Missing

Chapter Seven

Note: To add a touch of levity to my usual grimdark fare, parts of this chapter are going to be very, very silly. It's possible you can tell that idol anime are a guilty pleasure of mine.

…..

Orthoclase, Steven and, once she'd regenerated, Ginger left the mess hall for a smaller office-type room as the Jaspers made their choice. The Disney pearls had regenerated as well, and were being judged on one of the tables under the close supervision of their Kunzite officer.

Steven was glad they had left the hall, because he couldn't bear watching the pearls get examined like cuts of meat in a butcher's shop any longer. It was bad enough when they were in gem form; once they could see their potential clients, and hear what was being said about them, it would be so much harder not to just scoop them all back up and run away with them.

"We'll get the singing one," Orthoclase assured him, mistaking his quiet for worry. "They're desperate enough to agree to lend her out temporarily in return for two more pearls. Not surprising, really. This is the most crowded barracks I've ever seen."

Steven nodded glumly, and Orthoclase's eyes narrowed. Even Ginger seemed to be paying attention, in a vague way.

"What's up, pebble? You crack your gem or something?" she probed, poking at Steven's forehead.

"No," he mumbled. "I'm just..."

He trailed off; how could he even explain? It seemed to be an accepted fact on Homeworld that pearls were to be bought, sold and traded as gems saw fit. How could Orthoclase even understand why he was upset?

But something shifted in her expression, and she sighed.

"You don't want me to give the pearls to these Jaspers, is that it?"

Swallowing, Steven nodded.

"Well, peb...what did you think I was going to do with them when we've got your pearl back?"

"I don't know," Steven shrugged. "I thought you'd bring them somewhere else..."

"I can't keep six pearls, pebble," she laughed, not unkindly. "I just about get away with keeping the remodels out of sight, and I can barely keep the one I own safe as it is. Having six pearls just means six more ways for me to get caught."

Steven could feel Ginger's eyes on him, distantly he wondered what she thought of all this.

"Listen," Orthoclase continued, kneeling down to look him in the eye. "Those pearls are impounded. That means no-one is coming back for them, their paperwork has been voided. That leaves them with two places to go; the black market or the processing plant. I don't think you'd be happy about them going to either of those places."

She was right. He didn't know what the processing plant was, but he knew it wasn't good.

"These Jaspers are pretty weird, but they seem like they treat their pearl okay. I know for a fact they've had her for a long time, and she still looks in good shape. This is the best place they can hope for in their situation. Understand?"

Well, once she'd put it that way...it didn't seem fair that only two of the pearls would get to stay.

…..

When they went back inside, the choice still had not been made. In fact, things had deteriorated badly and the Kunzite was trying (and failing) to maintain order.

The Jaspers had split off into factions, each supporting a different pearl, and they were all arguing loudly with each other. A group had even rallied around the pearl they already owned, seemingly so she wouldn't feel like she was being replaced.

"This one is clearly the better choice," Steven heard one Jasper shout over at Elsa's group. "She's got the longest hair, she matches our pearl the best!"

"That's stupid," one of Elsa's Jaspers retorted. "This one is BLUE! The colours match, that's way more important!"

"We should pick this one, because her colours are the opposite and that makes way more sense, you clod!"

"I think they forgot they get to pick two," Orthoclase whispered.

Steven couldn't see Thumbelina anywhere, and for a moment he panicked. But he eventually spotted her exactly where he couldn't have ever imagined her being; clutched in the giant hands of a Jasper who was loudly sobbing.

"This is... the cutest thing... I've ever seen," the Jasper gasped in between sobs. "I neeeeeed it!"

Thumbelina responded by patting the Jasper's head with a quiet 'there, there', which just made her cry even harder.

"This is never going to end," Orthoclase groaned. "We should go with plan B..."

But now Steven was determined to get at least two of these pearls a halfway decent home, and an idea struck him.

"We should get the pearls to perform," he suggested. "Then they can judge them on that. It might be easier."

"I'm willing to try anything as long as it's quick," Orthoclase muttered.

…..

The Kunzite took very little convincing. She even managed to set Steven up with a small backstage area so he could prepare the pearls for their performances. He took Ginger with him to aid the process; Orthoclase declined and went to get something called gallium smoke with Kunzite in the office.

