Outies
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“Any duly appointed representative of The Empire of Man is hereby notified that, having independently achieved planetary government and sentient space presence, New Utah makes formal application for admission to the Empire of Man as a Classified planet. As proof of commitment to the binding Laws of Empire, the Protector requests permission to remand one Lillith Van Zandt to Imperial custody, as a traitor to New Utah and the Empire of Man, for judgment under His Majesty’s Courts.
“I am Leica, 10 John, Royal Emissary of Sargon, Procurator of Mesolimeris, and by Acclaim of the first Constitutional Gathering Protector and Seer of New Utah. I have undertaken a dangerous journey to further the interests of New Utah and the Empire of Man. I have spoken the full and complete truth, and at the behest of my Lord now request sustenance and medical attention.”
As the hanger broke into complete pandemonium, two limp, bedraggled, slate-grey bodies collapsed onto the deck.
“Help them!” shouted Ali Baba, who stood, rigid, Kevin forgotten, Bury forgotten, staring at a point beyond the messengers’ sagging heads, his own bones aching, ears ringing, hope soaring, riveted by the fading echoes of his Master’s Voice.
Not a soul took any notice whatsoever of Jackson’s blurted expletive.
Even Horvath’s Goon was left speechless.
And then, as medics rushed to the Runners’ aid, Sir Kevin Renner threw back his head, pulled out his pipe, and laughed himself blue in the face.
Epilogue
Bonneville, New Utah, 3051
On Saturday afternoon, the eighteenth of August, Amari Selkirk Alidade Clarke Hathaway Quinn sat down with a silk-smooth pen and a stack of creamy parchment, and stared at five faded, underlined words: Pie, Coffee, People, Different, Fixing.
The view of the city was stunning. Up there, above the urban canyons, it was windy, and the night was turning cool. The soft air and crickets recalled so many other evenings, filled with crickets, or peepers, or cicadas, or all three. It was amazingly soothing to hear late evening traffic in the distance. Fireworks sparkled over some celebration or other further off in the hills. A wedding was going on down below, with attendant laughter, chatter, music, song, arrivals, departures, and fireworks of its own. Finally, as the light faded, a muezzin made the midnight call to prayer.
Wind played through the tamarisk trees. Asach sat on the roof, wolfing down pie and sucking down aromatic draughts of coffee. Watched people making their way through the ancient alleys. Watched the changing light cast the city rooftops in shifting shades of green. Watched curiously as a hefty, three-armed shape made its way down the lane, raised a fist, and pounded on the door below.
Appendix
Map of Inhabited Areas of New Utah
As drawn by John David Swenson, c.2450.
Annotated to indicate major Lines of Communication.
True Church of Mormon Organization
From: The Evolution of Mormon Religious Faith Practices in the Trans-Coal Sack Sector, A.S.A.C.H. Quinn
On Maxroy’s Purchase and New Utah, the relationships among arms of the so-called True Church of Mormon and its military wing, the True Church Militant, can be confusing. The definitions below will be especially helpful to those who have had little or no direct experience of Mormonism as practiced in the Trans-Coal Sack sector.
Mormonism. Religious communities that trace their origins to the teachings of Joseph Smith in the United States of America in the 1830s, and include the Book of Mormon as a part of their religious canon. Adherents refer to themselves as “restorationist” Christians and do not adhere to Roman, Eastern, or Protestant orthodoxies. All believe that God was not always originally a corporeal human being, but become a deity by following Mormon teachings on another world, and that human men may also become deities. Whether women can do so as well is ambiguous and controversial in some groups. Most also believe that because human souls are the literal offspring of God, human increase is necessary to provide corporeal bodies to populate the many planets.
Church of Him. Founded 2882, on New Scotland, by Howard Grote Littlemead. Not strictly speaking a Mormon religion, but early adherents were drawn from many faiths, including LDS Sixers, LDS members from the Pacific Diaspora, and Fijian Christians.
The Church of Him teaches that the Coal Sack nebula visible from the New Caledonia system is literally the face of God, and that the red giant star “Murcheson’s Eye” visible therein is literally the eye of God, staring out from beneath a hood. Near the time of founding, a smaller star, known as the “Mote in Murcheson’s Eye” appeared to flare—an event interpreted by Littlemead as God awakening. This flare—now known to be a laser cannon launching a probe powered by solar sail from the Mote system—winked out in 2902, an event now referred to by Himmists on New Utah as “the Great Weep.”
Following persecution in the New Caledonia system, in 2908 the Church of Him dispatched a mission to Maxroy’s Purchase, where many adherents were recruited among those persecuted, expelled, and excommunicated by the True Church of Mormon during several purges there. In 2964, a “sister” Himmist mission was dispatched to New Utah, where Himmists made little attempt to settle in the True-Church-dominated capital city of Saint George. Instead, they migrated eastward to and beyond Bonneville, eventually coming to dominate the desert and steppe lands known as The Barrens. Located beyond view of the Coal Sack, New Utah Himmists have developed interesting local variants of literalist liturgical practice, and proved remarkably pragmatic in their ongoing relations with other religious adherents.
