by Chris Walley
For at least a dozen seconds, there was no answer from her diary, and it crossed Merral’s mind that she was going to refuse to answer him. Just as he was about to give up, her face appeared on screen. She was dressed in a lab coat. Even with her red hair tied up under a white cap, he thought she looked both weary and beautiful.
“So, the commander of the Farholme Defense Force calls,” she said, in the driest of tones. “I thought I’d better answer.”
“Hi, Anya,” he said slowly.
She gave him a grimace. “I’m in the middle of chopping up dead bodies and I get a call from you. How very appropriate.” He felt the humor was labored.
“I want to talk to you about your work. Can I visit?”
She gave a long weary sigh. “Very well. In half an hour. The end lab. You can’t miss it as there’s a guard at the door. A professional meeting, right?” She bared her teeth. “And I’m wielding a remote electro-scalpel, so don’t mess me around.”
At the lab, Merral left Lloyd with the guard and went in though a series of doors marked with lurid biohazard signs.
Anya, still wearing her white lab coat, came out of a room at the end of a corridor. Merral could see no trace of the electro-scalpel, but noticed that the coat was creased and grubby.
“Over here.”
Merral followed her through doors that closed behind him with sucking noises into a large, brilliantly lit room full of steel drawers and tables and reeking of disinfectant. Through a glass panel on the wall he glimpsed something red and moist stretched out on a table with a fearsome apparatus of glittering steel blades hanging over it. He averted his eyes and looked at Anya.
“I’ve come to find out about your research,” he said. His voice sounded flat. “And to say sorry again. And to ask that, if at all possible, we can go back to being friends and colleagues. And—”
She raised a hand to interrupt him. “Let’s take it bit by bit, shall we? My research. Yes, let’s talk about that. You saying ‘sorry’ . . .” She paused. “Do you mean it?”
“Yes,” he said, staring at the ground. “I do mean it. What happened was bad and wrong. I can make excuses, but it would be wrong to do so. I apologize unreservedly.”
Anya stared at him, as if trying to decide whether she believed him.
“May I?” Merral asked as he sat on a lab stool.
Anya pulled up another stool and sat facing him. Their eyes met.
“I accept that apology,” she said in very quiet voice. “But I don’t do it lightly. It’s been a hard time for me. I had built so much on what you said.”
She paused, her face a picture of turmoil, then gave a little shake as if trying to throw something off. She took a deep breath. “I watched your speech,” she said.
He was struck by how the lighting here accentuated her freckles and pushed the thought out of his mind. Stay focused! “So then you heard what I said. Another bad move on my part, but I felt I had to say it.”
But as he said the words, he realized that now—this close to Anya—he wished he hadn’t said what he had. By ending everything with Isabella that way, I have also ended the possibility of anything with Anya.
“Did you mean it?” Anya flushed slightly as if embarrassed. “Sorry, we never used to ask such things. But now . . .”
“But now, people lie.”
Anya did not correct his completion of her sentence.
“Yes, I meant it,” he went on, “for the foreseeable future.”
Anya open her mouth to speak and then closed it. “Very well,” she said eventually. “Let’s try and work something out on that basis.”
“We can try. . . .”
Merral was aware that in the reflections in the glass partitions he could still see an out-of-focus moist redness that made him uncomfortable.
“You heard that your guess about predators was correct?”
“The Krallen? I read your report.” She shook her head. “I was only partly correct. I failed to realize that these intruders might go beyond biology to make artificial predators.”
“An understandable oversight. But it’s a pity we don’t have one to dissect or dismantle. We killed these things—” Merral gestured toward the corpse in the other room without looking at it—“but the Krallen seem to be in a different league. They seem almost invulnerable. I gather they resisted everything the men could throw at them.”
Anya frowned. After a pause, she said, “So, let me tell you about my research. I haven’t done a great deal, because there were changes that needed to be made to this lab to make it more biosecure. And my team and I have gone slowly; we don’t know what we face. I have done one AC and one CB. Sorry, code: one ape-creature and one cockroach-beast. And I checked some things on other specimens.”
