Prophet and the Blood March (Prophet of ConFree) (21 page)

"Yes!" Smiley exclaimed. "Your adoring fans are all here and all happy."

"I'd like to thank everyone for the superb results of this operation. We are a highly talented and smoothly functioning team. You are all fearless and we did all that was possible given the circumstances we faced. I've written up the result for Ambassador Wester and I don't doubt the report is sitting on the desk of the director of ConFree at this moment. I'd like to summarize for you, briefly, what we accomplished and what remains to be done."

Blackie drifted over to the Professor, who was sitting in an airchair with a dox, and rested his head in the Prof's lap.

"All right, we'll start with Blackie. This was the first field test for the Black Magic anti-cloaking device, and it worked perfectly, as you all saw. Had it come to combat, we would have slaughtered those Mocain troopers, thanks entirely to Blackie, in whose honor the device was named. Legion scientists and techs are working frantically to duplicate the science without canine help, but in case that doesn't work, the Legion is also launching an initial cosmic secret K9 program.

"Now, as to the mission. Our mission was to contact the Brights and communicate with them that ConFree was friendly and wanted to maintain friendly relations. We were to propose diplomatic relations and an exchange of ambassadorships and set up a permanent ongoing relationship with permanent communications to avoid any possible misunderstandings. That was the mission. Bees had detected an individual Bright in trouble somewhere in our universe and Prophet and Saka had DX dreams that allowed us to ID the site as the planet Bliss, in UMC vac. So we were able to initiate our mission. And you know the rest of the story.

"It turns out that both the Brights and the Legion value deeds over words, and that helped us out a great deal. Whenever presented with a choice, we did the right thing. Instinctively. I didn't have to urge Bees to help Good Soul, although I did have to hold her back at one point. You all did what had to be done. It would have been tempting to kill all those UMC troopers when we had the drop on them, but it would have ruined the mission. We did it the hard way, and brought them over to our side."

"You did that, Professor," Bees said. "You're a saint."

"No, no. I'm nobody. Delta Research did this, not me. I am nobody without all of you. You're the saints. All of you." He paused to sip his dox.

"We accomplished a lot," he continued, "but not everything. We established contact, but not continuing contact. We passed the message we were supposed to pass. We showed the Brights, by our deeds, not just words, that we are friendly and are to be trusted. And we established an initial understanding with the UMC that they had better respect the Brights, and not attack them. We gave the Brights a Q-link with preset messages designed to alert us to their presence in our universe, should they return. We also passed them a modified long-range freescanner with which they should be able to reach us with DX thought, from anywhere within our galaxy.

"What we did not accomplish," the Prof continued, "was to resolve Prophet's DX dream showing that asteroid attack on Earth. All our efforts were focused on erasing that as a possibility, but it is still a worry. The Brights are gone, but the dream remains. Have our actions altered the future? Have the Brights even planned this yet, or will it not happen because of our actions on Bliss? We do not know. We have no idea how far in the future that asteroid strike was to occur. But no matter what, Delta Research will be the focal point for any future contact with the Brights. That's for certain. So when we return to our comfy Hqs we will resume improving our DX skills. The goal is for you all to become fluent DX telepaths. As well as enabling you to have more DX visions. And I know you can do it."

Δ

Back in Quaba, back in Delta Research, it was heavenly. Honeyhair greeted me like a conquering hero. Our initial love-making spree was so spectacular I thought I was having a heart attack at one point. However, I survived the event, and Honeyhair bathed my facial scar with healing gro-gel and said the scar gave me character.

Doctor Dimension and Paula Deep and Honeyhair and Blondie hosted a welcome home party for us all in the rec park in the center of our compound. Loud music, adult beverages and lots of chit-chat and kissy-face. Blackie was running around barking, and the Prof's darling little teen daughter, Carol, was bonding with everybody. It was so great to see her again. We had liberated her from the slavers – one of the Prof's earlier successes. We had a real good time at that party.

