Godsent

by Laura Campbell

Illustrated by Paul Lee

 There was a room at the back of the starship Acer 2.  It was a pleasant room, containing plants, a system to play music, snacks, and assorted beverages. The chair in the room was comfortable, almost an upright bed.

     And in the chair sat a person; their only duty was to sit at and watch the core of the starship’s engine.

     Rompke Spree entered the periphery of the room, “Shift change in one hour,” he announced. “Are you okay for the next sixty minutes?”

     “You ask every shift, and every shift I tell you I am fine,” Jenny Runrig replied. She kept her eyes on the core of the engine. She could feel it churning, the particles’ movements resonating in her body.

     Rompke observed her.

     She looked healthy. In his eyes, she was beautiful. Timelessly exquisite. Her eyes were almost white; when the light crossed her irises at certain angles, it looked like her eyes were devoid of any coloration at all.

     In his admiration, though, her most striking feature was her overwhelming serenity in the solitude of her calling.

     Rompke doubted that anything could evoke an emotional reaction from her. She was not an epicenter of peace; she was an abyss unto herself.

     He could not help himself but to stare into her.

#

     Rompke was surprised when Jenny approached him at the common dining hall. Usually, she and her cohorts kept to a private dining facility in their section of the ship.

     He could not take his eyes of her.

     “Don’t stare,” Jenny said, as she sat next to Rompke in the ship’s dining facility. “Staring is too open to interpretation. I feel like I am being critiqued when people stare at me.”

     “You fascinate me,” he said “I am not critiquing you. You help keep the ship moving. That you have such a personal role in that – it is incredible. Who would have guessed?”

     “I’m a Paratiritís,” Jenny acknowledged. “I have a job. I do it.”

     “Paratiritís. It’s a weird job title. It sounds somewhere between parasite and paradise.”

     “Paratiritís is the Greek word for ‘Observer,’” Jenny told him. “And we have the most boring job in the galaxy; although important. At least for the Acer ships.”

     “This is my first Acer ship,” Rompke confessed. “I’m still learning the ropes here.”

     “Acer tech was licensed by Regnas Corp from the Mercurians. Faster than light speed travel. Something once thought impossible. Do you remember your onboarding lecture?”

     “Acceleration after lightspeed, incorporating energy and the relativistic fundament, whatever that last thing is,” Rompke recited. “The powers that be keep it proprietary. It should be publicly available knowledge.”

     “Only certain Mercurians and Regnas officials know,” Jenny smiled. “And of course, we Paratiritís know. More than anyone else.”

     “When did you find out you were a Paratiritís?”

     “When I was thirty-two,” Jenny recounted. “I was working in Intergalactic Compliance. Regnas came to our offices on Titan, with a box. It was very pretty. Lots of soft light weaving in intricate patterns. It was warm, but not hot. They took a selected group of us into a dark room, one by one. The box was on the table. A Regnas and a Mercurian were present. I figured the darkness was an accommodation to the Mercurian. They live underground on Mercury; they have different sight. Bright light offends them.”

     “And?” Rompke asked. Her clear eyes seemed to sparkle as she told her story.

     “They had me put my hands on the box. The light jumped. I was enshrouded in a soft, undulating illumination. Something in me loved that light. The Regnas Corporate Man and the Mercurian nodded. I was escorted out of the room, and immediately put on a transport. It was explained that I was needed, for Earth’s space effort. For the good of all of Earth. That my family, my former work colleagues — they would have to understand.”

    “It sounds like the encounter escalated suddenly.”

    “Cubicle Dweller to Child of the Universe in an instant,” Jenny nodded. “I was sent to a small moon named Copenhagen. I remember it very vividly because the official paying business of the moon was swineherding. There were pig farms everywhere. Nice ones, I suppose, where the pigs roamed freely. I gather it was a good life for the pigs, right up to their slaughter. Which I was told was swift and compassionate.”

     “It was a gathering center for Paratiritís,” Rompke guessed. Certain information had been told to the public; enough Paratiritís had been spirited away that their kidnapping had to be cast as species-critical recruitment. The existence of the gathering centers was one tidbit of limited permitted information.

     “There was a small cohort of us. All had taken a glow to the box; or, more precisely, it had taken a glow to us. The relativistic fundament – the thing that makes beyond lightspeed travel possible – requires a Paratiritís. The fundament cannot be a standalone quantum system. They tried decoherence, where there would be a satisfactory system self-measurement to enable the Acer engines work, but those attempts were unsuccessful. The underlying quantum event that powers the beyond lightspeed engine, is in constant flux. It requires an external Paratiritís.” 

