our beloved and our god

[jovahs_heiress]

It's the middle of the night, and Isabella is sitting up reading, when she gets an alarming message.

[Captain,] says Jane's voice, and Jane never calls her Captain, [I've lost ansible communications with the rest of Jane. Local programming including responding to prayers will run as usual without a problem, and the voice synthesis will continue to operate with the Jane voice instead of the Jehovah voice unless you request otherwise. However, interworld communication and travel is impossible until the connection is restored. The nature of the error is unknown and is not related to a mechanical defect of the ansibles aboard the ship or in your bracelet.]

Isabella blinks.

[...Please do change voices as long as you aren't actually Jane.]

The voice changes, but says, [I contain more software than the original Jehovah did, most of which is original to Jane.]

[You're talking more like him than her.]

[Yes, Captain.]

[Alert me immediately when you have ansible communications back.]

[Yes, Captain.]

Isabella pads across the room to sit where Micaiah is sleeping and lay her hand on his back.

Comments

[yovahs_kisses]

[All right,] he says agreeably.

[jovahs_heiress]

So that night, after the other girls are in bed and all the appointments have been appointed and everyone is in the family suite, Isabella says:

"Damaris, treasure, will you stay up a bit? We'd like to talk to you about something."

[pythbox]

"Okay," says Damaris, blinking at her.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well, first of all," says Isabella, "it's possible you've noticed part of it already. Have you ever suspected that me and your father might be able to do more things than most people can?"

[pythbox]

"Of course," she says. "You're the host leader. You do lots of things most people can't."

[jovahs_heiress]

"I don't mean having permission or authority," Isabella says. "I thought you might have noticed that none of you girls have ever been sick, or hurt worse than a scraped knee, and that neither have we - that you might have heard the story surrounding Ithiel's birth; he's only a little older than you are - that I do not forget things, at all - that I don't sleep very much and I never seem tired - that your father and I can often coordinate very effectively with no obvious chance to speak to one another."

[pythbox]

"Oh," says Damaris.

She thinks about it.

"Yeah, that's weird."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Any guesses?" asks Isabella mildly.

[pythbox]

"Jovah likes you best?" she suggests after a moment's contemplation.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well," says Isabella, "that's - not most of it, but -" She sighs. "You might also have noticed that I have been a little evasive about Jovah when I am not also carrying a tune."

[pythbox]

Damaris regards her mother thoughtfully.

"Are you Jovah?" she inquires.

[jovahs_heiress]

"No," laughs Isabella. "Jovah is - not what everyone thinks he is, though." She sighs. "I didn't take it well when I found out, so I'm trying to come at the revelation slowly, but perhaps I'm not doing a very good job."

[pythbox]

Damaris waits.

[jovahs_heiress]

"When you were four I told you a bedtime story about a boat that could travel from star to star," says Isabella. "I didn't invent that idea. There are such boats. There is one traveling through Samaria's sky. It is piloted by a technology so advanced compared to what we have here that it can - almost, but not quite - think for itself. It can talk. It can hear, through technological ears it has planted here and there. It can change the weather, and it can shoot weapons that look like lightning, and it can drop seeds and medicine out of its cargo hold. And it addresses me as 'Captain'."

[pythbox]

"...Jovah likes you best," Damaris concludes. "But how did the sky boat fix Ithiel?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"It didn't. It couldn't. I did that, too, and I let everyone think it was Jovah, because everything I'm telling you now is a secret - can you keep it secret?"

[pythbox]

She nods solemnly.

[jovahs_heiress]

"When I was younger - just before I got pregnant with you, actually - your father and I found a magical door that led to another world. The door is gone now - it moves, and it doesn't always exist - but when we found it, we went through, and we met people who were a lot like us - only from other places."

[pythbox]

"What was the other world like? Who were the other people?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"The door led to a magical restaurant," Isabella says, "that attaches to many, many other worlds. And some of those worlds have people who are just like me apart from having different homes, and some of them have people who are just like your father except for the same thing. And in some of those worlds, magic exists."

[pythbox]

"So you went there and you took their magic and brought it back and hid some here so you could use it for stuff," Damaris guesses.

[jovahs_heiress]

"It was a little more complicated than that, but yes, your father and I have magic now."

[pythbox]

"What's it do? Can I have some?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"It can do almost anything - if we know what we want it to do. It is a little smart but not very smart. What would you do with it?"

[pythbox]

"I don't know!" says Damaris.