This was a favorite device of the prophets. Make a man tell the whole story, checking the details each time to see if he left anything out or told it differently or remembered things he shouldn’t.
Faros gathered his thoughts. The true beginning had been two generations before, when a dozen zealous members of the Faithful had cut off their hair and gone secretly out into Ahabar where they had established themselves as well-to-do planters. Planters were anonymous and, for the most part, socially acceptable, whether they had gone to the proper schools or not. Wealthy planters were particularly well-accepted.
The false-planters had raised children who learned to speak and behave as Ahabarians, though when they reached the age of reason they had been sent “away to school.” The school was in Voorstod, in the citadel of the prophets, from which the satisfactory sons returned to raise families of their own and the unsatisfactory sons and the daughters did not return at all. Women fully trained in the total self-effacement required among the Faithful could not be expected to show themselves in the outside world. Second generation wives and mothers were recruited from among Ahabarians.
As Silene Faros had been.
Faros and Ornil were the end result of all this endeavor, two apparent Ahabarians who had obtained positions on Enforcement. Faros and Ornil, both with impeccable records and a generation’s worth of references.
The prophet didn’t want to hear all that, no matter what he said, so Faros began with his own history.
“Ten years ago, I obtained a post on Enforcement after serving in the Ahabarian army for five years following my graduation from the Academy at Fenice.” He kept his voice expressionless. One never knew what might set the Awateh off into one of his rages. “The Faithful of the Cause had already smoothed my way by bribing certain officials in the personnel office of Enforcement, thus assuring I would be accepted and given a suitable command. At first I was too low in rank to have access to the information needed by the Cause. I was promoted as rapidly as it is possible to be promoted, each step upward aided and assured by my brethren. Two years ago, I reached the rank of Overmajor, which is the minimum rank necessary to be admitted to the secret levels of Enforcement.” He ran his tongue over his lips, longing for water. He dared not ask for it.
“It was then your family were brought here, for safekeeping,” purred the prophet.
“Indeed, Holy One.” They hadn’t told him they intended to pick up his wife and his children. Silene and the children had always lived in Ahabar. He had gone there for his holidays. He had never told Silene anything about Voorstod. He wouldn’t have told her anything. She had been safe and happy in Ahabar, on the plantation. She and the children could have been left there, perfectly safely. And instead this old … the Holy One had had them kidnapped and brought here!
“To assure there would be no unnecessary delays,” said the prophet in the same kindly tone, sipping at the goblet in his hand.
Faros, who knew that tone, held his breath. When he could go on, he said, “As soon as I could, I learned the procedure by which the army of Enforcement is mobilized.”
It had taken the better part of a year to learn the exact sequence of events necessary to get the soldiers moving. “First, at least fourteen of the twenty-one Actual Members of the Advisory create an ineradicable record of their intention to mobilize the army. A copy of that record is then carried by the Commander-in-Chief, in his own hands, to Enforcement, where it is verified by the two Subcommanders. The Commander-in-Chief then uses his key …”
“Key?” asked the prophet, as though he didn’t know what Faros meant. He knew exactly. He had been told.
“A device keyed to his living person. The Commander uses this key to open a certain panel on the moon Enforcement. Behind that panel is a control to which the Commander and the two Subcommanders simultaneously speak a command. This command releases the locks upon the army and allows them to be programmed as desired.
“It was clear, Holy One, that many of the details were mere ritual, that if we had the key and the living body of the Commander-in-Chief—regardless of its condition—and a record of the three voices uttering the proper command, nothing more was actually necessary. The command was ‘Open Sesame.’ It had some connotation I do not understand. It was not a phrase any of the three highest ranking officers would use in their daily lives.
“Still, the words were not difficult. The word open was easy to collect from the three officers. I recorded two men and Ornil recorded one. The other word, we had to build up from phonemes, which took longer, but soon we were ready to make the recording.” Faros licked his lips. They had been so close, so very close.
“We had understood your success was imminent.”
“It was, Holy One.”
“But then you sent word of delay. Delay necessitates explanation.” The words were icy, like cold iron.
“The message was ready, telling you of our success, when Subcommander Thees suddenly was removed from his command.”
“Could you not have used the key before he was actually sent away?”
“He was not ‘sent away,’ Holy One. He was at a banquet on Authority when it happened, and he never returned. The Commander was at the same banquet, and so we had no access to him. The password had already been changed from Authority by the time the Commander returned, which was the first we learned of the incident.”
“Incident?”
“It had nothing to do with Thees’s work at Enforcement. He went to a banquet on Authority and said something improper to a young woman. The young woman
