Starfist - Kingdom's Swords Part 10

Hetman Bulba looked out over the fields of his host, saw his people working them, and knew they were good. Most of the vegetables were already harvested. In a few more days it would be time to harvest the grain. This harvest was so rich they could stint on their t.i.thing and the Convocation would never guess. As soon as the grains were reaped, they would celebrate. In his mind he already smelled beeves roasting over fire pits. Already he could taste the fresh baked breads and pastries the women of his host would bake. He thought of the fresh beer he would drink. And the women. Ah, the women!

Yes, the valley of the Pripyat-he was glad he'd led his host to this place. It would do for another two years, then he would lead the Yar host of the Kzakh to a new land. Just then, the Pripyat was as near to Paradise as he wished to imagine.

He turned his pony and gazed at the village. His chest swelled as it always did when he saw what his people had built in so short a time. It was not only their own houses and silos and craft shops that made him proud, but the magnificent church with its colorful onion domes, and the priest house, which equaled his own in size and splendor. G.o.d smiled on the Yar when he caused Bulba to be made hetman. Hetman Bulba would see to it that the priest celebrated a fine High Ma.s.s to begin the harvest celebrations. Everyone would receive the bread and wine of Our Savior's body and blood. Then to the beeves and the bread and the squash. And the beer and the women. Ah, the women!

Distant cries and rifle shots came to his ears, and he turned his pony toward them.

The raid into the valley of the nomads was commanded by a Senior Master. Under him were four Masters, a dozen Leaders, and more than two hundred Fighters. It was small enough a force that a senior among the Masters could have been in command, but there were strictures the Over Master was most concerned about, so he deemed a Senior Master should command the raid. Even lacking swamps and caves, infiltrating the valley was child's play. The nomad guards, prancing so proudly on their ponies, presented no obstacle to the Senior Master and his force. The guards' eyes were set on the horizon; they could easily see anyone who approached on horseback or walked openly across the hills. They paid scant attention to the small copses that dotted the hills and the valley floor, and almost none to the narrow streamlets that drained those hills into the river. Had he chosen to, the Senior Master could have led his raiders down the river, and the nomads would be none the wiser until his Fighters arose in their midst. But the strictures could be better met if he came from the side of the valley and struck the outskirts of the settlement first.

The Senior Master smiled when he considered the confusion and fear his Fighters were about to unleash on these transplanted Earthmen. He briefly studied the data display his aide held before him, tapped a spot on the schematic, and said, "Now."

115 Fifteen dun-uniformed Fighters hunkered in the shadows of a copse. They watched a group of mounted Earthmen parading nearby and waited patiently for their Leader's order. If he commanded them to kill the Earthmen, they would do so immediately. If he did not so command, they would remain patiently hunkered until he ordered them to do otherwise. The Fighters didn't mind-they were bred to have little will of their own.

The Leader watched almost as patiently. He did have will of his own, but he knew well how limited was his freedom to act in the absence of orders. The order for which he waited came at last. He looked at the pa.s.sing parade and saw that the nomads were already almost within range of his Fighters' weapons. He shrilled a command, and the Fighters bounded to their feet and ran in pursuit of the nomads. One of the nomads heard the Leader's shrill command. He didn't recognize the sharp sound as the cry of a bird or beast of the Pripyat valley, so he casually looked back. The sight of the racing men who didn't quite look like men startled him, so he didn't react immediately. When he did, it was to ask one of the other riders, "Who do you think they are?" By then the Fighters were in range of the rearmost nomads, and the Leader blew a signal on his whistle. The Fighters pointed the nozzles of their weapons at the nomads and fired. The rearmost nomads screamed surprised agony when the greenish fluid hit them, and fell from their mounts as the ponies reared and bucked and fled in their pain. The rest of the hors.e.m.e.n scattered forward several meters before they spun about to face the unexpected danger. They would have laughed at the small manlike figures with tanks on their backs and hoses in their hands had not their own companions been writhing in agony in the gra.s.s-those who were moving at all. They snapped their rifles to their shoulders and fired. Six of the strange manlings tumbled to the gra.s.s, but the others continued their charge, firing as they ran. The hors.e.m.e.n fired again and again, but by then the strange creatures were close enough for their weapons to reach, and their fields of fire were very effectively laid out.

