Devon found Mr. Kelly in his room. Paul looked completely at peace, lounging in his shelf-like bed and reading from his personal computer pad. Halogen lights shone off the bald spot on his head and were he not wearing a standard space suit Devon might have mistaken him for a monk.

At least he thought it was the monks who shaved their heads and wandered about in robes. He’d seen a news report on some ancient temple getting rebuilt on Earth and the bald, robe-clad men had been the instigators. The whole galaxy was worried the Consulate would go to war for that, but Mars and Earth were too backwater for the Consulate to worry over. Gliese and the systems beyond were what mattered now. Hell, the whole Milky Way seemed more like an afterthought to society these days.

He didn’t know why, but Paul’s wreath of hair comforted and unsettled him. How could something so controversial come in such a soothing form, he wondered. Most religion was peaceful. In fact, he had yet to find a doctrine centered only on destruction. So why was it that faith inevitably led men to war?

It had taken him the better part of two days to work up the courage to come here and now he wasn’t certain what he should say. Supposedly Mr. Kelly knew his mother but he hadn’t hinted anything about her to him. Why would Paul tell Jorry instead of him? Was he not supposed to know?

Paul looked up from the pad and smiled. “Devon!” he said. “Come in. I was beginning to worry about you.”

“You were?” He walked into the room and stood uncomfortably to the side.

“Yes, of course!” Paul said. “Aside from the basics, we have no idea what has been going on. Your parents are far more elusive than usual and haven’t explained a thing about what happened on Neptune station.”

Devon took a deep breath and rocked back on his heels. His mind flashed to all those people scattered on Neptune Station’s floor, but he didn’t want to worry the older man. Paul was a gentle sort and Devon imagined he would be upset to learn everything that transpired in their escape. And in truth, all of that felt very distant from him, like it had happened years ago instead of only a week.

“Oh, that,” Devon said. “Just … well …just a hiccup.”

“A hiccup, hmn?” Paul eyed him dubiously.

Devon nodded and rubbed the nape of his neck, hunting for the right thing to say. He didn’t want to talk about Jorry and Seach. A confusion of emotion bubbled up in him whenever he thought about them. They loved him. He knew this in his core, but knowing didn’t excuse the fact that they’d lied.

“Are you all right, Devon?”

“Oh, yeah, I just …” he met Paul’s eyes and floundered. There was so much compassion in this man that Devon felt instantly drawn to him. “No. No, sir. I’m not all right.”

Paul patted the space beside him on the bed. Since there were no extra seats in the room Devon moved and sat down, nervously rubbing his hands together. He felt foolish as Paul set his computer aside and turned to devote his full attention to the conversation. He didn’t know Paul, not really. Who was to say the man would tell him the truth?

Still, the kind smile and engaging nod Paul sent him was enough to help Devon relax. He needed to talk about this, needed to know what had happened beyond what web articles and history documents could tell him.

He needed to know who his parents really were.

“What’s on your mind, Devon?”

He took a slow, deep breath and searched for the right words.

“My mother,” Devon said carefully, “My real mother.”

Paul looked stricken, his face paling to an alarming white. He glanced at the door, his eyes flashing momentary fear. Devon watched him with a frown, wondering just what Jorry had said to the man to cause this level of anxiety.

“You know her, don’t you?” Devon asked, hoping to calm him a bit.

Paul met his gaze again and nodded, some of the color returning to his face. “I’m surprised the Captain told you. She seemed quite against it when I talked to her.”

“Jorry …” – it felt weird calling her that out loud – “changed her mind.”

“Ah, well,” Paul relaxed and frowned. He made a humming sound in the back of his throat as he considered Devon. “What is it that you want to know?”

Devon paused and chuckled ruefully. What did he want to know? He stared blankly at the steel floor and groped for the right answer. “Everything” was too broad. He knew her name. He knew she’d left him for fear of what the Consulate might do to him. And he knew she’d sent Paul to find him, but apparently hadn’t wanted Devon to know about it.

Why? Why not expose Jorry and Seach as his fake parents? Why not demand him for herself? She had every right to.

“Why would she send you to look for me but not to tell me who she was?” He asked at last.

There was a small pause as Paul shifted on the bed, folding his hands in his lap. He looked thoughtful, no doubt choosing his words with great care.

“Well,” Paul said. “You must understand that when Melanie originally sent me looking for you, you were still a baby. Her intention was for me to take you someplace safe but I never found you.”

