"I am the one," the Fighter said, his head bowed.
"I remember you. You did a similar thing sometime back on the Earthman planet, assumed a Leader's position when your Leader was killed."
The Fighter said nothing, just stood with his head bowed. If he was ever going to be promoted to Leader, this was his best chance.
"Your unit should have been destroyed each time after your Leader was killed. Instead, this time, you led your unit in a fight that saved our withdrawal and brought your unit here. Before, you accomplished a part of our mission that would not have been accomplished had you not assumed a position above yourself, one for which you were not bred."
The Fighter knew these things. He was patient. The Over Master would decide what to do when he was ready—that was the way of Over Masters.
"Look at me and tell me if you are the one."
The Fighter looked at the Over Master. "I am the one."
The Over Master stared at the Fighter. In all his years of service to the Emperor, he could not think of another instance of a Fighter assuming a Leader's position on his own initiative. Fighters were not supposed to give orders, they were bred to obey orders. He should kill the Fighter now, before he usurped authority again. But the campaign had cost the lives of too many Leaders and Masters of all ranks. It would take a great deal of time to train enough new Leaders, and train and promote new Masters of all ranks.
"You know who I am?"
"Yes, Over Master."
"When the ship is safely away from here in nether-space, come to my quarters. When you leave my quarters, you will no longer be a Fighter, you will be a Leader."
The Fighter was elated. "I will," he said, and bowed lower.
"We shall see." Fighters were not allowed in the area of the ship where Over Masters were quartered. If this Fighter could manage to reach his quarters without being detained and executed, he deserved to become a Leader.
The Skinks did not return to the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles. The Marines, two weeks later, did. From there they headed back to Thorsfinni's World and Camp Ellis.
Ambassador Jayben Spears was ecstatic about the news of the headless centauroids.
"I'll get this off in a diplomatic pouch immediately," he crowed to Brigadier Sturgeon. It's about time those hidebound bureaucrats at Behind got a thumb in their eye!"
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Senior Stormleader Errik Romer had been a soldier most of his life. He had served in the armed forces of several member worlds of the Confederation and was widely known as a highly respected military professional. His many decorations for bravery under fire attested to that. At loose ends between wars, and hankering after a challenging position that would give him an opportunity to exercise the full range of his military talents—he was an excellent administrator and logistician, in addition to his proven competence on the battlefield—he had accepted Dominic de Tomas's offer to help him organize what became known as the Special Group on Kingdom.
De Tomas's success with the Special Group was due in large part to Romer's organizing and administrative abilities. It was he who oversaw the recruitment process so that the SG obtained only the most highly qualified individuals, and it was under Romer's guidance that the SG's training program evolved into a mechanism for totally successful indoctrination of SG recruits.
The members of the Special Group and the Lifeguards seldom fraternized with the civilian population. Their police and security duties prescribed that they remain aloof from the people they might have to arrest and execute. And so, when off duty, they spent their leisure hours engaged in sports and physical conditioning or in their private service clubs. At Wayvelsberg, the Black Order Bistro served the leisure-time needs of the officers. Romer spent most of his time there, often staying until the early morning hours, drinking, singing, and playing cards with the other officers.
No one outside the Special Group was allowed in the place, and in keeping with de Tomas's deep-seated but secret animosity toward clerics and organized religion in general, the Black Order Bistro was decorated exclusively with murals of famous battles and the portraits of famous generals. Over the door, inscribed in burnished gold lettering, were the words: "Struggle Makes You Free," and over the bar, "As We Grow Pitiless and Hard in the Struggle for Power, We Also Grow Pitiless and Hard in the Struggle for the Preservation of Our Race—Adolf Hitler."
Group singing was a common pastime in the bistro, especially the signature song of the Special Group, "When All Others Are Unfaithful, We Shall Remain Loyal," and "Raise the Flag!"
Raise the flag! Our ranks are tightly closed!
Raise the flag! The traitors are exposed!
The storm men march with quiet, steady tread,
We march as one, the living and the dead.
