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Philippe was examining the image.
At first he thought it was a video still, but looking closely at it, it looked
more like an extremely detailed, very life-like painting. The glow came from
some luminescent quality in the paint—or, Philippe thought, maybe it was
painted on glass and there was a light behind it.

However it was made, the likeness
was excellent, and the face was quite familiar.

“Yes, I do know him, how funny,”
said Philippe. “It’s not just the glow—that’s exactly the Host I saw in my dream!
The markings are the same and everything. It’s him, for certain! Who is that?”

He looked at Moritz, who was
utterly flabbergasted. Max, in contrast, looked very grave.

“That is our messiah,” he said.

Chapter 13

“Well, obviously, I must have seen
a picture of this messiah of yours before,” said Philippe. “And I simply
incorporated that image into my dreams.”

“It’s really not,” said Philippe.
“We see things at night that aren’t there, but often they include memories of
things that we
have
seen. So I must have seen this image before.”

“Exceedingly mysterious,” repeated
Moritz.

“I know,” said Max. He turned to
Philippe. “You have not seen this image before.”

“You don’t know that,” Philippe
replied. “He’s a major religious figure, right? So you must have pictures of
him all over the place.”

“Cannot translate,” said Moritz.
“Cannot translate.”

“Do you see any others?” asked Max.
“There are none. There is, on this station, only this image, and it is kept hidden
at all times. There are, including this portrait, only 15 such portraits in
existence, and they are kept hidden as well.”

“They are supposed to be kept
hidden at all times,” Moritz exclaimed, walking over to the panel. “It was
irreligious to expose this portrait.”

“You realize that I was required to
expose it,” said Max, as Moritz dispiritedly turned the panel back around. “He
saw him. He described him.”

They began to speak together. Their
speech was rhythmic, a counterpoint to the beat of the thrumming. The
translator, dead to all sense of rhythm, spoke in its mechanical voice.

“Listen closely, people of cannot
translate. At the end of the age that I have described to you, one will be
chosen. He will not know my name or my song. But he will stop our certain
destruction. He will stop a disaster that not only will destroy our people but
other people and the universe in which they live as well. It will be a time of
great peril, but if you have fulfilled your destiny the chosen person will
arrive, your new friends will aid you, and life will be preserved throughout
the universe.”

“It does not say that the one who
knows the song best will be chosen, Moritz,” said Max, heatedly. “It does not
say that the one who lives a life of perfection will be chosen. It does not say
that the worthiest will be chosen. It says that the ignorant will be chosen.”

“They are all ignorant,” said
Moritz. “All of the other people, and as well almost all of our people. They
are ignorant of the image, and they are ignorant of the exact song. We join the
priesthood and learn these things, and we sacrifice the possibility that we
will be chosen.”

“Do you genuinely make that
sacrifice, Moritz?” asked Max. “Do you know that you do not choose who is
chosen?”

“He has visions while he sleeps.
His people created fictional stories of meeting other people before it
happened,” said Moritz. “Cannot translate informed me that he was asking if we
could think the thoughts in the minds of other people. His people are
mysterious. They may know things of the future, or know things from other
people’s minds.”

“You are creating fictional
stories,” said Max.

“Look,” said Philippe. “This is
insane, OK? I had a dream. It was just a dream, and it doesn’t mean anything. I
thank you, very much, for showing me your secret religious icon and taking me
into your confidence regarding your religion. I appreciate that you trust me
that much. I intend to guard your confidence, and I have no intention of
telling anyone what just happened here.”

He paused, looking each Host in the
face. “I trust you will do the same—don’t tell anyone what happened here. I
won’t, and you shouldn’t. With that said, I have many things to do, and I need
to leave and go do them.”

Baby was not satisfied with Philippe’s explanation regarding
Ptuk-Ptik. That was hardly unexpected—if things hadn’t taken such a weird turn
with Max, Philippe would have demanded more assurances himself. Baby wanted to
at least be able to exchange messages with her friend, if not head a small but
heavily armed force to break him out of the dreadful prison in which she was
convinced he languished.

