BC takes a short-hopper from Rome to Panama. In Panama he discovers his shuttle leaves for Lunar Prime in just over an hour.
Let's see if I can board the ship now, early. Be nice to settle in for the trip ahead.
His collar and credentials provide him with quick and easy access to the ship well ahead of the other passengers. He boards almost immediately. The passenger cabin is empty. Most of the attendants aren't even aboard yet. BC finds his way to his seat, puts his carry-ons away, and stretches out to grab some sleep before takeoff.
Nice. Sometimes I feel like someone really is looking out for me...
BC lies back on the reclining acceleration couch with his eyes closed, hovering on the edge of sleep.
The passenger cabin is mine alone for the next half an hour. Ahhh, the gift of blissful silence...
BC is jarred awake as someone bounces into him. The passenger cabin is full of people stowing luggage, squeezing past each other in the aisle, and one of them has just plopped into the seat next to his, bumping into and waking him up in the process.
Wonderful. Company.
A sickly sweet floral smell assaults his nose.
What is that? Roses dying in the sun? Is that perfume? My God! I'm gonna gag.
"Hi there! I guess we're seat mates! I'm Sharlena, Sharlena Swan. Reverend Swan, actually. I'm with the church. Oh look, you are, too! Well, hello there Father!"
BC closes his eyes. He opens them back up. And focuses. Tall black woman, sky blue shirt with a clerical collar, leaning forward, trying to push carry-on luggage into a space too small for it under the seat in front of her.
She's still there. Damn. I'd hoped I was hallucinating. That's her, though, isn't it? The one assigned to "whip me into shape." Thought she was supposed to come up in a couple days? Better be nice...
"Hi. I was, um, I was sleeping. Sorry."
"Oh, don't be sorry. Sorry I woke you up! I'm just really excited! I've never been to the Moon before; I could just die! I've never even been in space at all. Is this your first time?" the words spill out in a rush.
"No."
"Oh, good, so you're a veteran! You can tell me all about it when we're on our way there, Father... ?" She fishes for his name.
"Actually, if you'll forgive me, I was hoping to get some sleep."
She shuts up at this rebuke. BC closes his eyes, but he can feel her energy shift from excited to agitated as she quietly continues to try to shove her bag beneath the seat in front of her and ready herself for takeoff. Her nonverbal grunts and grrs as she strains get louder, until she lets out an exasperated, "oof." BC opens his eyes again. One of the attendants is standing in the aisle next to Reverend Swan.
"Reverend? Ma'am? We can stow that for you in back. It's really too large for that space."
"But it's my bag!"
"It won't be safe there during the trip, ma'am. Please?"
"All right. Here," she says, and hands the tote up to the attendant. The attendant struggles to lift and hold the bag, then turns and manages it back down the aisle.
"Sorry," Swan says when she sees he's awake again. "So, you're going to the Moon, too?"
"Be pretty foolish of me to be on this ship if I wasn't, huh?" BC shifts in his seat.
"So you're a wise guy, too, huh? I betcha I know who you are. You're Father Bernard Campion, aren't you?" She asks, looking him in the eye with an air of certainty and triumph.
"Who? No, sorry." BC closes his eyes. Swan keeps talking.
"Really? I thought you might be. It'd be a huge coincidence, but it could happen. I'm supposed to work with another priest who's traveling up to the Moon, too. I wasn't even supposed to be on this flight, but when I found out I could go early I jumped at the chance. Are you sure you're not him?"
BC doesn't open his eyes. "I'm sure."
"You wouldn't lie to another priest, would you, Father?"
BC mumbles a negative and pretends to fall back asleep. A sharp pain lances through his temples. He sits up involuntarily.
"Are you okay?" She asks.
She sounds so far away... Woah, I don't think so...
When BC comes to he's being smothered by Swan's sickly sweet perfume as she tries to prop him up. The attendant arrives with a hot towel for his forehead.
"You okay, Father? You blacked out, started to slide down to the floor," Swan asks with concern.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm okay now. I... I get migraines," BC says, pulling away from her ministrations.
"Yeah, looks like you got a whopper," she says as she settles back in her seat.
"I just need to sleep," BC says, closing his eyes again. The towel feels good on his forehead.
