Raising The Stones (58 page)

“So?”

“What I’m saying is, this was not a farmboy and his momma and daughter going off for a visit to the kinfolk. The three of them had some great purpose, at least the women did. So I decided to push a bit and see what they said. I’d noticed one of those temples at their management complex, and I asked about it.

“The Topman spun me a line. He didn’t want me to know why they’d built it.”

“And,” prodded Churry.

“And, when you’re going through a Door, there’s a destination listing behind a panel on the wall of the waiting room.”

“I know.”

“Our destination was Chowdari, and the destination under ours was
Fenice upon Ahabar
.” Shan fell silent, waiting, wondering if he had said enough, or too much.

“There’s something else. I can see it in your face,” said Churry.

“I asked Archives to search for the three Hobbs Landers on Ahabar, see if there was any reference to their arriving or to the purpose of their visit. I knew the Topman’s name; he’d introduced himself to us when we came to his settlement: Sam Girat. It was a long chance, really, but as it turned out, Archives couldn’t have missed them if it had tried. They were at the concert hall when Stenta Thilion died, sitting with the military Commander and his daughter, right across from the Queen. You saw the account! It was replayed for days, until we were all thoroughly sick of it! The Hobbs Land girl was the one who sang the battle hymn. The woman saved Stenta’s life, temporarily. After the tragedy, they disappeared. Into Voorstod, I believe.”

“To plant their seeds?”

“Possibly. Maybe we’ll know soon. Ahabar can’t keep the blockade there forever. Presumably something has to happen. I understand Authority has been making rumbling noises, demanding that the blockade be raised.”

Churry shook his head and grinned unpleasantly. “Everyone in the System knows the Religion Advisory has been bribed by the Voorstoders. Well, well. What are you really afraid of, Shan Damzel?”

Shan shook for a moment. Whenever he thought about fear, he remembered it. Absolute, bowel-loosening fear, of drowning in glop. Of suffocating inside something that would not let go.

“It could swallow us,” he said, his voice shaking. “If it’s swallowing the Voorstoders, it could swallow us.”

“And if it is beneficent?”

Shan shook his head, eyes wide. “Don’t you see, it doesn’t
matter
. Beneficent or not. Unlike my fool of a sister, you know that, Churry. You of all people …”

Churry smiled again, this time almost fondly. “Yes, I do know that,” he said. “The prophetess was quite clear, wasn’t she? She didn’t differentiate between bad and good. She just told us to let nothing stop us from being ourselves. Whatever we are.”

Churry turned for a few moments to the food and drink on the table beside him, which gave him time to think. He offered hospitality to his guest. When this politeness had been complied with, Churry asked, “You’re turning this matter over to me, are you?”

Shan sighed in relief. “Yes. I can’t get any further with it. Reticingh asked some questions of the Advisory for me, through Native Matters, I think, but the result was inconsequential. I had hoped the Advisory would become frightened and do something, but all they did was argue. Even our High Baidee representatives didn’t share my concern. I don’t have the authority or the money to do anything more about it on my own.”

“Do anything about it. Meaning what, exactly?”

“Meaning killing it,” whispered Shan. “Meaning killing it, before it spreads any farther.”

•
A small item
on System News mentioned the partial withdrawal of the blockading force around Voorstod. Though the land blockade would be continued indefinitely, Voorstod was no longer to be shut off from the sea. The fisheries could get on with their business.

Howdabeen Churry watched these developments with a good deal of interest. The question of the Hobbs Land Gods had been generally known for some time, but neither Authority nor the Circle of Scrutators had become exercised enough to do anything official. Now Shan thought the threat was spreading to Ahabar. Obviously, something had to be done, and The Arm of the Prophetess was the only group ready to do it!

“My thinking is,” Churry said to his trusted lieutenant, Mordimorandasheen Trust, Mordy, “that if we go to Hobbs Land and simply destroy these so-called Gods—Shan Damzel says there can’t be more than a dozen of them—what follows will prove to us whether there’s any threat or not.”

“Wasn’t he more worried about the ones he thinks may be on Ahabar?” asked Mordy Trust.

“Well, yes. But Ahabar has quite a large army, and the only outside Doors are in Fenice, which would mean fighting our way half across a continent or figuring out some time-consuming and surreptitious way of getting to Voorstod. Hobbs Land doesn’t even have a militia. Half a dozen security people, and that’s about it.”

