Xiao Xun looked at her information panel. In an hour and twenty minutes, Lewis would be there to see her. Her anxiety peaked, so much that turned off her array and stared in the dark of her front room. She didn’t want to look at numbers or images. She would sit in silence—a practice that went against her nature but that she had learned at Ho Hsien-Ku University on Ziran—where she had also learned to enjoy silence, to live it out, to let it sink into her and become a feature of her soul. On Caledonia, a charter planet where she had found a good job and settled down, she thought she would not need the meditative techniques she had learned unwillingly during her college years. Now she thought she might draw on them once again.

She had not grown up on a charter planet. The Terran Alliance had built the principle of religious freedom into its constitution, but in the early days of its existence, and especially in dangerous sectors of space, the Alliance promoted colonization by giving charters that allowed groups to populate a world and restrict who could settle there. This area of space, Xiao knew, numbered two other Christian planets, a Muslim planet, and what the colonists on it called a Zionist world, all with restrictions that only people of a certain faith could settle there. The planets with charters had thriven. The Alliance now found itself embarrassed by the restrictions some of these worlds enforced, but could not, by law, revoke a charter.

The world in which she was born and lived until age eighteen was, like most Terran planets, diverse, home to a variety of human racial groups as well as humanoid peoples from other worlds. A large population of Mervogians lived there, as well as Omrites and Glinn. It was not until she left for college on Planet Ziran that she experienced cultural hegemony. Ironically, Ziran was not a charter planet, but the similarities to those worlds were such that it might as well have been.

A women’s college on that world, Ho Hsien-Ku enrolled five-hundred students. Most, though not all, were Asian. Three-quarters came from worlds in the Terran Alliance; the remaining students hailed from planets that were part of the China colonies. A smattering of students from other worlds and planetary systems made up a tiny minority of college population.

The Convent of the Three Treasures, a Daoist organization that housed some seventy nuns, provided the financing, the teachers, and the support structure for Ho Hsien-Ku. Xiao had gone there at her mother’s insistence.

“Mother I don’t want to be nun!” Xiao protested, almost frantic that her mother would even suggest she attend that particular school. Her mother was, in fact, a Christian. Her father had been raised in Daoist traditions but paid little attention to religion. “You’re not going to force me to be one, are you?”

“That’s nonsense, Xiao. I could not force you to do that. You have to want to be a nun. The Convent of the Three Treasures operates a college. It is highly rated and very selective. YourAunt Ho-Xiao is allowed to nominate someone and, when I told her what had happened, she nominated you. The college approved your nomination. You will go there for free.”

Her Aunt Ho-Xiao was Abbess of a Daoist convent on Planet Monara and a graduate of the college. As part of the high-ranking Daoist female clergy, she was allowed to nominate young women for free-ride scholarships to the college.

“But I don’t want to go there!”

“You want to get a good education, don’t you?”

“Yes, Mother. But there are so many other universities.”

“None that charge no fees. You know we’ve had some financial setbacks. We can’t afford to send you to any of the places you want to go. Ho Hsien-Ku has offered you a full scholarship.”

“Yes—so they can suck me up into their little convent.”

“No one is going to force you to do anything. And their school is one of the highest academically rated institutes here in the Delta Quadrant. You will be studying at the school, not enrolling in the convent. Your reticence is vexing, Xiao.”

She looked at her mother. Though near fifty, her mother looked twenty-five. Tall and slender, always dressed fashionably, she worked as a researcher for the Terran military. In younger days she had modeled for fashion magazines and even acted on stage and in films for a time. It puzzled Xiao that she had put all of that aside, married, taken a job with the military, and settled to a quotidian life of children, work, and maintaining a home. “Your Mom is so beautiful,” her classmates would tell her. “She looks like movie star.” Xiao, who looked like her father, would say, “Too beautiful. I feel like a mud hen next to her.” This always got a laugh from her friends, but it was a source of pain in Xiao’s heart; and a source of guilt because her mother was so kind, thoughtful, and loving. If only, Xiao would think in frustration, she wasn’t so damned pretty.

“Is it an all-girl’s school?” she asked.

“It is.”

“I want to go to a college where there are boys—I want to date and have fun.”

“It’s not like you’re going to live your whole life there.”

Xiao could tell by the look on her mother’s face that her patience was wearing thin.

“Mother”—

“Child, it’s either go to Ho Hsin-Ku or don’t go to college at all. If you want to work as a dishwasher or a cook all your life, don’t attend college; if you want the kind of education that will get you a good job, you can go to the convent’s school. I order you to your room. Go. Stay there until I call for you. Think over what we’ve talked about.”

Xiao’s mother hardly ever spoke sternly to her. Xiao gave a small bow and hurried off to her room to pout and sulk.

She lay on her bed, looked up at the ceiling, and thought the matter through. The family had paid for her three brothers and her sister to go to college. Whatever the financial setback thathad afflicted her family, it seemed to Xiao that they could come up with the money somehow—even if they had to borrow it. Family fortunes ebbed and flowed. Things would stabilize, she thought, and get back to normal.

