Before Thomas could respond they arrived behind the Retreat, where Khora waited alone. He clambered quickly into the rear couch with Thomas.
“Nice to see you without your keeper, Envoy.” Still brashly gripping midlimbs in forelimbs, he showed no sign of contrition for the night before. “I assume he doesn’t know you are here in Doubletown?”
“Yes, what he doesn’t know won’t hurt us.” He nodded to Fernandez to get them moving again.
Khora held midlimbs up in agreement. “I have heard stories about our Chief Enforcer, both from the war and after. He will do anything to keep his secrets.”
“I hope you are ready to share some of yours.”
“I only wish I had more to share. But first, Envoy, I must thank you for saving my life last night.” Thomas elected not to point out that Khora had nearly cost him his. “Although perhaps it would be better if I were killed.”
They had no time for idle talk, but Thomas could not help his curiosity. “How so?”
“My generation of Tokhin do not expect to be granted long life, but we have a belief. There are Two Gods, and if One calls you back early, the Other compensates by granting your fondest wish as you die. Yesterday I prayed to Both that before I die I should behold the one who will deliver Sha’ad Tokh back to us. And then I met you.”
“So you do believe Sha’ad Tokh still exists?”
“Yes, Envoy. I know that by the grace of Both it survived the war. I think it is still in this city, but I don’t know where.”
“Seems unlikely. By now every inch of Doubletown has been searched three times over by Solarans.”
“I did not say it was in Doubletown.”
Thomas leaned his body with the motion as Fernandez weaved the car through traffic. “What are you saying, that Solarans have it?”
“No. But it may be with one of the hidden.” Thomas looked at him blankly. “My mother believes that a few Tokhin escaped confinement in Doubletown and have blended in with Solarans in the Holy City.”
Thomas pondered this new information and whether High Priestess Khorana meant him to have it. “How can we find them? Does your mother know any?”
“If she does, she will never reveal it. But I think I have another way to find out. If we—”
“Sir!” Fernandez barked. Thomas realized that the device she had placed on the dash was beeping and blinking rapidly. Hirokh was already closing in.
A thunderclap battered Thomas from all around. It took a moment to realize that the noise was somehow related to the afterimage in his eyes, of the car in front of them lifting into the air, flipping backward toward them, engulfed in a searing flare of light.
He shook his head, but it would not clear. What had happened? A random bombing? Assassination attempt? Stumbling out of the car, he peered through the smoke. The front of the adjacent building had slumped to the ground. Phren hobbled away, while others knelt to treat the severely injured, but he saw nothing threatening. Rather, the entire scene was strangely calm, the phren curiously nonchalant, as if it were all too familiar to upset them.
Next to their demolished groundcar he spotted Fernandez lying in the street. He rushed to her and turned her over to see first her unblinking eyes, then her shattered body. Something had torn through her chest, and the front of her uniform was a great scarlet stain. Then the copper smell hit him. Just like . . .
Oh, God, he was there. He was there again, Kayleigh right in front of him. He couldn’t turn his eyes away. She filled his vision, her face so beautiful, her chest a bloody ruin. Blood was everywhere. He couldn’t stop seeing her blood, smelling it. So much blood. The whole world was bright red.
Like an infant he sobbed, water streaming from his eyes, which he could not close.
“Sir! Sir! We have to get you out of here!” Another marine. Except there hadn’t been another marine. Thomas turned his head and saw the shuttle somehow squeezed into the intersection just ahead. He had not heard it land. How long had he been here?
“Sir!” shouted the marine. “Your hand is cut!” Thomas looked down numbly and winced at the red mark. “We’ve got to get you treated for infection right away.”
“Get Khora.”
“Sir?”
“The phren I was with, my informant. Could be in danger.” Thomas looked all around, finally realized what he should have known immediately.
Khora was gone.
7.
Lieutenant Harding treated his hand, while other marines triangulated Hirokh’s position from the nanotransmitters, using links from their satellite array. Thomas was certain Hirokh was behind that car bombing, and he hoped they could find Khora by tracking Hirokh. If Khora really knew how to find Sha’ad Tokh, they dare not leave him with the Chief Enforcer.
