Shereen, then, watched as Aliyah arrived; and as she was ushered in to the inner sanctum by the Three-times-Three. And she brooded.
It was◦– as has been mentioned◦– a time of tensions in Polyphemus Port. The reasons are arcane and somewhat boring. It could be argued that Three-times-Three is the most stable form of Sisterhood, a linked network, nine minds all linked and working in parallel on a perfect grid.
But there were, at the time, as we’ve said, other forms. The asymmetrical Five-times-Sixes of the House of Forgetting, and the Eight-times-Eights of the House of Domicile◦– the largest Sisterhood on Titan. And these joined forces◦– politically speaking◦– against the older and more established Three-times-Three Sisters of Mirth, Shelter and the House of Heaven and Hell.
There is a lot of politics in the solar system. There is the corporate rule of most of the asteroid belt; the mellow capitalism of such old-established settlements like Tong Yun or Lunar Port; the socialism of the Martian Kibbutzim, or the despotic rule of dozens of obscure space habitats. There is the mind-meld democracy of the Zion asteroid (which had since departed the solar system to destinations unknown), the libertarian anarchy of Jettisoned, the militarism that had led to the Jovian Wars in the Galilean Republics for a time, and so on, and so forth.
Titan was, nominally, one of those places with no clear system in place beyond the benign rule of machines; which is to say, autonomous systems kept the fragile balance of human lives functioning on an essentially hostile world, and the humans, robots, Others, Martian Re-Born, tentacle junkies, followers of Ogko and so on simply got on with whatever it was they were doing, most of which◦– as we’ve said◦– revolved around cargo.
The rise of the Sisterhoods, however, changed things. They were not exactly a religious order, though their business was the transport of cargo and thus assumed religious nature. They were a mixture of business and religion, then, human mind-melds functioning like digital intelligences, their component parts replaced as they grew old and died, but the basic mind kept on, gaining new perspectives and notions with each new cell of a Three-times-Three or a Five-Times-Six. In a world with few genuine Others, and only the occasional robot pilgrim on its way to or from the Robot Vatican on Mars, the Sisterhoods were near unique, and their power had risen as they assumed onto themselves new followers.
Against this background of rising tension, Shereen and Aliyah had fallen in love.
“Hello.”
“Oh… hello.”
“I am Shereen. I clean here.”
“My name is Aliyah. I’m a Novice.”
“I can tell.”
“Can you? I guess you can, at that.”
“I saw you here, before.”
“Yes, I saw you, too. I think.”
“Did you?”
“No, I suppose…”
“Your eyes are very beautiful.”
“Thank you. I’m sorry, I have the strangest feeling, as if we’d met before. There are things moving behind my eyes, at least it feels that way.”
“How long do you have before Initiation?”
“Twelve orbits to an Earth year of grafts and surgery.”
“That’s terrible.”
“It’s worth it. Or so they say. I would be a part of the Sisterhood. It’s a way of never really dying, isn’t it. Think about it. Haifa al-Sahara is still alive, in some form, in the Three-times-Three, and soon I will be a part of her, and she a part of me.”
“Who’s to say if it is right not to die? Isn’t our humanity defined by our death?”
“But which humanity? I’m sorry, I–”
“You look flushed. Here, let me help you–”
“It is probably the medication. Your hand feels so hot.”
“Your brow is icy cold. Here, let me loosen your scarf.”
“Thank you, I–”
“I feel strange, sitting like this with you.”
“No one can see us, can they?”
“We are alone.”
“Hold me. Shereen? Shereen.”
“Aliyah. Aliyah?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Yes.”
Things escalated when the Guild of Porters◦– swearing nominal allegiance to the House of Domicile◦– declared a general strike.
Without porters there can be no movement of cargo. Without cargo, Polyport and its adjacent settlements suffered. The House of Mirth sent its own people to replace the Porters, third-hand RLVs rising and falling from orbit. The strike turned violent. One of the RLVs crashed and burned in the violent atmosphere of the moon, and the scabs retired without grace. When at last the Porters went back to work the Cleaners went on strike. Beyond Polyport the nearest large settlement was El Quseir, on the other side of the moon. Now it threatened to rise in prominence as the Houses fought.
Human cells of each Sisterhood met to confer, and try to resolve the impasse. Shereen, cleaning, watched the meeting unobtrusively in the House of Domicile. The two women were almost sister-like◦– both short, dark haired, dark skinned, with violet eyes. Bare-headed, they were an amalgamation of protrusions and augs, their dark hair a mere fuzz on their shaven skulls. They spoke little in language, communicating somewhat by gestures but mostly in the high-bandwidth toktok of the Sisterhoods, which was both like and unlike the protocols of Others, the Toktok blong Narawan.
Their conversation in audio form, then, did not make much sense –
“Cannot?”
“Times three, times four. Mirth–” a raised finger. A shake of the head. “Port.”
“Cargo. Flow.”
“Ours.”
“All.”
“None–” a face turned sideways, light falling on augs. “Impasse?”
“Repeat.”
Silence, two sets of violet eyes staring into each other. Shereen wiping the surface of a desk. “Loop.”
“Loop.”
“Impasse.”
“Yes.”
And depart, disengaging swiftly, the one Sister leaving the room, the House, the other remaining as its others joined her, a Quarter, Four-times-One of an Eight-times-Eight.
The rest of their conversation Shereen could not hear, they did not converse, they thought in parallel. Later, when she left…
Shereen lived on Level Two of Polyphemus Port. An old neighbourhood, dug-in about a century after first settlement. There were hydroponics gardens on that level, the lush vegetation that was everywhere in the humid, Earth-tropical weather of Polyport. Vines grew over the windows of Shereen’s bedroom. She lay in bed with Aliyah. It was late. Aliyah’s body was black and blue, bruised from her latest surgery. A One-times-Nine of one of the Sisters of the House of Mirth was ailing, dying. Aliyah would replace her, become a cell in the Three-times-Three. She was almost ready.
“I can almost hear them, now,” Aliyah said. Shereen ran her finger lightly down Aliyah’s spine, marvelling at the enforced skeleton that pressed against the delicate skin. “Whispering, at the edge of consciousness. It’s not quite a singular identity, not really, it’s more of a choir of voices, that merge into one. With old echoes, old voices weaving into the music. One day soon I will cease being a singular note, and become an orchestra.”
“A part of an orchestra.”
“Maybe. But at least I will keep on living, as sound, as one note in a perfect symphony.”
“While mine will fade and die?” Shereen said, wryly. Aliyah touched her face. “I did not mean…” she said.
“I know what you meant.”
Aliyah withdrew her hand. “I don’t want a fight,” she said, softly.
“Then don’t start one.”