The Parafaith War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  He could see a few white-clad Soldiers of the Lord by the one gate in his field of vision, but they had not left their station in the few moments it took him to leave the square proper.

  Walking briskly, he started toward the car, grateful that the streets and sidewalks were not totally empty, even as he could sense the growing roar from the area around the Temple behind him.

  From what he could determine, no one was following him. In a way, that made sense. Traffic was controlled by access to Orum, and by the Temple. Few outsiders could escape the orbit-station screens. Anyone who did and who didn’t go to the Temple sooner or later was suspect, and that assumed they were good enough to avoid raising immediate Revenant suspicions. Since the Temple had the power to destroy outsiders, sooner or later the culture destroyed all outsiders—without such amenities as extensive secret police. A few smart officials like Orr were probably all the Revenants needed.

  He rubbed his forehead, which relieved some of the pressure there, but reminded him of the tenderness of his lightly burned hands. Sparklelasers did have some energy, which was why those who used them did not carry metals.

  He kept walking.

  After covering the two long blocks away from the Temple, he slipped into the car, using his implant to check for added and explosive circuitry, but found none. He started the vehicle and pulled out into the sparse traffic, turning at the first comer. Behind him, he could see people beginning to boil out of the Temple Square area.

  He headed down South Kingdom toward the Promise Inn, detouring at Loyola to stop behind a restaurant with an outside disposal unit in the alley. The laser and the powerpak went into the unit, and Trystin darted back to the car.

  While they’d doubtless find the equipment, he didn’t want to carry it, since it was burned out anyway, and if he were picked up, there was a slight chance they would be somewhat confused if he didn’t have any weapons. That made him only slightly less of a damned fool.

  Wystuh was essentially a weaponless city, and that might help.

  Then, again, it might not.

  Trystin kept driving, wondering if Orr would believe his eyes or his feelings. Trystin was afraid the man—too smart for Trystin’s good—would keep looking while everyone else remained in a state of cultural shock.

  Still … Orr was smart, and high enough in whatever organization to call his own shots—literally and figuratively.

  Trystin nodded to himself and guided the car toward the Promise Inn. Orr would either come alone, or not at all.

  67

  When Trystin reached the Promise Inn, he checked the area, but everything looked normal. He parked back around the corner of the building on the far end away from the office, then walked back toward the empty office, passing his former room. In some ways, he wished that Orr or Sister Myra or one of the other wives would return quickly, or he would have to leave, and he really needed a witness or two, one who knew him and who would not be a threat.

  After a time, a blue car appeared. Trystin forced a smile, waited, and, after jamming his reflexes, metabolism, and hearing into high, scanned the area. He could sense no one but Orr and no unusual electronics. It might be worth the risk. He walked down the side of the building toward the vacant room he had left earlier. He opened the door and stood outside, waiting.

  “Brother Hyriss, I’d sure be pleased if I might have a word.” Carson Orr walked toward Trystin, his hands clearly in the open. A slow grin crossed his face. “Two returns in a lifetime … that’s not something you see often.”

  Forcing his speech to be normal—so slow, it seemed—Trystin gestured to the door and answered, “People see what they want, not what is.”

  Without hesitation, Orr stepped inside. Trystin shut the door. Orr wanted something, besides Trystin’s head, and that was a start.

  The Revenant security officer offered a rueful grin as he turned to Trystin. “Most folks, now, would take death as permanent. I was right, there, about you not being like most folks.”

  “I said the Lord would rebuild this Temple.” Trystin shrugged.

  “I’m not much on Scripture,” Orr confessed, “but I recall that someone else said that, and I’m not convinced that you’re exactly on the same side as that fellow. But I’d like to give everyone a fair chance.”

  “I am what I am.” Trystin intended to play it out as well as he could, since Orr was clearly trying to convey something—and it wasn’t something he wanted to share, since the Revenant had come alone. Trystin’s implant and his enhanced senses could find nothing surrounding Orr, except for the small recorder trained on Trystin, and Trystin was going to use that to his own advantage to plant the seeds of doubt.

