Unnerving, at best. Not long ago she’d gleefully tried to sacrifice herself aboard the Calysta so as to ensure that the Fourth Expansion could be launched under a pretext guaranteeing full commitment. Over the days on the planet below I’d watched her pass through an experience unlike anything any mantis had endured in hundreds or possibly even thousands of Earth years. Maybe tens of thousands? I didn’t know. Whatever had happened, it had affected the Queen Mother such that she was now having a genuine change of heart.
I just wasn’t sure if I could trust her entirely. Would she rechange her mind?
I thought of all the humans on Purgatory who’d found God—or at least religion of one form or another—once we’d been sealed behind The Wall. And especially in those dreadful days when The Wall had been closing in and we’d all thought death was certain. It had been easy for people to turn over a new leaf. What other choice had they had? But then when The Wall fell and safety was more or less assured, many people drifted away. Returned to old habits. The attendance at my chapel dwindled. Not back to its prearmistice levels per se, but dwindled just the same. And how many of those people had, upon leaving Purgatory, gone back to their old lives and their old ways of thinking altogether?
For me, the experience on Purgatory left permanent marks. The Queen Mother had only lived without her disc for a few days. Captain Adanaho had speculated that the Queen Mother’s perceptions—indeed, her attitudes based on those perceptions—would be in flux. I wondered if old patterns of thinking—and of seeing the universe—might reemerge now that the Queen Mother was among her own kind again, with all the familiar trappings of mantis technology.
I swallowed hard. From the frying pan into the fire?
“Do not fear,” said the Queen Mother.
She’d disengaged from conversation with her subordinate, who seemed to wait patiently while the Queen Mother floated over to me. The Professor had been adept at sensing my moods. Mainly through smell. I guessed that the Queen Mother was little different in this regard.
“You’ll have to forgive my distrust,” I said. “I am the only human, alone among a sea of mantes. Humans and mantes are still at war until proven otherwise. I want to believe that the situation can be remedied. But I have no guarantees. Therefore I am rather nervous.”
“Understandable,” the Queen Mother said. “If the situation were different I might consider finding a way to return you to your people. But I need you now, assistant-to-the-chaplain. With your captain dead, there are no more human officers to vouch for my intentions. When the time comes to—I think the Professor told me the correct phrase among humans is extend an olive branch—your services will be vital.”
I voiced my understanding, but I wasn’t exactly sure that a single Chief Warrant Officer would count for much if Fleet Command was bound and determined to continue the fighting. They’d be damned fools to do it, but then they’d sent General Sakumora to handle the original negotiations. And he’d clearly been swayed to the side of war long before the meeting with the Queen Mother.
If a majority of Fleet Command believed as he did . . .
I suddenly felt an overwhelming wave of fatigue sweep me.
“You appear exhausted,” the Queen Mother said.
“And you’re not?” I replied, half-incredulous.
“Deprivation has weakened me, but mantis females are able to survive such things without a significant erosion of our faculties. A biological legacy, from a time when females would be left alone to guard both eggs and larva until pupation. It was the task of the males to provide food, and if the males were killed or delayed in returning . . . but I repeat academic trivia. Assistant-to-the-chaplain, you are spent. I will instruct some of the available ship’s technicians to take you immediately to a space where you can rest.”
I tensed.
“How do I know one of them doesn’t hold a grudge against humans?”
She considered this question for a moment.
“There are quarters being prepared for me as well. This vessel is now my flagship. I will designate that your quarters be located directly next to mine. You are the only human aboard, and I will know if you have been molested in any way. No sane mantis would dare harm you.”
“And what about the not-so-sane?”
She hovered over to me, her forelimbs gently stroking the edge of her temporary disc in a fashion I’d often seen the Professor emulate.