An hour passed, then two, which indicated her mother meant business. By slow degrees she admitted to herself that she was in the wrong. Her family had always been generous to the children in it. Xiao had never lacked for anything growing up. If her mother said finances were not good then things had to be much worse than what she imagined. To react as she had was immature and disrespectful. Though her mother had not given her permission to leave her room, she opened the door, crept out, and went to her. She bowed and apologized, saying she would be happy to go to Ho Hsien-Yu. Her mother enfolded her in her arms. Xiao realized she had been crying.

Xiao remembered this as she glanced at the time on her information display. Maybe Lewis wasn’t coming to see her. Maybe he had found or suspected she was not the kind of girl he wanted to marry. After a few minutes, though, the bell rang. She opened the door. The two of them embraced.

Lewis sat down and accepted a cup of tea. She remarked that he was late.

“I got a call. There’s an alert. Looks like the Golorians have infiltrated near here.”

Her eyes got big. “How?”

Planet Caledonia boasted state-of-the-art security. On the edge of two sectors of space inhabited by hostile races of beings who practiced slavery, such security was a necessity. Xiao felt a small stab of fear.

“Near here, you say?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But how did they get in without being detected?”

“We detected them. but too late to know exactly where they landed. They managed to jam our security field for a few minutes. We compensated and corrected, but they slipped in.”

Lewis worked for Space Security.

“Do we know how many?”

“One ship is all we registered.”

Xiao’s fear increased.

“Keep your door locked; or, better, do you have anyone you can stay with?”

“I might call Fiona. She lives ten miles away.”

“That would be a good idea. We still haven’t located them. They might be anywhere. They did land in this general area. I’d stay here with you but I have to report back to headquarters.”

Silence fell. He got up, went over, and put his arms around her.

It can’t end, she told herself. It must not end.

She remembered a week ago they were out together. The Caledonian sky was blazing above them as they walked through the night holding hands. The Grandi Rocce asteroid belt spread its faint red web across the sky. Planets and strangely configured stars blazed. A golden corner of the Besrid Nebula pulsated in the western part of the heavens.

“Beautiful,” she said. “What’s the word the people use here for the sky—the heavens?”

“Welkin,” he said.

“The pastor used that term in church last Sunday and I didn’t know what it meant. I had to look it up on my info-pad.”

But as she said this, realization struck her.

Though Xiao was not a Christian believer, she attended worship with Lewis. It seemed to go along with the culture. Everyone she knew on Caledonia went to church. On Sundays, commerce completely shut down. The churches had services in the morning and evening. Xiao had always attended services with her mother, who was devout. She knew the drill and, in a tapestry sort of way, liked church, especially if the choir was good, the pastor delivered intelligent sermons, and the interior of the church pleased her aesthetically. The Church she and Lewis attended checked off on all those points. But that night, looking up at the asteroid belt, remembering the pastor of his church using the word “welkin,” a revelation smashed into her mind—smashed in like one the asteroids that occasionally came streaking down from Grandi Rocce to light up the night sky, and, occasionally, do damage. The realization she made that night damaged her heart.

She loved him. She wanted to marry and have children. She was thirty, had established her career, and was getting a little anxious about finding someone. Now that she had found someone she hoped she could marry, she realized her past might derail the vision of life she had been constructing for the last few months.

When she was seventeen, Xiao decided it was time to become experienced. She began to hang around with a senior girl she knew often hosted parties that had a reputation. After a while, the girl, Teressa, invited her to one. “About the party,” she said. “Well, it’s the kind of party where, if you go, you’ll be expected to have sex with the guys there. If you’re not willing to do that, you shouldn’t attend.”

Xiao said she was willing and very much wanted to attend.

She was sexually active for the remainder of her junior and the entirety of her senior year.Careful not to get pregnant, she navigated the exciting world of relationships with zest and skill. All of that ended when she went to Planet Ziron.

Why do I keep landing in places full of religious fanatics? she thought despairingly as Lewis held her in the dim apartment.

A few minutes later he said he needed to leave. They called Fiona. She said she would open her home to Xiao. They hopped in his car and drove the ten miles to her home.

On the trip over, she looked out the window at the groves of trees and the small range of mountains to the north of where she lived. The wind, which on this planet could be boisterous even in summer, blew the trees back and forth. The fields of wheat around her apartment complex looked pretty as they rolled in tawny waves under the heavy breeze. The sky shone foggy and drab—dreich, the people here would say in dialect. The very sound of it expressed the dismal feeling in her soul.

Xiao remembered going to Ho Hsien-Ku College and encountering a sea of piety and religion. Her mother had told her the truth when she had said the convent and the college were separate entities; she had neglected to inform her that all the women who entered the convent as postulants attended the college and were required to earn a degree. The postulants made up aboutforty per cent of the student body. Many nuns taught at the university.

I wonder, she used to think with bitter amusement, if I’m the only one here here who isn’t a virgin.

There were young men in the only city on the planet, but it was a distance from the convent and rules about travel proved highly restrictive. She only went to the city twice, and too many sisters and snoopy, pious girls were with her for her to go to bars and meet young men. Xiao hoped she might find a coterie of non-religious girls embedded in the school. If there was such a thing, she never found it. Postulants and girls from pious families made up most of the student body.

Lonely and forlorn, she met Qiulin, who was on the volleyball team with her and would eventually become one of her deepest friends.

Qiulin lived in the convent as an oblate—someone who submitted to the disciplines of the of the order of nuns but was not a postulant.

