The television news was telling something about a baby. She gave water to the ficus in the corner, and glanced at the screen. They were showing a picture of a baby. It looked dead. Then they showed the parents being interviewed. She watered the basil under the window and looked back at the screen. She had the sound turned low, but she could tell the whole story without listening to the words. The dead baby told everything, while the mother sat silent and the father’s mouth moved. It must have been they who put the dark purple bracelet of bruises around the tiny neck. It must have been they who made the dimpled sunken cut in the baby’s chest.

Maria Elena came closer to hear. The television said they sold the baby’s heart for a lot of money, on the black market. There was a market for hearts! The father’s lips trembled, but his darting eyes showed his greed. The mother’s face was frozen. She did not look into the camera. She looked off sideways into the shadows so you could not see her eyes.

Lupe’s rooster crowed again and a dog began to bark. Maria Elena put down the pot of water. Her dried old breasts ached to feed that baby. What would the doctor say if she told him that?  She would never tell him. Doctors shouldn’t know everything. Her arms ached to hold that television baby.

She had held eight of her own. She had not held one of them long, the daughter who died. Their pictures were all on the wall, with her husband’s, who had gone to heaven ahead of her. Her arms had ached then to hold that baby. They had let her sit with the body. Her breasts were so full of milk they leaked onto her bodice, and her tears fell and diluted the milk drying there. God had protected her from temptation, for she surely would have struck a deal with the devil himself to have that baby alive at her breast. She had been crazy with grief. They had had to take the body from her by force.

Now she was 84, and there was not a thing wrong with her. She was a lucky woman, not all of her children had crossed the border. Some lived close, here in Santa Teresita in the middle of the city.

She picked up the pot again and watered the fern sitting by the sink and the violets on the marble window frame, put the pot in the sink, wrapped herself in the black shawl hanging from a hook by the door, took her broom and pan, and stood half in and half out of the open doorway.

Every day she swept the sidewalk and street in front of her house. She liked to do it at just this time, when the sky was brightening, when the roosters were crowing, telling sinners to stop sinning. At what market, Maria Elena was thinking, standing there, did they sell dead babies’ hearts? Did they sell them at a booth, or push them around on a cart? Deep in the dark mountains, before the Spaniards came, they had taken hearts. Perhaps those times had come again.

Behind her, the television switched repeatedly between the still picture of the dead baby, and the living faces of the parents. They were still being interviewed, by someone in a living room instead of in a prison, which bothered Maria Elena, and her heart beat faster and faster. She wished they would explain why the parents were not in prison. The camera liked lapping at the mother’s face. She sat as still and heavy as some stone statue of the cruel old gods. She did not speak and her husband could not stop speaking. Maria Elena remembered Chac, the old god of Rain and Thunder, with a drinking cup in one hand and a human heart in the other. Yes, that is what the mother looked like, Chac with her baby’s heart in her hand, drinking his blood from the cup.

Maria Elena was La Raza. Her blood was made of many rivers. She was the daughter of the short, brown, hook-nosed Mayans and of the tall, pale, hook-nosed Spaniards, with a tributary from Africa that made her own nose softer and rounder but whose blood boiled as hot as the others. Her old, hot blood had begun to boil. It made her head spin and she had to reach out and hold onto the doorframe. She thought the worst possible thing was going to happen. She was going to sin and then drop down dead right there in the doorway, her soul falling straight to hell.

Maria Elena had sinned before. She had had a wicked tongue, she had it still. But this was different. This sin was anger. This sin had teeth. It could burst the little rivers in her brain, and she could be dead before she had time to repent it.

But, oh, taste how sweet it was. If the interviewer would only do what they did in the old, cruel days! Maria Elena would make that face crumble! She would paint that baby killer blue and lead that mother who was no mother into a stone room a little less comfortable than a living room, and the feathered priests would hold her arms and legs. Then Maria Elena would take the heavy stone knife and she would split the woman’s chest like she would split a chicken, and reach all the way in and pull out her beating heart. The priests would take it. The priests would drip the blood onto the special prayer papers and carry them to the altar and they would burn them there so the smoke could go up to the gods.

Then the priests would spread the dying woman’s legs wider and Maria Elena would take the knife still slick from the heart’s blood and stick it into the woman’s private parts and stir it around and around. Then a priest would take the knife from her and would wipe the blood from the knife on the face of the god at the altar. And then they would skin the woman, and the chief priest would wear the skin, dancing around and around until he fainted.

Maria Elena felt faint herself. Faint with longing. It was like hunger. That is what she would like to do to the woman! 

But it was a sin to kill another sinner. We can hate the sin, but we must love the sinner. Father talked about that Sunday. The gospel was Jesus at the well with the sinful woman, and Jesus had been so nice to her. She imagined him leaning close to that dirty woman, like a friend, whispering the hard truth in her ear, No daughter, you have not had one husband, you have had five.

Father said this was very hard to hate the sin and love the sinner. Father said it was “deceptively simple.”  He said we tell ourselves we love the sinner and hate the sin, but we really don’t. We pretend. This is a grave sin against charity, a mortal sin.

Yes, but! Maria Elena rebelled. But, Jesus, you took an easy sin! A woman’s easy sin, too much love, it’s easy, really easy, to forgive. Could You lean in so close to that television mother and forgive her? Ah, Maria Elena suddenly saw it: to put His arms around such a sinner, they’d have to nail them open first.

Maria Elena understood. That’s what it took to keep you from killing them, to nail your arms open and nail them down. In her mind, now it was not Christ’s crucified face she saw, but the mother’s, who turned away from the shadows and looked into Maria Elena’s eyes. Maria Elena saw infinite misery there, a woman who had had no mother of her own, a woman whose husband hurt her. Maria Elena stretched her own arms out in the doorway until the bad shoulder flamed, and forgave her.

She stepped all the way outside. The fresh cold air of the street hit her like a little slap. She could still hate the sin. Father said. That was good. That was wise. God was merciful.

She began to sweep. She could hear other women sweeping in the dark, her friends, her enemies. Maria Elena swept faster. Leaves, a plastic juice bottle, a tissue, a scrap of newspaper flew in front of her broom. Two dried up oranges fallen from the tree that grew by her front door, and a broken hair comb. Maria Elena paused to take a little plastic bag of trash someone had thoughtfully hung on the tree, and tossed it in the pile. As the pile grew, her blood cooled.

Every day was trash day in Santa Teresita. The giant trucks would prowl through the streets and the driver rang a little silver bell to tell the people to bring out the trash. Every day the streets were defaced with piles of trash bags, and every day the trucks came, and the trash was gone, and the neighborhood was clean again. Every day Maria Elena swept her portion of the street and the walk in front of her door. Every day for all these years. And her neighbors the same. Leaves fell, cars leaked parts, sinners tossed the wrappings of their appetites, and the meek swept them away. It is hard to love and sweep, but she wanted God to love her, and so she tried.

Maria Elena reached her usual boundaries, but she swept on. The headlights of the early cars caught her in their cold light, an old woman bent almost double under her shawl, her crone hands clutching the huge straw broom and sweeping for all she was worth.

She ignored the cars. She was praying while she worked. She snatched a weed sprouting between the cobblestones and muttered a scrap of a psalm from the Bible, Each morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land, and uproot from the city of  God all evildoers. She flung the weed into the tangle of trash. She unstuck a wet flyer from the stones, advertising a television sale with a woman’s half naked body. I will walk in the integrity of my heart within my house, she prayed; I will not set before my eyes any base thing. When she reached the other side of the street, she made a neat stack of it all and stuffed it into the garbage bag she carried in her pocket.

Lupe came out of her door, carrying her own broom. “Buenos Dias, comadre.

Caray, what did the doctor tell you! Are you going to sweep the whole street this morning, Maria Elena?”

“Yes,” Maria Elena said, and held her tongue about the doctor.

Then she leaned on her broom and watched the sun rise on a rosy, vapory throne. It promised to be a fine day. There were not many clouds, it would be clear until afternoon. Everyone could hang the wash. This was her favorite time of year, the end of the rainy season. She would miss it when she went to heaven.

But what, what else could he try? Father’s latest act of war, an ugly yellow slash of super adhesive designed to catch rats, sat empty and dewy on the stone fence he had identified as the iguana’s favorite entrance. Before that, he had thoroughly humiliated himself by collecting cigarette butts outside the church, while the old men loafing in the plaza quietly teased him and commented on the advisability of buying one’s cigarettes whole from the tienda. He had sprayed the flowers with the noxious potion he’d made, and for a day or so thought it might be working; but then it rained and washed the leaves, and he’d had a wedding, and by the time he could repeat the process, the beautiful Mandevillia had been completely violated.

Yes, it was like a violation of something precious, completely denuded of its pink petals with the texture of skin.

But the idea of protecting the plants by making them taste bad had seemed sound, and when he discovered in the nursery’s dusty shelves a bag of what identified itself as tobacco earth, which, when applied, took itself up into the plant’s system and into the precious flowers and thus rendered them unpalatable to marauders, he’d bought it and applied it at once, skipping siesta. To the surprise of the pastor, he noted, wondering about his image to the old man, if his unusual zeal had inadvertently tainted it. Everything, of course, depended on the reference he received for his first appointment to a parish after his ordination, every future appointment, his whole career path. He had to get his halo going, as they joked in seminary, just so he could take it off, for they were eager for the day when they too could stroll about their parishes in a sports shirt and blue jeans instead of the mandated seminarian skirts. They were eager to be free.

For several days he’d entertained the notion that the ugly smelling stuff had worked. But no. Apparently the iguana, or iguanas (for he was unsure that the creature he had glimpsed was one or legion), had simply been busy in another garden. For, after siesta, Father had found the obiliscos, the salmon and white and pink ice-cream colored blossoms of hibiscus, eaten to the ground, not just the flowers, but the leaves as well. And there they sat, still, like skeletons. It really made him doubt Aquinas and the scholastic arguments for only defensive war. Apparently a nuclear device might be understated, he now saw; perhaps the scholastics had forgotten the best defense might be a good offense.

And then he had the idea of using a pressure washer attached to a hose to knock the thing off the roof, but when he asked Felix from the car wash if he could borrow his for an hour or so, Felix only laughed and mimed how the creature would merely dance around and even wash under his armpits, as if they were obscenely invincible. So Father reluctantly gave up that idea.

But he could not give up the war. Because of the garden. Of all the surprising realities of life since ordination (only last year, how could it be, it seemed a lifetime), the rectory garden was the most surprising.

Well, not the garden itself, exactly. He supposed it was an ordinary enough garden, in a country of gardens. What surprised him was his sudden, unexplainable love for it. What else had he missed all the twenty nine years of his life? Where had he been gazing, all those springs? Now he could not learn enough. He read all about roses, and the tired old antiques against the crumbling ruin of ochre wall sprang into life at his hands as if they were women in love. It was the bone meal, he suspected. He read an article about urine being a perfect source of nitrogen and besides, all those minerals and salts humans took as vitamins, and he began to consider how he might get Father Pastor to piss in a bucket. Could he say it was some kind of penance? No, better to make it a health thing. Or maybe he could say urine was bad for the rectory’s cranky septic system and ought to be properly, safely, disposed of.

He heard a sound and turned his head, slowly, himself a lizard if that’s what it took. His eyes did the strange dance eyes do looking for something, sorting out the greens and browns to find the camouflaged pattern from which would suddenly jump forth living the astonishingly ugly reality of the iguana. It was incredible to him still that they could just appear like that, out of thin air.

It had occurred to him that the same thing happened at the consecration, first only bread and then Christ occupying every cell, every crumb, and it gave him the creeps to see it in iguana terms.

No, it was only the neighbor’s cat that he had once encouraged to visit by leaving little bits of cheese, hoping it would deter or even attack an iguana. But no. For apparently they stalked different prey and so were oblivious to each other, the cat leering obscenely at the chakalaka birds and the parrots chattering in the trees in their kind caricatures of human beings. The iguana was left alone with the most sinless of all creation, the flowers. They were so innocent that even their sexual organs looked like jewels. This time it was only the cat. But be ready.

His hands tightened on the sling shot and unconsciously he began a Hail Mary.

No, it was not just the garden thing, though. So much had changed, and it had happened since his ordination. Just as they had said it would. They said that ordination was a special and magical thing and that it changed you forever, and that even if you sinned and did not repent, and died, and went to hell, your hands would glow even in that dark of deepest, darkest fire without light. For they were the hands of an ordained priest of God of the order of Melchisadech, forever. It was since his ordination that everything had changed, really amazingly just as they said it would.

Well, not exactly, for they said two contradictory things. So far he only was experiencing one of them. They said that God would reward young priests for their sacrifice, the great, enormous gift of their voluntary celibacy, that was the first thing they said. And then they said that they would suffer great temptations. They said just after ordination, in the first two years, that was the time for a man to lose his vocation. For him, he, himself, he was certain that God was blessing him in some special way. For he was enjoying being alive. Eating and waking and breathing and sleeping and walking, just walking was wonderful. Everything was like the first time. He hadn’t seen any temptations yet that couldn’t be handled by turning on the television or the cold shower. Which was the only kind they actually had in the rectory, although they got satellite tv.

