Fervor

Chapter 5

Long tables lined with benches fill the dining hall.

A great hearth burns along the far wall, logs crackling in orange flame.

The tables are mostly full, the last dozen or so women trailing in as Irena and I enter.

The air is warm, bright; all around me is the sound of soft voices, of companionship.

But there is a heaviness also. A pressure on my chest.

It’s the altitude, I reason. Exhaustion, hunger.

I take a seat alongside Irena. Sister Cadence, who welcomed us earlier, sits among the rest of the sisters. Is there a leader here? As one, the seated sisters hold out their hands, clasping those of their neighbors. And I remember, of course, their deity. Anguish.

He is the leader.

Here in the remotest edges of space, on an otherwise uninhabited planet, these women could do whatever they wanted.

They are at peace. They look after themselves.

They seem utterly happy. A searing flame of emotion licks the back of my throat, at the knowledge that these women, these self-sufficient and intelligent women, still owe fealty to a male god.

The sisters begin to pray.

I grip Irena’s hand with a little too much tension. On my other side, a woman with long grey hair holds my hand in hers as she and the others’ voices rise in a chant.

I tense at the sound. I’m not used to prayer, nor am I fond of it.

I’ve only heard hymns in funeral homes. I’ve only spoken words to so-called ‘God’ at my lowest, when the universe seemed ready to forget about me and let me fall through its cracks to some depthless void below. But he never did anything to help me.

I cannot participate in the prayer. I don’t know the words. I let the prayer wash over me as the tempo speeds. The sisters’ voices grow deeper, louder.

I glance around in vague discomfort. Every woman’s eyes are closed tight, their lips moving in tandem, spittle flecking the edges of some mouths. These women are young and old, frail and healthy, some beautiful, others less so, all of them joined in this one act.

The worship seems to go on forever.

The firelight dances.

Outside the dining hall, darkness fills the windows. I begin to feel cramped, hot, too tight, until the pressure in my chest grows unendurable.

I can’t breathe.

I’m about to drop Irena’s hand, to wrench myself from this unbroken circle and make my way outside for a desperate lungful of fresh cool air, when the chanting grows erratic.

Frantic. No longer are the words spoken in unison.

Some sisters murmur as if to themselves, chins dipped to their chests.

Some raise their voices high, nearly shrieking in the thick heat.

Others say nothing now, tears dripping down their twisted faces.

It is a cacophony. A discordant auditory melee, sickening in its confusion, in the way these women seem overcome by it, convulsing with it, clutching their faces and stomachs, pulling at their hair.

I’m transfixed, frozen in a disgusted kind of awe, aware suddenly that I have no idea what the sisters do, or what their deity asks of them.

Anything could happen. I’ve heard plenty of stories about zealots and cults …

At any second one of the sisters might pick up a knife and drag it across her skin, or plunge it through the flesh of her neighbor.

My mouth waters, and I swallow the thick saliva down my throat.

I drop the sisters’ hands to clutch the bench, knuckles white, willing myself to get up.

To get out of here. No home-cooked meal is worth this.

I’m too hot, the voices all over and around me, drilling into my ears.

The wracked cries, the sobs. I close my eyes and all I hear is pain, suffering …

and then I see something all too familiar, a memory, more vivid than ever before.

I see broken bodies. I smell blood. Blood on my boots, blood in my hair. I feel blood sticky between my fingers. Blood dripping from the broken pieces of them. Blood, hot, tangy, wet … a memory of voices cut short.

They deserved it. They deserved it.

Sudden and sensual, a voice penetrates my mind. It hums through my insides, stroking every nerve, setting me on fire. It’s him. I know this with a sickening certainty. My shadow, flaming hot like a dying star in my chest.

MIDONIA.

I gasp sharply as the voice invades me, my own name reverberating through my head.

I’ve never heard him speak in words before.

He has always called for me with feelings, or through the distant melody of a dream.

This new sensation of his voice, obscene and slick, drags along my skin.

Something unseen caresses my sweat-pricked neck, while seeking fingers slither up my dress …

YOU CAME TO ME.

My stomach clenches and I writhe, trying to free myself of the sisters’ voices, their clamorous wailing overpowering all my senses.

But I can’t stop it. I’m trapped in the worship, in this unhinged ardor, unable to release myself.

