by Peter David
“Talila,” he started to say.
“Never again!” she reiterated more forcefully, and shut off the connection.
Killick leaned back in his chair and let out a slow sigh of dread.
“I dislike the way this matter is developing,” he said.
Talila sagged against the wall, shaking her head and murmuring, “No, no, please, no,” over and over again. From his room, Rab heard her and emerged, going to her and touching her leg gently.
“Mother?” he inquired. “What’s wrong?”
She looked down at him and then, rather than say anything, she took him up in her arms and rocked gently back and forth with him, all the time praying that what she feared could not possibly, under any circumstances, be the truth. She tried to tell herself that Killick had called her up out of some misplaced sense of spite. That the conclusions she was drawing could not possibly be accurate.
She told herself so many things, but the bottom line was that she was terrified. And she had never in her life felt more helpless.
XIII
THE HIGH PRIEST OF ALPHA CARINAE looked down from the high window in the Central Hall of Worship, and for the first time felt apprehension.
Then he quickly fought to rein in his concerns. It was absurd for him to worry, he realized. His personal safety was simply not a consideration. Everyone, even the relative barbarians of Alpha Carinae, knew his person was sacrosanct. Had they not had that reality drilled into them sufficiently when the Redeemers first arrived upon their world?
The High Priest remembered those first, glorious days. The Redeemers had a fairly standard method of operation. When they targeted a world for redemption, they would sweep in with the full force of their armada behind them. Any initial battle against the Redeemers would very quickly be snuffed out. The current religious leaders of the world were targeted for primary redemption: Either they would accept Xant as their one, true deity or, failing that, they were executed. Usually the Redeemer board of inquiry could determine very quickly whether or not there was going to be cooperation with the redemption. More often than not, there wasn’t. In the final analysis, it never really mattered.
Once the world had sworn allegiance to Xant, a High Priest was left in place. One was usually all that was needed, although occasionally two would be left in place on a particularly populous planet. In the case of Alpha Carinae, however, the one had been deemed more than sufficient.
Now the High Priest was beginning to wonder if that confidence had not been misplaced.
Whereas once he had walked the streets with impunity, now he found that the hostility that was greeting him was simply too much. No one had assaulted him; no one would possibly be that foolish. But he could feel the glares, the anger drilling into the base of his skull. Everywhere he went now, he heard the name of Calhoun being bandied about. Calhoun and the Excalibur. He was finding leaflets being handed out, some of them being brought to him by his spies, others pasted up on buildings with an audacity he once would not have thought possible.
Part of him wanted to contact the Overlord immediately, to tell him of the further disintegration of the situation on Alpha Carinae. Prime One had certainly been polite and responsive enough when he had sounded the initial warning. But he was concerned that, should he contact them as a follow-up so quickly, it might seem that he was weak and fearful. It was one thing to apprise the Overlord of a situation, as he had already done. It was quite another to run back to him repeatedly as if he, the High Priest, were unable to attend to his own territory.
One of his more trusted servants knocked on the door and waited politely for the High Priest to turn and face him. “There is a delegation here to see you, High One,” said the servant.
“A delegation?” The High Priest had been sitting, but he pulled himself to standing while leaning on his cane. “From whom, may I ask?”
“From the …” He paused and pulled out a piece of paper, clearly having written it down to make certain that he got it correct. “From the People’s Association for Peace.”
“A gentle name, certainly,” the High Priest acknowledged. “A name designed to put one at ease.” He tapped his staff thoughtfully. “One would almost assume that it is deceptively obvious that the name is created so as not to arouse suspicion. Nonetheless, we cannot allow our fears to govern us, can we? Send them in.”
The servant nodded once and walked out of the door. Less than a minute later, a group of four male Alphans entered, looking not particularly threatening. One of them, the High Priest immediately noted, was Saulcram. He looked none the worse for wear, considering the severe banging up he had received earlier.
“Gentlemen,” the High Priest said slowly, “to what do I owe the pleasure?”
The four men glanced at each other, as if needing to silently affirm one more time what it was that they wished to discuss. Saulcram took an unsteady step forward. Apparently he, the lucky devil, had been selected to serve as the group’s spokesman. “We have an … an issue that needs to be discussed, High One.”
“Indeed. And what might that be?”
Saulcram readied himself for what he felt had potential to be a major problem. As it turned out, he could not even begin to grasp the accuracy of that sentiment. “We wish to worship Calhoun.”
Although he was not entirely surprised at the words, the High Priest was still rocked to hear them. He did not let his surprise show, however. He was far too much of a professional for that.
To play it safe, he thumbed a small switch on the inside of his staff. Immediately it triggered a recording device safely hidden within the staff, with a backup copy being made deep within the confines of his private office. “You wish to worship Calhoun instead of Xant. Is that correct?” he said slowly.
There was hesitant nodding of heads from the envoys.
“And you ask my blessing to do so. Is that what this is about?”
“We …” and Saulcram drew himself up straighter, prouder. It was as if the fact that he had not simply been struck down by a thunderbolt from on high had given him a measure of new and increased confidence. “We are not seeking your blessing. We will do as we wish.”
