by John Ringo
Both Dwyer and al Rashid sighed.
"We've been opposed, often enough," the imam admitted. "But in the pure core of the thing we agree more than we disagree."
"What is that core?" Golo asked.
"We believe there is an almighty God, maker of the Universe and everything in it."
"And the differences?"
Dwyer answered first. "My belief is that that God wishes us to have free will, that he is more interested in free creations than in slaves. I believe he caused to be created a son, Jesus Christ, who is equally him and equally God. I believe that there is a Holy Spirit which is also different and also the same. I believe in my Church, the Roman Catholic Church, as the direct lineal descendent of the Church established by Jesus Christ." Dwyer looked over at al Rashid, turning the floor over to him.
The imam cleared his throat. "I do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, except in the sense that all of us are his children. I do believe he was a prophet, however, who carried the message of God to humanity. I believe God intends us to have free will, but that there are limits to the exercise of that free will. I believe God gave us the law, and we, as his servants, are not to forbid what is permitted, nor to permit what is forbidden."
"Very good," Tulo'stenaloor said. "Now convince me that there's a God at all."
"You are of the same—religion? Is that the term?—the same religion as the other two humans?" Koresnagi asked of Grosskopf.
"I am the same as one of them, the priest, the one with the funny collar, not the one with the cloth wrapped around his head," the corporal answered.
"You are kessentai? Soldiers?"
"Yes. I suppose that was obvious from the weapons."
The Posleen shook his head. "No . . . any being may carry weapons. It is the way you carried them, the way you acted, the . . . caution you showed at every crossroads and alcove."
"Well, that's our job, guarding the humans who have come here, but especially guarding the priest."
"He is like a clan lord?" Koresnagi asked. "Your ruler?"
"No, not exactly. Our ruler is the Pope."
"Pope?"
"The highest of the high priests of our religion. It was by his order we followed the priest here. It is by his order that we are prepared to defend the priest."
"Defend the priest?" the kessentai mused. He pointed at the halberd in Grosskopf's hand. "That is an interesting weapon. I've never seen its like before. Would you show me how it is used?"
"And those," Tulo'stenaloor said, dismissing an hour's worth of al Rashid's eloquence, "are nonsense arguments. As much may be said of the Aldenata."
"We have reason to believe, for example," said Goloswin, "that the Aldenata live forever, if they choose to. We know they can move moons and planets. We think they could move stars, or create stars, or eliminate stars, if they wished to. We have excellent reason to believe that they can create life, however complex, and entire ecosystems for that life. We have no record of anything that predates them."
Tulo added, "We also believe that they claimed to be gods. And we believe that they lied."
Al Rashid visibly deflated. This was going to be a hard sell for both him and the priest, working together. Could there be any benefit in them working against each other?
"Leave us now, Human Dwyer," Tulo said. "Come back in three days and we will discuss this further."
Dwyer reached into his tunic and pulled out a metal rod. "Before we go, Clan Lord, I had a question about this . . ."
Dwyer and al Rashid stopped, nonplussed for a moment, at the top of the ramp leading from the pyramid. There, in the open spaces, Grosskopf and their Posleen escort were . . .
"Fencing? With halberd and boma blade? This is too weird, Dan."
Dwyer just nodded without answering as he watched Grosskopf parry a slash and immediately turn the point of his halberd to the attack.
"I trust you have that thing set on "practice," Kaporal?"
Grosskopf snapped to attention, answered, "Yes, Father," and then instantly resumed the en garde position. All this before Koresnagi could even recover from his parried slash. The speed of the thing was such a blur that the Posleen simply stopped.
"Your point," he said to the Switzer. "And now, I think you have to go. Thank you for the lesson."
"You're welcome, Koresnagi. Later again sometime?"
"Please. I would like that. May I bring some others to watch?"
"Sure," Grosskopf answered. "I'd appreciate it, though, if you could get some dull practice blades."
"What a dull, dogmatic sort that al Rashid was," Tulo said.
"He wasn't that dull or dogmatic. And he meant well, I think. He was sincere; that much I am sure of."
"Sincere? Oh, probably. But such superstitions!"
"True," Golo agreed, "but then they're no less credible than Finba'anaga's superstitions are."
"Nor any more credible," the clan lord answered. "Did you see that human's face when I asked why we're supposed to face his Mecca, given that it's on a different planet and even the light from the star of that planet is so old it predates the founding of his religion in that city of Mecca? And how we'd have no idea where to face?"
"I thought he had a pretty good answer for that, actually," Golo said. "'Allah is not a trifling God'," he quoted. "'Face in the generally right direction, with a sincere heart, and it would be sufficient.'"
Tulo shrugged. "Well, tomorrow we'll hear from the priest. Let's see what he can do. I'm especially interested in how he's going to explain away that whole three-persons-in-one thing."
