Strangers Among Us

I Count the Lights-2

“Is there a problem?” the High Deaconness said. Though her simple shift was the same plain white as the monk’s loincloth, several jeweled gold bracelets on each arm and a gold circlet on her brow marked her rank as the highest non-secular authority on the planet.

“Yes, High Deaconness,” Kelvas said, “I’m afraid there is. Your so-called ‘witness’ will only say one thing. ‘I count the lights.’”

“I’m sorry,” the Deaconess said. The translator rendered her squeaks as calm and slightly amused. “I thought I had made it clear that Brother Lodolo is one of the Holiest.”

“Yes, I heard that,” Kelvas snapped. He wondered if the translator would accurately render his irritation, and decided he hoped it did. “I thought that meant he would have special knowledge of the Tower. Why does he keep repeating that meaningless phrase?”

“But it is not meaningless,” the Deaconess said, now sounding puzzled. “He is one of the Holiest. The Holiest are those closest to the Silent God, for their minds are uncluttered.”

“Uncluttered?” Kelvas said blankly. Then he understood. “You mean . . . empty?” He glanced back at Brother Lodolo. “Oh, that’s just wonderful,” he snarled . . . under his breath, but of course the translator passed the phrase along.

“Is it not?” the Deaconess said. “To be able to concentrate on worship without the distraction of more mundane concerns . . . the Holiest are the most fortunate of the God’s children.”

Lodolo, clearly agitated, suddenly stood and strode across the courtyard to Kelvas. He jabbed his finger upward at the Tower. “I count the lights!”

Kelvas’s irritation swelled to the point he had to clench his jaw to keep from saying something so undiplomatic to the Deaconess it might provoke a worse crisis than the one in which they already found themselves. Who am I kidding? Itcouldn’t get any worse.

But he needed answers. He needed a witness, and he’d thought that was what he’d been promised. Instead, he’d been presented with the village i***t.

“Thank you,” he said to Lodolo, though gratitude was the farthest thing from his mind. “I’m done.”

He turned away.

Lodolo grabbed his arm. “I count the lights!” he cried. “I count the lights!”

Startled and annoyed, Kelvas pulled his arm free, so hard he tugged the monk off-balance. The little alien stumbled and fell onto his bare blue knees.

Kelvas barely noticed. “Who else?” he demanded of the Deaconess.

The handmaiden hurried forward to help Lodolo to his feet. Kelvas belatedly realized the gravity of his error as the Deaconness’s ears flattened—as bad a sign in a Prevarian as in the dogs they vaguely resembled.

“You will talk to Lodolo, or you will talk to no one.” The Deaconess’ squeaks had a sibilant hiss that the translator didn’t need to interpret: he had deeply annoyed and offended her, and he couldn’t afford that. If any answers were to be found, they would be found here, at the Tower of the Silent God, where the Ambassador had met his gruesome fate, so close to where Kelvas now stood that he would be walking in the man’s blood if it hadn’t been scrubbed from the stones.

The guards the Ambassador had left at the base of the stairs had heard the impact from halfway around the tower. They’d run to the scene. One had spent the next few minutes throwing up while the other, of stronger constitution, had frantically called Kelvas. Meanwhile the monks had also come running. As their religion demanded, they had immediately set about removing the Ambassador’s scattered parts and ritually cleansing the place where he had died. By the time reinforcements arrived from the Embassy, the Ambassador’s remains had already been burned to ash in the furnace of the central altar, the smoke of his immolation rising up the chimney at the heart of the Tower, completing the ascent his body had fallen so fatally short of.

The fact the Prevarians had disposed of all evidence before the Terrans could even begin their investigation had not inclined the anti-trade forces among the Terrans toward granting the benefit of the doubt, and in turn their accusations of assassination were rapidly driving those few Prevarians still on the fence about the wisdom of trusting the Terrans toward their own anti-trade camp.

If any answers were to be found, it would have to be with the help of the High Deaconess; and so, though it grated on him like fingernails on steel, Kelvas forced himself to say, with as much sincerity as he could manage, “I apologize, High Deaconess.” He looked at the monk, who stood hunched over, rubbing his knees. “Brother Lodolo.” He turned back to the Deaconess. “I am feeling the stress of this grievous death, and I allowed it to sharpen my tongue in a most undiplomatic way. Please forgive me.”

The Deaconess’s ears flattened further for a moment, and he thought he had ruined everything; but then they slowly rose. “Apology accepted,” she said. “This is a difficult time for us all.”

I doubt it’s as difficult for you as it is for me, Kelvas thought uncharitably. Although if the Navy withdraws and your precious Temple is flattened by scavengers pour encourager les autres, it will be.

He turned back to the Brother Lodolo, who had straightened and folded his arms. He rocked from foot to foot. “I count the lights,” he said, the translator giving his voice a pleading tone. “I count the lights. I count the lights.”

“I’m sorry,” Kelvas said. He knew the apology sounded stiff, but he did the best he could. “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

“Is your translation link broken?” the Deaconess said behind him.

“No,” Kelvas said.

“Then how can you not understand? Lodolo counts the lights.”