Philippe tracked down the merchant
and got him to confirm the broad outlines of what Max had told him—Ptuk-Ptik faced
an inquiry, not a trial, and the worst thing that could happen is that his
religious order would not allow him to re-enter the station. While that would
be a significant loss of status for the priest, he was not in any real peril.

That calmed Baby down somewhat, but
it was obvious that Philippe was going to have to talk to Max or Moritz
again—she still wanted to get a message to Ptuk-Ptik, and Philippe himself
wanted to know if he could testify at the inquiry. He wouldn’t be able to avoid
them forever in any case, so he went to the Host’s living area, guards in tow,
and asked to see one or the other.

Max received him. “Moritz has gone
to the portal to contemplate recent events,” he said. “I wish to do the same,
but not while he is there, because I do not wish to interact with him in his
current mental state.”

“I am sorry about your conflict,”
said Philippe, quickly moving on to what, for him, was the more important
issue. “Have you told the other Hosts the reason behind it?”

“I have not and will not. In that
one thing I agree with Moritz,” said Max. “In the past the chosen one has been
identified, and those identifications have been mistakes. Although false, those
identifications caused great panic, because a disaster was anticipated.”

“I appreciate that,” said Philippe.
“Discretion is key.”

Max agreed to record a message from
Baby and a statement from Philippe noting that he had chosen to speak to the
merchant without guidance or pressure from Ptuk-Ptik. He also agreed to pass
along Bubba’s surveillance footage, which showed Philippe going over and
talking to the merchant before Ptuk-Ptik showed up.

Their interactions were polite, if
strained. It reminded Philippe of some negotiations he had witnessed in Ottawa,
where everyone in the room knew that the participants had engaged in
champagne-fueled indiscretions the night before, but everyone was just going to
pretend that nothing had happened.

The main impact of that brouhaha
seemed to be on Philippe’s dreams—the nightmares, already troubling and
violent, ratcheted up a notch as General Jesus’ men accused the dream Host of
falsely claiming to be the messiah, a charge he denied for as long as he was
able to talk.

Philippe sat in his office, wondering what to think.

He had gone earlier that day to
meet Brave Loyalty and record more of the Cyclopes’ language. At the end of the
session, out of the blue, the alien had said, “Tell me how you humans rule
yourself.”

“You are curious about that?” said
Philippe, a little surprised. “Historically, we organized geographically, into
nations. Each nation followed its own interests and organized its government
differently, and nations often fought over resources. More recently, the
various nations have formed voluntary alliances with each other. The main
alliance is called the Union.”

“If each nation had its own
interests and government, why did they ally?” asked the Cyclops.

“Humans are not that different from
each other, and they realized that oftentime, they are more likely to get what
they want if they work together, rather than fighting and destroying resources
and lives.”

“How does such an alliance work?”

“That has changed over time,”
Philippe said. “In its early form, each country had a vote, and certain
powerful countries had more authority than the other countries. But as people
have become more accustomed to the alliance, it has become more
representational. Now each nation has ultimate authority over some issues, but
with other issues that the Union has authority over, representation is based
solely on population, and national divisions are irrelevant.”

As he was talking, he began
scratching the inside of his left arm. He stopped himself, hoping that Brave
Loyalty hadn’t noticed. Because he hadn’t been sleeping well, Philippe had been
using stimulant patches pretty regularly, and the skin where he usually placed
the patches was developing an itchy rash.

“That is emphatically different,”
said Brave Loyalty. “My people have a unitary government. Once we were
scattered and weak, but for a very long time now we have been one people, with
one language and one government.”

Philippe thought for a minute. “I
am surprised that geographical divisions did not have the same impact on your
people as on my people. Even the discovery of people on other planets has not
served to unify my people as much as your people appear to be unified.”

“To live, my people had to be
unified,” said the Cyclops. “Our continent was once emphatically dangerous,
with many dangerous carnivores. We became intelligent, and through
intelligence, courage, and unity, we were able to eliminate these dangerous
creatures, despite their superior strength and voltage.

“We have accomplished a great deal
through unity, and I believe our future relies on unity, in the consistent
focus of our people on our people. I do not agree that we should focus on this
station and on other people.”