Pure Space
Colonizing—it always felt like a bad word to Nephirta of the Messengers. It was true that the Golden Empire hoped to expand its boundaries into every part of space, but not through harm or bloodshed. The Golden Empire was peaceful—like the Anti-Nephi Lehies—and just wanted to spread the goodness experienced within the Golden Empire.
That wasn't how the protesters below her office felt. They were a larger crowd than normal today—some professor at the Silver Emporium had riled them up to action by preaching against bureaucratic rule of alien life. The professor thought it to be crude or crass—a product of the earlier centuries, when Golden Deseret was but a flower budding in the desert, its leader the stalwart Young. If we were truly Golden Deseret, the professor reasoned, then we wouldn't have to colonize other star systems, we wouldn't have to spread forth the glorious message, we wouldn't have to have the Messengers. God would bless.
The truth of the matter, according to Nephirta, was that the professor was wrong. The Messengers did not colonize; they went into space and purified it for the gospel. They spread the words of the Savior into the dark and the cold to make it bright and warm. The light of the Golden Empire would spread forth unhindered, it could not be hid, it was as if on a mount, saviors on the mount. Nephirta knew the scriptures well—probably better than this professor—and the mandate was clear. Spread the message or face the consequences.
Nephirta touched the blue button on her desk. The buzzer beeped and her assistant, Sammish, stepped in.
“Tell me more about this professor,” Nephirta said.
Sammish lifted up her tablet and tapped on a few buttons, scanned the screen, then looked up. “He’s from Bronze Deseret, messenger. He recently moved to the Silver Emporium to teach and research the politics of the other—Samaritan Studies, in layperson's terms—and he's come under fire from the Third Quorum of Apostolic Brethren in Bronze Deseret, but that seems to be part of the—oh, his file is . . . locked?”
“Locked?” Nephirta said. "Let me see that." She held out her hand, and Sammish put the tablet into it.
She plugged in a code. The screen flashed red. Nephirta gripped it tightly, as if the grip itself would give her the secrets she sought.
“Well, then,” Nephirta said. “It seems as though we're going to need to do some digging of our own. Gather the Liahona. It’s time to discover truth.”
I am participating in #Archtober from the ARCH-HIVE. They challenged creators to create something every day, or every other day, for the month of October and base it on a theme. I’m free writing for 30 minutes every two days based on the two-day schematic and theme rules they’ve established. So, the writing will probably not be super coherent, but it’ll be fun.
