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Authors: S. Andrew Swann

Messiah (31 page)

BOOK: Messiah
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“Dolbrian worship has been around for centuries, ever since the first artifacts were discovered. But it wasn’t organized until the fall of the Confederacy. The Fifteen Worlds—the Seven Worlds then—brokered a defense pact with Bakunin; the protection of their sovereignty against the other arms of the Confederacy, in return for the largest Dolbrian site ever discovered. The belief system found a center here, and among the populace of the Fifteen Worlds, it found ready converts—and the nature of the Fifteen Worlds meant that any citizen coming to Bakunin for the sake of a permanent presence here was probably one of those converts. Few others would willingly dwell on a human world.”
Brody went on, at length. Many of the details were lost on Kugara, but she understood that they were, in some sense, treading on the soil of the Fifteen Worlds, and for a century or so, this nonhuman monastery had been the only official State presence on Bakunin, and could probably be considered a theocratic city-state, like a smaller cousin to Vatican City.
Bakunin’s founders were most likely spinning in their graves so fast that they reached relativistic speeds, shrank inside their own event horizon, and disappeared into another universe.
Kugara could see the attraction to this faith, though, especially after seeing firsthand the kind of mental violence Nickolai had done to himself because his belief that mankind—in some sense his creator—was, in fact, damned for hubris. Wouldn’t it be more comforting to place everyone on the same plane, having mankind be just another creature engineered by some ancient race? These guys also had an advantage over St. Rajasthan’s followers, and most other religions Kugara could think of; they had evidence of the existence of their god lying all over the place.
More of the Dolbrian carvings covered the walls, but it was clearly of more recent vintage. Brody commented that he suspected it was either a sign of the monks’ devotion, or a decoy to lead any unwanted treasure hunters astray.
Like us, you mean?
She wasn’t expecting it when they reached the monastery itself. They walked through a cavern mouth, and suddenly, there it was: a massive cavern, large enough to park the
Daedalus
three times over within it. Across the vast space, a tiered wall faced them, covered with bas-relief carvings, arches, and fluted columns. It was almost a cathedral carved out of the stone itself. Below the wall, an amphitheater had been carved into the cave floor, with arcs of stone seats stepping down to a central podium.
They were taken past all that, through one of the many archways in the cathedral wall, down a few dark passages, to end up in a large room with a heavy door. Simon told them to wait inside, then he shut the door behind them.
Kugara turned to try the door, but on this side there wasn’t a handle, or any other obvious way to open it. She pushed against the brushed metal surface, but it didn’t budge. She shook her head and muttered, “Now what?”
Brody walked over and sat down in one of several overstuffed chairs that filled the room. He groaned and rubbed his cast with his good arm. “I think we should be thankful no one is shooting at us for the moment.”
Kugara spun around, about to say something sharp, but she saw the exhaustion in his face and held her tongue. He and Dörner weren’t soldiers, they were academics, and between the two of them he seemed to be doing better than she was. Dörner had folded herself into another chair, one built for someone Nickolai’s size, and almost seemed to disappear within it. On the
Eclipse
, Kugara remembered her as being cold, assertive, confident and—most of all—in control of herself.
This Dörner stared into the middle distance through threads of stringy blonde hair, and her steely blue eyes now seemed to speak not so much of cold reserve, but of a thin sheet of ice that could fracture at any moment, releasing the dangerous rapids contained beneath.
Nickolai didn’t sit. He kept pacing, and Kugara wondered what he was thinking.
Kugara walked to her own chair and sat down, nodding. “Get your rest when you can.” She looked around the room. It certainly wasn’t a prison cell. There were the chairs and tables and tapestries hanging on the walls and thick carpets trying to hide the fact that they sat in a hole carved in a rock.
The tapestries, in particular, were a reminder of who held them right now. Even without an explicit explanation, she saw the religious nature of the scenes they showed. One on the far wall depicted a featureless glowing white form, reaching down to shine light on the curving horizon of a lush planet. And, receiving the light, a naked human form imitated the gesture of the light-shrouded form above, and seemed to direct that light down on a congregation of all manner of creatures, some of whom had begun picking up tools. Kugara noticed Nickolai looking at that one as well.
The other tapestries had the similar figure, made of undifferentiated white light, presiding over other scenes; a desert sprouting to life, a cascade of planets falling across a starry background, a mixed congregation of humans and nonhumans kneeling within a vast room whose walls were covered in Dolbrian writing.
“Do you have any idea what they’re going to do with us?” she asked Brody.
“Normal times, I suspect they have a standard procedure for unexpected visitors. This is Bakunin, after all—”
“That includes heavily armed squads of monks?”
“Times aren’t normal. The threat from Adam aside, the PSDC is pushing their authority everywhere else.”
Kugara nodded. The nominal sovereignty of the Fifteen Worlds down here was a rather thin shield to hide behind. “So?”
“I suspect we’ll be brought before some sort of adjudicating authority.”
“A judge?”
“A judge. They’ll want to determine if we’re a threat—a secular one, or a theological one.”
Kugara couldn’t help but look at Nickolai, who still stared at the first tapestry.
Great.
In her opinion, the last thing they needed was to have Nickolai get into a theological debate with these guys.
“I think they know,” Dörner said quietly.
“What?”
“I think they know what the Protean wanted us to find.” She turned to look at Kugara, her expression calm, but fragile as a porcelain doll. “We’re close to intact Dolbrian construction here.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw the signs on the way down here,” she said. “You can see the architecture through the mineral deposits. The tunnels become more regular, the angles less random.”
Kugara sighed and said, “That’s good, if we can convince them to lead us where we want to go. But from what I see here, what we’re looking for is probably their holy of holies. How do we convince them to allow a bunch of infidels there?”
Brody rubbed his chin and said, “You could convert.”
“I doubt it will be that straightforward,” Kugara said. “And I doubt I could convince them of my sincerity.”
“No,” Nickolai grumbled, turning to face them.
Brody looked over at the tiger and said, “Don’t get angry. I was being facetious.”
Nickolai shook his head. “I understand. But there is only one way to convince them to take us where we want to go.”
“Which is?” Kugara asked.
“We convince them that Adam is truly bringing the end times to us all.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Reliquary
“No organized religion can survive direct confirmation of its beliefs.”
—
The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
 
