“To reach New ‘Ome, we must sacrifice.”

The Sayer’s gaze focused on Cody. The boy tried to sink into the pew.

So spoke the Sayer, his silver teeth glittering in waves of light. He floated on a cushion of antigravity, his robes glowing and flowing from his arms like comet trails. He flew high above the sacred console, his altar, the surface flashing with ruby and emerald lights in paradigms only he understood—the voice of heaven.

“Sacrifice is vector,” the families chanted.

“One day the Prophet shall be born among the lowly of us, the pathfinder. He will lead us through the endless night, through the darkness of our doubt. He will pass from mortal life then return to us from the vacuum that exists beyond death, a map in his heart. His truth shall cast out the Dark One who dwells in the nothingness that surrounds the Ark, the nothingness in our hearts. The Prophet shall come. He will fill our hearts with stars.”

“He shall come,” the masses replied. “Sacrifice is vector.”

Once, before his father had been siezed as a heretic, he had shown his son the stars. Cody had always believed the Ark went on infinitely, uniform corridors and catwalks, decks of tiny hostels for each family, work stations and machinery that reached into the ship with sprawling arms. His father had privileges as a tinkerer, and he took Cody to a foreign land high above, to clear walls that looked out from the Ark. At first Cody had wept, but then he gazed out onto the ever blackness, seeing frissons of spectral rain that dazed and delighted. It had been so long since the Sayer had Cody’s father arrested for questioning the doctrine, for preaching science. He’d been just a boy of six cycles when they had dropped his father into the towers, into the furnaces. Cody wondered if he only dreamed it, imagined he’d had a father.

And sometimes Cody dreamt of a giant blue sphere in white mist like the steam that comes off the reactor vents. The world was so great, and the skies flowed cerelauen beyond sight, not a world of corridors and bulkheads. Water ran free or settled in great pools, covering most of the surface. He liked that dream the most.

“Our faith must be pure, a beacon of light in the vast darkness,” the Sayer preached, his hollow voice echoeing from the bulkheads, joining the song of the Towers. “We must be ever diligent. The Dark One promises and lies and promises. You must not listen, block out the voices of doubt that the evil of science can bring.”

“Sacrifice is vector.”

Their voices joined in choir with the soprano hum of the towers above. Cody, like most of the tribe, had never seen the heavens within the towers, though his father had told him of the home of the gods: crimson furnaces, burning and churning with forces no one pretended to understand, powering crystal mountains that sang with such volume to deafen any man who did not shield their ears.

“Out there beyond the protection of our Ark, the Dark One dwells, poisoning our minds with whispers. The ancient gods built this Ark of their bodies, shaped its engines from their hearts to give us a home, vector. They made us of their love, their hopes. Humans were created on this Ark and for this Ark. The Dark One seeks to tempt us from our mission.”

“Take us to New ‘Ome, Sayer,” the masses on the temple floor chanted.

Cody and his mother had been given front row seats, special seating for families tainted by hereasy. He could feel the pressure of thousands of eyes beating on him. Gripper had told Cody’s Mom they should go into hiding in the forbidden parts of the vessel. The holidays were coming, and for nearly a cycle now, the Sayer had reported the disfavor of the Towers, read by him on his altar; a sacrifice would be needed. She argued that hiding would be as good as admiting guilt.

“Please lower your heads for Communion,” the Sayer compelled.

Cody looked up through his bangs of red hair, keeping his head low. The Sayer examined the bank of lights before him on the altar at his pulpit. Cody’s father had told him that scholars had once been allowed to study their meanings, before the last cleansing, and vague idea was gained of their function. The lights will tell the Sayer if the gods in the Towers were pleased or not.

The chirp of an acolyte’s bell ended Communion. The People waited for the word. The Sayer frowned.

“The Towers are displeased. Their holy lights do not glow.”

Cody heard muffled sobs.

“It is I who have failed you, and I vow to you that if I cannot rid our church, our home of those who feign faith, I will throw myself down the deep well to the Towers to redeem you all. And upon the power of my soul, the engines will drive us all the way to New ‘Ome.”

