He walked her back to the other two members of the scientific team, who were watching everything in stunned fascination. Mallory looked over at Nickolai to see how the tiger was reacting. He couldn’t tell from the feline expression if Nickolai was frightened, amused, or smelled something odd.
“Kugara,” Mosasa said, his voice still oddly flat. “Power up the tach-comm unit.”
Did Nickolai’s eyes just widen? Mallory could swear something just changed.
“Yes? Transmit where?”
“Earth. We’re going to hit every diplomatic consulate in turn, broad, unencrypted.”
Kugara hesitated, “Okay? Even the Caliph—”
Mosasa turned around and snapped, “Yes! Everyone! If anything trumps your narcissistic human political divisions, it’s this. This changes everything. I can’t account for this kind—” He abruptly stopped and stood up straighter. He allowed the emotion to leak out of his voice again. “You need to burst transmit all our telemetry and recon data. Now.”
“I’m packaging the data now.”
Nickolai closed his eyes and looked almost as if he was bracing for something.
“Transmitting,” Kugara said.
Something like a large rifle shot shook the bridge.
“What was that?” Dr. Dörner asked.
“—the hell?” Wahid said, and he began tapping madly at the display. “You see that, Parvi?”
“I have depressurization in the main maintenance tunnel. Damn. Major power drains on the main tach-drive.”
“I lost all data readings on the tach-comm,” Kugara said.
“Shit,” Wahid said, “that’s because we don’t have one anymore.”
The main holo display switched to one of the external cameras, pointing down at the stern of the Eclipse. A long contrail of ice crystals and debris emerged from a small hole in the skin of the ship, as if the ship was being followed by a small comet.
Did the tach-comm just blow up?
Mallory looked around and realized that Dr. Dörner was staring at him. Did I say something? Did I give myself away?
“What happened to the tach-comm unit?” Mosasa snapped.
“The diagnostic logs show an intense power spike at the time of transmission,” Kugara replied quietly.
“It spiked across the whole system,” Parvi said. “The drives are intact, but the tach-comm is interlinked with the damping system. It drained two thirds of the power reserves before vaporizing. We only have one damping conduit left at about fifty percent capacity.”
“No!” Mosasa snapped, slamming his hands down on the console in front of him. “We cannot have the tach-comm down. That communications link is essential.”
“Sir? Did you hear what I said?” Parvi’s voice was on the verge of cracking. “We’re down two thirds of our power reserves. That’s our return trip and our margin.”
“We have to repair the tach-comm. Communication is our number one priority!”
Everyone, bridge crew and scientists, stared at Mosasa as their nominal leader stared into the holo before him, watching the ice cloud of venting gases fade as the ship sealed off the damaged section. “We need the communication link back up.”
If anything, the look of shock on Mosasa’s face was worse now than when he heard an entire star was missing.
“I’m sorry,” Wahid said. “From all the engineering data, there’s nothing left to repair. The surge completely vaporized the main transmission coils, as well as the primary power damping coils. We only got half of one secondary coil to keep the drives from overheating. We’re damn lucky we didn’t suffer a main drive failure. We don’t even have the power to spare for a transmission, even if I could pull a new coherent emitter out of my ass.”
Mosasa shook his head, hands clutching the console in front of him. At the moment he looked way too human.
Only one third power, Mallory thought. That’s less than two fully-powered jumps. That can’t even get us halfway back.
He could see that understanding sinking into the faces of the rest of the crew, except for Nickolai’s, who appeared as enigmatic as ever. Mosasa stared at the console in front of him, whispering, “Was this planned?”
“Sir?” Parvi asked.
Mosasa pushed himself upright. “We need to conserve power and get to a colony where we might be able to repower the ship and repair the damage. Everyone on maintenance duty, I want the drives checked out. Make sure they suffered no other damage.”
“What colony?” Wahid asked.
“The closest one is HD 101534. It is eight light-years away and leaves us with an acceptable margin in our remaining power reserves.”
If it is still there, Mallory thought.
Most of the crew had things to do, checking out the integrity of the tach-drive, doing what they could to fix the damping system, repairing the breach made by the failing tach-comm, plotting a course to the next nearest “lost” colony. Even the scientists finally had some work, trying to decipher exactly what happened to Xi Virginis.
That left Mallory alone in the common room, wondering exactly what the meaning of all of this was. Even if the tach-drives themselves were undamaged, they were effectively stranded, as isolated from the rest of humanity as these far-flung colonies themselves.
And, deep in his soul, he felt an approaching doom. It wasn’t a fear of death. The doom he felt coming was far from that personal.
Xi Virginis is missing . . .
And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth . . .
He was Catholic, and a Jesuit, so he had always had a pragmatic view of his own faith in the face of the observable universe. He was comfortable with a God that spoke to him in allegory and metaphor, the beauty of the natural world was enough to shore his faith in God, and the wickedness of his fellow man was enough for him to believe in Satan. He believed in the spiritual world, the presence of Christ at the Mass, and in the holiness of the saints. He believed in good and evil.
