Dome 6, p.6
Dome 6, page 6
Asterism’s quarters were not decorated with ladles.
Phex found this oddly disappointing.
Their respective pantheons were already in residence and, from the shrieking emanating from next door, so was the murmel. She clearly smelled Missit, because she came out into the hallway to reprimand him for having left her alone for an interminable two whole days. Dimsum was having none of that nonsense, and so far as she was concerned, the entire construction vessel should know her ire.
The acolytes informed them that on this ship, it would be inappropriate for gods to fraternize with the crew. They had been assigned a converted storage bay for practice and social activities outside of meals, and were granted access to the galley only at specific times. They were to be escorted by bodyguards whenever possible, who were billeted across the way. They were told that they must eat quickly and as a group and not linger in the galley, which made Phex sad. Fortew was already ensconced in the ship’s medical facilities, which were vastly superior to the tourship. As a construction vessel with a large complement and crew, plus a first-contact mandate, the Nusplunder was regularly required to deal with trauma and illness.
Missit disappeared with Bob to go visit Fortew, Dimsum wrapped around his neck.
Phex joined his pantheon in their new quarters. It had roughly the same layout as their previous one, three bunks up the wall on each side, one set farther inside and close to the porthole, the other set near the doorway and opposite the hygiene chamber. Asterism had already elected to keep the same bunk arrangement, if the faces looking at Phex were anything to go by. Phex suspected this would hold for all their touring life together. These kinds of traditions took hold fast and were hard to break.
He plopped himself on the lowest bunk nearest the door. Same as before, he liked it because it was easiest to get into and out of but also because it was the first line of defense. That was the reason Tyve was on the bunk directly above him – she could jump down and help fight if needed. Kagee had the inside bunk lowest, so he could be backup and protect their weakest members.
The three of them hadn’t discussed this arrangement, but Phex knew they all felt the same and that was why they’d each chosen to sleep where they had. The other three arranged themselves to accommodate this, probably without realizing why.
The three supervisory acolytes stayed to answer Asterism’s questions, at Fandina’s request. Apparently, Phex’s pantheon hadn’t really had a chance to quiz the acolytes yet, and now that they had their sun back, they were ready to try.
It was then that Phex finally realized that these three acolytes were different from the previous ones they’d been assigned. As expected, the chatty pink-toned one was their precatio, intended to manage the two pantheons. But the other two acolytes weren’t the normal low-ranked lackeys. These two also held formal, even more highly educated divine positions than precatio.
Fandina introduced the green skinny one to Phex as a calator, trained to organize events, and the shorter one as a sacerdote, which Phex knew meant that it specialized in worshiper interaction. That last was both rare and unusual – Asterism had never had a sacerdote assigned to them before. Phex wondered if it meant their popularity had increased or decreased, or if the divinity anticipated trouble from believers, or if it had something to do with Tillam. Every option made him worry more.
“This spaceship is only for one tour stop,” explained the calator, who was taller than most nymphs and almost painfully thin, although not as tall as a protector imago. “We apologize that these accommodations and your practice spaces are not more luxurious. It is the price we pay for using this kind of transport.”
“Why are we on a construction ship?” asked Tyve, sounding only mildly interested. Phex could tell from her eyes, though, that she was quite curious. She had probably tried to find out the answer already and been thwarted.
“Ah, well, yes, that has to do with our destination.” The calator looked uncomfortable, cheeks speckled and crests a little wilted.
Phex stared hard at the acolytes. “It’s our final stop on this tour, right?”
The precatio’s crests flicked at him. “How would you know that, demigod?” Its eyes were big and purple and reminded Phex of the first Dyesi he’d ever met in person, way back in that cafe on Attacon 7.
Phex had been keeping track. “Not counting the awards performance and Dyesid Prime, this next stop would be number nine.”
“A good number to end on.” The acolyte, in customary acolyte fashion, answered Phex’s question without really answering it at all.
“Are you holding out on us?” asked Tyve. “Does Tillam know why this ship and where we go next?”
“Yes, but not because they deserved to hear it first or because they are gods and you are only demigods.” The sacerdote had a soft voice and an unusual accent.
“Why, then?” pressed Tyve.
“We think you will object.”
“You?” Kagee looked up from his bunk, where he’d been pretending to read the infonet and ignore the acolytes. The pronoun was ambiguous. “Which you?”
“Asterism,” explained the precatio.
“We have the right to object?” wondered Phex.
“Of course. Just as the divinity has the right not to listen to your objection,” replied the calator promptly.
Phex was beginning to wonder if this one had a sense of humor – that would be a first among the acolytes he’d met. Perhaps it had been assigned to Asterism and Tillam because of that quirk.
“Why would we object?” wondered Kagee.
“Is it not a nice place? Cold?” asked Berril.
“Ugly?” asked Jinyesun.
All three acolytes looked about as uncomfortable as Phex had ever seen acolytes get. As if they really did not want to tell them. But as they were departing soon no matter what, they should hardly care how a bunch of demigods felt.
Kagee finally said, “Forget it. We can just ask Tillam.”
