Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

breeze. The winds made them do it." Tesla's nostrils flared as if he could still smell those malevolent pollars. "But some of us woke each morning, remembering and knowing. We dreamed in the daylight what we could not dream at night. We dreamed to live our lives in control of our minds and souls, in bodies pure from the corruption of Evermore. We left to seek that Body Pure. That was what we wanted for ourselves and for our children. That is what I wanted for you."

"I can't believe you wanted things to turn out this way," Jenette said, unable to reconcile her father's wishes with the harsh reality of New Ascension. "Sacrament is not the Body Pure. It controls our minds and bodies as much as the narcotic winds of Evermore. It's just the same."

"No," Tesla wheezed. "We choose. That is different. If we do not choose Sacrament, it does not choose us. And it is not permanent. Making Pact would have been permanent, no more hope for a cure to eventually set us free. No more hope of the Body Pure, ever."

Jenette did not accept her father's reasoning. "No sickness, no disease, life in perfect health until you die? maybe Pact is the Body Pure, father. Did you ever think of that?"

Intravenous tubes rattled as he shook his head. "We came from Evermore to find our humanity, not to give it up. Besides, only infants can make Pact? or did your Feral friends not tell you that?"

"They did," Jenette allowed.

"You see, we did what we had to do."

"I do not see."

"Well, perhaps the best we can do, you and I, is to agree to disagree."

Jenette nodded; at least that was something. A fit of coughing overcame Tesla, and then his hand gripped hers harder.

"Jenette, it is time for you to take my place."

"Father, please, I don't want to talk about that."

Tesla persisted. "But it is time to talk about it. Someone needs to make the hard decisions for the Enclave when I am gone? and that person is you. You are ready for it. I can see that." Jenette opened her mouth to protest. "Shhh, please, let me finish. You say you don't want to lead, every time we talk you say that, but your actions show me otherwise. They show me what a great leader you will make. Stop fighting it. Accept your fate. Accept your responsibility."

"If it means accepting Sacrament, then you know what my answer is."

Tesla frowned. "It means accepting responsibility for always doing what you think is right, always.

You make the hard decisions no one else will make. And you must be responsible for every single human in this Enclave, not just those you like or happen to agree with. You must be responsible for the lives of those you disagree with as well as those who are your allies. No matter what they do, you are their keeper. You may guide, cajole, manipulate, threaten and punish? but you may never abandon. Never.

That is the sacred trust. You are the only one who can do it. Say yes and let an old man die in peace."

Her father's icy eyes seemed bluer at that moment than they had every been before and Jenette wanted to honor his last wish more than anything, but... to keep every human in the Enclave alive without condoning Sacrament. It was impossible.

"Father, I will do everything I possibly can, everything within my power, everything I can think of, but..."

"There are no buts. There is complete acceptance, or not. Anything in between is only failure."

Jenette hung her head. "Then the answer is no."

Tesla let go of her hand, the color fading from his eyes. "Then, I need a favor," he said, doing a bad job of trying to hide his disappointment.

"What?"

"Find Toby. He was wounded. He may be in a temporary infirmary in the Guard barracks. Bring him here."

"Bring Toby here? But if he's wounded...?"

"Someone must make the hard decisions," Tesla said wearily. "If you are not ready for that burden yet, then it must be me. I must live."

Abruptly it hit Jenette, why her father needed Toby. "Final Sacrament!" she gasped. She could hardly comprehend it; after feeling closer to her father than at any other time in her adult memory, after reaching a level of understanding, if not acceptance, how could he ask her to participate in such an atrocity? Final Sacrament was a vile procedure where a mortally wounded human extracted all of a domestic's remaining immune venom in a desperate bid to stay alive. It never worked? at best it prolonged the human's life by hours or, rarely, days? but it always killed the domestic. In Jenette's opinion, only the most depraved humans engaged in Final Sacrament and, for all his obvious flaws, she had never counted her father among their number. "I can't believe you'd ask me to do that!" she said, in horror.

Because she would not allow herself to cry in front of her father, she turned and headed for the door.

"Jenette wait!" her father groaned. "Someone must make the hard decisions! Someone must make the hard decisions or we are all lost!"

Jenette fled. The door slammed shut behind her.

There were noises, outside. Inside, it was safe. It was dark, inside. Inside the Null. In-robert knew that. No one could see him, and that was good because he wanted to stay hidden. He mustn't be found.

If he was found he would be taken away from the Null. And then how would he keep it safe?

But? .

Something was different. After days of floating and flying, there had been a big bump. And then noise from lots of skins and Ferals outside, yelling and shooting. (In-robert remembered shooting from long, long ago, before he had discovered his purpose.)

Maybe the Null was not safe.

He had to find out! He squirmed about in the tight space until he felt the hatch below him. He fished a claw into the latch mechanism. Snikt. The hatch released. He held it from falling fully open as sounds poured in.

He heard the roaring of angry skins in the distance. Closer, he heard Feral footfalls in tall grass. Then

he heard strident Feral voices.

"Arrou, Arrou!"

"Rusty! What wrong?"

"Trouble, trouble. Bragg humans doing bad things. Bad, bad things. Where Jenette?"

"In Great Hall, with Tesla. Come. Arrou take you."

Great Hall. Tesla. Those were things in-robert recognized. They were things important enough to make him leave his hiding spot. Without a second thought, he let the hatch swing down, and scuttled off, following the sound of Arrou's and Rusty's passage through the high polyp fronds.

Jenette leaned against the wall outside her father's sick room, head bowed and with a hand covering her wet face. Arrou and Rusty barreled around a distant corner and clawed to a stop. Their heads swung, searching the narrow service corridor, and then fixated on her.

"Jenette, Jenette!" Arrou called. "Must go, must go!"

Jenette swiped tears from her eyes. "What's wrong?" she asked, numbly.

"Eating him, eating him!" Rusty cried when she did not immediately follow him and Arrou.

Jenette looked up, her eyes sharpening with sudden concern. "Eating someone? Eating who?"

"The Pilot!" said Rusty. "Jenette and Arrou come quick! Come quick!"

The mob swept Karr through prefabricated colony structures.

"The Body Pure! The Body Pure!"

Karr's feet never touched the ground. Hands gripping painfully tight held him above a torrent of white-haired heads. Mob sweat stank in Karr's nostrils and mob fury roared in his ears. Occasionally voices challenged the mob from beyond the periphery of his vision; all Karr could see was the night sky and the tops of walls and roofs that bounded the winding streets and alleys. Sometimes scuffles followed the protests, but none lasted long. The mob's greater numbers always won out.

"The lab!" shrieked Subconsul Bragg. "Over to the lab!"

The mob turned. Karr's starry view narrowed and then disappeared, as the sky above him was replaced by a narrow ceiling with a line of stark bright glowstrips running up its middle. The mob jostled tighter under Karr, carrying him up a staircase into a second-story room. The gripping hands shoved him down onto a cold, flat surface. Straps cinched tight about his wrists, ankles, waist, and neck. Then the mob parted. The juveniles retreated to a doorway, revealing an antiseptic room. Karr lay on a shiny plasteel table. Intrusive-looking apparatus hovered over him on whirring, machine-controlled arms.