by Chris Walley
As they escorted Delastro out, he screamed at Merral, “Deceiver! Monster! Liar!”
Merral watched him and said nothing.
“Son of the devil! Antichrist! You are in league with the powers. That is your secret. You can bend them to your will. You pretend innocence, but I know the reality!”
Then Delastro’s gaze seemed to shift elsewhere. “Take revenge!” he shouted, and then with a tug from the guards, he was pulled away through the door.
Merral shook his head. What should I feel? Pleasure? Hardly; the sins revealed are too great. Relief, perhaps, that some form of justice has been achieved? Perhaps, but no more.
Then he was aware of people leaving their seats and moving toward him.
Mission accomplished. Thank you, Lord.
Ethan watched as Clemant and Kirana, followed by the yelling Delastro, were escorted out. He briefly wondered who had been ordered to take revenge. Perhaps it was just wild rhetoric.
He recognized that any pleasure he had felt at the prebendant’s routing had been replaced by disgust, horror, and simple relief. He sipped from his water and looked up to see perhaps fifty people all trying to shake D’Avanos’s hand.
I really ought to try to restore order.
“Ethan!”
He turned to see Andreas walking toward him with a perplexed and solemn face. “Andreas!”
His old friend clasped his hands. “Ethan, I will say this elsewhere, more publicly and in a better form, but I want to say it now. I have been a fool; I have been deluded. I apologize. I don’t understand the spell that man put on me. Anyway, I make no excuses. ‘A fiend.’ Sorry.” There were tears in his eyes.
Ethan, feeling extraordinarily moved, hugged him. “A madness came over us all. I don’t understand it either.”
He stood back and turned to see how D’Avanos was handling the crowd. His attention was caught by a tall, black-haired woman pushing her way through, a frenzied intensity in her eyes. Gerry Habbentz—that woman needs help; the anger in her is enormous.
She seemed to be going toward Merral, but apparently, realizing that the press about him was too dense, she approached the desk in front of Ethan, squeezing round the other people. Then she moved back in the direction of D’Avanos. Something made Ethan look at the desk.
The gun was gone.
It was she the prebendant shouted at!
Even before he had fully realized what was going on, he had called out a warning. “Commander, look out!”
Everything seemed to go into slow motion. Ethan saw several things happen at once.
The redheaded woman with the freckled complexion standing behind D’Avanos turned, and as her eyes dropped to Gerry’s hand, he saw her mouth open in a gasp. The taller woman reached her and pushed her out of the way with a savage motion of her left hand. To the left, the big man with the cropped blond hair was suddenly charging through, pushing people out of the way, his right hand rising.
D’Avanos was turning around, his face already in profile.
There was the crack of a shot.
Two other shots—sharp, blasphemous—followed, one after the other. Screams.
The tall woman staggered back and then crumpled, and as she fell, Ethan saw her black hair was crimson with wet blood.
Beyond her, D’Avanos, arms flailing high, chest pumping blood, had fallen back against the crowd.
31
Late the following morning, an exhausted Vero entered the building that held the offices of the chairman of the high stewards and walked to the welcome desk. The man behind it looked up sharply as he gave his name.
“You’re very welcome.” He paused. “Dr. Malunal is waiting for you out in the garden. His office is being—” a look of awkwardness appeared—“redecorated.”
Vero was ushered past two guards and through strengthened glass doors into a compact, high-walled garden that seemed to catch enough of the winter’s sun to be just warm enough to sit out in.
The only person there got up from a seat and a pile of folders and walked over toward him.
“Sentinel Enand. Or should I say Verofaza? Welcome.”
“If we are to be informal, then I’d prefer Vero.”
“We are to be informal, at least in this setting. And so please call me Ethan. Come and join me.” They sat down together. “First, I have just checked with the hospital on the commander’s condition. They seem positive.”
“The bullet fragments tore up his lung badly, broke a rib, and just missed his heart.”