  “Heck, that’s almost like you’re saying you’re another prophet.” Orr’s tone turned rueful. “Folks like that tend to get locked up, you understand?”

  Trystin shook his head slowly. “I claim nothing. All too often men and false gods claim. What matters a claim to the Lord? You have claimed you do the will of the Lord when you slaughter others. They claim the will of their Lord when they slaughter you. An older prophet said to consider the beam in your own eye before the mote in your brother’s. The Lord is what the Lord is, and I am what I am.”

  “You’re a young fellow to be a prophet, not a white hair on your head. Now, poor Admiral Jynckla, he looked like a prophet, you might say. Still can’t figure out what he did that would have upset the Lord.” Orr shrugged. “Or anyone else.”

  “Those who seek to destroy with fire can themselves be destroyed by fire. Destruction of those who could be brothers and sisters is not a demonstration of love. And the Lord has always been a God of Love.”

  “I’m not sure … what did that accomplish?” Orr’s voice turned harder, and his eyes fixed on Trystin. “I don’t understand. You can’t say that the death of one admiral—”

  “I was sent by a higher authority to deliver a message. The Lord does not beg, but He will instruct.” Trystin smiled. “Now … I have done what I was sent to do, and those who have eyes to see and ears to hear may learn more of the will of the Lord.”

  “I’m thinking you’d better wait and come with me, young fellow.”

  “My time has come.” Trystin moved, and Orr’s hands came up, but far too slowly, as Trystin flashed around behind him, delivering two quick blows that the hidden recorder would not pick up—blows more dangerous than fatal ones if they failed, but the agent, for Orr could be nothing else, crumpled. Trystin needed no more dead bodies. Too many belonged to him already.

  Trystin deactivated the recorder, and then laid Orr out on the bed.

  For the second time, he left the room.

  “Brother Hyriss, is that you?” Sister Myra came out as Trystin glanced toward the office.

  He smiled. Step two. “The Temple has been razed, and restored. Remember—the Lord is a God of Love.”

  The sisters turned and looked at each other.

  “But … you were burned. We were at the Temple.”

  Trystin offered what he hoped was a gentle smile. “I am as real as you.” He extended an arm. “Is this not flesh?”

  Finally, Sister Elena touched his sleeve, and then his hand. “He feels real. His hands are red, as if they were burned and are healing.”

  “Were your hands burned?” asked Sister Myra.

  “You saw the fire, didn’t you?” Trystin asked, evading the question. “All men must burn, sooner or later.”

  “But …”

  “I have come to do what I was charged with, and now I must return.” That was certainly true, and he felt better when he could stick to the literal truth.

  Again, the two exchanged glances.

  “For a time, I will go as others do, and then I will return to my place in the Lord’s mansions.” Again, his words were mostly true.

  “You were destroyed in fire.”

  “Did I not say that the Lord would rebuild this Temple?” Trystin forced himself to keep the smile in place, although he could feel the burni
ng spreading through his body.

  The first steps were complete in planting the seeds of doubt about the infallibility of the Revenants’ revealed religion. Perhaps Sister Myra and Sister Elena would help spread those doubts.

  68

  As he crossed the terminal, Trystin avoided the Orum Rental counter, Sister Arkady Lewiss or not. The rental car would have just mysteriously returned, and Trystin smiled at the thought.

  His smile vanished as he walked and thought about Orr. He still didn’t quite understand the man’s game. Orr had dropped the folksy tone, almost as if to force Trystin into either disabling him or killing him. Why?

  As he pondered, he glanced around casually. There were advantages to looking average. Trystin passed several other tall blond men in the terminal as he headed for the interstellar terminal. At least he didn’t stick out the way he would have in Cambria.

