Shining Steel

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  He wished he were able to see something through that narrow slit, but only darkness was visible. The walls of the passageway were of the same substance as the walls aboard the airship, he noticed, the stuff that looked like plastic.

  Behind him the other three passengers were waiting impatiently, eager to be off the airship and on about their business.

  “Welcome to the Citadel of Heaven,” said a man standing halfway down the short corridor. He spoke with the Heavener accent; John looked at him closely and noticed that the buttons on his shirt were absurdly small, less than an inch across. The texture of the shirt was odd, too, and the cut of the collar was strange. The jeans seemed all right, though they were tighter than customary. He wore a gun on a singularly narrow and unobtrusive belt, a gun not like any John had seen before-there was no cylinder, no hammer, no slide, just a smooth breech and textured grip.

  “Have you been here before, sir?” the Heavener asked.

  “No,” John admitted.

  “Straight ahead, then.” He pointed down the corridor to a bright red door-hellishly red, John thought. He ambled slowly past the guard, or greeter, or whatever the Heavener was, toward the indicated door, taking in his surroundings and watching for any indication that he should take action somehow.

  Behind him he heard the Heavener ask the next passenger whether he had ever been in the Citadel before.

  “Yes,” the man answered, “I have a trade license."

  “May I see your card?"

  John glanced back over both his own shoulder and Miriam's and saw the passenger handing the Heavener something small and thin, something that fit comfortably in the man's palm and gleamed silver. The Heavener accepted it and touched it to a spot on the wall that John had taken for decoration; letters appeared on the smooth surface of the wall above the spot, letters that John was too far away to read.

  He almost walked into the red door at the end of the passage. He fumbled for the latch as the Heavener said, “Thank you, sir-first door on the right."

  There was no latch; instead he found a small button where the latch should be and pressed it. The door swung open and admitted him and Miriam to a good-sized room, again finished in golden plastic. John glanced around at it. How had that message appeared in the corridor? Was this stuff that the Heaveners used for their walls something other than a simple building material? Were there machines hidden on all sides? That was a frightening thought, reminiscent of nursery terror tales of the computers in the walls that watched everyone on Earth in the days before the Crossing.

  The corridor had been windowless-and, John realized, he had seen no lanterns or lamps of any sort, yet it had been brightly lit. On the airship light had come from lamps set in the ceiling; he had been unsure whether they were electric or something else. Certainly they were brighter than any lamps he was familiar with; flames or filaments, however, had been hidden behind frosted glass.

  This room he now found himself in, however, had a window-a very large window, taking up most of one wall in a single sheet of glass. John had never seen a single pane so large before. Beyond it the sky was still black-he had lost his sense of time and wondered if dawn might have arrived, but plainly it had not.

  In the center of the room a plain young woman, clad in a traditional brown dress, stood behind a sort of lectern. She smiled cheerfully.

  “Hlo,” she said, using a word John had never heard before. She continued, speaking with the Heavener accent, “Welcome to the Citadel of Heaven. May I have your name, please?"

  “J'sevyu,” he replied politely. “I am Joel Meek-Before-Christ, and this is my wife Miriam, from the Church of the Only God, in North Dan.” Miriam, still drowsy, nodded agreement. She had not spoken since boarding the airship.

  The woman drummed her fingers unevenly across the lectern, glanced down, then looked up again.

  “Mr. Christ,” she said, “I'm glad to meet you. None of your people have come here before; are you here as a private individual, or as a representative of your tribe?"

  Disconcerted by the peculiar mistake the woman had made in her abbreviation of his false surname-which would, of course, become “Meek", not “Christ", in conversation-John hesitated before replying, “Ah… as a private individual-but I'm sure that my family and friends will be interested in what I tell them when I get home."

  She smiled. “I'm sure they will. I take it, though, that you don't have the authority to make a treaty with our protectorate on their behalf."

  “No, ma'am, I'm afraid I don't."

  “Well, that's fine; we just had to ask."

  “No, ma'am, I'm here to sell woolens. A fellow in Little St. Peter told me that I could probably get a good price for them here."

  A flicker of doubt crossed the woman's face. “Woolens? Not raw wool?"

  “No, good woolens-I've got a hundred and fifty yards of the best weave you'll find, without kinks or runs, either raw, bleached, or dyed blue."

  “Well, Mr. Christ, I'm not sure that you were well-advised, but since you're here, you might as well see what you can get for them. I don't know any buyer offhand; you'll have to try the old town market in the morning."

  “That sounds just fine.” The woman had gotten the name wrong again; he was unsure whether or not to correct her. No one had ever before gotten his name wrong-but then, he had never used the name Meek-Before-Christ before.

  “If you'll take this booklet-you can read, can't you?"

  “Ma'am, of course I can read; it's the duty of every man to learn to read so that he can study the word of God, and my parents saw to it that I learned my duty!” John's response was unplanned and completely sincere, a restatement of what he had been told almost every day of his life between the ages of six and ten, from his first learning the alphabet until he could recite back a chapter of the Bible after a single reading.

