Free Children of the Old Star by David Lee Summers

faith in the Navy had been hurt had to do with his good friend, John Wong. Clyde knew that Lieutenant Wong was the son of an admiral, but never thought much of it. Clyde, like John, was a lieutenant. Unlike John, Clyde had more years of service. He also knew that Lieutenant Wong had never particularly distinguished himself in the line of duty. Thus, it was clear to Clyde that he would be promoted well ahead of his friend. Instead, John's mother called in some favors. Within four years, John Wong was captain of his own ship while Clyde still served as a lieutenant. That was when Clyde decided he would resign his commission and return home to Sufiro.
    On Sufiro, Clyde's faith took a third blow. His childhood friend, Rocky Hill, was lieutenant governor of the continent of Tejo. Rocky was looking for a leader of a new Tejo military. His choice was Clyde McClintlock. It was then that Clyde, who had never risen beyond the rank of lieutenant, who had never particularly distinguished himself in the line of duty, suddenly found himself leading the army of an entire continent. Quite frankly, Clyde didn't feel that he deserved the honor.
    Clyde's faith was utterly demolished when he led a military coup and took over the Tejan continent. To do that went against everything he had been taught. It went against every instinct, except for one. That instinct was the basic morality his parents had raised him with.
    In essence, when Clyde arrived in Roanoke, a freed political prisoner, he had come full circle. He was a reborn man, looking for something, anything actually, to believe in.
    The people of Roanoke believed in a religion that Clyde knew only slightly. Rather than believing that the carpenter of Nazareth, called Jesus, was a mere prophet, these people believed he was, in fact, the Messiah. What made them different from the Christians Clyde had known on Earth was their devotion to their faith.
    Clyde McClintlock found the religion and the faith of these people attractive. The structure of the faith was casual. There were few rituals. They had a strong sense of discipline and they spoke to God all the time, whenever they wanted.
    There was only one problem Clyde saw with the faith of the people of Roanoke. They claimed that God spoke to them. In the weeks that Clyde had been in Roanoke, learning the ways of the people, learning to pray, never once had God seemed to speak to him. The way these people felt about God was more akin to the way he felt about the Cluster than anything else was.
    Clyde McClintlock had written down the impressions he had received from the Cluster. Those impressions had given him a moral certainty like none that he had ever felt in his life. The Cluster had put images directly in his mind. What he saw from the Cluster was far more real to Clyde than what he felt from the God of Roanoke.
    On the day of his rescue from prison, Suki Firebrandt had asked whether or not the Cluster had communicated with Clyde. This shook him. “You see,” she had said, “the Cluster seems to have communicated with John Mark.” Clyde thought back to the conversation with Fire.
* * * *
    "It what?” asked Clyde, almost falling out of the austere, wooden chair in the little inn.
    "Mark says he saw what amounted to visions.” Fire leaned across the table. Her brown eyes glistened with moisture, but she kept the rest of her face rock steady. “I have to know, Clyde, did the Cluster communicate with you as well?"
    Clyde told about his visions. He told Suki how they had led him to the decision to lead the military coup against the leaders of Tejo. “The experience was almost, religious,” said Clyde, a gleam in his blue eyes.
    Fire put her head down. Manuel Raton reached out a rough hand and took hers. “You see,” said Manuel softly. “Mark has been kicked out of the Gaean Navy because he suggested they try communicating with the Cluster rather than destroy it."
    Clyde's cynicism about the Gaean Navy ran so deep by that point that