The God Engines (7 page)

“You will answer me,” Tephe said. “You will tell me what this thing is to you.”

“We have already answered and told,” the god said. “Ask us again, and we will answer these words to you once more. If we do not fall asleep.”

Tephe stared at the god grimly for a moment and turned slightly toward the other man in the room. “Tell me, priest”—he began, and in turning, let the Talent he lightly held graze into the air above the iron circle.

The god snarled something high-pitched and shattering and snatched viciously at the Talent; only the fact the captain had held it so lightly kept him from losing his hand at the wrist. The Talent was airborne for the briefest of moments, the arc of its path exceeding the height of the god’s chains. It fell, and the god lunged at it, grabbing at it with one hand and then pulling it toward itself, clasping it to its bosom. The god wheeled its head around to glare ferally at the captain, a triumphant grin pulling back its lips to reveal teeth.

Then the god screamed, hideously, and flung the Talent from itself. It clattered across the floor as it exited the iron circle. The god fell to the ground, tearing itself at the places the Talent touched.

Captain Tephe watched all of this, calmly. He glanced toward the priest, who was both terrified and fascinated, torn between fleeing the room, and watching the god tear into itself, leaving gobbets of its godflesh on the iron of its circle.

After a minute of this, Tephe went to the table which controlled the length of the god’s chains, and contracted them all to the floor. The god lay, spread out, writhing as it rubbed the places the Talent touched, hard on the iron. Tephe left the table, retrieved the Talent, and knelt, showing it to the twisting god once more.

“This Talent is my own,” he said. “Given to me by My Lord when I was placed as master of this ship. In your studied disinterest and in your haste to claim it, you did not recognize it for what it was. Because it is of My Lord, it burned you when you held it to you, as you would be burned by a Talent of any other god.”

Tephe reached around his neck and removed a second Talent, and showed it to the god. The god cried and bucked in its chains, trying to gain purchase against its restraints to raise itself. It failed, slipping against its own godblood. Tephe held the Talent well outside the iron circle in any event.

“This is the Talent you seek,” Tephe said. “I would know why you want it.”

“It is ours!” screamed the god.

“It is yours but it is of no use to you,” Tephe said. “To whom would you give it? And to what end? Your grace is gone. You could not help your followers even if you wished it. Why must you have this Talent?”

The god howled and writhed and spit but would not answer. Tephe put the god’s Talent into his blouse and his own back around his neck.

In time the god quieted down. “We are hurt,” it said. “You have hurt us again. Heal us.”

“No,” said Tephe. “These wounds you keep until you heal them yourself. Remember them. Remember also that your tricks and schemes will not avail you here. You are set to our service and you will give it.” He rose. “We will leave here before the end of the watch. Heal yourself and be ready for the direction I give you then.”

“What of our Talent?” said the god.

“It is no longer yours,” Tephe said. “I should have it presented to My Lord when it came to me. I regret not having done. I will have it destroyed instead.” From the iron, the god wept. Tephe turned and left the god’s chamber, Priest Andso trailing behind.

The priest turned to the captain as the latter sealed the chamber portal. “You did not mean what you said to the Defiled,” he said. “About destroying the Talent.”

“I meant it in earnest,” Tephe said. “By your insistence, priest, you were in that chamber. You saw how it grasped for the Talent when I gave it the slimmest of chances. You saw the triumph in its eyes when it thought it had gained it for its own. And so long as it exists, followers of this god will hunt for it, that much is clear. Whatever this Talent is, it is a danger to us and the
Righteous
so long as it is on this ship. Destroying it is the only course.”

“You would destroy it now, yet you risked your own command to keep it secret,” Andso said.

“That is because I thought I could get knowledge from the god about it,” Tephe said.

“That knowledge is still lacking,” Andso said.

“No, priest,” Tephe said. “I did not go into that chamber expecting the creature to speak the truth of it to me. Its actions were what would speak, and did. The attack on the street could have been nothing more than the fervor of believers mortgaging their lives to free their god.” Tephe fished out the Talent from his blouse and showed it to the priest. “The god’s desire for this says it was not. It plans for something to happen, some event for which it is to play a part, and to which this is a key.”

“We do not know how,” said Andso.

“We do not need to know how,” Tephe said. “If the creature lacks the key, the event cannot happen. It needs this”—Tephe motioned with the Talent—“and we have means to deprive it what it needs, and in doing so destroy the event and the threat to this ship. I will do so.” He turned to go.

Andso reached for the captain’s elbow. “Let us destroy this key,” he said. “But first let me examine it. You spoke truly, captain, when you said this thing has no power in itself. No grace can flow to it. Yet it has power in some fashion, else the Defiled would not desire it so. If we could learn what that power is, it would be intelligence of benefit to Our Lord, and to the Bishopry Militant.”

“It would be intelligence of benefit to you as well, I expect, Priest Andso,” Tephe said.

The priest straightened himself. “Not all are so marked for easy advancement as you, Captain,” he said. “If our coming task indeed comes from the Speaker himself, there is no doubt that if it is successful you will reap the benefit and will leave command of this ship behind you.”

“If it is to be so,” Tephe said. “I am content to be the captain of the
Righteous
for a good while longer.”

“Indeed,” Andso said, and could not keep the lightest of sneers out of his voice. “There are others of us who would hope for a rather quicker path from her holds, and if I may be so bold, nor do I believe that some of us would be greatly missed. If all of this is accomplished while yet you remain in command, then how much better that all of Our Lord’s faithful on the
Righteous
might receive what they would wish: you remaining and me going.”

