by Chris Walley
“Yes.”
Ethan flicked through it, seeing formulae and diagrams. It works; I know that from his attitude.
There was another flash of lightning, and almost immediately a rumbling boom that seemed to go on for seconds.
Ethan tapped the report. “Tell me what it says. In words I can understand.” Seymour was always good at the summary.
“Very well. The computer simulations have confirmed that Dr. Habbentz’s idea is valid. In theory, we can make and deliver a weapon that will wipe out the heart of the Dominion.”
“We can destroy a star,” Ethan said, and he heard the numbed awe in his words.
“Strictly, we make the star destroy itself. We can explode Sarata and destroy all the worlds around it.” Seymour’s words were precise.
Another flash of lightning cut through the room and there was a long rippling blast of thunder.
Ethan flicked through the report and closed it. Easier to ask. “How soon could it be used?”
“Eight weeks at the fastest.”
“That soon?”
“Yes. There are two key elements: the bomb and the ship. The bomb is a polyvalent fusion device surrounded by a precisely crafted array of gravity modification units. The ship is a robotic Triton Class seeder vessel modified with the Below-Space system copied from the Dove. Making both will take three weeks. The ship would be sent out through the Gates to Bannermene. That would take two days. There we inject it into Below-Space, and it travels to Sarata in five weeks.”
Ethan consulted a wall calendar. “So it would be in place in mid-January. But, Commander, this weapon raises many awesome issues. We’d be destroying a star system. I can barely grasp that idea.”
“Frankly, neither can I.”
“But let’s stay with the military aspects. By then the Dominion fleet may already be on the way.”
“Indeed, but Daybreak would take out the manufacturing sites and the cultic centers. Any fleet would be utterly isolated: no supplies, no reinforcements, no command and control. And remember, the supernova blast would keep going outward. Strategy modeling suggests that they would be forced to retreat in order to evacuate the remaining Dominion worlds before the radiation got them. They would have to sue for peace.” Ethan found himself admiring Seymour’s precision and brevity while being troubled by its coldness.
“There are other issues. We agree that this is a weapon of last resort?”
“Chairman, the report clearly states that.”
“Good. There would have to be a debate amongst all the stewards. So when do we do that? And, of course, we have to keep it secret.”
“If I may say, Chairman, we have considered these issues. The proposal is that we have one of the photon communication devices linked to the trigger. We keep Project Daybreak ultrasecret until we have the weapon in place. Then—and only then—are the high stewards convened, told the details, and the decision taken. If it’s an okay, the message can be relayed instantly.”
“And the deed is done.” What a terrifying decision.
The commander gave a terse nod.
“But supposing we have had a treaty with the Dominion by then?”
“We will build in a self-destruct mechanism.”
A gust of wind lashed rain against the window.
“So you want me to approve the making and launching of this weapon. Without consultation?”
Seymour looked awkward. “Ideally, Chairman, we would prefer a full debate. But we cannot afford any hint of this bomb being leaked out. We don’t think the Dominion can duplicate it, but we don’t want to take the risk. We see no political issue in putting the weapon in place, only in using it. I suggest you read the report and get back to me as soon as possible with your recommendation.”
“I suppose that on the basis that the weapon could not actually be fired without a debate, I could give you approval for its making and launching. Theoretically.” Ethan shook his head. “I don’t like this. We are here to create, not destroy.”
“As the prebendant said last week, ‘We fight shy of the idea of destruction, but even gardeners must sometimes destroy.’”
“I heard that. But—”
“Chairman—” Seymour leaned forward in his chair—“let me remind you of the evaluation we discussed last week.”
I knew this would surface; it scared us then, and it scares me now.
“Based on the data from the Dove and the speed with which we are building up our weapons, we have a problem. If the Dominion arrives within the next twelve months, we cannot hope to stop them. In the twelve months after that, we may be able to hold them off awhile. Only in the twelve months after that do we have any real chance of winning.”
