It was the same as saying, "Kill me."
Aylis withdrew her arm and took one of her hands. She squeezed her hand gently.
"You know Jamie isn't in The Plan, Zakiya."
"Oh, Aylis, don't! You can't take her away from me! She's my whole life!"
"If you look at me you'll see tears in my eyes. I've been dreading this day ever since I found out about Jamie. It's my last personal duty before I go to sleep."
She looked at this familiar face and saw tears brimming in brown eyes that should be blue and rolling down brown cheeks that should be pale. Her own tear ducts exploded. She held hands with Aylis and waited for the storm to pass. It irritated her that she calmed down so quickly, that she gave up her small rebellion so quietly. She wanted to scream, to somehow demonstrate dramatically the tragedy of the moment. But she knew that Aylis understood, that it hurt Aylis as much as it hurt herself.
She wiped her face. She hugged Aylis hard, then stood up and found the strength to call to Jamie. Already she could imagine the pain she would feel when she looked upon her daughter's face for the last time. If the imagined pain was this terrible, what must the real pain be?
Jamie came running to her over the green grass of the park, leaped into her arms, and looked at Aylis weeping.
"Mama, what's wrong with her? Who is she?"
"She's Mama's best friend - after you. We'll visit her and see lots of interesting people and things."
She shouldn't hate Aylis for taking Jamie. She should blame herself for being so weak that she had needed to give birth to Jamie. She had these wonderful six years of never being alone and this selfishness would now hurt all three of them.
She had to remember.
She had to remember.
She had to remember!
"Jamie!" She could barely hear herself above the rush of the wind. Samson stirred against her. "Jamie," she said again, locking the name in her memory.
"Who is Jamie?" Rafael asked, still awake.
Shredded clouds raced across a brilliant gibbous moon which illuminated snow on the mountain slopes. They lay on the ground in the lee of a boulder, huddled together for warmth, covered with a layer of dry vegetation. Fidelity moved her head closer to Rafael's in order to converse more easily. Samson lay between them.
"A child," she struggled to answer. She almost said more, she was so distraught. Now she had a name and it was her daughter's name! She had lost her. How many more people had she lost from her life? Why couldn't she at least have coherent memories of them to relive before she died?
"Another flashback that you don't want to admit is really yours?" Raphael asked.
"They're all so sad," she said, remembering their emotional impact if not their details.
"There must be a reason the memories have returned to you now. Tell me about them. I can't sleep in this wind."
"I suspect others are listening, Rafael, others who might use the information against me. I'm sorry I can't tell you. I'm sorry you got dragged into this."
"I don't mind! Verdad! This is quite an adventure, yes?"
"For someone who sat behind a desk for thirty years, it's too much adventure!" She sighed. "It may snow. Daidaunkh is still too exposed. I need to get more straw."
Fidelity got up, hugging herself against the cold, and picked her way through the rocks until she came to a down-slope field of dry grass rippling in the moonlight. She pulled the tall grass apart, collecting it, and angled piles so the wind wouldn't blow most of it away. The clouds thickened as she worked, dimming the moonlight. She gathered the straw into a large armload and turned up-slope. Only a few steps toward the rocks she froze, then the ground seemed to open below her and she fell to one knee, dropping her straw.
"Who is Jamie?" a deep male voice behind a bright light inquired.
Fidelity barely realized a transmat had grabbed her. She had lost her balance but was still intact and properly reassembled. She was cold and tired. She rubbed her bare arms and shoulders for warmth as she rose from bended knee. Her augmented eyes filtered the light and brought the image of a dark Navy officer beyond the light beam into focus. She pulled herself to military attention, and saluted... Navy Commander Admiral Etrhnk!
"Admiral," she replied, "Jamie is the name of a child." She didn't care that her voice said other things as well. She didn’t feel like filtering all of the rediscovered nuances of meaning out of her voice, so that she could play at being a deathly-unemotional admiral.
Etrhnk came forward into the bright light, quite near her, breathtakingly close. She exhaled, trying to calm her tactical augments, and felt other internal devices stimulate her body and make the fatigue evaporate. She was never this close to Etrhnk before. She felt compelled to study his features, as if seeing him for the first time. He was tall and slightly lighter of skin than herself. His eyes brushed over her - he seemed to avoid looking directly at her - and she glimpsed some expression she couldn't analyze, still unexpected for its mystery.
