“They are dirty, as you said,” Cornelia answered. “Another good reason to avoid them when we can. Is that a new bite on your cheek?”
Victoria’s hand flew up to the injured spot. “Er—yes,” she said, and knew she risked eternal damnation for the lie. Mr. Griffin had put that bruise there. He was not a hard man; he’d only hit her once for not having their home in proper order when he returned from the fields. Getting the new water jug from the Haldols had taken up too much of the day for her to finish the rest of the chores. But it was her own fault that the old jug had broken, so how could she complain?
“I do wish we could be rid of the Haldols’ vermin, I will say that,” Cornelia said. “Even the Haldols would benefit thereby. Surely they suffer worse from disease for being so constantly afflicted with those cursed crawling pinheads.”
Victoria did not care whether the base and lewd Haldols benefited; by her best guess, the vermin that swarmed over them were a judgment like unto that which God had visited upon the sinful Egyptians. But how was divine justice served by having New Zion also suffer for the natives’ vile profligacy? Try as she might, she could see no answer to that question.
No more, however, could she see how to be rid of the vermin. She said as much: “The Holy Mission Church long ago forswore the devilish arts we would need to kill off the bugs.” As if to remind her they were still there, one of them bit her on the inside of the ankle. She rubbed the wounded part against her other leg. Sometimes that crushed the little pests. More often, as now, the bug simply shifted its attack.
Cornelia Baker’s voice went soft and sly: “We have not the devilish arts, but those at the Federation base may well.”
“But they are as godless as the Haldol,” Victoria gasped, trying again—and again without success—to kill the biter that was tormenting her. “They are worse, for, being human, they should be of His flock.” The folk of New Zion had had no intercourse with the base in the two years since it was established. They had also firmly made it known that no one not of the Holy Mission Church was welcome in their town.
“How better and more just to overthrow the devil than through his own instruments?” Cornelia asked.
That was sound dogma. Victoria knew it. She also knew Cornelia was tempting her, trying to get her to be the one to step beyond the bounds of what was proper. “Mr. Griffin would never permit me to seek out the ones who have turned their backs on the Lord,” she said. The bug bit her leg again, this time in the fold of skin at the back of her knee. A drop of blood—or maybe it was just sweat—slid wetly down her calf.
“Will you let him keep you from serving the greater glory of God?” Cornelia said.
“Proper obedience—” Before Victoria could say anything further, the biter sank its piercing beak into her flesh once more. It was not a sign like the burning bush, or like Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, but she was no great prophet or saint, to deserve a great sign. She took the small one for what she thought it meant, and said, “Perhaps I will go after all.”
“God will bless you for it,” Cornelia exclaimed fervently, her eyes glowing at the prospect of His work being done . . . and also at the prospect of its being done at no risk to herself.
The Federation research base was farther from New Zion than the Haldol village. If she went there, she would surely be gone the greater part of a day. Mr. Griffin would probably hit her again, maybe more than once this time. She rubbed her cheek, wondering if she really wanted to take that chance.
Better a beating now and then, she thought, than this constant torment from vermin. As if to underscore the point, the Haldol pinhead crawling up her leg probed her again with its red-hot needle of a snout.
“Yes, perhaps I shall go after all,” she said, swatting at herself. Cornelia Baker smiled.
The Haldol village, while disgusting, was at least disgusting in a comprehensible way. Victoria’s knees wobbled from fear as much as from fatigue as she finally drew near the Federation research base. For all she knew, the godless scientists inside were waiting to strip her soul from her body with one of their machines and send it straight to the eternal fire. She didn’t know whether they could do that, but she thought they might be able to. Why would the Holy Mission Church so completely have rejected science if it did not emanate from Satan? Only the thought of getting rid of the vermin that constantly tortured her, that she hated and feared, kept her going forward.
A woman’s voice spoke from out of the air. “Hello, there. You’re one of the Churchies, aren’t you? What are you doing here? We thought you people didn’t want anything to do with us.”
