Magus Star Rising
Chapter NIneteen

The Star! The Star! It is our curse

and our blessing.

QUOTE FROM SENITTE FOLK TALE,

“MALOT AND THE MAGUS STAR”

A Morning Encounter

Brother Ortega paused on the top step at the hospice entrance. With his hands clasped in front of him in an almost stereotypically monkish pose, he turned and looked at the crowded streets below him. Dalma Street flooded with people at this early morning hour. The primary shift change brought out scores of workers, not only for the fabric mills, but for the smaller businesses that made their livings peripherally from the garment industry.

Coffee, Parfaq and negla-cake kiosks did their usual brisk business with the incoming and outgoing workers. News hawkers worked every corner (despite the latest developments in the vast sprawl of the Rim World Conglomerate, the appearance of the Magus Star and its accompanying celebrations seemed to be the biggest attractions). Rickshaws eased in and out of every available space, dropping off and picking up fares. From somewhere, native music played, its jumpy rhythms piped onto the streets through the magic of off-world speaker and recording technology.

It was a sight Ortega enjoyed. The hustle-bustle, the energy, so colorful and basic. Alpha-Seni was the first off-world outpost he had been assigned to and he couldn’t help but marvel. So far, he hadn’t become bored and jaded like some of his fellow off-worlders. Taking the locals for granted was a danger of prolonged inhabitance. So, he reveled in the sights and sounds every morning.

In a way, his assignment here was like a working vacation. A hard-working vacation. Though some of the hospice staff had quarters at the hospice itself, Ortega had elected to live in an apartment in another area of the garment district, to be closer to the residents to learn more about them, to further his off-world education.

Besides, he was back at his usual day-shift. Thank God! The morning hours may be the most busy and hectic but at least he could get back on a normal schedule and not be tired all the time. He was a morning person, after all, and thankfully, Michael had recovered from his ailment.

He turned back to the hospice entrance and reached out to open the door when the huge, wooden portal swung open from the inside, the surprise action jarring him off-balance. His back twinged at the sudden move.

“Oh, my pardons, Brother.” A Senitte woman appeared from inside the hospice, draped in folds of a floor-length, sashed, longfrock. A shawl snaked around her shoulders and enveloped her head, covering most of her face. “Forgive me.”

Two strikingly different eyes, one dark and piercing, the other a washed-out brown, stared out of a pale blue face, the skin smooth and flawless. The hand that instinctively rose to the shawl was long-fingered, well-manicured, and adorned with rings and bracelets.

“Quite all right, gentle fem,” Ortega replied.

“Still, that was careless of me.” The woman’s voice was soft and lilting, her English smooth and almost accent-free. Brother Ortega stepped back, certain he knew her. Those bi-colored eyes... Oh, yes!

Neltra Patah, a volunteer at the hospice, who, like her garment worker husband, worked the steady night-shift. Neltra’s husband must be broad-minded enough to allow his wife to work at all, Weller reflected with approval. Oddly, many of the “low-born” females possessed more “freedom” than their upper-class sisters.

“Bright star to you, Mistress Patah.”

Neltra nodded as she glided past him. “And you,” she said. She paused at the top of the stairs, giving Ortega a sidelong glance. “And how is your back? I hope you’re feeling better.” Ortega smiled at that small consideration.

“Much better,” he replied. News traveled fast! “Thank you.”

“Will you be attending the festival?”

Ortega smiled. This morning Neltra seemed especially friendly. He had met her in passing a few times, never saying more than the usual short greeting. “Why, yes,” he said. “I’ve heard and read much about it. It sounds extremely interesting. It will be, of course, my first such attendance.”

“Mine as well. Perhaps I shall see you there.” She turned, walked down the stairs, and melted into the crowd, her step graceful and confident. An interesting-looking woman, Ortega thought. She looks so refreshed for being up all night!

Ortega turned and entered the hospice. Neltra’s features made him wonder (not for the first time) if she was a ‘halfer’, in the local parlance. Inter-species unions, as he understood the concept here, may not be approved by the native population, but they were commonplace and inevitable in any case. The Senitte and Terran genetic makeups, in particular, had proven to be compatible enough to allow successful, healthy progeny of such unions (another reason for a permanent scientific presence!). Even the best and most supervised Contact regulations couldn’t stop those most basic of sentient drives, no matter how different the drivers.