For one thing, all of his senses were working incredibly well. For another, he had developed real talents for some things in surprising areas. He was, evidently, good at pastoral work, he (shy and clumsy and stammering!), especially good with the most forgotten and loneliest of all Christ’s sheep: women. Overburdened women, with all their family problems, their money problems, their broken hearts.

And the other surprising thing was (something they had never mentioned in seminary, never practiced like the other liturgical skills), he was good with a microphone. It was like he was born to it.

Suddenly there was a movement; he caught it in the corner of his eye. Just the tip of the snout, yes, it was the medium sized, mud-colored one and it had come over the roof top this time, and was waiting and watching at the roof’s corner, just a yard from the new Mandevillia blossoms he had literally counted like puppies when they first emerged. Then he had drenched his babies with pepper soap as recommended by Señora Garza, who had personally hand delivered some from her own kitchen.

It hadn’t worked. The rain washed it off, and it rained every day. And he had other duties, his pastoral duties, his homilies. He squinted a little to diffuse the glare of the afternoon sun. Oh, it was ugly! To see the thing with its permanent predatory smile, and the worst, the eyes that seemed like camera shutters recording the acts of a serial killer, cold as judgment, solitary as an executioner. To see it inches from the Mandevillia, it made him weak and his hands trembled. He had frozen, waiting, too. Who would make the first move?

This indecision made him feel sick. He was watching the thing, and the thing was watching him. They were both using only the corners of their eyes so that the powerful eye ray, which he now from his iguana war knew was as strong as odor, was shielded. The question was, who would move first? Who was hungriest? He could leap up now and let fly with the sling shot, but he knew, with just the tip of it showing, the creature would be quicker, the shot would go wild, and then that would start the waiting all over again, maybe an hour, maybe more, and he had an appointment with Señora Marquez just before comida and siesta. It was now or never. He had to wait for the creature to come into full view. In order to do that he had to convince it that he had not seen it and that he wasn’t even there.

Not here, not here, he breathed. I’m not here, it was like a prayer. Reptilian prayer.

Honestly, he wasn’t very good at prayer–at Catholic prayer, not iguana prayer– he had discovered that early on. He was not one of the consoled. The consolatos. The blessed. There had been one moment before the monstrance, a day of adoration before the Blessed Sacrament, and he was taking his turn before the altar. It was raining; the sound of it was restful on the rooftop and patio, and beyond the patio he could catch a potent glimpse of the mountains wreathed in clouds. The air smelled of the wild chamomile blooming everywhere along the roadsides. It made everyone sneeze, but it was delicious. They had modernized a few things about the altar, replaced the towering candlesticks whose candles always languidly drooped with the heat of summer and whose flames sooted the frescoed angels, with electric candlesticks. But the voltage varied so much they flickered anyway. It was a peaceful moment; he was alone, apart from the overheated seminary atmosphere, alone with the Blessed Sacrament.

He had intended to meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries. He had started in the Garden of Gethsemane, with Christ on his knees begging God to take away the chalice of suffering that was coming. It was coming, and Christ was frightened. He would tell God that he was frightened, but he would tell God if he couldn’t take it away, to bring it on. (As they said on the satellite TV.)

That is what had begun all the rest. Miguel suddenly saw that it was so very, very hard to say, over the roar of fear in the blood: I accept.

Then Miguel had been almost inside Christ’s mind, it was pretty amazing, and suddenly he had an insight and almost prayed a real prayer. He thought to pray, thank you for the things I’ve dreaded. Thank you, because I understand what You suffered, because of the things I suffered. Except You were innocent. I never was. Like fire, some things that he had dreaded flashed across his mind: the time he had ridden his father’s favorite yegua too hard, showing off at the town feast day, and she was in foal. And then he was waiting in the ice cream parlor (some Gethsemane!) for his father and knowing what his father would say, and so much worse, would say in front of his friends, and he had dreaded it with his whole body as if every nerve were on fire. And now he was grateful for it! He remembered the day before the spelling bee, and he wished he’d never been born, and he had suffered a vile, a shameful diarrhea. And the worst dread, visiting his mother in the hospital before she died, when she looked so awful. And none of these things were as bad as Christ’s dread. Quite suddenly and purely, he had meant to say thank you for those things, instead of resenting them, as he had done at the time, as he had always done. He was completely aware that it would be the most liberating and wonderful prayer, that he would feel the effect of it down to the tips of his toes, and tears sprang to his eyes, pure tears, tears of genuine gratitude, not for his blessings for once, and they were many, but for his sufferings.

 Then suddenly he had the idea, the certainty, that his prayer was pleasing to God. And to other people. He saw himself as anyone else might see him at that moment. He saw how handsome, how sincere, how boyish and good he was at that moment. And he could not recapture the prayer. He was unable to tear his eyes away from himself and return to Christ in Gethsemane. He tried, but it was lost.

It was not so bad. His intentions were good. How could a man be responsible for simply being human and unable to occupy any space but his own? He had served, without any pure prayer like that lost one, and he would continue the same. If he could not connect with Christ, he would have to give it over for Christ to connect with him. Probably he was not meant for prayer, but for action.

The creature’s snout moved just a quarter of an inch toward him and its powerful shoulder came into view. It was checking him out. This was the moment for steel. He suppressed an urge to swallow. Come on, come on, he chanted. I’m not here, I’m not here at all.

Without moving he checked his hands, their position on the sling shot, the placement of the rock in the leather sling, His back hurt a little, but he did not move. Come on, you ugly devil. He concentrated on his peripheral vision and saw the creature turn its implacable gaze back to the Mandevillia and begin to move over the tip of the roof and down the column, and he knew he had him. If he could make the shot. Any moment now the iguana would descend the column and move into full view on the patio and he would have a chance.

He was aiming for the head. It would not kill the creature, or at least he did not think so. He did not want to kill it, for he was not sure of the legalities, weren’t they protected? Weren’t they a big tourist photo op?

Of course if he killed it, he killed it. Intentions counted, the Scholastics said. Don’t move, don’t move.

He hadn’t actually practiced with the sling shot. But how hard could it be for a country boy like himself? He was so busy; he had been writing his homily. He took extra care with his homilies and was proud of how clear, how clean, was his retelling of the gospel story so that the simplest child could understand exactly what happened. And he actually wrote in mic cues, in the margins, like a script. He had researched microphone tips thoroughly on-line at the computers in the public library, and they said to speak in normal conversation tone and don’t worry, the mic will elevate it for you. But by himself he had learned that he could lower his voice to a whisper and the mic would send it to each person as if he were actually whispering to them. It was not like speaking without a mic, when you simply had to shout a little all the time. And he had found he could combine whispering with a certain hesitant, shy eye contact, one that removed the confrontation of eye contact, distasteful to this people from the mountains of Mexico, yet retained the incredible power. And then he had them in the palm of his hand. It was absolutely amazing!

He knew his reputation was growing. He could not deny that it had crossed his mind that the skills he was tending would well adorn the bishop’s garden. He could work a microphone. He could croon. He chose the traditional songs and the new church music with an ear to their likelihood to showcase his sweet tenor voice, and he was happily aware how he sounded almost like a video star over the newly installed sound system. He’d had no trouble convincing Father Pastor the expense was more than justified when viewed from a cost-per-soul perspective. He even took the portable mic system with him on the peregrinations now, and sang the sweet old cumbia melodies on the bus, and once imitated a popular soft drink commercial that sent the women on the bus into spasms of admiring laughter, so then he imitated a car salesman, and then an actor whose latest work was playing in the town centro. He had a gift. Others wanted the microphone, too, and he let them play around with it, but everyone knew for everything major, he would be working the mic. Even the bishop, on his feastday visits, deferred to him at least for the préces prayers, but then the bishop liked to take the mic himself, and walk energetically up and down the sanctuary and even out into the congregation, happily explaining all that he knew. It’s good to be bishop. Ah, well. Perhaps his turn would come.

There it was. He almost felt the creature moving slowly onto the patio. Don’t look. You can hear it when it moves, it was that heavy. There it is.

Slowly he tightened muscle by muscle his shooting arm and was reminded of the miracle of himself, so beautiful a machine. It was really amazing what ordination had done for him. He was good at his work. There were lines of people waiting to talk to him, every day. Mostly women. He thought it might have to do with his homilies, for he had taken to talking about women.

Why had he not realized before how oppressed women were? Or how good they smelled.

He had to smile and almost loosened his grip on the slingshot, thinking of Señora Marquez. She was such a handsome woman, how could her husband ignore her so, how could he do the numerous cruel things he did, that Señora Marquez recounted to him, in her soft slow voice, her lovely brown tear-smudged eyes lifted trustingly to his, her sisterly kisses when she left, the pastries she sent for their solitary priestly suppers? It was wonderful that the Church had eliminated the paranoia of those older generations and encouraged such pastoral work. Father Pastor seemed impressed with Miguel’s success with the womenfolk of the parish, for they did almost everything now, the mass, the music, the cleaning, the visitation of the sick. Everything but the consecration and perhaps that was coming. They were important, all right.

Father Miguel slowly adjusted the angle of his wrist so he could check his watch; oh, almost time. Señora Marquez would not like to be kept waiting. A useless garden could not take precedence over his pastoral work. He could delay no longer. Now or never. Slowly he shifted his gaze and saw the creature lifting its ugly front paws onto the Mandevillia. Now or never. Quickly he raised the sling shot, fully loaded, took aim, and fired.

But the trajectory was completely off. The rock had a mind of its own and ricocheted off a heavy pot to the right, struck the patio table, took off again and knocked St. Francis right off his perch. The iguana fled before the first pot was struck.

 Well, slingshots were quirky! Slingshots were not straight shooters, and he regretted buying the cheap one and not the sleek aluminum one at three times the price. He regretted not practicing. Father Miguel sat down heavily in his patio chair and looked despairingly around the garden. The creature would not return now for quite a while, that was the pattern. And he could wait no more, duty called.

He looked at the roses, many just coming again into bloom. He looked at the Mandevillia, and it gave him a sudden headache. He looked at the pink confection he called the Duke, so heavy and rich and manly were its cascading blooms. He said goodbye to each one, for unless there were a furious storm and the iguanas in for the rest of the day, the Duke and the Mandevillia would certainly be gone when he returned. To leave them was almost more than he could bear. But he must. And, with a feeling something important had happened (but what? It was only a garden!), he did.

The iguana waited for almost half an hour. He had seen Father Miguel leave from his hiding place behind a half-rotted rafter. He knew Father very well. He knew Father would sometimes return, and that his limit was half an hour. The iguana told time by his stomach. He knew he had the garden to himself now, and slowly and majestically he descended the porch and stopped for an appetizer in the impatiens, and what he didn’t eat he crushed with his heavy taloned feet. His face was a face from the past, from the first times, full of cruelty, hunger, and pride. Then he turned to the Mandevillia, which was climbing up the garden wall but which would not thereby escape. The iguana half closed his eyes in anticipation, and he used the fallen St. Francis to ascend.

He got the next sip.

“Once. This week.”

Think about something good, something with air. Air! Cool, dry, silky over the lips, oh God, help me! I can’t! Can’t get air!

“Did it hurt?” Sip. “Anyone?” Sip.

The woman paused and thought. “I suppose it made someone mad. ”

No, no, don’t go there. Not therapy. Sin. “Anything else?” Sip. Poison air, like melted wax. Nauseous, gonna hurl. Help.

“And, the seventh Commandment.” 

“Yes?” He was drowning. Christ drowned. Couldn’t get air. Way they stretched His arms. There was no air, just her perfume, hair spray, awful. Panic was right there where he could touch it. Something was coming. All he had to do was scream, and then: no air. What happened next? It couldn’t be worse than this. Help.

“The one against stealing, Father.” She sounded exasperated, to have to tell him. It hurt his pride!

“Yes?” Could she hear him panting?

“Oh. Well, I bought some of them pirate DVDs for the kids.”

Restitution, oh Lord. How could he explain in three words? “Any good?”

“What? Good? How do you mean?”

“Good. Catholic.” 

“They’re cartoons, Father.”

“But, good?”

“Yeah, well, a couple. I guess.” 

“Bad ones . . . in trash. Five dollars . . . good ones. . . . Poor basket.  And.”

“Yes, Father?” 

“Read to them. And” — sip — ” work on the gossiping.” He barely got it out. “Penance: decade rosary. Say the Act.”

“Oh my God I am heartily sorry,” the woman began the Act of Contrition. Tim held onto her voice in the dark confessional and tried not to think about air and said the ancient words of absolution as clearly as he could. 

When she was finished, he said, “Go in peace. Pray for me. How many waiting? Please?”

A moment later, she whispered on the other side, “No one left, Father.”

