Eternity or Bust: Mission 16 (Black Ocean)

by J. S. Morin

  “I’d hoped to help him move on,” Keesha said, shaking her head slowly.

  “So had I,” Esper replied. “But I—wait a minute. How had you planned to do that? I brought him in here and tried to polish up his soul with a cloth made of repentance and amends. But he’s stubborn as a mule.”

  “I’d planned to use the vish kinah artifact to facilitate his passaging. My God, why else would anyone want the thing? It’s a primitive religious icon. Worthless to anyone who doesn’t believe in it.”

  Esper’s jaw hung low. “Wait. You’re saying that you were stealing a ticket to heaven for Mort?”

  Keesha rolled her eyes. “That’s melodramatic, now, isn’t it? And from what I’d read, it was more like tunneling in from beneath those fluffy white clouds than being let in the gilded gates. The Tal Geru is said to cleanse the soul of any who passes through it. Since it’s a brick of white quartz, I presume they meant a soul that passes through it.”

  “You… know how to work it?”

  Keesha blew a frustrated sigh. “Of course. I wouldn’t have hired someone to steal it if I didn’t. Trampling on the religious rights of primitives isn’t something I take lightly.”

  “Why not just ask them to use it?” Esper asked, incredulous. “After all, when we visited, the vish kinah seemed really kind and pious.”

  Keesha drew back. “If it worked, it was too valuable to leave where it was. Good insurance policy against my own misdeeds following me into the next life.”

  “You’re unbelievable!” Esper said. “I should… I should…” Her breath came in heaving gasps. She didn’t know what came next, but she knew to tread lightly. “You’re going to help me send Mort’s soul along. And you’re lucky we got the Tal Geru back to the vish kinah before it got damaged or lost.”

  Keesha looked abashed. “All this time, I thought I’d failed him. Love does strange things to us all. Even Platonic love.”

  Esper swallowed. Who was she to criticize? She’d barely sorted the love from the lust. Certainly with Cedric the line had become clearer the more time they spent together. He wasn’t Mort. He wasn’t even the parts of Mort Esper had most admired. Cedric had been, quite simply, a man who’d been attainable and resembled an age-appropriate version of someone who hadn’t been.

  With a steadying breath, Esper snuffed the embers of anger at what Keesha had tried to do. “Fine. We send Mort on his way, then?”

  “If any soul would need cleansing in its passage beyond, it’s that one,” Keesha agreed.

  # # #

  The next morning, Esper called for a gathering of all the residents of Pleasant Valley, both temporary and nominally permanent. They came together in the stretch of lawn between the Mobius and the main entrance that had been converted into an outdoor dining room.

  Esper climbed atop one of the steel trestle tables and addressed them. “Thank you all for taking the time to hear what I have to say. This may be hard for some of you to hear, but it needs to be said. Mordecai The Brown is dead.”

  There was an uncomfortable silence as Esper paused.

  No one dared say anything because not everyone was privy to the knowledge of Mort’s present circumstances.

  “Having spoken with Keesha Bell, I’ve discovered that the religious icon known as the Tal Geru was meant to aid in the passing of the soul from this life to the next. It is my intent to travel to Agos VI and visit the Temple of the Half-Year Sun. There, Keesha and I intend to bid farewell to Mort’s eternal soul, ushering it on its way to a better place than I fear it might otherwise alight.”

  Carl held his hands apart. “You’re… sending Mort to heaven? With a crystal statue? At a temple run by otters?”

  “The vish kinah were kind to us,” Esper replied. “I’m sure they’d allow us access to complete the ritual—after tour hours, of course. None of you need to be there. Drop us at a planet or space station and we can pay for passage.”

  Roddy shrugged. “This is Mort, right? I mean, who else should be there but us?”

  Roddy had hated Mort. The two of them were oil and water.

  “We’re not going to be stealing anything, are we?” Shoni asked. “Shooting our way in? Kidnapping anyone?”

  “No…” Esper said cautiously. “We’re going to arrive, contact the priests, and get permission. Considering they threw a feast last time we were there, I can’t imagine them having a problem with us coming for religious purposes.”

  “Very well, then,” Shoni said. “If Roddy wants to go, I’m all for it.”

