Scanned by Highroller. Proofed by the best elf proofer. Made prettier by use of EBook Design Group Stylesheet. The Stork Factor by Zach Hughes CHAPTER ONE Just four years previously Richard Skeerzy had taken the Funland, Ltd., tour around the moon. The tour ship didn't land on the moon, of course. No one went to the moon any more, just around it. The moon was a dead globe of space debris from which the last iota of scientific value had been extracted during the decades before and after the turn of the twenty-first century. Viewed from the tinted ports of a ship such as the Nebulous, the moon was a cold, empty wasteland. However, Skeerzy considered his trip into space to be the apogee of an otherwise ordinary life. Not that Richard Skeerzy wasn't satisfied with his lot. As he had told LaVerne many times, the glory of being one of His creatures in His magnificent universe was reward enough. If, to the pleasure of mere existence, he added the smug knowledge that he, as a relatively young member of the ruling Christian Party, was a Brother on the way up, then that made life only slightly more satisfying. The tourist ship Nebulous started final deceleration thirty minutes out of the Funland Gate, North America. There was no warning. LaVerne, not prepared for the gentle force of it, emitted a surprised squeak as she drifted slowly from her couch. Richard, laughing with the air of an experienced space traveler, engaged his wife and retrieved her as if she were a helium balloon. He placed her on the couch and helped her strap in, smiling on her with a great and doting pride. She was a particularly lovable child and she had learned a lesson. Richard had been engaged in a lecture on the wonders of His creation and how one should endeavor to see at least a small portion of that creation. It was Richard's way of rationalizing away the extravagance of a honeymoon which impoverished his new marriage. Space travel, that is, the quick trip up to the North American Gate, the transfer to the Nebulous, the single orbit of the moon, was a frightfully expensive way to spend a week. Space travel was so expensive and so relatively unrewarding in material worth that it had almost bankrupted the First Republic before the long-suffering silent majority rose up and, under the leadership of the Brothers, returned the country to the area of sanity. The Nebulous had been built with private funds and the North American Station, the one great achievement of the governmental space effort, was leased to Funland, Ltd., which lost money on the operation, but maintained it for prestige purposes and, perhaps, as a tax dodge. «Now we are returning, slowly but surely, to the good green Earth,» Richard preached. «It is an experience of a lifetime.» For a moment he would not remind LaVerne that he had experienced the great moment once before. In his love and kindness, Richard did not want to make his wife feel inferior. «We must see and learn and never forget that He created this with a sweep of His hand.» «Yes, Richard,» LaVerne said, as a huge globe went swimming slowly across the viewport. LaVerne was numb. Space was big. The ship was small and crowded. The compartments closed in on her. Even the main lounge with the viewports was a tiny, metal and stale-air cubbyhole which gave her claustrophobia.
«If you like, dear,» Richard said, «I'll explain the technique of landing at the Gate.» «Yes, dear,» LaVerne said, killing a guilty urge to tell him she was fed up with his eternal explanations. «The captain of the ship on which I took my first cruise was kind enough to tell me all about it,» Skeerzy said. La Verne sighed. A short while ago he had seemed to be such a wonderful catch. He was handsome. He was of medium height with dark, curly hair which ducked out at the nape of his neck. He had nice features, a solid chin, good nose, brown, serious eyes. He was a member of the Brothers, and thus eligible for advancement. His position as spiritual adviser to the famous Colonel Ed Baxley at University One, The Brothers, provided a more than adequate income, at least in the eyes of a girl from East City who, before her lucky meeting with one of the all-powerful Brothers, could only look forward to twenty working years in an office and retirement to a community building in the depths of the continent. He had wooed her and she had let herself be won without love, true, but she could have loved him easily if only he would have let her. «Do you understand, dear?» he was asking in that preaching voice of his. «I'm beginning to,» LaVerne sighed. The Nebulous glided slowly through the locks into the artificial atmosphere of the Gate. Below, there was a flurry of activity. The ground crew shuffled forward on magnetic shoes to guide the big ship into her berth. Cameramen, in an attempt to pry more dollars loose from the tourists, ground out rolls of instantly processed video-sound to be offered as positive evidence to the folks back home that one had actually been aboard the Nebulous coming into the North American Gate from the moon. The walkways were lined by vendors offering bits of space debris and scale models of the Nebulous. Stern retainers were snapped into place. The ship's forward movement was halted with a slight jerk. Floating sixty feet above the ramp, the
Nebulous was a fantastic sight, all angles, a ship built for space, every inch of available room utilized. Machinery hummed. Lines snaked up, were attached, began to pull the ship slowly down. «Why, there's Ronnie,» Skeerzy said, with mixed interest and disapproval in his voice. «The colonel must be here.» Richard pointed. A small figure floated at the end of a retaining line
directly in front of the viewport. In relation to the surface of the ramp, the boy was hanging upside down. Skeerzy watched with a sort of fond interest as the boy, his six-year-old frame distorted by baggy overalls, fumbled inside his clothing. «Isn't that cute,» La Verne said, as the boy's hand became filled with a realistic toy weapon. «He's playing space pirate or something.» Skeerzy snorted. «If his father sees fit to let him play with martial toys when the world had been a peace for thirty years there's nothing I can do, although God knows I've tried.» Skeerzy was prepared to say much more. He started to say it but the small boy, whose blond locks pointed downward to the surface, stopped him. The boy aimed his toy pistol at the nose plates of the Nebulous and, with a studied scowl right out of an old adventure film, squeezed the trigger. The Nebulous burned slowly. The chemical fire, once started, was inexorable. Skeerzy saw death creeping slowly toward the viewport along the surface of the ship. There was screaming. With a start, Skeerzy realized that the sound was, shamefully, coming from LaVerne. He put a protective arm around her and watched the fire crawl closer. There was a calmness in his mind. He was about to pass on to a better place. There was no need to mourn. If he deemed it fitting that His servant die in a spaceship drifting loosely above the metal surface of the North American Gate, then who was going to question Him? But just before the drive went, taking most of the North American Gate with it, Skeerzy heard more screaming and knew that it was coming from his throat. Fuel stores inside the Gate went in a drastic, secondary explosion. The last foothold in space tore, ripped, twisted, turned, went deeper into space, fell, burned in atmosphere. An SST en route London to Bangkok reported sighting falling debris. A Siberian farm worker watched in awed silence as a forest burned, ignited by a blazing, thunderous object falling from the sky. Propelled by the explosions, scraps of the nuclear pile were thrown out of Earth orbit and started falling into the sun. So vast was the spew of wreckage that one antique rocket, in eternal orbit around the Earth, lonely, forgotten, was knocked into a new path with atmospheric terminus. It burned, but other pieces of space debris wheeled around the
Earth, close in, far, far below the daring flights of the past century, flights which put men on the moon, men around Venus, men on Mars. Now, with the foothold gone, the old rockets wheeled around and around, useless, jettisoned scrap. The moon was, once again, alone, unreachable. And out beyond Pluto, where man had never gone, a melon-sized instrument was activated by the activity just outside the Earth's atmosphere. Powered by an isotope with a half life far beyond any known particle, the instrument had recorded activity on the Third Planet in the past, activity such as the eruption of Krakatoa in what was, to the instrument, recent time,
explosions of natural origin prior to that, the release of primitive nuclear power in the atmosphere only moments ago, all activity which was recorded, but ignored, since it represented no danger. But now there was a new radiation in space with its origin on or near the Third Planet. The instrument turned, made inner current, measured. A tiny computer sent electronic impulses over a simple circuit. And the beacon flashed into light, activated by the single discharge of a chemical fire gun, the weapon which Richard Skeerzy and La Verne, in the last moments of their life, had thought was cute. A signal flashed, faster than light, at a speed which could not even be compared with the slowness of light, a signal transmitted on a new plane cutting across galactic distance to be received by more instruments operating in endless vigil. The response was automatic, instantaneous, and was set in motion without the immediate knowledge of anything living. CHAPTER TWO It was getting harder to get a permit to hold a simple healing service in the park. The amount of red tape and graft was unbelievable. By the time he got through paying off the good Brothers in charge of permits in East City, Old Town, a man didn't have enough left over for a good bottle of Soul Lifter. And the marks were getting more and more difficult to impress. A man cures cancer and heart trouble and the common cold and they want more. They want him to regenerate an amputated leg. Hell, he wasn't Jesus Christ, after all. «I am poor Brother Luke Parker, by your leave,» he said, standing on the base of what must have once been a statue or something equally as
