Raising The Stones (67 page)

“Where’d you get her?” Rasiel asked.

“I think she’s a spy, assigned to me,” Cringh murmured. “Undoubtedly from Ahabar. I’ve enjoyed giving her all kinds of misinformation mixed up with truths that took me a lifetime to learn. She’s been so kind. I didn’t want her to get the information and leave me.”

“A spy? Why you?”

“As a member of the Religion Advisory, I suppose I was spyable,” he replied. “Ahabar was pretty annoyed with the Advisory. Can’t say I blamed them.”

Lurilile came squirming back. “This level is empty. There’s a tube car vestibule down the main hall. I suggest we get to it.”

“Why is this level empty,” whispered Cringh.

“Because it’s a storage level,” she replied. “There wouldn’t be anyone here in the middle of the night, would there?”

The moon Authority was small enough and enclosed enough that it found it expedient to celebrate nighttime simultaneously throughout. What was “night” for Notadamdirabong Cringh was night for everyone else, as well.

They crept quietly along the wide corridor, past bays heaped with supplies and equipment, past immobile handling machines, past brightly painted ducts bearing enigmatic labels:
Wet cargo, Waste direct, Waste indirect.

The vestibule was pale green, as all transport facilities were, making them easy to locate. Inside, they found a six-man pod, ready in the tube.

“Supply area directory,” whispered Lurilile.

The listing swam onto the stage.
Arrival Stage. Main Sorting Units. Noxious Waste. Temporary Work Crews. Permanent Supply …

“Location of Doors in supply area,” she whispered.

The listing shortened itself abruptly.
Arrival Stage. Noxious Waste. Temporary Work Crews.

“Two-way Doors only,” she said again. Arrival stage was for incoming supplies. Noxious waste led to the center of Big Sun, and nowhere else.

There was only one remaining location.
Temporary work crews.

“Temporary work crews,” Lurilile tapped into the destination pad. The top of the pod sealed around them with a hiss.

“Implement,” Lurilile tapped.

“Remarkable how efficient she is for an office–home aide, isn’t it?” said Rasiel. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think she might be an Ahabarian secret service operative.” “Pretend she is,” said Lurilile. “It will make you feel better about doing what she tells you to do.”

The hissing drone of the transport tube, combined with the featureless walls—which blurred by like blown fabric, shimmering—were hypnotic. Rasiel shut his eyes. “I have a family here, you know. On the other side. In the lake environment.”

“If we’re lucky, we’ll stop the soldiers before extensive damage is done,” said Lurilile.

“The Ahabarian secret service does not want Authority dismembered then?”

“The Ahabarian secret service doesn’t really care what happens to Authority,” she answered. “But neither does it have any desire to see senseless destruction and mayhem among the relatively innocent.”

“
Relatively
innocent?” asked Rasiel.

“Almost everyone on Authority knew about the bribes being taken by Theology Panel. No one did anything about it.”

“Relatively innocent,” agreed Cringh.

“Everyone was content with not rocking the boat,” said Lurilile. “Which seems to be Authority’s style. Who cares if it goes on existing or not? It doesn’t do anything useful. You’re all mere artifacts. You should be in a museum!”

The hiss dropped to a lower register, becoming a hum. The pod slowed. They slipped into a vestibule and the lid opened automatically. Lurilile’s fingers were poised over the destination pad, ready to send them elsewhere if needed, but the vestibule was empty, soundless.

“Out,” she whispered.

They crept into the chill, boxlike space, into the lock, out of the lock into the area used by temporary work crews. A dining area. Dormitories. A recreation area. And at last, a Door.

“I want you two gone,” said Lurilile. “I want you two down on a planet somewhere, alerting everyone. I want a dozen agents up here as soon as possible, to help me. Where’s the army command module, Rasiel?”

He shrugged. “I was told once. Years ago. Down here, somewhere. All I can remember is that it’s in the supply area. Do you remember, Notadam? It would be red, wouldn’t it?”

“It would be
listed,
wouldn’t it?” Lurilile demanded.

Notadamdirabong shook his head uncertainly. “I don’t know. Maybe not. To keep bad guys from finding it. In which case, it might not be red, either.”

