by John Scalzi
“Perhaps,” the god said.
“This is a Talent you gave to your own followers,” Tephe said.
“Perhaps,” the god rather extravagantly yawned and made to lay in its circle, as if to sleep.
“Talents hold no power in themselves,” Tephe said. “If a god does not choose to allow it, its grace does not flow to one. If a god is enslaved, all its Talents sleep forever.”
“A master you are of things which hold no interest to us,” the god said. “A master of rules. Of little bindings. Of trivium. Of useless things.”
“Indeed,” said the captain. “This is a thing of no use. Certainly not to the god who created it. And yet if this thing is of so little importance, then it is passing strange a dozen women died attempting to bring it to you.”
From the floor the god shrugged. “We cannot say why women do as they do,” it said. “Nor men. You are all without sense to us. We do not see why your lord”—the words, spit as venom—“holds you so dear. Boring little creatures, you are.”
“You will answer me,” Tephe said. “You will tell me what this thing is to you.”
“We have already answered and told,” the god said. “Ask us again, and we will answer these words to you once more. If we do not fall asleep.”
Tephe stared at the god grimly for a moment and turned slightly toward the other man in the room. “Tell me, priest”—he began, and in turning, let the Talent he lightly held graze into the air above the iron circle.
The god snarled something high-pitched and shattering and snatched viciously at the Talent; only the fact the captain had held it so lightly kept him from losing his hand at the wrist. The Talent was airborne for the briefest of moments, the arc of its path exceeding the height of the god’s chains. It fell, and the god lunged at it, grabbing at it with one hand and then pulling it toward itself, clasping it to its bosom. The god wheeled its head around to glare ferally at the captain, a triumphant grin pulling back its lips to reveal teeth.
Then the god screamed, hideously, and flung the Talent from itself. It clattered across the floor as it exited the iron circle. The god fell to the ground, tearing itself at the places the Talent touched.
Captain Tephe watched all of this, calmly. He glanced toward the priest, who was both terrified and fascinated, torn between fleeing the room, and watching the god tear into itself, leaving gobbets of its godflesh on the iron of its circle.
After a minute of this, Tephe went to the table which controlled the length of the god’s chains, and contracted them all to the floor. The god lay, spread out, writhing as it rubbed the places the Talent touched, hard on the iron. Tephe left the table, retrieved the Talent, and knelt, showing it to the twisting god once more.
“This Talent is my own,” he said. “Given to me by My Lord when I was placed as master of this ship. In your studied disinterest and in your haste to claim it, you did not recognize it for what it was. Because it is of My Lord, it burned you when you held it to you, as you would be burned by a Talent of any other god.”
Tephe reached around his neck and removed a second Talent, and showed it to the god. The god cried and bucked in its chains, trying to gain purchase against its restraints to raise itself. It failed, slipping against its own godblood. Tephe held the Talent well outside the iron circle in any event.
“This is the Talent you seek,” Tephe said. “I would know why you want it.”
“It is ours!” screamed the god.
“It is yours but it is of no use to you,” Tephe said. “To whom would you give it? And to what end? Your grace is gone. You could not help your followers even if you wished it. Why must you have this Talent?”
The god howled and writhed and spit but would not answer. Tephe put the god’s Talent into his blouse and his own back around his neck.
In time the god quieted down. “We are hurt,” it said. “You have hurt us again. Heal us.”
“No,” said Tephe. “These wounds you keep until you heal them yourself. Remember them. Remember also that your tricks and schemes will not avail you here. You are set to our service and you will give it.” He rose. “We will leave here before the end of the watch. Heal yourself and be ready for the direction I give you then.”
“What of our Talent?” said the god.
“It is no longer yours,” Tephe said. “I should have it presented to My Lord when it came to me. I regret not having done. I will have it destroyed instead.” From the iron, the god wept. Tephe turned and left the god’s chamber, Priest Andso trailing behind.
The priest turned to the captain as the latter sealed the chamber portal. “You did not mean what you said to the Defiled,” he said. “About destroying the Talent.”
“I meant it in earnest,” Tephe said. “By your insistence, priest, you were in that chamber. You saw how it grasped for the Talent when I gave it the slimmest of chances. You saw the triumph in its eyes when it thought it had gained it for its own. And so long as it exists, followers of this god will hunt for it, that much is clear. Whatever this Talent is, it is a danger to us and the Righteous so long as it is on this ship. Destroying it is the only course.”
“You would destroy it now, yet you risked your own command to keep it secret,” Andso said.
“That is because I thought I could get knowledge from the god about it,” Tephe said.
“That knowledge is still lacking,” Andso said.
“No, priest,” Tephe said. “I did not go into that chamber expecting the creature to speak the truth of it to me. Its actions were what would speak, and did. The attack on the street could have been nothing more than the fervor of believers mortgaging their lives to free their god.” Tephe fished out the Talent from his blouse and showed it to the priest. “The god’s desire for this says it was not. It plans for something to happen, some event for which it is to play a part, and to which this is a key.”
“We do not know how,” said Andso.