Tephe glanced at the Talent, considering.

“A few days, captain,” Andso said. “And in that time, not an argument or objection or raised eyebrow. A little time is all I ask, to make my fortune as your fortune is already made. In doing so, your fortunes can only rise. Perhaps they will rise so far they will let you keep the
Righteous
after all.” He placed his hand out to receive the Talent.

Tephe gave it to the priest. “A few days,” he said. “When I say it is to be destroyed, it will be. That is not a matter of debate.”

“No,” Andso said, gazing at the Talent. “No debate. A little time is all I need.”

“Keep it well away from the god,” Tephe said.

“Of course, Captain,” Andso said. “Thank you. My blessing upon you.” He walked away, toward the priest quarters.

Tephe headed to the bridge and at the last moment turned toward the Rookery. When he arrived he pounded upon the portal rather than keying the chime. Issa answered, saw the look on the captain’s face, and called for Shalle.

Shalle came to the door, face open and curious. Tephe brought his lips down before Shalle could utter words, pressing them both against the portal. Issa stood to the side, eyes wide; if anyone other than the captain were to engage a rook outside a nest, a lash of punishment would be the least of his problems.

“It’s nice to see you too,” Shalle said, when the captain broke his kiss.

“I need to be with you,” Tephe said.

Shalle listened, as much to the quality of his voice as the words he spoke, said, “Yes, I think you do,” and gently pulled the captain inside the rookery. Issa closed the portal behind them.

“You have command,” Captain Tephe said abruptly, to Neal Forn. He stood from his chair.

“Sir,” Forn said, impassively, but fixed his captain with the slightest of inquiring eyebrows. The
Righteous
was moments away from being brought to the unnamed planet. Forn had commanded at such times before, but always on his own watch. In any event it was not a convenient time for a captain to quit his station.

Tephe chose not to respond to his first mate’s unspoken inquiry. Forn would have to get used to doing things without him; if Tephe had any say in it, Forn would soon be captain of the
Righteous
. More than that, Tephe simply did not have an interest in explaining himself at the moment. He left the bridge without saying another word.

In the corridors of the
Righteous
were the hum and clatter of industry, as its crew—
his
crew, for what little time remained to him, Tephe thought—made its preparations for transport and landing. The crew had been informed that the
Righteous
had been chosen for a mission at the direct order of the Speaker, and the news had lifted their spirits and had grown their faith; the chatter and movement of the crew had regained the confidence that had been sapped by Ament Cour and by hard months onboard. Tephe warmed his own cold doubts in the new sureness of their work, nodding to the crew as they acknowledged his presence among them.

Tephe stopped at the portal of the god’s chamber, and heard a low murmur inside.

He entered.

If Priest Andso was surprised to see the captain of the
Righteous
in the god chamber, he gave no indication. Andso’s acolytes were not so impassive, but neither of them took more than a small pause in their recitations to note Tephe’s arrival before returning to their task. The voices of the priest and acolytes rose and fell, called and responded, praying to the glory of Their Lord, and using His power to compel the
Righteous
’ captive god to bring them to where they wished to go.

Tephe turned his attention from the priest and the acolytes and to the god, who stood, simply, motionless, quiet, its eyes closed. Tephe did not pretend to understand how the god did what it did to bring them from one point in space to another, swallowing distances so unimaginably vast that Tephe feared to comprehend them.

They say that they gather the very stuff of space in their minds and twist it,
said Wilig Eral, yeoman of the
Hallowed
, the first ship Tephe ever served upon.

And how do they do that?
Tephe asked. He was fourteen, the fourth son of impoverished baronet, landed in a far corner of Bishop’s Call. He was not missed by his older brothers, nor they by him. Being indentured on the
Hallowed
was a demeaning step down in status from being the son of a baronet, even a minor one. Tephe gloried in having escaped.

If I knew that, boy, you would call me Bishop Eral,
the yeoman said.
They say the priests know how the gods do it, but I would not recommend you ask them. Priest Oe here would snap you up as an acolyte and never let you visit the rookery.

The young Tephe blushed, remembering his recent first visit, his embarrassment and the gentle good humor of Tei, the rook who gave him his release.
I won’t ask the priests,
he said.

Good,
Eral said.
Now help me shelve these supplies.

Much later, when Tephe was no longer in danger of being abducted as an acolyte, he did ask a priest. The priest’s response was a watch-long discourse on the commentaries which spoke to the defeat of the god by Their Lord, and how the priests’ prayers when a god brought a ship across space compelled the god to do only what was required of it, not the god’s own wishes, because the gods were wicked.

Tephe, by this time a new officer on the
Blessed
, listened politely and realized within the first five minutes that this priest had no answer for him either. Later than this Tephe realized there were no answers that would be given as to how gods brought ships across the stars, or how the ships could use the captive gods as a source of power to keep the crews secure and safe in the cold and airless expanse between the planets.

Tephe was not given to know such things, even as a captain. He was given to have faith: that the ship’s god had powers, and that its powers were controlled by His Lord, through His priests and through His captain—through Tephe himself. Understanding this was not required. Believing it, and showing faith in His Lord was.

Tephe believed. Tephe had faith. If not for himself, then for the sake of his ship and crew.

The captain shook himself out of his reverie and noticed the god staring at him. The stare was seemingly blank, without interest or intent; Tephe wondered if the god, lost in its ritual as it was, even actually saw him.

As if in response, the smallest of feral smiles crept across the gods face, although the eyes remained blank. Tephe was discomfited, as he often was with this god.