The Ruby Celeste Series - Box Set, books 1 - 3: Ghost Armada, Dire Kraken, and Church of Ife

by Nicholas J. Ambrose

The fifth differed. It began the same: with uneasy morning prayer. Francis tended now to let his mind go blank, but half an hour of it was hard work; he often fidgeted, and could not help but glancing around the room. Twice he found Abraham had strolled in, and quickly closed his eyes before he or Grace could see, redoubling his efforts to appear as though he was praying.

  After the bell signalled the end of the morning’s prayer, Remie told Francis: “We have a sermon to attend.”

  “We do?”

  Remie nodded. “They’re daily, and our groups each attend once a week. Saturdays are ours.”

  Of course. Francis had interrupted a sermon on his first morning here, when he’d come to ask Abraham if he might join the Church of Ife’s ranks. Since, he hadn’t thought of it.

  “Come sit at the front,” Remie said, leading Francis to a pew.

  Francis would have preferred the back. Regardless, he brooked no argument.

  “Today is my day,” said Remie happily.

  “You’re delivering the sermon?”

  “I am!” Remie grinned. “I hope you like it!”

  The hall filled quickly, and the sermon soon began.

  Francis could not help but listen with awe. Remie spoke with such ease.

  She read an extract from Impartations. Halfway through, it was not a section Francis had reached; he was still muddling around perhaps fifty pages in.

  The story was this: one day Ife was alerted, by her son, of a young boy in the village. He was little older than six or seven, and rarely interacted with the other children. His father had died, and except for a cat, the child was alone.

  For the longest time, this cat was the child’s only friend. And then, one day, the urchin awoke to discover his beloved cat had died. It had been old even when the child was born, cataracts forming milky spots in its eyes, its fur gone thick and bristly. Now the cat had finally passed—and the boy was alone. He had curled up down one of the alleys between wooden houses, and sodden with mud, he lay bawling.

  The children did not know what to do. None of them knew him. Barely any knew his name, for he interacted so rarely with them.

  Ife’s son came to her, and told her of this boy. Ife immediately set off, followed first by her son, then the other children on the island.

  She found the wretched boy, and kneeled beside him.

  She whispered. She told him of how that cat had known his love for all his life; and that, if there was a great beyond, the cat would take that love into the next. Likewise, the boy would always remember the adoration and companionship the cat had shown him.

  “But what now?” he had sobbed. “I don’t have anyone!”

  “You don’t have anyone? No, but don’t you see? You have everyone in the world!”

  “I don’t!” he protested. “My father is dead, and now my cat is gone too! I have no family!”

  “Our family comes from the bonds we form,” Ife said. “Miles may separate us, but family is not just blood. It is our shared experience and love. It is our friendship that brings us together, not our genes.”

  Francis’s lips quirked down.

  When Remie’s sermon was finished, she asked him, “What did you think?”

  “It was great. Really great. Well done.”

  She looked pleased. “Thank you!”

  And so the first week grew into the second. The routine grew familiar. Francis stopped asking Remie where they were going. He came to know how to operate the machinery in the hydroponics bay. With supervision from Jenny and Allison, he learned how to plant his first seeds in the liquid feed: carrots. Stanley talked a little more. Katja made polite, if uneven, conversation, and Francis returned it. Even Luke, the wiry man with a limp handshake, opened up. Not much, but something was better than nothing.

  It was not just these people, either. As faces became recognisable, Francis found others in Remie’s larger slice of New Calais’s populace exchanging nods and hellos with him. He would never keep all their names down, but it didn’t stop Remie from telling him, and nor did it stop him from trying.

  Personal study continued. He delved deeper into Impartations. His struggles with the language began to abate as he learned its cadence. No longer tripping over words (at least not as frequently), he found he could ingest the stories.

  Ife was everything the church said. Loving. Kind. Patient. Understanding. She was a paragon of virtue through and through.

  Yet there was something Francis could not place. Something discordant. It did not come from the story, but his surroundings. Every time he returned to the central cathedral, he could not help but frown at the renderings on the walls.