In seconds the hors.e.m.e.n were all down, dead or dying. The Leader snapped a command, and his six remaining Fighters ran back to the copse to await his next order. Careful not to burn himself, the Leader went about the area of the fight setting fire to the gra.s.s. Then he raced to the copse, led his Fighters to a nearby streamlet, and followed it back into the hills.

Hetman Bulba heeled his pony to a gallop and began shouting as soon as he saw the fighting, but the fight was over before he'd covered much more than fifty meters. He looked about and saw a score of men converging on him or on the fight. He hoped they reached it before the fire spread so they could get the wounded and the dead away from the flames. Whether they did or not, he needed them to go with him in pursuit of the bandits. His pony faltered and almost fell when a brilliant flash flared up in the burning gra.s.s, but he managed to keep control of the animal so it retained its balance. More flares went up, so fast he couldn't get an exact count, but more than half a dozen. The fire spread rapidly after the flashes. The Senior Master allowed himself a brief smile of satisfaction at the chaos growing around the gra.s.s fire, then spoke into his communicator. Two kilometers distant, another Leader led twenty Fighters in an attack against the Earthmen working the fields. Once they killed the workers, the Leader fired the ripening grain. At the same time, a Master and thirty Fighters triggered an ambush on a band of hors.e.m.e.n 116 116 speeding to the first attack. When those hors.e.m.e.n were dead, the Master fired the gra.s.s in which their bodies and those of several Fighters lay. Another Master with a Leader and forty Fighters a.s.saulted the settlement. They killed half of the Earthmen and fired the church and priest house, then withdrew. The Senior Master granted himself another slight smile when he received the reports. So far he'd committed fewer than half of his force and suffered no more than twenty dead. Fifty or more of the nomads were cremated in the fires. Phase one of the raid was complete. Now to wait for the strictures, then commit phase two, in which the Yar host of the Kzakh would die.

At the same time, a thousand kilometers away, another farming community was attacked by a force of two hundred. This attack was also in two phases, with a pause between them. Three hundred Skinks attacked a mining community in yet a third remote location. The miners fought valiantly enough to cancel the pause between the two phases, but to no avail. Like the farmers, the miners all died most horribly. Skinks rampaged through a mountain monastery and destroyed sacred relics and tomes, a loss many felt was greater than the lives of the monks. Isolated homesteads were leveled in so many locations, it would be a month before the full extent of the slaughter was known. The Army of the Lord outpost in a provincial town was ma.s.sacred. That ma.s.sacre was followed by almost complete slaughter of the citizens. The town was burned to the ground.

"What do you mean, we're going planetside?" PFC MacIlargie demanded. "We're going back to Camp Ellis."

"I mean we get aboard the Dragons and go 'high speed on a rocky road,' that's what I mean," Corporal Linsman said.

"Back down to Kingdom?"

"Back down to Kingdom."

Corporal Doyle looked around the squad. They'd started with ten Marines. Now there were seven-and four of the seven were hobbled by wounds. How could they go back? And the rest of the platoon wasn't in any better shape. The whole company was pretty badly shot up. Why were they going back?

Corporal Kerr looked uncomfortable but said nothing and checked his men-mostly Doyle; Schultz didn't need much checking. Schultz seemed to be his normal, quietly ready self on the verge of a planetfall.

Corporal Chan closed his eyes for a moment. He remembered Waygone, where all the Skinks had been in one place. He'd hoped that was true this time as well. It looked like he thought wrong. He gathered himself and asked PFC Longfellow, his lone remaining man, how his wound felt.

"Good enough, I guess," Longfellow said. It hurt like h.e.l.l, but he wasn't about to say so, not when others had been wounded so much worse.

Linsman looked at Kerr. "You're number one now, you know." 117 117 Kerr nodded. He was next in line to take over as acting squad leader if Linsman was killed or badly wounded.

Linsman looked at Chan and said, "You take MacIlargie."

"What?" MacIlargie yelped. "What's the matter, don't you like me anymore?"

"I never did like you." He looked at him. "I'm acting squad leader. That leaves you as the only man left in the fire team. Chan's shorthanded. Go with him." MacIlargie swore. Well, at least if he was with Chan, two members of that fire team were all right-neither he nor the corporal had been wounded. In Kerr's fire team only Doyle was whole, and he wasn't all that much use on a good day. The Marines were somber as they boarded the Dragons waiting in the Essays for the return planetside.

