Identity Theft and other stories (collection)

“Nothing,” she said. “But a message came in from Earth for you— scrambled.” She held out her hand, proffering a thin white wafer. I took it, thanked her, and waited for her to depart. Then I slipped it into my computer, typed my access code, and watched in astonishment as the message played.

“Greetings, Father Bailey,” said the voice that had identified itself as Cardinal Pirandello of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. “I hope all is well with you. The Holy Father sends his special apostolic blessing.” Pirandello paused, as if perhaps reluctant to go on, then: “I know that Earth news gets little play at Bradbury Colony, so perhaps you haven’t seen the reports of the supposed miracle at Cydonia.”

My heart jumped. Pirandello was right about us mostly ignoring the mother planet: it was supposed to make living permanently on another world easier. But Cydonia—why, that was here, on Mars …

The Cardinal went on: “A televangelist based in New Zealand has claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary while viewing Cydonia through a telescope. These new ground-based scopes with their adaptive optics have astonishing resolving power, I’m told—but I guess I don’t have to tell you that, after all your time at Castel Gandolfo. Anyway, ordinarily, of course, we’d give no credence to such a claim—putative miracles have a way of working themselves out, after all. But the televangelist in question is Jurgen Emat, who was at seminary fifty years ago with the Holy Father, and is watched by hundreds of millions ol Roman Catholics. Emat claims that his vision has relevance to the Third Secret of Fatima. As you know, Fatima is much on the Holy Father’s mind these days, since he intends to canonize Lucia dos Santos next month. Both the postulator and the reinstated advocatus diaboli feel this needs to be clarified before Leo XIV visits Portugal for this ceremony.”

I shifted in my chair, trying to absorb it all.

“It would, of course,” continued the recorded voice, “take a minimum of two years for a properly trained cardinal to travel from the Vatican to Mars. We know you have no special expertise in the area of miracles, but, as the highest-ranking Catholic official on Mars, his Holiness requests that you visit Cydonia, and prepare a report. Full details of the putative miracle follow …”

* * *

It took some doing—my mere presence was an act of forbearance, I knew—but I managed to finagle the use of one of Bradbury Colony’s ground-effect shuttles to go from Utopia Planitia to Cydonia. Of course, I couldn’t pilot such a vehicle myself; Elizabeth Chen was at the controls, leaving me most of a day to study.

Rome didn’t commit itself easily to miracles, I knew. After all, there were charlatans who faked such things, and there was always the possibility of us getting egg on our collective faces. Also, the dogma was that all revelations required for faith were in the scriptures; there was no need lor further miracles.

I looked out the shuttle’s windows. The sun—tiny and dim compared with how it appeared from Earth—was touching the western horizon. I watched it set.

The shuttle sped on, into the darkness.

* * *

“We speak today of the Third Secret of Fatima,” said Jurgen Emat, robust and red of face at almost eighty, as he looked out at his flock. I was watching a playback of his broadcast on my datapad. “The Third Secret, and the miracle I myself have observed.

“As all of those who are pure of heart know, on May 13, 1917, and again every month of that year until October, three little peasant children saw visions of our Blessed Lady. The children were Lucia dos Santos, then aged 10, and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, ages eight and seven.

“Three prophecies were revealed to the children. The third was known only to a succession of Popes until 2000, when, while beatifying the two younger visionaries, who had died in childhood, John Paul II ordered the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith to make that secret public, accompanied by what he called ‘an appropriate commentary.’

“Well, the secret is indeed public, and has been for almost seventy years, but that commentary was anything but appropriate, twisting the events in the prophecy to relate to the 1981 attempt on John Paul II’s life by Mehmet Ali Agca. No, that interpretation is incorrect—for I myself have had a vision of the true meaning of Fatima.”

Puh-leeze, I thought. But I continued to watch.

“Why did I, alone, see this?” asked Emat. “Because unlike modern astronomers, who don’t bother with eyepieces anymore, I looked upon Mars directly through a telescope, rather than on a computer monitor. Holy Visions are revealed only to those who gaze directly upon them.”

An odd thingfora televangelist to say, I thought, as the recording played on.