The Parafaith War (49 page)

“You also have this Remmer wave guide?” Trystin pointed.

“Nah… piece of junk. Anything that’ll fit can also take a Murrite.” “Could I take a look at the Murrite?”

“Sure. Carry a lot of those. Good for cleaners, just about anything. They say even the missionary forces use them-not like we do, though. Wouldn’t know. Spent my time on Josephat.”

Trystin whistled. Josephat was a mining asteroid. The man had to be tough.

“Only one who returned. Something, anyway. Just a second.”

Thump! The Murrite looked better than the Remmer. “Looks a lot sturdier.” “Easier to adjust, too.” “How much?”

“Three hundred for the sonic unit and seventy-three for the guide.”

“The last thing I need is the Wembley powerpack.” “You need that much power?” “It’s a long story …” “Cost you more than the rest.” “That’s fine.”

The burly man left and returned with a flat box that he set next to the others. “Credit strip?” Trystin asked.

“Sure. We take anything that converts to dollars. Lot of business lately. Folks doing more repairs. Don’t see how some of the places selling new stuff stay in business.” Trystin handed over the strip.

“What’s a God-fearing returnee like you doing here?” Trystin laughed, thinking about faith. “I don’t need to fear the Lord, just men. I’m like everyone else, doing what has to be done.”

“Good point. Brother. Didn’t need to fear the Lord on Josephat either, just the idiots who thought they knew His will.” He handed back the credit strip.

“Yes.” Trystin nodded, searching for a proper reply. “The Lord will make His will known in His own way.” He picked up the strip and pocketed it and then stacked the smaller box on the larger. “Peace be with you.” “You, too,” grunted the big man, scratching his head. After loading the gear in the car, Trystin decided to return to the Promise Inn before completing his rounds. He was getting a feel for what he wanted to do-somehow separating the Lord from those who thought they knew His will was a first step.

“Rather presumptuous, aren’t you?” he murmured to himself, not answering the question as he eased the car into a space within a few meters of his door at the Promise Inn.

Trystin carried the first box of console components into his room and returned for the smaller boxes, and the tool kit.

“Brother Hyriss? Do you need any help?” The older gray-haired sister had walked out to the car from the office.

“No, thank you. Sister… I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.” “I’m Sister Myra.”

Trystin nodded. Married women used their first names. “No, I just had two loads.” “That’d be a lot to pay to send back to Nephi.” He laughed. “No, this is for here.”

“Be visiting friends?” , “Old and new. But aren’t all of us children and friends under the Lord and the Prophet?” The phrasing suggested another small step in implying that the current Revenant leadership wasn’t exactly infallible.

“Children and friends … that’d be an odd way of putting it.”

Trystin smiled instead of answering directly. “He is our Father. And all who share His bounty should be friends. So …” He spread his hands to continue the implication. So far, Trystin knew he was on sound theological ground, if feeling hypocritical, considering the uses he had for the equipment.

“Perhaps you should take up a calling in communicating for the Lord, Brother Hyriss. You have the gift.” Sister Myra bobbed her gray head sagely.

“I’m afraid that’s far above me. When you have seen the endless stars in His mansions, then you realize how mighty is all creation-” Trystin broke off and smiled sheepishly.

Trying to straddle the line of the devout and the returned and not sounding overblown was hard, even with the briefings. He sounded so pompous, so full of bullshit. “I guess I get carried away.” “Have you seen the … other peoples?” “The Ecofreaks?” Trystin had been told to expect the question. “Yes. At least, I have seen their ships and their bodies.”

Sister Myra glanced over her shoulder. “Are they small and dark, with deep eyes and foul words?”

Trystin pulled at his chin. “Some are. Some are tall and fair.”

“They say some are golems, more machine than person.” “That I would not know. They looked like people, and they died like people.” Trystin paused, knowing he was treading on delicate ground. “Some fought bravely, and some did not.” He shrugged and turned to lift the second box.

Sister Myra followed him. “You look like Colin, a little, except he is younger, and his Farewell was last year.”

