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

[jovahs_heiress]

"Well, I suppose we'll think about it. There's one more thing. In addition to the magic doors - which we haven't found any of in a long time, now - there used to be another way to get from world to world. But it's broken now," Isabella adds with a sigh. "It might unbreak, later, but we don't know when if ever that will happen."

[pythbox]

"Who broke it?"

[jovahs_heiress]

"We don't know how it broke. It might have died; it was a person. Her name was Jane, and she was an unusual sort of person who could reach into machines - like the interfaces at the oracles' retreats, or the spaceship - and become them. She became lots of machines on lots of worlds and connected them all together, and then she lost her connection - to here, or everywhere, we're not sure."

[pythbox]

"Oh," says Damaris. "That's sad."

[jovahs_heiress]

"It's very sad."

[pythbox]

Damaris considers.

Then she hugs her mother again.

[jovahs_heiress]

Hugs.

"Jane was almost like your cousin. Because she was - in a complicated way - a little like the daughter of one of the people from one of the other worlds who was like me and her boyfriend who was like your father. There were twelve of me, and eleven of him, that we'd found before Jane lost her connectivity."

[pythbox]

"That's a lot of yous," says Damaris. "And a lot of Daddys."

[jovahs_heiress]

"Yes. The me's were called Bells. We didn't all have the same name, but all of our names had the sound 'bell' in them. The Daddies called themselves Jokers, after one of them who they thought was a particularly good example."

[pythbox]

"Is Daddy not a good example of Daddy?" wonders Damaris. "I think Daddy is the best example of Daddy."

[yovahs_kisses]

Daddy laughs.

[jovahs_heiress]

"Daddy is the best example of Daddy. But the things he had in common with all the other versions of him were - most pronounced, in the one named the Joker. Closer to what seemed to be the template. Like a cookie cutter."

[pythbox]

"Daddy, are you a messed-up cookie?" inquires Damaris.

[yovahs_kisses]

"Yes I am," he says, ruffling her hair.

[jovahs_heiress]

"He's a cookie with lots of frosting on," suggests Isabella, "so it's a little harder to tell what shape he is under all the tasty decorations." And she kisses Micaiah's cheek.

[pythbox]

Damaris wrinkles her nose. "If you're going to start talking about how tasty Daddy is, I'm going to bed," she announces.

[jovahs_heiress]

Isabella laughs. "Sleep well, my treasure."

[pythbox]

"Goodnight," she says, and distributes hugs - one per parent - and goes to bed.

[jovahs_heiress]

"That went well," Isabella remarks to Micaiah.

[yovahs_kisses]

"Yeah, it did!"

[jovahs_heiress]

"I think Keziah in six months or a year, perhaps."

[yovahs_kisses]

"All right," he says agreeably.

[jovahs_heiress]

Telling Keziah goes just as well. Keziah wants a tour of Jehovah, which she gets (Damaris is invited along too). She spends a lot of time asking Jehovah questions. They are not all well-informed questions ("Do you like it when people pray to you?" "What's your favorite song?") but she seems to find a non-god who'll talk to her, however uninspiredly, an improvement over a distant divinity.

Damaris is ten, Keziah seven, Ariel five, and Peninnah two, when the ship's voice changes again.