  “Of course, I'm sorry. If you'll take this booklet, it will tell you about the protectorate that the People of Heaven operate-I'm sure that your family and friends will be interested."

  John accepted the little booklet and looked it over. It was printed on tan paper in incredibly small black type, but still clear and legible. The title was simply “The People of Heaven".

  “And if you'll go through that exit,” the woman said, pointing to a brown door near one corner, “the stairs will bring you out on the main road into town. The market's just inside the gate, and there are the usual inns and hostels."

  “Thank you,” John said. He started toward the indicated door, but stopped when he realized that Miriam was not following. He turned, and saw that she was still standing between the red door and the lectern, staring at the woman.

  “Who are you people?” she demanded.

  “Excuse me?” the woman said.

  “Who are you people? What is this place? Was that really an airship? My dear Lord Jesus, what is going on?” She stared around. “Am I dreaming all this?"

  “Ms. Christ, I…"

  “What is that?” She pointed out the window.

  John had not really paid much attention to the window; he had been aware of its presence and of darkness beyond, broken by lights, but he had not really looked at them as yet. Now he turned and looked.

  They were on the second floor of a building, apparently, with an excellent view along a ridgetop road and of the peak at the end of that road. A walled town surrounded and covered the peak, lit by the usual miscellany of torches, lanterns, and an occasional incandescent lamp.

  At the far side of the town, however, was a building, perhaps a fortress, that towered over the commonplace houses and shops. Its sides sloped up for five stories, and in every story lights were ablaze, patterning the walls with the squares of light and dark windows; the uppermost floor John estimated at a quarter mile or so in length, the lower floors somewhat larger. In the darkness he could not tell anything about its construction, but in the light that poured from its windows it was clear that its sides were unornamented and plain, its roof flat and featureless
. It dwarfed the town below it, and in fact even the mountain itself seemed to be forced down and subdued beneath that vast blank weight.

  Beside it stood something even taller, but narrow, something that gleamed silvery-gold where the light from the fortress reached it; John could not decide if the thing was another building, or a machine, or simply an object of some unknown sort. He could make out very few details, due to the distance and the darkness.

  “What is that?” Miriam repeated.

  “Do you mean our headquarters building?” the woman asked politely.

  Miriam turned to stare at her. “Building? That shiny thing?"

  “Oh,” the woman said. “Oh, that's another airship-a long-range one."

  John was certain she was lying; the tone of her voice had been wrong, somehow. That thing was no mere airship.

  Despite the impracticality of making hundred-year journeys, John was quite sure that the shining thing was a starship.

  Two hours later John sat on the edge of his bed in a small nameless inn and stared at the pamphlet the woman had given him. He had read it through twice.

  It said nothing about who the People of Heaven actually were, or where they came from, but only that they had “access to much of Earth's technology lost by the rest of Godsworld.” They welcomed trade, and would sell weapons and ammunition to any group that joined their protectorate by signing a simple agreement. That agreement required that the member group never attack another group-not just other members, but any other group. The weapons were for defense only. Members were not to discriminate on the basis of religion or race-heretics, or even agnostics and atheists, were to be treated as equals. All member groups were equal in status except the People of Heaven themselves. Anyone violating this agreement would be cut off from all further trade and would have all weapons repossessed-by force if necessary.

  Anyone who wanted to was welcome to trade with the members for more common goods; only weapons and ammunition were restricted.

  Those more common goods included fabrics, dyes, plastics (John had never seen the word in a plural form before), medicines, and machinery such as clocks and alarms.

  He glanced over at Miriam, who was curled up on a chair in the corner. She had given no further trouble after he dragged her away from her frantic questioning of the woman at the airport (strange new word, “airport"-John was not accustomed to it yet and was self-conscious in using it even when only thinking). She had come along quietly to the inn, waited silently while John roused the innkeeper, and then settled in her current position when they reached the room.

  She had hoped that the People of Heaven would wipe out John's own army, but judging by the pamphlet John concluded that, despite the fearsome appearance of their weaponry, the People of Heaven were pacifists, weaklings, decadent beyond all hope of redemption, with none of the steel of faith in them.

  That was the first really encouraging news he had had since the charge into Marshside.

  Of course, their weapons were formidable, even if manned by wimps. But believers in defense only, and toleration of atheists!

  There was that note that misused weapons would be repossessed by force, though-perhaps the Heaveners themselves were not weaklings, but wished their followers to be weakened, so that there would be no resistance when they exerted real authority. The “defense only” rule might just be to prevent some outlying village from involving the entire protectorate in an unwanted war against a major power, and the toleration edict might not apply in the Citadel itself.

  Oh, it was tricky, trying to figure out what these people were up to, what their true nature might be, but John was certain of two things about them:

  They were not from Godsworld.

  They represented Satanic evil.

  The former was clear from their vast alien resources-strange plants, plastics, and all the rest-even without that shining metal tower that could be nothing but a starship.

