Published: 16 Jan 2017

Part XIII

THREE WORLDS
Formerly Published as “0300 Books I, II, and III”

Chapter 37: Flag Intel Team

The Flag Intel Team meeting was scheduled for 1200 hours. As far as my Chief Mess Steward was concerned, that was the worst possible time. He and his men started fixing pizza at 0900. The table was covered with platters of pizza when Marty started the briefing.

“The Scudder’s telegraph network and those of the Sheriffs and the Army use Morse code. It’s exactly like what was developed in our universe and is still used by amateur radio operators. We’ve found enough of those in the task force to transcribe the traffic we’ve been able to intercept—”

“Couldn’t that be done easily and more accurately by computer?” one of the boys asked.

“I asked the same question,” Marty said. “The radio guys told me that they—but not a computer—could recognize an individual’s fist, his style of telegraphy. We don’t know the names of the operators, but we have identified them and correlated them with the messages they send. It’s one more piece of the puzzle and it gives about 100 of our people a reason to be proud of their participation.”

Speaking of pride: I was inordinately proud of Marty at that moment; he and the other Geeks could feel that.

“The fourth network,” Marty continued, “uses Morse, as well, but it’s encoded. The network is sparse, as is the traffic. We are still trying to break the code.”

That last statement was a bit of a surprise. Bobby had proven Goldbach’s conjecture that every even integer greater than 2 can be expressed as the sum of two prime numbers. In doing so, he also discovered that all our modern encryption systems—which relied on prime numbers—were vulnerable. So far, the only ones who knew were the Geeks—including Tobor—and Admiral Davis.

Cam picked up with his analysis. “We know that there are three, and perhaps four groups in the Reverends’ territory that share power. We’ve identified three: the Reverends, the Army, and the Sheriffs. We still do not know about the Arcana,” Cam said. The team had given that nickname to the group that coded their messages—”arcana” means hidden, and so far, they were entirely hidden from us. We knew nothing about them.

“We don’t know who are the Arcana, and what are their goals; much less what are the relationships among the four groups. Are the Reverends in control as it appeared to Artie’s people? Is the Army, which has the weapons, in control? Who are these Sheriffs? Are they all being manipulated by the Arcana? We need more information,” Cam concluded.

Humint? flashed through the link among the telepaths.

George answered that unspoken question. “Do you think,” he asked, “that we could kidnap someone? Do you think we could do that without revealing ourselves?”

George was always eager for action. The last time, he had risked getting himself in trouble. He’d been right then, and he was right, now.

Plans to kidnap someone from the Reverend’s universe had to be put on hold, however, for something more immediate. We were going to hold a long-delayed funeral for Artie’s boys who had been killed or died from wounds received in the Battle of Las Vegas—what we were openly calling the “First Battle for Las Vegas.”

Chapter 38: Funeral Planning

The next day, I asked Artie to come to my Ready Room. I sat on the couch, and asked him to sit beside me. That usually meant we were going to have a family talk. When we talked officially, I sat at my desk and he sat at a chair beside it. This was going to be an official talk, but I knew that he would need a hug before it was over. I was pretty sure I would, too.

“Artie, you know, don’t you, that Cory’s people brought in kids who were too hurt to survive? And some who were already dead. In fact, Cory said when they realized that they were rescuing kids, they brought in every body they could.”

Artie knew what I was not saying: that some of the littlest kids had committed to being suicide bombers when they reached Las Vegas and got into the Reverends’ compound. When the California Army was attacked by tanks, most of those kids had run to the tanks and blown themselves up. It hadn’t done any good, and there was no way their little bodies could be recovered.

Artie had tears running down his face. It was okay; in fact, it was good. He knew he could cry with me, and it helped keep him from crying in front of his troops. He held up his communicator. “The roster shows 68 bodies. Only 20 of them have names.

“The Reverends did funerals. They were all about how the person was now with the Reverends’ god, in heaven where the streets were paved with gold and there was hot water and always enough to eat. And, it was like church service, all day, every day. They said it was heaven, but I think that would be like hell. I don’t think any of us believe any of that, any more. Not sure we believed it, then. We can’t have a funeral like that, but we have to do something. I don’t know what I should do”

I was happy he put it that way. He accepted responsibility, but he knew he was in over his head and was willing to ask for help.

“Let’s start with the easy questions,” I said. “You do know, don’t you, that whoever and whatever they were is no longer there?”

Artie nodded. “How do we honor their deaths, but at the same time deal with their bodies?”

