The Tailor of Truth

His wife planned to enter the Martian branch of the Church of All Stars on her birthday, so Paul Berit had less than six months to stop her. About that many months before, Ricca had started attending his brother's church but, at the time, Paul figured she'd go to a few services and satiate her curiosity before this latest phase would pass.

Now he knew he had to take this so-called conversion seriously.

It was the same thing he'd gone through with his brother "the father," his favorite joke and go-to method of addressing him once John became a priest. It was a relatively non-confrontational way for Paul to express his disdain for John's chosen profession.

He'd lost John, but he couldn't lose someone else - not to mention his and Ricca's income - to a backwards, superstitious and money-hungry church.

He and his brother were born on Mars. First Paul, then John two years later. Their mother was a doctor, brought to the red planet fresh out of medical school during a viral outbreak in the domes. She'd met their father and decided to stay. Their father, who'd been a mildly successful landscape painter on Earth, became famous with his Martian landscapes - the endless expanses of red dirt and mountains interrupted by the immense glass-and-metal geodesic domes where the ex-planet humans lived and worked.

Paul had taken after their mother - studious, analytical, scientific - and John after their father - creative, intuitive, too emotional. But neither parent cared a fig for religion. Nor had their children, until John returned from Oxford on Earth with a degree in history...  and a declaration that he wanted to be a priest, of all things, and had joined a seminary, and that he hoped to one day receive some mucky-muck's blessing to plant a mission on Mars, the first such church established off Earth.

"He'll grow out of it."

Paul suddenly remembered his father had said that. The same thing he, Paul, had thought almost twelve years later, when his own wife began attending the church John had planted once he'd been ordained and received his bishop's blessing. Planted! What a word, as if John had dropped a seed into the red soil and the structure had grown magically overnight, like Jack and his beanstalk.

Instead, that church had taken quite a few contributions to build.

"You're giving him money?" Paul had said incredulously to his parents.

John had never asked for much. He'd worked on Earth as a painter (of walls, not canvases, his father liked to remind people) to pay his way through school. Now, for the first time in his life, he needed their help - and not really for himself, but to put up a building so his church (Ha! It was him and five others at the time) could meet in a dedicated, sacred space, rather than the gymnasium John rented on Sunday mornings.

The building hadn't grown like a magical beanstalk, but the congregation had. From five lost, lonely souls looking for fellowship to a few dozen in his rented gym, then to thirty, forty, sixty congregants. Then, by the time the church was built and consecrated and open for business, the first service John held there had over a hundred people in the audience.

Because, like their artist father, John had charisma. As he went around, dome to dome, asking for donations, he also attracted a following.

And now Ricca had become tangled in his net. Maybe because Paul hadn't done a thing to help her see the truth.

"I've invited Father John to dinner tonight," Ricca had said that morning, a Saturday, over breakfast. "We'll come back here right after vespers. Can you ask Robbie to cook for six?"

Paul played his fork over his scrambled eggs.

"Do you prefer that I ask?" she said.

Robbie was his robot, his gift from her the previous Christmas. "It's fine," he said. "I'll do it."

Robbie cooking for six people was no problem. But could Robbie make conversation with John and his wife, Anastasia? Could Robbie save Paul from an awkward evening? No, Robbie would be busy playing with Christian and Allie, Paul and Anastasia's…