"You're real," she said.
"I'm not an image, Admiral Demba."
He knelt down on one knee, startling her, and began gathering the spilled straw into a pile at her feet. She wondered at this action - his gathering of her dropped grass. It was almost as if it was a courtesy, and surely not a strange gesture of humility. She wondered why he was close enough to touch. The transmat node would have defensive armaments, of course, yet he was so close...
"What is the significance of this child?" he asked, implying he also knew something of Samson. "I watched you sleeping in the moonlight. It surprised me when you shouted out this word, this name. You continually surprise me, Admiral Demba."
She remained silent and at attention, looking down upon his bobbing head. Etrhnk continued to gather straw, now walking on his knees around her as he brushed and grasped at the straw, piling it before her. It was bizarre, or at least surreal, and offered her no useful insight into the Navy Commander's intent. Her instinct was to reveal as little of her own intentions as possible.
"No need to stand at attention, Admiral." The Navy Commander stood up and backed away from her.
She met his eyes finally and she didn't see what she would have expected. He was looking at her, not at a Navy admiral he needed to punish. She also saw something else: he wasn't pure Essiin, perhaps not Essiin at all. She should have wondered how she could be such an expert on physical heredity, but she spoke before giving it enough thought. "You're not truly Essiin, are you?"
"I will tell you who I am not, if you will tell me who you are not."
"I'm not who I think I am," she answered.
"I'm not who I am supposed to be. You aren't afraid of me, Fidelity Demba. You're the senior of all of us. Perhaps I should fear you. But none of that matters to you, I think. Jamie matters to you."
His knowledge of her daughter made her hesitate but there was nothing to be done about it. "I believe she is my daughter." It was almost delicious, telling the truth, even as fear soured the sweetness. She might not have revealed the fact, but it was as though maternal pride had betrayed her.
"Again you surprise me," Etrhnk stated factually.
Near enough to touch. Exposing his subtle flaws. Does he not believe me capable of critical analysis, or does he not care? Why would he not care - unless he intends to kill me soon? Or was there never any possibility that I could learn something of him? Why does he intrigue me?
"Do you have a purpose for what you're doing to me and to the three people with me?" she asked, almost demanded.
"Shall we trade information? Who do you think the boy Samson is?"
"He's the child of someone named Milly," she answered, hoping to dislodge some knowledge from the one person who should know everything.
"Milly? Who is Milly?" He responded with apparently sincere ignorance.
She was surprised, and also disappointed that he might be ignorant of what she thought was an extremely important element of Samson's mystery. "Perhaps more than one person," she answered, "but invisible, a voice in
the wilderness. I believe she wanted me to have Samson, to take care of him. What is your purpose with me?"
"To learn your purpose. What is your purpose?"
"I merely wanted a fine captain for my ship. The ship was an end in itself, perhaps escape."
He weighed her answer and seemed to accept its truth. "The boy has changed everything?" he surmised.
"Everything has changed," she answered with more emotion than she should have revealed. "I have changed. When I discover who I am, perhaps I'll finally know my purpose."
"Are you Ruby Reed?"
"I am not, but I probably was."
"You can sing?"
"Yes, and I don't know why or how. How did you learn of Ruby Reed?"
"You don't remember a piano player named Harry?"
"No, but I know the person who claims he was Harry. You have the Opera Master?"
"A very interesting person. Why would he be having similar memory problems?"
"I would like to know that also. He can't tell you?"
"Perhaps. Eventually."
She knew then that Pan was Etrhnk's prisoner. She found she had room in her concerns to care about Pan. She hardly had time to think about it, but Pan was… family. She knew him more than a century ago. That she remembered too little of him was an inverse measure of his importance. Memories were sacrificed, perhaps lost forever. Why?
Etrhnk paused, changed topic. "You shouldn't have taken Horss from me."
"You shouldn't have ignored my request for his services."
"That request - if you sent it - never reached my attention."
"Even if that were