One thing he did know, however, was that Jon would still be alive if a protectorate had been set up. The CSS was at fault there. Always hesitating, always stepping back, always mincing around…rotten hands-off policy. Well, he was through with a hands-off policy as of this moment. Those scum back there liked fire, did they? Well, then they'd see some fire, more than they'd ever –
"You're to stay by the gate until you're dismissed!" said a torch-carrying trooper stationed back from the crowd.
He started to move forward to block Dalt's path, then retreated. Perhaps there was something in the way Dalt held himself, something in the way he moved; perhaps the torch light allowed him a glimpse of Dalt's white, tight-lipped face. Whatever it was, the lone sentry decided to let this one pass without an argument.
Not too much further along, Dalt came upon a staring, motionless figure, standing in the darkness, transfixed by the flames.
"Rab!" Dalt shook his shoulder roughly. "Rab, are you all right?"
Rab blinked twice, then staggered. For a heartbeat or two, he didn't seem to know where he was. Then he recognized Dalt.
"Tlad! I saw it all! It was horrible! They're all monsters in that fortress! What they did to Jon…I never dreamed anyone could —"
Dalt put a hand over his mouth to silence him. When he spoke, his voice was cold and flat.
"I know. We've got to tell the rest of the Talents."
"They already know. I made a conduit of myself and transmitted everything back to them. They saw it all through me. They are all witnesses."
"Adriel?"
Rab glanced back at the dancing flames outside Mekk's gate.
"Komak will tell her. Tonight I was glad she was without the Talent. We've lost a good friend, Tlad — another life Mekk will answer for some day. But for now, what do we do?"
"We split up. You go to your people in the forest and stay there. No one is to venture near the fortress until morning. No one!"
Rab looked at him questioningly, but before he could speak, Dalt hurried on.
"Remember what I told you a while back when you asked me how to fight a myth?"
Rab's brow furrowed momentarily, then he nodded. "Another myth, you said — a bigger and better one."
"Right. And the new one starts here. Tonight. It will concern a rough-looking creature everyone persecuted because he was called a tery. But he was really a man. It will tell how he tried to live in peace as a man. And how one day he was captured and died horribly at the hands of his persecutors. You spread the word about that, Rab. And tell the world what happened to those who killed him."
"But nothing happened to them."
"Not yet."
Rab stared uncomprehendingly at the man he knew as Tlad.
"Don't worry, Rab. I'm not mad. Not quite. But something is going to happen tonight, and I don't want it passed off as a natural catastrophe. I want people to remember tonight and know that it happened for a reason."
"What…what's going to happen?"
Dalt's face was a mask. "Something I'm going to have to live with the rest of my life."
As Dalt turned and trotted toward the trees, Rab called after him.
"I won't be seeing you again, will I?"
Dalt didn't reply.
— XXVIII-
Dalt brought his ship to a silent hover over Mekk's fortress. Except for a few sputtering torches, all was dark below. Perhaps a few embers glowed around the base of the cross that held the tery's charred remains, but Dalt could not see them from where he was. The villagers had returned to their frightened hovels far down at the base of the hill. All was quiet.
He pointed up the nose of his slender craft and aimed his ion drive tubes at the fortress. He had to do this now. If he gave himself enough time to think, if he allowed himself to weigh the risks of firing an ion drive within a planet's atmosphere, he would abandon the whole idea. But Dalt was not thinking now. He was doing.
He realized that during the course of the rest of his life he would analyze and reanalyze the reasons for what he was about to do. Eventually he knew he would conclude that it all hinged upon the uniqueness of Jon the tery. If anyone else in his group of contacts on the planet had been immolated outside Mekk's fortress, he would have grieved, cursed, ground his teeth with the rest of them, and continued the mission.
But Jon's death had unhinged Dalt. He’d found something very special in that rough beast who was a man; something clean, free, and innocent; a certain incorruptible sanity singular and precious in his experience. And now it was gone — lost to Dalt and the rest of humanity forever.
Gone…
But he would see that it was not forgotten. Jon deserved better than to have his ashes scattered to the wind. He deserved a more permanent memorial, an enduring tombstone. And he would have it.
A long blast from the tubes that drove his craft through peristellar space would prove disastrous here in an oxygen-laden atmosphere; the Leason crystal lining would crack and Dalt and his craft would become a tiny, short-lived sun.
But a short blast…
A short blast would obviate the need for a protectorate; a short blast would also obviate the need for a CS operative. The net effect would be the same as the bomb he had wanted Jon to plant in the cache: Mekk and his fortress gone, his soldiers and the True Shape priesthood gone; gone too the cache of Shaper relics along with all the poor mad creatures in the Hole. All gone.
But Dalt knew he wouldn't be leaving pure destruction below. He would be creating, too.
Creating a myth.
All with one short blast.
As he reached his fingertip toward the sensor that would activate the drive, Dalt mentally began composing his letter of resignation from the Cultural Survey Service
EPILOGUE
"…with the image of the immolation seared upon their minds, the Talents, led by the Apostle Rab, spread the word: That God had chosen to send his messenger in the form of what was then considered a nonhuman. God did this to show us that teries were men, too, and that we are all brothers."
"Amazing!" Father Pirella said as he followed Mantha toward the place called God's-Touch. "Our ‘messenger’ did the same — he came as a member of a persecuted race."
"And was he killed like ours?"
"Very much so."
"And did God show his wrath then?"
"Wrath? No. God showed his love by forgiving them all."
Mantha considered this briefly. "Perhaps God had less patience with Overlord Mekk. Or perhaps he loved our messenger more."
He pushed aside a branch to reveal a barren expanse. They stood on a gentle rise. Before them lay God's-Touch — a kilometer-wide expanse of green glass. Whatever had once occupied this spot had been melted and fused by a blast of what must have been almost unimaginable heat.
"God left no doubt as to his feelings in this matter. He laid his finger upon Overlord Mekk's fortress and since that day no one has ever persecuted a tery."