A Covenant of Justice

by David Gerrold

“What?”

  “Well . . . sometimes, the Knaxx answers in riddles. Sometimes indecipherable riddles.” Sawyer poked Lee. “Go ahead. Ask.”

  Lee puffed out his cheeks and blew. He cleared his throat. He looked at the Informant. The Informant looked back at him. He swallowed hard and said, “My companion and I need to find someone. We want to find the person who wears or carries the TimeBand of Burihatin-14. Whoever has the TimeBand, we want to locate that person.” He glanced to Sawyer. “Did I say that clearly enough?”

  Sawyer nodded. “Go ahead. Start putting money in the bowl.”

  Lee reached into his cloak and pulled out a sheaf of bills. He began peeling off notes—the Knaxx watched impassively—but before Lee could lay them in the bowl, the creature put its claw-like hand over the top of the bowl.

  “What does that mean?” Lee asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never seen an Informant do this before. Maybe it means that it won’t answer the question. Or can’t.” The two men traded puzzled looks.

  Abruptly, the Informant spoke. It had a voice like a soft whistling breeze, sibilant and blurred. They had to strain to make out the words. “Now you should pray.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Sawyer asked.

  “Say your prayers,” the Knaxx repeated. Then it got up and left the room, leaving them alone with the table and the empty bowl.

  “What do you think that meant?” Lee asked.

  Sawyer scratched his head. “I think . . . it meant that we should say our prayers.”

  “Doesn’t it worry you?”

  “Everything worries me, these days.”

  Mixed Signals

  Captain ‘Ga Lunik watched the fleet of landers approach The Golden Fury with mixed emotions—fear and loathing. The return of the Dragon Lord to the Imperial Starship had come much too soon for his taste, but he recognized the inevitability of it.

  The Dragon Lord had not acknowledged his request for information about the search for Zillabar. That meant that the search for the Imperial Queen had still not turned up any trace of either the Lady or her captors. The embarrassment of failure would make the Dragon Lord a ferocious passenger indeed, and Captain ‘Ga Lunik did not look forward to welcoming a troop of disgruntled Dragons back aboard his vessel.

  He knew the Dragon Lord would not tell him everything that had occurred down on Burihatin-14; but the Vampires had their own resources of information, and Captain ‘Ga Lunik had used them to determine that the Dragon Lord had savaged the economy of Dupa badly enough to require several generations of serious repair work to undo the worst of the damage. Dragons did not have a reputation for patience. Furious at the lack of immediate results, the Lord of All Moktar Warriors had assumed a lack of cooperation on the part of the natives, and had ordered grievous retributions. Over a hundred small towns and cities had disappeared from the maps of Dupa.

  While Captain ‘Ga Lunik understood the rationale for the Dragon Lord’s actions, in the long run such offenses served only to annoy the natives, instill greater resentment than fear, and make the job of peaceful governance that much more difficult.

  Additionally, the Dragon Lord had expanded his orders to keep the StarPort sealed. Now, if any ship tried to run the blockade either in or out, the marauders would intercept it. If the Captain of the intercepted vessel refused to allow boarders, the marauders had orders to destroy the vessel without questions. Captain ‘Ga Lunik expected horrendous repercussions from that decision—especially after the second or third vessel disappeared in a bright nuclear flash.

  He pondered his own future with a less than sanguine apprehension. The bad news had not yet finished arriving, and he did not particularly relish the thought of attending the confrontation about to occur.

  Another starship—even bigger than The Golden Fury—had arrived at Burihatin, and brought itself alongside. He had recognized it immediately; The Black Destructor, Kernel d’Vashti’s Armageddon-Class battle-wagon, the largest military ship in the Palethetic Cluster. Kernel d’Vashti had already signaled his desire to meet with the Lady Zillabar at her earliest opportunity.

