The Chaplain's War (42 page)

CHAPTER 57

EARTH.

It had been a long time since I’d stood on my home planet’s surface. Things were just as crowded as I remembered them being. The Fleet put me down in Los Angeles, and from Los Angeles I caught a train to the Bay Area. There were several old friends in San Francisco with whom I wanted to catch up. But even more importantly, there was a person specifically from my POW days I needed to see. She’d been one of the first ones to go home when the Fleet returned to Purgatory in the wake of the original armistice. And she was the closest thing to a friend I’d had during our time behind The Wall.

I found her in Oakland. Living in a small apartment listed in the Fleet registry.

Not the best high rise I’d ever seen, but not the worst. The elevator took me up to the eighty-seventh floor. I pushed the buzzer button next to the front door’s key card slot.

I heard someone approach the door on the other side. For a moment the light coming through the peephole was occluded, then the door’s locks snapped open and the door swung inward.

“Harry,” she said, her eyes wide. “What the hell are you doing back on Earth?”

“Good to see you too, Diane,” I said. “A lot’s happened since I saw you last. May I please come in?”

“Sure,” she said, and moved out the way while beckoning me in with her free arm. I noticed immediately that she’d dedicated the entryway wall space to a giant floor-to-ceiling tile mural. The scene depicted was of a beach at sunset: white sand, dark blue waves, and an orange-to-yellow sun half-submerged behind a glistening horizon.

“Nice,” I said. “Who did it?”

“Me,” she said.

“I didn’t know you had the skill.”

“There wasn’t much of a chance for me to show it off when we were on Purgatory. Harry, it’s been
years.
What’s going on with you that you needed to sleuth me out?”

“You know about the new treaty with the mantes?”

“I’m not part of active-duty Fleet anymore, but I’ve still got my hand in via Fleet Reserve. I know Fleet ceased offensive ops after the mantes’ leadership called a truce. Your name kept coming up in the nonclassified reports. When the reports said the treaty signing would be held in Earth orbit I wondered if you’d finally decided to come back. Got a place to stay yet? If you want I can talk to this building’s manager. There’s some lovely balcony units available on some of the other floors.”

“I won’t be staying,” I said. “There’s other business that’s come up. I wanted to talk to you about it before I do anything else.”

“Take a seat,” she said, gesturing to one of the two small sofas that made an L-shape in the apartment’s small living room.

“Do you want anything to drink?” she asked.

“No thanks,” I said.

She sat down across from me, her hands straightening and smoothing the lower half of her plaid day robe. Her ordinarily wavy hair was pulled up in a tight bun, out of which the occasional unruly lock projected. There were extra lines on her face which hadn’t been there before, and she seemed less effervescent than I remembered. Had times been hard? A quick eyeball scan of the apartment told me she was doing as well as could be expected, financially. Fleet made sure all of us former POWs got back pay for time served. Not a massive amount of money. But enough to get a fresh start. Was Diane Fulbright doing anything else with herself now that she’d officially transitioned to civilian life on a full-time basis? Or was she staying on with the Reserve just long enough to earn a pension?

I decided these questions could wait until later.

“The Professor is dead,” I said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “When war broke out again I figured anyone and everyone involved in crosscultural contact was at risk. Until news of the treaty arrived, I feared you and the Professor both might be in a lot of trouble, if not dead already. When the news said that a human identified as ‘Padre’ had been instrumental in getting the top mantis in the Quorum of the Select to agree to talks, it was impossible to not think of you first. Heck of a way to get into the history books, Harry.”

“Yeah, about that. History’s not quite done with me yet. The Professor gave his life to protect me and the top mantis, someone the Professor called the Queen Mother. She’s passing her mantle to a new Queen Mother, and also decided to pick up where he left off. She wants me to go back to Purgatory with her.”

Diane stared at me, one eyebrow raised.

“Are you?” she asked.

“I think I have to,” I said.

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“Okay then, let’s have a drink—whether you feel like it or not.”

Moments later I had a wide-rimmed glass in my hand, with a pungent bit of amber liquor flowing around in the glass’s bottom. I took a quick swig—fire to the throat!—and set the glass on Diane’s little wooden coffee table.

Then I told her everything that had happened. About how the Fleet had commissioned me as a Warrant Officer. About how the Professor’s inquiries into human religion had hit dead ends. About how Captain Adanaho had sought me out at the request of Fleet Command, and the subsequent and dramatic events which had followed on.

Diane listened carefully, occasionally taking the barest of sips from her own glass. When I was done with my story she shook her head and smiled ruefully at me.

“You’re damned lucky to be alive,” she said.

“Yes,” I admitted. “That thought has crossed my mind many times.”

“Did you pay your respects to Adanaho’s family yet?”

“No,” I said, squirming on the sofa cushions. “I honestly don’t know how to go about it. Her aunt is the only one she was close to, or so it sounded like to me. I don’t have a name nor an address, though I am sure I could find it through the Fleet registry; just like I found you. More than that, though, I wouldn’t know what to say. Adanaho’s aunt doesn’t know me from Adam. Fleet’s having the body interred during a very highbrow ceremony to mark the official transition from wartime to peacetime. That’s in a few days. Should I wait until then? Maybe her aunt will show up for the event?”

