Chapter 3
Three days passed, and the Professor did not return. I kept his news of our impending doom to myself, still believing that if word of it leaked out, there would be more harm done than good. We still couldn’t penetrate The Wall. We had no machines anymore with which to fly over it. Better, I thought, if the human population of Purgatory went on about its business, so that when the end did come, it came swiftly.
It was tough. As people came and went, I longed to share the burden of what I knew, for it crushed me inside. But I also couldn’t bear to see it crush anyone else. There was nothing to be done. No defense could be raised. That part of my conscience which told me I had no right to keep the others in ignorance was in constant struggle with the other part of my conscience which couldn’t bear to see what my news would surely do to the valley—assuming anyone even believed me. It was entirely possible I’d be declared mentally ill, and ignored. Hell, lots of people had already done so anyway. Not everyone in the valley thought religion was a good thing. I’d heard through the grapevine—more than once—that there were prisoners who regarded the chapel and my service as a stupid waste of time.
So I focused on my work as best I could.
Sweeping through the pews one day I knocked over a little clay figurine that one of the parishioners had left behind. I picked it up to discover that it was a crude, but recognizable, rendition of a mantis—including the requisite disc.
I stared at the figurine for a long time—the straw-and-twigs broom in my other hand momentarily forgotten. There had been occasional rumors in the valley. About a small cult of people whose beliefs centered around the idea that the mantes themselves were God’s true children. Humans were merely a lower form of spiritual life whom the mantes had been sent to punish. For our weakness, decadence, and apostasy.
I’d always doubted the existence of such a group, if only because subscribing to such a belief—and speaking it openly to anyone—would have invited violence.
Still, what to make of the figurine?
I tucked it into a shirt pocket and kept sweeping. When I’d finished my job, and brushed all the sand and dirt out the back door, I went to the altar and considered. Bringing out the figurine, I compared it in my line of sight to the other objects on the altar. My hand began to tremble as I felt a hot rush of anger sweep through me. I could have crushed the little clay symbol in my fist.
But then the anger drained away as quickly as it had come. Whoever had brought the figurine had obviously not intended to leave it. In their carelessness, they’d exposed themselves to more potential harm than they knew. Besides, maybe the cult was right? All evidence since the failed invasion said the mantes really were superior. And now they intended to prove it once and for all.
I sighed and went back to the exact spot where the figurine had been abandoned, and put it back on the floor. In the shadow of the pew. Where nobody not deliberately looking for it would find it.
Within a day, it quietly disappeared again.
* * *
A week after the Professor’s last visit, a trio of former officers appeared at my chapel door.
“Barlow,” the leader said to me. He still wore his duty jacket with the name tape over the breast pocket, and the clusters of a major on his collar.
“What can I do for you?” I said, standing up from the small stool to the left of the altar where I ordinarily sat and observed the comings and goings of the parishioners.
“Sir,” he said firmly.
“Beg pardon?” I said, not quite getting him.
“What can I do for you, sir.”
Ah. I resisted the urge to tell him to go fuck himself. While most of us had gradually relaxed out of our former rank and position, there were still a handful of stalwarts who kept their bearing. In another time and place, the major’s approach might have worked. But not now. Not here. So far as we knew, we were cut off. Permanent residents. And almost nobody wanted to be under martial authority for life. Least of all me.
I waited silently. Just looking at him.
He looked back, his face getting pink.
“Is there a problem?” I finally asked, keeping my tone deliberate and even.
“Maybe,” one of the other men said.
“People tell us there’s been a mantis coming in here,” the major said.
I walked towards him a few steps so that I could get a better look. The tape on his breast read HOFF and he looked to be in his forties. Balding. Sharp eyes. The posture of someone used to giving orders and having them obeyed. I immediately wanted him off the premises, but decided I could at least entertain a few questions. If I kept my answers circumspect enough, hopefully the trio would get bored and leave.
“It’s true,” I said. “There has been a mantis coming to the chapel.”
“What does he want?” Hoff asked.
“He’s just curious,” I said.
“About what?”
“About the chapel. About churches in general. About what I do here.”
“Why?”
“Couldn’t begin to tell you. He’s an alien, how am I supposed to know?”
“So what have you told him?”
“Nothing much. I make sure the chapel stays clean, that the lamps are lit, and that people can always come and worship whenever they want during the day.”
“Anything else?”
“That’s the long and the short of it.”
Hoff stared at me, while his compatriots looked around the chapel’s interior.
“He comes in here and asks any more questions, you notify one of us immediately.”
“What for?” I asked.
“We’re still at war, you know. The fact that we’re long-term prisoners doesn’t change anything. Though I think a whole lot of people forget this. No matter. When the Fleet returns, there’ll be a reckoning. Right now I’m mostly concerned with information. You were the chaplain’s assistant so I respect the fact that you’ve carried out the chaplain’s wishes for the construction and care of this place. Hell, I admire it. At least you’ve done something useful. Which is more than I can say for a lot of others.”
“It seemed like a good idea,” I said.
“Right. So keep your ears open. A mantis comes sniffing around here, it may mean something important.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Who knows?” Hoff replied. “You just said it yourself: they’re aliens. But that’s not your concern. I’m giving you an order to report back on whatever you learn from the mantis. Is that understood?”
“Clearly,” I said.
Hoff and his pals waited.
I think maybe they were expecting a salute?
I didn’t offer one.
Eventually he muttered something about insubordination and wandered out the way he’d come in, his cronies giving me sidelong glances.
I breathed a sigh of relief and went back to my stool. I had no intention of reporting anything to those fools. Chain of command only works when everyone in it agrees to cooperate, and ours had disintegrated shortly after being captured and cordoned off behind The Wall. Since we couldn’t talk to Fleet Command, and Fleet Command had probably written us all off as casualties, what more did we owe to the service?
Still, the major had made one good point.
So long as I—or any of us—possessed information of interest to the mantes on any level, there was potential bargaining power.
I dwelt on this for the rest of the day, remembering the Professor’s awful promise that the Fourth Expansion would finish humanity forever.