sinful. «I will cure your lameness, heal your sickness, provide balm for your soul in His name. Gather around me, brothers, sisters. Listen to the Word. Have faith and ye shall be free.» Actually, he was only an Apprentice Brother, Third Class, but he didn't see any Brotherfuzz in the park and sometimes the marks responded better when they thought they were being touched by a full Brother. Full Brothers didn't go around laying hands on people, but the marks didn't have to know that. All they had to know was that Luke Parker had a God-given gift of healing. He didn't know how it worked, didn't question it. He just knew he had it and he used it to best advantage. He used it to raise a dollar to pay for his pad and for a bottle of Soul Lifter now and
then. If he actually did make life a little less miserable for some poor mark,
that was fine, too, but making life less miserable didn't put a dollar in his pocket unless he found a way to bleed it out of the marks. «In the beginning was the Word,» he preached, standing on the old, cement base in the tiny park with a few marks stopping and listening and
looking up. He was a striking figure, not tall, but straight at five-ten. He had to hold in his stomach. He wore the common costume, tight slacks, long, baggy cotton over-shirt, slip-on shoes. Put him in a crowd of Lays and he would be indistinguishable from the Techs and Fares and Tireds. It was the voice that made Luke Parker different. The voice and the gift. «If ye believe,» Luke called. «If you do but believe—» And they looked up, wanting to believe. East City with its millions spread to all sides, lights, grayness, mold, age, towering walls. Old Town. Off there was the water, river and sea, and there was the continent, spreading in one vast sprawl of wall, roof and milling millions to the Chesapeake, to the mountains, to the small, heavily populated agribelt which was preserved before Middle City built walls and towering anthills to the great western deserts. God, they wanted to believe, for believing made them men, made them more than digits standing in line before the Medcenters waiting for a ration of Newasper. «You must be born again,» Luke preached, watching the little square
fill. The big, preaching Brothers with electronic aids could fill a stadium. Luke Parker, with only his voice, deep, strong, mellow, could fill an
antique little park with its few square yards of true earth, its three trees, could fill it with Lays and Tireds and Techs, although the Techs tended to be a cynical bunch, usually too smartalecky to listen to the true words of faith, putting their trust in Newasper and shakeshock. And dying of cancer and nuflu and heart and black lungs and being mutilated in crash and fall and machine malfunction. «Let him who has not faith approach the mysteries with an open mind,» Luke preached, looking down on a small group of Techs in white uniform. They grinned back, making derisive sounds, talking, passing a bottle of Soul Lifter. They could, Luke knew, spoil the pitch. He had a promising crowd, heavy in Tireds, the older ones leaning on canes and white-haired and hopeless, looking up at
him without life in their eyes but willing to look, to listen, to drink in the promise of Luke's words. «He said, go forth and heal the sick,» Luke said, trying to ignore the
Tech. «He said, this is your gift, mortal man, go and use it wisely. And, my loving friends, I come to you, in faith, in humility, knowing that my poor gift is not enough, but knowing that my gift, combined with your faith, can work miracles. Are there those among you who suffer, who ache, who know pain? Let them step forward.» «I got the clap,» one of the Techs yelled. «Cure me.» «The wages of sin,» Luke said. «First you must cure your conscience, friend.» Out near one of the sick trees, an old Tired man moved forward, looking around nervously. «Come, friend,» Luke encourage. «It only takes faith.» «Make the old schmuck young again, preacher,» yelled the loudmouthed Tech. Luke looked down angrily. «Can we not coexist in peace, friend?» «Lay your hand on this, preacher,» said the Tech, making an obscene gesture toward a private portion of his anatomy. «Let the man preach,» said a voice. A big, ragged Fare man pushed forward. «Just shut up and let him preach.» «Peace, friends,» Luke begged. «Let us have peace.» «Look who's talking,» said the loudmouthed Tech. «Man never did a lick of work in his life. Sits on his ass drawing Fare money, our money. Look who's talking.» «Heal me, brother,» the old Tired man said, standing near the base of Luke's perch. «Yeah, heal those gray hairs,» said the Tech. Two more men joined the big Fare to glare at the Techs. «I said let the man preach,» said the big Fare. « You gonna shut up and let him preach?» The Tech, equally as big as the Fare, looked at his companions. «I think not,» he said. Unnoticed, a group of Fares, reinforced by one or two elderly Tireds had encircled the Techs. Luke watched the action unfold in silence. Below him, the crowd moved away, left the two groups of men confronting each other. A slim, gleaming knife appeared in the hand of the big Fare. From the rear, another Fare felled a Tech with a piece of crumbling brick. The violence was expressed in thudding, flashing blades, groans, curses. The crowd gave it room, looked on with impassive faces. Limp bodies fell, were trampled. The Techs, outnumbered, retreated. The sounds of combat dwindled into the ever-present roar of traffic from old Third Avenue, one block away. «I believe,» said the old, white-haired Tired standing below Luke. Luke
lifted his face. Above him the night was hidden by the reflected glow of the old lights of Old Town on the eternal blanket of choking smog. Luke closed his eyes, saw, in his mind, beyond the smog, the stars, the heavens. He mouthed a silent, sincere prayer. He leaped down, took the old Tired's hand. «My lungs,» said the old Tired. «My lungs.» His voice was raspy. He coughed. Blood flecked his lips. Luke knew the man should have been in
MedCenter. He felt a hint of despair, but he controlled it. It was not, after all, his fault that the old Tired had the lung failure. It came to most, sooner or later. «Yea, friend,» Luke said. «How old are you?» «I've done my twenty,» the Tired said, not without pride. «I went to work for the City when I was twelve. Got my Watch last year.» Luke added. «Then you're thirty-three.» «Yes, Brother.» «I'll pray,» Luke said. He put his hand on the old Tired's head. He lifted his head and his voice. «Lord, look down on this, your lamb. Here he
stands in the fullness of his years with faith in his heart and the death in his lungs. Here he stands, Lord, asking this, your humble servant, for healing help. I ask you, Lord, giver of gifts, healer of ills, sender of happiness, is it right that his poor servant, this man who has done his duty to his fellow men, this servant who has toiled in the canyons for twenty long years to cough up his life's blood from his poor, charred lungs? I beg you. Lord, Jesus, redeemer, heal this poor servant of God. Help him, Lord.» Luke lowered his head. «Pray, friend,» he said quietly. Around him, the crowd was silent. The fighting men had moved away, chasing the fleeing Techs. The roar of ground traffic was loud. Onto the bared heads of the crowd rained the waste of the vastness of the East City, soot, carbon, particles carrying sickness and death, the efflorescence of their civilization. «Heal,» Luke said, giving the Tired's head a shake. «Heal!» He pressed down hard. The old man's knees buckled, but he fought back to stand upright under the shaking, pressing pressure of Luke's strong hand. «Heal!» Luke roared. «Heal! Heal! HEAL!» Then, with one final shake which rattled the old Tired's eyeballs, he released the quaking head. «Feel
it friend,» Luke shouted joyfully. «Feel the power of God slowly flowing into
your pain. Feel it heal.» But he knew it wasn't working. He cursed silently. He hated the lung cases. There was no helping them. Oh, now and then one of them got carried away and said he felt better and that helped with the other marks, because if a man can be cured of the lung sickness, there is no limit to the power of the healer. So Luke used his most persuasive voice. «You feel better, friend,» he said. «You feel the soothing power of God soaking into your lungs.» «Amen,» said the Tired, a mesmerized glaze to his eyes. «Praise God!» «You are healed!» Luke exhaulted. «Healed! Do you hear?» he shouted to the awed crowd. «God, in his mercy, has healed this dying Tired.» «Amen,» they shouted. And they crowded around him, wanting to touch him. The Tired was pushed aside. A buxom Negro Fare with a short, kicky shirt, pressed soft breasts against Luke's shoulder and screamed at him. He singled her out. «Yes, sister?» he asked. «Do you have faith?» «I got this pain in my side,» the Fare said, putting Luke's hand onto her waist. « 'Bout here.» «Heal!» Luke shouted. He was beginning to feel it now. The power. The gift. He knew he hadn't healed the old Fare with bloody lungs, but he could
heal a pain in the side. «Heal,» he said, shaking the soft female flesh under his hand, knowing a sensuous power as he felt her warmth, heard her excited breathing. «The pain is slowly going away,» he told her, his face close to hers. The crowd was silent, watching in awe. «Oh, God,» she screamed, «it's going away!» «Heal!» Luke shouted joyfully. «Let the devil out and let the Lord in!» «Oh, God,» the Fare screamed. «I can feel the devil leaving!» An old Fare woman with a cancerous nose was pressing her sickening face close to Luke. He pulled away. Another of the ones he couldn't help. But he had to put on a show. «Faith, sister!» he told the cancerous woman. «And slowly, slowly, the Lord will help.» He put his hand on her head, shook her head vigorously. «Let the Lord in!» he shouted. «Don't expect instant miracles, sister, but wait until morning. Then you'll see a change. Let the Lord in. Kick the devil out!» And then it was time to make the pitch. «I am but a poor, wandering Brother,» he told the crowd, after working his miracles. He'd felt it with the Negro Fare and the pain in the side. He'd actually felt the little, wrinkled think deep inside which was causing her pain and he'd ironed out the wrinkles and he'd felt the pain subside. He'd had the gift during
