Flight of the Outcast Read Free

even as she cried out, she knew he was no longer there to answer her.

two

    A steria was desperately clearing rubble from the smoking
          pile that had been the south defensive tower—searching for any sign of her family—when the battered hovercart roared up the steep road from Sanctal. Two men emerged. They wore the drab, dark gray coveralls of the lower-caste Bourse. She stood holding a stone as they walked toward her, their faces grim.
        "What happened?" one asked. "There was a distress call."
        "And you came," she said bitterly. "The two of you."
        The second man pointed at the shattered dome. "Raiders."
        "May Shayman, the god of protection, favor us," the first one said.
        Asteria felt like hitting him with the stone. "My father and my cousin—"
        "Please." The second man took the stone from her hand and said, "The Cybots will search for them better than we can. Come. We will take you to safety."
        Asteria shook her head. "I want to stay here."
        "Child," the first man said, "Gaiam, the god of family, tells us we must take in the young of—" His voice seemed to falter. "Of those who have met with accidents."
        "I don't believe in your gods," she snapped, and the two men exchanged a shocked look.
       "If your people are alive, the Cybots will find them," the second man told her.
       "They're not alive," Asteria said bleakly.
       The first man said, "If they are not, we will take care of you."
       She hated them. Hated them. But at last, with nowhere t o go, she let them take her to Sanctal. They sped back down toward the seacoast town, the smoldering farm vanishing over the rim of the plateau. The air grew warmer and smelled of the sea. They slowed as they entered the town, and people stared at her. The outsider. The orphan. The outcast. Asteria stared back defiantly, holding back her tears. She went where the men took her, answered the questions the Bourse magistrate put to her, and did not object when he turned her over to a woman who said she would take Asteria to a place where she could live until a decision might be reached concerning her future.
       Asteria did not object to any of this. But already she was thinking of her future. Of revenge.

    * * *
    For many days, Asteria felt like a prisoner, even though she had all the freedom that an Unbeliever girl was allowed in Sanctal. She could walk around the narrow streets of the settlement—if she had a male escort. She could speak to anyone—if the other person spoke first. They dressed her in the drab clothing of a Sanctal subclass girl: gray cap and tunic, dark gray stockings, black shoes. They complained about the belt: "Ornaments are signs of pride. That is not acceptable to Drakkah, the god of humility. Remove it."
       "I can't!" she'd snapped repeatedly. And she couldn't. The flexible belt had almost molded itself to her waist. It was loose enough for her to remove her clothes, but when she put on the Sanctal garb, she had to put it on over the belt, which now lay snugly against her skin. It didn't seem to have any kind of release. Asteria had never seen anything like it. She couldn't imagine what it was supposed to be—or do.
       After two days, the Cybots sent by the Bourse returned with the meager items they had found: the ID and communicator elements from both Carlson and Andre Locke's wrist transceivers. They had discovered these in the ruins of the defensive towers—along with enough bone fragments to identify the bodies of both Asteria's father and her cousin.
       Asteria told the sour-faced Bourse officials that the killers had been Raiders, renegades. That they should be pursued, caught, and punished. The Bourse never made a decision without debate; it was the core of their religious law, though they allowed no debate when it came to their beliefs. Hour after hour, they sat arguing about what they should do. In the end, they decided to apply for help