Shining Steel

Chapter Fifteen

“When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth: but the righteous shall see their fall."-Proverbs 29:16

For a moment he was alone in the room; he turned to look it over.

The door he had entered by had opened again, and the two men who had brought him were standing in the room beyond. “Whenever you're ready, Mr. Mercy-of-Christ,” one of them called. “The airship's waiting on the roof."

John took a final glance around, decided that there was no point in lingering, and marched out. His escorts fell in on either side as he stepped into the open door of the moving room.

The conversation with America Dawes was roiling in his head, with first one fact or question bubbling up, then another. As he felt the floor rising beneath him he glanced up automatically, and noticed the glowing ceiling.

“Why are your lights all that awful color, and so bright?” he asked. “Can't you make them any color you like?"

“Of course we can,” one of the guards replied. “That's the color of sunlight back on Earth. Earth has a yellow sun, you know, not a red one like yours. Godsworld seems pretty dim to us."

John noticed how much more respectfully he was handled now than he had been in being brought here, and guessed at the reason-before he had only been an enemy, whereas now he was a prospective member of the People of Heaven. These two were treating him with mild deference-if he accepted the offer of a job he would presumably be their superior, and that deference would be appropriate. He had no intention of working with the People of Heaven, though; if he did accept the offer of a job, it would be to attack them from within. He realized now that his enemy was not Dawes herself, but the people back on Earth who had sent her. He was still not sure exactly what a corporation was, whether a tribe, congregation, or as Dawes had said, merely an overgrown business, but he was sure that it was the New Bechtel-Rand Corporation that was destroying Godsworld, not any individual Earther.

And was Tuesday really not a part of the corporation? He still did not understand what a “stockholder” was, but whatever they were, if Dawes had not lied they were outsiders with special privileges. Had he been unfair in his assessment of the People of Heaven? That would bear some thought; they might not be the degenerates he had thought them. Oh, they were still his bitter enemies, there could be no doubt of that-they had destroyed Godsworld's traditional way of life, reduced the People of the True Word and Flesh to chattels and robbed them of their approaching triumph.

He needed to know more, to understand just exactly what Bechtel-Rand was. Would he have to go to Earth to destroy the corporation, or to drive it permanently off Godsworld? If so, he would probably need to accept the job offer-there was no power on Godsworld that could transport him off the planet other than Bechtel-Rand itself.

He certainly could not stay and fight as he had been fighting. He had no doubt that Dawes meant exactly what she said about destroying the camp, and he had been almost resigned to abandoning it for the winter in any case. Going underground in the towns would be difficult, all the more so now that he was being watched, and he was not sure he cared to attempt it. He had been offered a choice of death or surrender, and as he had always told himself he would, he chose surrender.

He was not, however, willing to give up completely. He would abandon his little band of guerrillas, but not the fight against the corrupting influence of the Earthers. He remembered how he had thought men who refused to acknowledge defeat to be fools, but thrust the thought aside; he had lost a battle, but not the war. He could still fight-if he knew what he was fighting, and how to attack it.

Right now, he had no idea how to find out what he had to know, other than accepting the job. He hesitated at that thought; the prospect of actually going to Earth was simultaneously exciting and terrifying. Earth, hotbed of sin and corruption, heart of temporal evil-but the birthplace of mankind, the world where Jesus had walked! A world where the false god Progress had not been denied, where machines usurped the rights of men-and a world where a thousand green plants grew, instead of the handful on Godsworld.

Only green plants, no red ones-what did they use for nearwood? Was that why the Heaveners paid so much for it?

His two escorts seemed willing to talk; he asked, “What's Earth like?"

The guards smiled at each other. “How am I supposed to answer that?” said the one who had explained about the light. “It's an entire world! And a much more complicated one than yours, I'd say. There are nine billion people, cities, starports, mountains, oceans-what can I say?"

John skipped over the absurd population given as ordinary exaggeration. “I just meant generally-is the sky blue? The soil gray?"

“The sky is blue, but lighter than yours, and the soil comes in different colors. It's a brighter world than yours-more color, as well as the brighter sun. The air is thicker, and there's much more wind; the gravity is a little stronger, so everything's heavier. There are trees-big plants, taller than people."

“I know what trees are-they're in the Bible!"

The guard shrugged. “I've spoken to Godsworlders who didn't know, despite what your holy book says. I don't understand why Godsworld hasn't got any trees, myself. Your ancestors should have brought some."

“They tried, the legends say, but they wouldn't grow here."

“Oh.” The guard nodded. “Could be."

They stepped out on the roof and boarded the airship. When they were seated, John asked, “The people you work for, the corporation-what are they like?"

The talkative guard shrugged again. “Oh, like any other big corporation, I guess-good people and bad ones. I do my job and they pay me."

There were other corporations, then. “Is the New Bechtel-Rand Corporation one of the big ones?"

He nodded. “It sure is."

“The biggest?"

“Oh, I don't think so-not even the biggest developer. ITD's bigger, I think."

“Ahtadi?"

“ITD-stands for Interstellar Trade and Development Corporation."

“Oh.” He thought for a moment. “How big is Bechtel-Rand?"

“Last I heard, they had about a million and a half employees and were earning half a trillion credits a year."

John balked at the numbers. “A million? Do you mean a thousand, ten times a hundred?"

“No, a million-a thousand times a thousand. A one and six zeroes."

“And a trillion?"

“A one and twelve zeroes-a million million."

Resentfully, John said, “If you don't want to tell me, just say so; you don't need to make stupid jokes."

“I'm not joking!” the guard insisted, obviously offended.

“A million and a half people? There aren't that many people on all of Godsworld!"

“Oh, I'm not sure of that; Cheng, what was our census count?"

“I don't remember,” the other guard replied, “Ask Sparky."

“Sparky? What's the population of Godsworld?” the guard said, addressing the ceiling.

“No exact count is available, sir, but the current estimate is four million, one hundred thousand,” said the neuter voice of a machine.

“There, you see?” The guard was triumphant.

John subsided without further protest and sat silently for the rest of the brief flight. He had trouble imagining any reason for the Earthers to lie about such details; they could not have known in advance that he would ask the questions he had asked. Therefore, he had to assume that the numbers were reasonably accurate. That meant that if he roused the entire population of Godsworld, including every man, woman and child, he would have the healthy, heavily-armed adults of the complete Bechtel-Rand outnumbered by less than three to one, and would not have enough people to even think of challenging Earth itself. The five hundred Earthers on Godsworld were nothing, merely a figurehead. In any battle, as he was well aware, knowing the enemy's reserves and countering them was as important as defeating the front line troops.

He needed allies; he had to turn the Earthers against each other. He had done it often enough as Armed Guardian, in dealing with small tribes-tempt one into attacking another, then move in and pick up the pieces without any real resistance. The Chosen had probably intended to do the same with the war between the Heaveners and the True Worders, but had never had a chance, since the massacre had been so fast and so complete. Godsworld would never be able to destroy Earth, but, John thought, the corporations might be kept so busy fighting one another that they would have no chance to do Godsworld further damage.

Why had only one corporation come to Godsworld in the first place?

There was still too much he didn't know, and the airship was settling to the ground at the head of the gully. The first dim red light was on the eastern hills, he noticed as he emerged from the craft, and he had to get his men and as much material as possible out of the camp before noon; long-term plans would have to wait.

Before the door of the airship had closed behind him he was running down into camp, shouting the alert, rousing his men.