“I know. I don’t argue with the diagnosis. But I don’t want this.” He tapped the report.
“No one does. But we ended the Rebellion with a bomb. This is the scaled-up version.”
“I don’t like it.”
The window rattled as another squall of rain struck it.
“Chairman, let me tell you, off the record, what’s likely to happen if the Dominion fleet appears at Bannermene in the next month and starts moving inward. Assuming the data on the Dove is accurate and not propaganda, we haven’t got a hope. We’d destroy maybe 5 or 10 percent of their forces. They’ll be here in a month, even if we throw every ship we have at them. It’ll not be the Lamb and Stars blowing in the wind here; it will be the snake of the Dominion.”
“The Final Emblem; that’s what they call it.”
“The soldiers call it ‘the snake.’ Anyway, that’s my private opinion. I hope I’m wrong. I have a daughter and a son-in-law out there. But I don’t think I am.”
“The Lord delivered Farholme.”
There was an uncomfortable silence. “True. We are told, though, that they lost around three thousand men, women, and children out of a population of three million. One in a thousand. Scale up those losses across the Assembly . . .”
“About a billion dead.” How can I say that without shuddering?
“And, Chairman, I don’t know how to compute divine intervention into military planning. History has shown that to rely on God in battle can often be rather disastrous. We have to plan on the possibility that he may choose not to intervene.” He gestured to the folder. “This is why we need to move on this bomb. It may be the one thing that will save us.”
Ethan said nothing, and Seymour continued. “But there is one more thing. It is a single-use weapon. We get one chance.”
“I will consider the matter. Urgently. But, by the way, how is Dr. Habbentz?”
“You know about her tragedy?”
“The fiancé? That’s why I asked.”
“Yes. Well, it hasn’t got any better. She’s in a hard mood. Very tough. She wants this bomb very badly.”
Ethan sensed a shared embarrassment. “I’m sorry for her.”
“So am I. But I must say it has given her an extraordinary motivation.” Seymour got to his feet and picked up his cap. “I’ll leave if I may. Brave this rain.”
Ethan rose. “Thank you for coming. One other question, Commander. These so-called Guards of the Lord . . .”
“Yes?”
“Do we have many of them in the forces?”
“Some.”
There is a reticence here. “How many?”
“To be honest, we don’t know. Maybe 5 percent, maybe 10. Maybe more.”
Ethan felt a twinge of alarm. “That’s a lot. And is it growing?”
“Yes. But it may wane when the novelty wears off. These are difficult days, and Delastro offers certainty. He sets a clear lead.”
“Are you concerned?”
He gave a dismissive shake of the head. “With an emphasis on purity and dedication? No. I see no grounds for complaint. By all accounts, the Guards of the Lord are the most devoted men and women we have. Very loyal.”
“I wish I had known. About these figures.”
Seymour’s shrug seemed to disparage the id
ea. “You know, Chairman, I think we need to have a sense of proportion. I don’t think these people are a serious issue.” There was a nod toward the folder. “That is.”
“True, but I am concerned.”
“You could always discuss it with the prebendant. Out in the wilderness.”
“True. But does anyone discuss with him?”
The faintest of smiles ensued. “No. And I think if you did, he would say that it was a mood spreading within the worlds and beyond his control. The Guards of the Lord are not a formal organization. Anything else, Chairman?”
“No; I’ll call you as soon as I have made up my mind.”
After Seymour left, Ethan sat down and read the report. After he had locked it away in a safe, he reflected on it. I don’t like it at all; may it please God that we do not need it. But the time for a real decision is not now, and the choice to use this will not be mine alone; it will be a collective one.
Well before evening, Ethan called Seymour and, in a few words, announced his reluctant approval.
An hour or two later, Hanif came in, as he normally did, to help tidy up. Ethan realized that his aide had had his hair cut short and was on the point of mentioning it when he noticed something glinting on his jacket lapel. As his aide came closer, Ethan saw that it was a tiny silver badge. With a sudden depressing certainty, he knew it bore an interlinked p and d.
