Some redundancies had always bothered Nara. The last days had cultivated in her a distaste for yet another variety of redundancy: the public's need to absorb the same story, saturating itself with endless accounts, speculations, updates, interviews, analyses, all regarding the same subject. Choron's return, the most recent and extreme segment in the cycle, had pounded its way into her head with such dull, repetitive force that she hardly remembered that soft minute with him; she heard the multitudes of voices reaching out from the radio, rather than his voice, in that memory.
She walked through the newly-empty streets of Orefall while she thought of the causes behind these collective binges. The miners, now on their way to scrape metal from the starving asteroids in the system, had a new topic to pick over during the dark days ahead. These hundreds of men would return to their homes, clamped to the side of a rock in space, and over dinner would have the words to power the chewing motions of their jaws.
Those times when there was no issue that invaded the radio waves—Nara had always felt light then, seeing the rugged purity of the people around her. She held her own misgivings for the Church, but could not forget the nights she spent listening to the prayers to God, catching a word or phrase issuing from the lips of someone who spoke for only one Being to hear.
The holiday surrounding the rescue of Flanik Or's only son had wiped most concern from their thoughts. The Great Rock came closer every second, possibly to erase them all; the meager wealth that had sustained miners for generations could hardly last for another year; traders brought the necessities to Orefall with decreasing frequency. How long would it be until the first time a man faltered for a moment or two while drilling holes because his apprehensions had pierced through that thick, pleasant fog clouding his brain?
She had nothing to sell, and no customers besides. This walk was only for her enjoyment—yet she quickly found herself wishing he had stayed home. Orefall was too small for a stroll.
It was one of the qualities that made the planetoid seem like such a makeshift place for human habitation, even after centuries of occupation, and even to those who had never known another world. Miners drifted through space in compartments, and the domed settlement to which they returned was hardly anything more than yet another enclosed space. She loved it for the same reason they did: there was no other place to love. Orefall was not a place where one belonged—it did not care to cling to much, with its weak gravity, and it was only through artificial means that they remained on its surface.
Was this the reason why He had appeared a century ago? Was this why He had immediately settled into their hearts? It was certainly why Nara and Choron felt their desires, passed to them from the generations before, resonate so deeply in the soil of that sacred Planet. This was a fresh thought among the repetition that she loathed so much.
Still—if redundancy bored her, disgusted her—why did she reflect on her own life so often? Nara's memories trembled somewhere in the delicate nerves of her brain, awakened by thoughts of the Great Rock, of religion, of the Church, of visions; the sum of these reflections was a series of images that narrated her persecution at the hands of the Church. More than any other fear, the idea that the same Church, under the same High Priestess, resuming its quest to accuse her of evil hovered over her. She had used a vision to influence the course of others' lives, and that was more than enough to give the priests the authority to strip her of everything.
Choron had never told a soul that Nara's dreams continued; she knew he never would. She also trusted Pira, the only other person with knowledge of the vision. Pira was a beautiful person. But Flanik Or, so close to both those confidants, had an unflinching faith in the Church, and, more importantly, knew the top women well enough to see them without appointment. What if he discovered the secret of his son's rescue?
Unreasonable, all of it, she told herself. There was little chance that anything would come of her involvement in recent events, and even less that she could do if someone took action against her. She was still a young woman; every moment she considered the immense movements of her people required time that she thought of her own small universe.
Choron had never maintained such distance in all her time knowing him. Yes, he had often flung himself with Miro to the distant pockets of the solar system; but now, he appeared everywhere, his voice came regularly through the receiver in her kitchen, and his new life served as a greater barrier than any physical distance. And for what?
“Master Or,” asked radio personalities. “will you tell us of your emergency out there near the great Body of our Lord?”
“I wish I could,” he responded every time. “The last thing I remember is my old master Miro seizing the controls under some kind of fervor...” Choron would continue with the lurid details that made tragedies so enthralling.
“You make Miro sound like a madman,” they would comment.
“I am no hero in comparison to him.”
