Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree) (2 page)

The item they were loading slipped from their grasp momentarily and I saw it was a body. What the hell – a drunk? And suddenly I realized who it was.

"It's the Prof!" I shouted, yanking my vac gun from my coldcoat pocket. Then a barrage of vac burst all around us and I went down hard, right onto my back. It felt like I had been hit by a speeding aircar but it must have been a glancing blow. My entire left side was numb but I was still conscious. Honeyhair returned fire with her own vac gun, down on one knee right next to me. I forced myself up and staggered off right into their line of fire. Instant counterattack into the ambush, standard Legion drill. Of course it's more effective if you're in armor. I was firing vac non stop, shakily aiming at the shadowy figures standing over the Prof, who had fallen to the ground. As I neared them, my vac bolts and my uncertain charge seemed to be having the desired effect. One of the figures dropped to the ground as if hit and the others leaped into the van, still firing back at me, then the car took off abruptly, shooting into the dark with no lights. Honeyhair was by my side, grasping at my arm as I slumped to the ground.

"How is the Prof?" I asked, fighting to retain consciousness.

"Are you all right? Are you hit?" Honeyhair asked.

"I'm fine. The Prof –"

"He's breathing. He's all right!"

"Call tacnet! Declare an emergency. Give them the description of that airvan. Tell them to – is that attacker conscious?" I struggled to my feet, aching all over. He was a male clad in a black coldcoat, sprawled on the ground, arms askew. I zipped the coldcoat open and discovered an A-vest. He was all set for a fight. But now he was out, stunned by the vac. He looked like a young Outworlder, but it was hard to tell in the dark. "Ask for a medevac," I added. The man was alive. Terrific, we'd be able to interrogate him and find out what this was all about. It was certainly not simple crime. We didn't have crime in ConFree and one of the reasons was that every ConFree national was armed – or everyone who wanted to be armed. I always carried a vac gun, and so did Honeyhair. It was simple and effective and non-fatal. In ConFree we were unlikely to need anything more lethal than vac.

Δ

By the time the medevac van arrived the Prof was conscious and standing.

"They vacced me," he said. "It happened so quickly I had no time to react." He was bleeding lightly from his forehead where he had hit the pavement. Honeyhair was staunching the wound with a tissue while three emergency medics were working on the attacker, still sprawled out on the ground. It was raining lightly, the flashing red lights of the medevac van pulsing silently, casting us all in blood.

"He's gone," one of the medics announced. They had tried to revive him with cyro, then with a biotic charger. It didn't work. He was dead.

"You say he was alive and breathing before we got here," one of the medics asked me.

"Sure was. He was unconscious but breathing. I had shot him with vac. That shouldn’t have killed him."

"No, it shouldn't have. He was young and healthy. This is a bit of a puzzle."

"I want a full autopsy done on this man," the Prof said. "And a brainscan. Please do the brainscan as soon as possible, before the memory patterns fade away. This is extremely important. I'll send you some techs to help with the scan."

"And you are…"

"The Professor is a Brigadier General in the ConFree Legion," I said. "He represents Galactic Information. Please do as he says."

"Yes sir. Let me take a look at that wound." The other two medics were loading the body into the van.

"Something wrong here, Karl," one of them said. The medic who had been looking at the Prof's wound turned to the van.

"He's dead," he said. "What else can be wrong?" The body was in the van but the medics seemed quite concerned about something.

"He's on fire! Deadman, he's burning up!"

"What are you talking about?" Karl joined the other two medics inside the van as the Prof, Honeyhair and I watched from the open doorway.

"His head is red hot. Look! Good lord!" A puff of smoke curled around the medics.

"This man is burning internally. Spontaneous human combustion! He's burning internally! Ow! Watch out!" Flames were spitting out from his body.

"His brain is on fire! It's his brain!"

"There's no such thing as spontaneous human combustion," the Prof said calmly. "Internal combustion, yes, but not spontaneous. There has to be an ignition source to initiate it."

The body was burning brightly now, the skin slowly charring as the flames burnt outwards. His eyes were sizzling, his hair burst into flames. A terrible stink hit us.