the brief moment, and he'd tried to feel it with the more serious cases, the lungs, the cancers, the slobbering, retarded child which they'd pushed into his arms. He had put his hand on the jerking, spastic head. He'd said the magic words. He'd felt the sheer idiocy radiating from the jumbled brain of the idiot. And he'd said, «This is too much, friends. The devil in this child is too strong!» And now he was making his pitch, holding out his
hands. «All I need is food,» he said. «Just a few dollars for the basic needs of life, for even a man of God must eat.» And they dug into frayed pockets and gave him useless coins. Dimes, quarters, half-dollars, two metal dollars. You'd need a truckload to buy a steak. «Help me, friends,» he pleaded. «Don't let me starve because I serve our God.» There was one dollar bill, more coins. He sighed. Not even enough for a bottle of Soul Lifter. Then two Fares carried a man into the park. He was bleeding. Blood dripped and splattered onto the sidewalk and soaked the sick grass at Luke's feet when they placed him there. It was the big Fare who had first challenged the smartaleck Techs. He was holding his stomach. His eyes were glazed. «Got a blade in the gut,» one of the bearers said. «Can you do anything for him, you'd better do it fast. Brother. He was helping you, making those bastards keep quiet so's you could preach.» «He will have his reward in heaven.» Luke said, recognizing the glaze of death in the Fare's eyes. «That don't cut it, man,» the bearer said. «He needs help here. He's got a wife and a new baby and with him gone the Fare checks drop fifty percent.» «I'll do my best,» Luke said, kneeling. He took the dying man's hands. When he lifted them, obscene things tumbled out of the vast slit in cloth and flesh, pulpy, purple things with pulsing veins and an overwhelming carnal smell. «Oh, God,» Luke said. «Brother,» the dying man whispered. «Brother.» «Oh, God,» Luke prayed, hopelessly, his face upturned to the glare of reflected light on the blanket of smog. «Oh, God, help this poor brother. Make him whole. Mend his wounds. Heal him.» But his voice was soft, hopeless. It trailed off. He felt the man spasm under his hands. He looked mindlessly at the lighted white curtain over the city. And a mindless anger filled him. The man was dying. Pain was making his face white. His breath was coming in hard, choking gasps. And for what? Mindless, blithering bastards of Techs going around making asses of themselves because they thought they were better than anyone, proud of their mindless little jobs where they sat or stood beside belts and tightened screws on endless moving pieces of new cars or refrigerators. Mindless everyone to let the world be so fouled up that a fight to the death in Old Town didn't even bring the Brotherfuzz. Mindless, bleeding man with his guts hanging out expecting him to do something, expecting the impossible. As if he could undo the vast, bleeding slit in the gut. As if he could put the intestines back in place. He was a healer, but he wasn't Jesus Christ. He could, sometimes, feel the cause of pain and, sometimes, when all things were right, he could remedy the cause. Sometimes it was as if he actually did have the divine power and could look into the vitals of a suffering fellow human and know, instinctively, what to do and be able to send something, a thought, a force, into the heart of the area and heal and now they all stood and looked and expected him to work a miracle and he was no miracle man, just a healer who could do it sometimes and the man. was dying, gasping. «Bro—» His voice weak. Begging for help. Luke felt tears trickle warmly down his cheeks. They cleaned white paths through the accumulation of soot on his skin. «Oh, God,» he said, his
voice choked. «Help him.» And, to himself, bitterly, praying sincerely, give me the power! Give it to me! Goddamn you, if you're up there, you mindless, spastic sonofabitch, don't let this poor bastard die! Do you hear, you bloody, cruel, heartless prick? And, lo, the heavens were alight! A blaze of glory. Gutting through the eternal smog, lighting the sky. A vast, blooming, flowering explosion of awesome dimension, covering the sky, making the lights of Old Town dim. And it was God, speaking to him, warning him of his blasphemy. But he didn't care. If the goddamned yokel could light up the whole sky in indignation because some sod of a faith healer cursed him, then he could make that gut go back in and close that slit and— «Do it, you bastard,» Luke was screaming, floods of adrenal fluid glowing, bursting in him. «Help him, you prick. Give me the power. Don't just light up the friggin' sky. Save some of it for this poor bastard who needs you.» And the glandular action, the result of awed fear, anger, all the tumult of emotions, made Luke's hands tremble. «Heal!» he screamed. And he felt it. He looked down and he knew the workings, the pipings, the convolutions of the ruptured guts. He knew their place and he was pushing, shoving while the man jerked in terminal agony and the crowd, screaming, running, terrified by the vast blaze of light, ignored the maddened faith healer and the dead man and Luke was punching guts back into the slit, cursing, crying saying, «Heal, heal,» and then things were there. He felt it in his mind. «Heal,» he moaned, expecting the Lord to strike him down, knowing that his blasphemy had evoked the blaze of light, knowing bitterness that He would go to such lengths to punish one errant servant and not move a pinkie to heal a dying man who had fought so that Luke could preach. «Heal,» he screamed, and his eyes widened as
he felt the pull of cellular action, saw the slit gradually close, saw the flow of blood cease, and then, racing heart in his throat, putting his hand down to wipe away the blood and gore from the taut stomach to feel undamaged skin there and the gradual rise and fall of the diaphragm in normal breathing. «My, God,» Luke said. He looked up. The sky was a soft glow, a blanket of smog lit by the lights from below. «Whatchu doing?» the dead man asked, sitting up. «Why you got my shirt off?» Then, «Hey!» His hand in the blood. «I was cut!» «Yes,» Luke whispered, feeling weak, feeling very, very small. «I was cut from here to here,» the man said, feeling the undamaged surface of his stomach. «How—» «I don't know,» Luke said. «I don't know at all, brother.» CHAPTER THREE Colonel Ed Baxley cursed himself as a sentimental fool. He paced the deep carpet of the observation room atop his quarters, a huge, Neo-Victorian house on the south end of the campus. Through the vast span of glass he could see the parade grounds. Trim ranks of crew-cut young Brothers in gleaming white uniforms stood there, waiting. He would have to go out. After all, the review was in honor of his son. His son! The worst of it was that there wasn't even a body to mourn, not a particle of the bright-eyed boy who had been his life. Not even a body. Somewhere out in near space Ronnie might be floating. Baxley passed a hand over his eyes to wipe away a sudden vision of his son's mutilated body wheeling, wheeling, wheeling toward the cold, distant stars. Colonel Ed Baxley could not afford to become a public weeper. Therefore, since his eyes would not stay dry, he could not go to stand before his cadets. He could not stand before that group of the Second Republic's finest and let the tears run down his cheeks, not Ed Baxley. Baxley was too much man to cry in public. Baxley, who had saved the Republic, could not face his superbly disciplined student body, his hand-picked group of outstanding minds, and weep. The man who was still called The Colonel a full thirty years after the two-day revolution which threw the Socialistic bastards out would not, could not weep. Baxley waded the deep carpet. He thought about his son with wet eyes. And he thought about Skeerzy. If Skeerzy were only here, he told himself, he could handle things. Skeerzy had a natural line of patter. He always knew the problem instinctively and could think of the right things to say. Yes, he mourned Skeerzy, too. And that cute little bride of his. Old Skeerzy, full of commonsense and solid, old-fashioned morals. Skeerzy, who gave the practical young scientists of University One, The Brothers, a God-sent gift of religious logic, who taught the Golden Rule. Skeerzy, who was almost a second father to Ronnie. Skeerzy was dead. There was a low, musical gong. Baxley turned to the videophone. He pushed a button. «Baxley here,» he said, as his image was transmitted back to the image-making machine which showed him a nurse in a smart, off-white uniform. He noted the black armband on the nurse's uniform and, once again, reminded, he felt the sting of tears. He was a big man,
thick in the shoulders, narrowing only slightly at the waist, but without an ounce of surplus. His kinky hair was cut tightly to his scalp. His eyebrows were full, his nose strong, his teeth perfect. He looked the part. And he looked not much older than he had looked on the day, thirty years ago, when he'd led his small contingent of Brothers into Washington, armed with a half dozen hurriedly handmade fire guns. The nurse smiled pleasantly. «Your wife is in the delivery room, sir. The doctor says that it will be only a matter of minutes now.» He had almost forgotten. His life, which had ended at the North American Gate, could begin again in the delivery room of the University Hospital. He thanked the nurse. He pushed a code into the phone.
