Caliphate

Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

Retief heard screaming from the rear, even through the many bulkheads separating the cockpit from the passenger compartment and the lounge holding the mass of children. The airship shuddered with the impact of light cannon fire.

'Christ!' The pilot exclaimed. 'Go back and see to the damage. See to the kids, for that matter, the poor little bastards.'

'I'm on it,' Retief agreed, then pushed himself out of his chair, turned, and ran for the rear. He didn't make it before another burst of cannon fire hit the airship, not far from where he ran. The force of the blasts, coupled with the shuddering of the ship, knocked him from his feet, leaving him temporarily stunned on the deck.

Claude Oliver Meara lay on one side on the deck, taped and trussed to his chair like a Christmas goose. He'd shat himself when the cannon fire struck. This wasn't supposed to happen to him. What was wrong with these people? Didn't they understand that if he was unhappy, the world would be unhappy, that if he died the universe would end. Madmen! Devils sent to torment him!

Two children, one boy, one girl, crawled up to him. Meara recognized the boy as one of his favorite new toys. He breathed a sigh of relief; the boy was so grateful for his attentions he was going to free him! The children, their faces very serious, spoke to each other in a language he didn't understand. No doubt they were discussing how best to free him.

The girl produced a small pencil. The boy unlaced a shoe. Meara thought he understood the purpose of the pencil, to weaken the tape that bound him so the children could tear it. But why did the boy tie the shoelace loosely around his neck? Why did the girl put the pencil through the loop and begin to twist it?

* * *

Retief looked down at the buggy-eyed, blue-faced corpse with its tongue swollen and blackened. The corpse, still bound to its chair, was of the one he thought of as the 'fat prisoner.' There were two children nearby, coloreds, looking down at the grotesque, obscene thing with an odd mix of innocence, hate and pure satisfaction.

No time to worry about that now. Later, maybe. If there's a later and if it matters. Besides, there are enough children hurt here not to worry too much about one renegade.

He reached for an intercom button. 'Retief here. It's not as bad as it felt. We've got some kids hurt. Some of them might be dead. And one of the prisoners is definitely dead.'

'Can you toss them to lighten the load?' the pilot asked. 'Every inch might count.'

'I won't toss the kids. I can toss the dead prisoner,' Retief answered. 'He's so fucking huge he might give us the lift we need all on his own.'

'Do it.'

Retief, though no weakling, found it impossible to pick up and carry Meara's obese corpse. After a couple of attempts, he gave up the notion. Instead, he stepped over the corpse and began to roll it, chair and all, towards the back of the airship's lounge, to where the viewing ports had been completely shattered. He had to kick some of the clear material, a kind of double layered glass with a plastic binder between the layers, out of the way. Once that was done, he again went to Meara's corpse and, with a great grunting heave, pushed it over the stern.

It wasn't enough to give the airship much more lift but for some reason Retief's spirit felt a bit uplifted. There had to have been a reason those children had strangled the wretch, after all.

an-Nessang, Province of Baya, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

With a gasp of pain, Hamilton half collapsed against the black- painted auto. It was too dark to see if Petra was inside, and she was strong enough not to cry out.

'Petra, please tell me you're in there,' Hamilton said, after wrenching the door open.

Still shivering, she tossed the bolt cutters aside and flew out from under the cover of the concealing blanket, scrambled over the backs of the front seats, and wrapped him in a desperate hug.

'I thought you forgot about me,' she said. 'I thought you and Hans were dead and everything had failed. I was expecting to be found and crucified. I had to kill a man.'

'You had to . . . never mind. Honey, I've got some bad news and you ought to sit down for it. And besides, we need to hurry to the lake.'

Hamilton had expected a scene. Petra didn't deliver. Instead, she simply asked, 'My brother died a free man?'

'Yes.'

'Then it is well. It's all he wanted; that, and to fight against our enemy. Ling knows?'

'Yes. She didn't take it well.'

Petra nodded as she backed into the front passenger seat. 'No . . . no, she wouldn't.'

'Was she in love with him?' Hamilton asked.

'I think . . . maybe . . . she wanted to be. I think she could have been, in time. And maybe, too, she thinks she was.'

Hamilton nodded understanding. He then reached under the seat, his fingers questing for the key. 'Where are you, you little . . . ah, here you are.' He put the key in the ignition, said a probably hopeless prayer, and turned it. Half to his surprise the car started immediately. He reached up, took the goggles off of his head and set them on the seat between himself and Petra. Only then did he turn on the headlights and put the car's automatic transmission into drive.

Over the sound of the engine, and coming from somewhere above, Hamilton heard the sonic boom of a fast moving aircraft.

Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

'Come this way, children!' Retief shouted over the crying and the roar of air rushing through shattered viewports. 'Come to the center. It will be safer there. If someone's hurt, help them. Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!'

He was surprised by how well they followed his orders. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, when you're born a slave you simply learn very young to accept the bad part of life and deal with it. Whatever the benefits now, it's still shitty.

Retief arranged the kids as best he could on the deck of the lounge. They covered an area of perhaps twenty by thirty feet. He thought about moving the tables around them but, No way; they're bolted down. The chairs he could move, though, and he began to.

Without a word, Matheson, seeing what the Boer was doing, dragged himself over and lay on his side along one edge of the layer of children. His body, he thought, would be better than nothing for protection from fragment.

Retief nodded in approval. Now there's a good man, he thought.

He was dragging a brace of the chairs from the side to the center when he saw a sudden fireball in the night, the light reflecting off the waters of the lake, now below, to the clouds, above.

Wide-eyed, Retief asked, 'What the . . . ?'

'Seven Nine Three? Swiss Airspace Control. We have been ordered to defend you. If you have any self-defense capability, go to weapons tight immediately.'

'Switzerland this is Seven Nine Three. We've got nothing. What's your ETA?'

'Look behind you, Seven Nine Three. Hell, look around you.'

The pilot saw nothing initially, then a sudden burst of light from somewhere behind lit up the world. In that light he caught a glimpse of a brace of fighters. He thought he saw a large red cross painted