“My dear friends,” the High Priest said expansively. “This Calhoun is not unknown to me, nor is his vessel. He is a mere mortal, dear friends. A brave one, to be sure. A staunch leader, so I am told. But a mortal nonetheless. You cannot seriously expect to forsake a god, to turn your back on one such as Xant, simply for the purpose of attending to the word of a mortal.”
“You are mortal,” another of Saulcram’s colleagues pointed out. “We attend to your word.”
“But my word is the word of Xant.”
“How do we know?” came the challenging reply.
The High Priest chose not to rise to the belligerence inherent in the tone. “It is enough that I know, my friends—”
“We are not your friends!” Saulcram said sharply, pointing a quivering finger at the High Priest. Slowly he started to approach him. The High Priest’s instinct was to back up, but he resisted it. Instead he maintained his ground as Saulcram advanced on him. “You and your kind overthrew us, remember? Overthrew our belief in ourselves. Battered us down, forced your god upon us—”
“We forced nothing! We saved you. You do not fully comprehend that yet, but we—”
“You took away from us our right to choose for ourselves! To think for ourselves! You ask us to trust you when you clearly do not trust us, even for something as simple as making up our own minds about the world in which we live!”
“Stop where you are,” the High Priest said fiercely, his veneer of polite patience slipping somewhat. Out of long habit, Saulcram halted in his tracks. “You are tempting a terrible punishment. Terrible beyond your ability to grasp.”
“I can ‘grasp’ just fine, oh High One,” Saulcram told him. “And what I grasp is that, for the first time, the Redeemers are wallowing in the stench of fear. You cling to your musty belief in Xant, and in the meantime a tru
e redeemer is here! On Zondar they call Him the Savior!”
“They can call him whatever they wish, but in the end he is no replacement for Xant!” the High Priest declared. His voice had been getting louder and louder, but now he pulled it back to a low and deadly tone. “I have been more than patient with you, Saulcram. With all of you. You have taken it upon yourselves to indulge in some foolish notion of worshiping another, when we both know that the way of Xant is the one, true way. It is my very strong advice that you leave now.”
“You don’t yet understand, priest,” Saulcram told him angrily. “We are not the ones who will be leaving. You will be the one who leaves.”
The High Priest tilted his head as if he could not quite believe what had just been said. “I beg your pardon?” he said. This time there was no threat in his voice. If anything, he sounded amused.
“You will leave. Now. This day. You will pack your book, your statues, your teaching scrolls, your tools of consecration. All of it,” Saulcram said. Any last vestiges of nervousness had evaporated. “You will take it and you will depart this world, and that is the only way that you will live to see another sunrise. Do we make ourselves clear?” There was silent bobbing of heads from his associates. “We have spoken to thousands of our peers, and they all feel the same way. They want you out, and the advent of Calhoun into this sector is the sign that we have been waiting for.”
“A sign.” The High Priest scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Let me tell you of signs. The great flaming bird signals the coming of Xant. I do not speak of some uncertain and distant future that you and your descendants may or may not live to see. I am speaking of soon, within your own lifetime. I have spoken to the Overlord himself,” which was something of an exaggeration since he had spoken only to Prime One. “It is his proclamation that the return of Xant is near. You would be most ill advised to ignore this very important news. How do you think Xant, and the Overlord, would feel if a previously colonized world had an uprising just in time for Xant’s restoration to power and glory? An uprising, the main theme of which was that you did not believe in Xant or his message. What possible purpose could such a happenstance serve you, eh?”
And suddenly, with absolutely no warning at all, Saulcram grabbed the High Priest by the front of his robes. The very act of laying hands upon a High Priest caused gasps of surprise from the others. It took the High Priest no time at all to realize that Saulcram was acting on his own. The others had wanted to draw a hard line, but it was Saulcram who was becoming excessively physical.
“We do not believe you!” Saulcram fairly shouted in his face. “We do not believe you, and we do not believe in you! Xant is not coming! Xant is never going to come, and even if he does, then he can trot right back to the great unknown because we have no use for him! You say Calhoun is merely a man. Fine, then, if that is what it takes to survive on our world! I would sooner admire, work with, and worship a living, breathing man that I can see rather than some mysterious unknown deity who will likely never show up in this or any other lifetime!”
“You are wrong,” the High Priest shouted back, and he pulled away from Saulcram. “And you are dangerously close to being not only a dead man yourself, but the executioner of your entire race.”
“Again come the threats!” said Saulcram angrily. “We are tired of your threats, High Priest! And we are tired of you! You threaten us with the extinction of our entire race if we should so much as lift a hand against you. You have traded upon the reputation of the dreaded Redeemers. But perhaps that reputation is not so deserved! Perhaps we should not be afraid of you!”
