I slept long and hard and without dreaming, or at least without any memory of dreams. When I woke, I thought I was still in my cell. The room was dark, and as I sat up I became confused, sensing something vaguely unfamiliar about my surroundings. I stumbled out of bed---its height was not the same as the bunk in my cell---and bumped into a wall where one shouldn't have been. Yet some unconscious part of me apparently realized where I was, for my hand reached out involuntarily to the correct place on the wall and brought up dim lights. I saw I was in my own quarters, and finally remembered my release.
I sat in a chair, surveying my quarters, trying to decide my next move, my next thought, struggling against the urge to return to bed and go back to sleep. My rooms were so quiet and lifeless, as if the inorganic matter which composed the furniture and all of my few possessions had dropped into an even lower level of existence while I was gone, and now needed to be resurrected to its former state. The same for me, I thought.
I should have been elated to be free of my cell, but I was strangely depressed, and did not understand why. Everything was changed; maybe that was the problem. The captain was still fighting with the bishop over the captaincy, but even that had changed, and my place within the struggles, my relationships to the key participants, weren't the same. I saw everyone differently now, and I was sure their perceptions of me, too, had changed.
And Jean-Luc? We'd been friends for years, since we were children, but that time was gone, and I began to fully understand that there was no regaining that friendship. Out of necessity we could work together, each of us distrusting the other, but there would never again be more, and that realization depressed me as well. An enormous sense of loss threatened to overwhelm me.
I got up from the chair, showered and dressed, then tried to get something to eat. The room's food system had been shut down while I was in prison, and no one had yet restored its function. I would have to go to one of the common halls.
Fortunately it was between regular meal times---late morning---and there were few people in the common hall nearest my quarters. None of them knew how to react to my presence, though I detected less surprise than when Jean-Luc and I had walked along the ship's corridors to the command salon. Word of my release had obviously spread through the upper levels.
I selected simple fare, not much different from what I'd been served while imprisoned, and ate quickly. While in my cell, I would often imagine that upon my release I would gorge myself on the widest variety of rich food and drink. Now that I had the opportunity, I felt almost ill at the prospect; eating like that seemed so unnecessary, indulgent, almost immoral.
Jean-Luc was expecting me early that morning. I had agreed to take over the alien ship's exploration, and he wanted me to help select the new exploration teams and begin as so on as possible, but I needed to see Father O'Heron first.
I went to the cathedral, but she wasn't there. Only Father O'Day was.
I found him at the far end of the cathedral, kneeling at one end of the side altars, his head bowed in prayer. The candles flickered, and their dim light fluttered gently about his head. I sat quietly in a pew some distance away and waited for him to finish.
Father O'Day was an old man, stooped and frail. He rose awkwardly to his feet and lit several more of the candles; then he turned to me, and I realized he had heard me come in. He smiled and walked toward me.
"Hello, Pavel."
"Hello, Father."
"Prison does not appear to have harmed you much."
"Mostly my ego," I said.
Father O'Day chuckled. "Then maybe you have even benefited from your incarceration." He tugged at his long white hair with bony fingers, as if his thoughts and vision were in another world, which they probably were.
"In some ways," I agreed.
"What can I do for you, my son?"
"I seek Father O'Heron."
He nodded to himself as if that was exactly what he had expected. "She's not here. She hasn't been here for several days."
"Where is she?"
"I don't know, and neither does anyone else." He hesitated, studying me. "But whe she does return, I'll inform her that you came by to see her."
"Thank you, Father."
He looked as if he wanted to say something else, but changed his mind. Instead he just nodded.
I had started down the aisle when he called on me. I turned back to him, and he was standing straighter than I had seen him in years, and his expression was grave.
"What is it, Father?"
"Beware, Pavel."
"Of what?"
"Everything." He paused, then repeated himself. "Everything. But especially of the alien ship." He shook his head. "It is an evil thing, and it should be left alone. Perhaps it even comes from the Ancient One."
"Satan?"
"Why not? Is that any more incredible than the notion that the ship is an artifact of an alien civilization?"
I wanted to tell him that I didn't believe in Satan, or the Ancient One, or whatever he might want to call it, but I didn't see the purpose. It'd be an attack on his faith, and he probably knew how I felt, anyway.
"I'll be careful," I told him. "Thanks." I turned to leave, and saw Jean-Luc waiting for me near the cathedral's main doors.562Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYK6sWRSoub
"We might have a problem," he said when I reached him.
He was sweating and smelled faintly of alcohol; I wondered if he had developed a drinking problem while I was imprisoned. If so, I was in more trouble than I had thought.
"What is it?" I asked.
"The bishop has called an emergency session of the Executive Council."
"The reason?"
Jean-Luc gave me a rueful smile. "You, of course."562Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq6IRwZKQlg