  “Hardly have to ask,” Carl said. “Mort’s pretty much my all-time favorite curmudgeon.”

  “I’ll fly,” Amy said. “No point making you all take public transport.”

  “A dear colleague,” Archie said. “I could be persuaded to attend the ceremony should we be able to make some small accommodation for sneaking me in.”

  “Actually,” Esper said, taking a deep breath. “I’ve been reading up on Keesha’s research on the Tal Geru. We might be able to do the same for you.”

  “The same?” Archie asked. “As in, shuffle my soul along on its voyage?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  “To sharpen a blunt point,” Archie said. “You want to kill me.”

  Esper felt the heat rising from the collar of her sweatshirt. The environment on this asteroid wasn’t that warm. “No. I mean, maybe. You see, if it worked, it would mean that for spiritual purposes you aren’t currently alive.”

  “Pull the string and let that one talk again,” Archie said irritably. “Tell me one more time that I’m not alive.” He took a menacing step forward.

  “Theologically!” Esper protested quickly. “If you’re really alive, nothing would happen at all. You don’t have to decide now. You’re welcome to come along and not try to go with Mort.”

  All through the litany of protests and well-wishes, Esper kept expecting to hear commentary from Mort. But the wayward soul trapped inside her kept his peace. It was the clearest sign that she was making the right decision here. Mort wasn’t clinging to this disembodied existence with the ferocity she’d feared. Holovid portrayals of exorcisms had haunted her worries since coming up with this plan.

  In the end, everyone who’d known Mort volunteered to attend the ritual at the Temple of the Half-Year Sun. But the surprise was the one who hadn’t known him at all.

  “If none of you mind,” Enzio said. “I wouldn’t mind paying my final respects to an infamous colleague. Never met Mordecai The Brown, but I hear he was one helluva wizard.”

  Enzio came up and shook Esper’s hand after the speech. He kept looking her in the eye, perhaps unused to dealing with fellow wizards after years of employ with the Ruckers.

  He’d have to learn to be more careful, or some less-scrupulous wizard might end up doing him real harm.

  # # #

  It was days later when the Mobius arrived at Agos VI. By mutual agreement, they’d used the star-drive to get there, bypassing their wizardly shortcut around the laws of physics and using good old-fashioned magical technology to violate them instead.

  Carl had never been a big fan of the planet. While Agos VI was Earth-like, the native vish kinah held an unusual fondness for the colder climates. The Temple of the Half-Year Sun was built above the Arctic Circle, in an area that humans called Alaska back home. Or maybe the Northwest Territories. Carl was shit with geography, and the otter-like vish kinah didn’t label their local maps with Earth-equivalent boundary lines.

  The crew had packed a tram car, oddly quiet and subdued, on the ride up the mountainside. Along the way, Carl kept trying to catch Enzio’s attention, but the Rucker wizard impersonator was too distracted to take notice.

  Well, that was understandable since Esper was planning an attempt to banish his soul to the afterlife. Carl honestly didn’t know what to expect, and he imagined that Mort didn’t, either.

  At the tram station, one of the vish kinah priests met them as soon as the doors opened. “Ah, the angel Es
per,” Pavel said with a bow. “What a pleasure to be of service.”

  Esper swallowed in a vain attempt at humility. That girl couldn’t get enough of people fawning over her righteousness instead of her looks. Tell her “wow, that dress looks great on you,” and she’d give a guy a look fit to curdle milk. But mention that “boy, your soul’s looking awfully full of itself today,” and she’d glow.

  “Thank you for taking us in after hours,” Esper said with a bow.

  “Yeah,” Carl added as he stepped into the sub-freezing atmosphere. “Be a shame if we had to wait until morning.” Of course, with the “Half-Year Sun” tagline being literal, it would be months before the sun peeked above the horizon here.

  Their guide chose to ignore Carl’s sarcasm and chatted with Esper on the frigid walk to the temple. Without the usual clutter of orbital and sub-orbital traffic, the stars shone clear in the Black Ocean above. Carl wished he were back up among them, seeing the galaxy the way it was meant to be seen: from the inside of a climate-controlled starship.

