Space Stations

I

FATHER Claire Yamashita heard the tones warning of the ship’s alarm, but only distantly. It signaled the ship’s imminent reversion from hyperspace. Ignoring it for a moment, she whispered a Hail Mary and fingered another bead on her rosary. She was only partway through her daily devotion, firmly in the eighth decade of rosary and contemplating the Sorrowful Mystery of Jesus’ being crowned with thorns. It had become one of her least favorite of the mysteries she meditated about while saying the rosary. Even so, she forced herself to continue and complete that decade before she stopped praying.

Under normal circumstances nothing would have prevented her from finishing the entire devotion, but this time the reversion tones heralded the Qian ship Ghoqomak’s arrival at her new home. I’m so far distant from Terra that the sunlight which shined on our Lord’s face is not seen here yet. This she had known on an intellectual level ever since she requested the assignment, but—until her actual arrival—the emotional impact of the distance from Terra had not struck her.

She frowned. It disappointed her to be so weak that a petty personal concern could interrupt her prayers. Claire kissed the crucifix on her rosary, then rose from the floor of her cabin, allowing herself a smile. She came up from her cross-legged position without using her hands, which was not easy. The pod containing her cabin ran at slightly higher than Terran gravity for the benefit of the Haxadis ambassador, consort, and entourage.

She picked a piece of white lint from the shoulder of her black jacket, then pulled the garment on. With the flick of her right hand she tugged her hair free of the jacket collar and made a mental note to get her hair cut back again. She deposited her rosary into the jacket pocket, then slipped from her cabin. The door hissed shut behind her, clicking reassuringly, freeing her to make her way outward to the pod lounge.

Qian starships were known to many humans as wasps because of their look. The cockpit formed the head and the hyperspace drive was built into the thorax. The abdomen, which could get quite long on the powerful ships, was made up of pods fixed around a central core. Gravity could be adjusted in each pod, and each pod itself could be configured for anything from hauling cargo to a medical facility, machine shop, or passenger compartment.

The pod to which Claire had been assigned had slightly more luxurious appointments than most passenger pods, but that was only because of the Haxadis contingent. Claire had expected to occupy a small cabin like the ones she’d been in throughout her journey, but when the Haxadissi had learned she was a Catholic priest, they insisted she take one of the empty cabins in their pod.

Claire knew that “insisted” was far too strong a word. A Qian officer had extended the offer to Claire on behalf of the Haxadissi, but from the way the Haxadissi treated her when they ran across each other, she suspected the aliens had been pressured into making room for her. The Qian clearly wanted her in that pod for mysterious reasons, and the Haxadissi had complied for reasons known only to them.

An offer of passage from some other aliens would have made perfect sense, since the Catholic Church had forged significant alliances with a number of xenotheological sects.

All of them shared a basic agreement on gradual revelation and the direct intervention of God in history, always in the person of a savior sent to redeem the preeminent species on that world. Most included a baptism of sorts, many with water, so that common ground was easy to find.

The Haxadis did have a religion, Lyshara, that involved gradual revelation and even the intervention of a god in the affairs of mortals, but there the similarities ended. Instead of dealing with Good and Evil, the Haxadis had a trio of figures that covered Good, Evil, and Justice. Justice most often came as a trickster or arbiter, serving to chasten the other two divine aspects. It often insulated mortals from divine wrath, but just as easily turned and punished mortals for their iniquity.

While at seminary Claire studied a paper that analyzed the Haxadis religion and tried to tie it more directly to Christianity. The author equated Justice with aspects of the Old Testament God, which was a far more persuasive argument than early missionaries had made in equating the Haxadis trinity to the Christian Trinity. Regardless, Claire had found the comparison grossly flawed, largely because it ignored the superstitious trappings that attended all other aspects of Lyshara. Her deconstruction and demolition of that paper had earned her high marks and even a kind word from Cardinal Winters.

The corridors of the Haxadis pod were roughly triangular in shape, being broader at the floor to accommodate their physiology. This actually made it easier for Claire to move through, since she could steady herself with her hands on the narrowed upper walls. She reached the lounge and found it unoccupied, which she did not mind. Crossing the open floor, she perched herself on a padded cylinder jutting from the wall, hooking her knees around it, and watched out the viewport as reversion melted reality.

