by David Smith
The Sister hadn’t donned her nun’s apparel, but still wore the calm manner of her calling and a conciliatory tone in her voice. ‘Of course Lieutenant-Commander, you have your job to do. I was merely suggesting that the essence of a person is the spirit, not the body.’
O’Mara rolled her eyes before turning to face the nun. ‘Yeah. Thanks for that. Sadly I’m not much of a one for talking to spirits so I’ll have to settle for dissecting the bodies instead.’
The nun smiled. ‘I know you mock me, but there are some things that science can’t explain. Perhaps there are some things that would be best left untouched by science. Left as matters of faith.’
O’Mara couldn’t resist the urge to fight for what she believed in. ‘Science will unlock everything in time. Science drives us on, makes us better and cleverer and stronger. Faith is blind, which is ironic bearing in mind the emphasis this culture placed on an all-seeing eye.’
The nun was not dissuaded. ‘Has it occurred to you that this eye might not be a representation of a physical eye, but a symbol of the mind’s eye? A symbol of understanding rather than merely observing?’
That thought hadn’t occurred to O’Mara, and it came as uncomfortable surprise to find a nun had thought of something she hadn’t. She found she couldn’t admit to that. ‘That’s by the by. There’s a mystery here and we won’t find the answers we’re looking for by sitting around and contemplating our navels.’
‘Then I wish you luck and hope you find the answers you seek.’ The nuns smile never faded, but O’Mara could sense the sadness in her.
Sister Matic paused and turned back to the bed on which she’d been convalescing. Reaching into the habit neatly folded at the end of the bed she pulled out a small leaflet, and returned to hand it to O’Mara. ‘I always carried a few of these with me. Perhaps you should read it? It will need an open mind, though: the written word is black and white, where real life is endless shades of grey.’
O’Mara took the leaflet and thanked the nun before leaving the Sick-bay. Outside, she read the title: ‘The Thetan in Me.’ With a snort she screwed the leaflet up and threw it into the nearest waste chute.
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O’Mara growled in frustration. Nothing made sense.
From their surveys of the ruined cities and other sites across the planet it seemed that the indigenous species (which her team constantly referred to as ‘Thetans’ despite her best efforts to stop it) were an advanced, enlightened and peaceful race.
Despite being capable of faster-than-light travel, apparently for thousands of years, neither Manny Vainatolo nor Professor Hubert had come across any trace of this race aside from this one planet.
This apparent lack of ambition had resulted in the species being exterminated without trace.
What had irked her even more than the ‘Thetans’ apparent acceptance of their fate was that several of her team had spoken to Sister Matic as if she had some worthwhile input into the matter.
They’d come back with outlandish theories of these ‘Thetans’ somehow managing to flee the ruined planet and inhabit the bodies of humans. It was beyond ridiculous. There was no proof, not a shred of evidence, only the ridiculous fantasies of a long dead writer of pulp science fiction novels. How on earth could her team even consider it??
It was late in the day and she sat in the A&A Office poring over the visual records the scout robots had recorded in one of the cities. The theta symbol was everywhere. That nun had referred to it as the mind’s eye. But she was only a nun: what did she know?
She let out a deep sigh. With the radiation on the surface being so fierce, they were never going get enough time on the planet to unravel the mystery.
She was still thinking about this when the door opened and the Captain entered the compartment. She stood and saluted. ‘Good evening, sir, what brings you to the dark depths of Deck 22?’
He smiled, took a seat at the console next to her and motioned for her to sit down with him. ‘Evening Aisling, I thought I’d just pop down and find out how thing are going.’
‘Oh. Ok sir’ she lied.
He waited but as nothing more was forthcoming, he voiced what was on his mind. ‘I can’t see that we’re going to find out much more about this planet given the surface conditions. I’m thinking we should leave things as they lie, file a report on what we’ve found and move on.’
