|
|
|
|
|
The Rose by Chris Cook, Part 4 @->--
Forewarned by another recording, we were ready the next morning
when a man came to escort us to a large room, a cross between a mess
hall and a theatre. We were served breakfast - some unidentifiable food
which turned out to be bland, but filling enough and not really
unpleasant, and then our education as Progena began. We were spoken to
by a Sister, not the same one as accompanied us up from the spaceport -
I never saw her again, so I don't know whether she remained on the ship,
or went back to Brightwater on the shuttle.
Firstly we were told a few details of our immediate future, the
conditions we would be living in once we reached the Convent, and what
was expected of us. We learned that the ship's warp drive had pushed it
from realspace less than two hours after our shuttle had docked - I
realised I must have been awake when it had happened. I hadn't felt a
thing. As many of the children weren't yet destined for a particular
type of service the information we were given was all-encompassing, some
of it not relevant to me personally, but I listened anyway. There
wasn't much else to do.
One thing I remember very clearly. It was nearing the end of
the first day, during which we had not moved from that room - we had
eaten in silence at midday, ship's time, which was only an hour away
from my own recollection of time according to home. During our meal we
had listened as the Sister had read the Emperor's Prayer to us, a longer
version than we had previously known, in High Gothic which at the time I
didn't understand at all. We were told we would have to have learned
the Prayer, in that form, by the time we reached the Convent, and later
we were each provided with a copy of it, printed in a tiny book with the
Ecclesiarchy's symbol on its cover. But what I remember was something
said by the Sister just before she left us to eat dinner and be returned
to our cabins.
"Until now you have been servants of the Imperium," she had
said, looking out over us all - she had some notes, but had rarely
referred to them, and did not do so at all now. "Your spiritual
well-being has been left in the capable hands of the preachers and
missionaries who have cared for you. That is no longer the case. You
are now, each of you, servants of the Emperor Himself. In the months
and years to come you will be cared for and helped along the roads your
lives will lead, by Sisters such as myself, your tutors and overseers.
Your minds and souls will have the best care we can provide. But it is
no longer the duty of others to ensure your souls become one with the
Emperor when you leave this life. Now that is your duty, and your duty
alone. You are His servants, and your faith is placed in Him. And He
places His faith in you, and no other. It is your responsibility, above
all else, to see that His faith is not misplaced."
I thought about what the Sister had said that night, after
Serena has gone to sleep. I had heard much about the Emperor and how He
watched and protected us, both in the school and in the services I
attended with my parents. But I had never really thought about it until
now. While I had been living my life on Brightwater the Emperor, and my
soul for that matter, had seemed ephemeral, far-off things that touched
me for a second or two as they were spoken of, and then slipped back up
above the clouds, safely out of reach of the real world. Now, it
suddenly struck me, if my soul was anywhere it was right here,
travelling with me. And now there was no-one to look after it but me,
until the time when the Emperor came for me. He places His faith in me,
she had said. I don't know why, but that struck a chord with me. I was
determined, as I fell asleep, that I would be worthy of His faith.
@->--
Our education continued in much the same manner for the
thirteen
days it took the Sacred Star to reach Delva IV. Indeed things were
initially not so different after we had been ferried down to the
surface, except the rooms were bigger and the students now numbered in
their thousands. All thirty of us were placed in the same large room,
filled with narrow beds, along with double our number again from other
ships that had recently arrived. But as the days turned into weeks our
tuition became more focussed. The younger girls disappeared for days at
a time, and I learned from Serena, who went with them, that they were
being put through exercises, physical and mental, designed to determine
what path of study would best suit them. During those times I, and
others like me who were already destined for the Sisterhood, attended
lessons on the duties and responsibilities of a Daughter of the
Emperor.
My clothes were replaced by a short, plain robe, which was
comfortable enough, and had clearly been designed to allow maximum
freedom of movement. This was necessary, because we were being taught
how to survive and endure, as well as the more cerebral aspects of the
Sisterhood. At the end of the first fortnight we were drilled from dawn
'till sunset, which took slightly longer than it would have on
Brightwater - Delva IV has a twenty-five-hour day - marching and
standing at attention, going through endless repetitions of exercises,
and circling through athletics courses, much like we had always imagined
the mighty Marines doing whenever they weren't fighting on alien worlds.
