Raising The Stones (61 page)

While carnage and destruction went on among the settlements, Dern Blass’s group on the escarpment finished its lunch, got into the flier, and returned in leisurely fashion toward CM, following the line of the river which would take them past Settlements Seven and Five and then south.

“Smoke,” said Sam, suddenly alert.

“Right,” said Spiggy, who was piloting. “At Seven.”

“At Five,” said Dern, pointing ahead of them, then off to the left. “And Six.”

Spiggy dropped to a lower altitude and took refuge behind a convenient hill.

“Voorstoders?” asked Sam. “It couldn’t be!” Who else would invade Hobbs Land? The prophet had threatened to do just that!

“I don’t know who,” said Africa. “Take us up a little, Spig.”

From the slightly higher altitude they saw the telltale sparkle of a Door, off to their right, in an area heavily cut with canyons. A dozen fliers rose suddenly from the site and sped south.

“Those are
our
fliers,” cried Dern, outraged.

Spiggy held the flier low. “They haven’t seen us,” he said. “Perhaps better they don’t.”

“Who in hell,” muttered Sam.

“Baidee,” said Saturday, suddenly sure of it.

“Baidee!” blurted Harribon.

“Not the girl,” she said. “Not the fat one. The other one. The one who talked to me when we left for Ahabar. The one who wanted to know why there was a temple at CM. The one who wanted to know if CM had a choir.”

“Shan Damzel?” asked Spiggy. Then, suddenly, “Shan Damzel!” Yes. Shan Damzel might, could …

“What are they doing here?” cried Harribon Kruss.

“They came to kill the Gods,” said Saturday. She howled angrily. “He’s afraid of the Gods, so he sent these people to kill them. They think they have.”

“Get us into CM,” Dern directed Spiggy. “Quick as you can.”

“Quick as I can without letting those bastards see us,” amended Spiggy. “Twelve fliers, Dern. And there’s smoke, everywhere. That’s not just Shan Damzel and his sister. That’s a bunch; they’re armed, and we aren’t!”

They hovered just below the ridge, waiting for twelve fliers that did not return, not seeing the one that did, though they saw the cloud of dust when it was de-bonded. Only when there was no further activity did Spiggy speed the flier south and set it down outside the CM offices. Dern ran toward his office, shouting something about communications. Spiggy summoned two engineers from the nearest repair shop and went to examine the Doors. All gone, blown, destroyed. On his way back from the tumbled wreckage, Spiggy discovered Tandle’s body, crumpled like a doll.

He stood up to confront Dern Blass, his eyes blazing, who cried, “Messages from the settlements coming in upstairs, Spig. Get up there and start putting information together. Anybody know where Jamice is? Find her, get her to help you. Ah, God, poor Tandle. Shit, Spiggy. Get Sam and Africa Wilm to help you, too. Find out what’s happened.”

What had happened was that all the Gods had been burned. What had happened was approximately three hundred Hobbs Landians dead, a twelfth of their total strength, another two or three hundred wounded, some seriously. Among the wounded were Friday and little Wednesday, two of Africa’s children. Among the dead were Willum R. Quillow, almost-twelve-year-old Thash Tillan, and the even younger Miffle twins, who had died attempting to defend Birribat Shum. Wounded and dead were brought to CM, where a hospital was set up, and a temporary morgue, in the largest gymnasium. Hastily mobilized clerks were set to securing identification and filling out forms. Medically trained people from the settlements poured into CM to care for the wounded.

“As soon as people have been identified for sure,” Dern directed, “take the bodies up on the escarpment and bury them. Call the settlements and ask for volunteers.”

“Let’s not forget there’s a Door out there in the canyons,” said Sam. “We saw it!”

“We weren’t supposed to see it,” said Africa, wiping her face. Her children would survive. Other children hadn’t. She could not stop crying over them, but duty would not wait while she grieved. “I’ll take a crew and find the damned Door.” She didn’t wait for approval. A moment later they could hear her voice raised, demanding volunteers.

“What’s the Door out there for?” asked China, who had spent the last hours carrying bodies, alive and dead.

“So they can come back,” said Sam with absolute certainty. “We weren’t supposed to know it was there. They set it up so we can’t get out, but they can come back.”

