Chapter 35. The Winnowing
"A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine!" Revelations 6:6
Unbeknownst to Aster, she was being watched as she inspected the truck by Daniel Wolfkiller and General Erick Monroe, who stood in the shadows at the far end of the loading dock area.
The general shook his head. "She seems awfully interested in that truck. And awfully keen on getting one in the first place. I wish I knew why. Any chance of picking the lock?"
The large horsemaster shook his head. "Pre-War padlock? Not a chance. Does it really matter, anyway?"
"No." The general decided. Whatever Aster had in her truck would be discovered at some point, and could be dealt with then. She was only one person. Brilliant, but still only one person. A bullet or a knife to the throat would stop her as easily as anyone else. Unless she buried and hid whatever it was forever, in which case it really didn't matter.
There was a moment's silence, and the General's nostrils flared as he exhaled impatiently. "Do you know that she snarls in her sleep? What the fuck is wrong with her?"
"War." Wolfkiller said briefly. Seeing that the General didn't understand, he elaborated. "War is hell. And it's worse hell on women. Oh, most of the other women in the Army will get over it. They had what, one night of fighting, a few months of dealing with you, and it wasn't you anywhere near as bad as you could be, though they don't know that. Once we get where we're going... assuming we make it there, they'll settle down, have kids. Tell stories about their time in the Army of Darkness over fires late at night.
"But her..." Wolfkiller shook his head. "She lived through years of hell. Lived through a monster far worse than you. Hard as that might be for most people to believe. Starting when she was practically just a girl. She's broken goods. She won't get better. She'll be lucky if she doesn't get worse, and if snarling in her sleep is the worst that she does. I doubt it will be."
"Are you sorry you used her the way you did?"
"No." Wolfkiller said bluntly. There was no point in regretting what was necessary, regardless of how morally repugnant it was. And that it had been necessary he had no doubt. Nobody else but Aster, young as she had been, innocent as she had been, had been both smart enough and in the right position to provide intelligence on the Maestro and the palace. And the truly awful thing was that it had paid off. Aster's working knowledge of the interior of the palace was what had enabled her to Make The Darkness. She'd saved countless lives. Without her, they might have won, but it would have been far more costly. Perhaps costly enough that even though they might have won the night, they would ultimately have lost. It was likely they would have to fight, or at least intimidate their way into creating a place for themselves in Wisconsin - The Destination - he reminded himself. But regardless of what name you called the place by, the greater their numbers, the greater a chance of gaining a place to live.
His lip twitched slightly. It had been long years since he actually cried. He doubted he would ever do so again. Aster was not the only broken one, nor was the way she was broken the only way of being broken. "Don't lie to her again." He told General Monroe.
This surprised the General. "I never LIED to her!"
"You didn't mean to, but..." The Horsemaster did not have Aster's extensive vocabulary and struggled to find words. "You implied that she was part of this Army. Or could be. She isn't. She can't be."
"Of course she is. She's a hero. Better than that, a legend. I've been encouraging the stories about her, as I'm sure you know. Every Army needs not only a leader, and an enemy, but a legend. A symbol. Something to inspire the soldiers, that they can fight FOR as well as against."
"Oh, she's that." Daniel agreed. "A great legend. Though not nearly as impressive as the stories about her, if you get to know her in person. But that's just it. A legend can't be a 'part of things'. It's why she fills the role so well. Because ASTER can't be a 'part of things'. She's not capable of it. The things going on in her head... the sheer speed at which she thinks...she's so far beyond almost everyone else, that she can't be a 'part of the group'. No matter how much she might want to, how much she might sometimes enjoy the company of other people. You might as well propose that I be a 'part' of my herd of horses, or that you be a 'part' of your pack of hounds. We might like them, enjoy being with them, maybe even love one or two of them. But we're too far above them to be a 'part' of their group."
"You sound like you've thought about it a long time." The General observed.
"I have. I've had years to think about it, and watch her. She's like a finely bred Arabian horse. Fast... and delicate. I prefer Percherons, myself. And there's something else I've noticed about her, something that ought to be worrying you far more than whatever the hell she might have in her truck."
That got General Monroe's full attention. He spun to face the taller man. "What's that?"
"Just this," Wolfkiller pointed towards Aster, who had apparently satisfied herself about the condition of her truck, and was leaving. "The Army thinks she's a brave hero, but she's not. Not brave, I mean. She's broken goods, like I said before, and afraid of almost everything. She was terrified, when she was learning to drive the truck. But she did it anyways. She's scared of everything she does, and she does it anyways. And that should really worry you."
"So, she faces fear and danger. That's what a soldier should do. Be brave."
The horsemaster broke military discipline and seized the General's shoulder. "YOU"RE not listening! I've seen bravery, and THIS isn't it. Not even close. She's NOT brave. She's terrified. She didn't learn to drive the truck, despite being afraid, because she was brave. She didn't learn how to seduce men, despite being afraid, because she was brave. She didn't climb the rope, despite being afraid, because she was brave. She didn't kill those two guards, despite being afraid, because she was brave. The one brave thing she did do, was stopping that mass rape last night, and I don't think she did that because she was brave, either. Do you understand that? Are you worried yet? Because you should be."
General Monroe thought for a moment. thinking about what he had seen Aster do, how she had performed in the Army. He gruffly brushed the large horsemaster's hand off his shoulders. "First of all, don't ever lay hands on me again, or I'll have you whipped. Secondly... perhaps you're right. She's not brave. I'll acknowledge that. But then, what's her motivation?
Daniel Wolfkiller's lip twisted with disdain. For Aster. For himself. For his commanding officer's obtuseness.
"Fear." He said bluntly. "She did what she did, because she was afraid."
"That doesn't make sense, and I don't see why it should worry me, regardless." All that made was Aster being one more weak, scared woman, in the General's book. Nothing new to see in that.
Daniel wanted to grab the general by the shoulder and bodily shake sense into him, but refrained. Instead, he just shook his head. "Oh, don't you see, you damned fool? If she is afraid, and risks death regardless... it's because she's afraid of something else MORE. More than she's afraid of death. I don't know what it is, but if it's worse than death, then just maybe you ought to be a little bit worried about what it MIGHT be? Hmm?"