I was exhausted, but some of the others didn't make it through the day
- some of them improved, others were redirected into less physical
studies, to eventually fill those roles within the Sisterhood that
required devotion, but not exertion.
Serena too seemed destined for the Sisters, and as the weeks
wore on she was present in more and more of the classes and exercises I
was in. Her father had apparently known he was likely to be called to
join the regiment, and had done his best to prepare her for the Schola
Progenium. The basic elements of military procedure we were taught -
advancing, controlled retreat, moving in formation - all seemed
second-nature to her. I picked up on it all quickly enough that there
was no doubt I would at least continue the training - I mentioned I had
a good memory, but it was only now, when we were deluged with
information, that I realised how effortless it was for me to remember
something - I had only to hear words spoken a few times, or read them
two or three times over the course of a day, and they stayed in my head
indefinitely, available whenever I needed them. The tutors in faith and
philosophy were impressed with my progress through the texts, the basic
levels of which I achieved effortlessly. It was just as well - with the
demands of the physical training, I didn't have much effort to spare.
But even so I found that I initially preferred the training,
during the first few months. They were a challenge, and as had used to
be the case, my mind was free to wander during the purely physical
exercises. Cross-country figured into our schedule, and I found that
the more I practices the better I became, my endurance surprising the
Sisters who trained us. I shouldn't make it sound easy, for it wasn't -
at the end of every day I was exhausted, and it defied my belief that,
as we were crossing the miles of sparse plains that surrounded the
Convent, our trainer would often come running up behind me, offer a word
of encouragement or correction, and then accelerate away after the
distant dot that marked the next girl sweating her way through the
course. I never saw one of them break out in a sweat, even when we were
all drenched after a long day, and they had been with us every step and
faster. Ursala was with us for some of the runs, but that was all I saw
of her or the other girls from home aside from the few minutes we had to
ourselves at the end of each day. I didn't know what she was being
schooled for, and neither did she. Her classes seemed to consist of a
mix of endurance and a sort of mental gymnastics that was taught, less
frequently, to us all under the name 'meditative prayer'.
I say that I preferred the training initially, but after the
first few months I was transferred from the basic theology classes to
more advanced ones. My tutors had evidently felt that I was being
wasted in what was, for me, simply an exercise in memorisation. They
felt that my mind should be as exhausted as my body by the end of the
day, apparently, and they succeeded more often than not. But I found
myself enjoying these classes - again, it was the challenge.
"Why are we known as the Daughters of the Emperor?" asked our
tutor in faith and philosophy one day. A girl who I didn't know, of
about my age but not one from my sleeping room, advanced the opinion
that we had become Daughters when we were chosen for the Schola -
rephrasing what the Sister had told us aboard the Sacred Star, and
presumably had been told to her on a different ship on her way here.
"Simple, but correct," said Sister Kristine, our tutor. She had
a habit of qualifying her answer when handing out praise - we may have
been correct now and then, but no-one had ever managed to be completely
correct during all the hours I was in her presence. "But ignore the use
of the title," she went on, "and consider the question devoid of
context. Are we daughters of the Emperor, in the same way that we are
the daughters of our mothers and fathers?"
"Not in the same way," began Raelle, a girl slightly younger
than me who had the misfortune to occupy Sister Kristine's attention at
the point the question had been asked. The Sister held up a finger,
mildly scolding Raelle.
"In exactly the same way," Sister Kristine corrected, "in every
way that matters we are the children of the Emperor. Consider this:
suppose an otherwise happy couple were separated from their newborn
child, through circumstances beyond their control. This child, cared
for by foster parents, grows into a healthy, well-adjusted adult. Of
which couple is this child the son or daughter of? The natural parents?
Well suppose, for the sake of illustration, that the child's natural
parents were not otherwise happy - suppose they were delinquent in their
duty to their child, and abandoned the child without thought to the
consequences. Yet this child, in due course, marries and becomes a
parent, caring for a child of his or her own, caring for it as we would
hope.