  So too continued morning prayer. Francis was still not as good at this. Sudden stabs of self-consciousness would turn him rigid. He’d glance about, trying to approximate the stances of the people nearest.

  Hardest was when Abraham came by. No matter what Francis did, he could not make his body feel natural.

  Every night, he spoke with Ruby. He would answer questions, providing the scant information he could. Then they would move to normal conversation; share a few jokes. Now and again Ruby brought his other friends to the radio. Natasha. Mikhail. Vala. Stefan. They all had kind words. Francis was elated to hear their voices. Sam even came one evening, and Francis delivered some fairly one-sided conversation.

  “He misses you,” Ruby said when Sam was gone.

  “I doubt it,” said Francis. “He’s probably just hoping I hurry back so I can help him out again.” Still, he could not help but smile. He missed Sam, too.

  He spoke to Brie once. She was more harried than ever, speaking almost too fast for him to understand. He had laughed, and forced her to slow down. By the sound of it, Brie had not found it easy.

  She was sad when Ruby said she had to go. Francis felt a pang of pity for her, but promised he would speak again soon.

  Spurned by the lack of details he had been able to give Ruby, Francis threw himself further into life on New Calais. He accompanied Remie on evening jaunts to the satellite islands. He visited Echo’s listening station, plugging in a set of headphones and listening to classical music beamed from radio emitters half a world away. He took to Index and trawled its vast library, suddenly aware of just how much he missed having books to hand that were not his own crumpled diary, or the religious text he was becoming steadily more familiar with. He visited Promenade, and its open parks and footpaths. Even the two parking bays were fair game for exploration.

  He wished to be a part of island life, he told Remie. And it was true, but he also scoured these places for any hint of weapons—or any clues as to the shroud.

  Again and again he found the same: none.

  11

  Francis sat at the loom one morning. His fingers worked imprecisely, but he was slowly coming to get the hang of it. There was no way he could ever be a match for Vala, but in a few weeks—if he was here that long—his work might at least be passable.

  Jenny Harris was in the middle of a story about her life before the church, when Francis’s eye caught.

  Cresting the rise, accompanied to the left by a man in perhaps his middle forties, and to the right by Grace with her usual dress and bare feet, was Abraham. The adults chatted jovially.

  Grace glanced over. She met Francis’s eye.

  He expected her to look away.

  Today, she did not.

  In fact, she smiled.

  Francis’s eyebrows quirked in surprise. He’d not seen Grace express anything other than serene disinterest at the world.

  He shook a little wave.

  Grace grinned. She lifted a hand of her own and flapped it back. She took her dress, just above the hem, and wagged it side to side. Then she took her hair in balled palms and wagged that too.

  “Looks like you made a friend.”

  Francis glanced to Remie. She appraised Grace with a pleasant smile.

  Francis looked back her way. Grace was still smiling at him. At her side, Abraham continued to speak to the m
an on his right. He paused momentarily to cast Grace a look, and placed a hand on her shoulder, and ushered her up the path with him.

  Francis watched them go. Grace kept eyes on him the entire way—then she disappeared behind a bush and was gone.

  12

  Two weeks passed.

  True to Remie’s words, Francis grew accustomed to the five o’clock start. He did not relish it as most of the island seemed to, but at least he did not trudge to the cathedral for prayer in a fug.

  In his usual spot, he bowed. Closed his eyes … and let his mind blank.

  It went easier now. He did not feel self-conscious. He did not glance at the men and women crouched around him. He did not fidget, nor did he go rigid, certain he looked completely unnatural. He simply kneeled, and let himself be.

  Before he even wondered how long it had been, the bell chimed to end the half-hour. He blinked and straightened, surprised at himself.

  He was just about to leave the room when a tap came on his shoulder.

  “Good morning,” said Abraham. “Would I be able to speak to you a moment?”

  “Of course.” Francis exchanged a look with Remie. “I’ll meet you on Knot shortly.”

