The Final Encyclopedia

Chapter Twenty-eight

A scant thirty-one of the Command that had counted over a hundred members when it left the Mohler-Beni farm drove a struggling line of donkeys, of which only two were unloaded, through the dripping woods. The late spring of Harmony North Continent had turned unseasonably cold here at an altitude four thousand feet higher than the rich farmland through which they had passed only a week and a half before; and three days now of intermittent, icy rain had soaked everything human or animal not protected by impermeable coverings, chilling them all to the bone.

They had stripped themselves of anything not immediately necessary. They were down to only a dozen tents, in which they slept three or four together, rather than two, and a few donkey-loads of the kind of food that could be eaten without cooking, out of the hand, on the march. They were nearly all staggering with exhaustion and most were hot with fever. Some respiratory illness had run wild among them since Masenvale; coughing sounded continually up and down their column as, fiery-eyed and dry-skinned wherever the frequent downpours had not found a crevice in their ancient raingear, they plodded through the underbrush of the high foothills.

None of them looked as skeletally close to death as Child-of-God. Yet he continued to move, holding his place in the column and performing his duties as First Officer. The penetrating harshness of his voice had sunk to a near-whisper; but what he said was what he had always said, without difference or admission of weakness.

Of them all, Hal and Rukh appeared to be in the best shape. But they were both among the younger members of the diminished Command to begin with; and each, in his or her own way, seemed to possess a unique personal strength. Hal burned with fever and coughed with the others, but there was a reserve of energy in him that even he was surprised to find - as if he had uncovered a mechanism by which he could continue to burn himself internally for fuel until the last scrap of his bone and flesh had been consumed.

In the case of Rukh, an inner flame that had nothing to do with a self-consummation of her physical body appeared to promise to keep her going until the richly-yellow orb of Epsilon Eridani, now hidden by the weeping cloud cover overhead, should become cindered and cold. Like all the rest of them, she had lost weight, until she might have been the look-alike grandchild of Obadiah or Child-of-God; but this seemed in no way to have lessened her. That inner flame of hers glowing through her dark skin seemed to shine before them like a lamp in the night; and she was more beautiful than ever in her present leanness and fatigue.

They had escaped being caught by the jaws of the trap Barbage had planned to close upon them - jaws that consisted of his own Militia and those he had sent ahead into the woods three days march before them, to come back and assist his own unit in encircling them beyond any possibility of escape. But the Command had slipped out to freedom by bare meters of distance rather than kilometers. Since then, Barbage had pursued them with a unyielding steadiness, resupplying and remanning his Militia ranks constantly, so that fresh troops were at all times on their heels.

They were given no chance to rest or reorder themselves; and by ones, twos and threes, individual members had faltered in their weariness, or sickened, and been sent away from the main body to try and make their solitary escape as best they might. With them had gone nearly all the spare equipment and donkeys - everything that could be done without, except the bare means of continuing to flee and the sacks of gunpowder and fertilizer that Rukh refused to give up.

She would not admit that escape from this unending hunt was impossible. It seemed that while the lamp burned eternally in her she could not; and her utter refusal to consider any other end to their situation than the accomplishment of their mission hauled the remaining members of the Command forward as if her will was a rope tying them all physically together. Even Hal, who from his Exotic training had the ability to stand aside from her effect upon them, ended by letting himself be deeply seized and moved by it, almost to the point of forgetting his own life and purpose - the purpose he knew must be there, but which he had yet to see clearly - to join in that which Rukh clearly put before all other goals.

Thinking of this, even through the fog of his fever and aching muscles, there came to him finally on wings of insight largely slowed by fatigue the commonplace realization that the great charismatic power of Others like Bleys Ahrens derived not from any special combination of Dorsai and Exotic influences, but solely from the culture of the Friendlies, in its utter absorption with the power to convince and convert. It came as a shock to him, for in spite of knowing Obadiah, he had not been unaffected with the common idea that of the three great Splinter Cultures, the Friendlies had the least in practical powers to offer from the special talents developed by their culture. And - like the final part of a firing mechanism clicking into place to make the whole weapon operative and deadly, it woke in him that in this obvious reason lay the mechanism that had made possible the Others' sudden explosive rise to power behind the scenes on all the worlds except the Dorsai, the Exotics and Earth.