The precatio hissed a negative. “It should be us who bears the brunt of this decision. We have made it, after all.” But then it fell quiet.
An awkward silence ensued, full of crest-wiggles too nuanced for Phex to follow.
Finally, the blue-tinged sacerdote spoke. “I’ll tell them.”
Its big eyes focused on Kagee. “We go to Agatay and the quarantine zone.”
4
THE COST OF SALVATION
“Agatay!” Kagee jumped up out of his bunk at the name of his home world.
The acolytes’ crests all straightened with something that Phex guessed was a weird kind of pride, even as they focused on a clearly agitated Kagee.
The sacerdote explained only slightly defensively. “Agatay has invited the divinity to build its first dome. Asterism will be the first performers in that dome, with Tillam following. It is quite the honor.” The acolyte did not add that this would also make for the perfect symbolism around Tillam’s final performance with Fortew. To have their last show together be in a new dome – how illustrative of sacred rebirth. A new dome, on a new world, would usher in a new era – expanding the divinity while simultaneously closing out an old pantheon. It was elegant and would appeal to the Dyesi’s sense of temporal symmetry.
Even Phex could acknowledge the symbolism, but his attention was focused on Kagee, who was vibrating in agitation.
Kagee turned his head away from the acolytes to look at Phex almost desperately. “I can’t go home.”
Phex didn’t know if that meant Kagee didn’t want to, or would be killed if he did, or something in between the two. But he knew why Kagee was looking at him. Phex felt the same way about his home.
“The divine has no presence on Agatay and no support there.” Kagee attempted Dyesi logic.
The acolytes only looked even more smug.
The calator said, “The divine didn’t use to have support there. It’s been a while since you left, grey god. Things change.”
“Not that much, they don’t,” objected Kagee.
Fandina said, “What do we do?”
“Not go,” answered Kagee, flat.
“Pantheons do have the right to object to tour stops,” agreed the sacerdote.
“Would you like to lodge a formal objection?” asked the precatio.
“Would it do any good?” wondered Phex.
The sacerdote answered sympathetically but firmly, “No. But we can put you on record as objecting. You are, after all, still only demigods. You go where the divinity sends you, for you are the vanguard.”
Phex wondered if demigods were a new version of the Dyesi’s expendable nymphs.
“The divinity’s number one objective is expansion,” acknowledged Tyve, bitterness in her tone and the slump of her shoulders.
“Actually, that is our second objective, but it lends itself to the first.”
Phex wondered what the first one was, but Kagee was pacing the small bit of space between the lowered bunks in agitation. Back and forth.
“This is bad. This is very bad. A terrible idea, in fact.” Kagee paused, close to their three new acolytes, eyes going from one impassive face to the next. Then, in desperation, he turned to Jinyesun. “Why would the Dyesi want to go to Agatay?”
But it was Fandina who answered. “The divinity wants to be everywhere. Anyone who wishes to be touched by the colors should get to have that experience once in their lifetime. Why would you deny your own people the transcendent beauty of a dome?”
“It’s not my people I’m worried about.”
“You think the Dyesi would be in danger?”
Kagee raised his hands to the heavens, rings twinkling in the artificial blue lighting of their quarters. He was obviously frustrated but trying to control himself in the presence of acolytes. This was an improvement – usually, Kagee would have lashed out or yelled by now.
Phex thought Asterism would be getting an earful from him later that night, though. Once they were in bed and alone, their high cantor would let himself loose to rant and complain about the situation.
“I think we would be in danger. I think Tillam would be in danger. Us gods are the ones being put at risk.” He pointed his whole hand, as if it were a crest of accusation, at the calator acolyte. If it was in charge of events, it would be responsible for this whole plan to build a dome, and use it, on Agatay.
“Did you forget that gods aren’t actually immortal? You Dyesi like to pretend that we are. But your imaginary universe and pretty monikers won’t stop us from bleeding. From dying. Are you ignoring the lesson Fortew is teaching right now?” Kagee was being very blunt, using Dyesi informal register to the point of rudeness.
“You think Agatay would destroy gods!” The sacerdote’s crests wilted and its eyes went very wide, suggesting it was genuinely shocked at the idea.
“Gods, worshipers, Dyesi, dome. All of it, all at once if they felt like it. They play only one game on my home world – politics. And they play that game violently.”
The calator had apparently latched on to only one aspect of Kagee’s rant. “Your people would destroy a dome?” It practically hissed, its crests low with fear and fury.
Kagee said, deadpan, “They have exploded more for less.”
“They would bomb a sacred artistic space?” Jinyesun spoke then, and its crests were flat back in horror. Fandina too looked appalled at the idea.
Phex wondered sometimes at their innocence. Just because the Dyesi were a nonviolent species, they could not wander around the galaxy assuming everyone else was similarly inclined. Surely, they knew that?
Kagee gave a sigh. “Nothing is sacred on Agatay. Certainly not a glorified entertainment pod, occupied by gods or not.”
