"Testing, testing. One. Two. Three. This is Donovan Strauss speaking. Am I coming through clearly? Can you hear me?" Donovan repeated the same sequence of words for the seventh or eighth time as they did some troubleshooting with radio frequencies, the heart of the issue being a few fundamental differences in radio structure.

  The Pegasus' radio was a digital radio that operated primarily through frequency modution (FM), while the Holifanians operated analog radios entirely through amplitude modution. Digital receivers could operate with an analog transmitter, however an analog receiver would only get static from a digital transmitter. Where analog radios transmitted radio waves directly into sound, digital radios encoded the transmission into a string of 'ones and zeroes' like a computer. Because of this, it would be possible for Donovan to receive messages from the Holifanians, but they would not be able to receive anything from him in turn. Fortunately, Arc assured Donovan this was a simple hardware fix that could be performed by the repair and maintenance nanobots.

  The AM/FM divide was unreconcible though, at least as far as a perfect fix was concerned. The overdesigned nature of their radio to account for future needs ended up providing just enough overp in frequency to reach one of the Holifanian channels. The reception and transmission on Donovan's end would be less than desirable.

  "It's fine if you can't get a signal. We often struggle to do it the proper equipment." Kayes offered some degree of condolence towards Donovan's frustrations, ready to accept that they wouldn't be able to knock this off the docket until they reached Nectar. "I'm not even sure if central keeps an eye on that frequency."

  "Why not?"

  "Central assigns each individual at or above the status of Bishop who frequently leave our territory two unique frequencies. One of them is an initiator frequency for anyone trying to make contact with the assigned individual, the other is a cssified receiver frequency for the assigned individual to contact the central radio rey. This one might be a receiver frequency, but the person it belonged to has long since passed away."

  "How did you come to know it if it's cssified?"

  "It was my mentor's. Cayzi also knows my receiver frequency, it's how he can inform Central of developments in the field if I am unavaible."

  "You mean if you are dead?"

  "There are other situations where it might come into py, but yeah, primarily." Kayes continued to look at the dispy in front of Donovan. He recognized what it represented, some sort of frequency graph, but he couldn't imagine what they were using it for. "It isn't a big deal if we can't make contact right now."

  "Maybe not, but it is worth putting the effort into. Setting things in motion a few days or hours earlier can save us that time further down the line."

  "Suit yourself. Don't bme me when-" A burst of static interrupted Kayes, incomprehensible for the most part but a clear sign of activity on the receiving frequency was held within. "I'll be damned."

  "Was that not stray radiation?"

  "No, no it was a challenge code. I'm almost certain. Send another . . . just let me handle it, actually. Try to see if you can clear up the reception a little bit." Donovan gave a thumbs up. "This is Bishop Kayes. Your previous transmission did not come through clearly. Please repeat."

  The line was silent for a few more seconds before another wave of buzzing emerged. Just as Kayes suspected it was a challenge code, one only the owner of the frequency should know the answer to. The only issue was that it didn't sound like a challenge code unless you knew it was one.

  "The waltz of insects in the summer sun." This, supposedly, was what the buzzer sounded like to his mentor, completely nonsensical given the usual form of code but a guaranteed way of confirming his identity if ever he was challenged. "I'm gd to see this frequency hasn't been retired."

  "This, um, Bishop Kayes?" A very confused sounding woman responded to him. "Is, is something wrong? Why aren't you using your assigned frequency?"

  "I'm afraid the specifics are beyond your station. Could you please patch me through to the High Council? This matter of the highest priority." He didn't want to stoke any further questioning. "Insist upon the interruption unless they are in a session with the Lesser Councils or Parliament."

  "Yes sir! I'll be right on it!"

  - - - - -

  "How long until the assembly?"

  "This is the seventh time you've asked in the past ten minutes. If you weren't the youngest of our number, I'd fear senility."

  "That doesn't answer my question."

  Archbishop Envers pinched the bridge of his nose as the same conversation pyed out before him for the umpteenth time. Compatibility with existing Archbishops was not a requirement of the position, but he sorely wished it was, particurly in the case of these two.

  "Monda, Muarikyo, could you please tone it down?" He wasn't the only one to have this opinion either. Eban, a man even more withered than himself, donned a threatening smile as he made his request. "I've not got much left to these eardrums of mine, and I'd much rather listen to the chirping of birds than the bickering of buffoons."

  "Calm yourself, Eban. The st think you need is another stroke." The st member of their council chastised his elder with his characteristic monotone voice. "We've not yet decided your successor."

