Her Brother's Keeper: A Story of Alpha Centauri

Part Two

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Three Months Later

Christiana successfully blocked the oncoming bokken and then parried it with the end of her practice naginata. Then she swung the long, spear-like weapon downwards. Suddenly she changed the trajectory of its short sword length simulated blade in a feint to attack her sensei’s stomach and not her head. Her well-trained companion easily intercepted the thrust with her wooden katana and then deflected the blow with a flick of her wrist.

With speed that the girl did not think was possible, the weapons teacher closed the gap between them. The child had no choice but to jump backward repeatedly to keep her opponent far enough away to use her polearm. However, the instructor kept pushing forward until she felt her back hit the wall. The woman was now too close for her to handle her spear effectively. ‘She’s too fast!’ the schoolgirl thought as she blocked her sparring partner’s practice sword with the shaft of her weapon.

In a moment of inspiration, she shifted so that she was no longer pinned. Sidestepping to her right she was able to shift around and back up once more. Her elation only lasted for a few moments before her backside hit another wall.

‘Ugh! She forced me into a corner!’ she thought. The inexperienced youngster hadn’t even noticed until it was too late. ‘I should have dodged left!’

In desperation, she tried to sweep her opponent’s feet out from under her. She used the butt end of the spear to attack the other female’s shins. However, her more experienced counterpart easily avoided the blow. Then, since Christiana’s closed-in position restricted the movement of her long naginata, the instructor was able to land the killing strike.

“Your head is now mine,” the dark-haired woman declared theatrically. “You are definitely improving, but you still lack situational awareness. It will quickly cause you to lose in the tournament, and it would mean your death in actual battle.”

“Yes, sensei,” she replied with a deep bow, her breathing somewhat labored and sweat sparkling on her forehead. Martial arts were an incredible workout. Although she was in excellent shape, she often found herself out of breath and overheated by the end of her daily training sessions. Her teacher always seemed to push her to her limits every time they met.

“That will be all today,” Saito-sensei announced. “You have done well. I’ll happily report your progress with the naginata to your Mother. Naginatajutsu suits you.”

She respectfully bowed to her instructor once again. “Thank you for the compliment,” the girls said politely. Upon ending the bow, she quickly removed her protective equipment before putting both it and her polearm away. While she was barely passable in kendo, she had excelled in naginatajutsu from the moment she picked up the spear-like weapon. She could handle the Nipponese halberd much more easily than the lighter bokken.

‘I think it comes down to the way you have to grip the shaft,’ she mused as she headed towards the locker room. Whereas the hand placement of a wooden sword was close together the places that you held a spear were significantly farther apart. As a result, she felt like she had better control of the longer naginata.

“I also prefer this weapon over a bokken,” she reflected as she hopped into the shower. ‘Ahh that feels good,’ she realized as the hot water cascaded over her sore muscles. Training always made her body ache.

‘At least I didn’t injure myself today,’ she thought positively as she exited the stall and dried off. While she did not hurt herself every day, it was a fairly common occurrence. Ever since she had started taking practice seriously she had averaged an injury a week.

“Mrs. Saito is right. I need to pay more attention to my surroundings,” she realized as she dressed. ‘That’s how I get injured a lot of the time.’ She had been lucky today. If she had jumped backward just a little further, then she could have harmed herself when her back slammed into the wall. Or even worse, she could have hit her head when she collided with the surface. That would not have been pretty. ‘It would hurt, too’ she thought as she fastened her mask and exited the building.

Since she was leaving on time this evening, she could take the last shuttle van home. Because it was so late, there were only two other girls in the vehicle. ‘I’m going to make it back for dinner,’ she realized with a smile. She was looking forward to spending the night with Haruhi-nee and John-nii. Plus Amelia-neechan will probably show up too.

‘Wow, it’s already getting dark,’ she noticed as the van slowly meandered its way through Simmon’s Town. ‘Winter is right around the corner.’

It was only a week before the Winter Longanocte and even though a-cent-a was still above the horizon it was low in the sky. Due to Cooper’s World’s position in its orbit a-cent-a was only visible after a-cent-b set. Otherwise, the glare of a-cent-b drowned out its much dimmer illumination. In just seven days the two suns would become perfectly aligned and a-cent-b would totally eclipse a-cent-a. During that period the longest night of the Year would occur, the ‘Longanocte.’