“You found me now.”

Paul flashed a sad smile. “Yes, I have.”

“Why didn’t you come to me immediately? You could have told me everything …”

“And ruined your life?” Paul shook his head. “No, Devon. I couldn’t imagine just tossing the truth at you that way. Besides … the Captain made it very clear that she wanted to be the one who told you. I did, however, manage to communicate with Melanie just before we reached Neptune station.”

“What?” A thrill shot down Devon’s spine. Paul had actually spoken to his mother?

Paul glanced at the door again and sighed. “For all her acerbic comments and prickly personality, the Captain is a fair woman. She suggested I contact Melanie to let her know I had found you and left me to it.”

Devon tracked his gaze to the door. The corridor was empty beyond but Devon could sense her out there somewhere, diligently working on her ship, and for a torn moment wondered if he should just leave. There was a lot of work to do and he was here, hunting for answers he wasn’t even certain he wanted to know.

But he needed to know and for half a second he wondered if that was why Jorry had helped Paul track Melanie down. Maybe she’d anticipated that need or something, which, now that he thought about it, only made him feel worse.

“God, this is such a mess,” he muttered. He looked back to Paul and took a deep breath. “What did Melanie say?”

“She and I were in agreement that we should not disturb your life if we didn’t have to,” Paul said. “It was enough for her to know that you were alive and healthy. She didn’t want to cause you any further stress.”

Alive and healthy, Devon thought, surprised by a wave of bitterness as it hit him. Twenty years later and all she wanted to know was if he was alive and healthy? Did she have any interest in who he was as a person?

“Why? So she could sleep better at night?” Devon asked.

Anger flinted in his core and he flexed his fists to keep from getting up. He felt like there was a deep, yawning gulf right through his middle and no matter what he did he couldn’t stitch it back together.

“I’m not sure I understand,” Paul said cautiously.

Devon shoved himself to his feet, angrily pacing through the little room. What did he mean by that? Why was he so goddamn angry with them?

He felt betrayed on both sides; Jorry and Seach for lying and Peter and Melanie for abandoning him. But at least Jorry and Seach had stuck around. They’d chosen to keep him and raise him when they didn’t have to. It wasn’t their responsibility but they did it anyway. And that was it, he thought, honing in on what was bothering him.

“She made a choice. Melanie and my father, they made a choice. They chose that some ancient religion was worth more to them than their own son,” Devon said, bunching his fists at his sides. “They chose to die rather than raise me. So yeah … I’m thinking maybe Melanie needed something to calm her guilty conscious.”

“Is that what the Captain told you?” Paul asked, aghast.

“Jorry only gave me her name,” Devon said. “I pieced together the rest through web articles.”

He looked away from Paul and ground his teeth. Executing an Offender drew a lot of media and he’d found no less than seven video’s documenting the lethal injection of Peter Kissinger, his so-called birth father. Devon still wasn’t certain how he felt about watching Peter take his final breath. The man was a stranger and yet, not quite a stranger. Devon had watched the clip over and over, hunting for something familiar in Peter’s face.

Maybe he wanted to see a flicker of doubt or regret, something that said this man remembered that somewhere in the galaxy he had a son. But in the end the only thing Devon really saw was a small contented smile, as though the man were happy to die.

“Devon, you need to understand that your parents felt they had a responsibility to their faith …”

“They had a responsibility to me!” Devon’s voice rose and he had to take a moment to calm himself. Shouting at Paul wouldn’t help things. Paul hadn’t done anything wrong. “They had a child to look after. How could they choose death over that?”

“Well … I don’t think that was really the decision …”

“Then what was the decision?”

“Devon,” Paul said gently, rising to his feet as well. He took a cautious step toward Devon and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You were not raised into the faith. There are elements here that you simply cannot understand without first knowing what your parents believed.”

Devon shrugged his hand away and paced to the northern wall. The room was too small. He wanted to move, to run, but couldn’t go more than four steps without having to turn around again. His fists ached from clenching so hard and he had to focus to relax them.

A part of him wanted to turn and ask Paul to explain everything, to tell him about the religion that had cost his father his life. But a bigger part of him, a bitter, angry part of him, couldn’t get past the idea that they had chosen to take a stand against the Consulate knowing full well what the consequences would be.

