Hangfire

by David Sherman

  The village itself, forty-odd structures not counting fowl houses, was built on pilings along the northeastern edge of the rice waters. Its "streets" were simple walkways of board that rested on top of the mud. It was important that the streets be easy to move. The ground was soft and soggy to such a great depth that the pilings on which the houses and commercial buildings were erected regularly sank and new pilings had to be placed for the houses and shops to be moved onto. No matter what the maps of the priests and bureaucrats said, Sacred Spring Five did not have a stable layout.

  The people wore simple garb cut from cloth woven in mills in other parts of Kingdom. Their shoes were from the hides of kine raised in yet other regions. They kept their shoes in closets or chests where the constantly wet ground would not bring mildew and rot to them, and they wore the shoes only on those rare occasions when they left the village.

  Early in its history, on orders from the priestly hierarchy, the farmers had valiantly attempted to raise sheep, but the wet ground rotted the sheeps' feet. Swine might have thrived in the bog of Sacred Spring Five, but too many of Kingdom's founders saw swine as unclean, so there were no swine to raise. Instead, the husbandmen of Hole in the Mud raised ducks and geese. The ducks and geese required constant vigilance to keep them from eating the growing rice, which made it important to have a gaggle of goose-boys. The goose-boys, despite all strictures to the contrary, found ways to turn their herding into play rather than allow it to be the drudgery it would have been. The ducks and geese of Sacred Spring Five were known for their high-strung natures and the piquant flavor of their meat.

  So it happened that it was a ten-year-old-goose-boy named Heronymous Blessed, delightedly engaged in stalking a duck that was stealing rice on the western side of the central peak, who was the first resident of Hole in the Mud to see the unexpected visitors.

  Young Heronymous Blessed jumped when he heard a noise, a crack as if the sword of the Archangel Raphael had rent the air. Terrified, he looked toward the sound, expecting to see the Archangel himself coming to discipline a goose-boy for not obeying the strictures. Even the determined duck broke off its stalking of the rice to fly from this danger, but its clipped wings prevented it from rising into the air, and all it could do was plash along the water, crying waack and futilely beating its useless wings.

  Heronymous saw the Archangel's chariot speeding through the air and quailed. He wanted to duck dawn, to hide behind something, but the grouse was too low to the ground and the ferns too thin to offer concealment. Wide-eyed, he watched the chariot as it slowed to touch land. The chariot was huge. If it hadn't been that of an Archangel, he would have thought it could not possibly land without sinking without a trace below the surface of the fen. It was only when it was close enough for him to see the chariot's immense size that Heronymous realized the chariot wasn't coming directly toward him; it was coming down more than half a kilometer to his south.

  He dared to release the breath he hadn't realized he was holding and sucked in another. Perhaps one of the other goose-boys had drawn the Archangel's wrath. He offered up a quick prayer and vowed, should he be spared, to follow the strictures in the future.

  The chariot did not sink into the fen. Instead it opened its front and four smaller chariots sped out of it and raced toward Hole in the Mud. The chariot immediately levitated and flew off from whence it came.

  "No!" Heronymous shrilled. He sobbed as he ran toward his home, convinced that vengeful Yahweh was sending Archangels or even Dominions to punish his family for his transgressions.

  Fortunately for him, he ran around the rice paddy rather than through it. By the time he came in sight of the village of Sacred Spring Five, its buildings were just charred and shattered fragments floating on top of the mud. All that remained of its people were pitted bones that steamed where bits of flesh exposed to the air still bubbled. The chariots were gone. Much later Heronymous learned that, once the destruction of the village was complete, the chariots had zigzagged back across the rice paddies seeking out and killing what farmers and goose-boys they could find before their shuttle returned to whisk them away.

  It took the rest of that day for Heronymous Blessed and the three other goose-boys who were the only survivors of the attack to come out of hiding and find each other. It was another day before the frightened boys could accept that they truly were the only survivors. They settled down to wait for an adult to come to their succor.