Archbishop General Lambsblood glowered at the oncoming Dragons. He'd hoped the Marines had destroyed the demons. Instead, they'd merely crushed one coven. How many more were out there?

There hadn't been enough Marines to begin with; now there were fewer. His own Soldiers of the Lord, numerous as they were, were no match for the demons. The Marine commander had to call for reinforcements, call for an entire army. All he could hope for was that the Army of the Lord and these few Confederation Marines could survive until that army arrived. If Brigadier Sturgeon hadn't already requested the reinforcements... Lambsblood sighed. If he hadn't, they were all d.a.m.ned. He didn't even glance at Amba.s.sador Spears or Chief-of-Staff Carlisle, who stood talking next to him. The lead Dragons pulled up. Brigadier Sturgeon was one of the first Marines out. He marched directly to the trio.

"Mister Amba.s.sador, General..." He nodded at Carlisle. "My operations people are already working on the information you provided. As soon as my squadron is operational, my infantrymen will search for the enemy near these strikes." He took two sheets of paper from Lieutenant Quaticatl and handed them to Lambsblood and Spears.

Spears merely glanced at the paper and handed it to Carlisle. Lambsblood shook with barely restrained fury.

"Ted"-Spears's voice was strained-"this is no good. They hit too many places simultaneously. There must be too many of them. You don't have enough Marines to find them all." A corner of Sturgeon's mouth twitched in what could have been the beginning of a smile. "I hope the Skink commander agrees with you. An awful lot of opposition commanders over the centuries who thought that way found out the hard way they were wrong." Lambsblood couldn't hold back any longer. "You fool!" he erupted. "Hubris! Do you know the word?

The arrogance that goes before a fall. I only have partial reports, but a rough tally indicates that there were at least-let me emphasize that, at least-ten thousand demons involved in those monstrous attacks. Ten thousand! How many Marines do you have left? Nine hundred? They have weapons that can kill your aircraft and armor before they even know there's a threat. They have weapons they can use against your infantry at a greater range than your infantry weapons can effectively fire. How long do you 118 118 think your Marines can hold out against them?"

"General," Sturgeon replied in a calm voice, "we don't have to go against all ten thousand at once. The reports indicate they are widely dispersed. My Marines can find them and defeat them in detail." Lambsblood snorted. "This," he shook the sheet of paper, "tells me you plan to strike in five different locations. They will defeat you in detail."

"Not today they won't."

Quaticatl leaned forward to whisper to Sturgeon. Sturgeon listened, then said briskly, "General, Mr. Amba.s.sador, if you will excuse me, my squadron is ready. I have a FIST to fight." He walked rapidly to the command post, which was already set up.

CHAPTER TWENTY.

"Mr. Amba.s.sador? Mr. Amba.s.sador?"

"Huh?" Jay Benjamin Spears started awake to find his station chief gently shaking his shoulder. Spears wiped a thin rivulet of spittle out of his beard and sat upright in his chair. An old-fashioned book lay facedown in his lap. "d.a.m.n!" he muttered, picking it up. "Never lay a book down like that, Prentiss, ruins the spine."

Prentiss Carlisle smiled. He was getting used to Spears's eccentricities, one of which was that for relaxation he read old books, really old books, printed on paper and bound between covers, the pages woven into "signatures," as Spears called them. Carlisle learned quickly not to call the pages "pages," but instead "leaves," and he knew from Spears's lectures that leaves had two sides, "recto" and "verso." "It is slovenly to call them 'pages,' my dear Prentiss," Spears had commented one night after several beers.

"You should've been a librarian, Mr. Amba.s.sador," Carlisle said.

"Eh? And missed this life of adventure?" It was obvious to Carlisle that Spears had wanted to go with Brigadier Sturgeon but declined because he thought his duty as a diplomat required him to remain behind in Interstellar City. But now something interesting had come up. "Sir, an urgent message from the naval ship in orbit. Seems-"

"Prentiss, you should read this volume. Very interesting!" Spears handed his station chief a leather-bound book. "It's hideously rare, although only a twentieth-century facsimile of the original edition of 1692."