No, he thought. He didn’t want to know. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

“To hell with their faith,” Devon said, letting the full force of his anger punctuate each word.

“I understand that you’re angry.”

“Do you? Do you understand what it’s like to find out your whole life is a lie?” Devon turned to face Paul, who hadn’t moved. “To find out that the people who were supposed to love you the most chose to abandon you instead?”

“They didn’t abandon you by choice, Devon. They left you in the safest place they could find.”

“Yeah, lucky for me there wasn’t a garbage chute nearby,” Devon said with a snarl.

“Master Devon,” Zephyr chimed into the room, interrupting them. “The Captain requires your aid outside the pilot’s nest.”

“Outside the nest?” Devon asked, ignoring the hurt and conflicted expression on Paul’s face.

“Miss Kenzie and Zoe have locked themselves inside the nest and refuse to cooperate,” Zephyr said.

“What?” Paul stammered.

“What’s Mom doing?” Devon asked.

Why would Kenzie lock herself in the nest? Where was Seach?

“The Captain is threatening to tear through the door if they will not open it,” Zephyr said. “The Lieutenant is unresponsive.”

“Zephyr, what do you mean by unresponsive?”

“Unconscious and unmoving. Preliminary scans show blunt force trauma to the back of the head, most likely caused when Miss Kenzie struck him with an asp.”

“What?” Paul choked on the word.

“I can replay the security feed if you like,” Zephyr reported.

Dad, he thought, meeting Paul’s troubled gaze. Devon turned and rushed into the corridor. He didn’t need a security feed, he knew Zephyr was telling the truth, as absurd as it was. He could hear Paul behind him but didn’t pause to see if the man could keep up. All he could think of was Seach, the man who had taught him to fly Zephyr, who had played the part of his father for twenty years. Seach was indestructible.

He passed through the central chamber, charging around the hub as fast as he could. Kenzie had to have caught Seach by surprise, that was the only explanation. But why? Why would she do this?

By the time he reached the nest Paul trailed him by several feet. Devon found Seach sprawled on the ground, unconscious, and his chest went tight. A trail of blood curled over Seach’s temple, originating somewhere in his hairline. He looked limp and vulnerable and Devon felt anger boil to the surface. Jorry stood glaring at the closed nest door, her hands on her hips, her lean form commanding the hallway. She looked angrier than he had ever seen her before.

Glancing back to Seach, Devon agreed with her emotion.

“For the last time,” Jorry shouted, “we are not Grey Men!”

Understanding smacked Devon in the face; his parents and their taps.

God Almighty, what a mess.

“I saw the discs on you!” Kenzie shouted back, her voice muffled through the door.

“Little girl, you are really pissing me off,” Jorry eyed the console to her left, the one that had a blurry security feed of the nest in one corner. “And if you’d met a Grey Man then you’d know they aren’t capable of this kind of emotion.”

“Explain all the weapons then!” Came the retort.

Devon knelt beside Seach even though he knew Jorry would have already made sure his father was all right. There was a nasty lump on Seach’s head but it looked like the bleeding had stopped. Devon winced sympathetically. He spotted an asp near the door and wished suddenly that he’d taken the time to speak to Kenzie since their escape from Neptune. If he’d just talked to her they might have avoided all this.

Jorry made a strangling motion at the door and growled in frustration. “Zephyr, turn off the heat in there,” she snapped.

“Yes, Captain.”

“Mom!” Devon blinked up at her, shocked. Without heat the nest could drop below zero in several minutes.

Jorry glanced at him and scowled. “It won’t kill them yet. They can take the nest but they can’t access Zephyr. If your girlfriend had half a brain she’d have realized she can’t fly the ship without our help anyway, so she’ll have to open up eventually. I just prefer sooner to later.”

Devon stood up again. “Maybe you should just tell them who you are. It’s all just a misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?” Jorry flared. She pointed down at Seach. “That girl stole an asp and brained Seach with it. What am I not understanding?”

“Not you,” Devon said patiently. “Her. Your taps are kind of freaky, Mom. Just tell them who you are and I’m sure she’ll apologize.”

“I don’t want an apology. I want to wring her neck. And if she doesn’t take the jam off this door soon, I’ll just break my way in and do it.” Jorry glared at the door again. “It means more repair work for me but I think it’ll be worth it.”