The people howled, defiant. The Sayer grinned and gazed once again down on Cody.

“To reach New ‘Ome,” the Sayer sang, “We must sacrifice.”

“Take us home, Sayer,” they chanted. Cody mouthed the words; perhaps it was he who had displeased the Towers. How could they notice him? He was just a boy, a tiny spec below their majesty and power. Could they feel his confusion? He’d struggled to hide any trace of his heresy, fearing they might see it in his eyes. He buried his face into his hands. He’d felt feverish since this morning. Could heresy burn the skin?

“In the name of the Towers and the Compass who comes, I beseech you to keep your minds pure of blasphemy, to follow the course true, to take us, the last hope of humans, to New ‘Ome.”

“Take us home, Sayer,” the families chanted.

Would he feel his flesh burn, his bones boil and pop when he was thrown into the furnance? Would he hear the voice of the Gods?

#

Sentries in their crimson suits thumped the walls with clubs. The people dispersed like water flowing down a drain. Cody’s mother grabbed him by the shoulder, and they took the tubes to their home deck in One-B Eden Section.

Out through the spiraling corridors they walked into their home ward. The gates sealed behind the last family—two doors decorated with silver knot work. Incense burned in front of the gate in a tiny dish, purifying the portal with a spicy-sweet odor. Seven Sentries guarded the gates to other decks of the Ark. Traversing the portal except for worship was forbidden.

Down the corridors, they approached a group of men who had gathered at one of the air vents where the fresh atmosphere caused a light euphoria. Mother let down her smoky hair and opened the top of her white jump suit, revealing the curve of her breast. Cody knew to be silent when she did, to stay in the back. Chief of their ward, Kitmaron, finished a protien square, brushed the crumbs from the patchy, black beard on his fat jowls then grabbed her by the hips.

Cody balled his fists watching him treat his mother like a piece of furniture, but she had admonished him not to protest unless he wanted them to starve. Cody’s stomach turned. If only father had thought of his family when he decided to stand by his principles.

“Go home Cody and do your chores,” Mother told him. “Tell Gripper I’ll be home in a few hours. And don’t pester Gripper. Don’t let him drink too much. If you get done early, you can go see Red Nova play in the match.”

Kitmaron sneered at the boy. Cody turned away and traveled through the common areas, the residential apartments and further into their ward, passing beyond the pipe venues, to the abandoned section—the broken places where no one dared to venture.

Cracked conduits steamed oily miasma. Cody’s nose burned from ash in the air. The smoky atmosphere of the corridor impaired his sight, and he had to take care not to trip on broken floor panels. The rejects came to live here, those who would not follow the Code, who had stolen or refused to work. The Sayer called them the alleys of the dark heart. Some even whispered that the Dark One dwelled here, had twisted these parts of the Ark. No one knew exactly how deep into the ship the Dark One had tunneled. Parts of the Ark had been sealed off, damaged in the heretical chaos. Even the vagabonds and untouchables had not gone too deep. Legends of demons roaming the fiery places of disrepair prevented them from seeking out its mysteries. If only father had heeded the warnings and not gone wandering.

He knocked seven times on the portal to their improvised quarters. The bar clanked on the inside door, and Gripper let him in. Gripper had to lean all his weight on the door to push it open, unable to put weight on his bad leg.

The air in their chambers chilled Cody, the environmental systems acting up again, and Gripper had stuffed insulation padding down into his pink jacket. Gripper’s toes poked through holes in his stockings. He must have just woken up from a nap, his wiry, gray hair in a wild mane, and his glasses—one of the lenses cracked—were crooked off his hook nose.

“Well lad, good to see you’re still here. Your mother has no sense sometimes.”

Cody hung up his white jacket and took off his slippers. He filled a thermos with cloudy H2O from a pipe in the wall they had tapped into. He took a ration cracker from a box on the leaning table. Their quarters were divided into two areas by an opaque sheet they had scavenged from the corridors. He and mother slept on cots they had found in a derelict sick bay in the one room while Gripper lived in the parlor.

