Cardenas (Findlay IV), Findlay System, Eriuman Republic.
The house AI woke Sang with a screamed alert that made Sang tumble out of their cot while still half-asleep, trying to instantly assess the alarm and fumbling for clothes.
Dressed, Sang ran for the library, from where the house AI stated the weapons alert had originated. There were no other weapons in the house—at least, not traditional weapons. There were any number of innocent-looking objects and devices Sang could use as lethal weapons, thanks to Bellona’s training. Until they had assessed the alarm for themselves, there was no need to signal their intent by picking up anything.
They were not the only ones woken. Family members were hurrying through the suddenly daylight-bright house, flinging on garments and suitable layers, shaking their heads, trying to orient themselves as they hurried to the library.
Sang met Iulia at the door and was startled to see her hair loose and brushing the back of her hips.
Then Sang looked into the library and shocked slithered through them.
Reynard Cardenas sat in the big green chair. He was fully dressed, in the clothes he had been wearing earlier in the evening, although his overshirt was rumpled. His face was devoid of any color. Sang wondered if more than shock was affecting him. He gripped the arms of the chair and did not move.
Bellona stood in front of him, a single-hand ghostmaker pointing at her father’s chest. Her face was as pale as Reynard’s.
“Tell them,” she ordered him. Her voice was strained.
Reynard licked his lips. “There is no need for this. Put the gun down. We can speak freely without it.”
Bellona laughed. The sound held no humor. “You don’t talk. You avoid. You deny. You pretend everything is just fine. But you do not talk. This is the only way.”
Iulia put her hand on Sang’s back and shoved. Sang tripped forward and regained their balance, to find the muzzle of the ghostmaker pointed at them. They held their hands up as the household gathered at the door gasped.
“What do you wish your father to speak about?” Sang asked, keeping their voice calm and reasonable.
“He knows.” Bellona swung the ghostmaker back to her father, who had been rising to his feet.
He sat down again. “She is hysterical,” he said flatly. “Babbling about thugs and cologne and freeships. It’s all nonsense.”
“I’m not hysterical,” Bellona said. “I’m calmer than I have been for a long while, because now it is very clear.”
“See?” Reynard said, spreading his hands. “She has ransacked my room, now she babbles inanities.”
Sang glanced at the wall next to the big chair. A section of the paneling had been slid aside. There were such pockets of storage all over the room, most of them innocent. A stranger looking at this cupboard would consider the contents just as benign. Fluted decanters, squat bottles of spirit. Sitting in front of all of them was a smaller bottle that with a quick glance would be mistaken for more spirits, perhaps a rare hand blend.
The seal had been removed. Even from where they were standing on the far side of the room, Sang could detect the sharp, spicy scent.
Cologne.
The scent stirred in Sang the memory of the zesty dessert they had sampled while Bellona slumped at the table. The aromas were not identical, although they were closely related.
“This is the true source?” Sang asked, pointing.
Bellona worked her fingers on the grip of the ghostmaker. “I remember it all now.” Her gaze was on Reynard.
Reynard did not ask what it was she remembered. He already knew. Sang could see it in his eyes.
“Sang,” Bellona said quietly.
They looked at her expectantly.
“Count your toes. Count your nose. Breathe and repeat.”
Sang staggered, as their balance shifted under the onslaught of new memories spilling into their mind. No, not new. Hidden. Not repressed as human memories were, but inaccessible until this moment, when the key phrase unlocked them. They had been so carefully filed away that Sang had not been aware of their existence.
They realized that they were sitting in one of the hard visitor chairs, clutching the cushion to remain upright.
“What is wrong with it?” Iulia demanded from the entrance to the room.
“That is shock, mother,” Bellona said dryly. “Sang is remembering now, too.”
“Sort-review-analyze,” Sang whispered. It was a mantra for times of confusion. Retreating to purely digital processing centered them. They looked for the beginning of the memory. The magic of time would give these strident memories coherence. They would make sense when arranged in order of occurrence…
…the blow had not been entirely unexpected, yet the sound of hand slapping cheek was loud in the silent library. It seemed to echo in Sang’s mind as all four of them froze in their positions by the shock of it.
Sang got their hand onto Max’s shoulder as he tried to launch himself to his feet to defend his sister. Sang held him down.
Iulia, who knew her husband better than Max, remained still and silent, even as her throat worked and her hands crept beneath folds of her gown, to hide her reaction.
Bellona straightened, fingering the dark red mark on her cheek. Her eye on that side watered freely and her lips were swollen in the corner. She looked Reynard in the eyes, even though she trembled. The blow he had delivered had jarred her carefully piled hair from the top of her head and loose ringlets hung beside her face.