  And the latter was clear from their pamphlet; they were working to undermine and destroy the Christian faith on Godsworld by allowing people of differing beliefs to interact, and forbidding their followers to war against those they knew to be in error. How could a man know the truth, if he did not see its power proven in battle? How could he believe that he had the one saving way, and allow those around him not to follow it?

  He could bring this pamphlet back with him, and in itself it might well be sufficient evidence to convince the Elders that the People of Heaven were a greater threat than the Chosen of the Holy Ghost-but having come this far he was determined to venture a little further.

  He had been awake most of the night, and would want to be fresh when he scouted out the enemy headquarters; he tossed the pamphlet aside, lay back, and was instantly asleep.

  Chapter Seven

  “For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil:"-Proverbs 5:3

  ****

  He thought it desirable to keep up the pretense of trade, so when he awoke, an hour or so before noon, rather than head directly for the looming gray fortress at the far end of town he gathered up his bundle of cloth and trudged down to the gateside market. He left Miriam locked in the room at the inn; she was still asleep, and after her behavior the night before he did not trust her in public.

  An hour or two of attempting to sell his goods would be sufficient, he judged, and then he could go off to find himself lunch and work his way toward the Heavener headquarters.

  He had been in the market perhaps twenty minutes and turned down one insulting offer when he spotted a familiar face in the crowd. He paused and looked toward it, but it had vanished.

  He watched intently, and a moment later saw it again. This time he was able to place it. “Matthew!” he called.

  Several people glanced in his direction; Matthew was a very common name, after all. The one he wanted was among them. He waved.

  The man waved back, to John's relief. He had not been mistaken; this was Matthew Crowned-with-Glory, one of his missing scouts. The two of them pushed through the crowds toward each other.

  They met in an embrace, slapping each other heartily on the back; John pulled Matthew out of the crowd into a quiet corner.

  “What happened?” John asked when they were alone. “Where are the others?"

  Matthew's expression shifted from delight to despair with astonishing speed. “Joey's dead,” he replied. “I'm not certain about the others. Didn't any of them report back?"

  “Timothy came back, finally-but then he deserted when I tried bringing him back here with me. He'll probably hang for it."

  Matthew nodded. “Poor Tim didn't much like the Heaveners."

  “What happened to Joey?"

  “Oh, it was so stupid! He came out here to find me-I don't know why, not really, as I hadn't been gone that long. He didn't worry about the return fare; I had brought enough money with me, but someone stole it, picked my pocket I think, so that I was stranded here, couldn't afford the fare back to Little St. Peter, and I didn't dare tackle the roads alone, without a map or guide-and I didn't even have the money for a map any more. I've been working odd jobs, doing what I can, to stay alive; I was hoping to save up the fare eventually if nobody came and found me."

  “What about Joey?"

  “Yes, I know, I was coming to that. Joey came here to see what was keeping me-disobeying my orders, I might add-and didn't think to bring the return fare, so we were both stranded. He reckoned that if we'd been robbed by someone in Citadel, then someone in Citadel owed us that money, and he wasn't picky about who it might be; so he tried to rob someone. He spotted this fellow with a bulge in his pocket that looked like a fat wallet, and a gun that looked like plastic instead of metal, without no moving parts that he could see…"

  “I saw a gun like that myself,” John remarked.

  “Well, Joey saw that one and figured it for a fake, a toy to make the owner feel like more of a man, and he tried to pick the fellow's pocket."

  Already sure h
e knew the answer, John asked, “What happened?"

  “Well, Joey was a good scout, but he wasn't any sort of a pickpocket-that's not something a soldier learns. The fellow felt what was happening and pulled his gun; Joey called his bluff, but it wasn't any sort of a bluff at all. That funny plastic gun blew Joey's head clean off and sprayed bits of it all over the street.” Matthew shook his head. “Dang fool thing to try. I watched the whole thing, but there wasn't much I could do except claim the body and sign the petition for a Christian burial."

  John nodded. “Sounds like you did what you could. And you don't know anything about Mark or Barney?"

  “Well, not really. Joey told me something, but I can't swear to it."

  “What?"

  “Joey wasn't always the most truthful of men, sir, and he might have been funning, but he told me that he'd found Barney, and that he came looking for me to tell me that Barney had gone over to the enemy. He'd been so taken with the way they lived in Little St. Peter, with those fancy clothes and cheap guns and all, that he'd deserted and settled down there-Joey had found him by accident, and Barney had tried to talk Joey into staying with him. So Joey left Mark in charge in Little Pete and came looking for me, and you know the rest. Mark was supposed to watch the airship place, but if you didn't see him there I reckon he gave up and moved on."

  “I didn't see him."

  “Well, then, he's probably dead, deserted, or lost somewhere."

  John nodded agreement.

  Heathen pacifists they might be, but the Heaveners and their followers were proving dangerous enough-out of a five-man scouting party they had killed one, trapped one, subverted one, driven one to desertion-and the fifth had vanished, and it had all apparently been done without anyone ever suspecting the scouts’ true nature.

  “So how long have you been here?” John asked.

  “I'm not sure,” Matthew admitted. “What day is today?"