“Thank you,” he murmured, but she was gone. Five more minutes. Just five more minutes in case somebody showed up late. 

Finally Father took off the purple stole. He started to hang it over the back of the chair, but it was soaked with sweat, and he draped it over his shoulder and groped his way out of the confessional. It could use an airing, but not as much as he could.

He knelt to say goodnight. What a relief, to kneel in the open air of the old church. They had designed it for Florida, and the hot air found its way up and out through the steeple, and relatively cooler air was pulled in through the windows. It was still hot, but the attack faded instantly in the wonderful sensation of flowing air. 

Father looked at the tabernacle. He thought of the confessions he had heard that evening and he prayed for them, the straggly men and women who had knelt with him one by one in that hot box: help them to be strong against their sins, Lord. Then he amended it: help us.

He was too tired to pray in words. He was so hungry he was trembling, and he smelled rank, and he had to pee. He offered all that to God, too. He offered it for his penitents tonight, like a chess move, for that’s what St. Teresa of Avila said about prayer, it was like playing chess with God.  If He were a kind God— and while the jury was still out, the evidence pointed toward mercy—His counter move would be help for those who had come and told their sins and hoped for divine assistance in the endless struggle. Just like chess. Or maybe poker. (St. Teresa didn’t say that!)

His penitents! What a struggle, to be really sorry for their sins! And yet that, the only really necessary thing. What did the mass say, when the priest put the incense in the censor? Help me put a wall at the door of my mouth, to not make excuses in sin? 

But ah yes they made excuses! They stole because they were poor or thought they were poor. 

They lied because the truth hurt, and they dodged it like a blow.

They gossiped because no one listened to them otherwise. They dressed immodestly because no one looked at them, really looked at them, otherwise. They committed adultery because they were so lonely in the hell that marriage can be, if it goes bad. And it went bad so often. Because they insisted on contraception, without knowing it’s the death of love. Because they lusted in their hearts.  

Besides, too many men didn’t want to grow up. They secretly hated being the breadwinner and they covered it up with sweet, liberal talk about “equality,” so women ended up doing both jobs, and the marriage died. Or the wives! Couldn’t do a nice thing for a husband if the world depended on it. 50/50 all the way, like a business! And so the marriage died.

Monogamy is so delicate and so difficult. Men could really act like pigs. But women have a trick or two themselves! He’d learned a lot in the confessional. For one thing, he’d learned to appreciate celibacy!

They cheated on their taxes, they littered, they killed other human beings in public, and kicked the dog in private. They found it really hard to stop. He could understand it. He knew them. He was one of them. Our sins are all we have. Seems like. 

Yet God said stop. But really quietly. God knew He overwhelmed men. He could make men love Him, but He didn’t want to, since that wouldn’t be love.  God tried to make up for it by invisibility and He said stop in a tiny voice, like the wind, that anyone could pretend not to hear. So much he wanted the love of free men and women!

The tired people at evening confession hadn’t ignored Him. What a miracle! It moved Father Tim to prayer. He locked his heart on the Presence in the tabernacle and begged, Help us. He wished his heart said that to God with every beat. Help us, or the world will end. Because that was pretty much the way it was around here on earth now — End Game. Extinction.

He walked back to the rectory.  The sky was rich with stars to the east, and in the west towering rain clouds still gilded from the sunset pulsed with energy, full of heat lightning. The smell of his housekeeper’s jasmine billowed all around him, but he was okay now, he could even appreciate it. His claustrophobia seemed a mild penance compared to the problems and sacrifices of some of his parishioners, even though it had kept him at home in Florida all his life while his twin brother was already in outer space.

But if you had to be somewhere on earth, this was the place. And they left him alone to say the old mass and do things the old ways. He would be so happy, except he missed his brother Tomás on the new space colony, up there with the stars.

He opened the screen door on the back porch quickly, and entered and closed it quickly again, to keep the moths and mosquitoes out. The rectory kitchen was as old as the church and just as thoughtfully designed for the heat. It was a separate wing from the house, with its own porch, so the cooking heat and odor dissipated. A cast-iron wood burning stove dominated one side of the room. An enormous window opened the sink area to a view of the sweet slow creek below where otters sometimes played and water lilies bloomed, and there at the sink his housekeeper Dovie stood firmly planted on her house slippers, washing dishes. She turned when she heard him enter. “I’ll get your supper, Father. You’ll be wanting to wash your hands.”

When he came back from the bathroom, she was standing by his chair holding his dinner plate. She would give him as usual a thorough examination before she put the plate on the table. If he failed any part of the examination, she would return the plate to the counter and set out to rectify whatever was amiss. He hoped he’d pass. He was starving. “You’ve had another attack, from the looks of you,” she said.

“It wasn’t so bad, I got through it. But my stole could use some sunshine, okay, Dovie? Please, thank you.” He seated himself and held his breath to see if she was going to put down the plate. She weighed his words syllable by syllable. Finally satisfied, she placed it carefully before him, and returned to the counter for the hot rolls and the salt and pepper, and his juice. Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and collard greens from the rectory garden. Another benefit of living in Florida, if you still lived on earth.

He wondered what Tomás had for supper tonight. So many things were coming online on the colony, maybe they had fried chicken and collard greens by now. He’d have to e-mail and ask, if it wouldn’t be too much like gloating over his own dinner. Many people had someone on the colony who’d been evacuated, and everyone felt sorry for them, the people on the colony. To be living somewhere with just the thinnest layer of air, and no fresh food, and possible terrorist destruction. Just hung out there like a big target.

Dovie interrupted his thoughts, and his dinner. “Well, Father, we’ve had a crank phone call.” She had a slip of paper in her hands.

“How is that, Dovie?” She handed him the slip of paper and he peered at it while he took a bite of mashed potatoes. “It’s long-distance,” he observed. And not even normal long distance, there were too many numbers.

“Well, listen to this, Father: it’s worse than long-distance. He said it’s Rome!”

Father Timothy and Dovie locked eyes for a moment. Rome! She might as well have said, It’s the moon.

“But it has to be fake, Father,” Dovie said. “Look at the name. Isn’t that the Vatican Secretary of State?”

“It is, Dovie.” Father Timothy said. “It is indeed.” He finished his supper, though, before he punched the numbers into the rectory phone. And the call went through to the Vatican Secretary of State, who answered it personally, as if it were his private line, and only then Tim realized how late it was there.

“This is Father Timoteo Monaghan. From St. Anne’s? In Melbourne? Florida?” he ran on, as His Eminence said nothing. “You called here and left a message? You said it was urgent, I know it’s very late there. Or maybe there was some kind of practical joke, and please excuse me, if so. Do you speak English?” he finally wound up as the voice said nothing.

There was a heavy sigh on the other end of the line. “No, it is not a joke, Father Monaghan,” the voice said, in perfect English. “I’ve been waiting for your call. You are the brother of Tomás Monaghan, yes? The astronaut, the captain of the Regina Coeli?”

 ”Tomás?! He’s alright, isn’t he? He’s on the colony! Has something happened? But he’s not a captain!”

“Well, but he is a captain,” the heavily accented voice continued. “I am sure he will explain it all to you. He is a captain, of a special ship. And you are about to be a bishop.” His Eminence paused to let his words sink in. Then he continued. “You must come to Rome tomorrow. You must be consecrated.”

“What are you talking about?” Timothy said. “Bishop of what?”

“And then you will join Tomás on the Regina Coeli. And you will be bishop of–of everything that is not Earth. You will be bishop of the universe.  I suppose that is how we shall have to put it.” He paused, chuckled dryly. “Or, bishop of at least as far as Alpha Centauri.  Although you yourself will not live that long. But you will consecrate other priests, and other bishops.”

It had entered Timothy’s head when Tomás left earth that this was coming for the Church.  The Church would have to act, for Tomás was Catholic, there surely were other Catholics among the evacuated, and that meant there had to be priests. He had thought they’d come from Earth, of course. Rotate in and out or something. Not that different from missions on Earth. For those who could fly, of course. Never for him, personally.

His Eminence continued. “Your brother has been selected for a special mission for Earth. It is special for the Church, as well. He has been given a ship. There are two others. They will race to Alpha Centauri. There’s a billion dollar prize. Think of that, a billion dollars!  It is believed that in a planet system there, there are carbon dioxide resistant plants.  They know that from the spectographic data, it is a planet with more carbon dioxide that earth has now yet plants have been detected.  Anyway this is how they explained it to me. The Regina Coeli‘s mission is to bring these plants back to earth and graft that tolerant gene to our native plants. As you know, we are losing wheat. “

He paused while that sunk in. They had thought wheat to be among the strongest, most resistant, of plants, but the crops in recent years had been dangerously small. Wheat was losing. It was something to do with the increase in carbon dioxide, Tim knew that much. Without wheat, there was no Blessed Sacrament. There were no substitutions for what Christ had chosen. Not even the Church, not even the Holy Father himself,  had the power to change that. 

“Alpha Centauri,” murmured Father Timothy. “That’s –so far.” He couldn’t remember how far. 

“It’s several generations, in fact, under the best circumstances. I have recently become something of an expert,” said His Eminence. “That’s why there must be a bishop. And so you must come to Rome, and then you will be evacuated.” 

“But I can’t!” Timothy blurted. “I can’t!” 

“Of course,” His Eminence said.  His voice grew gentler. “Of course, you must have time to think. This is very sudden for you. It is true that you will give up many things, and even the saints had time to consider that. But we don’t have time, Father Timoteo. That’s the problem. That’s why I’m calling you, not the Papal Nuncio. That’s why there’s no letter on fine linen, in Latin, Father Monaghan.  Nothing is normal. Our planet is dying.”  The fine, confident, richly masculine European voice faltered for a moment, and then regained strength. “But the Church is not. The ship is leaving. There must be a bishop on it. You say you can’t, but pray first. Because you must. You must! For Holy Mother Church!”

“No, I mean I can’t come to Rome.” Father hesitated for only a fraction of a second before he lied. “I can’t fly. I–I have an ear infection. I’m taking antibiotics. The doctor was very clear.” He bit the inside of his cheek, and felt terrible. Lying!  And for what?  He was only putting off the inevitable. What did he think, there’d be some kind of miracle down the road? He wasn’t, no way, never going to happen, never going to get on a shuttle and fly to the space colony and then put himself in even deeper, in some kind of twenty-first century ark headed for a distant galaxy. Not even for Tomás. Why lie in the first place and lead them on? 

His Eminence hesitated only a moment. “All right, then, Father Monaghan. No problem. If you cannot come to Rome tomorrow, Rome shall come to you. Can you arrange local accommodations for, let’s see, myself, and three other cardinals? We’ll bring everything we need. And call your bishop and let him know I’ll be in touch. He must attend. See you tomorrow.”  

* * *

Albert Taylor got in by mistake. He knew the deal.  He knew the score. Al had gotten in more than a few places in his life by being 6’2 and 250, and being black sometimes helped.

And to get a seat in this bar, this night, in this crowd, you had to be somebody special, and Al was darn sure he was here by mistake. Pretty much like his whole life.

He sipped his ginger ale and scanned the crowd. Everybody here had something in common: they had a report letter or e-mail from EVAC, and the ID to back it up. They were NASA, or medical, or special support, they were young, healthy, educated, no addictions except their egos. Earth was going to miss them.

Whoa! What have we here? A priest?

A priest, young, stood close to the door, worn down by his luggage, and pale as the Holy Ghost. He had on his collar, he had on that old thing they used to wear, a cassock — hey, how would that work in zero gravity? Al felt sorry for him, in spite of himself and his aversion to beliefs of all kinds. But it must be hard to be a priest, the world being what it was. It was hard enough to be an engineer.

The priest glanced at him, caught his eye, and Al could see how really young he was, and scared half to death, damn.  In spite of himself, Al gave him a little wave. The priest looked startled for a second, and then made his way to Al through the thick crowd. 

“Here, stash your stuff,” Al said, and slid the black athletic bag and suitcase under the bench with his own bag. “Albert Taylor, NASA,” he said, extending his hand, and couldn’t resist a little thrill of pride he felt, still felt, every time. He hadn’t added his specialty: civil engineer, specialty: sanitation –the shit detail. He slid over and made room.

“Father Timoteo Monaghan,” the priest said and took Al’s hand. 

“Tim, good to meet you.” Al sized up the kid’s grip. Not bad. “Timoteo Monaghan, you say? McTaco, huh?” 

The priest grinned. “Something like. Mom and Dad.”

“So,” Al said, “you got your papers? You on the shuttle?”

The kid looked thoughtful and vaguely patted the breast pocket of his black jacket. “Yeah,” he said. “I got my papers. I’m supposed to be joining my brother, for this crazy mission. He’s going to Alpha Centauri, he’s got a ship. I mean, he’s not going to Alpha Centauri, but the ship is. He’s going, I mean, but–he won’t make the whole trip and everything.”

