7

The torchships Balthasar, Melchior , and Gaspar are a full AU beyond the burning orbital forests and still decelerating around the unnamed sun when Mother Commander Stone buzzes at Father Captain de Soya’s compartment portal to inform him that the couriers have been resurrected.

“Actually, only one was successfully resurrected,” she amends, floating at the opened iris-door.

Father Captain de Soya winces. “Has the … unsuccessful one … been returned to the resurrection creche?” he asks.

“Not yet,” says Stone. “Father Sapieha is with the survivor.”

De Soya nods. “Pax?” he asks, hoping that this will be the case. Vatican couriers bring more problems than military ones.

Mother Commander Stone shakes her head. “Both are Vatican. Father Gawronski and Father Vandrisse. Both are Legionaries of Christ.”

De Soya avoids a sigh only by an effort of will. Legionaries of Christ had all but replaced the more liberal Jesuits over the centuries—their power had been growing in the Church a century before the Big Mistake—and it was no secret that the Pope used them as shock troops for difficult missions within the Church hierarchy. “Which one survived?” he asks.

“Father Vandrisse.” Stone glances at her comlog. “He should be revived by now, sir.”

“Very well,” says de Soya. “Adjust the internal field to one-g at oh-six-forty-five. Pipe Captains Hearn and Boulez aboard and give them my compliments. Please escort them to the forward meeting room. I’ll be in with Vandrisse until we convene.”

“Aye, aye,” says Mother Commander Stone, and kicks off.

The revival room outside the resurrection creche is more chapel than infirmary. Father Captain de Soya genuflects toward the altar and then joins Father Sapieha by the gurney, where the courier is sitting up. Sapieha is older than most Pax crew—at least seventy standard—and the soft halogen beams reflect from his bald scalp. De Soya has always found the ship’s chaplain short-tempered and not very bright, much like several of the parish priests he had known as a boy.

“Captain,” acknowledges the chaplain.

De Soya nods and steps closer to the man on the gurney. Father Vandrisse is young—perhaps in his late twenties standard—and his dark hair is long and curled in the current Vatican fashion. Or at least in the fashion that had been coming in when de Soya had last seen Pacem and the Vatican: a time-debt of three years had already accrued in the two months they had been on this mission.

“Father Vandrisse,” says de Soya, “can you hear me?”

The young man on the cot nods and grunts. Language is hard for the first few minutes after resurrection. Or so de Soya has heard.

“Well,” says the chaplain, “I’d better get the other’s body back in the creche.” He frowns at de Soya as though the captain had personally brought about the unsuccessful resurrection. “It is a waste, Father Captain. It will be weeks—perhaps months—before Father Gawronski can be successfully revived. It will be very painful for him.”

De Soya nods.

“Would you like to see him, Father Captain?” persists the chaplain. “The body is … well … barely recognizable as human. The internal organs are quite visible and quite …”

“Go about your duties, Father,” de Soya says quietly. “Dismissed.”

Father Sapieha frowns again as if he is going to reply, but at that moment the gravity Klaxon sounds, and both men have to orient themselves so that their feet touch the floor as the internal containment field realigns itself. Then the gravity slowly climbs to one-g as Father Vandrisse sinks back into the gurney’s cushions and the chaplain shuffles out the door. Even after only a day of zero-g, the return of gravity seems an imposition.

“Father Vandrisse,” de Soya says softly. “Can you hear me?”

The young man nods. His eyes show the pain he is in. The man’s skin glistens as if he has just received grafts—or as if he is newborn. The flesh looks pink and raw to de Soya, almost burned, and the cruciform on the courier’s chest is livid and twice normal size.

“Do you know where you are?” whispers de Soya. Or who you are? he mentally adds. Postresurrection confusion can last for hours or days. De Soya knows that couriers are trained to overcome that confusion, but how can anyone be trained for death and revival? An instructor of de Soya’s at the seminary had once put it plainly—“The cells remember dying, being dead, even if the mind does not.”

“I remember,” whispers Father Vandrisse, and his voice sounds as raw as his skin looks. “You are Captain de Soya?”

“Father Captain de Soya. Yes.”

Vandrisse tries to lever himself up on his elbow and fails. “Closer,” he whispers, too weak to lift his head from the pillow.

De Soya leans closer. The other priest smells faintly of formaldehyde. Only certain members of the priesthood are trained in the actual mysteries of resurrection, and de Soya had chosen not to be one of these. He could officiate at a baptism and administer Communion or Extreme Unction—as a starship captain he has had more opportunities for the latter than the former—but he had never been present at the Sacrament of Resurrection. He has no idea of the processes involved, beyond the miracle of the cruciform, in returning this man’s destroyed and compressed body, his decaying neurons and scattered brain mass, to the human form he now sees before him.

Vandrisse begins whispering and de Soya has to lean even closer, the resurrected priest’s lips almost brushing de Soya’s ear.

“Must … talk …,” Vandrisse manages with great effort.