“Better odds, is that it?”

“Well, frankly, I don’t anticipate any opposition on Hobbs Land at all. It will be a preemptive, sanitary strike, to wipe out something that may be dangerous. So long as that’s all we do, nobody is going to become violent over it.”

“So long as that’s all we do. We won’t carry any weapons, then.”

“Don’t be silly,” laughed Churry, delighted with the prospect of action at last. “We may need to bluff a few farmers into moving off. It’s at least partly a training exercise, so we’ll go in full battle kit, of course.”

•
Sam, Jep, and
Saturday stopped briefly in Fenice to be decorated by the Queen. Maire received posthumous notice of a respectful kind. At Sam’s request, it was a private ceremony, though Queen Wilhulmia had longed for something a bit more weighty and regal. Since the Hobbs Landers were mourning Maire Manone, however, she forced herself to be understanding. When she placed the Order of Ahabar around Sam Girat’s neck and pressed her cheek against his own, she didn’t like the looks of him. Physically he seemed well enough, but there was something sadly wrong with him otherwise.

It was announced at the ceremony that Stenta Thilion was to have a tomb in Green Hurrah. A planetary contest for the two inscriptions on that tomb would be sponsored by the palace. One inscription was to memorialize the life and great talent of Stenta Thilion; the other was to decry the ugliness of fanaticism. The Queen made this announcement just before she bid Sam and his party farewell.

By this time, though no Ahabarian was aware of it, the underground net begun with the burials in Selmouth and Sarby and continued in Cloud and Scaery and dozens of other Voorstod hamlets, had covered all of Voorstod but the mountains, had crossed the border into Green Hurrah where it had spread swiftly through the fertile area, and was now exploring the deep soil of Jeramish. Ahead of this line went certain missionary Gharm, quietly and largely unnoticed, carrying out burials here and burials there. By the time of the winter rains, they felt they would have raised Tchenka almost halfway to Fenice. Everywhere near Voorstod upon Ahabar, biologists were noting the sudden emergence of new species that the Gharm greeted as old friends.

•
Upon the moon
Ninfadel, a flurry and swirl of arrival: prophets, carts, men, flocks, women and children last, many of them crying from the pain of the Door.

The guards that met them were sanguine, quiet-faced, saying Ninfadel, Ninfadel, you are on the moon Ninfadel—to general disbelief and fury, waved fists and maledictions. The prophets were not armed, but the guards were both armed and watchful. They took no notice of the threats.

“We’ve drilled new wells for you and your animals. We’ve erected pens to hold your flocks. There’s a bright yellow luminescent line out there. Stay above it, and you’ll be perfectly safe.”

To the assembled multitude, the guards and Native Matters persons gave their usual lecture: point one, point two, point three, to the end. They passed out face masks and nose plugs. Inventories of both were virtually depleted when they were through. After the lecture, prophets and the Faithful rose in their wrath and departed, not having listened; the flocks, women, and children followed, not having understood.

Most of the face plates and nose filters were left lying on the ground inside the walls. Guards and Native Matters persons shrugged. Porsa or prophets, the shrugs said. Good riddance to either. Neither group had been ordered to look after Voorstoders who refused to be enlightened about their circumstances.

The Voorstoders received enlightenment almost at once. Their flocks of vlish and dermot moved, for the most part, at the direction of the herdsmen. A few animals, however, dazed by the the Door and attracted by the scent of herbary, broke from the herds and ran down the hill. Herdsmen ran after them. Though the highlands widened south of the outpost, at the outpost itself the hills sloped steeply and the margins for error were small. The animals plunged downward, ever more swiftly, crossing the yellow line. All but one of the herdsmen skidded to a stop. That one had paid no attention to the warnings, and he plunged after the animals, whooping, as though it were a game.

The entire Voorstod population had the best possible view of what occurred thereafter. They heard and smelted it as well.

The prophet glared, belatedly inserting his nose plugs. His sons approached him, instinctively seeking reassurance.

“We can’t … we can’t live here,” said the eldest.