“Our funerals are not celebrations,” I said. “But they’re not entirely times of sadness, either. We honor who the person was, and we reflect on our own feelings of love and loss. There’s catharsis: we cry on each other’s shoulders, we promise to remember the person. Then, we go on with our lives.

“The person’s empty shell, his or her body, may be cleaned, dressed, and then wrapped in a shroud. If the funeral is on Earth, the body is usually cremated. The residue may be scattered over a place the person was especially fond of, or it may be thrown into the wind, to rest where nature and chance takes it.

“If the funeral is in space, the body may be deorbited into the atmosphere of a planet in which it burns and is scattered all over the planet.”

I paused for breath, and to think. Artie jumped in. “You could see them from Earth? Burning through the atmosphere?”

I nodded. I think I know where he’s going. “Yes, you could see them, especially if we added a little something.”

“Then that’s what we should do: deorbit them over our Earth where they’ll put on a show that the Reverends will see,” Artie said.

Again I nodded but asked, “How will the Reverends interpret that? Will it just make them stronger?”

“Not if we prepare the way,” Artie said.

Chapter 39: Camp Santa Ana

Things at Camp Santa Ana had settled into a routine, and I had lost count of the weeks, when one of the teachers asked Matthew and me to leave our class, and took us to a room where the Don was waiting. Ethan and Dr. Furman were already there, as well as some men I didn’t recognize. There was a televisor in the room.

“Hamish, Matthew, please come sit with me,” the Don said. “Last night, something was on the televisor that the Reverends did not put there. I want you to watch, and tell me what you think of it.” When we were seated, someone turned on the televisor.

The picture was much more clear than I’d ever seen before. The voice was not scratchy and the image didn’t flicker. A young man faced us. He wore the black and gray of the California Army, which we’d seen in the televisor images of the Battle of Las Vegas. There were three silver diamonds on each side of his collar. As soon as he appeared, some of the boys whispered to one another. He spoke. Matthew and I gasped when we realized who he was.

“My name is Artie. I was born in Las Vegas. I never knew my father. At the age of twelve, I was taken from my mother and made a servant of the Reverends. I escaped. You have seen on the televisor the Battle of Las Vegas. In that battle, I was a battalion commander. At seventeen years of age, I was one of the oldest. Some of our members were as young as eight years old. As we approached Las Vegas, the Reverends called in their army.

“Many of us were killed before the rest of us were rescued by those we thought to be angels in boxy aeroplanes without wings. You have seen on the televisor that the Reverends called them demons. They were not demons and they were not marked with the number of the beast. Those are nothing more than lies—some of the Reverends’ many lies.

“Today, I am Artie Stewart, the adopted son of Commodore Paul Stewart, Commander of Task Force Rift. I am the Colonel in Chief of an Army in Exile. You don’t know what that means. You cannot know what that means.

“Our rescuers brought us to a place of safety. They brought as well the bodies of fifty-four of our dead. Despite the best efforts of our rescuers’ doctors, fourteen more children died of wounds inflicted by the Reverends’ army. That which made these sixty-eight boys alive has long ago left their bodies. However, to honor their sacrifice, we will send their bodies from the heavens to Earth. They will fall through the air above Earth. The speed of their fall will cause them to burn. You will see that over the skies of Las Vegas on the night of the next Sabbath.

“What you will see is what we will create. It will not be a creation of the Reverends. It will not be a sign from the Lord God. It will not be a sign from Satan. It will not be a miracle passed by The Scudder. It will be a creation of the surviving members of the Army in Exile and of our allies. It will not be a miracle but a natural event.”

The picture faded to black. Someone turned off the televisor. The Don looked at me. “What do you make of it?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. “Some of the boys in Las Vegas knew Artie,” I said. “You know that. One said that a Reverend had said Artie was in the battle and had been seen on the televisor. We saw the battle on the televisor. I wondered why they didn’t show the demons being destroyed. I wondered why Deacon Jerome was afraid.”

I caught my breath, and added, “I believe the ones the Reverends called demons are Artie’s allies, and they were not destroyed.”

Matthew broke in. “How did he get a last name? He said he was adopted. What does that mean?”

“It means that someone has taken Artie into his family, made Artie his son,” the Don said.

Artie said he didn’t know who his father was. I have nearly forgotten my family. Will I ever see them again? What about Matthew’s family? He’s never spoken of them… and I’ve never asked.

“He was a major when he left; he was wearing colonel’s diamonds, and said he was the Colonel in Chief of an exile army,” Ethan said.