On that one day of the Year, there was no Alterday. Instead, there were twelve hours of Mainday and an equal lengthed Night at the equator. For a world with two suns, this was a rarity. ‘I guess it’s like that constantly back on Old Earth’ she idly realized. As she looked out the van’s window, the automated street lamps came to life. Suddenly the dim sidewalks were lit by the orange-tinted artificial light.

‘The dark can be truly scary,’ she finally understood, her mind filled with Haruhi-nee’s wild tales for the first time in months. ‘It’s only during Alterdays and Nights that they see the Strangers’ she recalled with a shiver. ‘I think that if I ever met one of those blood drinkers, I would just scream and run away.’ While she knew that these people who didn’t need masks could not possibly exist, she still felt apprehensive whenever she thought of them. It was almost like when there was something on the tip of her tongue. She somehow recognized that there was some truth in this legend and that creeped her out.

’At least the shuttle service will drop me off at the house’s main ‘lock and not at the end of the lane as with the bus.’ She took comfort in this knowledge because she would not have to wait alone in the dark for someone to pick her up. The very thought of doing that upset her.

‘When did I become so afraid of the darkness?’ she wondered. The look in Miss Harrison’s eyes when she was eating dinner with her suddenly and inexplicably flashed across her mind. ‘Why would I think of her when I feel fear?’ she pondered. ‘She’s my geneSister, for goodness’ sake! I’m definitely not frightened of her.’

She spent the rest of the ride home trying to understand her conflicting thoughts about her close friend and companion.

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Christiana was playing poker with three of her siblings. Haruhi-nee was ahead by forty-five credits. She, herself, had gained fifteen, while Amelia-neechan was down ten. Johnathan-nii was down the rest. She could tell by the look on his face that he was not happy to lose fifty creds’ this early in the game.

Of course, they weren’t playing for money. Instead, everyone began with the same number of chips, enough to total five hundred creds’. That meant that John-nii had lost one-tenth of his funds already. Since it was only the fifth hand, it was not looking too good for him at the moment.

All four of them were sitting on the floor of the room that she shared with her womb-mate. They were all in a circle with their chips in front of them and the pot in the middle. Unlike with most games, they played this one with actual physical cards.

This was a throwback to the days when spacers always kept a set of plastic playing cards on hand. This was just in case their ship had to go on auxiliary generators. It would become very boring sitting there in the partial darkness with nothing to pass the minutes. Sometimes it would take hours for the engineers to make the lights and computers function properly once again.

It also helped the crew to distract their minds from the possibility that they might never get main power back online. In those situations, they would have naught to do but sit and ponder the slow death that awaited them unless a rescue vessel somehow arrived on time. Cards allowed spacefarers to keep such dark musing at bay. Needless to say, they carried cards as essential disaster equipment on all ships in the Sol system.

“I’ll see your bet and raise it twenty,” Amelia-neechan said proudly after Haruhi-nee had just raised the bet by ten.

‘She’s probably bluffing, but my hand is too weak to risk it. Better to lose ten credits then jeopardized forty on a pair of sixes,’ she thought as she studied at her sibling’s faces one at a time. Haruhi-nee had her usual slight smirk plastered across her features, the very definition of a poker face, so that was no help. Johnathan-nii wore a slightly worried frown as if he wasn’t sure if he should stay in the game. However, Amelia-neechan looked like she was doing her best to suppress a smile and failing. ‘Yep, I need to quit and cut my losses.’

“I fold,” she announced as she placed her cards face down in front of her. Amelia-neechan immediately tried to cover up a sigh and failed once more.

‘That girl needs to learn how to hide her feelings if she wants to play with us!’ she realized. The three siblings played cards about twice a month with poker being the game they took part in most often. Therefore, they had quickly understood the need to suppress their smiles while playing. Even John-nii controlled his expressions to a high degree. Unfortunately, the womb-mates had learned to read him like a book after years of gaming with him.

“We should have gone with rummy after all,” he declared after throwing his cards down onto the carpet. “I fold.”

“I call!” Haruhi-nee proudly announced. Then she displayed her cards one at a time by placing them face-up on the floor. At the beginning of this process, Amelia-neechan kept her grin. After all, the first two were a pair of jacks, which was followed by a seven. However, her smile faded when Haruhi-nee revealed another seven. Finally, it disappeared when she exposed a third seven. “Full house!” the dark-haired Sister proclaimed loudly.

“You’re joking!” Amelia-neechan exclaimed as she threw down her cards, face up. The three aces held within explained her ill suppressed joy only a few moments beforehand. That was a pretty tough hand to beat, but it wasn’t that hard either.