General Monroe pursed his lips. He could think of a few things that fell into that category. None of which seemed to explain the degree of fear that his rebellious officer attributed to the Zookeeping bitch. He finally shook his head. "Maybe we should ask her?" He suggested.
Wolfkiller shook his head. "I don't think that would help. If she wanted us to know, whatever it was, she would have told us already. She's a loudmouthed know-it-all. Likes to show off what she knows. If she hasn't told us, it's because she doesn't want us to know. And that worries me most of all. What the hell could be that horrible, that frightening to her, that she's afraid to even let us know about it?"
"Why would it make any difference to her? How would our knowing possibly make... whatever it is... any worse?"
The horsemaster smiled thinly. "Why didn't you tell your two kids you had cancer, when you first found out? Why'd you wait a couple of years?"
"They were young. I didn't want to..." Realization dawned, and General Monroe's eyes opened widely. "Oh... what the hell could be that bad? I mean, she knows what I am. She saw me execute that traitor, even though he didn't have much choice. She knows I've killed and tortured people. Has to guess that I'm a rapist. She knows I'm dying. That alone doesn't leave much to be afraid of any more. And she still thinks there's something I'd be frightened of?"
"She spends an awful lot of time being right." Daniel pointed out. "Pisses everyone else off in the process, but she's still right. It's why she survived, delicate as she is, and why I used her the way I did. So you tell me - what are the chances of her knowing something so bad that she thinks it would frighten even a dying, ruthless bastard like you? Let alone the rest of us."
"I'll make her tell me." The general's face hardened. "Bitch ruined things for me, anyways. I wanted an empire for my children. I was actually half hoping she'd die trying to pull those fuses. Or afterwards. I think you know that. Would have solved a lot of problems. Instead... she finds a way to live. And now, by being a conscience for everyone else she's given me what... a fucking Republic?"
Just then, there was a loud crash. A barrel of dried fruit had fallen off one of the pallets that was being loaded. The men loading the trucks swore loudly for a moment, then simply pushed the mess out of the way. One man grabbed a handful and stuffed it in his pocket, but the rest was left to litter the floor. The forklifts rolled easily over the chunks of dried fruit. Apples by the looks of it. There was no time to clean. Or need to. If one single barrel would make the difference between life and death for them, they were already doomed.
Once the commotion over the minor accident died down, Daniel turned his attention back to the general. "Yeah, you could make her tell you. People can only stand so much pain. But you better think about it. She's the One Who Made The Darkness. She saved the lives of a lot of people in the Army. More than that. She saved their souls with her little stunt, pointing a gun at a group of would be rapists. You want your army to mutiny? Go right ahead and put her on a torture rack. Then we all die.
"Besides, think about what I told you. She's insane, certainly, but she spends an awful lot of time being right. Stopping those rapists... insane, but she was right. Though I know you don't like it. Bastard that you are. But think about it. Your children can still rule a Republic. They'll just have to try harder to deserve it. And she has agreed to help educate them, and knowing her, she'll keep her word. And if they don't deserve it... well, kings get assassinated. In a Republic, you just lose office, but you get to live. Your children get to live. You'll have grandchildren, even if you never meet them, and even if they don't rule. They'll live. So what if she's right about this? Right not to tell us whatever she knows. What if it is that frightening, that we're better off NOT knowing?"
Monroe considered that. Life was better than death. And if his children or grandchildren didn't rule... if they lived, someday ONE of his descendants would rule something. And he would be remembered. He'd taken steps to ensure that.
"Fine." He spat on the floor. "Maybe we're better off not knowing. But you forget, I don't have much to lose..."
He pointed at his side, where the cancer was eating away somewhere inside him. "My time is getting very short. I will hear what she knows, before the end. If you're right, I won't share it with anyone else. But I need to know it, and more than that... I need to know if she is right. Right not to tell anyone, I mean. If she is... then there's one more thing I have to do, before the end."
When Aster got back to the impromtu barracks, she was pleased to see that Zack and Maria had obeyed her instructions about eating very slowly, and were not quite done with their food yet.
"Good!" She praised them. "You can each have a small handful of raisins for desert."
She went up to the long table, got two small bowls, and put a few spoonfuls of raisins in each one. Dried fruit was nutritious, because it was so concentrated. There were cakes and cookies as well, but the last thing in the world two victims of starvation needed were empty calories. Although Aster couldn't resist grabbing one sugar cookie for herself, and munching on it as she brought the two bowls of raisins back to the children. She thought she detected a hint of honey in it. A luxury. The Maestro had beehives and gardens of flowers to provide them with nectar, but in most other places in Dystopia, plants simply did not grow well enough to sustain honey bees. Fruits were the only sweets that most of the citizens of Dystopia ever tasted, and then only if they were fairly well off, the way Aster had been growing up in the Zoo. Meat wasn't that common either. Most of the people in Dystopia lived mainly on grains. Not a good diet, it stunted their growth and shortened their lifespan. The smart ones supplemented their diet by eating insects, which existed in fair numbers. Perhaps in ... The Destination... things would be different.
Just then, there was a commotion at one end of the room. Several soldiers from the Army had brought the Betties back down from their chambers where they had been locked up, and there was some sort of screaming going on.
What the FUCK?! Aster thought. Is someone trying to pull this shit again?
She thought she had put an end to any thoughts of gang rape the previous day. Now it seemed that someone had decided to give it another try. And in front of children, no less. HER children. This was simply beyond the pale. Did people NOT listen?!
"Excuse me." Aster said to Zack and Maria. "I have to go see what the hell is going on. Stay here."
She stood up, unsnapped the thumb break on the holster to her Taurus gun, and stomped angrily to the source of the disturbance.
Upon getting within a few feet of the sobbing, screaming Betties, however, Aster discovered that she had been mistaken in her assumption. What was going on was not a second attempt at a gang rape (in express defiance of her wishes).
It was, rather, robbery.
Since the Army had gotten up at dawn that day, the Palace had been systematically looted of anything that was either useful for survival, with anything NOT useful being destroyed. The exception was anything that was both small and valuable. Jewels and gold had been grabbed (Aster had done quite a bit of that herself the previous night), pried off setting in walls, and piled into barrels, crates, sacks, or any other containers that would let them bring them along. Apparently it had occurred to someone that the Betties wore a lot of expensive jewelry, and they had been herded downstairs, and were now being systematically stripped of it, over their objections. This left most of them naked, since their belts, buttons, clasps, and other ornamentation on their clothing were made of gold and set with jewels.
