Last updated on August 15, 2024
In this part, I’ve updated Captain Alois to Captain Cloutier. MW
Part 5
And by night he was a pillar of fire
S. Maribel’s mess, typically filled with animated conversations, was eerily muted that night. The off-duty crew, jaw muscles stretched tight, reflecting their anticipation of a critical day in prospect, ate their meals with their eyes fixed on the surface of the small grey table, folded out from the deck, midway between the processor stripes on the aft wall, and the forward console, which controlled the level of magnification available to viewers in what doubled, in the limited space of the craft, as an observatory.
It was Elias’s first time there, and he spent most of his time gazing, mouth open, at the vista he saw through the bubble of stretched-diamond composite which sat atop the ship. The scene on which his eyes rested was the wide band of the debris ring, set against the backdrop of the galactic star field, and intersected by the slow, tumbling comets, rich in blues and greens reflecting in Maribel’s lights, preparing for their descent into the gravity well like icy migratory whales readying for their swim to the calving grounds. Its magnificence almost caused him to break out into songs of praise, and he wondered if perhaps he should, if only to lighten the mood. Before he could, the compartment door swung open and Lieutenant Bright, followed by Doctor Wildbird, climbed through.
“Mind if I join you?” Bright asked, indicating the magnetically charged three-legged stool next to Elias. Wildbird took a seat at the other end between Mugangwe and Cloutier, who shifted apart to afford the rangy scientist a narrow, shoulder-to-shoulder space.
“By all means,” Elias said, looking up at him. He shuffled his stool to make space for the broad-shoulder soldier and Bright bent to stick his tray to the lightly adhesive surface of the table.
Bright’s face had the kind of blank look Elias had seen at the confessional so many times. It said, “I have something important to say, but I’m not sure how to say it.”
This was firm territory for Elias, and he had a roadmap he could navigate. “Looks like you have something on your mind, Lieutenant. Care to share it?”
“We’re off duty. Please call me Jack,” Bright responded, his deep voice resonating in the compartment.
“Okay Jack,” Elias said. “You can call me Elias, unless whatever is bugging you calls for me to put my professional hat on.”
“Elias it is,” Bright said, his face relaxing slightly. “I’m not sure where to start.”
“Do-re-mi,” Elias said with a smile.
“Beg your pardon?” Bright said, peeling back the wrapper of his rations. The packet fizzed as its micro-heating elements triggered, and the warm scent of curry drifted past Elias.
“Start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start,” Elias intoned.
“Still don’t get it,” Bright said. He picked up his fork and speared a cube of what looked like chicken to Elias.
“It’s from an old movie. A favourite of mine,” responded Elias. “It’s about a novitiate nun who gets sent to be the governess of a retired naval officer. The children have scared away several previous governesses, but she wins them over with kindness and patience, and they end up respecting her. She sings a song to them, a game which teaches the children the fundamentals of singing. It opens with the words, start at the very beginning.”
“Ah, I see,” Bright smiled briefly and chewed on his chicken piece. “So, you want me to start at the very beginning? This could be a long story.”
“Well, the other lesson is, with patience and kindness, you can resolve the most intractable of problems,” Elias pointed at Bright’s tray. He closed the foil lid on his own, cold remnants and stood. “Finish your dinner and meet me in the briefing room later. Let’s say in an hour. We should have a bit more privacy there.”
“Deal,” Bright acknowledged and scooped up some vegetables. “I hope you don’t mind me bending your ear like this.”
“I’m a priest,” Elias responded. “I have very flexible ears.”
Elias picked up his tray and deposited it into the auto-trash for recycling, then climbed down through the hatch to the main corridor where he left his air-powered scooter, strapped it on and glided back to the cabin allocated to him, thinking about Bright’s concerns. The Lieutenant looked troubled to Elias, and while he was used to dealing with the concerns of humanity, out here on the edge of the Solar System, a troubled man could be a dangerous man. He needed to be on his mettle, especially as tomorrow was going to be a critical day in the mission profile. He offered a brief prayer asking for the strength to see this through and felt the warm presence of his faith infusing him and casting aside doubt.
“But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind,” he said to himself, his words scarcely a breath.
Elias was already seated and waiting when Bright arrived in the briefing room. They nodded to each other and Bright took a seat opposite the priest. For some time neither spoke, just sizing each other up, so Elias slid his chair around alongside Bright, making the situation less confrontational.
“So,” Elias said finally. “You have something to get off your chest.”
“Yeah,” Bright answered, then after a long pause, “you probably don’t know this, but combat veterans have an instinct about situations. It’s rarely wrong. I’m not saying we have some sort of sixth sense or anything, it’s just we get real good at assessing things, real fast. The ones that don’t, usually end up with flags draped over them.”
“I can understand the logic of it, but no, I hadn’t been aware of it before now,” Elias had taken the confessions of, and offered guidance to, dozens of military personnel. Every one of them had expressed similar sentiments. Some ascribed it to a kind of second sight, others just regarded it as a hunch, but all of them said they believed what they felt was true, and mostly it turned out it was. He forgave himself the small white lie, though. Starting off a conversation which might turn into a counselling session on a negative point was guaranteed to send the conversation spiralling towards further negativity.