“You sound like you’re afraid,” Diane observed.

“Yeah, I am, actually,” I said.

“Of what?”

“Captain Adanaho died believing in me. Told me I’d been chosen, whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Seems pretty obvious to me,” Diane said with a small smile.

“Oh?”

“You’re the olive branch, man. The peace-bringer. Some people think that can’t have been by accident.”

I made a sour face.

“Like I told the captain before she died, nobody has any idea how much pressure’s been put on me over the years. The man who pulled the rabbit out of his hat. Now, twice.”

“That’s true. When I got back to Earth you’d already become something of a low-level historical celebrity. When people found out I knew you from our years together on Purgatory they always asked me about you. I tried to tell them you were just a regular guy who did what he thought was right in the moment. Most people accepted this at face value. But not all.”

“Well, Adanaho was in the latter category,” I said. “She seemed to think there was a higher power at work, through me.”

“Is that so bad?”

“Yeah, it’s bad!” I said, standing up and pacing across Diane’s living room to the galley kitchen. “Pilgrims used to come to the chapel and expect me to be some kind of guru. Always, they went away disappointed. You know me, and you know how I worked. I was never a preacher. I only kept the chapel open so that people could come in—”

“—and find their own answers,” Diane finished for me. “Yeah, yeah, Harry, you’ve laid that line on me a hundred times before. It’s a good line. Really, it is. Because I know you believe it.”

“A line?” I said, feeling the heat rise under my collar.

She grimaced, realizing she’d upset me.

“Bad word choice. Look, I agree, you were never cut out to be a traditional pulpit-thumper the way some people have always seemed to think you should be. But it cannot be denied that you just happened to be the right person in the right place at the right time, and who also had the right ideas. Once may be coincidence. Twice? Even I have to start wondering.”

I walked back from the kitchen and plopped down onto the sofa again, frustrated.

“I can’t do it alone,” I said.

“You mean, go back to Purgatory with the Queen Mother?”

“She won’t be the Queen Mother by then,” I said. “She’ll be just like the Professor: a mantis who’s desperately seeking enlightenment at the hands of an inept human. What if I blow it this time, just like with the Professor?”

“Didn’t you just tell me that the absence of the disc seems to have had a profound effect on her?”

“Yes.”

“And isn’t the Queen Mother—or whatever she’s going to call herself later—essentially vowing to do without a disc from now on?”

“Yes.”

“Well, there you go. Seems to me that’s the missing ingredient. If what Captain Adanaho theorized is true, and the disc was somehow suppressing natural perceptions, then it stands to reason the Queen Mother’s quest for spiritual awakening will garner significantly different results.”

I wanted to believe my old friend. I really did. But . . .

“Come back with me,” I said, finally putting the question on the table.

“What?” she said, startled.

“Like I said, I can’t do this alone. I need help. I need . . . someone with
real
faith who can help me.”

“You’ve always seemed to be a faithful soul to me,” she said, “although you were always too wishy-washy about it for my tastes.”

“Wishy-washy?”

“Again, sorry, bad choice of words. Harry, from what I could tell, you were always afraid to commit. To pick one of the
flavors,
as the Professor called them, and dive in headfirst. Make the effort. Do the work to deeply and truly understand one particular religion.”

“My job was to serve everyone, and I—”

Diane ran a thumb across the air in front of her throat.

“Save it. That’s been an excuse. Sounds to me like you know that if you go back to Purgatory with the Queen Mother, you won’t have any excuses to hide behind.”

“You’re kind of pissing me off,” I said to her, and meant it.

“You’re the one asking
me
to come back with you,” she said. “Sounds to me like all you really want me around for is as a crutch when the questions get too hard, or too uncomfortable.”

I fumed quietly on the sofa. Had coming to Diane’s place been a waste of time? A mistake? I wanted very badly to get up and go. But something held me in place. I slowly downed the rest of my drink and stared at my shoes. Civilian shoes. I’d picked up a set of cheap clothes in the spaceport after I’d landed. Was I angry simply because Diane was telling me what I’d suspected all along, yet had not had the courage to admit to myself?

“Crutch or no, I still want you to come,” I said softly.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Can’t, or won’t?”

“Can’t.”

“Got a nice job? Something you can’t walk away from?”

“You might put it that way,” Diane said, though she wasn’t smiling.

“Not that it would take much,” I said. “You and I both know that Purgatory’s a cozy little acre of hell.”

“In a different time and place I might have said yes,” she said. “But a lot has changed for me since I came back to Earth. I’ve got responsibilities here that I can’t just walk away from.”

I looked around the apartment—clearly a bachelorette pad.

“Not a husband?” I said.

“No.”

“Are you a mom now?”

“No.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

She stared at me—eyeballs to eyeballs.

Then she dropped her gaze.

“I’ll think about it,” she said.

“Think quickly. Once the treaty is signed, the Queen Mother is headed back to her people—and I am going with her. Once she’s handed over her responsibilities, we’re going back to Purgatory.”

Diane looked at the floor of her apartment, mouth turned down in a frown.

“There was a time when you could not have paid me enough money to go back to that damned planet,” she said. “I hated it there.”

“We all hated it there,” I said.

“Not you. At least not enough to leave.”