“Apparently, he is the surviving senior officer,” the Don said. “My guess is that his father, this Commodore Paul Stewart who commands a task force, did not believe he could return Artie and the others to this place—or at least not for a long time—and has put Artie in charge of the others to ensure order and discipline. I would like to meet this Commodore. I think we think alike. I think we could become friends.”

“Why didn’t he say Army of the Free Republic of California,” one of the older boys asked.

“Caution,” one of the men said. “A bunch of kids, even if they did come from California, attacking Las Vegas is one thing. A sanctioned army bearing the name of California is quite another. The Reverends can ignore the one. They could not easily ignore the other.”

He looked around the room. “You must never speak of this outside this room, do you understand?”

Matthew and I nodded. I guess all the others did, too, because the man kept talking.

“We are not ready to go to war with the Reverends. We are not strong enough, and we are not numerous enough. Further, we depend on trade between the Reverends and the Pan-Asians for part of our economy. We—”

“That’s not right!” one of the boys exclaimed. “Kids died! And California is in business with the Reverends? That’s not right!”

I expected the man to become angry, but he spoke softly. “Please let me finish.”

The boy blushed, and nodded. The man continued. “We also depend on that trade to tell us what the Reverends have, and what they need. It’s an important source of information—intelligence.”

“Is that why the Reverends don’t attack California? They need the trade?” I asked.

“That’s a large part of it. The pass through which you came here appears to be undefended, but that appearance is deceiving. It is narrow, especially at the summit where the waters divide, so that twenty men side by side could hold it. And we keep watch. We saw you and Matthew, and followed you down the mountain. That’s why the first person you met was able to bring you directly here.” The Don smiled at that.

“The Reverends depend on what they can get from the Pan-Asians and, in some cases, the Muslims, although most of their trade with the Muslims goes through Europe.

“If they ever thought they could gain control of even one of the Pacific ports, they’d attack. We make sure they never think that. The roads to the ports, and the ports themselves are heavily guarded. The few representatives of the Reverends we allow to come here are deliberately and systematically shown those defenses.”

The man shuddered as if he were cold, and then said, “Artie and the boys who fought the battle of Las Vegas weren’t only doing it to try to kill Reverends. They were also trying to find out more about them, and about their army. If we had known how strong the Reverends’ army was and how quickly they could respond, we would never have allowed those boys to make that attack. That was a horrible mistake on our part, and would have been worse except for those boxy aeroplanes, and whoever it was Artie said were angels.”

“Artie doesn’t believe they are angels,” I said.

“But Artie said—”

I interrupted the man. “Artie said those we thought to be angels. He only said that once, and he didn’t talk about it, again. He also said the bodies of the dead would be sent from the heavens. He didn’t say ‘the sky.’ I think he knows they weren’t angels but wants people to think they were without actually lying.”

There was a long silence. Then the Don said, “Hamish is right. He saw something we didn’t.”

He turned to me. “Thank you, Hamish.”

“Commodore is a naval rank,” one of the men said. “Boxy aeroplanes and navy don’t go together in my mind.”

“You mean, two different military forces?” someone asked.

“Probably, not positive. Something to keep in mind, though.”

“But whose? Neither the Pan-Asians nor the Muslims have aeroplanes like that. Do they?” The man who asked the question looked at the Don.

“We don’t know. At least, I don’t know. Do the people in Monterrey know? If they did, would they tell those of us in this remote outpost? I don’t know. Everything we know, everything we will talk about, will go to them. What they decide to share with us will probably be a lot less. That’s the way of things. They tell us only what we need to know.”

“Artie wasn’t a servant, either,” one of the boys said. “He was a slave, and he had been forced into sex by the Reverends. Why did he say nothing about that?”

“Too much for the first message,” one of the men said. “As it was, he said almost too much to be believed.”

“First message. Will there be more?” I asked.

“I guarantee it!” another man said. “And knowing Artie, I’ll bet it’s all true.”

“Conclusions?” the Don asked.

“Invasion. They’re getting ready for an invasion.”

“How soon? Can we be ready?”

“Artie is smart. He’s also loyal. He will ensure that this mysterious task force commander—his father—contacts us.”

“Where is Artie, now?” One of the men asked.

“And the rest of them!” one of the boys demanded. “There were nearly 1,200 boys… and according to what Artie said, 68 dead. But how many survived? We saw some… in the televisor, we saw some of the little ones die. We saw others crushed, shot. How many are there in Artie’s Army?”

“Who were the people in the boxy aeroplanes, and where were they from? I cannot believe either the Pan-Asians or the Muslims can make an aeroplane fly without wings. And the Reverends damn sure can’t,” someone else said.

