Starfist: Kingdom's Fury (4 page)

The Brattles and Hanna Flood's family were among the several that departed the City of God camp the night it was revealed how the sect had commissioned an act of terrorism—the destruction of the deep-space starship
Cambria
, its crew, passengers, and cargo—to focus attention on the sect's persecution by the rulers of Kingdom and, they believed, the Confederation of Worlds. The terrorists called themselves the "Army of Zion," which to Zechariah and other faithful communicants smelled of blasphemy. Murder was not a tenet in the beliefs of the neo-Puritan sect that called itself the City of God. In fact, as the survivors now knew, the removal of the sect to the Sea of Gerizim had been a preventive measure, engineered by their leaders to avoid retaliation when their sponsorship of the deed became known. The only good thing to come out of the attack was that, presumably, Minister Increase Harmony and his cronies perished along with the thousands of innocents.

The Brattle family had only proceeded a few kilometers along the road back to their home in New Salem when the attack took place. None of them would ever forget it. An earth-shaking roar had suddenly descended upon them from the night sky, a tidal wave of noise so powerful that their clothing and the flesh beneath it vibrated from the concussions. At first Zechariah thought the Angel of Death had come to punish the sect for transgressing the Word, but he soon realized that a fleet of aircraft was passing directly over where they stood. The machines swooped down on the encampment, trailing blinding streams of flame, and then, abruptly, all went dark and unnaturally quiet.

Instinctively, Zechariah reached for his wife Consort's hand, and in the dark he put his free arm around his son and daughter and drew them close to his side. It was so quiet they could hear one another's breathing. After a few moments Zechariah's hair stood on end as a low groaning sound reached the group over the several kilometers that separated it from the plateau where the body of the sect had taken refuge. The sound came in undulating waves, not loud but distinct—the unmistakable expression of thousands of voices raised in a merging scream of primal fear. It reminded Zechariah of some old paintings he had seen illustrating the tortures of the damned in Hell. That terrible moaning would have been the perfect audio accompaniment to those frightening scenes.

In a short while the sound died away completely and total silence and darkness enveloped the small group.

For what seemed a long time—but was no more than ten minutes—the group stood there silently, waiting for the machines to come for them. But nothing happened. Zechariah glanced to the south. In the bright starlight he could easily make out the narrow outline of the road leading back to New Salem and their homes and fields.

"We must get out of here," he whispered to Consort. His words seemed to break the trance the others had fallen into.

"Back to New Salem!" a man standing nearby with his family whispered.

"No!" Zechariah whispered vehemently. None of them dared talk above a whisper lest whatever had attacked the camp hear them and come their way. "No," he repeated. "For all we know, the fliers came from there and will go back there. Aren't there caverns in the hills a few kilometers to the southwest of here? I say we leave the vehicles here, load up with what supplies we can carry, and strike out on foot for the caverns."

There was a brief whispered conference, but it did not take much convincing for everyone to agree that Zechariah was right. "What of, what of . . .?" a woman asked, nodding her head back toward the plateau.

"When they leave, we will come back and search for our brethren, but now we must save ourselves," Zechariah answered. "Let us gather our things and depart this place. Everyone, maintain the utmost silence until we are far away from here."

The "few kilometers" to the caves turned out to be closer to a hundred, and the trek took them four days. They covered the distance at night and hid in the brush during the daytime. Meanwhile, nobody came after them, and the aircraft were not seen again until they had reached the precarious safety of the caves.

"Keep watch, son," Zechariah told Samuel. He patted the boy on the shoulder and left him sitting just inside the cave entrance, scanning the far horizon for any sign of life or activity. Two days earlier aircraft had been spotted. From so great a distance the refugees could not tell whose they were, but the machines moved so fast, Zechariah was convinced they were not Kingdomite or Confederation craft. It had been some years since the City of God had been involved in any of the sectarian wars that plagued life on Kingdom, but Zechariah was familiar with the standard military fighter-bomber aircraft in use by the armed forces, and what they had seen were not of those types.