«Express my appreciation to the cadets,» he told his executive office. «Tell them I regret not being able to address them personally. Tell them,» and
he smiled for the first time since the news from space, «that my wife is, at this moment, giving birth to a son.» But the matter of minutes became hours. Baxley paced in traditional fashion. His joy faded in the face of delay. He felt a sharp edge of pain, thinking of Ronnie. It seemed as if it were only yesterday when he was pacing the halls of another hospital awaiting the birth of his first son. Ronald Edward Baxley, Jr. A fine name. He had shouted his news to the entire Republic by way of a nationwide network. The people had not forgotten the man who gave them peace, who delivered them from the red-tape corruption of the decadent First Republic. They remembered The Colonel. He had, with one technological breakthrough, presented them with security. No longer were they threatened by nuclear war. The ultimate weapon, the fire gun, had never been duplicated. Because the Second Republic was run securely by the Brothers, there had been no danger of anyone leaking the secret of the ultimate weapon to the Godless Commies. Yes, the world, especially the Republic, owed much to Colonel Ed Baxley. So when the best of modern medicine and admirable genetics allowed Baxley to start a family at an age when most men were dying, the world rejoiced. And it seemed fitting, somehow, that the colonel should look so unchanged. Seeing him on the screens, the Republic shared his youth. Little did it matter to the Tireds with their putrid lungs, to the Fares with their life expectancy of less than forty years, that Baxley upon
the birth of his first child, had already loved and lived longer than any of them could hope to do. Baxley had saved the world. Thus it was fitting for him to receive the care, the medicines, the treatments which would keep him alive to the incredible age of seventy or even eighty. Since it was impossible to give such miracles to the teeming masses, it was only fitting that Baxley, the hero, be allowed the best of medical care. Now, the Brothers—that was different. Brother President, yes. Public servants such as Senators, who took decades to learn the complexities of government, yes, they deserved the treatments. But the regular run of Brothers? That caused some minor discontent in the country at large and was always an issue when, once every eight years, the Lays had an opportunity to pick Brother President from a Brother-selected list of great men. Candidates were always promising better medicine for the masses, but all the masses got was Newasper, a combination of that ancient healing drug, aspirin,
and one of the less harmful hallucinogens and, in severe cases of overactive adrenal glands, shakeshock. But that wasn't the important thing. The important thing was that Colonel Ed Baxley had, almost singlehandedly, overturned the Godless First Republic. Colonel Ed Baxley had kicked out the rascals who had, long, long ago, brought Commie sex education into schools while outlawing Godfearing prayer. Baxley had, without having to fire a shot from his massive fire cannon, the most terrible weapon ever devised, kicked out the rascals who wanted to tax Holy Mother Church. So Baxley deserved all the best, for he had returned the Republic to the people and to God. One Nation, under God and the Brothers indivisible. As the long minutes of waiting stretched into an hour, then two, the colonel paced. His mind, trying to steer away from painful memories, relived the moment, such a short while past, when he had helped his wife from the hospital to the waiting air car with LaVerne, his niece, walking behind them holding little Ronnie in her arms. He had made a short statement to the waiting press. «This one will be reared as a man of God,» he said. The small crowd cheered. «He will be taught at home by a Brother tutor.» Some raised eyebrows from the Lays, who couldn't afford, mostly, to send their children to public school. Ah, it was pleasant and it was painful. The colonel paced. He remembered. He would not let his pain rob him of the sheer pleasure of Ronnie's memory. An amazingly developed boy, a paragon from the first. At four he had his own horse, could ride like a twentieth-century movie cowboy. At five, he shot a respectable pattern with a conventional rifle on the firing range, much to Skeerzy's chagrin. And Baxley had told Skeerzy, «You teach him about God. I'll teach him about guns.» Because hadn't it been necessary for him, Colonel Ed Baxley, to know about guns? The colonel taught his son well. The boy was all boy, detesting all females except his mother and barely tolerating her. He could perform destruction upon the anatomy of all children with whom he came into contact. He adored his hero father with a single-minded intensity. He tolerated Skeerzy. His preaching teacher was a necessary evil, thrust upon him by his father. Being with Skeerzy was slightly better than falling into the hands of women. The colonel smiled fondly as he remembered Ronnie's favorite costume, a combination of Kit Carson and Captain Flash of the Interplanetary Patrol. And a toy gun was an integral part of the costume. The colonel saw no harm in a toy gun. The manufacture of toys of war had long since been outlawed for the Lay population, but Ronnie wasn't Lay. He was Brother from the moment of his birth, one of the ruling elite by right of birth to the wife of the world saver. The gun was an exact model of a hand fire-gun. And Ronnie knew how to work it, for the Colonel took him, not once, but a half dozen times, to
the vast, cold, brightly lit arsenal caverns where a constantly alert group of peace keepers practiced with the fire gun. Ronnie fired the gun well, using its narrow, hand-held beam with a grim precision which made older men frown with jealousy. Skeerzy objected, of course. «Richard, my boy, «said the Colonel, «if the Lays ever rebel we'll need a few boys like my Ronnie. A few could make the difference. There are not a half dozen men outside of the Peace Corps who have fired a fire gun.» Ah, memories… Only a few days before the Nebulous disaster at the North American Gate, Ronnie had begged to be taken to the caverns. Skeerzy went along. He frowned with distaste. The colonel chuckled. His wife, Ronnie's mother, had gone into false labor that morning. As she moaned with pain, Ronnie asked her why she was moaning. «Never you mind, young fella,» the colonel said. You didn't tell kids
things like that, like birth and all. They were not ready for the sordid facts of life. But then, his wife said, «Haven't you told him, Ed?» Baxley frowned. «Not yet.» «Told me what?» Ronnie asked. «You're going to have a little brother,» his mother said. Ronnie's face clouded. «You're putting me on.» «No, darling,» his mother said. «Wouldn't you like to have a little brother to play with?» «No,» Ronnie screamed. And for two days he'd pitched tantrum after tantrum. The colonel, uncomfortable about talking of birth and distasteful subjects with his son, would only say that God had seen fit to bless them with another boy. He tried to convince Ronnie that having a little brother would be fun. But Ronnie didn't want to share a moment of his father's time with a brother. He'd seen kids with baby brothers or sisters, forgotten, ignored, while the adults clucked and cooed over the squalling, dirty-ended little brats. So, to soothe Ronnie, Baxley took him to the arsenal caverns and let him fire a whole magazine of fire at solid rock, cutting a tunnel a hundred
yards deep into the earth. Fine little boy with sturdy body dressed like Kit Carson and Captain Flash, toy gun in his holster, real gun in hand, blasting, eating, chewing solid rock. But nevertheless, the colonel had to call for help. «He's all concerned about his little brother,» he told Skeerzy. «You'd better talk to him.» Skeerzy did a magnificent job. Ronnie had been taught a healthy respect for Him who did the Universe with a sweep of his hand. If a fellow like that wanted him to love a little brother, he allowed, he would love a little brother. Yes, the colonel thought, as he paced the hospital waiting room, Skeerzy did a wonderful job. He chuckled. It was funny thinking of Skeerzy's face when Ronnie, seemingly reconciled to the coming of his little brother, asked Skeerzy how his brother was going to get through space from heaven. He could almost hear Skeerzy's answer. «But how is my little brother going to get through space.» Ronnie insisted. «Yes,» Baxley chuckled, «tell the boy, Skeerzy.» The colonel chuckled as he remembered. Then he wasn't chuckling anymore. He stopped in midstride. Cold beads of perspiration formed on his upper lip. He burst into a lumbering run which carried him to the roof, to his air car. His driver snapped to attention. «Get me the arsenal!» Baxley snapped. With the commander of the arsenal on the phone, secure from eavesdropping by even the most powerful of Brothers, Baxley wiped his face. «Check the guns,» he said. «They are checked daily, sir,» the Commander said, standing stiffly at attention. «Check the goddamned guns,» Baxley roared. «I'll hold.» And while he waited, dread was a weight in his stomach. He had wondered why Ronnie had been so insistent on meeting Richard Skeerzy at the North American Gate on Skeerzy's return from his honeymoon trip. It was totally unlike Ronnie. He'd given up seeing a cadet football game to go up on the shuttle. He waited in dread. The commander of the arsenal was back, white-faced, grim. «I don't understand,» the commander was saying. He was holding a fire gun. It looked very realistic. «I cannot understand how this happened.» «When my son fired last,» the colonel said, «did he field strip and clean his own weapon?» «Just as he always did, sir,» said the commander nervously. «And the guard allowed him to place the weapon in its rack and lock it?» «Just as always, sir.» «And