“We do not need to know how,” Tephe said. “If the creature lacks the key, the event cannot happen. It needs this”—Tephe motioned with the Talent—“and we have means to deprive it what it needs, and in doing so destroy the event and the threat to this ship. I will do so.” He turned to go.
Andso reached for the captain’s elbow. “Let us destroy this key,” he said. “But first let me examine it. You spoke truly, captain, when you said this thing has no power in itself. No grace can flow to it. Yet it has power in some fashion, else the Defiled would not desire it so. If we could learn what that power is, it would be intelligence of benefit to Our Lord, and to the Bishopry Militant.”
“It would be intelligence of benefit to you as well, I expect, Priest Andso,” Tephe said.
The priest straightened himself. “Not all are so marked for easy advancement as you, Captain,” he said. “If our coming task indeed comes from the Speaker himself, there is no doubt that if it is successful you will reap the benefit and will leave command of this ship behind you.”
“If it is to be so,” Tephe said. “I am content to be the captain of the Righteous for a good while longer.”
“Indeed,” Andso said, and could not keep the lightest of sneers out of his voice. “There are others of us who would hope for a rather quicker path from her holds, and if I may be so bold, nor do I believe that some of us would be greatly missed. If all of this is accomplished while yet you remain in command, then how much better that all of Our Lord’s faithful on the Righteous might receive what they would wish: you remaining and me going.”
Tephe glanced at the Talent, considering.
“A few days, captain,” Andso said. “And in that time, not an argument or objection or raised eyebrow. A little time is all I ask, to make my fortune as your fortune is already made. In doing so, your fortunes can only rise. Perhaps they will rise so far they will let you keep the Righteous after all.” He placed his hand out to receive the Talent.
Tephe gave it to the priest. “A few days,” he said. “When I say it is to be destroyed, it wi
ll be. That is not a matter of debate.”
“No,” Andso said, gazing at the Talent. “No debate. A little time is all I need.”
“Keep it well away from the god,” Tephe said.
“Of course, Captain,” Andso said. “Thank you. My blessing upon you.” He walked away, toward the priest quarters.
Tephe headed to the bridge and at the last moment turned toward the Rookery. When he arrived he pounded upon the portal rather than keying the chime. Issa answered, saw the look on the captain’s face, and called for Shalle.
Shalle came to the door, face open and curious. Tephe brought his lips down before Shalle could utter words, pressing them both against the portal. Issa stood to the side, eyes wide; if anyone other than the captain were to engage a rook outside a nest, a lash of punishment would be the least of his problems.
“It’s nice to see you too,” Shalle said, when the captain broke his kiss.
“I need to be with you,” Tephe said.
Shalle listened, as much to the quality of his voice as the words he spoke, said, “Yes, I think you do,” and gently pulled the captain inside the rookery. Issa closed the portal behind them.
Chapter Seven
“You have command,” Captain Tephe said abruptly, to Neal Forn. He stood from his chair.
“Sir,” Forn said, impassively, but fixed his captain with the slightest of inquiring eyebrows. The Righteous was moments away from being brought to the unnamed planet. Forn had commanded at such times before, but always on his own watch. In any event it was not a convenient time for a captain to quit his station.
Tephe chose not to respond to his first mate’s unspoken inquiry. Forn would have to get used to doing things without him; if Tephe had any say in it, Forn would soon be captain of the Righteous. More than that, Tephe simply did not have an interest in explaining himself at the moment. He left the bridge without saying another word.
In the corridors of the Righteous were the hum and clatter of industry, as its crew—his crew, for what little time remained to him, Tephe thought—made its preparations for transport and landing. The crew had been informed that the Righteous had been chosen for a mission at the direct order of the Speaker, and the news had lifted their spirits and had grown their faith; the chatter and movement of the crew had regained the confidence that had been sapped by Ament Cour and by hard months onboard. Tephe warmed his own cold doubts in the new sureness of their work, nodding to the crew as they acknowledged his presence among them.
Tephe stopped at the portal of the god’s chamber, and heard a low murmur inside.
He entered.
If Priest Andso was surprised to see the captain of the Righteous in the god chamber, he gave no indication. Andso’s acolytes were not so impassive, but neither of them took more than a small pause in their recitations to note Tephe’s arrival before returning to their task. The voices of the priest and acolytes rose and fell, called and responded, praying to the glory of Their Lord, and using His power to compel the Righteous’ captive god to bring them to where they wished to go.
Tephe turned his attention from the priest and the acolytes and to the god, who stood, simply, motionless, quiet, its eyes closed. Tephe did not pretend to understand how the god did what it did to bring them from one point in space to another, swallowing distances so unimaginably vast that Tephe feared to comprehend them.
They say that they gather the very stuff of space in their minds and twist it, said Wilig Eral, yeoman of the Hallowed, the first ship Tephe ever served upon.
And how do they do that? Tephe asked. He was fourteen, the fourth son of impoverished baronet, landed in a far corner of Bishop’s Call. He was not missed by his older brothers, nor they by him. Being indentured on the Hallowed was a demeaning step down in status from being the son of a baronet, even a minor one. Tephe gloried in having escaped.