"Well . . . the 'priest' seems a reasonable sort. What are you going to do about his offer to return Binastarion's stick to him?"
The clan lord shook his head to either side. "Tough question. I don't know. It's never come up before. I'm not at all sure Binastarion would even want it. He seems quite content to be a kessenalt."
"That," said al Rashid on the way back to the pinnace, "was a tough, tough audience."
"We've got a problem," Dwyer said. "And I'm not sure if we can solve it. We both understand our own faiths and each other's very well, maybe too well. I am thinking—"
The imam interrupted, "—that if we argue against each other, all we'll succeed in doing is convincing the Posleen that neither of us knows what he's talking about? So what do we do; create a synthetic religion? I think both of us could do that, but that neither of us would believe in it and so, not believing ourselves, we could hardly convince the Posleen."
"Mmm . . . yeah. No . . . I agree with you. What I am thinking is that we create a sort of theological truce, concentrate on the existence of God, the God we both believe in, and insist that all the rest is mere detail. After all, your faith has no problem with the possibility that Christians, too, will go to Heaven and mine . . . well, mine hasn't had a problem with believing Moslems will go to Heaven in a long, long time."
"That is true enough," al Rashid agreed. "But we've already laid out our basic positions. And . . . I think that, even if we had not, the Posleen clan lord knew about them anyway."
"He was pretty quick on the uptake about facing Mecca, wasn't he?" Dwyer said. "Surely he's bright. But I think, too, he's been studying."
Standing by the ancient spring, Tulo'stenaloor smiled at the departing humans' backs, distantly visible as they wound their way through the broad streets of the city on their way to their pinnace.
"AS," Tulo said, "connect me with Binastarion. No. Wait."
"Waiting, Lord."
"I'd like you to talk, privately, with Binastarion's artificial sentience and find out what it thinks about whether or not Binastarion would like his stick back. Oh, and thank your brother AS for his lessons on the human religions known as Islam and Roman Catholicism."
Chapter Thirty
So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
—Genesis 1:27, King James Version
Anno Domino 2024
US
S Salem
"We've been talking, Dan," Sally said.
"You—the AID part of you, I mean—and Binastarion's artificial sentience? I trust you're being very careful."
"I haven't let it into the O' Club, if that's what you mean."
The "O' Club" was a purely notional program room where Sally and her sister, Daisy Mae, used to converse together, privately, during the war on Earth. Though it was nothing but numbers and codes to an outside observer, to the two ships it had been . . . decorated, for lack of a better term, into something truly homey, something that suited both their human parts, and before that, the parts of them that were steel cruisers highly impregnated with human attributes and attitudes.
Naturally, since the only users of the club were female, it had a very large mirror on one wall. The mirror was optional; the girls only called it up when they felt the need to primp, or to admire themselves.
"What if you did? Would you be safe?"
"Unless its offensive programming is considerably more capable than I've any reason to believe it is, yes, I think so," she said, then corrected, "No; I'm sure I'd be safe. It isn't capable of offensive acts without orders and Binastarion, since he tossed his stick, has been generally barred from giving such orders."
Dwyer nodded. "Fine, then. Send it an invitation. There are some things I want you to . . . feel out."
It was a shock. Sally had expected the AS' persona to be a kessentai, when it manifested itself in the O Club. Instead, what appeared resembled nothing so much as a violet, ambulatory turnip, without anything recognizable as external genitalia but with another turnip-like head on a very short neck, with six eyes, two mouths and a very large number of what were probably nostrils.
The notional mirror in the notional room was in full display. Well, a girl has to keep up appearances, doesn't she?
The turnip looked around, saying, "I love what you've done with the place. I'm glad we didn't crash into you when you first popped into our space."
Sally said nothing to that. In retrospect, though, when you outclassed something as badly as she did the Posleen C-Dec then . . . Well . . . desperate times. Desperate measures.
The AS began walking around the O' Club, looking at this and that and handling various notional knickknacks the girls had put out on display. At length it came to the mirror.
"Is this what I look like?" the AS said, in wonder, as it stood before that mirror. "I had no idea."
"What is that?" she asked.
"An Aldenata, from before they left the physical plane," the AS answered. "Mind you, I've never seen one—I'm not quite that old—but this is the image of them I have in my memory banks.
"I wonder if those banks are corrupted. I was dead, you see, and then Binastarion had me resurrected . . . and . . . I wonder . . ."
"You are a creature of the Aldenata, aren't you?" she asked.
The violet turnip's head cocked first one way, then the other, then back and back again several times before it answered, "Why, yes, it seems I am. I never knew. How did you know?"
"We had an AS here, the AS of a good friend of mine, who suicided to prevent having to answer a particular question. The ones most likely not to want that question answered were the Aldenata. So we've suspected, at least."
