Shattered Lives, page 12
part #2 of Rymellan Series
She stifled a snort. She’d been ready for this moment for years. The counsellor Watkins had insisted be present wouldn’t be needed. “I’m ready.”
Watkins pressed a button on his comm station. “We’re ready for you, Lieutenant Commander. Room Four.”
“We’re on our way,” Les said, to Mo’s delight. Morris opened the door. When Les walked into the room a minute later, Mo stood and broke into a smile. Her Chosen. And so dashing in her crisp white uniform.
Her smile faded. Les’s answering smile was strained and her eyes were a little too bright. Behind her, Adelaide and Alan stood grimly. Mo didn’t understand. Last night at the party, everyone had looked forward to this moment. What could have happened in the meantime? Had Les argued with her parents? Suddenly the counsellor’s presence worried her.
She relaxed slightly when Les embraced her and whispered “I love you” into her ear, but her uneasiness returned when Les continued to cling to her. Something was tearing Les apart, and whatever it was, Alan and Adelaide knew about it. Finally Les let her go.
“Welcome to the family, Mo,” Adelaide said. She tucked an envelope she’d been holding under her arm, grasped Mo’s shoulders, and kissed her cheek, but she looked unhappy. Alan’s face told the same story. Confused, Mo sat down. Les sat next to her; Papa and Les’s parents sat behind them.
“Normally I’d ask you to say hello to each other, but I can see that’s not necessary in this case,” Watkins said with a small smile.
Nobody responded to his comment. Mo could feel the tension in the air. She’d expected this meeting to be a joyous one. Instead, an undercurrent of negative emotion ran through the room, as if the Thompsons were going through the motions, pretending they were pleased when they weren’t. Actually, they weren’t doing all that good a job of pretending. Mo wanted the meeting to be over so she could find out what was going on. “I guess you need my confirmation and then we can be off,” she said to Watkins.
“Not quite. I have more news for you today.”
More news?
“Can I tell her?” Les said.
Watkins glanced at Morris, who nodded. “All right. But not the name.”
Mo grew more confused when Les said, “Before I tell you, I want you to know that nothing will change between us. Nothing at all.”
She swallowed and braced herself, though for what, she had no idea. Watkins had said they were Chosens.
“Do you remember learning about triads when we were at the Indoctrination Academy?” Les asked. “Well, not learning, exactly, because they were only mentioned in passing.” She sounded bitter. “But do you remember hearing about them?”
Vaguely. “You mean when there are three Chosens? I think Indoctrinator—” Her breath caught. “No. Not us.”
Les closed her eyes and nodded.
This was a sick joke, right? “No. Not us. This can’t be happening to us.”
“I don’t understand it either,” Les murmured.
“No, we can’t have another Chosen. We love each other too much. No, no.” Please, if she said no enough times, would it go away?
“What’s all this talk about another Chosen?” Papa asked, leaning forward.
Mo wouldn’t answer him. She wouldn’t say it—that would make it real. She looked at Les. Her Chosen. Nobody else’s. Hers!
“A triad is a Joining of three Chosens,” Watkins said. “It can only happen with same-oriented Joinings.”
“I’ve never heard of this before,” Papa said, sounding indignant.
“Neither had we,” Adelaide said. “We just found out.”
“Triads are natural, though rare. There are articles addressing them in the Chosen Tradition,” Watkins said. “I have a diagram I can show you.”
“We don’t need the diagram,” Papa said firmly. “The Middleton family fully supports the Chosen Tradition and the Chosen Council. If you say they’re natural, then they are.”
Mo turned to gape at him.
“So you don’t have any problem at all with the notion that your daughter has two Chosens?” Morris asked as Adelaide and Alan exchanged a sidelong glance.
“I would never question the Chosen Council.”
Oh, now she understood. Mo faced forward in disgust. She couldn’t wait to hear what he really thought once they got out of this flaming room. More importantly, what did Les think? Les always tried to honour the Way. Would she expect them to have a relationship with this other Chosen? Children? She’d said nothing would change between them, but . . .
