For a heartbeat that image of a serpentine Virgin had occurred, but she’d rejected it ruthlessly. It was too glib, too simple, requiring no insight or thought; unlike the way she’d built up her position against helping.
She sipped again, both hands around the mug’s warm barrel. “Fact is, I was thinking about what you said, about what Jesus might teach, and through His eyes I saw the worry on Mary’s face, then the joy and I knew, regardless of faith, regardless of species, motherhood was a link that Mary shared with the ambassador. We teach that God is love, that what God has for us is love, and here I was, letting the love of a mother for her child be severed. I might have been able to justify what I was doing within the teachings of the Church, but doctrine and theology couldn’t sanctify an act that was nothing but pure evil.”
Claire realized that had Flynn or another priest related to her the same train of thought concerning the decision, she’d have pointed out a gaping flaw: seeing the Ambassador and Mary in parallel situations created a not-so-subtle linkage between Jesus and the Haxadis infant, imbuing that child with a sanctity that demanded action, no matter how antithetical it was to Church teaching. She rejected that facile an argument because it was too shallow.
The simple truth was that the Haxadis infant did have sanctity, the same sanctity of all living creatures. Because of that, and because of the love between mother and child, she knew her decision had not only been correct, but had been the only one that was Godly.
Her head came up and she smiled. “I have a sister. I was there when her son was born. I don’t know if you have ever attended a birth.”
Flynn nodded. “A time or three, yes, and even a human birth. People aren’t always at their best in that situation.”
“No, no, the things Deb said to her husband all but blistered the paint off the walls. And there, when the ambassador was giving birth, some of those hisses were just this side of lethal. She actually bit her consort through the arm, but he took it stoically.”
Claire set the mug down then held her hands in her lap. “I had to do a bit more in there than I did with Deb. The Ambassador’s cloaca dilated, right down at the base of her abdomen, then her baby just wriggled free of this clear fluid membrane. I had to catch the child, help it, and say the words being whispered to me by a Qian. Part of the time I was thinking about snakes and having a hard time not thinking of this child as a snake. I almost lost it once, then I caught the mother’s glance. I could see the worry in her eyes, so I nodded, I said the words loud, with her little aide translating. I kept seeing my sister and the Blessed Virgin. I even knew I’d have a hard time justifying my actions to the Bishop, but I knew what I was doing was more right than wrong.”
Flynn took her hands in his. “If there was any wrong in what you did, Father Yamashita, I’ll not be seeing it as being worthy of your bothering me with it during Confession. As for the Bishop…” The older man shrugged. “I’m thinking she’s got enough to worry about that troubling her with a report on this isn’t really necessary.”
Claire gave Flynn’s hands a squeeze, then freed her own to recover her mug. “The whole thing wouldn’t have been necessary if the Haxadis had planned ahead better.”
“What do you mean?”
She frowned. “You are pregnant, and you know you need a priestess to help birth your baby if you are caught on a ship. You head out on a long journey, hoping to get home, but knowing it’s a race against time. Why don’t you ship a priestess with you? They had room in their pod for it—in the cabin they gave me, if nothing else.”
The door to the small waiting room opened and the Qian station director entered the room. She looked about for a moment and then serenely faced the pair of priests. “There you are.”
Flynn raised an eyebrow. “Why, Director Chzan, you’re long since past trying to fool me with your coincidental appearances. You see, Father Yamashita, Director Chzan has a dozen different ways to locate us if she desires, not the least of which would have been having the station’s systems sniff the air for the hints of your tea.”
The Qian did her best to pretend she had not heard Flynn’s remark. She extended her hand toward Claire. “I came for the transmission device.”
Claire reached back behind her right ear and peeled off a plastic piece of circuitry through which a Qian aide had whispered to her the words she pronounced at the birth.
“Thank you for your help.”
“No, Father Yamashita, it is you who must be thanked.” The Qian inclined her head slightly. “This would have been an indelicate situation were you not here to resolve it.”
Flynn’s eyes narrowed. “A point we were just discussing, in fact. Why didn’t the ambassador have a priestess in her entourage?”
Chzan’s eyes blinked slowly. “The priestess failed to obtain a flight health certificate.”
“What?” Flynn laughed aloud. “A right-rum pox-dog fair bursting with bacteria and viruses would get a health cert—as could each and every one of the buggies infesting him. How did she fail?”
“Clerical error. It has been corrected.” The Qian accepted the small device from Claire.
“Again, Father Yamashita, thank you.”
Claire sat back, wrapping her right hand around the mug. She let the tea’s warmth fight the chill shivering its way up her spine as the Qian exited the room. “What just happened? I was put in the Haxadis pod at the insistence of the Qian crew. Did they fail the Haxadis priestess deliberately, then not tell the ambassador I would be available, yet have me there just in case? Why would they do that?”
Flynn frowned. “Their station, their Commonwealth, their rules.”
“But what did they gain?”
“Knowledge. How you functioned under stress. How the Haxadissi functioned under stress.” Flynn grinned, and cocked his head to the right. “And now they have a powerful Haxadis family beholden to a human for the birth of a grandchild. At the cost of a little anxiety relieved, they build some stability for the Commonwealth.”
“But they didn’t know how I would react. No one did.”
“Save God, Father Yamashita.”
“You’re right, He knew.” She nodded. “And it’s Claire.”
“I suspect He knew that, too.” Flynn smiled. “As for what the Qian might have known, doesn’t matter. Now they know more, and likely more than either of us could figure out.
Still, that’s part of what keeps life here on Purgatory Station so interesting.”
Claire smiled. “The Qian and knowledge. Perhaps they’re the serpents in the garden.”
“Could be, but this is their garden, Claire. From their point of view, it also likely a fair viper’s nest, within which we’re just two.”
“And your friend, Meresin?”
Flynn smiled. “Oh, a serpent, definitely, though not the worst here. Don’t you be minding that, though, Claire, for it’s still a garden here, beauty abounding. Welcome to your new home.”
Home. So far away and yet… Claire sipped her tea, then nodded. “Thank you. Home it shall be, Father, serpents and all.”
FIRST CONTACT CAFE
by Irene Radford
Irene Radford is a member of an endangered species, a native Oregonian still living in Oregon. She is best known for her fantasy series The Dragon Nimbus, The Dragon Nimbus History, and Merlin’s Descendants. Most recently she has begun the cross over into space opera and space stations with The Hidden Dragon, Stargods #1, published by DAW Books in 2002.
A SCREECH from the station monitors stabbed through the perceptions of Ab’nere Ll’byr Wyn’th (pronounced Abner Labyrinth in that new language working its way around the space station). She tongued a control built into her dentalia. One of the ten screens built into her spectacles that nearly reached her earlobes displayed the scene from A 108, the ammonia atmosphere arm close to the hub of Labyrinth, her space station, where gravity was