“Well,” said China, “I imagine Africa will see about that.”

“Who do we tell?” asked Spiggy of Dern. “How do we tell? We used the Doors for all communication.”

“We have a radio data link from our Archives to Tran-system headquarters on Phansure,” said Dern. “Nobody uses it for anything. It’s too slow. Takes too much redundancy to get anything through accurately. I’ve never used it, but old Mysore Hobbs the first insisted on it. He said the Doors might break down. He always had this thing about Doors. He didn’t trust them. I thought we’d never need it, not in a million years.” His own face was as wet as Africa’s, as China’s. “The instruction manual’s on my desk,” he mumbled, mopping at himself. “Oh, God, I already miss Tandle. She’d have had it all set up.”

“Let me do it,” said China, beckoning to Harribon Kruss. “Harribon and I are good at that kind of thing.” They went uplevel to dig out the manual and set up the emergency linkage.

Since the death of Bondru Dharm, Jep had not felt so grieved. None of them had. They worked, and cried, and worked. Whenever they thought the worst was over, they heard that someone else they knew had died. They cursed, and worked. Missiles had gone all the way through rows of sponge panel buildings, breaking water lines, setting fires. Essential machinery had to be checked for damage. Children had to be comforted. Wounded had to be cared for. Burial parties had to be manned. Pain and weeping. Blood and sorrow. And eventually night came, and people fell onto whatever flat surface was available and slept.

A day later there was more of the same, but it came in more orderly chunks. Everyone knew who had died and pretty much who was dying. Everyone knew who lived and would probably go on living. People, including Mysore Hobbs on Phansure, knew who had done it. There was no question whatsoever. One of the Baidee troopers had been found in Settlement One, still unconscious from a blow on the head administered with a large rock by Gotoit Quillow while the trooper was attacking Willum R. The trooper was now chained to a wall in the basement of CM, his uniform, weapons, and equipment set aside as exhibit A, his head shaved in order, they all agreed, that his head wound could be treated. Actually, when Sam had seen the length of the hair which had been hidden under the turban, he had had a violent reaction and had assaulted the unconscious man with his belt knife, sawing everything off but uneven stubble.

“It’s the same damned kind of thing,” he kept muttering, remembering the men of Voorstod. “It’s the same damned kind of thing.”

“I don’t feel any different,” murmured Zilia. “They burned all the Gods, but I don’t feel any different.”

Jep patted her on the arm. “Never mind, Zilia. All they did was cut off the Gods’ tongues. They’ll grow new tongues. We’ll bury a few of our companions at the temples, and the Gods will grow new tongues. The Gods are still there.” He gestured outward, circling his hands, lifting them to describe circle after rising circle, until his pointing lingers reached the level of the distant escarpment. “I imagine it’s reached all the way to the top by now.”

Zilia tried to read his face. “What was in the temples wasn’t the God?”

Jep shook his head. “What’s in temples was never the God. What’s in the temples were just mouths, to talk to us. Birribat Shum isn’t dead. Horgy Endure isn’t dead. The damned Baidee have killed some of us, but they had no idea where to find the Gods.”

He spoke with complete authority. He would not have needed to speak at all. Once they thought of it, each of them realized that nothing had truly been destroyed. Even those who had died were part of what grew on Hobbs Land. A way. A convenience. A kindness.

They went on doing what had to be done, comforting one another as best they could. None of them recalled what Sam had told them upon the escarpment. In their grief and immediate pain, none of them remembered that the prophets had taken a Door with them to Ninfadel.

•
Twelve of the
troopers of The Arm of the Prophetess were dead, though their bodies had been carried back to Thyker. One trooper had been inadvertently left behind on Hobbs Land, and Churry hoped he too was dead so he couldn’t talk. Churry was angrier than he could ever remember being. Though he didn’t quite realize it yet, he was angry at himself. He had always delighted in the fact that he had never found it necessary to raise his voice. He had always told himself his zealotry was a different kind than that of other folk. He did not rant. He thought of himself as quiet and quite deadly. He told himself he would not hesitate to use force, when necessary, but would never stoop to it when it was not. His self-assessment had never been tested, but he had believed it implicitly, believed it as an article of faith, as he believed in the Overmind.

