A man almost as tall as I, belly flopping, dashed toward Reverend Castell and swung a fist.
The reverend collapsed, clutching his throat.
Stepping over and in, I raised my hands, but the man kicked the fallen man. The kick struck with such force that I felt the impact through the air.
Glancing down, I noticed that the attacker wore miner's boots, which are heavy and often steel-toed. Reverend Castell moaned.
Around us, the crowd laughed and waited.
Kneeling, I helped Reverend Castell to his feet. He stood bent over, clutching his kicked ribs.
That's when the attacker leaned in to deliver a head-butt to Castell's face, which spurted blood and snapped nasal cartilage.
Red tinted my vision, but from within.
Reaching out, I grasped the man's throat and squeezed, trying to crush his larynx even as I twisted my left arm around to snag his rig it ear.
Part of the ear tore off.
As he croaked and coughed I let him bend over, then slammed the heel of my right hand up into his lower jaw.
Teeth shattered. White shards flecked with red spewed from him as he toppled.
Another man came at me, and I whirled away from him, timing it so my elbow would take him in the throat. I missed, but connected with his temple as he tried to duck under.
He fell as if poleaxed.
I panted now as hard as any human can, sucking in air by the hectare as I sought to control my rage. I kept seeing glimpses of the Rockies, and fragments of my fights at the orphanage. Harmony eluded me. My vision remained tainted by my own unspilled blood.
The crowd of bullies backed away from us now. Some laughed nervously, while others kept up their verbal abuse even as they retreated to their bars and brothels. A few Beads, dressed in rags, kicked and thumped, but their efforts were drowned out by sheer numbers.
When a hand came down upon my left shoulder from behind, I turned to meet that attack as well. My fist flashed upwards.
It stopped millimeters from Reverend Castell's face.
He glared at me as I dropped my arm, but the stare held no terrors for me just then. "How dare you?" he said, voice cracked and whispery from the punch he'd taken. A bruise darkened his throat where his robe hung torn.
"They hurt you," I said.
His face contorted. "You'd so easily discard our precepts. For what? My corporeal safety? It means nothing if my spirit's in discord."
Hanging my head, I begged forgiveness.
Reverend Castell's voice dropped an octave, from baritone to basso profound. "You are no longer attuned to Universal Harmony. Your warlike talk belies cacophonous thinking."
"I strayed," I said, crying. "I lost the melody and wandered, but I'm-"
"Silence. Our hands carry peace, which is ours to offer. Your hands dropped that fragile vessel. You shattered peace, and for what? So your hands could be raised to harm another? Your song has ended."
Nausea swept me to my knees, and after gagging I said, through tears, "Please Reverend." My forehead came down to rest atop his feet, which were bare and cold. Mud smeared my face.
His feet pulled back, and I glanced up. He cried, "This lone voice knows our song, and asks to rejoin our chorus of Harmony. His shouts, although disruptive of our melodies, flew from a good heart and noble intentions. His sour notes are absolved." And, after tossing back his head and laughing loudly, he clapped thrice, then reached down to help me to my feet.
Even as I stood and looked into his eyes I wondered if Reverend Castell had planned such theater all along, but the unworthy thought mattered little as I realized what we had accomplished.
From then on, goading violence from a pacifist would be like poking an overinflated balloon. And the crowd had seen me forgiven, absolved. That meant even lapses of pacifism might be condoned. We'd become unpredictable. Along with the buffer provided by the Beadles, such a reputation went far toward ensuring that we Harmonies would at least have a chance.
I followed Reverend Castell to Havenhold Lake, where we greeted uninvited guests who had come bearing gifts.
Maxwell Cole waited patiently while Marshall Wainright, Assistant to the Director of the CoDominium Bureau of Intelligence, studied his viewscreen. The holo-wall mural displayed a forest scene out of the Pacific Northwest instead of the stark lunar landscape outside. As Cole watched a squirrel run up a large conifer, he mused that he and the squirrel had a lot in common; they were both trying to set something aside for the coming winter.