“Take it back,” Reynard said, his voice strained. His arm was still raised. “Retract the statement.”
Bellona gripped a fold of the yellow gown she was wearing. It was a pretty dress that Sang had always enjoyed seeing on her. Now she crushed the fragile fabric. “I won’t marry Delben. I will join the Navy, like Max.”
Reynard roared, a shapeless venting of rage. His hand lifted again and Bellona braced herself. She didn’t step away or cringe.
“Father!” Max shouted, his voice breaking with a mix of emotions.
Reynard arrested the swing at the apex. He lowered his hand. “You can’t join the Navy. You have no qualifications, no skills.”
“I am combat trained.” Bellona said it calmly.
Max sighed gustily. Now he understood why she had wheedled him into letting her train beside him.
Sang removed their hand and stepped back against the wall once more, where Riz and Wait stood.
“You are a woman. Your physical weakness is a handicap the Eriuman Navy can live without,” Reynard replied.
“On a cruiser, where the greatest physical demand is to push buttons?” Bellona asked, her voice rising.
“We’re at war,” Reynard shot back. “You have no idea what that means, what the true demands of such a career are. You’ve been protected all your life. I have made sure none of it touches you. You think this is an adventure, something novel to distract you for a while. Trust me, war is not what you think.”
“Your father only has the best in mind for you,” Iulia added softly.
“He wants me married to a Jaleesa so he can lock in the trade agreement. I’m not a fool, Mother!”
Iulia drew in a shaky breath and fell silent. Her eyes were huge as she looked at her husband for reassurance.
“The trade agreement is a pleasant side-effect, that is all,” Reynard said heavily.
“Freedom is a pleasant side-effect of joining the Navy,” Bellona replied.
Reynard’s fury etched itself in his face once more. He curled his lowered hand into a fist. “You dare…!”
“That isn’t fair, Bellona!” Iulia cried. “You have more rights and freedoms than any other citizen in history.”
“The war you want to join ensures that,” Reynard said. “The world beyond Erium is not the escape you seem to think it is. It is not a panacea.”
“I’ll never know that for myself, if you have your way,” Bellona said. “Why won’t you let me find out?”
Reynard, perhaps sensing the weight of the argument swinging his way, relaxed. His tone was gentler. Coaxing. “I have worked to provide a good life for you and Max. I ask only that you enjoy it. You are singularly unfit to survive beyond the borders of Cardenas, daughter. You have no experience of what it is like. The free states, the Homogeny…these places do not forgive mistakes. An error here among those who love you merely makes you look foolish. The same mistake, out there, will kill you.”
Bellona looked away. She could not counter the argument because Reynard was right. She did not know what lay beyond Cardenas.
Sensing victory, Reynard smiled. “Now, take the day to think about Delben’s proposal. It is a fair one. I have looked over the contract—”
“He gave it to you?” Bellona asked, her voice rising again.
Reynard frowned. “You would prefer a hired contractor vet the agreement?”
“I would prefer to have the choice!”
“Your ingratitude detracts from your character,” Reynard snapped. “It comes perilously close to accusing me of illegalities.”
“Your father is not forcing this on you,” Iulia added. “Of course the choice is yours.”
“Then I chose not to accept the agreement,” Bellona said. She headed for the library door.
“I will let you think about it for a day or so,” Reynard called after her. His tone implied he was granting her a favor.
Bellona didn’t answer…
…the memory linked to the next. There were events in between, of course, although they were not lost memories. They were not linked together. Sang’s mind turned to the next forgotten event.
Sort, review, analyze…
…The summons to Max’s rooms was a familiar one. Sang had been called for assistance in the middle of the night many times in the past. Max’s infractions were mild, but Reynard had no patience for lack of discipline. Max had always called to Sang instead of his mother for help in covering up any indiscretions, even though Iulia was efficient at keeping vexing news from her husband. “She just gets that disappointed look on her face an’ it makes me want to squirm,” Max had told Sang the time he had needed to be poured into bed and nursed through his first hangover.
Sang moved through the house silently and slipped into Max’s suite, wondering what fresh nonsense Max had dreamed up.
Bellona sat on the very edge of a chair, in the darkest corner. The dim light didn’t fail to hide the blood covering her tunic, the cuts, scrapes and bruises forming on her arms, or the way the tunic was just barely covering her. The rents and tears would have revealed more, except that Max’s big coat hung around her shoulders, hiding the worst of it.
Max was pacing. When Sang stepped in, he came over to them quickly. “I need you to reach out. A hidden channel, Sang.”
“What happened?” Sang demanded.