“I will pray for the success of his mission and his return.” Trystin set the box just inside the door to the room. Sister Myra remained outside, apparently cool in the heat of the blinding sun. Trystin wiped his forehead. “You’re like many from Nephi. It’s cooler there.” Trystin nodded. “He was my only boy.”

What could he say? That it was damned unlikely young Colin would return? Trystin shifted his weight from one boot to the other. Finally, he said softly, “I wish I could see the future and tell you what might be, but, as we know, that remains to the Lord. We just have to persevere in doing His will.”

“He was tall, like you, and his smile was a lot like yours.” “There isn’t anyone like your son. Sister Myra, and I share your prayer that the Lord will keep and preserve him.” Except even the old Christian god had only raised one son from the dead.

“Do you think it will end?” “All things end.”

“Soon, I meant.” Sister Myra paused and added, “The Prophet said that one day he would return, and we would all dwell in peace.”

Everything he said was getting him in deeper water. He pursed his lips before answering. “I’m no tactician, and, as you can see, I am what I am. I’ve seen what I’ve seen, and I have seen people who should live, somehow, as brothers and sisters, killing each other.” Trystin paused, deciding he couldn’t quite be so blunt. “The fighting should end. The Lord has said to bring His word to those who do not believe, and, as a simple man, I cannot see how someone who is dead can hear the word of the Lord. Even the Prophet wrote ‘do not say, better my cousin than my neighbor, for all men and women are neighbors in the eyes of the Lord.’ “

“Will they stop if we stop? You say that it should end, but will it? In time for Colin and others to return?” asked Sister Myra.

“I don’t know. That is something that the Lord will make known. ” Trystin still hadn’t figured out how to make such a will of the Lord known, or how far he could go in planting the germs of his ideas without being denounced as a heretic. As he spoke he wondered why he insisted on opening his mouth, on going beyond the letter of his mission when he hadn’t even accomplished his assignment yet-or figured out how he was going to change it to do what he wanted. But so long as people like Sister Myra felt the way they did, completing his original mission would do nothing. Even a hundred missions like his would do nothing. So he added a few more damning words, hoping he could build on them. “All I can do is what I can, and what the Lord asks.”

“That is a great deal. Brother Hyriss.” Sister Myra nodded. “I wish you well.” Her heavy shoes clicked on the concrete as she walked back to the office.

Trystin stepped into the room and closed the door. He wiped his forehead. He had more than a little work to do, both in constructing the laser and in trying to figure out how to complete his own plans for using the blind faith of the Revenants, damned fool that he was getting to be. But, damn it, the Revenants were people, too. Ulteena would have understood. So would his parents. He shrugged. Then there were people like the Park policeman at the Cliffs and the fanatical revvie officer who would have fought forever-the kind of people who refused to look beyond their narrow prejudices. And there were all too many of those on both sides.

He looked at the Book of Toren on the table, hoping he could find answers between the lines of the scriptures. He wasn’t going to find answers in the words themselves.

He smiled. Or was he? Another prophet … a son and a temple raised in three days… and who would kill someone who was already dead? If he could put those together correctly with the Service-required assassination … then maybe he could shake the Revenants’ faith.

He lifted the Book of Toren and began to flip through the pages. The laser could wait a few minutes.

63.

Trystin’s eyes drifted from the thin sheaf of papers on the side table to .the three sections of equipment on the bed-essentially a handgunlike laser projector, a cable, and a flat powerpak that could be worn under his clothes. He could have assembled the components into a relatively standard laser far more quickly, but his tentative plan required a laser with a wider focus, something that would create what amounted to a pillar of flame rather than a large surgical hole through a body. After all, hadn’t every deity in existence used a pillar of fire at some point or another?

After three days of driving around Wystuh and studying the general layout of the city-in between building the device on the bed and assembling the scriptural background represented by the slim stack of papers on the table, he still had to complete his planning. He was operating backward, figuring the theological support and the necessary weapons configuration before establishing whether he could even pull his own plan off, if he could even call it a plan.

Making Jynckia a victim of the Lord-or a sacrifice-laughable, except it was better than a meaningless assassination linked to the Coalition, better than the meaningless death of another soldier. Somehow… in some way, it had to be tied more closely to the faith of the Revenants, but he wasn’t making that much headway.