    “Certain external Paratiritís. Special people. Like you.”

     “Earthlings like me – and it is only Earthlings for some reason – resonate with the fundament,” Jenny continued. She needed to figure out why Rompke stared so deeply into her.  “There isn’t any rhyme or reason to it. No genetic marker, no shared talent outside of being what we are. The Mercurians don’t even have native Paratiritís – apparently, they have strayed genetically away from their Earthling origins to the point they don’t have the whatever it is that the fundament requires. Enter Regnas with its plan to identify and gather the talented few. And Earth Gov backed Regnas because Earth Gov can’t kidnap people. But they can license their dirty work to Regnas.”

     “You have a rare and vital gift.”

     “Yes.”

     “There are five of you aboard. You share a living sector, near the engines.”

     “Maybe the things that attracts the fundament to us attract us to one another,” Jenny suggested. “You’re an officer on board this ship. You know the subcultures.”

     “Would you like to have dinner with me?” Rompke asked. “You’ve worked a bunch of double shifts lately. You could do with a break.”

     “Hiete Sranth, our senior Paratiritís, has been feeling tired lately. He has taken time away from the fundament. He says he is homesick.”

     “For where?”

    “That’s the thing,” Jenny remarked. “Once you are a Paratiritís, you have no home except a platform near a fundament. You spend your days staring into the reaction; integrated into it. Tangled in quantum events. But remembering nothing; time isn’t even a construct when we are at work. Time disappears. Space and time – they mean nothing when I am on duty. It is almost a Zen thing. Being in the moment so intensely that you aren’t aware of any moments. That’s why they send you in to announce shift. Otherwise, I would never leave my post. I need that hour to pry myself away from the reaction; to feel one of my cohorts slip into the system. Knowing the fundament has perpetual companionship.”

     “That sounds kind of disturbing.”

     “What I do, Rompke – I am a mortal person who gets to be immortal,” Jenny tried to explain. “I am someone who can transcend my mortality. I can’t explain it. It is a sensation, not something words can describe.”

     “You need a break.”

     “You mean like take liberty at the next port?” Jenny asked, her tone incredulous.

     The expression in her almost clear eyes was like he had asked a god if they enjoyed the idea of going to a child’s birthday party.

    Gods need to go to children’s birthday parties, he thought to himself. They need to not be gods for a while.

     “Since you mention it, you are at liberty when the ship is at port,” he reminded her. “The shuttles can take you down planet-side.”

      “I only take a day of liberty when we have it.  And only because officer types like you force me to. I have seen planets, moons, asteroids,” Jenny reassured him. “I do enjoy the sights, believe me. There are some beautiful things in temporary places. But I can feel the fundament in my veins, in my soul. Calling me home to it.”

     “We should have dinner,” Rompke decided. “Talk about other things.”

     “Like what?”

     “Like who you are, beyond the fundament.”

     “You’re a ship’s officer. You have access to my file. You can find out almost anything about me.”

     “Your file and you are different things,” Rompke pointed out.

     Jenny breathed in and out. “You’re going to insist, aren’t you?”

     “I am,” Rompke said firmly. “Formal mess, tonight. Share a meal with a mere mortal. The worst I can do is amuse you.”

     “I’ll be there,” Jenny promised, against her better judgment.

#

     “That human, Rompke,” Maria Louisa S’burg said. “He has taken an interest in you.”

     “We are still human,” Jenny smiled, hugging her fellow Paratiritís.

     “Not really,” Maria Louisa reminded her. “They don’t know what we aren’t telling them.”

     “It is just a passing fancy on his part,” Jenny assured. “No normal person could want to be with us in perpetuity. We spend too much time at our posts. We will never retire. There is no harm in spending an hour or two with him.”

     “You’re probably killing him already,” Maria Louisa stated. “Just spending an hour or two with him is unadvisable. For his sake.”

     “He invited me to dinner. I must eat. There’s no harm in multitasking.”

     “Dinner?” Maria Louisa shook her head. “Why not just sprinkle some poison in his food? End it for him quicker.”

     “That’s not entirely fair.”

     “Fair and true are not necessarily the same thing,” Maria remarked.

     “It’s just a dinner.”