"Twentieth century?" Carlislie asked. Carefully, he picked up the book and opened it to the t.i.tle page. Spears had told him that "t.i.tle page" was correct, not "t.i.tle leaf." Carlisle had decided he'd never understand the arcane nomenclature of printed books. " The Wonders of the Invisible World The Wonders of the Invisible World," he read, "by Cotton Mather." He read on silently. "Yes, I've heard of those witchcraft trials and this Mather. He was a clergyman, wasn't he? One of the prosecutors?" Spears took the book back and placed it gently on a side table. "No, he was an explicator of the whole affair. I am reading this, Prentiss, to get a better idea of what motivates the City of G.o.d sect, the neo-Puritans. They hearken back to their seventeenth century roots, you know, especially the Puritans of seventeenth-century New England America. They fascinate me, and of all the sects represented here on Kingdom, I think they are the most interesting and possibly the most sincere. What's the message, 119 119 Prentiss?"

Back to business. "It's from the captain of the navy vessel in orbit, sir. For the past several days they've observed through their string-of-pearls sort of a one-way, um, 'migration' from several of the larger towns into the vicinity of the Achor Marshes along the Sea of Gerizim."

"'Migration,' did you say?"

"Yessir. There's been no traffic in the opposite direction."

"Ah. Which cities are involved?" Carlisle consulted the reader he held in one hand. "New Salem, New Dedham, New Stoneham..." Spears perked up immediately. Now here was something interesting! "Those towns belong to the City of G.o.d," he said, holding out his hand for the reader. He scanned the message. "And he reports much traffic toward Gerizim but none coming back? Has anyone attempted to contact the people in those towns?"

"Well, no, sir. I'd have asked the brigadier to dispatch a drone but he's on the other side of the world and, well, I didn't want to share this just now with the Council. Not until we'd had a chance to evaluate what's going on."

"Excellent! Very good judgment, Prentiss." Spears stood up and began pacing, hands behind his back.

"Well, Prentiss, that's the question: What the h.e.l.l is going on?"

"Some kind of religious retreat, perhaps?" Spears snorted. "Neither of us has been at our posts very long, Prentiss, but one thing you should know about the City of G.o.d, they don't have 'retreats,' religious holidays, 'feast' days, none of that. They live simple, dress simple, and look simple. Some ungenerous souls who do not understand them say they think simple too. If these people are moving, there's a reason, and it's long-term, not for the G.o.dd.a.m.ned weekend. Well, New Salem is about a hundred kilometers south southwest of here. Get a car."

"Er, a car, sir?"

"Yes, Prentiss, a car. We're going to New Salem. We are going to use the oldest method of intelligence gathering known to spying, otherwise called 'diplomacy.' If anybody's still there, we'll just ask them what's up. If not, we'll look around, maybe follow their trail. Come on, come on, Prentiss, there are still six hours to sundown."

"But, sir, it could be, uh, dangerous? I mean, there are these terrible attacks going on, and who knows what's brewing among the sects? We could very well wind up in the middle of some internecine feud..." Carlisle's voice trailed off. He looked helplessly at Spears. Spears nodded once. "You're quite right, Prentiss, of course. How shortsighted of me. Get a car and some guns. I'm driving."

Consort Brattle blew a strand of loose hair out of her face and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. The packing was almost complete. She straightened up. The Brattles did not own much, aside from 120 120 the furnishings inside their home, most of which they were leaving behind in New Salem, but still, the storage compartment of their landcar was already packed full. Fortunately, the livestock had all been taken on before, in the care of the village's unmarried men. And the harvest was done for this year, so if the stay at Gerizim turned out to be a long one, they would have food and could get in a new planting before the next growing season.

"Comfort?" she called to her twenty-year-old daughter.

"Yes, Mother?"

"Take this box of your father's reading crystals to the car, would you? Where's Samuel?" Samuel Brattle was her fourteen-year-old son, an obedient lad but sometimes easily distracted. The whole idea of moving the village to the Sea of Gerizim had been distracting enough to everyone in New Salem, but especially the boys around Samuel's age, none of whom could wait to get under way. Besides, during the trip and for many days afterward there'd be no school. But for the adults in New Salem the move was troublesome. The Ministers of the City of G.o.d expected new persecutions, and had convinced the sect'

individual congregations that moving to the remote sh.o.r.es of Lake Gerizim and consolidating their population would offer them better protection.

