Weathering Storms Read online

  Setting her Aga Zero to less than 3/4th’s gravity, Sesha leaped lightly up the slope and trotted on.

  So far there’s only been the camp, Gem, and old signs of wheels – that wagon is probably a top model for this period.

  Your mind is ever sharp, Sesh dear, Gem drawled. What about the people?

  A lot more clothing, so issues about nudity. Skin color much paler than the barbarians and from the last scan the population areas are eastern mostly so this continent is being assimilated into another culture. Those three died violent deaths; it’s likely they ran afoul of someone else. Don’t know why but it’s making me hesitate, doing this.

  You always follow your instincts, my darling. Keep doing that.

  And so it happened that, at the speed she was moving she caught her first glimpse of a constructed tower – the very top of the roof. That rapidly sent her into the trees where once again she utilized her Wrist Gem to look like the forest around her. Then she crept forward slowly through the thick forest cautiously until she could get a good view of what was there.

  And once again set to swearing, this time in her head. Between her and the life-saving fluid she needed was a huge encampment. Really big! Which also meant even if she took off in the shuttle and circled around to an open shoreline, chances were she would be seen. It was only the fact that there had been a huge storm going on that she wasn’t seen coming in the first place!

  Luckily no one was watching in her direction to glimpse unnatural movement in the brush. It seemed everyone was gathered in the middle of this compound, the attention fixed on one man who stood on a platform above them all, waving some kind of book, it looked like, and shouting at everyone. Sesha dropped her eyes to her Wrist Gem where she activated the language translation program.

  Okay darling, I understand… figure out a new language for you, eh? Just get a little closer if you can, please?

  Sesha followed the line of trees a bit closer and settled down there to watch. Her computer began working immediately, trying to analyze and translate what they were hearing.

  “… being that thou art God’s Chosen People, thy only thoughts shoulds’t be ‘denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world;’ ‘then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee: To deliver thee from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her words; Who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of darkness; Who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked; Whose ways are crooked, and they are froward in their paths: Which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of her God. For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead. None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of life. That thou mayest walk in the way of good men, and keep the paths of the righteous. For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it.’ ”

  This is hard, Sesh… we’re hearing the words exactly as the being – scanner says a male – is saying, but I’m guessing a lot are probably from that book he has. I’ll keep recording, but hon, if I’m to get a true meaning on this gibberish, we need to hear more than just this drivel.

  Keep recording then… I’m watching the people and I get the impression this is some kind of religion. Like Alliance histories tell of. This Leader gestures a lot, his voice is pitched in ways that make points and hold attention.

  Sweetie, this appears to be one man controlling a large group of people with a charismatic kind of hypnosis, something highly frowned upon and not allowed in the Alliance for hundreds of years. We need common references to unravel this speech. Then we can figure out a plan to get the water needed for the ship.

  I agree, Gem… so Sesha decided to get as close to the gathering as she could. To that end, she made her camouflage complete. Thin gloves were unrolled – the cuff of each sleeve concealed them – and slipped on with rubbing and pressing between her fingers to get maximum skin contact. Then she pulled the rolled collar out and over her head, pressing it to seal it at the crown. Now the Nestram woman, alien to this planet, was totally camouflaged like the forest around her. Movement was slow to allow the look to shift, to ensure no detection by eyes.

  A change to the ground, brown soil and Sesha crawled on all fours like an animal to the tower leg nearest her and it changed instantly to look like the wood of the structure. She could see through the material very well despite the color changes and it conformed totally to her, like a second skin. From the back she eased to the front leg, observing carefully all the details she could see and tucking away in her sharp memory the language they used.

  Sesh, there’s whispering from others, very subvocal. Stay very still and I can pick it up better. It seems clearer, more direct and I’m getting some root words.

  She didn’t need to think a reply, just hugged the post in front of her and kept watching, listening. Having a natural facility for language herself, she’d also recognized a definite difference in the language used by this “Most Holy Lord Reverend” person and his followers.

  Then she was drawn to the drama unfolding. So much so that she made her suit appear like ground again and crawled closer, then like the bush that was at the back of the crowd, the closest she dared to get to the people. All someone had to do was step back some and she could be bumped, leading to discovery.

  Enough was translated now that rudiments were coming through, so while she heard words that still made no sense, Sesha understood what was going on. Truly a barbaric culture here!

  As she watched, a young man was led forward, already stripped to the waist. Two men with sadistic visages tied his wrists to an overhead beam on an A frame set up. The whole piece looked like the mainframe to a swinging seat, a non-electronic form of entertainment where a person sat on a seat suspended by cables and swung back and forth. A very unsophisticated device, it created much joy and relaxation in its users – and gave a surprising good workout too. But this was not for entertainment, per se – not good entertainment, that was. Around the lad stood four men, dressed identically, wearing black hoods with the eyes cut out, holding long sticks. This poor kid was going to be beaten! Sesha listened in horror as the leader read off the report, and then sentenced the adolescent male.

