But, obviously, that made it hard to judge the value of what they’d been given.
“We’ll discuss the matter,” he said, gesturing to the door. “And we’ll tell you our decision later.”
“As you wish,” Askew said, standing. If the sudden dismissal perturbed him, he didn’t show it. “I will be in my quarters.”
He walked out of the hatch, which hissed closed behind him. Admiral Zaskar watched him go, feeling conflicted. Askew had had ample opportunity to betray them over the last few months if he wished. There was no reason to think that Askew was being dishonest, this time. But he couldn’t help thinking that the data in front of him, the data Askew had given them, was simply too good to be true. Askew or his superiors could have been tricked. And they, in perfect innocence, would hurl Admiral Zaskar and his fleet into the fire.
“This is too good an opportunity to miss,” Moses said firmly. “Admiral, we have to take it.”
Admiral Zaskar sighed. “And what if it’s a trick? A trap?”
“God is with us,” Moses said. “We will not be deceived as long as we put our faith in Him.”
“God is with us,” Admiral Zaskar echoed.
He resisted the urge to sigh again. He understood just how much the cleric needed to cling to his faith, but . . . he’d seen enough to wonder if God was truly on their side. They’d lost the war. Admiral Zaskar had no illusions about himself. He was not the perfect, god-fearing warrior of propaganda. Indeed, there were times when he’d even come to doubt the existence of God. It wasn’t something he could share with his cleric, not even now. He had no doubt Moses would prescribe something nastier than a scourging.
And none of us can discuss our doubts with the clerics, or anyone, he reminded himself. We all learn, as soon as we are old enough to talk, to be careful what we say when we go to confession.
“We don’t have many targets,” he said slowly. “We can keep hitting undefended worlds, but . . . we’re not really hurting the real enemy.”
“That’s why we should hit the convoy,” Moses said. “That would hurt them!”
“Yes, if it isn’t a trap,” Admiral Zaskar said. “But we have women and supplies now. We could take the fleet and set off into unexplored space. It wouldn’t be hard to find a planet and set up a new homeworld. Given time, we would wax powerful again.”
And evolve, perhaps, he added silently. He knew just how little stood between his crews and total anarchy. His people were slowly coming to realize that the surveillance they’d taken for granted since birth was starting to develop holes. Who knows what will happen when we’re on a planetary surface?
“But they would still be powerful,” Moses pointed out. “What would happen when they stumbled across us, again?”
“We built a spacefaring society once before,” Admiral Zaskar said. “We can do it again.”
He kept his face expressionless, waiting to see what the cleric would say. Zaskar knew that the Theocracy’s official story was full of holes—he’d known enough to pick out the lies and misrepresentations a long time before anyone had given him access to the sealed files—but did Moses? A group of religious exiles, dumped on a harsh world with nothing more than the clothes on their backs, could not have hoped to build a spacefaring civilization, certainly not in less than five hundred years. No, the Theocracy’s emigration to Ahura Mazda had been a carefully planned endeavor, with a sizable technological base being established right from the start. Admiral Zaskar didn’t know all the details—most of the files had remained resolutely sealed, even to him—but he was sure it had been an amazing feat. And one he knew his fleet couldn’t hope to repeat.
We can raid worlds for farming and colonization supplies, he told himself, but there’s no way we can capture everything we need to set up a spacefaring civilization.
“We have a duty to our brethren, groaning under oppression,” Moses said. “What will happen to them if we abandon the war?”
“We wouldn’t be abandoning it,” Admiral Zaskar assured him. “We’d just be taking time out to regroup.”
“And how much damage would be done in the meantime?” Moses stood and started to pace the cabin. “How many believers would be seduced from the path of righteousness?”
Admiral Zaskar kept his face under tight control, even though he knew he’d lost the argument. “How many believers would be seduced if we were destroyed?”
“We are already winning,” Moses snapped. He turned around to face Admiral Zaskar. “You saw the reports. They are already on the verge of giving up!”
“Maybe,” Admiral Zaskar said.
He wasn’t so sure. The Commonwealth’s free press was a constant puzzle to him. He simply didn’t understand why their governments allowed the media to be so openly critical of their rulers. Nor, for that matter, why the media was allowed to slander and belittle public figures without challenge. One particularly amusing attack on Kat Falcone had been easily proven inaccurate by counting the years and noting that she wouldn’t even have been a glint in her father’s eye at the time. Kat Falcone was ingenious—Admiral Zaskar admitted that, in the privacy of his own head—but even she couldn’t do something scandalous before she was born. Unless the Commonwealth had secretly invented a time machine . . .
Nonsense, he told himself firmly. The media is lying about her. And they might be lying about everything else too.
“One final push, and they will crumble like a house of cards,” Moses said.
“And if they don’t?” Admiral Zaskar asked. “What then?”
He met the cleric’s eyes. “Are we going to keep hitting targets until our luck finally runs out? Or
