Voyagers IV - The Return Page 18

  Stoner looked into the Archbishop’s sweaty, gape-mouthed face. “That’s what nuclear war looks like, Archbishop,” he said. “You have to face it. Everyone will die. Everyone you know, everything you’ve ever seen, will be destroyed. You will die. There’s no escaping it. Not even the shelter you’re building will save you from it.”

  “How . . . how did you do that?” Overmire gasped.

  “I want you to shut down your nuclear bomb project,” Stoner commanded.

  Glancing at the others, Overmire temporized, “It’s not my program. It’s the federal government. The President and the Pentagon. I can’t shut it down.”

  “You can tell them that it’s evil and the New Morality doesn’t sanction it. You can throw the weight of your organization against it.”

  “But . . . but . . . we’ve been backing it.”

  “Until now,” Stoner said with iron in his voice.

  “Yes. Until now.”

  “Stop them,” Stoner repeated.

  “But the others . . . the jihadists . . . the Chinese.”

  “I’ll do what I can to stop them,” said Stoner. “But none of them will stop unless you do.”

  Overmire looked toward Craig, who was sitting frozen in his chair, staring blankly as if catatonic, then up to Angelique, still standing over him.

  “Morality is an individual choice,” Stoner reminded him. “You have to act, one way or the other. You’ve just seen what your present course will lead to. You’ve got to prevent that from happening.”

  Angelique straightened up and reached out a hand to touch Stoner’s sleeve. “And you?” she asked. “Can you really stop the others?”

  “I can try,” Stoner said. Turning to Tavalera, he added, “And you can help me, Raoul. I’m going to need your help.”

  With that, Stoner disappeared from Archbishop Overmire’s office.

  Sister Angelique was emotionally drained and physically exhausted by the time she got back to her own quarters in the New Morality complex. It was getting dark outside. She had missed lunch, tending to Archbishop Overmire after their difficult, challenging meeting with Stoner.

  The instant that Stoner disappeared from the Archbishop’s office Angelique called in an emergency medical team who took Overmire to the complex’s gleaming modern hospital. They had wanted to take Bishop Craig, too, but he got up stiffly from the chair he’d been sitting in and insisted he was all right. He instructed Angelique to stay with the Archbishop, then tottered off toward his own office alone, looking lost, dazed.

  Angelique watched him leave, walking carefully, a trifle unsteadily, as if he had just suffered a concussive blow to the head. He has, she realized. We all have.

  Even Tavalera looked shaken. Angelique called for a security escort to take him back to his apartment.

  Once the emergency medical team arrived, Angelique went with them and Archbishop Overmire to the hospital. The top staff doctors insisted that they be allowed to purge the Archbishop’s system of the cholesterol and triglycerides that had built up in his bloodstream. Groggy and shaken though he was, Overmire still refused their advice, as he had for years, claiming that he had vowed never to use artificial methods to prolong the span of life that God had planned for him.

  Angelique dismissed the doctors from the Archbishop’s overcooled hospital room, then pleaded with him to accept their help.

  Overmire, sitting up in the hospital bed, pale and perspiring, shook his fleshy face hard enough to make his jowls quiver. “I’ll go when God calls me to Him,” he said stubbornly.

  “But, Your Eminence, don’t you realize that these medical advances could be part of God’s plan for you?” she insisted, hugging herself against the chill in the room’s air.

  “Or the temptation of Satan,” said the Archbishop. Angelique thought he sounded a trifle pompous.

  She urged, “By their fruits you shall know them, Your Eminence. These medical techniques can help you to keep on living, so that you can keep on doing God’s work here on Earth.”

  He started to answer but hesitated.

  “The New Morality needs your leadership now more than ever,” Angelique went on. “The people need you to continue. They look to you for leadership, for inspiration.”

  “Perhaps . . . ,” Archbishop Overmire murmured.

  Angelique saw the glimmer in his eyes. “This man Stoner is presenting us with an enormous challenge,” she urged. “No one else has the knowledge, the standing, the piety, to deal with him. Do you think that Bishop Craig or any of the other bishops could stand in the Oval Office and tell the President of the United States that the nuclear weapons program must be stopped?”

  Overmire closed his eyes and muttered a barely discernable, “No. Not Craig. He doesn’t have the stature. And yet he’s the best of the lot.”

  “You see?” Angelique said almost triumphantly. “Everything depends on you. And to shoulder the enormous burdens you must carry, you have to be in good physical health.”

  Overmire’s many-chinned face sank into something of a pout. “They won’t be satisfied with just treating me. They’ll want to put me on a diet.”

  Angelique hid the smile that bubbled up inside her. “That will be your penance, Your Eminence. You can offer it up to God in exchange for His granting you the strength to continue doing His will.”

  The Archbishop looked sad. “Perhaps you’re right,” he said very reluctantly.

  Angelique stayed with the Archbishop for the rest of the day while the doctors happily ran him through test after test, poked and prodded him, and finally arranged for a series of injections that would slowly but inexorably reduce the killing chemicals in his cardiovascular system. She left him only after they had returned the Archbishop to his room and presented him with a dinner tray that looked as if it had been prepared for an anemic sparrow.

  Overmire devoured everything on the tray so quickly that Angelique feared he’d start chewing on his napkin. But he settled back in the reclining bed easily enough and soon was snoring. They put a sedative in his drink, she realized.