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (“LDS Church”). From the movement’s founding in 1830 until the late twenty-third century, the largest denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement, headquartered on Earth in Salt Lake City, Utah, with established wards and temples Empire-Wide. Founded on a pioneering tradition in the hostile terrain of the Old American west, the LDS organization was extremely effective in organizing and managing early First Empire colonial efforts. However, with the destruction of the “home” Temple in Salt Lake, LDS membership waned and eventually was eclipsed by that of the Reformed, or “Sixer,” movement.
Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (“LDS Sixers”). Founded in Los Angeles, California, United States of America, Earth, 2066, by the descendants and followers of six LDS Church scholars excommunicated for apostasy when their works contradicted traditional LDS Church history.
The Reformed LDS Church strongly upholds scholarship and scientific inquiry, arguing that resolution of best-known fact with mythical and metaphorical belief is a necessary component of deepening adulthood faith. It also teaches absolute equality of all sexes, and openness regarding gender identity. The “Sixer” movement initially gained traction among the many excommunicants effectively exiled to urban areas, but its pragmatic approach to changing lifestyle circumstances led to its popular reception among multicultural urban communities, offworld transportees, and members of the spacefaring trades. In this millennium, ties between the LDS and Reformed LDS churches are strong and mutually cooperative.
True Church of Mormon (“True Church” or “TC”). Founded 2456, Maxroy’s Purchase, by a self-organized, fundamentalist, ruralist, masculinist splinter faction of dissident Mormons who established the initial colony. In 2553, their numbers were swamped by over 100,000 transportees settled on Maxroy’s Purchase, among them many LDS and Reformed LDS members unsympathetic to TC claims.
Citing “withdrawal from urban decadence,” in 2567 the Temple of the True Church was removed to a remote outpost in Glacier Valley, and dispatched a colony to New Utah with which it maintained close ties for several hundred years. Following a massive pogrom in 2864 that claimed to “purify” urban LDS and LDS Sixer churches—generally by burning them down and executing or exiling their members—the TC declared its Temple the governing church of Maxroy’s Purchase.
When the Alderson tramlines from the Maxroy’s Purchase system to New Utah collapsed shortly thereafter, the TC continued expensive shipmen
ts of selenium supplements, fertilizer, and medical supplies and equipment, receiving partial payment-in-kind in opal meerschaum. This trade was possible once every 21 years, when an orbiting neutron star temporarily reopened tramlines—although, following MP’s accession to the Empire of Man in 3007, it was technically illegal, since New Utah remained an outworld.
The True Church of Maxroy’s Purchase considered itself to be the governing body of its New Utah counterpart throughout this period—but the combination of remoteness, sporadic contact, and normal social evolution on New Utah put considerable strain on this relationship. This became clear in 3035, when the New Utah True Church averted open civil war by refusing an accession offer that would have codified that subordinate relationship.
True Church Militant (“TCM”). The military arm of the True Church of Mormon. Formally organized in 2567 as a Temple Guard in Glacier Valley, the TCM became enforcers of TC canon, and conducted the purges of 2864. One TCM wing is formally organized as the so-called TC Mormon “Saints” Battalion, which “supports” the TC “mission” on New Utah by rotating young men there for three-year tours in the True Church Temple Security Zone. TCM service is considered equivalent to an proselytizing mission.
The New Utah TCM, under pressure to exact sufficient payments to meet its obligations to the TC Maxroy’s Purchase, evolved away from church law enforcement. Instead, its primary mission became canonical tax (“tithe”) collection. Rather than suffering judgment under TC law, non-conformants and non-adherents are subject to heavy (even extortionate) tithe levies, and the TCM New Utah is tasked with universal collection.
The TCM New Utah is also responsible for protection of and order within the True Church Temple Security Zone —a sprawling administrative complex that includes the Temple itself, its archives, tithe and trade goods warehouses, various ministries, and key transportation hubs. Law and order outside the Zone is the responsibility of civil police. The Maxroy’s Purchase TCM Mormon Saints Battalion is housed within the Zone and nominally attached to the Commander, Zone Security.
Unique to New Utah is a TCM auxiliary arm, called TCM Contract Security (short name: TCM Security), which allows the True Church New Utah to minimize expenses for standing paramilitaries—and generate a revenue stream from visiting dignitaries. Originally cultivated from past members of various home-and-farm defense militias, TCM Security is organized as a private-sector company offering skilled drivers, pilots, escorts, bodyguards, security guards, and allied personnel who are pre-cleared by the TCM, but can be called up and hired on service contracts as-needed. Members are recruited on a city zone and rural regional basis, so are intimately familiar with their home territories. Members may also hold reserve appointments in one of the TCM branches. Many are members of landholder families from estates outside Saint George.
