She wants to say it's always in the back of her mind. She wants to say her dreams are haunted - hallowed? - by the click of rosary beads and the ringing of bells, the scent of incense and the flickering of flame.

It's not true, of course. She wrote in her journal, as a launchie, about dreaming that a launchmate was singing the Agnus Dei. She doesn't remember the words anymore, but for some reason the plainchant melody stuck with her. Ahn-yus De-e-i, she hums, but what comes next?

She remembers hearing the older boys at her parish get ready for a football game. "Queen of Victory, pray for us! Let's kick some butt!" In truth, she knows that even that memory would have faded if she didn't pray the same way before every battle.

She remembers learning to write AMDG atop every test paper. But she'd never known the meaning until Davidson told her. More recent, so recent, she remembers showing him how to bless himself. Remembers the odd desire, quickly suppressed, to take the older boy's hand, to move it for him like her mother moved hers. Forehead, Father, in nomine Patris. Belly, beloved Son, et Filii. Left shoulder, arm tight across chest, Spirit, et Spiritus. Right shoulder, arm has struck with power, most holy, Sanctus, amen.

 
She wonders if there's a priest on the station. Some hydroponics tech, secretly growing wheat and grapes, making flour and juice, bread and wine, consecrating them all alone in some cavernous storage room. Father Auldlar hadn't let her receive the Eucharist. He and her parents were sure her belief - her lived-out belief - would disqualify her. She knew she was too valuable to be disqualified - and when she cried at Battle School, it wasn't for her parents. She longed for something her launchmates would never have understood.

Agnus Dei, Lamb of God, behold the Lamb of God, happy are those called. I am not worthy to have you under my roof, to have you visit this place of steel and vacuum and preparation for war, but give the order, Commander, and I will be healed.

 
Tears leak out of her eyes in the middle of the night, her breathing a little ragged, and she longs to meet the Commander of the Church Militant, to know her orders, to march with the baptized for the increase of the glory of God.

In the morning she's no less rested than usual - which is to say, not very rested at all, as the loss of her toon still torments her - and she eats breakfast with her customary ravenousness. She offers up her work on her physics test, and she doesn't mention religion in her history class, and she follows Hawkeye's orders in practice.

She checks her desk after lunch and there's a note: 1600. She doesn't remember telling Davidson that she had a free period before dinner, after her computer science class, but he must have found out. It takes her until 1604 to finish her assignment in class, and she's five minutes late to meet him.