Kingdom's Swords

by David Sherman

  Quaticatl leaned forward to whisper to Sturgeon. Sturgeon listened, then said briskly, "General, Mr. Ambassador, if you will excuse me, my squadron is ready. I have a FIST to fight." He walked rapidly to the command post, which was already set up.

  Chapter Twenty

  "Mr. Ambassador? Mr. Ambassador?"

  "Huh?" Jay Benjamin Spears started awake to find his station chief gently shaking his shoulder. Spears wiped a thin rivulet of spittle out of his beard and sat upright in his chair. An old-fashioned book lay facedown in his lap. "Damn!" he muttered, picking it up. "Never lay a book down like that, Prentiss, ruins the spine."

  Prentiss Carlisle smiled. He was getting used to Spears's eccentricities, one of which was that for relaxation he read old books, really old books, printed on paper and bound between covers, the pages woven into "signatures," as Spears called them. Carlisle learned quickly not to call the pages "pages," but instead "leaves," and he knew from Spears's lectures that leaves had two sides, "recto" and "verso." "It is slovenly to call them ‘pages,’ my dear Prentiss," Spears had commented one night after several beers.

  "You should've been a librarian, Mr. Ambassador," Carlisle said.

  "Eh? And missed this life of adventure?"

  It was obvious to Carlisle that Spears had wanted to go with Brigadier Sturgeon but declined because he thought his duty as a diplomat required him to remain behind in Interstellar City. But now something interesting had come up. "Sir, an urgent message from the naval ship in orbit. Seems—"

  "Prentiss, you should read this volume. Very interesting!" Spears handed his station chief a leather-bound book. "It's hideously rare, although only a twentieth-century facsimile of the original edition of 1692."

  "Twentieth century?" Carlislie asked. Carefully, he picked up the book and opened it to the title page. Spears had told him that "title page" was correct, not "title leaf." Carlisle had decided he'd never understand the arcane nomenclature of printed books. "The Wonders of the Invisible World," he read, "by Cotton Mather." He read on silently. "Yes, I've heard of those witchcraft trials and this Mather. He was a clergyman, wasn't he? One of the prosecutors?"

  Spears took the book back and placed it gently on a side table. "No, he was an explicator of the whole affair. I am reading this, Prentiss, to get a better idea of what motivates the City of God sect, the neo-Puritans. They hearken back to their seventeenth century roots, you know, especially the Puritans of seventeenth-century New England America. They fascinate me, and of all the sects represented here on Kingdom, I think they are the most interesting and possibly the most sincere. What's the message, Prentiss?"

  Back to business. "It's from the captain of the navy vessel in orbit, sir. For the past several days they've observed through their string-of-pearls sort of a one-way, um, ‘migration’ from several of the larger towns into the vicinity of the Achor Marshes along the Sea of Gerizim."

  "‘Migration,’ did you say?"

  "Yessir. There's been no traffic in the opposite direction."

  "Ah. Which cities are involved?"

  Carlisle consulted the reader he held in one hand. "New Salem, New Dedham, New Stoneham..."

  Spears perked up immediately. Now here was something interesting! "Those towns belong to the City of God," he said, holding out his hand for the reader. He scanned the message. "And he reports much traffic toward Gerizim but none coming back? Has anyone attempted to contact the people in those towns?"

  "Well, no, sir. I'd have asked the brigadier to dispatch a drone but he's on the other side of the world and, well, I didn't want to share this just now with the Council. Not until we'd had a chance to evaluate what's going on."

  "Excellent! Very good judgment, Prentiss." Spears stood up and began pacing, hands behind his back. "Well, Prentiss, that's the question: What the hell is going on?"

  "Some kind of religious retreat, perhaps?"

  Spears snorted. "Neither of us has been at our posts very long, Prentiss, but one thing you should know about the City of God, they don't have ‘retreats,’ religious holidays, ‘feast’ days, none of that. They live simple, dress simple, and look simple. Some ungenerous souls who do not understand them say they think simple too. If these people are moving, there's a reason, and it's long-term, not for the goddamned weekend. Well, New Salem is about a hundred kilometers south southwest of here. Get a car."

