S. Swann - Prophets

His Holiness stood in front of the windows, hands clasped behind his back, staring at the dome of the cathedral across the square.

“I trust you had a fruitful journey to Occisis?”

“Yes, Your Holiness. Father Mallory proved to be good choice.”

“So was Kennedy, I fear.” The pope shook his head. “Does Mallory know?”

“We briefed him with the absolute minimum information,” Cardinal Anderson said. “While he saw Kennedy’s transmission, he believes it was just another random intercept from the Virginis colonies.”

“That is probably for the best.” The pope turned around. He was shorter than Cardinal Anderson, and younger. Physically, he reminded Anderson of Father Mallory, though Pope Stephen XII had been born on Earth and was short and stocky through genetics rather than high gravity. “If the Caliphate should uncover Mallory or his mission, better they presume he is the first envoy we’ve sent to the Virginis colonies.”

“Yes,” Anderson said. “But the Caliphate will eventually move, regardless of their knowledge of the Church’s actions.”

The pope nodded. “Eventually. It is certain they know these colonies are out there and as long as they believe those worlds are their own secret, they’ll be inclined toward caution.”

The exchange couldn’t be called an argument, or even a disagreement, except by someone who had access to the decade of subtext behind the words. Cardinal Anderson had never completely approved of the cautious route they took toward these far-flung colonies. He had long debates with the pope about the strategic implications of each move they made.

To Pope Stephen, the longer they went without the Caliphate making any overt move toward these colonies, the better information they had and the better they could react. Even when the Caliphate moved, it would take years to build a substantive connection between the Caliphate and the Virginis colonies. Tach-ships had effective jump ranges of twenty light-years, and while ships could be built that could take the multiple jumps that would be needed to cross the seventy-five light-years between the Caliphate and the nearest of the Virginis colonies, to build a permanent connection, the Caliphate would need to build at least a nominal colony at each jump point to accommodate refueling and repairs if they expected to move trade goods or troops. Building such a corridor took too many resources to remain secret.

To Cardinal Anderson, it didn’t matter if the Caliphate had not made such moves as of yet. In his mind, this particular standoff would favor the side that made the first move.

He believed that was true even before they had received Kennedy’s transmission. The first envoy they had received any word back from. Kennedy’s only words back to them repeated a cryptic message, “Tached into the 89 Leonis system and have lost all visual contact with Xi Virginis,” then, overlaid on the transmission, another voice quoting the Book of Revelation.

However, His Holiness still believed they should move clandestinely with low profile assets. So Mallory would be the fourth man sent to the Virginis colonies, and the first one sent to Xi Virginis.

Cardinal Anderson prayed that God would guide him.

Date: 2525.09.29 (Standard) Bakunin-BD+50°1725

Twenty million people, human and nonhuman, swarmed the sprawling metropolis of Godwin, the largest city on the planet Bakunin. On any other world, it would have been the capital city, but on Bakunin, where any form of State was anathema, the only thing that distinguished Godwin was sheer unwieldy size.

Late in the evening, an elderly gentleman who currently called himself Mr. Antonio walked on the street under the crumbling multilayered walkways of East Godwin. There were no outward signs that distinguished him from the other twenty million residents of the city, or for that matter, any of the five hundred million other inhabitants of Bakunin. Even the most sophisticated medical imaging technology could scan him without registering anything out of place.

Not that he would ever give anyone reason to look for something.

Mr. Antonio walked into the cheap hotel where he had been living for the past six months. The place was a dark, modular hive of windowless rooms that barely fit together. Parts of the composite skin had crumbled with age and had sloughed off, and half the rooms were permanently sealed because of problems with the environmental systems.

Mr. Antonio’s room was unremarkable; a single nine-square-meter room that had amenities more appropriate to a tach-ship than a hotel, including the fold-down toilet. The room smelled faintly of mildew.

He sat down on the cot that attached to the wall and checked his watch. At exactly 28:00 local time the comm in his room rang. He picked it up without saying anything.

“It is time,” the voice on the comm said. Mr. Antonio did not respond because he knew that this call was one-way. The speaker was light-years away, and had sent a tach-comm to a receiver Mr. Antonio had left in orbit amid all the less distinguished debris that littered Bakunin’s sky. That receiver then placed a simpler encrypted transmission to Mr. Antonio that bounced though so many nodes in the patchwork net of Bakunin’s communications infrastructure so as to be effectively untraceable.

“The Church is acting on the transmission, and our friend will perceive this, if he hasn’t already. I will need our mole ready when he makes the inevitable move to investigate.”

Mr. Antonio switched off the comm and smiled. The groundwork had already been laid. Nickolai would be ready when the time came.

PART ONE

Original Sins

I believe in the incomprehensibility of God.

—HonorÉ De BALZAC (1799-1850)

CHAPTER FOUR

Stigmata

We serve most those beliefs that we first reject.

—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

[Animals] do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.

—WALT WHITMAN (1819-1892)

Date: 2525.10.15 (Standard) Bakunin-BD+50°1725

Nickolai Rajasthan slowly woke from a drugged slumber. For a few brief, precious moments, he didn’t remember the past year. His subconscious still refused to accept his punishment, or his exile. For an instant he was ready to find himself in his own bed in the southern palace, to smell the scent of his siblings, his sisters . . .

Then he remembered.

He wasn’t in the southern palace, and he wasn’t on Grimalkin. The priests hadn’t been able, politically, to have a member of the royal family put to death, but they had made sure that he would never set foot on his home planet again.

Nickolai groaned.

“Easy there, big boy.” The voice spoke a dialect of the Fallen. It burned in Nickolai’s ears. Even after a year, the alien, almost squishy, tones of their languages were a constant reminder of his crime and his exile.

The priests had maimed him and had thrown him to the chaos of Bakunin to be little more than a beggar in hell. A lesser person might have spent his time finding an honorable way to die.

Nickolai always had a contrary nature.

“Are you awake?” the voice repeated.

“Yes,” Nickolai slurred.

“Good news. The implants took. I’m going to remove the bandages now. You may want to close your eyes.”

Nickolai couldn’t bring himself to do so. After a year of blindness, he already could sense a fuzzy light source on the periphery of his vision. Then, suddenly, the bandages came away from his face, and the world was a bright white light that was too intense for his brain to process.

Surprisingly, his new eyes didn’t hurt.

He blinked and the world changed, eyes adjusting to the brightness quicker than he had ever remembered. Shapes resolved for him, and he found himself looking at a too-small examination room. He lay in a chair that seemed barely able to hold him.