I get a few more hours of sleep, but then I insist on changing out of hospital scrubs and into proper clothes. Even if I am just going to be lounging around on a bed all day, slowly rehydrating, I can still look presentable. The dizziness has passed, and I can shave without worrying about accidentally slitting my throat. I’m still tired and headachy, but I feel more comfortable once I’m all cleaned up. Safer somehow. Though you’d think having a bodyguard with a rifle dozing in a chair nearby would be enough for that. Marina looks tired, too, and glum, disappointed in her society more than in herself, I think.
There’s a knock on the door, and then one of the hospital staff pokes her head in. “Excuse me, we have a visitor for Mariah.”
“Is it a xenodragon?” Cleve asks with a chuckle. I guess he was not actually sleeping. Earlier he suggested that when I’m feeling better, we might see if Xiao can take us out on the ocean. I do think that would be cool, a chance to see a new slice of Chiron. Maybe say hi to Gale again under better conditions.
“It’s, uh… How do you feel about talking to, um, Sal, the—”
“The cultist leader?!” Marina says, looking up from all her research notes. She turns to me. “Mariah, you don’t—”
“Sure,” I tell the aide at the door. “I’m not doing anything else.”
“They’d better have flowers,” Cleve mutters.
Marina sighs. “Send them in,” she tells the aide. I drag myself up to a proper sitting posture, tug at the bottom of my vest to smooth it out, and then straighten my boutonniere.
To my surprise, not just the fiery bald preacher I saw yesterday comes in. No, they’ve got three of their followers along with them. While Sal stands just within the door, dark brown eyes narrowed at me, the others scurry forward and present what feels very much like an offering to me. I find myself holding a card and a small potted fungus with red spires poking out from the main mass that open into tiny blooms. It looks vaguely familiar, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in the wild. And it’s actually pleasantly fragrant. “What is this?” I ask them.
“This is red temple,” one of the robed figures answers. “It grows around here. Have you seen the great Temple of Chiron? That is a hollowed-out red temple mushroom. These are much younger ones.”
Ah. I have seen the Temple of Chiron. Sort of. I’ve seen it the way a briar beast would, but I don’t share that. The handmade card says, “Get well soon, Child of Chiron,” which is giving me some weird vibes. “Well, thank you for the flowers and the card,” I tell them all.
“We saw the miracles that you worked last night. Those were truly incredible. To call forth a xenodragon, to create a wall of thorns! That could almost tear you apart, but you broke free.”
A startled “Oh!” slips out of my lips. Is that what that all looked like? It’s a pretty confused jumble of purple sparkles and lashing vines in my mind. I glance behind these… adoring fans… to see how Sal is taking this all in. They look rather annoyed, but also… unnerved. They don’t seem to share the fawning attitude of the other cultists here. What is their problem? Do they feel threatened that I’m going to take all their followers away from them? Sal’s eyes are shooting daggers into the backs of these cultists.
I think we need to have a little chat. “Thank you so much for this,” I graciously tell my fan club, taking another sniff at the red temple. “You can wait outside while I speak to the prophet,” I suggest.
“Of course! Of course, Child of Chiron,” is the deferential reply.
“Please, you can just call me Mariah.” I do not want any fancy titles.
The trio depart, but I can hear their excited whispering as the door closes behind them. “And he’s so humble! Oh my goodness! He must be the Child of Chiron. It’s exactly like the prophecies!” There’s speculation about the nature of my birth as well.
I shift my gaze from the closed door to the person standing next to it. Sal’s jaw is clenched tight as they hold their tongue until we’re alone. Well, as alone as I’m going to get, with my own entourage still here. Sal looks angry, not jealous. I don’t think I’m dealing with a con artist here, I’m dealing with a true believer. One who enjoys their power, yes, but who also believes what they are preaching.
“I hope you are healing well,” Sal says with forced politeness. “But we both know you’re not the Child of Chiron, right? That is just absurd! I mean, you’re from Earth. You can’t be the Child of Chiron.” Cleve sits up a little straighter. Looks like he’s on higher alert now. “Look at your clothes. No one has clothes like that.” It’s true, I do have the most fashionable outfit I’ve seen on Chiron so far.
Okay, so… Interesting. Word has gotten around about us, I guess. Well, I suppose my name is on that memorial wall, and Deirdre has talked of me to her friends here over the years. And anyone within earshot on the street when I was strolling with Deirdre could have heard me talking about the cryobeds. Dr. Gupta certainly heard enough about me to find me interesting. And if Deirdre’s talked this situation over with other council members, and Sal’s got an in to one of them… yeah, I can see how this information is out there. The rumor mills must have been going wild through the Garden of Chiron while I’ve been laid up here.
“This isn’t true,” Sal says of my presumptive title. “We both know it. If you can clarify that to my misled followers, we can just move on.”
