Shining Steel

by Lawrence Watt-Evans

  “So I'm in your infirmary now?"

  “We call it a hospital, but yes."

  “And you're a doctor?"

  “No, I'm a medical assistant-a nurse."

  John stared for a moment, then dismissed the incongruity of a man claiming to be a nurse.

  “Who's Cuddles? A doctor?"

  “Oh, no, of course not! It's a comsim.” The final word was not any part of the Godsworlder version of English; the ‘medical assistant’ pronounced it even more strangely than he pronounced more familiar words.

  “A what? Say it slowly."

  “A comsim,” the young man repeated carefully.

  John dug back in his memory, picking through the faint memories of childhood lessons about Earth and man's history there.

  “Comsymp?” he asked, “Communist sympathizer?"

  “No, no, comsim; computer simulation. It's not real, it's just an image the machines use to talk to you."

  “Oh!” John had heard stories about machines that talked, machines that thought, or flew, or swam, or whatever, but he had not always believed them completely. He looked at the window; Cuddles smiled and nodded.

  “Yes, I am a computer simulation,” Cuddles said. The image suddenly distorted and then reshaped itself, and John abruptly realized that what he had taken for a window was a screen of some kind on which the image of a face was projected.

  “Cuddles, do you need me here?” Liao Hasan asked.

  “No, I do not think I do,” Cuddles replied. “If the patient has no objection, you may continue your rounds."

  “Do you mind if I go? Cuddles will take better care of you than I could, anyway, Mister… I didn't get your name."

  With his army destroyed, John saw no need to dissemble-and he did not seriously doubt that his army was defeated, though perhaps not as thoroughly obliterated as the Heaveners claimed. “John Mercy-of-Christ, Armed Guardian of the True Word and Flesh,” he replied.

  “Mister Mercy-of-Christ. Glad to have met you.” He turned to go.

  “Wait!” John croaked.

  The medical assistant turned back.

  “What happened to my people?"

  “I told you…"

  “No, not the army; I mean my tribe."

  “The True Worders? Oh, they've joined our protectorate as a client state; the treaty was signed four days ago. Cuddles can show you the tapes, if you like."

  John looked back at the screen; the computer's bland artificial face gazed mildly back as Liao Hasan departed. “Would you like to see the tape of the treaty signing?” it asked.

  “Yes,” John said, unsure of the proper way to address a machine.

  “Do you have a preferred format?"

  “Ah… no."

  “Very well.” The face vanished from the screen, and John found himself looking at a gathering of people at a peculiar angle, as if peering up through a basement window. He was shocked to recognize all the Elders, and Habakkuk, on one side; on the other were various strangers in peculiar brightly-colored clothing.

  The sounds of formal conversation swelled to fill the room, and John watched in horror as each of the Elders in turn first signed a paper, then pressed his hand to a metal plate. Finally, Habakkuk's turn came, and the ceremony hit a snag.

  “This says ‘Armed Guardian of the True Word and Flesh'; that's not right,” said Habakkuk's familiar voice. “We don't know for certain John's dead, and you haven't deposed him. I'm just Acting Guardian."

  “Just sign it and add ‘Acting’ after your name, then,” Lazarus replied.

  “Let's get it over with,” Jacob called.

  Uncertain, Habakkuk glanced about.

  “Listen, even if John turns up alive, do you think we'll keep him around after what happened?” Paul Baptised-in-Fire demanded. “You're the Armed Guardian now, Habakkuk, like it or not. Sign the treaty; they want a military authority, and you're the best one we've got."

  “All right,” Habakkuk said, as John struggled to rise to a sitting position. He accepted the pen and signed.

  “Stop!” John called.

  The scene vanished instantly, leaving the blank wall panel.

  “You said that was four days ago?"

  “Yes."

  “Oh.” John sank back. A thought occurred to him. “You said a hundred and forty-seven men survived; what happened to them all?"

