A fresh wave of pain swept through him from the throbbing site of his old injury. He bellowed again and reached out with his forward appendage to uproot one of his recent plantings. He smashed it against the ground and brandished its remains overhead. “Very disturbing,” his fleeing rationality observed, and, “Really, too bad.”
He bellowed again and charged his fellows, who scattered with an agility and rapidity near-amazing to those other laborers only acquainted with the phants’ generally slow-moving ways. The other laborers were, of course, moving hurriedly themselves by then.
Tranto smashed several trees to the ground then turned away. His burning eyes focused upon the village, and he rushed off in that direction. The overseer proge withdrew its embodiments hastily.
Brandishing the tree trunk, Tranto demolished a hut, then threw his bulk against the next structure, to be met with a satisfying swaying and cracking. He hit it again. He swung the trunk. The wall went down. He bellowed then and stamped on through.
As he advanced upon the next, a spark of memory suggested that they would be after him soon, with CF prods, then with lethal weapons. As he trampled the building to ruin and listened to the cries of workers and foremen, he knew that he should turn away from this place, flee to some safe wilderness where he might abide until the attack had run its course and healing had begun.
He smashed another wall, drove the battered tree trunk against a second then sent it through the roof of a third. Yes, he really should be moving on. Only all these damned things seemed to be in the way.
Trumpeting, he stamped down the street, upsetting supply carts, trampling seed-objects as they spilled. They would be waiting for him at the transit station he was certain. If they could not stop him, they would try to transfer him to a secured space where a therapist would hurt him again, like last time. Better to flee in this direction and batter his own gate when he was in the clear. It would not be the first time he had broken through a chambering field. It seemed to grow progressively easier as the madness rose.
Once he was beyond the workplace he tested the limits of the area, feeling for the resistance to movement into another place entirely rather than other areas of this same locale. His sense of these matters always became highly acute at times like this. Soon he was pushing against a boundary in the midst of a fairly featureless field. It felt like tough mesh-work, both yielding and restraining, though with his first great shove he was able to see through it into an adjacent landscape. It was filled with buildings, vehicles, and heavy machinery, however, and he changed direction and pushed differently. A field. Good. He pushed that way. Three heavy onslaughts and he was through, rampaging over some sort of gar-den and through an orchard, upsetting its genius loci no end. No matter. Trumpeting, he ran.
Eight times he crossed barriers, wrecking a specialty farm, an executive meeting room, a Mars surface testing laboratory, a bowling alley, a brothel, a federal district court adjunct, and a virt campus, before achieving the solace of a grassy country and nearby jungle, where the genius loci considered his activities in keeping with the tenor of the environment and continued to doze.
Tranto had gone rogue again.
* * *
The congregation came from a chapel in Verite, where, following a brief invocation, they had repaired to a rearward chamber, disrobed, stretched out upon mortuary slabs to contemplate the travails of existence for a period of darkness, then risen in spirit to pass through a wall of flame and enter upon the sacred fields. There, they had proceeded, chanting the song of Enlil and Ninlil, to come at length to a corridor among ziggurats atop which lion-bodied spirits with the heads of men and women appeared, to come in with the choruses and with intonements of blessing. Beyond, the congregation achieved the precincts of the temple and was conducted into its courtyard.
Further ceremonies were conducted there, by a priest garbed similarly to themselves, save for the scapulary tablets and elaborate headgear of gold and semiprecious stones worn below his faint blue halo. He told them how all of the gods, along with everything else, survived in Virtu, and in this time of a turning back to religion it was appropriate that the earliest divine manifestations in Indo-European consciousness should be the focus of worship now, dwelling as they did in the deepest layers of the human psyche where description might still function. Ea, Shamash, Ninurta, Enki, Ninmah, Marduk, Azmuh, Inanna, Utu, Dumuzi, and all of the others—metaphors, yes, as were all who came after, for both the best and worst in humanity, but also the most potent of metaphors because of their primacy. And of course they were cosmomorphic as well, embodiments of the forces of nature, and as capable of evolution as everything in Virtu and Verite. Their beings extended to the quantum level as well as the relativistic. So sing their praises, he went on, ancient gods of quarks and galaxies, as well as the sky, the sea, and the mountains, the fire, the wind, and the burgeoning earth. Let all things rejoice and let us turn the stories of their doings to ritual. One of the gods was even now within the temple’s sanctum, enjoying this worship and sending blessings. A light meal was shared, and the worshipers embraced one and other briefly. The mundane offering of the Collect was done by means of electronic funds transfers, from the eft tokens all bore with them when visiting Virtu.