With that, the older womb-mate reached over and pulled the pot towards herself. She hurriedly added the newly won chips to her piles before giving her cards to Johnathan-nii. “Your deal!” she said with a grin.

As she was handing over her cards to her brother, they heard a loud knocking at the chamber door. It quickly opened and the security head Jessica stood there. As always, her body was tall and straight, her uniform immaculate. “Excuse me for interrupting,” she began with a polite bow, “but your Mother wishes to speak with you, Miss Christiana.”

All eyes focused on her.

‘What’s going on?’ she wondered. It was almost unheard of for her progenitor to summon a youngster to her chambers unless they had done something that required a reprimand.

“What did you do?” Haruhi-nee asked in a whisper, both her face and voice showing concern for her younger Sister. John-nii wore a similar expression, and even Amelia-neechan showed a concerned visage.

“Did Mother say what this was about?” she inquired. She was hoping to get more information before standing to take the long walk to her Okaa-sama’s domain.

“No, Miss. She simply ordered me to fetch you,” the stoic agent replied.

Christiana let out an unconscious sigh as she reluctantly rose to her feet.

“Good luck!” Johnathan-nii said as she went towards the door. Looking back, she saw Haruhi-nee give her her usual thumbs up.

Meanwhile, Amelia-neechan only gave her a half-hearted wave. While she and Amelia-neechan had become much closer over the past few months, the older Sister had grown even more attached to Haruhi-nee. So while she was on better terms with their flightiest sibling, the two were still trying to feel each other out. It didn’t help that Amelia-neechan always tried her best to ignore John-nii, thus causing a bit of ongoing strain between herself and the younger trio.

She merely waved back at the other youngsters as she left the room side by side with the head sentry.

Unlike with Lucy, she did not try to chat with this guard. While polite, Jessica was not the type of person to hold a conversation with the members of the matFam. While she would answer every question asked to her promptly and accurately, she would not elaborate upon them. It was as if she wanted to place a wall between herself and the children of House Washington.

As a result, she had nothing to distract herself while they strolled through the well-appointed, wainscotted corridors. ‘Why would Mother want to speak with me?’ she wondered as they walked. As usual, her grades were neck and neck with Haruhi-nee at the head of their grade level. Meanwhile, she was making so much progress in her training that her sensei had even praised her that very afternoon.

‘Is she worried about the tournament?’ she idly speculated as they slowly made their trek to her Mother’s apartments. While there was still over a month left until the scheduled date of the competition, she was already pushing herself as much as her instructor would allow. There was little that she could do to improve her combat abilities significantly in the course of five short weeks. If there was a way, then her martial arts teacher would tell her and not hold her back from training to the point of exhaustion.

Upon finally reaching the door of her progenitor’s chambers, Jessica told her to “Wait here Miss.” Then the sentry went inside while leaving her standing alone in the hallway. It was only for a few moments, however, because the agent simply left to announce her arrival.

“She will see you now, Miss.” the head of security announced and beckoned for her to enter.

“Thank you,” she said with a nod as she entered and found her way to the sitting room.

Unlike the last time she came into this chamber three months prior, her mother was relaxing in her normal hand-carved chair. There she sat like a queen on her throne, awaiting her child’s visit in the manner she normally did.

However, that’s about as far as normalcy went.

“Welcome! Welcome!,” the red-headed woman gushed as Christiana walked into the room. “Come and sit with me!”

Then her smiling Mother rose to her feet, strode over to her child, grabbed her hands, and gently guided her to the chair next to her own. Then, after resuming her own armchair, she continued, “I have just received a glowing report from Saito-sensei. She said that you have been improving in leaps and bounds over the past few weeks. Is that right?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied, unused to seeing her Okaa-sama in such a good mood. Her face wore a radiant smile unlike any the girl had seen in her life. After a brief pause, she continued, “Mrs. Saito praised my use of the naginata today after our last practice match.”

“Hmm, is that all that she said?”

“Yes,” she responded, confused as to what her Mother was hinting at.

“Well, she told me you are already skilled to the point where she trains most girls to take part in a House Keeper tournament.”

“What?” she exclaimed, that one word full of the confusion that she felt. While her instructor did, occasionally, praise her for her progress, such encouraging words were few and far between. She had only been told that her fighting skills were adequate, not that she was approaching the normal finish line for tournament training.