“Why do you live there and put up with all those things the sisters do—meditation, memorizing sutras, and all the ascetic stuff? I don’t get it.”

“I want to be a soldier,” Qiulin said. “I’m learning some good things here—things that will help me be a top-notch fighter.”

Xiao knew the nuns practiced martial arts and were very good at them. And it was said that every morning, in all weather, even in the dire cold of winter, they went outside, naked, and bathed under a waterfall. Meditation brought about focus. Women learned to live in silence and to call no attention to themselves. She could see how such an environment would prepare one to be a good soldier.

“One thing I miss, though,” Qiulin said, looking mischievous.

“What?” Xiao asked, her interest perked.

Qiulin leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Meat.”

Xiao had a “dispensation” to eat meat and dined at tables with a few dozen other girls who did not practice the vegetarianism the convent observed.

“Can I get you some?” she asked, excited at the thought of a conspiracy.

“I’d love that,” she replied. “But if I ate any, the senior sisters would know it.”

Xiao’s eyes got big. “How?”“They can tell you everything you’ve ever done.”

She knew that spiritual power and discernment of the sisters. What Qiulin had told was probably true. And they probably knew about her past.

In her time at the college, Xiao found the curriculum limiting. She had wanted to study sociology. The school offered a few classes in that subject, but no major. Buddhist Studies, Literature, and Mathematics did not attract her. She ended up studying language. Beside the Chinese her family spoke at home, she knew English, the official language of her planet and what she had spoken at school. She also could converse in Mervogian, which she had picked up from the many of the race of humanoid beings who lived around her. She ended up perfecting her skills at the Mervogian language and also learned to fluently speak Geren, Housali, and, most important, Golorian. The nuns, she had to admit, were capable teachers. More than capable, she often thought. They were remarkable. She and Qiulin were together in many classes.

When break came, they flew to Lutava, a Terran planet with a large Asian population. They feasted on Hunan pork, Kung Pong chicken, three gems (pork, shrimp, and chicken) and other meaty dishes. Qiulin delighted in the fare they lived on. Xiao thought of trying to link up with a young man, but somehow it seemed wrong given the environment to which she would return. The influence of the school and the convent had affected her—or, she thought cynically attimes, infected her. If she went out and got laid she would feel like she was doing it not out of love or desire but out of spite toward the nuns, and that did not seem the right reason to enter intoa relationship. And Qiulin was with her. If she sneaked off for a few hours, her friend would know what she had done. Qiulin, like the nuns, would say nothing about it and would not be censorious. But Xiao respected her as she respected her teachers. There would be plenty of opportunity after she graduated.

She and Qiulin saw the sights of the planet, went to the movies and to a concert or two, shopped for clothing, and returned to school happy. Xiao saw that having a friend was much better than all the other things she had longed for her first year at the school. Being close to Qiulin and having her as an influence, she knuckled down, studied hard, and even went into the convent with her on occasion to participate in some of the disciplines the nuns practiced.

“Do you really bathe outside in a stream every morning?” she asked her friend one day.

“We do.”

“That’s what the girls in class say. I couldn’t believe it was true. Do you do that even in winter?”

“Yes—even in winter. Do you want to go with us sometime?”

Xiao opened her mouth to say no but stopped. She oddly felt that if Qiulin was with her she could do anything. She agreed.

“I’ll have to get permission from the Abbess,” Qiulin said. “I think she’ll be okay with it. But let’s wait until it’s good and cold.”

Before that time arrived Xiao would have been shy about her body. She had always been small and “cute.” Small breasts, she would say to herself when assessing her body before or aftera bath. Not very curvy. Pretty enough—yes, I’m ‘cute.’ But I’m far from beautiful. In the next two years in college something amazing happened.

She turned into her mother.

First, she grew remarkably for a girl her age. And, to her astonishment, all the things about her body she had given an “okay” to became remarkable. When she returned home after her freshman year, her friends would gasp and say, “Xiao, you’ve grown a foot!” “Xiao, you look so pretty!” “You look just like your mother!”

It was true, she saw. She had become the image of her tall, shapely, lovely mother. When they went out in public together, people often thought they were sisters. She had the straight, poised carriage she had always admired in her mother. She always thought her mother looked marvelous the uniform of a short grey skirt and white blouse civilian employees who worked for the military wore. Now Xiao had the straight body, shapely legs, and ample bosom her mother had. She rested in the thought that now she looked beautiful, graceful and pretty—as pretty as her mother.

In the coldest month of the year Qiulin got permission for Xiao to spend a night in the convent. She went inside the walls after classes, dined with the nuns, slept with Qiulin, and, in the morning, meditated and prayed. After that the younger women all went to a large room, stripped, and went outside. Proud of her looks, Xiao still feared the cold. She thought, though, of Qiulin, who walked at her side, her body beautiful and strong. Xiao braced herself against the freezing air and the snow crunching under her feet. She began to shiver. Qiulin took her hand.

“Relax,” she whispered. “Don’t be tense.”

Xiao made an effort to relax. After they had gone fifty feet or so she stopped shivering and felt her inner warmth return. By then they were at the edge of the waterfall.

“I like to jump in right here,” Qiulin said. “it’s up to your shoulders. Are you game?”

