Shadow of Heaven

Chapter Six

One of the armored guards laid down his spear and shield, and he approached a projection on the He’s boundary wall. He caught it and twisted with both hands. The two guards -behind Stirling urged him forward, and he realized the hideous truth: there was a door in the wall! Beyond the threshold there would be nothing but clouds and black, hungry air.

He fought grimly, but the men behind him were made of steel. They hurled him against the unlocked door; it gave way, and he reeled through.

There was an explosion of brilliance.

Stirling found himself standing in a rolling green pasture. The pure sunlight of a new morning glittered on its streams, dew-hung trees, and emerald scimitars of grass. Some part of him which had been asleep for a long, long time responded to the scene with grateful recognition— this was Heaven, the real Heaven. He heard footsteps nearby and looked around. A tall man with graying hair and a youthful, strangely familiar face was approaching. Stirling hesitated, disbelieving, then he ran forward to clasp the man’s outstretched hand.

“Father!”

The man smiled. “I knew you would find me, son. Welcome.” Stirling nodded, unable to speak for the tumult of emotion in his chest; then a cold shadow of dread loomed over him. There was something he had to say. Something terrible.

“Father,” he said dully. “I have a brother now.” His father’s features seemed to dissolve and flow, reforming in lineaments of bleakness. In his eyes Stirling read anger, accusation—and rejection. Stirling shrank away, but his father caught him by the arms. His fingers locked into the flesh with deadly purpose.

“Take it easy,” the voice said. “Take it easy and you won’t get hurt.”

Stirling opened his eyes. He was lying on the ground and looking up into a night sky in which several needle-sharp stars flew in formation through lacy clouds. Two dark figures loomed over him, and he could feel their hands exploring his body, thieving his pockets. He swore and tried to throw the black shapes aside; but his arms were tied with cords which cut deeply into the muscle and made effective movement impossible.

“I told you to relax,” the same voice said. “Don’t be stupid.”

“He seems clean.” The second voice was husky and more kindly. “I think he’s a new member.”

“What about the uniform?”

“What about it? He wouldn’t be the first.”

“Well… We’ll keep him tied up till Jaycee has a look at him.”

“You and that Jaycee,” the husky one replied scornfully. “You haven’t got to do what he says, Dix. You know, we gave in to him too easily .. .”

“Yeah? I didn’t see you trying to stop him, Paddy. Where were you when he was beating Luciano’s head in?” “I’m just saying. That’s all.”

“Well, if you’ve finished saying, get this guy to his feet and back to the stockade.”

The two men dragged Stirling upright and pushed him into walking. He set off submissively, wondering just how much more hellish it would be possible for Heaven to get. For a second or two, he had been relieved to waken from the strange dream about his father; but this was even worse. His arms were trussed to his sides, he felt sick, and his head was ringing with steady pulses of pain as though somebody was still hitting it. He decided to make sure he could still speak.

“Which one of you two clubbed me back there?”

“I did,” said the one called Dix. “What are you planning to do about it?” “Nothing yet. But I’ve a good memory for names.” Dix laughed. “Is that a fact?”

“Yes,” Stirling said evenly. “Specially when they’re attached to sadistic little ticks like you.”

Dix rounded on him instantly, but Stirling kept walking, brushing the smaller man into his wake. He tensed, expecting a blow from behind; but Paddy dropped back too, and the two men had a whispered argument. Stirling got time to examine his surroundings. They were walking south along a wide margin between the lie’s boundary wall on the left and the black-looking plots of vegetation on the right. The starlight showed the rails for the agricultural robots running out from the line of the soil beds and most of the way across the open space. Between the rails were tanks and pits of varying sizes, and some of the uncovered tanks were filled with water. From the pits came the stench of decay Stirling had noticed earlier; and, looking ahead down the line, he again saw the insubstantial luminosity swirling in the air above them. Dim memories of school texts stirred in his mind. Rotted organic matter was used for soil enrichment; and in the special circumstances which existed on the He the gases emitted could be phosphorescent.

That was one thing explained, but who were the two men who had jumped him? Where were they taking him? Was it possible—the idea shocked Stirling—that there was a group of rebels on the He? Men who had opted out of society because they hated the Compression so much, that they preferred to spend their lives skulking on the huge raft like rats in a granary? Stirling had to force himself to accept the concept of a man becoming so disgusted with normal life that he would, through choice, live as a savage in the alien, inhuman world of the He. After all, his own brother had done it—unless Duke Bennett had tricked him to his death. The half buried skull was evidence that death was not unknown up here.

His jumbled thoughts were interrupted by the sight of a glimmer of reddish light far ahead. He kept his eye on it as they picked their way along the margin for perhaps another mile; and, as he drew nearer, Stirling saw other flecks of orange glowing in the darkness.

“What is this?” He spoke as casually as possible. “How many of you are up here?”

“He doesn’t sound like a new member to me,” Dix said to his companion as he ignored Stirling’s questions.

“We’ll see. It’s all Jaycee’s responsibility now, isn’t it?” Paddy still sounded aggrieved; and Stirling realized that, even though the inhabitants of the He had shed all ties with society, their little community had internal pressures of its own. They reached the first of the small fires, and he saw figures crouched around the embers. Their faces turned curiously as he went by with his two escorts. The dim light showed low, tent-like structures covered with leaves. Cooking smells drifted around him—richer than the most expensive perfumes—and somewhere in the darkness he heard what was unmistakably a woman’s laughter, shocking him with its incongruity. A village, he thought, a complete Stone Age village, supported on anti-gravity units in a world of metal dinosaurs. The idea was incredible, yet it seemed there must be dozens of rebels hiding out on the He.

In the center of the village was a larger structure—composed in part of discarded machine casings—which was almost tall enough to let a man to stand up in its doorway.

“Wait here,” Dix said. Suddenly respectful, he went to the entrance and tapped gently on a hard surface. “Jay-cee,” he called into the darkness. “I got somebody here for you to look at. He’s wearing a uniform.”

There was a movement inside the hut, and Stirling felt stirrings of premonition, a kind of psychic pressure. The man who emerged was as tall as Stirling, but with the hard, flat-planed body of an athlete. His face was handsome except for the faint slackness of the muscles around the mouth, which often can be seen on a person who is dumb. The ruddy light from the fire glinted on the circular voice box attached to his throat.

Stirling smiled easily, aware that he was adopting the familiar big-brother attitude in a reflexive defense against a situation which alarmed him.

“Hello Johnny,” he said, and moved his arms helplessly in their bindings. “Sorry I can’t shake hands with you.”