The Sea is Full of Stars

“About that,” she agreed. “The thing that saves you most times is that it always has to look like the perfect accident. Otherwise you’ll just get the real cops plus a lot more people like us showing up, and they’ll find the same thing and generally run down the bad guys. But, it is true, the real challenge is that they are often quite clever and will try and lead you to the wrong person or group or around in circles. Still, it beats sitting in an office somewhere.”

Maybe it did, but they sounded to Angel like two private detectives doing their job for money and the good life rather than out of a sense of service. Still, she wasn’t going to judge them. At least what they did resulted in good; mercenaries could have their uses.

As the food started to come, the conversation turned back to her.

“You say that your denomination has no home?” Ari asked, curious.

“Not anymore,” she told them. “We grew inward on our home world over the years, and very insular, cut off from the rest of society. That was not why God caused us to exist, and it did us very little good except to breed a kind of local colony that was in danger of straying or atrophying. God had no other way to kick us in the backside and get us into action on our true mission, so He caused our sun to go nova.”

That was a meal stopper. “I beg your pardon?” Ming and Ari almost said as one.

“Oh, there were enough warning signs that we knew it was coming. The whole planet had to be evacuated. In a way, it was a shame, since it was quite rich and quite beautiful, but we would never have gone otherwise. This was long ago, you understand. Centuries. I have only seen the pictures, which are kept by the Elders. It was the Patriarch and Elders of that time who received from God the divine commission, and since then we have had no home. Wherever we are is our home, and we take with us that which we need. I was born on a far-off world inhabited by a race not unlike the Rithians, which is why I think I get along with them so well. When I was eight my birthmother sent me to the nearest convent for formal education. These are small affairs that are actually attached to space stations like the one we were just on. In fact, I just visited the Asswam sisterhood. That’s where I stayed until this ship arrived.”

“Funny. I’m in and out of space stations all the time, and I don’t remember ever seeing or hearing about one,” Ming commented.

“That is deliberate. We do not wish the convents to be known. They are primarily shut away from all other parts of the station, in strict seclusion. Only the Elder in charge and the Mother Supervisor deal with the station and maintain commerce and communication, as well as, of course, ones like me who pass through, and I cannot really interact with them, as anyone of the faith just visiting must take a vow of silence while inside to preserve the cloistered atmosphere for the students and permanent staff. I realize this must seem odd to you, but it is our way.”

“I hope you are not offended, but all religions seem odd to me,” Ming commented. “The more you see of the universe, the less you believe that there is anything but randomness out here.”

“You see no pattern? No wonder in its many forms and variations, its sheer complexities?”

“Pattern? No, I don’t think so. Galaxies spin away and crash into one another, stars go nova and wipe out whole worlds, and the range of creatures both sentient and not that could use a much better engineering design, including us, are legion. I live for the here and now, expecting nothing beyond. If I thought there was justice even, I might waver a bit, but I work for too many scoundrels as it is. Did you see that walking zombie Kincaid?”

Angel nodded. “Yes. A very tragic man. He hunts an ancient evil in the guise of a fellow creature, but because it is from vengeance, he usurps God’s role. What about you, Ari?”

The man gave a weak smile and shrugged. “I don’t know. I was raised Catholic, and, I suppose, I remain so, although not exactly in the best of graces. I keep wondering about some things, all those ancient dead worlds of long vanished civilizations we keep stumbling over. Who were they? Where did they go? Why and how did races that traveled through space millions or perhaps a billion years before anybody we know vanish so completely and so abruptly? I was talking with an archaeologist, and he said that the primary mystery civilization had been found across the entire galaxy at the least. We haven’t gone anywhere that we haven’t found their colonies, nor met a new race that didn’t already know them, if no better than we. My old Bible study teacher always was fond of noting that the book of Jeremiah, among others, talks of ancient civilizations and spacefaring angels that existed long before Adam was made. I am not so sure of the faith of my ancestors in a word-for-word fashion, I admit, but I am well aware that there are things of vast cosmic significance about which we know nothing. I lost my father a couple of years ago, and I like to think that he is still somewhere, beyond this sort of life. Call me someone reserving judgment, but with an open mind.”

The meal continued that way, quite pleasant from Angel’s point of view in spite of the lack of spirituality of her companions. There was some hope for Ari, no matter how material his life and attitudes were. Ming, well—none saw God unless they were called to do so, and like most people, Ming was spiritually deaf. Angel knew it was not her job to convert such people, only to find those who heard the call but had no clear idea which direction it was coming from. Converting the deaf ones was not only fruitless, it was, to her people, blasphemous. If God had wanted them, He would have called.

They finished dessert and got up to go to the Captain’s reception and briefing, but they continued trying to get to know one another. The fact that Angel had made no effort to thump a Bible or preach to them made her acceptable as a fellow traveler. Ari had been aboard and thus wasn’t required to attend, but he hadn’t much else to do.

“So where are you heading?” he asked the nun. “If it’s not too personal, that is. You say you have no home, and you’re far too young to have both education and lots of experience.”

“It’s not too personal, no. Actually, you are right. I’ve just come from a two year assignment assisting a mission on a rather primitive world. It was very basic stuff—digging wells, showing how to create and plant and harvest rice in the old ways, that kind of thing. Our tradition is to get right into the mud and teach by example. Of course, I was also being tutored by the Holy Sisters at the mission, and evaluated for personality, aptitude, you name it. They decided that I did have the calling to mission work and that I should be sent to university. I have decided that I have a talent for growing things that experts say can’t grow where I put them, so I will be taking a degree in plant exobiology.”

“Really? And that’s where you are heading now?”

She laughed. “Not directly. Actually, I’m on my way to be married.”

“Married! But I thought—”

“I understand. You were raised Catholic and you probably also have run into Buddhist nuns and that’s what you think when you see me. We’re not celibate. If we were, we wouldn’t last another generation. God commanded us to be fruitful and multiply, and that’s part of it. It would be unthinkable for any of us to go outside of our own people, such as to university, without first the joining of a family and the sacraments of marriage to impose discipline and also liberate us from the usual romantic tugs such places are known for.”

He frowned. “Hmm… That was the best part of going to university, frankly. Oh, well, we each follow our own paths, eh? Have you known your fiance long?”

“Actually, I’ve never met him, only seen a video of him. But I’ve met three of his other wives and they’ve given me a good idea of what he’s like.”

Ari Martinez decided to leave that part alone. He’d been around enough not to be shocked or even surprised at the various cults and cultural systems human beings had devised over the centuries, some of which made totally alien life-forms seem ordinary by comparison. Instead, he decided to keep it casual.

“I don’t remember seeing others like you, and I travel a lot,” he told her. “If your group is large enough to exist on Junctions all over the Realm, I’d think I’d have run into someone else before.”

“You probably have,” she told him. “We don’t travel in uniform, as it were. Not usually, anyway. I carry a modest wardrobe with me, including wigs and such.”

“But you’re not in disguise now.”

“I was, for a little while, but it was too embarrassing, not to say messy. I think in this case I’m better off the way I am.”

He stared. “You’re the girl who took the tumble when we docked! Well I’ll be d—” He stopped himself.

“Damned? I doubt it. That’s the kind of reason we don’t travel as ourselves. People seem to think that if you’re with a mission, you have to be sheltered from bad language and dirty jokes and all the