  Captain ‘Ga Lunik had not known how to appropriately answer this. He had spent long moments pacing the bridge of his vessel, considering what he might reply to d’Vashti’s request. Should he inform d’Vashti of the circumstances of the Lady’s abrupt unavailability? He didn’t like that idea; he knew what happened to bad news bearers. He’d done it himself. Should he attempt to discourage d’Vashti without revealing exactly what had happened? That course of action seemed equally inappropriate. When d’Vashti found out—as he most certainly would in a very short matter of time—he would not have very good feelings about the author of any obscure messages.

  After a bit more cogitation, Captain ‘Ga Lunik hit upon a dangerous, but ideal subterfuge. He signaled d’Vashti that, “In respect to the Lady’s present circumstances, all those who seek an audience with her must present themselves first to the Lord of All Moktar Dragons.”

  Yes. He liked that solution best. It took him out of the crossfire.

  Maybe.

  Coincidentalism

  “I don’t know what it means,” Sawyer said again. His frustration rose with every repetition. “I’ve never heard an Informant say anything like that before.”

  “Well, figure it out! You said you knew Informants. Show me some of your famous expertise!”

  “Maybe it means exactly what it means! Maybe we should find a temple and say our prayers.” Sawyer felt helpless. He’d never come up against a problem like this before. “Y’know, sometimes the Knaxx don’t speak in riddles. No wonder nobody understands them.”

  “And maybe it means we have no chance at all,” Lee suggested. “Maybe the Knaxx meant that the situation has passed beyond the point of simple hopelessness into a state of total annihilation.” Lee grabbed Sawyer angrily. “Do you have any more good ideas?”

  Sawyer shook off Lee’s frustration. “I think we should try saying our prayers—” He looked around. “There,” he pointed.

  “What?”

  “Across the square. I see a House of Random Happenstance.”

  Lee raised an eyebrow at him. “Coincidentalism?”

  Sawyer’s expression turned into one of conviction. “The one thing I do have certainty about—Informants don’t make mistakes.”

  “Of that,” said Lee, “I still remain unconvinced.”

  Sawyer didn’t bother answering. He just grabbed Lee’s arm and began pulling him across the plaza toward the House of Random Happenstance, also known to those who worshipped regularly within its walls as the Temple of Intentional Coincidence.10

  The temple presented a simple appearance. Four whitewashed walls stood apart at a distance of thirty meters, forming a perfect square. The walls stood unconnected to each other and their thick white surfaces remained unbroken by doors. Pilgrims entered at the open corners.

  Sawyer and Lee entered the temple respectfully. No ceiling covered the space within, a complex roof of silk banners hung from the tops of the walls; the thin cloth rippled in the soft breezes of the ringed Burihatin dusk.

  Here and there, Coincidentalists of all species, but mostly porcines, consulted various oracles of meditation. Sixty-four low tables lay arranged in a pattern of eight rows by eight; worshippers bent over several of them, casting complex hexagrams with yarrow stalks and coins. The process began with the writing of an important question on a scrap of holy parchment, then the pilgrim burnt the parchment in a dish of incense while waving fifty sacred yarrow stalks through the smoke. Then, the questioner would begin sorting the stalks in a complex iteration which would eventually result in a remainder representing two lines of the final pattern.

  Every set of iterations produced two more lines of the total pattern, one line grew from the past, the other from the future. At completion, the practitioner would have before him two separate patterns; one represented the events that had formed this moment, the other represented the events that would grow
from this moment.

  To the mendicant, the seeming randomness of the process represented an access to influences outside of the realm of human control. Believing that nothing occurred randomly, that everything occurred as part of a much larger set of connected events, this process of nonspecific consultation allowed the Coincidentalist to determine the specific flows which affected his life. Because he served as the focus of events at the selection of the yarrow stalks, the randomness that occurred around him represented the actual flows of his own local condition, thus he would receive precise information from the greater cosmos about his own place in it—if only he knew how to interpret it.

  Fortunately, a wide variety of texts existed for the interpretation of the patterns, drawing complex meanings out of the shape of every line, broken or unbroken. The practitioner consulted those texts to determine the how the hexagrams pointed to the underlying structure of the universe that had produced these particular hexagrams at this specific moment in time at this specific place with himself as focus.