  "Er, a car, sir?"

  "Yes, Prentiss, a car. We're going to New Salem. We are going to use the oldest method of intelligence gathering known to spying, otherwise called ‘diplomacy.’ If anybody's still there, we'll just ask them what's up. If not, we'll look around, maybe follow their trail. Come on, come on, Prentiss, there are still six hours to sundown."

  "But, sir, it could be, uh, dangerous? I mean, there are these terrible attacks going on, and who knows what's brewing among the sects? We could very well wind up in the middle of some internecine feud..." Carlisle's voice trailed off. He looked helplessly at Spears.

  Spears nodded once. "You're quite right, Prentiss, of course. How shortsighted of me. Get a car and some guns. I'm driving."

  Consort Brattle blew a strand of loose hair out of her face and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. The packing was almost complete. She straightened up. The Brattles did not own much, aside from the furnishings inside their home, most of which they were leaving behind in New Salem, but still, the storage compartment of their landcar was already packed full. Fortunately, the livestock had all been taken on before, in the care of the village's unmarried men. And the harvest was done for this year, so if the stay at Gerizim turned out to be a long one, they would have food and could get in a new planting before the next growing season.

  "Comfort?" she called to her twenty-year-old daughter.

  "Yes, Mother?"

  "Take this box of your father's reading crystals to the car, would you? Where's Samuel?" Samuel Brattle was her fourteen-year-old son, an obedient lad but sometimes easily distracted. The whole idea of moving the village to the Sea of Gerizim had been distracting enough to everyone in New Salem, but especially the boys around Samuel's age, none of whom could wait to get under way. Besides, during the trip and for many days afterward there'd be no school. But for the adults in New Salem the move was troublesome. The Ministers of the City of God expected new persecutions, and had convinced the sect' individual congregations that moving to the remote shores of Lake Gerizim and consolidating their population would offer them better protection.

  "Sam is saying good-bye to the neighbors," Comfort replied. Dutifully, she took the box of crystals from her mother and started for the landcar.

  The Brattles would be the last family to leave New Salem. Zechariah, Consort's husband, as mayor of New Salem had the responsibility of making sure the village was clear and everything left behind secured against the inhabitants' eventual return. He and Samuel would go to each house before leaving, to make sure all the doors and windows were secured. Once the current emergency was over, the Ministers had promised, they would return to their homes, so each house was ordered to be safely locked and all the chattels that could not be transported to the camp along the Sea of Gerizim safely stored away inside them.

  "Consort," Zechariah called from the stairs leading to the upper floor where the sleeping compartments were, "call in the children. We must seek a blessing before we leave." Zechariah Brattle was a big man, well over six feet tall, but sinewy, not an ounce of fat on his large-boned frame. New Salem was a farming community, and although the City of God believed in using whatever technology was available to earn their bread, farming on Kingdom was laborious and hard, and Zechariah Brattle's lean, rock-hard muscles reflected a lifetime in the fields. But he was a gentle and peaceable man.

  Some calling brought Samuel inside, and the four of them stood in the sparsely furnished living room.

  Zechariah raised a big hand over his family. "Loved ones, we Brattles have lived in New Salem for over two hundred years. We have worked hard and lived well off our l
abor and we have kept faith with the Lord. Our labors have been rewarded and we have been protected. But the world is in turmoil today. The Ministers fear we shall be attacked. Wars have come to Kingdom before, but now the Ministers fear persecution, and that is why we must leave our homes. But I have met with wonderful things this day." He beamed down at his wife and children. "In the forenoon, while I was at prayer, pleading the sacrifice of my Lord Jesus Christ for my family, I began to feel the blessed breezes of a particular faith, blowing from Heaven upon my mind. I began to see the clear road before us—led on, as the Children of Israel in olden times were led on by the same good Hand that bestowed life and blessings upon us and our brethren. Samuel! Are you listening? Pay attention now."