“Well, to cut a long story short, I’ve had a niggling sensation in the back of my mind,” Bright touched his temple and looked at Elias intently. “And I have the feeling something is going to turn into a soup sandwich.”
“In what way?” Elias leaned forward and placed his hands on his knees.
“I’m not sure,” Bright said, pursing his lips. “That’s the worrying part. It’s just a vague feeling that once I get into the ZoA, things could happen very fast.”
“ZoA?”
“Zone of Action,” Bright said. He smiled and relaxed a little, his posture unfolding as he leaned back into his chair. “Jargon, sorry.”
“And this troubles you?” Elias nearly said “scared” but stopped himself just in time. He could not imagine anything scared Bright. The man was cooler than an icebox. He waited as Bright seemed to assess what to say next.
“Sure, it troubles me,” Bright said after about a minute of silence. “I’ll be flying a UXO straight into the teeth of a multidimensional wormhole that bleeds exotic particles, just to trigger a nuke that’ll fire a high-powered laser into its mouth. Trouble doesn’t even begin to describe it. Every red light in my warning system is lit up like it’s Christmas.”
Elias let the jargon go this time, guessing from the context it meant unexploded ordnance. He ordered his thoughts for a few seconds, teasing out an approach that would mollify Bright. He decided to appeal to his sense of camaraderie. “Do you have faith in Doctor Wildbird?”
“Yes, absolutely,” Bright said, jutting out his jaw. His training would have inculcated the sense that teams are everything, Elias knew.
“She assures me this is a no more than a calculated risk, with the odds in our favour,” he said, allowing his words to sink in. “I have absolute confidence in her, too. This is her territory, and she will have marked every divot on the fairway. My impression is nothing gets past her.”
“Yeah, me too.” Bright rubbed his chin and cocked his head to one side. “That’s not what worries me. We can take care of the knowns, most of them anyway. Even though there’ll always be some flying by instinct. It’s the unknowns, which is your territory.”
“Mine?” Elias raised an eyebrow at the unexpected turn.
“Yeah, well, you know I’m Jewish, right?” Bright fingered the silver Star of David hanging on his dog-tag chain, and Elias nodded. “Well, that’s not the entire story. I’m more like three-quarters Jewish. My father’s mom was an Irish catholic. She married her Jewish professor after she graduated. Years after, she was fond of saying. Anyway, dad was brought up in the Jewish faith, as was I, mostly because mom was a good Jewish girl. But I reckon I am a quarter catholic.”
“And Irish,” Elias said. He grinned and put a hand on Bright’s arm. “That’s the best of all worlds, Lieutenant.”
Bright returned the grin, much to Elias’s satisfaction. A smile is a breakthrough.
“The thing is,” Bright said, suddenly serious. “You know Jews don’t believe in hell, right? Not in the sense you believe in hell. We have a concept called Gehinnom, which is a kind of spiritual washing machine. When you die, your soul is cleansed in Gehinnom just like your socks in a washing machine. Which sounds fine, except if you put yourself in your socks’ shoes. They get thrown into boiling water and flung around until they’re clean. That’s what happens to Jewish souls.”
Elias was familiar with the concept of Gehinnom; his exegesis of biblical texts led him to the Torah, and he spent the best part of a year studying Rabbinic mysticism. He looked straight at Bright and said, “You know, a rabbi once told me the best way to avoid Gehinnom is to repent a day before you die. I said to him, what if I don’t know when I’m going to die? He said, in that case, I should repent today.”
“Hah! My rabbi said that too,” Bright chuckled. “They must learn it in rabbi school.”
“And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever,” Elias quoted from the Book of Daniel. “That means if you have something good to say, tell everyone.”
Bright stood and glided over to the water cooler in the room’s corner.
“I had this installed,” he said, patting the cooler. “I can’t talk for too long without a drink. Sadly, it’s just water. Would you like a bottle?”
“Please,” Elias said, his face a smirk. That was the second time that day Bright had served him a drink. He reached out when Bright returned and handed him a hemp-plas container with a teat on its neck like a baby’s bottle. He sucked at the cool jet, feeling it wash through his gullet. Bright sat again and pointed with his bottle.
“The thing is, Father,” he said, “my nan used to tell me about the catholic faith when she baby-sat. I think she always hoped I would break out of mom’s grip on me. Most of all, she told me about hell and the torment I would go through if I died without repenting to a priest. That kind of stuck with me.”
“I see.” Elias thought about this carefully. He could not give this man absolution if he was not a follower of Christ. But he did not want to send a fellow crew member into harm’s way with damnation hovering in the air. “You realise I cannot receive your confession unless you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your saviour. We can dispense with most of the formalities, but you understand that is fundamental.”
“Yes, I get that,” Bright answered. “But I’m not yet ready to make that commitment. Can you give me until tomorrow to think it through?”
“Of course,” Elias had received plenty of deathbed confessions from last-minute bet-hedgers. “Just don’t leave it until we have no time.”
“I won’t,” Bright smiled and held out his hand. “Thanks Father. I feel a lot better about things now.”
Elias took his hand and shook it warmly, hoping that Bright would do the right thing for him. If conversion to Christianity was his path, then he had to make the first step without Elias guiding him. All the same, he felt the tick of a clock inside him as Bright made his way out of the door.
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