“How can they pre-empt the Reverends’ televisor signal? Are they also sending their signal to the Pan-Asians and the Muslims?” Ethan asked.

“Even if they’re not, the Pan-Asians and the Muslims almost certainly have spies… they’ll know,” the Don said.

“Are they people?” one of the boys said. “What must they be like if they can defeat the Reverends’ Army?”

“Did anything Artie said suggest his father, his allies weren’t people?” the Don asked.

No one was sure how to answer that, so we watched it again. I noticed that Ethan was crying. Not sobbing, but I saw tears roll down his cheeks. I don’t think anyone else saw.

“How could they get the bodies so high in the air? What would make them burn?” I asked.

“Those boxy aeroplanes must be able to fly a lot higher than the Reverends aeroplanes,” someone said. “But why would the bodies burn?”

“Friction, air friction,” one of the men said. “Like meteorites.” Some of the folks nodded, and I resolved to find out later what that meant.

“Why would they burn the bodies, anyway?” someone asked.

“Perhaps it is their custom,” the Don said. “We know it is the Reverends’ custom to bury bodies for they believe we were made from the dust of the Earth. Perhaps these people think we were made from the fire of the sun.”

“Ethan? You were crying,” I said. I had managed to get him alone after lunch.

His nose flared, and I thought he was going to lash out at me, but he took a deep breath, and his face relaxed.

“Artie was my friend,” he said. “He was five years older than me, but he was my friend—and my boyfriend. I never told him how much I loved him. When he volunteered to join the battle, I ran from him and hid. I was afraid. I didn’t tell him goodbye. I’m crying now because I’m afraid when he comes back, he will hate me.”

I was stunned, but not too stunned to feel how bad Ethan felt. I grabbed him and hugged him. He was older than I was and he was my corporal, so it seemed funny for me to try to comfort him, but I could feel his hurt. At first, he stiffened. I thought he would push away, but then I felt him relax in my hug.

“Ethan? Could you love someone who was a bad person?” I asked.

“Huh? Of course not,” Ethan said.

“Only a bad person could ever hate you for being afraid. Artie isn’t a bad person, or you wouldn’t have loved him. Artie isn’t a bad person, or he wouldn’t have been brave enough to take the risks he had to take. Artie will not hate you.” I said these things with a confidence I wasn’t entirely sure of. I hoped I was right, and swore that if this Artie person ever hurt Ethan, I’d hurt him right back!

Ethan sniffled once, and then thanked me for what I’d said—and for the hug. I guess it was okay for a private to hug his squad leader sometimes.

Matthew and I didn’t do fellatio every night. Some nights we just cuddled. On the night after we saw Artie on the televisor, we cuddled. And we whispered.

“Hamish? I want there to be angels.”

I was pretty sure by now that there were neither angels nor demons. I had to tell him. “Matthew, everything the Reverends taught us was a lie. Holy vessels, poisoned seed, beloved boy-servants, the rod that brings wisdom… they’re all lies. Angels and demons are lies, too.

“Please don’t hate me for telling you this!” I had felt him stiffen and pull away from my arms. I pulled him back, and hugged him tightly while he cried. When he stopped crying, I kissed the tears from his cheeks.

“I love you, Matthew. I don’t want to hurt you. The Reverends taught us to believe wrong things, and it hurt. I think believing the wrong thing will hurt you more than the truth.”

“I know,” Matthew said. “I love you. And there are angels.” His voice dropped to a whisper. “You are my guardian angel.” He kissed me lightly, and fell asleep.

I did not sleep as easily as did Matthew. He had appointed me as his angel. I guess I understood the difference between a guardian angel, and being the friend who would protect Matthew. Still, I knew it was something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

Chapter 40: The Funeral

USF Charleston

The Funeral would be broadcast live over Fleetnet as well as the major commercial networks. George said we should hijack Al Jihadi. I vetoed that idea, but suggested to Admiral Davis they be offered a feed. They turned us down and that was the end of it.

The ceremony on the Charleston was not part of the broadcast in the Reverends’ universe. Then, on the Reverends’ Sabbath, we seized the network again, and broadcast scenes of the boys’ bodies entering their Earth’s atmosphere and burning. We had sent shuttles equipped with video cameras through the rift and stationed them in the mountains west of Las Vegas rather than broadcast images that were obviously made from space.

We didn’t try to put the scenes onto the televisor networks of the Pan-Asians or the Mujahedeen of that world. We’d already discovered that they intercepted, and sometimes re-broadcast, what the Reverends transmitted, although they redacted it heavily and added their own spin.