Xiao smiled at her friend, who was pretty in a modest, simply sort of way—her looks pushed just past (but not far past) plainness. She nodded and jumped in along with her and several other girls. Xiao managed to stifle her desire to cry out. After a few seconds she felt all right. Up to her neck in the icy water, she looked over at her friend.

“Are you okay?” Qiulin asked.

“I felt like my eyeballs were going to pop out of my head when I hit the water,” Xiao replied. “Now I’m fine. Sort of.”

They shared a laugh.

Her mind returned back to Lewis and the landscape around Fiona’s home. She felt weary.She looked over at him, meeting his eyes. He smiled, probably wondering at her morose mood. She gave him a wan smile in return. She had formed a vision of the two of them together that turned to a daydream and then to a beatific dream. But religion would ruin it all.

The religiosity of the Caledonians amazed her. Everyone went to church. On Sunday, the “Sabbath,” the government allowed no work. Trains and buses did not run. People did not go to their jobs. They did not do yard work or play sports. Some women, her best friend, Fiona, included, made bread and baked beans on Saturday and served them cold for Sabbath dinner (often with cold meat also cooked the day before) so they would not have to cook on the day of rest.

This puzzled Xiao because, according to her research, the people who founded the planet were not overly religious and mainly wanted to preserve a culture in danger of being swallowed in the hegemony of the Terran Alliance. Some of the founders of the planet professed religion, but they did not constitute a majority at the beginning of settlement—far from it. Somehow, though, in the space of one-hundred years, the planet had grown more and more religious.

They arrived at Fiona’s house. Fiona answered the door. Once inside, they explained whythey had come (Fiona did not always answer the phone). Lewis would be going on. Xiao would stay. Fiona’s house could be secured and was not in the immediate area where the Golorian ship had reportedly set down.

Lewis prepared to leave. Fiona left them alone so Lewis could give her a good-bye kiss. They lingered a moment.

“You’re sure nothing is wrong,” he said.

“Something. Now isn’t the time to talk about it.” She paused and added. “We’ll work it out, I think.”

He only nodded and said he needed to go or he would be in trouble. Xiao watched as he drove away.

The starry welkin blazed above.

****

Xiao heard Fiona cooing to, talking with. and singing to her children as she put them to bed. She had five kids ranging in age from two to seven years old. A child a year, she thought. Does anyone have that many children in such rapid succession anymore? But then she thought of more than one woman she knew—of several women in fact—who had just as many children and had them in such rapid order. They did things like that on this planet. And Fiona’s family was not all that huge comparatively. Every other woman she saw on Planet Caledonia was pregnant. Hordes and troops of children romped and played in the public parks.

The singing continued, got quieter, and finally ceased. Xiao saw the light go. Fiona returned to the living room (called a “parlor” here). She put her arms around Xiao, hugged and kissed her.

“Xiao, lovely woman,” she said. “I’m sorry I had to go upstairs. I needed to get William and Phoebe to bed.”

“Of course you did. Don’t apologize, for Heaven’s sake. Have you heard anything more about the incursion?”

“The authorities don’t seem to know where those brigands are. I hope they stay far from here. I’m glad we have a good alarm system.”

Fiona spoke English with the odd intonation the language had taken on here. When Xiao had first arrived she could hardly understand the way people spoke. Over the last, she had gotten used to it, but every now and then she had to adjust to comprehend the dialect of this world.

“Lewis thought I would be safer here.”

“He would be right. Those Golorian sots like to lurk about cities—more people to abduct and kidnap there. Come on. Let me make you tea.”

They went into the kitchen. Fiona was Xiao’s age (thirty years old). She had red hair, freckles and was tall and (as the people said here) “comely.” Her five children did not seem to weary or exhaust her. Xiao had never seen her bereft of natural energy. It flowed through her body in a seemingly unceasing stream. In no time she had tea ready and buttered scones. They spread jam on the scones and ate and sipped tea in silence. After a while, Fiona asked, “So how are things getting on with Lewis?”

“Okay, I guess.”

Fiona knew her worries. She was about the only person Xiao trusted enough to confide in.

“I think you two will be fine.”Xiao sighed. “I don’t know, Fiona. I can never give him what I know he wants.”

“Don’t be silly. He wants you.”

“I suppose he does. But I’ve given part of my self away. He can’t have all of me because all me isn’t there. I left it behind. That seems like an insurmountable barrier to me.”

“It needn’t be.”

“Fiona, I’m not a virgin. That’s what I know he would expect of the woman he would marry. I don’t want our marriage to start out on a shaky foundation. If I marry Lewis, my ... promiscuity will always be the unstated disappointment in our relationship. I can’t live with that. I can’t live with him thinking of me as someone less than what a good wife is.” She sighed. “I guess I need to meet someone who reflects my own values—or at least the values I had in the past. I need someone from whom what I did back then wouldn’t matter.” Seeing she had cast a sad pallor over their conversation—a pallor that did not seem right in the warm, cheerful kitchen with its bright brass pots and stacks of clean, white dishes—Xiao smiled wryly. “My Mom sat me down and give me ‘the talk’ when I was seventeen. She warned me that once my purity—that’s the term she used—was gone, I could never get it back again—unless you know a way.”

Fiona smiled but did not laugh.

“Well, they used to think you could.”

She thought Fiona was joking, but her tone did not sound exactly like a jest.

“Oh, really? When was that?”

