The one-and-a-half gravities had been like an endless torture. Locked as they were in the confines of Deck Three, it wasn’t like the Irredenta had any avenue open to them but monotonous endurance. It didn’t matter that over the years, more and more ration came tumbling out of the conveyor in the mess. These days—eat as much as a person might—he or she just didn’t gain flesh.
“Ration” consisted of a cake-like composite of protein, fat, carbohydrate, and glucose injected with synthesized vitamins and recaptured minerals. The stuff was made from algae, plant tissue, and bacteria that grew in reprocessed nutrient-rich water.
From the loose teeth and thinning hair, the frail bones, the slightly sunken eyes, and occasional motor coordination troubles, malnutrition was simply a fact of life. Things might have been better if the ship’s physician and medical techs hadn’t been killed in the initial rioting.
Vartan stood in the back of what served as the infirmary. His ex-wife, Shyanne Veda—she’d gone back to her maiden name—was treating the scars on one of the little boys who’d undergone Initiation. It didn’t matter that the infirmary had some of the best lighting left in the whole of Deck Three; she still had to bend down to inspect the scabs that ran down the little boy’s arms and legs.
With a sigh, Shyanne straightened. Shot Vartan a look through weary umber-colored eyes. Like Svetlana, she was another tall, thin woman who crowded six feet. The similarities were enough to make him wonder if he cleaved to a certain type. Thinking back, most of the women in his life had been taller than him.
“’M I okay?” little Pho asked, staring up at Shyanne as if she were an oracle.
Fat chance that, the job already had been taken by the Prophets.
Shyanne gave him a nod. “You’re healing. Be careful not to tear the scabs off like you did on your leg. I want you under the UV light for a couple of hours a day. It’s the only thing we’ve got to get that infection under control.”
She helped the little boy up off the table, watched him limp stiffly out of the room. Then she glanced at Vartan. “So, Security Officer, what can I do for you?”
“They’ll be coming soon.”
She crossed her thin arms under the scarified spirals that covered her small breasts, lifted her brows. “Given the shutdown of the ship, the sudden return to normal gravity, that doesn’t take a Prophet to figure out.”
He turned, glanced to make sure the hallway remained empty. Turning back, he said, “A Supervisor has been in touch.”
“I’ve heard. But not the details. What’s it mean, Vart? Incarceration? Psychiatric confinement? Some kind of prison camp? Given the things we did . . .” She lifted a hand, turned away.
“A research base,” he told her. “Somewhere out away from the main settlements. That’s not common knowledge.”
“Then why are you sharing it with me?”
He shrugged. “You’re not like the rest. I know that. You don’t buy the Prophets and the Universe. But most of them do. It’s the only way they can cope.”
“Vart,” she told him, a distant look in her eyes, “I’m not a fool. I bought in the first time I looked down on a plate and told myself: ‘It’s eat it, or die.’ Understood that if I died, it would be cooked pieces of me on the plate. After that, the rest was easy. Well, all but the shit-sucking Initiation with the all the cutting, the screaming in pain, bleeding, and weeks of agony as the scars healed.”
She stared into the distance of memory. “The first time the Messiah came to my bed, I was creep-freaked. But I figured I could lay there while he did his thing. I let my mind go somewhere else. It wasn’t like there was anything left of me to lose.”
She cocked her head. “And now, after all this time, why the hell do you even care?”
“I’ve heard that there are a few who are planning to demand their rights under Contract as soon as the hatch is open. I don’t want you to be one of them.”
The way she looked at him, the light of her soul might have gone dark. “I told you, I’m in. So far as I’m concerned, we’re the chosen. The universe speaks to the Prophets, and the Messiah is their voice. We are the living dead. Through us, they are reborn. Pure.”
“Why don’t I believe you?”
“Because, Vart, there’s little else left to believe.”