Infinite Day (86 page)

“An interesting argument.”

“And surely a creator has to be more complex than his creation?”

Merral fell silent.
Is it all perhaps ultimately pride?

Vero beckoned him on. “Just a thought. Anyway, let's move on. It's going to rain!”

The next day, in order to cut across a loop in the river, they climbed up a low, stony spine of rock. As they labored over the rough slope, the subject of the prebendant came up.

“Why do you think he spared us, Vero?” Merral asked. “Was killing us just too terrible?”

Vero sat down on a rock with a gentle groan. “Delastro? No, I talked with him more than you. Or was lectured more; he is no conversationalist. Killing people doesn't seem to worry him. He alluded more than once to some incident where Zak had had to deal with someone who got in the way. He was almost proud of it—it showed his dedication.”

“Yes, I heard some hint about an accident in space.”

“The man has reached the point where killing doesn't worry him. He sees his task as so critical that any sacrifice can be justified.”

“I can see that. He is a man who deals in terrible certainties. So why spare us?”

Vero squinted away into the distance, his expression suggesting that he was pondering the matter deeply. “I think because of the envoy. Let me try to explain. The need to preserve the Assembly at any cost dominates Delastro's mind. To that end, he dreams of being able to manipulate angelic powers such as the envoy. In our d-discussions it was apparent that he's been looking at m-magic.”

Merral sensed an unease in his friend's tone.
Hardly surprising; it's such an abhorrent topic.
“He admitted that? Surely not.”

“Not in as many words. I just . . . well, r-recognized some of the things he was talking about. When he gets carried away, he sometimes says more than he means to.”

“And you recognized some allusions to sorcery?”

Merral received a sharp look. “Knowledge is my business, my f-friend; or it was. I know many things that ordinary people perhaps should not know.”

“I can't see how he could be attracted to magic. Can you?”

Vero stared hard at him. “
I
can. But anyway, you disappointed him. He's realized, at last, that you do not control the envoy. But he has not given up hope of trying to manipulate him. Or some being like him. And I think he feels that by killing you—and, to a lesser extent, me—he might lose any hope of manipulation.”

“I see. Killing those the envoy had dealt with might alienate him. I follow the twisted logic.”

Merral heard his stomach rumble. The effects of the limited diet were being felt. “Incidentally, Vero, did you get anything more about this decision that needed to be made? The one he had to be back on Earth for?”

“Ah, that. That seems to be linked to Gerry. I am guessing from what he said that she has come up with something. Something that he wants to happen but that doesn't have unanimous support. He needs to swing things his way.” Vero polished his glasses. “I tried to press him on that, but he wouldn't say anything. I wish we had managed to crack the code on that Revenge file of hers.”

“I wish Delastro weren't on the loose.”

“So do I.”

Merral gazed around. “Well, Vero, I see several blessings about our current status. One of them is that there is nothing we can do about him.”

He received a smile. “My friend, I am encouraged to hear you use the language of
blessing
.”

Merral got to his feet. “It's still early days for me, Vero. Let's walk on.”

Lezaroth reached Jigralt a week after Merral had left it. There was no sign of the
Sacrifice
—only a small space station and two ships. After a pointless resistance that lasted no more than an hour, all had been destroyed or had surrendered.

Lezaroth had the few surviving men and women tortured one by one. From the words torn out of them, he learned that a craft of Dominion build but proclaiming itself to be an Assembly vessel had briefly appeared, and two men from it had been seized. One was clearly Merral; the other, a dark-skinned man. They had been taken away by followers of this prebendant figure but not, apparently, back to Farholme. One man's spluttered last words were that they “were going to be forgotten on an empty world.”

As the man died beside him, Lezaroth determined the possibilities. Data at the space station showed there were four suitable worlds nearby: Kapanorath, Lathanthor, Tule, and Barannat. He plotted a course that would take him to each in turn.

The details he had gathered about the prebendant pleased him greatly.
There is internal feuding. The lord-emperor's prophecy is proving correct.

He left for Kapanorath.

In her fourth-floor apartment on the northern edge of Jerusalem, Eliza sat at the worktable in her bedroom putting the finishing touches on a document. Behind her, the antique clock struck eight in the evening, and she looked through the half-open curtains to see the delicate network of the city's lights.

She turned back to the screen to stare at her final paragraph one more time. A pang of doubt struck her.
This is going to cause such an upset; do I really want this to happen at this time? Millions have put their trust in Delastro. This exposure of his deceptions on Farholme and the request that a proper inquest be held on the death of Captain Huang-Li will be utterly shocking
.