The calator shook its head. “That’s not possible. No one in the history of the divinity has ever intentionally destroyed a dome. That is a preposterous notion. It is, in fact, somewhat psychologically impossible.”
“Have you ever put a dome where it was unwanted?”
“There is no such thing as an unwanted dome.”
The sacerdote reminded them. “We have been invited to Agatay.”
“By which faction?”
“Does that matter? We have an invitation.”
Kagee looked at the three Dyesi like they were certifiably crazy. “Did you not research my planet at all? There is a noble history of mass killings, particularly in assembly areas. Bombings with high casualty numbers are frequent occurrences. My people make no distinction between military and civilian the way other cultures do. Everyone serves and everyone fights, and so everyone is considered a fighting force and a threat.”
The sacerdote’s crests went neutral. It looked like it too was attempting patience. “Yes, we know Agatay has a dwindling highly violent population. There is only one habitable continent on your home world, and that has kept your numbers suppressed throughout your planetary history, and this, in turn, has allowed and encouraged mass conscription.”
Kagee said flatly, “We are a small population because we spend so much of our time killing each other. It is not a nice place, my home planet. Why would the divinity want to go there at all?”
“Because it is places like Agatay that need divine salvation the most.”
Kagee threw his hands up into the air and collapsed next of Phex on his bunk. “You talk some sense into them.”
“Well, now we know why they moved us to this space barge,” said Tyve. “Closest thing to a tank that the divinity can get.”
The calator said, “We go to launch a new dome into existence. That means we have to build it first. This is a construction barge. Is it not a great honor, that you will be the first to sing in a new dome?”
“Not if you’re sending us to die there,” said Kagee. “I left my planet specifically because of this kind of attitude. I don’t believe that it is noble to die for a cause, certainly not someone else’s.”
The sacerdote still seemed, crest-wise, the most sympathetic to Kagee’s distress. Nevertheless, it too was ultimately unmoved. “No? Well, gods are never believers, we know that. And the divinity does not think you will die for this dome. In fact, we think quite the opposite.”
“Yes, yes, the divinity brings salvation.” Tyve waved a hand in the air dismissively but she looked worried. Kagee had at least convinced her that this was a dangerous venture.
Berril hadn’t said anything so far. She climbed down off her bunk and came to squeeze between Phex and Kagee, putting her head on Kagee’s shoulder. Phex found her spicy sweet smell comforting.
Kagee grumbled at her but calmed down a little. At least he didn’t jump up and start pacing again. “Does the faction who invited the divine to Agatay know that I am part of Asterism?”
The sacerdote answered calmly, “They know you’re from Agatay. We think that pride is partly why they invited us. You are a popular cantor throughout much of the galaxy now, Demigod Kagee. Among Asterism’s popularity rankings, you are second only to Berril – in the nearest divine sector to Agatay.”
“You’re telling me I have a high number of believers already in my home space?”
“It’s common for the visually familiar to have highest appeal in any given sector,” said the sacerdote, who should know.
Berril spoke up then. “That’s why I’m always the most popular with chiropteran species.”
“You’re usually the most popular in general because you’re adorable,” said Tyve, stalwart.
Kagee didn’t care much about popularity numbers. “I didn’t ask if they knew what I was, acolyte. I asked if they knew who I was. My name. Did you tell them my full real name? Not my god name but the one on my ident?”
“Yes.”
“Well, poop.” Kagee put his head in his hands, slumping forward.
Berril stopped leaning on him and petted his back in little circles with her small hand.
“Could that mean the faction your family supports is in power?” asked Phex, who only knew how Wheel power struggles worked but assumed this was similar.
“Or it could mean exactly the opposite. Either way we are screwed, because I don’t get along with any of them.” Kagee looked up at the sacerdote with hard grey eyes. “Did the divinity recruit me because they saw me as representing an opportunity to expand to Agatay? Because that is a truly terrible idea.”
“High cantor is high cantor. Market capacity and draw is always a secondary consideration, but primarily you are a god because we care about the colors you can sing.”
Fandina said quickly, translating to make sure Kagee understood, “You were recruited for your talent, just like the rest of us.”
“It wouldn’t hurt, though, that you are a member of a species that has not yet accepted the divine into its culture.” That was Jinyesun being brutally honest.
Phex didn’t object or try to mitigate their blunt sifter’s statement. Kagee could take it. But Phex still winced internally at the disappointment on his high cantor’s face.
“Do you know which faction is currently in power?” Kagee asked the acolytes.
“No,” said all three in unison, as though it didn’t really matter to them. And it probably didn’t.
“And the infonet won’t have that information easily accessible.” Kagee sighed. “Not that it matters. It might change six times on our way out there and another two while the dome is being built.”
“How long does it take to construct a dome?” Phex wondered.
“Only a few weeks,” assured the calator.
“Weeks? We will be spending weeks on Agatay?” Kagee flopped backward on Phex’s bed.
Phex, took a breath and stood, facing the acolytes. “You won’t reconsider this plan? The new dome? Agatay? Us performing there?”
“The divinity has decided,” confirmed the calator.
