Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree) (4 page)

Δ

The shipment arrived a bit late to Veils. Veils never closed, of course – it was a top of the line nightclub-bar-restaurant-holo palace, the hottest, most exciting entertainment complex in Temples, the capital city of Galgos 3 in the Gassies Coalition. But the warehouse in the rear closed down at 1800 hours and it was almost 1800 when the big OneWorld aircarrier pulled up by the still-open cargo doors.

"Come on, Errols, we're just about to shut down," the warehouse tech objected. He was a tall young Outworlder with tangled shoulder-length hair, clad in a dark blue uniform.

"Quitcher bitchin', Wally," Errols said as he climbed down the steep footholds from the carrier's tall cab. "You get paid for receiving this stuff and I get paid for delivering it. Let's do it." Errols was a slender Assidic with a shaved head and a wispy black mustache, wearing OneWorld black and silver colors.

"I didn’t realize you were such an enthusiast," Wally said. "Tonton! Front & center!" Tonton, a hulking Cyrillian in warehouse blue, appeared from out of the shadows of the warehouse interior.

They unloaded two great dropboxes from the aircarrier's cargo bay and floated them into the warehouse on air effects pads.

"Where ya want 'em?" Tonton asked.

"Yeah, just a mo, what is this stuff?" Wally asked.

"Don't know," Errols replied. "Just sign here." He held out a palm screen with a receipt form showing.

"Well, what are these things?" Wally repeated. They were major drop-boxes, dinged and dirty armorite but probably invulnerable to major damage, long and rectangular, maybe two mikes long, longer than a tall man, and damned heavy according to the scales.

"It's something you ordered," Errols said. "From Lightspeed Freight Forwarding in Marcos City. There's the shipping code. Check it yourself if you really want to know."

Wally scanned the active order records on his own inventory palm screen.

"I don’t have a record of that order," he said. "Something's wrong."

"Wally," Errols said calmly, "I'd like to go home now and I know you would, too. Please either sign for the receipt of these packs, or load them back in my carrier so I can return them to my own warehouse. If you hadn't ordered them, nobody would have sent them to you, dontcha think? Now are you going to sign or not?"

TonTon stared at Wally glumly. He wanted to go home too.

"All right," Wally said, affixing his thumbprint to the palm screen. "I guess we can sort this out in the morning. Just put them over there, Tonton."

"You got it," Tonton said.

"Good evening, folks," Errols said as he climbed back up to his cab.

Δ

The fire alarm went off at 0422 according to Wally's bedside chron. Damn it, he thought. Oh-dark-thirty, of course! They had experienced two minor warehouse fires in the past and they had both occurred at oh-dark-thirty. Why the hell can’t these fires break out during working hours, Wally wondered. He staggered out of bed, pulled on sweaty coveralls and ran downstairs towards the warehouse, almost colliding with Tonton on the way down. The two of them had night duty, which meant they slept in guest quarters over the warehouse. They snapped open the interior door and charged into the cavernous, pitch-black warehouse. Willie hit the switches and the white ceiling lights began flickering on.

"What’s going on?" It was the owner, on the comset.

"We're investigating, Boss. Tonton and I. No fire so far."

"Well, if you find a fire put it out. And if you can't handle it yourself, call the fire department. That's what they're there for. But let me know in advance whatever happens ’cause we've still got plenty of guests here and if I'm going to have to explain why the place is surrounded by the fire department, I'd like to get my story straight."

"It's here. It's the new shipment," Tonton said. His fire extinguisher had highlighted the source.

"Damn! It’s hot as hell!" Wally exclaimed. The two large dropboxes were side by side, radiating a fierce, scorching heat.

"But there's no fire!" TonTon said.

"Open the damned dropboxes. The fire is inside."

"You open it! It's too damned hot!"

"All right, we open one. Crack the seal."

"Are you sure we wanna do this?"

"We've got to see what’s happening before we call the fire department." Wally swung a crowbar at the dropbox's vac seal and it snapped open. A wave of superhot air burst forth and hit them like a speeding aircar. They staggered back. They could see no fire in the dropbox, but through the heat haze they could see a rectangular metal container that filled the dropbox and it was glowing red hot. Wally's face was scorching hot. He retreated further from the blast of superheated air, gasping for oxygen.

