could be worse.
Tomika sipped her warm tea as a string quartet played out of sight—possibly a recording—beside the elevated grandstand where she and her mother sat. Technically they were still in the village known as the Basilica but in a restricted area she didn’t know existed. A nun met them on the way to the Pope’s home and escorted through a series of ten-foot fences. If the Ring were not curved high above them, Tomika would be thoroughly lost.
Before running into the nun, she prodded her mother on her role in the meeting, but again Joro demurred. Tomika was having serious doubts on whether the Engineer knew what she was doing.
Neither said a word after they took their seats in the veranda, and Tomika searched for something to fill the silence. “How’s Padmus?”
“Hmm, the same. Still thinks I work too hard. Still running his little plant farm.” They exchanged smiles. “Little plant farm” was their personal joke for the massive hydroponics complex he oversaw that served as one of the main sources of manna in the Back.
“Is he right? Do you work too hard?”
“Not as much as I’m about to.” Joro pointed down the path to a pair of Crew members heading their way, escorted by a priest. They wore matching blue uniforms, but the golden eagles stood out on the man’s lapels.
Joro stood and held her hands out to the man, who took them as he stepped up into the grandstand. “Captain.”
“Engineer, it is a pleasure to meet you in person.”
Watching them, Tomika thought the Captain was slow to release her mother’s hands, holding onto them a second too long before letting go and gesturing to his partner.
“Joro, may I present Kathy, my First Officer?” the Captain asked. “She is not only my right hand but my left hand, too, and most of my brain.”
“You exaggerate, sir. Only the brain part is true.” Kathy shook Joro’s and Tomika’s hands in turn.
Joro gestured to her daughter. “Tomika, my senior advisor for the upcoming transition.”
Upcoming transition? What the hell is that? She can’t be talking about Landfall. She needs someone smarter than me.
She was about to reply to their polite queries when she saw two priests in floor-length cassocks approaching the grandstand. The older of the two, wearing white, could only be the Pope, even if he weren’t wearing the Venn diagram of his office over his heart. He was easily the oldest of them all, and he exuded an aura of authority that the Captain didn’t quite match.
The younger of the two, wearing a black cassock, looked familiar.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me!
“Ah, forgive us for being fashionably late. I lost track of time, I’m afraid,” the Pope offered as he ascended the steps, lifting his cassock as he went.
“No harm. We only arrived ourselves, Your Holiness,” the Captain said. “May I introduce my First Officer?”
“A pleasure,” the Pope said as he and Kathy shook hands. “This is Father Joseph, my senior advisor and technical guru when it comes to all things with the ship. Don’t let his youth fool you. He’s forgotten more than I will ever know.” The Pope blinked when he took in Tomika and Joro. “Ah, the Engineers. Hello, Joro.”
Tomika smiled inwardly as her mother vigorously shook the old man’s hand. “Good to see you, sir. May I present Tomika, my senior advisor for the upcoming transition?”
I need a shorter title, Mother. One that makes sense. Tomika shook the Pope’s hand with the same energy.
“Well, good. Shall we sit? Joseph, is that tea from your secret stash? I will elevate you on the spot if you would kindly pour me a cup.”
“Of course, Your Holiness.” Tomika had not yet been able to catch Joseph’s eye, and now she wasn’t sure she wanted to. She made a mental note to track him down if he managed to get away without talking to her. He owed her answers.
“Thank you, Joseph.” The Pope took a sip. “Perfect.”
“Thank you, Your Holiness.”
“Shall we get started, my friends? This is a most unusual conclave. I believe this is the first time our respective badges of office have gathered in one place in a long time.” He tapped the Venn diagram on his chest before looking at Charles. “May I speak for all of us as we again offer our condolences on the passing of your father and brother?”
Charles nodded. “Thank you, sir.”
The Pope slapped his thighs. “Even during this time, I am pleased we are all here.”
“Yes,” Joro said. “May I make a suggestion, sir?”
“Of course, my dear.”
“With respect, custom and tradition dictates the Captain takes the lead when the Triumvirate meets as a council, sir. Again, with respect.”
“You are correct,” the Pope said with a smile. “Captain, forgive my poor manners. No insult intended, sir.”
Tomika could see that the Pope’s smile did not reach his eyes.
With the Engineer challenging him right away, this meeting is not going the way the old man expected. I wonder how long she’s going to let him address her as “my dear.”
“None taken, sir.” Charles adjusted his tunic as he grinned. “Forgive me. I need a moment. This almost feels like the Council of Elrond.”
“The first meeting before a great journey, sir?” Tomika shocked herself by asking. She planned to say nothing since she had no clear idea why they were there.
“Yes, exactly, ma’am.” He turned to the Pope. “If you’ll forgive the heretical reference.”
“No forgiveness needed, Captain.” The Pope laced his fingers over his stomach. “Sir Tolkien was a devout Roman Catholic, and his books have long been recognized as a fundamentally Catholic body of work. And while we may be physically taller than hobbits, we can only hope our character and strength of heart will be sufficient as theirs for the upcoming trials.”
“And our faith?” Tomika wanted to clap her hands over her mouth.
“Especially our faith, miss. Especially that.” His eyes smiled, too, this time. “I understand all of us on this wonderful ship do not share the same beliefs and truths, but the upcoming days will test one common belief—the belief we have in each other. We may be separated by walls and customs, but we are brothers and sisters joined at the metaphorical hip, and we have been for generations, building bonds and ties over the centuries as we survive in the cold of space. Those bonds will be stretched as we make difficult choices, which means we must work harder to ensure those bonds are not broken. Doing so risks tomorrow, and that simply won’t do after our long journey.”
