by Dan Cragg
President’s Private Office, Fargo, Earth Marcus Berentus shook his head sadly and said to Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant, “How can people be fooled by this guy?”
They had just left Huygens Long and his party as they departed for Senator Maxim’s villa and were now back in the president’s private office.
“People must have something to believe in, Marcus. Jasper gives it to them.”
“But all the evidence, all the eyewitnesses, all the devastation on Kingdom, how can anyone deny that was caused by the Skinks, enemy aliens bound and determined to destroy us? It flies in the face of reality, Suelee.”
“People deny all kinds of things, Marcus. I was about ready to tear your head off the other day after my meeting with Jasper, and I’m one of the most rational people in Human Space—
except around election time. I grew up in the evangelicalPentecostal environment. They take their name from the biblical feast of the Pentecost, when early followers of Christ gathered and were filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s this emphasis on the Holy Spirit that sets them off from all the other Christian sects. These guys have waxed and waned since biblical times. I guess Jimmy Jasper is waxing.”
“Yes, and this could be the last time, not because of the Millennium but because the Skinks are going to screw us permanently.”
Chang-Sturdevant nodded and they were silent for a moment. “Ever hear of the Reverend Willie Gahan?” she asked.
“He was a much beloved and respected evangelist when I was still a kid. He got his message across through his preaching and crusades, which were revival meetings but much more sedate and intellectual than Jimmy Jasper’s. Gahan had a divinity degree and was a noted biblical scholar; he knew his Greek and
his Hebrew and his sermons were respected as legitimate interpretations of biblical prophecy. Oh, he preached the same Bible as Jimmy—salvation through faith, eternal life for believers and all that. He believed in a literal interpretation of the Scriptures, but none of this shouting and screaming or ‘witnessing’
that we saw on that trid of Jasper’s preaching.”
“I confess I don’t know much about that sort of thing.”
“Most people don’t. I bet you never heard of Moral Bobberts or Matt Roberson either. Now, they were Pentecostals, like Jasper. Pentecostalism has its own internal dynamic that sets it apart from the established churches. It has no church hierarchy, no doctrine; it’s all based on direct experience of the Holy Spirit; everyone in the congregation is a preacher and everyone participates directly in the worship. You saw it, people screaming, singing, weeping, dancing, and that awful music by the Doxology Chicks.” She shook her head. “All thundering and blasting away.”
“Papa Haydn would’ve been outraged.” Berentus laughed.
“Pentecostal preaching is like religious karaoke, Marcus. Everyone gets a chance to perform. Oh, Jimmy preaches, but he’s more like a band leader than a shepherd. Old Willie Gahan, he was a shepherd, a teacher, you sat there listening to his preaching and admiring it. He appealed to both your heart and your brain. You could argue theology with a man like him. But Jimmy Jasper goes straight to the lonely heart and there is no argument, it’s all emotion and testimony, where experience of the Holy Spirit trumps theology every time. The Pentecostal preachers are shrewd businessmen too. Look at the millions Jasper has raised. And there’s something else, and this should really concern us, Marcus—Jimmy’s Pentecostal preaching appeals to everyone, not just the poor and downtrodden, the people who normally turn to religion for hope and spiritual sustenance, but to the rich and powerful, the movers and shakers of society. Senator Maxim is a good example.”
Marcus shook his head in wonder. “You know what troubles me, Suelee? That the Skinks, who set this guy up, who engineered him into this ministry of his, evidently know much more about us than we know about them.”
They fell silent as the storm raged outside. “This is a bad one, Marcus.” Chang-Sturdevant moved to the window. “I hope Hugh makes it out there.”
“They’ll be all right and within an hour all this Jasper nonsense will be over and done with.” He came and stood beside her at the window. Hailstones thudded against the reinforced Lexan material. “I’ve flown in far worse than this,” he added.
“But not in a hopper. That storm could rise as high as twelve thousand meters. A hopper can’t fly over it. I hope the pilot returns after all, or lands somewhere to wait it out.”
