Iain Banks - Against a Dark Background

Sharrow looked out of the window at the cloud-dappled land moving smoothly underneath.

“-alked to Doctor Fretis Braäst, moderator of the Huhsz college at Yadayeypon Ecclesiastical School.”

“Well, yes ,” Zefla said, turning up the sound. Sharrow glanced up at the screen to see a well-groomed male presenter talking to camera; behind him, on the studio wall, was a gigantic, slightly grainy hologram of her own face. “You’re a star, kid,” Zefla said, smiling dazzlingly. Dloan turned round to watch.

Sharrow scowled at the screen. “Is that the best photo they could get? Must be ten years old; look at my hair. Ugh.”

The blow-up of Sharrow’s face was replaced by a live holo of a trim-looking elderly man with white hair and a white beard. He had twinkly eyes and an understanding smile. He was dressed in a light-grey academic gown with discreet but numerous qualification ribbons decorating one side of the collar.

“Doctor Braäst,” said the presenter. “This is a terrible thing, isn’t it? Here we are, about to start the second decamillenium, and your faith wants to hunt down and kill-preferably put to death ceremonially, in fact-a woman who has never been convicted of anything and whose only crime appears to be having been born, and being born female.”

Doctor Braäst smiled briefly. “Well, Keldon, I think you’ll find that the Lady Sharrow does have a string of convictions for a variety of crimes in Malishu, Miykenns, dating-”

“Doctor Braäst,” the presenter gave a pained smile and glanced down at a screenboard balanced on his knee. “Those were minor public order offences; I don’t think you can use fifteen-year-old fines for brawling and insulting a police officer as an excuse for-”

“I beg your pardon, Keldon,” the white-haired man smiled. “I was just trying to keep things totally accurate.”

“Well, fine, but to return to-”

“And I’d remind you that the whole issue of the use of such Passports is not a Huhsz tenet; this is a civil process with a pedigree over two millennia old; what we are told-and what we have to accept-is that this is a civilised response to the problem of assassination and the potential for disruption it implies.”

“Well, I believe a lot of people would say that all assassination ought to be illegal-”

“Perhaps so, but it was found that its codification caused less disruption than extra-legal actions.”

“Well, well; we aren’t here to discuss the history of legal… legal history, Doctor; we’re talking about the fate of one woman you seem determined to persecute and hound to death with all the influence and resources your-extremely wealthy-faith can muster.”

“Well, I agree that on the face of it this might seem terribly unfortunate for the lady-”

“I suspect most people would put it rather stronger than that-”

“Although this is a lady associated with the Incident in Lip City eight years-”

“This is all rumour, though, isn’t it, Doctor Braäst? Smear tactics. She hasn’t been convicted of anything… In fact, she successfully sued two screen services which implicated her in the Lip City Incident-”

“I can understand you’re frightened of her doing the same to you…”

“But none of this alters the fact that you want this woman dead, Doctor Braäst. Why?”

(” That’s more like it,” Zefla said, nodding.)

“Keldon, this is an unfortunate matter going back many generations, to an act of desecration, violence and rape carried out by one of the lady’s ancestors-”

“A version of events which has always been vigorously denied by-”

“Of course it’s been denied, Keldon,” the small doctor said, looking exasperated. “If you’ll just let me finish…”

“I beg your pardon; go on.”

“In which a young temple virgin was abducted, several of our order were seriously injured and numerous acts of violently destructive desecration, some of them of an obscene and depraved nature I can’t repeat here, were committed by troops of the Dascen clan-”

“Again, this is all denied-”

“Please let me finish; this unfortunate child was then raped, despoiled by Duke Chlea, forced to marry him and to bear children. When this poor, defiled and frightened creature attempted to return herself and her twins to the safety and security of the temple she had known since she was an infant-”

“Now, really, Doctor Braäst; history is quite clear on this; the Huhsz… Huhsz supporters, I should say, simply attacked-”

“History is people and records and the human memory and therefore not infallible, Keldon; we have divine guidance in this, which is .”

“But, Doctor Braäst, surely no matter whose version of this tragic story you believe, there is no reason to carry this blood-feud on into the present.”

“But we did not,” the white-haired man said reasonably. “This confused and unfortunate woman swore eternal antipathy to our faith; swore, indeed, that she would murder the next Prophet Incarnate, should He appear in her lifetime, and furthermore bound all her line to the same oath; that she had been raped, and then indoctrinated by the Dascen tribe in an atmosphere of hatred and atheist lies might help to explain such an abomination, but it cannot excuse it.

“Our Patriarch was at first determined to ignore this outrage, but God himself, in a visitation of a kind that occurs less than once in a generation, spoke to him and told the blessed Patriarch that he had but one course of action; blood had to be met with blood. By all means meet tolerance with tolerance, but equally one must meet intolerance with intolerance.

“The Messiah can not be born until the threat has been lifted or the desecration ameliorated. The oath has been made, the vendetta instituted, and all by the Dascen female line. They might think that they can rescind their rash and sacrilegious curse-indeed I perfectly understand that they want to do so now-but I’m afraid God’s word is not to be so trifled with. What must be done must be done. Even if we don’t get the Passports-though I am confident we shall-this is not a matter for compromise.”

“Of course, Doctor Braist, cynics might say that the real object of all this is to secure the return of what is now the very last Lazy Gun, which was the chief treasure taken from-”

“The exact nature of the treasure is irrelevant, Keldon, but it was as an act of mercy that God, through the Patriarch, allowed that the return of this device-never at any time used by the Huhsz, I might point out, and of purely ceremonial value would signal an end to this tragic feud, from our side at least.”

“But, Doctor, what it all boils down to is this; can any amount of this sort of reasoning, historical or otherwise, really justify this sort of barbaric practice in this day and age? Briefly, please.”

“Barbarism is always with us, Keldon. Lip City suffered an act of unparalleled barbarity eight years ago. What we have been forced to do is not barbaric; it is the will and the mercy of God. We can no more ignore this duty than we can neglect the adoration of Him. The Lady Sharrow-though we may feel sorry for her on a human level-represents a living insult for all those of the True and Blessed Belief. Her fate is not a matter for debate. She is the last of her line; a sad, barren and disabled figure whose misery has gone on too long. Her spirit, when it is finally released, will sing for joy that we were the ones who rescued her from her torment. I look forward to the eternal instant when her voice joins those of the Blessed whose conversion occurs after death; hers will be a muted exaltation, but it will be exaltation nevertheless, and eternal. Surely we should all wish her that.”