Reversion communicated many things to many people, imparting to some visions, to others nightmares. Psychologists had suggested it was because the transition from extra-dimensional existence back into the real universe was so beyond the ability of minds to comprehend, that people instinctively sought reassuring or fundamental images. For Claire, a black cylinder streaked with rainbow stripes both narrow and thick simply melted into a greater darkness stippled with light and grandly splashed with color where the system’s planets orbited. The fundamental vision she sought was neither ecstatic nor terrifying, just reality.

“Thank you, God, for the safety of our journey.”

Though she had kept her prayer a whisper, a hiss from the doorway suggested she had been overheard. She turned slowly, doing her best to stifle a shiver. To shiver would have been quite rude, and might have even toppled her from her Haxadis version of a chair.

But for a Terran, stifling a shiver would take superhuman effort.

The Haxadis ambassador, her abdomen swollen with child, slithered her way into the lounge. Light glistened golden from her scaled flesh, highlighting the bands of yellow, red, and black marking her from head to toe. The pattern continued on her arms and fingers, the narrow band of yellow contrasting with the thicker bands of red and black.

The scales of her abdomen were similarly colored, though slightly bleached over her breasts and belly. Her face did jut into a muzzle, complete with a lipless mouth. Claire saw no hint of fangs, though she knew enough to know they were retractable and seldom seen.

Claire slowly stood, then bowed her head. “Peace be with you, Ambassador Soluvinum.”

The female Haxadis spared her only the slightest of glances. Her dark eyes had no warmth in them at all, and her manner remained quite cool. She slithered off to the lounge’s far corner and her consort, a male, moved with her. Seated, the Haxadissi were as tall as Claire, but their serpentine tails easily measured three times the length of her legs. As they sat, they wrapped their tails around the cylindrical post from which jutted the branch where they sat.

A smaller Haxadis undulated over to Claire. It had black scales with two red stripes running down the length of its body and ivory abdominal scales. It massed three quarters of what the ambassador or her consort did, and Claire knew it to be of a caste below that of the nobility. When the Haxadissi had interacted directly with Claire, it had been this creature that had been saddled with the task of buffering its masters from her.

“My mistress bids you welcome, Priest.”

Claire smiled. At the start, the creature had referred to her as “priestess,” which had annoyed her because of its inaccuracy. “I appreciate being shown your hospitality on the last leg of this journey. I am certain the station will be dull in comparison to this pod.”

The little Haxadis cocked its head to the right. “You have not been here before?”

“No.”

“We have, on our outbound journey. This system is positioned such that it allows for a swifter, more direct route to our home than picking our way from star to star.” The little creature clasped dark stubby-fingered hands across its ivory abdomen. “The station was very nice…”

A sharp hiss by the ambassador snapped the aide’s head around, narrowing its nostril slits. The aide bowed its head without looking back again at Claire. “My mistress…”

“Of course.” Claire smiled, again suppressing a shudder as the Haxadis sinuously sped off. She turned and looked out the viewport as the Qian station came into view. It had an official designation, but to all humans sent out here, it was known as Purgatory Station.

Purgatory Station existed out at the fringes of the Qian Commonwealth. A little over a century and a half previous the Qian had come to Terra and told mankind that while humans had not yet expanded beyond their own solar system, they were close to discovering the secret of hyperspace travel. The Qian offered to make Terra a protected world and integrate it into the Commonwealth, and humanity had accepted the offer.

Qian technology, as it turned out, surpassed human invention on many fronts, and the station had been built using it to its utmost. Massive gravity generators had been focused on an asteroid and had compressed it until it became molten rock, perhaps even plasma.

Computers then manipulated the gravity to shape it, tunnel it, and recreate it into the shell they wanted. Factory ships arrived and began producing the parts needed to build it out. Before long—an eye blink in Qian terms, and less than a decade in human reckoned time—the station had come on-line and the Catholic Church had assigned chaplains to it.

Another warning tone sounded as the ship slipped into orbit around the rocky station.

The Haxadis pod shook, then lifted away from the Ghoqomak. This surprised Claire.

She’d been told that she’d have to transfer to one of the cargo pods to make her way to the station, since the starship was set for the quick resumption of the long run to Haxad once it had dropped the pods meant for Purgatory Station.

The Haxadissi hissed in surprise, then a viewscreen against an interior bulkhead flashed to life. A dark-eyed Qian female, petite and serene, appeared and bowed her head. She began to speak in Haxadissi. The ambassador hissed angrily, then slithered out, followed by her consort and the aide.

