A few hours later, a tumult from the boys' section drew her to its entrance. She could hear their tutor hollering at them, trying to quiet them . . . and then Randy, Tertia's youngest boy, shot out the door with a clatter of sandaled feet.
"Daddy's dead!" he was screaming, at the top of his lungs. Prima caught him. "Lemme go! Lemme go!" He flailed at her.
The tutor followed close behind. "Prima—put him down."
The tutor, though a man, was not Mitch, and she dared look at his face, pale as whey. "What is it?" she asked.
"That abomination," he said, through clenched teeth. "She stole a shuttle, and tried to escape. Ranger Bowie and others went after her; there's been—" Light stabbed through the windows, a quick shocking flash of blue-white. Prima whirled, suddenly aware of her heart knocking at her ribs.
The tutor had opened the window and peered out and up. Prima followed him. Outside, cars had stopped cantways, and men were looking up. Prima dared a look into the sky, and saw only patches of blue between white clouds. Ordinary. Unthreatening.
"I want to see the newsvid," she said to the tutor, and walked into the boys' part of the house without waiting for his permission.
The newsvid had two excited men yelling into the vid pickup. Prima could hardly make out what they were saying. Escape, pursuit, invasion . . . invasion? Who could be invading them? And why? Mobilization, one of the men said.
"What is it?" she asked again. The older boys were already moving toward their gunboxes.
"It's the end of the world," one of them said. Daniel, she thought. Secunda's third.
"Don't be silly," another said. "It's the heathen, come to try to enforce their dirty ways on us."
"Why?" Prima asked. In all her years, no one had ever bothered Our Texas, and she saw no reason why anyone would.
"Don't worry," Daniel said, patting her shoulder. "We'll protect you. Now you get on back to the women's side, and keep order."
Prima turned to go, still unsure what had happened, and what it could mean. In the kitchen, Secunda and Tertia were quarrelling over the meaning of the bright light, and both turned to her for an answer. "I don't know," she said. Who could know? Temptation tickled her . . . no, she dared not risk her soul asking an outlander such questions, but . . . she made up her mind, and went out to the weaving shed.
"Miriam!" The outlander woman turned from her loom. Her face was tight with tension; she must have seen the light too. "Do you know what that light was?"
Miriam nodded.
"Was it from space? From ships?" Another nod, this time with a big grin, a triumphant grin. Miriam mimed a rocket taking off, shooting another rocket.
Invaders. There
were
invaders. "Who?" Prima asked the air. "Who would do this? Why?" She jumped when Miriam touched her arm. "What?" Miriam mimed writing. Writing . . . Mitch, she recalled, had threatened to take Miriam's right hand if she didn't quit writing; she'd hoped it wouldn't be necessary because the woman was a gifted weaver. Now she led Miriam to the kitchen and gave her the pad of paper and marker they used for keeping accounts.
Light is weapon
Miriam wrote. Prima squinted, trying to read as fast as Miriam wrote. Weapon, that was clear.
Ionizing atmospheric gases.
That made no sense; she didn't know any of the words. Miriam, glancing up, seemed to guess that.
Made air glow
she wrote. Well, but how could air glow? Air was just air, clear unless there was smoke in it.
"Who?" Prima asked again. "Who would attack us?"
Miriam scribbled rapidly.
Guerni Republic, Emerald Worlds, Baltic Confederation, Familias Regnant . . .
Prima had no idea what those were, besides godless outlanders.
Battle in space, not attacking here. Someone you stole from.
"We don't steal!" Prima said, narrowly stopping herself from slapping Miriam. "We are not thieves."
Stole me
, Miriam wrote.
Stole children, women, killed men
.
"That's not true. You're lying. The children had no families, and you women were rescued from a life of degradation . . ." But her voice wavered. Miriam had been here for more than ten years; if she still believed she had been stolen, if she had not understood . . .
I can prove it.
Miriam wrote.