Devon pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. Well, he thought, at least one thing hadn’t changed. Trying to talk sense into Jorry when she was angry was like trying to bench press eight tons of steel; all that happened was you got squashed.

“Ahem,” Paul said, stealing their attention. He was red-faced from the run, his bald head shining in the lights. He stepped over Seach with a grave expression on his face. “If I may, Captain?”

“If you can,” Jorry said and kicked the door.

“Thank you.” Paul said and faced the nest. “Kenzie, what are you doing?”

“I’m keeping Zoe safe!”

“Aside from these so-called discs, what led you to believe she was in danger?”

“Didn’t you see all those weapons?”

Jorry snorted a humorless laugh. Violence simmered into the little corridor, almost all of it originating from his mother. He met her eyes and held them for a moment. Devon could see the conflict in her; the need to see Seach cared for but the priority of securing the ship. Seach would be alright, they both knew that. The knowing couldn’t lessen the concern, but somehow sharing the burden made it easier. He saw her shoulders relax, watched her take a deep breath, and then they both focused on Paul again.

“Kenzie, if they meant us any harm they would have done it already,” Paul said.

“It could be a trap!”

“A trap for what? We’re already on their ship.”

Exasperated, Devon moved closer to the door.

“Kenzie,” he said. “Listen, I know what you saw. Those discs are pretty amazing. But they are not Grey Men.”

“They’re not normal, either.”

“No,” he said, holding his mother’s gaze again. “No, they’re anything but normal. But they are good. They’re the best people I know.”

He knew it couldn’t make up for what he’d said to her before but it was a start. Apologies would have to come later, after Kenzie was safely out of the nest and Seach was awake.

“How do you know?” Kenzie asked.

“Because I know,” he said. “I’m not lying, Kenzie. They’re good people.”

“So what are the discs?”

“Taps,” Jorry answered, her voice flat. “Seach and I are Tapped soldiers.”

“The Tapped soldiers all died.” Kenzie said, but he could hear a note of uncertainty in her voice.

“Is that what all of your extensive research on us tells you?” Jorry asked.

Devon saw her fists clenched and rubbed his forehead. If Kenzie didn’t come out soon, his mother really would tear through the door on her own.

“Kenzie,” he tried again, hunting for something, anything, that might put this confrontation to an end. “The Grey Men who came to your house, what were they like?”

“Terrifying!” Zoe’s voice filtered into the conversation and Devon almost smiled.

“Alright, terrifying,” he said, squinting at the security feed. He could see Kenzie and Zoe were both right near the door but the picture was smeared, like there was some kind of interference stopping Zephyr from displaying everything. “What else?”

“Cold,” Kenzie said. “Like they didn’t care what was happening.”

“That’s because they didn’t,” Jorry muttered.

“And my parents … do they act like that?” Devon asked, eyeing his mother to keep her quiet. The last thing he needed was for her to set the girl off again.

“Well … no,” Kenzie said. “But they have the discs!”

“That’s because most Tapped soldiers were turned into Grey Men,” Jorry said. “Hence our current predicament.”

There was a long silence and then a loud clank resounded from the other side of the door. A moment later the door lifted and Kenzie stood before them. Devon had almost forgotten how pretty she was and for a disoriented moment had to remind himself that she’d just assaulted Seach. Zoe hung back, her eyes big with fear and hope as she glanced between Jorry and her sister.

“So … you’re Tapped soldiers?” Kenzie asked, her voice cautious.

“Yes,” Jorry said tightly.

Devon praised the powers that be that Jorry hadn’t immediately throttled Kenzie. He could tell by the way she flexed her fists that she was still considering it and he hoped Kenzie had enough self-preservation to sense the danger. The two women glared at each other, Kenzie’s sparkling green eyes narrowed at Jorry’s chilly blue. Neither relented.

“There was a rumor that went around after the soldiers disappeared,” Kenzie said and crossed her arms. “They said the Consulate had to get rid of you because you could see God. Is that true?”

Devon closed his eyes. No self-preservation, he thought.

Then her statement caught up with him. The Tapped could see God? That hadn’t been in his research. He looked to his mother, whose expression had closed, hiding even her anger from the corridor. Devon could still feel it though, like a buzz under his skin, curling into the little space between her and Kenzie. Devon was almost surprised Kenzie didn’t spontaneously combust.

“Kenzie!” Paul hissed.