It was called the Church of Elish, from the Mesopotamian creation story, Enuma elish—meaning, roughly, “When above”—and the words “Elishism” and “Elishite” were derived therefrom, though members of the more traditional religions of the past few millennia had often referred to them as “Elshies.” At first lumped together with the many short-lived cults of Virtu—Gnostic, African, Spiritualist, Caribbean—it had shown greater staying power and, upon closer examination, demonstrated a more sophisticated theology, satisfying ritual, and better structured organization than the others. Its increasingly popularity indicated that it had been victorious in the divine wars. It did not demand mortification of the flesh beyond a few holy day fasts and apparently even involved “rituals of an orgiastic nature,” as some anthropologists put it. It incorporated traditional heavens and hells as fitting waiting places between incarnations alternating between Virtu and Verite, toward the eventual achievement of a transcendental state which combined the best of both realms. It had its representatives in both. Its followers had a tendency to refer to all other religions as “latecomers.”
Every now and then, usually on high holy days, some worshipers well advanced along their spiritual paths were permitted to enter the temple itself to undergo a higher grade of initiation, involving experiences perhaps intoxicating, oceanic, sexual, illuminating. These tended to result in some small advantage in life, physical or mental, which functioned best in Virtu but which sometimes carried over to Verite. This phenomenon had also been a subject of anthropological consideration for over a decade, the only general conclusion to date being the catch-phrase “psychosomatic conversion.”
In fact, Arthur Eden—tall, very black, his beard shot with gray, heavily muscled in the manner of an athlete somewhat past his prime, which he was—was a professor of anthropology at Columbia’s Verite campus. He had joined the Elishites for purposes of preparing a full-length study of their creed and practices, comparative religion being his specialty. He was surprised at how much he was enjoying the preliminary work, for the church had obviously been set up by an expert or experts in this area.
As he walked back, singing, amid the pyramids, along the trail through field and wood, he wondered at the administrative entities behind this landscape. During a night service he had once been puzzled by the skies as he’d sought familiar constellations. On a later occasion, he’d recorded it by means of a simple proge disguised as a bracelet. Later, when he’d projected it onto a computer screen and begun playing games with it, he finally discovered that that sky was to be achieved by moving the present one backward through time for about six and a half millennia. Again, he was impressed by the church’s efforts at verisimilitude in their claims to antiquity and he wondered again at the priesthood or wh
oever the brains behind the structure of things might be.
The wall of flame rose before him after a time, and he joined the others in the prayer of passage. There was no sensation of heat as they negotiated the blazing way, only a small tingling and a whooshing sound of the sort a high fire might make in a strong wind—probably intended to intensify the memory. In the darkness that followed, he located the center aisle of the chamber and counted paces as he had been taught— forward, right, left—coming at length to his slab and reclining there. He was eager to begin dictating his notes, but instead reviewed his impressions as he lay there—yes, the Elishites’ worldview had an ethical code, a supernatural hierarchy, and an afterlife; they also had sacred texts, a collection of rituals, and an efficient organizational structure. The latter was difficult to obtain information concerning. All of his careful inquiries had so far met with responses indicating a consensus of the clergy as a basis of decision-making—always divinely inspired, of course. Still, he was yet a neophyte. He could understand a measure of reticence on matters of church politics. There should be opportunity to probe more deeply as his status evolved.
Lying in the darkness, he recalled the rituals he had witnessed thus far, wondering, again, whether they represented an actual reconstructive interest on the part of their composers—and if so, from which archaeological sources they might have been derived and projected—or whether they had been made up de novo and calculated to produce maximum effect upon a modern congregation. If it were the former, he required knowledge of the key works and the approach which had been taken in these developments from them. If the latter, he still needed the ideas which lay behind the thinking. It was not often that one got to witness the nascence of a new religion, and it was important that lie get into it as far as lie could and record everything.
Lying there, still tingling lightly, he reflected that whoever was behind it seemed possessed of a fair esthetics sense, along with all the rest.
* * *
Sayjak led his clan to a new section of the forest, partly because the area it had inhabited for the past month had been heavily browsed, and partly because of an eeksy sighting near that territory. No sense waiting for trouble, and the food situation saved face for him among the more impressionable. Sayjak had faced eeksies before and no longer even kept count of the number he had dispatched. He had his battle-marks for all to see. Any number of CF rounds had scored his hide over the years without finding the fatal points which had been their targets.
Now he sat beneath a tree, feeding on its fruits. His clan was, as many of other sorts, begun partly by damaged complex proges whose component problems had not been immediately apparent. On being detected by inconsistencies in their work they had fled rather than face extinction or repair. Their hairy manlike forms were a partly willed adaptation to the environment. And gender proges were easily created or come by, so that most of his band were descended from such in the dim mists of beginnings and knew no other existence than the freedom of the trees. As the random disruptions of life produced aging in Virtu as well as Verite, Sayjak had matured somewhat past his prime, though he was still a shrewd and powerful brute, well able to manage the People, as they called themselves.
