The Road to Earth By Rachel Herndon Chapter Three: Starlight and Destiny Huge bodies of land drift in a boundless, misty void: Jupiter. It never gets very dark at night, on the surface of one of these floating continents. But it gets dark enough. Cloudy rivers hundreds of miles wide, in flat shades of red, white, and brown, pour eternally across the huge, milky sky. The atmosphere above your head, hundreds of miles thick, misdirects, traps, and sometimes amplifies ambient light into strange, faintly glowing bands. Sometimes, if you look in the right direction, if the clouds aren't too thick and the weather's agreeable, you can spot Saturn, and Amalthea, Jupiter's largest moon, and sometimes even Mars. It also happens extremely rarely- on one on night in a thousand- that dimmer streaks prevail across the sky, the gases high above shift and fade, and the stars glimmer through. Tonight was one of those nights; the stars above were only faint freckles on the sky's pale and shadowed face, but they were there. All over Jupiter, on the various bowl-shaped landmasses levitating in the haze, people looked up, in wonder and awe. Lovers took the opportunity to share a kiss under the stars. Mothers let their children stay up late and stare. And wise men noted the positions of the heavens' dancers, seeking wisdom and portents of future times. Limping out of the jungle, left shoulder and arm covered in blood, there was at least one person on Jupiter, specifically on the continent of [Jovian continent], who didn't give a damn. Her dark, overcast gaze was locked firmly on the ground, just ahead of her dragging feet. She didn't feel like looking up; she wasn't too confident about getting up again, if she happened to trip inopportunely. And she didn't feel like looking to the horizon either, for the distance she had left to walk was, considering the way she felt, beyond discouraging and verging on laughable. So she stared down, at the ground. Truth be told, Mira of the Kenzies hadn't searched the sky for stars in a long time. It was a foolish thing to do, really. In the wilds, when twilight fell, you had to keep alert to the things around you. Not get all moony-eyed about the sky. Even if she'd wanted to look up, her neck hurt a little too much to make the attempt. It didn't hurt as much as the deep scratches on her legs, though, or her left ankle, or her possibly sprained right wrist, or of course her shoulder. To put it lightly... it had *not* been a good hunt. Mira growled, lungs burning, and forced herself to keep walking through the twilight. She had walked all the way out of the Forsaken Reaches. It'd be stupid to collapse now: now that she could see the lights of the tiny settlement [Celtic word] Flats, there in the distance... She walked on, entering the tiny border town unnoticed, though there seemed to be people on the streets for some reason. Looking at the sky? Just a few, but it was odd. It had been known, after all, for all kinds of creatures to come out at night, and out here on the edge of the biggest, nastiest jungle on the continent. You couldn't be too careful about creatures... Mira laughed softly to herself as she walked, feeling sharp pangs spreading through her shoulder. The general store was closed, and the livery stable as well... the saloon, of course, was always open. Faint music spilled out into the dusky night, along with a crowd of happily drunken flun-herders, as Mira passed by. "Well, hello, sweetheart." said one, a pleasant-looking boy about Mira's age. He looked almost as unsteady as she felt. "Buy you a drink this fine starry evening?" "Baby, don't touch me." she said in a hoarse growl. "I'm poison." He laughed softly as she moved past him in the shadows, and she felt his hand brush her shoulder where the sleeve was shredded and sticky. She sighed, hearing him howl in pain. He jerked his hand back, a lot soberer than he'd been a minute ago. "What the hell!?" "Venom." she said over her shoulder, leaning on the stair-rail that led up the steps into the doctor's office. There was a faint light on inside. "Wash it off. Fast." Her ears buzzed and she leaned heavily against the doctor's door with a loud thump. There was a quiet shuffling noise inside, and then the door opened, shedding lamplight out onto the weary hunter. "Mira!" gasped a thin, blue-eyed man, hands