Aster did not much like the Betties. She might once have been one of them, but they had not been very nice to her, and had been downright nasty to her after she killed one of them. Patricia. Though she had had very little choice, and doing otherwise would have not saved the other woman's life for more than an hour or so and would have simply gotten Aster killed herself. So she had very little sympathy for their screaming at merely being naked. Hell, it didn't even hurt, which was far more than you could say for being raped by the Maestro.
Still... she had once been one of them. She would give them a chance. If they were worthy ... smart enough... to take it. And it would benefit the Army as well. More numbers meant more fighters. And more genetic variety for their Seed Corn.
"Stop that for just a moment." She told the man who seemed to be in charge of looting the gold and jewel ornamentation off the Betties. He nodded. Aster was a Hero, and waiting a few minutes before getting the jewels was not too much for him to do for her.
The Betties began screaming and sobbing louder than ever. A few of them recognized Aster, despite the fact that she now wore the practical black, bat-like uniform of the Army of Darkness rather than the green, revealing clothes of a Betty. They began moaning that 'The Murderering Bitch' had now shown up and was going to kill them all. Or rape them (as if she had somehow grown the anatomy necessary to do that). Or something. Most of it made little sense.
Aster drew in her breath, and imagined for a moment that she was General Erick Monroe. Summoning the best imitation of a Command Voice that she could manage in her mezzo-soprano voice, she gave an order:
"QUIET!"
Stunned into silence, the Betties obeyed, gaping at her like stupid looking fish. Aster continued. "Now, listen to me. You aren't going to be raped or murdered. At least not by us. However, we ARE going to have all the gold and jewelry you are wearing. One way or another. But I will make you an offer. If any of you will give it to us willingly, then we'll get you out of here. You can join our Army. We'll give you new clothes. You can come with us to the place we're going. A new place to live, far away from here."
The Betties seemed stunned by this. One of them said, in a little girl sounding whisper: "Where are you going?"
Aster shook her head. "I can't tell you that. Far away from here, that's all I can say."
For some reason, the Betties looked very afraid of even the existence of what Aster offered them. How it could possibly be worse than the injuries inflicted every time the Maestro had sex with one of them was unclear to Aster. But apparently they thought it was worse. A few of them piped up with objections.
"The Maestro is going to find you and kill you!"
"He'll kill us if we betray him and go with you!"
And worst of all:
"I like my pretty jewelry. I never had nothing when I was growing up, and now I have treasures! The Maestro will give me more, even if you take these. You won't, you'll just keep all the nice, pretty things for yourselves!"
Aster shook her head. She had done what her conscience drove her to do. She had tried to give them a chance. The same chance she had been given, and had taken. Freedom at the cost of everything. She had left the palace with nothing. Nothing. She had been buck naked. Not that that really bothered her much, any more. An animal fleeing from a trap. Perhaps it had been the animal-ness that saved her. Had it really been only a few months ago?
But you couldn't free someone who didn't want to be free. It was impossible, and she wasn't going to waste time or risk herself or anyone else in the Army, or Zack and Maria by trying. And what did they expect, if they stayed here, but for things to go from bad to worse? The Maestro was a fucking CANNIBAL for God's sake. And if Aster was right, there was far worse than that coming from him. Someday. Too soon.
But she didn't like thinking of that. Even though she had to, if she was going to find a way to stop it.
Her lips parted slightly in annoyance at the Bettie's stupidity, she spread her hands helplessly, and turned back to the man who had been leading the group robbing the Maestro's slaves of their valuable chains.
Though the real chains couldn't be taken. The ones in their heads.
"Take what you want." She told him bluntly. "Just don't rape them. Give them what's left of their clothes back when you're done, since they want them so badly. Then lock them back up where you found them. It's what they want."
"Wait!" One of the Betties, a woman with dark eyes and glossy black hair suddenly spoke up. "I... I want to get out of here. He keeps hurting us. And things are getting bad. I... I'm scared. I want to go with you."
"Bitch!"
"Traitor!"
"The Maestro will kill you for this!"
Other jeers came from the rest of the Betties, but they silenced at an angry glare from Aster. She supposed she was a frightening sight. She had been small for her age when she had first been brought to the palace, at age 14, and the other Betties had gotten used to thinking of her as small. Even though she had grown like a weed during the time she had been there. By now, she had 6 inches and (thanks to the Army training) about 50 lbs of muscle on most of them. The months she had been gone, combined with the dark Army uniform she was wearing had served to erase their assumption of her smallness. Plus she had a gun. She didn't know what they thought of that, in their experience, only the male guards of the Palace had guns. Not women. The Maestro, of course, had no need of weapons. He was a weapon.
Aster put her right hand on her gun, a deliberate gesture to intimidate the rude Betties, and held out her left hand to the one that had spoken up. She didn't recognize her. Perhaps she was new, enslaved after Aster had left. Or perhaps Aster had forgotten her. She hadn't paid all that much attention to most of the other Betties during her years as a slave, most of them were nothing but an interchangeable blur to her, and she didn't really want to remember most of what had happened in the palace, anyways.
"What's your name?"
The woman looked around nervously. "Betty... Betty..."
Aster lifted her right hand from the butt of her gun and slashed it through the air, cutting her off. "Your real name. Not the one he makes you use."
The woman thought for a moment, as if she had forgotten her real name, the way Aster had. She bit her lip, concentrating. "Sabarah. Sabarah Rose."
"Will you give us all your jewelry? For the Army?
"Yes." Her lips trembled. She stripped out of a sheer blouse and loincloth that didn't conceal much anyways. Shaking, she plucked gold beads off them, handed them over, then took off her necklace, earrings, and belt, and handed them over as well. She tried pulling the gold and diamond buckles off her high heeled sandals, but didn't have the strength to detach them from the leather strapping, so after a moment gave up and simply handed the shoes over. Everything she gave was tossed with snickers into the bucket with the rest of the jewelry the Army had been stealing off the women. The rude laughter made Aster look up. She noticed a few of the men looking Sabarah up and down with lewd expressions, and snorted at them.
"What are you? Fifteen? You act like you've never seen a woman naked before. What's she's doing is very brave. You have no idea how brave. Do you HAVE to make it harder for her by looking?"