"All right, call the fire department. I'm not opening that sucker."

Δ

When the fire pros arrived they popped open both dropboxes and then got to work on one of the metal containers. They were both red hot and the scanners reported they were made of steel. They looked seamless, but a tech scan detected a seal in the first one and the fire fighters opened it. By then the warehouse was full of smoke and the two dropboxes and steel containers were hissing with steam from high pressure water jets and bubbling chem fire retardent and bursts of carbon dioxide. When the seal cracked open, the fire within blasted forth in a fierce eruption just like a volcano, shooting up to the ceiling, dropping the firefighters to the floor. They got up again and strangled the flames with foam and vac and carbon dioxide, flooding the container and whatever was in there. Then they did the same to the other steel box.

"What a bloody mess," the boss said from behind the barricades that the firefighters had erected inside the warehouse. The place looked like it had been hit by a bomb. "What a disaster. Now what the hell was that?"

"Wrong question," one of the firefighters answered him, staring grimly into the first steel container. "You mean
who
the hell was that?"

"What?"

"There's a body in there. Not much left of it – burnt to ashes. This is a steel coffin. And the body was strapped down by steel chains. Quite securely. I wonder if he was alive when they put him in there."

"There's a body in this one too," another firefighter said, peering into the other steel coffin. "Poor guy. Time to call the cops."

Δ

"That's amazing," Arie said. We were seated on the open-air Tea Terrace having a light breakfast while watching Quaba's double sunrise, and it was a stirring sight. Honeyhair was by my side, and Arie and Blondie were with us. Arie and I were clad in Legion black while Honeyhair and Blondie wore their Civilian Support Corps outfits. We all wore uniform coldcoats as the mornings warm up slowly on Quaba. It was Senday and Senday is an offday on Quaba, even for the Legion. But Legion troopers don’t sleep late so there we were.

It
was
amazing, I thought. Quaba 7 orbited a double star system, two hot white suns so bright and lovely it made your skin crawl and your eyes water. Now, watching Quaba I creeping up from a bloody pool on the southern horizon while Quaba II was starting to light up the east like a soundless white-hot nuclear blast, I felt our life was complete. The sky was a peaceful cobalt blue. It was cold and still. I sipped at my dox. Wonderful.

"We should do this more often. It's beautiful," Blondie said. "And this tea is just fantastic. They make it from real tea leaves and wow, you should try it." The Tea Terrace was a civilian shop in downtown Quaba City but it was not too crowded. Most of the people there were military, as civilians tend to sleep late, especially on offdays. As the capital of ConFree, Quaba City hosted a whole lot of Legion and Fleetcom personnel, as well as plenty of other government folks. Quaba City used to be known as Quaba Station when it was Hqs Fleeetcom for the Black Fleet, and it still was that but it was also the temporary capital of the Confederation of Free Worlds. The capital rotated from world to world but as no other ConFree planet had been lobbying for the position, it remained at Quaba for now.

"What a place," Honeyhair said, gazing dreamily at the view, while I was gazing dreamily at her. My love, I thought. My lover, my wife, my obsession. She was tall and slim and lovely, long silky honey-colored hair which had prompted me to name her Honeyhair. And light green eyes, limpid magical eyes that could hypnotize me at a glance. I had fallen for her the first instant I saw her strolling with Blondie through the corridors of the
Dark Lady,
on our way to Basic Training on Providence. Arie had been at my side on that occasion, and he had been obsessed with Blondie from that moment on. And now Honeyhair was mine, and Blondie was Arie's. Or, maybe more accurately, we were theirs.

Arie was my closest comrade. We had met on our home world Eugarat, while enlisting in the Legion. His warname was Nitro. He was a little guy who looked so young he sometimes was mistaken for a girl, but he was a first class athlete and a contact master and the last guy who asked if he was a girl got a front face kick in reply. Blondie was an angelic hot little chick who was Honeyhair's closest friend before they met us, and that had not changed. Arie and I treated them both very well. We knew how lucky we were.