I knew I could not participate in the Funeral. I used as an excuse that the veil would not protect my image as a twenty-year-old from a worldwide audience. I could have done that with Tobor’s help, but there was another reason: I knew that my sons were going to adopt two of the dead children from the Battle of Las Vegas, and I knew that my sons were much stronger than I was. I would not have been able to speak as they did without tears, and that would never have done.

A catafalque stretched across the front of the auditorium. The bodies of 68 children, washed, dressed in gray and black uniforms, and wrapped in white shrouds, lay upon it.

After the roll of known dead—horribly short—was read, Artie told everyone that there were forty-eight children without names, plus an untold number whose bodies had not been recovered. He explained why, and then stepped aside.

Cory Long stood and walked to the catafalque on which the sixty-eight bodies, named and unnamed, lay. “My name is Cory Long. I give my name to this unknown child…” Cory put his hand on a shrouded body. “A child who gave his life that his brothers might live. We are forever, one. He is forever a part of me. I will not forget him.”

Danny was next. He and Cory and Artie had each drawn a chip in the lottery, and then vied for the honor of being first. I never asked how they had resolved it. “My name is Danny Stewart.” Danny put his hand on the next body. “I give my name, and my father’s name, to this child who gave his life that his brothers might live. We are forever one. He is forever a part of me, and he is my brother. I will not forget him.”

Artie was next. His promise was like Danny’s. I could not control my tears. Now, I had five sons, two of whom were dead, had died for their brothers. It was a good thing that I was not a part of the funeral.

The roll call continued, until each one of the little bodies had a name. Then, everyone—Fleet, the Long family, the U-Cal boys—stood and recited the words that had been offered them. “My name is Legion, for I am many,” they said. “I am those whose names are not known, but who sacrificed themselves for their brothers. I am the unknown but never forgotten.

“I am those thousands of unknown who will be called upon to sacrifice themselves that others might live in freedom.”

The Funeral was broadcast throughout the Earth. The story of these children’s battle and their sacrifice had been planted in the media, and had been broadcast for weeks. According to the polls, the Funeral was the most watched program on television that decade.

Sabbath evening was clear, and supper was served early. All the lights of the camp were turned off. We sat, cross-legged on the ball field watching and waiting. Matthew and I sat together, and hugged one another. We faced east, where the sky was like a purple-gray. The last of the setting sun turned the tops of the mountains pink. Then darkness fell. In the last of the twilight, we had seen other couples holding each other as we were.

“Moon won’t rise until midnight,” someone said. They picked a perfect night.”

“Look!” Someone said.

A streak of fire shot across the sky. Just before it disappeared behind the mountains, it exploded into a shower of stars. Then another, and another. They came in ones, twos, and threes, never more than that. They all came from the same place, but they took different directions. Some were close enough that we thought we could hear a “bang” minutes after they exploded.

“… sixty four, sixty five… sixty seven… sixty eight.” Someone counted, and the streaks of light stopped. I heard boys crying, unashamedly sobbing. They believe what Artie said in the televisor; those streaks of light were their friends, I thought. Will they ever know their names? Will they ever know who besides Artie survived?

It wasn’t until the next morning that we learned that the shower of fire over Las Vegas had been transmitted over every televisor in the land. It wasn’t hard to understand that it wasn’t the Reverends who had done that.

“Were those really the boys who died?”

“I didn’t believe it until I counted them. Exactly sixty-eight. Just like Artie said. It had to be. How else…?”

“Artie wasn’t lying. He would never lie to us!”

“He didn’t know he was talking to us. He thought he was talking to the Reverends. Maybe he was lying to them.”

“Don’t you dare say that!”

“Who were they? Who were the sixty-eight?”

“Who lived? Where are they?”

“Will we ever know?”

“Will we ever see Artie and the others again?”

Matthew and I were in the mess hall with the rest of our squad drinking orange juice. There were cookies, too, but no one felt like eating cookies. It was still an hour until we had to be in bed with the lights out—something they called Taps. There was a pretty bugle call at Taps. It was kind of peaceful. Matthew tugged my arm.

“Hamish? Was the fire really…?” He couldn’t finish the sentence, but I knew what he was afraid to say. Was the fire really the bodies of dead boys? The friends of our friends?

“Yes, Matthew,” I said, and hugged Matthew. I knew he knew I could feel how sad he was, but we could never, never let anyone know that I could feel him that way.

“Yes, Matthew, it was just what Artie said it would be.” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “I felt a great sadness, and a great anger, as if millions of people were sad and angry at the same time. It was real, but I don’t know where it came from.”