Precious minutes later their shuttle set down outside an old prison, so decrepit that from the outside it looked abandoned. The marines’ attitude both pleased and alarmed Thomas in two respects. First, they did not hesitate to charge into action, when they must have suspected he had no authority to order them to do any such thing. Second, none made any attempt to dissuade Thomas from charging in with them.
The prison kept people in, not out. The marines swept past all three security checkpoints in bare moments, sprinting by most phren they passed, immobilizing the few who raised a weapon. Only one phren got off even a single shot, and the marines took no casualties.
They heard the screams as soon as they reached the long hall of holding cells. Speakers carried them for the other Tokhin prisoners to hear.
As he raced past, Thomas heard the other prisoners shouting encouragement to Khora, yelling at the top of their lungs, “There are Two, brother!”
Turning into an open cell just behind Harding and the lead group of marines, Thomas’ nostrils flared at the sharp tang of moss mingled with phren blood. From manacles on the far wall dangled Khora, his soft pale flesh exposed through jagged gaps cut in his shell. Nothing moved but Khora’s chest shuddering with labored breath and his blood dripping into a crimson puddle. A deep wound in his abdomen drew Thomas’ gaze.
A single, very large phren stood in front of Khora, his back to the humans, beside a surgeon’s array of glinting instruments. “I am sorry you had to see this, Envoy,” said Hirokh without turning, as he plunged a short blade into Khora’s chest. Three marines rushed to pull Hirokh away, while Harding checked Khora, but Thomas had too much faith in Hirokh’s efficiency to believe he might survive.
The bloody gap in Khora’s abdomen again flashed into Thomas’ mind the image of his murdered wife. So hard had he tried to forget that picture, but now the shock of recognition pummeled him like moss, impossible to set aside.
So senseless. The nameless killer had taken her right index finger, to withdraw cash from their account, but the fool had to know there would be a cap on withdrawals. He could have gotten more money from her with a good sob story.
Everyone was very sympathetic of course. More than anything, that sympathy drove him offworld. He couldn’t stand everybody patting him on the back and feeling sorry and secretly thrilled, because who knew anyone who had been murdered in this day and age? His family worried about depression, but he was no more depressed than happy. He was a phantom, a strange partial version of himself, someone he had never wanted to be and could not understand.
On Phrentyr, where over a billion people had perished, he thought others would appreciate his grief. But it was no use. To the phren, their loved ones’ deaths made a perverse kind of sense. Solarans clearly believed the Great One approved of the slaughter. Tokhin held hope that their Two Gods would someday redeem Their chosen people with more slaughter. None, except maybe Hirokh, could conceive that Thomas lacked any such faith.
Thomas focused his eyes, spotting what he had missed before: Khora’s cloak was stripped away and the slash across his belly cut throug
h his abdominal mouth to reveal his pouch. He had been desecrated, contrary to the most sacred phren taboo.
Kayleigh’s death once left Thomas numb, but the murder of Khora, whom he had met only a day before, filled him with fury. Was he the only person left in the universe who knew it was wrong to kill people? Would he have to rub the blood into each of their damn noses to explain it?
Through the gore of Khora’s open pouch, Thomas saw a splash of blue. He reached in and pulled out something solid and heavy. Ignoring the bloody stain it left, he wiped it with his own shirt. It was a brick, a clay brick stained a deep blue. It made no sense. Why would Khora have been carrying a brick in his pouch for their rendezvous?
Hirokh interrupted his thoughts. “Envoy, you know you have no right to be here.”
Thomas could barely contain his rage. “Right?” he whispered. “You want to speak of rights? Who gave you the right to torture and murder? To expose another phren’s pouch to the moss?” He spat onto Hirokh’s face.
Hirokh wiped it off slowly. “The Great One gave me the right.”
How did I come to this? Thomas wondered. Here was his only friend, the only person Thomas had shared any connection with since Kayleigh’s death. And he was a butcher.