  Nearly a hundred bishops, ayatollahs, chief rabbis, and metropolitans gathered in the sanctuary of Mount Temple in the heart of Haven. It was the only holy place on all of Kingdom revered by all the denominations that had settled the world—its site marked the landing place of the first starship's colonists. When there was a problem that affected all, the spiritual leaders had to meet in a place none considered a Palace of Shaitan.

  Chairmanship of the Convocation of Ecumenical Leaders rotated annually. That year it fell upon Bishop Ralphy Bruce Preachintent, the head of the Apostolic Congregation of the Lord's Love and Devotion. As soon as the last member of the board took his place in the rear pew, Bishop Ralphy Bruce stepped out of the vestry and strode to the center of the chancel rail. He raised his eyes to the abstract sunburst on the wall behind the altar, the only symbol of divinity that all of the founding leaders could agree was not blasphemous, and prayed silently for a moment.

  His prayers finished, he turned to face his fellow leaders. His hands were clasped over the butter-yellow necktie that bisected his starched white shirt. His silver-gray sharkskin suit shimmered with his every movement, and patent leather shoes flashed reflected light. A wig of office with its high-coiffed pompadour completed his traditional vestments.

  Bishop Ralphy Bruce unclasped his hands and spread them wide at shoulder height. His eyes rolled up in their sockets until only their whites showed.

  "MY FRIENDS!" he suddenly called out in the rhythms of the holy cadence. "We are faced with a TRIAL sent by THE LORD to TEST us! TROUBLES abound in the hinterlands and the FAITHFUL are being MARTYRED by SINNERS most foul!" As he spoke he began the sacred choreography, briskly striding from one end of the chancel rail to the other, bent forward at the hips, half turned toward the nave. His hands clenched and he stabbed his index fingers at the assembly in emphasis to his words.

  "Strutting popinjay," muttered a scarlet-gowned prelate to his pewmate, a rigid, dour-faced man in a severe black suit of an ancient cut and a flat crowned black hat.

  The black-garbed man clenched his jaws in agreement and kept his attention on Bishop Ralphy Bruce.

  "Our GODLY soldiers," Bishop Ralphy Bruce continued, "have gone forth to SMITE the unbelievers who MARTYR the FAITHFUL and been MET with Satan's FIRE!" He paused in his striding, faced his audience, looked up and flung his hands heavenward. "LORD! WHY have You visited this TRIAL on us? HOW have we SINNED that we bring down YOUR displeasure?"

  An old man in a white cassock and squared turban in the front pew slowly rose to his feet and cleared his throat.

  "BROTHER!" Bishop Ralphy Bruce threw an aggressively inviting arm toward him. "Do you wish to give TESTIMONY?"

  "Bishop Ralphy Bruce," the old man said in a quavery voice, "we all know how devout you are, and how you revere the Almighty. But now is not the time to beg answers from Him. Our followers are being killed by rebels even as we listen to you. We must decide, and decide quickly, how to learn the identity of the heretics perpetrating these crimes so we can send them to the perdition they deserve." He gathered his cassock around his legs and gingerly sat back down.

  A very tall man, whose vestments were of the same cut and material as Bishop Ralphy Bruce's, though their colors were less gladly praiseful of the Lord, stood. "Reverend Ayatollah Fatamid is right, Ralphy Bruce," he said in a voice that sounded like it came from the depths of a crypt. "We all need prayers all the time, but right now we need decisions and action more than we need invocations."

  "We never need decisions and actions more than we need prayers and meditation!"
shouted an abbot swathed in a saffron sheet.

  Abruptly, half of the assembled leaders were on their feet taking sides while the other half attempted to silence them and pull them back into their seats.

  "MY FRIENDS!" Bishop Ralphy Bruce shouted into the pandemonium. "BRETHREN! I BESEECH you!" But his voice wasn't loud enough to cut through. He looked about in consternation, then stepped to the pulpit and turned on the amplifier that Mount Temple's acoustics needed only for the feeblest speakers.

  "MY FRIENDS!" His amplified shout boomed through the sanctuary, rattled windows, staggered a few who stood off balance. "We must not quarrel among ourselves!" The sheer volume of his words stopped the arguments and turned faces toward him.

