Shining Steel

Chapter Two

“Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you."-Matthew 7:7

John looked at the little group in disgust. Out of perhaps as many as two hundred villagers, only two dozen had been fit to question by the time his men had finally calmed down. He saw just five warriors; the rest were evenly divided between men too old to fight and women of various ages.

Many others were still alive, of course-virtually all the children had survived, and most of the women. John disapproved of interrogating children, and few women were fit to question after a night of beatings and gang rape. Most of the men in the village had insisted on fighting to the death.

“J'sevyu, friends,” he announced. “We are good Christians, and mean you no harm; we ask your forgiveness for the violence done to you in the rage of battle, but we're fighting for the True Word and can't allow anyone to stand in our way.” He looked at the faces of the captives. Their expressions covered a wide range, from fury to sullen resignation, from dull apathy to intense interest. He had seen such faces before, but they never failed to fascinate him. He tried, as he had tried before, to decide what he himself would feel in such a position, but as always, he simply could not imagine ever being a defeated prisoner. He told himself that in a hopeless situation such as that the villagers had faced, he would have surrendered quickly-after all, he who surrenders lives to fight again, and fighting on against impossible odds would be suicide, and suicide is a mortal sin. Surrender would be the only reasonable thing to do in such a position. Still, he absolutely could not conceive of what he would feel when he had actually done so. As yet, he had never faced such a situation.

“I'm sure you all know what will happen to you now; you'll be taken back to our homeland, where you'll be put to work and taught the way of the People of the True Word and Flesh. When you've accepted the True Word into your hearts, you'll join us as free and equal partners in the crusade to bring enlightenment to those who, even here on Godsworld, have strayed from the only true path to God's kingdom. I know that right now you're all hurt, you're suffering the deaths of your loved ones and the loss of your homes, you're probably full of hate for my men and for me, but I'm asking you to rise above that hurt and that hatred, to accept what's happened and to accept the True Word that we bring you. I'm no preacher, I'm not an Elder; I'm just a soldier. I can't teach you the way. But I can tell you that ours is the one true path, and that you can follow it with us. It'll help if you cooperate with us now, if you forgive as much as you can of what we've had to do to bring you your eventual salvation, if you can put aside your mistaken loyalties of the past and answer our questions as best you can."

Few of the expressions changed. He had expected that. He had made such speeches before, and only the youngest ever seemed moved by them. He smothered a sigh of disappointment. The aftermath of a battle was always depressing. He loved the careful planning, the preparation, and the chaos of the actual fighting, but when it came time to divvy up loot, bury the dead, and deal with the defeated enemy he invariably found himself hating every minute of it.

“All right, then, we're going to be taking you in one by one and asking a few simple questions. No harm will come to any of you, so long as somebody answers our questions. Those of you who refuse to answer-well, we'll note it down, and I can't say for sure what will happen if nobody answers us. Let's just see how it goes. You,” he said, pointing to an old man in the front row. “You first. Hab?"

Habakkuk nodded, and led the man out of the room. They had taken over what appeared to be an inn as their base of operations; John had made his speech in the common room, and interrogations were to be carried out in the kitchen. Several carving knives had been neatly laid out on a side table; neither John nor any of his men intended to use them, but simply having them visible there would be a powerful threat.

John signalled to the men guarding the rest of the prisoners, then followed his lieutenant and his captive into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. Those few guards had been chosen as being the least-exhausted, least-battered of the invading company, but his last glimpse of them was not reassuring; two were leaning back against the wall, swords hanging down loosely.

In the kitchen Habakkuk had already seated the old man on the hard stone-capped stool they had selected earlier. “Well, mister,” he said, “what's your name?"

“Joseph Walker-in-the-Valley,” the old man replied. “And that's the last of your darned questions I'm going to answer."

“No need to be like that; we aren't planning to hurt anybody. At least, not anyone around here. We're at war with those heathen filth who call themselves the Chosen of the Holy Ghost; can you tell us anything about them? Any of them been around here lately?"

“I don't plan to answer that."

Habakkuk looked up at John, then glanced over at the display of knives. He shrugged.

“Whatever you like, Mr. Walker. So you don't know anything about the Chosen."

“Didn't say that."

“Do you know something, then?"

“Won't tell you."

The conversation went on in that vein; after a minute or so Habakkuk switched topics, and began asking about the machine gun.