  Remie nodded, and bade farewell.

  When the room had cleared, Abraham said, “I watched you this morning. You have done very well.”

  “Thank you,” said Francis. “That means a lot.”

  “I’m sure you’ve seen my coming and going these past two weeks. I saw your struggle.”

  Francis winced. Had it been that obvious?

  Abraham smiled. “Worry not, friend. Many newcomers are just the same. That you’ve been able to strike the connection with Ife you appear to, and in just two weeks … it’s very impressive. You ought to be very proud.”

  “Thank you,” Francis said again. He tried not to feel awkward. Especially as the ‘connection’ Abraham thought he’d made this morning was simply turning into a blank slate for half an hour.

  Weighing his words carefully, Abraham said, “I’ve observed you, and I think—no, I know—you are ready to become a true member of our church.”

  Now Francis’s surprise came through. “You do?”

  “I do. You have thrown yourself into every aspect of our life with gusto. You may not be perfect—your stitching could use some work,” he said with a friendly glint; Francis grinned “—but you embody everything it is we—and Ife herself—hold most dear.”

  Francis nodded. “How do I become a true member of the church? Is there something I need to do?”

  “Just one thing,” said Abraham. “We ask it of all our number. It is one last sign that you have connected with Ife and taken her teachings on-board.”

  “What is it?”

  “You must deliver a sermon.”

  “Uh … to the people in my group? Like Remie did last week?”

  Abraham nodded. “Just like that.”

  Francis swallowed. “I … I, err … I’m not really good at public speaking.”

  Abraham laughed. “You can do it. And even if your words come muddled, we don’t judge here. You can take as long as you need.”

  Francis’s throat was dry. His face downturned. A sermon? How on earth was he supposed to give one of those? And after just two weeks? These people had been here years, in most cases. What right did he have preaching to people who knew the book better than him?

  “I can see you’re apprehensive,” said Abraham.

  “A little,” Francis confessed.

  “Don’t be. There’s no hurry. And you can talk on any topic or story you wish. Our only guideline is that you discuss something meaningful and personal to you.”

  Francis thought. Already he was shifting over the stories he’d gathered up. None of them seemed like much of anything now.

  “Can you do that?” Abraham asked.

  No, Francis wanted to say. But he was here. He’d spent the past two weeks doing this. All that work—it couldn’t be for naught. And if he had to give a sermon to cement the Church of Ife’s trust—then that would be what he did.

  So: “Yes,” he said, steeling. “I can do it.”

  Abraham smiled. He patted Francis on the shoulder. “Good man.”

  Back and Forth and Back Again

  (Chapter Nine)

  1

  “They want you to give a sermon?”

  Ruby sat in the Harbinger’s command centre. Except for her and Francis’s voice, mired by crackles, she was alone. Her tricorne lay beside her. Idle fingers pulled at curls.

  “Apparently so,” said Francis. “Abraham says once I have, I’ll be a true member of the church.”

  “When do you have to give it?”

  “He didn’t give me a deadline. But it could be any time. The church’s followers are split into groups, and each one sits through a sermon one morning a week.”

  “When is your group’s?”

  “Saturdays. I suppose anything I deliver will be then.”

  “At least five days clear, then.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Interesting.” Ruby breathed a laugh.

  “What?”

  “Just hard to imagine you as a preacher.”

  Francis returned the chuckle. “Don’t try too hard. Do you have any idea just how weird it is wearing robes all day?”

  “Now you’ve got half an idea of why I don’t like dresses.”

  Francis laughed. “Low blow.”

  Ruby grinned to herself.

  “How’s life on the ship?”

  “Nothing interesting to report,” said Ruby.

  It was true. In the two weeks that had elapsed, not much of anything had happened. Ruby’s phantom flu had left just a couple of days after leaving New Calais. Darrel was pleased, as was Vala, and both cited the benefits of the respective pills and botanical concoctions in Ruby’s swift recovery. Ruby, meanwhile, only felt frustrated. If they had waited as she had wished, it could be her endangering her life on New Calais, not Francis.