Three days later, Clemant drove with great unwillingness down into the Negev to see Delastro. He had visited the prebendant there twice before, and each time it had taken him only an hour or so to get there from Jerusalem. But today was different; the storm that was just ending had, in some places, submerged the road under muddy pools of water and in others washed it out. So he had to drive the transport on manual and frequently found himself slowed to nearly a walking pace. Having grown up with the belief that flooding and washouts only occurred on Made Worlds, Clemant found himself nonplussed by the storm damage. “It’s just like Farholme,” he muttered to himself as the vehicle was forced to negotiate a jumble of boulders.
Clemant was irritated; the way that the road system had been rendered chaotic unnerved him, and Delastro’s sudden summons had wrecked his careful schedule. He realized that he increasingly hated the prebendant and his demands. When Delastro had asked (or had he demanded?) to see him, Clemant had assumed that he could travel down by a rotorcraft; but it had been made clear that he was to drive down in a transport and bring with him a “package,” which had turned out to be a sizeable refrigerated box. Sealed shut, it sat across both rear seats with a smell like raw meat coming from it. Clemant had no inclination to find out what was inside. With the prebendant, there are things it is best not to ask about.
The delays on the roads meant that he got to the ranch just as the light was going. Away to the west the clouds were lifting so that the sunset was a savage, bloody band of orange. He paused at the new wire-screen perimeter and looked at the buildings colored red by the fading sun. It wasn’t really a ranch, more a refurbished ruin of uncertain but considerable age on the edge of the true desert. The main part was a four-story stone tower with a newer, two-story housing unit some fifty meters away. Clemant wondered why Delastro had chosen the place. The best guess was that the prebendant wanted some sort of remote retreat where he could be himself. More cynically—and Clemant found himself increasingly cynical every day—he felt that Delastro’s implicit claim to be a prophet was helped by the biblical resonances of “dwelling in the wilderness.”
Two Guards of the Lord, young men armed with guns and wearing short hair and the inevitable pin badges, came out and checked who he was before letting him through the gate. As he drove toward the tower, a large bird flew silently away from the top of a nearby post. An owl perhaps.
At the base of the tower, Zak, neatly dressed in a uniform with fresh creases, was waiting. Clemant was surprised and somewhat annoyed to see him. I know nothing of what goes on.
Zak smiled and gave him a smart salute.
The model soldier. Clemant was taken aback at the contempt he felt.
“Colonel Larraine! I thought you were traveling the worlds.”
“Just back from a tour, sir.” He gestured to the two-story building. “The prebendant says you are staying the night. I’ve prepared a room there.” How typical: more orders.
In the thickening gloom, Zak showed him into a bare but adequate room on the upper floor.
“So how is he?” Clemant asked.
“Real hard to comment, sir. I don’t see a lot of him.”
“What has he been up to?”
Zak gave him a wary look. “That’s for him to say. But he’s waiting to see you.”
Without further ado, Clemant was led back past the vehicle—he saw that the mysterious container had now gone—and into the low, cold hall at the base of the tower that acted as a reception area. There, Zak left him, saying he needed to see if the prebendant was ready.
Clemant took a seat. He noticed a distasteful smell in the air, dust everywhere, and shabby furniture. In addition to everything else, Delastro’s untidiness offends me.
Eventually a man whom Clemant recognized from previous meetings as some sort of caretaker came out of a room, grunted at him, and started doing some paperwork at a desk. As the minutes passed, Clemant heard a noise and looked around to see four large tawny kittens peering at him from under a low table.
“There were five last time I was here,” he said, trying to make conversation to pass the time.
“No,” the man replied with a defiant firmness. “Just the four. It was a litter of four.”
Clemant shrugged. No, it wasn’t. It was five. I know; I’m that sort of person.
At that moment, Zak returned and ushered him up the stairs. The colonel showed Clemant into a room on the third floor and left.
