“You wear no clothes, my friend.” He turned to look at Nickolai with his unblind eye. “Then, again, you deign to use language.”
Nickolai looked at St. Rajasthan and noticed that he did wear something like a human jumpsuit tailored for digitigrade legs and a tail. He wondered what the point of it was.
When did we stop emulating human dress?
“I am not from this place,” Nickolai said. “Or this time.”
St. Rajasthan turned to look up at Haven. “So am I to think you are lying, or insane?”
“I am not a liar.”
“I shan’t fault you for your madness, then. Do you care to say what place and time you do come from?”
“The year is 2526, I come from a planet named Bakunin.”
“Four centuries in the future? Our kind still lives?”
“Only for the moment. We are facing an evil that may be the end of us, and them.” Nickolai nodded back toward the corridor where the human corpses were.
“What evil do you face?”
Nickolai explained Adam, and what Adam was. When he was done, St. Rajasthan chuckled. “You seem to be a much more interesting prophet than I.”
“I am no prophet.”
“That’s right, we agreed you were insane.” The Saint folded his arthritic hands before him and bowed his head. “I have been praying and meditating here for days. Asking for some sign from God. Do you think you are that sign?”
Nickolai stared at the old tiger, and saw the weight of age as well as a much heavier weight. It was unsettling to him. St. Rajasthan had always been an abstraction, a label for a set of writings, of ideals, of immutable rules. Part of Nickolai wanted to dismiss the image before him as some deception, a challenge to shake what little faith he had left.
But something in him knew that what he saw was truth.
Our prophets come from the same clay we all do.
He searched his mind for the right question, and responded, “Why did you stay behind, instead of going with your people to their new home?”
“To take responsibility for my sins.”
“What sins?”
“Are you blind, as well as mad?” He snapped at Nickolai, raising his head to stare at him. “Do you not see the slaughter?”
“But they were ...” Nickolai was about to say, only the Fallen, but the words tasted like ashes in his mouth. It was a hard, lifelong habit he forced himself to abandon at that point. He looked back at the corridor and no longer saw “Man” as defined in the scriptures. Instead, he saw only men, a series of individuals with their own lives and their own burden of history to bear; but only their own—not their brothers’ not their fathers’.
“They died for others’ evil,” Nickolai whispered.
“And what do you know of evil?” St. Rajasthan snapped at him.
What do I know of evil?
What is evil?
Nickolai whipped around and faced Angel. “Why did you bring me back here?”
“Easy, Kit. You saw everything you needed to see.”
“I had so many questions.”
“Only one that mattered.”
Nickolai wanted to grab the rabbit, force her to send him back to St. Rajasthan so he could discover what scriptures were true, and what were embellished by four centuries of priesthood. But he stopped as he understood how pointless it would be.
What is evil?
Angel looked at him and asked, “Do you have an answer?”
“Is this the Dolbrians asking?
“No, this is me asking. I just got the job to decide if you go any further.” She folded her arms and cocked her head so her ears tilted to the side. “So, an answer?”
“The men who made people like me, to fight their wars by proxy. That was evil. Adam, demanding his people worship him as a God, or face destruction. That is evil. Executing a man only because he is the same species as those who did evil. That is evil.”
“Why?”
Nickolai looked at her, and found himself fumbling to articulate an answer. He wasn’t a philosopher or a theologian. He was an exiled prince, a warrior, and a mercenary. He only thought about these subjects because his life kept spiraling into places where his old pat understandings did not make sense. His faith was a continually eroding structure that required constant maintenance to keep upright. He wondered if all the effort was worth it, if it mattered.
He looked at her and answered as best he could. “If we have free will, we can act, we can make moral choices . . . Acting to deny that of anyone else, removing their ability to make moral choice, negating their morality, their will, their life, their individuality to serve your own. That is evil.”
“Then what is good?”
He wanted to say, opposition to evil, but that was too simple. He paused to gather his thoughts before he said, “Preserving our ability to make those moral choices—preserving our own will, individuality, and life—in the face of that which would take them away. Defending that for ourselves and others.”
“Yeah, Kit. Do you believe it?”
He stood in the darkened corner of the temple, and he saw St. Rajasthan again, four centuries removed from the ancient self-exiled tiger in orbit around Haven. In the apocalyptic mural, bearing the flaming sword to cut down the unrighteous, he was young and fierce and tall as a mountain. This mural had been the last thing he had seen with the eyes he had been born with. He stood in the rear, with a crowd of acolytes, his gut tightening as he expected to watch his own mortification.
But the priests did not drag a younger Nickolai through the doors of the temple. That would be too easy.
Instead they dragged in a lowborn panther servant, her expression blank with shock after witnessing the death of her children. Nickolai’s children.
He did not want to watch this. He didn’t want to hear the priest’s invocation of God and St. Rajasthan. He didn’t want to hear her screams. He did not want to see the blades pierce her skin during the slow execution.
They strapped her to the altar, and the priest raised the ritual knife, and Nickolai could no longer bear it. He pressed through the crowd of acolytes shouting, “No!”