She gestured to the chamber beyond the glass. “Almost all of the work is done by remote, of course. It reduces the contamination risk and any others. As we guessed, they are clones bioengineered for tasks. They have a limited life span and reduced neural circuitry.” She toyed thoughtfully with a strand of hair. “Yet, the most interesting thing is not what we learn about the beasts, but what we learn about the makers.”
“Go on.”
“I’d better show you our biggest puzzle.”
Anya opened a steel drawer, pulled out something in a small clear box with the label DANGER! pasted over it, and handed it carefully to Merral. “Don’t open it—it could kill you.”
With great care, he held it up and stared at it, seeing nothing more than a small gray disk the size of a large coat button from which six tapering arms extended, giving the object an approximate resemblance to a small starfish.
“What is it?”
“We found it on the upper chest of both ACs and CBs. The arms are linked to blood vessels. They all seem to have them. We call it the spider circuit.”
“What does it do?”
Anya shrugged. “Frankly, we don’t know. There are circuits at the heart of it and something that may pick up an electromagnetic signal. But it dispenses a rather nasty neurotoxin that would be rapidly fatal.”
“Internally? That makes no sense.”
“None.” She shrugged again and he sensed more irritation. Is it me, or is she angry with the world? She was once full of energy and life; now she seems drained and tired.
Merral handed the box back. “I suppose it gives whoever is in charge of these things the power to kill them.”
“True. Two other facts by the way. All the spider circuits we have looked at secrete toxin. Extrapolating back from their current rates of flow, it looks like they started issuing poison a day or so after the creatures died.”
“That definitely makes no sense. Why poison a dead crew?”
Anya gave another tired shrug. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I’m sorry, Anya. I can’t see any sense in this. But it’s evil.”
“Tell me something new.”
A strange stillness fell between them. Merral caught a glimpse of some deep emotion in Anya’s eyes. Aware that he was on the edge of difficult matters, he spoke suddenly. “So, are you planning to work longer on these creatures?”
“No. Vero called me today. He wants me to shift my emphasis to the Krallen.”
“Ah. But I see two problems. First, they are synthetic—biomechanicals to use your word—and you are a biologist.”
“Are you doubting—?” she began and then stopped. “Sorry. I’m just fed up with things these days.”
“Is it me?”
She gave a faint semblance of a smile. “You haven’t helped. But it’s more than that. It’s everything.” She sighed. “Anyway, these Krallen imitate animals and even adopt animal behavior, so I may be able to predict some things. Remember, I predicted, however partially, the existence of specialist predators.”
“True.”
“What was your second objection?”
“Simply that we have none to study.”
“True. But although we haven’t any specimens
we can try to make guesses from your account and from what the others have reported.”
“I wish you well. But you are right to focus on them.”
Suddenly, Merral realized that he ought to leave. This meeting had gone better than he had any right to expect and he had no wish to jeopardize things by staying longer. “I’d better go.”
“Yes,” she replied with an odd intensity and for a second he glimpsed longing in her eyes. He felt an almost overpowering desire to hug her, but knew he had to resist. It was all over.
He suddenly realized how much he had lost. “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. He moved toward the door, his feet feeling as if they were weighted down. “Good-bye. And thanks.”
“You okay, sir?” Lloyd asked as he drove Merral back from the lab. “You seem, well—preoccupied.”
“Sorry. I am. Meeting with Anya gave me a lot to think about.”
“I expect seeing those things cut up would do.”
“Yes,” Merral said slowly, catching a reflection of his wan face in the window. “Dead things upset me.”