The sight of the machines struck animal fear into the survivors, and most of them rushed far back into the interior of the caves and covered their heads, crying out to the Lord for mercy. But Zechariah had remained steadfastly on watch, following the craft as they disappeared rapidly to the south, toward New Salem. But he had quaked as he crouched there, perspiring, limbs weak with fear.

That had been two days ago. Now, Zechariah arose and walked back into the cave. "Rise up!" he shouted at the people crouching about their cook fires. "Let us seek Divine guidance." Slowly the others gathered around him. When they were assembled, he began, "I am reminded, friends, of the 119th Psalm of David, Verse Ninety-two, ‘Unless thy Law had been my Delights, then had I perished in my Affliction.’ We have been sorely afflicted, friends." Murmurs of agreement arose from the others. "We have been afflicted because we strayed from the Law and allowed vain and foolish men to lead us into evil.

"But friends, we must have a clear and strong persuasion of a future state. We must be heartily willing to wait for the fulfillment of all the promises of the Covenant of God until our arrival at that world, where we shall have all the spiritual blessings of the heavenly places bestowed upon us. We should be content and patiently and cheerfully allow of it that we are willing to let our crucifixion go on with a perpetual succession of pains without any prospect of any relief, but at and by the hour of our death."

Zechariah looked at the faces around him in the flickering firelight. There were tears in some eyes. "Let us pray." He bowed his head. Silently and earnestly, he begged God to favor him with a Particular Faith, a sign of prophecy granted to the faithful, an intimation perhaps transmitted by an angel, that a particular prayer would be answered. He begged the Lord to give him some sign of what they should do.

After a full two minutes of silent prayer, Zechariah raised his head and looked around the cave. "Well?" he asked, looking into the assembled faces to see if the Lord might have favored someone else with a Faith. Some smiled, some nodded their heads, but there was no Faith there today.

"That was a fine sermon, Zechariah," one of the men said.

Zechariah felt better. Prayer, even prayer that was not answered immediately, was good for him. The small cooking fires glowed dimly. The survivors had managed to salvage much of the personal belongings they'd taken with them after the schism on the night of the disaster, so they were not without some food and clothing and tools.

To reduce the volume of smoke from the fires, they used a native plant whose roots burned slowly and generated little smoke. Their meager food supply was supplemented with the small lizardlike creatures that abounded in the caves.

Silently, Consort ladled Zechariah a small bowl of thin stew, which he sampled halfheartedly. But he finished the stew quickly, more hungry than he had thought, and set the empty bowl down. "We need some salt to cover up the taste of this grit."

"And running water," Consort added. Since they did not have a running water supply in the caves, their eating utensils had to be cleaned with sand from the floor, so all the food was gritty. The water they drank came from a tiny, intermittent trickle far back in the depths of the cave. The flow was precarious, and the spring water had had to be rationed. No one had bathed in a week. "Zach," she continued contemplatively, "I never knew how ‘rich’ we were, back in New Salem. We had good food, a roof over our heads, running water . . ." her voice trailed off.

"And the Lord was with us," Zechariah added automatically. Then he started and a strange expression came over his face.

"Zach! What is it?" Consort reached out a hand and laid it on her husband's shoulder.

Zechariah stood. "Connie, it is time for us to go back to the camp." He turned from his fire and strode to the center of the cave. "Listen, everyone! Come to me. I am going back to the camp. Who will go with me?"

The others shuffled into a rough semicircle around where Zechariah stood. All remained silent for a moment, the firelight casting huge shadows upon the cavern walls and flickering over their impassive faces. "The Lord will go with us, as He always has," Zechariah added quietly.

They were all afraid, he could see it in their eyes. Then: "I will," Hannah Flood announced loudly. She looked at the others.

"As will I," Amen Judah volunteered, nodding at his wife Abigail, who involuntarily held out a restraining hand but then took it back immediately. She bit her lip to hold back her tears.

"And I too, Father," said Comfort Brattle, Zechariah's daughter.

Zechariah started involuntarily. "You are too young," he protested.

