VII. New Mecca

The Nightfall was waiting for them at the spaceport, already prepped for flight. Jack had seen the ship earlier, but somehow it managed to look smaller now. And she'd forgotten what an ugly shade of yellow it was.

Flickering running lights barely illuminated the cracked and pitted tarmac. The hatch hummed open. Seeing that Riddick wasn't waiting directly inside, Jack breathed a sigh of relief and, hefting the makeshift bag of Imam's discarded robes over her shoulder, followed the priest and the slave into the ship.

She shouldn't have worried about avoiding him. Riddick was as careful with her as she was with him. They had come to an agreement, of sorts. Jack would not be accompanying Riddick any further; instead, Imam would take her under his proverbial wing.

A delicate silence had woven itself between the convict and the thirteen-year-old girl. When they encountered each other, they walked on eggshells, saying as little as possible. But Jack could still sense him around. His presence pervaded the entire ship. When she ate, when she showered, when she jogged around the deck. Even in bed, when she knew he was nowhere near, she could still feel his eyes on her.

Jack caught herself wondering, more than once, what those eyes had looked like before the shine job.

After two days of awkward moments, she finally took to hiding in her room. She came out only to use the head or to sneak meals from the tiny galley. So it was with some surprise when she looked up from staring at the bulkhead next to her bed (having already established that there were seventy-two scratches, twelve pits, and one small warp in the metal wall) to find Kat swaying nervously from foot to foot in the doorway.

"Did you... I mean, are you okay?" Jack asked.

Kat shrugged wordlessly. Jack followed the slave's gaze down to her hands, to the book those hands were squeezing and twisting. The pet took a couple steps into the room, held out the book, and blurted, "Teach me some more."

They had been in transit for three weeks. A tentative friendship had sprouted between the girl and the pet, and Jack had found that Kat had a thirst for learning that matched her own sudden thirst to teach. She didn't understand how a woman nearly twice her own age could have made her feel so overwhelmingly protective.

At the abrupt knock on Jack's door, both looked up from the well-read book they were hunched over. The door slid open, revealing Imam's patient form.

He glanced at Kat, then his eyes slid over to Jack. "May I speak with you?"

"Uh..." Jack stood up as Kat quietly left the room. "Sure, I guess."

Lacking any other seat in the small cabin, Imam gingerly took Kat's place next to Jack on the bunk. Jack dropped back down next to him, cross-legged.

"It was not my impression that New Mecca was your original destination. Have you considered what you will do with yourself when we arrive?"

Jack was silent as she tried to come up with something to tell him.

"I only ask this because you will be taking the place of Ali and his brothers."

Ouch. "I guess I've kinda painted myself into a corner, huh?" She shifted, wrapping her arms around her knees. "I... I don't know what the he--um, what I ever expected out of Riddick. I mean, aside from saving me. Saving us."

She looked up hesitantly to see Imam wearing a not-quite-frowning expression. "I thought maybe he'd take me along," she continued, "afterwards. But I don't think I like him quite as much, now that I know him better." She rubbed her jaw, where the painful bruise had begun to dull, and wondered why that last statement had tasted so much like a lie.

"Most of what I know of human nature, I learned before I was called. I will tell you now that, if you decide not to accompany me on hajj, Riddick would be most pleased to have you stay with him." At Jack's small smile, Imam seemed to choose his next words with care. "But I will also tell you that I would not trust him not to hurt you again."

Jack's hand dropped from her jaw. "What about Kat?" She was almost, but not quite, surprised to find no hint of her earlier jealousy in her question. "I don't think Riddick would be too happy if she went with us."

"Kat does not know it yet, but she is perfectly capable of defending herself from him." If she didn't know the holy man better--But how well do I really know him?--she would have thought he was wearing a foxy look on his normally grave face.

"You really think he'd ever let her get away with something?"

Imam folded his hands in his lap, staring at them as if he expected a miracle to come from them. "To be honest, no. I do not know whether to hope for her or fear for her. She has troubled my prayers since we found her."

Pressed against the small porthole in her cabin, Jack studied the planet they now orbited. Ordinary size, ordinary shape, ordinary colors of blue, green, and brown. She didn't know what to expect when they docked. Minarets and mullahs and never-ending calls to prayer? Hookahs and burqas and signs proclaiming, "Circumcise your wife here"?

Imam had promised her, sworn on his god and his life, that she'd be safe with him. She peeked behind her, feeling as though someone was watching her; but there was no one there, of course. Riddick had never made any such promise.

When she turned back, their orbit had altered slightly. Jack gasped as a thin planetary ring swung into view. What would it look like from the surface? Would it glimmer in the morning? She wiped her eyes with an impatient hand. Or would it be too ethereal to be seen during the day? The vision of a band of silver arcing over the night sky appeared in her mind. She forced herself to smile at it.

Jack stepped down from the porthole, curled up on the bunk, and wrapped herself in the thin blanket. It'll be beautiful, she told herself. She scrubbed angrily at the tears that insisted on falling, telling herself how stupid she was for ever daring to have thought of anyone like that. I bet it'll be even more amazing than... than... The image of the planetary ring faded away when two quicksilver glints appeared in her mind's eye.

Yeah. Even more amazing than that.

Outside the spaceport, a huge bazaar stretched for what seemed like miles. Bolts of cloth and jars of spices, jewelry and hanging rugs, clothing, pottery, and singsong voices all clamored for attention. There were small temples and shrines everywhere, full of worshippers and tourists.

Wavering like a mirage, the Mosque was so far away Jack could barely see it, even atop the small mountain it crowned. But the sunlight reflecting from its golden domes was visible for miles. Shading her eyes, she squinted into the distance. Lines of pilgrims stretched from the slopes below the huge temple all the way back to the road beneath her very feet. Riddick and Kat had accompanied Imam and Jack to the edge of town, but stopped at the gate that barred their way. Only true pilgrims were allowed to pass. The guards posted there would not allow anyone back through by that route.

Only true pilgrims would want to go any further.

Imam's hand fell on Jack's shoulder before her feet took her too far. He bowed formally to Riddick and then to Kat.

The slave gave the ex-trainer a hesitant smile. "You have to walk all the way there?"

"There are many roads to the Mosque," Imam answered. "The one I travel is the path of repentance. I cannot take it under any power but my own."

There's only one road that I can see, Jack thought, but Kat nodded as though she knew what Imam was talking about.

"I guess I'll miss you, Jack," Kat said. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

Jack nodded and hugged the pet, then whispered something to her so that Riddick wouldn't hear. But it brought a smile to Kat's face. "Count on it," Kat mumured back.

Riddick edged toward her. "Jack..." The goggles hid his eyes, so she thought instead of a shimmering arc splitting the night sky.

"I know, Riddick. Me, too."

Some part of her mind knew her lower lip was quivering, but she ignored it. Forgetting all about the path up the mountain, she threw herself into his arms. Hands that shouldn't have known how to hug enfolded her in a momentary embrace. Just long enough for her to know, to answer a question from a dark, lonely street.

Riddick's hands are warm.