Faith and Time: Services

Posted on 24 May 2022 @ 4:53pm by Commander Calliope Zahn & Lieutenant Commander Lance Quinn (*)

Mission: M3 - Into the Deep
Location: OC, Promenade
Timeline: Backstory (between M2+M3)
1713 words - 3.4 OF Standard Post Measure

As the Kalaran brothers scraped down the grill and closed the serving window on their cart, Lance rubbed the bridge of his nose, catching the scent of the food again. "I suspect I'm about to get another history lesson, correct? Or are we steeping into mythic prophecies again today?"

Calliope took a stack of napkins and stuffed them inside the top box of packed edibles on the dolly, checking before she started tilting it. A week ago she wouldn't have even tried negotiating a hand truck but she was pleased that she wasn't having much trouble with it. She left Lance with the remainder of bags and boxes to lift.

"A blend of both. I guess," she answered. As a mercy to Lance, she navigated them out of the main thoroughfare to track along one of the near vacated maintenance passages behind the shops. She'd learned her way around. "Remember in the mural this morning, the man and woman depicted with the baby?"

"Vaguely."

"Well, the Turani don't see intermarrying as a bad thing. It's also a prediction in their prophecies, but it's not a sign of the end, at least not the end of everything. They consider it a promise of an 'Age of Wonders', when the heavens and the world are reconciled. In their story, us 'Djinn' are neutral actors, capable of good or evil, and some come to their aid."

"Neutral isn't good or evil, it's neutral..." he muttered, still listening but providing his own running commentary.

In spite of hearing his little correction of her explanation, she chose to ignore his finicky preferential word usage and carried right on. "Did you know that—" Calliope wasn't usually the one imparting facts and knowledge with Lance, so she took a moment to bask in the fact that she had something to share that he hadn't memorized yet. She walked in reverse as she toted the cart along, so she could look at him directly as she elucidated. "—a hundred years ago, the Turani were a far greater political influence in Kalara?"

"Local history wasn't something I really concerned myself with when rebuilding the station," he replied. "Humour me."

She reveled a little. "So, the first Federation science outpost and cultural exchange on Loki III was headed by—"

"Captain David Joseph Rabin, an Israeli Scientist. He founded a Science and Cultural outpost in Kalara in the late 23rd century, during the cold war with Romulus. No, please, tell me more." He winked at her, a small moment of triumph.

"How did you—"

"I'm glad you asked," he replied, almost mimicking her own delivery of trivia. "You see, in 2295, following a series of incidents that threatened the safety of the project, Captain Rabin was assisted by the USS Intrepid-B, under one rather famous Captain by the name of Spock. I'm sure you've heard of him."

"Yeah?" She retorted playfully, somehow both miffed and not surprised that Lance knew the names and dates. "But did you know that it was the Turani specifically who aided Captain Spock when he revealed a Romulan acting as a false prophet. Turani is a general Tribe name- the family clans directly involved were the Benak Haran and the White Stone Clan. And further," She continued, pleased at the granularity of her knowledge, "With Romulan subterfuge behind the project failures, the Turani leaders proposed asking the Federation for Protectorate status. They tipped the political scales in Kalara to accept the proposal and make the request."

"Indeed? I doubt specific mention was made of the tribal influences in the official records."

"Probably true. It's more specific scholarship likely kept by the Diplomatic corps. I heard a lot of their history while we were marched through the Lava tunnels." Calliope tried carefully gauging her husband before continuing, but he seemed to have his neutral listening facade on.

Just as she had with explaining the mural, she decided to believe he trusted her judgement about putting herself in the situation she had. They hadn't discussed it much, although as senior staff, she knew he had the full official debrief she had written. What she wanted to tell him wasn't in the minutia about comm frequencies and interference and Marine SARs response actions or anything like that, however. "The Turani tribes have been strong armed out of their grazing steppes and oasis rights over the years. As their numbers and wealth dwindled, their lessened influence in Kalaran politics flipped them into the minority. Relations with Starfleet were already strained, even before the Void incident with the station."

"I got that sense just by meeting a few of them," he nodded. "I absolutely sympathise."