“It doesn’t matter,” Max said quickly. “Can you do it?”
“A silent channel? Yes. Where to?”
“Cerce, to start.”
“Ocantis IV?” Sang clarified. “That is a free state.”
“Yes.” Max crouched down in front of Bellona and lifted her hair to one side to check her face. “You’ll need analgesic at the very least,” he said gently. “Did they…do you need more specific medical intervention?”
“You mean, did they finish raping me?” Her voice was high and remote. Her gaze was glassy. “I killed him before he could.”
Shock slithered through Sang. They stared. “You killed someone?”
Max got to his feet. “I should have thought of it sooner,” he said, sounding vexed. “You’ll find a body in the garden, where we train, Sang. You’ll need to…deal with it. I don’t know how such matters are handled, but I’m sure you do.”
“There are ways,” Sang said distantly. They moved closer to Bellona. “You really killed the man?”
Bellona blinked at him. “I had to.”
“It’s not important,” Max said shortly. “Not now. Sang, the body. You can move around freely. I’ll be noticed.”
“Yes.” Sang said. They made themselves turn and go.
The training area, when they reached it, was bare of anything but closely shaved grass, that shone silver in the light of the second moon, Cardenia. It was late and dew had formed. There were tracks through the dew, with a larger, darker patch of dry grass in one of the shadowed corners. Sang bent to examine it. The smell of blood, coppery and sharp, was distinct.
Sang spent the next fifteen minutes washing the blood away, then quartering the little area, looking for any other signs of disturbance and removing them. Then they returned to Max’s suite.
Bellona was emerging from the ablutions area, her hair wet. The clothes she wore were Max’s, although tucked into boots and cinched in with a belt, they were not ridiculously overlarge.
“We could collect more suitable clothes,” Sang pointed out. “Or print fresh ones.”
“No, nothing that leaves a trace,” Max said quickly. “The garden, Sang?”
“There was a body, but it had been moved before we got there.”
Max glanced at Bellona, his expression hardening.
“Did you think I made it up, little brother?” Bellona asked. She sounded calm, yet there was a wild look in her eyes, which were too large and too glassy.
“The confirmation is still a shock. Murder, Bell. The family can’t protect you from that.”
“Good,” she said flatly.
Max threw out his hand. “You were only defending yourself!”
“If we could be made to understand what happened…?” Sang asked diffidently.
“I went to the garden to meet Max for late night training,” Bellona said. “We set it up days ago.”
“You cancelled on me,” Max said.
Bellona shook her head.
“What was the form of the cancellation?” Sang asked.
“The House AI told me Bellona was staying in her room for the night.”
“Such a channel can be broached easily,” Sang pointed out. “The true origin of the message masked. We will examine it, later.”
“It set Bellona up,” Max said angrily. “Whoever they were, they targeted her. Four of them.”
“I think it was four. It was dark,” Bellona said quietly. “They came out of the shadows and they used my name. They knew who I was.” She paused, then said reflectively, “It didn’t seem to scare them, knowing who I was.”
“They attacked you?” Sang said, sparing her the description.
She nodded. “Then, when the shock passed, when I realized it really was happening…well…I just…reacted.”
“And killed a man,” Max whispered.
“Then I came here,” Bellona said, looking around the suite.
“You were right to come to me,” Max said. He stopped in front of her again. “You’re going to have to leave. You know that, don’t you?”
Bellona swallowed. “That’s why you asked Sang about a channel to the free states.”
“I’ll take you to New Edsel, first,” Max said. “Everyone is used to me heading off there.”
“They believe you have an unofficial lover there,” Sang offered.
Max rolled his eyes. “This family and its conspiracies…” he muttered. “It will do for now. I have a skiff there, Bellona. I know a freeship captain who operates from Cerce who owes me a favor and I can get you onto her ship once it is in local space. Captain Wang will take you back to the free states.”
“Then what?” It was a whisper.
Max closed his eyes briefly. “I don’t know, Bell. I don’t want to know. You’re going to have to make your own way after that.”
Bellona’s chin quivered. She pressed her lips together to make it stop. Then she nodded. “Very well.” Her shoulders under the big jacket straightened. “We’d better hurry,” she added.
They had stolen into the night, after Max had left a message with the house AI to let everyone know he would be in New Edsel for a week. They took nothing with them that would provide clues later.
It took six hours by ground car to reach New Edsel. Max would not risk a semi-ballistic, for they were noisy on take-off and tended to draw attention. People stopped to watch them crawl up into the higher atmosphere, growing smaller and smaller.
