Voyagers IV - The Return Read online

  The guide was a black-skinned Egyptian, as young as Cathy’s apparent age. Behind her, Cathy saw the security guards keeping the vendors and tradesmen at bay.

  “You are not a member of the tour,” the guide said, glancing from Cathy’s face to the checklist on her palmcomp and back to Cathy again.

  “No, I’m not,” said Cathy in American English, smiling amiably. “I’m a guest.”

  The young woman frowned uncertainly but then put on her professional smile and said, “Well, let’s get out of the sun, then.”

  By the time the bus had driven them across the Nile to the airport at El Uqsur, Cathy and the tour guide were fast friends. See, Cathy said silently to her mother, watching her from the orbiting starship. Dad’s not the only one who can influence people.

  Just be careful, Jo replied. There are plenty of crazies out there. You’re not on a sightseeing trip.

  But I am! Cathy thought, smiling inwardly.

  The guide’s name was Amina Kladiya Fatima al-Nasir. “But my friends call me Mina,” she said as she sat beside Cathy on the tourist company’s jet plane that carried them from the ancient monuments and temples of Luxor and Thebes to the modern city of Cairo.

  Cathy chatted absently with Mina as she glanced out the plane’s window at the glossy ribbon of the Nile, far below. The river flowed like a living, pulsing artery through the slim ribbon of green cultivated land that lay on either side of it. Then, stark brown desert stretching as far as the eye could see. Father Nile, she thought, giver of life. Civilization is old here, very old. The gift of the Nile.

  Then she saw Cairo, the teeming city sprawling along both sides of the river and out into the desert like a gray cancerous growth, uncounted millions of people living cheek by jowl in its crowded, dirty, clamorous streets. The city stretched like a rotting slime mold completely around the fenced-off area of the ancient pyramids. At this altitude those proud symbols of eternity looked dwarfed almost into insignificance by the towers and spires of the vast and growing city.

  Be careful down there, her mother warned.

  Cathy felt a thrill of anticipation mixed with a tendril of fear. It’s so big! she thought, even as her nose wrinkled at the brown miasma of pollution that covered the city like a foul blanket.

  Mina leaned close to Cathy. “That’s where I live, that district there,” she said, pointing to a section of flat-roofed houses covered with dark banks of solar cells. “With my family. Would you care to visit?”

  No! said Jo silently.

  “Yes,” said Cathy to her newfound friend.

  CHAPTER 4

  The instant Stoner saw Archbishop Overmire he knew that the man was dying.

  Tavalera had warned him not to suddenly pop into Overmire’s office, so Stoner had projected himself to Tavalera’s apartment instead. He walked with the younger man through the warm, humid morning across the campus-like grounds of the New Morality complex to the Archbishop’s residence, a low, modest-looking edifice with a pitched roof that sat next to the soaring neo-Gothic splendor of the New Morality’s central cathedral.

  Between the cathedral and the vicarage they saw a major construction job was under way. It was screened off from the idle gaze of passersby, but heavy trucks rattled into the site and down a ramp. Stoner saw the steel spiderwork top of a construction crane poking above the protective wall of plastic screens.

  “They’re digging deep,” he said to Tavalera.

  “Yeah. Wonder what they’re building?”

  A bomb shelter, Stoner thought. An underground complex where the Archbishop and his chosen few can ride out a nuclear attack. But he said nothing to his companion.

  Ever since they had left Tavalera’s apartment building, Stoner had sensed a quartet of security guards in street clothes trailing them at a discreet distance. Half the people strolling along the tree-shaded walkways or lolling on the grassy grounds were security police, he realized. As he and Tavalera stopped to look at the construction site, Stoner sensed the security agents tensing, as if waiting for the word to push them away from the area.

  Before any such confrontation could develop, Stoner told Tavalera they were in danger of being late for their meeting with the Archbishop.

  Once they climbed the steps that fronted the arched doorway of the vicarage they were greeted by a pair of whispering young men in clerical garb and ushered inside without security checks or uniformed guards. No need for them, Stoner knew. Sensors in the walls have ID’d us and checked for weapons. Overmire’s security people can probably look inside our stomachs and see what we had for breakfast.

