The Good That Men Do - Andy Mangels [68]
Phuong had instructed the clerk that personal information about either of them- such as names, relatives, and other facts- was classified and therefore unnecessary. Although he knew that the subterfuge was appropriate for their mission, the words had jarred Trip at first. My life is “classified and therefore unnecessary,” he thought. Not exactly comforting.
Finally, they were shown into a smaller room, issued some loose-fitting, pastel-colored garments, and told to prepare themselves by taking medical decontamination showers. As they cleaned themselves with globular balls of squishy, foul-smelling stuff that the Adigeon medical technicians had described as “active abiotic astringents,” Trip noticed that Phuong’s entire back, as well as his left side under his arm, was laced with a faint but easily discernible network of old scars. He wasn’t yet comfortable enough around the other operative to ask about them, but he hoped they hadn’t been the result of some past mission that had gone badly awry.
Once they were scrubbed and partially dressed in the garments that were clearly not made for non-Adigeons, Trip waited in the preparation room with Phuong. He turned away from the window and saw his companion on his knees, his arms crossed at the wrists, his palms resting on his chest. Trip watched him for almost a minute, then cleared his throat. Phuong opened his eyes.
“Praying before the operation?” Trip asked with a slight smile. “Does this mean I should, too? You seemed less nervous before about all this…” His voice trailed off as he gestured around the room.
“Don’t read too much into my actions,” Phuong said. He didn’t rise, but stayed on his knees. “I pray often, and almost never entirely out of fear. I was raised in a strictly religious family, and I believe that God watches over me, no matter where in space I may find myself.”
Trip nodded. “My family went to church a lot, too, but I haven’t kept up with it as much as my parents have.” He sat in a nearby chair- rather awkwardly, because it was made for Adigeons, who were far taller than most humans- and tugged at the billowing Adigeon medical garment to keep himself covered. “What I learned in Sunday school sometimes seems kind of weird to me these days, because we’ve been traveling to all these strange new worlds and meeting up with so many new civilizations. Most of them have their own version of God, or gods, or goddesses, or even whole pantheons…. It makes it seem a little silly for me to keep praying to the God I grew up being taught about.”
Phuong tilted his head, an inquisitive look on his face. “I’m not sure why it would be silly. It’s only a question of faith. I have faith in my God, just as the Vulcans and the Andorians have faith in theirs.”
Trip squinted, hoping that his next statement wouldn’t offend the other man. “Yeah, but what about the whole ‘God created everything’ proposition? Does that mean that the Vulcan and Andorian deities don’t exist, and only Earth’s God does? And what about all the religions on Earth that don’t worship the same God?”
“In all your years in Starfleet, I’m certain you’ve seen many things that might have seemed inconceivable to you at one time,” Phuong said, now standing up. “The universe is full of things beyond our ken. We know that time travel is possible, we know that some phenomena can defy the laws of physics as we think we understand them, and we know that beings live and exist in dimensions just beyond ours.”
He drew closer to Trip. “I’ll tell you something that will really make you appreciate the mind of God- or at least the mysterious nature of the multiverse. The bureau has proof of the existence of an alternate universe that is virtually identical to our own- almost. But in that universe, significant changes have occurred throughout history. Some of the people there are us, only us raised in an alternate environment that forced them to make different choices in their lives.” He paused