  "I must agree with Adiren on this, friend. I know you aren't convinced that the current roster of candidates dispy adequate potential, but I would be much more comfortable if you at least made a tentative decision." Envers offered a sympathetic opinion. "I do not wish to go through the same struggles we experienced in the wake of Archbishopess Mana's death."

  "Hmph. Twenty-one years is hardly an average length of time for such a process."

  "These days, I fear that things would grind to a halt if we were incapacitated for twenty-one hours." Muarikyo shook his head. "How we managed to keep a lid on things for so long is beyond me, honestly. I'm almost convinced we should have kept searching for a few more years if it meant someone better than Monda."

  "Muarikyo, please. It is hardly becoming of a man pushing fifty to bicker with a woman not even twenty." Envers just wanted to put a stop to their arguments, if only for today. "And Monda, I know you are still growing accustomed to handling differences in local time between pnets, but you need to pay closer attention to when things are set to occur if only to take better care of yourself. Don't think makeup will cover the bags under your eyes from me."

  Monda slumped over onto the table, abandoning all pretenses of composure after being exposed. Perhaps only Muarikyo could hold a negative opinion of her exhaustion, a girl of nineteen really shouldn't have had this much pressure and responsibility piled on her.

  "Chin up young dy." Eban hoisted his cane up onto the table, tapping her wrist and prodding her shoulder so as to keep her from sleep. "We can handle the parliament today, but we still need you to be present. Budget meetings are boring, I don't think anyone would disagree, however they are vital to understanding what resources we have at our disposal."

  "How did she do this?" Monda raised her head sluggishly, the dishevelment of her hair having exacerbated her exhausted image. "What was Mana's secret?"

  """Hmmm.""" Three of the men sunk into thought.

  "I would imagine it had something to do with her husband." Envers, though, had a much clearer idea of Mana's habits and personality. "I take it you know him?"

  "Uh, Bishop Kayes, yes? He's like a bounty hunter right? Hunting down and handling expatriated criminals? What about him?" Monda's eyes brightened, wondering if she was going to get some useful information about her predecessor.

  "Calling him a bounty hunter is . . ."

  "Not entirely incorrect." Adiren finished his friend's sentence in a not so feathery manner, his method of moving the conversation along.

  "Yes, not entirely incorrect. What's important is that he wasn't always a 'bounty hunter' as you call him. In fact, he wasn't always a follower of the Justice Doctrine either." Envers started scratching the stubble on his cheek. "He was raised under the Temperance Doctrine, instructed by a very close friend of mine. Sure, he took a rather unorthodox interest in the sword and tactics, but he was sted to travel the gaxy from a very young age."

  "He just didn't know he would end up as an escort for the Archbishopess of Chastity." Eban grunted, memories of a young troublemaker returning to him. "I don't think anybody was prepared for that to be honest. Life is rarely predictable though."

  "Yes, anyways, I've always believed that it was love at first sight for the two of them, though the man himself cims they got off to a bad start. Regardless, teenage hormones almost certainly pyed a part in the matter. A young man and woman spending weeks or months at a time in close proximity to each other were bound to either love or loathe one another." Envers remembered with crity the sparse conversations he had with the maturing boy as his duties furthered, the questions he felt uncomfortable asking his own mentor, and the way Kayes would gush about the youngest of Envers' colleagues. "I am almost certain the two of them shared a bed before their marriage was approved."

  "Almost certain?" Adiren raised an eyebrow. "I seem to recall numerous reports confirming those suspicions."

  "Oh? Really? I was never informed." Envers feigned ignorance, letting his colleagues make inferences about their subterfuge but leaving the truth unspoken. "Anyways, I imagine that having a loved one to vent her stresses to helped immensely."

  "Hmm. Maybe I should think about marriage then. Would Trebar be-"

  "I've heard he and Zhoie have made fantastic progress in their retionship." Envers smiled coldly at her, communicating without words that he would not tolerate such an adventure.

  "Phooey." She stuck her tongue out like a child, but did not continue that vector. "Maybe Mana and Kayes' son then."

  The room went cold, the immense Split of three of the strongest individuals in the Theocracy running amok at the suggestion.

  "Monda. I know we frequently bicker, but there are some things you shouldn't even touch with a fishing pole." Muarikyo gred at Monda with a completely different type of hostility.

  "What? Why not? I mean, I don't even know his name!"

  "And we'd like it to stay that way." Envers motioned the others to calm down. "As it stands, only . . . seven? . . seven people know who that child's true identity. That would be us four Archbishops, The Montaug, an intelligence officer by the name of Seppard, and Kayes himself. Not even the child has been told who his parents are, though I imagine he has realized the truth on his own by now."