The men looked chagrined at this, and turned their backs. Aster put her arm around the Betty's... no... Sabarah's shoulder's and drew her away from the rest of the Betties. She snatched a frayed, green blanket off one of the nearest cots, drew out her small, red pre-war knife, and cut a hole in the center. She handed it to Sabarah, who took it with a confused look.
"Poncho." Aster explained. She lifted it up and drew Sabarah's head through the hole she had made. The woman looked small and lost in the oversized garment. "If you can find a rope or something, you can belt it around your waist. Until we can get you a real Army uniform."
Sabarah nodded shyly, and one of the men who was robbing the Betties actually took off his own belt and handed it to her, muttering something about wanting it back when she was done with it. She used it to fasten the poncho around her waist, making her look rather like a small child in an oversized raincoat. A shoeless child. Well, at least the Army had plenty of extra boots to fit adults. She wouldn't be shoeless for long. In the meantime, it wouldn't do for her to walk around too much.
"Sit on one of the cots." Aster told her. "There's a lot of sharp stuff on the floor, so you don't want to walk around until we get you boots."
"Take a pair off one of the fucking dead enemy." suggested one of the nearby soldiers. "Too big for her, but she can manage. Stuff the toes with rags, if need be."
"Good idea." Aster nodded, giving credit where credit was due. "Where are they?"
"Out on the street, in front of the Palace, I guess." The man shrugged. "Clearing out the dead was one of the first things we did after we won. Ours and their's. Didn't want 'em in here, where we're eatin' and sleepin', and where's there's kids, and ... well... you know."
"Yeah, I know." The soldiers in the Army of Darkness might have been dissuaded from their idea of raping the Betties by Aster's intervention, but this was a well integrated Army. General Monroe had needed and used ANYONE who could use a weapon, and had no regard for gender or any age over 12. Plenty of the soldiers had... worked off stress... with eachother during the past day or so, and if they didn't bother going that far away, everyone else simply ignored the sounds of what was going on. It was none of their business, and it had been made clear by General Monroe that anything anyone in his Army did, unless it was contradictory to his orders, or somehow interfered with the Army, was damn well none of anyone else's business, he had no time to deal with childish whining or morale destroying fighting about other people's personal choices, and anyone who thought it WAS their business would be quickly taught otherwise by the business end of a whip.
Aster left the improvised barracks once more, and went out the front of the Palace. It looked... different... than it had at night. Or even different than it ever had during the day. Cleaner, somehow, despite the numerous dead bodies piled up like cordwood. The enemy bodies, anyways. Their own dead were laid out respectfully... at least as respectfully as time allowed for, in neat rows, on blankets, which had been folded to cover their bodies up to the navel as well. Beneath them, Aster saw, were oversized pallets such as the one her coffin had been on.
The presence of the pallets was... odd. Aster could understand keeping their own dead separate from the hated enemy, but why lay them out in like goods?
She thought for a moment. Then understood. The bodies were goods. Like everything else they were taking. Something they were going to need to aid in their escape. She smiled slightly. She belonged to a smart Army. Good. There was a stink in the air. Ashes. Burned flesh. Blood. Urine. Feces. Some of the bodies had been disemboweled, and even those that hadn't... well death was not an aesthetic process. The bowels and bladder generally emptied. In the absence of the time a mortician usually spent cleaning a body, the blankets drawn waist high over the Army's dead, covered the results of this, but no such dignity had been offered to the dead enemy. And blankets couldn't conceal the smell, regardless. Aster ignored it, she was used to it from animals she had hunted. Looking around for someone to ask about where she might get boots, she saw Trask, the man who had made the sketch of the Maestro for her, walking slowly down the rows of their own dead with one of the pre-war cameras that General Monroe had confiscated. Every few steps, he would stop and snap a picture. Then the film ran out, he rewound it carefully, and Aster took the chance to ask him:
"How come you're taking pictures of all our dead?"
Trask looked up. "General Monroe's orders..."
He thought for a moment. "Your idea, actually, I think. So they can be remembered. Maybe. I don't have time to sketch them all. But I can do this. Don't know if we'll ever be able to develop it. But there's a chance. Chance for their faces to be remembered. Even if it's a hundred years before our great, great grandkids can develop the film. Better than nothing, no chance, I guess."
A few of the corpses didn't have faces. Or even much of a head. Direct hit by an enemy bullet. Those had one corner of a blanket pulled over whatever was left of them above the neck, and their hands were folded over their chest. The hands were the most intimate part of a human being, after their face. Or their genitals, but that would have been obscene and disrespectful.
Well, Aster wasn't going to rob the Army's own dead. She turned to the heaped pile of enemy dead. But they had been stripped naked. Their boots were gone.
"I need a pair of boots." She told Trask, gesturing towards the nude bodies. "As small as possible, to fit a woman who doesn't have anything for her feet. Do you know what happened to them all?"
"Back there." Trask pointed several feet behind and to the left of the enemy dead, where there were several large crates stacked on pallets. Aster saw a few edges of clothing hanging out of a few of them."They got stripped down about an hour ago. Goods to bring with us. Along with our own dead, I suppose. Take what you want, nobody'll care."
Aster nodded. She walked well around the mangled bodies, which were starting to attract a few flies, looked in the crate, and selected a fairly small pair of boots tied that was near the top. She also grabbed two socks that didn't match, stuffed them inside one of the boots and headed back into the palace.
Unbeknownst to Aster, while she had been busy scavenging a pair of boots from what had been looted from the enemy dead, and conversing with the artist, Trask, someone had reported her recent actions to General Monroe, who had left the loading dock and been starting breakfast with his two children, Evan and Gina, in a separate room from where the common soldiers ate. The bald commanding officer listened to what one of his lieutenants told him with a scowl on his face, then shook his head as if he either didn't understand or didn't believe what he had been told.
"Tell me that again?" He said. " The Zookeeping bitch did WHAT?!"
"Just what I told you, General Monroe." He described again what Aster had done. "You don't believe she did it?"
"Oh, I believe it." Monroe sighed, then scowled. He pushed his plate of eggs, raisins, and thinly sliced ham away. "It's exactly her sort of nuttiness. Now, I get to clean up the shit."
He got to his feet, winced at the pain from his cancer and wounded arm, then smiled. "Well, maybe things are going my way after all. We'll see. Where is she?"