“She informed me you went from an underachiever during the first couple of months to exemplary over the past three. She continued on to say that she will spend the next five weeks teaching you advanced techniques that most of her students never learn due to time constraints.”

“Really?” she retorted. Not that she disbelieved her progenitor. She simply didn’t know what her sensei had actually thought until now.

“I just want to express how happy and proud of your accomplishment. At this point, you have an excellent chance at winning the competition!”

‘So that’s why she is so thrilled,’ Christiana realized. ‘Why is she so fixated on my becoming a Keeper?’

“I have a question, though. The turnaround happed right after you met with Miss Harrison. What exactly did she say to motivate you?”

She hesitated for a moment. She had told no one what they had discussed that night. First, she couldn’t afford their plans to get back to Haruhi-nee and John-nii. Second, her older friend had sworn her to strict secrecy. It was only then that she remembered that Miss Harrison stated it was okay to talk to her parent about their conversation.

After quickly thinking all of this through, she responded after only a moment of silence. “She said two things. The first was that she could arrange for Haruhi-nee to become a second Keeper for Johnathan-nii if I won the competition. That way the three of us could go to school together.”

“Did she now?” her Mother reacted in surprise. The girl could instantly see that this wasn’t a ruse by the expression on her Okaa-sama’s face. To put it bluntly, the woman was not that good at acting. No one had informed her of this proposal and that it was unanticipated.

The redhead quickly recovered, and her green eyes sparkled as she muttered, “So the reason was Haruhi after all.” Then she continued speaking in a normal volume, “You were reluctant because you wished to stay with your Sister and not Johnathan?”

“Not exactly,” she slowly responded. “I couldn’t decide between the two. I wanted to be with both of them, so I wasn’t motivated to become a Keeper. I didn’t want to make that decision.”

“You realize that one day you will be separated from Johnathan when he becomes old enough to marry? He already has five girls lined up in preliminary marriage contracts. These are legally binding proposals. The only way that we can cancel them is if the boy dislikes the person in question. In the end, he can only eliminate two of them.”

“Yes, I do, but that won’t happen until we graduate high school. In the meantime, I want the three of us to be together as much as possible.”

“You make a valid point. When I was your age, eight Years felt like a long time. Even now it’s a fairly lengthy period. I see where Miss Harrison is coming from. We will go with it.”

“She also said that I shouldn’t tell anyone about this except for you.”

“I agree. It wouldn’t be good if word of this spread to the other families within the House. We have already had one attempt to sabotage your chances of winning. This could lead to additional attempts.”

She couldn’t help but gulp upon hearing this. While secMother Karen had firmly laid the blame on patMother Patricia, she still found it hard to believe that she had tried to interfere with her martial arts practice. After all, they had no evidence that the older woman had been the culprit. It was all just suspicion and supposition.

“So what was the second thing that she mentioned to you that encouraged you to work harder at your training?” her Mother asked with interest. Judging from her expression, she was quite interested in Christiana’s answer.

“She told me that my geneMother was one of the Chosen,” she reluctantly admitted. While her friend had said to keep it a secret, she couldn’t remember if that had included her parent. The discussion had happened three months ago, and she had mentioned that she could talk with her progenitor about the matter with Haruhi-nee.

She was not prepared for her Okaa-sama’s reaction. The woman literally flinched in her chair. Her normally pale complexion became even whiter. The queenly air that she usually had evaporated in an instant as she audibly gulped.

After a few seconds, the visibly rattled lady muttered as if to herself, “She told you that? I thought she would wait to tell until you were a bit older. “ Then she fell silent for a little while as she seemed to get ahold of herself.

The youngster kept quiet during this fairly lengthy pause, all the while wondering why her Mother was so unnerved by this revelation.

After she finally got her emotions back to normalcy, she asked. “Did she tell you who she was?”

“She said that I was her geneSister!” she exclaimed with joy. She was happy to be able to talk to someone about her amazing discovery. It had been extremely difficult to conceal things up to this point, but she had done just as her friend had instructed her to. “It explained so much! I always wondered why she was so nice to me. Now it all makes sense!”

Her face was positively beaming, her prior concern for her Mother’s reaction forgotten, washed away by a torrent of positive emotions.

“So that’s what she told you,” the older female replied, her relief clear in both her voice and expression.

The redhead sat in silence as a knowing smile slowly formed on her youthful features.

The youngster was oblivious to this as she rattled on and on about how happy she was to have found a close genetic relative.

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