe deeply of her homeworld.

The dust-laden air caught in her swelling throat. She expelled it in a long cough. Spasms racked her entire body, muscles in her back and legs cramping painfully. A sense of helpless floundering assailed her, taking her back to the awful moments on the planet Sanctuary when Laud Gregor, High Priest of Harmony, had died, and Sissy had nearly succumbed to the toxic alien pollens.

Her mind spun as she fought for air to circulate through her body. Where she was, and when she was, tangled.

Calm down! She almost heard General Jake Devlin whisper into her mind. Relax, let Harmony ease your lungs.

She bent double and held her stomach to control the cough. Her lungs fought to adjust to a new level of moisture and pollen. After nearly a year aboard the First Contact Café breathing artificial air that had been stripped clean of all her asthma triggers, she found this onslaught of plant life, industrial pollution, and quake rubble irritated delicate tissues.

Martha, second eldest of her acolytes, thrust an inhaler into her mouth. Breathe, she commanded as she depressed the plunger.

Sissy obeyed. Drugs raced through her system. Colors took on new brightness, silhouettes clarified. Layers of reality blended and merged. She closed her eyes to adjust to the shifting perspectives.

Within seconds, passages opened in her lungs. She kicked off the light slippers the crew insisted she wear on board and ran down the ramp to the muddy grass. Her toes curled, digging into the soil, connecting her once more to the glory of Harmony. She knelt on the damp grass and kissed the ground, the living skin of her Goddess.

Sissy sighed in relief as she righted herself despite the mud on her knees and elbows, keeping her inhaler ready, just in case.

I’m home! she cried twirling in ecstasy. I’m home!

About time, came a scratchy tenor voice from a few paces away. We’ve been waiting over an hour for the shuttle.

Gil! Sissy cried and ran to throw her arms around her old friend. Excuse me, Mr. Guilliam, I greet you in Harmony. She remembered herself long enough to bow formally to the man who ran the Crystal Temple in the name of the High Priest and High Priestess.

I welcome you home to Harmony, he replied with an equally formal bow. He wore casual shirt and trousers but in mourning gray. This reception was private, despite the sad burden she had carried home from the First Contact Café. Now give me a hug. He laughed, throwing his arms wide.

She fell into his embrace gratefully. His strong fingers clutched her back, giving her comfort, if not resolve to carry on with her duties.

You’re so frail, he whispered into her hair. What’s wrong?

Nothing important now that I’m home. Harmony will heal my body. She stiffened her spine and pushed away from him. She patted her mourning black slacks and blouse into order. She hated the black required of all Temple Caste until Laud Gregor’s funeral and appointment of his successor. Where is Laudae Penelope? she asked. Gil’s wife and children were nowhere in sight. Unusual.

"Penny prepares your quarters in the Crystal Temple. She would not trust the chore to servants, or another within our caste. We have kept your return as quiet as possible. The airing of your rooms would certainly alert the Media Caste as well as your enemies within the