Jack Chalker - Balshazzar's Serpent

“Cromwell to Sister Morgan. Have anything yet?”

“More than enough,” Ruth Morgan reported back. “Whatever happened here was deliberate. The place was leveled, the land in the immediate region was scorched, and we think that we’ve found signs of a mass grave. There’s also a cemetery here but it’s separate, and they even ran a disruptor over the markers.”

“You heard our discussion over their ship?”

“Yes. At least these bastards can’t get off. That’s the best I can say about them.”

Cromwell’s bushy black eyebrows went up. “Tell me, everybody—put yourselves in the place of these pirates. After living here, in what is still certain to be primitive conditions by anybody’s standpoint, for years, perhaps decades, what would be the one thing central in your mind? Or, at least, one of two things?”

That one was easy. “Getting out of here,” John answered for all of them. “Without being discovered by the guys who chased you here first, of course.”

“Exactly. And who’s showed up with the only interstellar capable craft since they crashed?”

“Yeah, that’s obvious. But what kind of thing do they think they can pull? I doubt if they realize that we all have implanted comm links, let alone the level of experts and expertise we do. And they might have every reason to think we turn the other cheek in all respects.”

“Perhaps,” Cromwell responded. “Still, desperation is a major motivator. They might well think that they only have one chance in a hundred, but that the alternative is possibly zero chances in a hundred if they let us leave. No, they’ll try it. That’s what the arsenal tapping’s been about. And while they might underestimate us, they’ll be prepared for a fight. The locals might even help them, just to be rid of them. We’re certainly planting God’s seed here, but, as always, not in everybody. Not by a long shot.”

“When do you think they’ll strike, then?” Albert Salkind put in, sounding worried. Geographers were good at charting running battles, but not all that good at actually fighting them.

“The next-to-last night, I suspect,” Cromwell told them. “When they’re apt to think we’re complacent, taking security for granted because it’s been so peaceful, and with us mostly intent on reinforcing the gospel. They know that Olivet will be relocating far away after the Sunday services, so that gives us one, two, oh, three days. Saturday. They’ll make their move at some point on Saturday, and they will be extremely dangerous. They have only one real chance at this, and that means they will be as ruthless as possible. I think it’s time we had a war council with the Doc.”

Eve and John walked across the village square and out towards the distant but quite visible Mount Olivet . The sun was getting low in the sky, and soon the farmers would be coming in, the village communal kitchen would be serving a high fat, high caloric meal for them to work off the next day, and then some would head off for Olivet .

Most, of course, would not. After a few evenings the novelty had worn off, even though Doc Woodward seldom repeated anything even while always staying on message. If you didn’t keep them interested you wouldn’t keep them for the serious teaching.

Eve hadn’t known John before this assignment; there were three hundred in the Arm of Gideon and the newer members tended to spend all their time in education and training and didn’t really mix socially with the experienced officers. Still, she felt a sense of personal pride that she’d been accepted as an equal member of the team, even by the Doctor and his specialists, and certainly by John, who’d backed her up when everyone else was dismissing her suspicions as newbie paranoia. She didn’t feel that the pride was ungodly or impermissible; this was simply an affirmation by others that she’d done her job.

It wasn’t easy being a member of the Arm; you had to study enough theology to answer any question a new convert might come up and ask, and to minister to those who needed one-on-one treatment, but you also had to know a lot of general knowledge and be proficient in the skills of an investigator and first-contact specialist while also knowing all the technology that was at your disposal.

You didn’t get much sleep even on the long interstellar voyages; you were always busy, always learning, always honing skills as best you could.

The most ironic thing was that few remained active in the Arm for very long, save the senior officers who had a particular feel for it and strong leadership abilities. Many just couldn’t take the grind and dropped out and became security personnel or mission planners; some became specialists, experts in a particular field like Ruth Morgan’s anthropology or Albert Salkind’s geography. Some became ministers, both lay and ordained, to the large flock aboard the ship, while still others, often those who’d become couples while on assignments, wound up as missionaries, staying behind to grow what the Doctor planted.

Eve wasn’t sure what she would eventually do. She loved this sort of thing, as she’d always thought she would, but she did not look forward to the next prolonged period of ship travel, of endless periods in artificial ship’s time just doing the same things over and over again. And she knew that the day would be coming when that would be her fate, perhaps for years if she didn’t become one of the dropouts. These settlers could be covered continent wide in just a few more weeks; there weren’t all that many on this planet, after all.

The funny thing was, she thought she could remain here as a missionary if it was like it appeared to be, with these ramshackle farms and communal villages and smelly animals and smellier kids. There didn’t seem to be any real threats to humans here, the insects and bacteria were just off enough that they didn’t have much effect on humans, and with some medical equipment and training and a couple of medtechs this place would be one where you could settle down and possibly even live a long and productive life.

But it wasn’t as it appeared. There was a second layer here, down beneath the surface, with guns and shielded vaults and endless caverns. She would have to see these people as they really were and this life as it really was before she could decide on anything about this place. Somewhere, among these seemingly happy and hard-working farmers were men and probably women who had destroyed those villages and all who lived within them, and done so merely to prevent anyone telling what they saw or interfering with the unloading of contraband and the technology to rule.

They were out here now, waiting to act, to do something , and many weren’t even very shy about it. Gregnar had trimmed his long hair and bushy mustache and looked almost presentable as he sat there telling dirty stories to folks who were then going to march off and see if God was with them, and he seemed quite loose and friendly.

There was no good way to spy on everybody every minute, and the natives’ loose-fitting cotton clothing could conceal almost as much as the Arm’s robes actually did conceal. Still, it appeared that, if they really were going to do anything, they would be doing it with very small weapons. That wasn’t totally reassuring; small weapons could do less damage, it was true, but they could kill a lot of folks within a reasonable range.

There had to be far more raider survivors than these three, but these three were the only ones they could be certain of, so they were closely watched. Eve had Gregnar simply because the big man had shown an eye for the ladies but also seemed to underestimate them. John took Alon, who seemed relaxed but was not as outgoing as Gregnar, and an Arm supervisor named Matthew Seldon, a long-time member of Doctor Woodward’s inner circle and clearly the boss’s man on this end, took Krag, who was acting the somewhat withdrawn loner. That didn’t seem to have any real meaning, either, since Krag was usually that way.