The point that had always puzzled everyone about the achievement of that power had been the repeatedly acknowledged fact that the Others were so very few. Granted, they had chosen to model their organization on the large criminal networks of centuries past, so that they influenced those with power to gain their ends, rather than holding power themselves. Still - in terms of the few thousand that they were, compared to the billions of ordinary humans on the inhabited worlds, even that concept did not explain how they maintained their control. Those they controlled personally were in such large relative numbers that it would be an overwhelming job for the Others just to keep track of replacements being made in their positions, let alone make a fresh effort to convert to an Others-follower each new official. But, thought Hal now, if they could send forth non-Others as disciples, whose own sparks of talent for making such conversions had been fanned by Other efforts into roaring flames, such control became not merely possible, but reasonable.

If that was the explanation for Other success, then it also explained their concern with controlling Harmony and Association; as well as the reason for those two worlds' sudden explosion of activity into interworld commerce within the last twenty or so standard years - an activity which in earlier centuries the Friendlies had scorned except when necessity drove them to a need for the things that only interstellar credits could buy.

Something within the formless movement of Hal's unconscious seemed to register the importance of the conclusion he had just achieved. But there was no leisure to ponder the matter any further, now. If he lived and had the chance, he could check out his discovery. If not, nothing would be changed. Only, he could not bring himself to believe that he would not survive. Either the idea was simply not possible to him, or else his absorption of the uniquely Dorsai attitude of Malachi had dyed the inability to give up into his very bones and soul beyond any laundering. Like Rukh, with her goal of destroying the Core Tap power station, he could not turn aside from the goal he had chosen; and, since death would be a form of turning-aside, death was also not to be considered.

Up ahead of him, the next man in line came to an unexpected, staggering halt; and, having halted, sank down as if his body had suddenly lost all strength in its muscles. Hal moved up and past him.

"What is it?" Hal asked.

The man merely shook his head, his eyes already closed and his breathing beginning to deepen into the slow, heavy rhythm of sleep. Hal went on up, past donkeys and past other members of the team, men and women slumped down where they had ceased moving, some of them already snoring.

At the head of the column, he found Rukh, still on her feet, helping Tallah off with her pack.

"Why the stop?" said Hal, and cleared his throat against the hoarseness in his voice.

"They needed a halt - a short one, anyway." Rukh got the pack all the way off and bent to examine a hole rubbed in the back of Tallah's heavy checked green workshirt. "We can pad it," she said, "and change the dressing again. But it's turning into a regular ulcer. You shouldn't be carrying a pack at all, with that."

"Fine," said Tallah. "I'll leave it off, then, and the pack can trot along behind me on its own little legs."

"All right," said Rukh, "go see Falt and get a new dressing put on the sore; then you and he figure out what you want to do about putting a better pad on your pack harness. We'll be up and moving again in ten minutes."

Tallah reached for the straps of her pack with her left hand, lifted it clear of the ground, and carrying it that way at ankle-height, headed back down the column toward Falt.

Rukh's eyes went to meet Hal. They stood, made private for a moment by the distance between them and the next closest members of the Command.

"We had a break only thirty-five minutes ago," said Hal.

"Yes," she said, more quietly, "but in any case we had to stop now, and I didn't want to upset the Command any more than they are already. Come along."

She led him off into the woods. As soon as the vegetation screened them from sight, she turned left to parallel the column and led the way down alongside it for half a dozen meters. Following her, in spite of the preparation for this moment he had had in events of the past few weeks, it struck Hal like a physical blow to see James Child-of-God, seated on the ground on a rain jacket, with his back propped against the trunk of a large variform maple tree.

