Iona’s skin felt raw. Benediction told her that it would. He said the treatments he’d administered to her the night before wouldn’t be enough and when she woke up the next morning, she would be sore. He assured her that if she pressed the call button by the bed, he’d race to her to repeat the treatments.
Except Iona had been sitting up in her bed for an hour and she hadn’t moved to press the call button. She had been leaning against the glass that made up the wall next to her bed and dreaming.
Well, what she was doing wasn’t exactly dreaming. She was running a simulation in her head.
Benediction was head over heels in love with her.
Would he stay head over heels in love with her if he got to know her? Iona had her doubts about whether he could. After being strapped to two moving tectonic plates, she realized she didn’t know enough about the Church of Voynich. Her previous research hadn’t told her enough. She didn’t know they performed gravity trials on people for being slave owners. She also didn’t know that they were the governing body on Io. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to tell him about her life if he was only going to be disappointed in her.
She also felt like a fool. She should have grabbed onto Gage tighter. The campaigning to find a better buyer or a husband had all been stupid. She was trying to have it all, except she already knew from her work as a slave that you didn’t get to ‘have it all’. Not even the rich men who hired her ‘had it all’. Instead, they had sacrificed all they had for just one thing. For all those men, it had been their image. They gave away everything so they could look like they had everything.
She should have given it all away to get Gage. In hindsight, the way she should have done it was easy to see. He had said that he would be willing to try a more in-depth contract with her if she was in love with him and that was the only way for them to try to have a relationship. She should have given away her pride, given away her safety zone, and told him that she was in love with him.
Why had she been so hesitant?
Now the chance had gone. Gage was dead and if he wasn’t, no one was willing or able to look for him.
She scratched at her skin.
What was the difference between Gage, Benediction, and Leviticus? They looked the same so why weren’t they the same?
Iona rolled it around in her head. She wasn’t going to press the call button for Benediction to replenish her treatments until she knew what she was going to do.
When the answer bloomed inside her heart, it felt pointed like a compass and pricked her.
She pressed the button.
Benediction must have been close by because he entered the room almost instantaneously. Before, he had been dressed in an almost military outfit. The camouflage of Io was like a grainy yellow hologram. He wore a black top before. Now, as he approached her, he wore a white doctor’s coat over black clothes. He looked a little like Gage in the way he moved and in his doctor mannerisms.
“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked, reaching to help her move her bottom closer to him on the bed.
She took his hand and let him lead her.
“I hurt,” she confessed. “How long will it hurt?”
“I don’t know,” he said, taking her fingers in his and examining the back of her hand. “You’ll probably be raw for weeks.”
She nodded. “We have to have a conversation about what my treatment costs.”
Benediction looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”
“Those sprays and creams that you’re using on me, they can’t be free for you. The food you’ve given me isn’t free either.” She touched the neckline of the robe she was wearing. “This garment is obviously going to be ruined after absorbing the sprays and creams. I have to pay you back for your kindness.”
He looked aghast. “This isn’t a hospital. There isn’t a price list on the door.”
“I know, but we need to come up with a reasonable starting amount so that I can have it transferred to you. Bank transfers are a bit slow between moons and my bank is on Ganymede, so it might take weeks for the amount to be wired to you. We have to start the process now so I can display my intention to pay.”
He scoffed. “When you discover a wounded animal, like an owl or a fox, you care for it knowing that it cannot repay you with anything other than its recovery. There are no wounded animals on Io. There is only you. I don’t want your money.”
“Is that because my money was earned as a slave?” she asked quietly.
His eyes went wide, but he calmed himself before he said the wrong thing. Instead, he said patiently, “You’re not a slave anymore. You’re not part of that system anymore. Jupiter freed you.”
“You’re right,” she said slowly as she touched the raw skin on her face. “May I see myself in a mirror? I sort of saw a reflection in the glass and it made sense. It looked like the same burnt skin that is on my arms is also on my face, but I’d like to see it for myself.”
Benediction hesitated. “I think you should wait a few more days.”
“I’m likely to be horrified?”
“You’re likely to judge that the situation with your face is more serious than it is. You are burnt. I’m not going to try to hide the truth of that from you, but this is Io and I’ve seen a lot of these types of burns recover. If you see it, you might be less hopeful and that attitude will hurt your recovery. You need to have faith that you will be beautiful again if you’ll only wait.”
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“The time it will take for me to recover is why I want to send you a payment. Otherwise, I fear very strongly that you will tire of caring for me. I was also hoping that I could take over performing my treatments so that I would be less of a burden on you. You are the head of the church. You don’t have time to care for me.”
He smiled a beautiful smile that filled his face with sunshine. “Iona, if there was ever anything that I wanted to do with my life, it’s caring for you now. This talk of payment is blocking your immediate relief. Stop talking. Please take off your robe and let me see your shoulders. It will be most convenient if I care for you in the chair,” he said, pointing.
Fighting Benediction now seemed stupid. Her skin was burning and a remission of the pain was only a few sprays away.
She stood and removed the robe as he requested. Under it, she wore a black strapless dress made of T-shirt fabric. It had a zipper in the back but was held tight by a series of ties that were incorporated into the bodice by some very clever smocking. The truth was that it was one of the most interesting garments she’d ever worn as it could be tightened and loosened to create different patterns.
“Where did this dress come from?” Iona asked as she sat on the chair he offered. “This isn’t a hospital, so it’s not like it was just lying around.”