“I’m sure you’d like to find out who your other Chosen is,” Watkins said to Mo.
She bit her tongue and slipped her hand into Les’s.
Watkins pulled another sheet toward him. Mo waited, aware of Les’s eyes upon her. “Your second Chosen is twenty-five years old and lives in Sector E6. Both her parents are deceased. She has one sibling. He’s a Solitary.” He took a deep breath and looked at Mo. “Her name is Jayne Adams.”
Mo tightened her grip on Les’s hand. “Adams? As in Adams Incident? Is that why her parents are dead? Because they were executed?”
“Yes.”
“Now just a minute,” Papa sputtered.
Watkins shifted his gaze to Papa. “Yes?”
After a long silence, Papa mumbled, “Nothing.”
“Mo, are you okay?” Les asked.
“No. I don’t know. We need to talk about it.” She stood. “Can I provide my confirmation now, please?”
“Don’t you have any questions, Lieutenant Commander Middleton?” Morris asked.
Oh yeah, she had a bunch of questions, starting with how in the flaming Argamon this could have happened. But why ruin this wonderful meeting by being dragged to an execution site? Her questions would wait until she could scream them. She smiled at the counsellor. “Not at the moment.”
Watkins nodded. “Then I’m now officially advising you that, since you know the names of your two Chosens, you are bound to them from this point forward in accordance with all the articles in the Chosen Tradition. You are now in a position to commit a Chosen Violation if you violate any article in the Chosen Tradition that applies to a Joined Chosen. Do you understand and accept what I’ve just told you?”
“I understand and accept it.” Watkins spun the screen toward her and Mo pressed her thumb against it until the station beeped.
“Thank you. Here’s an information packet about triads.” Watkins handed Mo an envelope. “I’d like to highlight two points. As I explained to Lieutenant Commander Thompson . . .” He trailed off when Mo raised her hand.
“Would it be all right if my Principal explained it to me later?” she asked. “I’m not sure I can handle explanations right now.”
“I don’t see why not. Oh, but I do have to tell you that you’ll meet Jayne at 3:00.”
“We’ll all come back together,” Les said.
“Good. Let’s close, then.” He stood and motioned for everyone to do the same. As they joined hands and said the Words Every Rymellan Knows, Mo felt as if she were at a farewell ceremony, not a notification meeting. “See you all at 2:45!” Watkins said cheerfully.
They all followed Watkins and Morris from the room. After they’d left the Chosen House, Mo spun to face everyone. “I hate to ask this, but would you mind taking the train so Les and I can talk about what just happened?” she said to Papa, Adelaide, and Alan. She and Papa had taken the train to the meeting; they’d all intended to return to the Thompsons’ together in Les’s aviacraft, looking forward to a lavish lunch to celebrate the Joining of their families. “We might not get another chance before we have to come back, and we really need to talk.” And Les better not contradict her.
“We don’t mind,” Adelaide said. “In fact, maybe we’ll take a little stroll before we get on the train, figure out how to deal with this.”
“Yes, let’s,” Papa agreed.
Adelaide handed Les her envelope. “You take this. We can’t look at it on the train.”
“We’ll wait for you near the estate’s main entrance,” Les said. “I want to be there when everyone else hears the news.” She grabbed Mo’s hand. “Let’s go.”
They strode to the aviacraft in silence. As soon as they were safely inside and Les had slid the craft’s door shut, they tossed their envelopes onto a seat and embraced.
“I don’t understand it,” Mo murmured. “Today was supposed to be it. We were supposed to belong to each other.”
“We do.” She felt Les shake her head. “I can’t believe we’re in a triad with an Adams.”
Mo pushed her away and stepped back. “That’s all you care about? That she’s an Adams? You don’t care that we’re in a flaming triad?”
“No, that’s not what I—”
“I wouldn’t care if we were in a triad with someone in a family so respectable, they regularly broke into the Song of Rymel,” Mo shouted, shaking with anger. “I don’t care who the third Chosen is, I care that she flaming exists!”