If I knew that, boy, you would call me Bishop Eral, the yeoman said. They say the priests know how the gods do it, but I would not recommend you ask them. Priest Oe here would snap you up as an acolyte and never let you visit the rookery.
The young Tephe blushed, remembering his recent first visit, his embarrassment and the gentle good humor of Tei, the rook who gave him his release. I won’t ask the priests, he said.
Good, Eral said. Now help me shelve these supplies.
Much later, when Tephe was no longer in danger of being abducted as an acolyte, he did ask a priest. The priest’s response was a watch-long discourse on the commentaries which spoke to the defeat of the god by Their Lord, and how the priests’ prayers when a god brought a ship across space compelled the god to do only what was required of it, not the god’s own wishes, because the gods were wicked.
Tephe, by this time a new officer on the Blessed, listened politely and realized within the first five minutes that this priest had no answer for him either. Later than this Tephe realized there were no answers that would be given as to how gods brought ships across the stars, or how the ships could use the captive gods as a source of power to keep the crews secure and safe in the cold and airless expanse between the planets.
Tephe was not given to know such things, even as a captain. He was given to have faith: that the ship’s god had powers, and that its powers were controlled by His Lord, through His priests and through His captain—through Tephe himself. Understanding this was not required. Believing it, and showing faith in His Lord was.
Tephe believed. Tephe had faith. If not for himself, then for the sake of his ship and crew.
The captain shook himself out of his reverie and noticed the god staring at him. The stare was seemingly blank, without interest or intent; Tephe wondered if the god, lost in its ritual as it was, even actually saw him.
As if in response, the smallest of feral smiles crept across the gods face, although the eyes remained blank. Tephe was discomfited, as he often was with this god.
Tephe recalled the gods of the other ships on which he had served. The god of the Hallowed was indeed a defeated thing, an inert object with a man’s shape that performed its duties in unquestioning, disinterested silence. Tephe saw it only once and would have been convinced it was a statue had it not been prodded into a small movement by an acolyte’s pike. The god of the Blessed, in contrast, was a toadying, obsequious thing which tried to engage the attention of anyone who entered its chamber. When it spoke to Tephe for the first time, begging him to tarry and speak, the new officer wondered if the god was trying to lure him unwarily into its iron circle, until he later saw an acolyte playing draughts with the thing, well within the circle. The god was letting the acolyte win and praising his every move.
Tephe never spoke to the god of the Blessed.
The god of the Holy was as quiet as the god of the Hallowed but held its dignity. Tephe would have liked to have spoken to it but knew it would not respond to him.
The god of the Righteous was like none of these. The god of the Righteous was not inert, nor obsequious, nor held its dignity. It was capricious and vicious; acolyte Drian had not been the first Righteous crew member who had been attacked by the god in its long tenure aboard the ship. It obeyed at the threat of punishment, and would even then use the weakness of language to perform its task literally correctly and logically at opposing ends. It tested the weaknesses of iron and human. It mocked and spat. It was chained; Tephe would not choose to call it defeated. For the briefest of moments the god’s name began to surface in Tephe’s mind. He hastily shoved it back down into its memory hole, not even allowing himself to give full voice to the name even in mind.
The god, still staring at Tephe, winked at him.
Here is the name of the god, which you must know, if only to bring down Our Lord upon it, said Captain Thew Stur, placing his hand to a single sheet of vellum which lay on his desk. On the sheet was a long word, scrawled in an oxidized ochre hue that Tephe knew was the god’s own blood. Tephe was taking command of the Righteous from Stur, whose weary displeasure of the fact had been well communicated to Tephe
by others. Nevertheless Stur’s allegiance to his ship was such that he treated Tephe with the courtesy owed a captain. Tephe wondered when his time came if he could muster the same.
And this, Stur lifted his hand and placed it this time on a thick parchment envelope with an unbroken seal, this contains the particulars of the god. Who it was before Our Lord defeated it, how Our Lord defeated it, and how the Righteous was built around it. You knew we build our ships around the captured gods?
I have been to the yards, Tephe said.
Of course you have, Stur said. We build the ships to enclose their aura and in doing so the ship becomes part of them. Or so I have heard it said. It was not my task to know.
Tephe nodded slightly at the envelope. You resealed the envelope, he said.
I never opened it, Stur said. Nor did Captain Pher, my predecessor. Nor have any of my predecessors so far as I know.
I don’t understand, Tephe said.
Neither did I when I took command, Stur said. I believed as you do now that a captain knows everything about his ship, every beam and rivet and crew member. But you have to understand, captain, that this god will know what you know about it.
It reads minds, Tephe said.
It reads you, Stur said. It is a god. It apprehends things about us we are not aware of ourselves. The god—this god—will take what you know about it and use it against you. Use it to plant doubt in your mind. To drive a wedge between you and your faith.
My faith is strong, Tephe said.
It would have to be to be given this ship, Stur said. But you have not been captain of a ship before. You have not had the responsibility for every life on it be yours. You have not had the weight of being Our Lord’s strong and flawless arm set on you. You will have doubts, captain. And this god in particular will see that doubt, because it is old and it is malicious. And it will work it against you. And it will use what you know about it to do it.
I understand your concern, Tephe said.