Lost Era 06_ Catalyst of Sorrows - Margaret Wander Bonanno [25]
“Left?”
“I ran away. Aemetha took me in.”
And leave it there, she told herself, because how I escaped from the House, and who Aemetha is is none of their business. Much less the rest.
“Then Cretak gave me the locket and taught me what to say and sent me across the Outmarches, and now I’m here.”
“Indeed,” Tuvok said, as if that part were inconsequential. “Who is Aemetha?”
Think! Zetha told herself. Is he only plodding through this for the sake of thoroughness, or is there something I’m missing here? The very connection between Cretak and Uhura told her that the Federation’s reach could extend into the Empire as easily as the reverse was true. But could they harm Aemetha? Would they, because of something she might let slip? She’d thought she was on slippery footing with the Lord, but this was different.
“My godmother,” she said with her usual diffidence, hoping Tuvok would consider it insignificant. But she used a word that was common to both their languages, which meant more than merely “godmother,” implying teacher, guardian, surrogate parent, and Tuvok caught the difference.
“Tell me about her.”
Decide! Zetha told herself. The Lord knew everything, and either he acted against Godmother after you were gone or he didn’t. No way of knowing. Surely this Vulcan or his Starfleet cannot have any more control over you than the Lord had.
Dazzle them with details, she thought. She took a deep breath, shifted around in the chair to bring her knees up almost to her chin and clasp her arms around them, and began.
“She taught me how to read. Then she taught me what was worth reading, and how to read between the lines on what wasn’t. She dressed me and fed me, and at the same time taught me how to dress and how not to eat with my fingers…”
“When a people are always at war, child,” the old woman said, not wheezing for a change because she was sitting down for once and not trying to do three things simultaneously, “the war need not ever touch the homeworld to affect every person living there. When a civilization is predicated on the assumption that the best and brightest of every generation must be swept offworld into warbirds flung to the far reaches of its territories, there perhaps to perish, when a world’s best resources, be they in manpower, technology, or simply the expectation that the best foodstuffs, the best boots, the finest-wrought metals and strongest fabrics and even the optimum works of art and music and literature are relegated to the military, what is left for those downworld?”
“I don’t know,” Zetha said when the old woman finally paused for breath.
“Scraps, that’s what! Scraps and tatters and making do. Schools that teach children to chant and salute and march about smartly, but not to read and reason and appreciate the finer things. But why am I telling you what you already know?”
Zetha shrugged. “Because I’m here. And because you know I won’t betray you to the Tal Shiar.”
“Child! Don’t ever say those words, not even in jest. You really don’t know what you’re saying.”
You’d be surprised at what I know, Godmother! Zetha had thought at the time, but let it go. Her most pleasant memories were here in this crumbling room, her belly full with whatever she and the other scroungers, some of them huddled and snuffling in the corners, had managed to “organize” that day, a few bits of scrap wood in the ornate but crack-flued enameled stove a hedge against the chill and damp outside. The villa was ancient and had no central heating. It stood for the very things Aemetha talked about-an Empire which could conquer distant worlds but didn’t care to keep all of its citizens warm.
Aemetha was old and talked about the past. Tahir, Zetha’s fellow scrounger, talked about the future, a future he was not clear about, yet knew somehow would be better than the present. And Aemetha remembered better times, so perhaps it was possible. But Zetha,