Liege-Killer

by Christopher Hinz

  A male voice announced the arrival of the Sirak-Brath shuttle. Gillian was about to head down into the flashing entrance ramp when he noticed a small group of travelers at the other end of the terminal. They seemed to be speaking excitedly. Curiosity got the best of him and he moved closer.

  They were grouped around a public monitor, conversing in sharp awed whispers. On the screen, a freelancer had just finished delivering a news report. The phrase Special Interrupt dissolved across the freelancer’s face and then the channel returned to its normal shuttle transit reports.

  Gillian asked, “What happened?”

  A pudgy man with a child in tow glared at him. “This is an outrage. The Guardians are supposed to deal with this sort of thing!”

  The child, a girl, nodded her assent.

  “This is real trouble!” a woman answered angrily. “The Guardians stay away from real trouble!”

  “What happened?” he repeated.

  The woman shook her head, furious. “That creature—that Paratwa—just slaughtered a street full of people in Jordanian Paris!”

  “A public street,” added the pudgy man, as if that fact alone made the murders an outrage. The little girl shook the man’s hand, trying to get loose.

  “Over thirty people dead,” muttered a third voice. “I suppose we should be glad it didn’t happen here.”

  An old, well-dressed man shook his head. “Terrible, terrible! Limbs sliced off, people decapitated. Gutters flowing with blood. The freelancers are promising video direct from the scene!” He sounded as if he could barely wait to see the pictures.

  “The Guardians and the local police didn’t even try to catch the bastard!” proclaimed the woman. “I can’t believe they’re so incompetent!”

  Believe it, Gillian thought.

  The pudgy man shook his fist in the air. The little girl winced as his other hand squeezed her wrist. “They should close off every shuttle port in that colony! No one should be allowed in or out until they find this beast!”

  Gillian shook his head. Sealing off a colony was a doubtful measure at best. The damned cylinders simply had too many ways in and out. And even if the Paratwa was trapped within one cylinder, what then? The creature would either hide until things calmed down or fight its way off the colony. Probably it would hide. If it chose to escape in a captured shuttle, it would be vulnerable to attack by the Guardians’ patrol vessels. If, instead, the Paratwa went underground in a heavily populated colony, there would be little hope of finding it. The Guardians could not seal off a colony indefinitely.

  “An outrage!” muttered the pudgy man, as he dragged the girl toward the nearest ramp. “Something must be done!”

  Something shall, Gillian promised.

  O}o{O

  It was noonday on the Shan Plateau, dark and gloomy, sunlight diffused into shadowless illumination by the multiple layers of poisonous smog. Moist ground—almost mud—covered what had once been tropical lands. The teak forests and poppy fields were long gone, indiscriminately vaporized by nuclear terrorists in the twenty-first century. Only a mutant strain of translucent yellow grass had survived. Small, scattered patches studded the landscape like warts on the skin of an animal.

  A huge rectangular structure—the Church of the Trust’s Shan temple—stood on the crest of a small hill, dwarfing the space-suited figure that stood before it. Bishop Vokir raised his hand as if trying to seize the thick air. Hundreds of worshipers, spread out below him along the base of the hill, grew silent.

  “You are children of the Spirit of Gaia,” he intoned. “You are of this place, of this Earth. You live your bodily existence out there...” he pointed a gloved finger up into the smog, “ ... but here dwells your eternal spirit. The path of your travel within this life leads forever downward—to this place, to these roots, to this soil from which life sprang.”

  “To these roots,” they shouted. Five hundred helmeted heads bowed to the ground.

  The bishop touched his control belt and lowered the volume of his projection amps. His voice fell to a reverberating whisper within the helmets of the mourners.

  “It is said among the nonbelievers that the Earth is a dead place, that mankind has foolishly destroyed his home in the name of science. Is this possible? Can the root of all life truly be destroyed?”

  “No!” they cried.

  He added some bass to the projection amps, raised the volume a notch. “Can a planet that gave birth to billions ever be considered a dead place? Is it not true that one who returns to the roots of life cannot help but be reborn?”