It struck Father Tim then, for the first time, that it only made sense if Tomás were married. His kids would have to finish the trip! Was Tomás married, and a captain, too? Because it would have to be, no, not his kids, the kids of his kids who would bring the ship that far, if Tim understood it right. Dear God, they were talking about getting on a spaceship and never getting off, never. That might even give people who didn’t have claustrophobia a moment or two of reflection. I’ll never do it, Tim thought, and sighed heavily. What was he doing here, then? Why had he come here? What the hell did he think he was doing? 

“No kidding! The Alpha Centauri project — it’s on?” Al could hardly believe it. The dream! Mighty NASA’d finally gotten off its ass! 

“I don’t know much about it. But my brother is the captain, Tomás Monaghan. Maybe you know him?”

Al shook his head. “I’m just an engineer.” And not an especially good one, either, he thought. Lost my edge when Mary died, why am I here? When Mary died, everything died. She’d been his reason for doing every hard thing he’d ever done, which included getting up each morning and facing the NASA pressure cooker, and he didn’t have anything to put in her place. Why do any of it? She’d been his reasons, all his reasons.  

He inadvertently pictured the small envelope tucked in his left pocket. The envelope with the special pills he’d been carrying with him ever since the funeral. His back-up, or his back-out. When he just couldn’t stand the emptiness another minute. But he was still afraid. Now he was letting himself be evacuated when he knew he didn’t have what it takes to be a hero. No, to be a man. 

When Mary died, everything just died. She’d been his reason for doing every hard thing he’d ever done, which included getting up each morning and facing the NASA pressure cooker, and he didn’t have anything to put in her place. He shook his head and abandoned his thoughts. They led nowhere. 

“So, you’re what, you’re going along for the ride? I mean, I’m sorry, but really I don’t understand, why would a priest go on a spaceship?” Well, that was pretty rude.

But, think about it, what work did a priest have in outer space?  Space is where we prove there is no God — right? That’s where the engineers are God — right? Priests and all that superstitious crap, that belonged to earth.

Maybe it was what ruined the earth. Might as well say it.

But he didn’t. Because every time he came to that precipice, where he said, We don’t need God, he drew back. For Mary’s sake, for one thing. Because he knew people. He was on the shit detail and he knew people. People need something because people are shady. 

“No,” Father Tim said. “I can’t fly at any altitude. That’s how they made a mistake. I have claustrophobia.” 

“You’re kidding. You’re sure. You can’t fly.” 

“Nope. Had it for years. Had it all my life. But it’s funny, I can drive. Some claustrophobes can’t. I’m okay if I can just look outside, it seems like. And be by an exit door, that helps.”  

The doctors had suggested various reasons for his claustrophobia. Tim had never mentioned to them that he already knew the reason. It was simple. He’d been the littlest twin, stuck in a corner, folded in half, and he had almost not made the journey alive, because Tomás was bigger and took up all the room. Not that he remembered it. But somehow he knew it.

“Well, excuse me for asking, but what are you doing here, then? Why did they make you a bishop, if you can’t fly? The bishop of outer space, you know what I mean?” Al chuckled and rolled his eyes. Those Cat-licks!

“I didn’t tell them.” He glanced up at Al. “They were so — rushed, and they were so sure, and it really is perfect, Tomás being my twin brother and everything. I don’t know why I didn’t tell them. I just packed my stuff and came to Canaveral anyway. Maybe I’m hoping for a miracle.” He shot Al one desperate look and buried his face in his hands.

Al thought about it. Miracle, huh. This dog was barking at the wrong door. Al Taylor was not about miracles. Engineers were not about miracles. “Let me tell you a joke, Father. There was this doctor, this priest, and this engineer playing golf, right?” Father Tim groaned, and Al said, “No, no, you’ll see. So, they were playing golf, and they were behind this group that was going really, really slow. So they ask a groundskeeper, what’s going on, they say, and he tells them they’re behind a group of blind firefighters.  See, they lost their vision saving people in a big fire right there at the country club, so the golf course lets them play for free, anytime they want.

“So the doctor says, ‘Hey, I think I’ll ask this ophthalmological surgeon I know if he thinks anything can be done for them. They call him a miracle-worker.’ And the priest thinks for a minute, and he says, ‘I’ll pray for them.’ And the engineer thinks for a second, too, and he finally says, ‘Well, why can’t they just play at night?’” This still delighted Al, and he laughed at his own joke. “Engineers! No, we’re not much for miracles!  See, Tim, the engineer didn’t think about some medical breakthrough or, uh, a religious miracle. He just thought of how to fix the situation.”  

“Oh,” said Father Tim. “Oh. I get it. Well, how would you fix it? My situation.”

“Well,” said Al, leaning back, glancing around the bar, thinking and watching the bartender, who really was excellent, holding up under the crush, and then it came to him. “I guess I would get you a hell’a drunk, and put you on the shuttle. What are you going to do when you wake up? Die?” 

“I might,” Father Tim said. “I’ve never had an attack before where I couldn’t get out. I don’t know what would happen. It’s pretty fierce,” he said. “It feels like I could die.”

But he was thinking of something else altogether. Maybe the engineer was wrong — maybe God led him right here, after all those doctors, to this person, this engineer who could just fix him. That would be a miracle.  

Tim believed in miracles. It came with the collar.

“Well, you want to try it?” Al leaned back in his chair like a poker player with a good hand–or a poker player trying to bluff he had a good hand. 

“Getting drunk?” Tim looked at Al and hesitated, and dropped his eyes. This might be what confession felt like for some people. It sucked. “I’ve never been drunk. And the thing is, that’s not it, there’s a lot of things I’ve never done. But see, I don’t want to, either. And getting drunk, I mean drunk enough to get on that shuttle, go through that door?  Really really drunk? Well, I might do things that I don’t want to do.  I might — commit sins.”  

Well, this was getting awfully personal with a man Tim didn’t even know, didn’t even know if this guy could possibly understand what it meant when you believed that sin was serious.  “So I don’t want to. When you get drunk they say you give up your faculties.”

“Well, that’s probably why people like it so much, Tim. But, okay. Sure. Easy problem. Simple fix: I wouldn’t let you. What is it, women? Guys?” He was tempted to say, little boys? But he passed on it. The guy just didn’t seem the type. “What else? Cussing? What? Don’t worry. I can get you on the shuttle with everything intact. I’ll stay with you. I won’t let anything—uh—indiscrete happen.” Although how he would get a presumably unconscious man through the checkpoint was going to be a challenge. Nothing, however, he couldn’t handle. Being NFL- linesman-big, it had never hurt up to now. “I’m straight, myself, by the way,” he added. 

Father Tim bit his lower lip and stared at the table. What a mess! Ever since Mom and Dad passed away, Tomás was all he had. He missed him so badly, and now this chance to be with him again, to be on an incredible adventure with him that was part of his vocation, too—it was so perfect. Except for that one little thing. Suffocating.  

Therapy hadn’t worked—it was a joke. Hypnosis, no.  He’d tried the deep breathing during an attack but his body just wouldn’t cooperate and once the panic started, it was over, he had to get out. The best he could do was hold on for a minute with those little sips of air. They’d tried pills, too. But he had to be almost unconscious, and even then, he’d bolted from the Seaworld aquarium and thrown up in full view of the parish’s Sacred Heart Society, whose members viewed him with due suspicion, he felt, forever after.

Some doctors thought that if a person with claustrophobia would just suffer through one attack, voluntarily, no running, no hiding, it would be over. But that last extra five minutes in the confessional waiting for a straggler was all he could ever manage and that was only because he knew he could get out, he would get out. There’d be no getting out of the shuttle. No getting out. No getting out. The very idea made him dizzy with dread. It must be what Gethsemane was like for Jesus. 

That thought made the decision for him, because it was the same decision he made every morning when he put on his collar.  This time he’d follow Him into space, which was a funny word for it, because he was pretty sure he was going to feel like there was no space at all, which might be the last feeling he’d ever feel. “Okay,” he looked up at Al Taylor, who was gazing down at him with amusement. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“You sure, now?” Al said. “What’ll you do when you wake up?”

“I don’t know. I guess, at the worst, could you just knock me out?” Father glanced at Al’s fists. Ouch. 

“Okay. Let’s deal with that when we get there. But, listen: I will if I have to. Give me your papers so I can just get us both on board. How’s your stomach? You got a weak stomach?” 

“Yeah.” 

That ruled out tequila. Vodka? Yeah, that would work. Al caught the barman’s eye. They had about two hours before they started boarding. He had to time it right. “Can you bring me, uh, two ginger ales?” If the kid had soda first, it’d be easier on his stomach.  “And then a vodka martini—Grey Goose—up, and keep them coming. My friend here’s on a mission.” 

“Aren’t we all,” the bartender sighed, and brought the sodas and the martini. “I gotta charge you the up tax,” he said. Al grimaced. “It’s more liquor, man, without the ice” the bartender offered. “And whadda you care, it’s on the company store, anyway,” he added when Al handed him his new, sky-blue debit card.

Everybody in the room had the same debit card since the pre-flight check. Nobody knew exactly how it would work, but everybody was now on the government payroll, at least temporarily. But not exactly. They had done something new there. Or really old, Al wasn’t sure which. They had organized the colony as an old-fashioned cooperative, and eventually the profits would be distributed among them all, as full owners.  And earth’s investment, administered by all the world’s governments, paid back. It wasn’t socialist, it wasn’t capitalist. And it was a big risk. But cooperatives had been done, and overlooked, from early times right up to the twenty first century. And there it was, the cooperative concept, when they needed some new economic vehicle. So the workers wrote their mission statement and their rules of operation (“One man one vote”), bought out NASA with government money, and began to transform the whole debate, from the bottom up. 

As investments went in this day and age, it was an incredibly good one. There’d be no foreseeable drastic social welfare problems, because everyone had a paycheck, there would be no unemployment on the colony, not in the near future, at least. Everybody worked, how not?  They had a whole miniature world to set up. The opposite, probably, a labor shortage, which can be serious, too. 

The first job, along with subsistence, was to provide solar energy to earth via microwaves, and until then everybody got paid just enough to maintain a minimum standard of living. There were very many perks, though! Women got paid time off to raise kids and had opportunities to stay trained in their specialties, for extra pay. Fathers got bonus pay.  Above that, you could get extra through participation in any profitable project you could swing, even using the company resources in development. You got pizza going on the colony, made the connections for somebody with wheat and somebody with yeast and tomato sauce, you got the pizza franchise. 

Up to a point, anyway.  Something they were starting on earth, too. There was a big tax on chains over four franchises. Earth was getting serious about promoting broader ownership of business however way they could. The “Free Market” fake econo-religion had finally fizzled, along with communism. Now earth was searching for a third way, some way to save capitalism from itself. Keep it off the third rail. Some way to keep it young. 

Like take the space colony. How would it work? Who would finance it, who would own the profits? The government? The same big businesses whose concentrated political and economic power was already poisoning the well? That question had finally forced them out of the box.  Anyway, there simply was no company big enough to swing it, and besides, the possibility for revolt was just too great and made those old sub-prime loans look mighty safe indeed, compared. The distance made it, like say the American colonies once were, just about inevitable. What company could risk it? So why not skip the struggle part and let the colony own itself right from the start? 

The arguments that preceded these unprecedented economic decisions were surprisingly short, once Earth’s predicament became clear: conservation alone is not the answer, not enough, got to get some form of alternative energy AND stop the demographic winter and start reproducing, or die, economically first, physically shortly thereafter, by the millions. That the earth was finite was beside the question. To try to go backwards economically, to step it down to a less energy-dependent civilization also meant the deaths of millions. And it was stupid. Then their eyes turned again to the stars, the dream they had abandoned just about the time the world had given up having babies. And hope returned. With some surprising results. 

Thus the cooperative idea happened. Totally new. Not socialism, not imperialism. It sounded good to Al. He was psyched in spite of himself, to be a part of it. His pay was more than fair, and he would be building stock. Management was difficult, but people could manage themselves in spite of their tendency to be douche bags, given the right conditions. At least Earth had quit ducking the question, what conditions are those? Why actually does socialism fail? Why actually does capitalism turn imperialist? 

And the whole new game, new ownership, new opportunities for new capital, and that’s not even mentioning the positive effect on production getting free of gravity caused, once they got used to it and realized how it could be managed, changed the  rules that had been operating on Earth ever since the end of the twentieth century.  Some effects were purely economic, some were social, and surprising for sure! 

One example. Turns out the old, discredited biblical command Go forth and multiply was actually a thoughtful economic strategy!  Except women had stopped buying into it, without some major repositioning of social policy. Surprisingly, they wanted support for traditional marriage, monogamous and life-long, as before. Feminists had found it the most pro-woman, after all, in the end. Somehow in the negotiations with the company women representatives found the courage to say so, and also to demand, off-world, an end to no-fault divorce, and an end to polygamy –the Muslim feminists among them, a sprinkling in their modest clothing, spoke up, reticent at first and then you couldn’t make them shut up. Naturally.  But they all wanted also on-going support for their professional careers, which they planned to resume when their families could manage it. They wanted women’s sports, and increased investment in labor saving household devices, but they wanted to keep cooking, not go to some central cafeteria, and they wanted subsidized daycare, but also the right to stay home. They wanted, as in the early days of feminism, to put porn back in the closet on the colony, no more of it everywhere you turn, shutting women out, making them playthings, making sex a game instead of a life.   