Get to a transmitter—call—find out who that is, and ask them.
"I can't do that! You know it's forbidden. Women do not use men's technology." But . . . if she could find out. If it was possible . . .
I know how.
Miriam wrote.
It's easy.
Forbidden knowledge. Prima glanced around, realized that the others in the kitchen were staring, trying to understand this conversation. "I—I don't know where such machines are," she said finally.
I know how to find them
.
"How?"
Tall thin things sticking out the top of buildings.
"It's still forbidden." Thinking of looking up at tall thin things made her dizzy in her mind. Thinking of touching men's machines was worse.
We can look at the newsfeed
. She must mean the machine kept for the women to watch religious broadcasts.
"How? I don't know how to set it up."
I do.
Miriam went to the closet where it was kept, and pulled it out. More than a little afraid, Prima helped her pull it, on its cart, into the back kitchen where there were extra electrical outlets. Miriam uncoiled the nest of wires that Mitch had left, and plugged this one and that one into the back and sides of the machine. Prima had no idea which went where, and kept expecting the machine to burst into flame. Instead, it made a faint frying noise and then a picture appeared, the same background as the one she'd seen on the boys' side. This time only one man looked back at her. Miriam kept tinkering with the machine, and suddenly it had a different picture, crisp and colorful . . . men in strange uniforms, very odd-looking.
Prima felt faint suddenly. Some of those odd-looking men in uniform were women. The view narrowed, concentrating on one of them, a woman with dark skin and eyes, and silver hair. Miriam touched one of the machine's front controls, and a voice spoke.
"—Return of children captured with the piracy of the ship
Elias Madero
. Return of infant children born to Sera Meager during captivity—" Prima felt behind her for the table and leaned against it. That yellow-hair . . . this must be about that yellow-hair. "—Ships are destroyed; your orbital station is destroyed. To avoid more damage and loss of life, you are urged to cooperate with us. This message is being transmitted on loop until we receive a reply."
Ships destroyed. Mitch's ship? Was he dead? Prima felt the weight of that loss. If Mitch was dead, someone else would be Ranger Bowie, and she—she and the rest of Mitch's wives and children—would belong to Mitch's brother Jed, if he lived. Jeffry, if Jed had died.
The sound of gunfire in the street brought her upright. "Turn that off," she said to Miriam. "Before we get in trouble. Put a—a tablecloth over it." She knew she should put it away, but if Mitch was not dead there might be more news of him, and she could not bring herself to lose that connection. "It's past lunchtime, and we haven't served," she scolded, brushing past the questions the other women wanted to ask. "Feed the children, come on now. Feed them, put the babies down for naps. What would Ranger Bowie think, if he saw us like this!"
They were washing up when Jed arrived, white-faced and barely coherent. "Prima—it's terrible news. Mitch is dead or captive; all the Rangers are. Get me food, woman! I have to—somebody has to take over—" Prima scurried out, driving the maids away; she would serve him herself. Safer. When she had piled his plate with roast and potatoes and young beans, she summoned Miriam.
"Turn it on, but keep it low. Be ready to hide it again."
The next time she came through the kitchen, all the grown women were clustered around it. This time the face on the screen was a woman in a decent dress—or at least a dress. Dark hair streaked silver—an older woman.
"She says the yellow-hair was a big man's daughter."
Oh, Mitch . . . ambition diggeth pits for the unwary . . .
"She says our men murdered people and stole things . . ."
"That's a lie," Prima said automatically. Then she gasped as the screen showed Mitch—sitting miserably at a table, not eating, with men she knew around him. Terry . . . John . . . and there was the Captain, Ranger Travis.
"—Rangers are either captive, or dead." That was the voice from the machine, with its curious clipped way of speaking. The way Patience had spoken at first.
"Prima! Get out here!" That was Jed, bellowing as usual. Prima scurried away, resenting once again that part of Scripture which would give her to this man just because he was Mitch's brother.
