This time two of the bowmen of Ludh moved in front. They were the usual mercenaries in this section of the galaxy—yellow, hairless apes with wolf muzzles. As soldiers, they were so good that one should have been guard enough, instead of the six Dupont had brought.
They came to the caravan he had seen, drawn aside to let them pass. There seemed nothing wrong in the attitude of the woman leader, though he saw Dupont frown at an odd sign she made; it was probably religious, though he didn’t recognize it.
The Sayonese were more nearly human than most races, but still alien enough. The women’s chests were flat under their brief halters—naturally, since they were marsupials—and feeif pouches showed clearly above the slit skirts both “gexes wore. Both their wrinkled skin and coarse hair were green, while their ears and noses were grotesquely large. With their squat, heavy bodies they might have been trolls from Earth’s mythology. But after the snakes of Tarshi or the bowmen of Ludh, they looked amazingly manlike.
Even their customs and religions resembled some Earth had once known, though their god was a righteous, demanding Mother-Principle. Earth had expected easy conquest, counting on their legends of incarnate goddesses who were practically perfect images of human women, but only drastic action and the burning of half the temple had overcome that mistake a century ago. Since then, however, the priestesses had maintained peace well enough—at least until now.
“Have you seen this prophet you reported?” he asked Dupont.
The man shook his head, reaching for his kerchief again. “Only films from a distance. He came out of the desert a year ago and stuck to the provinces, picking up converts. It wasn’t until last week he moved to’Kalva for the holidays. And you can’t believe all the reports. They’re a mess of lies about miracles.”
“You haven’t picked him up for questioning?”
“I’m not supposed to mix in with local religion. You know that!” Dupont’s voice was petulant. “It’s up to you and the high priestess, the Fas Kaia. She’s the one who asked the Sector Governor for a warship and a company of Earth guards to keep peace.”
Judson grimaced again. The Sector Governor had a warship, but no adequate crew of fighting men for it. The youth of Earth was too busy enjoying the luxuries from a thousand worlds to bother controlling the planets now, it seemed. So he’d been sent instead, over his protests. As a mere vice-governor, he was expendable.
They were entering Kalva now, heading toward the temple and the Earth Administration palace beyond. Judson studied the crowds, realizing time had brought changes. Poverty was worse and the slaves looked ill fed. The temple taxes must be murderous. The streets were jammed with people and more pilgrims were arriving with every caravan, many wearing swords in defiance of Mesea custom. The old market was solid with skin tents and crude shelters, filling the air with stench and clamor. One skin-rotter could infect the whole area.
“Converts to Oe Athon,” Dupont commented, making a mispronounced mockery of the title. “It thins out beyond the temple. There’ll be time for a bath before the Fas Kaia reaches the palace, I guess.”
The huddled ranks of unwashed Sayonese made way for them reluctantly. Their green faces stared at the humans and Ludh without seeming to see them, filled with a curious, expectant ecstasy. They might have been drug addicts, except that the drugs Earth shipped were too expensive for the masses. They seemed peaceful enough—but fanatics could seek peace one minute and start a jehad the next.
Now the street swept around the huge temple, and the crowd grew thinner. Ahead lay the palace, the Ludh barracks, and the ugly, barren cemetery hill at the end of the street. Judson glanced at the forbidding mound, then began yanking out his binoculars, cursing.
Near the top of the cemetery hill, four thin posts carried the rotting flesh of Sayonese bodies. Nearby, another wretch was still alive, sitting on the sharpened point of a stake. It had been greased until his straining hands couldn’t hold his weight, and his feet rested on a mound of sand that sifted away with each writhing, tortured movement. Slowly but steadily, his body was sinking lower around the point.
At a tune like this, the fools had revived the Seat!
Judson swung out of the saddle to the ground, shaking his head as Dupont slowed. “Go on, damn it. I’ll handle this my way,” he shouted. The huddles of Sayonese parted to let him through, until he was past them, climbing up the steep steps to the temple.
The priestesses must have been watching. There was a shout, and two of them trotted down to help him. To his surprise, he was in need of their assistance; his age was showing in the labor of his breathing. “Tell the Fas Kaia I’m here,” he jjanted.
“The Fas Kaia-greets the Oe Eli,” a heavy alto voice answered from the top of the steps, speaking in pure high Saydnese.
He caught his breath while they studied each other. She was an old woman, so fat that her skin was stretched to paleness, and her bloated body was loaded with jewels. But there was a firmness about her as she waved the lesser priestesses away. She nodded at last. “You’re a strong man and a realist, I think. Thank Her for that.”
“Realist enough to know you’can’t tax people to starvation and hold them by torture,” he told her sharply. He gestured toward the hill. “Did you think I was too stupid to see that?”
She sighed, turning one ear toward the screams of the dying man that came faintly over the noise from the streets.
“I expected you to see it,” she said quietly. “These are bad times, Oe Eli—so bad that those rogues dared to try looting the temple. I may have lied in calling them followers of Athon, but their sentence was legal. As for the tax—I get what I can, but I don’t starve my people. They do that themselves. Every fool on Say6n is in Kalva, to see this Athon or watch what I do to him. I’ve emptied my own stores, and there still isn’t enough food for afl.”
Slowly the anger ran out of him. Even under the codex Earth had drafted, the Seat was approved for anyone who profaned the temple. Such stupidity deserved whatever it got. “My apologies, Kaia.”
“There was no offense, Eli,” she told him, smiling quickly at the ritual of names. “Now, if you’ll consent, we can talk better in my quarters.”
In the little room behind the great gold and jade statue of Her, she waved the slaves aside and served him mild faya wine and some of the matchless Kalvan cheese. Then she sank back gratefully onto her cushions, setting up a tinkling of ornaments.
“‘A wise man has many swords’,” she quoted. “I am glad your Governor sent you instead of the warship the administrator requested—which could have done no good. Perhaps together you and I can find a solution. Eh’, when you were here before, how much did you learn of Her incarnations and their power?”
He could feel the muscles of his face tense, but he forced himself to remain calm. “I met one of your goddesses and saw what she could do,” he answered.
“A man?” Judson asked in surprise, though he should have expected it.
She nodded. “All were girls, except the first, who founded our religion in a series of bloody holy wars. Some legends make it seem that he was fertile, unlike the girls, and that they may all have been seed from his loins. But the people believe they are incarnations of the Goddess, and they don’t disturb the temple too much. Athon does.”
“Yet you didn’t have him assassinated when he first appeared?” Judson asked. He was trying to adjust his thinking to the new facts. Some kind of strange mutation, recessive and with linked genes, carrying the ability of mental healing? It was possible. Earth had found and developed a few minds with some of the same ability; they were the ones who handled the expensive geriatric rejuvenation treatments.
“I tried,” she admitted. “More than once. But he converted my assassins and my spies. Then I tried to persuade the administrator to proclaim him a human, pretending to be Sayonese. There was the missionary woman before my time, you know. She tried it, until Earth found her here.”
Judson had some memory from his reading. He frowned over the idea. It would make things easier, certainly. The Sayonese took the mysterious word “Science” as the unimpressive answer to anything humans might do, and they’d “regard any alien race dabbling in their religion as “the ultimate abomination. Damn Du-pont! The man could have used his brains instead of the rule book once in his life; instead, he’d played it safe until the