In short, women wanted it all, and in an expanding economy such as could be predicted when humans finally got off-world, their particular product, which was well-nurtured human beings, would be so much in demand that, in a precedent-setting agreement in off-world free enterprise, they got it: everything, motherhood and career and family and r-e-s-p-e-c-t. 

Earth’s big stake-holders, long commited to all policies that reduced conception and birth, wavered for a few months, fighting the temptation.  But their Holy Grail was right there, it was within reach: unlimited solar energy, unimaginable off-world mineral and chemical resources, gravity-free production.  Everything they ever wanted. Nothing so simple as a woman wanting to get paid and be respected for birthing high quality future workers (not to mention human beings)would stand in the way of it. 

So give them their bread and their roses! Let them be mothers and workers too, let them be anything they liked as long as they gave us human capital! Because one little tiny meteor, like Amun, had six trillion US dollars worth of platinum, and once we’re out there, without the expense of lifting into orbit, mining it became feasible. Not that different from mining in the Arctic, say. Very, very difficult, that’s all. That’s not even considering the iron, the nickel, cobalt. And surely somewhere, gold. Oh the possibilities! So give women what they want, and let’s go! 

But that was all theoretical. Had been theoretical. Actually it was still theoretical, but they were just going ahead and doing it. Jumping into the unknown, economy-wise. ‘Cause if they didn’t, they were screwed. Simple economics. Al looked at the card that would take the place of money for he and his fellow NASA owners, and thought how fragile the basics really were. Making the colony work all depended on just s few behaviors, and they had always been, for human beings, the ones under pressure. Showing up. Telling the truth. Not raping. Being a good parent.  Fair prices and a fair day’s work.  Remembering to reproduce, making that particular big sacrifice. “Yeah, yeah, but it’s less labor, and no ice,” Al maintained, late, to the bartender’s back. 

Basics, whether a martini up should cost more or less. Whether you should give women what they wanted. Who should own the company store.

More than a few things about the set up on the colony worried Al, of course, besides the economics. It was so fragile, literally, the skin just a couple of inches thick. But he understood how all that worked, the metal parts, the electrical parts. It was the human being part, the civilizations they built. They would have to build one there, in that huge emptiness. They were just as capable of smashing everything as making it work. Why do we smash things sometimes, and sometimes not? Who are we? 

It occurred to Al that he had just thought of himself as simply human, not as black, and that maybe it could be like that finally, in space. All of us united as a species, out there, looking for other species with awe and dread. What did this mean for him personally? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. He’d been black for a long time. It meant good things and bad. It meant things he could say and things he could never put into words, things deep inside him. He thought again of the pills hidden in his pocket.

“Let me ask you something, Tim,” while Al slid a ginger ale across the table. “And drink this first. Keep you from puking. Hopefully.” Al rubbed his forehead– how to put it?

“Are you actually going to do some kind of missionary thing on the way to Alpha Centauri? ‘Cause I just can’t see it. First of all, I can see how any human being could offer — what human beings have to offer, the mess we got ourselves in. I mean, let’s face it, we’re fleeing Earth. We’re not reaching out, we’re running! And then, I mean, Jesus Christ was human, a human guy.” And lily white, Al thought, not for the first time. Not for the first time. “What could he have to do with whatever forms of life we find out there?”

Father Timothy was watching the bubbles rising in the ginger ale and enjoying breathing. “Well, back at you. Why are you going, Al? Aren’t you taking human culture out there, too? Crappy as it is?”

Al thought again (what, it was his obsession now?) of the pills in his inside pocket where he was hoping security wasn’t interested in checking. Al had another option and he wasn’t sharing.

“I asked you first,” Al said.

“Okay. Fair enough.” Father picked up the glass and drank deeply as he considered his answer.

“Go easy on that,” Al remarked and laughed. “I mean it. So it’ll go into your bloodstream more slowly. We got time.”

“Who gets saved? That’s the real question.” Father glanced at Al, trying to judge if Al cared about the issue at all, but Al was poker-faced and anyway was making eye contact with the bartender to get those grey geese marching.

“The Church teaches the same as always, you have to believe in God to be saved, and you have to be sorry for your sins.” Al pushed a martini over to Father Timothy and thrust his chin forward: drink up. Father did. “You don’t need the Church to tell you that, St. Thomas taught that God gives every person the grace to believe in One God and the grace to be sorry for your sins.” Father took another drink. It didn’t taste bad at all. It tasted like winter, like he, in Florida all his life, imagined that winter would taste, of bitter berries. (In two years, or three, would he say it tasted like deep space? If he lived?) “Are you sorry for your sins, Al?” The liquor made him dreamy. He’d never ask such a question of a perfect stranger otherwise!

Al didn’t think for a second. “Yeah,” he said, and let it rest there.

“Me too,” Father said. “Because it hurts Him.” Father took a manly drink and he made it seem liturgical. “I guess that’s why I’m in this game. I can’t explain it. I just love Him. Even if God does give every single creature in the universe I don’t care how many arms or heads it has, the grace to believe in God and be sorry for whatever sins the creature managed with all those heads, so that they can go to heaven with or without the Church, I don’t care.” Father threw back a mouthful of the silvery liquid and smiled. “They ought to get to know about Jesus.”

“Jay-sus,” Al murmured and shook his head.

“I don’t care,” Father said. “Go ahead and joke. But Jesus changed the world. Take what he taught about the poor! Do you know how pagans still to this very day care about the poor? They don’t care at all! They still have Untouchables in India, you know that?” Father had sprung to his feet in indignation and the whole packed room was suddenly looking at him. He sat down sheepishly. Al whistled. Alcohol did strange things to people! Al hoped this stage was brief, even though the priest was slight. A fighting Irish drunk, that’s all he needed. Mexican-Irish, even worse!

Father picked up his second Grey Goose and drained half of it like a thirsty man. “But not Christ. Not my man Christ,” he said with satisfaction. “Here’s what Christ said: whatever you do for the least of my brethren, you do for me. For me! That is a real revolutionary for you. And what do you think? The Church has actually walked that walk ever since. St. Paul baptized slaves, and sent them back to their Christian masters to be treated as sons. No other Church has a record like that.”

Al had to slow things down or this kid would be sick before he passed out. He pushed over the ginger ale and slid the martini back and distracted the cleric with a question. “How long you been a priest, Father?”

“Not very long,” Father Timothy replied thoughtfully, his mind elsewhere. “And now I’m a bishop! I’m the bishop of the whole rest of the universe.” He put the glass down and buried his face in his hands. Well, it was a tall order, Al thought. But Father recovered and said, like a man taking up his cross, “So if anybody’s out there, if they don’t know God, if there’s any slavery out there or any stealing or any lying, I’m bringing Christ. I’m bringing the Word.” Father took a sip of the soda. “Baptism by water. By desire. By blood. The whole shillelagh. Human beings without it are just too—dangerous. Probably aliens, too.”

“They’re pretty dangerous with it, Father,” said Al dubiously. But in his heart, he knew how it was. The kid in the Roman collar was right. Pagans were always killers behind their happy salesmen’s smiles. There was something civilizing in that cross. Which was strange, on account of how savage it actually was. Christianity wasn’t so different from any other life, not by that much anyway. It was like an eighth of an inch. Just the tiniest little bit more, saying yes instead of no to suffering. That’s what Mary taught him. ‘Cause make no mistake, suffering is part of the deal. And it’s got plenty to do with not killing. You live long enough, you find that out.

Not that Al had given it much thought in the past, Christianity and everything. Al only had one face to go with the word suffering, her face, and it came to mind unbidden. But that’s what the Buddhists said: heaven was just an eighth of an inch over. An eighth of an inch over from madness. An eighth of an inch of metal skin separating you from space vacuum!

Al slid the martini back over in front of Father Timothy. Finish this one, his gesture indicated. Finish this one and four or five more, and we’ll be getting on that shuttle. You can go ahead and bring that Christ into space. It’s okay by me. Father finished it. Al ordered up, got the bartender to hang on to their seats for a second, and they took a bathroom break to put on the specially designed undergarments required by the trip. The high-tech diapers would eliminate—that’s the word they used in the pre-flight instructions, nobody could say NASA was too dumb for irony—the need to use a flush toilet in the two day trip in weightless conditions, and Al was proud of himself for remembering it even if they were a little early.

The level of frantic merriment in the packed bar seemed to have up another notch. People were saying goodbye to the world. The world was going to let them. Al was counting on it, when he got this little man to the checkpoint. Time for some serious drinking, Father.

In two hours, more or less, the crowd began to drift toward the launch site and Father Timothy was completely soused. Seemed just about right. Al could count on him sleeping for several hours at least, through the launch, if all went according to procedures, which of course he couldn’t count on. Al’s own heart constricted briefly as they left the bar, but he didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that he, too, was leaving earth for what would probably be the last time, no matter what promises they had made to the evacuees. The way things were going, there probably wouldn’t be an earth to come back to, even to visit.

Al picked up Father’s papers from the table and put them carefully in his outside pocket, along with sis own. He gathered his duffle, and Father’s, and finally got his arm around the priest and hauled him to his feet. They joined the staggering crowd. The line went fast enough at the check point, the biological id having been completed outside the main gates. Papers, photo id, scanner wall to walk by. Still, Al had to wonder if they’d let an unconscious guy through. Being hauled by a big black guy with illegal pills in his inside right pocket. Father cooperated, though. He was more or less walking on his own, and singing some Latin tune that sounded surprisingly like a waltz.

“Stay away from the bad angels,” he said to Al, raising his head and looking his straight in the eye, which were only inches from his. “Stay way from those little devils,” he said. Al thought suddenly and guiltily of the pills in his inside pocket. Christ! Ditch ‘em!

And yet the idea of not having that power was really scary. It was life that was scary now. Living. It was like this huge pothole of an abyss. He guessed it was because she wasn’t with him now. How had he never understood who much she meant to him, when she was with him? It was that sweet smile he could count on at the worst moments. The generosity of her, always giving in first and smiling. Why hadn’t he been first sometimes? Why couldn’t he feel sorry that he let her do all the heavy lifting? Why couldn’t he feel anything? Why was he carrying little white pills that would make it all go away forever? Why was he carrying them instead of already dead? And why was he carrying this absolutely useless kid who thought he was some kind of bishop?

“Stay away from the bad angels!” Father Tim woke up and swung toward Al.

“Who are the bad angels?” Al said to him, and peered over the irregular lines to see how far they had to go yet.

“You have to listen,” Father said after a pause.

“What? Are they singing or something?” Al said absently, watching the youngest guard at the checkpoint, who evidently would be their guard. Too hot on the job, Al thought bitterly. Damn!

“No. Not singing,” Tim sing-songed himself. “God is talking to you. You-have-to-listen,” Father explained, as if giving Al a formula. “God will tell you all the bad angels. But we aren’t listen-ing.”

Al dropped a duffle, and then, retrieving it, managed to slip sideways into a throng that would end up at a different check point guard, a blond woman who Al was hoping could be managed.

They reached the scanwall. The blond held out her hand. Papers.

“Here’s mine,” Al said. “I’ve got my friend here’s, too. He uh he had a couple too many. Guess he’s not real experienced.” Al grinned his best grin and looked at her dead on but only for a second. “Tell me when you want his.” Then he shut up to see if she’d buy it. She hesitated.

“How do you know this guy?” she asked. “Did he ask you to take him across if he got drunk? Did he give you anything to hold?”

“No, no. I just picked up his duffle. He just had a few too many, is all. We were sitting next to each other in one of the bars. The Launch Pad, I think is it. You know it? He’s a priest! See, his collar and all. I’m an engineer. You see on my papers there. ” Al was struck by the feeling that they were the two least valuable members in an otherwise elite bunch: a God-monger and a drainage expert. This could work either way for them. He hazarded a peek at her face. Jeez! An iron maiden! He’d hate to play poker with her! She glanced down at his papers. That’s good. Now, she’d either ask for Father’s, or pull them over for a full search, or reject either or both of them on medical grounds, or the priest for not being able to respond to questions.

“And his papers?” she said and held out her hand. Whew! Al fished them out, put them in her hand.

“Sir? Sir?” she said to the priest. Al shook him a little. “Sir?” The priest stirred, and raised his head. He look straight at her—and smiled.

“Is she one of the good angels?” Father said. “Are you one of the good angels? ” he asked her.

She ignored the question. “Are you Timoteo Monaghan?” she asked.