“In the Middle Ages. Girls were examined by midwives on their wedding day. If a girl failed the test, she had an option.”

Xiao puffed out a laugh. “They believed in magic back then. They believed in all kinds of weird things. But there’s nothing than can restore a girl’s virginity.”

“Not physically. But what we’re talking about isn’t physical restoration. That is impossible and its foolish and pointless to go on talking about it. You are concerned with how Lewis sees you. You love him and want to give yourself to him completely. But you’ve given yourself to other men physically. What you both want is the integrity of giving. You want something spiritual, not something physical.”

Xiao wanted to argue but something stopped her.

“In the church there was a book called The Penitential of Finnian. It was very early—some say the year 550 A.D. or so. Now they as well as we do knew that what a girl lost could notbe restored. But if one went through the suggested ‘penance’ the girl would be considered a virgin once more. It would be, I suppose, in a spiritual sense, but it was regarded as a restoration.”

“What did it involve?”

Fiona laughed. “The original text proscribes fasting for six years. The way we observe it now, it’s six weeks.”

“You mean you still do that today?”

“The custom had died out among our people. But after we had lived here a while, some young women asked if they could undergo the discipline. We modified it and women do undertake the penance. During the day the penitent eats only bread and drinks only water for breakfast and lunch and, if it’s summer and the days are long, supper. After sunset, the woman can eat or drink anything she wants—just no food besides bread during the day. And there are prescribed prayers, scripture readings, and periods of meditation.”“That’s—Xiao sputtered—“That’s so demeaning and degrading!”

“It’s for a woman’s honor.”

“It doesn’t sound fair or respectful to the choices a person makes.”

“That may be so, Xiao. But the three women I mentored through the penance all married and are happy and accepted by their husbands—and, more importantly, they have accepted themselves.”

“I can’t believe that a girl in our day and age would actually do that.”

“Remember that on this planet things are a little different. We look to traditions to guide us and some of them, like this one, are ancient. Supervising young women who want to undergo the discipline is a part of my ministry in our church. I’m a deaconess and that area of ministry is responsibility. The three girls I told you about were in a situation like yours and wanted to go through the discipline.”

Xiao felt an impulse to unload the ideas she had picked up in college and elsewhere abouthow unfairly women were treated, about institutional oppression and sexuality as a means of demeaning a woman—but she stopped. She didn’t want to argue. More than this, she wanted to hear what Fiona had to say.

“Fiona are you suggesting I do it? It’s absolutely out of the question.”

By now she had dredged up some genuine anger and indignation.

“I don’t expect you to do anything, lass. I’m only telling you it is a custom here.”

Xiao sat silent a moment. She felt empty.

“Some custom,” she finally said.

Off in another room, a child began to cry.

“Dennis. He’s hungry. I have to nurse him. Come up with me.”

“I’ll stay here, thank you. I need to use the loo.”

They went their separate ways, Fiona to nurse her child, Xiao to relieve herself. After shehad finished and was washing her hands, the house went completely dark. A hand slammed down over her mouth. She felt an arm around her neck, choking her. Someone was trying to murder her, she thought, and began to panic as the oxygen in her lungs depleted. The next thing she knew someone had carried her off into the woods. The air felt cold on her face and she smelled pine, humus, and rotted wood. She heard a noises she dimly thought she recognized. As her consciousness recovered fully, she realized the sounds were the Golorian language she had learned to speak at Ho Hsien-Ku and had frequently monitored in her job with the Terran military. Fear shot through her. They had captured her. They were talking about her. She tried to quiet her spirit enough to translate. She listened. The language formed in her mind.

“Anyone else there?”

“A woman. Some children. We knocked the power out but knew it would restart in a minute or less so we only had time to grab this one.”

“Did anyone detect you?”

“I don’t think so. But the other people in the house will know she’s gone.”

The man answering the questions was carrying her. The other walked beside him.

“How far?” the one asked. “She’s heavy.”

“We’re almost there. And you’re right: pretty little piece of fruit.”

She remembered the phrase he used as Golorian slang/idiom for a sexually appealing woman.

“She’ll fetch a good price, that’s for sure.”

When she heard this, a wave of fear passed over her. Still, she did not entirely despair. Knowing their language, she might hear something that would enable her to get free. She realized she needed to relax so they would think she was still unconscious.

“Are They on to us, you think?” the Golorian carrying her asked.

“Of course they are.”

“When is re-entry?”

“An hour.“

"That’s a lot of time for them to detect us.”

“It’ll be fine.”

They continued on in silence. At last they stopped and laid her on the cold grass, binding her hands and feet. Xiao tried to be still and not move. She hoped her eyes did not flutter. If they did, her captors seemed not to notice. They walked over and began to converse with other Golorians. She could not hear what they were saying.

They bound her her hands and tied the rope to a post. No chance of getting loose. From what they had said they had left Fiona alone. She would see Xiao was missing and call the authorities. They would scan the area. If the Golorian ship that would be their escape vessel did not appear for an hour, as one of them, who seemed their commander had said, the police and army would have time to send out drones, use sensing equipment, track down the intruders, and free her.

But something was wrong. The Golorians seemed too confident, as if they had a surefire escape plan. Certainly none of them were observing her, she tried to wriggle herself free. The ropes were tight. She soon concluded she had no change of getting loose. Despair rolled over her. She wondered what to do. The Golorians ended their conversation. Two of them walked over untied the rope.