The Headquarters of the California Intelligence Agency was located on the Monterrey Peninsula in what once had been a Catholic girls’ school. The California Liberation Army had assumed control of the property—and the large number of peacocks that occupied the grounds—and made it their headquarters.

The telegraph in the communication center stopped clattering; the operator handed a message form to the Colonel who had been looking over his shoulder.

Fire fell from the sky over Las Vegas as promised. Sixty-eight shooting stars singly and in groups of two or three over a period of about thirty minutes. Renaldo. ENDIT

“Thank you,” the Colonel said. “This is classified Ultra Secret.”

The Colonel rushed from the room, and barely heard the operator’s Yes, sir.

Hours later, the screams of peacocks announced sunrise, but the Senior Committee of the CIA had reached no conclusions.

His uniform was pearl gray. His grade insignia of four silver stars would have been familiar to people in many realities. His title would have caused fear in some of those realities: Colonel-General of the Congregation of the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

Paul Stewart would have recognized the title from history. The Inquisition had begun in his world in 1184 C.E., and continued until the forces of the Enlightenment—not armies, but ideas, reason, logic, and science—in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century had put a stop to the Catholic Inquisition’s witch hunts, torture of innocents, and immolation of people unjustly accused of heresy.

Corey Long would have recognized the title: the Holy Office of the Inquisition continued in his world until 1870, and was responsible for the Salem witchcraft trials of the 1690s. The Enlightenment had not taken hold in U-Long until the late nineteenth century. Then, as if it were a spring held back until that moment, the power of rational thought and science swept Corey’s world, where scientists had been elected President of the United States beginning in 1920, and faster-than-light flight had been developed in 1968.

Artie Stewart would have recognized the title, for the Inquisition was a feared force in his world. The first Reverend elected President of the United States was Neimiah Scudder who took office in 1901. He re-created the Inquisition. His son, Makepeace Scudder, who succeeded his father in 1917, expanded the Inquisition and its power. Using that Office and an army of young men, promised salvation and paradise if they died in the service of the Lord God, he spread his gospel throughout much of the American continents and Europe before death removed him from office in 1950.

Hamish and Matthew would have remembered the title from their childhood, although only as a boogieman used to threaten unruly children. They had not been threatened with Inquisitors while at the Sheriff’s Ranch—the Deputies had their own methods of creating fear and ensuring obedience. Their methods didn’t require Reverends, Inquisitors, or myths.

The man in the pearl-gray uniform sat at the head of a table with twelve others who wore the same uniform. The Colonel-General spoke.

“You have seen the recording of the announcement; you have seen the recording of the show of fire over Las Vegas last night. Our assumption that the announcement had some legitimacy was correct, although the consensus among the Reverends Councils was—according to our agents—that it was purely propaganda.

“Start the tape.”

At the opposite end of the table, a young man wearing lieutenant’s bars turned a knob on the recorder and a televisor came to life.

“My name is Artie. I was born in Las Vegas. I never knew my father. At the age of twelve, I was taken from my mother and made a servant of the Reverends. I escaped. You have seen me on the televisor at the Battle of Las Vegas—”

The Colonel-General’s voice cut through the sound from the televisor. “You have identified him?”

The lieutenant stopped the recorder. “Yes, sir. Here is an image from our film of the battle.” He put a photograph on the stage of the opaque projector.

“Looks different. Are you sure?”

“Yes, Colonel-General,” the lieutenant said. “We brought in seven boys from the _____ Palace Casino. When put to the Question, the boys identified him positively from the tape and from this image. Only one was old enough to have known him. Apparently he escaped from Las Vegas about five years ago. Others, however, reported overhearing Reverends speaking of him as having been at the battle.”

The older man grunted, and his nostrils flared. His distaste for the activities at the _____ Palace Casino was no secret among his staff.

“Continue,” the Colonel-General said. The lieutenant turned the knob.

“…Many of us were killed before the rest were rescued by those we thought to be angels in boxy aeroplanes without wings.”

“Stop,” ordered the Colonel-General. “Who flew those aeroplanes, and how did they fly without wings? We’ve had some weeks to answer those questions. The matter has become considerably more urgent.

“Colonel Bayer, what have you turned up among the Muslims?” he continued. “What is the probability that they are behind this?”

The colonel didn’t wipe away the sweat that formed on his upper lip. He thought it better not to call attention to it. Its presence did not escape the notice of the Colonel-General, however.

