Back From the Dead (16 page)

“I’m looking for Brother Libra. Back in town they said I could find him up this way.”

They pause a moment, looking at Helton. The older monk nods and waves at Helton to follow, then signals the others to return to their work. The monk walks briskly up the road, and Helton follows.

The tap-tapping of chisel on stone fades as they move further up the gulch, gradually replaced by the sound of male voices in chorus. The words are Latin, a call-and-response chant, with pauses between lines.

Oh Lord, Give me the wisdom to understand what I have seen
The strength to carry on when hope fades
The honesty to be at peace and face what is
The forbearance to forgive those who have wronged me
The focus to forget the horrors I have been through
To be accepting of what I cannot change
The humility to follow the lead of those who have trod this path before
Grant me respect for those who try, but are imperfect as I am
The fortitude to lead others out of darkness
The clarity to understand the path I must follow
Please forgive me the things I have done

Give me the bravery to go where I am needed
The discipline to not be a burden on others

The singing grows louder as they approach a stone building that looks like a cross between a Spanish mission, a Gothic cathedral, a monastery, and a small walled castle. On one end there is a large St. Possenti Cross. The monk leads Helton to a small, man-sized door next to a large, vehicle-sized door. They cross the threshold into a large courtyard just as a line of the hymn ends and there is a loud crash of metal on stone. Helton jumps in surprise at the jarring noise.

The courtyard holds about three dozen men in widely spaced ranks, mostly young and lean like those at the gate, wearing monk’s robes, standing at attention with rifles at their sides. Their rifles are mostly an odd mix of old wooden-stocked hardware (M1s, Mausers, SMLEs, Nagants, etc.) with metal butt-plates, fitted with bare bayonets. A few of the men have all-wooden training rifles. They chant another line of Latin, then move smoothly into a slow, methodical, bayonet drill, like a kata from an Eastern martial art.

Helton looks at the monk in bewilderment. As they walk around the courtyard, heading for the far side, Helton speaks quietly to avoid distracting the men. “Bang-fu? What is this place?”

The Brother speaks placidly. “This is the Abbey of St. Possenti. You are not familiar with the order?”

Helton shakes his head. “Never heard of any monks teaching gun-jitsu.”

The Brother smiles and nods knowingly. “We serve the young men that society has badly misused and discarded. Mainly soldiers who were not prepared to deal with what they experienced and were cast aside as damaged goods. Others in need are also welcome, such as recent widowers or the painfully divorced. Their spirits are without trust, unbalanced and broken. They need love, discipline, meditation and prayer. A community of those who have similar experience and who deeply understand. A simple, understandable life of the physical, the solid, the
real
… for whatever time they need while they calm their souls.

“This meditation and study,” he nods at the drilling monks, “working with their hands, and regular
exercitatio in scopum
; all these help them to learn self-discipline and restore self-confidence and inner peace. Most are here for a few years then return to the world renewed. For a few it becomes a life calling. It is not an order that appeals to many.” He pauses a moment before continuing wryly. “Even within the Church.”

When they reach the far side of the courtyard, the monk leads Helton into an office. It is small and sparse, made of natural materials, lit only by sunlight falling through a window. On the opposite wall hangs a crucifix. On another, an M1 Garand with a long bayonet. In the office is a simple desk, two chairs, and not much else. Three reddish crystals arranged on one side of the desk are the only decoration in the room.

Outside, the chant continues. A gunshot booms in the near distance, and a low rolling echo sounds from around the canyon. Four and a half seconds later comes the quiet metallic
ping
of a bullet impacting a small piece of steel. Helton looks questioningly at the monk, who says, “Sounds like Brother Exactus on the midrange small steel.” Helton shakes his head slightly, eyebrows arched, brow furrowed as he tries to make sense of the surreal situation.

The monk closes the door, sits behind the desk, and waves Helton to the other chair. They look at each other across the desk. “So, what can I do for you, my son?”

“You’re Brother Libra?”

“Yes, these last 28 years.”

