What you’re after is death, Hanson thought. But he didn’t say it out loud.
By twisty, laborious ways, the patrol passed through the factories and finally came to the last of the mounds. The land beyond was fair and open and carpeted with low, blood red grasses. The usual variety of enigmatic structures, all potentially lethal, rose up here and there. But the golden Cathedral was nowhere to be seen.
Delgardo cursed and spat when he realized that, and, spinning, seized Hanson by the arm. “You’ve led us astray, you coward! You traitor! Deliberately too, I’ll bet anything you did.”
With an angry jerk of his thumb skyward, Hanson said, “Look up there. That’s the sun. Which means that way is east and that way west, so we’re facing due north. Factories to our back. We’re standing where the Cathedral was. Only it a’n’t here anymore. It’s as simple as that.”
“Buildings don’t just get up and walk away.”
“Here they do. Face it, Delgardo—the Cathedral just doesn’t want to talk with you.” Watching Delgardo’s face, Hanson thought fleetingly that the moment had come at last, the one he had been dreading all along, when they two would have to fight, most likely to the death. Truth be told, he suspected he might win. But in the aftermath, there would be the soldiers to deal with, and he knew for certain that would not go well for him. But he saw Delgardo, with an effort, rein in his anger, reasserting control over himself, and saw, too, behind his animal rage traces of uncertainty and, yes, even fear. Delgardo had no idea how to make the Cathedral come to him or, for that matter, how to keep himself alive while he tried. Out of nowhere, Hanson experienced a strange elation. We may be in Hell, he thought, but I know the rules here better than you do.
That evening, Hanson couldn’t help noting how listlessly the soldiers pitched tents, cooked food, ate, took up guard duty. They were all suffering from lack of sleep and none of them looked forward to the nightmares that would accompany what little sleep they might manage. By contrast, he and Delgardo were doing fine—courtesy of the key, he imagined. But as for the others… Nights filled with bad dreams and days with structures that hurt the eye to look upon and the mind to contemplate, accompanied by the constant possibility of sudden death, had taken their toll, breaking down the soldiers. Before too long they’d start getting careless, wander into buildings and get eaten by strange machines, lie down on the sleek ceramic plates that Sergeant Barker had warned that, on an earlier incursion, he had witnessed turn men into animals like nothing anybody had ever seen. Not long after that, the survivors would begin to suspect the worst of one another before remembering at last that they had weapons and the training to use them. He sat up, thinking, for a time and then went to Delgardo’s tent, which was, of course, twice the size of anyone else’s. He rattled the flap and said, “Get your clothes on. We need to talk.”
Delgardo dressed and followed Hanson away from the tents. They walked around a dome whose surface glowed with images of what might be rocks or, equally plausibly, platelets of blood, floating silently, occasionally bumping into one another, and noiselessly bouncing apart, shedding flowers like sparks. There, out of sight of the camp, they stopped.
“So?” Delgardo said.
“I’ve been watching the men. You must see it too. A few more days of this is going to kill them.”
Delgardo grinned a shark’s grin that seemed to have too many teeth in it for anything human. “Why, Hanson,” he said, “that’s what they’re here for, isn’t it? To die a little, if called upon. What the hell do you think a soldier is if not somebody who’s paid to die for you?”
“Send them back.” The soldiers had the maps they had made on the way in. The sun would orient them. The thought of getting out of this madness would give them focus, keep them wary. Hanson was sure they could make it out alive, most of them, anyway, and possibly all.
“They’re not your pals, Hanson. I’m sure you’ve noticed that fact. They don’t even like you—and, yes, I acknowledge that’s primarily my doing.” Delgardo spread his arms and made a theatrical little bow. “So why should you, much less I, care about their well-being?”
“They’re… they’re people, after all,” Hanson mumbled. By the light of the dome, he could see how much Delgardo was enjoying this verbal sparring match. Of course, he’d never been much of a talker, or very good at logic, but the imbalance of competence clearly didn’t bother Delgardo one bit. A duel in which the opponent was unarmed and he held a battle ax would only make the whole affair that much sweeter to him.
“Why, so is everybody. So are the Southerners and we mowed them down without mercy not a week ago. They didn’t ask for special treatment, did they? No, and didn’t get any. So why should I—” Delgardo stopped, frozen in mid-speech by a sudden realization. “You know something! You big, stupid bastard, you know something about the Cathedral, and you’ve been keeping it from me.”
“Ai.”
With a wordless cry of rage, Delgardo ran at Hanson, fists balled. Hanson had never been a particularly skilled fighter, but he was strong as an ox, and he knew how to punch. His huge fist crashed into Delgardo’s face. A flare of pain in Hanson’s hand, the sound of breaking bone, a spurt of blood, and Delgardo went down as if he’d been shot, sprawled flat on his back.
Hanson waited.
For a long time Delgardo did not move. Time enough for Hanson to slip away and disappear into the jungle of strangeness that he knew a hundred times better than Delgardo ever would. Instead, he stood motionless, listening to the man’s ragged breathing. At last, Delgardo moaned, rolled over on his side, and sat up. Drawing a silk handkerchief from his pocket, he used it to stanch the flow of blood from his nose. He glared at Hanson with hatred that burned like a flame, but there was a touch of respect intermingled therein as well, something that Hanson had never seen before in him.
“The Cathedral has been thinking about what to do with us and it’s just about made up its mind. Right now it’s waiting for me to accept that I have no choice but to talk to it.” Hanson could not have said how he knew all this, but he did. “You want to get into the Cathedral? I can make it happen. Only, you have to send your men home first. That’s my price.”
Slowly Delgardo got to his feet, handkerchief to nose. “You do realize,” he said casually, “that when all this is over, I’m going to make you pay, and pay dearly, for hitting me.”
Hanson gaped at him in astonishment. “You honestly think that we’re both going to get out of this alive?” Something rose up within him, an unfamiliar tickling, and, while Delgardo stared at him in disbelief, he found himself first chortling and then roaring with laughter.
He laughed until he cried. Long before he was done, Delgardo had stomped away, back to his tent.
That night, for the first time since entering the City of God, Hanson slept well.
In the morning, Hanson awoke to discover that the Cathedral was looming over the camp, its walls not a hundred paces distant, and dazzling to look upon. Up close it was as large as a mountain—no, larger! The soldiers appeared dazed and confused, save for the two night guards, whom Sergeant Barker was bawling out while they frantically tried to explain that they’d been alert all night and nothing had happened, nothing had moved, the Cathedral was just there when the sun came up.