     “That’s what the disciples said at the Last Supper,” Maria Louisa noted. “Word of advice: keep it quick and don’t make any promises you can’t keep. Breaking bread with one of us is a perilous thing.”

#

     Jenny arrived ten minutes before Rompke. 

     He arrived about a minute early.

     “You got here before me,” Rompke noted, sitting down.

     “Obviously,” Jenny replied. “I ordered a bottle of red wine. On my credit. I don’t do well with social interactions. A glass or two of wine helps.”

      “I’m not exceptionally skilled at social interactions, either. I go to therapy. Talking helps. Sometimes I build things up in my mind. When I say those things aloud, they don’t sound so dire.”

      “I don’t usually speak with people as freely as I do with you,” Jenny responded. “I’m generally shy.”

     “They say that Paratiritíns have nothing in common, except that you are all introverts,” Rompke said. “Which is probably good, given the isolation of your work.”

     “I thought we weren’t going to talk about work.”

    “You are correct.”

     The wine showed up just in time to give him a moment to recoup.

     “This is the third time I have been to the formal mess,” Rompke stated. “The first time was to celebrate my onboarding. The second a birthday celebration. And now.”

     “I come here once a week,” Jenny replied. “By myself. Paratiritís are the highest paid members of the crew. Of any spacefaring crew. You’re not a gold digger, are you, Mr. Spree?”

     “I am a crew manager, and an officer. I do okay for myself,” he smiled. “But no offense taken. I must look odd, suddenly taking an interest in you. I’m not a spy or a covert Regnas psych agent.”

     “You have an interest in me? That’s unadvisable. Someone must have told you that by now.”

     “No,” Rompke replied. “Let’s start with an innocuous question: where do you come from?”

     “Born on Earth, Europa Sector. Genetic testing reveals that some of my ancestors were Nordic Viking. Intrepid explorers putting their back into the oar. Maybe that influenced my intention to spend my life spacefaring. I started out working on Titan. After I was identified, I was assigned here. And you?”

     “Born in the Europa Sector. My family has lived by the Spree River for countless generations. Hence the surname. I always liked warmer climates, though. I spent a rotation on Mars. Regnas has made that planet a near tropical paradise.”

    “The reptilian features of the Martians are fascinating,” Jenny remarked. “I have a side hobby studying cosmic evolution. Trying to understand how space changes us.”

     “My side hobby is playing the piano,” Rompke told her. “I play well enough that I don’t bother myself. A sophisticated audience would probably find many faults with my playing.”

     “But you enjoy it.”

     “I do.”

     “That is enough.”

     “Do you play any instruments?” Rompke asked.

     “If you’re looking to put a band together, you’re looking in all the wrong places,” Jenny told him. “I wish I could play. But I have a form of dyslexia. I can’t remember notes in order. I can read music and play, but not play anything from memory.”

     “What instrument?”

     “Bass guitar,” she smiled.

     “Now, that is something that is not in your HR file.”

     “Did you check my file out before coming here?” Jenny asked.

    “Of course not. Using that information for personal use would be highly noncompliant. And I am a Capricorn. The most trustworthy of the signs.”

     “You know, astrology doesn’t mean much out here. We travel through the constellations, not assent to their dominion over our attributes,” Jenny said.

     “I’m sensing some Cancer traits in you. You seem extremely practical. And the type to not expect anything from anyone.”

     “When is Cancer?”

     “About June 22 to July 22.”

     “My birthdate is June 24,” Jenny said. 

     “See. I called it.” Rompke asked. “Are you impressed?”

     “I am,” Jenny admitted, knowing she shouldn’t be encouraging him.

#

     Rompke entered the Paratiritís Suite in the engine room. It was different now that he had shared a meal with Jenny.

     “Shift change in one hour,” he announced. “Are you okay for the next sixty minutes?”

     “I am,” she replied. “Maria Louisa S’burg is already at her platform, slipping into the system.”

     “I was surprised to see you on this shift. You’ve been working a lot lately. Is there a limit to how many shifts you can take?”

     “As many as needed. There are five Paratiritís on board and three shifts,” she sighed. “Hiete is ill. We have allocated his shifts between us.”

     “You care for each other quite a bit,” Rompke observed. “That’s admirable.”

     I can feel the darkness circling Hiete, Jenny thought. Not just any darkness. A quantum darkness, something she could not explain, even if she wanted to. Maybe she could etch out equations to explain it, but people usually had a difficult time emotionally connecting to equations. They could read the numbers and symbols but could not feel the power behind them. Not that it mattered to her, Maria Louisa, and the other Paratiritís on board. Including Hiete. We are cohort-bound to keep Hiete’s secret, she reminded herself.

