Chapter 9: For Evil Rides Close Behind

As we pulled into the queue for taking the Jumpgate from the Geghast System, Astro Control pinged our shipboard comm. Apparently, we had a message waiting from the station. That would be unusual enough, but it that wasn’t the only odd thing about it. It was not to me, or Melissa, or even the girls. It was addressed to Heyanna!

From: Jo-Anne Kerwood, Priestess of the Sisterhood of the Stars, Geghast station To: Sister H, Ship 24519-3124

Hello Sister, you have asked for a series of prayers to help you and yours on your travels. I have placed the proper hymnals on our board to guide you successfully across the stars. May the Stars Light Your Path till next we meet, Sister.

As the Ninteenth Edition of the Tenets of the Faith, 12th printing says “May God place his hand of protection upon Thee. For you are far from home, but never far from God.” God Bless Sister.

Hymnals: 103x12x9 42x1x8 75x6x6 24x82x11 91x72 99x8x13 99x1x3 329x14x6 105x16x2 284x4x3

I looked at Heyanna, and it was plain the confusion was on my face. “That was nice of you to have them pray for us Heyanna, but why would they send a pulse message to let you know they had? Even a text message, to have it get here before we hit the Jumpgate had to cost a few credits.”

Heyanna thought for a second, and then realized something, as she pulled out a chain with two links on it, one being the Universal Catholic Church’s cross, and the other being the old Terran symbol for women. She walked over to one of the data entry pads, and typed in a series of commands, and the message changed. Where the numbers had been was replaced by a series of words.

“FLY TO THE STARS, FOR EVIL RIDES CLOSE BEHIND YOU”

Heyanna then explained that the person who had sent her the message was a leader of Heyanna’s religious group on Geghast Station. “That was one of my Star Sisters, and if I get her meaning right, it means that there are people actively tracking our ship and she wanted to warn us to be extra careful.”

The Sisterhood of the Stars was founded by Eva Konstantine, an early pioneer on one of Earth’s first post-spaceflight colony worlds. It hung pretty close to traditional Universal Catholic theology in a few ways, but they were different in some key ways.

Of course, the first thing was that they were an all-female congregation. They did have the Brotherhood of the Stars as a related organization, but both organizations elected their own leaders, had separate services, etcetera.

They did NOT actively proselytize amongst other religions. Even the offspring of two members of the Brotherhood/Sisterhood were not considered active members of the church. Their core view was that one should come to the Church of their own desire to be part of something greater, and the surest way to make people turn away was to aggressively preach at other religions. One of the core tenets of the Faith was “The door is open to all, but it must be their decision to step through that door of their own free will.”

They believed that there was no One True Way, so they had members of all sub-faiths, both conservative and liberal. There was one key thing that all members of the Faith agreed upon. And that is the Sacrifice. When you hear that, you think of mystical rituals and some kind of old temple and ripping hearts out ... but it was nothing of the sort.

Both the Sisterhood and the Brotherhood believed that humankind was given the gifts of the universe (namely, spaceflight, and the ability to survive on far-flung worlds) as a gift from God. When one joined the faith, they were expected to sacrifice something to thank God for everything they had been given, and to share their bounty with others.

This differed from person to person, but for it to be a true Sacrifice, it had to be something of significance to the person. For example, a rich person’s Sacrifice would be donating a significant portion of his wealth to take care of others, or to donate his whole fortune to charity upon his death. Others pledged a life of either Travelling the universe to try to take care of the less fortunate, or to serve as a Priest or a Priestess, and to be tied to the same congregation for their lives.

In Heyanna’s case, it was a Sacrifice that she was more than willing to make. It seems that her Baron had an unusual version of the ancient right of droit de seigneur, the right to make all unmarried females of age in his barony warm his bed should he so desire. He had made several attempts to purchase her before her majority, and when denied, made it clear that any suitor for her hand would suffer a horrible fate.

So, the day before her birthday that marked her as an adult, she left her barony, and traveled to the Temple of the Sisterhood of the Stars and pledged her servitude to the church. Her Sacrifice was that of Carnal Lust. She swore to God in the Stars that she would never have intercourse with a man or a woman.

She told me that they had offered to smuggle her off-world even without the Sacrifice, but she said that when she realized that the Sisterhood offered hope to the hopeless, she felt strongly that she had a vocation for their cause. They sometimes referred to Sacrifices like hers, as “The Bride’s Sacrifice”, or “The Mother’s Sacrifice”, because barring strange circumstances, such as a chaste wedding, she would never have a wedding night, and never have children.

She looked half-sad when she said that she made that sacrifice willingly, but she smiled. “One of the things that I was very good at was taking care of kids, and I thought that my Sacrifice would mean such joy would forever be denied me, but I was hired to take care of young Melissa, and then later, Daniella and Erene. They are not children of my body, but I dare think that God would agree with me that they are children of my soul.”