  "PLEASE, my friends, JOIN with me in a MOMENT of silent PRAYER." He clasped his hands and bowed his head. There were a few muted grumbles, but the others faced front and stood or sat or kneeled as their particular beliefs required, and prayed along with him.

  "LORD!" Bishop Ralphy Bruce cried after a moment, "I beseech YOU to guide us in our DELIBERATIONS!"

  Then they made some decisions. The decisions didn't come easily or quickly, but theological discussion was put aside for a few hours and they were able to reach them. Even though they continued to disagree on some particulars:

  The rebels had some weapon, they had no idea what it was, that defeated aircraft and armored vehicles. Therefore they would instruct the Army of the Lord to send only foot soldiers after the rebels. The identity of the rebels was another matter. Beyond the fact that they were unbelievers and heretics, there was no agreement.

  The rebels had destroyed a dozen villages in an area sixteen hundred kilometers long by three hundred wide, so there must be large numbers of them and several legions needed to be sent to put them down. There was time between attacks, plenty of time for soldiers to walk from one widely spaced village to another between attacks, therefore it must be a relatively small band and not more than one regiment would be needed to destroy them once they were found.

  The rebels were led by a messianic leader who wished to wrest control of the Kingdom of Yahweh and His Saints and Their Apostles from God's anointed representatives for his own devil-worshiping purposes. Clearly they were simple peasants weary of tithing and frequent worship services—which services obviously weren't frequent enough.

  The rebels wanted to disrupt the farming or mining or fishing or manufacturing segments of the economy to sow discontent and bring about a wider rebellion. The rebels were vandals who didn't care what they damaged as they destroyed villages that contributed to all segments of the economy.

  In the end, still in total ignorance of who the rebels were, they decided to ring the area of destruction with brigades and wait for the next depredation, then speed the nearest three brigades to the scene and have them fan out in search of the rebels.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The Egadi Island group, so named by the early settlers after islands off the west coast of Sicily, consisted of hundreds of points of rock in the Ligurian Sea, stretching a thousand kilometers to the south of the continent on which Placetas was situated. Some were literally just points of rock that jutted out of the ocean floor, but many of the islands were big enough to support the plant and animal life native to Havanagas, mostly lichens and arthropod like amphibious creatures. The seas, however, swarmed with both vertebrate and invertebrate creatures reminiscent of the early Silurian Period of Earth's Paleozoic Era.

  Over the three centuries humans had inhabited the planet, the seeds of terran flora had drifted to the islands on the currents and established themselves. So the larger members of the island group actually sported forests and other plant life that would have looked familiar to anyone sailing in the Mediterranean Sea back on Earth.

  The Egadis had never been settled. They were too remote for settlement and they boasted no mineral or animal life worth exploiting. As a result, they had never been adequately charted, and most of the islands did not even have names. Several of the larger chunks of rock served as vacation sites or getaways for rich Havanagasans, but essentially the tiny oases of civilization were deserted most of the year. If there had been pirates on Havanagas, the Egadis would have been their favorite hangout.

  Nast had picked a forested but rocky, medium-sized islet about four kilometers square in the center of the chain, about thirty minutes' Mach 2 flight time from Placetas. The landing had been successful using the stealth suite and under cover of a meteor shower and a tremendous rainstorm that blanketed the landing area and most of the hemisphere in which Placetas itself lay.

  "I ain't never seen rain like this!" Chief Riggs exclaimed as he guided the second Essay to a faultless touchdown in a grove of trees on the leeward side of the island.

  "Good navigation, Chief." Nast clapped Riggs on the shoulder.

  "Ah, I just followed the guy in front of me, sir. Mister Nast, someone's gonna have to go out in that and set up your camp. We can't remain in here for two whole days."

  "We can and we will. I can't take a chance on compromising our presence here. I know, I know, Chief, who's gonna be conducting flyovers in this weather, right? Nobody. I'm sure of it too. But I've worked a long time setting up this operation and I'm not leaving anything to chance. We stay buttoned up until we get the signal from Placetas. When the rain lets up a little, we can go out in shifts to stretch and so on."

  Chief Riggs looked glum. "I just follow orders, sir."

