Vatican Ambassador (43 page)

The transport delivers him to the landing area where he arrived, next to a ship very much like the
one he had traveled to Eldray on in the first place.

“
Please exit the transport,” BC hears over the helmet’s speakers.

As he gets out of the transport, a door opens in the side of the ship. An Eldred walks off the ship
to greet BC.

“
Bernard Campion?” the Eldred asks.

Who else are they expecting?

“That’s me,” BC says.

“
Come aboard the ship and I will show you to your cabin.”

“
Thank you.”

They are efficient. And punctual. Gotta hand them that.

The trip back to the asteroids is uneventful. BC is forced to once again kill time in his cabin on
the way back.

I’d love to have that entertainment unit now! Plenty of time to think. Nice, uneventful trip. That’s the watchword of the Eldred: uneventful. Make sure nothing happens! Preserve the status quo! No events!

Please!

Can’t wait to see some fellow human beings!

The Eldred are just different enough to creep me out!

Anita is there to greet BC when he lands at The Project’s asteroid base almost three days
later.

“
You’re alive!” she says brightly when BC leaves the Eldred’s ship.

“
So far, so good,” BC says with a shrug. He puts his suitcase down. Anita gives him a big hug, but
then backs away.

“
I’m, uh, I’m glad to see you’re in one piece!” Anita says. “Sorry.”

“
Hey, don’t be sorry!” BC says to her. “Why ‘sorry’? I like it that you hugged me!”

I liked it when you kissed me before, too.

“I’m sorry because, um, well…” Anita tries to explain. “You’re the Pope!”

“
So,” BC says, “I’m the fucking Pope! So what? I probably shouldn’t be! I’m still me! I’m still BC!

I’m still the guy that conked you over the head with a hatch cover the first time I met you. You
know, the one you were spying on, crawling up out of the sewers of the Moon? The guy you
almost killed? Come on!”

She starts grinning. “I told you, I
saved
your sorry ass back there!” she insists.

“Saving
my life doesn’t count when you’re the one who my life in jeopardy in the first place!” BC

counters. “It’s like when someone starts a fire so they can look like a hero putting it out, it’s no
good! They arrest people for stuff like that!”

Anita stops grinning.

“
Fine,” she says coldly.

She turns and walks away, clearly pissed.

“
Anita!” he calls after her. She ignores him and keeps on walking, leaving BC standing alone next
to the Eldred’s ship.

Smooth! Really smooth, BC.

Again, aliens I can talk to! Women, not so much.

Okay, Anita, be that way…

BC hears a loud humming noise begin behind him.

The Eldred ship is humming and vibrating.

BC takes the cue and walks away from the craft as it lifts off. The sleek silver ship, nearly silent,
save for the hum, glides up and away, out of the base’s landing bay.
Back off to Eldray? Or maybe to pick up Al-Salid? Well, I need to get back to Earth, or at least the Moon. And I don’t feel like asking for Anita’s help right now.

Like she’d want to give it!

BC spots a technician nearby.

“
Excuse me,” BC says, getting the tech’s attention.

“
I’m Bernard Campion,” BC starts.

“
I know that,” the tech says, sounding a little insulted.

Great! Everybody has an attitude today. Give me a fucking break! I’m tired!

“Get me a transport back to Earth. Please,” BC asks semi-politely.

“
See that ship over there?” The tech points to a flasher.

“
Yeah?”

“
That’s yours,” the tech says.

“
It is?” BC asks, surprised. “Already?”

“
Ms. C’s got it all set for you,” the tech tells him.

Ms. C? Oh. Anita. Great.

BC drags his suitcase over to the flasher to look for the pilot.

“
Can we get out of here?” BC asks a woman standing next to the ship the tech pointed out.

“
Sir?” she asks.

Huh, she looked like the pilot…

“Hi, sorry, I’m BC, Bernard Campion?” he explains, “You know, the Pope?”

The woman smiles. “You’re my passenger! Back to Earth space, right? Climb aboard!”