“What in hell am I looking for then!”

Rasiel shrugged, fighting impotent tears. “I don’t know. The one in the Authority Chambers robing room is behind a painted panel. I haven’t even seen that one in twenty years.”

“Shit,” she hissed in disbelief. “I’ve got the key and no damned idea where the lock is or what the damned lock looks like.”

“You can try the phrase everywhere. Maybe it’s an ear tied into the general information banks.”

“I can stand on my head and whistle the Ahabar battle anthem, too. It would probably do just about as much good. Are you two going to go, or do I have to do that by myself, as well?”

Shamefaced, Rasiel Plum agreed to go. Lurilile keyed Phansure as the destination. “Don’t forget to tell them the Final Command before they come up here to help me, Rasiel Plum. I may not be around when they arrive.”

When he had gone, she keyed Thyker and gave Cringh a hug before pushing him through. He was a nice old man. Pleasant to be with, with no sexual pretensions. She had enjoyed his company. She was glad he wasn’t going to die, not just yet, artifact or no.

She had not mentioned it to either of them, but she found it very ominous that there were no crowds jostling their way into this area. Surely she was not the only person still on Authority who knew of the Door in Supply as a way of escape.

•
Sam Stood on
a low hill in darkness. Before him were the sparkles that told of arriving soldiers. Now and then the earth shook. Now and then a meteor streaked across his field of vision. These accidents became less and less frequent. Finally, they stopped altogether. Now there was only the recurrent glitter of soldiers or scouts or whatever they were, arriving on the surface, at first singly, then by the dozens.

A thing arrived at the foot of the hill and rolled clankingly around the base of it toward the southeast. It was three times Sam’s height, perhaps ten feet across and four times that in length. It had several turrets on it, arms equipped with pinchers and grabbers, grills and eyes, and structures Sam could imagine no use for whatsoever. It was obvious he could not extrapolate from known agricultural machines. The thing that clanked away beneath him was designed to do more than merely kill quickly and cleanly. It was designed to kill, yes, but to do so torturously, slowly, with maximum pain and observable horror.

“Hi,” called Sam, without planning to.

The turret at the top of the thing swiveled. Gadgets got a fix on him almost at once.

“Who is the God of Voorstod?”
The machine bellowed.

It took Sam a moment to identify the familiar words, familiar and yet so out of context in this place. These were words that belonged to the mists and the stones of Voorstod, not to the wondrous vistas of Hobbs Land.

“The One, the Only, the Almighty God, in whose light all other gods are shown to be false idols created by men,”
Sam called in a loud voice. They were the words Phaed had trained him to use in response to that particular question. So the machines had been programmed with the words of Scripture. With the documents of doctrine. He should have known that. Perhaps he had known that. Perhaps that was why he was here.

The machine made a weaving motion of jointed arms, a clattering of servo-mechanisms. Then, abruptly, it turned and went the way it had originally started, southeast, away, leaving Sam behind.

“Oh, I learned my lesson well, Phaed,” Sam commented to himself as he went down the hill toward the sounds he could hear faintly accumulating before him. Like the accumulating sound of a sea, when the tide turns. Like the sound of a rain storm, growing from a gentle sprinkle to a torrent.

“What is the desire of the One God?”
came the challenge from the darkness confronting him.

“That all living things shall acknowledge him,”
cried Sam.

“And how is this to be achieved?”

Sam shook his head and bellowed,
“By teaching those who will learn, and by killing all others.”

The creature clanked past, its lenses fixed on some unimaginable epiphany. It was not programmed to teach, therefore it would kill.

The soldiers let him alone. They challenged him and let him alone when he responded. After the soldiers, would come the prophets. And their followers. He was going there, where they were. He counted sparkles of light, to his right and to his left. A rank of soldiers some hundreds long, some hundreds deep. Enough to kill every person upon Hobbs Land ten thousand times over. He walked through them, answering their challenges, not breaking stride, his legs moving of themselves.