  “Young Jeremiah Oswald, betid Headborough Titus didst attask thee for thy digression of study of the Spirit of Holiness? That thine eye didst see thy combinate Anna Smith, and thy loins did tremble?”

  “Most Holy Lord Reverend,” the young man’s voice trembled, “I swear before God and His One and Only Son that I be not agazing upon Miss Smith! I had finished reading copy of the Word thou gavest last e’en and t’was committing the passage to my soul! I then went and gave the draught my waters, Reverend!”

  “Thou be a liar! Dost not the scripture say ‘Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take thee with her eyelids; Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof? Thou wast beholden in thy sin, young Jeremiah! The Proverbs do state ‘lying lips are abomination to the LORD!’ This shall double thy punishment unless this sin be renounced!” Voice booming just scant inches from the young man’s face, not only did the lad capitulate and flinch, but the crowd did as well.

  At that prospect, the young man hung his head. “I confess and renounce my sin,” he said softly.

  “’Tain’t true,” hissed a male youth some younger than the victim. They were closest to the bush and Sesha heard their talking in very soft voices. While finer points still weren’t translated, Sesha knew the content. “I were aside him and heard him mumbling. His eyes weren’t even in her direction!”

  “Whyn’t you say som’pin?” hissed another.

  “What, an’ get beat too?” his tone was incredulous. A man’s hand touched his shoulder maki
ng both jump.

  “Silence, lads or you will be beaten as well.” Point taken, the whispers stopped and Sesha/Gem added more words to the translation.

  “Thereby thou art sentenced to forty lashes on the back and that which causes thy wickedness. ‘He that spareth his rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes!” The man stepped down and one of the hooded men stepped behind.

  All fell silent as the blows began to fall, but people everywhere shook, clapped hands over mouths and wept silent tears.

  Forty strokes later the next phase of punishment began, and Sesha almost threw up in her suit over the awfulness of it. The young man’s pants were pulled off, ropes tied to his ankles and his feet were pulled up, legs spread wide so that he was almost doubled, with his genitalia – and now his whole body - fully exposed.

  “See how the sinner yet doth not depart from evil!” The preacher roared, pointing to his semi-erect penis. “The lust of Satan, God’s foremost enemy strives within him even now!” And the next phase of punishment began. Using a stick from a thorn bush, another black hooded man began to beat the young man’s twitching penis and scrotum, hard, deliberate blows that left bloody gouges.

  During his screaming, Sesha pushed herself further into the large bush, her hands clamped over her mouth to hold in her stomach.

  I have you, Sesha… I’m controlling your bodily functions. Hang on dear heart, we’ll find a way out of here as soon as possible.

  But even then, it still wasn’t over.

  Jeremiah Oswald was taken down and thrown to the side, left curled up on the ground while a young woman was drug forward by two other men.

  “M…most Holy Lord Reverend,” her terror was so high the poor thing was peeing herself, “this poor creature wast quilting with Dame Grace and other of God’s women. I wast not aknowing of what thou sayest!”

  “Headborough Titus didst see thee cast an oeilliad at thy Troth-plight? Is it not woman that verily which causes man’s sin?” The man went into full brainwashing mode again, expounding his religious theories, forcing this group to believe them. “Was’t not Eve to whom the Serpent first spake? Was’t not Eve who partook of the fruit and gave to Adam, and he did eat? Then was it not Eve who brought the curse upon men?" The crowd was nodded, saying “Amens” and “Glory to God” but Sesha saw that most of their hearts were not in it. At least, not most of them. “Thus God sayeth ‘Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell; her house is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death.’ Thus it is woman whom the Serpent devours the easiest for they desire digression! Facinorous woman, the Most High God spake unto Eve saying “I will greatly increase your pains…” for your sin of tempting young Jeremiah, I sentence you to fifty strokes, back and sin area!”

  “But Most Holy Lord,” sobbed the girl – Sesha was positive she was not full grown yet, “Art not we to be contracted? Perchance should we be wed sooner that my concupiscible nature be abetted? Thou hast stated the Scripture sayeth ‘Nevertheless, to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.’ Shoulds’t --”

  Allway interrupted her in savage fury. “Contemptible woman, thou shalt not wring the Word of the Lawgiver to thine own ends! The Man, the Master doth state, ‘But he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. There is difference also between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman careth for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit: but she that is married careth for the things of the world, how she may please her husband.’ For thy union to be pure, thou must abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; to arise to the Holy City, the New Jerusalem and be wed to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, ‘but that it should be holy and without blemish,’ thou must allow the Lord to control thy sinful nature. With this breech, allow thy soul to wax unto God’s Word!”

  The woman’s dress and the top half of her undergarments were ripped off and the beating began, more savage than the boy’s. And when they flipped her upside down, the underskirts removed and the beating began on her labia, Sesha lost it.

