Highland brush was gathered, and fires were lit. Food was cooked. The Awateh sat in a tent alone with his sons, all fifteen of them, the youngest not yet twenty.
“On the moon Enforcement there are two of the Faithful,” said the Awateh, beginning a litany all of them knew well.
“Praise Almighty God,” his sons intoned.
“Halibar Ornil is the servant of God. Altabon Faros is the servant of God. Before we left Voorstod upon Ahabar, we received word from these Faithful that time is fulfilled. The army of Enforcement is being turned to God’s service.”
A spasm of ecstatic movement went among them. “How soon?” breathed the eldest of the sons.
“Only so long as it takes to teach the army of Enforcement the words of God.” The Awateh visualized the army of Enforcement as a kind of angelic host, hovering, awaiting a single command, but he knew intellectually that this was not accurate. According to the latest word received, Ornil and Faros, working alone, had managed to program less than one-hundredth of the army. Once the Commander’s unconscious body had served its purpose, it had been disposed of in a manner that suggested accidental death. There was now a new commander, with new-broom attitudes, poking into corners, looking up directives and seeing whether they had been complied with. Ornil and Faros were unsuspected and were proceeding with the Great Work, but they were doing it slowly, daring to do nothing that would seem suspicious. Considering the vast size of the army on Enforcement, the Awateh had decided to move at once. One-hundredth was quite enough for a first step.
“Then we need survive upon these heights only a little time,” said the eldest son, optimistically.
The prophet nodded. “Only a little longer.”
“Where?” asked the youngest son, greatly daring. He had been accustomed to saying nothing, asking nothing, in a culture where seniority was everything. “Where will the soldiers be sent, Father? Phansure?”
For many of those in the wide black tent, it was the only time they had ever seen the Awateh smile.
“When we struck at the traitorous Gharm in Ahabar, there were three who offended us,” said the prophet. “Two offended greatly, because they are of our blood, apostate, deniers of Almighty God and of his prophets. The other one offended us by calling up hatred against us, by singing a devil’s anthem into our faces. I learned of her identity too late to take her when she was in our hands.
“One of those three is dead. She was hung like rotten fruit upon the walls of the citadel at Cloud. Our faithful servant, Phaed Girat, saw that she was put there.
“One of the others is her son. The third is a girl of Hobbs Land named, blasphemously, Saturday Wilm.”
“You will send the soldiers of Enforcement to Hobbs Land to kill two people?” asked the youngest son, incredulously. He had heard there were only a few thousand people upon Hobbs Land. It made no military sense whatsoever. “To kill two people?”
“To kill all the people,” said the Awateh. “And their false gods whom they arrayed against us in Voorstod upon Ahabar. Those gods came from Hobbs Land.”
There were expressions of wonder and anger.
The Awateh went on. “First, some smallest part of the army of Almighty God will go to Hobbs Land while at the same time another small part goes to Authority. And then, when Hobbs Land is no more, when Authority is taken, thereby removing any threat to our continued work, the soldiers will go in their millions to Phansure. After Phansure is taken, they will go everywhere in the universe, in God’s name.”
“When?” the son asked.
“As soon as there is a diversion,” said the Awateh. “Something to focus the attention of the System elsewhere.”
“A diversion,” the son breathed. “But that could be a long time.”
“As Almighty God wills,” breathed the Awateh, still smiling. He believed it would be soon, very soon.
• • •
• China Wilm, who had wished change upon Sam before he went to Ahabar, considered him unduly changed now. At first she hardly knew him. He looked at her out of haunted eyes, his cheeks sunken from loss of weight. He seldom remembered to eat. China, despite her far-advanced pregnancy, took him in. Sometimes a woman did that with a lover, usually not for long, but it was certainly acceptable behavior if the man needed care and couldn’t find it among his sisterhouses—which Sam couldn’t, because Sal was grieving so over Maire that she wasn’t competent to look after herself or the babies. Harribon Kruss came over from Settlement Three to look after Sal. That was sometimes done, too, when there was no brother to look after things.
China took Sam in and fed him, petted him, and cosseted him with delicacies. Within a few days he looked more like himself physically, though the look in his eyes had not changed.
“He should be back at the job,” said Africa, who had been holding down Sam’s job and her own for far too long.
“Look at him,” whispered China. “Don’t push him, Africa.”
“Seems he should start to get over Maire’s dying. It’s been a while now.”
“It isn’t just Maire’s dying. It isn’t her death he can’t get over. It’s that she knew she was in danger of death and he pooh-poohed it. He had never understood what she was trying to tell him, but even that isn’t what’s eating at him. It’s that he never really tried to understand. She told him things, and he heard them, but he never asked himself what they meant to her. He only asked what they meant to him. He had his dad built up as some kind of misunderstood hero. Now he feels guilty, and he won’t let go of it. You know Sam. He always has to wring every drop of blood out of everything, even when there isn’t any blood to wring.”
“Birribat Shum will. …”
“I know. I think so, too, if we give