  The vicarage was quietly sumptuous: dark wood paneling and parquet floors, high ceilings and arched mullioned windows, comfortable furniture and actual paintings on the walls, not wall screens. The wide corridor they were led through smelled faintly of sandalwood incense.

  Archbishop Overmire’s inner office was very different, however. It looked more like a military command center than the warm book-lined study of a churchman. No windows at all; the walls were covered with digital screens, most of them blank, although the one behind the Archbishop’s gleaming teak and brushed-chrome desk showed an aerial view of the radioactive devastation that had once been Jerusalem. Stoner felt his jaws clench at the sight.

  Bishop Craig was already there, sitting tensely in one of the bottle green leather chairs arranged before the Archbishop’s desk. Sister Angelique sat beside Craig, smiling at Stoner. He sensed something in her smile far deeper than mere politeness. Interesting, he thought. Craig’s wary of me, but Angelique seems really eager to see me.

  Then he turned to the Archbishop and saw a dying man. Outwardly Overmire seemed healthy enough, perhaps too healthy. He was grossly overweight, multiple chins overlapping the clerical collar of his plain dark suit. A large jeweled cross hung from a heavy silver chain on his ample belly. A beautiful signet ring was embedded deep in the flesh of one finger. His hair was light gray, almost silvery, worn long enough to just touch his collar in back. His nose was hooked like a parrot’s. His eyes were tiny, encased in folds of flesh.

  It was the Archbishop’s eyes that gave him away. They were soft brown, crinkled at the corners—and bloodshot with pain. The room was cooled almost to the point of discomfort; Angelique had thrown a dark sweater over her slim shoulders. But Overmire was perspiring slightly: Stoner could see beads of sweat dotting his upper lip, and a barely perceptible trickle running down one flabby cheek.

  He’s wearing a water-cooled thermal undergarment, Stoner sensed, just like astronauts used to wear beneath their space suits.

  “Welcome, Dr. Stoner,” Overmire said, without rising from his desk chair. His voice was deeper, stronger, than Stoner had expected. With a gesture to the empty chairs in front of his desk, he added, “Please make yourself comfortable. You, too, Mr. Tavalera.”

  Stoner sat down and noticed that Raoul was taut with suspicion as he took the chair beside him.

  Overmire said heartily, “I’m not going to bore you with the obvious questions. I imagine you’ve been asked them often enough.”

  “True,” said Stoner, steepling his long fingers in front of his face. It was costing Overmire some effort to maintain his genial front, Stoner realized.

  “Bishop Craig tells me you believe the United States is building nuclear weapons.”

  Stoner smiled, thinking, He gets right to the point. Good.

  “So are several other national governments.”

  Overmire leaned back and twisted his signet ring. It barely moved on his plump finger. “You realize that I bear a heavy responsibility.”

  “The death of the human race is a very heavy responsibility,” Stoner said.

  His pain-filled eyes narrowing, Archbishop Overmire said, “Do you understand anything about power, Dr. Stoner?”

  “It corrupts.”

  “Does it? Perhaps little, venal people are corrupted by power. But when you are doing God’s work, when you are serving our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, then you ar
e protected from the sins of corruption.”

  “Killing twelve billion people is doing God’s work?”

  Bishop Craig looked shocked. “You’ve got no right to speak to the Archbishop like that!”

  But Overmire raised a placating hand and answered smoothly, “We have no intention of killing anyone. We are merely acting to defend ourselves.”

  Stoner thought about that for a moment. “Selene feels threatened by you. So does Greater Iran and China.”

  The Archbishop cocked an eyebrow. “The godless humanists on the Moon have nothing to fear from us. We want nothing to do with them. As for the Islamic jihadists . . .” Overmire shook his head with a more in sorrow than in anger expression on his fleshy face.

  Stoner asked, “Do you believe that your missile defenses will protect North America from attack?”

