Prophets

a column of flame. The roar of the ascent made Mallory’s molars ache. The orange light faded long before a slight warm breeze carried the burnt chemical smell of the shuttle’s engines toward Mallory. Within a few seconds, another, more distant craft headed skyward.

What little glimpses he had of traffic told him that the spaceport extended way beyond the little slice he could see. One bright mote had to be aiming for a landing pad a dozen klicks away.

He lowered his gaze toward the concourse adjacent to his LZ. He could only make out the doors and a few windows beyond the glare of the landing lights. The rest of the building was nothing but a black silhouette against a blacker sky.

Since no one had taken it upon themselves to tell him where to go, Mallory shouldered his single duffel bag and headed there.

His arrival was nearly surreal in exactly how much he was being ignored. No one asked for his identification, no one was running a security checkpoint, not so much as a customs office. The Proudhon Spaceport Security personnel stood on the fringes of the LZ, clustered next to the lights with a calculated disinterest that was conveyed even at a hundred-meter distance.

It would almost seem that the effort spent manufacturing the identity of John Fitzpatrick, ex-Staff Sergeant in the Occisis Marines—down to removing and reapplying unit tats—had been wasted.

However, the manufactured John Fitzpatrick knew better.

Proudhon Spaceport Security might avoid all the forms of customs and immigration usually tended to by a nation-state, but that didn’t mean they didn’t know who and what arrived and departed the allegedly stateless rock of Bakunin. Proudhon was the only spaceport on the planet, which gave the Proudhon Spaceport Development Corporation considerable latitude on what they were able to require of ships arriving and leaving. Those ships at least pretended to provide passenger and cargo manifests, and the PSDC at least pretended it wasn’t enforcing import, export, or immigration restrictions on allegedly sovereign individuals. But whatever the pretense, the PSDC had a lot of antiaircraft—ground based and orbital—backing up whatever it did decide to enforce.

So, while no one asked for John Fitzpatrick’s carefully constructed passport, that didn’t mean that no one knew John Fitzpatrick was here. As he walked across the LZ toward the concourse building, he ran the worst-case scenario through his head—a Caliphate agent in place and knowing of his arrival.

Fortunately, if that hypothetical Caliphate spy took an interest in his arrival, there would be little to John Fitzpatrick that would arouse any suspicion. Ex-Staff Sergeant Fitzpatrick had a checkered career with the Occisis Marines that ended with a court-martial convicting him of assault on an enlisted man. Fitzpatrick had been a career man, no family, who had been about Mallory’s age and body type.

He was also conveniently serving a twelve-year sentence, allowing the Church to appropriate his identity. He was exactly the type of man who ended up on Bakunin.

The only part of Fitzpatrick’s history that had to be fabricated for Mallory’s cover was his pardon and release.

Mallory kept his breath steady and his stride unhurried. His training was coming back, and this time mentally counting the rosary did calm his heart rate and his breathing. It helped that he knew what the threats were. Realities were always easer to deal with than his imagination.

The calm was necessary because there was the off chance someone had some sort of monitor pointed at him. Standard security in any sensitive area—and the LZ certainly was that—not only had video and audio surveillance, but had biometric sensors keyed to stress levels from pulse, skin temperature, kinematics, and facial expression. Civilians were mostly unaware of that level of security until they tried to smuggle a weapon into a bank or a bomb into a government building.

As blase as these security guards appeared, if Mallory’s heart level reached a certain level, or his body language said the wrong thing, they would probably escort him into some private room for a little conversation.

Even if nothing resulted from that, it would raise John Fitzpatrick’s profile beyond acceptable levels. Because of that hypothetical Caliphate spy, Staff Sergeant Fitzpatrick needed to be completely unremarkable. Just another bit of human flotsam washed up on the shores of Bakunin—lost in the thousands who came here every day looking for something that only this lawless place could provide.

At the moment, dear Lord, just provide me with anonymity.

He walked right by a pair of the guards and into the concourse. He heard a snippet of dialogue as he passed . . .

“You placed the bet. Fifty grams, pay up.”

“You sure it’s been a month?”

“Yeah, and Szczytnicki hasn’t used deadly force once.”