Gripper still wore his old Sentry uniform, though the color had bleached with age, going pink. It should have been odd to see such a bulky man with a perpetual grimace wearing pink, but it matched his nature.

The Sentries had cast him out after he was crippled in an accident. An ex-Sentry, he was also cast out from the families since the Sentries were feared.

Cody was feeling a bit flushed and sipped on the water to soothe his throat.

“You look a might bit under the weather, lad. Feeling okay?”

“What does under-the-weather mean?”

Gripper shrugged.

“Just an old expression I guess. Doesn’t mean much of anything. I’ve often pondered that weather means sickness of some kind. Well, take care of yourself. Your mother needs you.”

Gripper sat back at the table and resumed carving a chunk of white plastic, chipping away at the malleable material. The walls in Cody’s side of his room were lined with all the little people Gripper had made.

“What are you making?”

“A full course dinner,” Gripper quipped.

“Is it a toy for me?” Cody asked.

“You think everything is for you.”

“Mother said that if I do all my chores, I’m allowed to go to the Match. Red Nova is playing, and I’m sure they’re to win.”

“Why do you like such violent sport? Every cycle, one of the players is wounded so badly they pass into the void. Doesn’t sound like fun to me.”

“It’s fun to me,’ Cody said.

“Violence isn’t amusing at all when you’ve seen it like I have. I had enough of that as a Sentry.”

Gripper chipped at the plastic chunk.

“Your mother is with a man?” he asked.

Cody didn’t answer.

“I’m sorry Cody. If I could, I’d take you all from the commons into the lower echelons where you would want for nothing, where the fat cats drink all the fiz they want and eat delicious vegetables grown in the great forests on the Ark.”

Cody felt a touch of resentment at Gripper’s desultory promises, as if he was supposed to praise the old man for failing. Cody brushed it off, tried to keep it from getting the better of him.

“Tell me more about the Ark, of the places I’ve not seen like the great forest.”

“Always with my stories,” Gripper said.

Gripper retrieved a bottle from under one of the iron grates in the floor. He uncapped it, and Cody’s nose burned from its acrid odor.

“Don’t tell your mother about the bottle, and we have a deal,” he said. He took two gulps then wheezed.

“It’s horrid plasma water, but better then just water. I distilled it from some fluid I drained from the cooling system. It’s not bad if you flavor it with some of the sweet rations.”

Spirits were against the Code of the Ark, since they compelled you to think heretical thoughts. They were the work of the Dark One. Cody admired Gripper for his transgression.

“The forests were transplanted from the ancient home. Trees are mighty beings, alive like you or me, but they are different. Their bodies move slowly, and they grow thin, green hands and feet. They are tall cylinders wearing a brown crust and roots that grow deep into the mushy, brown floor.”

“Like the pipes and conduits?”

“No. They grow and breathe and make fruit.”

“I had just joined the Sentry Order. My parents were so proud that I had been selected because of my fitness. The Sayer came to the induction ceremony to bless us. He took from his robes a piece of green fruit. It was shaped like a tetrahedron, smooth with a bulbous bottom. He called it a pear and said we could pass it around and each take a tiny bite.”

“What was it like?”

“My mouth exploded in joy. It was like laying with a woman. Too fleeting. One man in the battalion began to weep. We never saw him after that day.”

“I wish I could see it.”

Gripper smiled and displayed his art. He was working on a thin part at the top.

“That’s the stem where the fruit attaches to the tree branch.”

“You’d think they’d let us see pictures,” Cody said.

“Oh no lad. Most of the folk here in the commons don’t even know they exist. If they did they’d want the pear too, and there aren’t enough to go round. Nope. Trust me. I hurt you just telling you about it, and that’s why I won’t tell you more. You’re better off not knowing.”

“Where did the forest come from?”