"Dominic has never been a soldier," Romer had remarked one night, relaxing with his lieutenants, called stormleaders, or simply "leaders." "Goddamn chicken farmer," he muttered. "Would've failed at that if his mom hadn't bought him out," he added with a snort. "And this," he gestured wildly with one hand, "is not soldiering! Pfagh! I'm the only real soldier here!"
At those informal gatherings, Romer always referred to de Tomas by his first name, which he never would dream of doing in person. Behind his back Romer's officers called him "Six-Bottle Romie," because his capacity for Wanderjahrian vintages on these occasions extended to the consumption of six bottles before he had to be led off to his quarters. That night, he had been well into his fifth. "I have plans, boys," he went on, noisily wiping his moist lips with the hairy back of a hand, "and I don't mean commanding the group for the rest of my days either." He winked broadly at the young officers sitting around his table. "No!" He pounded the table loudly, startling them. "Dominic's going to come out on top of these goddamn godfreak fanatics, you see, and when he does—" He paused and leered drunkenly at the young men. "I will take command of the goddamned Army of God!" He nodded gravely, as if the decision had already been made.
Romer put his arm around the young man sitting to his right and hugged him in the effusive manner of drunks. "Ain't that right, Mikey?" he rumbled. "We are goin' places, m'boy. You stick with ol' Romie," he took in the others with an unsteady wave of his hand, "and you'll all go with me."
"Are you ready, Herten?" Dominic de Tomas asked Overstorm Leader Herten Gorman, assistant commander of his Lifeguard Battalion.
"Yes, my leader." Gorman bowed from the waist.
De Tomas had formed the Lifeguards as a special unit under his personal command. Like the SG, they swore total allegiance to de Tomas, but unlike the SG, which often moved far afield in its police duties and was directly commanded on those occasions by Senior Stormleader Romer, the Lifeguards remained always within de Tomas's immediate control.
"You must strike swiftly and mercilessly. I want the traitors killed with as little fuss and publicity as possible. Get them all before the sun rises. Here is the list. He handed the Overstorm Leader a list of about thirty names, all ranking members of the Special Group.
Herten took the list. He knew all of them. He had once been an Overstormer, a rank equivalent to captain, in the Special Group, before de Tomas had selected him for promotion to the grade of Overstorm Leader, the equivalent of lieutenant colonel, and the position of assistant commander of his bodyguard, the elite of the elite.
"I want Romer brought alive here to Wayvelsberg, Herten."
De Tomas had decided that it was time to clean house, to move against the sects when the off-worlder Marines were gone and the Army of God was preoccupied with mopping up the alien invaders.
An insistent pounding on his door awakened Romer.
"I'll get it," Romer's personal bodyguard said.
Romer stretched. It was just past midnight. He heard loud voices in the entryway and then a cry of pain and heavy boots stomping up the staircase outside his bedroom. He snatched his sidearm from a holster fitted to his side of the bed and leveled the muzzle at the doorway, which was s
uddenly filled by the figure of Herten Gorman. He lowered the pistol but did not reholster it.
"Good morning, Overstorm Leader." Gorman bowed. Behind him, Romer saw several shooters of the Lifeguards crowded in the hallway.
"Good morning to you, Overstorm Leader. What is the meaning of this intrusion?"
Gorman eyed the pistol in Romer's hand. "No need for that," he said, nodding at the gun. "Dean de Tomas requests your presence at Wayvelsberg, sir, and I have come to escort you there."
"At this hour? With armed guards? De Tomas could have called me personally if he wanted to see me." He raised the pistol.
A stormer behind Gorman fired. The blast hit Romer's right arm and sent the pistol flying. Before he could even react to the trauma of the injury, Gorman and his men were on him.
When he awoke he was in Wayvelsberg. "I have never been disloyal to you, Dominic!" ex-Senior Stormleader Errik Romer shouted. Through the haze of pain from his throbbing arm, he discovered that he lay securely strapped onto a conveyer. An open furnace door yawned above him. "Nooo!" he screamed, his voice rising to a high falsetto when he realized what was about to happen to him. "Nooo!"