10
On the following day, after Merral had spent the morning in meetings, Luke Tenerelt arrived in his office at lunchtime with some sandwiches. During the training at Tanaris, Merral had grown to both like and respect the chaplain even though most people found Luke a rather off-putting figure initially. His tall frame, bony face, and intense dark eyes made him look rather intimidating, an impression heightened by his booming voice and sharp intellect. Yet anyone who spent any time at all with Luke knew that he was a wise, gentle, and caring man.
They went up to the roof of the building. There was no one else around. They found some shade to sit under at the edge of the emergency landing pad and ate their lunch.
“Luke,” Merral asked after a while, “this whole thing—the return of evil, the intruders. Is this the end?”
“You mean are we on the edge of the Lord’s return and the Great Remaking?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. I’ve heard arguments both ways. In one sense, it isn’t an important question.”
“Not important? How can you say that?”
“Where we are in the great timetable has no real bearing on matters of right and wrong. Every day we’re given choices and every day we have to make the right decisions. If I knew the King was returning tomorrow or in ten thousand years’ time, it wouldn’t alter my choice. And, Merral, that’s what counts. We just battle evil until the whistle blows—whenever that is.” Luke looked sharply at Merral. “You agree?”
“Put like that, yes.”
Merral paused, then said, “Here’s a tricky one, Luke: I was going to ask you to be chaplain-in-chief. But I have been asked to consider Prebendant Delastro instead.”
Luke slowly wiped a crumb from his mouth. “That rumor reached me. Look, not being chaplain-in-chief doesn’t grieve me.”
“I thought you’d like it.”
Luke’s thin face wrinkled into a smile. “No. When I was an engineer, I always preferred getting my hands dirty with machines to sitting at a desk.” He stared into the distance as if deep in thought. “I would prefer to be with the men and women in the ranks. That’s where the needs will be.”
“Regimental chaplain then? We need three.”
“Thanks. It’d be an honor. But if I may, I’d like to stay close to you. Do you believe in accountability?”
Merral hesitated for a fraction of a second. “Yes, I do.”
“It’s a wise idea, Merral.”
“Of course.”
“So, you agree that I can ask you any question, anytime?”
“Well . . .”
“So, you don’t believe in accountability?”
Merral laughed. “Okay, Luke, you win. I am utterly outmaneuvered. I give you the right to ask me any question, anytime.”
“Thanks. It may not be necessary, but you are vulnerable.” Luke put his hand on Merral’s shoulder. “A lot rides on you. And I’m sure the devil knows that.”
“Thanks for that encouragement. Look, this Delastro, what do you know about him?”
“Not much. I took a class he taught: Issues in Early Assembly Theology. He’s different from the ordinary sort of teacher in the congregation colleges. I reckon I knew him much less than almost any other of my lecturers. He’d just walk in, teach, and leave. Very bright in a dry sort of way; has a fine way with words. But . . .” Luke seemed to slowly chew over something in his mind before nodding. “Distant. Dry. Academic in the worst sense of the word. Didn’t seem to warm to students much. A tough grader too. But you must make your own assessment.”
“You seem cautious.”
Luke squinted into the distance before answering. “Merral, our world is changing. A few months ago I would have been happy to say this will work. Now . . .” He rubbed an ear. “Now? I’m not sure. My idea of a chaplain is someone you can sit down with over a coffee and open your heart to. Balthazar Delastro isn’t that sort of man.” He shrugged. “But we’re talking about military chaplains here. Maybe he’s what we need. I’m afraid it has to be your decision.”
“Thanks,” Merral said, glancing at his watch. There was another meeting he had to chair. “I just wanted to ask your opinion. I have to meet him this afternoon.”
It was late in the afternoon before Merral got a chance to meet the prebendant. Delastro had an office at a congregation leaders’ training campus—a cluster of red-roofed buildings set in woods on a low ridge, just north of Isterrane.
After seeking directions from several people, eventually Merral and Lloyd were shown into a large, high-walled garden where sharp-edged gravel paths marked a neat geometric array of plants, lawns, and pruned trees. Merral decided that he didn’t like the garden; it was too artificial and regimented for his tastes.
