Abaddon's Gate e-3

by James S. A. Corey

  At first, the meeting had been pleasant. Father Michel had a lovely deep voice that had mellowed with age like fine wine. His lengthy and heartfelt prayer for God’s guidance to be upon those who would study the Ring had sent shivers down her spine. He was followed by an elder of the Church of Humanity Ascendent who led the group through several meditations and breathing exercises that left Anna feeling energized and refreshed. She made a note in her hand terminal to download a copy of their book on meditation and give it a read. Not all of the faiths and traditions represented on board took a turn, of course. The imam would not pray in front of non-Muslims, though he did give a short speech in Arabic that someone translated for her through her earbud. When he ended with Allah hu akbar, several people in the audience repeated it back. Anna was one of them. Why not? It seemed polite, and it was a sentiment she agreed with.

  But after two hours, even the most heartfelt and poetic of the prayers had begun to wear on her. She began counting the little plastic domes that hid fire-suppression turrets. She’d gotten good at spotting them since the attempted suicide at the first party. She found her mind wandering off to think about the message she’d send to Nono later. The chair she sat in had a very faint vibration that she could almost hear if she remained very still. It must have been the ship’s massive drive, and as Anna listened for it, it began to develop a rhythmic pulse. The pulse turned into music, and she began humming under her breath. She stopped when an Episcopalian in the seat next to her pointedly cleared his throat.

  Hank Cortez was, of course, scheduled to go last. In the weeks and months Anna had been on the Prince, it had become apparent that while no one was officially in charge of the interfaith portion of the Ring expedition, Doctor Hank was treated as a sort of “first among equals.” Anna suspected this was because of his close ties to the secretary-general, who’d made the whole mission possible. He also seemed to be on a first-name basis with many of the important artists, politicians, and economic consultants in the civilian contingent of the group.

  It didn’t really bother her. No matter how egalitarian a group might start out, someone always wound up taking a leadership role. Better Doctor Hank than herself.

  When the Neo-Wiccan priestess currently at the podium finally finished her rites, Doctor Hank was nowhere to be seen. Anna felt a little surge of hope that the prayer service would end early.

  But no. Doctor Hank made his entrance into the auditorium trailed by a camera crew and bulled his way up to the podium like an actor taking the stage. He flashed his gleaming smile across the audience, making sure to end with the section the camera people had set up in.

  “Brothers and sisters,” he said, “let us bow our heads and offer thanks to the Almighty and seek His counsel and guidance as we draw ever closer to the end of this historic journey.”

  He managed to rattle on that way for another twenty minutes.

  Anna started humming again.

  After, Anna met Tilly for lunch at the officers’ mess that had been set aside for civilian use. Anna wasn’t exactly sure how she’d wound up being Tilly’s best and only friend on the trip, but the woman had latched on to her after their first meeting and burrowed in like a tick. No, that wasn’t really fair. Even though the only thing she and Tilly had in common was their carbon base, it wasn’t like Anna had a lot of friends on the ship either. And while Tilly could appear flighty and exasperating, Anna had gradually seen through the mask to the deeply lonely woman underneath. Her husband’s obscene contributions to the secretary-general’s reelection campaign had bought her way onto the flight as a civilian consultant. She had no purpose on the mission other than to be seen, an extended reminder of her husband’s enormous wealth and power. That she had nothing else to offer the group only made the real point clearer. She knew it, and everyone else knew it too. Most of the other civilians on the flight treated her with barely concealed contempt.

  While they waited for their food to arrive, Tilly popped a lozenge in her mouth and chewed it. The faint smell of nicotine and mint filled the air. No smoking on military ships, of course.

  “How’d your thing go?” Tilly asked, playing with her silver-inlaid lozenge box and looking around the room. She was wearing a pants and blouse combination that probably cost more than Anna’s house on Europa had. It was the kind of thing she wore when she wanted to appear casual.

  “The prayer meeting?” Anna said. “Good. And then not as good. Long. Very, very long.”

  Tilly looked at her, the honesty getting her attention. “God, don’t I know it. No one can blather on like a holy man with a trapped audience. Well, maybe a politician.”

  Their food arrived, a navy boy acting as waiter for the VIP civilians. Anna wondered what he thought of that. The UN military was all volunteer. He’d probably had a vision of what his military life would be like, and she doubted this was it. He carefully placed their food in front of them with the ease of long practice, gave them both a smile, and vanished back into the kitchen.

  Galley. They called it a galley on ships.

  Tilly picked halfheartedly at a farm-grown tomato and real mozzarella salad that Anna could have afforded on Europa by selling a kidney, and said, “Have you heard from Namono?”

  Anna nodded while she finished chewing a piece of fried tofu. “I got another video last night. Nami gets bigger in every one. She’s getting used to the gravity, but the drugs make her cranky. We’re thinking about taking her off of them early, even if it means more physical therapy.”

  “Awww,” Tilly said. It had a pro forma feel to it. Anna waited for her to change the subject.

  “Robert hasn’t checked in for a week now,” Tilly said. She seemed resigned rather than sad.