“We can live here,” said the Awateh loudly, and then more softly, “for a short time.” He raised his voice again, shouting instructions. The animals were herded into the pens which had been provided. The wide black tents were set up, those for the men first, then those for the women. At the point the pens had been built, the highlands were a mile across. The Voorstoders could still smell the Porsa, but not overwhelmingly. They could see the heaving forms, hear the shouts, but not loudly.

Highland brush was gathered, and fires were lit. Food was cooked. The Awateh sat in a tent alone with his sons, all fifteen of them, the youngest not yet twenty.

“On the moon Enforcement there are two of the Faithful,” said the Awateh, beginning a litany all of them knew well.

“Praise Almighty God,” his sons intoned.

“Halibar Ornil is the servant of God. Altabon Faros is the servant of God. Before we left Voorstod upon Ahabar, we received word from these Faithful that time is fulfilled. The army of Enforcement is being turned to God’s service.”

A spasm of ecstatic movement went among them. “How soon?” breathed the eldest of the sons.

“Only so long as it takes to teach the army of Enforcement the words of God.” The Awateh visualized the army of Enforcement as a kind of angelic host, hovering, awaiting a single command, but he knew intellectually that this was not accurate. According to the latest word received, Ornil and Faros, working alone, had managed to program less than one-hundredth of the army. Once the Commander’s unconscious body had served its purpose, it had been disposed of in a manner that suggested accidental death. There was now a new commander, with new-broom attitudes, poking into corners, looking up directives and seeing whether they had been complied with. Ornil and Faros were unsuspected and were proceeding with the Great Work, but they were doing it slowly, daring to do nothing that would seem suspicious. Considering the vast size of the army on Enforcement, the Awateh had decided to move at once. One-hundredth was quite enough for a first step.

“Then we need survive upon these heights only a little time,” said the eldest son, optimistically.

The prophet nodded. “Only a little longer.”

“Where?” asked the youngest son, greatly daring. He had been accustomed to saying nothing, asking nothing, in a culture where seniority was everything. “Where will the soldiers be sent, Father? Phansure?”

For many of those in the wide black tent, it was the only time they had ever seen the Awateh smile.

“When we struck at the traitorous Gharm in Ahabar, there were three who offended us,” said the prophet. “Two offended greatly, because they are of our blood, apostate, deniers of Almighty God and of his prophets. The other one offended us by calling up hatred against us, by singing a devil’s anthem into our faces. I learned of her identity too late to take her when she was in our hands.

“One of those three is dead. She was hung like rotten fruit upon the walls of the citadel at Cloud. Our faithful servant, Phaed Girat, saw that she was put there.

“One of the others is her son. The third is a girl of Hobbs Land named, blasphemously, Saturday Wilm.”

“You will send the soldiers of Enforcement to Hobbs Land to kill two people?” asked the youngest son, incredulously. He had heard there were only a few thousand people upon Hobbs Land. It made no military sense whatsoever. “To kill two people?”

“To kill
all
the people,” said the Awateh. “And their false gods whom they arrayed against us in Voorstod upon Ahabar. Those gods came from Hobbs Land.”

There were expressions of wonder and anger.

The Awateh went on. “
First,
some smallest part of the army of Almighty God will go to Hobbs Land while at the same time another small part goes to Authority. And then, when Hobbs Land is no more, when Authority is taken, thereby removing any threat to our continued work, the soldiers will go in their millions to Phansure. After Phansure is taken, they will go everywhere in the universe, in God’s name.”

“When?” the son asked.

“As soon as there is a diversion,” said the Awateh. “Something to focus the attention of the System elsewhere.”

“A diversion,” the son breathed. “But that could be a long time.”

“As Almighty God wills,” breathed the Awateh, still smiling. He believed it would be soon, very soon.

•     •     •

•
China Wilm, who
had wished change upon Sam before he went to Ahabar, considered him unduly changed now. At first she hardly knew him. He looked at her out of haunted eyes, his cheeks sunken from loss of weight. He seldom remembered to eat. China, despite her far-advanced pregnancy, took him in. Sometimes a woman did that with a lover, usually not for long, but it was certainly acceptable behavior if the man needed care and couldn’t find it among his sisterhouses—which Sam couldn’t, because Sal was grieving so over Maire that she wasn’t competent to look after herself or the babies. Harribon Kruss came over from Settlement Three to look after Sal. That was sometimes done, too, when there was no brother to look after things.