“I don’t seek power over—” I began.
“Silence!” Leviathan thundered. “The human must see the error of its ways. Kimball!”
“Yes, Leviathan?”
“Your life is forfeit. But I will grant reprieve if you will renounce the human religion and return to me.”
I had read of martyrdom in the scriptures and history of the Church all my life. But nowadays it was supposed to be a merely academic exercise, as you examined your faith to see if it was strong enough that you would die for the gospel of Christ. Actual killing over religious belief wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.
And I found my own faith lacking as I hoped that Neuter Kimball’s faith was weak, that it would deny the faith and live rather than be killed.
“I am to be Abinidi after all, President Malan,” said Neuter Kimball. “I choose to live as a Mormon, and I will die as one if it be God’s will.”
“It is my will,” said Leviathan, “and I am the only god who concerns you.”
Tendrils of white plasma reached out toward Neuter Kimball.
“I am the greatest of all,” said Leviathan. “Bear witness to my judgment.”
I hit the mute button and said, “I’ve got to stop this. This is my fault.”
Juanita’s eyes glistened. “I warned you about interfering. But it’s too late to do anything now.”
“No,” I said. “If you’re willing to drive this thing into Leviathan’s tendrils, it may give Neuter Kimball a chance to escape.”
She stared at me. “The shuttle’s meant to survive a glancing blow. A direct hit like that—we could die.”
The tendrils closed around Neuter Kimball.
“I know, and that’s why I’m asking you. I can’t force you to risk your life to save someone else’s.” I hoped I was right about how much she cared about swales—and Neuter Kimball in particular.
After looking out at Neuter Kimball, then back at me, she said, “Computer, manual navigation mode.” She grabbed the controls and began steering us toward the white bands connecting Leviathan to Neuter Kimball.
I turned off the mute. “Leviathan, you claim to be the greatest. In size, you probably are.”
White filled the view ahead.
“But not in love,” I said, speaking quickly as I didn’t know how much time I had left. “Jesus said, ‘Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.’ He was willing to die for the least of us, while you are willing to kill the leas—”
A flash of bright light and searing heat cut me off. I felt a sudden jolt.
Then blackness.
And nausea. After a few moments, I realized nausea probably meant I was still alive. “Juanita?”
“I’m here,” she said.
The darkness was complete. And I was weightless. Maybe I was dead—although this wasn’t how I’d pictured the afterlife.
“What happened?” I asked.
“I’ll tell you what didn’t happen: The energy shield didn’t fail. The ablative shell didn’t fail. We didn’t die.”
“So what did happen?”
Juanita let out a long, slow breath. “Best guess: Electromagnetic pulse wiped out all our electronics. The engine’s dead, artificial gravity’s gone, life support’s gone, comm system’s gone, everything’s gone.”
“Any chance—”
“No,” she said.
“You didn’t even let me finish—”
“No chance of anything. It’s not fixable, and even if it was, I haven’t a clue how to fix any of those things even if it weren’t totally dark in here. Do you?”
“No.”
“And no help is coming from Sol Central because not only do they not know we’re in trouble, but also we’re in another star that could be halfway across the galaxy. When the air in here runs out, we die. It’s that simple.”
“Oh.” I realized she was right. “Do you think maybe we succeeded in freeing Neuter Kimball?”
“Maybe. But it didn’t exactly look like Kimball was trying all that hard to escape.”
“Well,” I said, “maybe it was thinking about how Abinidi’s martyrdom led one of the evil king’s priests to repent and become a great prophet. Perhaps Neuter Kimball believed something similar would happen to one of the great swales who—”
“Whatever Neuter Kimball believed,” she said, her voice acidic, “it was because you and your church filled its mind with fairy tales of martyrs.”
I bit back an angry reply. Part of me felt she was right. At the end, Neuter Kimball had seemed to embrace the role of martyr. Would it have done so if not for the stories about martyrs in the scriptures?
And I had been willing enough to risk my life, but now that I was going to die, I found myself afraid.
Juanita didn’t seem to need a reply from me. “And what’s the point of martyrs anyway? A truly powerful god could save his followers rather than let them die. Where’s God now that you really need him? What good is any of this?”
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “If it weren’t for me, you’d be safe at home, and Neuter Kimball would be alive. I’ve made a mess of things.”
“Yes.”
Hours passed—floating in darkness, it was hard to tell how many. I spent it in introspection and prayer, detailing all my faults that had led me here. Biggest of all was pride: the idea that I, Harry Malan, would—through sheer force of will and a good speech—change a culture that had existed for billions of years. I thought back to what I had been told while serving as a nineteen-year-old missionary on Mars: You don’t convert people; the Spirit of the Lord does that, and even then only if they are willing to be converted.
Juanita spoke. “You were just trying to do what you thought was right. And you were trying to protect the rights of smaller swales. So I forgive you.”
“Thank you,” I said.
The shuttle jolted.
“What was that?” I asked. My body sank down into my seat.
“It sounded—”
An ear-splitting squeal from the right side of the shuttle drowned out the rest of her reply. I twisted my head around and saw sparks flying from the wall.
Then a chunk of the hull fell away and light streamed in, temporarily blinding me.
“They’re still alive,” said a man. “Tell Kimball they’re still alive.”
All we got from the paramedics was that a large swale had dropped off our shuttle and Neuter Kimball just outside Sol Central Station’s energy shield. Neuter Kimball had called the station, and the shuttle had been towed into a dock, where they cut through the hull to rescue us.
It wasn’t until Juanita and I were sitting in a hospital room, where an autodoc gave us injections to treat our radiation burns, that we were able to talk to Neuter Kimball.
“It was Leviathan who brought us back here,” it said.
I was stunned. “But why? And why didn’t she kill you?”
“When she saw that you were willing to die to save me, though I am not even of your own species, she was curious. She asked me why you would do such a thing, so I transmitted the Bible and the Book of Mormon to her. Then she brought us here in case you were still alive.”
“And you’re not hurt from what she did to you?” I asked.
“I will recover,” said Neuter Kimball. “Before she left, Leviathan declared that from this time forward, Mormon swales are not to be forced into sexual activity.”
“That’s great news.” I had won. No—I corrected myself—the victory was not mine. I thank thee, Lord, I prayed silently.
“Leviathan also had a personal message for you, President Malan. She said to remind you of what King Agrippa said to Paul.”