Something which was not death.
“Birribat Shum?”
“Yes.”
“Elitia Kruss?”
“Yes.”
“Horgy Endure?” he almost laughed.
“Yes. That too.”
“The God knows what I know,” he said to himself, not needing an answer. The God knew what everyone knew, and what everyone was. And if Sam could find a prophet or a follower and make him stand still long enough, the God would find out what he knew as well.
If there was time.
“What is the place of women in the creation of the One God?” bellowed a monster from a hundred yards away.
“Women have no place,” cried Sam. “They are not followers of God, they are merely processes by which followers may be created.”
As Maire was considered to be. Phaed had told him of the Paradise of the Faithful. Food and drink and virgins. Gardens and virgins. An ecstasy of the senses for the men who had died in the faith, and no mention of the women. “They are to be kept private, kept quiet, kept healthy until they have borne children, and then they may be disposed of.” His mind finished the quotation.
China Wilm. Saturday Wilm. Maire Manone. All the women. Disposed of.
“What are the numbers of those who will acknowledge the One God in the last days?” trumpeted a huge, rolling monster, aiming its cannon at Sam.
“If there is one of the Faithful, and that one the only living one, one is enough,” Sam replied.
Jeopardy Wilm. Willum R. Dern Blass. Spiggy Fettle. All the men who were not of the Faithful, also disposed of.
The nonlegendary. The day-to-day scufflers. The watch-to-watch managers. The growers of food. The builders of houses. Those who lay on their bellies in the grass, watching bugs. Those who listened for birdsong. Those who would not overbreed or overbear. The co-existers. Disposed of. In order that the last man living may be one of the Faithful to utter the name of Death.
But, whispered Sam, if there is one of the Gods, that one is enough for the utterance of a different name.
Sam walked on toward the west. Somewhere ahead of him was Phaed Girat.
• Settlement One was already awake and moving when Theor and Emun returned. There were two dozen fliers being stuffed with persons, cats, and almost no baggage.
“Where did the fliers come from,” Emun asked China Wilm.
“They showed up,” she said. “We’re first in line. Then the fliers will evacuate Two and Four, then Three and Ten, then Eleven and CM. Meantime, Five through Nine are putting together food supplies for all of us. They’re farther east and will be last out.” She was not in a panic. She sounded very matter of fact.
“Where’s everyone going?”
“To the escarpment,” she replied. “The first few loads have gone already.”
Theor Close decided Sam had been right. The God knew what they all knew. He might as well go along with everyone else.
• The convict laborers were wakened by Dern Blass, who trumpeted orders, some of them contradictory, and then left Howdabeen Churry to sort it out. It took a few moments before the sleepy off-shift understood what was happening.
“Voorstoders?” Shan Damzel asked, disbelievingly. “How did they get access to the army?”
“Presumably the same way we got access to Hobbs Land,” snorted Mordy Trust. “Through subterfuge, lies, and sneakiness. How isn’t going to help us right now. What are we to do?”
“Dern says we may be evacuated to the escarpment after everyone else has gone. Which is only fair, I suppose, from their point of view. Blass says we can go to Thyker through the Door if we want, but it’s chewing up one shipment in five right now. He suggests we pack some food for ourselves and the others. He also suggests we might ask for some weapons, which might not be a bad idea. According to Blass, the army is west of Settlement One, moving rather rapidly.”
“How did he find out?”
“He says the God Horgy Endure told him,” said Churry with an expressionless face.
Shan heard this without a quiver. The interesting thing about the Hobbs Land Gods was that they did tell the settlers things and the things were always true. Not commands. Not beliefs. Just things. Like, it’s going to rain. Like, there’s a fire in the chemical stores. Like, that yellow cat just had five kittens, tell her how pleased you are. Like, somebody is hurt out behind the tread repair shop.
Now: the army of Enforcement is coming. Get out fast.
Shan went to help the men who were loading food, wondering only briefly if he had been swallowed yet.
• On Authority, Lurilile went on soft feet down endless metal aisles, listening for sounds she did not hear. Soft whish of air, rumble of liquids in pipes, clutter-clutter sound of fans, wink and beep of monitoring devices, dials quivering, light arrays flickering, all normal, all usual. Why no sounds from above?
She almost passed by the main environmental monitoring station. Inside the half-glassed door, banks of stages showed here, there, everywhere, with telltales beside them reading off temperature and humidity and parts per millions of pollutants. Pollutants off the scale. Temperatures above levels where humans could live. Fiery temperatures. Flames dancing on the screen among charred bones.
“Where?” she breathed.
The great library of the Religion Advisory, said the stage.
“A key for the last lock,” she said firmly.
No magic. The flames went on. Wherever the ear she needed to reach was, it was not here.
“Schematic of the supply area,” she commanded.
It swam onto the stage before her.
“Command module for Enforcement,” she ordered.
A quivering as the memory searched and did not find.
“Command override,” she said desperately.
Nothing.
“Find command override and give it this message,” she told Archives. “A key for the last lock. Implement.”
Again that searching quiver. Oh, Archives wanted to please, wanted to find whatever it