I can’t speak, can’t move, can’t protest in any way. Cold terror drips down my spine.

What are they going to do?

Unseen fingertips grip my thighs, gouging into my heated skin.

What is he going to do?

The chanting abruptly stops.

So does the voice in my head, its echo disappearing, its presence drifting apart like clouds burned away by the sun.

I open my eyes, and I come back to myself.

Every woman in the room sits perfectly still, backs perfectly straight. The silence rings in my ears. Not a comfort, or even a relief. But it’s better than their inhuman raving. It’s better than feeling trapped in my own body, driven half-mad by the chanting.

I turn reluctantly to Irena, but her gaze is fixed on some far-off thing. Something I can’t possibly see. Her deity? Her Anguish?

Like an exhaled breath, tension flows out of the room.

The heat lowers. Even the flames in the hearth seem to diminish, and everybody slumps.

I feel like some presence has left this place, and we are here alone now, us mortals.

The sisters blink, glancing around at one another, expressions of complete and utter reverence on their faces.

As if they have all seen a vision of Heaven, and now know it to be real.

Irena turns to me, laying a hand on my shoulder.

She must know how frightening the sisters sound in prayer, how they look.

This worship feels less like a church scene and more like the ravings of the possessed, but I say nothing.

I should get the fuck out of here after dinner.

Do I really need to sleep in that lovely soft bed? Do I really want to?

‘Let us eat,’ says one of the sisters.

‘Let us eat,’ says another and another. Like a soft wave, the first warm blush of spring, their voices lift in gentleness. ‘Let us eat.’

For the first time I see that the table is already laid. There is bread, cheese, strange meat, and even stranger fruit. Despite my remaining unease, my stomach tightens not in fear but in hunger.

‘Let us eat,’ Irena says, squeezing my shoulder, before filling her plate with the available offerings.

I say nothing. There’s nothing to say, and I’m not certain I could speak if I wanted to.

This is all too uncanny, too unreal, almost dreamlike.

I’d rather fill my stomach and then work it out in the cockpit of a ship I know too well: its every curve and angle, the clang my boots make on its corrugated metal floors, the purr of her engine when she’s in atmosphere, the quiet drift of her form between stars.

I know her like a friend, a lover, an extension of my own body.

I know what blood looks like, staining her walls. I know what it looks like when a skull bursts against the inner hull, I know what a crushed brain looks like, I know how a man sounds when he dies.

‘Try the bread,’ Irena suggests, taking my plate and serving me as if I’m a child, or she my servant.

I don’t protest. I think she wants to care for me, or help me feel at ease.

Maybe she can tell I didn’t like the worship.

She dishes up bread, and a slab of some shining red meat, and slices of a white fruit that smells ripe and vivid.

She pours from a large jug something hot and steaming, spiced.

‘Thank you,’ I manage. My voice, to my relief, sounds steady. Normal. Not, as I’d feared, shaky and weak with terror.

Why should I be terrified? Nothing happened. Nothing real. What did I just witness but enthusiastic religion in action? Who am I to be offended, let alone frightened by such a thing?

Perhaps, I rationalize, every religion is like this. Maybe it’s not at all like I’ve seen in the films, or in books. This might be what it’s really all about. I was just taken off guard, that’s all.

It’s not the sisters’ fault I’m plagued with waking nightmares.

Irena shows me how to assemble the best bite of food: spread soft cheese on my bread, then lay a slice of meat on top, and if I like a bit of sweetness with my salt, I ought to layer thinly sliced fruit on top of that.

I obey her instructions, and I’m taken aback by how good it tastes. How fresh and simple.

‘What kind of meat is it?’ I ask, reaching for my mug. I sip the hot liquid, and it feels like pure comfort as it warms my insides.

‘It is the flesh of a domesticated mammal, native to this planet,’ Irena answers. ‘Similar to a goat, or a sheep, though smaller. Heartier.’

‘And the drink?’

‘You like it?’

I nod. The food, the lively conversation about the table, my hunger abating … it all lulls me back to normality, almost docility. ‘Is it the wine you make here?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s good.’

One of the sisters leans over the table, catching my eye. She is one of the younger ones, maybe even younger than me. Her skin is almost as dark as the table’s wood. Her hood is pulled up over her hair. She smiles. ‘How do you find our planet, Midonia?’