“Walk,” one of them said in heavily accented English. “Walk over there!”

He pointed. They escorted her to what looked like a prefabricated shelter. A door opened.They took her inside.

Once within the structure, she saw three more Golorians. Someone equipment that lookedlike a transmitter stood in one corner. A Golorian with gold markings on the sleeves of his uniform picked up a microphone and spoke into it. Xiao noticed a black box on the floor. His voice, in English, came through it.

“Woman, can you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

He was speaking through a translating device.

“We’re taking you back to Goloria as a slave. You’re young and pretty. Cooperate, and you’ll be treated well—sold to someone who is wealthy and will treat you kindly. Fail to cooperate, and we’ll sell you to a brothel where you’ll be laid twenty times a day every day for rest of your life. The choice is yours.”

They all stared at her. She nodded.

“Ship has entered the atmosphere,” one of the them reported.

“Commander,” another said. “Something is registering on our perimeter sensors.”

He turned. “Identify.”

“Uncertain. It must be some sort of animal the scan can’t identify.”

“Go kill it.”

Two of them left the room. Xiao was contemplating ways to escape in the confusion that would ensure if a bear or mastodon should attack the camp. Then she heard a ferocious growling,the sound of blasters firing, screaming and cursing in the Golorian language, cries of pain and agony, then silence. After only a few seconds something burst through the door of the shelter.

It was not a bear. It was unlike any animal Xiao had ever beheld. It stood on two legs but it had the face of a wolf. Xiao stared up at its bared teeth, red eyes, and its claws.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire, she thought. I have a chance to escape the Golorians and now I’ll be killed by some monster from an alien planet. She closed her eyes and prayed to an unspecified God that her death would be quick and merciful. After perhaps a minute of screaming, cursing, items crashing, growing and what sounded like flesh being pummeled, silence fell.

Xiao opened her eyes.Standing over her she saw not the wolf-like creature. She saw Fiona.

Xiao blinked in astonishment. She saw her friend’s profuse curly red hair, her blue eyes and freckled face; but also her freckled shoulders and breasts. She was naked. Moreover, she wassplashed with blood. Blood covered her arms up to the elbows, dripped from her fingers and was splashed on her stomach, legs, and lower abdomen. Xiao wondered if she were hallucinating. Fiona touched her with a bloody hand.

“Xiao, can you hear me?”

She nodded and then knew she should speak.

“Fiona, is it really you?”

“Yes. Are you okay, my belovéd friend?”

“I think so. You ... looked like a wolf.”

“I am a wolf sometimes. We’ll talk about that later. I need to go. I need to return to the children. I left them alone when I sensed you were in trouble. Now, listen. Our time here is short.The police are on the way. Some soldiers too. I have to go. Please, Xiao, don’t say anything about what you saw—I mean about seeing me. I can’t explain it now but I will explain to you later. Just say an animal of some kind came in and killed the Golorians. Can you do that for me?”

The kindness in her voice and the assurance of safety and rescue brought tears to Xiao’s eyes. Fiona touched her cheek.

“I have to go.”

She turned and slipped out the door.Xiao looked around her. Three Golorians lay about, two of the ground, one slumped over the table. Blood ran from slashes in their bodies. Their stillness told her they were dead. The two lying on the ground a few feet from her had their throats slashed open. The one slumped over thetable—the one who had spoken to her through the translating machine—had had his skull caved in. The sight of it made Xiao ill; she looked away. At that moment, someone kicked the door open. She looked up, fearing she would see more Golorians. Instead she saw a uniformed constable.

He turned toward the door.

“Here!” he shouted.

Soon the small shelter filled with people Two EMTs soon hovered over her. She saw police and soldiers.

“Miss Xiao Xun?” one of them asked.

She nodded, overwhelmed by all that had happened.

“Can you hear me, ma’am?” the EMT, an older woman, asked.

“I can hear you.”

“Do you feel all right right?”

“I”—Xiao could not think of words. She began to cry.

The EMT’s helped her up and walked her to an emergency vehicle. She wanted to stop crying but could not. It made her feel better and seemed to get the horror of what she had gone through out of her heart. The female EMT held her hand. They drove her to a hospital.

The cleanness of the hospital, the white sheets, the soft bed, bespoke safety. She was ableto relax. A nurse helped her to the rest room (here they called it a privy). She felt better after relieving herself. The nurse offered to bring her tea. She accepted it and drank it thankfully. A doctor did a quick examination and said she did not seem to have been harmed. He asked about the spot of blood on her cheek (where Fiona had touched her). She said she did not know where it came from. He also asked if anyone had sexually assaulted her. She told him no. He left. She got up and rinsed the blood from her arm in the restroom sink of her hospital room. She did this so the medical staff did not test the blood and use DNA testing to link it to Fiona. Just after she finished with this, a volunteer brought her toast to eat and asked if she would be willing to talk tothe police. She agreed. Medical staff appeared to ask her the questions she expected. She felt better but by now she had grown annoyed at all the medical protocol and the questioning of the authorities. She said she wanted to try to sleep. They left her alone and turned out the hospital room lights. Looking at the green codes on the monitoring equipment all around, she fell asleep.

