Part 1 - The Black Ship
Chapter 3 - A Monster
The tiny creature took an enormous, greedy gasp as her wet, sapphire eyes shot open with an animal terror behind them; she pitched forward as if about to fall before catching the doctor's forearms and clinging to them desperately. As her severe disorientation faded, grounded by the intangible thread spanning from the gaze of the woman who called her back to reality, Ellie's grip loosened and she straightened herself, ducking her head to conceal her mortified expression and brutally wipe away her tears with her sleeve. With a voice husky and inhibited from her recent sobs she whispered, "It happened again, didn't it?"
"Didn't harm a thing, darlin'," the blonde churgeon replied with a smile – the sort, Ellie had already noticed, that made men tend to do stupid things when offered by a woman as stunning as Doctor Gunn. Neither the response nor the smile put the girl at ease.
"I tried not to fall asleep." The assertion was diffident but in no way caged for sympathy, pitiable as it was. Before Trixie could respond, the girl shook herself like a herd-hound blasted with grox-sneeze, raised her head, suddenly as sober as her father had been, and queried, "What is the Oriens Ruboris?"
"Oh-" the churgeon sounded both taken aback and, she realized, (despite her effort to the contrary) relieved. "You heard that."
"The bulkheads are thin," she explained by way of apology.
The doctor swiveled to the door perplexedly, a tiny crease forming in her flawlessly arched brows. After a brief moment considering her own experience and confirming that this was not, in fact, the case, she turned back to the girl. Sounding genuinely intrigued, she asked, "Have you always heard through the walls?"
"Not always, no," the child replied, with a little knot forming in her own brow.
The doctor rocked back on her unreasonably high stilettos and then sat on the edge of the bed, facing the occupied chair. Casually, she queried, "Did you want to hear?"
Penitently, the girl intimated, "I did. And I'm sorry." After a momentary, considering pause, she raised her chin almost defiantly, "And I'm glad."
Contrary to whatever Ellie had expected in reply to her unprecedented display of insolence, the churgeon gave a charming, earthy chuckle and sighed, "Me, too, darlin'… me, too." To explain the situation from the beginning – well, there was no beginning. It would have been a daunting task. At least the preliminaries had been covered. At least she had heard from her parents' own mouths that they had abandoned her without a fare-thee-well to the wolves that snapped up babe psykers to cast before the Throne.
"Because you don't know how to tell me I'm a monster." It was not a question. Its delivery indicated no doubt of its legitimacy. It was uttered prudently.
Any residual trace of relief or laughter lingering in Doctor Gunn's expression evaporated. Had the girl crossed to her and blackened her eye with a well-aimed fist, she would not have appeared so shocked. It was true, of course – in a way, at least. The fragile creature would have – could have – probably had – heard that from the cradle. Psykers were feared and distrusted.
To the general populace they were unstable gateways to the Warp, raining down destruction on a whim, always at risk of being ripped open by unbound daemons and tainting their worlds with ruin and damnation. But to have it addressed with such conviction by a grim-faced moppet… she mentally reeled, suddenly at a loss. How should one handle such a pronouncement? How could one? To dispute it – to support it – both would be lies. Coddling would leave her unprepared for the ordeal to follow. Agreeing would leave her without the mettle she'd require for any hope of survival. She opened her mouth, quite unsure of what she intended to say, when the girl gestured to not tax herself with one elegant little hand, the whole of which would have fit in Trixie's palm.
"It's alright," the young Miss Reiker assured her. The woman could hear self-loathing creeping in, "I understand. I'm not safe, so I have to go away."
"Ellie, don't –"
The dainty digits waved her off again. There was a certain inexorable timbre to her voice, echoing her father's logical disposition, tempered with the apologetic gentleness of her mother. "What," she repeated her earlier inquiry, "is the Oriens Ruboris?"
The churgeon took a breath, brow still knotted as she met the girl's cobalt spinel eyes, still considering how to address the verbal bomb she'd just dropped, still hesitant to allow it to go unaddressed. Her sensuous mouth pursed, and behind her lips she ran the tip of her tongue over one of her upper canines, and she finally explained, "The Oriens is one'a the Black Ships of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica – operated by the Inquisition's Ordo Hereticus."