“No, Mr. Kelly,” Kenzie said. “I think we deserve to know. After the way we’ve been treated on this ship we have a right to know the truth.”

“You think you deserve to know?” Jorry said so calmly it gave him chills. It was funny how being close to someone could blind you to how dangerous they were. He tensed as Jorry took two steps and crouched beside Seach. “Right now you don’t deserve shit from me.”

Devon watched as Jorry gripped Seach under the arm. The lights in the corridor flickered and then she lifted him up, draping his unconscious body across her back.

“Zephyr, close and lock the nest.”

Kenzie and Zoe hurried out into the corridor before the nest could close again. Kenzie stared angrily at Jorry’s retreating back, but his mother either didn’t notice or didn’t care. She was using her taps, he realized. That explained the flickering lights. He’d seen the lights do that on Neptune station. Every five steps or so the corridor would go dim, testifying to her reallocation cycle.

“Kenzie Torda, I am beyond disappointed in you,” Paul said. “That woman is taking a great risk keeping us on board. How could you do something like this?”

“Oh, shut up, Paul,” Kenzie said waspishly. “At least I’m doing something instead of sitting back and reading all the damn time.”

Paul looked like he’d been slapped. Kenzie turned to glare at Devon and for a second he almost lifted his hands in defense. Then he remembered the blood on Seach’s head and rage surged through him. He glared back at her and then started after Jorry.

~*~*~

Jorry positioned Seach on the medical table and turned to the console. The robotic arms detached from the underside of the table, taking routing measurements and scanning his body for damage. She watched in silence as information flitted across the console.

Seach had gained three pounds since his last examination. His heartbeat was normal. His breathing was healthy. The only thing wrong with him was the large bump on the side of his head. The computer immediately gave him an anti-inflammatory and applied a cooling agent to the site of the injury. She could have given him something to wake him up but chose not to. She wanted him alone for a minute; alone and not arguing with her or trying to kiss her.

She shivered, remembering how close his mouth had been and how much she’d wanted to just lean into him. Gingerly, not wanting to disturb him, she ran a knuckle across his cheek, following his fine features down to his jaw.

Handsome, she thought, but different from Relo. Where Relo was dark, Seach was light. Relo was always gruff, bristly with facial hair, but under her fingers she could feel the smooth contours of Seach’s clean-shaven face. And though his eyes were closed, Jorry knew they differed there, too. Relo had deep brown eyes, liquid dark and always serious.

Not so with Seach.

Seach’s eyes laughed. A honey color, rich and glittering with humor, she thought. Her fingers drifted to his mouth. His lips were soft under her fingertips, full and inviting and for an aching moment she considered kissing him.

God help her, how she loved him. And she felt like the very fabric of her identity might unravel because of it, because of him.

“So is it true?” Devon asked from the doorway.

She stiffened, pulling her hand away from Seach’s face. Turning to face him, she saw the cautious curiosity in his expression and bit her lower lip. He’d seen her touching Seach, she just knew it, but he was keeping the conversation on what he really wanted to know.

“Can you see God?” His voice was flat and calm and she knew she would have to answer.

Fear prickled at the base of her neck as Devon stepped into the medical room. There was no escaping the question, but maybe she could stall him. Maybe Seach would wake up and he could make a joke and they would all forget that Kenzie Torda had just dredged up thirty-year-old rumors and made them public again.

“Why do you want to know?” She asked by way of answer.

“It makes more sense than the Consulate just deciding to get rid of you.”

“Does it?” Jorry turned to lean against the medical table. “So long as we had the power to choose one side over the other, our presence would have continued to threaten the Consulate.”

“But that’s not what happened, is it?” Devon said.

Damn, there was no stalling him today.

He looked tense and determined, standing just inside the room with his arms crossed. He’d lost most of the lankiness of youth but he was still thin. She compared him to a steel rod set in the center of the room, every bit as unbending and strong. Seach would be proud.

But Seach would also be horrified by what Devon was asking.

Memories teased at her mind; people rallying together in a mad scramble for her attention, and all of them desperate for the same confirmation Devon was hunting for.

“Why are you asking, son?”

Devon frowned. “Because I want to know.”

“Yes, but why do you want to know?” Jorry asked, crossing her arms. She knew she looked defensive and she didn’t care. It was a comfort to hold herself, to bar him in some way.

“I guess …” he said slowly, “I want to know if God exists.”

