He hesitated for a moment. "Joseph and I have been meeting with the station managers. We have arranged a funeral service for those who died on our journey here."
She turned aside to spare his embarrassment. "They are not to be trusted."
"What do you mean, Rachel?" His tone was apprehensive but also stern.
"Nothing, yet," she said sullenly, hanging her head. Then she grasped his wrist painfully tight, meeting his eyes earnestly. "But who knows? They are mezamerin." Strangers. In the ancient liturgical language, infidel.
"Rachel, do not start parroting the Elders at this late date," Joseph said in exasperation. More gently, he put a hand on her shoulder. "Did you take the medication?"
"Yes," she said brusquely, shrugging off his hand. Then she turned to Amos with a sigh. "I am sorry, Excell… Amos."
The memory swept over her again: the crowded chamber and the sickly-sweet taste at the back of her mouth as the coldsleep injection took effect.
"I… thought I had died, when I woke here," she said. "My father… did I tell you?"
"No," Amos said, taking her hand. His large dark-blue eyes held a sudden compassion. "He cursed you?"
"Yes. When I left home to follow you, he put the Patriarch's curse upon me: hell, and miserable rebirth, and damnation again, forever."
Amos blanched slightly for, though his father had been disappointed in his son, even appalled by his son's apostasy, he had not uttered the curse. Perhaps that would have come about had his father not died during Amos' early teens. If I had been cursed? Perhaps that was why I, fatherless, could become the leader of the Second Revelation, he thought. What courage my followers had, to dare the curse for me!
"I thought I was damned indeed," she whispered. "Since I awoke… I… I really do not feel myself, Amos."
"It is to be expected," he said, patting her cheek. "You will feel better soon."
"And did you tell them of what follows us?" she asked, blurting out the words since his touch had given her the courage to speak them. "Have they defenses?"
Joseph had been brooding, facing slightly away. Now he laughed bitterly. "Defenses? These people are as open as a canal-side harlot."
Rachel drew a shocked breath.
"You forget yourself, Joseph," Amos said as Rachel drew closer to his side, an instinctive move toward his protection. "There is a lady present."
The shorter man bowed. "Apologies, Excellent Sir," he replied stiffly. A deeper bow. "My lady."
"I cast your own words back, my brother-do not imitate the Elders," Amos said. Unnoticed, Rachel stiffened.
"Is it true?" she said. "They have no defenses?"
Amos nodded, his mouth drawn into a line. "Yes. These are peaceful people, as we were. Fortunately, they are in communication with the Navy of the Central Worlds. Unfortunately, the Kolnari will be here before that help arrives."
Rachel gasped. "How can we flee from here?"
"We cannot," Amos replied, shrugging away the chance of flight. "There are ships, but they are small and have no facilities for passengers. Children, those with child, and the infirm are to be evacuated. The rest of us must remain here and seek to delay the enemy."
"They will know us!" she said in a trembling voice.
Joseph shook his head. "I think not, Lady bint Damscus," he said formally. "Not in this place, and among such as inhabit it. Already we have seen more races of men than I knew existed outside legend. Some very different customs," he pulled his mouth down in disapproval, "and non-men as well."
Rachel's eyes went wide. The most cogent incentive for the Exodus to Bethel had been the Prophet's determination not to pollute the pure blood by congress with non-humans. Nonhuman intelligence was the creation of Shaithen, whether flesh or machine.
Joseph made a soothing gesture. "They are not rulers here. Still, among so many and so various, our handful will disappear and not be remarked by the Kolnari for what we are. The fiends must believe that they strike without warning, that no help will be called to this station. So they will wait, thinking to feast at their ease. Then the warships will come, to rescue us-and return us to our poor Bethel."
"Yes," she said, thoughtfully. "I had not thought of… returning."
"In a sense," Amos began, and her eyes snapped back to him with a fixed attention, "we have won the war. Now we must try to survive it. Please, Rachel my sister, would you go among the other women and children? They are awakening, and will be lost and frightened. Prepare those who are eligible to leave here."
"I obey, Amos." She looked around, realizing that she could not go even among women and children of her own people in what she wore.
Joseph opened one of the closets and handed her a large, shapeless robe. Rachel nodded a distant thanks before she donned it and left, the full folds sweeping behind her.
"We have something we share, she and I," Joseph said bitterly, throwing himself down in his float chair. Even his solid bulk did not make it bob on its supporting field. Amos noted the fact and filed it.
I must make a quick review, he thought. Find what technologies have arisen during our isolation on Bethel. Whatever supports the chair could be altered to support other heavy weights.
"What do you share?" he asked the other man.
"We both aspire above our stations, she and I," Joseph replied.
Amos blinked in surprise. "Oh," he said after a moment. "Sits the wind so? I had thought her merely devoted to the cause."
"So she is, but that is not the whole story."
"Even if we followed the old customs, I would not take her even as a second wife," he said with a dismissive shrug. "Since I have not even a first, speculation is useless." Then he raised one eyebrow. "You have not pressed your suit?"
"Was there time?" Joseph asked rhetorically. Then he sighed. "Amos, could you see me going to her father for permission? Bastard son of a whore and a dockside pimp he would have called me, whether he had disowned her or no-and it would be no more than the truth."
Amos laughed grimly and thumped his follower on the shoulder. "Joseph, my brother, you are a bold man who has saved my life more than once. But there are times when you allow your birth to blind you as much as any hidebound Elder."
At Joseph's puzzled look, he continued. "Joseph, where did Rachel's father live?"
"Keriss-ah! I see."
"Where did the Elders live, for the most part?"
"Keriss-and those that did not, they were in the city for the council meeting," Joseph said. "You have had time to think, eh?"
"It is necessary that someone do so," Amos said. "We of the Second Revelation were planning to leave, to escape the bonds of customs gone sterile in their changelessness, Joseph. When-if-we return to Bethel with the Space Navy at our backs, very little will remain unchanged after what the Kolnari have done. God has given us a sharp lesson. If we ignore the universe, the universe will not necessarily ignore us. And on Bethel… the last shall be first, and the first, last; that at the very least.
"Furthermore," he went on, with a man-to-man grin, "I now stand in her father's place, in law. I hereby formally give you leave to press your suit, and for the marriage portion, I will dower her with the Gazelle Rancho at Twin Springs."
Joseph's laughter matched his leader's. "I may press, but I doubt she notices my existence," he said. "Consent may be as far away as the Rancho." A pause. "Although that is where I would take her to live, if we were wed and our cause victorious. She is stronger than she suspects, I think-but her liking for the new ways you preach is of the head, not here." He touched his heart. "As lady of an estate, there would she be happy. She would not thrive among strangers."