Catechism of The Great Weep
From: An Ethics of Tears: Variants of Practice among New Utah Adherents of the Church of Him, A.S.A.C.H. Quinn
The Great Weep variant of the catechism of the Church of Him is practiced by all Himmists of New Utah, known locally as “gatherers.”
His Gatherings
2450
His sisters sail to New Caledonia to create islands of peace, and He smiles with joy.
2600
Consumed by Mammon, the brothers of New Scotland and New Ireland turn their faces from Him, and attack all those who would Gather.
2800
The brothers and sisters cease Gathering.
2860
He Awakes! The Great Opening, also called the Revelation of His Face, in which he reveals his true substance as a quadripartite God.
2880
The First Gathering! He sees our Prophet Littlemead and founds His Church on New Scotland.
2900
Alas! The Second Gathering! The Gathering of the Great Weep! He gathers his cloak about His Face, and closes His eye, as it is filled with angry tears. Our Prophet is sent in haste to plead for His mercy. We flee to the island of our sisters in New Ireland, and begin The Great Wandering. We wander for three Gatherings.
2910
Our sisters dispatch His Mission to Maxroy’s Purchase, to found a new island. The sisters make many islands of the sisters cast out by the True Church Militant.
2960
The Great Wandering Ends! He dispatches His Mission to Heaven! Our Foundation Gathering, also called the Fifth Gathering.
2980
Our First Gathering, in which His Earthly Eye is Revealed! Also called the Sixth Gathering.
3000
Our Second Gathering, also called the Seventh Gathering.
3020
Our Third Gathering, also called the Eighth Gathering.
3040
Our Fourth Gathering, prophesied the gathering of the Revelation. Also called the Ninth Gathering.
His Numbers
Five fingers to a hand, four hands to a gathering, His perfection is Revealed in Fours.
One century plus one half had we peace.
Two centuries had we war.
Three gatherings had we rebellion, until we Gathered.
Alas! Began the Great Weep, and we Gathered.
Three Gatherings we wandered, until we found Heaven on Earth.
We met the Gaze of His Earthly Eye, our First Gathering in Heaven.
Three Gatherings have we waited! May His Face be Revealed!
A Seer spans two Gatherings. My Gathering is number [my Number here.]
His Tenets
It is the duty of every pilgrim to sail to her island for her Gathering, to prepare pilgrims for the next Gathering, and to honor the wisdom of the pilgrims of Gatherings past, who have gazed into His earthly Eye and believed.
It is the duty of every Seer to maintain the Watch for the Waking of His Eye, and to guide all pilgrims in safety and secrecy to the Gathering.
It is the duty of every island to give aid and support to the Seers, that they may be of aid to all pilgrims.
In His Gaze, we are all pilgrims, we are all Seers, and all islands are One.
His Creed
The quadrine perfection of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is Revealed to all in His true Face.
[Amen]
He is not a Faceless God! With His Heavenly Eye, He Sees all who See Him.
[Amen]
He is not a Faceless God! With His Earthly Eye, He Sees all who See Him.
[Amen]
On the Day of Revelation, will His true Face be Revealed.
[Amen]
On the Day of Revelation, will He Gather all Churches to Him.
[Amen]
He is not a Faceless God! May we face one another and pass His Gaze among Gatherers.
[Amen]
He is not a Faceless God! May we face the worlds and pass His Gaze to All.
[Amen]
He is not a Faceless God! May we turn our Gaze from those who refuse to See, praying fervently that they may not remain Blind.
[Amen]
In the name of Him who has shown His Face, may we all truly See.
[Amen]
The Gathering Hymn
The pilgrim’s song. Sung in procession to Gatherings of the Great Weep.
‘Twas brother’s peace with brother for
One hundred fifty years
Then brother smote his brother for
Two centuries of fear.
Three score of sad rebellion
Three score of hate and ire
Three score of living hell, then
Awoke His watchful Eye!
For twenty years we faltered
For twenty years we hid
And then He sent his Prophet:
Our speaker, Littlemead!
Oh Lo! We were not faithful!
Oh Lo! They did not heed!
He pulled his cloak about Him
Oh Lo! How he did Weep!
Three Gatherings we wandered
To seek his gracious eye
Dispatched to gather
faithful
Across the starless skies.
A Gathering we struggled
A Gathering we cried.
Each Gathering he shows us:
Salvation Day is nigh!
Oh weak were we to flee that Face
And weak were we to fear
For through our sin he closed His eye
And shed His awful tears.
So now we wait in endless toil
For gifts and grace He sends