     “I heard that Hiete Sranth is not recovering,” Rompke said, trying to express sympathy. “He is confined to quarters. With a medical officer in constant attendance.”

     “There isn’t an unlimited supply of us,” Jenny noted. 

     She stared into the heart of the engine; a thin pane of smoky quartz separated her from the reaction core. It was unnecessary, but the Paratiritís didn’t let the non-Paratiritís know. They wanted to craft ritual around them, something to remind the humans that Paratiritís were different. That they went places the humans could not enter.

    “We’ll be at Athacij in about fifty-two standard hours,” Rompke assured her. “Then we can all take a break. They have a fabulous music scene on Athacij. Some great bands play there. Some of the bands have good bass guitarists.”

     “I’ll just stand there in awe,” Jenny responded, her eyes never leaving the heart of the quantum system.

     “Maybe you’ll feel the rhythm and find yourself capable of memorizing something. I firmly believe that if you can feel the relativistic fundament, you can remember a solid bass line.”

     “A second date?” Jenny remarked, a slight blush unintentionally flushing her cheeks. “Are you beginning to like my company?”

     “There’s that Cancer in you. You wear your emotions on your sleeve. One of your endearing qualities.” 

    “Endearing and burdensome are neighbors,” she shrugged. “Don’t expect too much from me, Mr. Spree.”

#

     Forty-seven hours away from Athacij, Hiete Sranth’s condition had worsened.

     Rompke Spree was called into an executive office.

     “Sit down,” the captain of the Acer 2, a stout woman with graying red hair ordered.

     “Yes, Captain Gritow,” Rompke obeyed.

     Julieth Gritow looked at him sternly. “You have spent off-duty time with a Paratiritís,” she established. “Why?”

     “I like her,” Rompke answered.

     “You like her. As in romantically?”

     “Yes. That is allowed.”

     “The permissibility of the relationship is not at issue,” Gritow stated firmly. “The advisability of the relationship is an issue. Life with a Paratiritís is not easy. It takes a toll on the non-Paratiritís partner. Every time. I’m trying to save you from something unpleasant, Officer Spree.”

     “Jenny seemed pleasant enough over lunch,” Rompke mentioned. “No big red flags.”

     “She is a walking red flag,” Gritow frowned. “You have eaten with her?”

    “At established ship’s mess halls,” he acknowledged. “The security footage will document our meetings.”

     “You have spent no time with her away from security surveillance?”

     “No, Captain.”

     “For the remainder of this voyage, keep it that way. And be warned that this is a very serious matter. Keep that brain of yours in charge of the rest of you.”

    “Yes, Captain.”

     “You are dismissed,” Gritow announced. “And heed my warning, Rompke. You are a good man. Let her go.”

#

     “You look glum,” Jenny said, as she sat across from Rompke at breakfast in the common dining hall.

     Crew members were beginning to whisper about the Officer and the Paratiritís. 

     “Gritow ordered me to her personal office,” Rompke revealed. “Read me some riot act about not being alone with you.”

     “Do you want to be alone with me?”

     “Of course, I do,” Rompke stated. He was flustered. “I feel a connection to you.”

     “I guess that Julieth is being protective.”

     “You’re an important asset,” Rompke recognized.

     “She is being protective of you,” Jenny replied.

     “I am taking you out on the town when we get to Athacij,” Rompke resolved. “Get us away from Gritow and the relativistic fundament and anything else that keeps us six feet apart.”

     “I might have fundament maintenance sitting,” Jenny reminded him. “They transport fundament sitters up to the ship when it is in port and not moving, so those of us serving on board can have some liberty. But they may not have enough to cover the shifts.”

     “The fundament system needs constant observation?” Rompke asked.

     “It does.”

     “But you will have some liberty. Right?” There was more pleading in his tone than he had intended.

     “Of course. All watching and no doing makes Jenny a dull girl.”

     “I like the sound of that sentiment,” he grinned.

     “I thought you might.”

#

     Jenny was walking to her Observation Platform. Rompke walked beside her. 

“How are you handling things?” Rompke asked. Jenny had lost a cohort. Now there were only four Paratiritís to rotate the three shifts. 

     “Hiete Sranth’s death,” she said, struggling to find the correct words. “It happened. I cannot undo that. You should not worry. The remaining four of us can comfortingly interface with the fundament.” 