“Yes, I am,” Father managed to look both lucid and silly. “Are we going to the shuttle? I’m ready,” he said. “You’re a good angel,” he finished, and gave her a final dazzling smile, and went back to sleep on Al’s shoulder.

Al looked at her and tightened just one side of his mouth into a lop-sided grin. Be that angel, he said in his heart. She hesitated just a moment longer, and jerked her head sideways. “Walk the wall,” she said, and strolled down it with them, checking the x-ray. Al tried not to think about the pills in his pocket. There was a lot to see in a short time. She might miss them. She might decide to miss them. Pills were not plastiques. They were a different sin. Maybe she had her own stash. Maybe she could care less for a bunch of privileged assholes earth will never see again, go ahead, kill yourselves, that might be her deal. Al held his breath.

She hesitated, and Al’s heart pounded. This be the moment to step in and give a little push, Al said to God, if you’re listening and haven’t made up Your Royal Mind yet ha ha which is highly doubtful, and why would You care anyway for a couple of losers? Then she simply handed him the papers, and turned back to the next evacuee. And that wasn’t God, Al snorted. No way. That was just picking your battles when you’re processing a couple thousand people. All in a day’s work, Al thought, all in a day’s work, and started shuffling them toward the shuttle doors far ahead. And now here comes my turn to work, he thought, thinking about what would happen when the young priest awoke in a claustrophobic nightmare.

To Be Continued–if someone leaves a comment about why it should be!

Layne’s muscles quivered in small jerks. His beautiful silver eyes, the clear, calm eyes Marley had loved since he was born eight years ago, were rolled all the way backwards in his little head.  His hands were making clutching movements as if he were falling. “Mom! Do something! ” Marley tried to work her hands under his head to keep it from banging against the floor. “Do something!”

“There’s nothing we can do, yet. Just wait. It’s a typical one-tonic-clonic. It should be over in two minutes. That’s right, cushion his head.” Her mother was kneeling at his side. Just as she said, within seconds, Layne’s breathing returned, the blue color around his mouth faded, and the awful shaking slowed, and then stopped. Her mother turned him gently on his side and kept her hand on his shoulder, patting him, while she carried on a conversation with herself. As usual, thought Marley, and then felt guilty. Her mother was doing the best she could as she coped with the medical needs of Earth’s first space colony, on little sleep and little food.

“I don’t see how it got past the screening. I can see how they missed it in the scan, PNES doesn’t cause changes in the brain like epilepsy. But there must have been some genetic flag, something to catch their attention.” The competition for spots had been fierce. Even something potentially treatable like PNES would’ve eliminated Layne, and with him, his family.

“Come on, Mom. In English! What’s PNES?” A wet stain had spread across the front of Layne’s khakis and Marley felt another stab of pain, knowing how embarrassed he would be when he woke up.

“Psychogenic Non-epileptic Seizures, Marley. Psychogenic—having their origin in the mind. Different from epilepsy. Something scared Layne—this badly. He’ll grow out of it, that’s typical. But if they’d caught it, we wouldn’t be here. We’d be on earth. Scratched.”

Sobering thought. Earth was burning.  Environmental catastrophes and now the possibility of imminent nuclear war.  There had been plenty of things there on earth that could have scared Layne before they, and the fortunate ten thousand others, were lifted out of it to the hardly completed space colony.

Just for one thing, his school lunchroom had been blown apart by a miniature suicide bomber. He’d just stepped one foot outside to play lunchtime pick up soccer in the courtyard, and turned back toward the noise, and watched his friends behind him die as their bodies flew apart but shielded him.  

Then the rioting on the way to the launch. That had been ugly. Their guards had killed people right in front of them, people had tried to kill them, people threw horrible things, said horrible things.  

Her mother continued. “But he’ll grow out of it. Almost all PNES do. We have to help him get over it.”

“You say it so calmly, Mom. How do we, help him? Is there a pill or something?”

“No. None without very bad effects anyway. We just have to help him not be scared.” Like an unspoken prayer she touched the crucifix she wore.

Not be scared, Marley thought. Like that was an option. Let’s see, now, children, let’s review the first half of the 21st century. Nuclear nonproliferation had prevented only the peaceful, non-polluting, use of nuclear technology, while preventing nobody, not a single country, not a single organized militia, from having their own personal nuclear device.

But that wasn’t all. Carbon dioxide spikes were proving to be even more dangerous than the storms and draughts of global warming. Plants couldn’t take it. The earth had practically no trees now and had lost corn, and most countries stockpiling their own grains instead of sending aid to the corn eaters. Wheat was tougher. Scientists were frantically studying its genetic structure, trying to see if they could modify other grains to have the same resistance.

But to Marley, that wasn’t the worst. The scariest part was the social breakdown.

For one thing, there were hardly any scientists left and most of them were now on the colony. People were happy to believe in just about anything: maybe the wind had a mind of its own, maybe the planets are alive, we need shamans, not scientists, we need some virgins to sacrifice, like a popular song refrained. Something civilized was gone. Nobody had time to think what. Marley thought she knew.

And life had gotten so raw. Instead of treating the sick with respect, like for a couple thousand years in the civilized west, now hospitals looked at the profit/loss, and a shot was so easy to administer, and so cheap: bye bye, Gramma. 

And women? Be a woman? Women could not walk alone in broad daylight, not anywhere; they risked being raped until they could not walk at all. Even little girls. Even babies. Why not? There was even baby porn. Every kind of law was breaking down.

It was God they were missing, the one God, a real God, that’s what Marley thought. Of course it would be what she thought, her family had always been Catholic. Not too many left of those left, either. Not that there’d ever been that many real ones! What Dad said.

So the Allied Nations had flung ten thousand of their supposed best into orbit with the shell of a habitat, and a few supplies, and a hope and a prayer. Every talking head said it was too soon, hardly anything field tested.

Like, right, Mom, not be scared.

Here they were, skinny, oxygen-hungry, with too many of the wrong bugs, not enough of the right bugs, not enough pollinators, not enough of anything, so very far from home, hung out in the night sky like an Allied target.  The shell that protected them wasn’t tougher or even thicker than Layne’s little skull. Theoretically that was enough, considering the pressure differences.

And worst of all, they were still human. Children of God, and sinners under the best conditions. Now it was like, sin had become some kind of art form.

But don’t be scared. Right.

But that wasn’t the whole story, Marley had to admit. Maybe the optimists had a small point. Marley’d been thinking it for a little while: something felt different on the colony. They say you can’t move away from your problems, you take them with you, but maybe they were wrong. Something had changed.  It might still feel like too soon, but it did not anymore feel like too many, the way it did on Earth. 

Out here, looking around the universe through their observation window, looking around the solar system that was a tiny part of a galaxy called the Milky Way, which has a hundred billion other stars–it could seriously change your perspective.

Something had happened. Like they had opened a door to the outside. It was still enormous. Yet, without gravity to hold them down and atmosphere to burn them up, it was so much closer than it ever has been. And it was calling them.  

It was like that one last, little thing, one notch up on a scale, like when liquids change to gas and you get something completely different. It was like that: human beings suddenly were precious. It was like having some nice outfit on, how it changed every single thing. They sure were right about self-esteem, back in school, Marley realized, but they didn’t know how to get it. Just make us feel like there should be more of us. Send us to space!

It crossed Marley’s mind that maybe the same thing might have happened on earth, as soon as it became clear that the space colonists had not died in the evacuation and apparently would continue to not die, now that so many systems were coming on-line. Maybe now the whole human race felt that the universe had this sign, Open for Businezz. Marley would email a school friend back on Earth, if she knew how to ask the question. Do you feel different down there, too, now that we’re Out?

In the lunch room they were talking about a planet in another solar system that had mountains of diamonds. So what if it was hundreds of light years away? It didn’t seem insurmountable anymore. They were working on solutions, a warp drive, and solar sails that billowed with actual light and traveled faster and faster until the speed of light itself was not, theoretically, unfeasible. (What’s faster than warp drive? Answer: the Net rumor we have warp drive.)

Some engineers, her father told her, were tracking an asteroid that would pass close enough to the colony to harvest. It was packed with platinum, and hydrogen, and oxygen, and lots of other goodies all of which could either be used on the colony, or sold to Earth. And for energy, you didn’t even need to move. Just hold out your hat. Energy was there for the asking, endless daylight in endless summer.

But there was too much to do! There were other colonies to be built, quickly, and all those asteroid projects with interesting names and big payoffs to organize. And that wasn’t even counting delivering energy to Earth.  They needed more hands! The colony could be home to double, triple, the original ten thousand, but it was so expensive to evacuate more people from earth. On the colony unemployment and overpopulation seemed like jokes. Archaic references, old superstitions as quaint as the fear mankind had once had of flying in zero g.  Now that those fears were gone, it was clear how much they had affected just the simple day to day things about life. They had made human beings afraid—to exist at all. Like the next breath you took was somehow taking life from some poor third world person somewhere. Like you just shouldn’t exist. It had made life so dreary.

But now, voila, you were precious!

Of course they were still afraid. They were afraid they couldn’t get plants pollinated. They were afraid they’d lose hummingbirds, and molds seemed more aggressive on the colony. But they didn’t have to feel guilty for living, the way it seemed to have gotten on Earth. Let’s hear it for living!

The very odd thing, it was especially different for women. Make that men and women. Or better, everything connected with sex and love and romance. That was clear right away!

Like, take the idea of having babies. A year ago, this was a Bad Thing, along with your Period.  You were supposed to like sex because it felt good, sure, like eating and sleeping, but not for real love or especially not for babies. Love was for chumps.

Not just that. It used to be, everybody “knew” men and women were more alike than different, and any differences women actually encountered, like monthly bleeding and PMS and breast feeding and pregnancy. were unfair and unjust and usually avoidable by taking the right combination of pills and eating a low fat diet. Unless you were the poster girl of Stupid.

But it wasn’t the same on the colony. Maybe it was the urgency of getting the natural to work at all on the colony. On Earth you bug-sprayed ants that came to the picnic. Here they were just trying to get ants to act normal, because their navigation system sure was messed up. Here they were trying to get everything to act normal and reproduce.  Everything natural was practically sacred.  From a joke Marley had overheard among some girls on a work detail laying thick black topsoil (as precious as platinum) over the grid that underlay everything in the colony, this included periods. Periods were back. Quietly, it was passed around, no cramps in zero g, take a break, flygirl.

This had something to do with unemployment, but Marley couldn’t put her finger on what. But something sure had changed. She personally felt like a little power plant humming along, singing an old song, What you want, Baby, I got it, whatever It was. Not so bad to be a girl.

More important, Layne was needed here, everyone was needed, and therefore it would be okay to get well.  Theoretically. This made all the difference, but Marley didn’t know exactly how.

Yeah, yeah, it had to be too good to last. Marley thought it was only a matter of time before the colony was dragged into the war. She remembered the strange email message yesterday. Death struggle, so be it. Pick a side. You’re going to die anyway. Have the sense to die for your own. She wondered how they got her email address, if others had been contacted, if she were in danger. And, excuse me, but who were “her own,” now?

Maybe the Greens were right, maybe the colony formed their own political country and should secede from earth?  

But if they weren’t earthlings or even Allies, who were they? Just –colonists?

That was as dumb a question as some of Laney’s! Like the other day he asked her, “Marley, when you was as little as me, where was I?” What had she told him? She couldn’t even remember. I don’t know where he was then, dear God, but I’ve lost my world and he’s all I’ve got left. Please, please help him get well!

Layne slept now, taking deep breaths through his open mouth. “Can you take care of him, Mom? I’m late for work right now.” Everybody over twelve had a job on the colony, along with “school” which was still being worked out. Marley was seventeen, practically the senior staff member in her section. She worked at the welcome wing where visiting techs from earth shuttled up to help, except they usually went home with more than they gave, now that the colony was starting to kick butt.

Her mother sat patting Layne, lost in thought, probably already doing the math, extrapolating how many other colonists might be experiencing PNES, what the medical teams could do. Marley gathered her backpack and things and paused at the door. “Mom. Tell him it’s normal, about wetting his pants. Explain it to him in English. Make a joke.”

“The thing is, it’s not normal, Marley. And it’s not a joke.”

“Make it one, Mom. Explain the technical stuff to Dad. He can make anything funny. Or Tom! Have him make it a Latin joke! Gotta go.” Marley bent and laid her hand on Layne’s shoulder, and turned and stepped outdoors.

Outdoors.  Well, it looked just like outdoors. The colony was an O’Neil cylinder, the biggest, Island Three, twenty miles long, four miles wide. That was big enough for an atmosphere, and clouds, and rain. It looked like Illinois—big blue sky, big green fields where someday houses would stand, and a horizon that curved gently up instead of down. It had only taken a couple of hours to seem “normal.” The trees were young, like in a new subdivision. The only thing was, their blue sky had a big black window and you could see earth, and the mirror that reflected the sun inside the sphere, or turned aside so there was night, and beyond that the whole universe revolved. Actually the colony revolved, not the sky, to keep up the artificial gravity that saved their bones and muscles from zero G. Right now the colonists lived in apartment bunkers, but there would be houses someday.

