Menard’s
dataslate in the process.
In spite of himself, Menard jumped
in his seat. His scalp crawled with fright as his spine
shook.
“ Please–” he began, then stopped.
He had to control his reactions to this red-eyed monster. It was
his tool, seconded to him by Russe, and by hierarchs far above the
Bishop, to be sure. Tool or no tool, there was no negotiating with
angels. By definition. They were the Lord’s slaughter weapons of
Ezekiel 9:2, made flesh by the modern word of man. They could only
be directed by the hand of the godly.
And this one was not aimed at him.
No matter what the gurgling fear in his bowels said.
He tried again: “I understand. This
is a priority for me, too. We serve the same ends, my
s-son.”
The angel glared at him, red-eyed
and vibrating, then slowly nodded before stalking out of the ward
room.
How had it known what he was
doing? The thing hadn’t stirred from his
ready room in the days since they’d boarded.
Menard called up his favorite
passage concerning space travel, from Psalms 19. “ The heavens
declare the glory of God;” he read aloud. “And the firmament shows
his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night
shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice
is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and
their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a
tabernacle for the sun.”
He knelt to pray a while, for peace
and wisdom, guidance on the matter of the angel, and if the Lord
were especially kind this day, a greater insight into his purposes
here at Halfsummer. His knees spoke louder than God, but Menard
found peace amid the tingle of incense and the words sent toward
Heaven.
‡
Albrecht: Halfsummer, Gryphon
Landing
The buried ship wasn’t Jenny D . Albrecht
realized that by the time he cleared the inner hatch. Coatimundi -class
freighters weren’t atmosphere-rated, for one thing. They dumped
cargo cans at stations, or lightered their manifests down if need
be. Jenny’s Diamond Bright would have been hard-pressed to make a hydrogen
skimming run through the upper wisps of a J-class planet. Not to
mention she would have been a lot bigger than the hole underneath
this godown could possibly have fitted.
No ,
thought Albrecht with a substantial measure of satisfaction, what
he had here was one of Jenny
D ’s boats. Still substantial proof she
hadn’t gone missing on the Velox run – not that he cared too much,
he wasn’t a fraud manager. More to the point, this little vessel
was something he could pilot on his own.
Too bad the boat was sitting under
a few hundred tons of building, foundation and associated
landfill.
He made his way forward, to the
bridge. As this was a boat, not a ship, space was at something of a
premium. The power-to-weight issues for vessels which confined
themselves to non-relativistic distances would have been familiar
to an early Industrial Age engineer back on old Earth, using only a
pocket computer to design steam locomotives and so
forth.
He found a three-seat flight deck,
hard shields secured over the view ports. It was clean, all
instruments in place. That suggested that the rest of the boat
likely hadn’t been gutted for salvage either. Even stranger, ready
lights blinked to indicate systems on standby.
Who would bury a spaceship, then
leave it turned on?
Someone the locals didn’t like,
obviously. Or the fat man wouldn’t have brought him
here.
How was a more pertinent question. It wasn’t that great a stretch
to imagine landing a cutter in a hole in the ground – he’d bet this
was a Shostakovich -class or similar, not more than thirty meters in length.
It was a great
stretch to imagine landing a cutter in a hole in the ground within
port-controlled airspace without that event being taken notice of.
Unless somebody had ensured a groundside sensor blackout, for
maintenance or training purposes. Even at that, dozens or even
hundreds of people equipped with
dataslate in the process.
In spite of himself, Menard jumped
in his seat. His scalp crawled with fright as his spine
shook.
“ Please–” he began, then stopped.
He had to control his reactions to this red-eyed monster. It was
his tool, seconded to him by Russe, and by hierarchs far above the
Bishop, to be sure. Tool or no tool, there was no negotiating with
angels. By definition. They were the Lord’s slaughter weapons of
Ezekiel 9:2, made flesh by the modern word of man. They could only
be directed by the hand of the godly.
And this one was not aimed at him.
No matter what the gurgling fear in his bowels said.
He tried again: “I understand. This
is a priority for me, too. We serve the same ends, my
s-son.”
The angel glared at him, red-eyed
and vibrating, then slowly nodded before stalking out of the ward
room.
How had it known what he was
doing? The thing hadn’t stirred from his
ready room in the days since they’d boarded.
Menard called up his favorite
passage concerning space travel, from Psalms 19. “ The heavens
declare the glory of God;” he read aloud. “And the firmament shows
his handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night
shows knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice
is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and
their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a
tabernacle for the sun.”
He knelt to pray a while, for peace
and wisdom, guidance on the matter of the angel, and if the Lord
were especially kind this day, a greater insight into his purposes
here at Halfsummer. His knees spoke louder than God, but Menard
found peace amid the tingle of incense and the words sent toward
Heaven.
‡
Albrecht: Halfsummer, Gryphon
Landing
The buried ship wasn’t Jenny D . Albrecht
realized that by the time he cleared the inner hatch. Coatimundi -class
freighters weren’t atmosphere-rated, for one thing. They dumped
cargo cans at stations, or lightered their manifests down if need
be. Jenny’s Diamond Bright would have been hard-pressed to make a hydrogen
skimming run through the upper wisps of a J-class planet. Not to
mention she would have been a lot bigger than the hole underneath
this godown could possibly have fitted.
No ,
thought Albrecht with a substantial measure of satisfaction, what
he had here was one of Jenny
D ’s boats. Still substantial proof she
hadn’t gone missing on the Velox run – not that he cared too much,
he wasn’t a fraud manager. More to the point, this little vessel
was something he could pilot on his own.
Too bad the boat was sitting under
a few hundred tons of building, foundation and associated
landfill.
He made his way forward, to the
bridge. As this was a boat, not a ship, space was at something of a
premium. The power-to-weight issues for vessels which confined
themselves to non-relativistic distances would have been familiar
to an early Industrial Age engineer back on old Earth, using only a
pocket computer to design steam locomotives and so
forth.
He found a three-seat flight deck,
hard shields secured over the view ports. It was clean, all
instruments in place. That suggested that the rest of the boat
likely hadn’t been gutted for salvage either. Even stranger, ready
lights blinked to indicate systems on standby.
Who would bury a spaceship, then
leave it turned on?
Someone the locals didn’t like,
obviously. Or the fat man wouldn’t have brought him
here.
How was a more pertinent question. It wasn’t that great a stretch
to imagine landing a cutter in a hole in the ground – he’d bet this
was a Shostakovich -class or similar, not more than thirty meters in length.
It was a great
stretch to imagine landing a cutter in a hole in the ground within
port-controlled airspace without that event being taken notice of.
Unless somebody had ensured a groundside sensor blackout, for
maintenance or training purposes. Even at that, dozens or even
hundreds of people equipped with
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