Anger flared into the bitterness. “And that Golliwog?”
“We have...projects. Improvements. Works in progress. Things we’ve learned.”
“Angel killers,” said the priest, trying to keep his unworthy emotions out of his tone of voice.
“Killers and much, much more. We’re trying to walk through c-transition, too, Chor Episcopos. In sheer self defense.” Spinks glanced back at his restive Marines. “Enough questions. We are out of time. You’re either convinced, or you never will be. Choose now.”
Menard shook his head, eyes filling with tears. “You offer to take my memory. Such a bargain, my knowledge in exchange for my life. The world is sinful enough without me compounding it with error. Your answer leaves me no closer to God or to the truth, Lieutenant. Shoot me now and have done with it.”
Spinks waved the Marines over. “Drop him in the rock with the rest of them. Maybe he’ll have another chance someday.”
‡
Menard tumbled through space, praying. He was headed for the syrupy red glow that had swallowed both Dillon and Pearl. Albrecht and the angel were just glittering fog in the vacuum, drifting away from the xenic ship. He wondered which fate was worse. The little homing rocket the Marines had strapped to his back kept his course true, but Menard didn’t even try to fight it.
A snatch of an old hymn crossed his mind, “Oh hear us when we cry to Thee; for those in peril on the sea.”
Down he went, into the red, rolling slowly as he fell into whatever time trap had protected the rockship, and the truth, this last century. Would he go to God now? It was an event horizon down there, a sort of imitation black hole. Menard’s soul might be trapped in the last second of his life til eternity drew to a close.
Even that stirred his imagination. He might see the end of time. God’s plan come to fruition. That would be worth delaying his salvation.
In his last moments in this time, Menard saw batteries on Dmitri Hinton glow with the ionization of prefiring. Setting the contact trail to their targets along Hoxha’s hull. It was like calling shots, though he couldn’t imagine how long it would take Spinks to blast this monster into junk. Then he realized it was not Hoxha that Hinton sought to kill. There was a blaze of energy as missiles from a distant source struck the Naval ship.
St. Gaatha, come calling for her dead angel and her fallen priest.
Civil war had arrived, even without Hoxha.
“Too late, McNally,” he said as he committed his soul to God. “Watch out for rocks.”
That final word was swallowed in the blue deeps of time as fire erupted around Menard in the heavens.
‡ ‡ ‡
About the author:
Jay Lake lives in Portland, Oregon, where he works on numerous writing and editing projects. His books in traditional print for 2011 are Endurance from Tor Books, and Love In the Time of Metal and Flesh from Prime Books. His short fiction appears regularly in literary and genre markets worldwide. Jay is a winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and a multiple nominee for the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards. Jay can be reached via his Web site at http://www.jlake.com/, or http://www.twitter.com/jay_lake.
Jay Lake, Death of a Starship
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