  Not that he was particularly endangered, by the sound of it. According to the nightly reports he had delivered like clockwork this past fortnight, the Church of Ife was everything they professed to be: kind and loving and welcoming.

  And yet they’d stolen a religious relic from a high security research facility, or at least sanctioned its theft.

  These things did not add up.

  Ruby had brought it up to Trove, and to Natasha.

  Neither had been much help. Not that Ruby expected them to be. The only route to answers right now was Francis—and Francis was miles away, where Ruby could not help him.

  “We should go back,” she had said one day.

  “What?” Trove asked in alarm.

  “No, we shouldn’t,” Natasha said firmly.

  “Francis could be walking right into trouble!”

  “Francis knew what he was getting into when he signed up for this,” said Natasha. “If there is trouble, he’s well-placed to spot it and advise us so we can figure out what to do.”

  Ruby huffed at this. She opened her mouth to throw out the first argument that could spring forth, unformed until it spilt over her lips, but Natasha cut across first.

  “Francis is careful. He won’t do anything rash. He won’t even draw their attention. And if he does,” she said, slightly louder, as Ruby had opened her mouth again, “he has a gun to deal with it.”

  “He barely knows how to use it! You saw him when Mikhail handed it over. He was scared of the damn thing.”

  “Which is exactly why Francis will continue to lay low and play it carefully.” Natasha fixed Ruby with a sympathetic look. “Don’t underestimate him. He saved your life back on Harmonics. He and Brie saved all of us in the summer. He’s capable.”

  “I’m not underestimating him,” Ruby said, voice low. “I just don’t want him to die.”

  Trove and Natasha had at least provided one gem of advice: “Keep your concerns to a minimum when talking to him. He already knows. Knowing
you’re worrying will only stress him.”

  As per their advice, Ruby had kept communicating her qualms to a minimum. Not easy; not in the slightest. Every time she heard his voice she wanted to issue a command to take the ship back and pick him up, shroud be damned. But, grudging though she was to admit it, Natasha and Trove were right, so she kept schtum.

  This had been the way the last two weeks had passed. Ruby contacted Francis once a night, after a day’s mounted worry. Her fears would not go, but at least abate on hearing him. Then, once the call was ended, she was free to begin worrying again.

  There were other things, of course. Two calls to Magnus Dwight, to keep him posted. The Harbinger had also pulled into a small SkyPort called Optimal Optometry to restock.

  Otherwise, it was business as usual.

  “Everyone’s okay?” Francis asked. A pause. “Missing me?”

  Ruby hesitated. She opened her mouth.

  “How’s Brie?”

  She stopped. Breathed a silent breath. Eyes closed, she wrung a hand through her hair. “Brie’s fine. She’ll, ah, she’ll be along for her shift soon. Speaking of.” She cleared her throat, and cast her communicator a wary eye. “I’d better go before they come in. Wouldn’t want to distract them.”

  “All right. Yeah, probably best for me, too. Got a sermon to prepare.” Even over the crackly channel, Ruby heard the smile in Francis’s voice. “Talk to you soon, Ruby.”

  “Talk to you soon. Stay safe, Francis.”

  She thumbed the channel closed.

  The room was silent.

  Eyes shut, Ruby leaned into her hand.

  I miss you.

  “Miss Celeste?”

  She looked up. Brie had slid open the door. She hovered just inside the threshold.

  “Hi, Brie.” Ruby inhaled. Composed herself. She plucked up her tricorne and placed it atop her head. “You’re early.”

  “I wondered if I might be able to speak to Francis.”

  Of course. “He just went. He has a few things to do.”

  “Oh.”

  The tableau dragged. Ruby, stood at the front of the room, trying desperately not to let her false smile falter; Brie, by the door, looking … wounded? Angry? No, neither of those was right. But there was an unhappy cast to her face, and it was not entirely sadness at having missed Francis. No, there was blame there, too. Blame for Ruby.