It was a gloomy and sparsely furnished room, and at the far end a wood fire blazed. In front of it stood Delastro, robed in black, his wiry hair standing out around his ears like a pale, fuzzy wreath.
“Prebendant, good to see you,” Clemant said. I lie. But then I do it all the time now.
Delastro gave the slightest of bows. “Doctor. Please take a seat.”
Clemant, who had never been this high in the tower, looked around with curiosity. He saw a long wooden table, two chairs, some cupboards, and a bookcase full of bound books. He sat down on the nearest chair. As he did, he realized that any heat from the fire did not penetrate this far.
“The worlds turn,” Delastro said in an extraordinarily theatrical tone. “The powers are unchained. The forces of evil rise. Wars and rumors of war prevail.” The lighting in the room seemed to give the man’s eyes an odd glint.
Clemant just nodded. He’s mad.
The prebendant began pacing around the table like some restless stork. “Things come to a crisis. Men of decision must take action.”
“So it seems.”
Clemant became aware that the smell in the room was not that of smoke but something else: an elusive herbal odor, pungent and somehow exotic.
“Make no mistake, Doctor, evil is abroad. It comes our way.”
Then, for at least five minutes, as the fire flickered and crackled in the shadowed room, the prebendant circled the table, giving a long tirade about the threat of evil and how it had to be resisted.
Clemant, cold and hungry, found it all barely intelligible and lacking in logic or structure. And yet . . . He knew that this man could not easily be dismissed. There is something almost magical about the voice. It demands attention and obedience and it doesn’t need logic.
Finally, Delastro stopped walking and fixed his strange green eyes again on Clemant. “Now, there are matters that you must attend to.”
“Just let me know what you want, Prebendant.”
“I gather that Project Daybreak is going ahead.”
Clemant was taken aback by Delastro’s knowledge. It’s ultrasecret, and Ethan only approved it three days ago. His sources are deep.
&nb
sp; “Is that so?” he replied.
“I know; I have talked to the Habbentz woman.” As Clemant noted the dismissive reference to the physicist, Delastro’s mouth flexed into what might have been an attempt at a smile. “She hates so badly, Doctor. I have read of such hatred but never observed it. She wants nothing more than vengeance.” He shook his head in puzzlement and his white wreath of hair wobbled. “It is a fire that drives her. It is most . . . constructive.” The prebendant stared at him again with an intense and unfathomable expression. “It is a bizarre thing, hatred. It fuels and it energizes. In her case, it is creative.” He seemed to be struck by some new thought. “And, Doctor, it is so uncritical! People who hate can be led. I think she would do whatever I told her.”
It occurred to Clemant that Delastro’s encouragement of hatred was utterly wrong. But then, compared to the other evils he is now mired in, it’s insignificant.
The prebendant started walking again. “She and I agree: Project Daybreak must go ahead. All is plain. The Dominion is so evil that it must be erased. Nothing—nothing, you hear me—must be left but dust.” A finger stabbed out. “Doctor, you must do all you can to encourage it. To see this device made, launched, and ignited.”
“I will do what I can.”
The pallid eyes scrutinized him coldly. “The Dominion is a disease, Doctor. A cancer of anarchy, undoing all. It will unravel all the work of the Assembly. It must be eradicated.”
“I agree.”
“There will be opposition. Project Daybreak will have its enemies. Now, when these enemies of truth emerge, I want you to deal with them.”
Fear stabbed Clemant. What is he suggesting?
But Delastro was still talking. “Without drawing attention to yourself, I want you to make sure that such people are posted to some of the more remote worlds. You can do this in your position. Get them out of the way.”
I ought to protest. Yet what he said was, “That can be done.”
“Good. Now, opposition to the Guards of the Lord grows. All that is good must face resistance. You believe that, Doctor?”
“Yes.”
Clemant looked away for a second and noticed dirt on the floor. The man disgusts me. He turned back to face Delastro. I’d better be the model of the faithful follower.