“Colonel-General, we have never seen this kind of technology among the Muslims. Most of them are still wiping themselves with their left hands after defecating. The only center of learning is in Medina, and the only thing that is taught there is the Quran. There are rumors of greater freedom of inquiry in Turkey, but only rumors.”

“Do you have someone in Turkey?” the Colonel-General asked.

“No, sir,” the Colonel answered. “But I will before the week is over.”

The Colonel-General was not fooled. The idiot hadn’t thought of that until now. Still, he is too valuable to replace. I must find his successor soon, though.

“Colonel Carter? The Pan-Asians?” the Colonel-General asked.

“Sir, as you know, much of the Pan-Asian Hegemony is absolutely closed to foreigners. The last three agents we placed in the trade delegation in Formosa met with accidents—no doubt created by the Pan-Asians after finding them engaged in espionage and recruiting.”

“And that’s the extent of your efforts? Do we not have citizens with Asian features who learned the language as children?” The Colonel-General’s voice was sharp with each word bitten off like bullets fired from one of the Army’s hand-cranked Gatling guns.

“Sir, we do, but the logistics… communication… their reliability and loyalty…” Colonel Carter sputtered.

“Colonel Carter, who is your deputy?” the Colonel-General asked. The question was rhetorical. The Colonel-General had already interviewed the man.

“Major Johnson,” the colonel choked.

“Your service is no longer needed,” the Colonel-General said. The bullet from his sidearm ended the colonel’s life before the man had a chance to understand.

“Call Major Johnson,” the Colonel-General said. “And invite him to join us.” The lieutenant who was not operating the televisor hurried to obey.

“The Jesuits,” a man with Colonel’s diamonds spoke. “The Jesuits were scientists. Have we looked in South America? Do we have any idea what’s going on in those jungles? Those mountains?”

Several of the men grimaced, but none dared meet the eyes of the Colonel-General. The Jesuits, remnants of the Catholic Church in the Americas, were a lance in the man’s side. The colonel who had spoken was powerful, though. He was the Grand Inquisitor, the direct supervisor of an army of torturers and, some said, a cousin of the Colonel-General.

“Do you have men to send there, Colonel?” the Colonel-General asked. “Can you send enough men there to make a difference?”

“Probably not, sir, but they may get lucky.” The colonel took his superior’s question as authority to act. “They’ll be on the way by tomorrow morning.”

“What do our Jewish scientists say?” the Colonel-General asked.

The man who answered this question wore the same pearl-gray uniform as the others at the table, but without rank insignia. His lapels displayed crossed flags, one white with a red square in the center, the other red with a white square in the center. A golden torch was positioned vertically in the center of the insignia. The Intelligence branches of both the Inquisition and the Army had for reasons lost to history adopted the symbol of the Signal Corps.

“The Miami group has focused on the televisor signal. They believe that the signal from Lynchburg was broken at key points, and the replacement signal substituted. They believe the clarity of the signal is due to higher power. They have recommended stationing guards at the microwave towers and searching the paths between towers for generating equipment which they say must be large and relatively immobile.”

“Which towers, and where?” the Colonel-General demanded.

“They cannot say without having a complete diagram of the network, sir.”

“Give it to them. What are you afraid of? They’re secure, aren’t they?”

“Yes, sir. The Miami ghetto is completely locked down at night, and although women are allowed to leave during the daytime, we search them, and we keep their children hostage.”

“Then give them what they need.”

The intelligence officer-scientist continued. “The Chicago group is convinced that the aeroplanes and the weapons are using what they call atomic power. We have sent them samples of the metal from the tanks that were destroyed, metal from the plates that were struck by the lightning weapons, but they have found nothing unusual.”

“What is this atomic power?” the Colonel-General asked.

“Most likely, something they dreamed up in order to get more resources,” the scientist said. “They claim that they can harness the power of the sun.” He snorted.

Too valuable despite his closed mind, the Colonel-General thought. He waved his hand for the lieutenant who operated the televisor to continue.

“… the adopted son of Commodore Paul Stewart, Commander of Task Force Rift.”

“Stop the tape. Commodore is a naval rank. Who but the Pan-Asians has a navy large enough to have a commodore? Stewart is not a Pan-Asian name. What does this mean?”

“The Pan-Asians do not use the rank of Commodore,” Major Johnson asserted. “If they did, they would say Comrade Commodore.”

“Then we shall assume that much of his message is a bluff,” the Colonel-General said. “Until we know more,” he added, and waved again to the lieutenant.

“… to honor their sacrifice, we will send their bodies from the heavens back to Earth. They will fall through the air above Earth. The speed of their fall will cause them to burn.”

The Colonel-General looked at the scientist and raised his eyebrows.

