The Lotus Eaters

Runnistan, Pashtia, Terra Nova

"I had no idea . . ." Hamilcar's words drifted off in surprise amounting to shock amidst the tremendous amount of fortification in front of them. Sure, he'd seen Cano's and Alena's photo album of the valleys of her people, but those had been pristine. Now?

Bunkers, wire, marked off minefields, machine guns, even a few light armored vehicles sealed the people of the tribe off from any outside contact they didn't want. And it looked as if poisonous Progressivines had been cultivated in places to supplement the barbed wire. Or perhaps the wire was just used where the 'vines couldn't be grown thick.

"Your dad sort of adopted them," Cano explained. "Them and, to a lesser extent, the other tribes that formed the Pashtun Scouts during the war here. Add in what they earned and how bloody cheap weapons are . . . and that he passed over to them whatever was too expensive to move once the war was over—mostly over, that is—and the legion pulled out.

"But . . . yeah . . . I didn't expect quite this."

The long column, now much longer by virtue of the prisoners Hamilcar had taken and the animals he had seized, wound through an S-curve in the wire and mines. Heavy, well-built bunkers housing machine guns and light cannon dominated the road. The guns therein didn't traverse to track the column. They couldn't; the men who manned them were atop the bunkers' roofs crying—

"Iskandr, Iskandr, ISKANDR!"

Hamilcar, rocking in his saddle, waved back. He nodded shy thanks at the heartfelt welcome. To Cano, however, he said, "It doesn't feel right. I'm not a god."

"You know that and I know that," Cano replied. "What does it hurt what they think?"

Alena said, "You are both wrong, too."

A group of young riders, F-26 rifles slung across their backs and lances in their hands, galloped out to meet the point of the column as it emerged from the protective barriers. These men, too, shouted "Iskandr, Iskandr, Iskandr!" The chant continued as the escort party led the column around a steep hillock and into the valley.

"ISKANDR!" came from seven thousand throats as soon as Hamilcar made his appearance on the other side of the hillock. They bore in their arms offerings, simple things like baskets of Terra Novan olives—gray, wrinkled, astringent, and about the size of an Old Earth plum, or loaves of bread, spits of roasted meat on trays, jars of old wine, some gold and silver, usually finely worked, swords and spears and shields . . . whatever the valleys had to offer that might bring a smile to the face of their god. The escort party joined the mass and then, in a wave, ever man, woman, and child present went to their knees and then their faces.

"This is wrong," Hamilcar said. "This is so wrong."

Alena seemed not to understand. "What is wrong, Iskandr? You are the Avatar of God. These are your worshippers."

The boy chewed at his lower lip for a moment, then answered, "My father says that things like this are just appearances, valuable, sometimes, yes. But dangerous, too, because appearances can blind you to reality."

He resumed his chewing for a moment then, suddenly, dismounted from his pony and began to walk toward the nearest of the tribespeople. From those nearest he selected the slightest, a little girl not more than two years old, he thought. Reaching the girl, he saw that she was trembling, as if terribly afraid. Hamilcar shook his head, and took one knee in front of the girl. With his hands he gently lifted her to her feet, then stood up, picking her up in his arms as he did. She carried with her a basket of olives.

"Arise," the boy shouted. "I would not have my own people debase themselves in front of me. I have no need of slaves, but only of free men and women." To emphasize the point he took one of the gray olives from the girls basket and took a bite through the wrinkled skin.

Slowly, uncertainly, the people began to rise in a wave washing away from where Hamilcar stood. Somewhere in the middle of the crowd, an old woman shouted out, "The fifth sign! The fifth sign!"

"Iskandr, Iskandr, ISKANDR, ISKANDR!"

As the crowd began to swirl around Hamilcar, the people vying to lift him to their shoulders, Cano asked of Alana, "What is this 'fifth sign,' witch?"

Alena hesitated to answer, but, after all, David was her husband and practically one of the people, himself. "It is prophecy," she said, finally. "There are seven signs by which we would know Iskandr, seven signs which would tell the great truth. The first was the appearance. I found that when I first laid eyes on him. The second was that, though a boy, he would fight like a great warrior. He's done that. The third and fourth were that he would smite the wicked and show mercy to the helpless and innocent." She pointed at the captives. "He's done that. The fifth was that—" she switched her pointing finger to where Hamilcar was being ported up the slope to the main village—"he would refuse proskynesis. As you can see . . ."

"You mean he would be all the good things of Alexander—"

"Iskandr," she corrected.

"—and none of the bad."

"Precisely."

"And the other two?" Cano asked.

"Those we will have to wait upon."

And from that position Alena would not be budged.

Cano shrugged. Alena was a wonderful wife, but had a will of . . . well, by comparison, iron was weak.

He tried a different tack. "And what is the great truth you speak of?" he asked.

"It is also prophecy; that he will lead his people, and many others, to crush Old Earth and free it from the tyrants."