"They have a very open faith, even with outsiders. The Turani I was with invited me to pray with them when we didn't know what the outcome of the march was going to be." More like because they had not known their fate. Calliope floundered there in her account. Aside from the allusion to the deadly prospects they had faced with intended genocide, she paused knowing that Lance had a lot of disdain for things science couldn't taste, touch, or measure. "I dedicated my life to the Divine One. It was very much like a church service I attended as a kid, when they had an altar call."

"Don't tell me you're going to insist I come along to church with you on Sundays and drink weak tea and make polite inane conversation with some nice-but-dim people..." he grumbled.

It was pretty much everyone's view of the classic Sol system Sunday service, if a one sided one. "Hey," she teased, elbowing him as they stopped and waited for a service lift. "I'd be there. What are you tryin' to say? Hm?" She chuckled and let it slide.

As she watched the lift's approaching status, Calliope reflected that she'd dragged Lance to a few incredible spiritual sites on their various vacations and had long ago picked up that he was only interested in them when they intersected with his interests in things like history or architecture but was less so when they strayed into things like philosophy or spirituality. By comparison, she found most things were inextricably intertwined when it came to the humanities.

She'd had to stop him once from intimidating a tour guide by quoting scientific literature at him to "divest the uninformed man of superstition." After that she'd avoided most Faith-related sites in their destination planning which was a shame, she felt, as many of the greatest wonders in the known galaxy had religious roots or inspirations and many even still housed enlightened sages, active practitioners, faithful congregants, or awestruck pilgrims.

She picked up on his disaffection more than anything though. "Didn't you tell me you used to go to church?"

"Mother insisted we go along when I was a boy. Thankfully that habit died out - or rather, was mercilessly slaughtered by the love of Scientific Inquiry," he mused.

"Oh," She said, feeling a little cut short of her own joy.

Mercilessly slaughtered.... Calliope turned over the language. As far as she could discern, to Lance faith sounded like a snake in the grass- something to disentangle and slay. Just as she had been hurt as a child by unfulfilled expectations, he seemed to have experienced a husk of an old social expectation.

The lift arrived and she entered an officer access code.

He side-eyed her single-syllable response. Inwardly, he noted that maybe he'd said something that might have bothered her, but it was unlikely he was going to be able to figure it out by himself.

As she rolled the hand cart inside, Calliope directed the Lift. "Main Sick Bay."

"You...disagree? With the...ah...faith thing?" he asked carefully.

"Well... kinda. I'm not sure." She offered a smile, but couldn't prevent herself producing a somewhat injured look. "I was actually considering going to services with the Church of the Universal Family. They invited me and I wanted to give it a chance again. I mean, since I attended back on my colony, a long time ago, it feels like... maybe... I mean I'd love to go together but, you don't have to come along. We can meet up again after services."

He cleared his throat awkwardly. This was one of those moments, he suspected, where her saying 'you can choose' was really 'choose to do what I want'. Navigating it without seeming completely dismissive was a delicate task. "Well, obviously it depends on shifts. Captain de Havilland does seem to have me very busy at the moment..." he explained. "Not that I'm completely turning it down, you just have to remember that I promised to look after my boundaries better, you know."

"They have multiple services."

The turbolift opened and deposited them just a short distance from their destination. "All I'm suggesting is you try it out first; you know me well enough to decide whether it will be worth doing together."

She sighed, letting go of something internally that she didn't understand exactly. She reasoned that she had only just recently come to the understanding that maybe she'd always been trying to serve this Spirit of everything all her life and only just recognized the thread running through; she could have hardly have expected herself to have wanted to try out church not so long ago. Hell, she'd all but spat at a woman asking her to pray for her at the party. As much as she would have liked to share her new experience with Lance, she couldn't. They were different people, with different inner lives. Being "one in marriage" was some difficult calculus that was going to take longer to figure out. She didn't want her fledgling spiritual interest to become a new wedge to navigate.

"It's alright, Lance. I wouldn't want to *drag* you along," she teased, recovering her mood as she illustrated with a bit of a tug on the dolly while guiding him into sickbay, purposely lightening her steps.

"Excellent. We have an accord, then." He guided the trolley along behind her awkwardly, only then realising the pun. "Oh, I get it. Ha-ha. I'm missing my lunch for this..." he mumbled as they approached the sickbay doors, and whatever errand of mercy his wife had in mind for them.