Child's face against the rutted bark of the tree, stained dark by the rain, was itself dark and carved, like old wood left too long in the rain and weather. His clothes, even the bulky, outer rain gear, lay limply upon him; so that it was unmistakable how thin he had become in these last few weeks. His forearms rested on his upper thighs, wrists and hands half-turned up, as if they had simply fallen strengthless there under the weight of Harmony's gravity. Legs, arms and body lay utterly still. Only his eyes, sunk deep in their bony hollows beneath the gray brows and above the still-impeccably shaven lower face, showed signs of life and were unchanged. They regarded Rukh and Hal calmly.

"I will stay here," he said, huskily.

"We can't afford to lose you," Rukh's voice was cold and bitter.

"Thou canst not wait for me to rest at the cost of letting the Militia catch thee - as they will within the hour if thou dost not move on," Child said. His words came in little runs and gasps, but steadily. "And it would be a sin to burden Warriors further with someone useless. It is not as if this is a sickness from which I may recover, if the Command supports me for a while. My sickness is age - that only grows more so as we wait. I could go a little further - but to what purpose? It will be honey to my heart rather to die here, with the enemies of God before me, knowing I still have strength to take more than one of them with me."

"We can't spare you." Rukh's voice was even colder and harder than before. "What if something happens to me? There's no one to take over."

"How am I to take over now, when I can neither march nor fight? Shame on thee to think so poorly, who art Captain of a Command," said Child-of-God. "We are all of us no more than spring flowers, who bloom for a day only in His sight. If a flower dies, any other may take its place. Thou hast known this all thy life, Rukh; and it is the way matters have always stood in the Commands, or with those who testify for the Faith. No one is indispensable. So why shouldst thou miss or mourn me who cannot make a better end than this? It is unseemly in thee, as one of the Elect, to do either."

Rukh stood, staring at him and saying nothing.

"Think," said Child. "The day is advanced. If I can delay those who follow us by only one hour, night will be so close that they will have no choice but to stop where they are until morning. While you, knowing they will not follow, can change your route, now; and by morning they will have gone at least half a day in the wrong direction before they wake to their mistake. So you can gain a full day on them; and with a day's lead, perhaps, the Command can escape. It is your duty not to let pass that God-given chance."

Still Rukh stood, unmoving and unspeaking; and the silence following Child's long speech went on and on; until Hal suddenly realized that of the three people there he was the only one who could break it.

"He's right," Hal said, and heard the words sound tightly in his own throat. "The Command's waiting, Rukh. I'll give him a hand to make him comfortable here, then catch up."

Rukh turned her head slowly, as if against the stiff pressure of unwilling neck muscles, and stared at him for a long moment. Then she looked back at Child.

"James…" she said, and stopped. She took one step toward him and fell suddenly on both knees beside him. Stiffly, he put his arms around her and held her to him.

"We are of God, thou and I," he said, looking down at her, "and to such as us the things of this universe can be but shadows in smoke that vanish even as the eye sees them. I will be parted from thee only a little while - thou knowest this. My work here is done, while thine continues. What should it be to thee, then, if for a short time thou lookest about and seest me not? There is a Command that thou must guard, a Core Tap that thou must destroy, and enemies of God that must be confounded by thy name. Think of this."

She shuddered in his arms, then lifted her head, kissed him once and got slowly to her feet. She looked down at him and her face smoothed out.

"Not by my name," she said, softly. "Thine."

She gazed down at him and her back straightened. Her voice broke out again, suddenly, whiplashing through the sodden woods under the low-bellied sky with low-pitched intensity.

"Thou, James. When the Core Tap is closed and I am free at last, I will raise a storm against those we fight, a whirlwind of judgment in which none of them will be able to stand. And that storm will carry thy name, James."

She wrenched herself around and strode off swiftly, almost running. The two men watched her until low-hanging branches of the trees hid her from sight. Then their gazes came back together again.