  "Why though? Is it to prevent being ostracized?"

  "It's because he's a target." Adiren dropped the 'secret' without so much as a word of fluff to prepare her. "The Hunter has a history of marking the children of his targets as a way of reliving and validating his previous . . . prizes. Marrying him would make you a target by association if ever he learned the truth. Besides, even if your closest common ancestor was a few generations ago, we wouldn't want to risk any of the complications of an incestuous retionship."

  "So it's to protect him . . . that makes sense."

  "Thank Holifel. You've got a brain after all." Muarikyo immediately went back to attacking her. "Do us all a favor a use it every so often."

  ""Muarikyo!""

  "Anyways, I would begin to think about marriage. Even if your partner isn't someone who can travel with you in your duties, having someone to talk to and embrace when you return may be what you need. You also need to, ahem, produce a successor to your position, so I wouldn't wait too long."

  Envers smiled to reassure the young dy. They had gone through hell to get their hands on her, backtracking through what could very well have been thousands of years of genealogical records to find people who had a blood connection to the Chastity line. Hundreds of attendants and archivists spending hours each day trying to pin down the identities and locations of these individuals with a handful of bishops that could have been doing something more productive constantly moving about their territory to verify they fit the criteria, for two decades.

  Those requirements very loosely being a virgin maiden of outstanding moral character and at least satisfactory appearance belonging an uninterrupted line of maternal retion to her closest Archbishopess retive - basically being the daughter of the daughter of the daughter of the . . . of an Archbishopess. The condition of uninterrupted maternal retion made things a nightmare for the archivists to find viable individuals as a rough average of two children per woman basically meant every lead effectively had a 25% chance to go nowhere, while everything else made it damn near impossible for a bishop to sign off on ones that fit the retionship condition.

  Monda was born after that whole affair began in earnest, her existence going unknown for a full seventeen years after her mother (disqualified for ck of sufficient moral character) died from complications during childbirth without a known father, leaving her to an orphanage. Fortunately, that experience sculpted her into the obedient and cheery little angel they were searching for, and so she became the next Archbishopess of Chastity. Sure, she didn't have the level of affinity with split that previous Archbishopesses like Mana had been bred to have over the course of countless generations, but it was still well above the average.

  "Enough about this marriage nonsense!" Eban smmed his fist on the table, drawing out expressions of concern for said fist from everybody present. "We should be talking about something more productive."

  "Like what?" Adiren propped his chin up with his arm. Given the frequency with which they convened, it was hard to imagine a subject that had not yet been conversed to death.

  "How about those Terrans? We don't have much time before they make ndfall on . . . was it Nectar?"

  "Yes."

  "We should start thinking about what administrative assistance they might need going forward. Have we a grasp on their nguage yet?"

  "Bishop Kayes and the one under his care, Cayzi, are expected to be putting in a considerable degree of effort on that front. It is my understanding that they will be attempting to establish a basic education pn for implementation on a rge scale." Envers reyed what he knew of the situation. "With the Schor's help, we should be able to continue educational endeavors without their presence."

  "I would still pce a moderate priority on having a few of our administrative cadre learn the nguage so that we may communicate over radio." Eban scratched the tip of his nose with a pinky. "Having them learn the nguage and read a few of their books could provide us with seriously valuable cultural insights."

  "Monda should probably learn the nguage as well." Muarikyo did not appear to be offering this suggestion antagonistically. "As the face of the Theocracy outside of the Sanctum, it would reflect well upon us if you could speak with them in their tongue the first time you meet."

  "I doubt she'll have the time to reach fluency when we first meet them, Muarikyo." Adiren offered a spot of relief for a girl about to stress herself out further. "Learning a few greetings and pleasantries should be enough."

  "Anyways, the education pn." Eban pulled everyone back on topic. "Should we start implementing the groundwork on our end?"

  "Apologies, Archbishops, for the interruption." The radio built in to the center of their table came to life. "Bishop Kayes has notified me that contact with you is of the highest priority. Shall I patch him through?"

  "Please." Envers was quickest on the draw, getting his microphone into position and pressing the button before any of his compatriots could do so. "Thank you."

  "It is my pleasure, sir. Please give me a moment."

  Three men grumbled at Envers, bitter losers in their pointless little game of reaction time. They all recognized the oddity of Kayes contacting them given he wasn't on a Holifanian vessel, the 'high priority' nature of this communication being even more concerning, but the only one with trepidation over the implications of the situation was Monda. The other four knew from experience that bad things rarely happened to Kayes, and that his high priority communications were usually well warranted.

  "This should be interesting."

  cakeonfrosting