He opened his desk drawer for the tenth time, searching for the book that wasn’t there, Mainoa’s book. Who had taken it? Had Jhamlees taken it? That totally Sanctified idiot? Had he? If he had, Jhamlees would be messaging Sanctity about it. Messaging, getting messages back. Like a message from the Hierarch saying, open the secret armory and take the planet for Sanctity. A message like that.
Not that he knew there was a secret armory here in the Friary. Everyone said so; but then, everyone could be wrong. Suppose the Green Brothers did take the planet, wipe out the bons and the mounts and the hounds; so then what would they do with it?
They’d find a cure, that’s what they’d do with it. Mainoa had seemed to think there was a cure here. They’d find it. Give them a little time….
Fuasoi had assumed there was plenty of time to spread the virus. He had not hurried. Now Jhamlees might be onto him, and urgency overwhelmed him. Yes, Brothers Flumzee and Niayop and Sushlee and Thissayim and Lillamool should find that damned Mainoa and kill him—kill Mainoa and Lourai and anyone else who was with them. Yes, that should be done. At once. But there was one other thing that needed to happen at once: the distribution of the virus. In Commons. That’s where it would do the most good. That’s where people were packed most closely together. He had delayed unconscionably. He had diddled. Uncle Shales would not have been proud of him.
He took a small carrying bag from his cupboard, placed the packet of virus inside on top of a change of clothing, covered it with an additional robe which was all Shoethai would need, left his office, and went down hay-smelling corridors to the gravel court where he found Shoethai himself, just closing an engine housing.
“Is it ready?” the Elder Brother asked. He stood back and regarded the aircar with disfavor. It was one of the bigger ones, with two cabins, a large one up front and a private one behind, each opening to the outside. One of the smaller cars would have done as well and would have moved faster. Still, if it had been serviced. “Is it?” he repeated.
Shoethai grimaced, giggled, said it was. There was something almost gleeful in his manner, and the Elder Brother assumed that the thought of Mainoa’s destruction pleased Shoethai. Well, and it should. The thought of anyone’s destruction pleased Moldies. The more gone, the fewer left to go, so Moldies said.
“Where’s Flumzee?”
Shoethai gestured to an alleyway from which Highbones was at that moment emerging, closely followed by four of his henchmen. When they saw the Elder Brother they stopped in confusion, tardily remembering to bow.
“I’m going with you,” the Elder Brother announced.
Shoethai howled—only briefly, only a moment’s howl, but enough to bring six pairs of eyes toward him. He groveled, curling his misshapen shoulders, so that his voice came from between his knees like bubbles rising in hot mud. “Elder Brother, you should not risk yourself. You have important work—”
“Which I’m about to do,” Fuasoi said firmly. “After Flumzee and the others have found their quarry, you and I will take care of other urgent business.”
“Me!” Shoethai squeaked. “Me!”
“You. You won’t need anything. I’ve brought you an extra robe. Get in.” He turned to Brother Flumzee. “You can drive this thing, I hope.”
Highbones managed to bite down his glee and keep a serious expression on his face. “Certainly, Elder Brother. I am an excellent driver.”
“You know where to go?”
“Shoethai said a place called Darenfeld’s Coppice, northeast of Klive. I have a map. We’re to look for a side trail there.”
Fuasoi grunted assent. “Shoethai and I will take the back cabin.” Shoethai seemed to be having one of his spasms, so Fuasoi took hold of him and thrust him up into the car, following him in and slamming the compartment door behind him.
The others cast quick, eager looks at one another as they assembled themselves in the front cabin, where Highbones sat at the controls with the ease of long imagination, if not actual practice. He had driven aircars now and then since coming to Grass. He had driven them often in his youth. Within moments they had risen high above the towers of the Friary and were on their way south.
“Can they hear us from back there?” Brother Niayop, Steeplehands, asked quietly.
Highbones laughed. “Not over the sound of the engines, Brother.”
“Isn’t there a speaker?”
Highbones pointed wordlessly. The dial on the console before him was in the OFF position. Highbones was trying to keep from showing excitement. His cohorts were starting to make enthusiastic noises, but he felt it behooved a leader to behave in a more dignified fashion, at least until it got time for the killing. Then there could be whooping and yelling and incitements of various kinds that they were used to. They’d never killed anybody old before. They’d never killed anybody directly before, not with their hands. Knocking someone off a tower or kicking them off—that didn’t seem like murder. It seemed more like a game. He wasn’t quite sure how they would manage killing women, though he knew he couldn’t get the others—or himself—to do it right away. Elder Brother Fuasoi had told Shoethai there might be women. Shoethai had told Highbones, and Highbones and his friends had talked about that most of the night.
Highbones sat very still as he thought of women, not to disturb the hot throbbing that filled all the space in his groin and spilled over into his legs and up across the skin of his belly. He had had a woman before he had been sent to Sanctity. When he was fifteen, before they sent him. None since, but he remembered.
Her name had been Lisian. Lisian Fentrees. Her body had been white. Her hair had curled
