Laura Jo Phillips (15 page)

“Captain, set course for Jasan at once,” he ordered.  “And make double sure you lock in Blind Sight.  They must not discover we are there.” 

Before the Captain could say a word Stalnek closed the link.  After a moment’s thought he sat down at his vid terminal and pulled up his files on Mara.  After centuries of living the easy life as a high-ranking female on Jasan, it was time for his step-daughter to fulfill her obligation to the Brethren.

Chapter
20

Earth, Mojave Desert

Hope awoke in a small, dim room with bare walls and blinds on the window.  It took her only a moment to realize she was no longer anywhere near her home.  The air felt too dry, too warm, and it didn’t smell quite right.  She sat up on the narrow bed and the room suddenly tilted dizzily.  She closed her eyes and forced herself to relax and breathe.  After a few moments, she opened her eyes again and, thankfully, the room remained stationary. 

She felt fully rested, if a little dizzy, and there was a bad taste in her mouth.  She was still dressed just as she’d been when she’d answered the door of her apartment, down to her shoes, and her body had that odd, achy feeling she sometimes got when she slept too long.

Obviously she had been drugged, which both frightened her, and made her angry.  She preferred the anger, so she focused on that as she tried to remember what had happened to her.  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember anything past opening her apartment door.  She couldn’t even remember who was at the door when she’d opened it.

The room she found herself in gave her no clues either.  There was a plain wood dresser against one wall that had seen better days, a low rattan table next to the bed with an ugly metal lamp on it, and that was all.  There was just the one window, and two doors, one of which was ajar.  Hoping that was a bathroom she stood up slowly, pausing to be certain the dizziness did not return, then headed for it. 

It was a bathroom, but a very tiny one with an ancient metal shower stall, an old fashioned white ceramic basin and a the littlest toilet she had ever seen.  Well, she thought, so long as it works, I don’t care what size it is. 

A few minutes later she opened the cabinet over the sink and found a new toothbrush, an unopened tube of toothpaste, several individually wrapped bars of soap of the sort usually found in hotel rooms, and a comb. 

“Gee, everything a girl could want,” she thought wryly as she tore the wrapper off a bar of soap.  She gazed longingly at the shower stall, noting that there were no wash cloths, no towels, no shampoo, and she had no fresh clothes to change into.  After a few moments, she decided a shower, even without any of the amenities, might help to clear her head, so she reached in and flipped the taps.  A few drops of reddish water dribbled grudgingly out of the shower head, but that was all.  She flipped the taps off and turned back to the sink. 

Luckily the water coming through the sink taps was clear, so she washed up and brushed her teeth.  Feeling a bit better, she removed the tie at the end of her long, thick braid and combed her hair out.  She braided it again with practiced fingers, noting that her hair was longer than she usually preferred, hitting the small of her back even after it was braided.  That was because she hadn’t had it trimmed since before her trip to Jasan, and hadn’t gotten around to having it done since she’d returned.  She untied the three colored braids at the side of her head and redid those as well. 

She looked down at herself, wishing that she had clean clothes to change into.  She was wearing a pale yellow tank top, faded jeans, and leather sneakers.  There were a few smears of paint on her jeans, and her tank top looked as though she’d slept in it, which, she realized with a rueful grin, she had.  She consoled herself with the knowledge that at least she had answered her door while fully dressed.  It could have been worse.  She might have answered the door in her nightshirt.  She shuddered at the thought and left the bathroom.

She stood for a moment, studying the bedroom again, but there wasn’t anything she hadn’t already seen.  She walked over to the window and parted the old, dusty blinds enough to let her peek out.  Her heart sank as she took in the landscape of sand, rocks, brush and cacti. 

“Poutanas yie,”
she exclaimed angrily
. 
“I’m in the damn desert!”

She’d been taken from her home, drugged, and brought to this barren place in the middle of nowhere.  She decided it was time she found someone to give her some answers.

She released the shutters and spun around, marching resolutely across the room to the other door.  She reached for the door knob and froze just before grasping it.

What if it’s locked? she wondered.  She nearly rolled her eyes at herself, grabbed the door knob firmly and twisted, pulling hard at the same time.

The knob turned easily and the door opened so quickly that she stumbled backwards a few steps.  She caught her balance, released the door knob and flung her braids back over her shoulder.  Then she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and calmly stepped through the doorway.

Hope found herself at the far end of a narrow hallway with the same bare, white walls of the bedroom she’d just left.  She paused for a moment to listen, thought she heard voices coming from elsewhere inside the house, and started walking up the hallway, following the sound as calmly as though she were in her own home.  She saw no reason to sneak around or tip-toe.  Someone had brought her here, so they certainly knew she was in the house, and as the door was not locked, they must expect her to leave the room eventually.  Even if they didn’t, she was not the type to hide cowering beneath the covers. 

As she walked up the hallway she passed three other open doorways.  Two on the opposite side of the hall, and one next to hers.  She peeked into the rooms as she passed, noting that the other rooms looked almost exactly like the one she had just come from.  They were all small, bare, and sparsely furnished.

She reached the end of the hall and entered a living room with far too much dark leather furniture for her taste.  One wall of the room was covered with dark wooden shutters.  She guessed there was a large window behind the shutters, but she didn’t bother to check just yet.  There was no one in the room, so she crossed it, still following the voices which were growing gradually louder as she got closer to them.  She rounded a corner and found herself in the doorway of a long, narrow dining room where three women sat talking at a table.

The women did not notice her at first, and Hope took a moment to study them.  Two of them, a brunette with shoulder length hair, and a redhead with long bangs hiding her eyes, looked to be in their mid twenties, a little younger than Hope’s 27.  The third one, a petite brunette with a pixy face and a pony tail, looked no more than 20 at most.  The one thing all three of them had in common was an expression of worry and fear on their faces. 