And, deep in his soul, he felt that the Eclipse had crossed into something whose evil was nearly beyond human comprehension. He could not objectify the feeling, give himself a rational basis for it. A missing star was strange, but across creation there were certainly things stranger. It would be the height of arrogance to presume that man had plumbed the depths of what was possible.
But, to Mallory, the absence of Xi Virginis was worse than unexplained, it was malignant. It represented something abhorrent in the universe: the snake in Eden, Satan tempting Christ in the desert, the Dragon from Revelation.
The more he thought of the magnitude of evil, the more he thought he was a poor instrument to face it. He could draw on his military experience to face the worldly issues posed by the Caliphate. But this? He was a professor. He didn’t even have a parish. When it came to spiritual matters, he was as weak and insignificant a priest as anyone could hope to find.
“God give me the strength to do your will,” he prayed. “And grant me the wisdom to know what that is . . .”
“Amen, brother,” came Wahid’s voice from the doorway.
Mallory turned, startled, to look at his fellow mercenary. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Wahid shrugged. “Who’s expecting an enemy to jump them on their own ship?” He walked over and sat down on the couch across from Mallory. “Professional paranoia or not, it’s natural to let your guard down when you’re on your own ship.”
Mallory didn’t like where this was going, so he changed the subject. “So, you have the course to the next colony plotted in?”
“Yes, if the bastard’s still there.”
“Yeah . . .”
Wahid leaned forward. “You ever hear of a tach-comm failing like that?”
“No.”
“Neither has anyone else, you know. It’s one of those things that just doesn’t happen. Hell, it took Bill to come up with a model of exactly what happened.”
“What happened?”
“You want to take
a guess?”
“Huh?”
“Go on Fitz, take a guess.”
“I have no idea what—”
“An Emerson field.”
“What?”
“Apparently, if you do the right math, you can tune an Emerson field to imaginary wavelengths that interact rather interestingly with a coherent beam of tachyons. According to Bill, exactly the massive power sink and overload that took out our comm array and half the drive sensors.”
Mallory looked at Wahid and the silence stretched for nearly a full minute before Mallory said, “That means someone sabotaged us.”
“Someone with access to disable the security cams in the maint tunnel.”
Such as someone whose nominal shipboard duty was security. Mallory started to stand up. “I think you might have the wrong—”
Wahid put a hand on Mallory’s chest and eased him back down into a sitting position. “That news got everyone on the bridge a little upset. The idea one of our colleagues shafted us, stranding us in the ass-end of nowhere without even the ability to call for help. Now figuring out who, that’s an issue. I mean we got four or five people who had access. Mosasa and Parvi can go anywhere, of course. The technical folks. Security, of course.” Wahid stared into Mallory’s eyes. Mallory didn’t say anything for fear of betraying himself. “You’re Catholic. Right, Fitz?”
“Yes.”
“I figured, since I had to fetch you out of a church of all places.”
“What are you—”
“You know, Dr. Dörner of all people, she remembered you when I mentioned that. Funny thing is, the guy she remembered wasn’t named Fitzpatrick.” Wahid leaned back and said, “Why the fuck did you screw us over like this, Mallory?”
“I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hand me your gun, slowly.”
“You’re making a mistake.”
Wahid drew his own weapon and pointed it at Mallory. “You know, Mosasa doesn’t think so. Last I checked, he’s in charge. Hand it over. Now.”
Mallory didn’t have much choice, he pulled his sidearm out of its holster and held it out butt first. Wahid took it.
“I think we need to talk—” Mallory started to say. His words were cut short when Wahid struck the side of his face with his own gun, hitting him hard enough to knock him sideways out of his seat. Mallory landed on hands and knees, spitting up blood.
“Believe me,” Wahid told him, “we’re going to have a nice long talk. But right now, you’re going back to your cabin, locked up and out of the way.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Confession
We are defined by the secrets we choose to keep.
—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
Every man must get to heaven in his own way.
—FREDERICK II “the GREAT” (1712-1786)
Date: 2526.05.24 (Standard) Xi Virginis
Mallory had been confined to his cabin for nearly twenty hours, isolated from the rest of the ship, having no idea if they had tached to a new colony yet or not. During that time, his mind was divided between the enormity of what was happening in the universe around them and the enormity of what was happening aboard the Eclipse.
Someone had sabotaged the tach-comm and had done so in a very sophisticated manner. Mallory immediately suspected a Caliphate agent, but he couldn’t force that scenario to make sense. Why would the Caliphate want to destroy the tach-comm? Did they know what happened to the star that used to be here?
Why then destroy the tach-comm and not the whole ship? Mallory knew enough to realize that the same sabotage that neutralized their FTL communications could have easily wiped out their engines, stranding them or destroying the ship long before they reached Xi Virginis.
As unstable as he had appeared on the bridge, Mallory wondered if it was possible that Mosasa had done it.
He wasn’t prepared when the door to his cabin finally slid open.
He was expecting Wahid, or perhaps Mosasa himself. He wasn’t expecting Nickolai. It makes sense, doesn’t it? He’s the other half of the security detail.
The three-meter-tall tiger filled the doorway, a wall of muscle and fur. Mallory wondered what kind of interrogation techniques the tiger had been trained in.
