“Sixty light years,” Forn said, looking through the imager. “A hard distance in any event. I have no wonder why the god took its pause.”
“We have our orders, Neal,” Tephe said. “As does the god.” Tephe rubbed his left palm, which had begun to throb. “Stay at post,” he said. “I will be back before evening mess.” He exited toward sick bay, to see if healer Garder was far enough along with acolyte Drian to tend to his own, smaller wound.
Chapter Two
“The gods have become restless,” the priest Croj Andso said, to the officers seated in the captain’s mess, at the conclusion of the evening meal.
Captain Tephe frowned. Andso was already on his third portion of wine. His was from his own stores, not the watered wine a ship’s captain, by custom, furnished for his own table. The priest’s wine was unadulterated, as was increasingly his tongue. And this last comment, pronounced with an unseemly levity, was at odds with what the captain had seen the god do to the acolyte Drian.
Before the captain could comment, Neal Forn spoke. “You call them ‘gods,’ Priest Andso,” he said. “It was my understanding you were given to calling them ‘defiled.’ And that indeed you cannot be parted from the term, even at great cost.”
From the far end of the table, Andso narrowed his eyes at the first mate. Forn was seated at the right of the captain, who sat at the head of the table. Andso was by tradition seated at the foot, although Tephe knew well enough that Andso regarded himself at the head, and the captain at the foot. Between the military and religious heads of the Righteouswere the off-duty officers of the ship, who over the course of time habitually seated themselves in a vague approximation of their loyalty to either pole of duty.
Tephe had long noted the unconscious seating arrangement but neither said nor did anything about it. They were all loyal to him in any event, and he was loyal to His Lord. He did wish His Lord had not chosen Andso as His priest, or at least, had not chosen him to be His priest on the Righteous.
“It is not a difficult thing, Parishioner Forn,” the priest said, his address reminding the first mate, as the priest often did, of his subordinate status under Their Lord. “They are gods, they are also defiled. When one is in the presence of our particular defiled god, as I often am, it is meet and appropriate to remind the creature that it is, in fact, defiled, and a slave, and bound to obey my commands. And the commands of the captain,” the priest added, noting perhaps the incremental arch of Forn’s eyebrow. “Among the faithful, such as yourself and the others on this table, we may discuss them generally and dispassionately, as a species. Just as one may discuss dogs generally, without describing them as ‘unclean,’ which they are.”
“But a dog neither knows nor cares if you describe it as ‘unclean,’ Priest Andso,” Forn said. “Nor do we bid a dog to bring the Righteousthrough space or hold the ship and its crew safe from harm.”
“If you have a point, Parishioner Forn, I regret to say that it escapes me at the moment,” Andso said, swirling his wine.
“My point, Priest Andso, is that this ship has a god for an engine,” Forn said. “A god who is angry and spiteful, and who will with opportunity do any of us harm, as your acolyte so recently learned. I am a good and faithful servant to Our Lord, as all here know, and hold no task higher than to bend to His command. Yet I am practical. Practicality teaches me that if one wishes one’s engine to run well, one does not throw sand into its workings. Or in this case give it additional cause to hate us.”
Andso took a long drink to finish his wine, and then motioned to a standing acolyte to refill his cup. “It will hate us regardless, because that is all it knows, and all it would know. And as you are a good and faithful servant of Our Lord, Parishioner Forn, of which I have no doubt,” Andso uttered the last of these words with a unmistakable curl of his lip, “then you also know from the commentaries that Our Lord requires us to not only adore and honor him in the fullest measure, but to chastise and pity those whom He has brought low. ‘They are the defiled, without measure of redemption, and faithful declaim their rank.’ ” He raised his cup to his lips once more.
“I admire your scrupulous adherence to the commentaries, Priest Andso,” Forn said. “I wonder if you have a similar fervor for the portion of the commentaries which read ‘He that has drink for a pillar finds it falls when he does lean upon it.’ ”
Andso paused in the motion of a swallowing and in doing so choked himself, spraying a little of his wine onto the table. An acolyte rushed to the priest with a kerchief; Andso snatched it, daubed his lips and chin, and flung it back at his acolyte. He turned to the captain. “You offer your first mate much freedom, Captain Tephe.”
“I would think you would be gratified that he is so learned in the commentaries, Priest Andso,” Tephe said, and then raised his hand quickly as the priest’s face began to mottle. “Nevertheless I agree that this line of conversation has gone as far as it is to go. I am better interested in your first statement, when you said that the gods are getting restless. Perhaps you might speak more on this.”
Andso stared for a moment, considering his next action. Tephe watched him, impassively. He had learned that given enough time, the priest would do the minimally acceptable thing; it was only when he was rushed that his arrogance overtook him.
Finally Andso forced himself to relax. “Very well, captain. After our incident today with the Defiled”—Andso shot Forn a glance—“I used the Gavril to talk to several priests on other ships.”
“You engaged the Gavril without my permission?” Tephe said, straightening. It would explain why Lieutenant Ysta was absent from the captain’s table this evening. Gavrils were given the Talent to speak to each other no matter how distant, and thus one was stationed on each ship of the fleet. Nevertheless, every God-given Talent took its toll with use, and it was wearying for any man to reach across space and find another single mind. If Andso had used the Gavril to contact several ships in rapid succession, Ysta might need a day to recover.
Andso looked back at the captain, mildly. “It was ecclesiastical business, Captain,” said the priest. “And as you know, for such matters I may use may own discretion when using ship resources.”
“You might have informed me as a courtesy,” Tephe said. “The Righteousis without its Gavril now.”
“Parishioner Ysta was fine when I left him,” Andso said. He had returned to drinking. Tephe chose not to say anything further but glanced over to Forn, who nodded and motioned over one of the servers. He would have someone visit Ysta. “And in any event I learned what I needed to know, which is that our ‘engine,’ as your first mate describes it, is not the only one which has been refusing orders of late. On three other ships, the gods have also resisted or have had to be disciplined. This has all been since Celebration of the Immanence.”
“Four instances in ten days,” Forn said, returning to the conversation. “That does seem an unusual amount.”
“When you consider that in the entire year previous there were but three such rebellions, it is most unusual,” Andso said.
“Is there cause?” Tephe said.
“Of course not,” Andso said. “Aside from these Defiled testing their boundaries, as does any trapped predator. They would wish to assert to us that they are yet terrible creatures, instead of the slaves of a greater god. They howl to the stars, Captain.” Andso punctuated the comment with a heavy swallow of wine, and then pointed at Forn, unsteadily. “And this is why we must be constant in our reminders to them of their status, Parishioner Forn. Words. They have power. To name a god is to give it power. To deny it such is to take it. Only a little but even so. To celebrate Our Lord in its presence weakens it, and when we call this thing Defiled we lower it and raise Our Lord, because He is the one who enslaved it. You know, Parishioner Forn, what keeps the Defiled bound in that circle.”