reaching out to catch her. "Don't!" she hissed, holding up one arm at an angle. "I'm all over venom; you were right about what was killing those fluns, by the way... *Don't* touch me!" she hissed, planting a hand solidly in the middle of his shirt, using the contact to support herself as much as to push him away. "I'm going to be okay..." she coughed slightly, bracing herself against the doorframe and sliding to sitting position on the floor. "It's been hours since I got sprayed. There might've been an antidote or some kind of counter... something, in its..." She trailed off, eyes fluttering closed. Void, she was tired... "Its *what,* girl?" the colony doctor called from somewhere inside the office. She could hear him rummaging around. Doing something. "Talk to me!" "Some kind of antidote." she said wearily. "In its blood. I cut it, it bit my shoulder." Mira muttered. "And chewed on it for a while. But... Damn it, Parker!" she said, feeling his hands on her back and legs, scooping her up, carrying her through the small building and into the cramped washroom. "It's okay. I've got gloves." the doctor said, depositing her in his hammered- iron tub. She blinked at him wearily as he bent over her and began unbuttoning her jacket. "You'll have to throw that shirt away." she said distantly, noting the greenish- yellow stains across the fabric. "Won't be the first shirt of mine you've ruined." he said gruffly, using a gloved hand to smooth back Mira's sticky, tangled hair. "Just because you can't sew on a button..." Mira smiled sharply, then grimaced in pain as Parker pulled her tunic off, over her mangled shoulder. "All right, I can get my boots. Go get some water." He nodded, but bent down and undid the buckles for her before he left the room. Pulling two large buckets from just outside his back door, and filling them from his rain barrel, Dr. Gideon Parker hurried back inside, spilling dusty water along the wooden floors of his small practice. Obviously it hadn't rained anywhere his fearless hunter had been... Pushing open the washroom door with his foot, he almost dropped the buckets; Mira was lying still and silent; her boots on, her eyes closed. Just below her collarbone, her intricate, abstract tattoo of a wheeling eagle stood out in stark relief, contrasting deeply with the deathly pale skin surrounding it. Then, slowly, her chest lifted a millimeter or two as Mira drew in a slow breath. The eagle's wings rose and fell, and Parker breathed again. Pulling a few towels, some bandages, and a healing crystal from a crooked shelf, he set to work. * * * Mira woke late the next morning, wonderfully late. After a month in the muddy, sticky, Forsaken Reaches of [Jovian continent], after the encounter with the snake-beast and its sticky, burning venom- feeling the familiar smoothness of Parker's immaculately clean linen was pure heaven. Even her shoulder felt better, and its dull ache came nowhere near to ruining her mood. She smiled, wiggling her toes happily. Even they felt clean. Her clothes were nowhere to be seen; she frowned at that. *Parker knows I've worn that jacket till it won't stand patches- he better not have thrown it away because of a little venom.* Sliding out of bed, she did some quick stretches: everything that didn't hurt. That done, she strolled over to the doctor's wardrobe, pulling out one of his casual shirts and some baggy pants. She frowned at herself in Parker's mirror. He wasn't a big man, but his clothes practically swallowed her. She looked like a little girl playing dress-up, but in her father's clothes for some odd reason. Well, it couldn't be helped. She was hungry, and she was going downstairs. "Lover... what'd you do with my clothes?" she sang, loving the feel of the polished wood staircase under her feet as she came down. A strange noise came from the kitchen, and Mira headed that way, sniffing the air. A grin split her face, and she practically purred. "Doc, if that's eggs and sausage... your buttons are as good as sewn, I'll tell you." she smiled, pushing open the door, and froze. Looking back at her was a slender young woman with dark blue eyes, and long white hair pulled back in a ponytail. She stared at Mira in shock and anger for a moment, then bit her lip and turned back to the stove. Pulling a cast-iron skillet with sausage and eggs off the front