Tongues of the Moon

by Philip José Farmer

  He could not take a chance that they would stop him to talk. He sprayed the group with one burst.

  The chamber rang with noise as loud as doom. Then, there was silence.

  "Now you've done it," the colonel said. "They'll come running from everywhere."

  "Maybe the noise didn't reach them," Broward said. "Anyway, I had no choice. Come on. Let's get rid of them."

  He removed his knife from its sheath beneath his coveralls and stabbed each of the three original Angels in the solar plexus. Then, reopening the elevator door, he shoved one of the bodies in to keep the door from closing while the cage ascended. Quiroga shoved the door open even further, and Broward and Saavedra placed another body beside the first to enlarge the opening. Fortunately, the mechanism had no safety provision which kept the cage from moving while the door was not shut. There were no cables attached to the cages, which operated off self-contained gravitypaks.

  The bodies, shoved through the opening over the corpses used as doorstops, fell unimpeded to the bottom. When these had been disposed of Broward and Saavedra used jackets stripped from the dead men to wipe away as much of the blood as possible. Unfortunately there was nothing they could do about the scratches on the doors or the chips in the stone walls left by ricocheting bullets. Quiroga placed the weapons of the fallen on the floor of their jeep.

  Broward drove that vehicle, and the other two were driven by the colonel and the lieutenant They went back down the corridor and then swung to the side of the plaza on which was the Pope's residence. Broward was relieved that there were no people to be seen. But he knew that they could be easily viewed from within the buildings. As if he had official business, he steered the jeep to the pontiff's building and then around to its rear.

  He had to knock hard about twenty times before the back door swung in. A young man in black robes and with an expressionless face confronted him.

  "We must see His Holiness at once," the colonel said.

  "You may wait inside for him," the priest replied firmly. "The Holy Father is holding a private conference now. He is not to be disturbed."

  Broward considered telling him that they were not Angels. But there was the possibility that Howards had succeeded in planting a spy in the Pope's household. Perhaps, it might be this man.

  "El Macho sent us," he said. "We have orders to see His Holiness at once."

  The priest did not answer; he seemed not to know what to do. Or else he was shocked by the fear that Howards had finally decided to move against the Church.

  Broward shouldered him aside, and Saavedra and Quiroga followed.

  The priest grabbed hold of Broward's arm and said, "You must not do this. It would be a mortal sin; your souls will be in jeopardy."

  No spy would act thus. Broward said, "We are not what we seem. We are not Angels, despite these uniforms. Now, do you understand? We must see His Holiness at once. The fate of all life on Mars depends on it."

  "Follow me."

  They were led through several small rooms, Spartanly furnished, to a hall. At the end of the hall, near the front of the building, was a staircase. Like most on Mars, the steps were much further apart than those of Earth. A man used to handling himself under the lesser gravity could spring easily from one to the next. In fact, if you were in a hurry, you could make it in one jump to the top of the stairs.

  The three went up the stairs and then down the hall to its end. Here, the priest knocked on a door. A voice from within said, "What is it?"

  "An emergency, Your Holiness," the priest said quietly. "There are three men here who say that the fate of Mars depends upon your seeing them at once."

  There was a muttered exclamation. The door opened. The Pope was a tall thin man of about fifty, dressed in ordinary clerical garb. He had a face that would have been handsome if it had not been so haggard. He was very dark and looked like an Indian despite the fact that his patronymic came from a Prussian baron who had emigrated to Argentina in the early twentieth century.

  Behind him stood a woman whose face was veiled. She moved forward, and then knelt and kissed his hand. He gave her a blessing; she rose and silently walked out of the room and down the hall. The three looked curiously after her. She had a beautiful figure.

  On seeing their uniforms, the Pope's eyes had widened. Now, he said, "Three Angels, heh? I hope that this is a good | omen."

  He stepped aside. Broward entered first. The other two kissed the pontiff's hand. He said to Broward, "If you are not an Angel nor an angel, then you are not Howards' man. Nor are you a Catholic. What, then, are you?"

