Prophets

Date: 2526.1.9 (Standard) Earth-Sol

The woman named Ms. Columbia, who left the Saudi peninsula in a Pegasus V luxury transport named Lillium, currently walked across the ancient grounds of St. Peter’s Square in Rome—in cosmic terms, only a few steps to the left from the Eridani consulate.

Her relationship with Cardinal Jacob Anderson was similar to her relationship with Al-Hamadi, for similar reasons. Her information was too valuable for such men to question her too closely.

Cardinal Anderson walked next to her as they moved on the fringes of the crowd filling the square. Unlike Al-Hamadi, he had not been expecting her arrival. Like all of her actions, whatever body she wore, that detail was carefully planned by Adam. Like most of Adam’s machinations, the purpose for surprising Cardinal Anderson was murky to her, but as she had said, she had faith in him.

“This is alarming, to say the least,” the cardinal said, looking at the cyberplas display in his hand. Unlike the data that greeted Al-Hamadi, the information that greeted Cardinal Anderson was predominantly engineering data and specifications, telemetry data, and a few video feeds recorded from orbital construction platforms.

Not much else needed to be added. The details of an Ibrahim-class carrier betrayed their own significance without need of much analysis.

“My employer knew it would be of interest to you.”

“Your employer is a master of understatement.” The cardinal shook his head. “If these specs are accurate, this has just rendered a decade of strategic planning completely worthless. No one has ever suspected the Caliphate had this kind of technology. How close to operational is this?”

“At least one will be operational within two months, four in less than three months, all six should be completed within eight months.”

The cardinal shook his head. “Even if we take into account training a crew to operate these monsters, they’ll effectively double the size of their fleet in six months.”

Ms. Columbia knew that the cardinal’s worries extended beyond the size of the fleet. Numbers mattered much less at this point than range. One look at the size of the Ibrahim’s tach-drives would be enough to shake even the pope’s faith.

The cardinal shook his head. “And given the latest information from Bakunin, they’re going to have no incentive to move cautiously.” He stopped and faced her. “You’ll receive your usual payment. However, if you’ll forgive me, I need to act on this information.”

The cardinal turned to leave her, walking back toward the Apostolic Palace in a stride just short of a run. She watched him until she lost sight of him in the crowd. Then she smiled.

Adam would be pleased.