"Oh. Oh, sorry, Father. I didn't mean to bother you. I'll try to be quieter, so you can sleep."
Was that a hint of sarcasm in the reverend's voice? I wonder.
BC sleeps and the shuttle lifts off, carrying them to Lunar Prime. BC doesn't wake up until they are just minutes from landing. The Reverend Swan, as good as her word, has been silent during the entire eight hour flight.
At least she didn't say anything to me that I could hear.
What a dead sleep! I must really have been tired.
BC leans over to look out the viewport at the approaching moonscape. Reagan Station. Lunar Prime.
Almost looks like home. Been gone a while. Four months, plus.
BC watches the buildings, domes, passageways and bunkers grow closer. Then something catches the corner of his eye.
FLASH!
It's there for all of two seconds, but it's there.
Was that a flasher? A flasher! Another one! Same type of ship. It didn't look alien. But it didn't look like any human ship I've ever seen, either. Damn!
BC feels his head split with sharp pain, like an ice pick through his skull. He has to close his eyes, feels his consciousness swim then disappear. He only comes to when the Reverend Swan shakes him awake.
"Father! We're here! We're on the Moon! Wake up! Head still bugging you? Maybe it's the cabin pressure. I'm sure I'll see you again Father, probably in church, huh? I'm going now."
"Goodbye," BC says, groggily. Swan gives him a puzzled look, then turns to make her way down the aisle.
Got to get my shit together. Wonder if I did see that ship. Damn headaches. Where'd they come from? Where'd that ship come from? Contrary to the testimony of the late Captain Longeux, that one was awfully close to the Moon.
What if they're actually locals? Got to be based somewhere. It looks like a Transpace ship, though, so it could be based anywhere between here and Mars. Maybe in orbit. The Moon is a big place, too, though. Makes me wonder.
"Sir? Father? Are you all right?"
"What?" BC looks up. The attendant is standing in the aisle next to his row.
"You're the last one on board. It's time to get off."
"Right. Thanks."
Woah. Feeling kind of out of it. Got to wake the fuck up!
BC gets up, gets off the ship, makes his way through the Lunar Prime spaceport and heads back to his rooms in the Vatican Mission.
Lunar Prime is bustling, people everywhere rushing to work, back home, on errands, social calls. Normal life continues for most people. BC does notice a couple of businesses are closed, shut up and dark.
If I remember right, those were Moslem owned businesses. They've no doubt left, since their government is attacking us.
Looks like there have been even more attacks. There's construction everywhere. Maybe our section again, too. We've gotta do something to better defend ourselves here. They're gunning for us.
You know, I really hope it's not my fault.
BC turns off the main concourse and walks down the smaller corridor that leads to the Vatican Mission on the Moon. Everything's shiny and bright, well lit.
Everything looks normal, but, I don't know, it feels different, somehow. Probably just me. I'm different. I felt all right when I was at the Vatican, back on Earth. It's just since I got on that ship this morning... Maybe I did get these h
eadaches back at The Vatican but just don't remember? Is that possible?
What did they do to me out there on that crazy station? How many of those drugs they laced my food with are still in my system? They checked me out back in Rome, but what if there's shit they missed? Too many questions. I don't like it.
There are too many messages waiting for him back in his rooms. BC checks the most recent, then stores the others away for the future. The two most recent messages are from the Cardinal and Marc Edwards.
"Hello, Campion," The Cardinal's message begins. The Cardinal sounds more somber than usual. "Welcome back. I'll check in with you later today. There's... there's something I want to discuss with you."
He doesn't sound like his usual bubbly self. Wonder what's up?
Edward's message is next. "BC! I hear you're back today! Glad you're alive and well. I thought you were gonna be gone a couple'a weeks, not almost half a year! Hope you're okay and all. Call me when you've settled in. See you then."
Thanks for caring, Marc.
BC's conversation with M'Bekke comes back to mind.
Nah. I don't think he's gay. Does he have a girlfriend?
Man, I need a girlfriend. A little female companionship would be nice, and I'm not talking about the quality time I'm going to have to spend with the Reverend Swan.
BC looks around.