There were just three people there: two young men in pale brown suits standing against the far wall and a tall, older black-suited man walking with rapid steps along the gravel. Merral knew he had to be the prebendant.
As the man in the black suit walked toward him, there was something about him—the rigid back, the thin, long-limbed frame, the stiff-legged gait perhaps—that reminded Merral of a bird. His face was triangular, narrowing from a broad, lined forehead to a sharp chin. He had a wild rim of almost colorless gray hair. Merral found his age hard to assess, concluding that he was over sixty but under eighty.
Even at a distance, the prebendant radiated authority and self-control. Merral felt strangely certain that he could be either a tremendous asset or a great hindrance.
Prebendant Delastro came to a stop just in front of Merral and appeared to observe him with a strange, inquiring tilt of the head. His eyes, hard and searching, were an odd shade of dark green. With his dusty, pale complexion and the almost colorless hair, they were the only point of color on him.
The prebendant smiled thinly. “Why, Commander,” he said, his voice light, confident, and somehow full of approval.
Merral made a slight bow of acknowledgment. “Prebendant Delastro?”
“In person.” The bow was returned.
“Is this is a convenient time to talk?” Merral asked, somewhat ill at ease.
The prebendant’s expression turned to one of cool, knowing amusement and he threw thin, gnarled hands wide open in a gesture of self-deprecation. “The commander of the defense forces—the leader of the Lord’s armies—asks me if it is ‘convenient’?”
Merral, made self-conscious by the address, noticed the way that the words rose and fell in a singsong cadence.
“I accept the first title; the second goes too far.”
“I have no such doubts. Please, would you be so good as to walk round with me?” Delastro looked at Lloyd. “And do leave your man at the gate.”
He gestured to the two men. “My assistants.”
Merral was struck by the style of the suits that all three wore, particularly the oddly stiff, high-shouldered jackets. Amon
g the extraordinary diversity of clothes that people wore, these seemed to stand out. It’s as if they were a uniform.
Delastro was already walking away, his sandaled feet crunching on the gravel, and Merral, after a quick word to Lloyd, had to stride to catch up with him.
“Commander,” he said, “I’m delighted to meet you. I have heard about your exploits at Fallambet Lake Five and I believe that the Most High has chosen you for this time. You have struck down his enemies and crushed them utterly.”
“I confess, Prebendant, that I find it hard to respond to such words. I consider myself to be, at best, an unfaithful servant.”
“As do we all, but I sense that you are the man we have been sent for this hour of trial.”
“I . . uh . . . I appreciate your perspective.” Merral felt troubled by the words.
Delastro threw him a sharp glance. “Do you want to know how I see the situation?”
“Well, yes. . . .”
“We face not just a crisis, Commander, but the great crisis of our age—perhaps of any age in the entire Assembly.” The harshly melodic way he made his announcement seemed to highlight the gravity of the situation. “The enemy seeks to stretch his hand over the worlds of the Most High. I have no doubt that the devil, our ancient adversary, the great serpent, wants to destroy us. We must resist, Commander. Resist! The Ancient of Days has chosen us from among our generation to defy him and turn him back at the very boundary of the Assembly.”
He gave Merral the sternest of looks. “This is an honor and yet a most terrifying responsibility. We must not fall short.”
Merral found himself agreeing with Luke that this was not a man you would want to sit down with about a personal problem.
“I understand your interpretation, Prebendant. So how would you advise me to proceed?”
“With rigor, Commander. With utter rigor and with holy rigor. You must be tough with the soldiers and tougher still with the enemy. Our soldiers must appreciate what they face. This is not some local sports tournament.” His tone was scathing and Merral, who rather enjoyed sports tournaments, felt uncomfortable. “Yes, we must prepare for the harder struggle: for losses, for great sacrifices. We must use whatever resources we have. We must be prepared to wage war with all that the Most High has given us. Total war.” His voice resounded across the garden.