  “That is what they are designed to do. The military has advised the President of the United States that in the event of a full-scale attack upon us, less than one percent of the missiles will get through.”

  “One percent of how many?”

  “A few hundred, at most.”

  “At least ten nuclear warheads will hit their targets, then. Ten cities wiped out. That’s a catastrophe, Archbishop Overmire. A holocaust.”

  The Archbishop spread his hands. “God’s will.”

  “Killing millions of people is God’s will? When their deaths can be prevented?”

  Overmire forced a smile. “That’s why I asked you about power, Dr. Stoner. We must balance the power of our enemies. If they build nuclear weapons, then we have no choice but to build them also. No defense is perfect; some of the missiles will get through. Therefore we must have enough weapons to convince our enemies that it would be a devastating mistake to attack us.”

  “Mutual assured destruction,” Stoner muttered.

  “You know the phrase.”

  “I remember it from my earlier life.”

  “So there we are. The United States has no intention of striking first. I can’t say the same for the Islamists and their notion of jihad.”

  “Holy war,” said Stoner. “The ultimate oxymoron.”

  “We’ve tried to reason with them,” Overmire said, perpsiring more freely now. “We’ve tried for years, decades. They just won’t listen to us. They supply the terrorists with arms, money, training facilities. And we must fight their terrorist bands wherever we find them.”

  “And now they’re building ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads for them,” said Stoner.

  “They are intent on war,” the Archbishop replied, as if speaking about an unpleasant neighbor. “We must be strong enough to deter them.”

  “And if deterrence fails?”

  Archbishop Overmire spread his hands, palms upward. “God will protect us.”

  Stoner’s brows rose slightly. “I see that you’re digging a shelter for yourself.”

  His face hardening, Overmire said, “I have the responsibility of protecting and guiding my flock, which includes far more than merely North America. I must protect myself and enough of a staff to begin the rebuilding process after the war.”

  Stoner said, “Then you’re ready to fight. You’re prepared to go to war.”

  “I cannot leave my people naked to their enemies.”

  “Why are they your enemies?” Stoner asked.

  Archbishop Overmire hesitated. But he quickly recovered. “They hate us. They despise our wealth; they fear our power. Worst of all, they will not accept the truth of Holy Scripture. They deny our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

  “As you deny their prophet Mohammed. And the teachings of the Tao.”

  “Heathen sects,” Overmire spat.

  Shaking his head, Stoner said, “There’s more to it than that. For more than two generations the New Morality, the Light of Allah, the New Dao, and other religious movements have lived in peace.”

  “Peace?” Bishop Craig snapped. “With their terrorists constantly threatening us?”

  “And your army fighting brush wars across half the world,” Stoner retorted. “But despite your differences, you agreed on accommodating one another, more or less. Why this move now toward war?”

  Sister Angelique spoke up. “I think you know, Dr. Stoner.”

  “Do I?”

  “Population keeps growing. Resources don’t keep pace. Even with the raw materials and energy we import from space, population growth outstrips our ability to feed and clothe and house the constantly growing numbers of people.”

  “Then why don’t you allow the people to control their population growth?” Stoner asked.

  “Sacrilege!” Bishop Craig snapped. “Birth control? Legalized abortion? Never!”

  Stoner closed his eyes briefly. “In early societies, religious taboos were necessary,” he said, so softly that Archbishop Overmire and the others unconsciously leaned toward him to hear. “Religious rules are digital: yes or no, allowed or forbidden. There’s no middle ground. Some societies made taboos against eating pork—”

  “That was thousands of years ago,” Angelique interrupted with a thin, understanding smile.

  “Yes, but the taboo against pork still stands in many parts of the world, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded grudgingly.

  “And the taboo against killing cows, in what’s left of the Hindu society.”

  “Yeah,” said Tavalera.

  “And the taboo against family planning, in many societies.”

  “Abortion is murder!” Bishop Craig insisted.

  “Abortion is not the only form of family planning. It’s the last resort, in most cases. The last desperate resort.”

  “It’s still murder.”