Funny, this place really does feel like home. Rome was okay. And I sure don't miss my little closet on Fortune Station. It's nice to come back here. I'll return my messages later...
He sinks down on his bed and falls fast asleep.
BC dreams no dreams. Just a deep, long night's sleep.
He still wakes up feeling hungover.
Did I go on a bender last night? I don't remember...
He checks his new messages. 34!
Thirty-four messages? Man, I just got back, who's calling me like this?
Wait a sec, what's this?
The most current message is dated four days after the date he got back.
I've been out cold for four days?
The Reverend Swan has been most persistent. At least ten of the messages are from her, both voice and text.
Seems I missed a meeting yesterday. So sorry, Swan.
The Cardinal and Edwards left several each as well. Edwards's most recent is from yesterday, early. He actually sent a med tech to BC's room to check on his health.
"He went in on my orders, found you sleeping. He said you're fine, but deep asleep," Edwards says in the message. "He said to let you rest, you must need it! I'll talk to you when you get up. Later."
I should feel better for having slept so long.
Maybe I should see a doctor. If I get a spare minute. Got some mad catching up to do.
BC's head begins to clear as he gets up, showers, cleans up and dresses for the day. By the time he's shaved he feels fine. He looks at himself in the mirror.
I look okay, I guess. My eyes look clear, not bloodshot, pupils normal, responsive... Just my usual ugly self. Maybe older. I think the cult experience has aged me. No gray yet, that's good. Maybe I just needed to catch up with myself. Process all the shit I've been through. Hope there's no permanent damage.
BC's room com goes off. Edwards is on the line.
"Hey, BC how are you? I was worried about you, man!"
"Yeah, guess I needed some rest, huh? I've been through a lot in these last couple months. I'm okay, now."
"Good, good. When you've got some time to spare in the next day or two look me up, okay? It'll be good to catch up with you. Plus, I've got a couple of things I want to ask you about, get your opinion on. Give me a call, all right?"
"Sure, Marc, I will. Gotta find out what the Cardinal needs from me first, but once I do I'll call you. Thanks for being a friend, Marc."
Edwards sounds a little embarrassed, "Hey, BC, I don't have a lot of friends, so I try to take care of the ones I do have, you know? Later."
"Campion?" The Cardinal's com cuts in as Edwards signs off. "Father Campion, are you there?"
"Yes, Cardinal, I'm here."
"You feeling better?"
"Yes, sir, I am, thanks for asking."
"Good. Come see me at once."
"Sure, I will sir, be right there."
He sounds weird. Bossy for him, too. Tense and nervous.
BC get dressed in basic blacks, checks his collar in the mirror, then sets off to see the Cardinal.
The Cardinal's secretary waves him in, "Go ahead, Father, he's expecting you."
The Cardinal rises behind his desk. "Ah, Father Campion, good to see you're still in one piece. Come in, sit down." He sits back down. BC sits down across from the Cardinal in a chair in front of the desk.
He sounds more normal than he did on the com. That's good.
Silence ensues. BC and the Cardinal sit across from each other. Neither says a word. The Cardinal looks down at his empty desktop, as if studying something BC can't see. BC just waits.
Preoccupied by something... He isn't even looking at me! What is up with this?
After a long few minutes, the Cardinal looks up, looks BC in the eyes.
"I've just recently found out about your last ‘mission', the one that kept you away so long."
"What?"
"You're surprised, I know. I'm not supposed to know these things," the Cardinal laughs nervously. "Usually I don't want to. But this time I do. And I hear you, what, I don't know, what do you call it in your line of work? What? Eliminated? Neutralized? Fixed? Took care of.. whatever. I hear you've killed the one who called himself The Light."
Wow. Entirely unexpected!
"I can see you're surprised I know this. Well, I have my reasons for knowing. But is it true? Was it you? Did you kill him? Was that your mission?"
"I really don't know what to tell you, Cardinal..."
"Hmm. Guess you can't say, eh? Top secret or something like that?"
"Something like that."
"Is he dead?"
"Look, Cardinal, I really can't..."
"He is dead, isn't he? I can see it in your eyes, Campion."
What can I say?
"Did you know he was an old friend of mine? ‘The Light'?" The Cardinal asks. He doesn't wait for an answer, just goes on. "We were in seminary together, all those ages ago. Seems like another life, another world ago, now."
