Chapter 1 #2
“Would you like me to suggest you go, Vessel Bacai, in my stead?” Iris asked, voice tranquil, his face unreadable.
It was a daring move. She could easily supersede him and attend to the ship herself, but that would mean he had done her a favor, and Bacai resented owing anything to anyone.
So, just as anticipated, she gave a chilling smile and let Iris have a small bow.
“Not at all,” Bacai said, lips stretching along pearly teeth. “I hope you enjoy yourself very much.”
Wouldn’t you like that. Every Vessel had their own subtle ways of practicing vanity.
Some more obviously than others. Iris was grateful that unlike Bacai’s jewel-adorned strand of white mala beads, he had the sense to keep his sandalwood.
They were the very same beads he had been given at age six when he was welcomed into the Order, and they were soft and warm, wound around his left wrist as he scurried across the terraces, bag tucked under his arm.
“Do return swiftly, Vessel Iris,” Bacai called after him, her voice a birdsong against the rising suns. “We will all miss you terribly.”
Sweet lies, nothing more.
If he moved fast enough, he would miss most of the Vessels, the Beacons, and the novices as they moved from sunrise prayer to breakfast. Faster even, and he would miss Mother Nova as she emerged from the main garden after collecting the morning’s fruit.
Their brief exchanges were mostly neutral and sometimes even pleasant.
But recently their conversations had grown strained, weighed down by the gravity of things unsaid.
It was simpler to avoid her altogether—cowardly, Iris admitted to himself, but simpler.
Check the shuttle schedules, he told VIFAI, and find the ones that express the highest pro-Vessel sentiment, particularly by the captains.
The AI buzzed affirmatively and got to work.
Iris flattened himself against a wall and squeezed by a group of elderly monks who were creating an elaborate mandala symbolically representative of the known universe using vibrant sands of reds and yellows.
Swirls of colour dusted from tiny, bronzed funnels as the monks gently brushed short metal rods along their lengths, a couple grains of sand at a time.
Iris didn’t have the care nor the patience for such artistry.
Receiving a disapproving look, he hurried along, never lingering long enough to collect a reprimand.
The mandala was to be destroyed as soon as it was completed, to signify the impermanence of even the most beautiful things.
What harm was to be done if Iris were to hasten its end? The monks would disagree.
No time to ponder. Iris was already outside the main building, bare feet stepping quickly on the warm dirt of the courtyard.
Several calico cats leapt from their napping spots in the sun to dodge his approach, scurrying atop the staircase and perching along the terrace.
Just a few more hurried steps and he would be right at the gates, and once he was past the threshold, no one would bother stopping him.
“Blessed sunrise, Vessel Iris.”
Iris dug his heels into the ground. Hurry and find me a shuttle, please, he thought at VIFAI before turning around.
Mother Nova greeted him with a slight bow of the head and a broad smile. A wicker basket filled to the brim with peaches rested on her equally broad hip. “Running off so fast, you will rush the clouds away.”
Iris dropped his duffel bag to the dirt and bowed deeply, eyes glued to the orange dust speckled across the hem of his white trousers. “Blessed sunrise, Mother Nova. I have received a message from the Primary Temple that my services are needed at the—”
“Yes, yes, of course, at Doshua.” Without warning, Mother Nova’s hand was on his shoulder, and Iris nearly crumbled under its weight. “All messages go through me, child. So that I can find the right Vessel to send along.”
“Bacai—”
“Vessel Bacai will receive the assignment that suits her better,” Mother Nova said, squeezing Iris’s shoulder. “Everything is as the Light has intended it. Don’t overthink it, you’ll give yourself a headache. Go on then before the sun is too high in the sky. I hope you’ve packed for a long trip.”
Iris lingered a moment. Of all the ships in all the quadrants of the galaxy, Mother Nova had bestowed the honor of a generation ship upon him.
Earlier that year, not six months prior, she had tried to talk him out of going aboard a small passenger ship heading back from Kirai Five, and that was far less impressive.
He was almost upset he didn’t have to fight Bacai for this assignment.
Almost. It was, after all, in Mother Nova’s words, as the Light intended it. Who was he to argue?
“Blessed day,” Iris said, breaking free from the weight of Mother Nova’s hand.
He was again able to stand upright, to breathe evenly.
He reminded himself that he was thrilled to go, thrilled to serve, to fulfill his purpose as a Vessel, that whatever tensions ate at him would melt away once he passed the threshold.
“Blessed indeed,” Mother Nova said with a warm smile.
She walked back towards the temple with the wicker basket still at her hip.
Watching her back sway with the rhythm of her steps, Iris thought how she had remained seemingly unchanged since he first walked through the gates nearly twenty years past. How little he had known about her, about her private aspirations and passions, not even her real name.
She was as much a fixture of the temple as the terraces and gardens were.
Permanent as the mountains looming over the horizon.
Both welcoming and impartial as the rolling thunderstorms that came only in the summer nights.
How Iris both dreaded and cherished the soft, ashy vowels of her speech.
How all these idiosyncrasies fit into one that was the Mother Nova, he didn’t know.
It wasn’t his place to know, wasn’t his place to question or understand.
I found us three shuttle options from the station, VIFAI spoke up, no louder than a whisper. Iris sensed it loitering, reluctant to interrupt his thoughts.
With a decisive square of his shoulders, Iris picked up his duffel bag and crossed the threshold of the temple gates.
“Notify the one with the least chatty captain, please.”