Ethan nodded. “That’s what they told me, too. He lost a lot of blood.” A sigh escaped him. “He was very fortunate. I think Dr. Habbentz—that poor, poor woman—was so enraged that there was more passion than accuracy in the shooting.”
“I take some b-blame. I just . . . put the g-gun on the desk. I didn’t feel it was right to have it in the debating chamber. I should have given it to Lloyd.”
“Lloyd. Yes, how is he?”
Vero thought of the haunted figure he had left sitting outside Merral’s room. “Shaken. He is angry with h-himself for not having protected Merral and desperately unhappy that he had to kill Gerry—Dr. Habbentz.”
“My guards tell me that it was—as they say—a textbook response.”
Two shots to the head. Vero shrugged.
“They think,” Ethan added, “that she would have turned the gun on me next.”
Vero stared across at the stone wall. “Lloyd’s a good man. I don’t think he’s really cut out to be a bodyguard.”
“And the other woman—Dr. Lewitz. How is she?”
“Anya? She’s upset too. She feels she should have warned him or intervened.” There’s no point in going into the history, but it’s another thing that has confirmed Anya’s sense of failure.
“And you? How are you?”
“Fine. No, better than fine.”
Vero saw that the chairman was waiting for an explanation and continued. “We did what we had to yesterday. It could have been done better, but overall, the right thing was done. And . . . well, on a personal note, I called my family this morning. My father had been ill. I feared the worst, but he’s hanging on.” He felt embarrassed. “Sorry. That’s just family stuff.”
“That’s important.”
They said nothing for a moment; then Ethan spoke, his tone reflective. “Yesterday was an extraordinarily tragic day. In so many ways.” He looked away, and Vero felt he was still struggling to come to terms with what had happened. “Yet I think I, too, did what I had to do, at last. The bomb’s been destroyed, by the way.”
“It’s for the best.” I think.
Above them, the sliding door on a balcony opened, and a man in overalls came out to the railing and looked down at Ethan.
“Found two, sir,” he shouted, “but we need another half hour.” Then he went back inside.
“Oh dear,” Ethan said with a regretful shake of his head. “I’d better explain. With the collapse of the Guards of the Lord yesterday, I felt I could risk doing what I’d wanted to do for some time: order that my room be searched for hidden microphones. That’s why we’re out here. So, they have found at least two.” He seemed to ponder something, then continued. “Actually, let me fill you in on what’s happening. I issued an ultimatum last night, after the meeting, that if the Guards of the Lord didn’t immediately disband they would be outlawed. What’s left of the leadership has been happy to disband the organization.” He sighed. “Zak is imprisoned here while we take a full testimony. Delastro is being sent to a remote island in the Mediterranean somewhere; it’s about two kilometers square. He will be kept in isolation. We don’t foresee a trial very soon. He is, after all, a cleric, and we are reluctant to bring him to trial.”
“Clemant?”
“They’re sending him to the moon. A bit dramatic, but I’m told it’s the ultimate in secure facilities. He is not, it seems, in a very good mental state.” He gave another shake of the head. “And the DAS is being restructured. That woman—Kirana�
��has been put under house arrest.” Ethan looked up at the building. “My guess is she set up all the listening devices.” He paused. “My aide, Hanif, confessed to passing on secrets. So he’s fired too.” There was a weak smile. “Your arrival has caused an earthquake.”
Vero shrugged. “I wish we had been here earlier.”
“Me too; we have Delastro to blame for that. Anyway, along with most of the Assembly, we were looking at that package you brought from Farholme last night. An extraordinary tale. Fortunately, Delastro’s deception didn’t totally conceal the key military aspects of your victory. Those and the samples of Krallen were invaluable. We’ve been able to set some projects in motion that, if it comes to the worst, may be worthwhile.”
“May I ask what you have done?”