burner, she set it on the counter gently. "Gideon is in his office." she said, obviously fighting to keep her voice calm. "I assumed he was working late and fell asleep. I didn't think to check upstairs. Foolish of me." Reaching for her hat, she pushed past Mira into the hall, long skirts swirling. A pair of matching suitcases, which Mira hadn't noticed, were set in the entryway. "Oh, God... you're Nyla!" Mira gasped. "Listen, I... you've got the wrong idea! I'm injured!" she protested, pulling the collar of Parker's shirt aside to expose the stained bandages around her shoulder. "I was hunting out in the Reaches, been there for months! My clothes were ruined, I'd lost a lot of blood... came in and passed out, actually!" she confessed, laughing nervously. "I didn't know the Doc was going to put me up in his bedroom..." "Oh, I..." Nyla hesitated. "You're just a patient, then?" "Heh, yeah, that's me. I'd shrug but it would hurt." Mira said with a nervous grin. "I see." said the tall woman. She looked completely composed... except for a single tear, running down her cheek. "Then how do you know who *I* am?" Mira swallowed, hearing Parker stir in his office. * * * "And that was it?" Kerridwen Kenzie winced, her emerald-green eyes sparkling sympathetically as Mira recounted Nyla's parting shot. "Yeah." Mira grimaced, pulling the last of her clothes out of her well-worn travelling bag, and stowing them in the plainly carved dresser shoved into the corner of the small room. "I tried 'Well, I've often been a patient here, Doc's told me all about you...' Which was true, of course. But Parker went with an alternate strategy: spilling his guts and throwing himself on her mercy. Men..." Mira said disgustedly. After Nyla had gone, after Mira and Parker had finished with words, she had stalked into his office, slamming the door behind her. He'd gone out somewhere, probably after *her...* Getting dressed in her own clothes, she'd slipped her jacket on over the bandages and stalked out, emphatically *not* going after him. She was in the livery stables, negotiating for a horse that would carry her to a dock where she could catch a ferry to New Atlantis, when she'd suddenly done a double take. Twisting her sore neck in the process, a twinge of pain shooting down her spine, she'd stared at her shoulder. The sleeve that had been shredded last night, and stained with venom and blood, had been washed and mended with painstaking, invisibly tiny stitches done in surgical thread. The mended tears zigged and sagged over the surface of the fabric, like the scars she'd still have on her body when everything else about her frontier doctor was long forgotten. At least the scars won't be the *only* reminder, she'd thought, sliding her right hand over the precious, well-worn fabric. She'd finished arranging for the horse, and set out into the Reaches for her trophies; and from there, taken a three days' ride to the port town of Dun Alcane. There, she caught the next ferry to New Atlantis, and the Kenzie employees' compound just outside the capital city. She didn't look back. "Well..." Kerridwen said, pushing back the loose sleeves of her forest-green blouse and picking up one of Mira's trophies; the skull of the three-eyed, venom-spraying tree snake. "You may still have a chance. I think all of Jupiter knows by now that Nyla Selwyn- of the North Atlantean Selwyns, no less- has returned home, her marriage to the Parkers' black sheep called off suddenly..." Mira sighed, lying back and resting her shoulder. "The sad part is, he really did love her." She closed her eyes. "I'm talking about *you,* Mira." Kerridwen said, setting down the skull. She gazed across at her friend; she knew Mira didn't really feel like talking, but it'd help her feel better. That was how it worked for Kerridwen, and she and Mira had always been more alike than different, despite their obvious dissimilarities at first glance. Crimson-tressed Kerridwen had always been strikingly tall, even for a Jovian woman. Lord Kenzie's daughters all took after their mother, cursed (as Kerridwen saw it) with doe-like eyes set in placid, angelic faces that belied their sharp minds. Kerridwen had been raised as a pretty but insubstantial heiress, and was generally perceived as such. Mira, on the other hand, had been a tiny girl and hadn't grown much. She was