The viewscreen went blank before Claire could ask what had happened, but this did not discomfort her. She had been destined to travel to the station on a pod, and one was as good as another. She had long since packed her personal belongings and had stowed them in a cargo pod. Aside from one small bag still in her cabin, she was ready to quit the ship.

Returning to her cabin, she did catch a hint of the cinnamon scent of angry Haxadissi.

She’d actually smelled it fairly often, and caught herself remembering warm toasted cinnamon-raisin bread at breakfast with her family. She did her best to banish that memory ruthlessly, because homesickness so far from Terra would be impossible to cure.

The journey had taken her two months and she was truly ready for it to end. She had spent most of the time alone, which she didn’t mind. Being a cleric meant folks didn’t always invite her to join them for pleasurable pursuits, which was just as well because her refusal of same always seemed to suggest a moral superiority on her part. She didn’t feel morally superior, just more focused on the spiritual than the physical, and few were the contemplative and spiritual distractions on starships.

She gathered her leather attachh and frowned at the designer label. Owning such a thing went against her sense of propriety, and buying it would have run counter to her vow of poverty. Her parents had given it to her as a going away present, so she allowed herself to value it for being a gift. This far from Terra, the label will be meaningless anyway.

Claire made her way down and forward, then through a hatchway and into one of Purgatory Station’s large landing bays. Above and to the right she saw a gangway extended from an upper level and the Haxadissi making their serpentine passage across it, to be greeted by several Qian officials and other dignitaries. I can hear the outraged hissing from here.

“Father Yamashita.”

Claire’s head came around, and she couldn’t hide the surprise on her face. The man addressing her had managed to say her name correctly, mashing together the latter half of it. He stood nearly as tall as she did, his hair as white as hers was black and his bright eyes as blue as hers were brown. His voice came with a faint Irish accent that she found very warm and rich.

She nodded and extended a hand to him. “I am pleased to meet you. You are Father Flynn.”

He shook her hand heartily, enfolding it in a strong grip. The strength of it surprised her, as she guessed he must have had thirty or perhaps forty years on her. “Please, you’ll be calling me Dennis or Flynn, that’s customary between peers here.”

His steady gaze invited a similar offer of familiarity, but she held back. Flynn’s genial greeting had blasted through the shell of serene isolation she’d formed around herself.

Claire suddenly realized that she was finally at her new parish, and that she would have to begin to deal with people, all manner of them. The enormity of that hit her and hit hard, shaking her.

She withdrew her hand from his grasp. “Thank you, Father Flynn. You didn’t have to come greet me.”

“No? Sure and the Church has not suggested we’re unmannerly out this far. Truth is, I almost missed you, since I was down to the bay where your original pod was coming in.

Advantage here is that coming in on the diplomatic level, you can take care of the entry forms later.”

The man glanced back toward the broad tunnel leading into the station interior, then raised a hand. “Ah, here he is. Someone you’ll be wanting to meet. Meresin, over here.”

Claire recognized the name immediately and followed the line of Flynn’s gaze even though she had no desire to do so. There, dressed in black, came the Unvorite chaplain of the Mephist faith. Tall and strongly built, he strode forward with the gait of a conqueror. Long, unbound black hair streamed back past his shoulders. At his hands, throat, and face she could see his blood-red skin, and as he smiled, he flashed black teeth. Seven black thorns jutted up through his hair, the largest sprouting from just above his hairline at his forehead, aligned with his strong, narrow nose. And his eyes, his red eyes, burned with a light she could only describe as infernal.

The Unvorite paused and executed a flawless bow. “Komban-wa Yamash’ta Claire-san.”

If Flynn’s familiarity had shaken her, Meresin’s greeting in Japanese shattered her. By dint of habit she bowed in return, then looked at Flynn. “If you will forgive me, Father, it has been a long journey. Our arrival interrupted my daily devotion. I… I need to pray and rest. Please forgive me.”

“Understandable, Father Yamashita, right this way.”

Claire held a hand up. “I’ve studied the station. I can find my rooms. Thank you. And thank you for meeting me. Again, I apologize.” She slipped past the Unvorite and insulated herself with the anonymous press of the crowd leaving the docking bay.

II

Flynn frowned as he watched her go. “Well now, I wasn’t thinking that was how this would start.”

The Unvorite nodded, his black brows arrowing down beneath the large horn. “I didn’t say anything incorrect, did I?”