“Well, you’re the Prophet of Chiron,” Cleve says, pushing responsibility off me. “You’re in charge of the prophecy, right? What do you need us for? If not even the prophet can say who the Child of Chiron is, how am I supposed to keep everyone from getting killed?” I wonder if Cleve feels partially responsible for what happened to me.
You know, I had a lot of ideas about the society of the Stepdaughters of Chiron and what ideals they might hold, but those have been somewhat tarnished over the past day. Sal may believe what they’re spouting, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into them having their followers’ best interests in mind. “I can be a lot of things to a lot of people,” I say coolly. “Why shouldn’t I be the Child of Chiron… for them?”
Sal sputters for a moment, appalled that the truth of the matter is irrelevant to me. A lot of people around here are willing to adjust an ethical bar to fit whatever the current situation is. Sure, people justify their actions, we all do. But the Stepdaughters of Chiron seem to have adopted it as a communal ethos, one with which I am not pleased. Yes, I’ve lied. I’ve reframed events. I’ve manipulated people to suit my own goals. But the level here… it almost cost me my life. Whatever it takes. Right. Eyeroll to that.
“So, what’s it going to take for me not to be their Child of Chiron?” I ask Sal, gesturing at the closed door. If I hadn’t almost just been killed, maybe I’d be more willing to dance around this issue, but not today. I do not have the energy for that, so I lay it out straight. “Let’s just cut to the chase. You don’t want me to be. I don’t know what your prophecies are. What’s it going to take for them not to think I am?”
Sal is taken aback by my cavalier attitude. They draw in a deep breath to fuel their pontificating, as if they were up on a stage, not in a modest bedroom. “The Child of Chiron will save us and lead a holy army to rescue the planet—to make humans safe for this planet.”
“Why does an army need to be involved in that?” I say under my breath, shaking my head. Once again, someone thinks I’m a Stepdaughters of Chiron super-soldier.
“I dunno, that sounds kind of like you,” Cleve mutters back to me.
Sal is not done yet, though, and now the vitriol starts to pour forth. They step forward, but not close enough to me for Cleve to read them as a threat. “This isn’t some trade deal that you can just broker with a wink and slick palms. I don’t know how much time you spent in Morgan domes, and I don’t care. We are real people with real convictions about this,” they say, slapping the back of one hand against the palm of the other. “The followers of the Cult of Chiron…” Sal shakes their head, in seeming disappointment at my failure to understand the gravity of the situation. “I am the Prophet of Chiron, but if they believe that you are the Child of Chiron, I cannot control what they are going to do. So, you need to be thinking about how you can work with me to keep them away from you. If you think what Dr. Gupta did was bad…”
Well, that took an ominous turn. Sal seems to know a lot about what went on last night. Once again, I wonder what informants they have. Maybe that ranger was a cult sympathizer, for example. A shiver goes down my spine. Yesterday morning, if someone had said people might tear me apart, I would have laughed it off as hyperbole. Today… not so much. But there is another possibility, which is that Sal knows the barest sketch of what went on and is just implying information they don’t have, hoping I’ll jump to conclusions about it.
“What does that say about you as a leader?” I retort, turning it back on them. “You’re making it sound like they’re a bunch of riffraff that you’re just barely keeping in line. Not that they’re people who ascribe to the same beliefs as you. Do you have such disdain for the people you lead? That you feel you need to keep your followers at heel? I don’t think that a leader should keep themself isolated from the people they are responsible for.”
Behind Sal, Marina watches the whole exchange quietly from her table in the corner. She looks incredibly uncomfortable, and I notice her slip a stick of her gum into her mouth. She’s had a rough day, too, after all.
Cleve shifts in his seat and pointedly adjusts his hold on his rifle, reminding Sal that I have a bodyguard. “What is the threat that we need to worry about?” he growls, eyeing the door beyond which the cultists are lingering. “You’re the one who brought up Dr. Gupta.” Sal’s suggestion that their cult is a bigger danger to me than she was is pretty hefty, unless they don’t actually know what happened in that lab. I hope Cleve’s not blaming himself for all that; there was no way we could have known I wasn’t safe just going out for a walk in the Garden of Chiron. I really do appreciate the way he’s standing up for me now.
The rifle isn’t pointed at Sal, but they eye it warily nonetheless, more mindful of it now. “A gun isn’t going to solve your problems,” they say. “I’m completely unarmed, as are my followers. And I don’t think it’s your style to gun down innocent civilians… or is it?”
“You seem to think that they’ll rip me apart if they believe me to be the Child of Chiron—” I start.
“I didn’t say rip apart,” Sal corrects.
“You said worse than what Dr. Gupta was doing.”
“There are things that are worse than that, that aren’t physical at all,” Sal replies, waving a hand dismissively at the cooler of biosamples sitting alongside Marina. Their ominous tone is completely wasted on me—they really must have no idea what I just went through. There was pain, yes, and I could’ve died, but the amount of terror and desperation I felt was pretty intense, too.