It had cost the Allies thirty thousand dollars an acre to build the colony, roughly everything they had. But, oh, what they stood to gain—from the harvest, not a harvest of green plants, but the sun itself, in oceans of energy microwaved to earth. And a total change in the political balance of power.  The oil nations would lose their card.

The colonists’ job: to deliver the goods, and maybe, no one said it, to save a remnant of mankind should it manage to extinguish itself on earth. They were almost there, but there was a growing interest among many colonists to negotiate a new deal, one in which the colony ruled the earth, not the other way around.

We grew up fast, Marley thought as she started her scooter. And earth seemed to grow down. Every time the colonists mastered some new problem in self-sufficiency, earth would self-destruct in some new way. Like, colonists had learned to manage the air, scrubbing it with solar-powered catalytic burners, distilling away the mercury and other poison noble gases that wouldn’t burn. Their air was suddenly champagne compared to earth’s. Terrorists there had learned to invade small laboratories and release their chemicals into the atmosphere. That new load joined with the pollution from petroleum-powered vehicles. Now there were spontaneous fireballs and flash explosions; on earth, the air was burning.

Another thing: colonists were learning to garden in space, in ten acre necklaces of farm pods strung like pearls around the colony, balloons harvesting the oxygen and carrying the colony’s CO₂ back up. The plants and animals were outside the artificial gravity in the main cylinder, at zero g, and they seemed to love it. Marley glanced up at the necklaces as she passed another scooter on the road and remembered an old saying, archaic now: When pigs fly. Her father was up there somewhere, flying around with the pigs and snow peas at zero g in one of the pods, or between them.

The rich, on earth, were adjusting their life styles to self contained atmospheres, actually creating their own tented communities just like gated communities, and borrowing the technology of the space colony instead of the other way around. The poor were dying.

But the space colonists were only days away from going on line with microwaved solar energy. They had first provided for the energy needs of the colony, originally supplied from earth.  Now they were preparing their first transmission of solar gold to the rectenae on earth—if terrorists didn’t blow them up first. The pressure on the ground, said the newscasts, was incredible. The pressure in the colony had grown, too. Those who had never supported the war against terrorism were equally reluctant to win it, as the Allies had the chance now to become the brokers of energy rather than the consumers. If only they would use it well, and really help people!

Marley had a tiny hope, maybe, if they were having so much luck on the technological end, maybe they could overcome some of the social challenges, too.

The trouble was, they were still human. The increased energy supply wouldn’t matter if people didn’t make some other changes. It made Marley mad, really mad, why were they always looking to solutions for somebody else instead of taking responsibility? Why did they say they wanted a law, or a magical leader, when they already knew the law, and broke it? They already had leaders that they ignored. Don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t murder, don’t take another woman’s husband or home. Don’t exploit children, don’t have sex with children. Don’t blow children up. Admit there’s a right and a wrong.

Marley’s father said that if she were older, it wouldn’t surprise her. But it did surprise her, and it scared her silly that human beings didn’t talk about it. They never looked at the most fundamental questions. They could measure to the fraction of a microgram just how much arsenic could be in a lake, but they would forget to put cooperation on the agenda so no one would dump arsenic there.

Or maybe they didn’t exactly forget. Maybe they already knew it was hopeless. It always seemed like the reasons for wars were so complicated, so intertwined and old, so persuasive, it seemed hopeless to discuss such an abstract idea like cooperation. It was so lame, why can’t we just all get along? Her grandparents had been hippies to the end, and they had never understood the world. We can’t “just get along” because some things are important enough to fight for. We can’t “just get along” because we lie and steal, we murder and rape. We give candy to children and we drug them, and then we smile and tape heavy explosives under their thin little ribs, and send them off to school to blow it up. Don’t tell anyone. If you tell anyone, we will kill your family. But if you do as we say, they will live. And we will give them some money.

The worst thing, Marley thought, was that a lot of colonists thought they were exempt. They were so carefully selected, so well educated, their governments had given them classes in democracy. They had science, as if that were enough. They were techies, not ignorant peasants! That’s what they all thought.

To Marley, they might be techies that could dance the network tango, but they were hooked on easy answers and ignored their own shortcomings. Just right now they were practically drunk from success.  There were ten thousand colonists whose median age was twenty two. They had their finger on the switch.  Most of them only believed in science which to Marley meant they hadn’t been listening very well in science class. They didn’t have a clue about the stuff that makes science possible. Knowing this did not make her feel superior. Marley herself didn’t think she had a clue, either, but at least she knew science alone couldn’t stop war. But what could? Were they doomed to die? Even the innocent, like Layne?

Marley parked her scooter and passed through the garden to get into work. Inside, her only coworker in the hospitality department was on the phone. From the conversation, Marley knew it was Jessica’s latest lover, a tall, red-headed engineer named Eddie who worked on the mirror project. They were breaking up. You could tell from Jessica’s critical tone, which Marley had heard before. Jess had already broken up with three sexual partners just in the few months she and Jess had been assigned together. Marley suspected Jessica just dumped guys before they could dump her. Marley had taken herself out of that game. Marley was waiting for somebody special, although probabilities seemed about the same for love as they did for peace in the Middle East, and she didn’t really know how she’d recognize him if she ever met him. Anyway, she wasn’t as lonely as some girls, she had Layne, her mom and dad were real parents even though they worked hard, too. Jessica was an only child and both her parents were programmers–you know what that’s like.

There was a guy who definitely had her attention, though. Tom short for Tomás. Tomás Monohan. He was a biologist. He worked with her dad a lot, but she had first met him in a bar in the rec space before he started coming to the house. The bar, close to the center of the colony between the zero G indoor soccer stadium and the low G hospital, was crowded with players and doctors and assorted friends.  

Nathan Knell, Josh Delray, and Marley were having a beer.  Josh had been in Marley’s pre-flight training group and was now interning at the hospital, Nathan was a programmer friend of a friend. Marley was too young to have a beer on earth. But at some point back in the beginning, some kid doing a man’s job and then some, had come into the newly opened establishment, asked for a beer, and plunked down his debit disk, and it just kind of happened that nobody thought to enforce that particular law. Then they quietly forgot a few others, too. It must be, Marley thought, what all frontier towns had been like. This was just the High Frontier.

Nathan was a beer ahead of them and a little hot. “They call us First Colony! Get it? Colony?” He took a swig and glared up in the general direction of the observation window, and Earth.  “We’re the ones doing the dangerous work. We’re the ones gonna supply the energy that will save their behinds. It oughta be us calling the shots. Not some idiot president Laughton, Jesus he’s so dumb!  He should end the war, that’s all.”

Somebody had spray painted Freedom Now across the paneling in the bar’s darker interior wall. Freedom from what, Marley thought—gravity? Could you be a little more specific? It was pissing her off.  That and the beer.

She had to say it. “Let me ask you, Nathan. We are contracted to supply Earth with solar energy. Earth is paying us for that energy. Aren’t you getting paid? Earth has given us this place to live, which cost just about all the resources left. Earth built it. Now I want to ask you, what is so unfair in that arrangement?”

“Because we don’t own the companies that will sell the energy on Earth. Because we’re just wage slaves just like our fathers. Can’t you see, we have power in the palms of our hands! Why should we just get credits on the disk?”

It was bullshit, and normally it was somebody else’s problem, not Marley’s, but these days it stood to hurt Layne. Her face got warm.  She had to keep herself from standing up and banging the table.  She just sat up straighter and glared at him. “Because you haven’t done anything to own an energy company! Nathan! Your family didn’t do anything to own an energy company! We didn’t build this place alone, if you’re thinking of calling it our very own country. So what you’re really saying, Nathan Knell, is simple.  You want to just rip it off.  And you want me to say it’s okay. Well, it’s not! It’s bullshit! And it’s the same old bullshit, too. If you want to get rich, we get our chance to buy shares in every project, we get first chance, with a company discount. And everything we discover or start out there belongs to us. So get to work and earn it.”

Nathan’s face swelled with anger. He leapt to his feet and the chair tumbled behind him in the low g until it smacked the bar; that made everyone turn.

“Damn reactionary bitch…” he was saying when Tom, Tomás, stepped around her and Josh, who was standing with his mouth open at the ugly turn in the conversation, and got right in Nathan’s face.

“Nathan. Nathan Knell, right? I’m Tom Cresey. Wanna take this outside, or you wanna stroll on home, then?” Tom Cresey looked fine with either alternative, big enough to make the first option memorable.

But Marley stepped around Tom and shoved him back, yelling, “I can take care of myself.” Then she turned her attention back to Nathan Knell.

“Listen, Nathan.” She poked a finger in his chest, hard. “I’m sure you got your reasons for saying what you’re saying. But it’s a little tough to appreciate. Here we are, living off other peoples’ sacrifices, and right when they need it, you want to cut them loose. Where is that, huh? And I still have family there. So do you. You forget what that means?”

Nathan glared at her, and started to take a step, but behind Marley, Tom Cresey exhaled, and Nathan thought the better of it. He waved his debit disk over the reader and stalked out the bar’s front exit. They watched him leave for a second, and Tom whirled around, took her hand, and said, “Let’s get out of here,” and didn’t wait for an answer. He whisked her out of the bar by the back door to the scooter parking lot.

“Hi, I’m Tom Cresey. I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.” He offered his hand to shake and gave her a manic grin. “Want to sit down?” He gestured at the side of the building and they sat leaning against it, the observation window, the mirror turned aside now, darkened and glowing with stars above them.  

“So tell me,” Tom finally said. “How do you know all that’s bullshit?  Who taught you that? Were you really gonna hit him? You’re amazing,” he said, his face so close to hers they could have kissed. “Amazing.” Then, slowly, he drew back and broke the spell. He took her home instead. Since that night, Marley was interested. He had beautiful brown eyes, and he thought she was amazing. Two very good qualities, for starters.

Then her dad had invited him to the house, after they had consulted on some pollination issues in the farm pods, and he’d been a pretty regular visitor after that. Her dad loved to discuss the Alpha Centauri project with him. Alpha Centauri was well suited for life, apparently life capable of surviving high carbon dioxide levels, and also, happily, the closest solar system to earth, and recently NASA had shifted to private investors who were convinced we would have to find life adapted to higher carbon dioxide levels to transplant into our own ruined system, and were willing to put money up to find it.  

Of course “closest” was relative. At the old rate of propulsion, it was ten thousand years away, human time. But with the new technology, so close to coming on-line, the rumors whispered, Alpha Centauri was only four generations away. Tom said this was not a rumor, he personally knew the engineers.

Layne loved Tom’s visits. Tom knew Latin because he was a traditional Catholic, he’d explained. Outside the science fiction fantasy online clubs, Marley never knew anybody who liked Latin. Tom taught Layne to say, Canis meus id comedit, “The dog ate it,” in case he ever forgot his homework, when he was old enough to have homework. Besides, Tom played stud poker for actual money. That knocked Layne out. All the games their family played were the “everybody wins,” boring kind.  Layne even seemed to enjoy it when he lost. Tom was teaching him to count cards in Latin. Every time Tom made Layne smile, Marley’s heart turned over.

He talked to her dad and mom, he talked to Layne, he talked to Marley a lot. Even if it was only about biological stuff, he gave her a tingly feeling. But they talked about a lot of things. If he was courting her, it sure was low pressure! She was okay with that. It was just so great to be friends—with a guy! He hugged her sometimes—but he hugged Layne too. Last night, though, he’d asked her if he could call her. Just her. Maybe things were about to change.

Marley’s phone rang. Well, somebody ought to get to work around here. Or maybe it was Tom! She answered briskly with her name and section. A husky voice she didn’t recognize at all said, “Marley, Marley, listen: this is a shielded transmission. Three minutes before the snoop rats run the sweep.  Eiren said you were a friend of earth.” He paused so she could register the name: Eiren, her best friend from school, back on earth. So she must have joined the US’s terrorists. The voice continued: “You can help us. We’ll be coming with the next group of solar specialists from Virgin Sun. The flight leaves tomorrow morning. We’re in pre-flight here at Canaveral. They have been infiltrated. They will attempt to put the panels out of service. They hope that oil continues to dominate, to force a premature agreement with the west.  We will fight them, we will prevent it. Just get us through the air lock tomorrow morning. You know what to do. Get us through the air lock. We can do the rest.”

In spite of the urgency, Marley only partially listened to him. She was thinking about Eiren. As shocking as the voice and the message was, as shocking as the idea of guerrilla US counter-terrorists using terrorist tactics themselves was, it was more shocking that Eiren would ever join them. Eiren was so nice she would change the subject if you even started to gossip about somebody. What had happened to her?

