The Vanished Pearls of Orlov

My brother will sacrifice your sister if it means rescuing the Pearls of Orlov.

     As the hours passed, Fen could feel his own tensions ease while he watched anxiety drain from Lannie. Suggesting a postcard to her brother had been an inspired idea. She seemed easier, as though a burden had been lifted. She still didn't talk like she had before the thief had frightened her so badly, but she was .... happier was the only word.

     Maybe she was happy enough to answer a few questions about why she was so desperate to go to Northernmost. Northernmost! What a waste for someone as sweet as Lannie to go to that permanently frozen polar city of domes and tunnels, a city built on the man-killing labor at the Icicle Works, the Nitrogen Factory, and the Magnetrons, when she could come with him to HighTower. She'd be appreciated and valued at HighTower.

     She would be loved.

     Maybe not by him, but by someone, but only if he could persuade her to come home with him. It was the right thing to do, for her and for HighTower, but the idea of someone else loving her made his heart constrict. No one his family introduced him to would be as brave and uncomplaining as Lannie. It didn't matter how big her dowry was and how badly HighTower needed the money. That future bride wouldn't be Lannie with her big brown eyes and lustrous dark hair and her shy smile that lit up her face and his heart.

     ***

     With each step away from the waystation post office, Lannie felt more at ease. No matter what happened next, Charlton knew what daddy was doing to mama. He would fix the problem somehow, most likely by throwing the tisanes out, followed by throwing daddy out, and probably Mistress Vaughn as well. Mistress Vaughn was the only medic the village had, she was highly skilled, and honestly, she wouldn't have poisoned mama if daddy hadn't talked her into it, but even so, she was smart enough to know better. Damn daddy anyways for lying to Mistress Vaughn as well as to everyone else. If the pearl earrings made it through the postal system, Charlton would have some money to take mama to the Great Hospital.

     Charlton cared deeply about mama. Would he spare a thought for her, trudging along to somewhere else? He had no idea where she was. Would mama care? Would any of her relatives care, either DelFino or Ranaglia, after she had so publicly shamed them and Orlov as well? Or her friends?

     She didn't realize she sighed until Fen said, "something upsetting you again, Lannie?"

     Gleesh, but he paid attention to her moods. Like she mattered to him.

     "Not really," she said, choosing an answer that wasn't a lie. "Just my feet itching and I can't scratch them."

     "Your family will be real pleased you wrote so they know you're alive."

     "I suppose," Lannie said. Who would care besides mama and would mama even understand what had happened after drinking those brain-damaging poisoned tisanes? Maybe Shondra but Shondra had her own troubles and her best friend wouldn't ever know she'd disappeared in the first place. No one would waste time telling Shondra.

     "They care very much, Lannie," Fen said positively. "They may not always say so, and they might be really bad at words, but they care. You disappearing left a hole in their hearts. That postcard filled up a bit of the hole. I got plenty of postcards so you can send another one at the next mailbox we pass. If you want."

     Lannie stared over Coppertail's head at the busy road ahead. Like it had been since she'd seen it from the train window when traveling to Barsoom, the road was crowded with all kinds of people and no one seemed to be traveling alone. Everyone had someone and some people looked to have not just all their relatives but their household goods with them too, piled high in wagons. Who did she have? Her relatives had been all in favor of her marrying Rastislav. All they said was 'don't worry' as if her fears weren't real and her terrors didn't matter in the least. Her friends had been more supportive but they had stood idly by. She couldn't fault Shondra, though, for not racing to her rescue. Shondra was hanging on by her fingernails and if she'd married Rastislav, she might have been able to send Shondra more money.