Caliphate

Flight Seven Nine Three, 24 Muharram,

1538 AH (4 November, 2113)

Perhaps a hundred people lived in the village below, crowded in behind a rickety and crude wooden fence. As the airship settled down just outside that fence, Matheson's voice came over the public address system.

"Infidels," he said. "Infidels, assemble to be counted and assessed."

Lee/Ling looked at Matheson as if to ask, What the fuck does that mean?

Matheson's answering glare said, Who cares, so long as it sounds suitably impressive and threatening?

Fearfully, the doors to the little shacks opened up and people began to step out.

"That's our cue," Matheson said to the newly armed and just liberated cargo slaves. "Follow me."

Each man, Matheson and the two slaves, had wrapped themselves in bed linen to simulate robes. On their heads they wore checked tablecloths held in place by short pieces of rope, tied in the back.

Matheson had his pistol strapped to the outside of the robes. The slaves carried his and Ling's submachine guns authoritatively.

Lee lowered the starboard side passenger ramp just in time for Matheson and his two escorts to debark. They walked over to the fence briskly. Forcing the gate open, Matheson demanded, "Who is the headman here?"

A stoop shouldered German advanced cautiously. At a distance of about six paces he got to one knee and answered, "I am, master."

Matheson swung his pistol in a broad arc, taking in the entire populace of the town. "Your people are needed for emergency work. Get them aboard. Now. On your head if so much as a single wretched soul escapes."

"But our crops—" the headman began to protest, pointing to where the airship had crushed the shoots in the fields.

"You will be compensated; that, or receive a tax remittance. Now cease your whining and get loaded. Bring your children. You will be gone too long for them to care for themselves. Food will be provided."

"Was that really necessary?" Lee asked, while awaiting word from Shanghai that the two hunting jets were gone.

Matheson shrugged. "If we'd tried to hold them there, some one of them might have doubted our official status and gone running to report. As is, they're convinced of it...even if some of them are still hiding in the village, they think they're hiding from the authorities. No chance then that they'll go to the authorities. Unfortunately—"

"Unfortunately, now we're stuck with them," Lee finished.

"Will that affect the flight?"

Lee shrugged Ling's shoulders. "Seven tons of emaciated Christians? I think not. It just seems unfair to risk them."

"To risk what?" Matheson sneered. "Lives lived in slavery aren't worth living. At least with us they'll have a chance at real life."

Lee/Ling stiffened. "Shanghai says the fighters are turning for home. Communications intercepts say they took off with the fuel in the tanks . . . and nobody had bothered to make sure the tanks were full when they parked them. How did these people ever get control of a continent?"

"Someone without the will to keep it gave it to them."