  “You don’t think he—”

  “Cheating?” Tilly said with a laugh. “I wish. That would at least be interesting. When he locks himself away in his office at 2 a.m., you know what I catch him looking at? Business reports, stock values, spreadsheets. Robert is the least sexual creature I’ve ever met. At least until they invent a way to fuck money.”

  Tilly’s casual obscenity had very quickly stopped bothering Anna. There was no anger in it. Like most of the things Tilly did, it struck her as another way to be noticed. To get people to pay attention to her. “How’s the campaign coming?” Anna said.

  “Esteban? Who knows? Robert’s job is to be rich and have rich friends. I’m sure that part is coming along just fine.”

  They ate in silence for a while, then without planning to, Anna said, “I don’t think I should have come.”

  Tilly nodded gravely, as though Anna had just quoted gospel at her. “None of us should have.”

  “We pray, and we get photographed, and we have meetings about interfaith cooperation,” Anna continued. “You know what we never talk about?”

  “The Ring?”

  “No. I mean yes. I mean we talk about the Ring all the time. What is it, what’s it for, why did the protomolecule make it.”

  Tilly pushed her salad away and chewed another lozenge. “Then what?”

  “What I thought we came here to do. To talk about what it means. Nearly a hundred spiritual leaders and theologians on this ship. And none of us is talking about what the Ring means.”

  “For God?”

  “Well, at least about God. Theological anthropology is a lot simpler when humans are the only ones with souls.”

  Tilly waved at the waiter and ordered a cocktail Anna had never heard of. The waiter seemed to know, though, and darted off to get it. “This seems like the kind of thing I’ll need a drink for,” she said. “Go on.”

  “But how does the protomolecule fit into that? Is it alive? It murders us, but it also builds amazing structures that are astonishingly advanced. Is it a tool used by someone more like us, only smarter? And if so, are they creatures with a sense of the divine? Do they have faith? What does that look like?”

  “If they’re even from the same God,” Tilly said, using a short straw to mix her drink, then takin
g a sip.

  “Well, for some of us there’s only one,” Anna replied, then asked the waiter for tea. When he’d left again, she said, “It calls into question the entire concept of Grace. Well, not entirely, but it complicates it at the very least. The things that made the protomolecule are intelligent. Does that mean they have souls? They invade our solar system, kill us indiscriminately, steal our resources. All things we would consider sins if we were doing them. Does that mean they’re fallen? Did Christ die for them too? Or are they intelligent but soulless, and everything the protomolecule’s done is just like a virus doing what it’s programmed for?”

  A group of workers in civilian jumpsuits came into the dining area and sat down. They ordered food from the waiter and talked noisily among themselves. Anna let them distract her while her mind chewed over the worries she hadn’t let herself articulate before today.

  “And, really, it’s all pretty theoretical, even to me,” she continued. “Maybe none of that should matter to our faith at all, except that I have this feeling it will. That to most people, it will matter.”

  Tilly was sipping her drink, which Anna knew from experience meant she was taking the conversation seriously. “Have you mentioned this to anyone?” Tilly said, prompting her to continue.

  “Cortez acts like he’s in charge,” Anna replied. Her tea arrived and she blew on it for a while to cool it. “I guess I should talk to him.”

  “Cortez is a politician,” Tilly said with a condescending smirk. “Don’t let his folksy Father Hank bullshit snow you. He’s here because as long as Esteban is in office, Cortez is a powerful man. This dog and pony show? This is all about votes.”

  “I hate that,” Anna said. “I believe you. You understand this all better than I do. But I hate that you’re right. What a waste.”

  “What would you ask Cortez for?”

  “I’d like to organize some groups. Have the conversation.”

  “Do you need his permission?” Tilly asked.

  Anna thought of her last conversation with Nono and laughed. When she spoke, her voice sounded thoughtful even to her.

  “No,” she said. “I guess I don’t.”

  That night Anna was awakened from a dream about taking Nami to Earth and watching her bones break as the gravity crushed her, to a blaring alarm. It lasted only a few seconds, then stopped. A voice from her comm panel said, “All hands to action stations.”

  Anna assumed this didn’t mean her, as she had no idea what an action station was. There were no more alarms, and the voice from the comm panel didn’t return with more dire pronouncements, but being startled out of her nightmare left her feeling wide awake and jumpy. She climbed out of her bunk, sent a short video message to Nono and Nami, and then put on some clothes.

  There was very little traffic in the corridor and lifts. The military people she did see looked tense, though to her relief, not particularly frightened. Just aware. Vigilant.

  Having nowhere else to go, she wandered into the officers’ mess and ordered a glass of milk. When it arrived, she was stunned to discover it was actual milk that had at some point come out of a cow. How much was the UN spending on this civilian “dog and pony show”?

  The only other people in the mess hall were a few military people with officers’ uniforms, and a small knot of the civilian contractors drinking coffee and slumping in their seats like workers in the middle of an all-nighter. A dozen metal tables were bolted to the floor with magnetic chairs at their sides. Wall displays scrolled information for the ship’s officers, all of it gibberish to her. A row of cutouts opened into the galley, letting through plates of food and the sounds of industrial dishwashers and the smell of floor cleaner. It was like sitting too near the kitchen in a very, very clean restaurant.