“
With pleasure!” BC says, looking around the landing area. There’s no one else nearby.
He climbs into the flasher, ready to head back to Earth. He rides on the bridge with the captain.
It’s quiet. She’s busy guiding the ship out of the asteroids. BC watches rocks flash by and
contemplates the starry carpet of space as they fly.

Well, that went well. I always know just what to say to the ladies!

“What was that, sir?” the pilot asks BC.

“
Did I say that out loud?” he asks.

She doesn’t say anything, at first.

“
I… I think you did,” she says.

“
Sarcasm,” BC explains. “I don’t really know. What to say, I mean. To, um, you, uh, ladies, I
meant.”

The pilot laughs.

“
I can see that,” she says, smiling. She glances back at her instrument display.

“
Transpace time!” she tells BC. “Excuse me, won’t you?”

“
No worries,” BC says. The pilot fires up the Transpace Drive and soon the Earth is shining in the
distance. It’s a smooth ride, and BC is soon back on Earth.

He instructs the pilot to set him down outside the Vatican, and calls ahead to let them know he’s
on his way.

“
In public like that, sir? Are you sure?” the pilot asks him to confirm his choice of landing area, a
parking lot in Rome outside the gates of the Vatican.

“
I’m sure. Set her down.”

A small reception committee greets BC as he disembarks. His secretary, provided by the Curia, is
up in arms from the moment BC gets off the flasher on the outskirts of Vatican City.

“
Your holiness? Pope Peter? Sir?”

The priest follows BC back from the landing area, trying to get BC’s attention as he walks from
the ship towards his offices.

“
I’m tired. It was a long trip. What do you want?” BC says curtly.

“
You’re hardly ever here, sir! You were supposed to be on the Moon, but then you weren’t even
there, sir, for over a week, now! There’s a great deal of paperwork that needs your signature!

There are audiences scheduled that you’ve missed! There is much work to being the Bishop of
Rome, and I dare say you aren’t doing much of it, Sir!”

BC stops in his tracks.

Not like I need to explain interstellar politics to this toady.

“You dare to tell me how to be Pope?” BC says in his most menacing tone.
The secretary backs off.

“
No, sir, I mean, well, sorry, sir, I was sort of saying, but, no… never mind. I misspoke, your
Holiness.”

BC continues his walk.

“
Thought that might be the case. I have many responsibilities, Father. Some of them keep me on
the road. But, I’ll tell you what. Get anything that needs my signature ready for me for tomorrow
morning. I’ll sign until my arm drops off then. For now, though, I need some rest after my long
trip.”

“
If I may, sir?”

“
Yes?”

“
Mr. Wentworth of the UTZ has been quite insistently calling for the last week. He says that it’s
important.”

“
Of course it is,” BC says, mostly to himself.

“
One final note, your Holiness?” the secretary asks.

“
What?”

“
You are due for a fitting of new vestments, also scheduled for tomorrow morning.”

BC is nearly at his office door.

“
Great,” BC says to the man, “I’ll sign papers while they fit me.” BC opens his office door. He
starts to step through it while his secretary still continues.

“
I’m not sure that will be physically possib…”

BC shuts the door on the man. He hits the speaker switch so the secretary will hear him outside.

“
Good. Night,” BC says.

He finds a place for his suitcase, and then finds a bed to lie down on. Sleep comes quickly, but
BC’s head starts throbbing, too. Then the headache gallops in, treading on his skull, horses with
hooves of pain, thousands of voices talking at him, shouting at him, through him, all at once.
He can’t be sure if he is awake or asleep.

Suddenly, everything shrinks down to a pinpoint. BC feels still, calm. His world begins to open up and expand. The walls fall away.

BC sails across an infinite ocean, a still, calm sea. He listens for the other voice. It echoes in from nowhere and everywhere, not heard by ears but heard, all the same, but the voice is different this time, BC can feel the difference, rather than hear it.

WILL YOU AWAKEN?! SEE AS I SEE?

