Infinite Day (46 page)

“Yes.”

On impulse, Merral held out his hand. “May I see?”

Slabodal reached in and pulled out a folder. He hesitated. “It is not the custom for us to show images of our women to others. But you are not of us.”

Merral saw that the folder opened in two unequal parts. He opened the broader left-hand side to see two young boys, their dark-eyed faces peering uneasily at the lens. He lifted the narrower right-hand segment to see a woman, her black-cowled face deeply shadowed, her expression impenetrable.

Struggling with a sudden and unexpected emotion of distress, he closed it gently and handed it back. “Thank you. I have learned a lot.”

Slabodal began to move away. On impulse, Merral gave him a salute. Slabodal looked mystified for a moment, then returned the salute.

“May God go with them,” he said under his breath and turned to Helena. “Get them on their way. We've got work to do.”

Ten hours later, they had completed the transfer, and the weary soldiers and crew were finding empty rooms to catch up with sleep. The
Star
, now empty, had been put in a matching orbit under a tight communications link that allowed it to be controlled from the
Sacrifice
.

Merral was tidying up the captain's cabin with Lloyd's help and thinking about bed when he sensed that his aide was preoccupied.

Merral turned to him. “Okay, Lloyd?”

“Yes.” There was hesitancy in the word.

“You don't
sound
okay. It's not been an easy day, has it?”

Lloyd seemed to consider something for a moment. “It's my job, sir. I had to do it.”

“True, but putting duty aside, you don't like what happened today?”

“No. I fired at a man at Tezekal. I don't know whether I hit him. But it didn't bother me. He was attacking us. And that priest fellow today. He was attacking you. So I reckon that was fair.”

“But not the captain?”

“No.” Lloyd shook his head. “He was unarmed.” He looked down at his hands. “A dirty business.”

“But Luke was right, wasn't he? It had to be done.”

“Sir, I didn't say otherwise. It just . . .” He shrugged.

They looked at each other. “Lloyd, I know exactly what you feel. But head off and get some sleep.”

“Very well, sir. I'll be next door if you need me.”

Ten minutes later, Merral was making a final tidy-up of the captain's office when there was a knock at the door and Luke entered.

“Just doing my rounds before I fall asleep, Merral. You okay?”

Merral sat on the edge of the desk. “I just asked Lloyd that. No, Chaplain. I'm tidying up after a remarkably messy day.”

Luke leaned back against the wall with the easy nonchalance that was his hallmark and motioned him to continue.

“Superficially,” Merral said, and he heard the bitterness in his voice, “it's been a great day. We won a battle, Luke. We stole a warship. If we get back, this will be a famous tale.”

Luke gave a rueful smile. “For generations, children will play out these events in their games. They will squabble over who gets to play Merral.”

“
Hah.
I take no credit there. The way was prepared. We had a greedy captain. The crew was all in one place. They were all preoccupied. Luke, the hand of the Most High was on this.”

“You say that because it was obvious. Yet isn't his hand on all things?”

“True.”

“The way was indeed prepared, Merral. But
you
don't seem to be celebrating.”

“I'm not. For a start, there were four deaths today, Luke. Four nasty deaths. And I shot one man myself. I feel tainted. I can still see the face of that man Munt just before I shot him. I feel as though there is a smell attached to me that I cannot lose.”

“I understand. The time to worry about killing in warfare is when it
doesn't
worry you.”

“I find that cold comfort.”

“Maybe. But as I said to Lloyd, what other option was there?”

“Luke, in the previous battles I never killed men. I have done so now.”

“You killed before. Men of the Dominion died at the lake and at the ridge of Tezekal and at Ynysmant. But you were only aware of it secondhand. What else is there?”

“What else?”

“You said, ‘For a start.'”

“So I did. Well, let's see . . . I'm unsatisfied with how we dealt with the crew, but I can see no better way. I've had a row with Anya. I've argued with Azeras. Lloyd is unhappy. And I am unable to get through to Vero, who seems locked into permanent data acquisition mode. By the way, does that bother you?”