"Yes…" said Hal, without really knowing why he said the word. He looked about, at the hilly, cut-up, overgrown land surrounding them. A little distance away, a small rise that was almost a miniature bluff showed between the wet-bright, down-turned leaves.

"Up there?" he asked, pointing.

"Yes." It was more pant than spoken word, and Hal, looking back at the older man, saw how prodigally he had plundered his remaining strength to send Rukh from him.

"I'll carry you up there."

"Weapons…" said Child, with effort. "My power pistol with the short barrel, to put inside my shirt. My cone rifle… rods of cones. Power packs…"

Hal nodded. The older man was now wearing only his customary holstered power pistol with full barrel and a belt knife.

"I'll get them," said Hal.

He went off through the trees. The Command had just gotten underway once more as he rejoined it; and none of its exhaustion-numbed members bothered to ask why he untied the donkey carrying Child's tent and personal equipment, and led it toward the rear of the moving column.

Reaching the end of the line of people and beasts, he kept going. When vegetation hid him at last from sight of the rearguard, he cut off into the brush and trees once more. A short way back, he found Child sitting where he had been left, and boosted him on top of the load the animal carried.

The donkey dug its hooves in under the double burden, and refused to be led. Hal let the older man off again, and led the animal alone to the little bluff. On top, it was ideal for a single marksman, its surface sloping backward from the edge of the almost vertical, vegetationless face that looked back in the direction the Militia would come. Hal unloaded Child's gear, set up the tent, and laid out food, water and the rest of the equipment within its dry interior. Then, with the donkey's load lightened considerably, he led it back down to where Child still waited.

This time, when the older man was lifted onto its back, the donkey made no objection; and Hal led it back up to the top of the bluff. He spread a tarp before the tent, just back from the lip of rock and earth overhanging the vertical slope, then helped Child down onto it.

"This, if necessary, I could still do myself," he said, as Hal put him on the tarp, "but what strength I have, I need."

Hal only nodded. He brought logs, rocks and tree branches to make a barricade just behind the lip, through which Child could shoot with some sort of protection against return fire.

"They'll try to circle you as soon as they realize you're alone," said Hal.

"True," Child smiled a little, "but first they will stop; and then talk it over before they come again; and when they do come, finally, still they will be cautious. By that time, I need only hold them a little while for the day to end."

Hal finished laying out the final things, the weapons, a water jug, and some dried food, beside the man who lay on the tarp, his eyes already focused upon the distance beyond the firing gap Hal had left in the barricade. Done, Hal lingered.

"Go," said Child, without looking up at him. "There's nothing more for thee to do here. Thy duty is at the Command."

Hal looked at him for a second more, then turned to go.

"Stop," Child said.

Hal turned back. The older man was looking away from the firing aperture and up at him.

"What is thy true name, Howard?" Child asked.

Hal stared at him.

"Hal Mayne."

"Look at me, Hal Mayne," Child said. "What dost thou see?"

"I see…" Hal ran strangely out of words.

"Thou seest," said Child, in a stronger voice, "one who has served the Lord God all his life in great joy and triumph and now goeth to that final duty which by divine favor is his alone. Thou wilt tell the Command and Rukh Tamani this, in just those words, when thou returnest to them. Thou wilt testify exactly as I say?"

"Yes," said Hal. He repeated the message Child had given him.

"Good," said Child. He lay gazing at Hal for a second longer. "Bless thee in God's name, Hal Mayne. Convey to the others that in God's name, also, I bless the Command and Rukh Tamani and all who fight or shall fight under the banner of the Lord. Now go. Care for those whose care hath been set in thy hands."

He turned to fix his eyes once more on the forest as seen through the firing slot in his barricade. Hal turned away also, but in a different direction, leaving James Child-of-God upon a small rise in a rain-saddened wood, awaiting his enemies - solitary, as he had always been; but also, as he had always been, not alone.