Peter Telep - Pilgrim stars

She stood over him, lip twisted in anger. "Maybe I wouldn't be so curious if you talked about it. But you won't. We've been together for more than five years and I hardly know anything about your past. It's not fair."

"Mommy? Can you play with me?"

Pris's expression softened as she regarded Lacey. "Okay, honey. We'll play that game on the terminal." She took Lacey's hand and led her toward the bedroom, their robes fluttering behind them.

Santyana closed his eyes. His imagination swept him into visions of Pris and Lacey being drugged or cerebrally altered by the Pilgrims, being turned into stereotypical cultists blind to the injustices and atrocities committed by their "broturs" and "sos-turs." Yes, they would become Sostur Pris, Sostur Lacey, and Brotur William, and they would subscribe to the notion that Terrans had plundered known space and needed to be eradicated.

They would pad around in their robes, drink and eat the Pilgrims' "sanctified" offerings, and fall blithely to their deaths in an act of spiritual servitude. He shivered off the thought, then imagined himself taking his Rapier head on toward the Olym-pus's bridge. Amity Aristee would stone up in horror as his neutron cannon belched out a lethal spray a second before he tore through the command and control center. His funeral pyre would consume them all. But even if Aristee died, she might have standing orders to have Pris and Lacey killed. There had to be another way out. But they kept him so closely guarded. He needed a plan to smuggle his family off of the ship.

If he only had an ally. There had to be someone aboard whose loyalty faltered. Yes, that was it. Instead of ignoring the rest of his squadron, he would talk to them, probe for weakness, exploit it, and win a soul or two to his side. They were Pilgrims, but they suffered the same frailties as humans. He would play on their guilt, on their instinct toward self-preservation, and even on their egos. How many others had families they might never see again? How many others questioned Aristee's actions? How many others were motivated by fear instead of duty? How many others saw no future in serving a renegade? Santyana swore he would find out.

"Talk to me, Brotur Hawthorne," Aristee said, staring at the comm monitor.

Hawthorne, the Olympus's forty-five-year-old hopper drive control officer, gazed back at her, his woolly hair gone awry, his unshaven face drawn up in a look of sheer frustration. "We're still having containment problems, ma'am."

"How much longer?"

"We've been working on it around the clock. I can't give you an accurate estimate."

Her jaw stiffened. "Let me spell it out for you. If we don't jump by oh-seven-thirty tomorrow, the Tiger Claw, Oregon, and Mitchell Hammock will arrive. Don't underestimate their ability to track us."

"I'm not. We're doing everything we can. At least modifications to the drive are proceeding as scheduled. We should be able to extend the gravitic cloak from five hundred meters to at least thirteen kilometers, as you ordered. However, a cloak that size will pull in many more objects than usual, and I'm not sure how well the drive's AI will compensate for the increased number of distortions. We'll have to test it, and we'll need Frotur McDaniel's help."

"As long as we keep moving, we'll have time for that. Continue updating me hourly."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Was that my name I heard?"

Aristee turned away from the starboard observation station to meet gazes with Frotur Johan McDaniel, the last living descendant of Ivar Chu McDaniel. The frotur's hazel eyes seemed to light up his surroundings, and they took no exception with the bridge. Attired now in his ko'a'ka robe and sandals, he resembled a pool-bound vacationer who had taken a very wrong turn. But when the next hour chimed, every soul aboard would shed the old Confederation skins of slavery and don the ceremonial garments of a new age. And the timing could not be better: this was the Pilgrim Holy Day of Acclivity, the day that marked Ivar Chu's rise to become one with the space-time continuum. Some argued that he resided on an even higher plane incomprehensible to mortal minds. Aristee had always leaned more toward pragmatic explanations, toward theology born of science, toward a blurring of those lines. She smiled now at the frotur with a deep, heartfelt reverence, with a love that transcended anything she had ever felt for her parents-both traitors to the Pilgrim cause. "Brotur Hawthorne says he might need your assistance with the hopper drive."

"I'm a visionary, a navigator, and a compass-but I'm still eighty-one years old. I wish these youngsters would remember that. I feel as though everyone aboard needs my help. But I'm not bitter. Just tired. I'm not used to this kind of excitement."

"These are exciting days. I'm not sure if they'll ever live up to my dreams, but if nothing else, we will make a statement that humanity will never forget."

"We won't survive this."

"Of course not. And we'll never be able to spare every Pilgrim life. This new rebellion requires our sacrifice. I'm not resigned to that. I welcome it."

"Destroying Earth won't bring an end to the Confederation," he pointed out somberly.

"No, but it will demonstrate our power and renew our people. They won't hide anymore behind post-war edicts that are no longer valid. We'll head to McDaniel's World, continue staffing this ship, and take aboard as many as we can. Then we'll head to Aloysius. I have friends waiting for us there with supplies and more personnel."

"We shouldn't go to McDaniel. It's not safe."

She took his hand in her own. "Frotur, what's wrong?"

He lowered his gaze, thought a moment, then nodded. "I've grown quite fond of you. I don't want to lose you just yet. It's in your nature to listen to the crackling of that flame that burns so hotly inside you. I did the same. But if you want to bring our people home to a free universe, you have to live long enough to create that symbol of our power. I know why you want to go to McDaniel. You want the protur's blessing for what you're doing so that when you make the ultimate sacrifice, you'll assure your place in the continuum."

Amity had known the frotur all of her life. Her parents had been friends with him until they had turned their backs during the war. When they had been killed for their treason against the alliance, the frotur had made sure that Amity was placed in the loving care of foster parents who had raised her under Confederation colors and had attempted to instill in her Confederation ideals. But frequent visits from the frotur had kept her Pilgrim roots thriving. Even when she had first joined the Confederation Navy, she had done so with the dream of one day liberating her people. And all of these years later, the dream was finally unfolding. She had not hidden her dream from the frotur, nor could she hide anything else. He always saw what lay in her heart.

"I'll ask for his blessing," she told him. "And he'll give it."

"Or what? He'll die?"

She huffed and turned toward the viewport. Starlines wove baroque patterns as the supercruiser cut through space, but she barely saw them. She saw the frotur come down from his altar, lower his hood, and condemn everything for which she stood. "I'll ask for his blessing. I need it. It'll be another symbol for our people."

"I don't believe he'll give it. He's been influenced by too many who fought in the old war. That blood is still fresh on their hands. They don't want another." He approached from behind, slid an arm over her shoulders. "Dear Amity, I wish my blessing could be enough. But I've always been a rebel, and despite my name, my blessing hardly constitutes a symbol. I'm the trouble-making McDaniel. The blasphemer. The last. Hallelujah."

He had drawn her smile, though she still felt very young, very vulnerable, and charged with the desire to get that blessing- though there existed more than one way to get it. "I'm sorry, frotur. As dangerous as it may be, I have to go to McDaniel. I have to try. I should've gone there first and gotten his blessing before any of this began. But Wilson's failure came so quickly. And we desperately needed those people from Mylon and Lethe. There just wasn't time."