“Assistant-to-the-chaplain—Padre—there was a time not long ago when I was forced to abandon my carriage and place myself almost entirely in your hands. I understand your misgivings. I can only ask you to trust me in the same manner that I was once asked to trust you—and your dead captain. You have returned me to my people as promised, despite the loss of your captain’s life. I would honor her commitment to duty by ensuring that you also are returned to your people. On my own life and as the Queen Mother, I swear an oath to it.”
I felt myself nodding as she said these things. Had she been a human, I’d have put my hand out to shake hers.
“Very well,” I said. “I will hold you to that oath. And I apologize for my behavior. You’re right, I am tired. And the grief I feel at the deaths of both the Professor and the captain is deep.”
“Go now,” she said. “My people will take care of you.”
A trio of unarmed mantes floated up to us.
“We are ready to receive the human guest,” said the leader.
I allowed myself to be led away, my head growing ever more foggy and my legs feeling like lead.
CHAPTER 40
Earth orbit, 2155 A.D.
EIGHTEEN MONTHS AFTER I WATCHED PRIVATE CAPACHA DIE, I reported to my billet just down the corridor from the quarters of Major Thomas, an ordained Baptist minister who hailed from West Virginia. He was roughly Chaplain J’s age. I apparently came to him with Chaplain J’s hearty recommendation. Which was both good and bad. Having endured the much less harsh—compared to IST—rigors of the Chaplain’s Assistant specialty school, I still wasn’t feeling too confident in myself, or my new role. I didn’t fancy myself a spiritual person per se, and while the school had dramatically improved my comprehension and understanding of many of Earth’s larger religious groups—their doctrines and beliefs, their histories—I wasn’t exactly feeling “in the swing of things,” as I later learned Chaplain Thomas liked to say.
“Come,” he said through the speaker at his cabin door.
It opened, and I walked in, presented a salute, and said, “Specialist Barlow reporting as ordered, sir.”
“Ah good,” Thomas said. He had a jolly mustache that was just on the edge of being too bushy for regulation, and he wore a tiny silver cross on his uniform—something Chaplain J had not done. The rules for this weren’t precisely clear. It seemed to be a matter of taste among the individual chaplains in the Chaplains Corps.
When I didn’t relax right away, Thomas waved a hand at me.
“Relax, young man, relax. Three weeks out of school and they’ve still got you scared stiff, eh? That’s no way to approach the world. From this point forward you can all me Chaplain Tom. Or Major Tom, if you like.”
“Major Tom,” I said, testing it out.
“It’s a joke from my grad school days,” he said. “Something to do with an old pop song from a long time ago. Anyway, the point is, I expect no formality of the sort drummed into you up to this point. Respect, absolutely. But as you’ve no doubt discovered in your brief time in the Fleet, plenty of people render formalities without giving an inch of respect. Yes?”
I raised an eyebrow, and nodded my agreement. Chaplain Tom was an astute fellow. I let my saluting hand fall to my side, then settled into a very relaxed at-ease.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked, noting that Chaplain Tom still had an unpacked duffel on his bunk.
“No, I’m fine, thanks. This is my fourth ship in as many months. They’re moving a lot of us around as Fleet gears up for the big offensives. I’ve learned to travel light, an
d pack and unpack quickly.”
“Have you heard anything more about that?” I asked.
“About what?”
“The missions.”
“Just that Fleet has identified five different systems it wants to evict the mantes from. Places of some strategic importance, I gather. Probably because they’ve each got Earth-similar worlds in them, and Fleet can do much more with an Earth-type planet than it can with any other sort. We’ll know more when we’ll know more, you know? So, for now, try to put that worry out of your head, son. Or shall I call you Harry?”
He shocked me with my first name. Not even Chaplain J had used it.
“Uhh,” I said, “Specialist Barlow is fine, sir.”
He looked at me, broke into a grin, and shook his head.
“Right,” was all he said.
I looked around his quarters—somewhat larger than a breadbox. But because he was solitary, whereas I shared an eight-man room, his quarters seemed positively decadent.