  He closed the door, signing to the young priest that he was dismissed. Broward said, "Your Holiness, it is unfortunate that it will take a little time to explain. But I ask that you listen to us to the end."

  At the end of twenty minutes, Broward had given his history.

  "You would not have come here if you could have gotten help elsewhere," the Pope said. "Now, what do you expect, or hope, that I will do?"

  "Your Holiness," Broward replied, "if there were any other way to bring about peace, I would take it. But violence is the only way. And..."

  "Why did you come down here in person?" said the Pope. "Why did you not send these two men down with the message that you would launch the bomb if Mars did not surrender?"

  He stopped, then said, "Forgive my stupidity. Howards would not believe you, of course; he would have sent ships after you, and you would have been forced to launch that devil's device. Only by overthrowing the present government could you save Mars."

  "That is right," said Broward. "And Howards will not listen to anything but a bullet now."

  "The servant should obey his master, so St. Paul said. And our Lord said to render unto Caesar what is Caesar's."

  "Do you mean to tell me that you obey your political master even if he is evil and is intent on grinding your Church to bits under his heel? Did not Christ whip the money-changers out of the temple? And haven't there been bishops and priests in the Church's history who went into battle at the sides of their secular lords and slew the heathen?"

  "True," said the pontiff. "However..."

  There was a knock on the door, and the young priest came in.

  "Your Holiness, there are armed Angels coming out of Howards' house. They are coming across the plaza towards us. I fear..."

  "It has happened later than I thought it would," the Pope said. "You must have been seen when you came around the house. Probably, those watching you thought you were here on business because of your uniforms, even if they had not been notified that Angels were to come here.

  "But they also have very sensitive sound-receptors trained on this building. Nothing that is said goes unmonitored over there except for my room, which has been especially soundproofed. And I only got that concession because I threatened to cause trouble, just as I had to suspend confession until I got the confessional booths insulated. Howards had no compunctions about using spy-beams on those."

  Broward rushed down the hallway to the window at the end. Halfway across the plaza, advancing slowly, were about twenty men. All were equipped with burpers or rifles except the officers, who wore side-arms. They were spread out in two lines in a crescent, the horns of which enclosed the area beyond both sides of the pontiffs residence.

  Broward rolled the window into the slot in the wall, poked the muzzle of his tommy out, and began firing. Within a few seconds, two other tommies also began firing; these were from rooms on both sides of the hall. Quiroga and Saavedra, without waiting for orders from him, had joined the fight.

  The Angels in the center who had not been hit raked the front of the house with return fire from their burpers. But Broward, after downing at least six at the first burst, had stepped back from the window. He saw men on the left horn of the crescent run towards the side of the buildings. Three reached safety, but two fell as he shot out of the side of the window.

  He ran down the hall to the top of the stairway, paused to jump the length of the steps to
the ground floor, but stopped when he heard a burper firing outside in the rear. He ran to the window at the rear of the hall, almost knocking the Pope down, and looked out cautiously.

  The young priest was standing behind one of the jeeps and was holding a burper. Obviously, he had been hiding behind the vehicle. Broward decided that it was safe to put his head out of the window. Five bodies were sprawled on the ground along the base of the house.

  The Pope, looking out past him, said, "So Father Ignacio took a hand in this without consulting me?"

  "I'm sure he did it on impulse," replied Broward. "He didn't join me; he didn't know why I was here. He was only protecting you."

  "As Peter drew his sword and sliced off the servant's ear," said Siricio II. "Well, I am not going to rebuke Ignacio or tell him to put up his weapon."

  "You'll fight with us?"

  "I'll fight in my way," replied the Pope. "I will not shed blood. But I will march with you. By the way, whatever you are going to do, you had better do it at once. I'm sure that Howards has called soldiers to come to his aid. There is a barracks in the next plaza. However, I doubt that more than a quarter of the soldiers will be able to respond. The rest are too sick."

