Aboard The Lindner

: MAIN STORY
: The Alembic Plot

James Medart was looking forward to his arrival in the Kingdom Systems.

Another new culture to study, this time a group whose ancestors had

fled the early Empire in an attempt to escape religious persecution.

From Captain DeLayne's reports, that had been about four hundred years

ago, and even though they refused to discuss religion, DeLayne said

that from their symbols and occasional references, they were a Roman

Catholic variant.



DeLayne's primary informant was Cortin's second-in-command, who was

also studying the Empire with considerable interest, DeLayne said, but

making slow progress because he had a strong negative reaction to

teaching tapes. That was unfortunate, Medart thought, but Odeon's

attitude was a distinct improvement on Cortin's fear. He admitted to

being a priest, once DeLayne asked about some of his insigne, but was

reluctant to go beyond that, and said most of their Founders' records

had been destroyed in the Final War. He couldn't provide the

historical background Medart would have liked, then, so the Ranger

decided to see what he could find from the Imperial side.



After several days' research, he studied what he'd been able to put

together from obscure and also incomplete records--not typical of the

time, and he found himself wondering if that could be deliberate.

Sabotage, maybe, by some who had stayed behind, to protect those who

had left?



The group that founded the Kingdom Systems had begun as a large Roman

Catholic parish in the Southwestern United States, conventional except

that it was allowed to use the Latin Mass. In 2148, however, they were

assigned a new priest. Until his arrival there, he had seemed equally

conventional, though he had already gained a reputation for great

charisma and persuasiveness. When he became parish priest, however, he

began preaching about the Final Coming--not of Christ, but of a Third

Aspect of God he called the Protector. This Aspect would appear after

Satan had been released from Hell and allowed to wreak his will for a

hundred years. He also called for the ordination of women, a

priesthood allowed to marry, and numerous other changes.



To the Vatican's dismay, he attracted a large number of followers from

all over the world. Many moved to his parish, while those who

disagreed with him moved out. The entire group was excommunicated in

2156, branded a heretic cult, and generally scorned by outsiders. At

this point, it began implementing the priest's suggested changes,

including new terms for Satan and Jesus--now Shayan and Jeshua.



All this got them greater notoriety and contempt. To escape that, the

priest persuaded his followers that it would be best to flee this

persecution and the Empire that permitted it--though in fact the Empire

was simply maintaining its strict neutrality regarding religious

matters--and, in 2158, the group left Terra, fleeing in three

surprisingly large and well-equipped ships. Nothing had been heard of

them since, and apparently no one had particularly cared; there had

been no investigation or follow-up of any kind.



Another deliberately self-"lost" colony, Medart thought. At least this

one wasn't fighting them, and from Odeon's medical records there didn't

seem to be any genetic tampering, as in the case of the Sandemans--just

a pseudo-virus, one that enhanced the sex drive, which had surfaced

about thirty years ago, and a mutation in Odeon that somehow mimicked

it. That, Medart was certain, was natural rather than engineered; the

Kingdoms' medical care was more advanced than the Sandemans' had been

at Annexation, but it certainly wasn't up to genetic engineering.



He spent the rest of the trip studying the tapes DeLayne transmitted,

including what teaching tapes he'd transcribed for Odeon, and brushing

up on Roman Catholic theology of the mid-twenty-second century. The

church had been starting to splinter then, but from what little Odeon

let slip, it seemed safe to concentrate on what was currently called

the Traditional branch--while keeping firmly in mind that this was a

variant, possibly in more than the Persons of the Trinity and the names

of God and Devil.