"Sam is saying good-bye to the neighbors," Comfort replied. Dutifully, she took the box of crystals from her mother and started for the landcar. The Brattles would be the last family to leave New Salem. Zechariah, Consort's husband, as mayor of New Salem had the responsibility of making sure the village was clear and everything left behind secured against the inhabitants' eventual return. He and Samuel would go to each house before leaving, to make sure all the doors and windows were secured. Once the current emergency was over, the Ministers had promised, they would return to their homes, so each house was ordered to be safely locked and all the chattels that could not be transported to the camp along the Sea of Gerizim safely stored away inside them.

"Consort," Zechariah called from the stairs leading to the upper floor where the sleeping compartments were, "call in the children. We must seek a blessing before we leave." Zechariah Brattle was a big man, well over six feet tall, but sinewy, not an ounce of fat on his large-boned frame. New Salem was a farming community, and although the City of G.o.d believed in using whatever technology was available to earn their bread, farming on Kingdom was laborious and hard, and Zechariah Brattle's lean, rock-hard muscles reflected a lifetime in the fields. But he was a gentle and peaceable man. Some calling brought Samuel inside, and the four of them stood in the spa.r.s.ely furnished living room. Zechariah raised a big hand over his family. "Loved ones, we Brattles have lived in New Salem for over two hundred years. We have worked hard and lived well off our labor and we have kept faith with the Lord. Our labors have been rewarded and we have been protected. But the world is in turmoil today. The Ministers fear we shall be attacked. Wars have come to Kingdom before, but now the Ministers fear persecution, and that is why we must leave our homes. But I have met with wonderful things this day." He beamed down at his wife and children. "In the forenoon, while I was at prayer, pleading the sacrifice of my Lord Jesus Christ for my family, I began to feel the blessed breezes of a particular faith, blowing from Heaven upon my mind. I began to see the clear road before us-led on, as the Children of Israel in olden times were led on by the same good Hand that bestowed life and blessings upon us and our brethren. Samuel! Are you listening? Pay attention now." Zechariah smiled down at his son and went on: "Whereupon, I begged of the Lord that He would by His 121 121 good Spirit incline me to exemplary courage in our journey and permit us again to obtain such favor as to have the good things with us, as in our former circ.u.mstances. Let us pray: "The Tabernacles of the Just The Voice of joy afford, And of Salvation, strongly works The right hand of the Lord, We shall not die, but live, and shall The Works of G.o.d declare.

The Lord did sorely chasten us, But us from Death did spare.

"Amen."

"Father, will those Marines come here after we're gone?" Samuel asked. Zechariah looked askance at his son. The boy was bright, good at his studies, but his fascination with military subjects and adventure stories was a trifle worrying to his father, who was afraid the boy was subject to frivolity. "I know we are leaving in only a few minutes, Samuel, but yesterday Master Roxbury gave you an a.s.signment. Is it finished?"

"Yes, Father," Samuel answered, surprised that his father had asked him such a question. "It was to translate the first seventy-four lines of Virgil's Aeneid Aeneid . 'I sing of arms and the man,' " he said, quoting the famous opening line of the poem. . 'I sing of arms and the man,' " he said, quoting the famous opening line of the poem.

"It's a man, Samuel, a man."

"Ah, yes, Father, a man," Samuel replied, exasperation in his voice. "But Father, I have been reading a history of the Confederation Marine Corps' campaigns, and I must say, it is more interesting than Caesar's Commentaries. We read them last year."

"More interesting, Samuel?" his father asked.

"Well, sir, as interesting. And a lot easier to read. No translation required." Zechariah raised an eyebrow. He knew his son's moods and he knew what the next question would be, so he answered it now. "We study Latin because to understand the Bible you must study it in its original translations, and besides, the Fathers, chief among them the Mathers, were Latinists and excellent Greek and Hebrew scholars as well, so that is why we study those languages today. Now time is of the essence, Samuel, we must go."

"But Father," Comfort interrupted, "will the Marines come to this part of Kingdom? I've seen them on Samuel's reader, and they are indeed handsome men and a lot more interesting than the young gentlemen we have around here."

"Comfort!" her mother admonished.