The Tea Terrace had a terrific view of downtown Quaba City, which was studded with impressive low-rise government buildings, parks and monuments. The stone buildings were all of similar design, a pale greenish cast that had a very calming effect. The new air raid shelter had been constructed right in the middle of the government center in the pedestrian park, but was surrounded by trees and the architecture matched the other buildings except for the size. It was huge, but hidden in trees so it looked all right.

"I hope we don't ever get to use that thing," Honeyhair said. "Trina and I were assigned to the air aid shelter in Providence and we thought the D's were going to bomb us and we'd have to fight off Demon infantry. That was scary." Trina was Blondie's civilian name. Honeyhair couldn't stop using it, just like I couldn’t stop calling Nitro, Arie.

The rising double suns were now glinting off the still lake that ran around the city's north and western suburbs, and the water was glimmering like a lake of gold. Down in the streets, aircars were gliding along serenely between the buildings. Off to the east we could see the starport. Starcraft were silently lifting off, then heading for the vac as the muffled roar floated past us. Quaba Port was the busiest starport in ConFree.

A family with kids entered the terrace and a little boy and girl ran to the metal guard rails to check out the view.

"See?" I said. "There are real people living out here, even kids. Delta Research is so comfortable we could live there forever, without ever getting out and seeing who it is we work for."

"Kids," Honeyhair said. "When are we going to have kids?"

"Kids? Um…yeah. Sure. We can have kids." It was the first time she had mentioned that.

"When?"

"When? Oh, gee, I dunno. We should kind of enjoy ourselves first, no?"

"When?"

"Ahh, maybe – twenty or thirty years, what do you think?"

"Don't talk to him, Sheila, we'll decide that one," Blondie said. "No need to involve these two."

Arie and I exchanged glances. All right, let them decide. I already knew I'd lose any argument with Honeyhair over any issue, important or trivial. But since I loved her like crazy, it didn't matter.

"So everybody's happy, right?" I asked. "This is our new Pandaravos, our new Happyland, right?"

"Sure is," Arie confirmed. "This is top-of-the-line duty. You don't even break into a sweat."

"And the medunit is perfect, for both of us," Honeyhair said. Honeyhair was now chief of the medunit and Blondie was her assistant. Both were qualified nurses and had worked for Bees in Pandaravos. But Bees had a new job now. Arie was with our security unit under Doggie, with Scout and Smiley.

We had all loved Pandaravos. We had even loved the Hole. It was a cosmic secret installation, Site 888, which ConFree had set up with the Assidics to exploit captured Demon secrets. That was quite a story but it was history now. Later the mission had morphed into Delta Research to exploit the DX visions that some of us started having after Galinta. Ice had named it Happyland. Yes, we had loved it. But Quaba seemed like even better duty. And here, the chances of getting shot in the head were pretty low. Since two of us had already been shot in the head, and didn't much like the experience, that was a real issue.

We were watching the kids fooling around. It was a real pleasure. The last kids I had seen had been sliced up by lasers as a parting gift from the D's. I preferred the live versions.

"Do you think the civilians appreciate what we do?" Arie asked.

"I don't think it matters," I replied. "They don't know what we do. But we do it for them. If we fail, they die. Sooner or later."

"That could apply to the Legion, or to Delta Research," Blondie said.

"Yes, it could. Yes to both. So we'd better get it right."

Δ

"It's good to see you all again," Doctor Dimension said. Saka and Ice and Bees and I were in the lounge in airchairs as the Doc chatted with us about the overall mission. He was always interesting. His dark eyes sparkled in a pale, intense face as his tangled brown hair brushed his shoulders. The Prof sat nearby, probably to ensure Doctor D didn't go careening off the subject, which he often did.

"Ah, and now we have a new prophet – the Black Angel, right?" Doctor D beamed at Bees.

"Just call me Bees, please." Bees smiled back at him.

"Bees? Bees? Were you a beekeeper or something?"

"No. It's a long story."

"All right, Bees. And the rest of you. Congratulations for your wonderful mutant genes, which you will certainly pass on to your children to form a new race. This is tremendously exciting! We're birthing a new race! With amazing new racial characteristics – chronological viewing, prophecy, and telepathy. And consider the source! Alien Brights – alien genes, reinforcing these ancient human genes, our own, which were partially alien anyway. What a glorious circle! You folks are certainly extraordinary!"