  His thoughts about Orr would have to wait as he stepped up to the passage counter, where, not surprisingly, there was no line. He offered a worried look. “Is there any way I could get on the Braha ship?”

  “They’re loading the shuttle now, Brother … and with the clearances …”

  “I understand … .” Trystin let his face hang. “You see … it’s my sister’s son. I just found out. It’s his Farewell, and I only returned myself … .”

  The sister behind the counter nodded sympathetically.

  Trystin slipped the databloc and card onto the counter. “If you could do something …”

  “I’ll try, Brother.” She took the databloc that identified him as Brother Stannel Svensen.

  Trystin kept his hearing intensified, despite the buzzing and flashes of burning through his system.

  “Let him go, Doreen,” said an older sister behind the counter. “There’s space, and you know the directive we got … .”

  “Let me flash the shuttle.” She picked up the handset. “Shuttle two, we have another passenger for Braha. We can get him there in five.”

  “ … five we can handle …” Trystin could hear the tinny voice at the other end.

  “Brother Svensen, you’re in luck. We need to hurry.” She flashed him a smile, handed him back the databloc and credit strip, as well as a folder and a keycard, and slipped from behind the counter, walking almost at a run.

  Trystin tucked the folder into his jacket pocket, and kept pace easily as they went up a back set of stairs and along a narrow corridor. He’d been hoping that leaving somewhere might just be easier than entering. So far, so good.

  “You’re lucky, Brother. The star traffic is down these days, and an extra passenger sometimes means a lot.” She opened the staff door to the upper concourse. “There’s the shuttle.”

  “I do want to make this Farewell,” Trystin said, another statement with a great deal of literal truth.

  “You shouldn’t have any problem. Here we are.”

  Trystin handed the square keycard to the shuttle attendant and ran his second phoney ID through the reader. The light blinked green.

  The sister who had helped get him on the shuttle flashed a smile and waved. Trystin smiled back.

  “You’re cleared, Brother,” said the shuttle attendant. “Please take a seat, any free seat, as quickly as you can. I’ll take your bag and stow it.” She closed the door behind him and followed him down the shuttleway.

  “This the last one, Sister Liza?” asked the junior singlesuited pilot just inside the lock.

  “He’s the one. Gives you fourteen.”

  “So long as we’re over breakpoint. I’ll take his gear.”

  Trystin slipped past the two, amazed in a way that the pilots had no net system and ran the shuttle through purely manual controls.

  The interior of the spaceplane smelled clean, the same scent of lavender and pine, and the same tiredness associated with the equipment. The interior was a pale off-green shade, and that meant a different tired spaceplane nearing the end of its service life.

  He strapped into the first open seat, a wall seat. There were no ports or windows, and an older white-haired man shifted his weight to let Trystin sit down.

  “Please make sure your harnesses are securely fastened.”

  “They always say that,” observed Trystin’s seatmate. “You’d have to be a fool not to strap in.”

  Trystin completed clicking his harness in place.

  “You the one they held the shuttle for?”

  “I think so. It took me longer to get to the port from Wystuh than I’d planned.”

  “You drive?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “I took the trolley. It’s much faster.”

  “You travel this route much?” Trystin asked.

  “Not so often as I used to. They keep jacking up the prices. Everything’s more expensive. I can remember when you could go out to dinner at a fancy place like the Peaks or Krendsaw’s, and all it cost was three dollars for a couple.”

  Trystin reflected as the shuttle lurched backward from the terminal—he hadn’t seen a meal for less than about eight Revenant dollars for one person.

  “And it wasn’t that long ago.”

  “You can’t do that now,” agreed Trystin.

  “You can’t even come close. I don’t know how you younger people will manage. Now that they’re allowing six wives … it’s been hard enough for us, and I was only blessed with four.”

  A muffled roar rose into a high-pitched whine, and the shuttle began to accelerate down the long runway, the noise drowning out all possibility of normal conversation. The sound burned through Trystin, and he frantically dropped his sensory perceptions to normal, but some of the buzzing and burning remained, enough that a residual burning gnawed at him.

