Kevin Anderson - Resurrection, Inc.

Then the Servant struck his third blow; with each successive one, Nathans’s confidence crumbled further and further. “There’s so much you don’t know, Francois, it’s almost sad. While I’ve been in hiding, I discovered the truth about the Cremators, too.”

Nathans’s eyes lit with rage.

“I learned who they are, and why they do what they have to.”

Furious, Nathans sprang to his feet, but the Servant jerked up his hand so violently that it almost startled the man into firing the scatter-stun. “Stop! If you Command me to say what I know about the Cremators, I’ll terminate myself immediately. I’ve already died—it doesn’t mean anything to me.” He narrowed his eyes. “Just wanted you to realize that I know about the Cremators, and you don’t, and you’ll never find out.”

“Traitor!” Nathans whispered under his breath. “Several times over.”

Shattered and impotent, Nathans fell back into his chair and stared at Danal. The Servant stared back. They waited, engulfed in absolute silence for a full minute. The man seemed to be warring with himself, fighting back distasteful decisions.

Nathans heaved a heavy sigh and closed his eyes. He seemed very tired, but maintained his control through a supreme effort. “You served your purpose, Vincent. You’ve answered my question: it is possible to bring back memories and personality intact.”

He cracked his knuckles. “But now you’ve killed our High Priest, Vincent. The Sabbat must go on, you know, especially this one. You’re putting me in the awkward position of having to expose myself as the head of the neo-Satanists.” He drummed his fingertips on the tabletop, keeping his other hand leveled rigidly, pointing the scatter-stun.

“But after tonight, I suppose it won’t matter anyway.” He smiled with a cold smugness. “Enough is enough, Vincent. I thought very highly of you once… but what you did to me… well, even I can’t forgive some things.” He stood up, backing toward the inset wardrobe. With one hand he rummaged among the garments blindly until he drew out a plain white robe, tossing it toward Danal.

“For tonight’s Sabbat, you’re going to replace our scheduled sacrifice.”

“Danal, Command: Follow!” Nathans snapped.

The towering ceremonial doors to the Sabbat grotto swung open slowly. The electric candlelight inside the chamber caught and reflected from the intricate carvings on the clonewood. Danal looked into the shifting masses of robed neo-Satanists, all eager to see blood—real blood or synBlood, it made no difference.

High-pitched organ music skirled through the air, without a melody. Somewhere a gong sounded. The crowd made droning sounds, but a hush rippled through them as their new High Priest appeared.

Without looking back at the Servant, Nathans moved gracefully forward, striding and swaying so that his magnificent black robe billowed behind him. The red trim flickered like blood in the shifting artificial torchlight. The man’s bald head was adorned with temporary tattoos of astrological symbols.

A wide aisle between the sections of stone benches led straight up to the altar on its raised platform. Some of the cultists pushed forward, struggling to get a seat on the stone benches near the front, where they could see better.

Danal’s legs jerked him into motion. He strode after Nathans, obedient but defiant, head high with impenetrable confidence. Let Nathans worry about that. Though the white sacrificial robe covered his jumpsuit, Danal’s skin tone identified him as a Servant… but his actions and attitudes marked him as human.

The blocky druidic altar stone huddled in the center of a large pentacle drawn with glistening red paint. Black candles, each as thick as his forearm, had been set at the points of the star, and a circle drawn nine feet in diameter surrounded the entire design. Old bloodstains discolored the altar stone; manacles attached to its head and foot waited to hold an unwilling victim in place.

As Danal stonily walked past the hooded forms, he saw no faces, only the mixture of colors on their robes—Acolytes, Acolyte Supervisors, and Coven Managers. Around him he could smell the gathered musk of tense human beings. Some clutched their printed program leaflets; more leaflets lay scattered on the floor.

The grotto around him looked only superficially different from when he had been the High Priest a lifetime before. The chamber had been expanded to accommodate more cultists, and fountains of sculptured poured stone had been installed all around the perimeter, painted and molded to look like springs from a living cave wall. White, foamy water gushed up with a sighing sound that echoed in the chamber.

Danal could not say anything or make any call for help. Nathans had been very careful, very explicit. “Command: You will be silent during the ceremony, unless I specifically ask you to speak.” Danal felt his vocal cords go dead—it would do him no good to cry out now anyway. He had to have faith in his plan—not irrational Faith like that of the neo-Satanists, but a confidence in his own abilities, a trust in Gregor and Rikki and all the Wakers.

He didn’t move his head, but memories passed in front of him. All the times when he had been here, roles reversed, leading the willing sacrificial victim… all the times he had stood over the altar in the black and red robe, looking down at a trusting face as the crowd waited—

Danal pushed those thoughts away, holding onto the good times, even remembering Francois Nathans and the stimulating discussions they’d had when it had been no more than food for thought. But when Nathans made the ideas real—then it had all changed. Vincent Van Ryman had been too much of a coward to help put those ideas into effect—that was how Nathans must see it.

Danal felt a chill as a new idea came to him, haunted him. For a long time Nathans had treated neo-Satanism as a game, too, disappointed and amused at its surprising success. He had done no greater damage than sanctioning the occasional voluntary sacrifices until Vincent Van Ryman had betrayed him. Vincent: his student, his hope, his apprentice.

And in his anger at that, Nathans had struck back. Danal remembered his dumbfounded disbelief—even while it was happening—that his mentor could do such a thing to him. Nathans had arranged for the murder of Julia, his first real victim; he had killed Vincent and brought him back, while letting Stromgaard masquerade as High Priest. And finally he’d lost patience enough to arrange for the slaughter of all the neo-Satanists. Danal felt certain Francois Nathans would never have done that before Vincent had betrayed him.

But Danal would not accept that blame. He had paid too high a price already.

His obedient legs carried him up to the stage one step at a time. He felt like an animal being led to slaughter. The altar stone spread out before him, cold and waiting. The gathered worshipers crowded closer on the stone benches below… and Danal knew he wouldn’t be the only victim.

Nathans turned to face the crowd, putting on an exalted expression as he muttered out of the corner of his mouth, “Danal, Command: Lie down!”

Unable to resist, and not wasting energy with the effort, the Servant turned around and slowly lay back, feeling the cool, rough texture of stone against the fabric on his back. The white robe fell open, showing his gray jumpsuit. He stared up and saw the papier mache stalactites hanging down like knives from the ceiling of the grotto. For one disoriented moment he thought he saw the black tunnel of Death opening up for him again. He felt a strange new fear—would Death be the same the second time through? Or did he get only a single chance?

Danal thought about slowing everything down by viewing it through his microprocessor, making his last moments seem like years in subjective time, savoring life. But he decided against it. Not microprocessor speed now. No. This was real, and he would finish out his life in real time.