S. Swann - Prophets

“Your eyes and arm?” Mallory asked.

“Yes. This,” he said as he held out his right arm and extended his claws. Mallory could see a metallic glint from them. It was the only sign that the arm was artificial. “And my eyes are reconstructions, made for me on Bakunin. I am present here in order to repay the debt I incurred for them.”

“But why did they punish you so harshly?”

“Harsh?” Nickolai whispered. “They allowed me to live.”

Nickolai’s sin was grave in the eyes of St. Rajasthan.

Man had created many species before abandoning that kind of genetic engineering. Originally, there had been thousands. The simple act of reproduction was of grave concern. One of the first commandments of the nonhuman faith was “Mate only with your own kind.”

The world Grimalkin was in many ways similar to the world Mallory knew. The more secular power someone had, the more they could bend the rules of the Church. Humanity might have fallen, but they had no monopoly on corruption and hypocrisy. As long as the transgressions of the royal family were kept private, the priests ignored them.

So at first, when Nickolai was involved in a dalliance with a servant, a panther-black feline who was not only a different social class but a different species, no one overtly cared as long as the affair was discreet. Young royals often bedded servants before the family chose a mate for them. Such liberties never lasted long and were of little consequence.

Both truisms proved false in Nickolai’s case. The affair lasted months, when weeks were more typical. It became obvious to everyone in House Rajasthan that things had passed beyond the venting of adolescent lust. Nickolai had entangled himself in an impossible romance, and his family had to intervene, taking his lover and sending her to an estate on the opposite end of the planet while they rushed him into a hastily arranged marriage.

Nickolai’s family had acted too late. Cross-species fertility was very low, but hybrids were possible, and by the time his family relocated his panther lover, she was already heavy with his cubs. When his children were born, the public evidence of Nickolai’s sin was too great for the priests to ignore. In the Church’s eyes, the sterile crossbreed infants were abominations.

Nickolai’s children were drowned before he knew they existed while their mother was flayed alive.

“But you, they let live?”

“I am a scion of House Rajasthan. Executing me would have been problematic, preferable as that might have been.”

That, and allowing him to live with this on his memory. That was as much punishment as taking a limb. Mallory couldn’t help but think that St. Rajasthan was correct in the near-Gnostic interpretation of his species’ creation. Man had aped God and made creatures in Man’s image, and in so doing bequeathed the creatures the worst of human nature.

God save Nickolai, and God forgive the men responsible for his existence.

“I’ll pray for you, Nickolai.”

Nickolai shook his head slowly. “Save your breath, priest. I am as damned as you are.”

“You hold no hope for forgiveness?”

“I have done worse. I’ve taken the instruments of the Devil into my own flesh. I have prostituted myself to the Fallen.”

“What comfort can I give you, then?”

“In my faith, it is a matter of honor to bear witness for your sins before a servant of God. We do this in anticipation of our final judgment. I wish to face that moment with dignity, and not as a frightened cub mewling for its mother.”

“My faith has a similar ritual. Do you wish me to consider this your confession?”

“If that is what you call it.”

“Yes, I will do so, my son. And I will still pray for your soul.”

Nickolai paused, but eventually he said, “Thank you.”

“Is there anything more that you wish to confess?”

Nickolai nodded. “Yes. And I need your forgiveness more than God’s.”

Nickolai knew that he was going to die, and it would be sooner rather than later. He knew it as soon as the Eclipse shuddered in response to the aborted tach-comm signal. Even if the ship was still functional, they were cast into the void, alone in every possible sense of the word.

All that was left was to make his testimony to the closest representative of God he had available, the falsely-accused priest. The fact that he was human might have been better than talking to his own kind. Testifying his sins to the Fallen was humbling, and damned as he was, God was still scourging him for his arrogance.

St. Rajasthan had preached that pride was first among sins, the cause of Lucifer’s fall and likewise cause of Mankind’s fall. Nickolai had been guilty of more than his share.

When he finished talking, he watched the man that until recently he had known as Staff Sergeant Fitzpatrick. He still was unable to read subtle human expressions, but Nickolai could tell from the long time that it took Father Mallory to respond that he had made an impression.

“You sabotaged the tach-comm.” It wasn’t a question, or an accusation, just a flat statement.

“Yes.”

“Do you know why?”

“I was paying a debt. Perhaps I owe too much.”

“But you don’t know why this Mr. Antonio wanted you to do this?”

“No. He told me many things, but never his own reasons.”

“What did he tell you?”

Nickolai told the priest what Mr. Antonio had told him, of how he knew that Nickolai would be selected for this mission, and what he knew of Mosasa’s nature and history. He told Mallory Mosasa’s story from the old pirate’s first life on the Nomad and his discovery of the AI cluster on the derelict Luxembourg to Mosasa’s final co-option by the AIs he kept. He told how Mosasa and the four other AIs were involved in the founding of Bakunin, and how their social engineering kept the anarchic planet stable in the face of the Confederacy, and how that same social engineering used Bakunin as a fulcrum to destabilize and ultimately destroy the old Terran Confederacy—the long deferred goal of the Race that had built the AIs, the last pyrrhic victory of the Genocide War.

He also told the priest how the single Race AI forming Mosasa’s brain was the only one of the five to survive to the present. Two had been lost during the Confederacy’s collapse, two more when Mosasa returned to the home planet of the Race.

Mallory shook his head. “This man who hired you knew all this?”

“This is what he told me.”

“Do you know if any of this is true?”

“I cannot say—” Nickolai was interrupted by static over the PA system.

Mosasa’s voice came from above. “I can.”

Mallory looked up at the ceiling even though the speakers were invisible. “Mosasa? How dare you!” Nickolai was sensitive to the scent of human emotion, and the room was suddenly ripe with the smell of rage. Mallory’s fists clenched so hard that his forearms vibrated.

“Father Mallory—”

“This was a confession, you mechanical atrocity. Do you have no respect—”

“Stop testing me, priest.”

“Mosasa!” Mallory yelled to the ceiling. Mosasa didn’t respond. “Mosasa!”

“Father Mallory?”

“Please forgive me, I didn’t realize—”

“I did,” Nickolai told him.

“You knew he would be watching?”

“He is a creature of Satan. He lives in wires, not in flesh. He sees though every camera on this ship, hears through every microphone. I knew he would hear this.”

“Why?”

“We will die soon, and I needed to make my final testimony.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Apocrypha