  Anna drank her milk slowly, savoring the rich texture and ridiculous luxury of it. A bell chimed on someone’s hand terminal, and two of the civilian workers got up and left. One stayed, a beautiful but sad-faced woman who looked down at a terminal on the table with a vacant, thousand-yard stare.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” said a voice behind her, almost making Anna jump out of her chair. A young man in a naval officer’s uniform moved into her field of view and gestured awkwardly at the chair next to her. “Mind if I sit?”

  Anna recovered enough to smile at him, and he took it as assent, stiffly folding himself into the seat. He was very tall for an Earther, with short blond hair and the thick shoulders and narrow waist all of the young officers seemed to have regardless of gender.

  Anna reached across the table to shake his hand and said, “Anna Volovodov.”

  “Chris Williams,” the young officer replied, giving her hand a short but firm shake. “And yes, ma’am, I know who you are.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, ma’am. My people in Minnesota are Methodists, going back as far as we can trace them. When I saw you listed on the civilian roster, I made sure to remember the name.”

  Anna nodded and sipped her milk. If the boy had singled her out because she was a minister of his faith, then he wanted to talk to her as a member of the congregation. She mentally shifted gears to become Pastor Anna and said, “What can I do for you, Chris?”

  “Love your accent, ma’am,” Chris replied. He needed time to build up to whatever it was that he’d approached her about, so Anna gave it to him.

  “I grew up in Moscow,” she replied. “Though after two years on Europa I can almost do Belter now, sa sa?”

  Chris laughed, some of the tension draining out of his face. “That’s not bad, ma’am. But you get those guys going at full speed, I can’t understand a word the skinnies say.”

  Anna chose to ignore the slur. “Please, no more ‘ma’am.’ Makes me feel a hundred years old. Anna, please, or Pastor Anna if you have to.”

  “All right,” Chris said. “Pastor Anna.”

  They sat together in companionable silence for a few moments while Anna watched Chris work up to whatever he needed to say.

  “You heard the alarm, right?” he finally said. “Bet it woke you up.”

  “It’s why I’m here,” Anna replied.

  “Yeah. Action stations. It’s because of the dusters— I mean, Martians, you know.”

  “Martians?” Anna found herself wanting another glass of the delicious milk, but thought it might distract Chris, so she didn’t wave at the waiter.

  “We’re in weapons range of their fleet now,” he said. “So we go on alert. We can’t share sky with the dusters anymore without going on alert. Not since, you know, Ganymede.”

  Anna nodded and waited for him to continue.

  “And that Ring, you know, it’s already killed somebody. I mean, just a dumb as sand skinny slingshotter, but still. Somebody.”

  Anna took his hand. He flinched a bit, but relaxed when she smiled at him. “That scares you?”

  “Sure. Of course. But that ain’t it.”

  Anna waited, keeping her face carefully neutral. The pretty civilian girl across the room got up suddenly, as though leaving. Her lips moved, talking to herself, then she sat back down, put her arms on the table, and leaned her head on them. Someone else scared, waiting out the long watches of the night, all alone in a room full of people.

  “I mean,” Chris said, breaking into her reverie, “that ain’t all of it anyway.”

  “What else?” Anna said.

  “The Ring didn’t put us on alert,” he said. “It’s the Martians. Even with that thing out there, we’re still thinking about shooting each other. That’s pretty fucked up. Sorry. Messed up.”

  “It seems like we should be able to see past our human differences when we’re confronted with something like this, doesn’t it?”

  Chris nodded and squeezed her hand tighter, but said nothing.

  “Chris, would you like to pray with me?”

  He nodded and lowered his head, closing his eyes. When she’d finished, he said, “I know I’m not the only Methodist on the ship. Do you, you know, hold services?�
�

  I do now.

  “Sunday, at 10 a.m., in conference room 41,” she said, making a mental note to ask someone if she could use conference room 41 on Sunday mornings.

  “I’ll see if I can get the time off,” Chris said with a smile. “Thank you, ma’am. Pastor Anna.”

  “It was nice talking to you, Chris.” You just gave me a reason to be here.

  When Chris left, Anna found herself very tired, ready to return to her bed, but the pretty girl across the room hadn’t moved. Her head was still buried in her arms. Anna walked over to her and gently touched her on the shoulder. The girl’s head jerked up, her eyes wild, almost panicked.

  “Hi,” Anna said. “I’m Anna. What’s your name?”

  The girl stared up, as if the question were a difficult one. Anna sat down across from her.

  “I saw you sitting here,” Anna said. “It looked like you could use some company. It’s okay to be afraid. I understand.”

  The girl jerked to her feet like a malfunctioning machine. Her eyes were flat, and her head tilted a degree. Anna felt suddenly afraid. It was like she’d gone to pet a dog and found herself with her hand on a lion. Something in the back of her head told her, This is a bad one. This one will hurt you.

  “I’m sorry,” Anna said, standing up with her hands half raised. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “You don’t know me,” the girl replied. “You don’t know anything.” Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, the tendons in her neck quivering like plucked guitar strings.