“I’ve got some bad news,” Helton says. “I’m not sure how to…” He stops and breathes deeply. “I promised I’d return this.” From a pocket in his travelers coat he takes out the small St. Possenti medallion and hands it to Brother Libra. The monk inspects it casually, then starts. He examines it more closely, then looks up sharply at Helton.

“We had gotten dumped together…” Helton begins.

Helton sits quietly after finishing his tale. Brother Libra, eyes down, is contemplative and a bit sorrowful. “Thank you for coming,” he says at last, looking up at Helton. “Sad news, but not entirely unexpected. He was very old when he left — nearly a decade ago — to look for souls in need, and to search for a particular lost soul that left the order long ago.” He gives a wry grimace. “And to track down a ‘flying abbey’.”

“Flying abbey?”

“A small starship used long ago as a wandering monastery that went where it was needed. People sometimes had visions, or claimed they saw miracles aboard. It was lost long ago … before the stars went away.

“In any event, the Brother has directed many to us during his travels; I thought that you might be one such.”

“I may be a little lost, but I’m not ready for a monastery.”

“Every life has its own calling in this world. I hope yours is on a favorable path. He will be missed. Will you stay for his service?”

“No, I'm very sorry, I can’t. I need to catch a return flight.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” says Brother Libra, holding up the medallion, “Nevertheless, we are in your debt. If you need anything we can provide, you have but to ask.”

They stand and shake hands, looking one another in the eye. The monks in the courtyard sing the final line of their chant as Helton turns and leaves.

Let all souls be revived

Marks

Nighttime on
Tajemnica
, and the lights are dim as Allonia walks silently down the passageway to Helton’s cabin. His door is half open. Inside the room, a couple of the many computer screens that double as lights are set on low, providing a soft, diffused light. The bed is made, and Helton’s nowhere to be seen.

“Knock-knock?”

“Come in,” Helton calls from the head, voice muffled by the door. “Be there in a minute.”

Allonia enters and sits at his desk. She runs her eyes around the room and sees, on the foot of the bed, the book Helton found in the tunnel. She looks at it curiously for a moment, then lazily reaches over to pick it up. After leafing through it casually, she examines the shallow crater in the back from the grenade blast, about 15 centimeters across and nearly halfway through. The edges of the crater are tattered and blackened. The rest of the pages are silvery white. She runs her hands over the undamaged side and feels something she cannot see.

“Lights 50 percent,” she calls, and the room brightens. She looks more closely, angling the book to get the best visibility. “Lights 80 percent.” In the brighter light she can faintly see a design on the undamaged cover: a set of twelve interlocking cogwheels, loosely encircled by a chain.

Helton walks in from the head, and Allonia asks him, “What are these marks?”

“What marks?”

“These.” She hands him the book, and he examines it closely.

“Hmmm. That looks like … almost like some of the things carved into the stones at Planet Movers grav-post sites.”

“Is it a book about them?”

“Don’t know what it is. Could be. Huh. Looks like there are some marks showing up inside, too.”

Helton holds the book angled to the light, looking at the edges of the pages where they were damaged by the grenade. He sees faint scattered dots and very small lines, with more around the edges of the crater. No obvious groups or patterns.

“I wonder… I’ll have to borrow a microscope or scanner from Stenson to get a closer look. See if there is anything legible inside. I’m sure those weren’t there earlier. One more thing on tomorrow’s list.” He puts the book down. “What’s up?”

“Just dropping by to say thank you for sending Kwon and his family this way. He’s a great cook, and I was going
crazy
down there trying to get three meals a day for everyone. He makes it seem easy. And knows what to do with just about everything! And little Kimi is the cutest thing! Quinn has been treating her like a favorite little sister.”

“Kwon’s an old friend, helped me out more than once. Trying to find someone here not being leaned on by Seymore whom I can trust is difficult. Just when I think things are turning to shit, something good pops up.”

“Unless it’s more bad stuff first.”

“Well, yeah, that too, but things are looking good at the moment. Anything else?” Helton asks.

“No, just thanks, good night, and see you in the morning!”

“You’re welcome. G’night.”

