Then it would happen, and he'd do his best to recover from the blow, and either he'd succeed or he'd fail. No point fretting about it now. Somebody was meeting him at the north door of the lobby tomorrow morning before daylight. Maybe they'd lead him to Alai, and maybe he'd achieve what he needed to achieve, save all that he needed to save.
He toyed with the idea of not telling Petra about the meeting. After all, she had no pertinent office at all. She had no particular right to be at the meeting, especially after their quarrel tonight.
Don't be spiteful and petty, Peter told himself. One spiteful act brings too much pleasure—it just makes you want to do another, and another. And sooner each time.
So he picked up the phone and on the seventh ring she picked it up.
"I'm not going to apologize," she said curtly.
"Good," he said. "Because I don't want some smarmy I'm-sorry-you-got-so-upset fake apology. What I want is for you to join me at five a.m. at the north door of the lobby."
"What for?"
"I don't know," said Peter. "I'm just passing along what I was just told on the telephone."
"He's going to let us see him?"
"Or he's sending thugs to escort us back to the airport. How can I possibly know? You're the one who's his friend. You tell me what he's planning."
"I haven't the slightest idea," said Petra. "It's not like Alai and I were ever close. And are you sure they want me to come to the actual meeting? There are plenty of Muslims who would be horrified at the thought of an unveiled married woman speaking face to face with a man—even the Caliph."
"I don't know what they want," said Peter. "I want you at the meeting."
They were ushered into a closed van and driven along a route that Peter assumed was convoluted and deceptively long. For all he knew, the Caliph's headquarters was next door to their hotel. But Alai's people knew that without the Caliph there was no unity, and without unity Islam had no strength, so they were taking no chances on letting outsiders know where the Caliph lived.
They were driven far enough that they might be outside Damascus. When they emerged from the van, it was not in daylight, it was indoors ... or underground. Even the porticoed garden into which they were ushered was artificially lighted, and the sound of running and trickling and falling water masked any faint noises that might have seeped in from outside and hinted where they were.
Alai did not so much greet them as notice their presence as he walked in the garden. He did not even face them, but sat a few meters away, facing a fountain, and began to speak.
"I have no desire to humiliate you, Peter Wiggin," he said. "You should not have come."
"I appreciate your letting me speak with you at all," Peter answered.
"Wisdom said that I should announce to the world that the Hegemon had come to see the Caliph, and the Caliph refused to see him. But I told Wisdom to be patient, and let Folly be my guide today in this garden."
"Petra and I are here to—"
"Petra is here," said Alai, "because you thought her presence might get you in to see me, and you needed a witness that I would be reluctant to kill, and because you want her to be your ally after her husband is dead."
Peter did not let himself glance at Petra to see how she took this sally from Alai. She knew the man; Peter did not. She would interpret his words as she saw fit, and nothing he could see in her face right now would help him understand anything. It would only weaken him to show he cared.
"I'm here to offer my help," said Peter.
"I command armies that rule over more than half the population of the world," said Alai. "I have united Muslim nations from Morocco to Indonesia, and liberated the oppressed peoples in between."
"It's the difference between 'conquered' and 'liberated' that I wanted to talk about."
"So you came to rebuke me, not to help after all," said Alai.
"I see I'm wasting my time," said Peter. "If we can't speak together without petty debate, then you are past receiving help."
"Help?" said Alai. "One of my advisers said to me, when I told them I wanted to see you, 'How many soldiers does this Hegemon have?' "
"How many divisions has the Pope?" quoted Peter.
"More than the Hegemon has," said Alai, "if the Pope should ask for them. As the old dead United Nations found out long ago, religion always has more warriors than some vague international abstraction."
Peter realized then that Alai was not speaking to him. He was speaking past him. This was not a private conversation after all.
"I do not intend to be disrespectful to the Caliph," said Peter. "I have seen the majesty of your achievement and the generosity of spirit with which you have dealt with your enemies."
Alai visibly relaxed. They were now playing the same game. Peter had finally understood the rules. "What is to be gained from humiliating those who believe they stand outside the power of God?" asked Alai. "God will show them his power in his own good time, and until then we are wise to be kind."
Alai was speaking as the true believers around him required him to speak—always asserting the primacy of the Caliphate over all non-Muslim powers.
"The dangers I came to speak of," said Peter, "will not ever come from me or because of the small influence I have in the world. Though I was not chosen by God, and there are few who listen to me, I also seek, as you seek, the peace and happiness of the children of God on Earth."
Now was the time, if Alai was completely the captive of his supporters, for him to rant about how it was blasphemous for an infidel like Peter to invoke the name of God or pretend that there could be peace before all the world was under the rule of the Caliphate.
Instead Alai said, "I listen to all men, but obey only God."
"There was a day when Islam was hated and feared throughout the world," said Peter. "That era ended long ago, before either of us were born, but your enemies are reviving those old stories."
"Those old lies, you mean," said Alai.
"The fact that no man can make the Hajj in his own skin and live," said Peter, "suggests that not all the stories are lies. In the name of Islam terrible weapons were acquired and in the name of Islam they were used to destroy the most sacred place on Earth."
"It is not destroyed," said Alai. "It is protected."
"It's so radioactive that nothing can live within a hundred kilometers," said Peter. "And you know what the explosion did to Al-hajar Al-aswad."
"The stone was not sacred in itself," said Alai, "and Muslims never worshipped it. We only used it as a marker to remember the holy covenant between God and his true followers. Now its molecules are powdered and spread over the whole Earth, as a blessing to the righteous and a curse to the wicked, while we who follow Islam still remember where it was, and what it marked, and bow toward that place when we pray."
It was a sermon he had surely said many times before.
"Muslims suffered more than anyone in those dark days," said Peter. "But that is not what most people remember. They remember bombs that killed innocent women and children, and fanatical self-murderers who hated any freedom except the freedom to obey the very narrowest interpretation of Shari'ah."
He could see Alai stiffen. "I make no judgment myself," Peter immediately said. "I was not alive then. But in India and China and Thailand and Vietnam, there are people who fear that the soldiers of Islam did not come as liberators, but as conquerors. That they'll be arrogant in victory. That the Caliphate will never allow freedom to the people who welcomed him and aided him in overcoming the Chinese conquerors."