  “One hundred and six were treated and released, and I have no information on their subsequent actions. Thirty-eight, including yourself, are now conscious but still hospitalized; all are due to be released shortly. Three are still comatose; one of those three may not survive, or at any rate may have suffered irreversible brain damage. Of the total, sixty-two ignored the warning to cover their eyes and may still be suffering impaired vision."

  “What about the woman?"

  “Miriam Humble-Before-God has been conscious and fit for release for over a day now, but refuses to leave until you do, Mr. Mercy-of-Christ. She left a message for you, to be delivered at your request."

  “What's the message?"

  The reply was not Cuddles’ voice, but Miriam's shriller one. “I told you I'd see you all fry, you bastard! You lived through this one, but I'll see you die yet-you aren't rid of me!"

  “Oh, Jesus,” John muttered, fighting back tears of rage and frustration, “how did it come to this? What have I done wrong?"

  Chapter Eleven

  “Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger."-Psalms 8:2

  ****

  The clothes they had given him upon his release were strange, and so comfortable that John felt as if he weren't wearing anything, which he found disconcerting as he made his way up the street. Miriam followed close behind, but he ignored her. He was a warlord no longer, and therefore could have no prisoners, and was not ready to deal with Miriam on any other basis. She still hated him, yet she followed him without taking any openly hostile action against him. He had serious doubts about her sanity; in his opinion, a sane person would go on about her life-or rather, since her old life had been wiped out, would go about building a new life. The Citadel, with its insistence on treating strangers as equals, was probably the best place on Godsworld for doing that. Miriam's clinging to her pointless enmity, the last vestige of her old world, struck him as senseless. The People of the True Word and Flesh had been defeated, had become just another client of the People of Heaven; what more did she want?

  His enemy, on the other hand, was triumphant, and John was determined to reverse that. An open attack had failed, and obviously had had no chance to begin with against the Satanic weaponry the Heaveners used-little wonder they were willing to sell machine guns when their own armament was so much more powerful! There were other methods besides open attack, though. After much careful thought and study, and some indirect questioning of the machine that called itself Cuddles, John had come to the conclusion that there were no more than five hundred of the Earth-born Heaveners on Godsworld; they controlled thousands of Godsworlders, true, but the Earthmen and Earthwomen were, relatively, only a handful. If he could bring their followers to see them in their true light, as agents of Hell come to destroy Godsworld, John was certain that he could bring even the corrupted and decadent population of the Citadel to rebel. After all, just a few years before the Citadel of Heaven had been an independent city-state; some vestige of pride and Christianity must linger.

  It puzzled him that the Earthers had made so little effort to conceal their actual origins. Surely they knew that the people of Godsworld were aware of Earth's evil nature!

  Against a popular uprising their weapons would not be enough; they could not bomb their own homes, after all. Even if they were able to hold out indefinitely in their fortress-their Corporate Headquarters, Cuddles had called it-they would have no further influence on Godsworld, and that would be enough to satisfy John.

  All he had to do was stir up a rebellion.

&nb
sp; He turned and entered the Righteous House inn, Miriam close behind.

  The Heaveners had given him money-reparations, they called it, a word he had never heard before. He was able to book a comfortable room and order himself an ale without worrying about the cost. With the cold mug in hand-chilled by a Heavener machine called a “frizh", instead of with honest ice stored from last winter-he settled at a large table, annoyed by the softness of his chair's upholstery and the gentle feel of his own clothes.

  Miriam, after buying herself wine with her own reparations money, sat down two seats to his left.

  John knew exactly what he wanted to do, but he was not quite sure of how to go about it. He was not a preacher. He had had some experience in speaking, in telling his troops what he wanted and firing them up for battle, but that was not the same thing as trying to convince someone of something. The men had been a captive audience, already proud and eager, and had respected him and known him; now he would be speaking to strangers, individuals or small groups at most, most of whom would be reluctant to believe him, and all without the madness of crowds to help him.

