“A” into the air, before hoisting the diviner up onto his shoulders and walking away. If the holy man blamed the little girl for failing to detect the contraband, there was certainly no sign of it.
The Army of God fl?owed out onto the road, and ten minutes later the entire fl?ock had disappeared, leaving the unbelievers to die of exposure. Each off-worlder had a different reaction. Rebo tried to communicate with Norr, but found that his voice wouldn’t carry, and was left to wonder if it was possible to kill someone on the spirit planes. If so, Lysander was in deep trouble.
Norr tried to use her power of telekinesis to undo even one of the more than two dozen knots that held her in place but was soon forced to give up the task as impossible. Logos couldn’t manipulate his environment, but had survived similar situations during the last thousand years and knew what to do. Eventually, after his host’s heart stopped beating, human scavengers would arrive to pick over her remains. At that point he would speak to one of the brutes, promise it a large quantity of gold that didn’t exist, and convince them to carry him to Feda. Then, having found a more capable mount, he would continue his journey. Not to Socket, as everyone supposed, but to Haafa. Because, even though Socket was the AI’s fi?nal destination, there was someone he would have to murder fi?rst.
Hoggles fl?exed his enormous muscles in an attempt to break the bonds that held him, but soon discovered that the acolytes had anticipated such a move, and tripled the number of ropes that held him in place. And, as a punishment for throwing an acolyte into the canyon, one of his fi?ngers had been removed. The wound had been cauterized—but continued to ache.
Phan turned to her martial arts training in an attempt to gather her energy and channel it into a Ku, or death blow, suffi?cient to free her from the X-shaped framework. But, owing to the fact that the assassin had killed three of the fl?ock prior to being subdued, two of her throwing spikes had been used to nail her hands to the thick rough-hewn beams. The pain, plus the cold, made it diffi?cult to concentrate. Hope, such as it was, lay in the fact that Shaz would arrive eventually. But would the operative arrive in time?
No, Phan didn’t think so.
The snow began to fall more heavily then, covered each of the condemned with a shroud of white, and softened the area around them. Eventually, all movement having stopped, silence claimed the land.
SEVEN
The Planet Derius
Although the antitechnic rabble continue to sweep through theprovince—we have them under observation, and I remain con-fi?dent that our strategy will be successful.
—Provincial Facilitator, Kas Okanda, in a report to his superiors in New Wimmura
The snow fell from the sky like a lacy curtain and the two dozen riders seemed to materialize out of the hazy whiteness like ghosts from some long-forgotten battle. But Facilitator Kas Okanda and his well-mounted dragoons were quite real, as were the sleek semiautomatic rifl?es the troopers carried and the wraithlike hunting dogs that ranged ahead.
Okanda was a relatively small man, but he exuded an aura of authority as he eyed the area, alert to the possibility of an ambush. But there was nothing for him to see beyond a maze of tracks, the usual detritus left behind by a large group of campers, and the row of X-shaped crosses that sat atop a low rise. Four people had been crucifi?ed, and judging from appearances, all of them were dead. But the administrator prided himself on the veracity of the reports that he sent to New Wimmura every eight days, so a scout was dispatched to examine the bodies, and ordered to report back.
“Make a note,” Okanda instructed, as the youngster next to him prepared to write on a clipboard. “Having patrolled the area north of the citadel, the company came across four individuals all of whom had been crucifi?ed. Since this sort of execution is typical of the antitechnic fanatics, it seems safe to assume that they were responsible for the atrocity.” The facilitator’s secretary scribbled furiously in a desperate attempt to capture each word exactly as it had been spoken.
The scout returned just as the government offi?cial fi?nished his paragraph. “Excuse me, sire,” the dragoon said respectfully, “but the people on the crosses are still alive.”
Okanda had bushy eyebrows. They shot upward in surprise. “What?” he demanded. “Alive you say. . . . Are you sure?”
“Yes, sire,” the scout replied expressionlessly. “Would you like us to cut them down?”
“Of course!” Okanda responded affi?rmatively. “But not until Hobarth here has an opportunity to examine the victims and take notes.”
The scout said, “Yes, sire,” and led the younger man over to where the snow-encrusted crosses stood. Now that he was closer Hobarth could see the wisps of vapor that issued from between blue-tinged lips. The better part of ten minutes elapsed while the secretary took elaborate notes on everything from the manner in which metal spikes had been driven through one woman’s hands, to the clothes that the people wore, and the fact that a lightning bolt had been tattooed onto the inner surface of one man’s left forearm. Once the process was complete, the men and women were taken down and loaded into a pair of sturdy fi?eld ambulances. The heavy went into one, while the sensitive, and the norms were placed in the other. Once inside the wagons, the patients were propped up against straw-fi?lled pillows and covered with wool blankets.
And that’s where Rebo was when the dream ended, his eyes opened, and a man with a handlebar mustache said,
“Here . . . This’ll fi?x what ails ya!” and poured a half ounce of fi?ery liquid into his mouth. The whiskey went down the wrong way, and the runner began to choke.
Norr raised a hand in protest. “Don’t give him spirits. . . . What we need is some warm tea. . . . Or some caf.”
The medics were more than happy to dispense lukewarm tea from the insulated bottles fi?lled earlier that day and consume the medicinal whiskey themselves while the wagons rattled through a village and began the long arduous climb to the citadel. Having passed through a well-guarded entrance, the wagons ground to a halt in front of a one-story infi?rmary, and the patients were carried inside. Within a matter of minutes they were stripped of clothing and immersed in warm baths. Phan, Hoggles, and, to a lesser extent, Rebo were treated for their various wounds before being brought back together for some hot soup. Then, after a good deal of fussing over by some very effi?cient female nurses, the travelers were packed off to bed. Norr wanted to sleep more than anything—but refused to cooperate until the staff returned her clothes. Then, clutching a ratty-looking coat to her chest, the sensitive allowed sleep to overtake her. The nurses shrugged, sent the rest of her fi?lthy apparel out to be burned, and left the room. Once the nurses were gone, and the door was closed, Logos spoke. “Lonni? Can you hear me?” But there was no answer other than a cough, followed by some nonsensical words, and the sound of the sensitive’s breathing. “I know I don’t say this sort of thing very often,” the AI whispered.
“But thank you.”
The sun had set three hours earlier, which meant that most travelers had been forced to camp out or seek the hospitality of a country inn. But Shaz and his party were the exceptions to that rule. Not only could the forwardranging metal men “sense” obstacles, they could “see” whatever fell under the blobs of white light that projected from their “eyes” and break trail for the angens. Travel remained diffi?cult, however, especially since the humans and their mounts had been on the road for twelve hours and were close to exhaustion.
But it had been two days since the combat variant had spotted one of the red ribbons that Phan typically left adjacent to the road or picked up a written message from the assassin. And that was why the operative insisted that the party continue to push ahead. Of course there are limits to how far one can ride in a day, and the angens had begun to stumble by the time the robots followed a multitude of tracks up to the rise where four X-shaped crosses stood, and paused to look around. A quick reconnaissance revealed an area of heavily churned snow—but it was impossible to know who had been there or why. “We’ll camp here,” Shaz announced to the androids. “Build a couple of fi?res, pitch the tent, and feed the angens.”