Starfist: Kingdom's Fury (41 page)

"Something very strange going on in town tonight, sir."

Spears grunted and rubbed his eyes. "This damned place is always strange, Prentiss. What's so out of the ordinary?"

"Jim Chang, one of our communications technicians? He's, ah, well, he's shacking with a girl who lives in Haven, sir."

"Contrary to all regulations and diplomatic protocol, but go on, Prentiss." Spears knew about Chang's love life, but he hadn't done anything about it because he despised the Ecumenical Council's rules against fraternization, and besides, the girl was devastatingly beautiful. If the Council were to find out and declare Chang persona non grata, he'd stand up for the man.

"She lives in the same street as Providence Warwick. At about 0330, Special Group men arrested him and his family. I thought you should know. And there's more, sir."

"Let's have it." Spears was fully awake now.

"The Collegium's been arresting other people, I don't know how many, but it seems they're all second-echelon personnel in the various sects. It looks like de Tomas is making a move, sir."

Jayben Spears's guts turned to ice. He knew very well what the Collegium did to people brought to Wayvelsberg. He began dressing. "It's my fault, Prentiss. I should have warned the Council earlier."

"But that is not our business, sir. This is an internal domestic affair. They would not have believed you anyway."

"When have I ever minded my own business? But yeah, I don't have a leg to stand on as the Confederation's figurehead down here. Well, get the car. We're going to visit all of these birds right now, I don't care what time it is. Goddamn," he said as he slipped on his shoes, "that de Tomas is brilliant, isn't he? Half the people are celebrating the end of the invasion, and the other half's attention is on the mop-up.

All the Army of the Lord forces are engaged in the mopping up, and the goddamn Ecumenical Council of Leaders is useless now anyway, so who'd miss them?"

Spears stood. "Prentiss, you drive. Let's take the mountain to Mohammed. Heigh ho!"

Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent did not look the same in the early morning light as he did in Council meetings or when he was preaching to his flock. His face was haggard and drawn and without his immaculately groomed pompadour, set aside for the night. Strands of scraggly reddish hair lay plastered to his head like chunks of pumpkin pie. Spears realized that the man must carefully prepare himself each day for his ministry, like an actor before going onstage. Alone like this in his private apartments, Ralphy Bruce was a mere shadow of his pulpit self.

"I don't believe it," he said after Spears had briefed him on what de Tomas was up to. His voice sounded weak and unsure. "Dominic follows the guidance of the Ecumenical Leaders," he added, as if reassuring himself. Secretly, he was delighted.

The Quakers were a nonconforming, interfering lot of troublemakers. High time the Collegium had a chat with people like Warwick.

"Bishop Ralphy Bruce, I assure you that you are in grave danger. I strongly recommend you seek refuge with me in Interstellar City," Ambassador Spears said at last.

The conversation went on for a few more minutes, until Spears was sure he was wasting his time and excused himself. "Prentiss, Cardinal Leemus O'Lanners is next.

Maybe he'll listen to reason."

Cardinal O'Lanners was at breakfast when Ambassador Spears was ushered into his presence. The cardinal offered Spears a seat and a plate, but he refused politely.

The breakfast table was heaped with food and wine cooling in buckets. Spears marveled that any man could eat so much at one setting, but judging from O'Lanners's girth, apparently he did.

"Breakfast, Mr. Ambassador! Most important meal of the day!" the Cardinal enthused. "Sure you won't join me?" When Spears refused, O'Lanners went back to devouring a mound of eggs. "Well, have a seat and some coffee, then," he said, waving a free hand at a chair while scooping up a rasher of bacon with the other hand.

"Your Eminence, I have news of the gravest importance. I believe you are in very serious danger," Spears began, and told him of Warwick's arrest.

"I bet he deserved to be arrested!" O'Lanners roared happily, pouring himself a glass of wine and gulping it down. He patted his lips with a napkin and burped gently. "Excuse me!" He chuckled. "Yes, old Warwick's been a pain in the ass for years, Mr. Ambassador. About time the Collegium talked to him."

"Eminence, I'm afraid he wasn't the only one," and Spears told him of other sectarians who'd been arrested.