that is Ronnie's toy weapon,» said the colonel sadly. «I don't understand it,» the commander said. Baxley broke off. He walked to the edge of the roof, looked down. Far below the traffic was clogged. A gray haze of pollution rose from the canyon. He knew, then, why Ronnie had insisted on going to the North American Gate. He knew, then, why Ronnie had been a victim of the Nebulous disaster. No. He corrected himself. Ronnie had not been a victim. Not a victim. «But how is my little brother going to get through space?» Ronnie had demanded. And Richard Skeerzy, with a wink at the colonel, and because a true Christian gentleman doesn't talk about vulgar things like birth and animal functions, had answered. «He's coming on the moon rocket,» Skeerzy said. Down below the, smog-making ground cars halted in a massive jam. The sound of their horns drifted up to the colonel. CHAPTER FOUR Luke Parker was one terrified Apprentice Brother, Third Class. He had witnessed a miracle, had, indeed, been the doing of that miracle. He'd watched the very heaven's door open. He'd seen the white, glaring face of God. He, Luke Parker, had done a miracle. He, like Jesus Christ, had brought a man back from the dead. Oh, the man had been breathing, but he had been dead, dead, dead, gasping, bleeding, his guts spilled out on his clothing. And Luke had sutured the cuts with faith, replaced the ruptured intestines with that inbuilt instinct of Tightness. Flash, God talked, and splat, things went oozing back into place, and zipppp, the slit closed and his hands felt wholeness under a slime of blood and the stinking contents of a leaking intestine. And now, awed, terrified, he was still kneeling beside his bed, the little room in darkness, his face lifted to the flaking ceiling. Praying, thanking Him. For he'd cursed Him and He had rewarded him, not with burning punishment, but with the power. Somewhere down there on the streets or somewhere in a Fare hovel-room in a stacked building a poor joker was whole who had been slit from a to a. Prayer, Apprentice Brother, Third Class. Pray and look for a faith you've never had but which has now been forced upon you by a miracle; and God lives. God walks in mysterious ways. Flash and speak and then the power, the knowledge. He prayed and he tried to feel as he'd felt. He tried to know the grumbling movements of his own intestines, filled now with a dull, acid ache. Adrenal glands had pumped fear and awe and power into him leaving him empty, for he had not eaten. An almost empty bottle of bootleg Soul Lifter was on the plain, board shelf over the tiny sink and he didn't even think about it, didn't want or need it. He was high on power. And awe. And fear. And hope. Back in the beginning, as told to him by his late father, the first Brother President had possessed the power of healing. During the march into Washington, John Parker, Luke's father, had been hit by a brickbat, sinking to his knees under the blow. He had risen to march on, but there was blood on his clothing and a terrible ache in his skull and, once the revolution had been completed, John Parker had fainted and they'd put him down on the old Capitol steps and Colonel Ed Baxley, himself, had knelt beside John Parker to feel the big knot on the skull and to wipe blood, then, from his hand. And then Brother President, who wasn't President then, but who became the Second Republic's first after Colonel Baxley declined the honor, came and healed the wounded man. Help for pain. That was a gift that the Brotherhood emphasized. And the first Brother President had healed John Parker, with the help of magic ointments, wrapping the wounded head in white cloth to hide the miracle-working of the healing. The story had been told to Luke Parker time and time again. He knew it by heart. It had been inspiration to him during his youth when John Parker, as an original, fire-gun bearing member of Baxley's Army, lived on a lofty government pension and drank Soul Lifter with impunity and talked about the good old days and the way his son, Luke, was to be a genuine Brother. For all first sons of the members of the Army had automatic appointments to the new Academy, University One, The Brothers, founded by Baxley himself and used as a breeding ground for the leaders of tomorrow. University One. And Luke a tender kid of ten going in for the first time with all the sons of the Brothers looking down their noses at him because he was common Lay. John Parker had never bothered to take his study to become a Brother. It had been enough, the pension, the unlimited supplies of Soul Lifter. So Luke was not Brother, but just Army and that made him a target for pure hell. The cadets, Brothers by birth, scorned him, taunted him, drove him into an isolation which ended when he discovered the power of Soul Lifter, found that there are no troubles which cannot be at least temporarily conquered by old S.L., himself. He was called before the Dean Brother after the second time he made formation while still high. He was warned. He was lectured. The cadets laughed. He poured his last bottle of Soul Lifter, stolen from his father, down the sink in his shared room and worked hard. He completed his first year and was awarded the magnificent rank of Apprentice Brother, Third Class. Then Kyle Murrel decided he wanted Luke's doll. All of it came back to Luke as he knelt beside his bed, praying sincerely for the first time in a great number of years. The two-day war seemed like ancient history to Luke when he was first old enough to listen to the tales his father told. But in a world of color cartoons on television, rough-and-tumble play on the crowded streets of Old Town, long hikes down the crumbling canyons on steamy August days when smog and the fetid vapors of massed people made the air seem thick like old-fashioned molasses, a delicacy Luke tasted once, the glorious march into Washington to throw the rascals out, made for exciting listening. The fact that John Parker's role in the bloodless revolution was enlarged with each telling only pleased young Luke the more. He was the only kid in his section of Old Town whose father had contributed to the new freedom. The fathers of other kids drove buses or worked on the subway or moved garbage for the city. A few of them worked in the plants doing jobs which could have been done better, and were done better in the more modern facilities, by machines. Some parents were old and gray Tired, having put in their twenty, and now drew well-earned pensions. But
of all the kids, Luke was the only one whose father had actually been a part of the foundation of the Second Republic and Luke was the only kid who would go to school. Luke never tired of hearing his father tell about the march. «What they did,» his father would say, «was force us to fight, boy.» «How'd they do that, Dad?» «Well, they done things like make kids go to school.» «All kids?» «Every last one.» «Gee.» «And they made 'em go to school with people they didn't want to go to school with.» «Who?» «Oh, I dunno. Fare kids, I guess.» Luke had nothing to do with the Fare kids in the neighborhood. Fare parents never worked, never marched with Baxley, never did anything but sit back and draw the Fare checks and fight with knives and complain about the government, although not out loud. No one complained too much about the government, because you never knew when the Brotherfuzz would be listening and, although the Brothers were fair to all and gave equal justice to all, Fare, Tired, or Tech, talking against the government just wasn't done. When Luke heard a couple of Fare kids complaining, he told them if they didn't like it they could go off to South America or somewhere. And then he told his father and his father said, «Some people are never satisfied. Back in the old days, people like the Fares had to beg and steal and stand in line to get pennies from the government. Wasn't like it is now when the Fare checks are delivered once a week to the mailbox and no man has to go hungry.» As Luke approached ten, time to enter the University, he did some serious thinking. He went to the library and looked at film and saw how, back in the bloody days of the First Republic, people actually fought each other on the streets of the cities and marched in protest and went out on strike. Going on strike, he guessed, although it wasn't clear to him, meant that the Techs wouldn't go to work and the assembly lines came to a halt and the new ground cars didn't come rolling out and, he guessed, people didn't get a new car every year. That was a terrible thing. Even the Fares who never worked got new cars once a year. They didn't get the big, fancy models like the Techs and the city workers, but they got cars, all new and
shiny, and if they were careful, a car would last a whole year until another new one came and the old one was pushed or towed outside the city to be loaded onto the big, flat-bottomed barges for dumping outside the harbor. Some of the really old films fascinated Luke. He especially liked the ones which showed the country as it was when everyone ate animal meat. Now and then, when his father was feeling plush, they would have real