  Broward returned to the front window. Quiroga and Saavedra joined him. An Angel, his white uniform splotched with red, was feebly crawling away.

  There was no sign of movement from the building across the way. But Broward was sure that armed men were standing behind the windows there. "I wish I had some gravpaks," he said.

  "Four should be enough. Let's get them."

  A few minutes later, one pak had been tied to the center left side of a jeep. Manipulating the pak's controls, Broward caused the vehicle to be raised several feet in the air. Then he guided the featherweight until it lay on its side at right angles to his jeep across the front. Father Ignacio supplied the strips, torn from sheets, that anchored the near-weightless frame to the front of Broward's vehicle.

  "It'll make a shield," the Moonman said. "If their bullets don't wreck the pak or cut the strips, it'll do fine."

  He and the two officers slipped into the harnesses attached to the paks, tightened them, and tried the pak controls. Then, they got into the jeep.

  "Father Ignacio will take the other jeep and make a run for the elevators," said the Pope. "He will spread the word on the upper levels that Howards is trying to kill me. It will not be a lie, because I am certain that Howards will take such action when he sees what I am about to do."

  "Holy Father, what is that?" cried Saavedra.

  "What I should have done long ago but held off doing because of politics, or rather, fear of meddling in politics. Also, I was afraid. I was afraid that the Church might be crushed, and I sinned in thinking that, for the Church will live as long as God decrees, and we know how long that is. Worse, I feared for my sheep. If I denounced Howards and I were imprisoned, who then would protect them from the wolves? I should have known Whom that Person would be."

  Broward hesitated. What if the Angels seized the Pope as a hostage? Well, what if they seized anybody as such? That which must be done would be done, no matter who got hurt '

  Father Ignacio said, "Holy Father, he will kill you! He is a vile and evil man!"

  The Pope held up his hand in remonstration. "Do not try to stop me. I have delayed too long now. Do as I said."

  Ignacio dropped to his knees and said, "Father, bless me!"

  "And you, young man, bless me. And do not forget to tell the others that, if I do not return, Father Mendoza should succeed me."

  The young priest wept. Siricio said, "Compose yourself and come with me. You must hear my confession."

  Broward paid them no attention, for he was carefully instructing the other two in the plan of attack. They objected several times, and he answered them. They had some good points which he accepted and thus changed the course of the assault.

  By then, Father Ignacio had come back outdoors. With him was another priest, a man about the pontiffs age. Broward was surprised, for be had seen nobody else while he was in the house.

  "Father Gomez was at his prayers," said Father Ignacio, as if that explained his nonappearance. "He will go the opposite direction I'll take; he'll try to head off the troops stationed nearby."

  Broward wondered why the troops had not appeared if they were so near. The young priest, answering, said, "I'm puzzled. I do not know. But His Holiness wishes to see you."

  Broward went into the house just in time to see the pontiff coming out of a room near the front door. He was wearing a small plastic box which hung from a cord around his neck and lay on his chest.

  "I want everybody in the plaza to hear my voice," he said. He smiled at Broward."Tell me, my son, why have you, a Soviet and an atheist, placed your life in jeopardy to save your enemy?"

  "I do not believe in the Soviet ideology," Broward said. "As for my so-called atheism, I am not so sure now about it.

  I have seen some strange things recently. I mentioned the man Moshe Yamanuchi. But I did not have time to tell you that he felt that Something, a Voice, was urging him."

  "Ah, yes, the Jew. God would not allow the Chosen Race to die out. It is not time yet."

  "Moshe would not agree with your view of that, I'm sure. But he does agree with you that there is a God. However, you do not have to be a Christian or a Moslem or a Hindu to love mankind, to want to see them happy. I did not want to be a mass murderer. By killing the people of Mars, I drive another nail into Man's coffin. Too many nails have been hammered in lately; a few more, and Man will be buried forever."