Now he writhed in a fury of self-hatred. He had never anticipated a time when he would accuse himself of having been a fool. Who would have thought it necessary to train soldiers not to kill? There was nothing about that in the manuals. Who would have thought it necessary to carry weapons which didn’t kill? There were no such things in the armory.

As for Mordy Trust, she was shocked into virtual immobility. She sat with her face blank, not speaking, while the others gathered around her, murmuring incoherently.

“So far as we are concerned,” Churry snarled at his remaining one hundred seven men and women, coming very close to raising his voice, “the twelve men who died today died right here on Thyker during an unfortunate training exercise. They went out and didn’t come back.”

The troops, who had never given any thought to killing unarmed children and elderly women, and who certainly hadn’t given much thought to dying themselves, were now finding themselves unable to think of anything else.

“How about Nonginansaree?” whined Nonginansaree’s brother. “He didn’t get back.”

“Let things cool down, we’ll go back and find him,” said Churry. “But let things cool down. You get out of those kits. Put them in a pile out behind the barracks.” He ticked off the three worst foul-ups he had personally observed and told them, “You three dig a pit. Put the bodies and the combat kits in the pit, cover it up, pack it down, smooth it out, and park a truck on top of it. The rest of you, get your ordinary clothing on, and get back to daily life. When you hear about the training fatalities, be properly surprised.”

“Shouldn’t we …” said someone tentatively. “Shouldn’t we … reparations. Those kids …”

“What kids?” demanded Churry. “I know nothing about any kids.”

This came frighteningly close to fooling with their heads. They all knew there had been kids, and women, and men, mostly unarmed, hundreds of them. Baidee did not lie, not usually. Certainly they did not assert conditions contrary to those which could be observed. They had observed people, not monsters, being killed.

Churry saw the doubt on their faces. “We don’t
officially
know about any kids,” said Churry, more gently. “What happened was unfortunate, but none of us planned it. All we can do now is remember why we went there in the first place, which is still important to us, and give things a few days to settle down.”

Still murmuring incoherently, the others obeyed him, though they did so with backward glances and a few peculiar looks, which Churry did not relish. When all had gone, Mordy remarked in a dead calm voice, “All we can do now, Churry, is see that all future training includes learning when not to shoot.”

Churry, who had over and over again visualized the raid into Hobbs Land as a militant but orderly progress of his people, while the farmers ran shrieking in the opposite direction, was by now fairly sure all two or three hundred of the Hobbs Land corpses would eventually be laid on his shoulders. He had been responsible for training the Arm. He had been responsible for commanding the exercise. Now he nodded somberly at Mordy’s comment, thinking that now was a less than perfect time for her to have given him such excellent counsel, thinking that though she might not realize it, there would be no future training at all for either of them to be involved in.

•     •     •

•
Shallow under the
soil, behind the barracks of The Arm of the Prophetess, in the desert outside Chowdari, lay the bodies of twelve troopers and the combat uniforms of one hundred nineteen, including those covered with the fine black dust Birribat Shum had shed when he broke into pieces outside his temple in Settlement One. If there had been water, conditions would have been quite perfect for the growth of the God. Thyker, however, was a hot desert world. On this particular spot, rain had last fallen fifteen years before and might not fall for fifteen or twenty more. Under the soil the bodies desiccated slowly, mummifying in the heat. Abroad in the land spread rumors of a desert training exercise from which twelve men had not returned. Fliers searched for the missing men, but did not find them.

In Chowdari, Churry contacted Shan Damzel to tell him that finding the answer to his question would have to wait, possibly for a very long while.

“But it’s growing,” cried Shan. “In Ahabar. I’m sure.”

“Use a sleep inducer and forget it,” snapped Churry. He was out of sympathy with Shan Damzel. “Let me tell you, Baidee. Now that I’ve had the experience, it seems to me the people on Hobbs Land behaved almost exactly as I would have if some uniformed troop came plunging through a Door at me. If those people have been swallowed by anything, I can’t see that it has hurt them in the least.”

Shan gulped and tried to protest, but Churry shushed him with a few brusque words and without offering explanation. Churry was too furious with both Shan and himself to offer explanations or excuses or even information. As a result, Shan had no idea what had happened on Hobbs Land.