Chang-Sturdevant turned to him with an anxious expression on her face. “Marcus, you’re scaring me!”
“Sorry, Sueelee, sorry. I was just thinking out loud. They’ll be perfectly all right.” They were silent for a moment, watching the approaching storm. “I’ve never been a very religious person, except right now, maybe, as nature shows me how helpless I really am.” He chuckled.
“You don’t believe in ghosts either, do you, except when you’re all alone around midnight?” Chang-Sturdevant added.
“Suelee, I’ve always considered the Holy Trinity, for instance, an exercise in the ridiculous, but I know that hundreds of millions of people, decent, intelligent people, believe in it. And some pretty smart people believe in ghosts. When alone, around midnight.” He grinned.
“Just as many believe that the angel Gabriel spoke directly to Muhammad,” Chang-Sturdevant added. “I don’t find it hard to believe, or an anomaly either, that Jasper has been able to convince a lot of people that we’re being deceived about the Skinks. Evidently he believes it himself, although maybe not by his own choice. But Marcus, the whole point I tried to make just now is that religious faith like his doesn’t come through a process of reason and analysis, and if you don’t have it you’ll never understand it.”
Berentus put his arm around the president. “Good God!” he
shouted suddenly and pointed. “Look! Away out there! It looks like a goddamned tornado has touched down!”
“Well,” she said drily, “I see God does enter into your life—
your vocabulary at least. Hey, I believe that damned thing is heading straight for the city! Let’s get away from this window and down to the Emergency Operations Center. If it hits the city there’ll be damage and casualties and I need to see what help my office can render.”
“Jesus, am I ever glad we aren’t out in this storm,” Marcus replied.
Senator Luke Maxim’s Penthouse Apartment, Fargo As they entered the palatial lobby of the Dirlik Building one by one, shaking the rainwater off their coats, Senator Luke Maxim greeted his guests effusively, “Greetings, brothers and sisters! Greetings!” he chorused, embracing each in turn. “The Master awaits us. But let us gather here until we are all present and then go up to my apartment.” His face glowed with goodwill and happiness. The Dirlik Building was home to many notables and the staff was used to seeing the rich and famous come and go through the lobby, but that night they stood in awe of the luminaries gathered around Senator Maxim. That dignitary had had the foresight earlier to usher Jimmy Jasper into the building through a private entrance to avoid the attention that inevitably disrupted his arrival in public. But his guests were too many and time was growing too short, so Maxim held them in the lobby until all had arrived. He counted noses. “Ah,” he announced at last, “we are all present. I do not want to keep the Master waiting, friends, so we’ll take the high-speed elevator to the roof. You will get a very good view of the city as we go up.” He led them to the elevator bank. The high-speed elevator ascended the outside of the building, and the view from it was in fact splendid. It was glassed in on all six sides so that occupants had the impression that nothing separated them from the sheer drop of ninety stories to the streets of Fargo. On a clear day, riding in the device was an exhilarating experience. But that night it was not.
“Oh, lordy, lordy, lordy,” Henrietta von Styles sighed as the elevator quickly rose into the storm. She turned around to face the building, vertigo so strong in her that she could not bear looking out over the city into the raging storm. General W
arner snorted. “Humpf, I’ve seen worse. The artillery fire during the assault on Bulon was worse than this.” Nobody else in the group could even remember where or when that battle took place. The general’s words were punctuated by a tremendous clap of thunder that vibrated the elevator. He was secretly pleased that Henrietta was showing her nerves. He had no ear for music of any kind and often said, to make a point of it, “I only know two tunes, one is ‘Yankee Doodle’ and the other isn’t.” Hailstones suddenly rattled fiercely against the glass panels. “Ah,” the old general sighed, “reminds me of when I was pinned down on the beach at Sanford! How I love the sound of automatic weapons in the morning!”