She wanted to argue, but realised she’d come to exactly the same conclusion. ‘Fair enough, sir. The only thing I’d like to do is get the stellar cartography team to take a look at that central chamber. The A&A team are all convinced the chamber is some kind of star map, but if it is, it’s clearly quite selective about what stars it shows. I’d like to get the StelCar team to map it out properly and see if there’s anything significant about the distribution of the stars. It shouldn’t take them long.’
Hollins nodded. ‘Ok, I suppose we can afford one more trip. Take a team down, check out the star map, gather any other data you think might be useful and then we’ll call it quits.’
O’Mara nodded and asked a question that popped into her head quite unexpectedly. ‘What are you going to do with the flying nun? She can’t stay here.’
Hollins shook his head. ‘I don’t know. I’ve spent quite a bit of time talking to her . . . ‘
‘Oh not you as well!’ exclaimed O’Mara.
Hollins was shocked by her outburst. ‘What do you mean, “not you as well”?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘All my team keep telling me what a wonderful listener she is and how they find it so easy to talk to her.’
The Captain looked surprised. ‘Is that a problem?’
‘Yes! Well. No. I suppose not.’
She saw his eyebrow raise in her direction. With a sigh, she explained ‘It’s like this. I’ve got a great team of scientists here, all looking for answers, and yet everyone seems to be looking to her to provide them. She’s not scientist or an academic she’s just . . . just . . . well . . . a nun!’
Hollins shook his head. ‘Not everything has a scientific answer, Aisling.’
She threw her hands up in frustration. ‘My god! You’re even starting to talk like her now!’
‘Hey! Take it easy!’ He smiled at her, slightly perplexed by her outburst. ‘I know she’s a little bit left of centre, but that doesn’t make her an inherently bad person.’
O’Mara slumped back. ‘Sorry sir, I’m just a bit frustrated. I can’t concentrate and I can’t make sense of this. It pains me to admit it, but I don’t think we’re going to find out anything more. The trail’s too cold and the environment’s too hot.’
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The away team left early the next day, augmented by an extra person.
O’Mara had decided to go, purely to prove to herself that the uneasiness she felt on the surface couldn’t get the better of her scientific instincts. She’d selected Petty Officer Errol Ismail and Crewman Cassie Long from the Stellar Cartography team.
Ismail was an excellent cartographer and was blessed with the relaxed attitude of his Barbadian forebears. She’d then deliberated at great length before finally deciding to include Cassie Long. While Cassie was friendly and polite and charming, she was also a telepath. Her gift was also her curse as she constantly had to be on her guard to avoid hearing the most private and intimate thoughts of anyone near her. Everybody was wary of Cassie and O’Mara wouldn’t have even considered her if wasn’t for the fact she was far and away their best astronomer. If anyone would recognise a pattern in the stars it would be Cassie.
Bizarrely the last person on the away team was not a scientist: The Captain had decided to allow Sister Matic to make the trip with them.
O’Mara had only planned for three people to go down to the planet. When the Captain had suggested that Sister Matic join them she had objected vociferously, even though there was plenty of space on the shuttle.
She’d been put in her place when the Captain reminded her that the nun had lost over
a dozen of her church-fellows in the crash. She was going down to the site to pay her last respects and also collect certain Church artefacts that had survived the crash.
O’Mara wasn’t happy, but couldn’t argue, and had sat glowering at her for the whole trip down.
As Chief Fisher swung the shuttle around O’Mara looked down at the giant earth-work eye rising out of the ground, staring up at them. She was sure it was mocking her.
Fisher put the shuttle down next to the crashed ship and O’Mara briefed the away team on the surface conditions. She couldn’t help but notice that Long appeared distracted. ‘Is everything ok Cassie?’
She shook her head uncertainly, even though she replied ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I just . . . I can hear . . . I can feel . . . something? Don’t worry I’m good. Let’s get on with this.’
She led the way, apparently keen to get on with things. O’Mara watched her warily, but was just as keen: She wanted to get done and get away from the place as soon as possible. She followed Cassie into the airlock.