“Oh, no, no, your greeting was perfect.” Flynn smiled at his friend. The Mephist faith was one that had been decried and dismissed by the Catholic Church as being wantonly hedonistic, but Meresin had always sought to do that which comfortably brought others pleasure or showed them respect. “Like as not, it’s as she said, it’s been a long journey. I don’t know but what she’s not met any Mephists before, so that might have come as a shock.”

The Mephist priest laughed. “And if she spoke with your previous aide’s wife, I am certain her image of me is something beyond diabolical.”

The human priest nodded. “I’m thinking that could be another piece of it.” There is more, though, lots more, I’m sure.

Meresin looked up toward where the Haxadissi were hissing loudly. “Then again, traveling in that pod would be enough to put anyone on edge.”

“Not speaking any Haxadissi, I’m not understanding what they’re going on about, but they don’t sound pleased.”

“It’s that this is an unscheduled stop. They were on their way home, but the Ghoqomak lost a seal on its jumpdrive. Standard procedure is to get pods to port, then send a crew out to fix it. Problem is that the station doesn’t have the right seals to fix the ship immediately, so it will be at least a week before they head out again.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “I know the worlds of Haxad and Unvoreas are relatively close to each other, but I was not aware you spoke Haxadissi.”

“I don’t, my friend.” Meresin pointed back along the way he had come. “The kind soul who directed me up here told me about the damaged seal and the delay. I have merely intuited the rest. The Haxadissi are not known for their patience, and a pregnant noble would seem to gain in fury as well as girth.”

As Flynn watched, the ambassador shoved a smaller Haxadis aside and began hissing angrily at the Qian official before her. As the sibilant complaints grew louder, Flynn caught a flash of fangs. At that point the other large Haxadis intervened, interposing himself between the ambassador and the Qian. The ambassador pounded her fists against his broad back, while the smaller aide again moved to the fore and drew the Qian aside for more consultation.

The human shivered. “We didn’t have any snakes in Ireland when I grew up. In light of what I’ve seen in my time on the station here, I’d not be thinking I’d react to them that way, but it’s visceral.”

“Well, the serpent in the Garden, after all.”

“A bit of that, I’ll warrant, and more.” Flynn smiled as he looked back at the Unvorite.

“The Haxadissi call their faith Lyshara, if I’m remembering right. We’ve no one here affiliated with it or a sister sect, do we?”

Meresin pressed his black-taloned fingertips together. “No, I am afraid we don’t. The Void, of course, embraces all, but the Haxadissi had been hostile to Mephisti ever since a malignant sect of ours slaughtered a colony of theirs several of your centuries back.

They do hold grudges, the Haxadissi.”

“Well, then, I’m guessing if they have any spiritual needs that want to be tended, I’ll be the one doing the job.” Flynn sighed. “Before that, though, I’m thinking someone else might need some help.”

“You’ll give her time before you talk to her?”

“A bit, yes. Let her finish her devotions first.”

“Good.” The Unvorite smiled. “I will leave you to that, then, and suggest to those who want to welcome her to the station that they should wait until they hear from you?”

“That would be a great favor, Meresin, thank you.” The human shook his Unvorite counterpart’s hand. “I will let you know how things go.”

III

Claire had completed her rosary, then had remained sitting there in her small room. She thought of many things—too many—when she really wished to be thinking of nothing at all. The door chime, though an interruption, came as a blessing.

“Enter, please.” She didn’t bother to turn and face the door, since she could imagine only one visitor.

Flynn moved into the dimly lit room, glancing through a far doorway into her small bedchamber. “They’ll be getting your things up to you fair soon, I’m thinking.”

“Thank you.” Claire did force herself to smile slightly, then looked over at him. “I should apologize for being so rude earlier, but I haven’t the energy that the attendant discussion will require.”

“I know that, Father Yamashita, and I’d not be here save for something urgent having come up.” The older priest hesitated for a moment. “Two things for you to consider, though, for when we have that discussion. I know well the way the Church has portrayed Mephists, and I might even be admitting that not trafficking with them is a serious caution for the spiritually vulnerable. That being said, though, Meresin has never been anything but polite and respectful in his dealings with me and my people.”

She brought her head up, but he raised a hand to forestall her comment. “Now, I’m thinking you likely went and talked to Father Olejniczak and his wife before you came out here, just to see what you were getting into, and Marguerite, she gave you an earful about Meresin. They used to get into frightful rows on things theological. Marguerite, while a wonderful woman, gave in to her prejudices and hated Meresin because the Church told her he was the enemy; and the fact that they had what she saw as fights justified it all to her.

