Unless he has miscalculated, Hollie Devero will discover over the days and years ahead that she needs less and less cernadine, if any. Hopefully, the gradual nature of the change will let her believe that the change is hers, not his.
He takes a deep breath and climbs back to his feet. Each time, such extensions of his abilities take less and less effort. Each time, he has a better idea of what to do and how.
Some things, Martel, some things you are learning. He picks up the cubes he needs and heads for the vacant studio, absently noting that Gates and Hollie have left the CastCenter.
* * *
XVII
According to the datacenter, three main religious orders maintain communities and worship centers in the hills above Pamyra—the Apollonites, the Ethenes, and the Taurists. The fourth major order, the Thoradians, has a small mission at Pamyra, but lists no main community anywhere. Martel frowns.
Even before getting into the fieldwork, he is digging up as many questions as answers. And more questions are bound to follow.
He tabs the numbers into his console, switches the fax from the datalink into the commlink, and begins his contacts.
Father Sanders G'lobo of the Apollonites says yes, provided Martel faxes only the postulants themselves and the lay community, not the Brothers or sacred aspects.
Sister Artemis Dian agrees, if no facial close-ups or religious scenes are faxed.
Head Taurist Theseus politely explains that no internal faxshots of the community are permitted.
The Thoradian Chief Missionary grants Martel permission to fax anything he can except the interior of the Smithhall, the place of worship.
So when do you start? He blocks his own questions but nods to himself. Now… before it's too late.
Martel stands, leans over the console, and logs out. Theoretically, today is his “break” day, which gives him the time he will need before he is due back on the board.
Tonight Gates will take his shift, and Hollie will probably use the time in the spare studio to edit her slot on crafts.
Crafts? Who knows? Who knows if anyone will care about a bunch of worshipers and their offbeat gods?
Martel represses a shiver. Maybe they'll care too much. He recalls the warning about the logo slot by the goddess.
He pushes the uneasiness to the back of his mind and lifts the portafax unit. It will take several trips to load the flitter.
Pamyra is two stans' flight time by the CastCenter flitter, and another half-stan beyond is his first stop, the Apollonite community.
From the air the sunburst pattern is clear—radial lanes, yellow-paved, linked at the center where the temple stands, fan outward and cross regularly spaced and circular ways. The temple rises from the absolute center of the community to a pointed beacon fifty meters above-ground which pulses with a golden glow.
The last circular lane marks the perimeter between the community buildings and the supporting lands, and on it is a row of low structures, some with pens attached.
Martel circles the entire community twice, taking his wide-angle and pan shots, and ends them with a close-focused zoom in on the temple.
He drops the flitter on the pad midway between the agricultural buildings and the temple.
Father G'lobo, clean-shaven, tanned, silver hairs streaking his golden curls, and flowing pale yellow robes not quite covering his sandals, meets Martel as he begins to unload the portafax from the flitter.
A sunburst, radiating a gentle light, hangs from a golden chain around the good Father's neck. “Greetings, in the name of Apollo,” offers G'lobo. Martel holds back a smile. Without probing, he can sense the priest's disapproval of his black tunic, trousers, and boots.
“Greetings to you, Father, and my thanks, both for me and for those who will have a chance to glimpse the kind of life you offer the faithful and those who would join your Order.” Martel inclines his head in a gesture of respect. “What exactly do you have in mind, my son?”
Martel finishes loading the next cube into the unit and adjusts the harness, ready to shoulder it.
“Fairly standard approach, Father. Pan shots of the community; then a mixture of shots of the secular activities… what people do in the way of support activities—I understand that the postulants do some crafts for the tourie trade—and perhaps a back shot or two over the shoulders of the novices of the other… Apollonites? Is that what those who are accepted are called?” G'lobo nods.
“Like a shot of them, not their faces, but from behind, as they enter the temple, with perhaps an uptake into the beacon.”
“Flame,” corrects the priest.
“Would any of that be a problem?” asks Martel, still balancing the fax unit on his knee, his right foot resting on the landing strut of the flitter.
“If that's all, it shouldn't be.” The older man pauses, then asks, “What do you expect to get from this? What's the real purpose of your visit?”
Martel reflects. The question seems hostile, but Father G'lobo radiates no hostility, though he wears a mindshield. Shields do not block emotions, just thoughts. Martel calculates whether he should attempt to break through the shield, decides against it.
“Twofold, I guess. First, no one has ever done a story on the religious communities. Not in any of the records. That makes it a possibility for a good story, and I need one. Second, I'm new. And I hope to learn something in the process.”
G'lobo relaxes fractionally, though his professional smile has not varied an iota.
“That seems reasonable. Please do not point your unit at any of the Brothers, the Apollonites wearing sunbursts like mine. If you feel it necessary to have some faces, a picture of a postulant or two, the ones in the plain yellow robes, would not be out of place.”
Martel catches sight of a taller, more massively built Apollonite approaching. G'lobo turns toward the newcomer, his smile a shade broader. “Administrative duties call me, but Brother Hercles will be your guide and adviser.”
Martel again inclines his head and looks up at the giant, who towers a full two meters plus.