“But . . . why?” Kelvas turned back to her. The handmaiden who had helped Lodolo had taken up her eyes-downcast post at the Deaconess’s left hand once more. “Why does he count the lights?” And how the hell is that of any use? he wanted to add, but didn’t.

“I told you. He is Holiest. His mind is uncluttered, giving room for the presence of the Silent God. He counts the lights because that is how the Silent God has told him to worship.”

This is going nowhere, Kelvas thought again. But diplomacy insisted he continue the charade a little longer. “But . . . what lights?”

“The lights of the Tower.” The High Deaconess pointed up. “There are five hundred and sixty seven steps on the outside of the tower. Every nine steps, there is a light: sixty-three lights in all. Sixty-three is a holy number, for the holiest number is three, and sixty-three is three threes.”

Three threes? Kelvas frowned for an instant, then understood: because the Prevarians were three-fingered, they calculated in base four, in which the highest digit was three. The numeral 333 in base four equaled 63 in base 10.

“Every night,” the Deaconess continued, “Lodolo walks around and around the tower. He counts the lights, from bottom to top, then from top to bottom, then from bottom to top. He does this sixty-three times, one for each light. Then he ascends the Tower, counting again from bottom to top; and descends, counting from top to bottom. Thus does he worship the Silent God. And something he saw, as he performed this act of worship two nights ago—the night the Ambassador fell—has troubled him deeply. Offended him, I would judge.”

But he can’t communicate it, Kelvas thought. Great. Perfect.

Kelvas felt a cautious tug at the sleeve of his uniform. He looked around. Lodolo hastily stepped back, as though afraid Kelvas would knock him down again. That was an accident, Kelvas thought, but now that his irritation had subsided . . . slightly . . . he felt guilty. “It’s all right,” he said to the monk, keeping his voice as calm as he could. “What is it?”

Brother Lodolo, short even by the standards of his people, stood, child-like, only as tall as Kelvas’s chest, which made it hard for Kelvas to remember that in fact—as the Deaconess had told him as she guided him to the monk—he was twice Kelvas’s age. The Prevarians lived longer than humans, and Lodolo was elderly even by their standards. He didn’t repeat his single phrase this time: instead he pointed at Kelvas, then up at the Tower.

“I don’t understand,” Kelvas said, again. He was getting very tired of that phrase. He hated not understanding. It was his job to understand: to understand the ramifications of the deteriorating diplomatic situation, to understand the society of the planet on which he served, and when things went horribly awry—and nothing in his long career had gone as horribly awry as things had gone here with the Ambassador’s death—to investigate until he understood. He glanced at the High Deaconness. “Do you know what he wants?”

“He wants you to ascend the Tower with him,” the High Deaconess said, the Translator rendering her as astonished. “It is a great honour. Without precedent.”

A great honour? Kelvas thought. He looked up at the black stone spire. How many steps had she said? Five hundred and sixty-seven?

He sighed. Still, he followed Lodolo the short distance to the base of the Tower because, with the High Deaconess watching, what else could he do? And anyway, he thought cynically, I could use a little divine favour right now.

But as they approached the long staircase that wound around and around the tower, Lodolo held up a three-fingered hand and then pointed to a bench built into the wall.

“Now what?” It was impossible not to be irritated all over again.

“You cannot climb the Tower of the Silent God while the sun is above the horizon.” The High Deaconess and her handmaiden had followed them, and now she spoke as if the truth of what she said was self-evident. “It is not a place one goes to see the sights of the world, but to see inside one’s own soul. You must wait until twilight.”

“I’m not—” climbing it to worship your non-existent God, Kelvas almost said, but fortunately thought better of it. Instead he paused, glanced at his watch, and said, “Very well.”

Though the climate in the Prevarian capitol, tempered by the nearby ocean, varied little, the days still grew short in the winter, and the solstice was only a few tri-days away. Technically, Kelvas could have returned to the Embassy for an hour, but that might have meant facing Tyrone Boynton or John Kimblee, and he didn’t want that. So instead he sat on the bench next to Lodolo, who, fortunately, did not continue repeating “I count the lights” over and over again as Kelvas half-expected. Instead, the monk rocked silently. Like Tyrone.

Kelvas wondered if Eve’s brother were still sitting in the outer office, staring at the Persons of Interest screen. The images and videos that cycled endlessly on that screen were of known troublemakers, terrorists and criminals. All Diplomatic Corps security headquarters were required to display the POI feed in prominent locations: the modern equivalent of a bulletin board covered with wanted posters. Kelvas had never heard of anyone being apprehended because someone had seen his or her image or video in the POI feed, but regulations were regulations.

Which reminded him again of Eve’s request that he bend those regulations for her brother. He sighed. Much as he sympathized with her plight, bending regulations risked an official reprimand, and that, in turn, risked a black mark on his record just before retirement—which could impact his pension.

Of course, failing to solve the murder of the Ambassador he was charged with protecting would be an even bigger black mark. He glanced at Lodolo. Was this rocking blue alien with the “uncluttered” mind really his only lead to what had happened?

Apparently, God help me. He glanced up at the Tower. Any god.