  I’m holding you… wait, wait… now! Gem took over her entirely and just the moment the wind happened to gust, the computer shifted the Aga Zero to ground color and Sesha was able to run with a cloud of dust stirred up, the woman’s screams following her deep into the forest. When Sesha could hear no more, she yanked off the hood, fell on her knees and puked long and hard over the horrors she’d just witnessed. There were many types of savages on this primitive world, and it seemed that the red-skinned primevals were not the most barbaric!

  6

  Sesha camped in the shuttle again, but not to sleep. She was roaring mad and a loud debate was going on.

  “Phenjemian Alliance Interstellar Rules firmly state that there is to be no interference with races who aren’t space-going! This world is on the Strict Avoidance list!” She marched towards the back of the shuttle as she shouted.

  “But,” Sesha whirled around and stomped with each step towards the Pilot seat, “they’re being held prisoner by a madman! Amnesty Alliance of the Civilized Worlds states that no peoples be held prisoner to any dictatorship!”

  “How do you know they’re not there willingly?” She stormed back to the rear of the little ship. “They appear to be far from any cities the sensors picked up; that means they came willingly!”

  She whirled again, got dizzy and had to lean against the side console, but the shouting continued. “Maybe they came willingly at first and things turned for the worst… you saw the faces in the crowd! Many were horrified, a few were bowed but the looks I saw was outrage! So why weren’t they doing anything? Because,” she screamed the answer, “they’re prisoners now!”

  “So which Governing Board takes precedence?” She paused in the middle of the ship.

  “Interstellar!” She spun to her right.

  “No, people do!” She pivoted to her left and gasped, grabbing at her back for a moment, then screamed wordlessly with rage over her quandary.

  Finally her Wrist Gem computer took a hand. Sesha froze in the middle of a rage as the voice of her program roared, not only in her head but in the shuttle.

  “Stop, Seshaph’lariminium!” Never in all her years as a Pilot in the Phenjamian Alliance – except upon first enlisting – had her full name from individual to familial to plot allegiance to continental area been spoken! It snapped her mind out of the hysterics she was trapped in. Her body had already been seized to a standstill. Now a beam branched up from her gem and the bodily form of the voice and personality of her computer appeared.

  He was humanoid with animal leanings; face smooth but a hint of a snout arching to slender lips and a firm chin. Neck, torso, arms, all humanoid; his legs just a bit more powerful with a bend at the knees. Feet started out like hers until the toes were seen; three only, long and clawed at the ends, yet the bony protrusions were clipped straight across, a sign of civility. His ears, while positioned right, were flatter against the skull with wider openings and short tips with a tuft of fur on top. From the top of his head down the back to the top of the buttocks was a swath of short fur; medium brown with blonde and black striping. His skin, while the same brown, was barely tinged with the striations as well. And then there was the tail. Very end of the spinal column starting thick and tapering to slender just to the knees, was also covered with fur. Since Sesha was clothed in the Aga Zero, the Gem form had a pair of tight black shorts on covering his sexual organs.

  “G…Gem? What? Why?” Sesha could only babble. She knew his form of course; in pleasure parties her computer would link up with others and the forms would have pleasure too. Often there were times his hologram would sit on her Gem, lounging and chatting with her. These companions were extra programs that could be gotten and made the lives of the shoppers a bit less lonely, especially in sleep.

  “I agree, dear heart,” he drew more power and seemed to step off the computer, n
ow taller than Sesha was. “No sane people would place themselves under the power of others who would so vilely use them, so yes, the majority must be prisoners. But my dear, we must focus first on getting what we need for the ship. Perhaps… maybe we can affect a plan that will both free those who wish it and save our mates.”

  At that Sesha broke down and began weeping, great gouts of sobbing, wailing and many tears. In all her life – awake, barely 24 Alliance years, add Sleep, 75 more – the woman had never, ever done such a thing. Falling through the hologram her knees were bruised again with the landing and she collapsed on her side, continuing to cry. What she had just seen and heard was horrific beyond imagining, despite all the histories of worlds she knew.

  The Gem man stood only a moment, then was lying in front of her. His holographic arm went under her neck, he cradled in close then drew more energy from the mini-computer and solidified until he had the slight woman cuddled to him. There she continued her grieving, now not just for these people here, but for the crisis on ship and her friends and crew who might be dead before rescue if she was not capable enough to fix the problem.

  Eventually the emotional storm slowed and Sesha found tissue in her hand. In the semi-solid form the Venvenagium being could affect physicality and he did in three ways.

  “Wipe and blow, Sesh,” he didn’t move much, just kept her in his arms. “Now, open,” and he slipped a wafer into her mouth. “let it dissolve, good, now drink this.” He’d placed a small bottle between them and still too upset to resume her natural ‘don’t-tell-me-what-to-do’ attitude, picked it up and drank.

  “How’d you get these out, Gem? It’s a Command Level release only.”