The Rainbow Bridge
The asteroids used by Odin Brandt to construct Asgard had been injected into an oblique polar orbit so that his sunscreens would never be shaded, neither by Mars nor its native moons. Surrounding the vast gossamer film was Odin’s “Rainbow Bridge,” a cupped ring of articulated segments with a gentle half twist that slowly advanced around a twenty-four-hour cycle. The mechanical sections and Brandt Wave generators were precisely tuned to sustain a comfortable and stable environment within the walled confines. The daylight side under its dark blue open sky was mildly subtropical with a sun half the apparent diameter as known on Earth, and the night sky was half filled by Mars’ red face, streaked by slashes of green in deep terraformed valleys.
Ham Weisinger coasted off Michigan Avenue and up the smooth path onto the convent grounds. He swung his leg over his bicycle and stood on one peddle as he coasted to a stop, and hopped off by the arbor where Sister Mary Albertus was checking her sweet pea blossoms. He glanced at his watch. quietly approving his record time this morning from Seu San Marie back to Holy Toledo.
“Good morning, Sister! How’re your peas this morning?”
She straightened up and tucked a stray lock of hair back into her headband. “Much better, Dr Weisinger. Now that our supplemental lighting is on line, they don’t know the difference between here and Earth.” She gestured to the great lamp that loomed in the distance, presently opposite the apparent rising sun itself.
Ham frowned. “May fool the plants, but it seems weird, having two suns in the sky. Shouldn’t that confuse some plants?”
She smiled. “Some plants, sure. Some can be real sensitive to seasonality, too, but pea vines have spent eons under cloudy skies and diffuse lighting. They’ll spread their leaves wherever they can catch the light.”
a work in progress, commenced on 24 October 2022
Rocke: “I you, muh knee, geh’ville.”
orphans (aka “The Teen Brigade”):
Westley (“Westward Ho'”) Harper, Roy (“Pretty Boy”) Grayson, Richard (“Tricky Dick”) Barnes, and James Buchanan (“Snap”) Jones,
nuns (aka “The Science Counsel”):
Thomist Order:
Married Directors, Father Joe-Marie Salomea & Mother Isaac
w/ Virgin Acolyte Sisters Gregor, Giovanni Riccioli, Albertus Magnus, Copernicus, William of Ockham, Francesco Grimaldi, and Nicolas
Odin Brandt: “Your Realitarian Party is lousy with empiricists and Thomists and cranks, oh my!”
Bishop Thomas Obasi-Ekubo
Pope Thomas, founder of the Thomist Order,
a “Reformed Dominican” order of married priests,
and author of “In Defense of Doubt” and “Saint Thomas, Acquitted”
“Our Faith in Mercy is never as strong as We would wish,
so We must oft need referee as Reason wrestle with Revenge.”
“As heat, properly applied, can soften or harden steel,
so too can confronted Doubts firm up Our Faith.”
“Then let Their Celibacy itself be Our Abgar of Edessa.”
Despite his earlier doubts, Thomas the Apostle converted King Abgar of Edessa to Christianity.
240301
I know you’ve expressed your doubts about Catholicism, as you have about many things, but so far as I know, you’ve never actually been excommunicated, so you’re still eligible to be Pope. Assuming the College of Cardinals ever gets wind of your existence. As a non-communicant, I have no say in the matter, and while I’d have no problem with “Pope Keith” (though “Larry” is funnier) I’d encourage you to consider “Pope Thomas.” You’d think, after two thousand years and only a handful of Apostles, someone would have gotten around to Thomas. But no. Never. Not once. Gracious! They hit John twenty-three times before repeating Paul again, and Pius or Innocent at least a dozen times, plus a host of gregories and Bonifaces and Benedicts and now Francis.
But no Thomas.