Thomas glared at Hirokh and savored his hatred.
8.
Ordinarily even Thomas could not gain entry to the Solaran Council on less than a twelveday’s notice, but this time repeated warnings to every government agency that Earth might withhold aid to Phrentyr had gotten him here in four days.
The instant the massive doors opened, Thomas rushed directly to the great square council table, deliberately forcing Hirokh into a Frankensteinian lumber to keep up. Without preamble he announced the withdrawal of all human aid for the ruling government’s violations of the Tokhin people’s freedom of religion. He stood prepared to make good on the threat, too. It was against his orders, but Thomas had decided he didn’t give a crap. It would also cause the deaths of thousands of innocent phren, but he could summon no sympathy for them, nor could he even manage to despise himself for that. He once thought himself a compassionate man, but that person was now buried under an impenetrable shell.
Several members of the Council showed obvious alarm at his threat but the Chief Councilman, de facto president of all Phrentyr, simply held his midlimbs rigidly folded.
Several Councilmen in turn adamantly averred their benevolence toward the Tokhin. Thomas responded by pointing his finger directly at Hirokh, an intolerably rude gesture for the Council chamber. “Four days ago, this phren tortured and killed a Tokhin for no crime other than speaking with me about how to help his people practice their religion in peace.”
This brought a great uproar, and Thomas marveled at the degree of shouting and gesturing permitted by Solaran parliamentary procedure. Councilman Rotin, the Chief’s unofficial second in command, finally quieted the others. “Surely there is a misunderstanding. Enforcer Hirokh, can you explain to the honored Envoy how he is mistaken?”
“No,” said Hirokh, not bothering to emphasize with midlimbs. “The Envoy’s statement is true.”
Thomas studied the Chief for any reaction and still saw nothing. Rotin began to say something to Thomas, then thought better of it and addressed Hirokh. “Hirokh, as Chief Enforcer, you must never take any action that might jeopardize our people, who still depend on the gracious help of our human friends.”
Now Hirokh swung his midlimbs sharply in front of his great torso. “You whimper like unnamed children, when you have nothing at all to fear. With respect, the Envoy misstates his position.” Thomas tried not to show any reaction to this bold declaration.
“It is past time for the Council to evaluate the humans’ presence,” Hirokh continued. “They send us a single diplomat, a handful of aid volunteers and we receive sporadic visits from small trading vessels. Meanwhile, they construct a heavily-armed orbital station, on which the Envoy has told me some two hundred marines are stationed, and we often detect human warships passing through this system without stopping on our world.
“Councilmen, the humans are here not from altruism,” he sneered. “Their help is a soft layer of moss over the hard granite of their true purpose. This system is clearly a strategic base in some larger conflict of theirs. Despite the Envoy’s personal feelings, Earth will not meddle in our internal affairs and risk our cooperation should their conflict ever touch this planet. Will the Council bow to the pervert-worshippers over an empty pouch?”
Thomas answered quickly, startled at how accurately Hirokh had puzzled all that out. “A splendid fantasy, Hirokh, but absolutely false, and the moss can take me if I lie.” He had disowned any feelings of friendship, but Thomas still had to admire the huge old phren’s deductive skills and his twisted sort of integrity. Hirokh was a killer, yet here he stood uncomplicatedly sticking to his principles, while Thomas lied through his teeth. “You know the extent of our technology. I do not mean to offend, but your people could offer us no assistance in any armed conflict.” In a space battle that was true, but in a dirt-side action it was critical to have the locals on your side.
The Council launched into a debate, and Thomas knew he had to cut it off or he would lose his chance. “Listen!” he shouted. “Imagine for a moment that Hirokh is right. Suppose I have no authority to withdraw aid, that I will be removed from office just for threatening it,” all of which was entirely true. “But then recall that our nearest command base is over three of your light years away. If I order aid withdrawn, it will be withdrawn for six years, no matter if Hirokh has guessed right.” That was probably true as well, depending on how persuasive Thomas could be with P-Station’s commanding officer. “Hirokh speaks of faraway Earth, but you,” he said as he stared at the Chief, “must deal with me.”