"Out in front. Getting some boots from the enemy dead. For that woman I told you about. Should be back soon."
"Right." The general had unbuttoned the top of his shirt to be more comfortable as he ate. Now he re buttoned it. Wincing from his injuries, he made his way over to a particular suitcase, and rummaged through it until he found what he was looking for.
A whip.
Monroe coiled the whip neatly, then pointed at his two children and spoke in something that was not quite as harsh as his command voice. "Evan, Gina. I want you to come with me. Keep quiet and just watch. This is something you need to know about. Not sure how it's going to go, but you need to know about it, and I'll talk to you about how it goes later. Understand?"
Evan nodded, but Gina looked a little confused. "What did she do wrong? I don't understand. I thought she was a Hero. And was going to be our teacher. One of them, I mean."
"She is. Both. Probably. But right now she needs to be disciplined. You'll understand why after I talk to her."
As General Monroe was stomping towards the impromptu barracks where the rest of the troops were staying, Aster was re-entering the palace with her boots. She paused for a moment to watch a group of teen-aged Army soldiers, only a few years younger than she was, in the process of committing systematic vandalism. Some of them were in a bathroom, pouring concrete down the toilets and drains, faucets had been smashed off, causing water to gush out and start flooding the area.. Others had smashed through a wall with a sledgehammer and were cutting wires with several pairs of insulated wire cutters. There was some shouting, and some younger girls came around the corner with wooden chairs, which were smashed to bits with the sledge hammers. General Monroe's orders, no doubt. Anything that they were not taking with them was being destroyed, any resources the Enemy could use were being taken from them one way or the other, and the Palace itself rendered un-inhabitable, without extensive repairs. Repairs that would take time, even for the Maestro.
Good. Time was the one thing the Army Of Darkness was terrifyingly short on. Any time they could take from the Enemy, from the Maestro, was that much time gained back for them. Aster knew that by doing what General Monroe had ordered in this regard, they were probably condemning countless innocent people in Dystopia to death. And she knew, if she had been in charge, she would have given the same order herself. She would have regretted it, unlike General Monroe, but she would have done it regardless. She was far too well aware of what was likely coming for them, felt the fear of it in the very marrow of her bones, and would do anything and everything it took to escape it. And there was no way to save everyone in Dystopia anyways. Trying would not delay the inevitable, and would merely doom the Army of Darkness as well.
As she re-entered the barracks that the Maestro's dining hall had been turned into, Aster was unexpectedly (to her) greeted by a furious shout from General Monroe:
"Zookeeper!"
Aster was so startled, she nearly dropped the boots she was holding. What had she done now? She honestly didn't know. Lacking any knowledge of why her commanding officer was inexplicably so angry with her, military training took over. She tossed the boots over to Sabarah, stood straight, and saluted. "Sir, present."
"Get your stupid ass over here! NOW!"
Aster nodded in a panic. This wasn't good. She didn't know what it was, but it definitely wasn't good. Hunching slightly, a posture she hadn't used since she had been a slave in the Maestro's palace, she scurried over to the General. He looked her up and down, his face actually red with fury. His two children, Evan and Gina, were a few feet behind him. Aster could not fathom at that moment why he had brought them along, in order to witness his fury at whatever she had supposedly done. She was, however, eventually to understand.
"Soldier, did you usurp my authority?"
"I..." Aster still did not understand why she was in trouble. Had somebody set her up? Or told lies about her to the General? She'd teach them a thing or two if they had. "I don't know. Sir"
"You don't know." General Monroe said in a mocking tone. "The know-it-all 'doesn't know' something. Well, that's certainly a new one, isn't it?."
He looked around until he spotted Sabarah Rose, who seemed almost as dumbfounded as Aster at General Monroe's fury, and was simply clutching the boots to herself rather than putting them on. He pointed straight at her, causing her to turn white, then looked at Aster. "You told THAT WOMAN she could join the Army, did you not?"
Aster's mouth gaped open. As did Sabarah's. The second woman's with fear, Aster's with comprehension. NOW she understood. She hadn't been thinking. Just feeling. Always a mistake.
She nodded spasmodically. She was no good at lying, and couldn't think of any sort of plausible story or excuse anyways. "Yes, General."
The general glared at her under lowered eyebrows. "You are a private in this army! You do NOT have the authority, Zookeeper, to tell ANYONE that they can join THIS army! That is MY prerogative alone! Do you understand that?"
"Yes, General! Sir!"
"Then why the FUCK did you tell those women they could join the Army?"
"I..." Aster's lip trembled, and a tear rolled down her face. "I felt sorry for them. I wasn't thinking."
"Wasn't thinking. Another new one. You just ARE full of surprises today, aren't you?" General Monroe's lip curled in contempt, though privately he was actually quite pleased. Part of Aster's reputation ... legend... was built on the belief that she was a cold, brilliant, thinking machine, barely one step away from a pre-War computer. A pity she hadn't died during the battle. A dead legend was easy to paint any way you wanted. A live one was not nearly so convenient. Especially Aster, who always had her own peculiar agenda, that was not completely compatible with his own. Now, she was being taken down several pegs. Humanized. Power taken from her, and given back to him. And his legacy. His children. "Tell me, do you think you are special? That you are above Army discipline? Above ME?"
"No." Aster shook her head.
"No, what?"
"No, sir!" Aster corrected herself.
Monroe turned to the lieutenant who had told him about Aster's transgression. "How many of those women took this fool's offer to join our Army?" He asked. A ritual question to which he already knew the answer.
"One, sir." The lieutenant pointed towards Sabarah, who looked like she was trying to hide under the overly large poncho Aster had made for her. "That one."
"One." The general nodded. "Fair enough. One woman, one lash."
Aster turned white. She knew what the whip did to flesh. You're going to whip me?!" She had seen other soldiers lashed, for offenses, but somehow the thought that it might someday happen to her had never occurred to her.
"You usurped my authority, soldier. I don't know who you think you are, or what insane thoughts go on in that swollen head of yours, but you are NOT above the discipline or law of this Army." He saw the other soldiers in the Army looking angry at the thought of their Hero being whipped, and noticed Aster about to speak, to use her terrible, overwhelming skill at words. That would not do.