“What she missed, though, was that Meresin only engaged her because defending her faith made her happy. It made her feel more important. Now, Mephisti might well be a hedonistic faith, but it operates by the Golden Rule, same as we do.”

Claire frowned. “‘As long as it harms no one, do what thou will,’ is not the Golden Rule.”

“Semantics, Father, and you know it.” Flynn folded his arms across his chest. “And you know as well as I do that hating someone because of some benign trait is foolish.”

“It’s not prejudice, Father. Meresin’s an intelligent creature, he is capable of seeing the error of his beliefs and choosing to accept the truth. By tolerating his beliefs, by chiding me for opposing them, you are allowing him to remain in a state that imperils his soul.”

Flynn smiled broadly. “Oh, very good, very good indeed. Having you here will be very welcome. I look forward to many hours of discussions with you, and that brings me to my second point. You and I, we will be each other’s Confessors. I have to be telling you, despite what you might think of my friendship with Meresin, I do take ministering to the spiritual needs of my flock very seriously. I don’t see being your Confessor, though, as a license to pry into your life.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. The thing of it is this, though, lass. This place is called Purgatory Station because it’s so far away, and those who are sent here, often it’s because of sins they’ve committed, real or imagined. Now, you’re too young to have done anything serious, you’re here for your own reasons. But this isn’t just a place of exile, it’s also a frontier, and a place of new beginnings. I’m not knowing why you chose to come here, but if I can help you get started on that beginning, well, it would be my pleasure.”

She blinked her eyes, surprised at first, then feeling naked and exposed. From the moment she’d made her decision, her family, her lover, everyone had asked her why she had chosen to go so far away. For a heartbeat she wondered if Flynn were simply employing reverse psychology to get her to tell him why she came, but the open, honest expression on his face hid no deception. Her reasons for being there didn’t matter to him, just seeing to her well-being did.

“Again, thank you.” She composed herself, then frowned. “There is another reason you’re here, though, yes?”

“Yes, part of beginnings. I know it’s only been a couple of hours, but you’re needed. Something I can’t do. Please, follow me.”

IV

Claire didn’t interrupt Flynn’s silence as they moved through the station. Clearly the situation was stressful, and she was pleased he was not the sort to babble idly. She noticed his movements were precise, with not a step or motion wasted, which struck her as something of a contrast with the open affability that Marguerite had ascribed to him.

Flynn led her to a brightly lit waiting room in one of the station’s medical facilities. The Mephist priest was already there, as well as the Haxadissi ambassador’s consort and the diminutive aide. In addition to them were two new individuals, the first of whom immediately oriented on her, smiled, and extended a hand.

“Komban-wa, Father Yamashita.” The slender, blond man had a chin slightly weaker than his grip, and blue, watery eyes that appeared a bit close-set. “H. Percival Doncaster at your service. I am the Terran Diplomatic liaison here at the station.” He hesitated, then bowed his head and started to speak again in Japanese.

“Please, Mr. Doncaster, English. I grew up in San Francisco. My Japanese is not very good.” She caught Flynn and the Unvorite sharing a glance, since Doncaster had gone to great pains to pronounce every syllable of her name—an error they had avoided. “How may I be of service?”

“Well, Soluvinum Leyrolis here has requested your attendance at the birth of his child.

His partner, the ambassador, has gone into labor rather prematurely.” Doncaster nodded reassuringly at the two Haxadissi. “Your participation would be seen as most auspicious, you being a priest, of course.”

“But I know nothing of medicine, and even less of xeno-biology.”

“It’s not really a matter of medicine, you see, but of…” He stopped, his face a perplexed mask. “They want you because of who you are.”

The aide glided forward as the male Haxadis hissed sibilantly. “Priestess, my master wishes me to tell you that had they known of your glorious bloodline, you would have been afforded better treatment.”

Claire frowned. “My bloodline?”

A quiet, clear voice cut Doncaster’s explanation off before he’d finished inhaling to begin it. “You are of Imperial Japanese blood, Father, therefore are descended from Amaterasu-O-Mi-Kami, the goddess of the sun.”

The small Qian woman moved around Doncaster, but did not slip a hand from the sleeves of her robe. The robe reflected the lavender hue of her skin. Her broad, flat face, the narrowed dark eyes almost reminded Claire of her grandmother, and likely would have save for the little lights tracing out patterns of circuitry beneath the flesh. “Do you know of the Lashrish ritual known as Chuyn?”