This succeeded in cutting through the rhetoric. “Tell us what you want,” answered Rotin.
“The wall around Doubletown will come down,” said Thomas. “Tokhin will be allowed to live and work anywhere in the Holy City. You will not prevent them from living in peace or from building and using places of worship.”
The Council again erupted in angry shouts, but Thomas could soon see that his threats had turned the tide in his favor. Human aid was still vital to Phrentyr’s economy, and economic collapse could bring down this ruling council.
Once the noise receded, Rotin formally addressed the Chief. “My Lord, it is the judgment of the Council that we must agree to the Envoy’s . . . requests.”
The Chief stood slowly, bowed to each Councilman in turn, then emphatically chopped his midlimbs no.
Rotin had apparently anticipated this. He also looked one at a time at the Councilmen, and they all responded with midlimbs up. “My Lord,” he said, “the Council regards this as a matter of utmost priority. These words have not been spoken in this chamber since you uttered them twenty years ago, but today I say: Lord, you must relent.”
The Chief signaled no again. “We have defeated the enemy,” he said through labored breath, “and you will give our victory away. My eyes shall not see this abomination occur.” He sat down, crossed his forelimbs and midlimbs and closed his eyes.
Rotin stood, reached under the council table with a forelimb, strode over and touched both of the Chief’s cheeks with his midlimbs. Then he thrust a short blade through the Chief’s exoskeleton. Each of the other Councilmen in turn stepped to the Chief and stabbed him again.
Unnerved by this abrupt demonstration of Solaran democracy, Thomas missed Rotin’s next words to Hirokh. But all the Councilmen still held their knives ready, and despite himself he feared for his old friend. “Although your loyalty to the Chief is well known,” Rotin continued, “I also know that your word is beyond reproach. If any here doubt it, speak now.” No one answered. “Tell us, Hirokh, that you will follow the instructions of the Council, and we need not slay you as well.”
“I am Chief Enforcer,” Hirokh answered without hesitation. “I enforce the will of the state. All of you are now the state, so I enforce your will. If it is your order that we permit worship of the two deviant gods, so be it.” The Council members relaxed. Hirokh continued in a voice edged with ice, “But it pleases me to know you will all lie together in Hell, feeling your guts consumed by moss for all eternity.”
9.
The procession slowly wound its way out from the Tokhin Retreat all the way past the gates of Doubletown. Nearly all the P-Station marines were dirt-side to help keep the peace. From his place in the lead Thomas could not accurately count the marchers, but the group seemed even larger than the one thousand phren thought to inhabit Doubletown. Perhaps their number was swelled by the ghosts of many more Tokhin.
His legs ached from the past four days spent covering each neighborhood of Doubletown on foot, pleading personally with nearly every Tokhin to march with him. Some only needed to hear the gate in the wall would be open. But most were wary, and Thomas feared that no amount of cajoling could persuade them, that he had forfeited his position as Envoy for nothing. In the end, his best tactic was to make a martyr of Khora. He recounted Khora’s death in ever more embellished details, telling all who would listen that Khora’s dying wish was for his people to return to the First Temple. This was only a slight distortion; his actual prayer had been for the return of Sha’ad Tokh, but Thomas could not satisfy that wish.
They paraded slowly to the grounds of the First Temple, via the vast crater of the old Tokhin Director’s Hall. This city had suffered less damage than other major cities due to both sides’ respect for its religious significance, but many reminders of the carnage remained.
The light rain soon abated, and through the layer of clouds poked a brilliant orange sun. The group stirred with the good omen, but the scalding glare only reminded Thomas how insufferable this world would be but for the war.
Hirokh silently paced him. Thomas had warned the marines that Hirokh might try to kill him before the day ended but was not confident they could prevent it. Nevertheless, as they walked he spoke to Hirokh. “I suppose we are even, Hirokh. You must hate me for this.” He regretted his choice of words at once; the term “even” was distasteful to Solarans, for its implication of duality.
Writers of the Future, Volume 27 Page 19