"Well, Mother, you know perfectly well that Simeon Lawson's been making goo-goo eyes at me. One of those off-world Marines might make a good husband for an eligible young woman. Like me." Zechariah knew his daughter well too. He blew out his cheeks in feigned exasperation. "Comfort, your 122 122 little jokes try our patience. Now as to Marines, I do not know if they will ever come here. They are at present on the other side of the world, I hear. And you know there is widespread talk they are part of the problems we have been experiencing on Kingdom lately. I do not believe it myself, but respectable people think so. Now Comfort, Samuel, listen to me: to be a Marine is not a bad thing. Any man who devotes himself to the protection of others is blessed in the eyes of the Lord. If these Marines come, they come; if they don't, they don't, and that's it.

"Now are there any more questions?" There were none. Zechariah looked at his family and smiled.

"Sam, let's check the doors. Consort, fire up the car." He gave a small box of reading crystals to his daughter. "Comfort, you hold this. These are the town records, all the way back to the first settlement in New Salem. Hold 'em tight. All right," he clapped his big hands together briskly, "we've given G.o.d His due, now let's roll them out!"

The road to New Salem was unimproved. Trailing a long cloud of dust, Spears stopped on a ridge above the town. The dust swirled around them. "Nothing like the element of surprise," Carlisle commented dryly.

Spears chuckled. "We're in City of G.o.d territory now, Prentiss. They don't believe in spending money on improving the roads, not the ones to the other territories, because they really don't want visitors."

"Since I've met all the other so-called leaders, can't say I blame them." Spears held up a finger. "Now you're catching on, Prentiss. Well, the place looks deserted. Let's see how good our optics are." He tapped some commands into the system, and the screen mounted on the floor between them filled with a close-up of the main street. He ordered the system to scan slowly.

"Looks like everything is totally b.u.t.toned up."

"Not even a piece of paper in the street," Carlisle observed. "I don't think we're going to find anybody to talk to down there. I don't like it."

"Neither do I, Prentiss." Spears fingered the handgun he carried in a shoulder harness. Spears knew very well that if the village had been attacked, the handguns would be useless against the weapons the mysterious aggressors had been using, but the mere presence of the puny weapons was at least comforting. "Jim, are you getting all this?" he asked the communications technician monitoring them back at Interstellar City.

"Yessir," Jim Chang answered. "Transmission is very clear, Mr. Amba.s.sador."

"Okay, Jim. Prentiss? Shall we visit the ghost town of New Salem?" The City of G.o.d did not share its demographics with the other sects, so the exact population of its towns and cities was not known. But New Salem, judging by the number of homes located there, could not have had a population much in excess of five thousand. It was one of the smaller of the sect's towns. Altogether, the City of G.o.d was estimated to consist of a little more than 200,000 adherents The farmers of New Salem lived in the town, not in their fields, which stretched for tens of thousands of hectares in every direction. During the harvest they would camp in the fields until the work was done, but the life of the community was in the town. None of the community or commercial buildings in the town was identified. They did not need signs, because everyone knew where everything was in the town, and while the City of G.o.d believed in being hospitable to visitors and wayfarers, they did not feel it necessary to 123 123 advertise. In fact, although the sect believed it was every man's duty to work hard and prosper, advertising one's trade, or success at that trade, was considered too brash, too commercial, for the vow of simplicity the sect required of its members. So Spears and Carlisle stood in the empty main street and scratched their heads. Only the church-or meeting house, as it was called-was recognizable to them. And that was only because they knew enough about the sect to recognize the structure: it was the biggest building in town. "Let's try there first," Carlisle suggested.

They trudged up the dusty street, then Spears abruptly stopped. "Look at this building here, on the left, Prentiss. See those big doors? That must be a garage or a machine shop. I want to look through the window for a moment." Inside there was a vast empty s.p.a.ce, dimly lighted. The floor was concrete and stained with lubricants. Spears nodded and flicked on his hand communicator. "Jim," he said to the technician back at Interstellar City, "have the navy give us a complete run of its close-up surveillance of the movement toward the Sea of Gerizim. I want to see what was in those convoys." He turned to Carlisle. "Prentiss, there is a reason for all this at this particular time. I think it's very important that we find out."

"You think the City of G.o.d knows something we don't?"

