Haze and the Hammer of Darkness (50 page)

“I sort of thought we'd start with the outbuildings and work in, ending up with what shots I can take of the temple.”

Before he finishes, Martel is talking to empty air and hurrying to catch up.

The first place where the massive Apollonite halts is in the center of a narrow barn, filled with empty stalls.

“This is the sunram barn.”

Martel does a quick once-over, then focuses on a single immaculate stall.

“The sunrams?”

“Out in the fields. Not far. Do you want to see them?”

Actually, while a shot of the animals might round out the slot, Martel really wants faxtime of people. He nods.

“Not far” turns out to be across two hills. Two yellow-robed novices and another Apollonite are watching the small flock. The animals, from their black hooves to their curling golden horns and thick yellow fleece, are spotless.

As he moves closer to the sunrams Martel realizes the animals do not smell like normal sheep, but almost like flowers.

He sniffs. Sniffs again. A clean smell.

“Heather,” supplies Hercles. “A good smell.”

The closer sunrams raise their heads at Martel's approach. He zooms in on the head of the nearest, narrowing in on the eyes. The eye itself contains a star-shaped pupil within the golden iris.

He shifts focus from that ram to another, eating the golden grass. Neither, Martel realizes, tears at the roots the way many sheep and goats do.

The way they chew isn't your subject,
he reminds himself.

Martel looks at his guide.

“Some cube on the novices?”

“I beg your pardon?” rumbles the giant.

“According to father G'Iobo, I cannot fax Apollonites, only the postulants and lay members of the community.”

The herder Apollonite frowns as Martel speaks, but moves to one side before the guide gestures.

Both novices are beardless. One is fresh from academics; the other shows gray in his brown hair, laugh lines radiating from his eyes. The golden wide-link chains around their necks are plain, without the sunburst.

“Do you comb the sunrams every day?” asks Martel of the older novice at the same time as he splits the focus between the animal and the man.

The novice's eyes run to the animal, back to the faxer, and Martel catches it all on the cube.

The man shakes his head in agreement.

“Are they easy to work with?”

A more vigorous headshake.

Martel angles in on the younger. “Do you like working with sunrams?”

An almost shy smile and a headshake answer the question.

The faxer fades from the man's face to a wide pan of the flock to the nearby hilltop, as yet uncropped, where the tall grass waves against the sky.

“Thank you,” he tells the shepherd Apollonite.

A fourth nod, curt, is the only response.

Martel looks to his guide.

“Vows of silence?”

“No. Nothing to say. Chatter to mortals seems unnecessary when one has beheld the grandeur of God.”

“How about the furniture operation?”
Time to change the subject,
Martel thinks.

“The basket shop is closer.”

“Fine. Then the furniture shop.”

Once again, Martel finds himself trailing the fast-moving Apollonite.

The double time march leads to another low building. Once inside, Martel sees why the term “basket shop” is inappropriate.

On the left side of the building, nearly one hundred meters from one end to the other, stretch built-in bins, each filled with stacked and dried reeds, wickers, palms, and grasses.

Across from the nearest set of bins are three rows of short tables. Perhaps twenty are occupied. Two Apollonites rove the aisles, offering advice, assistance.

Martel concentrates his unit on the raw materials first, then on the building, and finally on the novices. Two young girls also silently weave wicker into larger baskets, but do not wear the pale yellow robes of the novices.

“Lay members of the community?” Martel half points with his free hand.

“Wards. Each community supports and aids and educates some who have no other resources, and who are too young or too disabled through no fault of their own to make their own way.”

The answer raises another series of questions, which Martel chooses not to pursue, but files mentally as he focuses close-ups on the postulants. He follows the fax-ins of the younger men with shots of the girls, first of the redhead, then of the brunette.

Neither is a beauty, but each has good features, a clear complexion, and a deftness in her hands. The redhead smiles broadly as she recognizes she is the object of the fax unit.

Martel lingers on her smile before stopping.

He unshoulders the unit to check the settings. Even the girls do not look at him.

After a long moment, Martel reshoulders the fax unit.

“Furniture shop?”

This time the tall Apollonite waits for Martel to take a step before starting off with his ground-devouring strides.

The furniture shop is housed in another low building like the basket-making facility, but instead of the smell of grass, and the smells of autumn, is filled with the scents of oil and wood. Again, along the left side of the interior are bin after bin of stacked woods stretching from one end to the other.

A finished marwood chest gleams just inside the entrance. The black surfaces are so smoothly finished that even without wax, lacquer, or glaze, the wood reflects Martel and the Apollonite guide.

Martel lets out a low whistle as he admires it and plays the faxer over it from every possible angle.

“Fit for a king,” he murmurs.

“Scheduled for the Matriarch of Halston,” says Hercles with a laugh.

Among the workers are more Apollonites, heavy leather aprons over shortened yellow robes, than in the basket shop, and the novices all seem older.

Martel faxes a simple inlaid game table, which, for all its simplicity, could have adorned any palace, any Duke's salon.

Along with the close-ups of the novices, he adds several shots over the shoulders of the Apollonite craftsmen, careful not to appear too obvious about his intentions.

From the carpentry and cabinet making, Martel is escorted to the weavers, where the golden wool is carded, stretched, treated, woven, and tailored; to the tannery; to the clinic, which is empty except for a young man who is having his left hand treated for a gash suffered in an orchard accident; to the recreation center; to one of the living quarters; to the empty dining hall being readied for the midday meal; and finally to the administration building.

The total time on the cube reads out at close to three stans.

That ought to be enough,
Martel thinks, keeping the thought to himself as he follows Hercles back to his flitter.

Father G'Iobo, having torn himself away from his administrative duties, is waiting.

“We're sorry you could not spend more time with us, Faxer Martel.”