The following day I was at my desk, skimming through incoming messages on my d-screen when I noted an urgent note from the Prof. It was dated that morning. He had evidently been up early.

"Deltas: Please note. Important. "

It was a news scan from the
Ultima Spring Dawn
, which was evidently one of the major news outlets in Ultima Spring, the Earth city I had seen annihilated by an asteroid in my horrific DX dream. It was in the business news, just a short article.

B&B Announces Shift to Ultima Spring
for Tourism Airship

Aztlan City, SS 1516/07/08. Burton and Brothers announced today an expanded schedule and new tours for their 100-passenger airship the
Golden Cloud
. B&B plans to target the renewed tourism interest in historical Ultima Spring, the former San Francisco. Slack demand in Aztlan City has led to the decision to focus on the Bay City where residents as well as tourists appear eager to experience the thrill of silent floating, low speed, and open windows in a casual, happy family setting. The new schedule, not yet announced, will initially feature daily flights.

This was certainly worth thinking about, I realized. One problem with my DX asteroid dream had been noted earlier. There were no regularly scheduled tourism airships shuttling tourists over Ultima Spring as I had seen so clearly in my DX dream. We had noted the presence of tourism airships in Aztlan City but not in Ultima Spring. And now here it was.

This was chilling news. It gave further legitimacy to my dream. I knew that even as I was reading the news article, our researchers and techs were comparing photos of the
Golden Cloud
with the neural shots from my brainscan.

The new schedule, not yet announced. Well, we'd find out about that all right. But one big problem remained: Why would the Brights want to target Earth? Yes, their people had been brutalized by human pirates, but we had explained to them the circumstances, and we had rescued their people from the pirates. Even if they were still very angry, would they really annihilate an entire planet, or a great deal of it, just for revenge? And why Earth?

I didn't know. But I knew we were going to have to find out. And Delta Research was going to be doing that – nobody else.

Δ

Whenever I had a chance, I'd try and brush up on current events. That was part of our job, too. The Prof wanted us up on what was happening around the galaxy, so that if we had a DX dream about something that was in the news, we'd at least recognize it.

I was especially interested in events on Earth. I had never been there, of course, but it was the site of my scariest DX dream, so I kept up on developments. One morning I spotted an interesting article in the
Legion Tacmap
.

Peace and Joy or
War and Grief?

A special editorial from the
Legion Tacmap
. Quaba City, 384/11/20.

The Peace and Joy movement has hit old Earth with a vengeance. The UMC government appears indecisive in dealing with the mass civil disobedience strategy in use by professional agitators to overthrow civil society and replace it with chaos and lawlessness. In the past the UMC has not been hesitant to use force against anti-government agitators but the PJ's are so disorganized they have no real leaders or program. Until recently the mass protesters were composed of unemployed youth and ex-students, street gangs, small time criminals, drug addicts, professional beggars and a very small group of rabble rousers who appear at critical times and places to spur on attacks against banks, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, government offices, and public parks. Their targets are either looted or used as centers for the distribution of plunder. Now, however, the rest of the population is joining the P&J mobs, and the government is hesitating.

The
Legion Tacmap
believes that the problem is that the rest of the population has decided it's time to get some loot for themselves. Earthers have been living in slavery for hundreds of years and the average Earther IQ drops further every year. The reason Earthers have been held in contempt for so long by the civilized peoples of the galaxy is that Earthers do not even recognize they are slaves. They are wards of the state, demanding that the state take care of them, and helpless to function on their own, while loudly proclaiming their moral superiority over the rest of the galaxy. Their entire program consists of the chant "Give me money!"

The UMC military is standing by, ready to intervene. However, the spineless politicals, who are responsible for the current situation, appear terrified of alienating "the people" and are dithering as the mobs attack passersby, loot the banks, raid food markets and pharmacies and even shoot at military patrols hampered by "rules of engagement" that do not permit them to defend themselves.

Peace and joy? Looking over the visuals of the chaos from a wide range of Earther cities, it appears more like war and grief. Earth's cities are burning and the population is celebrating. This appears to confirm the IQ drop.