"Precisely. They've taken everything of importance that could be moved, including all the heavy machinery and mountings that used to be inside here. I bet if we look inside the houses we might find some furniture left behind, but everything they need to reestablish themselves seems to have been taken with them. Now what do they know that we don't?"

"Fear of the attacks?"

"Possibly." Spears thought for a moment. "They are certain they will be attacked by someone. Prentiss, we've heard the rumors that the sects think we're behind these depredations. We know that's ridiculous. The raiders are using weapons n.o.body's ever heard of before. But the attacks have been random so far. No one particular sect has been attacked. Now why would the City of G.o.d think they in particular are in for trouble?"

"All this fear of this, fear of that, is making me nervous." Carlisle chuckled. Spears looked intently at his station chief. "Prentiss, I think you have good reason to be nervous. Come on, let's bust into city hall." He nodded toward the meeting house at the end of the street. The Confederation of Human Worlds amba.s.sador to the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles drew his handgun and blasted the lock off the front door to the meeting house. The report of his gun echoed loudly through the empty street. He kicked the doors open and walked inside. Aside from the pews on the ground floor and some office furniture in the rooms above, the place was also empty. They stood outside on the steps and looked down the main street. At the far end stood their car. "I think we should have driven up here, sir," Carlisle said nervously. "It's a long walk back to the car." He shaded his eyes and looked through the rays of the sinking sun. "Dark in another hour."

"We're not responsible, the sects are not responsible, so who or what's causing all the trouble here?" Spears said, almost thinking out loud. "You've heard the rumors we're not alone in Human s.p.a.ce, haven't you, Prentiss?"

124 "Yes." That thought had occurred to him.

"That's what we're up against here, I know it." Spears smacked a fist into the palm of his hand. The smack echoed in the gathering shadows. Carlisle looked about nervously. Suddenly, he did not want to draw attention to himself. "But these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," he nodded at the meeting house behind them, "are up to something too, and whatever it is, it'll only complicate things even more around here." Spears laughed.

"By G.o.d, Prentiss, I think I'm actually beginning to enjoy this a.s.signment!"

"Enjoy being scared s.h.i.tless, which is what I am right now? It'll be full dark long before we get back to Interstellar City," Carlisle added.

"I know, Prentiss, I know. Well, we've seen enough. Let us make like the shepherd, Prentiss, and get the flock outta here."

Since the Sea of Gerizim was well within the boundaries of the territory occupied by the City of G.o.d, moving the Faithful there posed no problem of real estate acquisition. The hills above the Achor Marshes were riddled with deep limestone caverns, and they had been prepared as an alternate capital many years before, during one of the many factional wars that had marred the history of human relations of Kingdom. All the Ministers had to do was plan the logistics of the move, and that had been done long before the five terrorists were dispatched to Siluria.

"Reminds me of the catacombs of ancient Rome, Increase," Eliashub Williams remarked, standing deep underground in one of the caverns.

"That is fitting, Brother Williams," Increase Harmony responded. "The power system will be operating by tomorrow at the latest. Dry this place out a bit. The stores are in order?"

"Yes and no. Some of the more perishable goods have deteriorated since they were placed in here many years ago, but the construction is still solid and the water supply is excellent." Someone approached them out of the darkness. "Ah, Brother Jones! What is the word from above?"

"The Lord is with us. The campsites in the oak groves are prepared, and if we are here until the next growing season, we can plant the land on the mesa. The soil up there is perfect, and above 200,000 hectares are available. I would say all is on schedule, brothers," Elnathan Jones replied. He flicked his own light off as he came within the circle illuminated by the other two. "The last families have already moved into the camps. The temporary shelters are up and we should get through the winter very comfortably."

"As soon as word comes that Brother Epher and his men have been successful, we shall move our people down here. The Cambria Cambria should be entering Earth's solar system within the next forty-eight hours. Say two months from now the news will reach us? I'm leaving for Haven tomorrow, to attend to our affairs among the Ec.u.menical Leaders. I guess I'll be in the center of the storm when it breaks." Harmony smiled. should be entering Earth's solar system within the next forty-eight hours. Say two months from now the news will reach us? I'm leaving for Haven tomorrow, to attend to our affairs among the Ec.u.menical Leaders. I guess I'll be in the center of the storm when it breaks." Harmony smiled.