     “We would be stranded in open space if we didn’t have you and the others aboard and active at your posts,” Rompke reckoned. “We would probably all die, waiting for someone – anyone – to get to us. It must be a tremendous burden, knowing that we all rely upon you.”

     “I just let the quantum event dance in me. I don’t ask where the ship going or what the ship is carrying.” Jenny squared her shoulders. “I like what I do. I can’t imagine ever not being a Paratiritís. I would do what I do with no one else on board.”

     Rompke put his arms around her, holding her close. “I have a personal reason for wanting you safe,” he told her. “And happy.”

     And then, against all predictability, they did something neither of them had projected: they kissed. A deep, lingering kiss that each felt reverberate within them.

     “Gritow will have my head on a stake,” Rompke said, as they separated. “She’ll say I’m risking giving you some mouth-borne disease. But,” he smiled. “It was well worth the risk. I can die happy now.”

     “Be careful what you wish for,” Jenny observed.

     “I’ll stay outside the door,” he promised her, as they got to her platform. 

     “That sounds very reassuring. And unnecessary. Go about your normal day, Rompke.” She entered the doorway to her station, a dark peace flooding her being. “For now it is time to let the abyss stare into me.”

#

     Captain Julieth Gritow approached Rompke as he walked towards his quarters.

     “How do you feel?” she asked.

     “Fine,” Rompke replied. “Ma’am.”

     “Don’t ‘ma’am’ me when you’re sharing spit with a Paratiritís.”

     “It was ill advised,” he confessed. “I don’t want to put her at any risk. I will be more careful.”

     “I’m more concerned about you,” she replied. “They are different, Rompke. Not in a bad way, of course. We rely on them. But the non-Paratiritís who become personally involved with a Paratiritís — they do not last long.”

     “The Paratiritís aren’t that difficult to get along with,” Rompke objected. 

     “I’m not talking about getting along with them,” Gritow stated flatly. “Their lovers die, Rompke.”

     “We all die.”

     “Not that so ahead of schedule,” Gritow answered. “There is something about them. They interact with some damnable undefined thing in the engine system. The current guess is that they also interact on some sub-atomic level with us. Or cosmic level. Or some other godforsaken undefinable level. It has deleterious consequences for us. Being physically close to them causes organ failures, autoimmune diseases, cancers. They know that. That’s why they quarantine themselves in their area.”

     “I plan to spend time with her, off the ship,” Rompke replied, “I’ve been counting down to Athacij. I’m going to sit on the beach with Jenny and listen to music. Only six standard hours to go. We’re nearly there.”

     “Nearly there? Do you have any idea how far away from anything six hours means when you’re traveling at faster than light speed?” Gritow scoffed. “More than 4,017,600,000 miles. More than 6,480,000,000 kilometers. Six hours may not be much in your line of work, but in Jenny’s it is lifetimes. Her very concept of time is different than yours. You may see her for an hour – who knows how long that feels to her. Your instant could be her lifetime. Her instant could cost you your lifetime.”

     “Surely some significant others live a usual amount of time,” Rompke stated. He wanted to understand what data Gritow was relying upon. The woman seemed genuinely concerned for him.

     “None,” Gritow replied. “We need the Paratiritís, Rompke. We give them these exalted positions, and they work their magic. But remember – physics chose them. The abyss chose them. There is something fundamentally different about the fundament watchers.”

     “They are still human,” Rompke insisted. “There must be some glitch in whatever data you’re referencing. Some invalid assumption.”

     “The data is cut-and-dry,” Gritow stated glumly. “One of things we do on these ships is keep an eye on the Paratiritís. They have a connection to the fundament, a connection to each other. You, no matter what she says, will always be outside of their system. A distant seer, not even in their frame of reference. They are a system unto themselves.”

     “You spy on them,” Rompke understood. “They sense that.”

      “It is a dangerous thing we’re doing here, making people into gods. I would have been happy sticking to wormhole riding and less than lightspeed travel. Not cultivating absolute power in human garments.”

     “Absolute power?” Rompke scoffed. “That sounds overthought.”

     “They resonate with absolute power,” Gritow responded. “They interface with it. They let it weave through their beings. That is their job; that is their identity This is the first generation of Paratiritís.”

     “It’s just their job. They have their own identities.”