  With a deep breath, Trystin leaned back and closed his eyes. Acceleration or not, noise or not, he was exhausted, and most of the noise seemed to die away.

  Out of a gray fog a spear of light flashed.

  “Abomination of the Lord! …” A Soldier of the Lord pointed a laser at Trystin as he tried to scramble from the seat, even as he knew it was a dream.

  He tried to shake his head, trying to swim out of the fatigue-induced nightmare, but his head did not want to move. Lances of light bracketed him.

  “Doubter … how can you doubt the will of the Lord!” His hip burned, and so did his eyes—

  “Please remain in your seats until docking is complete. Please remain in your seats until docking is complete.”

  Trystin jerked fully awake. The words had buzzing overtones that worried him. He was the one having the doubts, not the Revenants, and it shouldn’t have been that way. As he shifted his weight, the bruised hip throbbed.

  “They always say that,” observed Trystin’s seatmate.

  “Probably because people don’t stay in their seats.”

  “Wasn’t like this years ago. People had better manners, and a smile for everyone.”

  “Why do you think it’s changed?” Trystin asked, taking the handkerchief and wiping his forehead.

  A soft clunk ran through the spaceplane.

  “The Ecofreaks. It takes so much energy and so many resources to support the missions there. Look at this shuttle. It’s old, like me.” The other shrugged. “Something has to change.”

  “Docking is complete. You may leave the shuttle and claim your bags.”

  “It’s begun to change, Brother,” Trystin said. “God is the Lord of Love.” He smiled. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m on my way to an important Farewell.”

  “Oh … certainly.”

  “Thank you.”

  Trystin scurried forward and grabbed the light fabric bag from the racks and rushed through the lock. So far, it looked as though the Revenants hadn’t put together his death and resurrection—at least no one but Orr had, and the agent probably hadn’t been found yet.

  Trystin worried his lip. What had Orr been trying to tell him? Had the agent wanted him to escape? Why? He kept walking.

  The Orum orbit station still smelled like a mixt
ure of plastic, metal, warm oil, ozone, and people. Trystin added one more smell—fear—his. He just hoped it weren’t as apparent to others as to him as he headed toward the tube slide to the upper level where the Braha transport waited.

  At the top of the tube, he waited behind a thin mid-aged sister with heavy gold rings on her fingers. The Soldier of the Lord handed her back her card and databloc, and nodded. “Next.”

  Trystin put his bag on the belt, and then slid his keycard and ID across the counter. Both went into a console that winked green. The Soldier handed them back to Trystin. “Next.”

  Trystin walked through the gate and then picked up his bag and headed toward alpha four, where the Braha transport was scheduled to be loading.

  About a dozen people walked or sat in the hard plastic chairs along the corridor wall. Trystin was grateful for the station’s half-gravity, and for the nap on the shuttle, but he still felt light-headed and hot. Was he getting sick?

  He forced himself to concentrate until he sat in one of the vacant plastic chairs, waiting for the announcement to board the shuttle. When he closed his eyes, red flashes seemed to cross the inside of his lids. If he left his eyes open, they burned.

  He alternated opening and closing his eyes while he waited for the boarding announcement to come—hoping it would before anyone came looking for him. He half wondered if anyone cared. Then he shook his head. Orr had certainly cared … yet he hadn’t brought a whole crew of agents with him, and the scene outside the Temple had indicated that Orr certainly could have.

  “We are now ready to board the Braha transport. You are limited to three bags. Please carry them with you and give them to the crewman in the baggage section of the transport. Board through the lock marked alpha four. Alpha four for the Braha transport.”

  Trystin stood and ended up in the middle of the two dozen souls waiting outside the lock tube for the attendant to reread their keycards. Then, with the others, he filed down the lock tube to the transport heading to Braha.

  “You’re traveling light,” observed a man not much older than Trystin.