Ginger suggested they check into the mainframe to pick up popular songs for the pearls. Before she'd put in that vital piece of advice, Steven's plan was to sing the entire Disney back catalogue for the pearls, hoping they'd make do without the backing tracks, right keys or context. Although he had spent a lot of time back at the workshop explaining why he had given them their particular names, he wasn't sure just how much they actually understood.

And he still kind of wanted Elsa to sing 'Let it Go.'

"They need base outfits," Ginger told him, flipping through some sort of digital holographic catalogue. "They can use their gems to project onto them temporarily."

"Do we have any money to do that?" he asked.

"The ones in this column are free," she told him, pointing to a list of very plain outfits.

Cinderella in particular needed cleaning up, because she'd been a mess ever since she was picked up and, as much as he wanted to help her, he hadn't wanted to make her feel bad about it. This was the perfect excuse. Of course, when he told her to pick something, she just looked at him blankly.

"Okay, I'll pick then..." he mumbled. "Uh, how about this one? It's got a scarf for your hair...and you could change it into something fancier at the end, I saw someone do that in a music video once and it was really cool..."

She nodded along as though she understood, but Steven had a sinking feeling she wasn't going to be picked.

Aurora was easy. She was already fancy, and according to Ginger she had only ever had two owners; the Larimar who had bought her brand new and the gem that stole her and then dumped her in an alleyway. Even in a very plain white sheath she looked expensive. She did listen closely when Steven told her about the blue and pink colour-change gown from the Sleeping Beauty movie, so he had high hopes for her.

He was worried Rapunzel's long hair would trip her up if she tried to dance too much, and he didn't want to pile it on top of her head in case it weighed her down, so Ginger tied it in a series of looped braids until it looked something like modern art. Her dress was ankle-length, sort of flowy. He figured she would do well, at the very least she was always nice to look at.

Ariel (he decided on Ariel in the end because she and Elsa didn't seem as close as they could have been) didn't really get the concept of mermaids, but she understood that some Lapis performers had a water-theme in their acts and vaguely wanted to do something similar. He was able to get a sea-green dress for her from the free section of the catalogue, with little fluffy bits on the hems that looked a bit like seafoam. What exactly she was going to do with that, he had no idea.

Thumbelina was the easiest. She looked cute in anything, but he played it up by styling her to look sort of Shirley-Temple-esque. If it was good enough for the most popular child actress of the 20th century, it was good enough for what was probably the tiniest pearl on Homeworld.

He was still debating over whether he should push 'Let it Go' on Elsa when he noticed Ginger and Elsa doing that moving-finger-thing that seemed to pass as talking between pearls.

"What's she saying?" he blurted out, and then cursed himself for his nosiness when they both turned owl-eyed stares at him.

"She is asking about Murder Pearl," Ginger replied after a slight hesitation.

"Oh," Steven laughed awkwardly. "What about Murder Pearl? Do you think she wants to take part? Probably not though, she's shattered a lot of Jaspers, right?"

"She has," Ginger agreed. "But if that is a reason not to take part, then Elsa should not take part."

"What? Why?" Steven spluttered.

"I have killed Jaspers too," Elsa told him, smiling a faint smile.

A cold trickle of sweat ran down Steven's spine.

"That is not entirely correct," Ginger said. "She did not kill them herself. She drove them to madness and they often died in the aftermath."

"These Jaspers are not the same as my old owners," Elsa said, still holding that faint smile in place. "I see no reason to end their lives."

Steven couldn't find a single way to respond. He just croaked out some nonsense word or two and left them to go put Aurora into position.

He never did get to introduce Elsa to 'Let it Go.'

…..

Aurora's performance was perfect. Her voice, though quiet, was classically beautiful, her dancing was effortlessly elegant and using her gem to project swirling patterns of pink and blue on her trailing skirts was a huge hit with the crowd.

Cinderella started out with a very simple but heartfelt song about dreams (or something) but won the crowd over when at the halfway point she tore the scarf from her head and tossed it into the crowd and tied her hair up in an elegant knot with a single gesture. Her dress transformed (by way of projecting a beam of light) into a glittering ballgown and she curtseyed to thunderous applause.