“For those who proclaim to love God so much, they seem reluctant to meet Him.”
—BORIS KALECSKY
(2103-2200)
Date: 2526.8.11 (Standard) Bakunin-BD+50°1725
They waited hours for their keepers to come for them. The others slept, but Nickolai found he could not. He had never felt so alone in his faith. Here he was, among others of his kind for the first time since his exile, and they were all pledged to something that the priests of Rajasthan would consider an abomination.
Not that he would fare any better in their eyes.
In my own eyes . . .
What did he believe anymore? He had blessed Flynn sincerely, despite the fact that the nature of Salmagundi’s veritable worship of AI—even if it was in the form of their own ancestors—would make the whole society damned on a level beyond even the Fallen.
And whatever stain Flynn had in the eyes of St. Rajasthan, the stain on Nickolai’s soul would be worse. He lived now only due to the touch of Proteus, and the thing had permanently marked him with its alien eyes.
And yet, he stared at the tapestry showing God reaching down to man, and man reaching down to his creation. It was not an image of a fall.
He could not condemn the Protean’s act to save his life. He could not condemn what he felt for Kugara. He couldn’t call damned the people who fought this evil, Adam, despite the guilt of their species.
The tenets of his faith crumbled around him, and he was finding it harder and harder to find anything to replace them. He prayed to God for the wisdom to truly know His will, and the only answer was the sound of his own breathing.
As degraded as his moral compass had become, he did have one fact to hang on to. Adam was evil. That he knew down to his soul. For all that he questioned the faith he was born to, he still knew that much. Adam was evil, and if he failed to do what he could against that evil, he would share in it, more than he already had.
He stared at the tapestry, his alien eyes making out each individual thread, the fibers within each thread . . .
I’m no longer who I was.
I’m no longer what I was.
Who am I?
What do I believe?
 
When they came, they came for Nickolai. It made sense—he was one of their kind—but he could tell that the others, especially Kugara, seemed uncomfortable with him being separated from the group.
They took him to another large room, this one with no furniture or tapestries in evidence. The walls had been polished until they were nearly mirrorlike, and the light came from pits recessed into the upper walls near the ceiling.
Dominating everything, recessed in a ten-meter-square wall opposite the entryway, was a massive slab of carved rock. The edges around the carving were rough and unfinished, as if the surface of the surrounding rock had fallen away to reveal it. Its irregular outlines reached within a meter of the ceiling, and a couple of meters from each wall.
Even without any study of the matter, to Nickolai the carving was clearly of Dolbrian manufacture. He could stare into the marks on the rock and see how precise they were, and he could see a molecule-thin coating covering them. It was something that could survive a hundred million years, or longer.
Standing in the room, a tawny-furred canine had his head bowed toward the carving. After a moment, he said, “Your name is Nickolai Rajasthan?”
“I am,” Nickolai answered. “You know me?”
“I know of you.” The canine turned around to face him, looking Nickolai up and down with severe blue eyes. “We are the official presence of the Fifteen Worlds here, and when a member government decides to dispose of a problem on Bakunin, we do know of it—even when they try to be secretive.”
“I see.”
“Despite the best efforts of the Rajasthan priests.” The canine’s smile showed no teeth, but still felt like a challenge. And it left Nickolai uncertain...
“So who is it I am talking to who knows my history so well?”
“My name is Brother Lazarus, which will mean less to you than your name means to me.”
Nickolai did not like being on the defensive. If he were in a fight, he would be pressing an attack right now. Instead, he forced another question, “So what are you here?” He thought of Brody’s comment. “A judge?”
Brother Lazarus shook his head and Nickolai noticed that the left half of his face bore scars across his muzzle and cheek, and he was missing a small piece out of his ear. When he laughed, that side of his mouth didn’t move quite as far as the other. “Perhaps more a bailiff. Judging will be left for the Ancients upon their return.” He stopped chuckling, “If you believe that.”
“I follow the faith of St. Rajasthan.”
“Do you now?”
Nickolai’s hand was in the air before he even realized he was reacting to the insult. His claws were extended and might have added to the monk’s scars, if Brother Lazarus still stood where he had been. But the monk had moved while Nickolai’s body was still deciding what to do.
Brother Lazarus was on the other side of his arm, his elbow folded over Nickolai’s wrist and the palm of his other hand pressing against the point of Nickolai’s elbow. “You should remember two things, scion of Rajasthan. We are not a pacifistic order. And my ancestors in Rhodesia were bred to hunt the likes of you long before any man knew what a gene was, much less how to engineer them.”
BOOK: Messiah
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