thing all the time in Salt Lake, and Seth encouraged it. Spilling blood was all part of the ritual.
She didn't ask questions, but she was learning more and more. She wasn't much like the nervous indentee hooker she had been back in New Orleans. With Commander Fonvielle, she was only too willing to play the role of First Lady. The creature in the sea had unnerved her, but she had put up with all the other horrors without a murmur. The sacrifices were still baking on the tarmac as they strolled across the launchpad. Two were Josephites who had fallen beside the wayside and succumbed to doubt, but the one with a tail was a Suitcase Person. Duroc had ordered that the perimeter guards round a few of the monsters up for study. They had obviously been human once.
Bethany Addams was waiting outside the bunker, her best black dress and poke bonnet on. She had been with NASA before she joined the church, and knew what she was doing. She even remembered Fonvielle from the old days. She was of that generation of Americans that had wanted to be astronauts when it grew up, and been sorely disappointed when the ruinously expensive and dangerous space programme was dismantled.
Duroc looked up into the sky. It seemed close enough to touch. The Needlepoint satellites were up there somewhere. They had been frigidly unyielding for years, but the Frenchman knew they were just waiting to be seduced by the right touch.
They rode the freight elevator down to the bunker. Two goats were tethered in one corner. Ezekiel Astor, a dour Brother in shirtsleeves with a butcher's knife in his waistband, tended them. He was the Officer of the Sacrifice.
Sacrifice was the key to the whole thing. The Needlepoint Ring was lost to scientific endeavour. That had been proven in the '70s. But the Church of Joseph had other avenues of communication with the machine minds that controlled the heavy lases.
Duroc stepped off the elevator platform and strolled into the control room. Fonvielle saluted his president, and he returned the respect. The commander looked like Ben Gunn, but at least 75% of his brain cells were still firing.
Astor led the goats towards the console that had been opened up. The plastic casing was cast aside, and someone had carefully scraped away the jacketing of most of the wires. Astor gently picked up one of the goats and placed it in the nest of wires. He cut its throat and held its mouth shut as it bled into the machine's insides. There were sparks as the contacts were made.
Simone took it all as a normal rite. She was from the swamps. She knew voodoo when she saw it.
Sister Addams chanted softly as she engaged the monitors. The dying goat kicked feebly, and lay still, its life seeping into the workings.
The big board lit up.
'Contact,' Fonvielle said.
There was some discreet cheering from the technicians.
'Keystone, Keystone,' Fonvielle said into his throatmike, 'do you read?'
The Satellite beeped its response. Later, they would engage its voicebox simulator, and converse in English. For now, mathematical signals would do.
Addams turned round, smiling beautifully. 'On line, Elder Duroc.'
Duroc quietly punched the air. There was another cheer. It was a shame the Josephites abjured champagne. This was one of those
'You have a subject?' Addams asked.
This had been one of Duroc's odd little tasks, the selection of a test subject. He had run his mind through a long list of people he had met and whom he thought the world would not be the poorer for the lack of. But then he realized they were so close to the End of All Things that settling one petty score among so many accounts due and soon to be paid was small-minded of him. Spontaneous human combustion had always been random in its nature, and so he decided on a genuinely random form of selection.
He had used the ZeeBeeCee Blotto Lotto RaLPPH, the most finely-tuned random-person selection machine in the world. The station claimed that it picked its winners without regard to any social, racial, sexual, economic, psychological, numerical, alphabetical, moral or sociological consideration. So, smiling a little at the thought of such ill-fortune following on the good, Duroc had picked Gavin Mantle of Springfield PeeZee, Massachusetts.
Gavin had been until recently a salesman for Kitchenmaster appliances. He was 32; married to the former Clodagh Hanrahan; father of little Tish and Reggie; a keen follower of the
Duroc fed in the co-ordinates of the walled estate Gavin had moved into—without taking Clodagh, Tish and Reggie or Erik—and also gave the machine a map of the lucky winner's body-heat patterns.
'Keystone is accurate to the half-centimetre,' Fonvielle claimed. In the past accuracy had been the problem. The curvature of the Earth and the distortion of the atmosphere got in the way. But now, with the charm of blood seeping through the works, they should have that problem licked.
The monitors showed the satellite extending its lase arm, and making minute adjustments in its orbit.
A map appeared on the big screen, with a red dot over Springfield. The map was magnified as the aiming became more precise.
Sister Addams was praying.
Duroc imagined Gavin in his new-won palace. He hoped he was alone. For some reason, Duroc felt it would not be fair to singe a GenTech supplied sexclone.
'Target: lock-on!'
Fonvielle was standing over the console.
'We have manual control, Mr President.'
He lifted a little cover and revealed an unobtrusive red button.
'Simone,' Duroc said, 'do the honours, would you?'
With a satisfied smile, Simone walked across the bunker. Even Josephites who had abjured carnal relations couldn't stop themselves staring at her body. She was wearing something white and clinging and silky that set off her skin colour perfectly.
'Goodbye, Gavin,' Duroc said.
Simone casually pressed the button, and the red dot on the map flashed.
'Firing sequence initiated,' Fonvielle snapped.
There was a rising whine. Brother Astor sacrificed the other goat, almost unnoticed. Duroc was pleased with the man. He liked the way he did his part in the operation without being asked or demanding an acknowledgement.
Sister Addams had her thumbnail between her teeth.
'Firing…'
The big screen suddenly scrambled, and the map was gone. Lights flared.
'…now!'
It was unspectacular. The big screen just shut down. Astor's goat kicked and shrieked, clinging to life.
Fonvielle slumped in his chair. Simone stood away from the console.
'What happened?' Duroc asked.
The commander ripped out a fistful of his beard and chewed it like tobacco.
'Malfunction, Mr Prezz.'
'The lase doesn't work?'
Fonvielle spat a hairball on the floor. 'Nope. That's fine and dandy. Well up to scratch, in fact.'
'So?'
'It's the targeting system we have to get the bugs out of. We don't seem to have reestablished control over the Keystone mapmaster programme.'
A read-out chattered. The big screen came back on.
'Ah,' said Fonvielle. 'Does anyone know where Taabazimbi is?'