  "You could not love Man unless you also loved God," replied Siricio. "You may deny it, but I am sure that you do, somewhere in your being."

  "Perhaps," Broward replied. "But let's get on with what we have to do. You wanted to talk to Howards and his men first, right? I can give you a minute or two. That is, if the troops don't show. When they do, I have to move."

  "Good bye, my son," said the Pope. "I hope I will see you again in a place we both will like."

  "I doubt it," said Broward. "But nobody's ever disproved that there is such a place."

  "I would not believe them if they did."

  He blessed Broward and then stepped out. Broward watched him cross the great plaza, stepping around the corpses, stopping once to examine a man, apparently to determine whether or not he was alive. Broward also glanced at the two entrances to the plaza. Both were still deserted.

  The erect and lonely figure of the priest became smaller as he neared the neo-Gothic front of the building. This had its back placed solidly against the rock wall of the huge cavern, and it extended for about 20 meters outwards. The front reared up straight like a cliff carved with the heads of men, gargoyles, animals and various religious and secular symbols. It was the only one of its kind that Broward had seen here, though such buildings were numerous on Earth. There were no steps to the main entrance, which lay flush with the plaza floor. The entrance itself was wide enough for six men to go in shoulder to shoulder and high enough that a man standing on another's shoulders could not reach the top. It had two plastic gates of open grillework.

  The Pope halted, only a few meters from the gates. Suddenly, a great voice spoke. It bounced off the front of the house and the plaza walls behind it and came as a thunderous echo to Broward.

  "Howards! And those who serve Howards! Mars is doomed!"

  And the voice told of the ship that waited somewhere above the red planet and of the weapon of total destruction and death that it carried. It told what would happen if Howards was not unseated at once and a new government formed. It went on to describe graphically what would result.

  Broward looked at the tunnels. No one yet. Then, he saw a jeep drive along the front of the buildings and cut across at top speed and enter the tunnel that led to the elevators. Father Ignacio was driving it.

  So far, so good. No one behind the windows of the president's house had fixed at the young priest.

  "You are an evil
man," the voice boomed. "You, Howards, are guilty of spilling the blood of countless men, women, and children. I am not talking of the murders you had committed on Earth for your vile political purposes. I accuse you of exploding the cobalt bombs on Earth so that all life would perish there. I accuse you of planning to do so to the end that you might then come to Mars and be sole ruler of all mankind. I accuse you of the murder of eight billion people and of all the life that God created to flourish on the face of His green Earth, green no longer.

  "I could accuse you of many other evil and monstrous deeds, such as the adultery you are now contemplating forcing on a virtuous wife and the fornication you are now forcing on the daughter of General Mier."

  "But these, evil though they may be, are as nothing to the murder of Earth!"

  The scream that came from the man by the gates could be heard even across the plaza. The white figure pointed at the Pope, its head turned towards those behind him. Obviously, he was ordering them to fire.

  But nobody obeyed. Even these men hesitated.

  Then, the white figure pulled a weapon from the white holster on its white belt. There was a spurt of flame which Broward could see because his angle of vision was between the two men on the opposite sides of the gate. Another followed the first, and another.

  Siricio II fell backward and lay on the rock floor, his arms spread out.

  Broward cast another look at the tunnel but saw no one. Then he turned and sprinted down the hall, burst through the door, and cried, "Let's go!"

  Quiroga and Saavedra were sitting in the jeep that had the other jeep placed on its hood, "We heard him," said Quiroga. He was white and shaking. "We heard the shots, too. Was the Holy Father... ?"

  Broward nodded and climbed into the jeep behind Quiroga, who was in the driver's seat. "Howards murdered him."

  "Holy Mother of Mary!" said Saavedra. Both Argentineans crossed themselves.

  "Howards' men will be stunned," said Broward. "They can't help it. Let's go!"

  Quiroga sat motionless except for the silent moving of his lips. His hands gripped the little wheel on the end of the long flexible steering rod. He stared straight ahead.