Martel doesn't believe a word of it, and the good Father's emotions show no sign of the regret he is expressing.

“And so am I,” he responds in kind, “but it's been most interesting. I hope you enjoy the program once it's aired in final fax form.”

“We'll be looking forward to that,” says G'Iobo.

Martel can sense the unease behind the statement, even though the priest's face carries the same warm and friendly smile.

Martel racks the one used fax cube in the storage locker, reloads the unit, thumbs the locker shut, and sets the fax unit in place for the next series of aerial shots.

As he settles behind the controls he looks up to see Father G'Iobo and Hercles standing back by the admin building, apparently waiting for his departure.

Father G'Iobo had been waiting much closer when Martel had arrived, much closer.

How about another kind of checklist?
Martel asks himself, thoughts fully shielded.

He lets his perceptions range through the start circuits, mentally tracking, searching … and comes up with the “wrong” feeling. A small cartridge of something above the turbine blades, liquid.

Concentrating, he extends his energies, lets his thoughts remove the liquid to a small space in the bottom of the flitter.

With a touch of a stud he starts up, waves to the waiting Apollonites, and begins the short checklist.

Shortly he lifts off, heading toward the Ethene community.

Once in flight, he tries to analyze the captive liquid mentally, some sort of acid. Obviously placed to weaken the turbine blades, the acid would have loosened several blades at once, certainly exploding the engine, and possibly the whole flitter.

Martel lets the liquid eat through the bottomplate and bleed away into the open air.

What surprises will I get from the ladies?

From the air, the Ethene community shows more of a grid system, with its lanes converging in a fan toward the temple on the hillside south of everything else. The simple white stone structure, half set into the hill, lies open in the center.

Martel sees the sacred white flame from the air, takes the liberty of faxing it along with his other pan shots.

Sister Artemis Dian, the very name a position title, waits by the landing pad. She wears a white metal circlet and a veil, seemingly thin, but totally concealing. From the golden hue of her hair and the curve of her calves, which show below the three-quarter length of her off-white robes, Martel guesses she is beyond first youth, but not too far. Either that or thoroughly rejuved.

“Faxer Martel?” Well modulated, with a hint of throatiness, her voice does nothing to discourage his first impression.

“The same. Greetings, Lady.”

“Sister will do, and greetings to you.”

“Greetings, Sister,” Martel corrects himself. “Anything I should know before we start?”

“The Goddess watches over everything, and in her wisdom will correct all that goes amiss.”

Translated loosely, Martel, if you blow it, you'll get fired on the spot with celestial fury.

“I think I understand, Sister, and will follow your instructions to the letter.”
Not to the spirit, however.

The Ethene community, while laid out in a different physical pattern, bears remarkable similarity to the Apollonite village in the activities, the cleanliness, the sense of purpose and quiet. There is no furniture shop, but instead, a ceramic facility, and in place of the basket shop there is, surprisingly, the winery that produces the Springfire of which Martel has become so fond.

Sister Artemis Dian is his guide through the entire tour, even to the front steps of the temple.

“No farther,” she says in her controlled contralto.

“Mind if I pan up the steps and to the mountain behind?”

“That would be acceptable.”

The stroll back to the flitter is absolutely quiet, and the stillness seems to accentuate the weight of the fax unit on Martel's shoulders. Only the pad of feet and the swish of robes intrude. The Sister, like Father G'Iobo, is mind-shielded.

Her apparent young age, her young step, bother Martel, do not fit. She seems totally at ease with him, but as if he is really not present.

As he stows the used fax cube and reloads, as he resets the unit for aerial shots, she waits, far closer than the Apollonites had. Martel uses his extended perceptions to scan the flitter even before starting to climb back in.

An aura of danger clings to the power cells. But why?

Martel scans superficially, then deeply, before realizing that both original sets have been replaced with a new set, blocked somehow.

If you touch the starter, all that power will turn on itself, fuse the cells … and
boom.
No more flitter, no more Martel, and no more Sister Artemis Dian.

Ergo … Sister Artemis Dian wasn't. Rather some poor flunky mind-washed into being a victim. Or …

Martel doesn't like the second possibility. The “Sister” might be the goddess herself, able to shield herself from the fiery blast and point the finger at someone. Or claim that Martel had tried to defile the community.

Martel was either a victim or a pawn. He didn't like the possibilities, and adjusted another strap, stalling and trying to think his way out of the situation.

If he announced the problem, it would reveal abilities he really hadn't had the chance to develop fully and might open him to more scrutiny.

Slowly, carefully, he lets his thoughts disconnect the leads to the power cells, and allows the power to bleed off into the field through a “channel” he opens, until the cells are totally inert.

He finishes adjusting his harness, shifts his weight, and closes the canopy. Then, and only then, Martel touches the starter stud, and watches the “Sister” for a reaction. There is none, none that he can detect, either physically or mentally, as the flitter rises into the sky.

He shivers, partly from the effort in supplying the current needed for the start through mental ability, and partly from the strain of the undercurrents he does not understand.

He shakes his head. If everyone is so secretive about their religious communities, why haven't they all taken the stance of the Taurists and merely refused him permission to visit? He might have complained or even woven it into a faxcast, but nothing would have changed.

The Thoradian mission would be the last stop, but before landing there, he wants to complete as much of his aerial flyby and faxshot pass as he can of the Taurist community.

Every sense would have to be alert, with his mental perceptions spread as far as possible. If those who had welcomed him are trying to destroy him, what can he expect from those who declared themselves off limits from the beginning?

Nothing.

Where the Apollonite community was circular, and the Ethene a fan-shaped grid, the Taurist is rectangular, with black buildings, black-paved roads, and a central black square, in the center of which burns a strange black flame. No temple.