Béla was back aboard the great ship, confined to unfamiliar, cramped quarters after turning herself in for killing a landowner. The Bard Geoffrey and two of her sisters, Dawn and Jolene, were currently managing the estates that she’d acquired from Robert LaCrosse, whom she admitted murdering.

Over the last month, the daughters of Sibilius had gone down to the surface and, following Béla’s example of representing themselves as goddesses, successfully eradicated the wasting disease that had decimated over half the population of New Eden. The goddesses now represented authority on the inner surface and had the mundane duty of dispensing justice against any violators of the accepted civil codes, which they decided to leave unchanged to insure political stability.

Within a week of Béla’s confessing her actions to the Praetor via mind-link, a freight platform had flown down from Southern to collect her. Béla was instructed to board it and return to Southern. She was then escorted on a personnel carrier back to the great ship.

Almost daily for the next three weeks, the Praetor relentlessly explored her mind, going over memories of her entire existence on Earth. During that period of time, Béla came to realize that she was not being judged for that one single act of violence, but for the consequences of her actions, many of which could be attributed to her generally reckless behavior and attitude, which may have caused harm to others.

Regarding punishment, the least that could happen was that the daily personal invasions into her mind by the Praetor would cease. The worse that could happen would be a complete mind-wipe of her identity and all her memories. That terrified her more than anything she had ever faced before. What terrified her about that was her realization that she could actually become the violently murderous rogue her father had once believed she was. She hoped her father would kill her if she lost herself that way. She seriously doubted that he would be able to. After all, he failed, last time…

The Praetor had spent the last three sessions going over her memories of the massacre at Parson’s Landing, where she had been accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake. Béla was forced to relive that nightmare over and over as the Praetor reviewed and processed the images in her mind. The fact that she had spent the remainder of her life on Earth trying to atone for what she had done that night was not yet being considered.

At Parson’s Landing, an early colony in Massachusetts, she had mercilessly and single-handedly hunted down and butchered twenty-three people. The Praetor carefully went over each act of violence she had committed that night until it was satisfied with what it knew. By the end of each session, Béla was nearly insane with grief and self-loathing.

Once a day, Béla was escorted to the communal baths. Her escort was equipped with a personal thought dampener so that she remained in isolation even in the corridors leading to the baths.

Elaine volunteered, as Béla’s roommate, to return to the great ship and allow the Praetor to probe her mind as a kind of character witness. Elaine and Béla had mind-linked almost every night they had roomed together during the long journey to New Eden, and Elaine knew her sister better than anyone else ever had.

The Praetor accepted her offer and spent several sessions with her, limiting its probing to what Elaine knew about Béla and not what Elaine herself had done. Elaine had already served almost eight hundred years in solitary confinement inside a Praetor for her vampiric crimes as a Mayan princess.

Elaine lay in the Communal Bath letting the bubbles relax her. She was alone, feeling stressed and unable to concentrate, having finished a mind-probing session with the Praetor several hours earlier. At the end of her session, the Praetor informed her that it had collected all the information she had available regarding her older sister. When Elaine inquired, the Praetor informed her that the knowledge she had presented would be helpful to Béla’s case.

Personnel aboard the great ship was minimal, currently. Most of the crew were down on the inner surface, either preparing the ground for planting, or already planting the grain that had been harvested and brought from Earth. There was a small crew still unloading the cargo bay. It would take almost a year to finish the task of transporting, delivering, unloading and setting up the remaining equipment that was on board. After that, it would take another year to re-supply the great ship for its return to Deimos, and then, Earth.

Elaine felt the ‘secure to quarters’ in her head for her section of the ship. She knew that once this section was secure, her sister, Béla, would be escorted down the corridors for her daily visit to the communal baths. Desperate to see her sister and despite the fact that she would be severely reprimanded and confined to quarters if she was caught, Elaine hid in Béla’s personal shower stall. She turned on the thought dampener so she couldn’t be detected, and waited.

After about ten minutes, Elaine heard them arriving. Béla was being escorted across the floor. Elaine stifled a cry of distress as she watched her favorite sister cross the room. Béla was thin and anemic, wasted away. Her strong character, her certainty and pride that manifested in the carriage of her body was completely missing. She walked unseeing, with her eyes cast down toward the floor immediately in front of her, like her spirit had finally been broken.

Béla stopped, surprising her escort, and straightened up slightly.

“I’d like to be alone while I bathe,” she told him. “I have much to think about.”

According to protocol, Béla was kept in isolation and continually surrounded by a thought-dampening field, with the exception of her daily bath and her sessions with the Praetor. Even during those times, she was not permitted to make conversation with her escort except for the most basic requests.

She stood and watched her escort until he was out of sight. He would remain at the entrance to the communal baths until she was finished and came out or until thirty minutes had passed. Béla looked toward her personal shower.

‘She knows I’m here!’ Elaine thought excitedly and stepped out, letting herself be seen.

As Béla and Elaine embraced, their minds merged into each other. Béla had been isolated from all physical and emotional contact for almost a month. As she touched her sister Elaine, she was no longer able to maintain the fragile structure that had been holding her emotions in check and the dam broke in one huge emotional broadcast.

Elaine was completely terrified by the flood of despair and loneliness that assaulted her as Béla came completely unglued. Béla had always been the strong one and now she was reduced to a quivering mass of raw emotion.

They knelt on the cold metal floor holding each other tightly, both crying so hard they couldn’t even breathe. Neither was able to speak as the emotional flood slowly subsided. Then Béla’s escort returned to take her back to her quarters. He glanced at Elaine briefly, his eyes full of sadness.

Without a word of redress to Elaine for violating Béla’s enforced solitude, he helped Béla to her feet, then carefully wiped her face though he knew he could be reprimanded for even that small personal interaction with his escort. Taking Béla by the hand, he led her away.

Elaine saw in the escort’s mind that he dearly loved the princess in his charge and was tormented by her rapidly deteriorating condition. She sat on the cold floor for a few minutes thinking about what she could do, then decided to confront her father about it.

As her bare feet stomped down the metal passageway she determined that Father would either see reason or find out just how much Elaine had learned from her older sister about creating bedlam on board the great ship. She believed that all she had to do was broadcast that image of Béla’s emotional barriers crashing down and father would have a ship-wide mutiny on his hands.

‘Nobody can treat my sister like that and get away with it!’

When Elaine arrived at her father’s lab, Béla’s escort was already there. Elaine saw in his mind that he had not come to report her security violation, but to resign his post and commission, if necessary, and go to the inner surface to take up farming.

Elaine saved him the trouble by angrily dropping an image of her last half-hour in the communal baths directly into her father’s mind, full volume. Sibilius staggered under the onslaught.