For the Good of the World

Chapter Three

Via's face warmed. "May I come in? I was on duty when Ivan passed. I'd like to offer Aura my condolences."

Umbrata smiled blandly. "Your presence that night was such a comfort to Aura. But the public gathering to honor Ivan won't be until next month."

Her heart sank. "But--"

"We just need some time as a family right now, dear." Lucina reached out and caught her hand, squeezing gently. "But it was so kind of you to visit. We'll let Aura know that you stopped by."

Via cursed internally. Technically, she had no business intruding; the Rite of Thirty-Six Hours was always a family gathering. But she couldn't wait a month to speak with Ivan's eidolon! Yet the twin Chief Terraformers blocked the doorway, as firm and immovable as two gnarled oaks.

Via sighed. "I understand. I'm sorry for your loss. May the Eternal Radiance help Ivan find peace, and may you all find comfort."

"Thank you, dear," Lucina said. She and her sister stepped back. "May the Eternal Radiance comfort you as well."

Via nodded, holding a pleasant expression until the door closed. Then she scowled at the white crystal blocking her path.

How could she find comfort without truth? How could the victims find peace without justice?

She gritted her teeth and returned to her chamber. She needed to get ready for another funeral, and this time, she wouldn't let anyone stand in her way.

***

Via's mater held the Rite of Thirty-Six Hours in Kaitlyn's chambers. It wasn't the coziest location for the living after Kaitlyn had died there, but the comfort of the dead always came first.

For the hundredth time as she waited for her grandmater to arrive, Via glanced past her relatives at her mater. Patria wore her formal toga like she'd been born in it, the chalk-white fabric brilliant against her bronze skin. Its crimson stripe ran like a ribbon of blood from shoulder to toe, matching her laurel. Yet the vibrant fabric could not hide Patria's weariness.

Doubt warred with suspicion within Via. Was it the weight of grief that drew those dark circles under her mater's bloodshot eyes? Or guilt?

She glanced away, the painful direction of her thoughts making her breathless. As her gaze wandered around the room, she frowned. All of her relatives were present, sitting in white crystal chairs they'd raised from the floor or standing crammed around the room's perimeter between pots and hanging planters of bizarre native specimens Kaitlyn had collected. But several faces were missing.

"Where are Grand Ma's colleagues?" she asked. "They're like family. Didn't we invite them?"

"The Ancients?" her willowy eldest sister, Iusta, asked. "They're at the Sunlit Station for that thing they do every year, remember?"

"Oh, right."

Her grandmater had always skipped the Ancients' annual Landing Day ceremony. "Just because my ship plopped down there fifty years ago doesn't mean I want to visit the rusty old monstrosity," she'd loved to say. "That pageantry is for sentimental fools, not scientists."

Via smiled and brushed fresh tears from her cheeks.

"Will Grand Ma's eidolon get here soon?" her older brother Fas asked, wrapping one arm around her.

Their mater nodded. "Any moment now, my darlings." She glanced at Mitis, who sat on the chaise where Via's grandmater used to tell stories about whales and other species left behind on Earth. "Mitis is just helping her prepare."