* * *

There was a distant murmuring as Hamilcar's captives, soon to become his adoptees, were shown to quarters in his palace. Alone but for Cano, his wife, the green-eyed Alena, her father, and her brother, Rachman, the boy rubbed his forehead, asking, "What is all this?"

His other hand waved to take in the palace the people of the tribe had constructed, plus many of the furnishings it contained. The palace, while mud brick, was simply huge, dominating the hill upon which it rested, which hill also contained the hieros, the shrine to Iskandr Alena's people had taken, piece by piece, from Old Earth and re-established here. The hieros was fairly empty now, since better than two thirds of what it had once contained was within the walls of the palace.

"We began building it," said Alena's father, "as soon as my daughter sent word you had come among us. As for the furnishings, some came from here, some from there, and some from the shrine, since almost everything in the hieros was already your property.

The witch's father had a bird of sorts, resting on a chainmail brace on the father's arm. At first Hamilcar thought it was a trixie, but on closer examination discovered that the creature was not only considerably smaller than any full grown trixie, it had the head of a raptor, a sort of tiny tyrannosaurus rex, with wings, feathers, and bright emerald green eyes. The proto-bird looked at the boy curiously, but without any obvious malevolence.

"We raise them here," Alena's father said. "Better than any falcon, for those who can train them. They're especially good for killing antaniae. This one is for you, once you are taught to keep it."

"I see and . . . I thank you, father of my second mother." Alena flushed with pleasure while Hamilcar's eyes moved away from the creature and travelled to a brace of bronze shields, phalangites' shields, gracing one wall. The things had to be nearly three thousand years old.

"It is said," the father added, stroking the bird, "that one of the guards on Old Earth, as we were being sent away, tried to shake down one of our girls, a ten year old, for the part of your patrimony she carried. It is also said that they never found the guard's body.

"I believe the tale, since that girl was my great-to-infinity grandmother. Your people have fought for your patrimony without cease, Iskandr. And we have never lost faith."

Hamilcar pretended to nod his thanks, even while thinking, These folk are nuts. But how can I disappoint them? How do I make them understand that, while there is a God, I am not his avatar or anything else? Do I even try? They've held on to their beliefs for thousands of years. They're not going to change. I'm just a kid with some tricks and knacks.

Changing the subject, Hamilcar asked, "The clinic my father had built; the doctors he sent from Balboa, they serve the people?"

"Indeed, yes, Iskandr," Alena's father answered. "Our children grow healthy and strong to serve you. And the—" the father struggled for the word—"the veterinary does work equally as important."

"Good," Hamilcar answered. "Very good. The adoption of the captives, tomorrow; this is all prepared?"

"Yes, Iskandr," Alena answered. She tapped the laptop she'd learned to use in Balboa. "I have not yet finished organizing them by families, but I will be by then. This is important to you?"

"Yes. I don't want to break up families. If one of the men wants to marry one of the women or girls, he is going to have to take the whole group as family."

"Speaking of which," said Rachman, "your twelve wives from among the people have been selected, Iskandr. Would you like to marry them tomorrow, as well, or spread the weddings out? Or do them later, after you've rested from your trials?"

* * *

"His father is going to murder us," Cano fumed to Alena, later, in their quarters. "No, forget the father; his mother is going to murder us. He can't get married; he's only ten years old. And to twelve girls? No."

"Twelve of our girls," Alena answered, calmly. "Iskandr may well choose others . . . perhaps from among the captives. And by our laws he may marry. After all, he is not ten; he is twenty-eight hundred."

"That's bullshit," Cano said. "He's ten. And you cannot stick this boy with one wife, let alone twelve."

"That is for Iskandr to say." She frowned. "But I do hope he won't disappoint the girls chosen for him."

"And what about the game? You know, the one where I got the living shit knocked out of me to win you? Bushkazi? You can't put an ten year old into that?"

"Of course not," Alena agreed. "Well, not this ten year old. After all, it would be sacrilege to strike him. No, he is above the game."

She sighed, then sniffed. A small tear crept into her eye. "Poor Iskandr; so much joy he is denied because of what he is. Yet the Avatar of God has duties to his people."

Cano shook his head. Sure, the boy was a good kid; everything one might want in a boy, in fact. But Alena and her people were just overboard on the whole subject.

"What about bride price?" he asked.

Alena brushed away her tear. "Bride price?" she asked, incredulously. "Bride price to be a bride of Iskandr? That's absurd. The problem is going to be keeping the married women from sending him messages, asking that he buy or trade them out of their marriages."

"Alena," Cano said, "I fell in love with your people when I was leading them in the war. Marrying you was icing . . . and well worth having the crap knocked out of me playing bushkazi. But, I've got to tell you, beloved wife and witch, that you are all nuts. Jesus, Redeemer and Savior, twelve wives? Don't you people know how the Zhong write the word for trouble? It's a stick drawing of two women under the same roof."

"Well, of course," Alena answered. "And if you don't believe it just you try taking a second wife. That's one reason why we built Iskandr such a wide roof."