Claire shook her head to clear it, then rubbed a hand over her forehead. “I studied a bit about Lyshara at seminary. Chuyn I don’t recall directly. Now what is this about my bloodline? How do they know that?”

The Qian nodded once. “They know because we know, and we shared that information with them. If you know Lyshara, you know the Haxadis have three deities. Good is represented by the earth, Evil by water, and Justice is their solar deity, because of the duality of its nature. In the day, the sun is warm and comforting, as is Justice when it delivers people from oppression. At night, it is cold and dark, as Justice is when it punishes Evil. Even at night, however, the stars remind the people that Justice will smile on them again.”

“I remember that.”

“Good.” The Qian continued, her voice even despite the increased hissing from the male Haxadis. “Chuyn is a ritual employed when a child is being born while aboard a ship, over water. When a child is born on land, goodness and virtue can flow into him normally. When on water, where evil is the most influential essence, the child will be damaged unless Chuyn is performed. The child will fail to thrive and will die. You, being the offspring of a solar deity and a priestess, will represent Justice and shield the child from the influence of evil.”

“But we’re not over water.”

The Qian shook her head. “The Haxadis define this station as a ship, not a planet. We orbit, we are not orbited.”

Doncaster smiled broadly. “Well, there it is, Father. If you will proceed through the doorway there, you can scrub up and enter the delivery room.”

“No, I can’t.” Claire glanced at Flynn. “You know I can’t do this.”

Before Flynn could reply, the male Haxadis hissed explosively. A hood blossomed from crown to shoulders and his fangs flashed. The aide shrank from him as he slithered forward. Before he could reach her, however, the Unvorite stepped in to shield Claire.

He snapped something in a language that crackled and the Haxadis shrank back.

Flynn nodded to the human diplomat. “Percy, perhaps you and Director Chzan can be taking our guests in to see the ambassador while we discuss things.”

Claire hugged her arms tightly around herself as the diplomat and the Qian cleared the Haxadissi from the room, then she fixed Flynn with a hard stare. “There is nothing to discuss. You know I can’t do this. If they were Catholic or Christian and it was a difficult birth, and they wanted me there to baptize the child, I could do that, but I can’t stand as a surrogate for a Lashrish priest.”

Meresin tapped a finger against his chin. “I believe Chuyn requires a priestess.”

Flynn nodded. “It does, which is exactly why I can’t do it.”

Her jaw dropped open. “You would do it?”

“How could I not?”

“It’s blasphemy.” Claire shook her head in disbelief. “You’re using your position as a Catholic priest, your office to condone and reinforce the superstitious beliefs of the Haxadis. You’re fostering a belief you know to be false, a belief that will lead them to damnation. And, for me, it would be worse, since what they really desire is my bloodline. I’m not a Shinto priest. I don’t claim divinity. I have rejected that claim, as have my parents and their parents. They are asking us to mock our beliefs, and I won’t do it.”

The Unvorite’s head came up. “What of the child?”

“What do you mean?”

Flynn nodded. “Yes, Father Yamashita, the child, think of the child. If you don’t do this, the child will die.”

“Because it is possessed?” She shook her head adamantly. “We all know, the three of us, that the reason the child will fail to thrive is because the parents won’t care for it. They’ll let their superstitions convince them that the child is failing, so they will neglect it.

Maybe not consciously, maybe it will fall to the aide to let the child die. Their beliefs allow them to condone passive infanticide. That is evil, and we should do something about it, but committing idolatry is not the answer.”

Flynn’s blue eyes hardened. “Better it is, then, you’re thinking, for the child to die without a chance of knowing salvation, than to be raised in a tradition that guarantees damnation?”

“There’s no other choice.”

The elder priest nodded slowly. “Well, Father Yamashita, being as how I’m not female, I can’t act here. I think, though, there is always a choice. I can’t be faulting your logic, for it’s all in keeping with the dictates of the Church. I’m also aware, though, that those teachings and those dictates are written by men, looking to honor and give glory to God-made-man. Sometimes, I’m thinking, it’s a pity that complex things get sacrificed for ease of understanding. Pity you’re not of a divine bloodline. Might let you understand what Jesus might teach on this subject.”

Flynn sighed. “I’m told, given how Haxadis births go, you’ve got a bit of time to be thinking on this.”

“There’s no thinking to be done.”

