The Final Encyclopedia

by Gordon R. Dickson

  "But things aren't that bad," said Godlun. "The Militia are a trouble to us, yes; and it's true that, in the cities, those who fawn on the Others have things their own way. But the core of our land, our people and our religion, continues here in the countryside, untouched. We—"

  "In thy small corner, thou wouldst say, there is still peace," interrupted Child. "But look beyond that corner. When thou art wanted, when thy children and thy fields are desired for purposes of the Others, will they not come and take all these, too, from thee, at their whim? Look not merely at the cities of this world, but at all the cities on all worlds. Everywhere the Belial-spawn move almost without check or hindrance. Those of us who are strong in the Faith they cannot touch; but almost all others see them once, and ever after pant at their heels, following without question for one pat on the head, one word of praise from these, their new, false and painted idols. The beast and the false prophet of which Revelation speaks are already among us, gathering their forces for Armageddon across the face of all the worlds."

  "But God will conquer when Armageddon comes!"

  "In His own way."

  Godlun shook his head, and looked away, helplessly into the fire.

  "I don't believe this," he said, low-voiced, to the flames. "I've heard many say this, but I couldn't believe it; and that was why I had to talk to someone like you. How can you, who've given your life to fighting His enemies, talk as if the final battle might be lost?"

  "Man of plows and peace," said Child, almost sadly, "look outward at the universe. The battle you talk of is already lost. The times are already changed. Even if these whom God has cursed were to be swept away tomorrow, still the old ways are already gone, and not by their doing—but by ours. All the centuries since Mankind first had life breathed into him are coming now to their end, and all that has been built is crumbling. Did not I hear the lascivious and idle sound of a musical instrument in thy own house, as I came up? Yet, he who played—whoever that may be—is still beneath thy roof. He was without doubt at worship with the rest of us, an hour since. If thy own household be so fallen into the gutters and alleyways of sin, how canst thou hope for the redemption of the worlds of men, when within thy own walls there is none?"

  Godlun raised his head from the flames and stared at Child. The tendons in his throat moved and stood out, but he made only a small sound that was not even a word.

  "Nay," said Child, with real gentleness. "Who am I to blame thee? I only show thee what is. For thousands of years the Earth endured as the cradle of God's children, until it came upon evil ways with the luxury of many tools and instruments. Then might the end have come, at that time. But God gave Man one more chance, and opened these further worlds to him. And all went out, each together with those he thought of as his or her own kind, and tried to build again as they thought best, under different suns. But out of all those efforts were made only three peoples which had never been before; we of Faith, those we called the Deniers of God but who call themselves the Exotics, and those of War known as the Dorsai. And, as time hath shown, none of these were God's answer, however much they might be their own; and from their failure has now come these of mixed breeding whom we call the Others, who would make all the worlds their pleasure garden and all other men and women into slaves. Canst thou look at all this and not see that once more we have thrown away the chance given us; so that nothing now remains but for Him to let us reap the harvest we have sowed; and for all who call themselves Mankind to go down finally into darkness and silence, forever?"

  Godlun stared at him.

  "But you keep fighting !"

  "Of course!" said Child. "I am of God, whatever or whoever else is not. I must testify to Him by placing my body against the enemy while that body lasts; and by protecting those that my small strength may protect, until my personal end. What is it to me that all the peoples of all the worlds choose to march toward the nether pit? What they do in their sins is no concern of mine. Mine only is concern for God, and the way of God's people of whom I am one. In the end, all those who march pitward will be forgotten; but I and those like me who have lived their faith will be remembered by the Lord—other than that I want nothing and I need nothing."

  Godlun dropped his face into his hands and sat for a moment. When he took his hands away again and raised his head, Hal saw that the skin of his face was drawn and he looked very old.

  "It's all right for you," he whispered.

  "It is fleshly loves that concern thee," said Child, nearly as softly. "I know, for I remember how it was in the little time I had with my wife; and I remember the children unborn that she and I dreamed of together. It is thy children thou wouldst protect in these dark days to come; and it was thy hope that I could give you reason to think thou couldst do so. But I have no such hope to give. All that thou lovest will perish. The Others will make a foul garden of the worlds of humankind and there will be none to stop them. Turn thee to God, my brother, for nowhere else shalt thou find comfort."

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Sometime in the depths of that night following the dinner, Hal awoke in the long room that had been given the visitors for a dormitory; and, looking down the double row of mattresses with their sleeping forms, decorated by the lozenges of illumination from the moonlight shining through the uncurtained windows, saw all quiet and still.

  He rose on his elbow, troubled by the feeling of uneasiness with which he had wakened, but unable to account for it. Then from a distance came a small, repeated sound that gave his mind no picture of what could be causing it. It came from outside the room, through the open windows at the far end. He got up, walked on unshod feet to the end of the nearest of the open windows and looked out. In the courtyard below him where the service had been held, he saw a man's figure, black in the moonlight, seated on one of the benches with its shoulders hunched. As he watched, the shoulders shook, the right hand of the figure went up to the mouth and the sound came again, recognizable now as coughing. With that recognition, his mind identified the familiar shape of the figure; and he did not have to look back into the room behind him to see what mattress lay under empty covers.