  Lagging at the back of the group, Carl pulled Enzio aside. He couldn’t risk them being overheard. Archie had radar ears, and who knew how good that otter priest could hear.

  Carl titled his head, eyes wide. A question.

  Enzio twisted up his mouth and shrugged. That needed no translation.

  Carl spread his hands. What did Enzio mean by that?

  Enzio waved a hand forward for them to catch up with the group. He was willing to wait and see what happened.

  Over the years, Carl had grown accustomed to keeping his mind a shattered mess, the pieces swept up and kept in a plastipaper box in his mental attic. But aside from a brief stint battling Lloyd Arnold, he’d been careful to keep all the pieces together. Having one of them cut off, trapped behind enemy lines under an assumed identity, would have driven him nuts.

  Having that mental spy slated for execution would have been cause for real alarm. Carl could only hope that Mort had a rescue plan ready. Did funerals have a similar clause as weddings: if anyone objects to this laying to rest, speak now or forever have a chunk of your essence consigned to the afterlife.

  Archie was another matter. The robot had been usually subdued during the trip. What this represented to him, Carl could hardly imagine. Frankly, he could hardly imagine the life of a regular wizard, seeing past the technological to the circuits and mechanics of the universe below the access panels of reality. Living a wizard’s life from inside a computerized brain was weirder than weird. Maybe the cranky old pile of circuits had finally found the emergency eject to an eternity as an appliance.

  If they were lucky, Esper might zorch Archie and let Mort off the hook.

  Carl’s boots crunched and squeaked in new fallen snow. The sky was clear now, but not long before, there had been a snowstorm. Either that, or there hadn’t been many visitors of late and the priests didn’t bother clearing it. It wasn’t until the steps of the Temple of the Half-Year Sun itself that the footing was clear and dry.

  Pavel didn’t bother wiping his feet, tracking snow into the temple. Of the other guests, only Esper made an effort to clean hers.

  Inside the temple, it was marginally warmer, if only because the wind was held at bay by the mountain itself. Carl pushed back the hood of his parka, wishing the damn retrovert priests allowed thermal circuits or any other quality-of-life tech in their temple. He shivered as quietly as he could, still trying to maintain an air of authority in a place where he was about as low down the chain of command as it got.

  “You warm enough?” he asked Amy as he caught up to her.

  “Not willing to give up an extra parka while it was tit-freezing cold?” she joked. Carl winced at the implication, but she quickly put a gloved hand on his arm. “It’s all right. I’m fine.”

  “I promised safe,” Carl said with a wink. “Not warm.”

  Pavel guided the group through the temple to a place they’d never been before. The altar of the Tal Geru. It looked different now as the centerpiece of a cathedral dedicated to honoring it. Certainly it looked grander than it had perched on the kitchen table of the Mobius or slung under Carl’s arm as he carried it back to the priests.

  Pavel held a hushed conversation with Esper and stepped aside, allowing her to access the relic unimpeded.

  Esper took off her gloves and held a conversation with the hunk of crystal. Keesha stood by her side. Everyone else crowded together a couple meters back, trying in vain to listen in.

  None of them had come in knowing what to expect. Esper had been vague on details. Keesha had been more forthcoming but no more helpful. The vish kinah, it seemed, weren’t in the habit of keeping walking, talking souls around to consult on the process. They had faith that it worked as they claimed but no hard evidence to back it up. Pray, bid farewell, pray a little more, then go have a nice meal to celebrate what they’d done.

  Enzio caught Carl’s eye, and Carl could see the tension.

  Suddenly, Esper sucked in a huge breath and arched her back. She turned slowly to face the crew, eyes wide and wet with tears. “It worked. It was… beautiful.”

  Pavel came up and clasped Esper’s hands in his own. “I am truly humbled. You have performed a great service today for your departed friend. It is traditional to speak to the ascended.”

  The telltale popping of a beer can echoed. “Here’s to you, old pal,” Roddy said, hoisting a can of Earth’s Preferred. “Couldn’t have asked for a better wizard.”

  Cedric stepped forward. “Father, I never knew you as well as I wished. I hope that in the next life, I will.”