The ground car wound through the hills, while Max slept and Bellona watched the night fade through the observation ports. Sang remained plugged into the communications satellites and switched their way through shortbands, changing swiftly, adding random cut-offs, always aiming for Cerce and the established communications net surrounding the Ocantis system. The Cerce AI was friendly and trusting, accepting that Sang was Max without a quiver.
Captain Tatiana Wang of the Hathaway was known to the Cerce AI. It accepted the sealed communications bullet and assured Sang it would pass it on as soon as the Hathaway was within reach. Then it asked for a return channel.
Sang hesitated, weighing the options. Then Sang curtly told it there would be no return possible. Sang disconnected, leaving the AI troubled. Sang was confident the message would be delivered as promised, though, for that was the AI’s function and to not fulfil its function would invoke stressors. AIs did not like uncertainty.
New Edsel was a sleepy little town in the prairies, with charming historical buildings and Cardenas family offshoots that traced their ancestors back to the original Cardenas settlers. The high flat plains offered excellent landing fields and the original landing site was thought to be somewhere nearby, although no traces of the historic location had been found and records were hazy.
The flat land attracted a thriving air industry and many lucrative support businesses catering to pleasure craft and their occupants. Max had been smart to keep his skiff here. He would be one more Cardenas among a great many others and could come and go with relative privacy.
As the ground car wound through the downtown area, Max sat up and rubbed sleep from his eyes and asked Sang to reach out to the skiff and get it ready.
Bellona showed no sign of interest in the preparations. Her gaze remained on the view beyond the port. Even when the car pulled up next to the little runabout, she didn’t stir.
Sang was familiar with the skiff, for they had been instrumental in Max’s getaways in the past. “The skiff is not equipped for no-atmosphere maneuvering,” Sang pointed out.
“It is air-tight and it has an emergency thruster. I just need to get up high enough to meet the Hathaway, then use the thruster to get back down low enough to drop.”
“And how will you dock?” The skiff had nothing resembling an airlock.
“That’s why I’m using the skiff,” Max said. He helped Bellona out of the car. “It will fit inside the Hathaway’s cargo hold.”
“And if the hold already contains cargo?”
Max looked at Sang. He was still young, still fresh with youth and energy, but the look in his eyes was one Sang had not seen before. It was an older man looking at Sang. A wiser one. “I’ll make it worth Wang’s time to drop the load.”
Sang nodded. “We will wait here with the car, for your return.”
Max nodded and eased Bellona into the skiff, then inserted himself, too. Sang watched the little vehicle take off, then ascend almost vertically, leaving a clear trail in the early morning sky.
That was the last time Sang saw Bellona. Ten years would pass before they saw her again.
* * * * *
Sang pressed their fingers to their temple. Their head hurt.
“Sang,” Bellona called. “Sit up. I need your help with this.”
Sang nodded and tried to obey. They moved slowly. “Max…locked the memories away. After. When we got back from New Edsel.”
Bellona glanced at her father and adjusted her aim, then looked back at Sang. “Max told me what he was going to do. He gave me the phrase. I only remembered it now. Tonight.” She turned to face Reynard once more. “Max knew all along. He lied to protect me. I hope you appreciate that.”
Reynard swallowed. The skin around his throat moved loosely. It was the flabby flesh of an old man. Sang had never thought of Reynard as old before.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Reynard said.
“You do know. You know exactly what this is about. You’ve been waiting for this moment to arrive for ten years,” Bellona told him. “You worked to cover it up. You lied, too. More than Max did and for far worse reasons. Max was at least protecting someone else.”
“Bellona, for the stars’ sake…” Iulia protested. “Please put that…thing down and let us talk civilly.”
“Reynard has given up any rights to a civil conversation,” Bellona said. “Ask him, mother.”
“I will not play this game,” Iulia said firmly. “I am going to bed.”
Sang glanced at her. Iulia had not moved from the spot. None of the others ranged behind her looked as if they wanted to leave, either.
Sang turned their gaze back to Reynard. They were not certain why they must watch the man, except that Bellona’s need to hold him at gunpoint seemed warning enough.
Reynard looked less threatening than he had ever had in the past. He looked tired. Resigned. Except that Sang had never seen Reynard Cardenas give up. His relentlessness and drive had made him the prime member of the most senior family in the clan. His absolute confidence in his decisions cemented him there.
So Sang remained wary.
Reynard’s gaze slid back to Bellona. Measured her.
Bellona swapped hands on the gun. “Sang doesn’t know all of it. Max didn’t know all of it. Even I didn’t know all of what happened that night, until I smelled the cologne you’d so carefully hidden away. Then it all came back. You were there that night. You watched it all happen.”