Before she could speak, he leaned toweards Aster, and lowered his voice to a growling whisper, so only she could hear him. "Go ahead, girl. Cry. Like a weak woman. Beg the other soldiers to stop this. You probably could, you know. You're their Hero. So go ahead and do it."
He gave Aster only a moment to think about that possibility, but before she could act on it, use her skill at words and speak on it, he went on, in the same barely audible whisper. "But think about the results. You gave the Army Law... discipline... last night, with that stunt of yours, stopping them from rape. First time they actually were an Army, completely, though you probably don't understand that. Yet.
"Frankly, I'm not happy about that. But go ahead and whine your way out of a whipping. Take back the law and discipline you gave them. Turn them back from an Army into the mob they were. I can use a mob. In fact, I prefer it. Seeds of the empire I want. So feel free to give me the Empire I want, to spare yourself a little pain. But for what you want? Well, I'm not sure what it is, though knowing you, it's probably complicated beyond belief. So, ask yourself: Can you use a mob to get whatever the hell it is you want? Or do you need an Army? Discipline? Law?"
Aster bit her lip and forced herself not to wipe away another tear. Standing several feet away from everyone but General Monroe, nobody would be able to see it, if she didn't draw attention to it with such a gesture. She choked back fear, and turned to face the rest of the soldiers, thinking of what to say to them. They seemed angry. At her. At the General. At the entire current situation.
She did not want to be whipped. But the other thing she was afraid of... the thing coming slowly, but inevitably... she would endure any pain for the chance to avert it. And it was only ONE lash. She understood why it had to be done, that General Monroe had to re-establish his authority after the way she had unthinkingly usurped it. But he was being extremely merciful. And perhaps he had to be. After all, she had Made the Darkness. It wouldn't do for him to abuse her too badly.
Setting her face, Aster spoke firmly to everyone else. She forced her mind to focus on the distant future, rather than the fear of the immediately upcoming pain, and said the things that she thought would best bring about what she wanted in that far, far future: "General Monroe is right to punish me. I was wrong to offer the Betties a place in the Army of Darkness. I wasn't thinking, but that does not change things. You can't take back disobedience because you didn't mean it, any more than you can take back a bullet after you shoot it. I'm not a child who doesn't know better. I'm a soldier like the rest of you. I should have ASKED the General before making my offer. It's his Army. We are all just soldiers in it. And we all AGREED to join. General Monroe did not FORCE us to join the Army. That's the difference between him and the Maestro. The Maestro FORCES people to obey him, whether they want to or not."
She took a breath and went on. "And when we agreed to join the Army of Darkness, by that act, we agreed to accept General Monroe's authority over us, and his position as our General. People should always do what they agreed to do. Even me. And that's the difference between us and the Maestro. The Maestro doesn't do what he says he will do. He breaks his word."
"And this is a very merciful punishment. Only one lash. I probably deserve more. I don't WANT more, but I deserve it. General Monroe may be harsh, but he can also be merciful, and he is always fair. He doesn't punish people without just cause. He's a good General. Without him, none of us would be escaping from here, to a place where we can live instead of dying, and be free instead of being slaves. I'm proud to be in his Army, and I am willing to be punished so that we can be an Army, instead of slavers and rapists like the scum we defeated in the battle."
General Monroe listened to what Aster said intently. Clever girl. Very clever. Nor did it escape him that she said she was in the Army. Not part of it. To her, probably there was no difference between the two concepts, but apparently Wolfkiller had been right in his assessment of her. He nodded and whispered to her once more. "So, it's to be both of us then. Fair enough. Perhaps that's what's needed."
He stepped back and talked to her loudly again, in his command voice. "Take off your cape and shirt, soldier, and put your hands on that column over there."
Aster took off her bat-like cape, and black shirt, carefully folded both, and put them on a nearby cot that was not being used. Then, a thought occurred to her, and she lifted up her undershirt as well, until the lower hem was draped over her shoulders, exposing her back. It was the custom in the Army to allow women who were being whipped, to retain their undershirt, in deference to their being part of the weaker gender. But she did not want to appear weak. She needed people to retain at least some admiration, some awe for her. She was going to need the cooperation of a lot of people if what she had planned to avert the horrible possibility she had seen was going to work.
Which was also why she kept the shirt covering her breasts in front. She needed the discipline of the Army. That meant submitting to punishment, but making it appear that she was being humiliated by exposing her body would have wrecked that discipline. Made their commanding officer look like a pervert, rather than a figure of authority. She hadn't been able to get a bra yet, they were packed away somewhere, but leaving the undershirt covering her breasts would avoid that sort of perceived humiliation. Not that she cared much who saw her naked (except maybe children), but she analysed human behavior much the way she did animal behavior (about the only way she could understand human behavior any more), and knew what they would think of Monroe's punishment if it were humiliation rather than mere pain.
The general's eyebrow's raised, as he saw Aster baring herself for more pain. "You sure?" He gave her the chance to soften the blow at least a little.
"I'm as big as most of the men in this Army." Aster pointed out. "I can take it. Besides... I've had worse."
Yeah. Worse. Monroe reflected to himself. As in nearly being killed by being raped by a monster, when she had been physically not much more than a child. The zookeeper might be an odd duck, but she must have also been as tough as a small ox to survive that night. Though he didn't like the gesture of her taking the same punishment as a man. And he knew as well as she did, why she was doing it, and why she didn't take the opportunity to make him look like a shit by removing it completely. So... it was to be both of them, as he had told her a minute before. But perhaps a little more her than him. Not good. He intended to find out, before much longer, exactly what the hell it was that she was so afraid of, that she would risk death, and make the pain of the lash worse for herself, in order to stop whatever it was. Once he did find out, he would decide what to do about it, and her then.
And her words... the perfect means to ensure the sort of Army she wanted rather than a mob, and thought of in only a few seconds. Monroe couldn't help but feel a slight amount of awe. They were persuasion better than any whip. Perhaps it was good that she had lived. Monroe might have been a highwayman for much of his life, a user of force and violence, but he saw the utility in persuasion. If she could teach even a fraction of her gift to his children, as she had promised, she would give them tools better than any sword or army to rule.
But for now, he had a punishment to attend to. He had to take back the authority that she had unthinkingly usurped. Aster had put her hands high on the white marble column before him, and had squinched her eyes shut, awaiting the blow. And he couldn't soften it. In fact, he couldn't even give the blow himself, with his injured arm. It would be perceived as softening it.