But Marley thought she knew. Terrorism had promoted the most extreme Muslim groups, and western women were pushed to protecting their life styles under western capitalism against another kind of tyranny, which Marley, though she didn’t much like the “freedom,” of the west, happened to agree was much, much worse. The very idea of polygamy made her feel sick. And women covering up all the time from head to toe like men couldn’t control themselves, didn’t have to control themselves. Screw that. There were no compromises, apparently. None that worked so far. If Marley were on earth, she’d have to choose, too. The escape hatch was jammed, no place to go. Eiren had chosen. Marley couldn’t! Could she?

The voice continued. “Marley, think! What will happen to the colony if the US goes under? You’re not self sufficient yet. Give us a chance. The microwave has to come on-line. Then we can force a fair agreement. Make a choice! Get us through the air lock!”

Then the voice was gone. Marley sat holding the receiver in shock. Make a choice. She had made a sort of a choice, once. She had supported the right for little Muslim girls to wear their dull wrappings at Layne’s school. She called the principal personally and used the words freedom and America a lot. She got her friends to call. And then a well covered third grader blew up the cafeteria.

Would she make a bad choice now? But there were no good choices!

“Jess, get off the phone,” she whirled into her co worker’s cubicle and touched her arm.

“Ed. Gotta go. No. Yeah. No, I’m busy,” she hung up the phone with a look of relief, and pushed her skinny chin and her spikey hair, red today, right up in Marley’s face.  “Like, what, girlfriend?”

“Jess, have you had any strange phone calls or emails lately?” Marley watched Jess’ expression intently.

“Nah, my mother’s been taking her meds. Does Ed count?”

“I gotta go home, Jess. Can you handle things here?”

“Man, I told you, you should stop going on the rag. That menstrual toxin is making you weird.”

“Uh uh, Jess. I enjoy being a girl.” Marley grabbed her bag and hit the door. “I got my cell. Call me if anything at all strange comes up. I mean it!” Marley grabbed her stuff from the locker and left before Jessica could object.

Jessica had told her the truth, Marley was sure. They’d only contacted her. The airlock was the weak link, she’d thought so herself. And they thought she was the weak link in the airlock. She had to talk to somebody! Her dad? She thought of Tom. Whoever she told, it would mean trouble for them. Maybe she shouldn’t tell anybody, or do anything. But that would have consequences, too.

Her mom’s scooter was gone, but her dad’s and Tom’s both were leaned up against the fence. She tried to slow her breathing and look normal, for Layne’s sake if nothing else. He was playing with his hot wheels on the porch. He hadn’t gone to school. He looked worried, but he tried to smile at her as if nothing happened. He had on clean khakis.

“Quid agis?” Layne said.

“Nothing, what’s up with you?” She studied his pale face secretly.

“Why you home?” He looked weak, but his glance was sharp as ever. She’d better lie well now–he’d be her toughest audience, and he was the one she really didn’t want to worry.

“Well, you know I worked extra last week? And they have this thing called comp time, you know, they compensate you with time off if you work overtime, so the chief said, ‘The weather’s nice, we owe you, Jessica can do it, go home.’ Isn’t that great? Want to go for a walk later, before I got school?”

She wanted to distract him with the promise, and it worked. He squeezed her hand tight and his eyes shut at the same time, and asked one of his weird questions, “Marley, did God make any other people in outer space?”

“I don’t know yet. We have to find out.” They walked into the house together and found her dad and Tom having breakfast in the kitchen. Bacon from the pork pod, eggs from the chicken; egg production was absolutely great in zero g, and meat, incredibly tender. Production had slowly climbed, but even so there were days when pickings were slim at the commissary. This was a feast. They didn’t ask her about work, since her schedule was not absolutely regular anyway, and did require comp time when bigwigs visited, but Tom’s face lit up when she arrived. He made plates for both of them.

She sat at the table, but could not bring up the phone call. The men were deep in a discussion of the new self repair software for ramjets, which Marley’s dad was supervising the trials for, out among the farm pods, with miniaturized versions. There were bugs, but overall the software seemed to work, which removed at least one obstacle to interstellar projects. Dad was describing what he had seen to Tom, when the phone rang. He excused himself.

Marley and Tom immediately turned to each other. “I want to ask you something.”  They both said it at the same time. Then they both said, “You first,” and had to laugh.

Tom took a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll go. Marley, listen. I know we haven’t known each other for long. What we’ve been through, it feels longer. I feel like I know you. I think I could love you. I think I already do love you. I’d like to spend more time with you and see if you, if we, could love each other enough to go on a special journey.”

Marley sat forward and listened hard. “What kind of journey?”

“Well,” Tom said, “to Alpha Centauri.”

“Alpha Centauri!” she exclaimed. “Alpha Centauri! That’s a lifetime away, there and back. Unless they’ve done something to light speed while we’ve been gone!”

“No, you’re right, it is a lifetime. More than a lifetime, counting time on the ground. But here’s the deal: Virgin Sun’s commissioned ten arks and a contest. First ship to make it wins a million dollars and trading rights.”  Marley knew all about arks. They’d been theoretical until recently, when the self-repair software that would overcome the seven year limit on hardware became possible. Small ships equipped with warp drive and ram jets that could scoop diffuse hydrogen and burn it for fuel in a proton-proton fusion, like ocean whales but as fast as anything yet designed by humans could go, one tenth the speed of light.  As long as the hydrogen was streaming in the same direction they were going. They could hold several families and were meant to be gone for generations. Alpha Centauri had always been the first goal, best chance for developed life. Virgin Sun wanted the trading rights, and earth wanted the potential infusion of new life forms.

“So we have warp drive?” she asked.

“No, not yet. She’s fitted for H bombs, an Orion type. The best estimate is one hundred thirty years. One way.”

“So, are you asking me to go with you, my whole life? To leave the colony and my family for my whole life”

“I’m asking you to consider it. I’m asking you to let me get to know you, and you get to know me. Marrying me. And partnering with Jimmy Blain and his wife in the ship and in the contest.  Jim and I have been in negotiations with Virgin Sun since earth, we’ve got their commitment. She’s ours! Can you believe it? She’s the Regina Coeli, wait ‘til you see her! Layne could go with us if your folks would let him.” 

“Marrying you?”

“Yeah. Just me. The old fashioned way. Marrying me, for life, and having kids and everything. Matter of fact, lots of kids. Founding a huge family and winning the contest and becoming the first interstellar trading family ever. Marley, honestly I think we’ve got what it takes to do that. I know you do! And so do I. We could fall in love. We’ve got six months before the Regina Coeli takes off.” He had his slightly manic grin that melted her heart and made her want to leap off tall buildings at zero g.

“Why do you think I’ve got what it takes?” She couldn’t believe it, she wanted him to convince her!

“One, you always stand up for something. Two, I don’t know why I like you so much. I don’t think there’s a reason exactly why you like somebody. But I could listen to you forever. Three, you’re Catholic, you know what I mean by marriage and family. We’d never be coming back, you already know that. But our family would be coming back, and would probably go back out again. It depends on what we find, and where we find it. Marley, we were born to go! See if you could love me! I want you to go with me!”

“Never be coming back?” Asking, she didn’t even know if she thought this were a good thing or a bad thing.

“No,” he said. “We’d leave it all.” Then he grinned. “But we’ll still have e-mail.” As if he knew that everything else could change, as long as you could still check your e-mail. So what if it was slightly dated, traveling by laser only at the speed of light? They could get family news only a little later than, say, the first missionaries to the American colonies.

“Well, while I’m thinking about it, how could we be Catholic? How will we go to mass? How will the kids get confirmed? And confession, and everything?” Marley asked him in a rush.

“Cause my brother’s a priest, on earth right now being consecrated a bishop, and he’s carrying the papal commission to consecrate other bishops who can consecrate priests, and he’ll be in charge of a substantial chunk of diocese, I can tell you! Like the whole Milky Way! We’ll have priests and the sacraments all right!  You’ll love him. We’re twins.”

Marley was speechless. A diocese as big as the Milky Way?  Getting married on a spaceship? Honeymooning on a mission to Alpha Centauri?  This was some courtship!  Love at the speed of light. “We’ll make history, won’t we?” she said thoughtfully.

“Yep,” he smiled, and raised his sweet brown eyes to hers. “Yeah, we’ll make history. Real love, a space race, and, I mean, they’ll have to change the whole World Cup.”  The World Cup? Then he grinned and his eyes sparkled and she wondered she would feel this way every day for the rest of her life, all tingly because she couldn’t tell if he were kidding or not.

He stopped talking and they sat there at the table and looked at each other. Then he remembered. “What were you going to ask me?” But her father came back in the room. He looked grim, even though he glanced at both of them shrewdly, as if he suspected what was going on. It suddenly occurred to Marley, that her father and Tom might even have discussed it. This made her feel happy, to be loved.

 “That was my foreman. They intercepted a transmission on a closed channel up in the pods. He said the transmission said there’d been an explosion at Canaveral on the shuttle that was due here tomorrow morning. They think it was terrorists. Everybody killed. All shuttles will be suspended until further notice. It looks like you’re out of a job, Marley!” Her dad sat down heavily. Yes, it had finally come to the colony. Anyway it had tried to. Were they self-sufficient enough to do without the shuttles for a while? Maybe just.

“What did you want to tell me?” Tom whispered.

“It can wait now,” Marley said, and her expression must’ve puzzled him under the circumstances, but he left to see what was happening at his station, and so did her Dad, and she and Layne sat by themselves while Marley thought about it all, the explosion, Tom’s amazing proposal, the colony, being human, being Catholic.

Marley and Layne took their walk. They walked the long way to the observation deck, where you could see out the big window all the way down to earth.  They stood and looked at earth. It was so far away. They were so high.

“Do you miss it?” Marley finally asked Layne. “I don’t think I miss it.” She sighed. “Not really.”

“Me neither,” said Layne.  He reached up and took her hand and said seriously, still staring at the earth far below them, “Marley?” he said wistfully. “When will we fall down?”

She stooped down next to him and put her arm around his thin little shoulders. “Never,” she said. “We’re not ever gonna fall down, Layne. Now we’re in space. Space is big, Layne. I think space might just be big enough for us.”

She paused and considered the earth below. It was so incredibly beautiful from this distance. And it was filled with incredibly beautiful and precious people, too. But their points of view, so necessary to them as human beings and as sinners still learning to be human as God had wanted them to be, differed. Differed so much they killed each other. They might continue to do so as long as there were human beings. She remembered a television interview she had heard with some Talking Head. The president of some commission or other, a man in charge, who said, “We will end the conflict,” whatever conflict he was talking about among the hundreds, the thousands, “when there are no more murderers.” But Marley knew there would be murderers as long as there were free men. There would also be saints. It was the price of freedom.

She tightened her grip on Layne. “See, Layne, we human beings, we need space. We need lots and lots and lots of room. What we believe in takes so much room, when we’re all jammed up with other beliefs, there’s not enough room. But now we’ve made it to space. We can believe in what we believe in, without bothering anybody else. You’ll see.”

Layne looked up at her thoughtfully. “Are you gonna go with Tom?” She hadn’t thought he had been listening. She always forgot he wasn’t a baby anymore.

“I think I might.” She knew she already loved Tom. “You could go too. If you want. If it’s okay with Mom and Dad. You’re gonna love space. In space we’ll have lots of space.”

 Layne grinned at the goofy sentence. She grinned back.  “No, but I mean it. We won’t have to make war. There’s enough room out there for all of us and for what we believe in. I think it’s how God wants it.” It would be interesting, living in the Regina Coeli where everybody believed in God, made room for Him in their life. It would be just like the old days, and the frontier. She realized how much they had neglected, trying not to “offend” anyone. Trying to live on earth.

“I’ll tell you all about it. Anyway, we’re not going to fall down, Layne. We’re gonna be okay.” 

“’Kay,” he said. Then they went home, holding hands. Through the observation window, the moon and the earth were both full, and in spite of everything it was a beautiful night.

The story,’ When Will We Fall Down?’ is about the first space colony, and the subsequent launch of the first Catholic state in space–or rather the first Catholic ship, racing to Alpha Centauri on a mission to bring home wheat to a dying Earth. It is the first story of a series of which ‘Confession’ is also a part, and in it we meet a girl who falls in love. Isn’t that where a whole lot of stories start?

‘Another Eve’ has nothing to do with outer space.  The setting is Mexico, the Green Mountains of Jalisco. Who wins the battle between the young priest and a marauding iguana? This story had been accepted by New York Stories when that rather prestigious publication unexpectedly folded due to the resignation of the editor.

If you would like to post a story here,  email me at janet underscore baker seventy six at hotmail dot com.   Be a practicing Catholic and have Catholic references in the story, those are the requirements for editorial consideration. And thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment!

Note added in October 2010: I’m re-writing all of Confession:  Catholics escape the colony to an asteroid in the Oorte Cloud and establish a Catholic state. But the characters introduced here will appear.

Note added December, 2011: I am still working on the science fiction novel. I have fifty thousand words, and know where I’m heading. But–there are so many apostolates, it takes time!  Pray for me, please!