She tightened her grip, her fingers pressing into her upper arms as she shook her head. “There are billions of people who believe, who know in every fiber of their being, that God exists. They don’t have to have me tell them.”

“I’m not billions of people. I’m me. Devon Barlow, the boy you raised,” he said irritably. “Why can’t you just tell me? A simple yes or no would do.”

“Because it’s not a simple answer, Devon.” Jorry watched him pace to the table. A muscle jumped at his jaw as he stared down at Seach’s unconscious form. Jorry smiled faintly, somehow comforted by that small display of emotion. “It’s not about whether you deserve to know, or whether or not it’s true … It’s about why you want to know. Until you can tell me that, I can’t answer you.”

Relo’s voice pulled through her memory. “Motivation is key,” he’d said. It wasn’t how or when or what a man could do, but why they could do it.

“It’s true, isn’t it? That’s why you won’t say.”

Jorry rubbed her forehead and sighed. Every part of her wanted to lie, to slam the door on this subject and never look back. She could remember with aching clarity the excitement, the hope that she’d had when she first discovered the truth. They had all been hopeful back then. It was amazing how quickly hope could be devoured in their society. A beautiful truth could turn ugly, or at least it could turn people ugly.

“No one can see God and live, Devon.” She said reluctantly.

“Then … it’s not true?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jorry took a deep breath. “Do you believe in God, Devon?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, looking more wary than when he’d first entered. “We never really talked about it before.”

“No, we didn’t. And that might be a failing on our part,” Jorry said.

His sharp blue eyes never wavered from her face. He was different from the others. She had to believe that. She knew him, had raised him, and had to have faith that his goodness could withstand the truth. He’d managed to grapple with his parentage, after all.

“We can’t see God, but we do see something,” she said at last. “Relo noticed it first. We were on Gliese, in Muslim territory, just after the treaty was signed. Things were still … tense … at the time.”

Jorry let her mind get crowded by the dusky street corner on Gliese. The sun was an oppressive orb hanging low to the horizon, its heat cascading around her, stroking through the climate regulating uniform she’d been wearing. She could still taste the grit of dust mixed with sweat as she stood there on guard.

“There was this woman handing out food rations on the street corner. She was giving it all out for free, chatting with whoever came her way. Her head was covered in the traditional burqa thing that they wear, but her face was visible. I remember thinking that she was beautiful in a harsh way. She had stern features, you know? But when she smiled it was hard not to smile back.”

Jorry paused for a moment, her mind rebuilding the sharp angles and hallow planes of the woman’s face. She seemed genuine; open and honest and completely without fear. That also set her apart from the rest of the war-torn community. Those people had known nothing but fear for so long it was a miracle to hear laughter coming from anyone. But it was more than that. The woman shone. It wasn’t glittery and it wasn’t a reflection. Something inside that woman was so bright it seemed to burst out of her.

“It’s hard to explain …” Jorry said. “Relo noticed that she sort of … glowed. There was this bright shine to her. And it got brighter with every person she gave food to.”

Jorry shook her head and laughed self-consciously. She hadn’t spoken of this in so long she’d forgotten how insane it sounded. “We thought we were going crazy, but all of us saw it. And then we started to see it in other people. Christians, Jews, those who claimed no religion at all, it didn’t matter, what mattered was their heart.” She frowned and gestured, trying to make him see the point. “We didn’t know what else to call it so we named it the Presence.”

“The Presence?” Devon asked slowly. “Sort of like the Presence of God?”

“Well, we can’t really prove that it’s God, Devon. We just know it’s there. And it follows a very clear pattern.”

“A pattern?”

“Not everyone has this Presence,” she said. “And it’s not always visible. It only shines when people are actively caring for one another. Like the woman handing out food to those who needed it. Or a man who stops in the middle of his day to help someone carry a load of groceries up a flight of stairs. Do you see?”

Devon’s brow furrowed and he began to nod, but then he shook his head. “So you see this shine and you believe that it’s God?”

Jorry closed her eyes. Those were the exact words the Consulate had used thirty years ago. General Harris and his sycophants brushed it all away, ordering them to keep the Presence secret under penalty of death. At the time she’d obeyed because they’d just ended one religious war and didn’t need to enter a new one, but the leers and laughter from fellow soldiers still grated on her.

They weren’t crazy, she reminded herself. All she had to do was look at Paul to remind herself that the Presence was still moving in and through people. She’d even seen it in Seach over the years.