“Church much?” he asked me as he sat on the edge of his bunk.
“Not before—uh, no, sir.” I said.
“No problem. You could be a thoroughgoing atheist for all I care. Tammy said in her e-mail to me that you were a hard worker and that you like to help people. And that’s good enough for me. Because helping people is the name of the game. Fleet poses one of the most rigid, uncompromising, otherwise inhospitable environments a working man or woman can know. My job—and now your job, too—is to help these men and women cope. Officers. Enlisted. Doesn’t matter. Everybody has a snapping point. And if you’ve just come from school, on the heels of IST, you know what I mean when I say snap.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Good. So, I want you glued to me whenever you’re not required to be partaking in priority training. It’ll be weeks or months to get anywhere, even after this ship gets specific orders for a specific destination. Lots of time during which Fleet’s going to try to keep everyone on board as busy as possible. So that we stay sharp. Motivated. Ready. Problem is, this puts us at or near ‘snap point’ and our job—yours and mine—is to see if we can’t help the rest of these people see past the grind of their schedule. And the worry about combat to come—which nobody on this boat has seen, I might add. Not even the woman commanding it. We’re all ‘green’ as far as that goes. Which means there’s no reason not to have a mutual sense of humility and understanding. Right?”
“Right, sir.”
He looked at me, still smiling, and sighed.
“Well, you take your time getting into the flow of things. I’m counting on the fact that Tammy didn’t sell me a lemon—and it would shock me to death if she did. The rest is up to the Lord.”
“Yessir, thank you. I do have one question, sir.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Do you mind if I, ummm, ask you about that from time to time?”
“About what?”
“The Lord. God. Church. Things like that.”
“I’d be delighted,” he said.
“Just please don’t turn me into a project,” I said, noting his sudden enthusiasm.
“I wouldn’t think of it, Specialist Barlow. A chaplain’s job is not to go around pushing faith down peoples’ throats. A chaplain’s job is to help foster what faith may already be there—in whatever supply or form it happens to exist. Beyond that, I try to keep my views and opinions close to my vest. Understand?”
“Yessir,” I said.
“Now, if we’re done here, I think I need a quick nap before I walk up a few decks and join the muckety-muck meeting with all the other ship’s officers. Can you come beep my door again at 1445 hours?”
“Yessir, I can do that.”
“Good. Thanks. Sounds like we’re going to get along just fine.”
I snapped my heels together, and began to offer a salute, when he waved me off for the second time in ten minutes.
“Specialist, you’re dismissed. Go get some lunch or something. Just knock off all that spit-and-polish crap. It scares me. Jeez.”
I smiled despite myself, turned, and went back out the way I’d come in.
CHAPTER 41
THE COMPARTMENT WAS BARREN, BUT THEY’D MOVED IN A SECTION of pliable material not too different from memory foam. I tested it with my hands and was delighted at its softness. After spending so many days sleeping on sand and gravel, the thought of lying on an actual bed suddenly became irresistible.
Blankets and sheets there were none, though the mantis engineers quickly fashioned a smaller piece of the foam for a man-sized pillow. They also produced both my pack and the captain’s pack, along with all of the contents thereof.
I pulled out the captain’s emergency sleeping bag and fluffed it out over the bed, noticing the dust that came off—laundry concerns could wait.
My bladder and colon could not.
The three technicians conferred at length.
“We are unfamiliar with this biological function,” one of them said. “But we realize that humans are too primitive to have carriages. We will bring a storage container into which you may deposit your waste. We will also bring a different storage container with fresh water for your consumption and hygiene.”
“Heated?” I asked.
They conferred at length again.
“This should be feasible.”
They left the compartment to retrieve what they needed, and I slumped onto the foam.
It molded deliciously to my body.
Sleep tugged at my brain like the suction of a whirlpool.