a month or two younger and a coin or two richer than Kerridwen, but the past four years, spent mostly in Jovian jungles, had molded empty hollows and sharp angles into her face. Her hair, black as a raven's wing, accentuated the paleness of her skin; her eyes, the same green as Kerridwen's, had a searing fire to them that Kerridwen's would never have. A fire that flashed in anger, and smoldered in calm times... Kerridwen had never seen it closer to disappearing entirely than at this moment. "Me? What about me? There wasn't really... People get lonely." Mira explained. Kerridwen thought she was trying a little too hard to sound convincing, but that might just have been her. "Parker... Parker has this thing. About rescuing people. That's why he set himself up in frontier medicine instead of joining the family practice on Mercury. I should have figured he'd fall for me right from the start- I was there almost every month with a different thing for him to fix. A little kitten with a broken paw." she said, grimacing. "Really I'm glad he... I'm glad *we* decided to break it off. I am. I'm glad he's given up his two-bit practice and gone back where he belongs. You know, I hope he *does* patch things up with that pasty-faced, pearl-buttons-on-her- gloves, university bitch!" The fire in Mira's eyes leaped, and Kerridwen bit her lip to avoid a smile. "Yeah. You sound hopeful." she observed coolly. "But look on the bright side. You've got no man... now you can have raw onions with *any* damn thing!" "Shut *up,* Kerridwen." Mira muttered. Kerridwen winced; obviously their old joke had hit a little too close to home. She frowned sympathetically, sliding off her bunk and kneeling next to Mira's. "Come on, now." she said, looking at Mira endearingly. "I'm just trying to cheer you up, you know." "I know. And I'll forgive you for it someday. Maybe." Mira smiled and opened her eyes. "Just... remind me not to go for men that are above my station any more, will you Kerri?" she asked honestly, sitting up with a weary sigh. "Don't go for men above your station any more-" Kerridwen replied quickly, standing, and then blinked. "Hey, uh... shareholder to shareholder... the doc didn't know you were, well-" "Stinking rich?" Mira said bitterly. Kerridwen gave her a look. "You make it sound like such a *bad* thing. Having money is fun, Mira." "Uh-huh, and how would *you* know? Sure, you're wealthy," Mira pointed out, "but are you having any *fun?*" "Well, not as such." Kerridwen blinked suddenly. "Goodness, that's depressing. You, me, and my sisters are the richest young ladies on this chunk of rock, and none of us are having any fun. If Papa could see us now, he'd be livid! 'Kerridwen Kenzie, d'you think I hustled all my life to see my daughters *work* for a living!?'" Mira laughed. "He was a good man..." "Few better." Kerridwen said honestly. "And he wouldn't have wanted you to mope about like this. Truly, Mira, I say buy your way out of this corporation, get yourself a fancy dress, and take that doctor! If you want him, that is." "Nah." Mira shook her head, and stood. Carefully, she picked up a few skulls and cradled them in her right arm. "A dress doesn't make a lady. To Parker, Nyla will always be the perfect woman, and I'll always be the little kitten with the broken paw. No... I'll just ask the Board for assignments away from [Jovian Continent] for the next few whiles. Avoid the memories. I'll soon forget... Oh, and, speaking of their high-and-mightiness, we'd better get going. Felton said he'd want my report sometime this morning. And I want a word with him, too." "Well, all right then." Kerridwen shrugged as they left the tiny room and walked through the curving stone halls of the Clan Kenzie compound. "Tell you what, after the meeting I'll put in a word for you with Gwen and Ellyn, so you'll have at least two on the Board who understand your reasons for avoiding [Name that Jovian Continent.]" "Yeah, and your sisters really love me." Mira sighed. "Well, hopefully I'll be away from the jungles anyway." she said, then changed the subject. "So how long now until you get the vote?" "Oh, just a few more months." Kerridwen smiled. "You're getting pretty close to eighteen too, you know. And you have enough shares to be on the Board, if you like." "Business, Kerridwen, is *so* not my specialty." Mira