And even though Ortega had never married, he wasn’t celibate and knew what lust and desire could do.

The interior of the hospice mirrored the activity on Dalma Street with its own shift change. Information exchange among nurse/attendants, orderlies and the housekeeping crew created a buzz of conversation and movement. Food, supplies, laundry pickup and delivery and the usual business details between the shift managers was ongoing. Things seemed a little more rushed than usual. Ortega nodded and said good morning to several other nurse/attendants as he made his way down the long main hallway...

...and ran straight into a haggard-looking Sister Marsha. “Well, excuse me, sister.”

“Oh, Luis!” Marsha threw up her hands. She looked tired, her usually bright eyes dulled with fatigue and worry. “What a night! Have you talked to anyone yet? Way-Ling and Lisa reported off. Three new patients arrived, one in terrible shape after a drug overdose. The clinic was full and couldn’t take him. A fire broke out in the kitchen. And Arshelle began acting up again.”

Ortega’s brow furrowed. “A fire? Is...?”

“We’re okay, thank God. But everyone had to be recruited for cleanup and patient care, even the monitoring staff.”

“Why didn’t you page me?”

“Because of your back. That’s all we’d need is for you to be injured again.”

Ortega sighed. The unpredictability of his job seemed to rear its ugly head at the most inopportune of times. There were always days like this. “You say Arshelle was acting up?”

Marsha’s shoulders slumped forward. “Yes. Thrashing about, screaming, you know, the usual. The medication didn’t seem to be working but we were afraid to increase the dosage again. She’s developing a tolerance for it, I think. That’s something else I’ve been warning everyone about! Thank God Neltra was here. She has a way with calming down some of our patients, as you know. She’s been with Arshelle the last couple of hours. How are you feeling, by the way?”

“Fine, fine. I just saw Neltra leave. She...”

Marsha cocked her head to one side as her eyes narrowed. In her plump face, they almost seemed to disappear. “She left? That’s odd. She volunteered to work some of the day-shift to help. God knows we need it today.”

Ortega shook his head. “She said nothing of that to me, just left after a short chat.” He looked up to the second floor where the orderly/guard was conspicuously absent from the front of Arshelle’s room. A slight surge of alarm ran through him. “I’m going to check on Arshelle.”

Both he and Marsha walked quickly up the steps. “Is Nicolas inside?” Ortega indicated the empty chair at the writing desk.

“I don’t think so,” Marsha said. “He got called away at some point, just like everyone else. We were so busy. But Neltra was here and she’s never had a problem with Arshelle before.”

Ortega opened the door to Arshelle’s room and stopped, his breath catching in his throat. A picture of death hit him like a wall. Marsha stifled a scream as they both stood in shock. Between the bed and side wall, a woman lay naked, her neck twisted at an unnatural angle. The wind-blown window curtains hovered over the corpse like carrion-birds; the walls of the room surrounded her like a tomb.

Ortega swallowed his revulsion, walked into the room and knelt beside the body, which lay in a small pool of blood. Two very different colored eyes stared unblinking at the ceiling. The pale face was contorted, as if by some strong emotion, as if the poor victim had seen something not meant to be seen right before she died. “My God,” Marsha cried. “It’s Neltra!”

Ortega trembled as he felt for a pulse. Where? The bone joint at the elbow, yes, that’s where Senittes’ heartbeats could be discerned. The body was still warm. “Neltra?” he said, almost to himself. “That can’t be! I saw her, spoke to her.” He looked up, over his shoulder.

The bed was empty, the shackles broken. He turned a panicked look to Marsha.

“I’ll call the Karda,” Marsha said, her lips drawn in a thin determined line across her face. “And let Hideshi know.”

“Yes, yes and get a couple of orderlies in here! But try to keep things quiet.” Ortega got shakily to his feet. “Neltra, Neltra, ay dios mio,” he whispered. He felt sick, unbelieving. He had seen death before, but not like this.

Clumsily, as if drunk, he walked to the open window and stuck his head out of it. He took great, deep breaths, gulping air as if he were suffocating. He looked again at the still-crowded streets below. He shook his head, sickened and confused.