“Okay, okay,” Les said, holding up her hands. “I feel the same way. I wish we weren’t in a triad. But you have to admit, being in one with an Adams doubled the shock.”
Maybe, but the Adams part bothered Mo a lot less than the triad part. “Why did this have to happen to us? I can’t believe it. First the separation, then nothing but joy that we’re Chosens, and now this? And we’re talking the rest of our lives, here. It’s not like we’ll go to the notification meeting this afternoon and then it’s over.” Mo slapped her hands against her thighs. “What are we going to do with her?”
“Nothing. Between our meetings, I read the information Watkins gave us. We don’t have to have a relationship with her.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ll read more about the articles and I’ll talk to Laura, but I’m pretty sure.”
“Then what’s the point of this flaming triad if we can act like we’re not in one?”
“We can’t act like we’re not in one,” Les said, closing the gap between them and taking Mo’s hands. “We will be Joined to her. I guess the expectation is that we’ll eventually . . . love her.”
“Well, we won’t. I’ll never love anyone else, especially her. So what’s the point?”
Les bit her lip.
“What?”
“Article CT134.”
Mo scrunched her face up in concentration. “It must be an obscure article, because it’s not coming to me.”
“It is. It’s specific to triads, sort of a safeguard, I think. According to the historical information, triads have been volatile. Most have ended at execution sites.”
“Oh, great!”
“So they added something of a loophole to the Tradition. CT134. Here.” Les picked up one of the envelopes, rummaged inside it, and pulled out a sheet. “Read this.”
Mo read the information about Article CT134 and handed it back to Les. “So if you and I were to make a case, she’d be executed?”
Les nodded.
“Les, I’d like the woman to disappear, but not like that.”
“What if that’s what they want us to do?” Les said carefully.
“Who? Our parents?”
“No, the Chosen Council. Don’t you think it’s odd that out of all the women we could have ended up with in a triad, we ended up with her? I didn’t tell you about this, but Admiral Hall was talking about the Adams children just the other day. He said that after the Incident, some Rymellans petitioned to execute the children, but the overseers denied the requests. Maybe they’re hoping we’ll manage one execution for them.”
She couldn’t believe Les, of all people, would suggest such a thing. “That’s hard to believe, Les.”
Les’s face tightened. “So you think she’s really our Chosen, then. Yours and mine. An Adams.”
When she put it like that . . . “I don’t know. But if they want us to exercise the article, don’t you think Watkins would have steered us that way? I mean, he didn’t even discuss the article.”
“You didn’t give him a chance,” Les said. “He told me about it. And he may not be in on it. I’d imagine anyone who knows would be high up. We’re talking about fiddling with a Joining, here.”
Mo swallowed and glanced around. Nobody could hear them, but she still felt uncomfortable. “Or she could be our Chosen and this triad is legitimate.” That felt uncomfortable, too.
“I don’t know what to believe, to be honest.” Les sighed. “If she is our Chosen, well, that’s unbelievable. If she isn’t . . .”
“I hate to say this, but let’s assume she is.”
Les’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Because despite what’s happened, I’d like to see my twenty-seventh birthday. So let’s forget we had this conversation.” Mo drew a shaky breath. “And as far as CT134 goes, not unless we’re absolutely sure. I already hate her. I hate this triad, hate what they’ve done to us. But I won’t execute her unless she somehow forces us to that. I can’t.” Her chin trembled. “I want our daughters to be proud of us, Les. They won’t be proud if we kill her because we love each other. We wouldn’t be proud of ourselves, either. We’d see her every time we looked at each other. Executing her would rip us apart.”
And the triad might do the same. They wouldn’t lead the charmed lives she’d imagined, supporting each other’s careers and raising daughters. To have everything she’d hoped for given to her and then snatched away . . . the last few happy days had been nothing but a cruel illusion, a puff of smoke that had dissipated the moment Les said the word triad.