At the seventy-fifth floor the elevator stopped abruptly and the lights went out. “Oh, God!” Hillary Snead cried in a high falsetto. Wind shook the carriage violently and someone screamed in terror. “Open the door! Open the door!” Professor Orchard yelled, his scholarly detachment abandoning him momentarily. Brilliant lightning flashes illuminated the riders’
faces starkly, revealing them twisted grotesquely in fear.
“It is only a temporary power outage,” Senator Maxim announced, his voice shaking. With effort he managed to control it. “Do not be distressed! The Master awaits us and no harm can come to us because we are here to do His calling! Be calm. Trust in the Lord.” He reached out and clasped the sweaty hand of the person nearest to him, Dr. Ng, who was shaking violently, and announced, “Let us pray!” At that moment the power came back on and the elevator resumed its ascent to the joyous hosannas of the riders. When they disgorged on the rooftop Senator Maxim’s face was as white as his hair.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
Marine House, Sky City, Haulover Day after day, the two squads went out to examine destroyed homesteads. Day after day, they returned with nothing to show for their efforts. All the homesteads were the same: nothing was left standing, not one stone on another. Nor was there any sign of the people who used to live at the homesteads; no sign of who the raiders were, or where they went afterward, except that they came and went via air, in craft that never showed up on any of the radar scans the Marines had been able to wrest from Planetary Administrator Spilk Mullilee. And Spilk Mullilee always had Chairman of the Board Smelt Miner looking over his shoulder—or pulling his strings, as the Marines thought. It got tedious.
Painfully tedious.
When the two squad leaders had finished dressing after showering the dust and ash off themselves after another futile day, Sergeant Him Kindy turned to Sergeant D’Wayne Williams and said, “We’ve got to do something to break the routine. Let’s do something different tonight before I go totally bugfuck.”
“What, going out drinking isn’t enough of a break from the day for you?” Williams asked. Kindy held up a slip of paper with a comm number written on it.
Williams looked at the slip of paper, then grinned. “Why, you devil! I’d ask if you’d been holding out on me, but I was there when she gave us that number.” He reached for it, but Kindy jerked it away.
“I’ve got it, I make the call.”
“So how come you haven’t begun calling yet?”
“But I am, I am!” Kindy replied as he punched the number into his comm. A moment later he said into the comm, “Miss Domiter? I don’t know if you remember me, but I’m Sergeant Him Kindy. Sergeant D’Wayne Williams and I were in your office a few days ago, and I want to thank you for your assistance.” He paused, listening. Williams could barely make out the sounds of a delighted female voice coming from the unit held to Kindy’s ear. “Oh, yes, the equipment you procured for us has been very helpful. So helpful, in fact, that D’Wayne and I would like to express our gratitude by taking you out to dinner.” Williams heard the tinkle of female laughter and words inflected in a question from Kindy’s comm. “That’s right, tonight, if that’s not too short notice.” Kindy nodded, listening.
“Eight o’clock local? Let’s see, that’s twenty hours military; yes, that’s fine. We’re strangers here so you have to pick the place—price no object. Uh-huh, that sounds fine. Now”—
Kindy signaled Williams for a stylus—“what’s your address?”
Kindy jotted it on the slip of paper on which Barbora Domiter had written her comm number. “No, it’s not necessary to give me directions. We’re Force Recon, we specialize in unerringly finding our way to places we’ve never been. Now, you said something about a friend?” Her excited voice came through almost clearly enough for Williams to make out what she was saying. Kindy’s eyes widened at what she said next, and he broke in with, “That’s no problem, bring them all! The more the merrier, yes indeed. Eight o’clock. We’ll be there. I”—Kindy saw the anticipatory expression on Williams’s face—“we look forward to seeing you then too. And meeting your friends.” He cut the connection and grinned broadly at Williams.
“Well, tell me, dammit! How many is ‘them all’?”
“She was meeting three of her friends for dinner. I told her to bring all of them!” Kindy beamed.
Williams looked reflective. “Two of us and only four women. Do you think there’s enough of them to go around?”