“The ancients grew them. They once lived among the trees as brothers, before the war that poisoned their home. They dwelled in paradise of open space and comforts we couldn’t begin to fathom, a place where you looked up from anywhere and saw not gray bulkheads but a wide, blue canvas for as far as your peepers could peep.”

Cody nodded. He was feeling nauseous but wanted to stay for the story.

“I have seen it,” Cody said “I have dreamt it.”

Gripper smiled, letting Cody’s fantastic comment pass.

“They built the Ark?” Cody said.

“For once the litany is true. They took the only moon of their world and hollowed it out. Then with their waning power, they created the Towers and made humans, and they charged us with the holy mission. To begin again.”

“Does anyone remember?”

“Oh no lad. It happened many generations ago.”

“How do we really know it happened? Where’s the proof?”

Gripper grimaced.

“You mustn’t question. Look around you. Here’s the proof. The Ark is happy when it is moving forward. I have seen from the portals many times and watched as the stars change places. You must have faith, to believe when there is no proof. A crisis of faith is what caused the Chaos, ended our vector. We were all nearly lost.”

“Sometimes it’s just so hard to believe. I saw from the portal, saw the borders of the Ark, and there was nothing, just a few specks of distant light. If that’s what is seen from all portals, if that’s what surrounds us, then there is nothing out there.”

Gripper paused his work and studied his gnarled hands.

“Each of us has a choice we must make: either to be one of the faithful or one of hearsay. I can’t tell you which one to be, and both roads have consequences. Your father made his choice, and I was forced to help him to understand the nature of that decision.”

“How?”

“Too many questions, lad. You are diseased with these questions.” Gripper laughed and brushed Cody’s red mop of hair. “Now get about your chores, and you still might have time to see the match.”

“Just one more question?”

“Just one.”

“Do you think we’ll ever find New ‘Ome, that we’ll ever be faithful enough?”

“I know this. People are always in a hurry to be where they’re not and never be where they are.”

Cody shrugged.

“So are you going to head up to the match?”

“I don’t think so,” Cody said. “I’m not feeling right.”

#

Cody’s mother came home late into the rest cycle. Cody was lying down, and Gripper placed wet towels on his head to cool the burning.

His mother paced with worry. The rage of the engines burned beneath Cody’s skin, behind his eyes. His head pounded. He felt like he was falling, passing through the decks of the Ark and into space. In his fevered vision, he fell through space until a star’s gravity caught his soul. He cried out for his mother, but she did not come. No one could hear him. The tendrils took hold of his body, burning his flesh. “I shall feast on your cold, cold hearts,” said the Sayer’s voice. He had known of Cody’s heretical thoughts, and now he would punish him.

Cody’s mother knelt by the bed of her ailing son and prayed to the Towers.

“Take this illness from my son and give it into me,” she begged.

Gripper listened at the boy’s chest, checking his wrist to feel for a pulse. He shook his head and sighed.

“In the lower planes, I have seen miracle cures granted by the Towers to the faithful. They could fix him. The Sayer has medicines.”

Mother scooped up Cody into her arms.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Gripper was flabbergasted. He blocked the door.

“They can heal my boy.”

“It’s best this way, peaceful. Let the boy fall into an easy sleep. I can make him a drink so strong he’ll feel no pain.”

Mother kicked Gripper’s bad leg. He went down howling in pain. With her boy in her arms, she lifted up the bar securing the door and pushed it open.

“You’re just going to make it worse,” he said.

She passed into the common zones and to one of the corridors where the higher ranks of the families lived. She knocked on Kitmaron’s door. He answered, wrapped in a sheet.

“My son is sick. I must see the Sayer. Tell your friends in the Sentries to take him to the lower echelons. They can heal him.”

“Go back to your rags, woman. I will not help the son of a heretic.”

Mother grinned at him.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to disturb you—or your wife.”

Kitmaron frowned his black beard into a knot.

“I can’t ask a Sentry to let us pass. We’ll be arrested. No one goes low. Take him to our common’s area. I’ll ask one of the healers to look at him.”