“Hear, hear, Your Holiness,” Joro said, surprising her daughter.
The older man coughed into his hand. “Forgive me. I tend to pontificate given the slightest provocation. Occupational hazard, I’m afraid. Captain, everyone, please feel free to speak in consecutive sentences as well. I promise to be more circumspect.”
“Sir, as the Pope, you may pontificate as long as you wish,” the Captain said.
Everyone laughed politely at the Captain’s pun.
“If I may,” he continued, “I will start from the beginning so we all have the same foundation of truth to build on, and it starts with this. In about three years, we will be entering a new solar system on the last leg of our journey to Home.”
The others clapped as Tomika forced herself not to audibly gasp. Like everyone, she knew a destination was in sight but never gave it much thought, even with the ever-present Clock in almost every room she traveled. She was more focused on the here and now. But hearing the official declaration from the Captain made that knowledge seem more real.
The Pope looked grave. “Captain, if I may ask, are we sure?”
Charles pointed to Joro, and she answered the question.
“Sir, the Back contains most of the science platforms on Salvation, and those include astronomy and astrophysics. Our course is taking us directly toward a mid-sized star with nearly the exact spectrum of our old Sun. We believe it is orbited by planets but is surrounded by a barrier of some kind between here and there which we are trying to pierce. That aside, we have no doubt that we are approaching a solar system of some kind.”
“I’ve examined the Engineer’s documentation at length, Your Holiness,” the Captain said. “We are headed exactly where the Original Builders intended us to go. We would have to take action to avoid this system.”
“If you would allow me to be the Devil’s advocate?” The Pope waited until the Captain nodded. “This is not an accident. We’ve been on this same course since Flyaway Day, right?”
“Correct.”
“As for the ‘not an accident’ part, sir,” the Engineer said, “you are correct. The Builders did not read tea leaves or throw bones on a blanket. They used sciences we cannot replicate, but both their intent and our destination are clear.”
“Don’t you find that curious, Captain?” the Pope asked as he turned to Charles. “We must have passed many suitable planets and systems.”
“Yes, sir. I do find it curious, and I am certain you are right,” Charles said, “but we’re talking about decisions and actions that happened three thousand years ago. Respectfully, sir, we are dealing with the here and now.”
“Of course.”
The Captain took a breath. “Like everything on Salvation, the Original Builders installed protocols and directives for this eventuality. Very soon, the Crew and Bur… Engineers—”
“It’s okay,” the Engineer said, smiling, as Kathy laughed. “We often refer to ourselves as Burners in polite company, and you can’t get much more polite than with the people here.”
“Fair point. The Crew and Burners will soon receive instructions from our respective central systems on how to prepare the ship for Landfall.”
“Landfall?” Father Joseph asked. His soft, deep voice sounded exactly as Tomika remembered.
“Forgive me. A poor choice of words. You’re correct. The ship will not land itself, but we will be preparing the ship for the approach. For instance, we’ll be checking dozens of shuttles for space worthiness, plus a thousand other details that must be resolved.”
“Captain?”
“Yes, Your Holiness?”
“May I ask dumb questions?” The Pope proceeded without pause. “I assume Salvation itself does not have brakes. How do we slow down?”
The Captain pointed to the First Officer.
Kathy nodded. “Sir, we’ll be calling on our old friend Sir Isaac Newton and his laws of motion. Assuming we encounter planets, we will use them and their sun to slow the ship and point us in the right direction to orbit our destination. Easy to explain and challenging to implement, but it’s applying basic math to reality.”
“What are the dangers of these maneuvers?”
The First Officer blinked. “That’s more difficult to define. We’ve been in space for a long time without dramatic maneuvering. We’ll be running constant models with the Burners to check for weak structural points, but we would probably already know if there were cracks or weaknesses in the hull. Space is unforgiving that way. If we do everything right, we’ll be able to mitigate most problems well in advance of gravitational insertion.”
The Pope nodded. “Thank you. Last question. What if nobody wants to go?”
“Excuse me?”
He waved his hands in the air. “We’ve built a home and community here within the ship. Thousands live in peace and within the strict structures set down by the Original Builders with no hunger, no poverty, and no war. This is not the Heaven I would ever imagine, but humanity has lived and thrived in far worse conditions.”
“But we are not really living.”
The Pope turned toward Tomika with wide eyes. “Excuse me?”
Tomika was horrified at the words coming from her mouth, and her mother grinning at her didn’t help. Regardless, she threw caution to the wind.
“Sir, what you’re describing is stagnation. There is no hunger but also no appetite to improve one’s life, no poverty because we’re not growing as a population. Through the necessary birth control mandates, Salvation has nearly the same number of people it had for thousands of years.”
Tomika paused before continuing. “As for war—well, I’m glad there’s no war, but what about the emotions that stir us to fight for our causes? Where is our passion, our energy, our inventiveness?” She blinked, realizing this was what she was trying to articulate in her head over Burl’s sleeping body a few hours before. “Sir, I toured the Ring, and the farmers are the happiest people there. They have a mission and duty. As for the rest, I’ve seen how people live when they have no calling to do anything other than to dance and eat and make love. We’re going through the motions of living, but not really living as the Builders wanted us to.”
“And you’re suggesting?” the Pope asked, his face blank.
“Let’s start reaching for tomorrow again, sir.”