"I can't do it, with this." He said gesturing towards his bandaged limb, as he took the coiled whip and handed it to the lieutenant who had reported Aster's disobedience to him. "You do it. And make it as hard as you can. Don't hold back, you hear me?"
The lower ranking officer nodded. He raised the whip, snapped it lightly to test the balance and weight, then raised it as high as he could, and brought it in a blurred streak onto Aster's naked, vulnerable back!
For the rest of her life, Aster would live with the insoluble contradiction of never forgetting the lash to her back, and simultaneously, being UN-able to remember or adequately describe it. She tried to focus on why she was taking the whipping, and why she had even justified her own punishment to the other members of the Army of Darkness. The fear, and something more, than she refused to think of. Words from her favorite book came to her: "If this is what you demand of me, then even this is yours."
The words were driven away before she barely thought them. There was a cold, lightning like pain, worse in it's suddenness than her rape by the Maestro had been. It was so intense, that though she did not lose consciousness, as she had when the Maestro had raped her, consciousness still somehow broke. Everything was somehow not there. Thought. Breath. Perhaps even her heart stopped for a moment. Yet there was still pain, despite no awareness to feel pain with. Her vision flashed white, then black, and she found that she had leapt and charged forward against the column she had been pressed against. The best she could describe it afterwards, was that if her life had been glass, the moment she had been whipped was like a sudden fracture in that glass, where pain existed, in an emptiness that was somehow not her life, which existed before that moment, and afterwards, but not in the very moment of that break. That fracture.
She gasped, white and red in her consciousness returning to awareness, and was left with a stinging and a throbbing across her shoulders that was at least fairly bearable. To the point that she was at least once more aware of her thoughts. The fracture ended and the consciousness of her life returned again, as if the break never happened. She felt blood ooze down her back. And the pain. Residual pain. The medical term came automatically to her. Even that got analysed, once mind had returned. As much as she might have wanted to NOT think about it. It wasn't an option for her, any more than stopping her own heart would have been. Or not thinking about what she feared in the future. For Aster, thought never, ever, ever stopped. It flowed as continually and easily and perhaps as unwillingly as the blood in her body. Streaming and forking around all obstacles and in any directions with the same liquid freedom as a stream of purest water. It was her gift, and her curse.
Except in that brief fracture. Lightning, hot as fire and cold as the depths of space hitting a stream of water, freezing it in place, and creating a fracture in the ice. A crack in that frozen moment as deep as life itself, deeper, perhaps, and in it's depths, things from nightmares, and perhaps even death itself, that did not bear looking at or remembering.
The officer who had actually carried out the whipping recoiled the whip, and handed it respectfully back to the general.
"Now, you go find someone to disinfect and bandage that for you, zookeeper." He would not offer Aster the dignity of using her name while she was still in disgrace. "Then get your damn uniform back on."
He stalked over to Sabarah, who was still hunched in the overly-large poncho Aster had made her out of a blanket. He pointed directly at her, making her tremble. "As for YOU, you are NOT part of this Army."
The former slave looked appalled at this, but then General Monroe went on. "Not YET, anyways. Being part of the Army of Darkness has to be earned. And you... you haven't had any training. As anything but a whore. That doesn't qualify you for jack or shit in this Army, so far as I'm concerned. So, the way I see it, the 6 year olds that we use as cooks and janitors are of more use than you. As for 12 year olds who actually fought in the battle - they're so far above you in rank that you can't even imagine how far."
Sabarah shrunk down even further, and looked as if she were about to cry. Her face showed expression far more than Aster's did, but then General Monroe changed tones. "Still, you did take the zookeeping bitch's offer, even though she had no right to offer it. That took a certain amount of guts. Possibly something useful might be made out of you. Possibly. Someday. So here's MY offer: You are not part of this Army - yet. But you'll be given the chance to join. You can come with us to where we're going, and when we get there, you'll be given military training. Get through it, and you'll be given a uniform. One you're earned, like everyone else. Even the fucking zookeeper, as much of a pest as she is. For now... you can show that you're willing to be of use. As you're not of much use for anything but being a whore that I can see, I'll give you something simple to do. Water duty."
Despair was replaced on Sabarah's face with a slight inkling of hope. "I... don't know what that is."
"You don't know what that is - SIR." Monroe corrected her. "God spare me from idiots. It's simple enough. We're filling barrels with fresh water, and loading them to take with us. Can you fill a barrel with water from a hose, or is the only thing you can do with a hose is to suck on it?"
The woman turned red at the obscene jab. "I... can do it... sir."
"Good." He turned to the same lieutenant who had first turned in Aster, then administered a lash to her back. "Take her over to where those kids are filling water barrels. Make sure to tell them that they outrank her. And since she's stronger than them, she's to help roll the barrels onto pallets. And if she slacks off or complains, to tell me, and she'll be sent back where she came from."
Assuming his orders would be followed (showing any doubt that they would be followed was always a grave mistake on the part of a leader), the general turned his attention back to his children. "Evan, Gina, you come with me." He needed to discuss with them at length why he had done what he had done, and the reasons that factored in. If they were to rule, they needed to know why he had done what he had done. Everything that had factored into what he had done, from punishing Aster in the first place, to making that punishment light. He could see that Gina was upset by it. She needed to get over that. A ruler could not shrink back from unpleasant necessity. Not if they wanted to stay in power. It was actually the perfect situation to teach them, though teaching them was not his primary purpose in doing what he had done. But he would take advantage of the fortuitous coincidence. The time he had left to teach them, personally, was growing very, very short. He had left them notes, and his diary, but that would only do so much. Very soon now, others, including the Zookeeper, would have to take over the job. He wasn't sure what the result would be. As he had told Aster, it was to be both of them. But maybe... his children would be better than he was. He hoped so. If he was to leave a legacy, they would have to be.
Sabarah was led off to perform the menial task under the orders of mere children. Aster picked up her outer shirt and cape from where she had set them, tucked them under her arm, then made her way back to the cot where Zack and his sister, Maria, were looking at her with wide eyes. Her lowered undershirt rubbed painfully on the lash.
"Are you ok?" Zack said.