He shut the door.

Gripper had caught up, limping while he jogged.

“You’ve got some nerve, lady,” he said.

They took him to where Kitmaron had suggested. The lamps glowed sallow light during the late cycle. Gripper bumped into a monitor, and swore at it. He nursed his leg. They placed Cody on a table, brushing away empty fiz bottles and game pads. She felt his forehead. In his foggy state, he felt her cool hand sooth the fire on his skin. He struggled to breath.

Kitmaron arrived, followed by a scrawny fellow whose face was inchoate, gray, as if his flesh was made up of wet ash. From a satchel, the healer pulled a probe and stuck it in Cody’s mouth. He listened to his heart and lungs and felt all over his body. The probe lit up.

“He will not survive. He is being punished.”

Mother clenched the healer’s shoulder. Kitmaron pulled her free.

“You must be able to do something,” she said.

“He is beyond my arts,” the healer said. “In the hands of the Prophet. Only the healing of the ancients can help him now.”

The ruckus had woken other families, and they came to see. They were wrapped in their bed robes, their hair a mess from sleeping. They watched the mother weeping and offered no comfort, not to the widow of a heretic.

All they could do was watch as Cody’s chest took slower inhalations. Then, he was still.

Mother embraced Cody by the shoulders. In an attempt to feign breath, she pushed down on his chest. A rib cracked beneath her fist. She listened at his heart. Still she heard silence.

“Gods in the Towers. Make it beat.”

She kept pumping until she rolled over in exhaustion. She rested her head on Cody’s shoulder and sobbed.

The audience gawked. She even heard someone cheer.

“Come on Maud,” Gripper said, taking her by the arm. “Let’s not give them anymore of a show.” He helped her lift Cody’s body up and they started to carry him home.

“Praise the Towers,” roared someone. “The son of the heretic is dead.”

“Who said that?” mother roared.

No one answered.

“You know nothing of it!”

“Maud,” Gripper called to her. “Maud. He’s breathing.”

She put her cheek to his mouth, felt moist air touching her face.

“Praise the Towers,” she whispered. She repeated it several times.

“He was gone,” Gripper said. “His heart was silent. It’s a miracle! The Towers have risen him back to us.”

The crowd clamored about. Some fell to their knees praying. Some ran. In their eyes, they looked upon the lad, their spirits filling with a fury. No longer did they see an untouchable, an outcast, the son of a heretic. Now they beheld a boy at one with their Towers, one of their own of the filthy commons, chosen to feel their embrace. It was a sign. It must have been. New ‘Ome was close, just in their reach. The boy would show them how to find it. He was the Prophet who had been foretold, the pathfinder.

Gripper shook his head.

“Mother. I saw the blue world. I was there walking through its forests and walking with the ancients. One of them pointed to a star in the sky.”

“Praise the Prophet,” the crowd chanted.

Then Cody whispered but all could hear: “We can longer travel forward. We must reverse to go home.”

“This is going to be trouble,” Gripper said. “There’s going to be blood like there was during the Chaos.”

Cody became the pathfinder, and he told the people of his vision.

Water falls from the skies—ice blood and tears of clouds. The ground is not polymer, nor steel, but pillow soil, crunching beneath the barefoot, soft to the touch of young skin. All things live. All things hum as the towers do. Nothing ever dies. Born of the soil and come home to the soil. Life forever—a chain of life always growing towards the father star.

Life is vector.

The walls melt. The only walls are the ones you take with you. Light flows eternal, clarion light, not the sickly illumination of the halls. And in the dark, the stars keep hope like torches.

They all knew this world.

As the pathfinder told the story again and again from the visions he’d been granted, it awakened the dormant race memory sown in the blood of the people. Their dreams filled with New ‘Ome. They walked the land, swam in the oceans and ate the fruit of the trees. Pear juice dripped down Gripper’s face.

And at story’s end, the people prayed not to the towers but to their hearts, the true vector of their lost home, and they asked of the prophet:

Take us home.

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