"I am twenty, Father, and strong and not afraid . . . well, not afraid to go with you," she added.

Zechariah hesitated. It would not be fair to the others if he rejected his own blood for what would appear to be the sake of saving it. He had always advocated a person's responsibility to the community. If Comfort had the courage to volunteer, then he would take her. "That's it, then. The four of us will go," he announced.

"There are enough elders to remain behind to take care of the children, if we don't . .

. don't . . ." his voice trailed off. It seemed the other members breathed a sigh of relief as they came forward individually to wish the party well.

"Zach," Amen said, "I suggest we leave tonight."

"Yes," Hannah added. "Let us go as we came, in easy stages, moving in the darkness. We can get water on the second day, at the pond we passed coming up here. We won't need much food."

Zechariah put his arm around his daughter and drew her close as he talked to the other two. "Good. Let us take with us whatever tools we can use as weapons. We have some knives among us." He knew perfectly well that the few knives they had would be useless if whoever had attacked the camp returned, but knives were all they had, and the possession of even those useless tools might give them some slight confidence.

"Father! Let me come too!" Samuel shouted. He had come back from his post at the cavern's mouth, attracted by the sound of the meeting his father had called.

"No!" Amen Judah shouted. He looked at Zechariah. "No," he continued more softly, "you must stay with the rest. We cannot spare all our manpower on this venture."

"You have left your post, Samuel. Get back to it at once," Zechariah said. When Samuel made no move to return to the cavern entrance, his father stepped up to where he stood, seized him by the arm and dragged him back. "Boy, you are a watcher! You watch. You observe. You report what you see out there. You do not leave this spot until relieved by another watcher. The next time I give you an order, dammit, you will obey it, understand?" Zechariah breathed heavily as he spoke.

Samuel looked up at his father in astonishment and with a twinge of fear. He had never heard him speak that way before. The tone of command was a dimension to his father's personality he did not know. "We are like soldiers now, son," Zechariah continued in a gentler voice. "Like those Confederation Marines you admire so much, we obey our orders."

Zechariah looked at his son. He will grow into a handsome man, he thought. "You are my only son. If Comfort and I do not return, it will be on you to continue the Brattle name, Sam." He put both hands on the boy's shoulders. "Until we are all out of this trouble, I am counting on you."

Back with the others again, Zechariah suggested that since it was hours before sundown, they should get some rest to prepare for the long night's trek. He took his place on a pallet beside his daughter. As he was about to fall asleep, Comfort nudged him. "Father?"

"Yes, daughter, what is it?"

"Father, this idea to go back to the camp now, did it come to you as a Particular Faith?"

Zechariah sighed resignedly. He recognized that tone in her voice. Sometimes Comfort's orthodoxy was questionable. "Daughter, don't bug me now, okay?"

The campsite was a vast shambles. Flesh-eating scavengers had fed sumptuously on what remained of the dead, but there was enough left to . . .

"No power of our world could have done this," Amen whispered as the four stood, awestruck, on the sea edge of their old camp. The huge meeting tent was collapsed, its prefabricated plastic sections looking as if they had been melted.

Vehicles lay overturned everywhere, and the ground was littered with clothing and personal possessions. Everywhere lay evidence of human remains—not the complete bodies of recognizable persons, but piles of bones and desiccated flesh that had once been human beings. Flying things that had been feeding when the quartet arrived hopped and scrabbled away as the humans moved forward, clutching their knives fearfully.

"Do not be afraid," Zechariah whispered. "If the Lord did not want us to be here, we could never have come this far."

"Is anyone alive?" Hannah shouted. The others started at the sound of her voice but then they all took up the call. Their voices echoed eerily through the deserted groves and among the abandoned equipment. Flocks of scavengers took flight at the sound, swirling upward to perch in the trees, releasing rivulets of varicolored excrement in their excitement. Zechariah shuddered as he realized what that stuff had once been.

"Thank God, we must be alone," Comfort whispered.

"Thank God for a lot of things," Hannah replied.