And he had to be shrewd. There were always dangers about—from other clans, from rogue aions of different sorts, and from natural perils, as well as from the Ecology and Environment Corp in its periodic attempts to balance populations to conform with its models. And there were hunters—bounty and sport—as well as those who preyed upon the clans for private collections, public displays, private experimentation… There was ample danger from without, and Sayjak made full use of the three strongest of his subordinates: the great, hulking Staggert; tall, scarred, fast-moving Ocro, perhaps too smart for his own good, always plotting; and squat, heavy sadistic Chumo, viewing a narrow world through the perpetual squint of infected-looking eyes. They had become indispensable to him in the administration of the clan. All of them had designs upon his position, of course. All of them had fought him for it. and all of them had lost. He had no fear of any of them individually, yet, and they served him well while they waited for him to show signs of weakness. Together, they could oppose him, could probably split the clan, but—here he smiled around his fangs—they distrusted each other too much to attempt such a thing. And even if this were not the case, they would sooner or later have to have it out amongst themselves, leaving only one. And he knew that he could take any one of them. No. They knew that, and they knew that he knew it. So they served, biding, and aging themselves, of course.
Chumo looked up at him, just back from one of the regular patrols Sayjak insisted upon.
“How is the area?” he asked the bulky squinter.
“Signs to the northwest,” Chumo replied.
“What sort?”
“Tracks. Booted.”
“How many?”
“Three or four. Maybe more.”
Sayjak was on his feet.
“How far?”
“Several miles.”
“This is not good. Did you follow them?”
“Only a little way. I thought it more important to get word back quickly.”
“You thought right. Take me to the place. Ocro! You be in charge here. I’m going scouting.”
The lean one ceased his browsing and approached.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Strangers. Maybe eeksies,” Sayjak replied, glancing at Chumo. “I don’t know.”
Chumo shook his head.
“Perhaps I should come along,” Staggert said.
“Someone has to take care of the camp. Leave signs if you have to flee.”
“Of course.”
Sayjak set out with Chumo, shambling along trails for the first mile or so, all senses alert. Finally, Chumo led him into the trees as they neared the place of the tracks.
“I heard them pass,” he said, “from a distance. By the time I got here they were already well gone. I located their tracks and studied them.”
“Let’s find them,” Sayjak said.
They proceeded along the well-worn game trail, boot marks still clear in the damp soil. It wound into the west, then the northwest. Sayjak determined that there were four of them—two fairly large men, and two of more average height and build.
From far off to the left came the crack of a discharging weapon. A moment later the sound was heard again.
Sayjak smiled.
“Easy game,” he said. “They give themselves away for it. Now we know the trail turns, curves that way. We cut through. Find them sooner.”
So they left the trail and headed in the direction of the sounds. It took them perhaps half an hour to find the place of the slaughtered buck, but from there the trail was very clear. The game had been dressed, divided, and borne off to the northeast.
Following, again, Sayjak and Chumo finally heard the sounds of voices at about the same time they smelled the cooking meat. Proceeding more carefully then, they discovered the band to be camped in an area identifiable by scent as one previously used by a clan similar to their own. It had been abandoned for at least a week, however.
They drew nearer. From the more than casual appointment they had effected in the area, it was obvious that the hunters were planning to spend the night. Sayjak was momentarily taken aback on seeing that the largest of the four was a woman.
“Eeksies,” Chumo whispered.
“Bounties,” Sayjak corrected. “Big one’s a female. Guess who?”
“Big Betsy?”
“Right,” he said, fingering a scar along his left thigh. “Lots of the People’s heads gone home with her. She and me go back far.”
“Maybe this time we take hers.”
“This time I take hers. Go back to camp. Get Staggert, Ocro, a few other big guys who need action. Bring them. I wait, watch. We move. I leave signs.”
“Yes.”
Chumo vanished into the brush.
Sayjak moved nearer, his mouth watering at th
e aromas from the cooking, though he’d never learned much about fire, and he knew that raw meat was best anyhow. Bounties…
Eeksies wore uniforms. Bounties dressed any damned way they wanted. Bounties were more ingenious, more relentless—deadlier. Not being civil servants and actually making or not making their money as a result of their own actions had much to do with it. Sayjak realized that bounties were not normally offered until a situation reached a point where eeksy activity was deemed inadequate. While modesty was not one of his virtues, he did not feel that his clan’s activities alone were sufficient to warrant such attention. No. Hard as it was to think beyond the clan, it occurred to him that the other tribes of the People must also be burgeoning, be hunting and browsing to an extent which became noticeable on someone’s big balance sheet of how things should be. Offhand, he did not know what to do about it. But he did have a solution for the immediate problem, as soon as the others arrived.
He watched as they set up their camp, continued to watch as they gathered about the fire and took their meal. He hoped there would be some leftovers… for afterwards. But his hope diminished as Big Betsy dug in. The lady had quite an appetite, in full keeping with her figure.
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