  Keesha dabbed at the corners of her eyes. “Till death do us part has been paid in full. I expect to have my fair chance with you in the next life, Mordecai.”

  One by one, the rest of the crew took their turns. Even a misty-eyed Enzio, who gave a rousing yet generic eulogy. At the very end, Esper gave Carl a stern look.

  Oh. Yeah. His turn.

  He cleared his throat. “Chuck Ramsey was and always has been an asshole. I’ve known it most of my life. Mort, you were the father I chose, not the one who got lucky with my mom. I know you’re out there, somewhere—could be pretty much anywhere—watching us. So I just wanted you to know this. We’d all have been dead a long time ago if you hadn’t been there for us.”

  Archie stepped forward. “What was it like? I mean, for him.”

  “You know Mort,” Esper said. “Grumpy, cantankerous, irritable. I don’t think I’d ever seen him weeping in joy until just now.”

  Archie nodded. “Try me. Please.”

  Carl was taken aback. Sure, he expected the robotic former wizard to be curious. But if Carl had been a betting man—and somewhere deep down that he wasn’t supposed to talk about, he still was—he’d have bet the title on the Mobius that Archie would have chickened out.

  Everyone shuffled back into their spectating semi-circle. Esper took Archie by the arm and guided him to the Tal Geru.

  She repeated the same ritual, and again Carl couldn’t make out the words. It was as if the universe was swaddling those gentle syllables in silk. No amount of eavesdropping could interfere with what Carl imagined was a laser comm straight to God.

  Tension grew among the crew as the ritual went on for longer than it had seemed the first time. Fists clenched. Weight shifted from foot to foot. Amy took Carl’s hand and squeezed tight enough to impede blood flow.

  At last, Esper slumped forward. So did Archie.

  “No!” Yomin shouted. “It shouldn’t have worked.” She caught the inert robot before he toppled over.

  They repeated the ritual of farewells with Yomin weeping the whole time.

  # # #

  The mood aboard the Mobius was somber. The only one who truly looked upbeat was Esper. Of course, she was the one who’d experienced the religious orgasm of talking to God directly and getting results. Also, she was the only one who’d just stopped being haunted by the ghost of a wizard she’d kind of killed.

  Keesha and
Hobson didn’t rejoin them. Agos VI was a friendly, low law-enforcement world. Wherever they were headed next, Keesha wouldn’t say, but they’d be able to book passage off world without getting arrested.

  Probably.

  Enzio looked as if he wanted to say something to her. That had been his chance. As far as anyone else knew, he wasn’t Mort. He could have chased after Keesha, confessed quietly on the side, maybe lived out another hundred lifetimes together with her in Mortania.

  That didn’t sound like the Mort Carl knew.

  “Can I have a word with you, captain?” Enzio asked softly in an aside as everyone got settled.

  “Sure.”

  The two of them adjourned to the stateroom that had been Rai Kub’s—and more recently, Keesha’s. Enzio waved his fingers at the door, and Carl imagined they were able to speak freely.

  “What’s up?” Carl asked. “Freaked out a little?” He tried to soften the question with a lopsided grin, but it didn’t seem to be helping.

  “More than a little,” Enzio replied. He gave a whole-body shudder. “Gives me the willies to think I’m in pieces, shipped off to God-knows-where while the rest of me is standing right here.”

  “Kinda surprised it worked,” Carl said.

  “Me too,” Enzio admitted. “I put all my regret and self-reproach into that wispy little shard—can’t get rid of all of it, mind you. But I didn’t think the blasted, weepy little fool would go through with it.”

  “No,” Carl said. “I mean I’m surprised they let you in. You’re practically the ad campaign for the competition. Dark magic, no consequences. Sign up today for a body-stealing afterlife right here in realspace.”

  Enzio scowled, using that pretty-boy face like a mask over the Mort Carl knew and loved. “Listen here, boy. Might be that I stomp those fractured minds of yours to powder and only leave the Carl Who Thinks Mort’s Really Dead.”

  It was an idle threat, but Carl held up his hands in mock surrender. “Hey, no one’s hearing it from me. I kept that book secret longer than anyone’s been on the crew. Far as I know, you’re just a fellow refugee from Tanny’s bedroom.”