clear flight paths above a hundred feet or so. The Canucks lost a CF-18 a few days ago, mid-air collision with a Harpy. Pilot turned up in the reception center three hours later and was back in his squadron three hours after that.” Kim moved her controls and the helicopter lifted off. She climbed to the specified altitude and then set course for New Rome.”
Madeuce looked down through the murk and dust to the land underneath. “There’s fields down there.”
“That there are. Remember for most of humanity’s existence we were farmers. A lot of us still are and most of the people rescued from the pit are. All they want is to get a piece of land and start farming it, it’s a vocation I guess. And the land down there is incredibly fertile once somebody got a plow to it. Food’s not a problem in Hell.”
“I didn’t think it was anyway. We don’t have to eat do we?”
Kim made an indecisive, well-sort-of noise. “Not really, not physically, although you get to feel wrong of you don’t. Psychological. But, you do hard work that burns a lot of energy, you’ll feel hungry and you either have to eat or rest until the hunger pains go. Get hurt, you’ll be hungry until your body fixes itself. Don’t ask me why or how. The egg-heads are working on it, they’ve got theories coming out of the wazoo. All I can tell you is this. These bodies look human but they’re not. We’re here, we’re human, we are who we were but these bodies the ones we inhabit, are not human. We’re Second-Lifers, not First-Lifers. Never forget that.”
The cultivated areas of the Phelan Plain behind them, the ground beneath reverted to uncultivated grassland. “Who does all this land belong to?”
“Us, by right of conquest.” Madeuce looked sharply at Kim, but she wasn’t smiling. “I’m not joking, it’s the only thing that the daemons understand. We won so everything belongs to us. Anything they keep is what we are presumed to have given back to them and they’re grateful for it. Oh, there’s some that resent us waltzing in and taking over and there’s an incredible amount of trouble with rogue humans setting up as warlords. Another thing you shouldn’t forget. Hell is huge and we’ve only seen a small part, a tiny part, of it. You remember the Leviathan things that showed up? Well, its likely there’s a lot more nasty surprises out there waiting for us. That’s why I wanted you with us.”
Throne Room, The Ultimate Temple, Eternal City, Heaven
There was one immediate reaction to Michael-Lan’s arrival in the Throne Room. Tucked away in a corner, one of the Chayot Ha Kodesh was arguing over the price the Master Mason was charging for spaces in his bunker. As soon as he saw Michael-Lan arriving, he paid the asking price without question and squirmed behind the protective walls. That was a sight Michael-Lan found profoundly satisfying. Not because of its actual content but because it showed that now, even here in Yahweh’s throne room, it was he, Michael-Lan-Yahweh, who was determining the course of events. He paused for a second, contemplating the meaning of his name. It wasn’t true, not any more. Michael-Lan-Michael had a much better ring to it.
With that thought coiling in his mind, Michael-Lan once more entered the Holiest of Holies and his eyes adjusted to the dim glow that contrasted so strongly with the clear, white light that saturated Heaven. Once again, the sight of the great white throne with the dimly-seen shape of the One Above All Others sitting on it awed him. Or did it? He looked again at the figure he derisively thought of as Yah-yah, the Unbearable One and realized the awe was gone. Michael-Lan had seen real power now, seen the great boiling mushroom cloud that had consumed the city of Naypyidaw, surveyed the devastation that had been left when the cloud had passed. He had been saved from destruction by a fraction of a second for he knew and knew well that had he not pushed his cart back through that portal, he would have been in the center of that unimaginable blast. He would have been destroyed so thoroughly that it would have been as if he had never existed.
Michael-Lan had known humans, understood humans or so he had thought. He had watched their ability to destroy grow by leaps and bounds as they had given up their blind acceptance of dogma and begun to ask the one simple word that Michael-Lan knew Yahweh feared above all others. Why?. Did simply asking why things happened always lead to such terrifying power? And was that why Yahweh hated those who questioned his will so much? With those thoughts troubling his mind, Michael stopped in the middle of the ring of lamps and knelt down on both knees. He prostrated himself and pressing his lips, still marred with the faint scars from the wounds he had taken rescuing Uriel, to the cold, dark jade floor. As though sensing intentions, the four Seraphim quieted, and the twenty-four elders’ murmurs died to whispers.