"Not sure." Aster moved her arms, and rotated them. It throbbed and stung, but there was no loss of mobility. She wasn't disabled, but she supposed that Monroe did not want any of his soldiers, even her, unable to fight. There were likely to be other battles ahead of them on the way to the destination. And more than very likely when they actually got there. It's quite possible that the people there would not welcome their presence. If they couldn't bribe or intimidate their way in, then there would be blood. There was nowhere else for them to go. They couldn't go to Iceland, and they sure as hell were NOT ever going back here again. Given what Aster saw coming, they'd probably actually be LUCKY to die in battle, rather than be subjected to what she foresaw. Luckier still, if they lived and made a place for themselves. Though that would only be temporary. Their distance from Dystopia would only delay what was coming. It would still come. Unless Aster could find a way to stop it. She thought there might be a way, but she was going to need a lot of help with it. And it was for that, not for pandering to General Monroe's monstrous sociopathic ego or his desire for his children to rule an empire, that she had re-established his authority over the Army, and in doing so, had ensured that they retained discipline and organization. She was going to need those things for her own purpose, very badly.
Aster turned from her thoughts back to the two children. "I'll be fine. It hurt worst when it was happening. It's better now. But wait a moment, maybe you can help me."
She made her way to a stack of first aids kits, took one, and went back to the cot. She took out some alcohol, a cotton ball, a roll of gauze, and some tape. She soaked the cotton ball in the alcohol, handed it to Zack, then lifted her undershirt up in back once more and turned so that her back was towards the boy.
"Rub the cut with that alcohol." She told Zack. "It'll disinfect it."
"Dis..inect?" The boy did not know the word.
Aster sighed. She was badly going to need to educate these two children. When there was time. When they got to the destination. If they could be educated. She had serious doubts about the girl, given her current traumatized refusal to speak. She rephrased herself in far simpler language. "It'll make it clean. If it isn't super clean, I might get sick."
"Oh." Zack rubbed lightly, as if he was either embarrassed by what he was doing, or afraid of further hurting Aster. He pulled away as Aster winced from pain.
"No, it's alright." Aster re-assured him. "Do it harder. It's going to hurt me, but don't worry about that. It's better for it to hurt a lot now than for me to get sick later. The sort of sick I might get if it's not super clean is very bad. I might even die."
Zack looked alarmed at the possibility of the only person in the world willing to care for them dying, nodded, and began rubbing vigorously with the cotton ball. Far more roughly than was really needed, and Aster gritted her teeth. She could have gotten someone older to do this, but the boy was doing an adequate job now. And she was teaching him responsibility. The world she lived in was not a gentle one, and children had to pull their weight as soon as they possibly could. Children who wouldn't, didn't live long. And those who couldn't, even less time. She stopped him only to give him another cotton ball soaked with alcohol, when the first one was soiled. Then, when it seemed he had cleaned along the entire length of the lash, Aster cut a length of gauze and several pieces of tape with her small, red folding knife.
"That's enough cleaning." She told him. "Take this... cloth... and tape it over the cut. Cover it all, it'll keep the dirt out and keep it clean so I don't get sick."
Zack did so clumsily, being corrected a few times by Aster. When he had finished, though, he did an adequate job, and she praised him. "You did well. Try to remember what you did. If you ever find anyone else with a cut, or cut yourself, now you know what to do. To keep the cut super clean, so whoever is cut doesn't get sick."
Aster took the first aid kit back to the pile of supplies it had come from. Then she returned, and sat on her cot for several minutes, breathing regularly and trying to will the pain into diminishing, with only a slight amount of success. There had been aspirin in the first aid kit, but she didn't think that would help much. The Army had some small supply of stronger drugs, but that really needed to be reserved for those who had been hurt far worse than Aster, and more significantly, had been hurt in battle, rather than as punishment for their insubordination. Besides which, she needed to be alert.
As if in response to her final thought, Daniel Wolfkiller strode into the room. He whistled loudly to get attention, and when the babble died down, he raised one hand. "Get your things together! Anyone driving, be at your truck within the hour. Bring all your belongings. Food and other necessities have been stacked near each truck. Put it inside the cabs. Anyone else, be at the trucks by ten, also with your belongings, to get assigned a bunk. General Monroe says we are leaving at noon, sharp. Anyone NOT there will be left behind."
The babble started again, but far more muted. A few soldiers began packing their belongings, or directing their children as to what needed - and was allowed - to be brought. Spare crannies in suitcases were filled with jerky, nuts and dried fruits from barrels near the tables up front. Compact nutrition. Brief education on that subject had been part of Army training. Very brief. There had been so much to learn, and so little time to learn it. And there was a great, awful beast, coming inexorably through time for them all, if Aster was right about what she had deduced. Fleeing would only slow it down a little. It would still come. Unless she, and the Army of Darkness, and a Vampire, could stop it.
"You might as well come with me" Aster told Zack and Maria. She thought again at the poor prospects of survival of a child who couldn't pull their own weight. Right now she had very serious doubts on that subject, regarding Maria. Unless she either started speaking again, or was a very good listener. "You don't want to get left behind. Trust me, if General Monroe says anyone not there on time will be left behind, he means it. Even if it's only one second."
"He's afraid the Maestro will come back?" Zack said. It was not a question.
Aster nodded. "We can't fight him. That's why we attacked the palace, when he was gone. But we don't know when he'll come back. Probably soon, if he calls on the radio and doesn't get an answer."
"Will we be in the truck with you?" Zack's eyes looked pleading.
"No." Aster had to be firm. "The truck I'm driving... it's not as safe as where you are going to be. You are going to be in a SAFE place. It will be dark, and crowded, and smell bad, and you - and Maria - will be scared, but you will be safe. As safe as we can make you."
She would not lie by promising complete safety. There was no such thing, any more, for any of them.
But Zack would have none of it. "I want YOU to be safe!"
If Aster found what she was going to look for in the shipyard, she would be safe. Relatively speaking. For a while. But she wasn't sure it was there any more, and would not offer false hope to Zack. Instead, she changed the subject.
"When I was up there, before," She pointed to the column where she had been whipped. "Did I scream?"
She couldn't remember if she had or not. Zack thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"No... but..." His face furrowed in concentration, and then he said something that surprised Aster, and gave her much to think about. He pointed at his mute sister, and told Aster:
"She did!"
Author's note: So, end of Chapter 35. Follow me on Twitter, I make comments there about this story. And other subjects that interest me. Which are MANY, and VARIED. /septithol