Ivan Cat - The Burning Heart of Night

Jenette reached for the entry cord, but before her fingers even touched the braided fibers, and before she was quite prepared, a remote latch clicked. The heavy doors swung open on silent hinges, revealing a circular chamber as imposing as the hallway was ostentatious. Jenette wanted to run. Fortunately, Arrou picked that moment to speak up.

"Break legs," he hissed.

"Thanks," said Jenette, some measure of courage returning. Holding her head high, she stepped through the portal.

Arrou remained behind. Nonhumans were not allowed in the Chamber of the Body Pure.

Jenette marched through a ring of desks. Each was constructed of spun ceramite with rich green fiberplast glazing. High-backed chairs behind the desks were matching in color, cut from hard wood, and highly uncomfortable on purpose; her father liked everyone alert and on edge. Engraved upon the Chamber's metal floor was a stylized spiral of galaxy arms, inset jewels mapping human worlds, mysterious old Earth at the center and the Zone of Interdiction around it. Jenette's desk was to her right in the four o'clock position. She toyed with the idea of checking it for official correspondence, but

abandoned that charade. Those who came to the Chamber of the Body Pure after session invariably came to see the man in the raised desk at the twelve o'clock position. The seat of government was his private office.

The sign on that desk said, simply: Tesla.

No one mistook whom it referred to. When colonists said Tesla they did not mean J. Tesla, who was Jenette or Subconsul Tesla, and they did not mean H. Tesla, who was Helena or the deceased Prime Lady. They meant Olin Tesla, Prime Consul, the democratically elected leader of the New Ascension Enclave for the last twenty-three years. Those years had been good to him, his tall, brutish body becoming leaner? although no less strong and imposing? his icy eyes becoming sharper and wiser. When colonists looked at him they saw the man who had single-mindedly, and almost single-handedly, lead their colony back from the brink of extinction.

All Jenette saw was the overbearing tyrant who made her life a living hell.

She stopped before his raised desk, unsure of the next move.

Without looking up from his paperwork, Tesla stacked his fists over his heart. "The Body must be Pure."

Jenette went through the motions of stacking her own fists over her heart. "The Body must be Pure."

"Jenette," Tesla said, still not looking up. "Glad you could finally spare a minute. Come up and greet your father properly."

Jenette obediently stepped up onto the platform, walked around the desk, and gave her father a peck on the cheek. Order of dominance established, Tesla jogged a sheaf of stimpaper and slipped it into a folder. Jenette noticed another folder beside the first, with her name on it. No doubt it contained a litany of her recent transgressions. Ammunition to be pulled out and used against her.

"I don't have the monthly domestic assignment report," Tesla observed, picking that folder up.

"It's done? " Jenette began.

Tesla cut her off. "Then where is it? I should have it. The same goes for your evaluation of Ferals gathered in the last raid." Jenette opened her mouth to explain, but Tesla raised a finger, again cutting her off. "Never mind. I'm not interested in excuses. Just get me the reports. Oh, and..." Tesla used the finger to tap through several screens on a desktop mindercard. "Another problem: sixteen messages from Consul Trurl regarding the behavior of the new domestic you assigned. Get him off my back, would you?"

Jenette stewed a few heartbeats before responding. "Is that all you have to say, father? A reprimand because Consul Trurl is too lazy to train his own domestic?"

It was just typical.

"Trurl never votes against us," Tesla reminded sternly.

"And he never will," Jenette objected, "but I don't have the time to baby-sit him. In case you haven't noticed, we're just about to have the first births on this colony in ten years. Orchestrating that, in addition to my other duties, has taken every waking minute of my life for the last nine months. None of the other subconsuls put in that kind of effort. How about some credit?"

"You are a Tesla," the Prime Consul scolded. "I expect you to work harder and do better than the other subconsuls."

"And so that's why you second guess and subvert every decision I make?"

"I do no such thing."

"You do!" Jenette felt herself sliding down the slippery slope from reason to emotion. This was not the battle she had come to fight. But it was too late to put on the brakes. "I held those reports back on purpose. In fact, if you really want to know, I falsified them and I've been falsifying them for a whole year. You never would have let me place triple-A-rated domestics with the Hedrens. You would have played favorites."

"I do not play favorites," Tesla objected. "The assignments would have been made based on what is best for the Enclave. And I will not be spoken to in that tone, young lady."

"And I won't be patronized! If you don't like my performance, why don't you fire me and find someone else to do your dirty work? In fact, don't bother. I quit!"

"Don't be childish."

"Why not? You treat me like a child. To you I look fifteen, so you treat me like I'm fifteen. But I'm not! I'm twenty-three years old!" Jenette felt the flush of blood to her face. Why did it always have to be like this with her father? Why was conflict so inevitable? "The pills you made me take make me look like this, but that's not my fault. I'm an adult and I wish you would treat me like one. I'm not your little girl anymore!"

For some reason, Tesla looked sad. "No, I guess you're not, but we are a lot alike, aren't we?"

"We're not alike at all."

Tesla grunted. His weathered hands pulled a document from the folder with Jenette's name on it. He shoved it at her. "Here."

Jenette looked at, but did not take the official seeming piece of stimpaper. "What's that?" she asked suspiciously.

"What you wanted," her father replied, going back to his paperwork. "Your credit. You may not be performing to your full potential, but you are performing above average. Stimulating birth rate by manipulation of Feral placement was a smart idea. Wish I had thought of it myself," he conceded. "In any case, the punishment for smart ideas is more responsibility. I've decided you are ready. As of this date you are now the full Consul in charge of population expansion, in addition to your present duties. I've already informed the Body." Tesla shoved the document into Jenette's stunned hands. "The appointment is by edict. They can't object and you can't refuse."

Jenette's head swam with sudden, unexpected happiness. She could not believe it. Her father was actually rewarding her for a job well done? Nothing like this had ever happened before.

"And you can't quit," Tesla added, with the trace of a smile.

All thought of quitting was gone from Jenette's mind. Promotion to full Consul. Wow. "I don't know what to say," she stammered.

"Say nothing," Tesla said bruskly. "You earned it. You got it. Now just one more thing: you

rescheduled your Sacrament. Why?"

Jenette's happy bubble burst.

"You thought I wouldn't find out?" Tesla probed when she did not reply. "I know everything that happens on this colony. I knew about the Hedren pregnancy despite your false reports, but I gave you some rope. I hoped you wouldn't use it to make a noose around your own neck." Tesla skewered Jenette with a frown. "I'm waiting for an explanation."

Jenette sighed. "As if you really wanted to know."

"Try me."

"All right," Jenette said, ordering her thoughts. This was the battle she had come to fight. She would never be able to muster the courage again, so she might as well have at it. In a calm, measured voice she began, "Sacrament is wrong, father. It's wrong to keep domestics as slaves. It's wrong to kidnap them from their parents and use them in Sacrament. It's institutionalized genocide and every citizen of this Enclave knows it. They bury their heads in the sand, but they can't ignore it. It's murder. In my opinion, if we continue to practice Sacrament, our colony will morally decay. It's got to stop."