The weak smile recurred. “You most certainly may. In fact, I called you here to request that you work with the Assembly Defense Force as an advisor. I know we tried it with Clemant, but I trust you’ll be different.”
“I’ll be very glad to help.”
“Thanks. What have we done? The military, the ships, and the swords, of course. And you have encouraged us to look at the whole area of defensive fortifications. There are other things for you to learn about.”
“I will. Do you have sniper teams?”
Ethan frowned. “A few. The prebendant was never really enthusiastic.”
“Typical; he never liked the fact they were run by women. Anyway, I’d say we need more.”
“Raise it with them. If you need my support, you have it. But tell me, what do you see as our best hope?”
“Th-that’s easy. That there is a long delay—months, perhaps a year, before they attack again. That the Sacrifice arrives here safely and we manage to duplicate the technology in ships that can defeat theirs.”
“Let’s hope for that. But you gather we are preparing for the worst?”
“Yes. I know about the evacuations.”
“More than evacuations.”
Ethan stared away, looking above the walls at the tiled skyline of the city, with the pigeons circling above. “We don’t want them to fight here. There is too much history in Jerusalem. Enough wars have been fought in the city of peace. There will be no replay of the battle of Ynysmant here.”
“Th-the battle of Ynysmant was an oddity.”
“Yes. Of course. But he will want Earth. Anyway, we are preparing to close the ADF command here and disperse it to a number of linked locations.” He gave Vero a keen look. “But what do you think they will want most?”
“Easy. Control of the Gates.”
There was a look of appreciation. “Good. That’s our view too. So we are building a fortified Gate control center at Mount Tahuma; it’s about twenty minutes’ flying time to the southeast. Tahuma was a military base in some of the twenty-first century wars in the area, one of the few to survive intact and uncontaminated. Anyway, we’ve been refurbishing and extending it, and the Gate control core is at its heart.”
“So that’s where any fighting is likely to be?”
“Hmm. I pray it can be avoided. But we need to prepare. Anyway, you’d best get down to the ADF offices. They are expecting you.”
Vero spent several hours with the ADF team, getting to know them and going over the information from Farholme. Then in the late afternoon, he headed to the hospital. There he found Lloyd seated at the door, his eyes running over everyone who approached. He looked pale.
They exchanged news. Merral was making steady progress, and Anya was in with him.
“And how are you?”
A look of angry shame crossed the man’s face. “It shouldn’t have had to be done, Mr. V. Should never have to shoot your own people.”
Vero sighed. “It’s a sinful world, Lloyd; it always was. But there are enemies among us now.”
Then he went in to see Merral, who lay still in the bed, attached to a multitude of wires and tubes, his eyes closed.
Vero walked to the window with the tired Anya. “How is he?”
“Heavily sedated. On the mend. Slowly. It was a bad wound. The bullet was designed to fragment.”
Vero passed on what he had learned from Ethan and the ADF. “One other thing,” he said. “The imagery we brought back of the battles on Farholme has achieved an extraordinary circulation.” Vero nodded at the figure in the bed. “He would have been quite a hero anyway, but being shot in the Chamber of the High Stewards has made him a household name. And there’s a rumor going around.”
“Which is?”
“That he was protecting Dr. Malunal. That he stopped the bullet for the chairman.”
“That’s not true!” Anya gave Vero a wary look. “You didn’t make that one up?”
She knows me too well. “For once, no. But I’m not denying it. The worlds need a hero.”
“Vero, your handling of facts verges on duplicity.”
“Only verges? That’s okay, then.” Vero turned to look at Merral. “I hope he’s going to make a speedy recovery. It would be nice to think that when the Dominion did arrive, its great adversary was fit enough to lead.”
“It would be nice to think, Vero, that he wouldn’t have to do any more fighting. That none of us would. But his recovery is likely to be weeks or months. They pulled out fifteen bullet fragments.”
Vero gestured at the still figure in the bed. “Give him my regards. I’ll pass by again very soon.”