Victoria had trouble following the quick, sharp accent, so different from that of her own folk. After a moment, she managed to stammer out an answer: “I—I need to talk with you people about—about something to help the Haldols.”
“Do you?” the unseen woman said. Victoria thought she sounded dubious. “Well, come on, then. No reason we can’t talk about it.”
The research base was a single low, immense building, taking up almost as much space on the ground as the entire village of New Zion. A pair of big glass panes were in the size and shape of a double door, but Victoria saw no handle. “How do I go in?” she asked.
Without warning, and with no human agency she could detect, the glass panes hissed apart from each other. Startled and alarmed, she drew back a pace. “Come in if you’re coming,” the woman said, sharply now. “Don’t just stand there letting out all our nice, conditioned air.”
Muttering a prayer, Victoria walked into the base. The doors closed behind her with another soft hiss. She shivered. No wonder the Holy Mission Church had turned its back on technology, if technology could make ordinary objects like doors behave as if they were infused with life.
She shivered again. She’d lived all her life in Reverence’s tropical humidity. Now, for the first time, she felt air that wasn’t hot and sticky. It seemed chilly and wrong, but only for a moment. After that, it was delicious—seductive was another word that sprang into her mind. This was technology, too, she realized, technology luring man away from honest reality and into luxurious indolence.
The people inside the research base did not seem indolent. They bustled back and forth, going into a doorway here, popping out of one there. Despite the unnaturally cool air, they wore only brightly colored singlets and shorts. Victoria needed most of a minute to realize that some of the people so dressed were women. She blushed and cast her eyes to the floor at the indecent display of flesh. It was almost as bad as what she’d witnessed at the Haldol village—almost. Nothing could be that bad.
“Good heavens, dearie, when did you last bathe?” By the voice, it was the woman Victoria had heard outside. Victoria had to look at her. She was in her late twenties, a few years older than Victoria, with light brown hair cut shorter than any woman in New Zion wore it, gray eyes, and open, friendly features. From the neck up, she looked like a nice person. From the neck down . . . an orange singlet that clung to the bosom tightly enough to reveal the outlines of nipples, green shorts that molded themselves to buttocks, had to be devices of the devil to incite sensuality.
And the question she’d asked, and the way she’d asked it—“A few days ago,” Victoria answered, more than a little defiantly. She didn’t smell any different from anyone else in New Zion; she smelled the way a person was supposed to smell. Gathering her spirit, she looked the strange woman in the face, asked, “When did you last pray?”
The woman blinked. “It’s been longer than a few days, I’ll tell you that. But I already knew your priorities were different from mine. Fair enough. My name is Janice; who are you?” She held out her hand as if she were a man.
Scandalized yet again, Victoria took it. She gave her own name. Then she blurted, “Can you help me? I’ve come on account of the vermin.”
“The vermin?” Janice frowned. A tiny vertical line appeared between her eyebrows. “I think you need to tell me more. Why don’t you come along into my
office so we can talk?”
Victoria followed her. A whole wall of the office was filled with—at first she thought they were windows. Then she realized they had to be something more. One showed the way she had come—this Janice must have seen her as she approached. The woman waved her to a chair. It was softer and conformed more closely to her shape than any that would have been tolerated in New Zion. Its very comfort made her want to squirm. Janice gave her a glass of something cold. “Is it spirituous?” she asked suspiciously.
“Is it what?” Janice asked. She spoke to something on her desk. Victoria almost got up and left when the desk answered. But Janice turned to her and said, “No, it has no alcohol.”
Partially reassured, she took a small sip. Whatever it was, it was sweet and very cold, colder than stream water ever got. She felt it slide all the way down inside her when she swallowed. She took another sip, and another. Pretty soon the glass was empty. Victoria set it aside and said, “Now. About the vermin.”
“Go ahead,” Janice said. “Tell me about the vermin.”
