Chapter 12: The Waters of Redemption

The morning was filled with chaos and energy. People seemed to understand that something had happened even without knowing what that something was.

When Ghost came riding in at a gallop to report that Reverend Marshand and the Denied churchmen were eight to ten hours away, Sam knew it was time to take a walk.

"Carlos, see to it that the Cayuse are called in. I should be back shortly, but if I'm not back by lunch, don't worry."

He nodded his agreement, but this time even Carlos was unsure, Sam could tell.

"Relax. Last night's sudden spate of wakefulness was the arrival of our guest. We are safe now," Sam said. This should have been reassuring, but it wasn't.

Had this been a movie and Sam Kendall the main character, he probably would have made his way somehow to Wizard Island, taking the trail to the top of the cone to commune in solitude with the incoming alien ship. Instead, Sam simply walked to the crater rim and found a comfortable place to sit in the sun and closed his eyes. He'd been 'in communication' with the ship for weeks now, and this last day, these last few hours, were the culmination of events that Sam had seen even before the ship had been able to reach him.

"Would you prefer to meet now, or together with your people?" the voice of the ship spoke in his thoughts.

"I'd like to have some sense of you before then, so now would be good," Sam thought in response. "have you finished adjusting your environment?"

"Yes, it is suitable now. You are currently unobserved by any of your fellow humans, but someone approaches."

"I'm sure they've sent someone to keep an eye out and make sure I'm safe."

"You will not be there when they arrive."

And with that, Sam Kendall disappeared from the lichen-covered boulder that he had been sitting on and found himself standing in a wide room, somewhat triangular, but with rounded corners, reminiscent of an axe head. Standing before him appeared to be the same alien who he had first seen in his dreams all those years ago.

"You look like Risaru, but I know you cannot be him." Sam said out loud.

"No, I am not, but I thought giving my projected presence that appearance would be helpful."

"What shall I call you?" Sam asked.

"I have an official designation, and have been referred to by those who sent me as 'ship'. I do not have a name as such, but would not be opposed to one."

"Ship, I will think on that, but no one should be given a name without an appropriate amount of reflection. Will Ship do for now?"

"Of course."

"Can your presence be projected outside of the ship?"

"Yes, though the range is limited to several hundred miles when in atmosphere. As now. In open space that distance can be ... several of what you would call AU — astronomical units."

Sam did the math in his head, or approximated it. "Several hundred million miles? Wow, that's quite a reach."

"In interstellar distances, it is barely arms length, but I understand that you and your fellow humans will take some time in adjusting to these concepts."

"Where on the ship are we?"

"We are in what is termed the forward control station. It was designed to accommodate the greater height of your species. Translation of the symbols throughout the ship into English has been done as well. The wall in front of you would be a series of view screens. The consoles and seats you see allow for manual input for all ship functions, but normally most routine functions would be routed through me."

"What sort of circumstances might warrant the use of the manual controls?"

"Shipboard emergencies, hazardous conditions outside the ship. Combat."

"Combat? You mean ship-to-ship combat? Have you been in combat?"

"I have not experienced combat, and no knowledge of other ship intelligences having done so is available to me, but I have been given a wide amount of information, theoretical and practical on space combat as well as planetary assault techniques."

"Things we hope to never have to engage in."

"Exactly.

"The Reverend approaches and we will have reached the end of our planned scenario soon. Do you need me to do anything to prepare?"

"Only to think one more time about what you will say, and what you expect to happen."

"I have been wrong about one or two things in the course of events since arriving in my own fourteen year old body," Sam spoke. "I missed an important clue, or bit of misdirection, depending on how you look at it, when I failed to take note of the echo who appeared dressed like an astronaut. Or rather, I should have taken note when he failed to reappear with the other echoes. He was the one who first spoke of the coming end, but he let me believe it was a battle, a war that we had lost every time. Not the reaping that it truly was."

"That seems like a large thing to have missed," Ship responded.

"I think I had help in missing it. I also somehow never made the connection between those who had laid the trap on the road back from Portland after the Reaping and those whose hands I couldn't shake ... Well, I made a connection, but it wasn't the one I should have. I'd never laid eyes on any of those men. Trust me, I had every single person I'd encountered whose hand I couldn't shake burned into my brain, and these people were completely unknown to me."

"Perhaps they were among those whose hands you did shake. Merely opportunists seeking power?" Ship asked.

"I thought so too, for a long time. But since the Reaping, I've had a connection with every single person I've touched. Every one," Sam waited for a reaction, but got none.

"Now, after all these years, I can tell you where every one of those people are, at any time. Not those born to them, but to those I've touched, the connection is ... natural. It has been a comfort and a curse."

Sam, turned away from the image of Ship then, "a comfort and a curse."

Through those senses, which he had come to trust more and more in recent years, Sam took one more 'look' at where all the players in the upcoming drama were.

Sam was back at the lodge in time for lunch, though no one could say where he had come from, except to say they had seen him coming down one of the lodge's stairways. Carlos raised an eyebrow when he saw him. They ate a rabbit stew and fresh baked biscuits with gravy. Afterwards, he asked for everyone's attention, calling in everyone, even the Cayuse who were standing watch at the entrance to the lodge grounds.

