“No,” Andso said, gazing at the Talent. “No debate. A little time is all I need.”

“Keep it well away from the god,” Tephe said.

“Of course, Captain,” Andso said. “Thank you. My blessing upon you.” He walked away, toward the priest quarters.

Tephe headed to the bridge and at the last moment turned toward the Rookery. When he arrived he pounded upon the portal rather than keying the chime. Issa answered, saw the look on the captain’s face, and called for Shalle.

Shalle came to the door, face open and curious. Tephe brought his lips down before Shalle could utter words, pressing them both against the portal. Issa stood to the side, eyes wide; if anyone other than the captain were to engage a rook outside a nest, a lash of punishment would be the least of his problems.

“It’s nice to see you too,” Shalle said, when the captain broke his kiss.

“I need to be with you,” Tephe said.

Shalle listened, as much to the quality of his voice as the words he spoke, said, “Yes, I think you do,” and gently pulled the captain inside the rookery. Issa closed the portal behind them.

Chapter Seven

“You have command,” Captain Tephe said abruptly, to Neal Forn. He stood from his chair.

“Sir,” Forn said, impassively, but fixed his captain with the slightest of inquiring eyebrows. The Righteouswas moments away from being brought to the unnamed planet. Forn had commanded at such times before, but always on his own watch. In any event it was not a convenient time for a captain to quit his station.

Tephe chose not to respond to his first mate’s unspoken inquiry. Forn would have to get used to doing things without him; if Tephe had any say in it, Forn would soon be captain of the Righteous. More than that, Tephe simply did not have an interest in explaining himself at the moment. He left the bridge without saying another word.

In the corridors of the Righteouswere the hum and clatter of industry, as its crew— hiscrew, for what little time remained to him, Tephe thought—made its preparations for transport and landing. The crew had been informed that the Righteoushad been chosen for a mission at the direct order of the Speaker, and the news had lifted their spirits and had grown their faith; the chatter and movement of the crew had regained the confidence that had been sapped by Ament Cour and by hard months onboard. Tephe warmed his own cold doubts in the new sureness of their work, nodding to the crew as they acknowledged his presence among them.

Tephe stopped at the portal of the god’s chamber, and heard a low murmur inside.

He entered.

If Priest Andso was surprised to see the captain of the Righteousin the god chamber, he gave no indication. Andso’s acolytes were not so impassive, but neither of them took more than a small pause in their recitations to note Tephe’s arrival before returning to their task. The voices of the priest and acolytes rose and fell, called and responded, praying to the glory of Their Lord, and using His power to compel the Righteous’ captive god to bring them to where they wished to go.

Tephe turned his attention from the priest and the acolytes and to the god, who stood, simply, motionless, quiet, its eyes closed. Tephe did not pretend to understand how the god did what it did to bring them from one point in space to another, swallowing distances so unimaginably vast that Tephe feared to comprehend them.

They say that they gather the very stuff of space in their minds and twist it,said Wilig Eral, yeoman of the Hallowed, the first ship Tephe ever served upon.

And how do they do that?Tephe asked. He was fourteen, the fourth son of impoverished baronet, landed in a far corner of Bishop’s Call. He was not missed by his older brothers, nor they by him. Being indentured on the Hallowedwas a demeaning step down in status from being the son of a baronet, even a minor one. Tephe gloried in having escaped.

If I knew that, boy, you would call me Bishop Eral,the yeoman said. They say the priests know how the gods do it, but I would not recommend you ask them. Priest Oe here would snap you up as an acolyte and never let you visit the rookery.

The young Tephe blushed, remembering his recent first visit, his embarrassment and the gentle good humor of Tei, the rook who gave him his release. I won’t ask the priests,he said.

Good,Eral said. Now help me shelve these supplies.

Much later, when Tephe was no longer in danger of being abducted as an acolyte, he did ask a priest. The priest’s response was a watch-long discourse on the commentaries which spoke to the defeat of the god by Their Lord, and how the priests’ prayers when a god brought a ship across space compelled the god to do only what was required of it, not the god’s own wishes, because the gods were wicked.

Tephe, by this time a new officer on the Blessed, listened politely and realized within the first five minutes that this priest had no answer for him either. Later than this Tephe realized there were no answers that would be given as to how gods brought ships across the stars, or how the ships could use the captive gods as a source of power to keep the crews secure and safe in the cold and airless expanse between the planets.

Tephe was not given to know such things, even as a captain. He was given to have faith: that the ship’s god had powers, and that its powers were controlled by His Lord, through His priests and through His captain—through Tephe himself. Understanding this was not required. Believing it, and showing faith in His Lord was.

Tephe believed. Tephe had faith. If not for himself, then for the sake of his ship and crew.

The captain shook himself out of his reverie and noticed the god staring at him. The stare was seemingly blank, without interest or intent; Tephe wondered if the god, lost in its ritual as it was, even actually saw him.

As if in response, the smallest of feral smiles crept across the gods face, although the eyes remained blank. Tephe was discomfited, as he often was with this god.

Tephe recalled the gods of the other ships on which he had served. The god of the Hallowedwas indeed a defeated thing, an inert object with a man’s shape that performed its duties in unquestioning, disinterested silence. Tephe saw it only once and would have been convinced it was a statue had it not been prodded into a small movement by an acolyte’s pike. The god of the Blessed, in contrast, was a toadying, obsequious thing which tried to engage the attention of anyone who entered its chamber. When it spoke to Tephe for the first time, begging him to tarry and speak, the new officer wondered if the god was trying to lure him unwarily into its iron circle, until he later saw an acolyte playing draughts with the thing, well within the circle. The god was letting the acolyte win and praising his every move.

Tephe never spoke to the god of the Blessed.

The god of the Holywas as quiet as the god of the Hallowedbut held its dignity. Tephe would have liked to have spoken to it but knew it would not respond to him.

The god of the Righteouswas like none of these. The god of the Righteouswas not inert, nor obsequious, nor held its dignity. It was capricious and vicious; acolyte Drian had not been the first Righteouscrew member who had been attacked by the god in its long tenure aboard the ship. It obeyed at the threat of punishment, and would even then use the weakness of language to perform its task literally correctly and logically at opposing ends. It tested the weaknesses of iron and human. It mocked and spat. It was chained; Tephe would not choose to call it defeated. For the briefest of moments the god’s name began to surface in Tephe’s mind. He hastily shoved it back down into its memory hole, not even allowing himself to give full voice to the name even in mind.