“It doesn’t matter what I believe, Devon.”

“Uh … yeah it does,” he said. “You’re the one who can see it.”

“Just because I can see it doesn’t mean I can explain what it is.” She brushed hair back from her face and glanced at the open door, thought about closing it but couldn’t find the energy. It didn’t seem to matter if anyone walked in on the conversation now. Devon already thought she was nuts.

“What’s your best guess, then?”

She chuckled ruefully, somewhat surprised by the question. No one had bothered asking her that before. His eyebrow cocked upward until she spoke again.

“Devon, of all the things in this galaxy, I don’t want to try and ‘best guess’ about God.”

“But you do believe in God.”

She frowned, averting her gaze to the steel floor.

“Yes,” she said.

Yes, she did, because the universe would be unbearable if she didn’t. But she couldn’t voice it, couldn’t explain why. In some ways it was worse to believe there was a God watching over everything, watching every murder and rape as it happened. It hurt and angered her to believe, and in those moments she raged against whatever Deity was there.

But that shine; that persistent, constant shine was everywhere.

“All right,” Devon said. “You believe in God and it obviously has something to do with this Presence you can see. Why would the Consulate get rid of you for that?”

“Because the Presence breached religious borders.”

“So … there is a God but it doesn’t care about religion?” Devon asked.

“Religion is nothing more than man’s interpretation of God,” Jorry said. “Do I think that religion is God-inspired? Yes. I’ve seen more commonalities between religions than differences. That has to mean something.”

“So it’s not that God doesn’t care about religion,” Devon said, “It’s that God is bigger than any one religion can define.”

Jorry nodded. “Yes, exactly.”

“So …” he frowned again. “Why would the Consulate stop you from saying that?”

“We tried to explain it once before,” she said. “But people misinterpreted what we were saying. The Consulate adopted the position that all religion was evil. They maintained that all discussion of God and faith had to be kept on the private level. They couldn’t risk another galaxy wide war. Those in religious circles … they just tried to get us to count how many in each religion portrayed the Presence so that they could prove theirs to be the right path.”

“So the Consulate devised a way to keep you quiet and still use you for their purposes.”

Jorry smiled faintly and glanced down at Seach. “Yes and no. I think it was more of an afterthought. Seach is right, we were a threat and they had to get control of us.”

“But Mom, what if people had listened?” Devon asked. “What kind of universe would this be if everyone knew how close God really was? I mean is …”

Panic seized her and she lifted a hand to stop him. “Devon, you mustn’t speak about this.”

“What? Why?” He gestured to the hallway beyond the door. “Do you know how comforted Kenzie would be if she knew?”

“And do you know how quickly the Consulate would have her assassinated if she started spreading the word?”

Devon shut his mouth and blinked.

Bless him, she thought. He really didn’t recognize how violent the universe truly was.

“Right now they just want Zoe. Give them a good enough reason and they will kill her, along with anyone else we might have told.” Jorry took a deep breath and met her son’s eyes. “Make no mistake, Devon, they are very good at exterminating threats.”

“But it’s been thirty years,” he said. “They can’t still be worried about war.”

“It’s not about war anymore. It’s about control.” Seach said, his voice startling them both.

Jorry started in surprise, turning to look down at where Seach still lay on the medical table. His eyes were closed but he opened them, grimacing at the lights overhead. Jorry let go of a long breath, more relieved than she could admit to see him awake again. It hadn’t been a terrible injury but hitting someone on the head was never a good thing. She watched him sit up and resisted the urge to embrace him. Seach gingerly rubbed dry blood off his forehead and grumbled low in his throat.

“Tell me you didn’t kill the girls,” Seach said and eyed her.

“I didn’t kill the girls,” she promised, smiling in spite of the situation.

“But it was a near thing,” Devon interjected. “She would have let them freeze to death if Paul hadn’t stepped in.”

“Way to go Paul,” Seach said dryly. He glanced between them. “Are we good here or should we continue talking about things that can get us executed?”

Devon laughed, a little nervously if she wasn’t mistaken.

“How the hell did that little girl take you down?” Jorry asked Seach, redirecting the conversation to safer ground.

Devon’s grin was real and he snickered at Seach’s embarrassed frown. Jorry relaxed and arched an eyebrow at Seach, prepared for whatever explanation he had to give.