****

Xiao awoke, got up, use the privy, and rang the call button. A nurse scurried in. seeing sunlight through the windows she asked what time it was. 9:40 a.m. the nurse told her. She ordered breakfast. While she was waiting they said she had a visitor—a young man. Did she wish to see him? She said she very much wanted to see him.

Lewis came to her beside. She put her arms out to indicate she wanted him to enfold her. He did. They held each other a long time. She began to sob.

“So horrible,” she managed to say.

Her breakfast arrived. She managed to stop crying. She had not felt like eating and was hungry. As Xiao ate she gave Lewis a narrative of what happened to her. He sighed when she finished.

“Terrible,” he said. Then he paused. He was silent a long, thoughtful minute. Her anxiety arose. He meant to say something he had thought through for a long time. This is it, her mind said. He’s going to tell me we’re finished.

“Xiao,” he said, “this might not be the time to discuss it, and if you don’t want to talk tell me.”

A cold chill had built up in her chest. She breathed in to steady herself, though she wanted to behave as if she did not believe this was the beginning of the end of their love.

“You’ve been acting strangely lately,” he said.

When he did not go on, she nodded. She did not want to talk.

“Xiao, I know why. I know you well enough to figure that out. I want you to tell you: I don’t care about that. It doesn’t matter. It’s not an issue to me.”

What he said astonished her, but the anxiety she felt overwhelmed the relief it brought. And, she admitted, she felt shame as well. She wanted to explain, but tears dripped from her eyesand she could not organize a reply in her mind. Again, he put his arms around him. Two currents of emotion ran through her soul. She wanted to pull away—not out of anger but to simplify things and to avoid the emotion that had crashed down upon her; at the same time, she felt that more than anything in the world she wanted to him to hold her and comfort her. Those currents roiled like the confluence of two powerful rivers or the collision of a pair of galaxies.

“It has to be something to you,” she finally managed to say, confirming that he had read her emotions correctly.

“I say it isn’t. And the sooner we put it behind us, the better.”

Oddly, she had fantasized about them having just such a conversation. Now that the fantasy had come true, she wanted to deny it.

But as she contemplated, she felt herself settling. She began to see her thinking on the matter as foolish and judgmental. Why did she assume Lewis would be a moralistic ogre? Why did she think he would be like the Father in Romeo and Juliet who told his daughter, beg, starve,die in the streets,/ For, by my soul, I'll ne'er acknowledge thee because she had done something that displeased him? Lewis had never seemed cruel. His kindness and civility had attracted her assoon as she began to know him well. What he had told her did not contradict what she knew of him.

“It’s difficult,” she said.

“We both know that,” he said, “Now let’s leave it where it belongs.”

She managed to nod then she laughed and the laughter dissolved into a spasm of tears—which made the two of them laugh even more. The hubbub they made had caught the nurse’s attention. She came into the room and asked if everything was all right. Xiao laughed at the absurdity of the whole matter. The nurse said she needed to rest. She said she would like a cup ofcoffee. Not certain she should leave, the nurse tagged a passing volunteer and told her to fetch coffee. She and Lewis smiled at each other. When the volunteer brought it in Xiao sipped it thankfully.

“How can anything smell so good and taste so bad?” Lewis asked. This was a private joke. Being Scots, he was a hard-core tea-drinker. Xiao laughed. The pleasure of laughing went from her head all the way to her toes.

Lewis told her he had to get back to his job. He was on call still because Military Services were still scanning and searching the area for Golorians. They kissed. She gave him a smile she hoped indicated her love for him and her acceptance of his desire to leave the past behind.

More doctors and medical staff came in to check her. Even though she had had coffee, she fell asleep and woke three hours later. A female doctor came in and gave her a complete physical, which exhausted her. Her regular nurse returned and said she had a visitor. Though she wanted to sleep, she thought the visitor was probably Fiona and gave to the okay to admit her.

It was Qiulin.

She had not seen her friend in two years. Xiao squealed with delight when she saw her. They embraced. She began to weep once more, realizing how much her ordeal had frayed her emotions and how long it might take for her to recover her even temper.

Qiulin sat beside her bed. She had on fatigue uniform with two bars on the collar (rank of Captain, she said) and combat boots. She wore her hair short and, as in the days when they were students, radiated strength, confidence, and gentleness. Xiao noticed she wore a wedding ring.

“You told me you were getting married? Why didn’t you write me? When was the wedding?”

“I’m in a top secret unit. I’m not supposed to tell people where I am. Jerry and I were married on a starship between assignments. I couldn’t even invite my parents to our wedding! We had a week-long honeymoon on Lotus then we were back on duty. Even when I had maternity leave, Command kept me secluded.”

“Maternity leave? You have a child?”

“A boy. We got busy right away.”

“Qiulin, that’s wonderful.”

“Jerry takes care of our child most of the time. He took status B so he could be at home more. I’m the one who goes gallivanting all around the galaxy. But it works out pretty well. I’m home with our son quite a bit.”

Status B in the Mervogian Defense Force was a non-combat duty (often clerical or maintenance).

“That’s wonderful. Can I ask what you’re doing here?”

She looked around and lowered her voice when she answered.

“My unit specializes in anti-infiltration tactics. If our enemies are infiltrating somewhere, we get called in. We were close to Caledonia and got word. We weren’t the ones who rescued you but we did take out the until the squad the Golorians had sent to get them—and you—off the planet.”

