Moving on and briefly back with his family, Graf has a bit of a “road to Damascus” moment. Not sure it will take, but we’ll see. Pai could instantly tell something was different. She is likely reaching out to her uncle, Balthazar, who is Russian Orthodox, for more information. I cannot imagine her hostile to a possible emergence of her husband’s faith; still, this is a complex subject and I will proceed carefully.

Next, we will meet this branch of the Hartmann family. I bet at dinner; I love dinners.

Holding hands, Graf and Alix walked a wooded path in the old battlefield park, just west of the acreage of the Hartmanns, Istvan and Llaura.  “Auntie” Pai stayed back with the kids to give them space and time.  Alix had been very interested in his new throat, she’s a reservist lieutenant in the imperium’s space navy, after all, and then quieted down to hear his story firsthand.

“Pai,” she still found it hard to say ‘your wife,’ “is completely right:  your stupid Midwest Nice almost got you killed!  You cannot save everyone, Graf!”

“I told you we were already beginning to withdraw…”

“You should have stopped at the first level!  Moron!” Alix fumed.

“I promise to do better next time, Dearest,” he conceded.

“So there will be a next time?  Another assignment?” she asked.

“Nothing yet.  I think the Aurie, the Empress, likes using Pai and I as we are non-state actors, not legionaries,” he mused.  “Pai taught me the word deniability.”

“Makes sense,” she allowed.  “No more white knighting, okay?”

“I’ll try.”

“Damn you,” he heard her mutter.  They carried on for a bit in silence.

“With your new throat,” Alix suddenly asked, “can you still do that…thing?”

“What Pai calls my gift?”  He shook his head.  “Yes, as she made me prove in Houston.”

“How?”

“This…this is very uncomfortable to me, Alix, but it seems I healed someone.”

She stopped them and turned to him.  “Tell me.  Now.”

He did.  She looked up.  The sunlight on the lenses of her glasses made it impossible to see her eyes.

“So now you’re an apostle.  Wonderful.  This will be great for show-and-tell or meet-the-parents day for the kids’ school.”

“A what?” Isn’t that some religious word?

“I forget now and again that you and her have no faith,” Alix sighed.  “Not that I know anything, let me try…”

She carried on as they walked at least another few miles, beginning to circle back toward the Hartmann’s place.

Apostle.  The power of God.  For just a moment, for some reason he recalled that ragdoll girl in the background when Pai had him help heal the lady with cancer.  There is so much I don’t…

“Wait.” He tugged Alix to a stop.  She stared at him.

The last thing Robert said to us.  Faith.  And here is the mother of our children teaching me faith.  He told us – me – to listen.

“Dearest Alix?”

“Yes?” Caution in her voice.

“May…may I impose that, to use Pai’s phrase, you make me older about Jesus?  About Christianity?”

Arms about his waist, she stood on her toes to kiss him.

“Yes.”

Clearing the trees and back on their host’s land, Graf saw his wife chasing the kids in near the Victory Garden.  Detecting them, Pai scooped up Tér in her left arm while taking Suza’s hand.  Henry and Philip were glued to her legs.  It didn’t hinder that body’s movement at all.  She smiled like the sun.

“You two look energetic!” she shouted.  “Did something good happen?”