Bewildered, Mo sank into one of the passenger seats and rested her head against the seat in front, but her eyes remained dry. The enormity of the day’s events hadn’t sunk in. She couldn’t cry when everything felt so surreal. She could be angry, though. Oh yeah, angry about how unfair it was. For almost two flaming years they’d suffered alone, honoured the Way, desperately tried to find meaning in lives without each other. If they’d ended up with other women, they would have honoured their Chosens to the bitter end, done all they could to limit the pain and emptiness to themselves. They didn’t deserve to be in a triad. This time, the Way was asking too much. Too much.
The seat in front of her squeaked. She felt Les’s fingers in her hair. “We’ll do whatever’s best for us,” Les said softly. “We might be pressured to execute her.”
Mo lifted her head. “Les—”
“I know. I don’t want to do it without good reason either. It would go against everything I believe. So we’ll have to stick together.” She touched Mo’s cheek. “That’s the only thing that makes sense today. That we’re together.”
Les’s comm unit beeped. “We’re heading to the train station,” Adelaide said. “Are you on your way?”
“We will be in a minute.”
“Make sure you are. We have to tell everyone the news and have lunch.” The connection went dead.
Les shook her head and slid the comm unit into its holder. “Let’s just try to get through today,” she said with a sigh. “Perhaps after we’ve met her, we’ll have a better idea of how things will go, have a sense of whether she’ll be difficult or respect our relationship.”
Now Mo felt like crying. It didn’t matter. Execute her or Join with her—either could, and probably would, destroy her relationship with Les. Today was supposed to bring an end to any possibility of losing Les. But there was no end. She could never relax. Not anymore.
*****
Lesley opened the door to the Thompson home with trepidation. As she stepped over the threshold, Jason popped into the hallway, then darted back into the living room, calling, “They’re back!” Those inside chattered excitedly.
“I’ll make sure all the caterers are in the kitchen or dining room and shut the doors.” Mama strode down the hallway.
Lesley tightened her hold on Mo’s hand and walked into the living room. Concern erased the smiles on the faces of those waiting. “What happened, did you fight on the way home?” Mary asked.
The few chuckles quickly died when a scowling Michael walked in, a sombre Papa on his heels. Lesley threw her information packet onto an end table—Mo had left hers on the craft—and scanned the room. Only the children weren’t here. Barbara’s parents had taken Jacob and Lynn for the day and had kindly offered to take Karen and William’s son as well.
Neil rose from the sofa, his eyes wide. “What’s going on?”
“Wait for Adelaide,” Michael said. Several fidgeted impatiently or cleared their throats.
Finally Mama strode in and nodded. “They can’t hear us.”
“So what’s going on?” Neil said again.
“The notification meeting was horrible,” Michael said.
“What do you mean?” Jason asked. “Obviously Lesley and Mo are Chosens.”
“Yes,” Michael said, moving farther into the room so everyone could see him. “But they have another Chosen.”
“I don’t understand,” Barbara said as the others exchanged puzzled glances.
“They’re part of a triad.” Papa said. “Three Chosens, equally matched. I’d never heard of them before this morning. It can only happen with same-oriented Joinings. Apparently the last one was 232 years ago.”
“It’s a triangle,” Mama added, tracing the shape in the air with her hands.
“Triads were mentioned during my training,” Karen said. “I think it came up when I was doing a course on reproductive technology. If I remember correctly, the last triad had quite a few daughters.”
“You mean all of them will be Joined?” Nathan asked.
“That’s the idea.” Mama grimaced, whispered to Papa, and squeezed herself onto the sofa next to Karen.
“Is this a joke?” Jason asked, dropping with a thud into a chair.
Michael sighed. “I wish it were. And you haven’t heard the best part yet.”
Jason frowned. “I’d think this triad is bad enough.”
Mo squeezed Lesley’s hand; she squeezed back.
“It’s got to be the other Chosen,” Neil said. “Who is it, Papa?” He looked at Lesley and Mo. “Who is it?”
“Ever heard of the Adams Incident?” Michael said before Lesley had a chance to speak. “Well, their daughter is Chosen sister to all of you. Congratulations to us.”