Ariel had found a source of water somewhere, and along with her barefoot dancing managed to keep a number of droplets in the air to sparkle under the lights. Her dance was more complex than the others, her song relatively plain, but it was impressive to watch and the crowd lapped it up.

Rapunzel used her looped hair to great effect, treating the loops like a series of hula hoops she could flip, expand and retract at will. As complicated as the tricks were, she never missed a beat with her song, which had alternately soaring high and sweeping low notes to match the movements she made with her body and her hair.

Thumbelina didn't have to work hard; her biggest fan in the audience started sobbing again as soon as she began her song. As far as Steven could tell, it was some sort of gem commercial for a product but Thumbelina might has well have been singing high opera for the reaction it got. When she spun and winked at her superfan, the Jasper actually screamed with delight.

That only left Elsa, and it left Steven with the feeling that he didn't want them to pick her. These Jaspers seemed okay, as far as Jaspers went, and if Elsa was a danger to them...

The song Elsa picked hushed the crowd. It was a strange choice, a sort of melodic mourning tune. She didn't even dance, she just stood in the centre of the stage to sing. She moved her arms gently. No projections, no special lighting, just her voice.

For some reason, it made Steven shiver.

When she finished, the audience clapped as loudly for her as they had for the others.

…..

"It was a good effort, pebble," Orthoclase drawled. "But it might have made things worse, just sayin'."

The arguments were twice as loud now. All of the factions had reformed, but with different motivations. The Aurora and Elsa factions had actually devolved into violence, brawling in the corner of the room in front of their bemused respective pearls.

The Thumbelina superfan was still sobbing but was now also rocking on the spot.

"This is going to take forever to sort out," the Kunzite moaned.

"Okay, okay, fine," Orthoclase growled. "Everyone, for Core's sake SHUT UP! I have an announcement!"

The Jaspers stopped their brawling and scrapping and hovered over their respective pearl choices, waiting with bated breath.

"Obviously we can't let you make a decision this important," Orthoclase drawled, not even bothering to hide her irritation. "So we'll make a deal. At some point soon I may need some muscle in my corner, and when that time comes I'll be calling in a favour. No matter what it is, you drop what you're doing and come help me, got it?"

The Jaspers nodded, mumbling to each other.

"And in return you get all six pearls."

The Jaspers howled, they couldn't believe their luck. The Thumbelina superfan looked ready to have a mental breakdown.

"That's after I complete my project. So I'm going to have to take your pearl with me now."

…..

The Jaspers had been subdued when they left, but they got all six Disney pearls out plus the singing pearl from the barracks. That made nine pearls altogether.

Steven couldn't shake the feeling that they were still going far too slow. The memory of that pulsing black stuff with the red veins invading Pearl's...wherever that was, it kept coming back to him.

They had forty-one pearls left to find.

Orthoclase had located a new workshop, somewhere on the outskirts just opposite the lines of the barracks buildings. This workshop had a rest pod installed, and Orthoclase told him he was free to use it.

"Remember my plan B?" she said as they set up her equipment.

"Sort of," Steven answered.

"There's another pearl that sings on a regular basis by demand," she said. "It won't be as easy getting her owner to lend her to me though. I remodeled her a while back, she's in high demand. We're going to see her next cycle."

With that little tidbit said, Orthoclase left the workshop again, ostensibly to get some more supplies. Steven wondered if she ever rested, or was she always in this state of constant motion?

He took the opportunity to put his head down in the rest pod. He must have slept for at least a few hours, because it was dark when he woke. A noise had alerted him, something familiar. He cracked open the dome of the pod and peered out into the dimly lit room.

It was Ginger.

Doubled over on the couch, she was crying so hard she seemed barely able to breathe. Her face was a wretched mask of misery. Murder Pearl sat beside her in silence, not doing anything but holding her hand.

It was a terrible thing to see; he had never seen any real emotion on Ginger's face before, not even when she was attacked. He'd at least partially convinced himself she didn't feel anything. And he knew she had waited until she thought he couldn't hear her before she let herself cry.

Steven couldn't even begin to imagine what was making her cry like that. But if he had to imagine something, he imagined what would make him cry if he'd been a pearl instead of just Steven.

What wouldn't I cry about?