From the white throne, the voice of Yahweh thundered: “Michael, my good general, what news do you bring me?” There was a stir of sheer, raw terror around the room and those left in the open cursed the fact they had been too late or too poor to afford a seat in the Master Mason’s bunker.
“Oh Immaculate One Above All whose Unspeakable Name brings indescribable feelings to us all.” Michael-Lan chanced a quick glance upwards at that, but was reassured. Yahweh was still half-dazed by the chanting of his choir. “I bring excellent news. The Scarlet Beast has broken into Jerusalem. It is laying waste the city and destroying all that is sacred there. Dumah spreads her contamination across the city and none survive its poison. Dumah protects the Beast while the Beast destroys and together they kill everything. The dead already number in their hundreds of thousands. The human city of Jerusalem has fallen. The surviving humans stream away from it in great columns, its population reduced to panicking refugees. The Scarlet Beast and Dumah have scored a great victory.”
“By My Unconquerable Will do we triumph.” Yahweh’s voice cracked across the room in triumph, the clouds around him seething with energy.
“Truly The Nameless One’s Example shines like a shaft of gold in the darkness.” The voice echoed across the room, one of the Chayot Ha Kodesh trying to curry a little favor.
Not unlike a stream of bat’s piss, thought Michael, more than slightly annoyed at the interruption. “And that is not all. We have started to pour the Fourth Bowl of Wrath upon the humans and with it we have scorched men with fire. We have destroyed the great city of Naypyidaw and the men of the remarkable empire of Burma were scorched with the fierce heat of its destruction. Yet even as they died, they blasphemed Thy Mighty Unspeakable Name and did not repent or give glory unto your Unbelievable Self. Soon four more cities shall follow and their grief shall be multiplied many times over.”
“And Uriel? What of Uriel?” Yahweh’s voice was breathless, almost carried away with excitement.
“Alas, Oh Unmentionable One, Uriel inflicted great harm on the City of Los Angeles. Many parts of the city burned with unquenchable fire and its streets are full of humans on his account. Yet in his great efforts, the humans treacherously slew him with weapons unknown to us. A great loss. One Above All.”
Yahweh shrugged and the clouds around him roiled. “Ah well, he wasn’t doing much good anyway. Forget him. You have done well my Great General. Carry on with your plans.”
You can be sure of that. Michael-Lan thought. As he left he saw the Chayot Ha Kodesh who had been arguing about the price of a seat in the bunker trying to get his money back.
Chapter Forty Three
Israeli General Command Headquarters, Tel Aviv, Israel
Orders should be clear, concise, unambiguous and decisive. General Marosy’s order to the Israeli Navy officer- of-the-watch was all of those. “Explain yourself.”
“Well, Sir, it appears that the Tekuma was correctly designated on the plot as of fifteen hundred when the watch shift changed. When the new operations room staff took over, the first thing they did was purge the board of outdated contacts. They noted that the contact report representing Tekuma hadn’t been updated since the early part of the previous watch so they removed her from the board. Then, when the present watch took over control, they had no means of knowing that the submarine was not represented on the plot.”
Marosy stared at the naval officer in awed disbelief. “I’ve heard of things like that happening. I never thought I would actually be present to see one. If somebody was to write that into a novel, nobody would believe it. Yet you imbeciles have done it, not once but twice? Give me strength. Have you people learned nothing in the forty years since you last pulled something like that off? Then you just shot up a ship belonging to your only ally. Now, you’ve mislaid a nuclear-armed submarine?” Marosy almost lost control of his voice and nearly heard it go up into a squeak. He paused for a second and swallowed, wishing he had a good shot of slivowitz to help him endure the unendurable. Then, he took a deep breath. “And just what do you plan to do about it?”