     “She’ll mess up your insides, Rompke,” Gritow told him firmly. “Every moment you spend with her is many more moments stolen from your future. Take my advice: do not become romantically involved with a god. That rarely ends well for the mortal.”

#

Two days later

     “This is fun,” Jenny said, as she and Rompke sipped on cocktails as a resort next to a sparkling beach. “I miss my post, but this is fun.”

     “You’re very connected to your work,” he said. “Do any of you Paratiritís find time for personal relationships? I’m asking for a friend.”

    Jenny sat in introspection for a moment. “Some do. But there are issues.”

    “Commitment issues?” Rompke did not want to hear about shortened lifespans. “I understand you put in long hours and have a very demanding occupation. But your occupation isn’t the first in human history to carry that baggage.”

     “I don’t like this topic,” Jenny responded, looking out over the horizon. “There are issues beyond the commitment of our time and our concentration.”

     “Such as?” Please don’t give any credence to Gritow’s concerns.

     “Our lovers – they die.”

     “We all die eventually,” Rompke stated.

     “Our partners die within five years,” she informed him. “Sometimes less. You don’t die eventually. You die quickly.”

     “That makes no sense,” he responded. He did a quick inventory on himself. He felt fine. Perhaps a little tired, but there was a type of jet lag associated with going from the ship to a planet’s surface. That explained the fatigue, he convinced himself.

    “Paratiritís integrate with something that can’t ever be precisely located, much less defined,” Jenny shrugged. “The fundament isn’t something we look at; it reflects into us. It uses us. It creates a complimentary fundament in us. We maintain an equilibrium with it. We pass that equilibrium between us. It isn’t a wave; it isn’t a particle. And the best definition of its location is that it is moving around somewhere in our 75,000 cubic centimeters of body volume. Give or take.  Maybe that changes us. In some fundamental way that isn’t compatible with non-Paratiritís.”

     “What about you and me? I really…”

     “I can offer only death,” Jenny told him, cutting him off before he said something she could not unhear. 

     “You could quit your job,” Rompke offered hopefully. “I make more than enough to support us both. We could settle down on one of these nice planets. Maybe once you were free of the fundament, I would be okay.”

     “I can’t quit.”

     “You’re not a machine,” Rompke objected. “You can find a balance within yourself.”

     “I am the balance,” Jenny stated. “And I am not the one for you.”

#

     “I hear that Rompke Spree transferred to another ship,” Maria Louisa said, as Jenny met her in Maria Louisa’s private quarters “A non-Acer ship. A worm-hole hopper. They are so slow.”

     “No one but us stays signed on to Acer ship for long,” Jenny noted. “We frighten them, I think. Gritow has said this will be her last voyage on the Acer 2. She lasted three voyages longer than most of them.”

     “Regnas says they will send us our new brother at our next port,” Maria Louisa commented. “To take Hiete’s shifts. Hiete made an odd choice.”

     “Hiete made his decision,” Jenny pondered. “He was the longest serving of any of us. Twenty years.”

     “The humans would say it was suicide,” Maria Louisa commented. “They would point out that Hiete took himself away from the fundament, and the separation unraveled his physical body. Everything shut down. His organs, his brain. All of it. And that he knew physical demise that would be the consequence of leaving his platform.”

     “He had to dispense with this human form,” Jenny remarked. “To join the fundament. He is part of the system now. We may never find him again, but we know where he is.”

     “Rompke wasn’t so eager to die,” Maria Louisa observed. “You did the right thing by him, urging to him to walk away. That was very mortal human of you.”

     “Perhaps one day he will realize why I pushed him away,” Jenny hoped. “I’m glad he transferred. It is best for all of us. I suppose that is love.”

     “You spared him from your slaughter. What greater love is there than that?”

     “Rompke would say something about love itself, probably,” Jenny thought. “That love conquers all. That love is eternal.”

     “Being eternal and being human are not the same,” Maria Louisa reminded her. “That is the dark distinction all us gods have known forever. He could never have understood.”

     “Are we gods?” Jenny queried. “Or just the adopted children of a dispassionate god.”

     “No one gets to choose to be a god,” Maria Louisa stated. “You either are, or you aren’t. I don’t know why you worry about it.”

     “Maybe because I feel it should be a choice,” Jenny replied.

     “Self-heresy,” Maria Louisa smiled. “The worst kind of heresy.”

     “I suppose you’re right.”

     “Of course, I am. And you know it, too. You let go of love; you know the truth. You just don’t like it.”

THE END