“It was,” he said as he sanitized his hands before getting started. “Here on Io, there are a number of different industries. We have to make money move here, so I have to spend the money that becomes mine and not hoard it. If I hoard my money, others will too, so I have to show my generosity by buying things. I filled all my needs ages ago, buying from our community, so I got this idea to buy things for an imaginary wife. I have a whole room filled with things I’ve purchased for her. Everything I have used on you has been something stored in that room.”
Iona swallowed. “Oh, I see,” she whispered as the first mist rained down on her bare skin.
“I suppose you’re wondering why I haven’t married if I’m so interested in spoiling a woman of my own?”
She allowed the smallest affirmative sound to escape her lips.
“I haven’t found anyone because I have wanted to be inspired. The women here are very devoted to Voynich. They’re very devoted to me. I’m not inspired by them because I feel that they are telling me what I want to hear, saying the words I’ve said from the pulpit back to me in their own way. I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t move me. I want to be moved.”
Iona felt her blood hesitate in her veins.
His voice was clear and deep as he said in unmistakable tones, “You move me.”
Her breath caught and she wondered if she were on the verge of a panic attack. “You don’t know me. I’ve been a slave. You don’t know what I’ve done, what my masters have asked me to do, what I’ve done with my hands or my lips. You don’t know.”
He grabbed a chair and placed it in front of Iona. Sitting in it, he placed his face in front of her. His jaw was set and his eyes were clear. “I was a slave,” he said. “I was sold as a slave repeatedly and my sales were not voluntary like yours were, I was not protected by a contract that would end. You could make a fresh decision each time you were sold. I could not. Tell me, would you like to exchange stories with me to see which of us is dirtier?”
Iona looked away.
“You being a slave doesn’t disgust me,” he continued. “I don’t need to know why you sold yourself. I don’t need to know what you did when you were on contract with an electric shocking device around your wrist. I don’t need to know more about why you bought Gage or what happened with him. That’s all over. It was all over the moment I picked you up after your trial. You are clean and I’m wishing that I was as clean as you.”
She glanced at him, worried and tentative. “Do you really mean that?”
“I do. For now, it is my greatest desire to heal your wounds and lead you to me.” He stood up and continued the treatment.
She flicked her head toward him as he walked behind her. “What does that mean? Lead me to you?”
“It means that I plan to use this time that we’re together as a courting period. Every day that I care for you, I’m going to show you love on a level you’ve never felt before and when your skin has healed, I will ask you to marry me.”
She swallowed again. “It will be hard for you to do that. I was in love with Gage. His disappearing down that hole has only made me love him more. I don’t know if I can give you what you want.”
“You’re wrong. It will be easier for you to fall in love with me because you were in love with Theology. I’m not him, but we share many attributes. I’m not expecting this to be immediate, but I have been praying for something like this to change my life for some time.” He came back into view with a familiar smile on his face. “Above all, you should know that I’m not disgusted that you loved him. For some reason, the idea that you were in love with him makes you even more desirable. You only need to come a few steps further to fall in love with me.”
He moved out of view.
“What about Leviticus?” she asked, suddenly remembering the other variant.
“Don’t worry about him.”
“Is he still with the interrogators?”
“He is. He’s making less sense than before, which is bad for him. He needs to connect a few ideas before they’ll let him sleep.”
“Is that on your orders?”
Benediction huffed. “It’s not on my orders as much as it is the law here. You have to have a story that makes sense to be on Io. Nothing Leviticus says makes sense.”
“But I already told you how he ended up here. We brought him here with us because we were fleeing Europa.”
“Um… I see I need to explain more to you.” Benediction sat in the chair again. “I assume you know all about me and my ‘brothers’?”
“A bit,” she conceded.
“At the least, you’ve heard his story about how Apostate killed Heretic and Testament.”
Iona nodded.
“Well, Apostate didn’t kill them. It’s a ridiculous story. Questioned more closely, Leviticus says that Apostate strangled Heretic and suffocated Testament. Both those ideas are ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Because Apostate lives life as a sea cow in the oceans of Europa.”
“He what?” Iona exclaimed.
“He opted out of the human experience and he has been living inside a machine that tricks the sea cows into believing he’s one of them. It’s a submarine-type device that lets him endure the cold of the sea and the pressure of the ocean over him. I ping him every month and he pings back with a picture of how long his beard has grown. All of which makes for a pretty solid alibi. I’m inclined to believe that Leviticus did something to Heretic and Testament himself. He’s trying to blame Apostate for whatever he did because he couldn’t account for him and thought he was a reasonable choice to use as a fall guy. That’s what I think.”
“If he did kill Heretic and Testament, what will happen to him?”
“So far, there’s no evidence to suggest that he killed either of them. My interrogator asked Leviticus where he heard that they had died and he said he read it in the news outlet. We can’t find those reports. It doesn’t add up. It worries me that he tagged along with you and Theology and that he contacted me. The only thing that makes sense is he’s trying to collect us for a buyer.”
Iona squirmed. “I feel sick. He was so nice to me. I didn’t suspect a thing.”
Benediction shrugged. “It may not be as bad as it seems, but it does look very bad when he won’t say anything. My interrogator wants to do a gravity trial on him. Yes, like the one that was done on you. I’m thinking about it. He might have to think he’s going to die before he’s willing to admit what’s going on. Whatever happens, you’re unlikely to see him again.”