  "Well, Chief, when the time comes you'll get your blood pressure up, I guarantee you. And when that time does come to make the snatch, I want all of you to be so mad you'll be looking forward to it. Okay, let's look sharp. I need 360-degree surveillance out to the horizon and up to 25,000 meters. Maintain the stealth system to mask our signature."

  "Aye aye, sir! Three hundred and sixty degree surveillance, horizon-to-horizon and up to 25,000 meters!" That had been agreed upon before they launched from the Wanganui. Chief Riggs had volunteered to pilot the Essay because he smelled an adventure coming up. He was not too sure he'd done the right thing. "Ah, Mr. Nast," he protested, "it's really gonna get funky in these Essays with all these guys cooped up in here for two full days!"

  Nast found it highly ironic that Chief Riggs would complain about anything "funky" after all the time he'd spent on the Wanganui. He smiled. "Put me in touch with the other Essay. Okay, Chief, I see your point. I'll issue an order nobody's to fart for the next forty-eight hours."

  By the time they reached his hideout, a rocky pinnacle three kilometers square in the middle of a small group of islets, they were all seasick, except Olwyn O'Mol. Huge seas were breaking against its cliffs. O'Mol, an accomplished seaman, was in his element. "I used to race my yacht in the annual Havanagas Cup," he shouted over the roar of the wind. He had been standing at the helm of his small boat for hours but seemed just as fresh as the first time they lay eyes on him. Huge gray-green waves surged all around the tiny vessel, rising so high at times that their view of the island was cut off. Still, O'Mol kept the bow steady.

  His four passengers slumped wearily about the cabin, their stomachs empty. O'Mol laughed. "I thought you were Marines!"

  "Space going Marines, not seagoing," Pasquin answered weakly.

  "Oh." O'Mol laughed again. He was really enjoying all this.

  "Have you—have you—urk—" Katie couldn't finish the question.

  "Have I ever done this before, you ask?" O'Mol shouted. "Yes, once. In calmer weather, though. We almost didn't make it that time either!" He laughed riotously.

  "Ohhhh," Dean groaned, "do we need this shit?"

  "Hold on, children!" O'Mol shouted. "We're going in!"

  Timing his entry to match the surge of the waves, O'Mol expertly guided his boat between two huge cliffs and into a small cove encircled by sheer rock precipices. Immediately the wild pitching ceased. The cove was about half a kilometer wide and no more than a thousand meters deep, but it offered perfect protection from the sea and aerial surveillance. At the far end w
as a stretch of sandy beach on which someone had built a wharf. Two ramshackle buildings stood there, nestled against the base of the cliffs. The muted grumble of the boat's engine echoed loudly off the cliffs. The cove was also protected from the rain, which instead of pouring down in sheets from above, hung suspended over it in a heavy mist, a vast relief from the constant pounding they'd been receiving in the open seas.

  "Who lives here?" Katie asked, somewhat revived.

  "Nobody, now. This place was only used during the summer. Too difficult getting in here in any other season. You might have noticed."

  "Well, who put up the buildings, then?"

  "Cousin of mine. He's been dead two years. He used to come here to get away from his wife. I don't think she even knows this place exists."

  "How did he die?" Katie asked.

  "Wife killed him. She found out he was messing around. One of you lads jump up there and secure the boat and we'll go ashore."

  Claypoole clambered up on the wharf. "Oops!" he said. "Lost my balance there."

  "It'll take you a few minutes to get your land legs back," O'Mol said "Don't be alarmed. Hey, look at it this way: you get to make the trip again in a couple of days!"

  "Are we going to be safe here, Mister O'Mol?" Katie asked.

  O'Mol snorted. "Miss, no aircraft can get at us down here in this weather, and for damned sure not even Homs Ferris himself or Johnny Sticks could find anybody crazy enough to take a boat out in this season. We're safe here for as long as we want to stay safe. Now let's get under cover."

  Katie looked out over the cove. The water was perfectly calm. The rain descended from above in a thick mist that gleamed wetly on the rocks all about. "It's really quite beautiful in here," Katie said.