“Caught you with your pants down, didn't we?” Walker-in-the-Valley gloated.

Habakkuk shrugged again. “Didn't do you any good, though, did it?” He waved at the heavy closed door and the table of knives. “You're here just the same. Wherever you folks found that gun, you might just as well have left it there."

“Who says we found it?"

“Well, if someone sold it to you and told you it would protect you, you got swindled. You tell us where you got it, and we'll see about putting it right."

“Won't tell you."

Habakkuk sighed, and continued.

After about fifteen minutes, Joseph Walker-in-the-Valley had refused to say anything about the Chosen, the machine gun, the village leaders (if any), even the weather. With a final frustrated sigh, Habakkuk noted this down and dragged the old man back to the common room.

“This one stays,” he called to the guards. Then he pointed at random at another prisoner. “You next, please; come on back."

John had watched the whole thing silently. He watched the second interview, with a warrior named Luke Bathed-in-Blood, just as silently, and the third, and the fourth. None of them yielded any useful information. The village leaders were dead, according to two of the prisoners, but John and Habakkuk had already expected that-heretic leaders usually fought to the death, since they knew they would be executed anyway for leading their people astray. Nobody admitted to knowing anything about the Chosen other than that they were there, and on the verge of war with the People of the True Word and Flesh. Both groups being heretics, as they saw it, the villagers hadn't paid much attention.

Nobody was saying anything about the machine-gun. That subject alone brought either silence or refusal from every prisoner.

Every prisoner, that is, until a young woman who gave her name as Miriam Humble-Before-God.

“Where was that machine-gun found?” Habakkuk asked, after a few preliminary questions.

“It wasn't found anywhere!” Miriam spat back.

Habakkuk stared at her coldly; John suppressed his reaction, forcing himself to remain silent.

“Then where did it come from, if it wasn't found somewhere?"

“The elders bought it, of course-and if they'd had any brains they'd have bought more weapons with it, and shot all of you, instead of just a few!"

“A few?” Habakkuk stared at her, quietly enraged. “Thirty-one of our men and twenty-six horses were killed by that infernal weapon, and more were wounded."

“They deserved it, attacking a neutral village!"

“There are no neutrals, only the People of the True Word and the heretics.” He was in control of himself again. “Where did they buy it? Were there other weapons for sale?"

“They bought it in Little St. Peter, I heard."

“Where is that?"

Miriam stared at him in surprise. “Don't you know?"

“Just tell me where it is."

“I don't know; I'm just a village woman, I don't travel. Somewhere east of here, I guess."

Habakkuk glanced at John; he nodded slightly. “All right,” Habakkuk continued. “They bought the machine gun in Little St. Peter. Where did the people in Little St. Peter get it? Did anyone say? Did they find an ancient cache, or was someone hoarding this one gun?"

“They bought it from the People of Heaven, of course; it's not ancient."

“Oh?"

“Heck, no! You think we'd trust our lives to some rusty antique? That machine-gun was brand-new!"

“And your village elders bought this brand-new machine-gun from the folks in Little St. Peter, and they bought it from the People of Heaven?"

“That's what I heard."

“So where did the People of Heaven come by it, then?"

“They built it, I'd reckon-and they've built plenty more, I'm sure, and when you go up against them you'll get your heads shot off, just the way you deserve!"

Habakkuk glanced at John, then at the display of knives, then back at the woman. “You think they built it?"

“Somebody must have, and from what I've heard, the People of Heaven are the ones to do it."

Habakkuk leaned back on his chair. “And just what have you heard?"

The woman was suddenly quiet. “Not much."

“How much?"

“Really, not much; just that the People of Heaven are running a protectorate, with maybe twenty or thirty villages signed up in some kind of a pact without any conversions or tithes that I've heard of, and that they've got the guns and other stuff to make it work."

“Where'd you hear this?"

Defensive, Miriam said, “Well, the elders were thinking about joining, maybe; I heard my daddy talking, that's all."

“Your daddy was one of the elders?"

“Until one of your men cut his throat, he was."

“He wanted to join this protectorate?"

“I didn't say that; he voted against it. The others were all for it, said look how well Little St. Peter's doing, but Daddy thought we were just fine the way we were, and he didn't trust the People of Heaven. He thought we could get along fine as we always had, didn't think anyone would ever bother us.” Her voice broke. “I guess he was wrong.” She snuffled, all her earlier defiant appearance gone.