“I don’t suppose any of you know why we’re here?” she asked, sensing that these women were fellow captives, not captors.

“No,” said the brunette pixie, surprising Hope.  From her appearance, Hope would have guessed her to be shy and quiet.  “We woke up and wandered in here, like you just did.”

“Hell,” Hope said as she entered the room and took a seat at the table.  “My name is Hope,” she said, then looked at the other women expectantly. 

“I’m Grace,” said the youngest, speaking first yet again.  She was obviously the most outgoing of the three.  Hope felt an instant liking for the girl, which was unusual.  She was usually more reserved with her feelings, taking time to get to know people before making up her mind about them.

“Nice to meet you, Grace,” she said, then looked to the woman sitting next to her, the other brunette. 

“I’m Karma,” she said.

The redhead raised a hand in a short wave from the other end of the table.  “My name is Aisling,” she said, her voice soft and shy. 

“Were all of you taken from your homes too?” Hope asked.

All three women nodded, but none of them said anything.  This was just weird.  Who kidnapped people, then left them all alone in a house? 

“Have any of you checked the rest of this house, or gone outside?  Is there anyone else here?”

“No,” Grace replied.  “We’ve only been in here for a few minutes ourselves.  I counted the doors in the hallway though, and there were four, so unless there are more bedrooms somewhere else, I think it’s just the four of us.”

“I think I’ll go outside,” Hope said.  “Maybe there will be someone out there who will tell us what the hell is going on here.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said a new voice from another doorway.  All four women turned to see an elderly woman with short gray hair enter the dining room from a doorway opposite the one Hope had used.  She leaned heavily on an old fashioned metal cane as she walked, her steps shuffling slowly across the floor as though she couldn’t raise her feet high enough to take a real step.  She worked her way to the table and lowered herself into a chair while all four of the younger women simply stared at her. 

None of them had ever seen anyone who looked quite so old before.  Humans aged of course, that was a part of their biology that science had not been able to change.  But medical breakthroughs over the centuries made aging a much less painful and debilitating process.  This woman resembled an elderly person from the 20th or 21st century.  Not one from the 26th century where there was no bone disease, no senility, and simple treatments that reduced wrinkled skin and other obvious signs of the aging process. 

Hope could not begin to imagine how old this woman must be.  She had seen people in excess of one hundred years of age that looked much younger.

The woman leaned her cane carefully against the edge of the table and folded her gnarled hands in front of her.  “My name is Berta,” she said, her voice weak and quivery.  “I know what you’re all wondering right now, so I shall tell you that I am 82 years of age.”

Hope bit back her own gasp, but the other three women did not.  It was a shock, granted, but Hope frowned at the other women for their lack of courtesy. 

Berta smiled.  “I know, I look much older, but that is the way of things here.  There is no modern medicine in the compound, and I have not been allowed to leave this place since I was brought here at the age of 22.”

“Why have you been held here for so long?” Hope asked, appalled.

“Because I am a
berezi,
” Berta replied.  “The four of you have been brought here to determine if any of you are also
berezi
.  If you are, you will remain here.  If you are not, you will have your memory of this place erased and replaced with a memory of a short getaway alone.  You will then be returned to your life as though you had never left.”

“What is a
berezi
?” Hope asked.

A
berezi
is the unluckiest of all women,” Berta replied.  “There have always been few of us, thank the heavens, and there seem to be far fewer of us as time goes by.” 

“And why are
berezi
unlucky?” Hope asked with a feeling of dread in her stomach.

“Because the Brethren are trying to reclaim their lost ancestry, and they can do so only by mating with
berezi
,” Berta replied matter-of-factly.

There was a stunned silence around the table as the four women tried to absorb that bit of news. 

“What are Brethren?” Grace asked.

Berta shrugged her bony shoulders.  “I don’t know, exactly.  Most of them look human.  Some of them look like humans mixed with something else, with rough, greenish skin and strange eyes.  And then there are the ones that look like reptiles that walk on two legs and talk like men.  Some look more human than others, and I’ve only seen one that doesn’t look human at all.  Those are the ones that have
berezi
mothers, and who want to mate with
berezi
themselves so that their offspring are even more reptilian than they are.”

“So we’ve been abducted because, for some reason, our genetics indicate we’ll make good brood mares?” Hope asked. 

“I’m afraid that’s about the extent of it, yes,” Berta replied.

“Where are we?” Hope asked.

“Ah, that’s the golden question, isn’t it?” Berta said dryly.  “I’ve been here over sixty years, and I cannot answer that question with any certainty.  We are obviously in the desert, I believe the Mojave, but that is just a guess.  The most I’ve ever been told is that there is nothing but desert between this compound and the nearest town, which is a hundred miles away.” 

“How big is this compound?” Hope asked.

“Not big,” Berta replied.  “This house, two others that are currently unoccupied, a smaller one that the guards live in, a few storage sheds.  That’s all.”

“Guards?” Grace asked.

“Two,” Berta replied.  “They don’t bother leaving guards here just for me any more.  The only reason there are any here now is because of the four of you.”

“I don’t understand,” Hope said.  “If you’re here alone most of the time, why haven’t you left?  I know a hundred miles is a long way, but it’s not impossible.”

“I have left,” Berta said.  “Several times over the years, when I was younger.  I was told that I walked over a hundred miles on two occasions, and I believe that’s true.  But I never came across a town, or a house, or even another person.  I believe there is a town, just as I was told, but I don’t know which direction it’s in.  Every time I struck out across the desert I headed in a different direction, but I’ve never found it.  Now, I’m too old and crippled to try again.  The desert itself is my prison.  And yours.”