  He sipped his ale and tried to prepare himself, planning out what he would say.

  Twenty minutes after he sat down, as he had known would happen as the inn filled up with the lunchtime crowds, a young man sat down on his right. “Excuse me, sir,” the fellow said, “I hope you don't mind if I sit here."

  “Go right ahead,” John said. “Glad of the company. Joel Meek-Before-Christ is my name.” He put out a hand.

  The other reached across to shake it. “J'sevyu, Mr. Meek,” he said. “Aaron Blessed-of-Heaven."

  “Really? I knew a family by that name, back in North Dan. Kin of yours?"

  “I can't say; my folks are from Naphthali, but we aren't traced. Don't know anyone in Dan, north or south, but they might be kin somehow."

  “Naphthali? What brings you to the Citadel, then?"

  “Oh, I'm not from Naphthali; when I was a baby my folks’ village was burned in a border war, but they slipped out and headed this way. We've got a place in the hills a few miles east of here; I'm in town for some supplies.” The man's initial formality had faded away.

  “What do you think of this place?” John asked.

  “The inn?"

  “The whole town."

  Aaron shrugged. “It's a town. It's nice enough, since the New Heaveners arrived, but too crowded for me."

  “New Heaveners?"

  “The tall ones who talk funny. The folks around here have always called themselves the People of Heaven, ever since I was a baby, anyway, but they were just plain folks until the new people showed up a few years back and started trading."

  “Where'd these new people come from?"

  Aaron shrugged again. “Couldn't say. I've heard rumors, but you can't trust those."

  John looked down at his mug for a moment, then back at Aaron. “I'll tell you, Mr. Blessed, it happens I know where they're from-I was in their headquarters for something, and I found out. Wasn't any chance I misheard or misunderstood, either; they're from Earth.” He watched closely to see how Aaron took this.

  “Well,” Aaron said, lifting his mug, “that's the rumor I'd heard. I don't know what they're doing here, then-what we've got here that would be worth the trip."

  “I think that's plain enough, Mr. Blessed-it's us they're after. They're not Christians, you know-when our people left Earth they were the last true Christians around, though there were still some heretics claimed the name. The people of Earth all sold their souls to the Devil centuries ago, and now they've come here to collect ours, too.” John kept his voice low, but a certain intensity crept into it.

  Aaron glanced at him, surprised by that intensity, then took a healthy swig of ale before answering.

  “Mr. Meek, I can't say you're wrong-but does it matter? Seems to me that we've done a pretty fair job of consigning our own souls to perdition right here on Godsworld. Jesus said to love our neighbors, but I'm here now, instead of down in Naphthali, because some of those loving neighbors didn't like the way my grandpa said his prayers and burned him out. They hanged him, as a matter of fact-him and sixteen other men-and raped my grandmother and all the other women they could catch. That's not any sort of neighborly love I know. Now, these Earthers, if that's what they really are, have come here and paid us all good prices for what we could trade, sold us what we wanted at fair prices, and they haven't burned any villages or hanged or raped anybody, so far as I've heard. That's no sort of evil I ever heard of; it's more my idea of a good neighbor. If they aren't good Christians, and that's as may be, I figure that's their own concern, so long as they don't try and stop me and mine from being what we are."

  “They killed six thousand men last month-fried them, out on the plain, and took over their homeland."

  “The True Worders?” Aaron frowned. “I heard about that-a bad business, no doubt about that. But those men were coming here to attack us; they were offered a chance to turn back, and a lot of them took it-and those who did weren't hurt. Seems to me that when someone's attacked he has a right to defend himself. And the Heaveners didn't take away the True Worder homeland; all they did was sign a treaty to defend it against the Chosen of the Holy Ghost, or any of the other troublemakers up that way.” He paused, drank more of his ale, then looked at John. “You said North Dan,” he said. “Were some of your folks in that army? Most of North Dan's True Worder land now."

  “I was in that army,” John admitted. “I was wounded."