fish, tender little morsels fried gently in oil until they browned and tasted like pure heaven. However, he had never tasted actual animal flesh and didn't know anyone who had. There was one film in particular which Luke liked. It showed vast, unpeopled mountains and clear streams and weird-looking animals such as those which were preserved in lifelike poses in the museum alive and running around. It was a truly old film, made long before the last big war. It was in a place called a national park. Luke talked with the librarian and the old woman told him that there wasn't any more national park, because the space had been needed, after the great influx, for people, and that made Luke sad. «Why didn't they just tell the people to live somewhere else?» he asked. «There were too many of them,» the old woman said. «After the great Communist powers had their war, whole continents were made uninhabitable. All of Asia was a radioactive wasteland. Most of Europe was also contaminated. People were dying by the millions and our government."—-she paused—"I mean the First Republic, because the people were dying, took them in. Millions of them. Would you like to see films of that?» He watched the films. People. People. People with suppurating sores and missing limbs and bald heads. People dying from the radiation sickness, but mostly people who would live and cause the cities to build upward and outward, swelling the already overblown population to disastrous proportions. But they came. By huge planes carrying hundreds, by ships carrying thousands. America, the last uncontaminated area, was the bloodbank of mankind, taking in the Europeans, the Asians, the Africans. They brought with them what wealth and technology survived the war, but it wasn't enough to cushion the blow to the American continent. Cities doubled their size in a decade, grew, and reeked with uncontrolled rot. The medical system broke down under the overload. Those who had been exposed to radiation died by the thousands, the millions. Those who didn't die passed along their weaknesses to their offspring. The nation existed in a state of anarchy with the effete government of the First Republic trying to fight the change with outdated methods. Out of chaos, the Brothers were born. Luke liked the historical film which told of the foundation of the Christian Party. The man who talked had a good voice and he made you feel it. «It was clear.» the man related. «to some, that old values had to be discarded, that old methods were sadly insufficient to cope with the anarchy. The influx had brought with it millions who had no sympathy with the Republican form of government. For long years, the nation teetered on the brink of anarchy. Communism, or worse.» Luke didn't really understand Communism, except that it was what caused the war and left all but the Western Hemisphere unfit for humanity And he knew that Communists hated God. «At first,» the man who talked on the film said, «those who saw no hope except in radical change called themselves the Silent Majority. That was a phrase coined by a President of the First Republic in the last thirty years of the last century. It indicated the solid people, the Godfearing people, those who, even in early times, deplored the Godless demonstrations of drug-crazed young people, who cried out against the abuses of big labor. The Christian Party actually has its foundations in the twentieth century when a few brave pioneers fought the Communistic leanings of the leaders in minor actions such as resistance to a governmental order saying that their children had to attend school, sometimes by being transported out of their own neighborhoods, with people they didn't like. The first advance of the party came in the complete breakdown of the public school system, thus removing the youth of the country from the leftist influences of the central government. However, progress was always slow and painful until,
sixty years after the influx, it became clear to thinking people that action had to be taken. For the New Republic of South American had developed the same weapons which had decimated the Old World and threatened the Republic with nuclear war. At home, the Godless Communists were in the process of taking over. The Communist Party was predicted to win the Presidential election of 2058, having come close in 2054. Almost one half of the elected representatives on a federal level were Communist, members of the American Party. They were in favor of treating with the Republic of South American, of appeasement.» The next part was Luke's favorite part of the film. «God in his all-knowing wisdom, deemed it not to be. God acted through Colonel Ed Baxley, an obscure Army officer with engineering training. God inspired the colonel to make the most significant technological breakthrough in the history of mankind. Colonel Baxley himself admitted that he had no idea that his experiments in a dimly lit cellar outside Washington would result in the invention of the fire gun. In an attempt to explain it, Colonel Baxley said, 'God works His wonders in mysterious ways.' But God did work and, armed with the ultimate weapon, a weapon spaceborne on a giant space station assembled at tremendous cost, the Brothers marched to victory. Sanity was returned to the Republic.» There were also films of the march into Washington. The colonel was a young man, handsome, impressive at the head of his column of uniformed men. Behind him came the big fire cannon, towed by a huge halftrack. Luke, while watching the films of the march, always looked for his father, thought, once, that he saw him, but on rerunning the film, he couldn't be sure. What was sure was the overwhelming success of the revolution. The film showed Baxley and some of the Brothers confronting armed government troops in front of the old Capitol Building. The huge fire cannon was pointed directly toward the troops. The man who talked told how Colonel Baxley explained the fire gun, talked seriously of his fears that, once fired in atmosphere, the chemical fire could continue to burn until the entire nation was destroyed, perhaps even the continent, the world. During a period of negotiation, while the colonel's troops faced the regular Army and kept their fingers on fire gun triggers, the colonel and his committee of Brothers took the President and the top generals to the caverns and demonstrated the fire gun in the relative safety of the bowels of the Earth, where solid rock damped the fearful rays and stopped them, but only after great chunks were eaten from the walls of the cavern. The First Republic surrendered. The new government, with Colonel Baxley acting as Commander in chief, quickly sent the huge fire cannon into orbit aboard the space station and delivered an ultimatum to the Republic of South American. For one long day, while the new government flew in representatives of the enemy government and demonstrated the ultimate weapon, the world was close to one last cataclysm. Then the Republic of South American surrendered, the wall of isolation was established midway down the Central American isthmus, and the Second Republic started its great reforms. When Luke first learned, during his early days at the University, that
forty million people died during the first five years of the Second Republic, he was shocked. True, there were over a billion people on the North American continent and forty million was only a small portion of the sum total, an acceptable
sacrifice for the good of the whole. He could see that and agree with it, but still he was shocked to learn that the Brothers had eliminated the opposition by violence and by starvation. Yet, it was for the good of all. «Would you want to be forced to go to school if you didn't want to?» his instructor asked. «I guess not,» Luke admitted. «Would you like to see masses of people hungry?» «No.» «Would you think it fair for the Techs to have two cars while the Fares and the Tireds had only one?» «Of course not,» Luke said. The right to own a car was one of the more basic freedoms, something not to be tampered with. «Some of the Techs, back in the old days, had as many as three or even four cars,» the instructor said. «They, some of them, lived in penthouses, whole floors of buildings for maybe two or three people.» That Luke couldn't imagine. Whole floors? He and his father shared a tiny ten-by-ten cubicle. Their common bath was shared by perhaps two dozen families. A whole floor for two or three people? Waste. Unheard-of waste. «Would you like to hear one of your instructors stand before this class and tell you that God is dead?» «Oh, no,» Luke said, horrified, looking up nervously to see if the sky were going to fall even at such a supposition. «They did. They said God was dead. They outlawed God in the classroom and in public places. They said man had the freedom not to believe in Him.» «Gee,» Luke said. Because he was not a Brother by birth, Luke was determined to show them at the University how the son of one of the members of Baxley's Army could achieve. He chose the roughest course of all, a course which required that he learn the meaning of the archaic lettering on paper. Reading, they called it. Look, Look, see the car? The car goes fast. And he would have made it if the other cadets hadn't made life a misery for him. He was getting to the point where he could make some sense out
