“Once we’re established in steady acceleration, we can enter slowtime,” Dennett announced after dinner on the second day. “I believe slowing to one-fifth real time will suffice to help the time pass without losing situational awareness. We will, of course, need to resume real time when it is time to awaken the Lady, and again upon our arrival.”
And so it was that on the third day, everything slowed right down. The sensation of entering metabolic slowtime aboard an accelerating vehicle was quite singular: Our acceleration seemed to increase markedly, ambient lights brightened, liquids became runny, the air grew chill. These were all subjective interpretations, of course—in reality, it was merely that my perception of the physical processes around me had slowed—but anything that could make the weeks pass like days was, to my mind, a good thing. Even the increased semblance of gravity helped make it easier to lope around the tunnels and chambers of the chapel without bouncing off the walls and ceiling at random. We might have been moving at nearly a kilometer per second relative to Taj Beacon, but our three-thousandths of a gee of acceleration was barely enough to keep one’s feet on the floor.
Of course, slowtime had a downside. The intermittent scribble of white lines crossing my visual field—fireworks even in the dark—seemed to intensify: Cosmic radiation worked its malign magic on mechanocytes and marrow techné alike. One might not experience the passage of time the same way, but it still wreaks its damage on one’s systems.
On the fifth day subjective—actually around fourteen real-time days into the voyage—I was transferring fixtures from the vestry to the fab room for remanufacturing when the talking box dinged for attention. “Krina, proceed to the flight deck immediately. This is a priority override.”
The flight deck was a cramped cubbyhole in the above-stairs level, off to one side of the back of the nave—an uncomfortable bench seat fronted by intimidating banks of Fragile bone-colored buttons and surmounted by multiple rows of vertical organ pipes. I had never had reason to visit it before but had seen it in passing. Traditionally the seat of the organist in an ancient house of worship, the flight deck now served as the control room from which the head of the mission—currently Deacon Dennett—monitored the chapel’s sensors and directed its mighty engines. Normally, it was empty: Events requiring supervision aboard a spacegoing church happened either survivably (by arrangement months and years in advance), or fatally (in a matter of milliseconds). As I entered the nave, I discovered Dennett on the organist’s bench, attended by a trio of Father Gould’s skeletal puppets, his black robe wrapped around him like the gown of a hanging judge.
“Ms. Alizond!” His tone was curt.
I stood in the middle of the tiled floor, staring up at him. I’d been expecting—indeed, half-dreading—a moment like this ever since I signed on. “Yes?” I asked, keeping my voice as even as possible.
“What do you know about pirates?”
“What?” I stared stupidly at Dennett. This was not the confrontation I’d been expecting.
“Pirates!” He glared at me. “Adjust yourself to real time. That’s an order.”
“Pirates?” I squeaked as I came up to speed (lights reddening, gravity diminishing). “What? Um. They’re not my area of history—”
“There is nothing historical about this situation.” Dennett had matched my acceleration: Now he gestured at the lectern before him. “A troupe of miscreants hailed us an hour ago. They were waiting for us to leave beacon-controlled space, and they are now outaccelerating us. They say they want to audit our cargo.” He fixed me with what I suppose was intended as another steely stare: “Well?”
I flapped my jaw at him for a few seconds. Pirates! This was absolutely not what I had been keyed up for, not by any stretch of the imagination. It was, if anything, considerably worse. I gathered my scattered thoughts. “They want your cargo? Don’t they know this is a chapel?”
“Yes, clearly, that’s what our transponder beacon says.” He snapped his fingers impatiently: “Equally clearly, they don’t believe us. Gould, seize her.” The bony bodyguards closed in around me, whirring and clicking as they grabbed my wrists and ankles and lifted me away from any surfaces upon which I might gain leverage. Something cold pricked against the back of my neck. “Ms. Alizond. I must demand a truthful answer: Are you a pirate spy?”
I don’t think he appreciated being laughed at, but to his credit, Dennett waited me out: “You’ve got to be joking!” I managed, once I wound down from my bout of giggling. The situation was obviously grave—as acting captain of this vehicle, Dennett could, in principle, hold a trial and throw me bodily out of the nearest air lock—but I confess he took me so much by surprise that I had no time to be afraid, and the humor of the situation rose to the surface. “Not only am I not a pirate spy, I didn’t even know this system had pirates! Um. What do they do, exactly? Swap illicit files and denounce the evils of intellectual property?”
“They’re pirates.” Dennett seemed to be fixated on the word, pupils dilated, skin spiking up aggressively. “You are not obviously lying, but I warn you, it will go the worse for you if you are being deliberately obtuse with me!”
“I don’t see what you’ve got to be afraid of. It’s not as if you’re carrying anything other than the Fragile, is it?” Abruptly, I recognized my error: “Ahem. That would be none of my business, and I don’t want to know. If I’m wrong, I mean. But this is the Church of the Fragile, and the Church would never engage in any activity like, er, anything that might be interesting to miscreants. Would it? And anyway, wouldn’t any pirates who laid a finger on you be inviting the Curse of the Fragile? So, if I was a spy for a shipful of pirates, I’d be telling them not to waste their time—”
“Oh very good,” snarled the deacon. My apologetics clearly annoyed him even as they registered. “Let her go,” he added, almost as an afterthought. Bony digits released my sleeves and ankles, and the chill touch behind my skull disappeared. “You may not be a spy, Ms. Alizond, but I know you are holding back secrets, and I should warn you that treachery toward the Mother Church will reap its just deserts. It remains to be determined how we shall deal with this situation. The last time I checked the sarcophagus, it said Her Ladyship would be ready for awakening in another sixty hours: She’d be able to send them packing! If only they give us that long—”
“How far away are they?” I asked.
“If they maintain their current acceleration, and we take no additional evasive action, they should rendezvous in fourteen hours. As we’re currently accelerating away from them at full power, that seems likely.”
“Additional evasive action—”
Dennett’s face slipped into a spiky, feral grin as one of his soul-siblings surfaced. “Would you rather be boarded by bored pirates or audited by angry pirates? Consider your options carefully: There will be a practical examination later.”
“Um.” I twisted to stare at the sarcophagus in the aisle. “What makes you think she could make a difference to the situation?”
“She’s a priestess.” Dennett was growing sniffy. “With the gift that goes with her rank. Every mission should have one.”
“Oh, you mean she can—” I mimed touching one of the skeletons: even with Father Gould’s fractured personality backing it, it had enough awareness to sense my meaning and recoil.