“I’m not concerned about your followers; they’re awfully nice. They brought me mushroom flowers and a card,” I tell Sal, brushing off their threats. “I’m not concerned about what they might do to me; I called a xenodragon down from the sky and created a wall of thorny brambles. What I’m concerned about is what Morgan Industries will do if the Stepdaughters of Chiron are not around to oppose them any further. Now, I’ve heard that you have some sway, that there are people on the council who care what the Prophet of Chiron says. I can dissuade people from viewing me as anything special. Or I can take a look at your sacred texts and interpret them in a way that is favorable to me. I wasn’t born here on Chiron, but I was made here.” Sal can hear that as a threat if they like, but what I’m really looking for is for us to make a deal. I don’t think Sal fabricated a prophecy just to manipulate people. It had to come from somewhere, but whether it’s texts or images or mushroom-induced hallucinations, it is open to interpretation. “Maybe what you think is an army, is not exactly one. I didn’t come here to cause trouble, I came here to stop trouble,” I tell them.
A rainbow shimmers between me and Cleve. Bella has returned, and her tiny little legs are clutched around a sealed beaker of yellowish fluid. Her ribbon flutters in the light breeze of her flapping wings. “Oh, great!” I wave Bella away from me and over to Dr. Citali. “Marina, can you add that to the others?”
The shimmerfly floats over to her, and Sal gapes at the exchange. It must seem to them like Bella is at my beck and call. With a gasp, Sal sits down abruptly, taking the seat that Deirdre occupied earlier this morning. “I apologize,” they tell me. “I let my earthly humanity affect my judgment. It clouded my vision so that I could not see that you are… you are the Child of Chiron! The one who calls forth all the creatures of the land and of the sea. Who glows with the light that sometimes only they can see.” The way Sal intones this makes it sound like they are quoting something.
“It is your duty as the Child of Chiron—and I can show you the prophecy! I can show you how it all lines up—to protect all these people and help them be part of this planet. And…” Sal lets out a long breath. “It’s not going to be easy.” Really, what has been easy so far on this planet? “And when I say what they’re going to do to you—you cannot be just a regular person anymore. You have to be the one to save them. You must be set apart—but at the same time, part of something so much greater than any of us. And I will be there to support you, as your guide. I know that, on a practical level, you’re not from here, the Garden of Chiron. The prophecy may take many different forms in many different places, but you are here now. I think you are going to need my help making sure your followers—the followers of Chiron, truly the planet of Chiron—are arrayed and stand ready to defend this planet.”
Okay, that’s one way to wrap this up… Sal’s a true believer, all right. In me. I’ll admit it—I’m honestly curious about what this prophecy says. It’s worth investigating to see what I can use it for. I’m certainly not going to lead an army, but there is a lot of potential here.
“If you like, I can try to keep this quiet so that you can choose the right time to reveal yourself to everyone. But if I may, I would ask one favor of you.” Sal pauses, and I nod for them to continue, feeling a little weird about granting someone permission to speak. “There’s one called Jack, and… he and I are the perfect match.” My eyes go wide; I was not expecting this. “He is the Son of Earth, and I am the Prophet of Chiron. We can be your… your heralds. For all the humans of Chiron. Together.”
Sal is dressing this up as some sort of political position, but the vibe I’m getting is one hundred percent romantic interest. Sal has convinced themself that this potential relationship is good for the religion. Not the first time someone has lied to themself about their feelings, trying to rationalize them.
“But he wavers,” Sal continues. “He gets a lot of lies put in his head about what the Truth is.”
I can hear the capital T in Sal’s words. I bet Deirdre is the source of those “lies.” She’s stressed about something related to her son, and it’s probably these cult connections. Well, maybe I can do something about that, help ease whatever tensions there are in her family while also getting the inside scoop on the cult from Jack. I wonder how he’ll feel about hearing that his name has been bandied about as someone who could have a position of power in it. I would love to hear his perspective on all this.
“If you would connect and bless our union—”
I cut Sal off there. “All right, that’s… enough. I’m not going to officiate any services. I cannot make anybody into who they’re not.” My string of failed relationships back on Earth is a testament to that. “So do not pin your hopes and dreams for Jack on me.”
“But you can help him see who he is, where he belongs!” Sal says eagerly. “Just as you have helped me see who you are.”
“Not everybody is suited for what you might be picturing for Jack,” I say firmly, and Sal does not talk back any further on that point.
They invite me to come to the Temple of Chiron when I am well enough so that they can share the prophecy with me. “It would be my duty and honor to show to you that which you have already lived and known.” Sal turns to Cleve and says, “Guard him well,” but gets no response other than a steady stare. Sal then nods to Marina in farewell and bows their way out of the room, promising to meditate on what I have said.