‘It’s very …’ Cold? Primitive? Off-putting? ‘Fascinating. I’ve never seen a colony like this. No tech, no dedicated airfield. Do you even have a satellite radio?’

She shakes her head, still smiling. ‘No. Well, yes, but … we don’t use it.’

‘The radio is for my use,’ says Sister Cadence, seated nearby. ‘In case of dire emergency.’

‘What constitutes a dire emergency?’ I ask, a little shocked by this response. ‘Sickness or injury?’

‘Neither qualifies.’

I set down my mug. ‘You don’t call for help if a disease breaks out? Do you at least have pharmaceuticals?’

‘We do not suffer illness here.’

Again, a prickle of unease rolls through me. ‘But you must,’ I persist. ‘Sure, there aren’t many of you, but if you were to contract even the standard flu, without intervention, it could get –’

‘We do not suffer illness,’ Irena cuts in, echoing Cadence. ‘Our Anguish keeps us healthy.’

This fucking Anguish.

‘Well, what about injury?’ I press, irrationally upset. There’s no way they never get sick here. ‘The landscape seems incredibly hazardous. The forests don’t look traversable. What if someone fell in the river? Got lost in the mountains? Broke a leg on uneven terrain?’

‘That would not happen,’ says Cadence.

My mouth hangs ajar for a moment. ‘But … if it did.’

Cadence’s smile warms. ‘If it did, and it would not, then we would tend to the matter ourselves. The radio must only be used in the most dire circumstances.’

‘And a broken leg in this primitive setting isn’t considered …’

Irena’s hand, unseen beneath the table, tightens on my knee, cutting me off.

At the same time Cadence says, ‘No. It is not. What you might consider an emergency differs greatly from what we consider an emergency. We are well fed, healthy, happy, and cared for. Our god sees to it.’

After dinner, Irena walks with me back to my small hut.

The wine was rich, the supper simple but filling.

I’ve lost my desire to leave. The madness of the worship seems silly now, more like a bad trip than anything else.

I keep jumping to the worst conclusions since …

well, recently. And now that my belly is full of food and wine, the most appealing concept to me is to curl up in that straw-stuffed bed and sleep until the sun rises.

Sleeping at night, rising with the sun, is a privilege not often afforded to transport pilots.

We exist in the darkness and the false light, our tiny electric lives drifting through the vacuum.

I turn to Irena when we arrive at my hut, our white-clad bodies illuminated by the light of a lantern hung above the door.

I’ve been wanting to ask her this question, and finally the itch becomes impossible not to scratch.

‘Without the use of your radio, how do you find new worshipers to join you here? The planet isn’t advertised on any colony bulletins.

My galaxy map shows it as “Likely to be Uninhabited,” with “Hazardous Natural Conditions.”’

‘When we travel offworld,’ Irena replies, ‘like I just did, we sisters occasionally come across a lost soul who needs a home. There are many lost women in the world, Midonia. Many who have been hurt, and who find much-needed respite here. Many who have been searching for something, someone like Him, all their lives.’

‘Anguish, you mean.’

She repeats his name back to me in the correct way. I still can’t pronounce it. ‘But how do you stop unwanted people from coming here?’ I persist. Something about this place feels just out of alignment, like a loosening tooth.

Irena smiles, and there are things unspoken behind her eyes. ‘Anguish ensures that we are safe here.’

‘That’s not really an answer.’ I mean for my tone to be light, but the words come out too harsh.

‘He has his ways,’ Irena says, still smiling.

‘He brings us all peace, no matter where we come from. No matter who we were in the past. Here, we are remade anew. Every one of us, cared for equally. It is not hard to find those who would come here to worship him. And it is not hard for him to protect us from the outside world.’

‘I see.’ I’m reluctant to admit that the promise of life on a supposedly disease-free, injury-free planet does sound pretty appealing.

Irena moves to leave me here, alone in my hut.

‘Irena, wait.’

She turns.

‘If not sickness or injury, what would drive Cadence to use the radio?’

Irena watches me for a long time in silence. I’ve decided she won’t answer my question, and am about to turn and open the hut door, when she speaks. ‘Pray that you do not find out.’