"Hello again everyone," he began.

"Hi Sam!" came the answer from most of them, which generated a laugh.

"Its good that you feel comfortable enough to laugh. I promised you that you would be safe here, and you are. Even though an enemy will be here in only a few short hours, an enemy who sees each of you as evil, for your support of me, you are safe. We are safe. Even they are safe, though they may not choose to be.

In the coming hours you are going to learn things about me, about the future and about the time since the Reaping that will be hard to believe. Then you will have to decide again whether you want to follow where I will go. For now, we need to stay gathered at the lodge. Keep the young children close."

"You are asking a lot of us, Sam, when you say the Reverend and his dogs are coming, but do not have us arming ourselves and preparing defenses," Walt Samuels said loudly.

"That I am, Walt," Sam answered. "It is a lot to ask. You all have already shown a lot of faith in me up until now. How about this? Taegan, Jenna, Sam, Pip, Connor, Dante? Would you come up here by me where everyone can see you? Brian, you too please."

"Let's start with Jenna," Sam said once those called had gathered by him. "Jenna, how did you know to get on the ferry and begin the trip to Wasco?"

Jenna Michaels rolled her eyes in thought for a moment, trying to remember the recent events leading up to this journey.

"I was at a family gathering. My brother Greg had just ridden in and he brought the mail. The note from you must have come in that mail."

"Sam Porter, how about you?"

"I was at that same gathering and left about the same time Jenna did. I remember getting the note then too."

"Who handed the note to you Jenna?" Sam asked. "Or to you Sam?"

Both stared into space for long moments trying to remember.

"You have no answer, because you have no memory of ever having received that note," Sam told them. "Brian?"

"Yes Sam?" Brian Nileson answered, already having a sense of where this was going.

"Why did you arrive at Chemult with the people and the supplies? Who asked you to do this?"

"Well, you did Sam?"

"When?"

Brian stood there blankly for a long while. "I guess I don't remember."

Connor, Dante? You flew into Kent on Connor's ultralight. Do you remember who told you to meet me there?"

"You did," Connor answered. Dante looked less certain. "I remember knowing you wanted me to meet you there. I don't remember how I know that."

"Taegan, Pip? How about you two? You're direct blood relations. Did I send some secret family message?"

"No dad," Pip said.

"No sir," Taegan added.

"You knew because I did tell you. All of you," Sam said, looking at those called forward. "The same is true of all of you. You knew to meet the train, you knew when and where, even though no one had told you. Greta, did you send out word?"

"I thought I did, but I'm not so sure now," she answered.

"You didn't," Sam told her, "I did."

"What does all this mean?" Walt asked.

"Those of you in the family and associated clans have heard the stories of my Echoes, and of my trip back to this Sam Kendall. You've heard of the Reaping, or experienced it yourself."

A sea of nodding faces answered that non-question.

"The echoes arriving probably started it, along with the trip back. Loosened something up in me that is normally very tightly bound. Even so it wasn't enough then, to break it loose."

"But!"

"But, at the moment of the reaping, that tug! That tug those of us who were alive for it all felt. That tug broke it loose. We were and are a part of a sort of collective ... something. A collective identity, maybe. A community of spirit that, on an individual level, we seldom feel. It is deeply buried in us, normally, though some have a touch of it, as Carlos does, as others do."

Again a sea of nods.

"When we all felt the tug of those three billion souls being torn from the fabric of that collective consciousness we didn't even know we shared, it loosened it some in a few people, reminded others that it was there..."

Sam stood straighter then, defiantly it might have seemed to some.

"But in me, Sam Kendall from the future, who had been bumped through time and worried on by the echoes of other futures, it didn't loosen, it broke free completely. We are still part of that unity, all of us. We are connected, and that connection is something I can see ... and touch! For those I touched before the Reaping, those I 'saved', the connection is much, much stronger.

You thought to go where you needed to go, to do what needed doing because I reached out to each of you through that connection. There were no notes, no messages passed along, no secret conspiracy. You thought it because I thought it and through the connection, shared it."

"Are you reading our minds then Sam?"

"No ... but I see them ... I feel them and can touch them. It's like they are a part of me. Each of you are a part of me, an extension of me, as I am an extension of each of you. Do you 'feel' each of your fingers and toes individually? Do you control each hair on your head? No, but it is a part of you even so."

"So you are able to follow the Reverend, like you are us?" one of the boys in the background asked.

"No," Sam answered, shaking his head. "Good question though. The Reverend is different. In some ways he is like me. He too is an agent of others. His purpose though is to oppose me and nothing else."

"So you cannot sway the Reverend as you have us?" someone else asked.

"Do not misunderstand," Sam was quick to correct. "I am no mind controller. I cannot make you do what you do not want to do. I can insert thoughts and information, but I cannot control. Each of you is here because you were already willing to act on my behalf." Sam's tone softened and his eyes moistened as he added. "Each of you is here because you were willing to put my needs before your own."