These meaningless loops of speech simply added to the mystic aura that surrounded Choron. Nara hoped, although she could never believe it with any certainty, that he merely followed the prompts provided by hi interviewers. Even as the sensation became a mellow idea in the public's consideration, after more than ten days' exposure, Choron turned his attention to “business as usual”—which, coming from a well-known rebel against his wealthy background, caused its own uproar.
The night before, Sorn's voice had come in its usual manner: even, but dramatic nonetheless in its careful measure. “Choron Or, whom we all, know as the son of prominent merchant Flanik Or, has engaged in an unusual contract with his father.”
A brief pause had indicated the introduction of Choron's voice, recorded earlier. “I have decided to liquidate a portion of my inheritance. Exercising this option, of course, gives my father the right to do as he wishes with the rest.”
“Any chance you'll tell us why you want this money now?” a field reporter had asked. “After all, your father is receiving a substatial profit from this deal. It's likely that you'll never again see that part of your future estate.”
“Something big.”
That Choron's brief communion with Him had contained overwhelming power, driving need, Nara would never deny; however, she found it impossible to believe he was ready to rush forward under the imperative that God had provided. “Something big” had one meaning to Nara—and, she knew, only one meaning to him.
Those two words spread rapidly among the people of Orefall and acquired significance in all ways but the truth. Each echo from another person's mouth distorted “something big” into a different theory. Those among the business circles that included Flanik seemed to believe it was a plan to establish either a subsidiary or a competitor to the established enterprise belonging to the elder Or. Neither made sense to these men.
The women who stayed behind—most of them widows like Nara's mother—were the only citizens who had the time to look more into the matter. If the whole of the mining community was tightly bound, the widows were tighter yet. Nara and her mother had stood for years on the edge of the small world that belonged to these women. Self-educated, they formed the intellectual core on Orefall and the backbone of the Church. The same sisterhood drew the earliest reasonable conclusion from the small clue that Choron had provided. Mother's words from that afternoon surfaced in Nara's thoughts.
“The ladies were talking at the service today.”
“About what?”
“Choron's secret venture. You might enjoy this: they believe he and Miro found an asteroid of unparalleled richness. Miro wanted to split the claim, or to assert his position as the master and claim the entire thing in his name. Either way, Choron decided it was time to let go of the old man. His death, they say, was no accident.”
Nara did not enjoy the rumor. Coming as it did now from the radio speakers everywhere she walked was official enough—but from the most educated women in the system? Even the rising star Choron would find public opinion turning against him. Still, any resistance to Choron seemed silly. Nara wanted the confidence to come from somewhere other than the hallucinations Choron had survived; no matter how powerful the experience had been, it was still entirely ethereal. Is this where Choron and I differ? she wondered. He is driving ahead, using means that hardly seem related to the end. I was with him on the Planet in spirit, but only he was there in body.
She felt her hands quaking at her sides. Worrying would do nothing—it was Choron's task, not hers. After a short time, she convinced herself to dwell on other things. The remainder of the trip home became a comforting emptiness: only when the capsule destined for her house lunged forward did she vaguely recall turning around and coming to the transport station. Whatever she had thought or felt then was safe, lost in those few minutes.
When the door slid open to allow her into her home, she jumped out of her seat. Just beyond, standing in the living room around her mother, were four women clad in familiar clothes. Her mother's face displayed a mixture of relief and anguish when she saw Nara. “Come in quickly, dear.”
“First, tell me something.” She made it clear that her hand rested on the capsule's controls. “Why are there priestesses in our home?”
“Nara Misyne,” said one of the men in a light voice, “the Church is placing you under arrest; you have breached your prior contract by continuing to allow unholy visions to destroy your faith in our God. Not only that, but you have extended this corruption to others. Such is the word of the High Priestess.”
At the end of the pronouncement, Nara slapped the capsule's door control. She hoped—prayed—that she could reach the station before more priests arrived. After that, she could see no future. Even if she evaded them, there was no escape from Orefall.
Through burning tears, she decided it was worth a try.