"My dear Errik," de Tomas crooned, "you have always talked too much. Now you shall have an opportunity to exercise your vocal cords in another way. Oh, meet your replacement." He patted the grinning Herten Gorman on the shoulder. On both of Gorman's collars the single gold lightning bolt of an Overstorm Leader had been replaced by the two golden lightning bolts signifying his new rank, Senior Stormleader and commander of the Special Group.
Gorman signaled a technician to start the conveyer rolling.
Romer shrieked as his hair caught fire, filling the room with an acrid stench. He continued screaming as the flames licked at the sides of his head. De Tomas held up his hand, and the technician stopped the conveyer for a moment to allow the flames to consume the flesh on the top of Romer's head. Romer shrieked and screamed and writhed at the straps holding him firmly on the conveyer. De Tomas gestured, and Romer slowly proceeded deeper into the maw of the raging oven. Romer fell silent at last as his shoulders disappeared into the flames. De Tomas nodded, and the conveyer rolled the body swiftly into the oven, the iron grate slamming shut with a clang.
"You are merciful, my leader," Senior Stormleader Gorman commented as he accompanied de Tomas out of the torture chamber.
"How is that?" de Tomas asked.
"You fed him in head first instead of feet first," Gorman replied dryly.
De Tomas snapped his fingers. "My mistake!" He laughed. From within his tunic he withdrew another list. "Now, Senior Stormleader, I want the people on this list arrested before dawn and brought here for interrogation."
Gorman glanced at the list and raised his eyebrows.
"Is there a problem?" de Tomas asked.
"Nossir. I will have it done. But these people are all rather highly placed clerics in the sects."
"Not so high, Senior Stormleader, not so high. See to it."
Senior Stormleader Gorman smiled.
Providence Warwick was a peaceable man, as befit the descendant of Quakers. Although his sect was very small in comparison to the more mainline churches on Kingdom, he was well-known and respected because he practiced what he preached: nonviolence and the love of all men.
It was way past the middle part of the night before Warwick reached his temporary home in Haven, very late for a man of Warwick's abstemious personal habits. But he had been invited to a dinner hosted by Ambassador Spears in Interstellar City, and the evening had been protracted and enjoyable, as much as anything could be in these perilous times. Jayben Spears was such a congenial, cosmopolitan, and fascinating person that any meeting with him was a pleasure. Tonight they had eaten well and talked of many things. While he had consumed none of the alcohol offered that night, he was so happy that he might have appeared drunk to a casual observer.
"The bastard's three sheets to the wind," the Storm Leader whispered acidly to the Shooters who stood beside him. They watched Warwick fumble with the key pad to his door. "They're all alike," the officer muttered, "full of God in the pulpit, full of shit all the time. Take him and his family as soon as he gets the door open."
"Mr. Ambassador! Mr. Ambassador!"
Jayben Spears sat up groggily. It was Carlisle Prentiss, his chief-of-station. "What the hell?" He looked at the time. "What is it, Prentiss?" Prentiss did not wake people up without a reason.
"Something very strange going on in town tonight, sir."
Spears grunted and rubbed his eyes. "This damned place is always strange, Prentiss. What's so out of the ordinary?"
"Jim Chang, one of our communications technicians? He's, ah, well, he's shacking with a girl who lives in Haven, sir."
"Contrary to all regulations and diplomatic protocol, but go on, Prentiss." Spears knew about Chang's love life, but he hadn't done anything about it because he despised the Ecumenical Council's rules against fraternization, and besides, the girl was devastatingly beautiful. If the Council were to find out and declare Chang persona non grata, he'd stand up for the man.
"She lives in the same street as Providence Warwick. At about 0330, Special Group men arrested him and his family. I thought you should know. And there's more, sir."
"Let's have it." Spears was fully awake now.
"The Collegium's been arresting other people, I don't know how many, but it seems they're all second-echelon personnel in the various sects. It looks like de Tomas is making a move, sir."
Jayben Spears's guts turned to ice. He knew very well what the Collegium did to people brought to Wayvelsberg. He began dressing. "It's my fault, Prentiss. I should have warned the Council earlier."