  They raised their arms and the deep Burmese smog swirled around them. “It is true!”

  “The roots are beyond the touch of us mortals.” The bishop closed his eyes and bowed his head. He boosted the tremolo so that his voice seemed to waver. “The roots survive both frost and fire. The roots maintain us. Our Trust is consecrated by these roots.”

  “Our Trust is consecrated by these roots,” the crowd murmured.

  “And so it is, and so shall it ever be, for those who live within the Spirit of Gaia.”

  “Amen,” they cried.

  The bishop allowed a moment of silence and then switched his control belt to the clerical channel.

  “Are they ready?”

  “Yes, Your Eminence,” came the voice of a servant.

  “Then let it begin.”

  He looked past the gathering to the train of shuttlecrafts resting on the flatlands beyond the hill. Cargo hatches blossomed open like the petals of extraordinary white flowers. Church servants in green spacesuits poured from the ships to form double lines in front of each craft. The mourners turned to observe.

  The bishop touched his control belt and a prerecorded audio loop began the divine Chant of Mourning.

  “Blessed are the rootmakers for they maintain the sands of time. Blessed are the dustmakers for they surround the roots and give them strength. Blessed are the rainmakers, for they pour from the heavens and deliver the dust unto the place of all beginnings.”

  The mourners quickly picked up the rhythm of the words as the chant was repeated. Dark caskets slithered from the cargo bays and were passed down the long lines of servants. Each coffin was girdled by a ring of blue-green sparklights that strobed the dull sky in tandem with the holy words. The chant, intensified by passion, grew stronger.

  Mourners divided themselves into small groups of pallbearers. The dark caskets were lifted and carried to a large arena ringed by gas torches. With effort, the bearers hoisted the flashing caskets high into the air, over their heads. Bishop Vokir waited until everyone stood within the arena before slowly fading out the chant.

  Glimmering sparklights began to die as the tiny internal batteries succumbed to the poisoned air. One by one, the caskets lost their illumination. The bishop, even after all these years, still derived a sensory pleasure from watching the caskets, their lights fading, floating above the helmeted mourners. The vision possessed indescribable purity.

  Silence held the gathering as the final words of the chant dissolved. In the deathly quiet, the bishop raised his arms.

  “Today, on this Earth, on this plateau, we gather for the Conversion of Souls. Today, in this place, we gather with the spirits of sixty-two of our brethren. Today, in this place, we return the roots to the dust. Today, in this place, we are the rainmakers.”

  “We are the rainmakers,” they murmured.

  “We who maintain the Trust shall know the glory of eternal life. We who maintain the Trust shall be forever blessed. We who maintain the Trust shall again walk the Earth and know the Spirit of Gaia as the kingdom of life.”

  “We are the undying,” they murmured. Weeping could be heard behind the words.

  The bishop dropped his arms. The pallbearers followed suit, gently lowering the caskets to the damp soil.

  “The kingdom awaits our brethren.” Bishop Vokir touched his control belt and the gas torches surrounding the arena blossomed into wild snakes of blue and green fire. Slowly,
the pallbearers drifted out of the torched circle.

  “Rest in peace,” the bishop intoned, when the arena had been cleared.

  Almost immediately, the ground within the circle began to move. Damp mud turned milky white as the preplanted fault chemicals grew agitated. Underground tension rods catalyzed the process, creating miniature geysers of dark fluid that spouted high into the air. A fine mist rose over the unsettled arena.

  One by one, the coffins upended and sank into the Earth. In a minute, the entombment was complete. What had been solid ground was now a bubbling lake of white syrup.

  The bishop uttered the final words of the ceremony without audio effects.

  “In this place, let the Conversion of Souls last seven days and seven nights. Amen.”

  He turned and marched into the temple, shutting down his suit’s audio inputs immediately. There was no need for him to listen to humans weeping away into the darkness. As always, many would remain at the lake for hours, mourning their dead until the shuttle engines began to whine, signaling imminent departure. Church servants would then arrive to console and gently lead the more distraught mourners to their acceleration seats.