“Sir, we believe that the air of the Earth extends only some miles above the surface. We also know that rocks, called meteorites, sometimes fall from the Heavens to the Earth, and that they become heated in their fall. Some burn up before reaching the surface; others land on the Earth. We do not know why this would happen.

“What fell over Las Vegas was nothing more than rocks.”

The Colonel-General stared at the scientist for a moment, restraining his anger. When he felt in control of himself, he asked. “And if they were rocks? From how high would they have to release them in order for them to burn?”

The scientist shook his head. “I will ask the Jewish scientists.”

“Turn it off,” the Colonel-General told the lieutenant. We know the rest is purely propaganda.”

All had left save the Colonel-General and the Lieutenant. The Lieutenant rewound the tape on the recorder, and shut off the televisor and the opaque projector.

“Lieutenant Thackery,” the Colonel-General surprised the young man. “You were told during your training that the Earth was the center of the universe, and that the sun, moon, and planets were fixed in crystal spheres between Earth and the firmament, and that those spheres rotated around the Earth.”

The lieutenant nodded. “Yes, sir.” One eyebrow twitched, but otherwise his face remained passive.

The Colonel-General looked for sweat or nervousness, but found none. “You were told that Jews paint their doorposts with the blood of Christian babies to keep the Angel of Death away.”

The Colonel-General paused, and the young lieutenant nodded, again.

“What do you think of that?”

“Sir, I was taught those things,” the young man said. “I was also taught to question and to learn from my questioning. I believe those stories are propaganda designed for the illiterate, ignorant serfs.”

When the Colonel-General said nothing, the lieutenant continued. “I was also taught that the Bible says that Earth is flat,” he said. “But I know this not to be true. The Holy Book says that four angels stood on the four corners of Earth; but a sphere does not have corners, and Earth is a sphere. The Bible says that Satan took the Christ to a high place from which He could see all the kingdoms of the Earth, another proof that Earth is flat. But Earth is a sphere.”

“You know this, how?” the Colonel-General demanded.

“The evidence of my senses. The shape of the shadow of Earth as it passes over the moon during an eclipse. The falling away of land with distance. Stories of how ships’ masts seem to drop below the horizon as they sail away.”

“And the blood of children?”

“A story hardly worth consideration or comment.”

“Boy! I hope that your mouth is not usually quite so quick to speak,” the Colonel-General said.

The lieutenant still showed no other sign of nervousness. “No, sir,” he said. “But you are not like the others.”

“Never fear to speak your mind to me,” the Colonel-General said.

“No sir, I won’t. Whether they were rocks or bodies, this Colonel Stewart knew the exact number. Whether they were rocks or bodies, they had to reach some great height,” the lieutenant said. “It may give us some information about the capabilities of these boxy aeroplanes.”

“Yes, although it seems to have escaped our chief scientist.”

Emboldened by the Colonel-General’s words, the Lieutenant continued. “Sir? Were the boys from the _____ Palace Casino asked if they knew how this Stewart boy escaped?”

The Colonel-General frowned, and the lieutenant was afraid until the man spoke. “A good question, which was not asked, and which I shall pose to the inquisitors. You, however, have a more important role. You are to travel to Chicago with a letter from me. Speak to the Jewish scientists. Learn about this ‘atomic’ thing, and bring the knowledge back to me. Time is important, but understanding is perhaps even more so.”

The instruments of torture used by the Inquisitors were little changed from those created early in the fourth century by the Catholic Church: thumbscrews, the Judas chair whose point tore the anus of the boy forced to sit atop it, and strappado by which boys were hoisted into the air by hands tied behind their back. These devices required time to be effective. The men who had received the Colonel-General’s tasking found the whip named Gabriel’s Hand to be a simpler way of creating pain, and their own penises as effective as the Judas chair.

Of the seven boys from the _____ Palace Casino, only five had survived the initial interrogation. A minor detail, thought the Grand Inquisitor’s deputy.

“Show them the video,” he said to the Inquisitors. “Find out if they recognize anyone else. When you are sure they are telling the truth, send any that live to the Colorado Springs Sheriff’s Ranch. They will be of no further use here.”

He was not reluctant to kill the boys, but knew it would be easier to ship them to the ranch than to dispose of more bodies.

The tortured boys provided more names, but they were of no consequence. The people who operated the _____ Palace Casino did not keep records. Two boys survived the torture long enough to reach the Colorado Springs Sheriff’s Ranch, but neither lived more than three days after that.

As always, please let David know what you think of his story: david.mcleod@castleroland.net