Mitch Pardue came to in the belly of the whale, a vast shadowy cold cavern as it seemed. He blinked, and the threatening curves around him resolved into something he recognized instantly as part of a spaceship. Not the shuttle, though, and not the space station he'd been on. He looked around cautiously. There on the deck nearby were a score of his fellows, most still slackly unconsious, one or two staring at him with expressions of fright.
Where were they? He pushed himself up, and only then gathered his wits sufficiently to realize that he was dressed in a skimpy shipsuit with no boots, with plastic shackles on his ankles. He felt his heart pounding before he identified the fright that shook him. He cleared his throat . . . and stiffened in outrage and terror. No. It could not be. He tried again, forming a soft word with his mouth, and no sound emerged.
He looked around frantically—on one side of him the bodies of his own crew, men he knew well, now more of them awake, and mouthing silent protests. On the other, another clump of men he knew—Pete Robertson's bunch, he was sure—beginning to stir, to attempt speech, to show in their faces the panic and rage he felt in his own.
The troops that entered sometime later did not surprise him; he braced himself for torture or death. But after checking his shackles, they simply stood by the bulkhead, alert and dangerous, waiting for whatever would come.
He should rally his men and jump them. He knew that, as he knew every word of Scripture he'd been told to memorize. But lying there, mute and hobbled, he couldn't figure out how. He turned his head again, and saw Terry watching him.
Get ready
he tried to mouth. Terry just stared at him blankly. He nodded, sharply; Terry shook his head.
The women had been able to lipspeak to each other; some of them had a hand language too. Men should be able—he tried again, this time looking past Terry to Bob. Bob mouthed something he couldn't figure out in return, and looked scared. Mitch was plumb disgusted. Giving up this way, what were they? He rolled over to attempt something with Pete, but one of the guards had moved, and was making very clear gestures with his weapon. Mitch looked closer.
Her
weapon.
"Stop it," she said. "No whispering, no mouthing." She had a clear light voice that didn't sound dangerous, but the weapon in her hands was rock-steady. And he didn't doubt the others would get him if he tried anything with her. Down the row someone made a kiss sound, a long-drawn smooch. Mitch looked up into dark eyes like chips of obsidian and didn't make a sound. Another of the soldiers walked up to the smoocher and deliberately kicked him in the balls. He could not scream, but the rasping agonized breath was loud enough.
Another group of soldiers arrived; Mitch found himself suspended between two in space armor, propelled down a corridor to a large head. "Use it," said a voice from inside the helmet. Man's or woman's, he couldn't tell, but he had urgent need. So did the others, alongside him. From there, they were taken to a compartment with a long table set with mealpacks.
He shouldn't eat. He should starve himself, rather than eat with these infidels. He tried to signal his team, figure out a way to stop them, but four of them were already tearing open the mealpacks. He sat rigid, jaws clamped on his hunger, while the others ate. After a short time, two of them dragged him away to a small cubicle where he faced someone in a fancier uniform.
"You won't eat?"
He shook his head.
"We'll feed you, then." And in the humiliating struggle that followed, strong arms held him down while he was force-fed some thick liquid.
"You do not have the option of suicide, or resistance," the officer said coolly, when they dragged him back to the same cubicle. "You will cooperate with us, because you can do nothing else." After that, they took him back to a different compartment, a small solitary cell.
Mitch had, once or twice in his young days, travelled under a fake identity on Familias-registry ships; he had seen a few of the big commercial orbital stations. But nothing he had seen was like the interior of an elite warship. He wanted to despise it; he wanted to sneer at the exaggerated courtesy, the grave ritual, the polish and precision . . . but without a voice he could do nothing but experience it, and in that experience realize how foolishly he had misjudged his opponents. He had called down God's wrath on his people, and here was the instrument of that doom: sleek, shining, perfectly disciplined, and utterly deadly.