S. Swann - Prophets

There was a long period of silence before she asked, “If Mosasa is the Devil, what does that make us?”

“Souls untainted by the arrogance of the Fallen who have the possibility of redemption in the eyes of God. You more than I, because you are closer to His creation before the Fall.”

“You believe this?”

“I was raised in the faith of St. Rajasthan.”

“Is that an answer?”

“What I believe is not important. I’m as damned as Mosasa.”

“Why?”

“You never asked me about my arm.”

He couldn’t read her expression, but he could almost feel what she was thinking. She could ask him about his past, but that would open up the opportunity for him to question her about her own.

Kugara didn’t speak for a long time. Then she said, “You truly think I’m closer to God than you are?”

“In my faith, you are considered an Angel.”

He heard her make some soft rhythmic sounds, like she was gasping for breath.

Crying? Why?

She extended her legs, pushing against the portal to shoot out the door above him, out into the corridor. Nickolai turned, body slowly tumbling in the observation room. “Kugara?”

“Shut up, you stupid morey bastard.”

Nickolai drew back, the unexpected slur stinging him more than he thought possible.

“You know nothing about me,” she shouted at him without turning her head. “Nothing! How dare you!” She disappeared out the doorway before Nickolai could pull himself out of the observation room.

He floated alone, in the dark, with the stars.

There was a small area forward of the crew quarters of the Eclipse that served as a common area. Mallory made a point to take meals there when there was a quorum of the scientific team in attendance. On some level he wanted to avoid Dr. Dörner, but that was not really possible on a ship this size, and going to the effort of trying to avoid her would have attracted way more attention to himself.

In the end, his cover was only a means to an end, the end being intelligence on what was happening out toward Xi Virginis. And after Mosasa’s revelations about the Caliphate, Mallory suspected that information was more important than ever.

He hoped the scientific team Mosasa had assembled would be the closest to knowing the answer. That was the theory, anyway.

So, at each meal, he took a seat and eavesdropped, and if they didn’t actively engage him in their conversations, they didn’t shun him either—though Dr. Dörner’s icy stares came close.

Fine, Mallory thought, the more you see me as a mercenary thug, the less likely you’ll see a Jesuit colleague.

Over the past week, just by listening to their small talk, he discovered that none of them had been recruited from Bakunin itself. They came from several far-flung corners of human space. Bill—who was only ever present as a synthetic voice on a comm unit, his massive life-support system never leaving his cargo bay—was from Paralia, of course. Dr. Dörner, Mallory knew, came from Acheron, and that caused Dr. Pak to make an unsubtle comment about the planet contributing to her icy personality. Dr. Pak actually came from Terra, which usually granted him some deference beyond his relative youth but didn’t keep Dr. Dörner from making a sharp comment about people who peaked young looking forward to a “slow, sad decline.”

Of the last two, Brody came from Bulawayo in the Trianguli Union, and Tsoravitch came from Jokul in the Sirius Economic Community. Two planets fifty light-years apart; both close to forty light-years from Acheron. Mosasa had cast an extremely wide net, one that made the concentrated effort on Bakunin seem designed to catch the Caliphate’s attention.

Which was probably the point . . .

Mallory didn’t like to think of what would happen when the Caliphate moved toward these outlying colonies. The Vatican had no fleet, as such, but should the Bishop of Rome speak to some secular rulers, Mallory suspected that the Caliphate’s move wouldn’t be uncontested.

The only thing preventing him from seizing the tach-comm and sending a desperate message back home was the fact he knew that the Caliphate was closely observed. Their moves would be known by other assets soon after they made a decision. It wasn’t worth blowing his cover before he had gathered information at the source.

The source of what, that was the question. And the science team was as unenlightening on the point of this expedition as Mosasa had been.

Tsoravitch had just made a point about Mosasa’s less than edifying briefings. She leaned back in a corner of the common room, sipping a container of what passed for coffee on the Eclipse, and shook her head at Brody. “If he didn’t give you any more information, why’d you agree to come along on this bizarre little field trip?”

Brody sat facing away from Mallory, so he couldn’t see the doctor’s expression from his spot on the couch in the opposite corner of the common room, though the tone of voice Brody used was almost wistful. “I really could care less about Mosasa’s ‘anomaly.’ But I’ve been in a teaching chair at Sokoto University for nearly twenty years standard. I study culture, and I haven’t stepped foot outside the Trianguli Union since I finished my graduate work. Now I get the chance to see colonies that have been isolated from the rest of human space for at least a century? I jumped at the chance.”

“Amen to that.” Pak raised his glass in a toast to the others.

“Same reason?” Tsoravitch asked.

Pak nodded. “A hundred years isn’t a huge time for linguistic drift, even if they are isolated. But if these colonies were founded during the collapse of the Confederacy, with a substantial mix of languages, there could be a whole class of new Creole to study. The first person to write a paper on these outliers could make a career.” He looked over at Tsoravitch. “What about you?”

“You know any other chance I’d get to work with an AI?”

There was a long pause at the table. Brody broke the silence with a nervous chuckle. “She’s got you there, Leon.”

“You still there, Bill?” Pak called out.

“I am listening,” Bill’s voice came from a comm unit in the middle of the table. The synthetic voice was male, deep, and had a slight Windsor accent. Though the voice was completely naturalistic, it was so lacking in affect that Mallory would have preferred something that sounded like a computer.

He wondered if Bill picked it out himself, though Paralians perceived sound so differently Mallory doubted that Bill would be able to easily interpret the characteristics that made human voices unique.

“Well, what about you?” Pak said. “Are you anticipating some new branch of physics or mathematics?”

“No, I am not.”

“Why’d you agree to join Mosasa’s little expedition?” Pak asked.

“I wish to go where I have not.”

“You’re a tourist?” Pak asked.

“Mr. Mosasa provided me the means to leave the Ocean.”

Pak looked at Brody, smiling. “He is a tourist. Bill, we’ll have to get some holos of you that you can tach to the folks back home.”

“I do not understand what you mean.”

“Don’t mind him,” Brody said. “He’s just—”

Brody was interrupted by a klaxon over the PA system. After a single whoop , Mosasa’s voice came over the address system.

“Attention. We have our course programmed and we have engines primed for our final jump. We will be taching to the Xi Virginis system in fifteen minutes. Everyone who can, please report to the bridge.”

“This is it,” Brody said, pushing himself from the table. “Sorry you can’t come up with us, Bill.”