“I’ll have to make it. You can’t scare me any more than I’m already scared, but I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t go.”
“There’s one more thing. You’re the only woman and the only person on the squad without military training. There is going to be a tendency for the others to be protective or solicitous of you even though they will try not to be. I’ve seen it before. If you get into real trouble, somebody’s gonna have to stop what they are doing and try and save you.”
“There are women combat soldiers. I’ve seen some of them.”
“That’s different. Suited up, there’s no real difference. Even not suited up, there’s the same training background and mindset.”
“Well, I may be the only woman but I’m not the only civilian going down. There are four of us—unless you feel like coming along.”
“Who’s the other?”
“The priest, Father Chicanis. He was born and raised on the continent of Eden before the Fall. He would have been there when it fell but he was at some religious conference. I think he’s always felt guilty he wasn’t there. He’s our native guide, so to speak. He can find the old landmarks and get us where we need to go, considering we won’t have any computer or navigational aids.”
Harker hadn’t thought of this. “Now I like it even less. A priest who wants to be a martyr. Just great. He’ll also want to minister to everybody who might kill him. The world he remembers is a century dead. The world down there now is like nothing he’s ever known.”
“He’s a tough guy, at least that’s the impression I get, and for a priest he’s pretty grounded in realism. At least, I don’t think he’s about to get us killed for his religion. I think he’d die for it, but he wouldn’t take any of us with him. I also always had the idea that, with him, this was personal. There’s something in his past, somewhere, that he’s kept inside but it’s what drives him beyond just his faith. I don’t know what it is. I think Madame Sotoropolis does, but I’m not sure.”
“We’ve all got things like that driving us,” he told her. “I swore I’d never get myself in a combat situation again. I know what it’s like when it goes bad. I’m not sure I didn’t use up any lives left in me that last time, too.”
He turned to go, deciding to speak to this priest next. She called him back: “Harker?”
“Yes?”
“You ever been in a combat situation without something on? Some armor?”
He thought about it. “Only in training exercises, and not recently, no.”
“We’ve all been training in the simulator here. Even though we’ll have a lot more stuff than those people on Helena probably have, we’ll still be pretty stripped down. Maybe before you start questioning the abilities of other people, you might want a crack at that simulation yourself. That’s if you decide to come with us, of course.”
He took a deep breath. “I’ll think about it,” he told her, and left.
He found Father Chicanis in the big lounge, which looked just the way it had on all those spy camera recordings. When not officiating in his priestly sense, Chicanis tended to dress informally in a black pullover shirt, and slacks, and slip-on sneakers. He looked very much like a middle-aged man in fairly decent condition who might well be a programmer or technician or even janitor.
“Ah, Mister Harker! Glad to have you with us,” the priest greeted him, sounding like he was just saying hello to somebody he had asked aboard.
“I’m not sure how much with you I am yet, Father,” he responded.
“Come! Sit down! I’m afraid this may be the only chance we’ll have to get to know each other. After sitting on our duffs forever, we’re now moving very fast, it seems.”
“We’re heading out?”
“The Dutchman is dispatching a corvette that’s now attached to his ship to get us. Ships this size, or even the size of his vessel, would trigger every alarm the Titans might have. It’s by using very small ships like the corvettes and then using small outer system genhole gates that they’re able to get in and out without the energy flare attracting attention.”
“I haven’t said whether I’m in or out on this, you know.”
“Come, come! You’ve come this far out of curiosity! I don’t think you’re the kind of man who can sit back and remain passive when things are going on. I assume you don’t have a family or you wouldn’t have volunteered for that courageous ride.”
“No, nobody.”
“Then, see? That’s really all of us, you know. In addition to the skills involved, everyone aboard, even Captain Stavros, has no close remaining family. The mercenaries and the science people—all orphaned by this point, no known living siblings.”
“Including you?”
Chicanis’s face darkened. “Everyone I held dear was still on Helena when it was overrun. They’re all most certainly dead now. Most probably died in the initial loss of power and the scouring. I see their faces, I hear their voices, every night in my dreams, but they are somewhere else now, in the arms of Jesus. I really believe that, you see. It’s why I can go on and not be consumed with grief. I fully expect to see them again someday.” He paused and stared at Harker. “What about you? Do you believe in God?”
Harker shrugged. “I’m not at all sure, and that’s an honest answer, Father. Sometimes, when I see a beautiful sunset on some distant world or stare into the heart of a spectacular stellar cloud, it’s easy. Other times, looking at starving people, twisted and broken children, blown-up bodies, shorted-out minds—then I can’t find God at all. Let’s just say that I reserve judgment on God, but that I very much believe in evil. I’ve seen evil.”
“Well, that’s more than most people. Half The Confederacy is still trying to figure out what the Titans want and why they do what they do, as if understanding a truly alien race would make the genocide go away. Most people stopped believing in evil centuries ago. In ancient times a majority of good churchgoing types believed in hell. Oh, now they believe in God and Jesus and love and all that, but when it comes to hell—no, not that.”
“I’ve already been to hell, Father,” Harker told him evenly. “That I believe in.”
“You know, there’s some from the start who thought that the Titans were angels,” Chicanis commented. “The Jewish tradition has good angels and bad angels, and we Greeks took the bad and called them by a proper Greek label, daimon. I can’t help but wonder sometimes when I see the beauty of those Titan formations. Satan was always supposed to be the crowning cherub, the most beautiful of all the angels. Beauty and evil are not opposites.” He sighed. “But we’re not here to discuss theology, now, are we?”
“No, we’re not. I was just wondering, though, if you’d thought through what it’ll be like down there. Pardon me, Father, but it’s pretty clear that you’ve lived more real-time years than me, and you haven’t spent them all in situations where you had to be in peak physical condition. I’ve looked at the maps here. If we put in where we’re supposed to, we’re talking a good three hundred or more kilometers walking, both there and back. Running some of the time, I suspect, in a reworked primitive world like nothing any of us have ever experienced before. I’m not sure that Doctor Socolov can hack that, and I’m not sure you could, either.”
“You’re not saying anything I haven’t heard from Mogutu,” the priest admitted. “The fact is, though, from the Dutchman and from Navy files we have aerials of Helena and I can determine the old points from them. They’ve reworked a good deal of Atlantis, but Eden is pretty much left alone save for their replanting. Many of the natural landforms and just about all the distances are still correct. I feel confident I can get us wherever we need to get on the ground. I am not sure that anyone else could. That is, anyone not born and raised there. So, I go, and God will grant me whatever strength is necessary to get the job done. I feel certain of it. I am also prepared, if need be, to die there, or to remain there, if that is what God wants. But I simply cannot accept that He didn’t have a plan for me to be in this position. It explains why I wasn’t there when the Titans came, why I was in a certain company at a certain time when this came up, and why I am here. I believe this is a divine plan. You can dismiss it or not, but I believe it to be so, and faith will carry a person a very long way.”