“I am a chaplain. I keep my concerns about others to myself. If I feel it becomes mission threatening, I will tell you.” Yet for all the studied neutrality, Merral sensed unease in Luke's eyes.

“So it's not been a good day.”

“It's been a good day, but not an easy one.”

“Maybe. But, Luke, what do you think of those we have met?”

“What do
you
think?”

“Evil, of course. That unspeakable dog match showed that. As barbaric as anything I can imagine. And that ghastly priest. And all the statues and images.”

“We're starting a clean-out tomorrow, by the way.”

“Good.”

“But I sense some doubt about the evil.”

“Yes. But I'm too tired, Luke, to express it. They
are
evil, but . . .”

“But not wholly so,” Luke added, and Merral found himself nodding.

Luke continued. “All of mankind is fallen, Merral. They and us, Dominion and Assembly. There are the military monsters like Lezaroth, true, but elsewhere . . . there are the remains of good things: Haq's courage at the last, Slabodal's longing to be free, the men's desire to have memories of their families. An old saying—older, I fancy, even than spaceflight— was that human beings are like some majestic building fallen into ruin. With the Assembly, the Lord of Grace has allowed much rebuilding. But the Dominion has spurned the grace that might have healed them.”

Merral sighed. “You give me much to reflect on. But you and I must get some sleep. We need to prepare for the appearance of the
Comet
.”

“Let's hope that is soon.”

“Not
too
soon, Luke. We need to learn how to operate this ship.”

The next day was spent trying to put the
Sacrifice
in order and learn how it worked. They made Helga Jones, a slender, pale-faced woman with a flair for engineering and technology, the ship's weapons officer and gave her a mandate to work out how defense and attack mechanisms worked. Some of the soldiers were designated as weapons systems trainees and began to learn the rudiments of the defensive equipment. Everyone was designated a task. Luke, for example, was given a position monitoring engineering systems in a blister on the upper hull.

Lloyd, engaged in a survey of weaponry, reported to Merral that one of the holds held a pair of heavily armed atmosphere skimmers capable of attacking ground targets.

“Massive firepower, sir. Rocket launchers and multiple-barrel cannon!” Lloyd's eyes sparkled.

“Sergeant, just don't play with them. We don't want anything going off by mistake. You are on our side.”

“Yes, sir. Anyway, Mr. V. says there's a simulation.”

“Just practice with that.”

On the bridge there was frequent confusion between the two Allenix; this offended Betafor, who very obviously saw herself as the superior. The result was that she made some changes. One was that Kappaten was given a higher-pitched voice. As she rarely spoke—or was allowed to speak—this was an almost insignificant change. More useful was the fact that Betafor made her tunic display her name on the side in large letters while Kappaten's simply bore a chessboard pattern. Merral felt the symbolism was obvious.
Betafor is to be treated as an individual, Kappaten as a thing
.

Between them, the Allenix units reassigned all the systems menus to Communal, which made matters easier. Nevertheless, people were still tripping over equipment, finding themselves in the wrong place, and pressing the wrong controls. Merral tried to be positive
.
After all, he reasoned, Lezaroth might not turn up for some days, by which time they might be much better masters of the ship.

At one particular moment of high confusion on the bridge, Merral felt such a pang of strong discouragement that he sighed.
We are stretched beyond our limits; we can't fight like this.

Slee, standing next to him, looked up from a chart and stared at him. “You okay, sir?”

“Sorry, Slee; the worries of the world have descended on me.” Merral thought of something. “By the way, I meant to ask: are you planning to do any paintings on this ship?”

A frown slipped across Slee's face. “Sir, I was thinking about it. I have good records of the ones I did. I did think that I would try redoing them, but . . .” His voice trailed off.

“What's the problem?”

“They were images of . . . what we once were.”

“And?”

“Now, I can't remember what we once were, sir. This—” he gestured around—“is what my world is, and what it seems to have always been. Ships, space, armor, weapons.”

“I know, Slee. I can barely remember what a tree was like. But hopefully we'll be on our way back soon.”