“Perhaps not.” Flynn gave her a nod, then glanced at Meresin. “Father Yamashita needs some time alone. Peace be with you, Claire. If you need me, I’ll be in the chapel here, praying. If you’re right that there’s no thinking left to be done, then praying is the best I can do.”

V

Claire Yamashita felt a little annoyance flash through her as she exited the delivery room. Her eyes narrowed. “Father Flynn.”

Flynn nodded and offered a steaming mug. “Father Yamashita.”

She shook her head. “I don’t drink coffee.”

“I know. It’s green tea. Your preference runs to oolong, but this is the best I could do.”

Claire accepted the mug. “How did you…?”

“I didn’t. The Qian did.” Flynn stepped aside and pointed with the mug in his left hand toward two chairs in the corner of the waiting room. “If you have a moment.”

She paused for a second, during which time fatigue began to pound on her. “Yes, a moment, I guess.”

He waited for her to sit, then settled his mug on the round table between their chairs. “I should apologize….”

Claire looked him straight in the eye. “You knew I’d help them, didn’t you? Was I that predictable?”

The white-haired cleric pulled back. “I wasn’t thinking anything of the sort. When I heard you say there was nothing to think about, I believed you, and there was nothing I was thinking I could say to change your mind. So I did go off and pray, hoping that God might see His way clear to helping here.”

“So you thought I was totally coldhearted?”

Flynn shook his head. “Here’s the thing of it, Father. Everything you said was right. I couldn’t have been faulting you. Doctrinally, you were right down the line. Defensible.

Laudable. I might have been wanting to debate a point or two, but you were as right in stating your position as you were in chastising me for suggesting I would be wrong for acting otherwise.”

Claire regarded him over the mug of tea as he spoke. The soft sound of his voice, the warmth of it, matched the tea for sweet scent and heat. She sipped, let the tea linger on her tongue for a moment, then swallowed. “Do you want to know what changed my mind?”

“If you’re of a want to be sharing.”

She hesitated for a moment, a blush burning its way onto her face. She stared down into the green-gold depths of her tea. The thought process she’d gone through had taken her from the arrogant heights of self-righteousness, which she’d not consciously realized she’d scaled until her descent began. The humbling journey to her decision to help had been painful and personal. To relate it would open her up, and part of her resisted mightily, but it relented as she had.

Claire nodded slowly. “You said you’d be off praying. I went back to my quarters, thought I might sleep. I couldn’t, so I began the rosary again, meditating on the mysteries. I got to the third one, the mystery of the Nativity.”

“You saw Mary as a Haxadis?”

“No doubt, if my experience is ever used in a homily, I will remember it that way, just for simplicity’s sake.” It would have made it all easier for her had the shift been that literal.

For a heartbeat that image of a serpentine Virgin had occurred, but she’d rejected it ruthlessly. It was too glib, too simple, requiring no insight or thought; unlike the way she’d built up her position against helping.

She sipped again, both hands around the mug’s warm barrel. “Fact is, I was thinking about what you said, about what Jesus might teach, and through His eyes I saw the worry on Mary’s face, then the joy and I knew, regardless of faith, regardless of species, motherhood was a link that Mary shared with the ambassador. We teach that God is love, that what God has for us is love, and here I was, letting the love of a mother for her child be severed. I might have been able to justify what I was doing within the teachings of the Church, but doctrine and theology couldn’t sanctify an act that was nothing but pure evil.”

Claire realized that had Flynn or another priest related to her the same train of thought concerning the decision, she’d have pointed out a gaping flaw: seeing the Ambassador and Mary in parallel situations created a not-so-subtle linkage between Jesus and the Haxadis infant, imbuing that child with a sanctity that demanded action, no matter how antithetical it was to Church teaching. She rejected that facile an argument because it was too shallow.

The simple truth was that the Haxadis infant did have sanctity, the same sanctity of all living creatures. Because of that, and because of the love between mother and child, she knew her decision had not only been correct, but had been the only one that was Godly.

Her head came up and she smiled. “I have a sister. I was there when her son was born. I don’t know if you have ever attended a birth.”

Flynn nodded. “A time or three, yes, and even a human birth. People aren’t always at their best in that situation.”

“No, no, the things Deb said to her husband all but blistered the paint off the walls. And there, when the ambassador was giving birth, some of those hisses were just this side of lethal. She actually bit her consort through the arm, but he took it stoically.”