“Brother Hercles,” says G'lobo, “this is Faxer Martel from the CastCenter at Sybernal. He knows the guidelines, and I am sure he will do his best to follow them.”
“Greetings,” Martel says quietly.
“A pleasure to meet you. I've seen you on the fax.” Hercles' voice rumbles like a bass organ.
“I will return to see you off,” adds Father G'lobo as he steps away toward the temple. “Where do you wish to start?” asks the giant. Martel hefts the fax unit into the shoulder harness. Be nice to have his muscles to carry this, he thinks. “I sort of thought we'd start with the outbuildings and work in, ending up with what shots I can take of the temple.”
Before he finishes, Martel is talking to empty air and hurrying to catch up.
The first place where the massive Apollonite halts is in the center of a narrow barn, filled with empty stalls. “This is the sunram barn.”
Martel does a quick once-over, then focuses on a single immaculate stall. “The sunrams?”
“Out in the fields. Not far. Do you want to see them?” Actually, while a shot of the animals might round out the slot, Martel really wants faxtime of people. He nods.
“Not far” turns out to be across two hills. Two yellow-robed novices and another Apollonite are watching the small flock. The animals, from their black hooves to their curling golden horns and thick yellow fleece, are spotless.
As he moves closer to the sunrams Martel realizes the animals do not smell like normal sheep, but almost like flowers. He sniffs. Sniffs again. A clean smell. “Heather,” supplies Hercles. “A good smell.” The closer sunrams raise their heads at Martel's approach. He zooms in on the head of the nearest, narrowing in on the eyes. The eye itself contains a star-shaped pupil within the golden iris.
He shifts focus from that ram to another, eating the golden grass. Neither, Martel realizes, tears at the roots the way many sheep and goats do.
The way t
hey chew isn't your subject, he reminds himself. Martel looks at his guide. “Some cube on the novices?”
“I beg your pardon?” rumbles the giant.
“According to father G'lobo, I cannot fax Apollonites, only the postulants and lay members of the community.”
The herder Apollonite frowns as Martel speaks, but moves to one side before the guide gestures.
Both novices are beardless. One is fresh from academics; the other shows gray in his brown hair, laugh lines radiating from his eyes. The golden wide-link chains around their necks are plain, without the sunburst.
“Do you comb the sunrams every day?” asks Martel of the older novice at the same time as he splits the focus between the animal and the man.
The novice's eyes run to the animal, back to the faxer, and Martel catches it all on the cube. The man shakes his head in agreement. “Are they easy to work with?” A more vigorous headshake.
Martel angles in on the younger. “Do you like working with sunrams?”
An almost shy smile and a headshake answer the question. The faxer fades from the man's face to a wide pan of the flock to the nearby hilltop, as yet uncropped, where the tall grass waves against the sky. “Thank you,” he tells the shepherd Apollonite. A fourth nod, curt, is the only response. Martel looks to his guide. “Vows of silence?”
“No. Nothing to say. Chatter to mortals seems unnecessary when one has beheld the grandeur of God.”
“How about the furniture operation?” Time to change the subject, Martel thinks. “The basket shop is closer.”
“Fine. Then the furniture shop.”
Once again, Martel finds himself trailing the fast-moving Apollonite.
The double time march leads to another low building. Once inside, Martel sees why the term “basket shop” is inappropriate.
On the left side of the building, nearly one hundred meters from one end to the other, stretch built-in bins, each filled with stacked and dried reeds, wickers, palms, and grasses.
Across from the nearest set of bins are three rows of short tables. Perhaps twenty are occupied. Two Apollonites rove the aisles, offering advice, assistance.
Martel concentrates his unit on the raw materials first, then on the building, and finally on the novices. Two young girls also silently weave wicker into larger baskets, but do not wear the pale yellow robes of the novices.
“Lay members of the community?” Martel half points with his free hand.
“Wards. Each community supports and aids and educates some who have no other resources, and who are too young or too disabled through no fault of their own to make their own way.”
The answer raises another series of questions, which Martel chooses not to pursue, but files mentally as he focuses close-ups on the postulants. He follows the fax-ins of the younger men with shots of the girls, first of the redhead, then of the brunette.
Neither is a beauty, but each has good features, a clear complexion, and a deftness in her hands. The redhead smiles broadly as she recognizes she is the object of the fax unit. Martel lingers on her smile before stopping. He unshoulders the unit to check the settings. Even the girls do not look at him.
After a long moment, Martel reshoulders the fax unit. “Furniture shop?”
This time the tall Apollonite waits for Martel to take a step before starting off with his ground-devouring strides.
The furniture shop is housed in another low building like the basket-making facility, but instead of the smell of grass, and the smells of autumn, is filled with the scents of oil and wood. Again, along the left side of the interior are bin after bin of stacked woods stretching from one end to the other.
A finished marwood chest gleams just inside the entrance. The black surfaces are so smoothly finished that even without wax, lacquer, or glaze, the wood reflects Martel and the Apollonite guide.
Martel lets out a low whistle as he admires it and plays the faxer over it from every possible angle. “Fit for a king,” he murmurs.