The child considered this a moment, top teeth closing over her bottom lip, staring distantly. Her already negligible color drained from her, leaving her face bloodless and wan as she murmured so softly that Trixie only caught the end of, "– didn't mean to do something so bad…"
"Weren't anything you did, Ellie," she asserted quickly, and she received an abrupt, rapt gaze by way of reply. Correcting that error under such intense scrutiny, though, made the amendment seem all the worse. "It's… it's what you are."
A soft, slack oval relating dawning comprehension formed on her lips with a barely breathed "oh."
Damn it all this was harder than she had anticipated. She reached with a lack of surety to the girl, the gesture supplicating, inviting her to close the space between them. And perhaps because she was very small, and very frightened, and so terribly alone, the wyrdling came to nestle in the churgeon's lap. Soft, capable arms wrapped almost protectively around the child, and Doctor Gunn whispered into Ellie's hair, "No one chooses to be a psyker, darlin'. It's like being blonde – like having blue eyes – it just sorta happened to us. We can try'n hide that, but it'll always be there."
"Being blonde doesn't hurt people," the child murmured.
"And this can. You're right. But it doesn't need to –" there was desperate reassurance in her voice, "it doesn't always." Rocking gently, she explained, "If you're strong enough – if they think you'll be safe, they'll teach you to use it to help. Maybe like I do – maybe finding secrets – maybe opening doors others can't get through – maybe protectin'. Not all psykers are bad."
"How do they decide?"
"Tests – when you get on board, they'll test you."
"What will they test? How do I pass?"
With a wry smile Doctor Gunn held the child out, surveying her, and explained, "They'll look at how healthy you are – how clever in class – they'll ask you questions… see how strong you are –" at the sudden appearance of dismay on the observed brow she clarified, "up here," with a tap to Miss Reiker's temple.
In a hush, she asked, "What if I don't know the answers? What if I don't understand the questions?"
"Be honest, Ellie: only honest. They'll know."
After a long moment there was a stiffening in the girl's shoulders; they stilled unnaturally, her chin raised bravely and she whispered, "And what if I'm not? Strong or safe?"
The churgeon's arms tightened reflexively but she answered gently, warmly, "Then you'll stand witness to the uncompromising glory of the Throne."
The tiny body she held went pale and quite cold with a breathless whimper, "I'll die."
Doctor Gunn pressed her lips fervently to the girl's blonde halo again with a soft sigh. She considered her reply carefully, then intimated, "I was only a little older'en you when I was taken. I don't remember much before that, but I remember when I got on the ship I was very frightened, and a stranger told me something I'll never forget. He said that the only human life of any worth is one given to and in service. Remember that when you get there, darlin'."
The little creature relaxed against her, settled a smooth platinum head against a firm, warm shoulder, and nodded with quiet deliberation.
"Doctor Gunn?" A voice came over the vox calm, urbane, completely unruffled.
She buzzed back, "Yes?"
"We've been hailed by the Oriens Ruboris, Doctor. We're docking with her now."
Trixie's head snapped up, gaze darting keenly across her desk to zero on Giselle Reiker, clad in a plaid, pleated navy pinafore dress and a cable knit jumper two sizes too large; she sat quietly in the corner of the churgeon's office, book in lap. After a moment for this to register, she slowly raised her tiny, heart-shaped face, nursing teeth latched to her lower lip.
The psykers stood in unison, the woman holding out her hand to the girl and then closing dainty fingers in her own. The 'clack clack' of immaculate white stilettos sounded in time through the gangways, accompanied by a counter-rhythm of sturdy little spat boots trying to keep up with longer strides. And too soon they were in the bay facing brawny, armed men garbed in black with helmet-obscured faces.
A midnight glove reached to the child, who was snatched swiftly into the tall blonde's medical coat-clad arms. Holding her too tight, Doctor Gunn whispered fiercely against the doll-like alabaster neck, "Be of worth –" and then rough, careless hands wrenched her from the churgeon's grasp, and she was gone.