He was on his hands and knees, hyperventilating, the darkness so thick now that it constricted his chest. “Why didn’t you let me stop them?”
“This isn’t time travel, Kit. They were just part of my boss’ memory, just like I am.”
Nickolai closed his eyes and shuddered. “How could they invoke God and do that? It was wrong.”
“Why?”
He turned his head and looked up at Angel. He had the impulse to reach out and snap her lepine neck for asking that question. If it was part of their memory, they knew exactly why . . .
Angel waited patiently for the answer.
“You’re testing me, aren’t you?”
“Getting to know you, Kit. You gave a nice speech on good and evil. Tell me about it in real life. These priests honor the same God you do. They follow the word of that tiger you left in orbit around Haven. She shagged you of her own free will, knowing the potential consequences. But the priests are wrong? Why?”
How could he articulate the pain in his gut?
“It just is. You know it is.”
“So what they did to you was wrong, too?”
Nickolai just stared at her.
Angel sighed and turned away. “Oh, well. Nice knowing you, Kit.”
“No,” Nickolai said. “Stop.”
Angel turned her head to look over her shoulder, her ears cocked to the side. “I’m listening.”
“What happened to me isn’t the same.”
“Because you lived?”
“Because I had a choice.”
Angel turned back around to face him. “Do tell.”
“The church made rules that we both agreed to follow. But I had a choice about that. I was in a powerful family; I could have left the planet and the church if I had issue with their law. She never had that choice. And what choice did she have when I appro
ached her to drag her into my sin.”
“Sin? Were you denying anyone their will, their moral choice?”
“I was denying hers, and that of my unborn children.” Nickolai shook his head. “The priests’ power extends far beyond punishing evil. I knew that. I accepted it. I was part of it. I was complicit in her death and the death of my children.”
“So, is it wrong the call upon God when they do this?”
“Yes. It’s an obscenity.”
Angel walked up to him. He was still on his hands and knees, so she crouched slightly so their faces were on the same level. The scar on her face pulled her mouth up in a smile that was almost cruel.
“Last question, Kit.”
“Yes?”
“What is God?”
CHAPTER FORTY
Armageddon
“Nothing ends perfectly.”
—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
“And with the guts of the last priest, let us strangle the last king.”
—DENIS DIDEROT
(1713-1784)
Date: 2526.8.13 (Standard) Bakunin-BD+50°1725
Adam’s ships had become again a cloud of thinking matter. Not enough to form a ring around the planet, but He could content Himself with a slow invasion. Once on the surface, in contact with the mass of the planet, He would have enough resources to convert this land as He had every other planet He had set foot upon.
Adam rained down upon the atmosphere of Bakunin, unseen until His mass began coalescing into dropships aimed at the ten largest cities on the planet. He formed Himself and His chosen into glowing teardrops of living metal that sliced through the Bakunin atmosphere as, below them, Bakunin’s single continent slowly rotated into view.
Toni II saw the flash of the plasma rifle, but in the fraction of a second that it took for her to realize what it was, she also realized that she shouldn’t be alive to see it. They were firing at them . . .
But over her and Toni, separating them from the PDC Mercenaries, there was a barely-tangible hemisphere rippling with reflected heat from the discharge of at least three plasma rifles. The hemisphere was only about five meters in diameter, and it was centered on Toni.
She looked at Toni and asked, “Are you doing that?”
Her other self practically growled, “The bastards destroyed our ship.” She glared at the men as they stopped firing their weapons. “Do you know how many minds were in there?”
One of the mercenaries called out, “Get an AM grenade—”
“Too late!” Toni yelled at them. The hemisphere fell, and beneath their feet the tarmac of the landing quad fractured and refractured, black faults rolling across its surface like fractal veins. Before they could bring their weapons to bear again, the veins pulled the surface out from under their feet. They fell down, and, for a moment, they all struggled like insects trapped in the web of a surprisingly geometric spider. The black web pulled them down, and the tarmac flowed back over the space where they had been standing.
“Oh, God,” Toni II whispered, staring at the unbroken surface of the landing quad between them and the concourse. “Are they still alive under there?”
Toni said, “I couldn’t care less.”
“They tried to kill us—”
“Another mole, just like Colonel Xander.”
“And we left Mallory with him.”
Colonel Bartholomew pulled his sidearm and pointed it at Mallory. “So what side are you with, the living or the dead?”
Mallory shook his head. “There’s still a chance to change your mind. You still own your soul.”
The colonel laughed. “Damnation and Taxes, you are a priest, aren’t you? What good is a soul, even if we had one? Adam is granting us—”
“Slavery,” Mallory said. “That’s what he grants you. An end to owning yourself.”
“Sorry, Father. I’m not convinced.”
“But one of his followers was, weren’t they?”
“Pardon?”
“That was the coup,” Mallory said. “Someone, probably one of Adam’s spies, decided to purge the command of his agents. That’s why there’s only you left. None of his moles higher up in the PSDC survived. Am I right?”