Stenson and Helton sit at a workbench in Engineering, using a scanner to inspect the cover of the book. “Let’s see what we have here,” Stenson says. “Visible first.” The image on the screen zooms in gradually and becomes slightly more detailed. He adjusts a control, saying, “Let’s enhance contrast.” The image grows sharper.

“Cogs and chains for sure,” says Helton. “Definitely Planet Mover style. Any matches with known engravings?”

“Easy to check.” Stenson taps at the computer for a second. “Nope, nothing exact. Hmmm… Twelve gears, 144 links. Pretty common gear and link count, typical gear ratios with teeth in multiples of six. Pretty basic style composite. Okay … IR?” The image changes, but not much.

“UV next, I suppose?” says Helton. The colors on the screen change, but the image is the same.

Stenson fiddles, looking back and forth between the controls and the image. “Chem scan says … interesting chemicals. Not off-the-shelf molecules. Should be both photo
and
oh-two reactive.”

“They react to light or oxygen?”

“No…” Stenson says cautiously. “I think … I think it’ll only react to oxygen in the presence of light, or vice versa. Have to play with it a bit to find what sort of concentrations and intensity and wavelength it likes best, but I’d bet that’s it.”

“So, not your garden-variety desert guru text?”

“Nope. That it most assuredly is not, unless you consider the Garden of Eden to be
garden-variety
.”

“Look inside now?”

“Be my guest,” says Stenson.

Helton removes the book from the scanner, opens it to the first page on the undamaged side, slides it back in. “Can you composite all those views?” he asks.

“Patience, patience.”

“Visible first?”

The screen shows a few faint marks scattered about the page. Stenson enhances the contrast, but there is nothing obviously worth further attention. The infrared and ultraviolet views show different colors, but no other changes. A chem scan of the page shows a sea of chemical signatures with no distinct patterns.

“Well, nothing there,” Stenson says, “or perhaps, a lot of nothing there
yet
.”

“So, we just leave it out in the weather and wait?”

“Pretty much. Lots going on here, so I don’t really have time to experiment properly. In the meantime, I’d leave it open with a wide-spectrum light on it, check regularly, see what happens.”

“Any ideas?” Helton asks.

“More ideas than Harbin has ways of killing you, but until I have more data it’s just wild speculation. I like knowing enough to make educated guesses.”

“So just be patient?”

“Yup, ’fraid so.”

Levels

Morning sun shines on the training ground near
Tajemnica
. Sergeant Kaushik, Corporal Kaminski, and First Sergeant Harbin Reel stand with the recruits, all dressed in simple camo fatigue uniforms. The recruits stand in two rows, with Kaushik and Kaminski as the squad leaders. Arrayed before the formation is a series of mannequins, each armed and clad differently, ranging through typical periods of Earth history, from the primitive — clothing and staff only — to modern powered assault armor with smart weapons, laser guidance systems, and built-in medical diagnosis and treatment. In between are greaves, vambraces, swords, helmets, a crossbow, plate armor, a bolt-action rifle and bayonet, a semi-auto rifle and sidearm, and full space armor.

Harbin paces back and forth as he speaks. His tone is patient and quietly emphatic. He knows this topic well.

“If you get mugged, or your home is attacked without cause, or your ship is hit by pirates and you are dumped in a desert, or you are fighting for the survival of the species, you fight with whatever you have, and the only rule is:
win
. That’s been true since before humankind had language to call ourselves “human.” But humans seem to like rules, even when they don’t all make sense. And there are always charismatic egomaniacs, or God’s Prophet of the week, or someone out to save us from ourselves who think they know how to run things if only we’d just do what they say and follow their rules.” He snorts in derision. “Sadly, there are always too many bloody ignorant save-the-worlders, my-tribe-firsters, and NIMBY’s willing to do what they say and try to enforce their laws on folks.

“So here we are. In an undeclared war, the rule book is pretty slim. In a declared war the rulebook may be a bit thicker, and the contract spells out the details. The rules might sound stupid at first, but there ARE reasons for them.