Gene Wolfe - Lake of the Long Sun

Silk followed him. "There must be thousands."

"About seven thousand of us left now. The way he set it up, see, when we come here from the Short Sun, was for all the cities to be independent. Pas figured that if somebody had too much territory, he'd try to take over Mainframe, the superbrain that astrogates and runs the ship."

Somewhat confused, Silk asked, "Do you mean the whole whorl?"

"Yeah, right. The Whorl. So what he did, see-if you ask me, this was pretty smart-was to give every city a heavy infantry division, twelve thousand tinpots. For a big offensive you want armor and air and armored infantry and all that junk. But for defense, heavy infantry and lots of it. Bust the Whorl up into a couple of hundred cities, give each of them a division to defend it, and the whole thing ought to stay put, no matter what some crazy calde someplace tries to do. So far it's held for three hundred years, and like I said, we've still got over half our strength fit for duty."

Silk was happy to be able to contribute some information of his own. "Viron doesn't have a calde anymore." "Yeah, right." Hammerstone sounded uneasy. "I heard. It's kind of a shag-up, because standing orders say that's who we're supposed to get our orders from. The major says we got to obey the Ayuntamiento for now, but nobody really likes it much. You know about standing orders, Patera?"

"Not really." Silk had lagged behind him to count the levels in a rack: twenty. "Sand said something about them, I think."

"You've got them too," Hammerstone told him. "Watch this."

He aimed a vicious left cross at Silk's face. Silk's hands flew up to protect it, but the oversized steel fist stopped a finger's width short of them.

"See that? Your standing orders say your hands got to protect your clock, just like ours say we've got to protect Viron. You can't change them or get rid of them, even if maybe somebody else could do it by messing around inside of your head."

"A need to worship is another of those standing orders," Silk told the soldier slowly. "It is innate in man that he cannot help wanting to thank the immortal gods, who give him all that he possesses, even life. You and your sergeant saw fit to disparage our sacrifices, and I will very willingly grant that they're pitifully inadequate. Yet they satisfy, to a considerable degree, that otherwise unmet need, for the community as well as for many individuals."

Hammerstone shook his head. "It's pretty hard for me to picture Pas biting into a dead goat, Patera."

"But is it hard for you to picture him being made happy, in a very minor fashion, by that concrete evidence that we have not forgotten him? That we-even the people of my own quarter, who are so poor-are eager to share such food as we have with him?"

"No, I can see that all right."

"Then we have nothing to argue about," Silk told him, "because that is what I see, too, applied not only to Pas but to all the other gods, the remaining gods of the Nine, the Outsider, and all the minor deities."

Hammerstone stopped and turned to face Silk, his massive body practically blocking the aisle. "You know what I think you're doing now, Patera?"

Silk, who had finished speaking before he fully realized what he had said-that he had just refused to number the Outsider among the minor gods-felt certain he was about to be charged with heresy. He could only mumble, "No. I've no idea."

"I think you're practicing what you're going to tell the brass on me. How you're going to try to get them to let you go. Maybe you don't know it, but I think that's what it is."

"Perhaps I was trying to justify myself," Silk conceded with an immense sense of relief, "but that doesn't show what I said to be false, nor does it prove me insincere in saying it."

"I guess not."

"Do you believe that they will?"

"I dunno. Patera. Neither does Sand." Hammerstone threw back his head in a grin. "That's why he's letting me show you around like this, see? If he'd of been sure the brass would turn you loose, he'd of turned you loose himself and not said nothing. Or if he was sure they'd lock you up, he'd have you locked up right now, sitting in the dark in a certain room we got, with maybe a swell bottle of water 'cause he likes you. But you were talking about how we had to send for your advocate, and Sand's not sure what the major's going to say, so he let you clean up a little and he's treating you nice while I keep an eye on you." "He allowed me to keep my needler as well-or rather, the one a kind friend lent me, which was very good of him." Silk hesitated, and when he spoke again did so only because his conscience demanded it. "Perhaps I shouldn't say this, my son, but haven't you told me a great deal that a spy would wish to know? I'm not a spy but a loyal citizen, as I said earlier; and because I am, it disturbs me that an actual spy could learn some of the things I have. That our army numbers seven thousand, for example."

Hammerstone leaned against a rack. "Don't overheat. If I was just some dummy, you think I'd be awake pulling C.Q.? All that I've told you is that taking this place would be holy corrosion. Let the spies go back home and tell their bosses that. Viron don't care. And I've notjust told you, I'm flat showing you, that Viron's got seven thousand tinpots it can call on any day of the week. No other city in this part of the Whorl's got more than half that, from what we hear. So they better leave Viron alone, and if Viron says spit oil, they better spit far."

"Then the things you've told me should not endanger me further?" Silk asked.

"Not a drip. Still want to see the replacements?"

"Certainly, if you're still willing to show them to me. May I ask why you're concerned about spies at all, when you don't object to someone who might be a spy-I repeat that I am not-touring this facility?"

"Because this isn't what the spies are looking for. If it was, we'd just trot them around and send them back. What they want to know is where our government's got to."

Silk looked at him inquiringly. "Where the Ayuntamiento meets?"

"For now, yeah." "It would seem to me that it would be even more heavily defended than this headquarters is. If so, what would be the point?"

"It is," Hammerstone told him, "only not the same way. If it was, that would make it easy to spot. You've seen me and you've seen the sergeant. You figure we're real tough metal, Patera?"

"Very much so."

Hammerstone lifted a most impressive fist. "Think you might whip me?" "Of course not. I'm well aware that you could kill me very quickly, if you wished."

"Maybe you know a bio that you think could do it?"

Silk shook his head. "The most formidable bio I know is my friend Auk. Auk's somewhat taller than I am, and a good deal more strongly built. He's an experienced fighter, too; but you would defeat him with ease, I'm sure."

"In a fistfight? You bet I would. I'd break his jaw with my first punch. And you remember this." Hammerstone pointed to the bright scratch left by Hyacinth's needler on his camouflaged chest. "But what about if we both had slug guns?"

Diplomatically, Silk ventured, "I don't believe that Auk owns one."

"Supposing Viron hands him one with a box of ammo."

"In that case, I would imagine that it would be largely a matter of luck."

"Does this Auk that you know have many friends besides you, Patera?"

"I'm sure he must. There's a man named Gib-a larger man even than Auk, now that I come to think of it. And one of our sibyls is certainly Auk's friend."

"We'll leave her out. Suppose I had to fight you and Auk and this other bio Gib, and all three of you had slug guns."

Still anxious not to offend. Silk said, "I would think that any outcome would be possible."

Hammerstone straightened up and took a step toward Silk, looming above him. "You're right. Maybe I'd kill all three of you, or maybe you'd kill me and never get a scratch doing it. But what would you say's most likely? I'm telling you right now that if you lie to me, I'm not going to be as nice to you as I been up till now, and you best think some about that before you answer. So what about it? The three of you against me, and we've all got guns."