"But that is not our business, sir. This is an internal domestic affair. They would not have believed you anyway."
"When have I ever minded my own business? But yeah, I don't have a leg to stand on as the Confederation's figurehead down here. Well, get the car. We're going to visit all of these birds right now, I don't care what time it is. Goddamn," he said as he slipped on his shoes, "that de Tomas is brilliant, isn't he? Half the people are celebrating the end of the invasion, and the other half's attention is on the mop-up. All the Army of the Lord forces are engaged in the mopping up, and the goddamn Ecumenical Council of Leaders is useless now anyway, so who'd miss them?"
Spears stood. "Prentiss, you drive. Let's take the mountain to Mohammed. Heigh ho!"
Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent did not look the same in the early morning light as he did in Council meetings or when he was preaching to his flock. His face was haggard and drawn and without his immaculately groomed pompadour, set aside for the night. Strands of scraggly reddish hair lay plastered to his head like chunks of pumpkin pie. Spears realized that the man must carefully prepare himself each day for his ministry, like an actor before going onstage. Alone like this in his private apartments, Ralphy Bruce was a mere shadow of his pulpit self.
"I don't believe it," he said after Spears had briefed him on what de Tomas was up to. His voice sounded weak and unsure. "Dominic follows the guidance of the Ecumenical Leaders," he added, as if reassuring himself. Secretly, he was delighted. The Quakers were a nonconforming, interfering lot of troublemakers. High time the Collegium had a chat with people like Warwick.
"Bishop Ralphy Bruce, I assure you that you are in grave danger. I strongly recommend you seek refuge with me in Interstellar City," Ambassador Spears said at last.
The conversation went on for a few more minutes, until Spears was sure he was wasting his time and excused himself. "Prentiss, Cardinal Leemus O'Lanners is next. Maybe he'll listen to reason."
Cardinal O'Lanners was at breakfast when Ambassador Spears was ushered into his presence. The cardinal offered Spears a seat and a plate, but he refused politely. The breakfast table was heaped with food and wine cooling in buckets. Spears marveled that any man could eat so much at one setting, but judging from O'Lanners's girth, apparently he did.
"Breakfast,
Mr. Ambassador! Most important meal of the day!" the Cardinal enthused. "Sure you won't join me?" When Spears refused, O'Lanners went back to devouring a mound of eggs. "Well, have a seat and some coffee, then," he said, waving a free hand at a chair while scooping up a rasher of bacon with the other hand.
"Your Eminence, I have news of the gravest importance. I believe you are in very serious danger," Spears began, and told him of Warwick's arrest.
"I bet he deserved to be arrested!" O'Lanners roared happily, pouring himself a glass of wine and gulping it down. He patted his lips with a napkin and burped gently. "Excuse me!" He chuckled. "Yes, old Warwick's been a pain in the ass for years, Mr. Ambassador. About time the Collegium talked to him."
"Eminence, I'm afraid he wasn't the only one," and Spears told him of other sectarians who'd been arrested.
O'Lanners waved a hand dismissively. "All radicals," he said. Privately, he was overjoyed. At last de Tomas was cracking down. He made a mental note to have his secretary send a memo to all his parishes to take up the long-banned proselytizing efforts. There might soon be some more souls looking for salvation. "You mustn't interfere, Mr. Ambassador, or be particularly concerned. The Collegium has the authority to detain apostates of all kinds, and that's all de Tomas is doing, I assure you."
"Eminence, I strongly urge you to come back to Interstellar City with me, now, and seek sanctuary in my embassy."
"What? Me seek sanctuary?" O'Lanners roared, leaning back and laughing heartily. "No need of that, Mr. Ambassador. And now, sir, you must excuse me while I prepare for my postprandial devotions." He arose from the table and waddled out of the room.
The other interviews had the same results. The members of the Council of Ecumenical Leaders did not believe they were in danger from the Collegium.
Spears was slumped down in his seat as they drove into the embassy compound. "Fools," he sighed, "all fools, Prentiss. They think these arrests are godsends for their own sects, ridding them of the competition, you see."
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