smiled. "You know that." "So are you planning a vacation?" Kerridwen asked, pursing her lips. "What?" Mira frowned. "Well, you said hopefully you'd be away from the jungles." Kerridwen said as she and Mira finally reached the end of the wide halls, and pushed open a door to leave the Clan compound. Emerging into the wide, open courtyard, which was blooming with a profusion of green, yellow and purple plant life native to Jupiter, they both blinked in the sun. "Where are you thinking of going? Someplace without dragons to slay, I imagine?" Kerridwen asked, gathering her skirts in her hands and pulling them up, out of the dust. "Come on, let's go sit by the frog-pond." Mira sighed, following her friend, and they settled themselves on a carved- stone bench. "Well, to be perfectly honest since I know you'd drag it out of me anyway, no, I don't want a vacation from dragonslaying. I want out of it completely." she said firmly. "Really, Kerri! I've been doing it for five years! Two apprenticed to Carmine and three on my own... Five *years,* spent with jungles and jabberwockies and... generally unpleasant things... I didn't sign up to be Mira the dragonslayer, protector of cattle! I wanted to be a *bounty* hunter. That's what I told Felton before I left. 'This is my last dragonslaying job,' I told him, 'or I'm taking my shares and leaving.' So there." "What?" Kerridwen turned around to stare at her friend. "So *that's* why he... But I didn't know you felt like that! Still felt like that, I mean... Mira, you *know* if my father, gods rest his soul, had set you up as apprentice to a *bounty* hunter when you first came to us, why, you'd be dead! Papa agreed with that friend of his who brought you here in the first place, the Navy man, what was his name..." "Wellesley." "That's right. Anyway, my father agreed with him, you had great potential- but still, you were only a little girl!" "Only a little girl who blew the Ebon Fang to hell." Mira said sulkily. Kerridwen flinched. "*Please* don't tell that story again..." "What 'that story?!' It's true!" Mira retorted, then heard a distant voice call her name. Looking over at the wide door to the council-room, she smiled nervously. "I'm being summoned by an accountant." She and Kerridwen shared a giggle. Across the courtyard, Felton tapped his foot, then gestured to Mira again. Slowly, almost languidly, Mira gathered her skulls and stood. "Well, I'm off to fight the uphill battle to justify my expenses and hazard pay. I may even make that grand, glorious bid for overtime... Wish me luck." "Return victorious!" Kerridwen laughed... but inside she was worried. An hour or two passed, and Kerridwen sat in the courtyard, ostensibly reading a book of poetry, but really watching the door to the council room with no small amount of apprehension. Felton was a careful man; not timid, but he never gave away anything he didn't have to. Sometimes, he puzzled even Kerridwen. The past month had been one of those times. And now, Kerridwen could see, Felton's enigmatic behavior had begun the day of Mira's departure for [Jovian Continent.] And he wasn't the only one. Both Felton and Kerridwen's eldest sister, Guenevere, had been unusually secretive, taking meetings with not only the Chief Constable of New Atlantis, but several important members of the Navy as well. When Kerridwen had asked, Guenevere had told her that they were merely social engagements, having nothing to do with the family business. Kerridwen knew this was a ridiculous lie, and Guenevere knew that she knew; and they both knew what she had really meant by it: you're not a Board member, none of your business. So now Mira was back, and the board meeting today had been closed to all but the Board itself and those like Mira making reports on concluded financial ventures... Supposedly, this was because Elly was to inform the Board on confidential reports from off-planet financial advisors, but what if it had something to do with Mira? Kerridwen knew Mira better than anyone, knew she didn't particularly like the bureaucratic part of her job, *knew* her report was likely to be a simple "It was killing cattle, so I hunted it down and killed it." It wouldn't take an hour in any case. She checked the position of the sun and blinked. Two hours? She sighed. Closing her book, she stood, and crossed to a path, walking