“Please,” the woman said to Anna. “Don’t leave me to drink alone with a Catholic. My liver can’t take it.”
“Thank you, but—”
“What about you, Hank? I’ve heard you can put down a few drinks.” She punctuated this with a swig from her glass. Cortez’s smile could have meant anything.
“I’m Anna,” Anna said, reaching out to shake the woman’s hand. “I love your dress.”
“Thank you. I am Mrs. Robert Fagan,” the woman replied with mock formality. “Tilly if you aren’t asking for money.”
“Nice to meet you, Tilly,” Anna said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t drink.”
“God, save me from temperance,” Tilly said. “You haven’t seen a party till you get a group of Anglicans and Catholics trying to beat each other to the bottom of a bottle.”
“Now, that’s not nice, Mrs. Fagan,” Father Michel said. “I’ve never met an Anglican that could keep up with me.”
“Hank, why is Esteban letting you out of his sight?” It took Anna a moment to realize that Tilly was talking about the secretary-general of the United Nations.
Cortez shook his head and feigned a wounded look without losing his ever-present toothy grin. “Mrs. Fagan, I’m humbled by the secretary-general’s faith and trust in me, as we speed off toward the single most important event in human history since the death of our Lord.”
Tilly snorted. “You mean his faith and trust in the hundred million voters you can throw his way in June.”
“Ma’am,” Cortez said, turning to look at Tilly’s face for the first time. His grin never changed, but something chilled the air between them. “Maybe you’ve had a bit too much champagne.”
“Oh, not nearly enough.”
Father Michel charged in to the rescue, taking Tilly’s hand and saying, “I think our dear secretary-general is probably even more grateful for your husband’s many campaign contributions. Though that does make this the most expensive cruise in history, for you.”
Tilly snorted and looked away from Cortez. “Robert can f**king afford it.”
The obscenity created an awkward silence for a few moments, and Father Michel gave Anna an apologetic smile. She smiled back, so far out of her depth that she’d abandoned trying to keep up.
“What’s he getting with them, I wonder?” Tilly said, pointing attention at anyone other than herself. “These artists and writers and actors. How many votes does a performance artist bring to the table? Do they even vote?”
“It’s symbolic,” Father Michel said, his face taking on a well-practiced expression of thoughtfulness. “We are all of humanity coming together to explore the great question of our time. The secular and the divine come to stand together before that overwhelming mystery: What is the Ring?”
“Nice,” Tilly said. “Rehearsal pays off.”
“Thank you,” the bishop said.
“What is the Ring?” Anna said with a frown. “It’s a wormhole gate. There’s no question, right? We’ve been talking about these on a theoretical basis for centuries. They look just like this. Something goes through it and the place on the other side isn’t here. We get the transmission signals bleeding back out and attenuating. It’s a wormhole.”
“That’s certainly a possibility,” Father Michel said. Tilly smiled at the sourness in his voice. “How do you see our mission here, Anna?”
“It isn’t what it is that’s at issue,” she said, glad to be back in a conversation she understood. “It’s what it means. This changes everything, and even if it’s something wonderful, it’ll be displacing. People will need to understand how to fit this in with their understanding of the universe. Of what this means about God, what this new thing tells us about Him. By being here, we can offer comfort that we couldn’t otherwise.”
“I agree,” Cortez said. “Our work is to help people come to grips with the great mysteries, and this one’s a doozy.”
“No,” Anna started, “explaining isn’t what I—”
“Play your cards right, and it might get Esteban another four years,” Tilly said over the top of her. “Then we can call it a miracle.”
Cortez grinned a white grin at someone across the room. A man in a small group of men and women in loose orange robes raised his hand, waving at them.
“Can you believe those people?” Tilly asked.
“I believe those are delegates from the Church of Humanity Ascendant,” Anna said.
Tilly shook her head. “Humanity Ascendant. I mean, really. Let’s just make up our own religion and pretend we’re the gods.”
“Careful,” Cortez said. “They’re not the only ones.”
Seeing Anna’s discomfort, Father Michel attempted to rescue her. “Doctor Volovodov, I know the elder of that group. Wonderful woman. I’d love to introduce you. If you all would excuse us.”
“Excuse me,” Anna started, then stopped when the room suddenly went silent. Father Michel and Cortez were both looking toward something at the center of the gathering near the bar, and Anna moved around Tilly to get a better view. It was hard to see at first, because everyone in the room was moving away toward the walls. But eventually, a young man dressed in a hideous bright red suit was revealed. He’d poured something all over himself; his hair and the shoulders of his jacket were dripping a clear fluid onto the floor. A strong alcohol scent filled the room.
“This is for the people’s Ashtun Collective!” the young man yelled out in a voice that trembled with fear and excitement. “Free Etienne Barbara! And free the Afghan people!”
“Oh dear God,” Father Michel said. “He’s going to—”
Anna never saw what started the fire, but suddenly the young man was engulfed in flames. Tilly screamed. Anna’s shocked brain only registered annoyance at the sound. Really, when had someone screaming ever solved a problem? She recognized her fixation on this irritation as her own way of avoiding the horror in front of her, but only in a distant and dreamy sort of way. She was about to tell Tilly to just shut up when the fire-suppression system activated and five streams of foam shot out of hidden turrets in the walls and ceiling. The fiery man was covered in white bubbles and extinguished in seconds. The smell of burnt hair competed with the alcohol stench for dominance.