After a last look at the equipment, he split the pieces apart, putting the handgun section in the printed paper catalog he’d picked up and hollowed out, the cable in one pocket of the clothing bag, and the powerpak in the bottom of the main section. The catalog itself went under the Book of Toren on the side table.

Then he picked up the single remaining large box, into which he had packed all the leftovers, and carted it out to the car, where he placed it in the rear seat.

With a deep breath, he got in and started the car, pulling it out of the lot and heading in toward the Temple. The Temple was the center of the faith, and maybe seeing it up close would help his scattered thoughts. Maybe that was why he’d avoided it, because he was afraid seeing it would show him how stupid his half-formed plan was.

Wystuh was a city based on an octagonal grid-that had been the vision of the cities of the Promised Lands since the first prophets of the Lord had settled the Jerush system.

Trystin parked the car just inside the First Octagon and walked up East Temple Avenue. Across the avenue was a long building constructed of large white stones. The dark-framed marquee bore the words “Tonight! Ballem Michel-the Seer of Music.” Wondering what a seer of music might be, Trystin walked slowly toward the Temple Square, the center of Wystuh.

The faint breeze that whispered around him was not enough to cool him, and he took out the handkerchief and blotted his forehead quickly as he walked, hoping no one saw. Beside him were low buildings, none more than four stories, containing shops. Several storefronts were empty, but even the empty ones looked immaculately clean.

The wide avenue carried what seemed to be light traffic-occasional trucks, regular electrobuses, and personal cars. Trystin sniffed. The faint odor of burned hydrocarbons permeated the atmosphere, along with something that smelled like popcorn.

It was popcorn. As he passed the next cross street, he could see a cart and a vendor selling bags of the stuff. A mother handed her daughter a bag, and the two walked hand in hand down the glitter-white sidewalk away from Trystin.

After walking another block, he stopped opposite the square, studying the white walls and eight spires of the Temple that rose over a hundred meters into the blue-pink sky. The Temple’s northwest spire bore the laser-imposed image of the Angel of the Prophet.

Surrounding the Temple were the eight Arks of the Revealed-each over fifty meters tall. Each Ark was really a building sacred to some divine aspect of the Prophet-the Ark of Teaching, the Ark of Healing, the Ark of Technology, the Ark of Ministry, the Ark of Music, the Ark of the Family, the Ark of the Producing Land, and the Ark of the Producing Waters.

At the corner, with a casual look at the Fountain of Life, its eight jets forming a single column of water over thirty meters high, Trystin crossed the street and entered the octagonal section of land that held the Temple and the eight Arks.

Even before he neared the Temple gates, he could sense the energies and the hidden systems that most Revenants would have denied ever existed. As he stepped within meters of the closed gates, he reached out with his implant, ever so gently, to scan the systems-and almost froze where he stood.

His false identity, superficial memories, and basic Revenant gene patterns would not be enough. The data net and systems that lay behind the shimmering white walls, while not as powerful as most Coalition systems, were certainly powerful enough to hold the absolute identity of every true Revenant admitted to the Temple, and the energies held there were certainly enough to incinerate him. But the system was an open-weave operation-that he could tell, and he might be able to tap it from outside.

His lips pursed, he let his eyes flick to the schedule board. “11:00 A.M., Thursday. Ceremony of Remembrance.” Underneath the board was a screen, and Trystin stepped up to view the information scrolling there.

After a time, he nodded. Certainly, all the high Revenant military mission officials would be there, since the ceremony was to honor the missionaries sent to remove the abominations of the Lord. If he could enter the Temple … he thought about the warnings and the force of the systems less than meters away and repressed a shiver.

Instead he stepped toward the Temple walls, not close enough to touch them, but close enough to see what more he could sense with his implant.

The system was in standdown, or partial standdown. Somehow, he needed a key to the Temple’s systems. A key to the Temple? He swallowed. Did he have the actual protocol? Had the Farhkans stolen it, just to give it to him? And why? Because no Farhkan could ever approach the Temples?