  And in seven days, just before the shallow white lake hardened into a burial vault, some of the liquid would be drawn off, pasteurized and sweetened, and bottled for transport to one of the thousands of clergies scattered throughout the Colonies. There, with proper sacrament, it would become misk—holy liquid of the Church of the Trust.

  The bishop stepped into the open airlock and sealed the outer door. Airjet detoxifiers blasted the rubbery shell of his protective suit, scouring away any impurities that might have been picked up on the plateau.

  It was a good religion, he reflected. Aristotle, before perishing in that freak South African disaster, had generated the basic outlines. Theophrastus had added special touches—the burial ceremony and the sacrament of the misk were his contributions. Sappho played with the symbols, the colors, the effects—had brought the religion to life with that curious detachment of the master magician. And, as always, Codrus had excelled in the financial arena.

  To the bishop, profit was the most exciting part of the Church. Today’s ceremony had netted an enormous sum, and there were a half-dozen such burials taking place on the planet every day.

  The detoxifiers shut down and the inner airlock opened. He unsnapped his helmet, peeled off the radiation suit, and hung the two sections in the corridor closet. A servant in blue robes approached and bowed gracefully.

  “Your quarters are ready, Your Eminence. Shall I send for lunch?”

  “No. I shall require an hour of silence. Please see to it that I am not disturbed.”

  “Very good, Your Eminence.” The servant shuffled away.

  Profits. The Church charged a basic fee for each burial, a nominal amount that barely covered shuttle transport costs. But each friend or relative of the deceased, who wished to pay final respects on the surface, was debited additional sums for transportation, suit rental, and detoxification. Earth passports, issued by E-Tech, also produced a slight profit, since the Church was able to buy them at a bulk commodity discount. And as a nontaxable entity, the Church could solicit donations from its members, ostensibly to cover the high costs of Earth burial.

  Occasional freelancer exposés hinted at the enormous profits the Church realized on the burial services, but few colonials were overly concerned. Money was money and even a church was expected to look healthy within the ICN marketplace. The Irryan constitution specifically recognized the Church’s right to conduct interplanetary burials and guaranteed the Church broad travel freedom between Earth and the Colonies. And to the millions of true believers, the Church of the Trust could do no wrong.

  The bishop entered his private quarters and sealed the door. A quick check of his desk scanner revealed that no major disturbances had taken place within the chamber since his last visit, almost six months ago. Aside from periodic scanning by the maintenance techs for outside atmospheric leaks, no one had even entered the room.

  That was good. Although the full-time personnel who manned the Church’s numerous Earth cemeteries were carefully screened, there was always the possibility that a disloyal servant would come snooping around forbidden areas of a temple. At most of the sanctuaries, such antics could be ignored. But here on the Shan Plateau, and within the temples of Finland and Western Canada, Codrus had much to hide.

  The bishop keyed open his desk and placed his hand on the identification modem built into the drawer. He typed a twenty-digit access code into the terminal. The monitor flashed green.

  He entered the chamber’s small closet and pushed aside a rack of clothing. The carpet rolled up easily, exposing another hand modem on the bare metal floor. The bishop laid his palm against that modem and whispered a second access code. Audio sensors reacted instantly. The modem pivoted up from the floor to form a handle. He opened the hatch.

  The staircase spiraled down into darkness. Keeping his hand on the railing, the bishop carefully descended into the subcellar.

  The temples of Finland and Western Canada boasted similar facilities. From time to time, the bishop scheduled himself for funeral services in those places.

  Last month he had been to Finland. From a secret storehouse below that temple, the bishop had retrieved Reemul’s weapons, mothballed two centuries earlier. Crescent webs, scramblers, launch-control thighpads; an entire arsenal of murderous implements had been prepared for the awakening of the Jeek—everything but the Cohe wands. Those, Reemul had taken into stasis.