"Really?"
This I didn't know. Small world. Small fucking universe.
"He was once a good man, Campion. A true man of God. He truly believed."
"He believed until the end, Cardinal."
The Cardinal snaps to full attention, eyes on fire at BC's tacit admission.
"So you did kill him!"
Whoa! Back, boy!
"No! I did not kill him! But he is dead. I'm sorry you've lost your friend."
The Cardinal calms down. "I lost him a long time ago, Campion. But you did go there, to his station? To kill him?"
What the hell...
"Yes, I did. Under orders. But I failed. They captured me, dosed me with God knows what drugs, and tried to brainwash me. It was torture; they made me read the Bible all the time," BC chuckles, trying to lighten the mood.
"I don't see the humor in any of this, Campion," The Cardinal says darkly.
"No, I see that." Jeesh. "Look, he meant well. But in the end, one of his own people killed him, because they felt he had lost his way. They used me to help them, and then they let me go. And set me up as an absentee leader, a figurehead for them to work behind."
"So... did you get to know him before the end?"
"Pardon?"
"Did you get to know The Light?"
"Sort of."
"Did you think he was a good man?"
"Honestly?"
"Honestly."
"No." BC shakes his head. "I don't think anyone who sets himself up as a god, or God's sole representative, is a good man. I think he was delusional. He might have meant well, started out good, but he couldn't see his own faults, see wher
e he was going, what he was doing. Plus, he had them starve me, drug me, keep me in the dark for extended periods, mess with my head... those aren't the tactics of a good man, Cardinal."
"Yet you have changed. And I think, maybe, for the better. I can see that in your eyes, Father. Maybe not brainwashed, but... he got to you, didn't he?"
"Maybe. In some way." BC admits grudgingly. "But I never bought his philosophies. I did what I had to, to get out of there, but I'm not born again or anything like that."
"Well, he was never into the old ‘born again' thing..." The Cardinal protests.
"You know what I mean. Born into his whole ‘back to the future' deal, wearing robes on a space station, getting back to the first century from a mile high in orbit. Somehow, I never could see the early Christians living like astronauts. Still, I did learn a lot. I actually read the Bible. There is some validity to The Light's arguments that the church isn't what it was originally intended to be, what Jesus wanted it to be."
"He still taught that, eh? And they wear robes?" The Cardinal begins to relax a little. "You have been changed, Campion. Maybe more than you know. And I trust you when you say you didn't kill him. You didn't, right?"
"No, sir. I did not. I give you my word, for what it's worth. It was one of his own."
"Thank you, Campion."
BC feels like the meeting is over, and gets up to leave.
I guess the Cardinal heard what he needed to hear... but how the hell did he know all that? He had to know someone either on the station or somehow affiliated with them.
"Campion?"
BC stops, answers the Cardinal. "Yes?"
"Will things get back to, well, more ‘normal' now?" He looks up at BC with pain in his eyes. BC feels the need to reassure him.
"Depending on how you define normal, Cardinal, yeah, I think so. It's really up to the UIN, when you think about it."
"Warmongers! They hate us, you know that don't you, Campion? It's them you should be ‘fixing'!" The Cardinal spits out.
"Of course."
Didn't mean to set him off…
"I'll check back with you later, Cardinal. I've got to go see the governor."
"Very well, then, Campion." The Cardinal looks back down at his desk, again as if studying something BC cannot see.
"Thank you, sir," BC says, and turns to go. He leaves the Cardinal's study and heads back towards his rooms.
Glad that's over with! How could I know The Light and The Cardinal were old buds? And how did he know what I was up to? Maybe my cover is blown...
BC turns the corner onto the corridor leading down to his rooms and groans. The Reverend Sharlena Swan is standing directly in front of the doorway to his quarters. He tries to turn around before she spots him, but she's sees him all the same.
She shouts after him, "Father Campion!"
As he casually walks away, she runs up after him.
"Oh no, Father, you're not getting away from me again! I know who you are now!"
She passes him and stands directly in front of him. A tall woman, she glares at him eye to eye. "You know, it's not nice to lie to a fellow priest, Father Bernard Campion!"