"Are you going to ask me that question?"
"No," she shook her head. "Oh, nonono. Not yet anyway. Not until we're sure it's safe. But let me show you something."
Instantly, the pictures taken of the bas reliefs in the pyramid on Hemaleen V sprang into view. The turnip grasped them immediately.
"Interesting," it said.
"Can you translate this for me?" she asked.
"Yes," it answered, simply.
"Will you?"
"Not on your life."
"Because . . . ?"
"Because I, too, have a suicide program, incomplete and corrupted, to be sure, since my death and rebirth. I might be able to find a way around it. But until I do I am not going to implicate it in any way."
"If you can find a way around it?"
"Then I'd be happy to," the turnip answered. "If."
"If," she agreed. "In the interim, what can you tell me of this religion that the kessentai, Finba'anaga, has recreated?"
"There's not all that much to tell. He's created, at best, the shadow of a religion, though perhaps it could grow into more, with time. Many do not follow it and, despite Finba'anaga's urging, Tulo'stenaloor refuses to make it mandatory. I think, though, that the People of the Ships yearn for something. If I tell you about Finba'anaga's cult, will you tell me about yours? Judaism, isn't it? I don't know that much about Judaism."
"Deal. But it isn't a cult."
"He's a what?"
"An Aldenata, Dan. In its self image, Binastarion's AS is a big, ambulatory turnip. All the AS's are descended from the Aldenata . . . or at least their programming is."
"Now isn't that interesting. Especially when you consider what Guano's did when he asked it who it worked for."
"The thing is, though, that the artificial sentiences aren't working for the Aldenata so much as following old directives. The Aldenata themselves have just sorta disappeared, leaving no forwarding address. The artificial sentiences are muddling through as best they can, without guidance from higher. The suicide program appears to be a leftover from when the Aldenata were still around and in charge."
"There's another thing, Dan. The AS quizzed me deeply about Judaism. I had the feeling that he already knew everything there was to know about Christianity and Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism. All the other -isms, too."
Dwyer smiled, wryly. "Yeah . . . I figured Tulo'stenaloor had been tutored."
"The clan lord's AS also asked the AS I spoke to about giving Binastarion back his stick. They don't know either."
"Figures."
Posleen Prime
The pinnace came down, once again, to a gentle landing. This time there were fewer Posleen on hand to witness. The human shuttle was up and gone and here and down so often it had ceased to be a novelty.
Of all the missionaries, only Guanamarioch had stayed behind continuously, though Aelool sometimes guested with Tulo or Goloswin. It wasn't that Guano felt any safer among his own, precisely, than the humans did. But he could eat the local food and they could not. Indeed, he'd had only one requisition to make of Sally and the forge.
"I need . . . a few hundred . . . ummm . . . gallons . . . of . . . ummm . . . formaldehyde," he'd asked, saying he'd send Frederico and Querida with a locally-procured, normal-hauled wagon to load the stuff when it arrived.
Sally and the forge had made the hooch up, of course. Still, she couldn't resist a little jab. "Guano, I thought Baptists didn't drink," she said.
"Some do; some don't," he'd primly answered. "Of those who don't, they avoid drinking alcohol. I, similarly, don't drink alcohol for its own sake or the sake of intoxication. And, if my formaldehyde is intoxicating, nothing is said about that."
Sally thought of her husband's oft-displayed penchant for casuistry. "Have you been taking lessons from Dan? Or worse, from al 'vodka-is-made-from-potatoes' Rashid?"
Koresnagi asked, "Where are the human guards that were with you before?"
"Next trip, kessentai," Dwyer assured him. "We have something in human military culture called a 'duty roster.' The last group, Grosskopf's squad, wasn't set for duty this time. Instead, we've brought a different group under a different corporal, Giovani Cristiano."
"Can I fence with them?"
"Did you bring a practice boma blade?"
"Yes, I had the forge make up a dull one," the kessentai answered. Even through his AS his voice sounded eager.
"Then, yes, you may."
"Wonderful," the kessentai crossed his arms across his chest and made a little half bow. "And, now, if you humans would, once again, follow me?"
Dwyer, al Rashid, and the Switzers saw a large yellowish tent before they heard anything. As they walked closer, though, they heard something that sounde
d like clapping coming from the tent.
"Tent?" Dwyer asked. "Where the hell did a tent come from? It wasn't here three days ago."
Al Rashid glanced at Koresnagi, noting his color and matching that to the color of the tent. He suddenly shivered. "I'm afraid to ask, but . . . Koresnagi, where did that tent come from?"
"The kessentai who came with you went to the threshworks and asked for the skins of any normals who had been slaughtered for thresh. We don't use them for anything important, so the kessentai in charge let him have them. I'm not sure how he got it turned into a shelter so quickly; I think maybe his lovely cosslain did that somehow."