  The man down there was Child-of-God. Hal stood watching while two more of the paroxysms of coughing shook the figure, then turned and went back to his own bed. Child-of-God did not come back to the room as long as he lay awake, watching; and after a while, Hal fell asleep once more.

  They were on their way the next morning while dawn was still red in the east. Godlun's entire household turned out to see them off and fill their packs with cold foods packaged by the kitchen to see them through until evening and the next family that would put them up for a night. The leavetakings they had been engaged in with members of the family had been as warm as if they had been members of the family itself.

  Once on the road, Child took the lead as usual without a word. Watching the older man, Hal could not see anything in the leathery face and swift stride of the older man that might indicate a cause for the moonlit fit of coughing in the courtyard the night before. But he found himself studying Rukh's lieutenant with reawakened interest.

  By day, Child showed no sign of weakness or illness. He led them at a steady pace through the next few weeks; and it was not until five days later that Hal, waking in the night, discovered the older man missing once more from the sleeping room assigned to them at that night's farm. Looking outside, Hal once more discovered Child seated like someone waiting out a bout of pain, and occasionally breaking into coughing.

  Hal probed the rest of their group with cautious questions; but evidently none of the others had ever heard or seen Child on one of these nighttime excursions; and any suggestion that the Command's Second Officer might be ill was met with the light-hearted belief that he was made of metal and leather and no weakness would dare attack him.

  They finally reached their rendezvous. It was the Mohler-Beni farm, a large place operated jointly by two separate families, so that a good hundred and twenty-odd people were normally in r
esidence and the coming and going of the additional near two hundred of the reunited Command would not attract as much attention as their activity would on one of the farms of more average size. They were less than thirty kilometers from Masenvale, the small city that held the metals-storage unit and the fertilizer plant that were their targets.

  The group containing Hal and Child was the last to arrive. It was at the end of an unusually warm summer day and after they had stowed their gear in one of the large equipment sheds which were being used as barracks for them, the fresh cool of the evening breeze was pleasant as Hal walked with the others to a late meal in the farm's main kitchen.

  After the dinner, Rukh collected not only Child, but Hal, and took them off to her private room in the farmhouse—a guest bedroom now cluttered with papers and supplies.

  "Howard," Rukh said to Hal, once she had shut the door of the room firmly behind them, "I'm asking you here now, not to discuss plans with James and myself, but to act as a source of information from that early military training of yours."

  Hal nodded.

  "Come over here to the map, both of you," she said.

  They followed her to a table set up in front of an open window, the large-scale local map on it anchored with fist-sized polished stones against the newly-awakened evening breeze. There was a moistness and electricity in the air that promised a thunderstorm.

  "James, I've just got word from our friends in Masenvale," she said. "They've promised at least half a dozen fires and the setting off of burglar alarms in four businesses on the south side to divert local police and Militia away from our targets. We're bound to run into some district police forces at the fertilizer plants, but with any luck the fires and alarms, to start with, and after that the raid by the group you'll be with, Howard, on the metals unit, should keep our opposition at the plant from being reinforced until we've loaded up and gone."

  She turned to the table.

  "Now, look here," she said.

  "Here's the Mohler-Beni farm." Rukh put her finger down on the lower half of the map. "Almost due southwest is Masenvale with the fertilizer plant on the outskirts, on a direct line between us, here, and the center of the city, where the metals-storage is located. South-southwest…" her finger traced a line on the map around and beyond the city area, "are the foothills of the Aldos mountain range, which is the territory we'll be running for, after we've got the fertilizer—"

  She broke off, for the sound of heavy air-cushion vehicles had intruded through the open window upon the conversation. She sighed, relaxing a little; and Hal looked at her, sharply. It was not usual for her to show any sign of emotion, even when gaining something like the transport that was now arriving, and which had been critical to the success of her plans.

  "The trucks," she said.

  They had been sweating out the arrival of these vehicles from farmers in the neighborhood well enough off to own them, and committed enough to the Command to risk them in an endeavor like the one Rukh was to lead tomorrow. The raids on the fertilizer plant and on the metals-storage building would have been literally impossible without transport; and there had been, until this moment, no absolute certainty that enough would be volunteered. Now, judging by the sounds that continued to come in the open window, the trucks had appeared in numbers that would be more than adequate to the needs of the Command. Rukh turned back to her map.

  "With those here now, and any luck at all," she said, "we should be into the back roads of the foothills before the Militia can put any force worth worrying about out after us; and once in the foothills, we can leave them to their regular drivers, off-load the donkeys and lose any pursuit without much trouble—"

  "What about the drivers, when the Militia catches them?" Hal asked.

  Rukh looked levelly at him.