"The delinquent parents are parents biologically only. It is
those who take care of a child, raise the child, teach and protect the
child, that are the family of the child. Most often it is the child's
natural parents who fulfil the greatest part of this. But, if a child
is unfortunate enough to be abandoned as we have supposed, and is raised
by a couple who offer all that a child may need, that child is
absolutely correct to look to those people and call them 'mother' and
'father'. And when that child in turn becomes a parent, it will be to
those people that he or she will look, and draw inspiration to be a
parent to their own child.
"Now consider the Emperor. He has lived in times so distant
they are incomprehensible to us, when our proud race occupied only a
handful of primitive settlements on Terra. He has always been happy to
share his life with His people, and so more and more can trace their
lives back to Him. The Magos Mathematicus can provide numerical,
scientific proof that we are all, every single human in this galaxy,
children of the Emperor. We need no such proof, for we know it in our
hearts, in our blood, in our souls. We are all His children.
"But most of our people live their lives unaware of this. You
are beginning to realise it, through your tuition here, but the untold
billions of humans who do not have this privilege know only that the
Emperor is there, and that He watches and protects them. They cannot
understand the truth of their relation to Him, as we of the Sisterhood
do, and as you one day will. This is no fault of theirs, I hasten to
add. It is not easy to comprehend this truth, and we lack the means to
bring this truth to the soul of every human in our beloved Imperium. We
strive to serve the Emperor and His creation as best we can, in the hope
that our efforts will one day bring about his glorious vision, a galaxy
in which every human truly understands that they are His child.
"Until that far-off day, we must remember. The Emperor protects
us from harm. He teaches us the way to achieve happiness in this life,
and the life beyond. He watches us grow, rejoices in our triumphs, and
mourns our passing even as we join with him. We are His children, and
He is our family. Those of us who understand this are blessed, as you
one day will be. And, to remind ourselves of this blessing, that is why
we are known as the Daughters of the Emperor. He is our family, all
that we will ever need."
As time passed the lessons became more complex. We were
expected not only to remember what we had been taught, but to interpret
it and anticipate the next lesson. As one tutor put it, we were not led
along the path, merely pointed to the start, and gently prodded in the
right direction if we strayed too far. We studied all sorts of beliefs
in the Emperor, from the highest, most ritualised practices of the
Adeptus Terra to the crudest faiths of primitive worlds. Even ogryns,
which initially surprised some of us - well, me, and I think a few
others as well. But it turned out that the strength of their simple
belief was so great we hardly dared hope to one day achieve it. It
certainly shamed those of us who had, years earlier, giggled at the
thought of these giants with their little books of prayers that they
couldn't read hanging by a thread around their necks.
Our training too picked up the pace, becoming both physically
and mentally demanding as we learned to think and act as soldiers. We
were formed into squads, and battle groups, with some of us given
temporary ranks to simulate the chain of command of a real Sisterhood
force. Once I was acting superior, and Serena was part of my squad,
which was amusing. We equalised a week or so later, when she was put in
charge of the simulated section I was a part of. As the weeks passed we
were fewer and fewer, thanks to the unforgiving requirements of the
training. At the end of the first year our group joined with another we
had not previously trained with, which almost brought us back to half
the number of girls we had started with. A few months later we merged
again, and so it went on, day after day. I won't bore you with the
details of everyday training - if you've been there you know, if not
it's just so many words.
There were a few moments that stood out, though. Once we were
take by grav shuttle quite a way away from the Convent, into thick
bushland, and left with just our robe and a compass, alone with no food,
no suitable clothing, and no help in getting back. We had already
trained in survival and improvisation, but that particular exercise put
it in a whole new perspective. I made it back exhausted and hungry, but
not too exhausted thanks to my training, and not too hungry thanks to
some local wildlife that wasn't as fast as I was. A few maston skins
stitched together helped with the cold, too. Some of the girls didn't
make it out on their own, and had to be picked up and treated. It was
rumoured that trainees had died in similar exercises, but none had this
time, and I don't know whether that was true, or just rumour.
@->--
To be continued...
--
TRANSLATOR: Chris Cook
TRANSMITTED: Alliance Heavy Cruiser Artemis
CROSSFILE: http://www.netspace.net.au/~alia/
AUTHOR: Sister Antonia
THOUGHT: To every life a light that shines.
|