Sang’s lips parted as shocked made their jaw sag.
“Watched what?” someone whispered, behind them.
Reynard’s gaze didn’t shift from Bellona. “I still don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re not making sense.”
“For the first time in a long time, I’m making perfect sense,” Bellona assured him. “The Bazaar from Erium was here that week. The whole city was going crazy. You were just as bad, buying clothes and trinkets and baubles. You bought colognes, too. That was why I didn’t recognize the scent as yours that night. I smelled it, though. It passed through the trees you were hiding behind. I even paused, when the scent reached me. It was so very distinct. Tell me, Father, when you hired the men from the Bazaar to rape me, did you intend merely to see they earned their money, or are you a voyeur too?”
Iulia moaned sickly.
Reynard swallowed.
Bellona nodded, as if that was confirmation enough. “We are at another impasse, aren’t we? You saw me murder a man. It must have been a shock to you, to see me fend for myself. You’ve always had such a low opinion of my ability to do that. That’s why I know you arranged for those men to intimidate me into staying safely inside the family nest, where I could be protected and guarded and shoved into Delben’s arms. I think the clan would find your behavior objectionable in their leader.”
For the first time, Reynard reacted. He flinched.
Bellona smiled. “You will make sure that none of this ever leaves this room. You know what the consequences will be if you do not.” She lowered the ghostmaker. “Sang.”
Sang got to their feet. Slowly.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Reynard demanded.
“I’m leaving.” Bellona looked over her shoulder. “Don’t try to stop me. Don’t tell Wait to try, either. You’ll both regret it.”
Reynard swallowed again.
Bellona beckoned to Sang. They turned and followed her from the room.
* * * * *
It was an echo of another long night. The ground car wound its way through the hills toward New Edsel. Bellona looked through the port windows, while Sang arranged a communications channel. This time, the channel was far easier to set up, because it was Eriuman at both ends. That didn’t shorten the distance, though. It took three hours for the channel to cohere.
Sang shook Bellona gently, as they cast the channel and built a screen at the front of the car, where Bellona could see it.
Max tilted his head, his dark eyes taking in the interior of the ground car and Bellona’s appearance. “What happened?”
“I remembered, Max.” Her voice was raw.
Max sat back. He didn’t ask what she had remembered.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Bellona demanded.
Max let out a heavy breath. “I was so pleased when you couldn’t remember what happened,” he confessed. “I thought the whole thing could be forgotten.”
“It didn’t occur to you that I would keep digging until I found it?”
Max screwed up his nose. “You were always stubborn, but you had a short attention span, too. Five minutes, five days, with some new trinket or lover or toy and you’d be done, bored and onto the next thing. No, I didn’t think you would ever keep at it like this.”
Bellona sighed. “There are so many gaping holes in my life now, Max. So many things out there I don’t remember that might yet come back to haunt me. You should have told me about this.”
Max shook his head. “Why would I do that? You look ill, Bell. You look as though you’ve been kicked in the guts. Is knowing the truth worth it? It hasn’t gained you a thing.”
“I look like I’ve been kicked in the guts because I have,” she said shortly. “There’s a thing you don’t know about that night. Father arranged it, to demonstrate how weak and useless I really was. An object lesson to keep me in line.”
Max ran his hand over his shorn head. “That’s…” He cleared his throat. “You’re sure?” he breathed.
“I think I always knew, deep down.” Bellona gave a small laugh. “Do you know he was so certain of his power and my uselessness that he never destroyed the cologne? He hid it, instead, which means he knew I would identify him by it. Yet he didn’t get rid of it. He was that complacent and that tight fisted. The stars would misalign if he actually threw something useful away.”
Max shook his head. “I have no idea what you mean about cologne and I don’t have time to talk about it. Bellona, this is…I have to think about it.”
“I need to know I can trust you, Max. I thought I did. I want to, but this…”
“You know why I lied.”
“You need to stop protecting me. It’s just tripping me up.”
Max laughed. “Tripping you up on your way to where?”
“I don’t know. I’ve left the city. I’ll let you know when I find somewhere to stop. I have some thinking to do.”
“So do I,” Max admitted. His face was troubled. “This changes things.”
“Yes,” she said simply.
Max looked over his shoulder at something not visible within the screen. “Time to go pretend I run this ship, Bell. Sang, stay with her.”
“Yes, Max.”
The screen popped and disintegrated.
* * * * *
They spent four days in New Edsel, while Bellona took a measure of the town and began speaking to marketers about properties in the area.
That was where the news reached them that the body of Maximilian Cardenas Scordino de Deluca, Captain of the Decimus, had been found on Antini.