"What do we do?"

"Water! H
₂
O! What else!"

"Get him out of the van or the van will catch fire!"

They dragged out the burning corpse and laid it on the ground. It was awful watching it burn as the rain hit it hard, veiling it in steam. It did appear that the man's brain was burning – and may even have been the starting point of the fire. The head was being utterly consumed and the rain wasn't helping much. I had seen a lot of death and blood and gore, but I had to turn my gaze away from this one.

"He dies," the Prof said, "with no explanation. And then his brain catches fire internally, and brain and body are destroyed. And all because their kidnap attempt failed. Am I really that important?"

"You are, Prof," I said. I was aching all over. Honeyhair had me by one hand, watching me closely.

"But who would do this? And who has the capability to do this?" the Prof asked.

"I don't know, Professor. But I'll bet we're going to find out."

"We can't do that post-mortem brainscan – if his brain is burnt up."

"That occurred to me too," I said. "Whoever these people are, they're a damned serious bunch."

"Well, so are we," the Prof replied. "So are we."

Home – at last! I was thrilled to see it, even though I had never been there before. Home was Delta Research, but this time it was on Quaba instead of Pandaravos. It had been a long journey getting there, for squad Delta. The route was via another universe, where we had to fight for survival, and then back into U1 to Veda 6, where we participated in the recent extermination campaign against the D's. Yes, that's right – another universe. Six of us – including me – were still recovering from very serious war wounds. Two of my squadies had actually died, but recovered. I know that sounds strange too, but it’s one of the reasons Delta Research is in business. Four of us managed to survive without any major wounds and that is only slightly less miraculous than coming back from the dead, considering what we’d been through.

Delta Research's impressive new headquarters building was a beautiful new four-story structure built of glittering green stone, with lots of autotint picture windows to let in the light and give us the view. It was located in the outer suburbs of Quaba City, the capital of the Confederation of Free Worlds. And we – Delta Research – were damned happy to see it. We're Legion soldiers – all of us – and we've been through it all. We're pretty tight knit. You threaten any one of us and we'll kill you real quick, no questions asked. A sixty percent casualty rate tends to do that to survivors.

"Prophet?" someone asked. I was sitting behind the desk in my office. The visitor was a young Outworlder male in formal greys – the ConFree government uniform. He was clean shaven with light brown hair combed off to one side, brown eyes, a friendly demeanor.

"That's me," I said. I sure didn't feel like me, sitting behind that gleaming desk in that large, plush office. I felt like an imposter. Actually I was nobody. I was just a young Outworlder kid who had gotten into the Legion by accident. And found myself in a squad of heroes. And that's where I found I belonged: in the mud, with the troops. But here I was – here were we all, all of Delta squad.

"I'm Jan Korchak," he said, smiling and extending his hand. I touched it with my fist – the Legion greeting. "We had an appointment," he continued, "about Frederick Willford?"

"Fred," I replied. "Yes, of course. Welcome to Delta Research."

"Thanks. It’s nice to be here. Prophet. I've heard of you. You're one of the guiding lights here, aren't you? What exactly does Delta Research do, anyway? Nobody would tell me."

"It's cosmic secret. We don't talk about it. But I can assure you we're earning your tax dollars."

"Well, that's fine, Prophet. Now, about Frederick."

"Let me show you around. I want you to see what it is he does." I got up and he accompanied me as we strolled through the fourth floor. "Fred is the janitor here. He's the senior janitor. This building was only recently constructed and Delta has only been here a few weeks – but we've all gotten to know Fred very well. As you can see there's a lot for a janitor to do here. We have office cubes for our core staff of ten, and plenty more for miscellaneous support staff. There are two conference rooms on every floor – and there are four floors above ground." I opened one of the conference rooms for him to see.

"We've got supply rooms, snack rooms, lounges, lecture rooms, a medunit, examination rooms with a lot of very complex equipment, an advanced research library with links to whatever you want, a theater, a cafeteria, an executive dining room, a slew of residential apartments and TDY quarters, lots of supply rooms, power rooms, an aircar garage, guards quarters' with an armory, a firing range, and a very nice internal open-air recreation park – as you can see." I stood by one window to give him a good view of the tree-lined park in the heart of our compound.