It was crowded in the air-lock. Ismail was a big man, and Long was tall even though she was slim. Sister Matic was bigger than both of them, and O’Mara felt like a midget as the other three towered above her in the confines of the tiny space.
The outer door opened, exposing them to the cutting winds and abrasive dust of the incessant storm. O’Mara led them out and as Sister Matic turned to head for the row of graves beside the ship, she realised that Long was striding off towards the Pyramid.
She called out to her, but Long had her comm-set turned off and didn’t respond. O’Mara had planned to split up and leave the nun to do what she had to do, but had at least wanted to check that she was happy in the unfamiliar environmental suit before leaving her to it. Instructing Ismail to stay with Sister Matic, O’Mara trotted off after Long.
She immediately regretted it. The winds seemed to have picked up and she quickly lost her bearings. Every so often the wind would die down a little, and O’Mara would find that she’d somehow wandered off course. Long, however, seemed to be heading for the pyramid as straight as an arrow, leaving O’Mara further and further behind. By the time O’Mara reached the foot of the embankment Long had already disappeared from her view.
The wind picked up again, and O’Mara found herself completely disoriented by the swirling dust. She nearly lost her nerve and bolted for the shuttle, but had become so confused she didn’t have a clue in which direction it lay. A sudden gust caused her to stumble and she fell to her knees in a daze.
As the dust cleared she realised she was facing the embankment, but had wandered a long way off course. She was quite a way from the pyramid and the steps she’d found last time they’d had to climb the embankment. She looked down the length of the causeway above and where it intersected with the pyramid she caught a glimpse of Long at the top of the steps she’d been looking for.
She shouted out again, but Long’s comm-set was still off and O’Mara began to scramble up the slope making a bee-line for Long. It was hard going. The sides were steeper than they had looked from the air, and even without her environmental suit O’Mara wouldn’t describe herself as agile. She tried to walk up it but couldn’t stay on her feet and ended up crawling up the slope on all fours, stumbling and sliding down the slope regularly.
The struggle up and across the slope seemed to take an age. By the time she finally reached the top she was gasping for breath and could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. She hauled herself upright. There was no sign of Long, but O’Mara knew there was only one direction she would have gone.
She looked up at the towering mass of the pyramid and just for a moment the only part of it she saw was that damned eye, watching her coldly, emotionlessly. She gathered herself and began to trot towards the entrance, sucking in big lungfuls of oxygen, breathing so hard the suits humidity control struggled to keep the visor clear of condensation.
She had to pause as she reached the entrance way, to steel herself to run the gauntlet of those dreadful statues. She kept her head down and watched her feet as she trotted in, terrified that if she looked up she’d see four thousand pairs of those huge dark eyes following her progress.
She went around the bends, instinctively heading where she knew Long would be: the star chamber.
Inside the pyramid the air was still and O’Mara could see her footsteps creating their own little storm-clouds in the fine dust that seemed to coat everything on this planet. Even with the dust to soften her footfall she could hear her footsteps echoing through the vast structure.
When she finally reached the star-chamber, she found Long standing on the little dais, just as she had done, staring up at one particular shining point of light. O’Mara nervously tried her comm-link again. ‘Cassie? Is everything ok?’
O’Mara thought Long was going to ignore her and it occurred to her that she really didn’t have a clue what to do next. She suddenly wished that the Captain had come down with them and she felt very, very alone.
Before panic could set in, Long finally replied. Very quietly and very deliberately she said ‘They’re still here.’
O’Mara wanted to dismiss the idea, but hairs stood up on the back of her neck and she suddenly felt as if the four thousand statues outside had followed her into this chamber. ‘I think perhaps we should go, Cassie. Maybe the map thing can wait ‘til another day.’
O’Mara wasn’t close enough to see in the dim light but she knew that Long was shaking her head as she replied ‘There’s no need, I’ve seen the map and I understand it now, sort of.’