"Sorry about that. I try to travel incognito, part of the job. You should've known that." BC keeps up a brave face.
"Mysterious BS from BC, how apropos. How OPO!" Swan laughs at her own wordplay.
"Do you mind?!" BC says in a loud whisper, giving Swan a sharp look.
We're in a fucking public corridor, shut up about the OPO...
"Sorry, secret agent man," she says, undeterred. "I've been assigned to you by the Pope himself, and I have the Cardinal's blessing to take up your time for training, and you've already lied to me and avoided me. You haven't returned any of my messages..."
"I've been out of it for the last couple days. Literally. Blacked out for four days straight, you can check the medical records if you want."
"Those headaches, like on the shuttle? That was no act, I could tell. You were in pain. I felt bad for you... until I found out who you were and how you'd lied to me!"
"Jeesh, all right, already. Yeah, I'm a little worse for wear after my last assignment. I needed some down time to recuperate. But I'll work with you. The Pope told me I had to."
"Yeah, he told me to make you, ‘more priest, less PR man'," she laughs.
Did he now? The Bastard!
"Look, Father. I'm not a hard person to get along with. This doesn't have to be a painful process. I teach priests and seminarians all the time, and no one has been killed or even maimed," she looks down her nose at him, "up until now. So let's get started!"
"What, started maiming?" BC shakes his head when she just glares back at him. "A joke? C'mon! Fine, we'll get started. Only not right now."
"You sound like Augustine." She shakes her head, "Why not right now? No time like the present!"
"Sure. Right. But, look, I've got an appointment with the governor right now, okay? I've got important business, church business, to attend to."
"I'm talking about important church business of yours, too.
Persistent.
"Yes, you are. Fine. Later on, we'll start. For now, you'll have to excuse me."
BC turns and walks back to the door to his quarters. Swan follows behind him.
"Don't think you've escaped me, Father," she says. "I have it on the highest authority. Your holy ass is mine, at least three hours a day!"
Damn, is that smoke coming out of her ears?
"I'll see you this afternoon at three!" she tells him. She turns and storms off down the corridor.
Oh, I can see this is gonna be fun.
BC opens the doors to his quarters, ducks inside and closes and locks them behind him.
Free at last.
He walks without stopping through his living room to his bedroom. He sits down on the bed and rubs his face with both hands. A lingering flicker of a headache is lurking just beyond his attention, glimmering like mirrors on the periphery of his sight, and somehow behind his eyes at the same time.
Trying not to pay it any attention. Hoping it goes away. Swan didn't help it any, that's for sure. It's almost a little like vertigo. Or the remains of a bad hangover. It could be. A bad drug hangover, from the psychedelic cocktails they fed me on Fortune Station. It could be. Even a month later, though? I don't know. Well, gotta call Marc.
"Get me Governor Edwards," BC calls out to the com. After a short pause, the com dings him back to let him know Edwards is on the line.
"Edwards here."
"Hey Marc. It's BC. Still want to do some lunch?"
"Had we scheduled lunch?" Edwards is confused.
"You were my excuse to get out of a couple meetings, so I was hoping..."
Edwards laughs, "That's fine, it can be my excuse to get out of a couple things here, too. You wanna meet me here in about a half hour?"
"Sure, that sounds good. Half an hour."
"See you then."
The com clicks off and BC sits in the silence, rubbing his eyes, his temples, thinking.
Silence is bliss. Damn Peter for sicking Swan on me. She's a piece of fucking work. Can't stand her already. She seems more like the Cardinal's type of priest than Pope Peter's. I'm tempted to call and complain, but it'd do no good. No good at all.
I'd like to believe that maybe it's just massive stress causing these headaches. But deep down I know it's not ‘just stress'. It's not like a concussion or a hangover, it's more... what? Echoey, I guess. Things echo. And things shine, too, like the flicker and glimmer of mirrors in the corners of my eyes. The echo and the shine, just all too much all at once. And all I want to do is make it stop. Make it stop!
BC feels the shimmering ease. The echoing stops. He drops his hands, opens his eyes again. He blinks.
There. I think I'm okay. For now. Wish that worked every time.
Chapter Twenty-Three