O'Lanners waved a hand dismissively. "All radicals," he said. Privately, he was overjoyed. At last de Tomas was cracking down. He made a mental note to have his secretary send a memo to all his parishes to take up the long-banned proselytizing efforts. There might soon be some more souls looking for salvation. "You mustn't interfere, Mr. Ambassador, or be particularly concerned. The Collegium has the authority to detain apostates of all kinds, and that's all de Tomas is doing, I assure you."

"Eminence, I strongly urge you to come back to Interstellar City with me, now, and seek sanctuary in my embassy."

"What? Me seek sanctuary?" O'Lanners roared, leaning back and laughing heartily.

"No need of that, Mr. Ambassador. And now, sir, you must excuse me while I prepare for my postprandial devotions." He arose from the table and waddled out of the room.

The other interviews had the same results. The members of the Council of Ecumenical Leaders did not believe they were in danger from the Collegium.

Spears was slumped down in his seat as they drove into the embassy compound.

"Fools," he sighed, "all fools, Prentiss. They think these arrests are godsends for their own sects, ridding them of the competition, you see."

"And now what do we do, sir?"

"We have done what we can for those idiots, Prentiss. Now we're going to do something for us. We're going to my office and we're going to break out that bottle of bourbon the staff gave me for my birthday and we're going to get drunk."

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

"Archbishop General, are you still with me?" de Tomas asked. They sat in an anteroom on Mount Temple, minutes before the Convocation of Ecumenical Ministers was to start its momentous session. Archbishop General Lambsblood hesitated. "Are you?" de Tomas repeated, looking coldly at the commander of the Army of the Lord and thinking, The vacillating coward, he thinks he can defy me.

"Archbishop General," de Tomas went on calmly, "let me remind you of some things. Those men in there"—he nodded toward the chamber where what was left of Kingdom's entire religious leadership was already assembling—"betrayed you. It was they who asked those off-worlders," de Tomas spit the words out like an epithet, "to come here, and it was they who agreed, almost without protest, to put Brigadier Sturgeon in command of your forces. Therefore, it is they who are responsible for the slaughter of your army. They let the Marines use your men as cannon fodder.

And don't forget the day Sturgeon insulted you in their presence, called you a coward in front of them, and not one voiced an objection!

"I shall not remind you," de Tomas continued, "of what I do to my enemies or of what we agreed to that night at Wayvelsberg. Conversely, I do not need to remind you how generously I treat my friends. Your army is virtually destroyed and it must be rebuilt. Look at this."

He passed a sheet of paper across the table to Lambsblood, who picked it up. On it de Tomas had written a figure. Lambsblood looked at de Tomas questioningly.

"That, my dear Archbishop General, is the current strength of my Special Group.

Senior Stormleader Gorman," he nodded at Gorman, who sat to one side of the little room, his legs comfortably crossed, fingers drumming silently on a tabletop, "has been conducting an assiduous recruiting and training program that was started by his predecessor, who died recently of accelerated natural causes. My Special Group is the only viable combat force left on Kingdom. I repeat, your army has been severely depleted and must be rebuilt. I will do that. How would you rather live, taking your orders from those fools," he nodded again to the Great Hall, "or from me, your friend and benefactor?"

Where did he get all those men? Archbishop General Lambsblood wondered. Is he lying? Then he said, "I am with you, Dean de Tomas," and held out his hand.

"I am no longer ‘Dean.’" De Tomas smiled, taking Lambsblood's hand. "You will now call me ‘Leader.’ The Collegium is dissolved."

"Dissolved?" Lambsblood repeated in astonishment. "But there has always been a Collegium."

"Yes, but not after today," de Tomas answered airily. "I will have no time anymore for this religious sectarianism. I am into politics now. One more thing, Archbishop General—read this, it will be announced as one of my first proclamations." He handed Lambsblood a sheet of printed material:

FOR SPECIAL POLITICAL TASKS, WHICH CAN BE ASSIGNED TO

THE SPECIAL GROUP (SG) BY THE LEADER: (A) THE SG WILL

FORM AN ARMED STANDING MILITARY FORMATION

CONSISTING OF THE STRENGTH OF THREE REGIMENTAL

EQUIVALENTS AND ONE INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT UNDER

