'Seems to me you've been mighty careless with your brothers.'
A spurt of anger shot up from Wiggs's belly. How dare this Gentile address himself so facetiously to Elder Seth? From a dozen yards away, Wiggs recognised the red blossoms of alcohol abuse on the sergeant's face. The cavalryman stank of sin.
The Lord knew, with women and nigras and who-all else knew what, the US Road Cavalry was mightily degraded. Wiggs saw them as no better than the other motorised killers, the resettlers. The girl-witch who had taken the Elder's shades had been indecently dressed too. 'Let's scan your dead,' the sergeant said. Elder Seth had laid out the brothers lost to the murderous harlots on the road beyond the drive-in, where their martyr's blood had been spilled. The sergeant glanced over the three, who were concealed by a bloodied sheet. 'Traffic accident?'
'Murder,' Wiggs shouted. 'Foul, bloody murder.' A look from Elder Seth stunned him into silence.
'Someone will have to tell me what happened,' the sergeant said. 'If people are killed, you have to report it. That's the law. We can't catch killers if witnesses don't come forward.'
The sergeant was lecturing them as if they were children.
'They were painted women,' Sister Ciccone said. 'Evil spirits in female form, wallowing in the lustful filth of their fornications, drinking deep of the cup of depravity.'
'That pings the timer, Quince,' the cavalrywoman said. Her voice rasped through her helmet, like one of the godless cyborgs who slew Hooper and Lennart. 'We had a report from T-H-R that the Psychopomps were raising their profile sandside. With the Maniax out of the pool, you expect smaller fish to flood in.'
'We'll need to take statements,' the sergeant said. 'From all of you.'
Elder Seth was unconcerned. 'Earthly wrongdoers will receive their just reward on Judgement Day. It should be no concern of thine.'
'Tell that to your perforated brothers.'
Without his dark glasses. Elder Seth looked no different. In most lights, his eyes themselves were mirrors.
'This pilgrim seemed upset earlier,' the woman said, indicating Wiggs. 'Perhaps we should start with him.'
Wiggs bowed his head in shame and silently prayed for guidance along the Path of Joseph. He had journeyed far from his sinning days, but was constantly reminded of the long, rocky road he had yet to travel.
The woman stood close to him. As she breathed, the front of her tunic swelled and shifted her yellow US Cav suspenders. She was a shapely woman, the Devil's worst temptation. She still wore her helmet, and her faceplate was opaque. Wiggs imagined an angel's eyes and a harlot's mouth, with a length of flaming hair confined in a tight clip.
'Brother…?'
'Wiggs,' he admitted.
'Will you give a statement?'
He looked to Elder Seth who did nothing to suggest he should not cooperate. Wiggs knew it would go easier if they tried to help the officers. If some innocent bystander gave him trouble when he was a deputy, he always found a way to slow them down. His daddy had a saying, 'Nobody's innocent, but some folks just ain't been found out yet'. Cornered by the police, everyone had something to feel guilty about. Wiggs more than most. Guilt was his constant companion. 'Whatever thou wish,' he told the cavalrywoman. The helmet nodded. Wiggs recalled situations when he would take advantage, pressing unwelcome attentions on a witness, approaching a crime scene with shameful desire in his heart. Was this hussy looking at him with lust?
'Scans like we'll be visiting with you folks a spell,' the sergeant said. 'Any chance of a meal and a drink?'
'Thou art welcome to share whatever we have,' Elder Seth declared.
IV
Tyree thought the Josephites were damfool cracked, but they still seemed confident about their jaunt. Despite the dead-folks they had left along the way. They just took it all, kept singing their hymns and following their damned yellow brick road.
Surprisingly, the Psychopomps had left them with all their food and water. Elder Seth must be a persuasive fellow, to convince a gangcult to leave supplies. And to get this crew out on the road in the first place.
It was just one freaking miracle after another with him.
It was nearly nightfall now; the patrol had spent the afternoon processing statements. Tyree had started to tape and annotate an account of the gangcult incidents from that strange, squeaky little Southerner, Wiggs. He was a soul in torment who hadn't quite abjured all he should, to judge from the way his eyes roved up and down her body. He was the type who meets a woman and can describe her bra size but not her eye colour.
The statements told them nothing they couldn't have guessed. When they learned what happened to the Knock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, the Josephites didn't even gloat. The general mood was sorrowful, that lives were ended before errors were recognised. Tyree couldn't understand that degree of forgiveness and wondered if the dead brothers would have gone along with it. If she got pancaked by bad guys, she'd expect her friends to be angry about it, and maybe even hit the old vengeance trail. It might not make a dead person feel better when their killers were zotzed, but it sure couldn't make them feel any worse.
Quincannon had downloaded a precis to Fort Valens. Apparently, the Psychopomps had been sighted – by Ms Redd Harvest, no less – at some mall and there was a black flag by their file. The gangcult were climbing the hit parade towards the Most Wanted top twenty.
If the Josephites were annoyed with anyone it was the 'Pomp who had stolen Elder Seth's mirrorshades. All the statements tallied on the detail, though they varied on everything else. What sort of a person finds scavved sunglasses more memorable than a triple murder?
The women were preparing an evening meal. Burnside had hoped they'd brew up a couple of pots of coffee – some rich folks could still get the real stuff brought in from Brazil or Colombia, and the Brethren must be pretty well set up to mount such a damfool expedition – but it turned out that coffee was one of the sinful, worldly things they abjured. Even recaff was off their diet sheet, and that bore about as much relation to good coffee as a flea did to a dog.
Without meaning to, Tyree drifted in with the womenfolk and found herself helping out with KP. As she opened packets, Sister Maureen told Tyree all about abjuration and all the things she didn't miss, Tyree thought Sister Maureen was cracked. Hell, without coffee, carnal relations and a good clean gun, life wouldn't be worth living. As the woman ticked off each new thing the Josephites had given up, her sisters sighed with happiness. Sister Ciccone, whose pureness of mind and body suggested a lobotomy, was especially joyful at her abandonment of the pleasures of the flesh. Tyree wondered if the Brethren of Joseph reckoned smugness was a sin. Nobody in the congregation seemed keen on giving up
The Quince was face-slapped to learn the wagon train was dry. Back in Valens, the Sergeants' Bar would be opening up about now, and Quincannon would normally be in his corner with his bottle of Shochaiku, yarning with Nathan and the others. Tyree preferred to spend her downtime jacked into combat simulators, bringing up her points average to impress the promo board. That was one of the things that was curtailing her on-off relationship with Nathan; come the next round of exams and advancements, she'd outrank him. He was enough of an old man to find that insupportable.
Being around these people, with their fixed smiles and damfool passivity, made Tyree edgy. They didn't display grief for their dead friends, just smiled and said the departed were in a better place. The only thing these Josephites seemed good for was singing psalms. That might prove useful, though. The way they were headed meant they would be going to a lot of funerals.
The Quince was still talking with Elder Seth, recording notes on his cyberfax. Tyree, bored now her interrogation quota was used up and unable to listen to Maureen and Ciccone any longer, wandered over to the