  Stoner fixed him with a hard stare, then turned back to the Archbishop. “By keeping and enforcing the taboo on family planning you keep poor families poor. You maintain your power over them by giving them the solace of religion, but you make certain that they stay poor so that you can maintain your hold on them.”

  Overmire glowered at him. “That is a vicious lie. We are here to help the poor, and all people who accept God’s way.”

  “And who decides what is God’s way? You do.”

  The Archbishop’s angry expression shifted into a guarded smile. “Why, of course we do, Dr. Stoner. Who else is better qualified? Who else sees the big picture and understands all the ramifications of the problem?”

  “Nobody,” Stoner admitted. “Because you won’t let anyone into your little circle of power unless and until they agree with you, heart and soul.”

  Archbishop Overmire’s smile widened. “God’s will, Dr. Stoner. We are doing God’s work.”

  “Are you? Leading your people into a devastating war? That’s God’s work?”

  “His will be done.”

  Stoner slowly got to his feet. “Then take a good look at what you’re calling God’s will.”

  Abruptly all the screens on the room’s four walls flashed into a panoramic view of the city of Atlanta, with the New Morality complex at its heart. The sky was clear blue, flecked with only a few puffs of clouds. Then through the sky streaked a series of blazing meteors. They exploded into searing, eye-burning nuclear fireballs. The city vaporized. Buildings blown to white-hot radioactive rubble. Flesh flayed from the bones of men, women, children. Ponds and pools and reservoirs flashed into scalding steam. The very ground pulverized into dust and the dust sucked up into mushroom clouds that boiled up high into the stratosphere. The sound was overpowering, enormous thundering explosions that shook the bones of the little group in the room.

  They were no longer in the room. They stood outdoors, helplessly screaming as the overwhelming devastation poured down all around them. They saw a white-hot missile warhead diving toward them, a hardened penetrator that smashed into the burning ground and ploughed deep before its nuclear bomb exploded with the fury of hell.

  The concrete-lined chambers deep underground collapsed, burying alive all those who were not killed by the blast or searin
g star-hot inferno. But not before they screamed a final, pain-filled, terrified wail of doom.

  Abruptly they were back in the Archbishop’s office. The thundering, shattering roar of the explosions finally stopped. The screens showed utter devastation beneath dark roiling clouds that flashed with lightning but brought no rain. The ground was broken, red-hot, glowing sullenly like the landscape of hell. Nothing moved. Hot winds blew across the barren rubble, but there was no blade of grass to be seen, nothing alive anywhere. Where the underground shelter had been there was a deep, blackened hole, smoking and stinking of burnt flesh.

  Overmire stared at the images, mouth agape, hands twitching on his desktop, perspiration pouring down his face. Craig buried his face in his hands. Sister Angelique pressed both her fists to her face, trying to stifle the sobs that were rising inside her as she stared wild-eyed at the horror. Tavalera tried to get up from his chair, but his legs failed him and he thumped back into the seat and threw his arm over his streaming eyes.

  Still standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by the awful destruction of a sterilized Earth, Stoner could feel that hot radioactive wind on his face.

  “God’s will,” he muttered.

  Archbishop Overmire tried to speak, tried to answer, but he collapsed over his desk, barely breathing.

  CHAPTER 5

  Angelique recovered before any of the others.

  “The Archbishop!” she cried and rushed to the semiconscious figure slumped across his desk.

  Stoner cleared the screens and went to him also.

  Brushing with the heel of one hand at the tears runneling her cheeks, Angelique bent over the Archbishop’s body. Stoner gripped the man’s soft, pudgy shoulder and shook him roughly.

  “Wake up,” Stoner said, almost in a growl. “You can’t get away from it that easily.”

  Overmire sat up, blinking with confusion. Stoner calmed the Archbishop’s heartbeat, slowed the flood of adrenaline pouring into his bloodstream. Briefly Stoner thought to restore the endocrine balance that was so badly out of normal, but he decided that if Overmire didn’t take proper care of his own body that was his decision.