De Soya nods. “I’ve scheduled a briefing in fifteen minutes. My other two ship captains will be there. We’ll provide a hoverchair for you and …”

Vandrisse is shaking his head. “No … meeting. Message for … you … only.”

De Soya shows no expression. “All right. Do you want to wait until you are …”

Again the agonized shake of his head. The skin of the priest’s face is slick and striated, as if the muscle were showing through. “Now …,” he whispers.

De Soya leans close and waits.

“You are … to … take the … archangel courier … ship … immediately …,” gasps Vandrisse. “It is programmed for its destination.”

De Soya remains expressionless, but he is thinking, So it is to be a painful death by acceleration. Dear Jesus, could you not let this cup pass from me?

“What do I tell the others?” he asks.

Father Vandrisse shakes his head. “Tell them nothing. Put your executive officer in command of the … Balthasar . Transfer task force command to Mother Captain Boulez. Task Force MAGI will … have … other orders.”

“Will I be informed of these other orders?” asks de Soya. His jaw hurts with the tension of sounding calm. Until thirty seconds ago the survival and success of this ship, this task force, had been the central reason for his existence.

“No,” says Vandrisse. “These … orders … do … not … concern you.”

The resurrected priest is pale with pain and exhaustion. De Soya realizes that he is taking some satisfaction in that fact and immediately says a short prayer for forgiveness.

“I am to leave immediately,” repeats de Soya. “Can I take my few personal possessions?” He is thinking of the small porcelain sculpture that his sister had given him shortly before her death on Renaissance Vector. That fragile piece, locked in a stasis cube during high-g maneuvers, has been with him for all of his years of spacefaring.

“No,” says Father Vandrisse. “Go … immediately. Take nothing.”

“This is upon order of …,” queries de Soya.

Vandrisse frowns through his grimace of pain. “This is upon direct command of His Holiness, Pope Julius XIV,” says the courier. “It is … Omega Priority … superseding all orders of Pax Military Command or SpaComC-Fleet. Do … you … understand … Father … Captain … de … Soya?”

“I understand,” says the Jesuit, and bows his head in compliance.

The archangel-class courier ship has no name. De Soya had never considered torchships beautiful—gourd-shaped, the command and weapons mod dwarfed by the huge Hawking drive and in-system fusion-thrust sphere—but the archangel is actively ugly in comparison. The courier ship is a mass of asymmetrical spheres, dodecahedrons, lash-ons, structural cables, and Hawking-drive mounts, with the passenger cabin the merest of afterthoughts in the center of all that junk.

De Soya had met briefly with Hearn, Boulez, and Stone, explained only that he had been called away, and transferred command to the new—and amazed—task force and Balthasar captains, then took a one-person transfer pod to the archangel. De Soya tried not to look back at his beloved Balthasar , but at the last moment before attaching to the courier, he turned and looked longingly at the torchship, sunlight painting its curved flank into a crescentlike sunrise over some lovely world, then turned resolutely away.

He sees upon entering that the archangel has only the crudest virtual tactical command, manual controls, and bridge. The interior of the command pod is not much larger than de Soya’s crowded cubby on the Balthasar , although this space is crowded with cables, fiber-optic leads, tech diskeys, and two acceleration couches. The only other space is the tiny navigation room-cum-wardrobe cubby.

No, de Soya sees at once, the acceleration couches are not standard. These are unpadded steel trays in human form, more like autopsy slabs than couches. The trays have a lip—to keep fluid from sloshing under high-g, he is sure—and he realizes that the only compensating containment field in the ship would be around these couches—to keep the pulverized flesh, bone, and brain matter from floating away in the zero-g intervals after final deceleration. De Soya can see the nozzles where water or some cleansing solution had been injected at high speed to clean the steel. It had not been totally successful.

“Acceleration in two minutes,” says a metallic voice. “Strap in now.”

No niceties , thinks de Soya. Not even a “please.”

“Ship?” he says. He knows that no true AIs are allowed on Pax ships—indeed, no AIs are allowed anywhere in Pax-controlled human space—but he thinks that the Vatican might have made an exception on one of its archangel-class courier ships.

“One minute thirty seconds until initial acceleration,” comes the metallic voice, and de Soya realizes that he is talking to an idiot machine. He hurries to strap himself in. The bands are broad, thick, and almost surely for show. The containment field will hold him—or his remains—in place.

“Thirty seconds,” says the idiot voice. “Be advised that the C-plus translation will be lethal.”

“Thanks,” says Father Captain Federico de Soya. His heart is pounding so fiercely that he can hear it in his ears. Lights flicker in the various instruments. Nothing here is meant for human override, so de Soya ignores them.

“Fifteen seconds,” says the ship. “You might wish to pray now.”

“Fuck you,” says de Soya. He has been praying since he left the courier’s recovery room. Now he adds a final prayer for forgiveness for the obscenity.

“Five seconds,” comes the voice. “There will be no further communications. May God bless you and speed your resurrection, in Christ’s name.”

“Amen,” says Father Captain de Soya. He closes his eyes as acceleration commences.