  "I said you weren't here to be involved in the discussion, but only to act as an information source," she said. "However—as soon as they let us off, the drivers will split up, each going his own way along the back roads and trails, or even overland. With their trucks empty, there'll be nothing to charge the drivers with; and not even the Militia's going to be heavy-handed about questioning local people unless they've got some evidence. The Others know how necessary this farm belt is to the survival of North Continent, to say nothing of the rest of Harmony. That's why they've let the people in this mid-plains area go so free of the restrictions they've placed on people elsewhere."

  The sound of the incoming trucks outside ceased.

  "They are fat here, with the fat that comes from laziness of soul," said Child. "Though there are those of faith among them."

  "In any case," said Rukh, "I've answered your question, Howard. Don't interrupt again. Look at the Aldos range, on the map, please, both of you. It runs south and east. I think we can follow along it in reasonable safety until we come to the general vicinity of Ahruma, where the Core Tap is, and the energy complex built around it. We'll have to leave the foothills then for the open plain to reach Ahruma; but it's within striking distance. We should be able to make the run to it in a couple of hours, going in, and in another couple, coming out after we've sabotaged the Tap. For that, of course, we'll need trucks again and reinforcements from the local people there—will you shut that window, Howard? They're getting noisy out there."

  Hal moved to shut the window, catching sight as he turned of Child's face, which was stiff and angry, staring at the open window. As Hal's hands touched the hasp fastened to the lower edge of the top-pivoted window, there broke out, over the babble of voices outside, the unexpected wheezy sound of some instrument like a concertina or an accordion. Hal pulled the window closed in the same instant; and, turning, saw Child heading out the door of Rukh's room.

  "James—" began Rukh sharply. But her lieutenant was already gone, the door closing behind him. She gave a short, exasperated breath, then straightened and turned back to Hal.

  "While I have the chance," said Hal, swiftly, before she could send him also out of the room, "can I ask you—is he ill?"

  She stood, arrested, one hand still on the map.

  "Ill?" she said. "James?"

  "On the way here I got the idea he might be," Hal said, apologetically. As she stood listening, he told her what he had seen of Child's nocturnal coughing fits. When he was done, she looked at him almost coldly for a few seconds before answering.

  "Have you told anyone else about his?" she asked.

  "No," said Hal.

  Some of the tension went out of the way she stood.

  "Good," she said. She considered him for a moment. When she spoke again, her voice was flat.

  "He's old," she said, "too old for this sort of life; and he's driven himself beyond his physical limits since he was a boy. There's no stopping him. His only aim is to use himself up in the service of the Lord in the way he thinks best; and we'd be doing him no kindness to interfere with his doing it."

  "That coughing's just age?" asked Hal.

  Her eyes were level and dark on him.

  "That coughing comes from fluid seeping into his lungs when he lies flat too long," she said. "His heart's worn out; and his body's wearing out. There's nothing to be done for him as long as he goes on putting himself through this like a younger man, and he won't consider stopping. Also—we need him. Moreover his life's the Lord's, first; his own, second; and only after that, anyone else's to dictate."

  "I see," said Hal. "But—"

  He was interrupted by sudden silence outside as the music broke off, followed by the distant, harsh and angry voice of Child, so blurred by distance and the resonances from surrounding structures that it was impossible to make out what he was saying.

  "What if the Command gets into a situation where it's dependent upon his being well enough to do what he'd ordinarily do—" Having begun once more, he broke off again, seeing she was not listening to him but to the sounds from outside. He stood watching her, for a moment, like some unseen observer.

  "Read all signals," Walter the InTeacher had told
him, "not merely what the eyes, the ears and the nose pick up, but what you can read of gestalt patterns of response in those around you. Situations in which you lack experience may be interpretable through observation of those you are with at the time. Learn to read, therefore, at second hand. Animals and children do this all the time. We all know how to do this, instinctively; but habits and patterns of the mature and conscious mind lead us away from it."

  What Hal read now in the attitude of Rukh was an interpretation of the noise outside as a cause of unusual uneasiness—for reasons he himself could not find. But it did not matter that he could not, for in this case it was enough to see the understanding of Rukh.

  Abruptly, though there was no difference in Child's voice that Hal could hear, the uneasiness in Rukh changed to alarm—and decision. Without warning she suddenly swung about and headed out the door. He followed.

  They came out together into the wide side-yard of the farm, on to a nighttime scene lit by the overhead lights of the buildings surrounding three sides of it. A long row of large, van-type produce trucks were parked along one side of the yard and before these were gathered a number of the younger people of the Command and almost an equal number of young men in local farm clothes, evidently those who had brought the trucks.

  They were gathered about one of the truck drivers, who carried an obviously homemade accordion slung by a wide strap over one shoulder. But the accordion was silent; the people there were all silent, except for Child, who addressed them all and had all their eyes upon him. Now that he could see the faces of those here, Hal understood Rukh's reaction, for the expressions of the Command members were embarrassed, and the expressions of the truck drivers ranged from sullenness to open anger.

  With the appearance of Rukh, Child fell silent also.