And then, with a shudder, he remembered. Neltra, the Neltra he had seen at the front entrance, had greeted him in almost perfect English (“Oh, excuse me, brother.” “I beg your pardon.”). Neltra, the real Neltra, knew little of that off-world language. Oh, a few words and phrases, yes, but spoken clumsily, not so refined and crisply articulated as he had heard.

How? How? Ortega straightened as he swayed slightly. His knuckles turned white as he gripped the window sill. He felt like a man falling. Surely this was his fault. He could not have prevented this horrible murder, he knew, yet if he had been paying attention, if he hadn’t been distracted, he might have prevented Arshelle from escaping.

Arshelle? he thought. Why would I think that? It was Neltra I spoke to! He turned and looked again at the body. No, Neltra’s dead. Damn it, what happened?

Ortega heard the orderlies enter the room, heard Marsha barking orders. He stood and stared, his heart pounding, his mind awhirl. Whatever had put Arshelle in the hospice in the first place has caused this... transformation. For that’s what it was, surely. He had always suspected something illegal, drugs, even a Turning ritual perhaps. Initially he had asked questions, had done a little investigating but, as Brother Hideshi had rightfully pointed out, that was not his duty to perform.

Or was it? Wasn’t the purpose of the hospice to help? In any way?

He had read and studied much of the indigene traditions, both before his arrival and during his occupation. Like all cultures, the Senittes had their myths and legends. He remembered hearing such tales of shapeshifters or bau-baus as the natives called them, doppelgangers and soul-snatchers. And he knew all myths and legends had some basis in fact.

Hadn’t the magical applications his mother employed proved that? How could he explain the healing she had done? Or, in some cases, where a family desperately needed help because of Beta Omatedon gang threats or corrupt law officials, the curses and spells she had invoked?

What happened here today was one of those intervening occurrences. Something between, not easily explained by way of logic or any fantastical means. He would replace out what that was. He would stop this before it happened again.

For he felt strongly this death wouldn’t be the last.

He knew enough of Alpha-Senitte society to form a couple of workable scenarios. The Karda would investigate but they would turn up nothing, he knew. Arshelle or whoever she was, would, no doubt, replace refuge in the Yharria. Even for major crimes, law enforcement officials outside the free-zone were reluctant to venture too far into the fringe districts or probe too deeply into their data webs. Too much money and power were wielded there. Plus, the Karda protected its Yharria turf jealously. They operated in what amounted to an independent state. In some cases, the ‘law’ did not exist in the Yharria at all except for that of its own making.

The hospice council might pressure the local government to investigate, maybe even handle an internal investigation of its own but, again, Ortega was sure nothing would come of it. For all intents and purposes, Ortega’s hospice had the misfortune to be located on a backwater planet and for the hospice to spend that much time, energy and money on matters other than what their mission statement strictly advocated... well... he couldn’t see it happening. These things, in this type of environment, happen all the time. Somehow, the staff would be reassured and placated and everything would return to normal. Even in his short tenure here, he had experienced such things, albeit on a smaller scale than this.

It didn’t matter. He would replace her. With or without any help, he would replace Arshelle. In some way, she had become his responsibility, his charge. He turned as he suddenly realized Marsha stood at his side.

“I told you,” she said, visibly upset. Tears streaked her cheeks. “I knew Arshelle should have been locked up. And now look! Neltra’s dead! I never should have allowed Nicolas to leave his post. I should have insisted on the extra medication! Jesus Christ, what a fucking mess!”

“It’s not your fault.” Ortega turned, taking Marsha’s hand in his. Marsha stopped, seemingly surprised at his tender action. I’m going to need help, Ortega thought. Who can I trust? Who would give up their free time and risk censure from the hospice body to do this? He realized Marsha would be the only candidate. Despite their opposing natures, they tended, in the end, to seek out a common ground. “I’m going to replace out what happened,” he said softly. “And I may need your help. Do you have any vacation time saved up?”

Marsha looked confused as if that question was totally inappropriate. “Uh, yes. Some. Why? What the hell are you talking about?”

“Good.” Ortega nodded. “Take it all, that is, if you’ll agree to what I propose. I’ll get it cleared with Hideshi. We’ll both be taking a big risk but here’s what I want to do.”