“You had to take their only Door?” asked Saturday, casting a worried look at Sam.
“We had to take someone’s,” said the Commander, putting his arm around Sam’s shoulders and leading him into the command module. Though he thought Sam looked very ill, that he needed a med-tech or perhaps had needed one for some time, he did not refer to Sam’s appearance. “There aren’t any extras lying about. When we want to leave Ahabar, we go to Fenice, where the off-planet travel hub is, but the Queen commanded that no Voorstoders be allowed any farther into Ahabar than absolutely necessary. So, we went to the trouble and expense of modifying a Door. When the people from Voorstod are gone, we’ll have to put it back where it was.”
“It won’t be long,” said Sam in a tired voice. “We saw the encampment of the prophets. They will be here by tomorrow.”
“Will you stay to see them leave?” the Commander asked.
Sam didn’t answer for a moment, then he nodded. “Yes, I need to see what … who …” His voice trailed away.
“We can’t stay any longer than that,” said Saturday, giving Sam a troubled look. “I have the feeling we should be getting back.” It was more than mere feeling. It was an urgency. Sam turned his weary, grieving face toward her as though to plead for some unspecified boon, but all she could do was press his hand between her own. Whether returning to Hobbs Land would help him or hurt him, she couldn’t say. Still, she knew they must go.
“There are green snakes in Voorstod,” said Sam, his face quite expressionless. “And forest birds.”
“We have heard,” said Saturday. “The Tchenka.”
“No,” he shook his head at them. “Not Tchenka. Green snakes. Forest birds. Little ones. Real ones. I saw them, along the wayside, in the trees. Snakes. Birds. And other of the ancestor beasts of the Gharm as well.”
When they got him inside, he fell into an exhausted sleep.
When morning came, the Commander sat at a table near the Door, among a crowd of Archivists, busy with their recorders. Jep, Saturday, and Sam stayed in the command center, looking out from the darkened interior, where they would not be seen. Nothing was to occur that might upset the prophets. The Commander didn’t want them howling for Saturday’s blood, or Jep’s, or Sam’s. The Commander wanted them to go through the Door and away, forever.
“Couldn’t you arrest the Awateh for the murder of my mother and execute him,” Sam asked, still in his depressed, expressionless voice.
“We could. However, there might be riots, violence, more people hurt. We think this way will be most sensible. Can I trust you to stay calm, Sam?”
“Yes,” Sam said. “I want no more innocent blood shed. I’ll be calm, Commander, but later …”
“What do you mean, later?” Jep whispered, when they had gone inside, but Sam didn’t seem to hear him.
The vehicles came at last, throwing up a long bushy tail of dust, stopping at the barrier. Veiled women stood in silent groups. Children, no less silent, gathered nearby. Gharm, light chains attached to their collars, were fastened to the carts, into which bulky bundles were shifted by long-haired men who stared around them with suspicion. One of the Awateh’s sons got out of a vehicle and approached the Commander, shifting his weight from side to side, fists clenched. His eyes showed white around the edges, as though he was about to bolt.
“We wish to leave Voorstod,” he said. “The father of Queen Wilhulmia offered us land of our own if we would leave Voorstod. Now we wish to go.” He did not say the rest of what he was thinking. “Now we wish to go to a place of temporary safety while we complete our plans to destroy you all!” The prophets did not feel they had been routed. Though the manifestations in Voorstod were disconcerting, the prophets had not been driven away by the ancestor-spirits of the Gharm or by the apostacy of thousands of their followers. The prophets themselves were proof against whatever was happening in Voorstod. They had chosen to leave now as part of a coldly calculated and purely temporary retreat. For a time they would play the part of defeated men. So the Awateh had ordered.
Such subterfuge had formed no part of their training, however, and they did it badly. Even the Commander thought so, as he regarded the young prophet with suspicion.
It had been Wilhulmia’s great-grandfather, not her father who had promised resettlement land. The land the former king had offered was upon a Belt world which had long since been occupied, but the Commander did not bother with details.
“The offer of resettlement land still stands,” he said. “How many of you are there?”
“We are five hundred prophets of the Cause, with our wives and children and an equal number of the Faithful. We have certain requirements,” said the prophet, sweat standing out along his clean-shaven upper lip. “We require a habitable environment, with sufficient water for growing crops and for our flocks. We have brought certain Gharm with us to till our fields …” Actually, he needed none of these, but he was acting his part.
“You will not be allowed to take any Gharm.”
Though the prophet had been prepared for this, the actual words caught in his throat. “But we must have … must have … servants.”
“There is a native race on the resettlement world.”
The prophet mopped at his lip. “We have brought our flocks and our possessions, for so we are commanded to do. ‘Take up all that is yours,’ says our Scripture. ‘Your flocks and your people …’ ”
“What is yours, you may take,”