of the simplified Bible when the persecutions of his fellows began to be too much for him and he found escape in his father's Soul Lifter. Kyle Murrel was the worst of his tormentors. He was a big, husky boy who always picked Luke as his opponent in gym. Colonel Baxley insisted on physical training, some of it on a primitive basis of actual face-to-face competition. In hand combat, Kyle Murrel would choose Luke as his opponent and, instead of pulling his blows as he was supposed to do, he would chop and hack and kick with intent to hurt. He often did. Luke would leave the mats with a bloody nose, with bruises and aches and hate in his heart. Finally, one day when Kyle chopped him under the eye and left what Luke knew would be a supermouse, Luke's hatred overflowed. He had always been able to hold his own in street fights, but he didn't do too well at the precision, sissy, stand-up hand-to-hand combat. But anger and hate boiled up in him with the new pain and he lowered his head and charged into the grinning Kyle and wrapped him in strong arms, bearing him to the mat. Before the instructors could pull him off, he'd returned the mouse and had almost severed one of Kyle's ears from his head with a set of strong, white teeth. For that he was called before the dean and made to march three punishment tours. But Kyle didn't ask for Luke any more as his opponent. Kyle took a different route. A rash of stealing broke out in the quarters and some of the loot was discovered under Luke's bunk. He swore tearfully, his hand on a Bible, that he hadn't put it there. They had to accept his word. When a man swears on the Bible, he's putting his life on the line, for a lie under those sacred circumstances meant instant death by lightning bolt or worse. But he was kept under close watch and, thus, was detected twice in formation while still high on Soul Lifter. He was on probation when Kyle Murrel decided that he wanted to steal Luke's doll. The doll was a cute little girl, daughter of one of the maintenance men. Since she wasn't Brother, she was below the social level of born Brothers like Kyle Murrel, but Murrel decided he wanted her just because she was Luke's doll. Funny, Luke couldn't even remember the little girl's name. He could remember her long, blond hair and her sweetness. She was sympathetic. When Luke came out of the hand-to-hand combat class with bruises, she oohed and ahed and told him it was all right, that he shouldn't let the Brothers get him down, that soon he'd be a Brother, himself. Their relationship was pure. In the first place, Luke knew nothing about sex other than what he'd heard as a child in the canyons of Old Town. Sex was something which was reserved for married people. Sex was something slightly dirty and very mysterious and sinful. So Luke had no designs on the purity of his doll. He liked her for what she was, a sweet, sympathetic human being to whom he could tell his troubles. He had never so much as kissed her. Often, in his dreams, he kissed her, a sweet, mysterious kiss on the cheek with their bodies not even touching, but he knew no trace of carnal desire for her. He fought one of Kyle Murrel's friends who said his girl was bad, a Jezebel. His punishment for fighting was garbage detail. He had to go through the quarters and clean the waste
receptacles of each cadet. Kyle and his friends saw to it that he had plenty to clean. They saved food until it was rank and then poured it into the receptacles. Kyle even made waste in his receptacle and threatened to report Luke when Luke refused to empty the stinking mess. Luke had no choice. He was already on probation. But when he discovered that Kyle had been giving presents to his girl and talking to her about what a lowlife Luke was, he could no longer control himself. He faced Kyle in the quad and told him that if he didn't leave his girl alone he would kill him. Kyle grinned and walked away. Things were quiet for a few days and Luke hoped that the Brother cadets had tired of baiting him. Then Kyle stood before Luke's desk while Luke was studying his reading and said, «I had your doll today.» «Huh?» There was a strange smirk on Kyle's face. «Don't you know what that means?» Kyle asked, laughing, turning to his audience of several gathered Brother cadets. «Sure I know,» Luke said. «It means, stupid, that I knew her sexually.» Luke felt his face go red. «You're a liar.» «Am I?» Kyle laughed. «Why don't you ask her?» «I will,» Luke said. «I just will.» He ran from the building. He ran across the quad, through the class buildings, down to the quarters of the working staff of the University. His doll's father answered the door. «What do you want?» her father answered angrily, when Luke opened his mouth to ask if he could see the girl. «Haven't you people done enough to her?» «I didn't do anything,» Luke said. «God knows, I didn't do anything.» The man's face softened. «No, I guess you didn't. It was them Brother bastards.» Luke felt scared. His stomach was aching. «What did they do?» «You know damned well what they did,» her father said. «No, no, I don't. Honest.» «Well.» He swallowed. «They raped her.» Luke didn't know the word. «Raped?» «He's a nice boy,» the girl's mother said, coming up behind the father. «You can see he's a nice boy. He doesn't know such nasty words.» «What is it?» Luke asked. «What did they do to her'» «They hurt her,» the father said. «Rape means they did something awful to her,» her mother said. «Something—sexual.» Luke blushed. «Well, didn't you report them?» The man looked down at his feet. «I'm only a Lay,» he said. «What's that got to do with it?» Luke asked. «If they hurt her—» «Kyle Murrel's father is Secretary of the Republic,» her father said. «Do you think they'd believe me or my daughter against the son of the Secretary of the Republic?» «But if they hurt her—» Luke said again, feeling helpless. «Son,» her father said, «you're from Old Town, right?» «That's right, but I don't see—» «How many fights you seen on the streets? Ever see a Tech or a Brotherfuzz kill someone?» «Sure,» Luke said, «but that's—» «The way things are,» the man said, «you being a cadet, you should know that.» «But hurting a girl?» Luke asked. «He told her to tell us that if she squealed he'd swear that she propositioned him.» «Huh?» Luke asked. «That she was the one who asked for—sex,» the father said. «They would believe him.» Luke couldn't believe it. He went to one of his more sympathetic instructors, a young Brother who seemed to have an interest in Luke. «Kyle Murrel raped my girl,» Luke said. «And her father says he can't report it.» «Her father is wise,» the instructor said. «Well, then I'm going to report it,» Luke said. «I wouldn't,» the instructor said. «You're not even Brother. They wouldn't believe you.» But Luke went to the Brother dean and made his report. Kyle Murrel was called into the same room. He denied even knowing the girl. Kyle Murrel said that Luke—he called him that stupid Lay—had probably gone crazy and raped the girl himself and was trying to shift the blame. The
dean, in his wisdom, said, «You are both cadets. The fact that one of you is Brother-born has no bearing. The gist of it is that we have a basic
disagreement. So we will settle this with Christian finality.» He got out two
Bibles. Luke swore on his Bible that he had never touched the girl, that she had told her parents that it was Kyle Murrel who raped her. Kyle Murrel swore that he had never spoken to the girl, that he had not, of course, raped her or anyone. «There is serious blasphemy here,» the Brother dean said. «One of you has just lied on a Bible.» Luke waited for the roof to split asunder, for lightning to punish the lying Kyle Murrel. That did not happen. What did happen was that Luke
was called before a jury of his peers, a board of cadets and instructors and was dismissed from University One, without appeal, for telling a lie on a Bible. He took it with a growing fury and a determination to do something
about the gross injustice of it. It wasn't just the girl now, although she'd suffered, God knows. It was he and his father, who had his heart set on Luke's being a full Brother. There was only one thing to do. He ran to the restricted portion of the campus and slipped by the guard of Brotherfuzz and entered Colonel Ed Baxley's house by a French window. Awed by being in the great hero's quarters, he almost retreated, but he heard sounds from an adjoining room and pushed on, his heart pounding. He recognized Baxley from having seen him on the screen so many times. The colonel was talking with a group of important-looking brothers in ceremonial dress. If Luke had not been desperate he would never have had the courage to break in, but he was being kicked out of the University and it wasn't fair. He knew that the colonel would be a just man, that the colonel would do something about it. He stepped into the room. One of the Brothers saw him, halted his words in midstream. «What the infernal are you doing here?» Five faces, four stern Brothers and Baxley, looking at him, indignation, surprise, anger. Only Baxley was calm. «Guard!» one of the Brothers yelled. «Sir,» Luke cried out. «Sir, I have to talk to you.» «Get him out,» one of the Brothers said angrily. «It's life or death, sir,» Luke cried out. Two Brotherfuzz rushed into the room and seized Luke roughly. «Get him out,» said the tallest Brother. «And find out what idiot let him in!» «Please sir,» Luke said, looking at the Colonel. «I've got to talk to you.» He was being hustled out, his feet barely touching the floor. «My dad marched with you!» he yelled. «Wait,» Colonel Baxley said. The guards stopped at the door. «What's your name?» «Luke Parker, sir.» «Parker, Parker,» the colonel mused. «John Parker, right?» «Yes sir. I have to—» «Turn him loose,» the colonel said. «Really, colonel,» the tall Brother said. «I am here to help my cadets,» Baxley said. «And this young man sounds as if he has some problems.» He smiled at Luke. «You'll have to talk fast, boy.» «Yes, sir,» Luke said. «Well, you see, they say, I mean—» «Can't this wait, colonel?» the tall Brother said coldly. «My time is valuable, you know.» «Brother Murrel,» Baxley said, equally as cold, «There is nothing more important to this Republic than the future of its cadets.» Luke was stunned. Baxley had called the Brother Murrel. What a tough