“Your real name is Francis Xavier Mallory?” Nickolai asked.
Mallory decided that he had long passed the point where Sergeant Fitzpatrick served any use, and Mallory allowed his alias to die alone and unmourned. “Yes,” he said quietly.
“You are a priest.”
“Yes.” The next thing you’ll ask is why I blew up the tach-comm and stranded us here. The problem was, his alias made it hard to produce a credible denial. He wondered how deep the interrogation would have to go before his denials were credible—or he gave in and told them what they wanted to hear.
“May I speak with you?” Nickolai asked.
“I’m not in a position to refuse.”
Nickolai stepped into Mallory’s cabin and allowed the door to slide shut behind him. Nickolai loomed over Mallory, seeming to take up half the volume of the cabin. Mallory could feel the tiger’s breath on his face, and it took an effort of will to keep his body from reacting.
For several moments they stood on opposite sides of the cabin, Mallory staring at Nickolai, waiting for the questioning to begin. The questions, however, were not what Mallory had anticipated.
“Are you a servant of God, Father Mallory?” Nickolai asked.
The question was not rhetorical, and Nickolai used an earnest tone that was out of place in a voice that was a half-register away from a growl. Mallory nodded, “That is my calling, however weak an instrument I am. I’ve devoted my life to the service of God and the Church.”
“The Roman Catholic Church?”
“The Society of Jesus, to be precise.”
Nickolai looked away from him, as if he was considering something. After a moment he spoke. “Do you know of my faith, Father Mallory? The faith of St. Rajasthan?”
Mallory shook his head. “I studied many religions in my seminary training. But that isn’t familiar.”
“It is just as well. Rajasthan didn’t speak to the Fallen. I shouldn’t have come here.” He began an awkward turn to leave.
Something in his manner, something that came across as very human despite his origins, made Mallory reach out and touch the tiger’s shoulder. “What is troubling you?”
Nickolai pulled away and snarled at his touch. Mallory almost recoiled, but managed to restrain himself. Something serious was bothering Nickolai, and it was visible even through his predatory feline expression.
He faced Mallory, his cheeks wrinkled in apparent disgust. “Why should that concern you?”
“It’s part of my vocation.”
“I’m not human, nor part of your church.”
“My God preaches compassion,” Mallory said. “If you don’t wish to share your troubles, stay and tell me of St. Rajasthan.”
Nickolai’s expression softened slightly, and he lowered his gaze. “Do you wish to hear of your own damnation, Father Mallory? My God teaches that humanity has long ago left His grace.”
“My own faith tells me that I am a sinner in the eyes of the Lord. That we are all fallen, since the first man walked the Earth. And it is God’s mercy alone that allows us a chance at redemption.”
“God is not merciful, Father Mallory. He is cruel.”
“Is this what St. Rajasthan teaches?”
“No. This is what life teaches.”
Mallory listened to Nickolai as he began talking of his religion, and his life. He started slow, halting, obviously uncertain about speaking to a human. Something inside the tiger had broken down, and each sentence seemed to break down his restraint a little more. He needed to open up to someone, and obviously had needed to for a long, long time.
Apparently, it was Mallory’s identification as a priest that allowed Nickolai to permit himself to talk. He said, more than once, “Even the
Fallen can be servants of God.”
Nickolai had been born to the House of Rajasthan on the planet Grimalkin. House Rajasthan, in addition to tracing its descent from the founder of the primary religion on Grimalkin, was the ruling clan in the theocratic monarchy that reigned over the planet. Nickolai had been a prince, which amounted to nearly unlimited wealth and power. Since childhood, he had been trained as a warrior as a form of devotion.
When Nickolai spoke of God and his religion, Mallory was fascinated. The nonhumans that founded Grimalkin originally had no religion of their own, though many identified as Catholic as it was one of the few human faiths that allowed for the fact that even nonhumans could have an immortal soul.
The faith of St. Rajasthan had taken the Abrahamic religions, Christianity in particular, as a starting point, just as Christianity had built upon Judaism, or Islam had built upon both. The religion of St. Rajasthan grew out of the beliefs of his contemporaries. And those beliefs were predominantly Roman Catholic.
What divided Nickolai’s faith from Mallory’s was the inescapable fact that his ancestors knew their creator, humanity; a creator that was less than divine, a creator that in some senses was less capable than its creation, and a creator that rejected them and subsequently declared the processes that created them a great heresy on the level of self-replicating nanomachines or artificial intelligence.
And, while Mallory was surprised to discover that many of the books of his Bible were part of the scriptures Nickolai knew, the interpretation was very different. In the scriptures of St. Rajasthan, the Christian Bible was a tale of mankind repeatedly being granted favor then falling from God’s grace, starting with Eden, the first fall and banishment from the garden, through the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Flood, and the Israelites and the golden calf. . . .
To St. Rajasthan, the story of Christ was not one of redemption, it was another temporary reprieve until humankind made its final wicked mistake, its attempt to take God’s mantle for itself. The scriptures of St. Rajasthan told of God finally turning away from mankind for the sin of arrogance and pride, and as He did with Lucifer, casting the whole of man from His kingdom.
Prophets Page 20