The colonel walked up and pressed the slugthrower against Mallory’s stomach. “Are you really trying to talk us into changing sides right before His final victory?”
“Don’t you wonder, if he truly is omnipotent—if he is the god he claims to be—why does he need you?”
“Oh, to hell with this bullshit.” The colonel pulled the trigger on the slugthrower. Mallory felt as if God himself had kicked him in the gut. He glanced down in response to the pain as his full weight fell on the guards holding him upright.
Lord, let this not be in vain.
The colonel fired again, and Mallory saw the flash, and the gases from the gunshot push out, shredding flesh and the fabric of his jumpsuit. The third shot hit him right under the sternum.
Lord, let me have done your will.
The guards let him collapse onto the floor in a pool of his own blood. Mallory heard the colonel say, “That man was a fool. Go and check to make sure his companions have been neutralized.”
And, Lord, let those two women survive.
“Sir?”
“What?”
“All the comm channels are open. We’ve been broadcasting everything for the past five minutes.”
Mallory was comforted in his final moments knowing his first prayer had been answered.
“Flynn?”
He didn’t answer Tetsami. He seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness. She didn’t know why she was still aware enough to realize that. She would like to join him. It was dark, and silent, and the air was becoming hot and stale. She was pretty sure the wound in their gut had reopened, but she wasn’t able to move Flynn’s arms to check.
It seemed an eternity she lay there, before she heard something.
It sounded like rocks moving in the darkness. Gravel raining down, earth shifting. She gathered what strength she could and tried to yell, “Help!” It only came out in a choked whisper.
Even so, whatever made the noise seemed to come closer.
“Help us!” Only slightly louder, the effort splitting Flynn’s lip and leaking blood into their mouth.
Above them, the darkness parted like a curtain, the rock and earth flowing out from around them until they were prone on the floor of a softly glowing crystal chamber.
Just like the Protean had done to the outpost on Salmagundi.
The redheaded chick knelt down next to Flynn’s body. Tetsami realized she still couldn’t move anything below the neck, and it wasn’t because Flynn had control. She could move his eyes and turn his head to face Tsoravitch as she knelt next to him.
Now that there was light, she could see the mess their body had become.
Oh, Flynn, you don’t deserve this . . .
Whatever injury prevented her from moving had, as a blessing, prevented her from feeling the injuries. Below the waist, Flynn’s body had been crushed to a pulp. Both arms were broken, and she saw the point of a rib sticking out a frothing hole in his chest.
Their chest.
Tsoravitch wasn’t even dirty.
“That’s not fair,” Tetsami managed to wheeze.
“Flynn?” Tsoravitch said.
She wanted to shake her head no, but Flynn’s injuries wouldn’t permit it. “No. Tetsami.”
Tetsami stared into Tsoravitch’s face and realized the woman was crying. Chicky, I’m touched.
She also saw the corner of her face twitch in a way that was disturbingly familiar.
“Dom?” Her voice almost choked on the word.
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” She had to rest a moment before going on. “You let me think you were dead.”
“I was,” he said with Tsoravitch’s mouth. “I’m just a copy.”
“A copy?” Like me . . .
Dom placed Tsoravitch’s hand gently on
the side of Flynn’s face. That, Tetsami could feel. She could feel tears building up, and she closed her eyes against them. “Dom, your timing sucks.”
“I know.”
“I’m dying here.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.” They could do to Flynn what the Protean had done to Nickolai. It was a leap of faith; she doubted they would be unchanged. And she had to trust Tsoravitch.
She had to trust Dom.
I told Flynn that I didn’t want him to die.
“Flynn? Please, Flynn? Just tell me it’s okay and I’ll do it.”
Flynn didn’t answer, and she couldn’t rouse him.
The more she thought of it, the more terrified she became. She needed Flynn to give her the strength ...
But I don’t want to die either.
“Do it,” she snapped at him. “Do it before I change my mind.”
Tsoravitch bent down, and kissed her.
Tetsami’s eyes widened. She felt Tsoravitch’s lips against Flynn’s, against hers, and her skin burned with the contact. The warmth spread across Flynn’s face, and across his skin, to places she shouldn’t be able to feel anymore. Tetsami parted her own lips in response, and felt Tsoravitch’s tongue enter her mouth. The warmth spread down inside her, as if Flynn’s body was on fire.
She felt bones and organs knit back together and she could move her arms again . . .
“Gram?” came a groggy voice in the back of her head.
Flynn had awakened just as she was reaching up to embrace Tsoravitch. Tsoravitch/Dom sensed Tetsami’s sudden hesitation and broke off from her healing kiss.
“Great timing, sonny.”
“What’s happening?”
“I didn’t want y—I didn’t want us to die.”
“What do you—Oh.”
She could feel Flynn staring at Tsoravitch through her eyes. Tsoravitch reached down and touched Flynn’s face and whispered, “You’re one of us now.”
“Are you still there, Dom?”