THE DIRECT COMMAND OF THE LEADER. THERE WILL BE NO

ORGANIZATIONAL CONNECTION TO THE ARMY OF THE LORD IN

PEACETIME. (B) IN CASES OF NECESSITY UP TO 25,000 MEN OF

THE SG CAN BE MOBILIZED FOR THE USE OF THE POLITICAL

POLICE. (C) IN TIME OF WAR IT IS AGREED THAT MEMBERS OF

THE SG WILL BE PLACED AT THE DISPOSAL OF THE ARMY OF

THE LORD, BUT UP TO 25,000 MEN WILL BE HELD BACK FOR THE

PURPOSE OF STRENGTHENING THE POLITICAL POLICE. (D) IN

PEACETIME THE MEMBERS OF THE SG WILL BE PREPARED FOR

THEIR WAR TASKS. (E) IN BOTH PEACE AND WAR, THE SG AND

THE ARMY OF THE LORD WILL FUNCTION UNDER THE DIRECT

ORDERS OF THE LEADER, TRANSMITTED TO ALL RANKS BY THE

APPROPRIATE SUBORDINATE COMMANDERS.

Lambsblood relaxed. "This is brilliant!" he exclaimed, though not fully grasping what it meant.

De Tomas smiled. It was brilliant. With this proclamation, he would create two independent but competing military bodies, both totally subordinate to the person of the Leader. That would assure that no one in either organization would get any ideas about usurping power for himself. It also left open the door for the eventual takeover of the Army of the Lord by the SG. Finally, it legalized a powerful and vastly expanded police force to search out and eliminate any political opponents who might arise in the future.

"All your men, Archbishop General, like the SG, shall swear their oath of loyalty to me personally, although in day-to-day operations and in the execution of orders they shall be subordinate to you as the army commander."

"Yes, Leader, that is wise," Lambsblood said enthusiastically. "Let me be the first to swear that oath!" He held up his right hand.

"Not at this moment, Archbishop General; we will have a formal ceremony for that purpose later." De Tomas laughed and stood up. "I hear the Convocation gathering.

It's time we three went out and took our places. Are the men ready, Senior Stormleader?" Gorman nodded and snapped to attention. De Tomas paused and then laughed again. "We shall now take our places, and then . . . then we shall take their places!"

"Prepare yourself for a huge ration of nonsense," Jayben Spears muttered to Carlisle Prentiss as the two sat in the rear of the Great Hall. "The leaders are going to announce an end to the emergency and no doubt give themselves all the credit for defeating the Skinks."

"No doubt," Prentiss agreed. He nudged Spears. "There's de Tomas, Lambsblood, and that other one, Gorman. Do you think de Tomas is ready to make his move?"

Spears glanced at the seats along one side of the Great Hall that were reserved for ministers and other government functionaries. "Not here, Prentiss. Too public. De Tomas is the kind who strikes in the night. Try not to laugh when old Shammar makes the announcements."

Despite the arrest of many sect leaders, the Great Hall was nearly filled to capacity.

Many minor functionaries and community leaders had been invited to hear the special victory announcement. But Spears still smarted over the events of that terrible night when the Special Group had arrested the sect leaders, especially the foolish and self-interested rejection of his warnings afterward by the five men who now sat smiling on the leaders' dais.

Ayatollah Jebel Shammar, the presiding leader of the session, called for order, and instantly the Great Hall was plunged into silence. "Brothers! I thank you for your attendance at this auspicious occasion! Allah has smiled upon us, brothers! We called this convocation to announce officially that the demon invaders have been expelled from our world! The military forces under the command of our dear brother, Archbishop General Lambsblood, with assistance from the Confederation Marines, have broken the back of the invaders and they have fled in confusion. We hereby proclaim a Worldwide Week of Thanksgiving. You may all now repair to your homes, your churches, your mosques, and give thanks to heaven for our salvation! You may now, in the confidence of your faith, proceed with the rebuilding of your lives and cities and the further propagation of your—"

The steady tramp, tramp, tramp of marching boots filled the cavernous hall as two long lines of heavily armed black-uniformed men of the Special Group filed in and took up positions along either wall, forming a cordon around the assembled leaders and their guests. The leaders on the dais sat with their mouths hanging open in astonishment while the guests whispered and gestured among themselves. Some thought the SG a guard of honor, others a special ceremonial formation to honor the veterans of the recently concluded war. None grasped what was about to happen.

Except Jayben Spears. "Good God, Prentiss, I was wrong!" he gasped.

Ayatollah Shammar looked to de Tomas, who rose and strode purposefully to the center of the stage on which the dais stood. A dozen SG men detached themselves from their positions along the side of the hall and marched to stand behind the leaders.