"That's nice," he said.

"We've also got a swimming pool and some ball courts. Plus an underground complex, quite extensive, which I can't show you for opsec reasons. But it, too, takes a lot of routine work to keep it up and running. And Fred handles that, too. He has some help – but he's in charge."

"He sounds like a renaissance man."

"He's a jack of all trades. We like him. We all like him. He's cheerful and pleasant, never complains, shows up early and leaves late. He's a perfectionist and won’t stop until the job is done."

"I'm glad he's found his niche in life."

"Now. You've seen his school record."

"Yes. Not so impressive."

"And you know his IQ."

"Yes."

"So the request does not surprise you?"

"No. Anyone can apply. We try not to be judgmental about individuals. Even those with low IQs. Things have changed since the old days. Society continues to evolve. There are only two requirements, now. First, does he make a contribution? Second, can he pass the exam?"

By then we were standing in the main lobby, on a floor of glassy green granite, surrounded by decorative columns cleverly carved to look like palm trees.

"There's no doubt that he makes a contribution," I said. "An important contribution. This is a very important installation and he keeps it functioning smoothly, allowing the rest of us to do our own tasks without distractions. He's honest, he works hard, he has respect for others and for himself. He knows his limitations but he's not bitter about it. He's proud of what he does. It's honest labor. That's what ConFree is all about, isn’t it?"

"Absolutely. But I wonder – can't the lifies do anything to improve his mental condition?"

"I was told they have examined him, and they are continuing to research possibilities. Whatever that means," I said.

"All right. Well, if you and your colleagues believe he is making an important contribution, we'll assume that requirement is fulfilled. One more question. Was the application strictly his idea, or was he encouraged to do this?"

"It was entirely his idea. He came to me saying he wanted to do it. I was surprised, but after a bit of basic research I realized there was no reason he could not submit the application. I advised him of that, and he did it."

"So there's only the exam. It's not that hard, really. He either knows the material or he doesn't. But it's an absolute prerequisite. If he doesn't know the answers we can't pass him."

"Oh, he knows it all right. He knows it cold. I've been going over the material with him. He's got it."

"Then there should be no problem."

"There is a problem."

"Oh? What's that?"

"Let's sit over here," I said. I chose a table near the snack bar and pulled up a chair. He joined me.

"Fred is not good in testing environments," I said. "You've seen his school grades. If he gets nervous it doesn’t matter if he knows the material or not, he's going to blow the test. He'll just freeze up and shut down. I've seen him do that. He blew the janitorial supervisor exam, even though he knew the material."

"I don't know what I can do about that," Korchak said. "All I can do is give him the test."

"Actually there is something you can do. If he thinks you are a friend of mine, who is going to go over the material with him to better prepare him for the test, then he's going to be very positive and anxious to succeed and show you how much he's learned. However, if he knows you are the man who is giving him the exam, he’ll crash and burn. Guaranteed. But it's a simple oral exam, right? Ask him the questions in that spirit and see what he knows – like a friend would do. If he answers satisfactorily he passes, right? Can you do that?"

Korchak looked at me thoughtfully, then responded. "Sure. I can do that. If he knows the answers, he passes. Sure. It's a little unusual but we can do that."

"Great! Come with me. I'll take you to the cube where Fred and I usually study the material."

Δ

"Fred! Good to see you. Come on in," I said. Fred was a stocky Outworlder with a clear, clean-shaven face, hazel eyes, short blond hair and a green janitor's outfit. He was carrying his study guide, a little handbook.

"Fred, this is my buddy, Jan. Jan took the exam several years ago and knows all about it. He can help you with the preparations."

"Pleased to meet you, Fred," Jan said, shaking hands.

"Nice to meet you too," Fred said.

"Fred, you know I'm convinced that you're ready for the test but I want Jan to also talk it over with you," I said. "If he agrees that you're ready, we'll go ahead and schedule the test, and I know you'll do well. So please talk it over with Jan and show him what you know. Is that all right? Do you know the stuff now? Are you confident?"