O’Mara desperately wanted to get away from this chamber, and the pyramid and the planet. She was sure she could feel her skin crawling as her unease became a palpable, moment-defining emotion, but she had to ask the question.
’You know what the map is?’
‘Yes, Aisling, their minds don’t work like ours, so I can’t really understand what they’re saying, but they can show me images. Images of worlds around every one of these stars. Images of a spirit flying across light-years of space at the speed of thought, coming to rest in another being.’
‘Are you saying they’re ghosts?’
‘No. I’m saying that they seem to have moved beyond the need for a physical being.’
‘That’s impossible!’ whispered O’Mara without conviction as she pictured a race that had evolved to have no ears and no mouth.
Long answered as a statement of fact. ‘It’s not impossible. It’s what happened. From the impressions I’m seeing it seems they reached a sort of technological peak then realised that wasn’t what they wanted. They turned away from technology, looking for answers within themselves rather than what they saw before them.’
O’Mara was startled by another voice:
‘Then you have found the answer that I was seeking.’
She turned to find Sister Matic standing behind her, and Ismail standing behind the nun. Ismail looked nervous. ‘We saw you run off and thought we’d make sure everything was ok. Everything is ok, isn’t it?’
Long answered. ‘Yes, it’s good. It’s all good. It seems the Thetans were sort of stagnating. When the dark aliens attacked their world it seems they accepted that as their fate, but the destruction of their physical bodies freed their spirits to roam the universe.’
‘I don’t believe it’ O’Mara stated bluntly although she still sounded conflicted.
‘Doesn’t matter to me, Aisling, or to them. But it does matter to her.’ Without looking away from the sparkling pin-pricks of light, Long pointed a finger at Sister Matic.
‘Yes, it matters to me. All my adult life I believed that the teachings of the founder of the Church of Scientology had some element of truth, be it allegorical or metaphorical. To find that his mind may indeed have been touched by the spirit of one of these beings makes all the ridicule I’ve had to bear an irrelevance.’
‘I think they’re glad of that’ smiled Long. ‘They seem to like you, sister . . . but not as much a
s they like Lieutenant-Commander O’Mara.’
‘What??’ squeaked O’Mara.
Long giggled. ‘They seem to like the way you think, Aisling. They seem to find it amusing.’
‘Tell them to get out! I don’t want them inside my head!!’
‘Relax, Aisling, they just visit. Ironically they seem to see you as someone open to new ideas. It’s a shame you don’t believe in them’ chided Long.
She stretched out a hand towards the one point of light that seemed to be the focus of her attention. ‘It seems they’ve spent a lot of time with humans. They seem fascinated by our diversity. I think they wanted to nurture us? Or educate us? But their minds are too different from human ones for them to stick around long. I don’t think they can understand our aggression and selfishness. I’m getting a sort of an image of a church mixed up with images of money and oppression. I can’t really make sense of it, but I don’t think they could either. I’m seeing an image of . . . of . . . a lawyer?’
O’Mara looked questioningly at Sister Matic, who she could see was blushing even through the visor of her environment suit.
‘The founding Church was a little bit defensive’ she explained.
Long smiled. ‘Well they haven’t quite given up on us yet. The fact that they’re still trying so hard to communicate with us is a demonstration of that.’
O’Mara was surprised ‘Trying so hard?’
‘Yes’ replied long ‘They’ve been communicating directly with Sister Matic for most of her life.’
‘Why?’ asked the nun.
‘I think they want you to pass a message on.’
The nun became quite excited. ‘A message?? They want me to spread the word of their existence?’
Long looked embarrassed. ‘Um, no, not really. As I said, they don’t seem to understand spoken language so they’re trying very hard to get a quite complex concept across as a feeling. If I had to guess I’d say they’re just really sorry about the whole Scientology thing.’
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O’Mara found Sister Matic in the forward observation lounge.
‘Hey you.’