  Zechariah smiled down at his son and went on: "Whereupon, I begged of the Lord that He would by His good Spirit incline me to exemplary courage in our journey and permit us again to obtain such favor as to have the good things with us, as in our former circumstances. Let us pray:

  "The Tabernacles of the Just

  The Voice of joy afford,

  And of Salvation, strongly works

  The right hand of the Lord,

  We shall not die, but live, and shall

  The Works of God declare.

  The Lord did sorely chasten us,

  But us from Death did spare.

  "Amen."

  "Father, will those Marines come here after we're gone?" Samuel asked.

  Zechariah looked askance at his son. The boy was bright, good at his studies, but his fascination with military subjects and adventure stories was a trifle worrying to his father, who was afraid the boy was subject to frivolity. "I know we are leaving in only a few minutes, Samuel, but yesterday Master Roxbury gave you an assignment. Is it finished?"

  "Yes, Father," Samuel answered, surprised that his father had asked him such a question. "It was to translate the first seventy-four lines of Virgil's Aeneid. ‘I sing of arms and the man,’ " he said, quoting the famous opening line of the poem.

  "It's a man, Samuel, a man."

  "Ah, yes, Father, a man," Samuel replied, exasperation in his voice. "But Father, I have been reading a history of the Confederation Marine Corps' campaigns, and I must say, it is more interesting than Caesar's Commentaries. We read them last year."

  "More interesting, Samuel?" his father asked.

  "Well, sir, as interesting. And a lot easier to read. No translation required."

  Zechariah raised an eyebrow. He knew his son's moods and he knew what the next question would be, so he answered it now. "We study Latin because to understand the Bible you must study it in its original translations, and besides, the Fathers, chief among them the Mathers, were Latinists and excellent Greek and Hebrew scholars as well, so that is why we study those languages today. Now time is of the essence, Samuel, we must go."

  "But Father," Comfort interrupted, "will the Marines come to this part of Kingdom? I've seen them on Samuel's reader, and they are indeed handsome men and a lot more interesting than the young gentlemen we have around here."

  "Comfort!" her mother admonished.

  "Well, Mother, you know perfectly well that Simeon Lawson's been making goo-goo eyes at me. One of those off-world Marines might make a good husband for an eligible young woman. Like me."

  Zechariah knew his daughter well too. He blew out his cheeks in feigned exasperation. "Comfort, your little jokes try our patience. Now as to Marines, I do not know if they will ever come here. They are at present on the other side of the world, I hear. And you know there is widespread talk they are part of the problems we have been experiencing on Kingdom lately. I do not believe it myself, but respectable people think so. Now Comfort, Samuel, listen to me: to be a Marine is not a bad thing. Any man who devotes himself to the protection of others is blessed in the eyes of the Lord. If these Marines come, they come; if they don't, they don't, and that's it.

  "Now are there any more questions?" There were none. Zechariah looked at his family and smiled. "Sam, let's check the doors. Consort, fire up the car." He gave a small box of reading crystals to his daughter. "Comfort, you hold this. These are the town records, all the way back to the first settlement in New Salem. Hold 'em tight. All right," he clapped his big hands together briskly, "we've given God His due, now let's roll them out!"

  The road to New Salem was unimproved. Trailing a long cloud of dust, Spears stopped on a ridge above the town. The dust swirled around them. "Nothing like the element of surprise," Carlisle commented dryly.

  Spears chuckled. "We're in City of God territory now, Prentiss. They don't believe in spending money on improving the roads, not the ones to the other territories, because they really don't want visitors."

  "Since I've met all the other so-called leaders, can't say I blame them."

  Spears held up a finger. "Now you're catching on, Prentiss. Well, the place looks deserted. Let's see how good our optics are." He tapped some commands into the system, and the screen mounted on the floor between them filled with a close-up of the main street. He ordered the system to scan slowly. "Looks like everything is totally buttoned up."

  "Not even a piece of paper in the street," Carlisle observed. "I don't think we're going to find anybody to talk to down there. I don't like it."

  "Neither do I, Prentiss." Spears fingered the handgun he carried in a shoulder harness. Spears knew very well that if the village had been attacked, the handguns would be useless against the weapons the mysterious aggressors had been using, but the mere presence of the puny weapons was at least comforting. "Jim, are you getting all this?" he asked the communications technician monitoring them back at Interstellar City.