  Coincidentalists believed that the entire careful process gave them a cross-section of universal intention as precise as any measured by an electron chamber. The consultant’s fate sat, poised like a bubble in delicate balance, between the past and the future. The hexagrams gave him information about the shape of each. By consulting the texts about the hexagrams, the petitioner could make himself aware of the greater flows of the universe. He could then choose to direct his efforts either with or against those currents.

  Or so the Coincidentalists believed.

  For serious questions, the rituals of the hexagrams took the better part of a day to cast and even longer to consider. In such cases, most Coincidentalists would meditate on the meanings of their hexagrams for at least seven days before making a commitment to action. For lesser questions, however, the entire process often took only a few moments.

  The most devout Coincidentalists preferred the hours of either dusk or dawn for their consultations of the oracle. As Sawyer and Lee watched, several pilgrims finished their consultations, gathered up their belongings, and left. Other pilgrims entered and took their places at tables within the square. A low level of activity remained constant throughout. Around the edges of the tables, small groups of men stood around in knots, actively discussing the finer points of random happenstance. Several wore gray robes, indicating that others had recognized their expertise in the matter and conferred upon them the acknowledgment of rank.

  Suddenly, a wail of despair interrupted the quiet ruminations of the temple. Not too far from where Sawyer and Lee stood, a wealthy-looking porcine merchant stood up from the table where his hexagrams lay before him. He took out a broad knife, uttered a loud cry of anguish, and plunged it into his own heart. His dark red blood immediately soaked his shirt front. For an instant, his face registered panic, then peace—and then he sank to the floor and died.

  The other petitioners stared for a moment, then returned to their own meditations. The fate of the merchant did not concern them. One or two of the porcines standing on the edges of the square, however, wandered over to study the hexagrams that the fallen merchant had left on his table. The shook their heads and shrugged, then wandered away. The hexagrams themselves presented a neutral face; the petitioners gave them meaning by the questions they asked. Shortly, several novices in brown robes entered the temple and removed the body. Others stayed behind just long enough to clean the blood stains from the stone.

  “Does that happen all the time?” asked Lee.

  Sawyer shook his head. “No. I’ve seen worse.”

  “Well, now what do we do?” Lee turned to Sawyer. “I don’t consider suicide a viable option.”

  “Neither do I,” Sawyer agreed. He took Lee by the arm. “Now, we walk. Around the edges of the square. Six steps at a time. Then we stop for a count of six. Then six more steps and we stop again. When we’ve completed six circuits, we turn around and go the other way. When we’ve completed six circuits in reverse, we leave.”

  “I see,” said Lee. “And this will solve our problems?”

  “No, you don’t see anything at all,” said Sawyer. “Let me finish telling you how it works. As you walk around the square, you meet people—”

  As if to demonstrate the point, they found themselves stopped in front of a huge porcine woman. Lee wanted to hold his nose against the unpleasant smell of her sweat. The woman had a small female child with her. She looked at Sawyer and Lee with a sour expression. “I need to find a buyer for this child; she won’t obey. Can you help me—?”

  The two men looked at the child; it had a sad bedraggled expression. They both felt sorry for it, but neither wanted to assume the responsibility either. They shook their heads. The porcine woman snorted in disgust, spattering them with a fine spray, and waddled past, dragging the child by the arm.

  “As I said,” continued Sawyer, as if nothing untoward had happened. “As you walk around the square, you meet people. Sooner or later, you’ll meet someone who can give you assistance. Or you’ll assist someone else with his or her problem, and out of that, you may find the solution you need.”

  “And you believe that?”

  Sawyer shrugged. “Whether I believe or not, it still works.” To Lee’s look, he added. “Trackers learn a lot of different things. You learn to use whatever works.”

  Lee looked unconvinced.