slowly to the kitchen. When Kerridwen's mother was worried, she cooked. Actually, when she felt strongly about anything, she cooked. She cooked to relax, too, and then of course she was always the first to cook when someone else was hungry. Kerridwen was her mother's daughter, raised in a kitchen and raised to enjoy good food. When she was worried... she ate. She had just finished making herself a sandwich of cured meat, cracked-grain bread, and thick slices of the yellow vegetable known as Jovian cucumber, when she looked up, startled, and saw Mira slouching in the doorway. "Gods! You frightened me. So how did it-" "Just... don't even ask." Mira stared at Kerridwen. The fire in her eyes was back. "I'm going to eat, then I'm going to go pack." "You just... unpacked." said Kerridwen, setting her sandwich in front of Mira, then pouring her a cup of water from a pitcher on the table. "And your arm isn't even-" "My arm's fine. And this is yours..." Mira protested, staring at Kerridwen's sandwich. "Eat, eat." Kerridwen urged. "Go on. I insist." "Yes, Mother Kenzie." Mira muttered darkly, but ate. The sandwich was a generous one and took both hands; Mira managed, but her shoulder was still a bit stiff, and Kerridwen let her know she noticed with a sharp look. "Good. That was the last of the cucumber; now I have an excuse to eat cake." Kerridwen said, crossing into the pantry and cutting herself a generous slice of her mother's spicecake. "You *are* your mother!" Mira said through a mouthful of sandwich. Kerridwen wagged a finger at her. "Don't talk while you eat. Appreciate the food!" she said in a passable imitation of her mother's aristocratic tone. Mira rolled her eyes, and ate silently. Kerridwen joined her at the long table with a slice of cake and milk. Finishing half the sandwich, Mira licked her fingers and stared at Kerridwen. "You know, your sisters threatened me with everything under the sun if I spilled their plans, but I'm going to tell you anyway." She snorted. "What are they going to do, fire me...?" "Mira-" "They said, if you want to be a hero, if you want to bring in pirates, then we'll give you the opportunity." Mira said in a low tone. "They've worked it all out with the Navy, with the constabulary, everyone. They're sending me to Amalthea, undercover; they want me to infiltrate the [name] brother's gang." Kerridwen's eyes widened, and she went pale; Mira smiled tightly and continued. "And you know? I *finally* know what they were thinking, all these years. Three years ago, when Carmine died, I could have been apprenticced to a bounty hunter; I was old enough. But they didn't *trust* me! Even now, what they're doing is setting a thief to catch a thief. That's what they're thinking!" Mira covered her eyes with her hand. "Oh, Mira, no!" Kerridwen protested. "You being a Belter... Asteroidian girl had nothing to do with where you were assigned, or-" Mira cut her off. "Then why me? They're not sending a constable, or a Marine, someone *trained,* but they'll send *me!* A dragonslayer! They have such confidence in me, oh, it's inspiring." Mira said sarcastically, "With no special preparation, *Mira* can be *scum,* and no one will be able to tell the difference!" She pushed back her chair from the table angrily, shoving it out of her way and throwing her good arm up in frustration. Kerridwen stared down at her plate. "I don't know what to say." she finally said. "So many things could have happened to me..." Mira said wearily. She collapsed back into the chair, not bothering to push it back into position at the table. "I could've been a merchant's apprentice like my aunts wanted... I could've been a thief or a barmaid. I could have been new money, bought a pretty dress and married a Jovian lord... So many choices! Why do I get the feeling that all of them would have turned out the same?!" "What might have been is a path that leads nowhere, Mira." Kerridwen sighed. "If you don't want the job, seek elsewhere for whatever it is you're looking for. You're lucky, Mira!" she insisted. "You've got a choice. You don't *have* to spend your life doing things you don't want to." "No. I already told them I'd do it." Mira said flatly. "Justice... maybe I'm naïve, but it's what I've always *wanted.*" She paused, staring at the wall. "I just didn't want it this way." (end chapter three)