Strange. One had legs, and a body and a face, and one did not think of that often. One had joints and skin covering the lot, and one did not think of that. Parts were obedient, doing what they were required to do. Sometimes they ached, if badly used, but they were not treacherous. Now, among these great warriors, all human parts seemed ludicrous and inadequate. What could they do but die? What good were arms against these? How fast could legs run in a race against death?

Assume there were no monsters. Assume there was only death, as there had always been death. Inevitable. The end of man as of everything. Which arms could not oppose nor legs outrun nor eyes find a place deep enough to hide oneself in. Then what was the task of man? Of a hero? What was man to do when there was nothing man could do? Why did he walk calmly forward, separated from his own terror only by a thin wall of something strange and flexible and yet quite impervious.

Something which was not death.

“Birribat Shum?”

“Yes.”

“Elitia Kruss?”

“Yes.”

“Horgy Endure?” he almost laughed.

“Yes. That too.”

“The God knows what I know,” he said to himself, not needing an answer. The God knew what everyone knew, and what everyone was. And if Sam could find a prophet or a follower and make him stand still long enough, the God would find out what he knew as well.

If there was time.

“What is the place of women in the creation of the One God?”
bellowed a monster from a hundred yards away.

“Women have no place,”
cried Sam.
“They are not followers of God, they are merely processes by which followers may be created.”

As Maire was considered to be. Phaed had told him of the Paradise of the Faithful. Food and drink and virgins. Gardens and virgins. An ecstasy of the senses for the men who had died in the faith, and no mention of the women.
“They are to be kept private, kept quiet, kept healthy until they have borne children, and then they may be disposed of.”
His mind finished the quotation.

China Wilm. Saturday Wilm. Maire Manone. All the women. Disposed of.

“What are the numbers of those who will acknowledge the One God in the last days?”
trumpeted a huge, rolling monster, aiming its cannon at Sam.

“
If there is one of the Faithful, and that one the only living one, one is enough,”
Sam replied.

Jeopardy Wilm. Willum R. Dern Blass. Spiggy Fettle. All the men who were not of the Faithful, also disposed of.

The nonlegendary. The day-to-day scufflers. The watch-to-watch managers. The growers of food. The builders of houses. Those who lay on their bellies in the grass, watching bugs. Those who listened for birdsong. Those who would not overbreed or overbear. The co-existers. Disposed of. In order that the last man living may be one of the Faithful to utter the name of Death.

But, whispered Sam, if there is one of the Gods, that one is enough for the utterance of a different name.

Sam walked on toward the west. Somewhere ahead of him was Phaed Girat.

•
Settlement One was
already awake and moving when Theor and Emun returned. There were two dozen fliers being stuffed with persons, cats, and almost no baggage.

“Where did the fliers come from,” Emun asked China Wilm.

“They showed up,” she said. “We’re first in line. Then the fliers will evacuate Two and Four, then Three and Ten, then Eleven and CM. Meantime, Five through Nine are putting together food supplies for all of us. They’re farther east and will be last out.” She was not in a panic. She sounded very matter of fact.

“Where’s everyone going?”

“To the escarpment,” she replied. “The first few loads have gone already.”

Theor Close decided Sam had been right. The God knew what they all knew. He might as well go along with everyone else.

•
The convict laborers
were wakened by Dern Blass, who trumpeted orders, some of them contradictory, and then left Howdabeen Churry to sort it out. It took a few moments before the sleepy off-shift understood what was happening.

“Voorstoders?” Shan Damzel asked, disbelievingly. “How did they get access to the army?”

“Presumably the same way we got access to Hobbs Land,” snorted Mordy Trust. “Through subterfuge, lies, and sneakiness. How isn’t going to help us right now. What are we to do?”

“Dern says we may be evacuated to the escarpment after everyone else has gone. Which is only fair, I suppose, from their point of view. Blass says we can go to Thyker through the Door if we want, but it’s chewing up one shipment in five right now. He suggests we pack some food for ourselves and the others. He also suggests we might ask for some weapons, which might not be a bad idea. According to Blass, the army is west of Settlement One, moving rather rapidly.”

“How did he find out?”

“He says the God Horgy Endure told him,” said Churry with an expressionless face.