Endymion

18

Father Captain de Soya awakens in a resurrection créche aboard the Raphael. He had been allowed to name the archangel-class ship. Raphael is the archangel in charge of finding lost loves.

He has been reborn only twice before, but each time there had been a priest there to greet him, to give him the ceremonial sip of sacramental wine from the cup and then the customary glass of orange juice. There had been resurrection experts there to talk to him, explain things to him, until his befuddled mind began to work again.

This time there are only the claustrophobic, curved walls of the resurrection créche. Telltales blink and readouts share lines of print and symbols. De Soya cannot read yet. He feels lucky to be thinking at all. He sits up and dangles his legs over the edge of the resurrection bed.

My legs. I have two of them. He is naked, of course, his skin pink and gleaming in the strange, parboiled wetness of the resurrection tank, and now he feels his ribs, his abdomen, his left leg—all the places slashed and ruined by the demon. He is perfect. There is no sign of the terrible wound that had separated his leg from his body. “Raphael?”

“Yes, Father Captain?” The voice is angelic, which is to say, totally devoid of sexual identity. De Soya finds it soothing.

“Where are we?”

“Parvati System, Father Captain.”

“The others?” De Soya has only the foggiest memory of Sergeant Gregorius and his two surviving squad members. No memory of boarding the courier ship with them.

“Being awakened as we speak, Father Captain.”

“How much time has passed?”

“Just a bit less than four days since the sergeant brought you aboard, Father Captain. The enhanced jump was carried out within the hour of your installation in the resurrection créche. We have been station-keeping ten AUs from the world of Parvati, as per your instructions via Sergeant Gregorius, for the three days of your resurrection.”

De Soya nods his understanding. Even that slight motion is painful. Every cell in his body aches from resurrection. But the pain is a healthy ache, unlike the terrible pain of his wounds. “Have you contacted the Pax authorities on Parvati?”

“No, Father Captain.”

“Good.” Parvati had been a remote colony world during the days of the Hegemony; now it is a remote Pax colony. It holds no interstellar spacecraft—Pax military or Mercantilus—and only a small military contingent and a few crude interplanetary ships. If the girl was going to be captured in this system, the Raphael would have to do the capturing.

“Update on the girl’s ship?” he says.

“The unidentified spacecraft spun up two hours and eighteen minutes before we did,” said Raphael. “The translation coordinates were undoubtedly for Parvati System. Arrival time for the unidentified ship is approximately two months, three weeks, two days, and seventeen hours.”

“Thank you,” says de Soya. “When Gregorius and the others are revived and dressed, have them meet me in the situation room.”

“Yes, Father Captain.”

“Thank you,” he says again. He thinks, Two months, three weeks, two days… Mother of Mercy, what am I going to do for almost three months in this backwater system? Perhaps he had not thought through this clearly. Certainly he had been distracted by trauma, pain, and drugs. But the next nearest Pax system was Renaissance Vector, which was ten days shiptime travel from Parvati, five months time-debt—three and a half days and two months after the girl’s ship would arrive from Hyperion System. No, he might not have been thinking clearly—he is not now, he realizes—but he had made the right decision. Better to come here and think things over.

I could jump to Pacem. Ask for instructions directly from Pax Command… from the Pope, even. Recuperate for two and a half months and jump back here with time to spare.

De Soya shakes his head, grimaces from the discomfort of doing so. He has his instructions. Capture the girl and return her to Pacem. Returning to the Vatican would be only an admission of failure. Perhaps they would send someone else. During the preflight briefing, Captain Marget Wu had made it clear that the Raphael was unique—the only armed, six-person archangel-class courier ship in existence—and although another might have come on-line in the months of time-debt that have elapsed since he left Pacem, there is little sense in returning now. If Raphael was still the only armed archangel, all de Soya could do would be add two more troopers to the ship’s roster.

Death and resurrection are not to be taken lightly. That precept had been driven home time and again in de Soya’s catechism when he was growing up. Just because the sacrament exists and is offered to the faithful, does not mean it should be exercised without great solemnity and restraint.

No, I’ll talk to Gregorius and the others and figure things out here. We can make our plans, then use the cryogenic-fugue cubbies to wait the last couple of months. When the girl’s ship arrives, the St. Anthony will be in hot pursuit. Between the torchship and Raphael, we should be able to interdict the ship, board her, and retrieve the girl without problem.

Logically, this all makes sense to de Soya’s aching brain, but another part of his mind is whispering, Without problem… this is what you thought about the Hyperion mission.

Father Captain de Soya groans, lifts himself down from the resurrection couch, and pads off in search of a shower, hot coffee, and some clothes.