  It was just as well that the Jeek awoke with his Cohes. Codrus had deemed it necessary to destroy the pirates who, under Bob Max’s direction, had brought Reemul from the depths of sleep.

  It had been relatively easy to get a cryptic message to Reemul shortly after his revival. The Jeek had been ordered to extract the desired information from the Costeaus and then kill them.

  Under torture, the pirates admitted to Reemul that they had no knowledge of anyone other than the smuggler. Bob Max had obeyed his primary orders until the end—he had kept his unorthodox ties with the bishop a secret.

  Lights came on automatically as the bishop descended. At the bottom of the staircase, one hundred and twenty feet below the temple, a small cavern gave way to a metal door, carved into the bedrock. In the center of the door lay a circle of five single-access hand modems. Only the nervous system of an Ash Ock—or its tway—could unlock the portal.

  Near the one-o’clock position of the circle lay the Codrus modem. The bishop placed his hand on the plate, allowing the door’s complex access system to identify and disarm. While waiting, he found himself, as usual, staring at the other hand modems.

  Poor Aristotle. Poor Empedocles. The bishop had one of those strange thoughts—he reflected on the mortality of his breed. We are strong beyond human knowledge, but even we are susceptible to the uncertainties of the universe.

  The thought was strange because the bishop knew that his monarch did not share it. Codrus took into account the possibilities of accident or miscalculation, but deep within, all Ash Ock felt immortal.

  The bishop sighed. Yet even we grow old.

  He entered an access code into the tiny keyboard beneath the modem. The unit flashed green, clearing him to enter. With a gentle push, the door opened. The bishop stepped into a place where no human had ever walked.

  O}o{O

  Paula ran.

  The pirate colony lacked a sense of order. Buildings sat atop one another. Miniature forests opened onto great esplanades that were actually the roofs of other structures. Streets, jammed with walkers and cyclists, abruptly mutated into hallways with ceilings. She ducked through portals that were either entrances or exits—it was impossible to tell the difference.

  A few structures lunged haphazardly across the entire diameter of the colony. Weird elevators shot through these buildings, rotating their occupants at the gravity-free core of the colony, then plunging to destinations on the oppos
ite side of the cylinder. The small diameter of the colony dictated a rapid spin rate to maintain normal gravity at the perimeter. The rotation produced a maddening Coriolis acceleration. Straight lines of motion did not exist. Paula’s quarters, on the eleventh floor of a complex, contained a sink that blasted water in a curved stream.

  Heart pounding, she leaped over a child’s tricycle and dashed through an open doorway.

  Artificial illumination bathed most of her route but occasional windows of sunlight overwhelmed the quartz-halogen beams. There were no discrete strips of cosmishield glass here; instead, sunlight penetrated the remotest sections of the colony via complex arrangements of mirrors. By comparison, the geometries of Lamalan were ridiculously simple.

  Pirates paused to stare at her as she dashed past them. Children gave chase, thinking Paula was leading them to excitement, relinquishing the pursuit only when they came close enough to see the pain on her face.

  Smells assailed her—pungent stabs of garlic from a marketplace blended with the heavy odor of machinery oils a corridor away. Air conditioners shot perfumed sprays into the docking terminals, reducing but not completely eliminating the foul scent of pirates just arriving from Irryan colonies. The badge of the true Costeau—the odorant bag—was not worn here, but the smell hung in the air. Paula had been told that lengthy exposure dimmed awareness of the odor.

  It still stank.

  She came to Harry’s room and knocked loudly on the door. There was no response. In desperation, she pounded her fists against the wooden portal. Hands seized her from behind, pulled her to the floor.

  “Goddamn you! I’ve got to see him! I’ve got to see the Lion!”

  Aaron, garbed in dirty coveralls, stomped down the corridor. The tattoo wormed across his cheek in anger.

  “Let me go!” she pleaded. “I’ve got to see him!”

  Aaron gave a hand signal. The guards released her. “Explain yourself, woman.”