Habakkuk looked at John again.

He, in turn, looked at the girl. She was about twenty, he judged, of medium height and pleasantly plump, with soft brown hair that was currently dirty and tangled; a large bruise covered one cheek. She had apparently not escaped the soldiers’ attentions, but all in all did not seem to have suffered excessively. “Is that all you know about the People of Heaven?” John asked.

“That's all."

“How long have they been running this protectorate thing?"

“I don't know; a year or two, I guess."

“You ever hear about them, Hab?"

“Not that I recollect,” Habakkuk replied.

John had in fact heard of them vaguely; one of the Elders had said something when preparing this expedition, though did not remember exactly who it had been. The People of Heaven had recently appeared on the scene in the southeastern hills, down toward Judah; nobody seemed to know their heritage exactly, so the Elders of the True Word and Flesh assumed they were a new group, gathered by a new false prophet who had somehow won adherents to his particular brand of heresy without any claim to birthright ministry. Such false prophets had arisen from time to time in the history of Godsworld; usually their cults fell apart as soon as the leader died.

The People of the True Word and Flesh had no quarrel with the People of Heaven, so far as John knew-other than the fact that, like all groups except his own, the People of Heaven were heretics, fallen from the True Path-but for his own part he disliked protectorates. The idea of villages and towns banding together as a mere business arrangement, without sharing one faith and without proving their value in battle, seemed wrong, somehow. A nation was meant to be a single people, united in their beliefs, and who had tested the strength of those beliefs against their enemies. God promised the final victory to the righteous-but how could the righteous triumph if their enemies banded together against them? And a league or protectorate could not possibly all be righteous, if its people were not in accord with one another.

Of course, most protectorates and alliances fell apart quickly enough; the stronger ally would absorb the weaker, or the client states would betray the protector or rebel against him. John saw the workings of God in such events. The mighty shall be cast down, he thought, so that the People of the True Word and Flesh may triumph.

He fully expected that his people would in time unite all of Godsworld in a single faith, as it had been when first men came there from Earth. The People of the True Word and Flesh were strong, because they had the true faith-and they knew theirs to be the true faith because it made them strong. Theirs would be the kingdom and the glory, John knew.

If the People of Heaven were really making machine-guns, however, the day of that kingdom's coming might be long delayed, indeed.

How could they be making machine-guns? Quite aside from the lost knowledge involved, and the unheard-of machining skills, where were they getting the powder? Had the legendary mother lode of sulphur finally been found?

Or was it the brimstone of Hell itself they used? Perhaps the People of Heaven were the armies of Satan, come to subvert Godsworld as they did Earth, so long ago. John had heard a heretic explain once that the reason Godsworld had no sulphur to make gunpowder was that sulphur was a product of Hell, and Godsworld was too close to Heaven for such things. Certainly Earth had been closer to Hell, and sulphur was said to be cheap and plentiful there.

But then, many things were said to be plentiful back on Earth-sulphur and iron and plastic, and varieties of plants and animals. The stories told of a black stone that could be burned like nearwood, called coal, and black oil that came from the ground; Godsworld had nothing like that. Undoubtedly Godsworld had its share of things Earth had not.

None of that concerned him at present, however. The machine-gun did.

“We'll want to send someone to Little St. Peter to see if she's telling the truth,” he said.

Habakkuk frowned. “We don't have many men to spare for that,” he replied.

“If they're really building machine-guns over there, we'd better find out about it as soon as possible."

“True enough,” Habakkuk admitted grudgingly.

John looked at Miriam with interest; she stared back defiantly. “Why did you tell us all this?” he asked.

“Because I want you to go and see for yourselves-and get your heads blown off by the People of Heaven."

“You're sure that's what'll happen?"

“No, I'm not sure-I'm just hoping."

“We'll send someone,” John said with clear finality. “Call the next prisoner and get someone to take this woman to my quarters; I want to keep her close at hand."

Habakkuk glanced at John, then looked Miriam over. She wasn't to his taste-he preferred his women short, blonde, and full-chested-but she wasn't bad. He doubted that the captain's interest was strictly military.

That was all right, though; a man had his own life to lead, as well as his duties. He went to call the next prisoner.