“Scheduled for the Matriarch of Halston,” says Hercles with a laugh.
Among the workers are more Apollonites, heavy leather aprons over shortened yellow robes, than in the basket shop, and the novices all seem older.
Martel faxes a simple inlaid game table, which, for all its simplicity, could have adorned any palace, any Duke's salon.
Along with the close-ups of the novices, he adds several shots over the shoulders of the Apollonite craftsmen, careful not to appear too obvious about his intentions.
From the carpentry and cabinet making, Martel is escorted to the weavers, where the golden wool is carded, stretched, treated, woven, and tailored; to the tannery; to the clinic, which is empty except for a young man who is having his left hand treated for a gash suffered in an orchard accident; to the recreation center; to one of the living quarters; to the empty dining hall being readied for the midday meal; and finally to the administration building.
The total time on the cube reads out at close to three stans. That ought to be enough, Martel thinks, keeping the thought to himself as he follows Hercles back to his flitter.
Father G'lobo, having torn himself away from his administrative duties, is waiting.
“We're sorry you could not spend more time with us, Faxer Martel.”
Martel doesn't believe a word of it, and the good Father's emotions show no sign of the regret he is expressing.
“And so am I,” he responds in kind, “but it's been most interesting. I hope you enjoy the program once it's aired in final fax form.”
“We'll be looking forward to that,” says G'lobo.
Martel can sense the unease behind the statement, even though the priest's face carries the same warm and friendly smile.
Martel racks the one used fax cube in the storage locker, reloads the unit, thumbs the locker shut, and sets the fax unit in place for the next series of aerial shots.
As he settles behind the controls he looks up to see Father G'lobo and Hercles standing back by the admin building, apparently waiting for his departure.
Father G'lobo had been waiting much closer when Martel had arrived, much closer.
How about another kind of checklist? Martel asks himself, thoughts fully shielded.
He lets his perceptions range through the start circuits, mentally tracking, searching… and comes up with the “wrong” feeling. A small cartridge of something above the turbine blades, liquid.
Concentrating, he extends his energies, lets his thoughts remove the liquid to a small space in the bottom of the flitter.
With a touch of a stud he starts up, waves to the waiting Apollonites, and begins the short checklist. Shortly he lifts off, heading toward the Ethene community. Once in flight, he tries to analyze the captive liquid mentally, some sort of acid. Obviously placed to weaken the turbine blades, the acid would have loosened several blades at once, certainly exploding the engine, and possibly the whole flitter.
Martel lets the liquid eat through the bottomplate and bleed away into the open air. What surprises will I get from the ladies? From the air, the Ethene community shows more of a grid system, with its lanes converging in a fan toward the temple on the hillside south of everything else. The simple white stone structure, half set into the hill, lies open in the center.
Martel sees the sacred white flame from the air, takes the liberty of faxing it along with his other pan shots.
Sister Artemis Dian, the very name a position title, waits by the landing pad. She wears a white metal circlet and a veil, seemingly thin, but totally concealing. From the golden hue of her hair and the curve of her calves, which show below the three-quarter length of her off-white robes, Martel guesses she is beyond first youth, but not too far. Either that or thoroughly rejuved.
“Faxer Martel?” Well modulated, with a hint of throatiness, her voice does nothing to discourage his first impression. “The same. Greetings, Lady.”
“Sister will do, and greetings to you.”
“Greetings, Sister,” Martel co
rrected himself. “Anything I should know before we start?”
“The Goddess watches over everything, and in her wisdom will correct all that goes amiss.”
Translated loosely, Martel, if you blow it, you'll get fired on the spot with celestial fury.
“I think I understand, Sister, and will follow your instructions to the letter.” Not to the spirit, however.
The Ethene community, while laid out in a different physical pattern, bears remarkable similarity to the Apollonite village in the activities, the cleanliness, the sense of purpose and quiet. There is no furniture shop, but instead, a ceramic facility, and in place of the basket shop there is, surprisingly, the winery that produces the Springfire of which Martel has become so fond.
Sister Artemis Dian is his guide through the entire tour, even to the front steps of the temple. “No farther,” she says in her controlled contralto. “Mind if I pan up the steps and to the mountain behind?” “That would be acceptable.”
The stroll back to the flitter is absolutely quiet, and the stillness seems to accentuate the weight of the fax unit on Martel's shoulders. Only the pad of feet and the swish of robes intrude. The Sister, like Father G'lobo, is mind-shielded.
Her apparent young age, her young step, bother Martel, do not fit. She seems totally at ease with him, but as if he is really not present.
As he stows the used fax cube and reloads, as he resets the unit for aerial shots, she waits, far closer than the Apollonites had. Martel uses his extended perceptions to scan the flitter even before starting to climb back in. An aura of danger clings to the power cells. But why?
Martel scans superficially, then deeply, before realizing that both original sets have been replaced with a new set, blocked somehow.
If you touch the starter, all that power will turn on itself, fuse the cells… and boom. No more flitter, no more Martel, and no more Sister Artemis Dian.
Hammer of Darkness Page 8