Xiao shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

Qiulin touched her hand.

“Maybe you need to rest.”

“I just woke up. Do you see anyone from our old school days?”

“A few. Suzy returned. She’s an abbess now.”

Xiao laughed. “Suzy? Didn’t she get expelled because she kept skipping meditation and got caught with some ‘forbidden’ books in her room?”

Qiulin smiled. “She did. Apparently she had a change of heart. Now she’s number three at the convent.”

“That takes the cake.”

In contrast with her, Anjali, Qiulin said, had left the convent and married. Now an ambassador’s wife and had given birth to three children. Anjali had been a ranking nun—the only Indian sister in the convent when Xiao was there. Indians were the predominant race in the Terran Alliance. Having an Indian woman from a prominent family serve the convent had been afeather in the Prioress’s cap.

“I’ll bet Ling wasn’t happy about that.”

“You know Ling. She’s unperturbable.” Qiulin paused. “And you, my friend?”

It took Xiao a moment to realize what her friend was asking.

“I’ve dated. Nothing much has materialized.”

“I talked to Lewis when both of us were in the waiting area. He said the two of you were seeing each other. He seems like a nice man.”

“He is.”

“This planet is quite an interesting place. The people here are ... deep.”

“They’re religious.”

“Religion can make one shallow or deep—as you well know. It all depends on how authentically you you respond to the truth that has been revealed to you.”

She remembered puzzlement over Qiulin when they were in school. She seemed deeply religious and completely genuine at the same time. Sort of like Lewis, she thought.

“That’s true.” Xiao paused and said, “it’s sort of like on Ziran. I guess religion can sort oftake over a place after a while—not that that’s necessarily bad.”

Qiulin visited for another half hour, kissed Xiao, and left.

In her research work for the Terran Alliance Xiao had noted how character planets—and planets with strong hegemony—tended to become more, not less, like the cultural model that defined them. She had already noted that Caledonia was not overtly religious when founded; soon it became religious—very much like Scotland in the 1800s. She laughed and added in her mind, Or the 1500s. Most everyone practiced some form of Presbyterianism and observed the Sabbath. It was so with the Character planets were Islamic, Zionist, Evangelical Christian, and Orthodox. Many of them had started as refuges for those who longed for a certain culture to predominate. The longer those worlds existed the more true to their culture it became. It even effected the secularization and leveling the Terran Alliance tended to force on a given world simply through its ruling influence.

The nurse opened the door and asked if Xiao would see yet another visitor. It was Fiona.

She came into the room and sat down. She took Xiao’s hand. They were silent a long time.

“So.” Fiona finally spoke.

“So?” Xiao replied.

“You weren’t dreaming or hallucinating when I rescued you from the Golorians. What you saw was real and not a product of your trauma.”

Xiao nodded. When Fiona said nothing more, she added, “Can you explain?”

Fiona seemed to gather her thoughts.

“You’ve mentioned that our planet seems to be a throwback to an earlier era. It is that—but in a manner you did not image. A culture, Xiao, is not just an academic construct one studies.It is the living beliefs and the dynamic of peoples’ hearts. The power of it can be transformative. Sometimes it takes a society back to older but better time. Often, it will take you very far back in time.”

“What happened with the Golorians? What was it saw? Why were you covered with blood? Why weren’t you wearing clothes?”

“In the ancient days of our people, we spoke of wulver. They were creatures, part wolf and part human.”

“Like a werewolf?” Xiao felt alarm.

“Sort of,” Fiona said. “But in the ancient days wulver were benevolent and kind beings who transformed only to defend our country from invaders or brigands. That is still true today.”

“And you’re a wulver?”

“I am. I found out that what we thought was legend and myth was in fact reality—a reality that had been covered over by years of cultural transformation and lack of belief.”

“Belief in what? In religion? In God?”

“In those things, but it might be better to say in the order of things; in the value of a people’s heritage.”

“But those are legends—myths.”

“Did a legend rescue you from the Golorians? Did a legend save you from slavery?”

Xiao shuddered remembering the threat the Golorian officer made to her.

“All right. You have me there.”

“I ‘have you’? Xiao, I’m not trying to win a point in a debate. You are here, rescued and safe, because we have recovered part of our heritage—part of it that was lost for hundreds of years due to secularization and loss of a culture. Don’t abstract everything into lifeless proposals and arguments. That’s what sociology does. Open you heart. Open it to the reality you’ve witnessed and seen with your own eyes.”

Xiao did not reply with words or telling looks. But she acquiesced to what Fiona had told her to do. She knew Fiona understood. And she knew her friend was telling the truth.

“It will take me a little while to process all of this,” she said.

“I know. I’m glad I could rescue you, Xiao. Now I need to go. My husband took the morning off so he could watch the children while I visited you. But he needs to get back in the fields. Harvest has begun.” She paused then added, “You must tell no one about me and not discuss what we talked about.”

“I won’t. Be assured of it.”

"Thank you.”

They shared a small embrace.

“And,” Xiao added when Fiona was near the door, “I’d like to find out more about the penance you described. I think it might be good for me.”

Fiona smiled and left. Xiao paused, lost in thought a long moment. She called the nurse and asked for access to a communications array so she could contact her father and mother, her brothers and sister, and tell them what had happened and that she was alright.

The End