“If you are not, then that will be your error. And a most costly error it—”
Saulcram’s fist lashed out and slammed the High Priest in the face. The force of the blow took him completely off his feet, knocking the startled High Priest to his back. He lay there, momentarily stunned, reaching up to feel the blood beginning to fountain from his nose. With his free hand he was still clutching his staff. “You … idiot!” he yelled. “You have no idea what you’ve done! No idea at all! Our persons are sacrosanct! They—”
Another of the Alphans stepped forward, eager for a piece of the retribution that was being dealt out, and kicked the High Priest squarely in the stomach. The High Priest moaned, and a gurgle barely recognizable as something made by a living being, rattled around in his throat. With boiling fury, the High Priest lashed out with his staff, trying to trip up his assailants, but they were too nimble. Saulcram leaped over the hooked end of the staff, then slammed down on it with both feet, immobilizing it. The High Priest pulled on it desperately, and he muttered an imprecation as best he could, considering that he could barely form a coherent sentence.
Saulcram yanked the staff away, gripped the shaft firmly, and then swung it up and over his head. The High Priest looked up, saw what was about to happen, and managed to shake his head and mouth the word, “Sacrosanct,” just before the hooked end of the staff slammed down on him, splitting his skull. His body trembled, shuddered, and continued to twitch for a moment or two more before ceasing.
His assailants stood there for a moment, barely able to believe what they had done. The first moments of nervousness crossed their faces then, for this was not exactly what they had planned. Threats, yes, they had planned threats. They had even anticipated having to use force in order to get the High Priest to leave.
But the violence … the violence had simply seemed to arise from nowhere.
“It was necessary,” Saulcram said sharply, as if to bolster the failing confidence of his companions.
“But … but the person of the High Priest is sacrosanct …”
“Shut up!” Saulcram shouted. “That’s their rhetoric you’re spouting! The threats they use to keep us in line! Now that the threats have failed, we have to prepare for the inevitable attack, the attempted retribution. We have to muster our forces! We must steel ourselves for battle! We must win back our freedom from the aggressors! We must follow the way of—”
Saulcram suddenly found it very difficult to speak. His tongue felt swollen, his throat suddenly quite dry. He wanted to lick his lips and discovered that his jaw was unable to move. He looked to the others, and his eyes widened in horror as he saw that the man nearest him seemed to be rotting from the inside out. His skin was turning a dark, dusky black and sliding away from his face, his eyes bugging out, the blood vessels within bursting and trickling down his face.
Then Saulcram went blind and he realized with a fading desperation that the exact same thing was happening to him. He clutched at his throat, trying to get air to pass through, fighting desperately for life even when he knew that it was already hopeless, that he was already dead. He fell to the ground, clutching at his mouth, trying to physically pry the jaws open so that he could get some air down his throat. He gave it all the power that his fading strength had, and finally he succeeded in a manner of speaking: His entire jaw snapped off, clattering to the floor and shattering into powdery remains.
The four of them writhed on the floor and died without uttering a single sound except for a few stray gurgles that escaped their lips, or whatever was left of their lips.
So perished the People’s Association for Peace, resting in not-so-peaceful a state in the Central Hall of Worship. They were not destined to be alone in their hideous deaths for very long.
The disease that spread from the body of the High Priest, triggered to life by his death, was an airborne virus that made twentieth-century Earth plagues such as the Ebola virus look like the chicken pox. It spread through the ventilation ducts of the Hall itself, bringing swift and violent death to all inside within several minutes. None of them had the slightest comprehension of what was happening to them. They had been going about their lives, making preparations for the evening meal, intending to cater to the needs of the High Priest. Ultimately, in a manner of speaking, they accomplished that end, for the High Priest needed them to die in order to prove a point. And so they died, just as rapi
dly, hideously and uncomprehendingly as the four individuals who had murdered the High Priest minutes before.
Having done its work there, the virus swept out onto the four winds across the surface of Alpha Carinae. No city, no town, no village or hamlet was spared. The virus knew no innocent blood. The very old collapsed into gasping heaps next to the very young. All over Alpha Carinae, from one pole to the other, across the face of the globe, the disease marched, more unstoppable than any army, more merciless, more pitiless. Frantic doctors fought to discover a cure, but there was no cure. The Redeemers had seen to that. They had had, after all, plenty of time to perfect it. Anything that any Alphan doctor might be able to discover or come up with had already been anticipated and attended to.
Within twenty-four hours, half the populace of Alpha Carinae had the disease. It slowed down briefly, then renewed its march across the planet, getting into the water, poisoning the air. There was no escape, no hope, no prayer, even though there were prayers in abundance. The Alphans prayed to the Redeemers for forgiveness, they prayed to Calhoun for salvation, they prayed to whatever gods, goddesses, and holy figures they could think of. And their response was nothing but the crashing silence of entities or deities who were unable or unwilling to help.
The Alphans died abandoned, they died unloved, and ultimately, they just died. Sixty-one hours after the High Priest had fallen to the ground, bleeding and dying, the last of the Alphans hit the floor. The last Alphan was precisely four years old, that very day, and she gurgled out the name of her mother by way of her last words. Her mother, who was lying in a crumbled heap on the floor not ten yards away.