Kindy roared in laughter. When he recovered, he asked,
“How much cred do you have left in your chit? She said we should go to a place called The Upper Crust. Sounds expensive. And we’ll be paying for six.”
Williams put a hand on Kindy’s shoulder and leaned in close. “Him, don’t worry your ugly little head. Uncle D’Wayne is flush. You, on the other hand, might have to go to the boss and ask for an advance.”
“No way, not never. We tell him, he’s liable to want to go with us.”
“You’re right, it’s better nobody else knows.”
“Anyway, I’ve got plenty of available cred myself.” Kindy’s eyes twinkled when he said, “I’ll just tell Dad we need the car keys tonight.” The two of them burst out laughing. 518 North Hamilton Street, Sky City Barbora Domiter lived in an attractive, white, wood-frame house on a quarter-acre lot in a quiet residential neighborhood within easy walking distance of the government center where she worked. The well-lit streets all had paved walkways. Not only was the exterior of the house well maintained, care had been taken in its modest landscaping. The lights glowing through the windows and on the porch made the house look very welcoming and cheery. Williams was driving one of the two Land Runners on loan to the Marines; he parked along the curb even though there was plenty of room on the drive leading to the attached garage.
“Shall we?” Sergeant Kindy said enthusiastically, opening his door.
“Yes, let’s,” Sergeant Williams agreed while getting out, though with not quite as much enthusiasm. They’d flipped a coin before leaving Marine House. One of them was to drive from Barbora Domiter’s house to The Upper Crust; the other to drive back to her house at the end of the evening. Both of them believed whichever of them was in the backseat at the end of the evening would have more fun during the drive than the one in the backseat at the beginning. The front door opened as soon as they reached the porch, side by side, almost marching.
“Him! D’Wayne! You’re here, and right on time!” Barbora Domiter glowed as welcomingly as her house. The two Marines saw three other women peering expectantly from behind her.
“Barbora,” Kindy said, beating Williams by half a beat, taking her hand, and kissing it. Then he felt chagrined when Williams, instead of taking her hand, put his hands lightly on her shoulders and leaned in to brush a kiss to her cheek.
“It’s so nice to see you again,” Barbora Domiter gushed. “I’d almost thought you weren’t going to call!”
“We were always going to call,” Kindy said.
“It’s just that we’ve been in the field every day,” Williams amplified, “and get in too late to bother you.”
“You wouldn’t have bothered me,” she said in a low voice. She cocked a critical eye at them. “You know, I thought you’d show up in those invisible suits like you were wearing when we first m
et.”
“Oh, no,” Kindy objected. “Those are our field uniforms. We only wear them when we don’t want the enemy to be able to see us.”
“But think of how much fun we could have if we never knew where you were until you said something—or until we felt your touch!”
“Next time,” Williams said decisively. “Definitely next time.”
That made Barbora laugh. Then she said brightly, “What am I doing keeping you outside? Come in, come in.” She took each of them by a hand and stepped back, drawing them through the entrance, then deftly spun about and back-stepped so that she stood between them, still holding their hands.
“Sergeant Him Kindy and Sergeant D’Wayne Williams, I’d
like you to meet my very dear friends, Jindra Bednar, Marketa Knochova, and Petra Zupan.”
The three other women had been standing back, but now they came forward to meet the two Marines. It was the first time Kindy and Williams had seen Barbora standing. She was slightly taller than either had imagined, but every bit as shapely. Petra Zupan was the same height as Barbora. Her hair was red, her smile impish. Jindra was a bit shorter, honey blond hair and hazel eyes, prominent cheeks, a bit on the thin side, and if she wasn’t careful her face would bear permanent smile creases one day. Marketa was the shortest. Her blue eyes contrasted with her long, dark brown hair. Like the others, she looked like she knew how to have fun. They wore dresses, silvery gray or burgundy or amber or scarlet, that floated and shimmered, clung and billowed with every movement. All four wore jewelry that shone and sparkled. When they shook hands, Petra held her hand up so that the men could brush their lips across its back. Marketa shot her a look, then went back to smiling.