Claire set the mug down then held her hands in her lap. “I had to do a bit more in there than I did with Deb. The Ambassador’s cloaca dilated, right down at the base of her abdomen, then her baby just wriggled free of this clear fluid membrane. I had to catch the child, help it, and say the words being whispered to me by a Qian. Part of the time I was thinking about snakes and having a hard time not thinking of this child as a snake. I almost lost it once, then I caught the mother’s glance. I could see the worry in her eyes, so I nodded, I said the words loud, with her little aide translating. I kept seeing my sister and the Blessed Virgin. I even knew I’d have a hard time justifying my actions to the Bishop, but I knew what I was doing was more right than wrong.”

Flynn took her hands in his. “If there was any wrong in what you did, Father Yamashita, I’ll not be seeing it as being worthy of your bothering me with it during Confession. As for the Bishop…” The older man shrugged. “I’m thinking she’s got enough to worry about that troubling her with a report on this isn’t really necessary.”

Claire gave Flynn’s hands a squeeze, then freed her own to recover her mug. “The whole thing wouldn’t have been necessary if the Haxadis had planned ahead better.”

“What do you mean?”

She frowned. “You are pregnant, and you know you need a priestess to help birth your baby if you are caught on a ship. You head out on a long journey, hoping to get home, but knowing it’s a race against time. Why don’t you ship a priestess with you? They had room in their pod for it—in the cabin they gave me, if nothing else.”

The door to the small waiting room opened and the Qian station director entered the room. She looked about for a moment and then serenely faced the pair of priests. “There you are.”

Flynn raised an eyebrow. “Why, Director Chzan, you’re long since past trying to fool me with your coincidental appearances. You see, Father Yamashita, Director Chzan has a dozen different ways to locate us if she desires, not the least of which would have been having the station’s systems sniff the air for the hints of your tea.”

The Qian did her best to pretend she had not heard Flynn’s remark. She extended her hand toward Claire. “I came for the transmission device.”

Claire reached back behind her right ear and peeled off a plastic piece of circuitry through which a Qian aide had whispered to her the words she pronounced at the birth.

“Thank you for your help.”

“No, Father Yamashita, it is you who must be thanked.” The Qian inclined her head slightly. “This would have been an indelicate situation were you not here to resolve it.”

Flynn’s eyes narrowed. “A point we were just discussing, in fact. Why didn’t the ambassador have a priestess in her entourage?”

Chzan’s eyes blinked slowly. “The priestess failed to obtain a flight health certificate.”

“What?” Flynn laughed aloud. “A right-rum pox-dog fair bursting with bacteria and viruses would get a health cert—as could each and every one of the buggies infesting him. How did she fail?”

“Clerical error. It has been corrected.” The Qian accepted the small device from Claire.

“Again, Father Yamashita, thank you.”

Claire sat back, wrapping her right hand around the mug. She let the tea’s warmth fight the chill shivering its way up her spine as the Qian exited the room. “What just happened? I was put in the Haxadis pod at the insistence of the Qian crew. Did they fail the Haxadis priestess deliberately, then not tell the ambassador I would be available, yet have me there just in case? Why would they do that?”

Flynn frowned. “Their station, their Commonwealth, their rules.”

“But what did they gain?”

“Knowledge. How you functioned under stress. How the Haxadissi functioned under stress.” Flynn grinned, and cocked his head to the right. “And now they have a powerful Haxadis family beholden to a human for the birth of a grandchild. At the cost of a little anxiety relieved, they build some stability for the Commonwealth.”

“But they didn’t know how I would react. No one did.”

“Save God, Father Yamashita.”

“You’re right, He knew.” She nodded. “And it’s Claire.”

“I suspect He knew that, too.” Flynn smiled. “As for what the Qian might have known, doesn’t matter. Now they know more, and likely more than either of us could figure out.

Still, that’s part of what keeps life here on Purgatory Station so interesting.”

Claire smiled. “The Qian and knowledge. Perhaps they’re the serpents in the garden.”

“Could be, but this is their garden, Claire. From their point of view, it also likely a fair viper’s nest, within which we’re just two.”

“And your friend, Meresin?”

Flynn smiled. “Oh, a serpent, definitely, though not the worst here. Don’t you be minding that, though, Claire, for it’s still a garden here, beauty abounding. Welcome to your new home.”

Home. So far away and yet… Claire sipped her tea, then nodded. “Thank you. Home it shall be, Father, serpents and all.”