  "Yessir," Jim Chang answered. "Transmission is very clear, Mr. Ambassador."

  "Okay, Jim. Prentiss? Shall we visit the ghost town of New Salem?"

  The City of God did not share its demographics with the other sects, so the exact population of its towns and cities was not known. But New Salem, judging by the number of homes located there, could not have had a population much in excess of five thousand. It was one of the smaller of the sect's towns. Altogether, the City of God was estimated to consist of a little more than 200,000 adherents The farmers of New Salem lived in the town, not in their fields, which stretched for tens of thousands of hectares in every direction. During the harvest they would camp in the fields until the work was done, but the life of the community was in the town. None of the community or commercial buildings in the town was identified. They did not need signs, because everyone knew where everything was in the town, and while the City of God believed in being hospitable to visitors and wayfarers, they did not feel it necessary to advertise. In fact, although the sect believed it was every man's duty to work hard and prosper, advertising one's trade, or success at that trade, was considered too brash, too commercial, for the vow of simplicity the sect required of its members.

  So Spears and Carlisle stood in the empty main street and scratched their heads. Only the church—or meeting house, as it was called—was recognizable to them. And that was only because they knew enough about the sect to recognize the structure: it was the biggest building in town. "Let's try there first," Carlisle suggested.

  They trudged up the dusty street, then Spears abruptly stopped. "Look at this building here, on the left, Prentiss. See those big doors? That must be a garage or a machine shop. I want to look through the window for a moment." Inside there was a vast empty space, dimly lighted. The floor was concrete and stained with lubricants. Spears nodded and flicked on his hand communicator. "Jim," he said to the technician back at Interstellar City, "have the navy give us a complete run of its close-up surveillance of the movement toward the Sea of Gerizim. I want to see what was in those convoys." He turned to Carlisle. "Prentiss, there is a reason for all this at this particular time. I think it's very important that we find out."

  "You think the City of God knows something we don't?"

  "Precisely. They've taken everything of importance that could be moved, includ
ing all the heavy machinery and mountings that used to be inside here. I bet if we look inside the houses we might find some furniture left behind, but everything they need to reestablish themselves seems to have been taken with them. Now what do they know that we don't?"

  "Fear of the attacks?"

  "Possibly." Spears thought for a moment. "They are certain they will be attacked by someone. Prentiss, we've heard the rumors that the sects think we're behind these depredations. We know that's ridiculous. The raiders are using weapons nobody's ever heard of before. But the attacks have been random so far. No one particular sect has been attacked. Now why would the City of God think they in particular are in for trouble?"

  "All this fear of this, fear of that, is making me nervous." Carlisle chuckled.

  Spears looked intently at his station chief. "Prentiss, I think you have good reason to be nervous. Come on, let's bust into city hall." He nodded toward the meeting house at the end of the street.

  The Confederation of Human Worlds ambassador to the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles drew his handgun and blasted the lock off the front door to the meeting house. The report of his gun echoed loudly through the empty street. He kicked the doors open and walked inside. Aside from the pews on the ground floor and some office furniture in the rooms above, the place was also empty.

  They stood outside on the steps and looked down the main street. At the far end stood their car. "I think we should have driven up here, sir," Carlisle said nervously. "It's a long walk back to the car." He shaded his eyes and looked through the rays of the sinking sun. "Dark in another hour."

  "We're not responsible, the sects are not responsible, so who or what's causing all the trouble here?" Spears said, almost thinking out loud. "You've heard the rumors we're not alone in Human Space, haven't you, Prentiss?"

  "Yes." That thought had occurred to him.

  "That's what we're up against here, I know it." Spears smacked a fist into the palm of his hand. The smack echoed in the gathering shadows. Carlisle looked about nervously. Suddenly, he did not want to draw attention to himself. "But these bastards," he nodded at the meeting house behind them, "are up to something too, and whatever it is, it'll only complicate things even more around here." Spears laughed. "By God, Prentiss, I think I'm actually beginning to enjoy this assignment!"