break, to get to the colonel only to find him with the father of Kyle Murrel, for now Luke recognized the badge of office hanging on the tall Brother's robe. It was Class One, meaning very high. And Kyle Murrel's father was Secretary of the Republic. «All right, son,» Baxley said. So Luke told it. He stumbled at first, but he told it. He got as far as the charge of rape against Kyle Murrel and the Secretary of the Republic blew up, anger making his face red. «This is the Lay who swore false witness on the Holy Bible,» he yelled at the colonel. «And you're wasting my time and yours by listening to his lies.» «Please sir,» Luke begged. «I couldn't lie on a Bible.» «I have the report,» the colonel said, not unkindly. «And it's quite evident that someone lied.» «Well, it wasn't me, sir.» Luke said tearfully. «As God is my witness—» «More blasphemy,» Murrel said. «Guards—» «This is my home,» Baxley said quietly. «I give the orders in my home.» The Secretary's face turned a shade more ruddy, but he didn't speak. «You were tried,» the colonel said to Luke. «You were found guilty.» «By them sir,» Luke said. «They were all Brothers. And I was only Army—» «Now he is insinuating that—» But Baxley didn't allow Murrel to finish. «I know what he's insinuating,"' Baxley said. «Look, son, there is nothing I can do.» He sighed. «There isn't even anything I want to do, because the record says you swore falsely on the Bible.» «If I had,» Luke blurted, «wouldn't He have blasted me right then?» Baxley sighed again. «Not always, son. He moves in mysterious ways.» «I'll prove it,» Luke said, his voice breaking with his tears. «God,» he prayed, looking up, «Show them, God. Show them who lied. If I'm the liar blast me, send down your lightning, God. Prove to them who is the liar.» But God, having failed him once during the swearing ceremony, was not to be moved. «Help me, God,» he prayed. «God, help me.» «You'll have to go now, son,» Baxley said quietly. «I didn't lie,» Luke said. «I wish I could believe you,» Baxley said, «but there is the evidence.» «I'll show you,» Luke said, as the guards seized his arms. «Someday I'll show you. Someday I'll have that sign from God. Someday He'll punish the
real liar.» But by that time he was outside, being hustled roughly out of the colonel's quarters onto the quad and then out of University One. He went back to Old Town with the beginnings of the ability to read and a new cynicism which made him doubt the very existence of God. The cynicism, and his unreduced rank of Apprentice Brother, Third Class, made it possible for him to go into the ministry, rather than into the already overcrowded ranks of Techs, Fares, or Lays. He used the privilege well, learning his trade on crowded street corners, preaching to anyone who would listen. He struggled through the simplified Bible, improving his reading skill as he went. He told the old Biblical stories and studied the techniques of the big, preaching Brothers who traveled the country holding revivals. Then he stumbled onto the faith-healing gimmick. His fine voice, his good looks, his youthful enthusiasm made him a success. He became skilled in picking those who suffered from psychological ailments and, with a combination of faith and mind control amounting almost to hypnotism, he effected cures. And then he began, at rare intervals, to actually feel the power. There were isolated times when he felt that he really could heal. And then the night when God opened the heavens and gave him a sign and he did heal, did pull back into place dislocated
intestines and healed them and then sutured the slit belly lining with faith and power and now he was kneeling at his bedside praying with complete sincerity for the first time in many years, a young man of nineteen years, old in his society, mature, more than halfway through his expected lifespan, praying, asking for a clarification of his power and not caring about the ache in his knees, for there was, for the first time since he'd been kicked out of the University, hope. He had had his sign. If he could repeat it, repeat the sign or the miracle in the presence of a witness, a Brother, the colonel himself, he would show them who had lied so long, long ago. He would show them upon whom God cast his favor and they would have to clear his name; they'd have to give him the cloak of Brotherhood. Reveling in new faith, joyful in hope, awed by what had happened Luke did not know that his sign from the heavens was merely the dying explosion of man's last foothold in space. He would learn this and there would still be the miracle. That would not be taken from him. But out beyond Pluto a sensor thing, newly activated by the first firing of a fire gun outside the damping mantle of solid rock, was sending a signal through space which was not even imagined by men such as Luke Parker.
And, at the end of galactic distance, the signal was being received by other sensor instruments untended by living beings. And there was motion, activity. On a lonely, automated planet near the core of the spiral of stars which made up Luke Parker's galaxy, an alarm flashed, sent signals deeper into the heart of the cluster. Automatic instruments began to double check, to trace back the call to the ancient sensor stationed near a planetary system out near the end of a spiral arm. The checks proved the sensor to be in perfect working condition. Since the language of the signals was similar to but beyond electronics, there could have been no exact translation to a language spoken by man. Roughly, the alarm which went from the automated planet into the heart of the cluster would be read as: ALARM RED. PLANET KILLER. SECTION G-1034876. STAR R-875948 PLANET 3. CHAPTER FIVE Before coupling with the handsome male from A-7, a union computed to be on a superior scale because of the similarity of their gangliogroupings, she reduced gravity in her bedchamber to one-fourth normal. It was more restful. It tired one less when one became excited and went spastic-wild. The arrangement had been completed via warpsignal only the period previous and she was still in stage one of the euphoric, always new sensation of total union. The male from A-7 was as computed, total, willing to commit, sensuous to an extravagant degree. Together, with the atmosphere odorous with trang, they had built rapidly to maximum potential and then, their systems reinforced by the trang, past maximum to a paralyzing ecstasy which they prolonged by shared mental
patterns of past couplings with others. It was as if they were able to couple with dozens, hundreds simultaneously. It was a good union and the trang, sweet, potent, euphoric trang, made time timeless and a period passed with nerves screaming at full climactic capability and that was but the beginning. Period after period they would lie, coupled, moving at times, wild at times, passive at times, minds woven, bodies clasped. Thus it was and thus it had always been and thus it would ever be and she knew no other way and would have wanted no other way. She was uncommitted for two stellar circuits and the delightful fusing of their gangliogroupings indicated that two circuits might not be enough. This male from A-7 was, indeed, superior. Around them, around the soft-hard couch, the chamber was softly feminine in glowing star colors. Alter rhythmic sounds sent languor to ears; aromas of life and goodness blended with the trang. And the room changed, pulsingly, with irregular pleasing patterns of color and form. Timeless time passed and the good coupling made her alive with pure sentience. «I will cancel my next commitment.» She didn't say words. She knew no language. Her mental pattern told him and it was the greatest of compliments. «I knew of you.» He communicated. «I made no commitments.» «And when we tire I will lie in numbness and remember.» His mind sent a message meaning long, long circuits, a great lapse of time, contentment, total caress. She had no name, as such. Her mental patterns were distinctive and by them she was known. In the mind of her lover she made a bright, rosy glow. By that pattern she was known. His mind was hard, masculine, metal. Trang infused her, made her all mental, removed her from the physical and made her endless nerve pathways for voluptuousness. A servomech extended a mobile arm. A sweet taste in her mouth. Liquid. Servomechs tending to the physical, outside of her responsibility, automatic. He was served likewise. On the world outside a red sun gleamed, died. A crowded sky lit the dark period with huge, near stars. Three moons chased across the night. Her structure was atop a hill overlooking a valley of trees with fernfrond limbs, a stream. Small furry things played. Winged nightbirds swept the air. No light showed from the structure. It was dark, permanent, private, isolated. Around the planet, at intervals of hundreds of miles, other structures reared darkly from scenic spots. A few floating structures were scattered over a great, single sea. Water creatures swam in the sea and feral things roamed the night and there was no other movement except in the chambers of the structures. There couples lay, trangized, libidinous, living, living, living. Servomechs coiled silently to serve, to nourish. A network of giant stations drew power from the crowding stars and sent it winging to keep alive the structures, the servomechs. And all around the blazing stars crowded in a fairyland density and no ships cruised the space between for commitment time had come and gone and the ships rested at darkened ports awaiting the next shifting of male to female, female to male. On one planet, however, near the heartland, there was movement. It was a light period, although that made no difference to the automated things which rolled and tested waving fields of green with nodules of gold ripening atop some of the fields and careful machines gleaning the golden buds tenderly and transporting them. Soon ships would flash from the planet Trang. Soon the mobile computer machines would send the Trang fleet moving out, scattering in hundreds over the widespread field at the heart of the galaxy to deliver golden euphoric Trang to each world, to each structure scattered widely over the populated planets, to bring Trang. At the end of harvest time, ancient, self-servicing traffic computers would sense the arrival of a single ship where once there had been frantic movement. Traffic computers designed to handle the landing and takeoff of one ship per heartbeat would put into action their vast capabilities to land one, single, small automated freighter with one small vital cargo. Trang. And servocenters would channel the new Trang to the isolated structures and local servomechs would grind it, sort it, feed it into the perpetually burning Trangers. And those without names would breathe and know maximum contentment, would breathe and live, would