It sounded pretty grim for Earth. I was glad I was an Outwolder and not an Earther. Of course, I'd never really met an Earther but from what I'd heard of them they were an unimaginative, materialistic, thoughtless, selfish and greedy bunch. And stupid as well. These were the people we were supposed to save from that asteroid. I wondered if it might not be better to let the damned thing hit them and put them out of their misery. But who was I to judge them? And there were plenty of innocent women and children who didn't deserve to die. I put aside my doubts. We'd keep trying.

Δ

"Throw the bouquet! Do it!" Everybody had liked the welcome back party in the rec park so much that Bees had decided to get married there. The place was festively decorated in white blossoms and Bees looked spectacular in the ice princess wedding gown that Ice had loaned her. The ceremony was touching and highly emotional – Bees had cried like a baby. Now that Bees and Scout were married, Scout was officially a captive of the fair sex and a gang of unmarried girls were urging Bees to toss her bouquet over her shoulder.

Bees turned her back to them, hand in hand with Scout, and tossed the bouquet of white roses high up into the air behind her to a wild cheer from the girls. There was a scramble to nab the falling bouquet and somebody did it.

It was Mary, that young blonde nurse from Valhalla Hospital who had captured Bird's heart. She held the flowers up high in delight and looked around for Bird.

"She's so sweet," Honeyhair said. We had found seats at one of the banquet tables. "Mary, I mean. Blondie and I really went after her when we had a chance. I know how to spot a phony from a great distance, and so does Blondie."

"You had a lot of practice, after posing as an Innie yourself in midschool, right?"

"Exactly! It takes one to know one. So we interrogated her – nicely. She had no idea what was going on. What an innocent. See, we were very worried about Bird. Him being a millionaire and all. We were worried that she had heard about that, and maybe that was why she had targeted him. We thought maybe she was a scheming bimbo. So we told her that Bird was almost broke because his invalid mother was dying of a terrible rare wasting disease that was incurable, and we warned her that if she married him she'd have to live with his mother and take care of her, day and night, because he couldn't afford any more professional care. And despite the disease the old lady would probably last forever because she was immortal. That seemed to really shake her. She started to cry and said that Bird had never mentioned that to her and that she knew he just didn’t want to worry her. Now she understood why he sometimes didn't talk about the future. So are you reconsidering the marriage, we asked. Never! she said. I'm going to ask him to marry me. I'm going to tell him that I know about his mother and pledge to take care of her for the rest of her life. After all, I'm a nurse, she said. I took care of Bird and I'll take care of his mother, too. And I'll make them both happy, for as long as we live, I'll make them both happy! Then she broke down again in tears. I love him so much, she said. I love him so much! Wow! Blondie and I were ashamed of ourselves. She's the genuine article, she's the real deal, she's a damned saint! And Bird will be lucky to get her."

"Well, good work," I said. "I think. And how are you going to handle this non-existent invalid mother?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. It's all fixed. Blondie and I love Mary. She's our third musketeer now."

Scout came over to our table and collapsed into a chair. "Man! All this going from table to table, all the toasts. I've been standing all night." He was in his formal blacks but he had loosened his collar.

"Did you ever think you'd get married, Scout?" I asked.

"Get married? No. I didn't even think I'd be alive at this age. And I certainly didn't expect to be this happy. Or to be happy at all. When I was younger, I just wanted revenge. I wanted to kill my enemies before they could kill me. All I wanted was a real high body count before I went out. That was my only goal. This – this is a miracle. Married to an angel. It's a bloody miracle." Of course – Scout had been in the Deadman Scouts, an Outworlder insurgent effort that waged a full-scale war against the nasty dictatorship that had succeeded the System regime on Sirrah. That's why Doggie had named him Scout.

"I can hardly believe it," Scout said, looking blankly into space.

"We wish you the best, Scout – you and Bees. A thousand years of love." We drank to it, Honeyhair and me and Scout.