After an immeasurable time spent in a white, warm void of half-consciousness, Merral finally emerged into some sort of painful reality. He was aware of Anya beside him.
For a long time he said nothing as he tried to remember what had happened.
Anya kissed his hand. “How do you feel?”
“I hurt.” He paused, relieved that he could speak. “Someone ought to have warned me that being the great adversary has the downside that everybody wants to kill you.”
“Don’t worry; it’s over.”
“Is the war over?”
“No.”
He could feel the cool of the metal identity tag around his neck. Lucas Ringell’s tag is still there. I said I wouldn’t take it off until the war was over.
“Well then, it’s not over. I think I better try to get back to action.”
The doctor in charge disagreed in the firmest possible manner. He summoned up the holographic image of Merral’s left lung to hover over the bed. “Look at the damage! Multiple wounds. Commander, listen to me. We’re talking a week before you leave here. A month before you’re back to any sort of work. End of story. You’ve done your bit. You can serve by giving speeches from convalescence, writing your memoirs—that sort of thing. But that is all.”
Merral stared at the soft pink object with its arrowed entry and exit wounds and reluctantly nodded agreement.
The next morning Vero, acting on a strange impulse, went to the Sentinel College. He saw a black-draped portrait of Eliza Majweske just inside the porch, and he paused for some moments before it. Then trying—and failing—to avoid stares, he made his way to the library.
The little bald man behind the desk gasped as he entered. Just over a year ago I was a troublesome student; I am now a hero.
Vero smiled. “Good morning. I have a single request. I would like to see an original document.”
The man gave a bow of deference. “By all means, Sentinel Enand.”
Vero looked up at Trichetov’s painting of Moshe Adlen that hung on the wall. “I want to see his testament. The original.”
There was a hesitation. “An unusual request. But in your case . . . I think I can oblige.”
Vero was taken down to an air-conditioned vault and shown to a table. A neat metal box was brought to him, and inside he found the three pages of the letter preserved in perfectly transparent silicate sheets. The handwriting was poor, but it didn’t take him long to find the key line. “If I was going to say anything more, I would have said it here.”
As the librarian hovered behind him, he stared at it and felt himself
smile. Sure enough, the period was odd. It’s too round, too smooth, and apparently in a slightly different shade of ink.
“I need a microscope. Please.”
“A microscope?”
“At least ten-thousand times magnification. If you can’t find one, then I shall have to take this away to a laboratory.” And I could do it, too.
“Certainly. A moment. There’s a lab upstairs. I’ll get one.” Then he fled with an unseemly haste.
Five minutes later, the librarian was back with a microscope. Vero adjusted it and then focused on the period.
As he had suspected, it was text; probably, he decided, carved by an electron beam on a tiny metal disk. Vero’s hands were trembling as he read the words.
I want to say something for posterity here. I may be wrong—indeed I hope I am wrong—but I do not feel that Jannafy’s forces were totally destroyed nearly half a century ago. I was there at the end, and I saw things that made me think. Not so much at the time. I was frankly scared and overwhelmed with the situation. We had terrible decisions to make, and we had to make them on our own. As is well known, ours was a hasty operation. Too hasty. I think in the planning there was the concern that, if we lingered, we might in some way be destroyed or, still worse, corrupted by the forces of the Rebellion. We wanted Jannafy; we knew he had destroyed the Centauri colony. We ignored the ship they had made. We assumed it to be a single multihull vessel and that Jannafy intended to put distance between him and us. We assumed the ship was conventional so that there would not be time to effect any sort of escape. We knew the blast radius of the polyvalent device would be at least a hundred thousand kilometers. We assumed they would not be able to escape. I think we assumed too much.
In the years that followed, my doubts grew. I became aware that what we had seen were perhaps seven separate vessels linked together. I also realized that, in the time it took for us to leave the Centauri system, at least some of the rebels might have had the time to flee into the mysterious and perilous realm of Below-Space.