The technicians returned more quickly than expected. They had several sleds similar to the ones used to remove the body of Captain Adanaho. On each sled had been stacked numerous pieces of equipment, tools, raw parts, as well as the bulk containers they’d spoken of earlier. For several minutes I went back and forth with them explaining the rudimentary basics of what a toilet looked like and how it worked, as well as a wash basin. I also told them I’d eventually like to have a shower stall built or even—Lord, please—a bathtub. Though that would wait until I wasn’t semi-dead from lack of proper sleep and nourishment.
“Food,” said one of the technicians, “may prove to be the biggest problem. We do not know which of our foodstuffs will be palatable to you, and there is no way for us to procure foodstuffs from a human vessel at this time. Do you have anything you could give to us which we might take to our refectory and examine in detail? So that we might learn your basic nutritional requirements?”
I rummaged through the captain’s pack.
She still had a ration bar.
“Here,” I said. “These will keep a human alive. They’ve got everything I need. Except variety.”
The lead technician’s antennae made a questioning expression.
“Humans cannot eat the same exact food over and over again before it becomes sickening to them. We require variety. At least as much as can be provided.”
“It will be a process,” said the lead technician. “We may have to go through many iterations before we present you with something tolerable.”
I supposed that would just have to be good enough, so I thanked them for making the effort and sat on my mantis foam mattress while the technicians went to work fashioning my toilet and sink. They did it all mechanically. Each of their discs had slots from which manipulator arms and tools extended. The air smelled of adhesive and welded metal as they worked. Occasionally they asked me a question. I found myself tapping my teeth together impatiently. It had been hours since I’d been able to relieve myself.
Finally, they had the job done.
I tested the two spigots on the hexagonal wash basin—hot and cold water—and the circular toilet seat was the right size, with a sealable cover so that I wouldn’t have to smell my own piss and shit all night and day.
“Close enough for government work,” I said, slapping my hands together and rubbing them eagerly.
“Then it is . . . sufficient?” said the lead technician.
> “It is,” I said. “And now I would ask for some extended privacy.”
“We understand,” they said.
I ushered them out.
Ten minutes later I was stripped to my skin, my bowels happily empty. Using the water from the basin and sanitary wipes from the emergency packs, I gave myself an overlong version of a soldier’s bath. Occasionally rinsing the wipes in the basin, I noted the sound of the waste water tumbling into the container beneath it. I estimated I had about two hundred liters before the waste water tank would need to be dumped. Roughly as much for the loo, too. Though I’d be wanting to get both of them emptied well before hitting the limit.
With skin tingling—the compartment’s ventilation blew gently across my face—I lay on the mattress and pulled the sleeping bag up around my waist. They’d put in a small control box near the bed’s head, with touch displays on it for temperature and light control. I dialed the temp down a few degrees, and turned the light off.
For a moment, I missed seeing the stars.
But the ship had a low mechanical hum that was as pleasantly hypnotic—as the river in the canyon had been—and I quickly faded into deep sleep.
My dreams were violently lurid.
Over and over again, I pressed my hand to the gushing wound in Captain Adanaho’s torso. Which suddenly became Capacha’s torso, back during LCX at the end of IST.
Over and over again, they both died.
At one point the repetition became so horrible I swam up out of sleep with a start. Fumbling for the control box, I dialed up the light and kicked off the sleeping bag. I rinsed my face and head in the basin—cold water this time—then used the toilet again, prior to getting back on the mattress. Which was still delightfully soft.
I was hesitant to let myself go back to sleep if that’s the kind of nightmare I was going to be greeted with.
To distract myself I remembered the interior of my chapel back on Purgatory. I mentally took myself through my old routine: lighting the oil lamps, going up and down the rows of roughly-cut stone pews, collecting bits of debris and making sure everything was neat and orderly. In my imaginary version of the chapel, I sat on the stool to the left of the altar where the symbols of human faith were normally displayed. It occurred to me that the chapel—indeed, everything in the entire mountain valley—might have been razed to the ground in the Fourth Expansion.
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