Cole was a short timer, only three more years and he could put in for retirement. After twenty-seven years in the intelligence service, ten of them with the Navy, he was used up, tired of sticking his fingers in numerous holes in the CDs ever-leaking dyke. Let the younger operatives save the peace; his time was just about up.
Or was it? he wondered, as Assistant Secretary Wainright discreetly coughed.
"Agent Cole, we have a situation developing on an outer world called Haven-a misnomer if there ever was one. It's a newly colonized world by some sect that calls itself the Universal Church of New Harmony. You've read the files."
Cole nodded. The anxiety that had begun to gnaw at his lower stomach, ever since he'd been sent that file, began to grow. Haven, an almost lifeless iceball of a moon, was all the way at the outer edge of the envelope of CD explored space-four Alderson Jumps away from the nearest habitable world. Haven was certainly, this close to retirement, no place he ever wanted to visit.
The Harmonies, one of the Neo-Millenniumite Sects, had bought the settlement license, so officially Haven was not part of the Condominium. In reality, however, all human occupied worlds belonged to the CoDominium; the only question was whether they were or were not valuable enough for an "official" CD presence. Cole had a nagging suspicion that this iceball was about to change ownership.
"The Bureau of Colonial Government was not displeased to see the Harmonies settle Haven as long as it remained the worthless piece of real estate it first appeared. However, the situation has changed now that a large deposit of hafnium ore has been discovered."
Right, thought Cole, and now somebody doesn't want to pay the Harmonies a licensing fee for mineral rights they can get for a much smaller fee from the CD Bureau of Colonial Government.
The Assistant to the Director stroked the length of his long, thin nose. "It appears that we have one of those situations developing that requires a senior agent with great skill and discretion. Since, obviously, our part in the events that are about to occur on Haven must never become public knowledge."
Cole shook his head in agreement, wondering if somehow his superiors had agreed to blame the mess now developing on Comstock on him, the last agent assigned to that hellhole. If he'd learned nothing else in his lengthy career it was that in intelligence often what appeared to be a nod up was in actuality a shove down.
"Serendipitously, for all involved, it appears that the Bureau of Relocation also has a rather strong interest in the Haven question. It appears to be the ideal location for subversive elements within the confines of the terrestrial CD to be permanently isolated without invoking the offices of the Bureau of Correction or the Navy."
Good conundrum: When is a prison planet not a jail? Answer: When its called Haven and is over a year's travel from Earth with little or no possibility of return.
"Your job, Agent Cole, will be to find legal justification for CoDominium intervention."
It sounded so easy rolling off the Assistant to the Director's tongue, Cole thought. What it really meant was he had to organize or foment a revolution; or what could pass for such on a forgotten planet like Haven. Thus providing, for the Grand Senate, an excuse to appoint a Consul General and send a contingent of CD Marines to restore the benefits of Condominium order and civilization.
"You will be provided with a list of contacts and a review of certain 'unstable' elements there by someone who has just returned. Im afraid that budgetary demands make it impossible to give you all the resources you might need; however, you will be given a rather free hand in carrying out this operation. The Kennicott Mining Company has graciously offered their services in the way of funds and operatives when you arrive at Haven. I suggest you take them up on their offer."
Cole nodded. The Assistant to the Director of CD Intelligence turned his attentions back to his viewscreen. Knowing full well that no objection by him would be tolerated, Cole cursed under his breath and left the office.
JANESFORT WAR
LESLIE FISH amp; FRANK GASPERIK
The zodiac raft with the name Black Bitch painted on her side growled away from the off-planet shuttle floating in the lake, laden with crates marked Mining Equipment. If one inspected the invoices attached, as the Bitch's captain had bothered to do, one would find they were destined for one Max Cole, delivery at Castell City, or the port thereof, to be placed in bond until called for. This could have presented a problem, Castell City Port being nothing but a rough pontoon dock, except that Max Cole stood wrapped in off-planet cold weather gear, in the full light of Cat's Eye, waiting for his cargo.