She felt herself frown at the implications
. I cannot be sure of what will happen. The Guards of the Lord will surely be disbanded. Those linked with Delastro—Clemant and K, possibly the whole DAS leadership—might have to go
.

But was there any other option? Eliza considered the evidence again
.
She'd been careful. She had woven together many strands of evidence into a conclusion that was inescapable.

“No,” she said quietly. “It must be published.”

She toyed with the thought that she might delay it but rejected the idea. The evidence would not change, and the Council of High Stewards was to meet in two weeks' time. The agenda was secret, but she knew there would be a motion that the administration include a chancellor alongside the chairman. She was under no illusions about who was to be the first holder of the post.

The idea will probably get approved, too. The support for the Guards of the Lord is now so major and the fear of the advancing Dominion forces so great that the motion will be hard to oppose
.

The opposition was not well organized. She had taxed Andreas as to whether the Custodians of the Faith might resist the proposal, but he had simply looked embarrassed, shrugged, and muttered that Delastro was the least of some very great evils.

She looked at the screen again.
No. The man is a monstrosity. We cannot afford to let this evil go unchecked. This document will go out publicly tomorrow. To all in authority and to the news agency. It will be across the worlds in an hour
.

She twisted slightly on her seat and her eye was caught by an image of her husband in his new Assembly Defense Force uniform. She had talked to him and, in separate conversations, her sons an hour or so earlier, and she now found herself puzzling over the tone of the conversation she had with them all.

I said things I hadn't meant to. As though I was bidding them farewell. How odd.
She stared back at the screen. Then a strangely certain thought came to her.
I am preparing myself for the upheaval that will be created when I transmit this letter to Ethan and Andreas and have it openly published on the news networks. I may have to flee and I may lose my right to transmit information. Nevertheless, it must be done
.

On the edge of her vision was a mirror, and suddenly she was aware of a dark form appearing in it.

She swung round to see a tall figure—undoubtedly a man—clad in black from head to foot with an odd, wide-brimmed hat. There was something about him that she found strangely static. Was he real or perhaps some sort of hologram?

“Who are you?”

The figure looked at her and she recognized an unearthly solidity to him that no holographic figure could ever have had.

“A servant of the Most High and a messenger.” The voice was like no voice she had ever heard, with a strange resonance that was somehow inappropriate for this domestic room. The odd thought came to her that if this were a recorded image she would have said that the sound editing had not been done well.

“You are not human, are you?”

Strangely, she felt no fear. Awe, perhaps; reverence, maybe.

“No, although I have dealt much with your race.”

She remembered that the reports from Farholme, although fragmentary—she now suspected why they were fragmentary—had talked about various people seeing an angelic visitor. Delastro had even hinted at meeting with him.

“You're an angel.”

The face was utterly elusive. She wanted to see it but knew it would be unwise to do so.
He hides his face to save us from what we could not bear
.

“
Angel
would be an acceptable term. Those who know of me call me simply the envoy.”

“So are you the one they mentioned appeared at Farholme?”

“Yes, although the reports you have are both incomplete and untrue.”

“I know that, and I intend the worlds will know it tomorrow.” She gestured to the screen.

There was a pause, almost as if the visitor was hesitating about what he had to say.

“Your report is one thing I have come about.”

“I am ready to send it.”

“I have been commanded to ask you not to.”

“You know what is in it?”

“My Master knows and has told me the contents.”

Eliza was suddenly struck by the extraordinariness of the conversation.
I am talking with an angel in my own bedroom.

“But why do you want me not to send it? Isn't it true? I have tried very hard to be accurate.”

“The accuracy is not an issue. On the contrary, your allegations are only a fraction of those that can, and one day will, be made. There is worse.”

“So the death of Captain Huang-Li was
not
an accident.”

“It was a carefully planned and rehearsed murder.”

“I can't really believe it. The prebendant has such an air of . . .”

“
Holiness?
It was always so. Amongst your kind the worst evil is always that which comes from twisted good.”

Eliza heard a strange and almost disapproving tone of puzzlement in the envoy's voice.
He deals with us but he does not really understand us.

“So why am I not to send it?”

“The time is not right.”

“I see.”
I don't.

“I have also come to give you some news that you may not appreciate at the moment. Your race rarely does.”

“Which is?”

“My Master will be summoning you into his presence within the next hour.”