  “And they brought you here to patch you up? Now, you see what I mean? That was just plain neighborly-good Samaritans, these New Heaveners. The Samaritans hated the Jews, you know, but in the parable a Samaritan helped a Jew-you can't judge everyone just by where they come from. Did you ever think that maybe the New Heaveners were outcasts from Earth, same as our ancestors were? Maybe they came to Godsworld looking for the true path, hoping we could show it to them. Fine welcome your people gave them! I don't know if that's the truth, but it could be. I'll judge them by what they do, not by what our ancestors told us about Earth."

  The possibility that the Heaveners did not represent Earth as a whole had not occurred to John, but he refused to be thrown off by it. “Look at what they're doing, though,” he said. “They've turned this town into a fleshpot. Look at these cushions, these colors! It's disgraceful-decadent!"

  Aaron waved that away. “Horsemold,” he said. “What's so decadent about a few cushions? You know, life is hard here on Godsworld, because God didn't intend people to live here-He meant for Man to live forever in the Garden, back on Earth. The Bible says so. Man was thrown out of the Garden, and eventually he came here, and we've done the best we can with a hard lot-but the way we live now, our ancestors who first came here would call hard poverty, Mr. Meek. I've seen old pictures, from right after the Crossing-the Reverend Fuller, who became Adam Full-of-Grace, kept what they called an album, and there's a fellow out our way still has it. Back then, before there were so many people and before the ship fittings got so spread out or lost, folks lived better than the people here in the Citadel, the ones you call decadent, live now-and a hundred times better than most of the poor villagers out there."

  John was becoming confused, frustrated, and angry by this young man's easy countering of his every point. “They were still weak then!” he almost shouted. “They had just come from Earth, and the stink of decadence was still on them! God made life here hard to purify men, to work that softness out of them, and that's what it's done; and you want to let these Earthers let it all back in, make us weak again!” He was leaning toward Aaron, frowning ferociously.

  “Mr. Meek,” Aaron said, “I don't want to argue with you; you take it how you will. I'm just saying that I don't have any quarrel with the Heaveners."

  “And I'm saying that as a good Christian, you should! We need to defend ourselves!"

  “I don't feel, Mr. Meek, that I need any defending against the Heaveners. If they do me wrong, or if I s
ee them do wrong to another, then I reckon I'll reconsider, but I don't see that they've harmed anybody that didn't attack them without reason. Nobody's forced me to trade with them. And as for comfort making them weak-how weak can they be if they wiped out an army in fifteen minutes?"

  “They did that with hellfire!"

  “No, sir, they did it with a weapon that was designed and built by men-just men, not demons."

  “Men too weak to fight for themselves, though-they need machines to do it."

  Aaron finished his ale. “Mr. Meek-Before-Christ, I enjoyed meeting you,” he said as he stood up, “but I think I had best move along now. Have a good day, sir, and God bless you.” He nodded politely and walked away.

  John watched him go, seething with suppressed anger. His first attempt at recruiting had been a dismal failure; the boy had had a smart answer for everything. Still, he was just one man; the Citadel was filled with others, and John was sure that he would find plenty who would rally to his cause. He glanced around the room.

  Most of those present had heard a little of the argument, and were now steadily ignoring him, while two seats away Miriam was grinning at him in triumph. She leaned over and whispered, “All you're going to do is get them mad enough to hang you-so you just keep it up, Captain John!"

  She sat back, smirking.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help."-Psalms 146:3

  ****

  Even after a week and a half of intensive efforts John could see no sign at all that he had angered the Heavener authorities with his harangues. Unfortunately, there was also no sign at all that he had won a single convert, or even planted any seeds of doubt that might later bloom. The people of the Citadel, either native or visitor, simply refused to worry about any dire purpose that might lie behind the generosity and good will of the New Heaveners. The only actual result that John could detect was that after a week or so a few people were beginning to refer to them openly as “the Earthers".