Victoria told her, not so much about the vermin themselves as about her trip to the Haldol village. She even found herself stammering out the story of what the male and female Haldol had done right before her eyes, and how the vermin ambled over their slick, moist skins while they did it. (She would never have spoken of such things back in New Zion, but Janice, by the way she dressed and by the fact that she did not belong to the Holy Mission Church, seemed a harlot herself, and thus unlikely to be offended.) Victoria finished, “It’s just—disgusting. It can’t be healthy for them—the Haldols, I mean—either.”
“You surprise me, you really do,” Janice said. “From all I’d ever heard, none of you Churchies gave a damn about the Haldols.”
“They are damned,” Victoria said. So are you, she added to herself.
“Never mind; that’s not quite what I meant.” Janice frowned, considering. “We probably could get rid of their parasites for you, if that’s what you want. Are you really sure that’s what you want?”
Something in the way she asked the question warned Victoria it had teeth (after a moment, she figured out what it was: this Janice woman sounded like Cornelia Baker). She asked, “Why shouldn’t it be what I really want?”
“Well, what do you think will happen with the Haldols if they aren’t constantly pestered by disease-carrying vermin?” Janice asked.
“They’ll be healthier, like I said. Why shouldn’t I want them to be healthier?” Victoria wondered if she and Janice were speaking the same language.
Janice said, “Yes, I think you’re right; I think they will be healthier. Not only that, I think their children won’t die young so often. I think they’ll grow up and have lots of little Haldols of their own.”
“Good. Maybe, God willing, we’ll be able to convert them to proper love for Jesus Christ.” Babies who died young—even Haldol babies—touched Victoria’s heart.
Janice studied her as if she were a bug herself. “You really don’t understand, do you?”
“Understand what?”
“If we fix it so the Haldols don’t die young, there are going to be more and more Haldols. They’ll need more and more land, too. What will you Churchies do then? They’re native to this world and you’re not. Odds are, they’ll overwhelm you in a few generations. That’s how evolution works, you know.”
Victoria didn’t know. Evolution was evil; she was certain of that. The certainty was the beginning and end of her knowledge on the subject. Of one thing, however, she was even more certain. “The Lord will provide for us,” she said confidently. A pinhead bit her, just below her left breast. She shuddered. She was also sure that having those accursed vermin dead now mattered more to her than anything a few generations down the road. Her great-grandchildren, if she ever had any, could take care of themselves. All she wanted was to be free of welts.
“The Lord will provide, will he, dearie?” Janice no longer seemed open and friendly. Again, she reminded Victoria of Cornelia—Cornelia looking for a way to get someone else into trouble at no expense to herself. “If that’s what you want, I’m willing to give it to you. Far as I can see, it’ll serve you right. You people have no business on this planet in the first place.”
“Why do you hate us so much?” The hostility of the Federation research worker’s response rocked Victoria. “What did we ever do to you?”
“You know-nothings have been holding back the advance of knowledge for the last two thousand years,” Janice said. “If you had your way, all of humanity would be back on Earth, living in filthy huts like yours, starving one year in three, and going off to war over the nature of God. As far as I’m concerned, the faster people who think like you die out, the better off we’ll all be. So I’ll do just what you asked, because I think that’s the quickest way to be rid of you for good.”
Shaking, Victoria started to tell her to forget the whole idea. Then she realized it was too late for that; Janice was certain to try to get rid of the vermin now, just to hurt the Church of the Holy Mission as much as she could. Victoria’s voice wobbled as she said, “You seem just as sure you have the only right way to do things as we are. We at least have faith to sustain us. What sustains you?”
Before Janice could answer, she happened to glance down at her arm. Like a wandering pinhead, a Haldol bug crawled through the fine hair there. With a cry of disgust, she crushed it between thumb and forefinger. “I should have had you fumigated before I ever let you in here.”
“What does fumigated mean?” Victoria asked.