  Sawyer added, “I had a wild childhood. I ran away once. I lived with a group of Trancers—until Finn caught up with me and took me home. I got curious about how he found me. He told me. I told him how he could have done it better. So he made me a partner. He never asked me to change. He just asked me to use what I had. I figured, what the hell, I liked solving interesting problems. I guess, I had more luck than I realized. Finn found me before I got in too deep.”

  Lee considered that for a bit. They completed their first circuit in silence. They exchanged greetings with one or two other petitioners, but neither they nor the others pressed for further conversation. Finally, Lee said, “I always knew my family. We had brothers everywhere, all ages. I never had to worry about my identity—I had already stepped into it. You have a relationship with your brother that I never had with any of mine—oh, don’t get me wrong. A clone-family has its own closeness; but the closeness grows out of a common identity. All members share the same Self. You and your brother, you had to create closeness for yourselves; you could just as easily have chosen not to. I find it difficult to . . . understand. But I don’t disparage it. Not anymore.”

  “Thank you,” said Sawyer. “You do me honor with your words. I hope someday I can return the honor a thousandfold.”

  “Thank you,” said Lee.

  They walked on in silence, occasionally looking around at the other pilgrims, studying them and wondering which if any might present themselves as a possible solution to their problem. “Y’know,” said Lee. “I find this interesting, but I don’t think it’ll help us. I really don’t believe in coincidence. And I don’t think we should either expect it or depend it.”

  Abruptly, they came face to face with an older woman—human; she looked terribly afraid. She wore a green robe and had stringy gray hair. She had no shoes on her blackened feet. She looked haggard, as if she had not rested in days. She held a bulky travel sack close to her chest. She looked from Sawyer to Lee and back again. “Can you help me? I have . . . a method for madness.”

  Lee started to shake his head and move on, but Sawyer held him back. “You haven’t eaten, have you?” he said to the woman.

  She shook her head. “I don’t remember when I ate last. It doesn’t matter. I’ve come such a long way. The Informant said to come here. For three days I’ve walked the circuit, but no one can hear me. I think—” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Some people have fed me. Will you help me?”

  “We’ll feed you,” Sawyer said abruptly. “Say nothing else. Come with us now.” He and Lee guided the woman quietly out of the temple and into the shelter of
a nearby cafe. Sawyer signaled a servitor and ordered a pitcher of cold refreshing juice, plates of gentle-berries, savories, and other soft foods. He tended the woman solicitously. “I think we can help you,” he said. “And you can help us.”

  Lee stared at him in puzzlement the whole time. Finally, he leaned across to Sawyer and whispered, “Why do you do this? We didn’t come here to feed beggars.”

  “Open your eyes and take another look, dummy,” Sawyer snapped back. “This woman has just answered our prayers.”

  Azra

  She had served the TimeBinder of Burihatin-14 almost all of her life. Three separate bodies had worn the TimeBand during the period of her service, but she served the TimeBinder regardless, not the person.

  One night, the TimeBinder had shaken her awake and given her desperate, but precise instructions. “Azra, tonight you must perform the single most important task of your entire life. Take this box. Go to StarPort. You’ll have to walk. No one will find you if take the old Superstition Trail. Stay away from settlements. Don’t talk to anyone. I’ll give you a list of names and passwords. Memorize them. If you can’t find any of these people at StarPort, then go to the Informants and tell them this: The TimeBinder has freed the TimeBand. Tell them that the ‘Band must not fall into the hands of the Regency and that the ‘Binders will repay them handsomely for their assistance in this service. Ask them to help you get the TimeBand to the Gathering. If necessary, open the box and show them what you carry. But don’t allow anyone to put the TimeBand on. If they do, you must kill them. No one must put the ‘Band on except someone chosen by the other TimeBinders. Do you understand all this?”

  Azra nodded sleepily.

  “Repeat it back to me.”

  She did so, stumbling only once in her recitation.

  Satisfied, the TimeBinder hugged her and kissed her. “Promise me that you will do this. I cannot begin to tell you the importance of what you do. I must know that you will not fail.”