The voice is jarring, dissonant, like a clanging of bells in his head.
Who are you?

I AM THE LAST… I AM THE FIRST! I AM REBORN!

You sound different?

WHAT IS THIS ENERGY?

BC senses a reaching into his mind, an invasive feeling, a filthy feeling. He tries to throw his
hands up to defend himself, but he has no hands. He tries to throw something up to block the
invasion, tries to will his arms to move in the dream.

Get out get out getoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetoutgetout GET OUT OF MY HEAD!

BC feels it like a snap. His mind slingshots across the still calm sea inside, racing, racing, free
of the reaching in, the invader gone. He sees a red fire in the distance. Suddenly he’s next to it, a
bright red glowing ball of fire like a tiny sun he could hold in his hands – he reaches out to touch
it, to hold it.

And he is angry.

The dream changes, shifts. He is still asleep. Or is he? He lies static, arms and legs stiff, confined,
as if trapped in a small sleeping bunk.

ANGER!

He is angry. He has a right to be angry!

I am awake! I again have a body! No longer just a spirit, no longer just alive in the mind! I feel!

Feeling again, tingling in my toes, fingertips, I remember it all now! Where am I now, though, where do they keep me? So much time has passed. We are gone! No minds to sense, no sense of bond, nothing save the new energy I’ve sensed as thought, consciousness… so close… so, so close…

I sleep somewhere they no doubt thought “safe”. But it is all changed. Reaching out for… nothing… I sense no thing. Non-sense.

Some sense. Weak little lights, some brighter than others, are, they are out there, distant, distant, save the close bright one come to awaken us… come… if they are weak, they will be malleable…

impressionable… easily led.

They are not The People!

The People are lost… these sparkles are mere remnants of what once was, but perhaps ripe for real leadership…

Who is left to punish me, now!?

My frozen punishment, my lesson, my time now served… and what of The Servants?

Could they let The People die?

Do they yet remain?

My arms! I do feel my arms!? I do! It is my body! Why now? Who else is in here in my mind this mind like mine…

WHO ARE YOU?

BC feels the snap again, and again he sails across the still calm seas, this time catapulted
away from the fiery orb.

He feels the anger fade as the bright red ball disappears; feels the walls of his office come back up
around him; feels his headache and the confusion of the dream fade away with the anger, and
then it’s all gone and he shrinks down into the small still point… and drifts off into sound sleep.
Beep

Beep beep

Beep beep beep

The com is flashing and beeping for his attention.

Great. My secretary.

“What is it? I didn’t ask for a wakeup call!” BC says, answering the com.

“
Look, sir I know that, and I wouldn’t ordinarily disturb you, sir, but the thing is, they’ve been
trying to reach you and I don’t know what to do, not really…”

“
Who? Is it Wentworth? Look, tell him I’ll talk…”

“
No, sir! It’s… well, we have a communication for you from… from these aliens
, sir. Your holiness.
They seem to
know
you, sir.”

Aliens? Which ones? Most people don’t even know they’re out there, any of them, yet!

“Alright,” BC tells the priest, “put them through. And father?”

“
Yes, your holiness?”

“
Not a word to anyone about my callers, eh?”

“
Yes, your holiness!”

The com screen flickers to life. The eldest of the Eldred looks out at Campion.

“
Bernard Campion?” the Eldred asks.

“
Hello, eldest of the Eldred. I am surprised to hear from you so soon. I’m afraid I have not yet
even heard from Al-Salid; although it seems too soon for him to even be back on Mars.

“
I asked you for some time, and I’ve only just returned here to Earth.”

“
Yes, we know,” the Eldred says after a short delay.

What kind of com system lets him get through to me here from Eldray? Be nice to get our hands on

“We have had a… development,” the Eldred says, sounding almost afraid.

“
A development?” BC asks

“
Yes. Can you meet with us again? There is a sensitive subject we need to discuss with you, far too
sensitive to speak of on an open com channel such as this.”