“You sure wouldn’t know, would you, Churchie? You just go on home now. We’ll take care of the bugs for you, I promise you that.” When Janice got to her feet, she carefully examined herself to make sure no other vermin from Victoria had attached themselves to her. Victoria averted her eyes, not caring for the sensual thoughts roused by the sight of Janice’s hands sliding over her smooth flesh (how did the woman have no hair on her legs?). She knew Janice was not caressing herself for the pleasure of it, but that was still how it looked.
“Go on,” Janice said again. “Out of here. I’ll clean up after you.” As Victoria left the office and headed for the door by which she’d entered, the woman from the research base followed her with a metal tube that sent forth a sweetly noxious vapor. “Want me to spray you, too?”
“No, thank you,” Victoria said with as much dignity as she could muster. She didn’t mind smelling the way she smelled, and going back to New Zion literally reeking of technology was unthinkable.
“Keep your vermin, then,” Janice said. “I don’t know why I bothered to ask; you’d just pick up another set of them on the way home. And we will get rid of them in a bit—just remember, you asked for it.” With that, she touched a button. The glass doors hissed open. Victoria stepped through. The doors closed. Inside the base, Janice sprayed where she had stood.
The outside air smote her like a warm, wet fist. She’d found the climate trying enough, living in it every moment of her life. Now, after an hour or two in—what had Janice called it?—conditioned air, she realized just how dreadful the weather was.
By the time she got back to New Zion, sweat plastered her heavy wool dress to her until it was almost as obscenely tight as Janice’s outfit had been. The rough fabric prickled against the soft skin of her belly and flanks. She tugged at the dress, trying to pull it away, but no sooner did she let go than it stuck again.
She did not see Cornelia Baker anywhere about. That, she thought, was as well. She turned off the central street toward her own cabin. It would be good to get home. Then her stomach did a flipflop and she felt cold in spite of the weather. Her husband stood outside the front door waiting for her, his thick arms folded across his chest. His fists were clenched.
She dipped her head to him. “Good even’, Mr. Griffin.”
“Where have you been?” His voice seemed to rumble out from somewhere deep inside him. “Nothing’s done here. Have you been slothfully
idling again?”
“No, Mr. Griffin, I’ve not been idling,” Victoria said, deciding not to notice that unjust again. “I’m sorry I didn’t do as much here as I might have today; the walk to and from the Federation research base took longer than I thought it would.”
He stared at her. She’d given him an answer he’d not looked for. It was not, however, one he approved of. “Did Satan possess you, to make you want to visit that godless place?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Griffin,” she said. I will not fear him, she told herself uselessly. “I thought they might have a way to rid the Haldols—and us—of the crawling vermin that torment our lives. They said they did—they said they would.” She did not repeat what else the woman named Janice had said. She trusted God to know who His true followers on Reverence were, and to protect them.
“Technology,” he said in that rumbling, fateful voice. “You went seeking technology. Technology is the Whore of Babylon, as well you know.”
“Yes, Mr. Griffin,” she whispered. The elders of the Church of the Holy Mission drummed that into every child on New Zion. Still, though, she tried to defend herself: “I did not seek it for us, Mr. Griffin, only for the Haldols, so that—” She broke off. —so that I wouldn’t be sickened by seeing the vermin crawl on them, sickened near to madness by the feel of them on me was what was true. She had gone looking for technology for her own sake, then. She could not lie. That sin was even worse. She stared at the ground between her feet. “I’m sorry, Mr. Griffin.”
He turned, opened the door. “I think we’d better go inside, Mrs. Griffin.” Numbly, she followed him into the cabin. He closed the door behind them. The sound of the bar thudding home was dreadfully final. Jonah might have heard that sound when the jaws of the whale closed on him.
“Please, Mr. Griffin—” Victoria began. He hit her then. Whatever she’d been about to say was lost in the pain. He hit her again, and again. She cowered and endured it as best she could. At first he was dispassionate about the beating, as if he were simply training an animal to do what he required.
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