  Now, in her own apartment at last, Angelique took off her long-skirted uniform and wormed her arms into the shapeless robe she wore when alone in her quarters. She realized she was famished.

  As she searched through the kitchenette’s half-empty shelves for the makings of a decent dinner, her thoughts turned to Stoner once again.

  He’s the one with the power, Angelique told herself. Not the Archbishop and certainly not Bishop Craig. Craig has ambition, but he doesn’t have the strength to seize real power. He’s perfectly willing to wait for the Archbishop to die, but he’d never have the guts to push him aside.

  Archbishop Overmire is a powerful man, she thought. Sick with shock as he was, he still recovered swiftly. In a few days he’ll be stronger than ever. He’s been wielding the power of the New Morality for almost a generation. He’s accustomed to dealing with Presidents and Senators. He knows how to make them bend to the power of the New Morality.

  And yet Overmire was reduced to a pitiful blob of flesh by Stoner. The star man. He could make himself emperor of the world if he wanted to. He could make everyone worship him as a god.

  A wild thought struck her. Stoner could be the Second Coming! Maybe he truly is! He doesn’t have to announce himself as Jesus Christ. He could be God’s chosen presence here on Earth, come to save us from eternal damnation, come to protect us from the wickedness and the snares of Satan.

  She smiled to herself as she opened the freezer and slid out a prepackaged meal.

  Our new Redeemer, come to save us from nuclear holocaust. Angelique thought, Stoner wouldn’t accept that role. He’d insist that he’s only a man, a human being, albeit a man who can control a technology that’s so far beyond our own that it seems miraculous.

  But the people would think of him as our Redeemer, she realized. Especially if we led them to think of him that way.

  Angelique laughed out loud. I’ll bet we could even get the Jews to accept hi
m as their Messiah, she said to herself. What’s left of them.

  CATHY

  Cairo’s airport terminal was jammed with people, all of them talking at once at the top of their lungs. To Cathy it seemed that most of the noisy, shoving crowd in the terminal were hawkers for some kind of service or trinket, all of them yelling in a cacophony of different languages.

  “Taxicab, ladies?”

  “Jewelry! Genuine gold jewelry!”

  “King Tut Hotel! Best hotel in Cairo!”

  “Antiques from the tombs of the Kings!”

  “Guided tour through the pyramids!”

  “Genuine replica of the great Sphinx!”

  Mina ignored them all as she turned her little tour group over to a hotel representative, a brown-skinned potbellied male wearing a dingy white Western suit and a pasted-on smile. The security guards stayed with the tourists all the way out to the hotel bus waiting for them outside the terminal.

  Once she saw her group safely in the hands of the hotel man, Mina motioned to Cathy to follow her as she shouldered her way resolutely through the noisy, bustling crowd toward a different exit. Cathy tagged along behind, struggling to keep up with her. At the curb Mina pointed at a certain taxi. Its driver, lounging against its scratched front fender, jumped to open the door for the two young women. The cab was crusted with grime and dented in several places, but it was powered by a fuel cell engine, according to the red lettering that was barely visible through the dirt.

  “Was he waiting for you?” Cathy asked as the cab pulled into the thick growling, honking traffic.

  Leaning forward to adjust the air-conditioning, Mina answered, “He knew there was a tour coming in around this time.”

  Cathy saw that the driver had done his best to make the interior of the taxi clean and comfortable. The upholstery of the seats was covered with a relatively clean checkered bedspread; a fringe of tiny red tassels ran across the top of the windows. But the floor was tacky; her loafers stuck slightly to the grime.

  The cab threaded through traffic-choked streets and out into the somewhat quieter part of the city where Mina’s family lived. The driver blared his horn again and again to get through the children playing in the streets. There were hordes of them, Cathy saw: thin, raggedly clothed, many of them barefoot. But they were laughing as they ran and played their childhood games. They don’t know that they’re poor, Cathy realized.

  Then she saw bands of youths lounging on the street corners, their dark slitted eyes following the taxi as it drove past. And heard her mother’s voice in her mind: Don’t go out into those streets! Under any circumstances!

  Cathy silently agreed.

  Mina’s home was on the top floor of a three-story cinder-block building that housed seven families. Cathy followed her up the stairs, past still more children running up and down or simply sitting on the steps. Several small dogs were frisking along the stairs, too, and Cathy saw one fluffy gray cat slinking between seated children. The walls were covered with graffiti and the stairwell smelled faintly of urine.

  “We have air-conditioning,” Mina said proudly as she and Cathy made their way to the top floor. “Most of the solar cells on the roof are broken, but my father keeps ours in good repair.”

  The apartment was small but clean. A pair of preteenaged boys were playing a video game in the stuffy little parlor, oblivious to everything around them. Mina brought Cathy straight into the spacious kitchen, which was crowded with women. She smilingly introduced Cathy to her mother and five sisters, who ranged from teenaged to toddlers. The teenager had a baby in her arms. The mother looked aged, her parchment-colored skin wrinkled, her dark eyes surly. She spoke to her daughter in Arabic, never dreaming that Cathy could understand her perfectly.

  “Another mouth to feed?”

  Mina smiled sweetly as answered, “She is my friend and I offered her hospitality.”

  “I hope you can pay for your generosity.”

  “Oh, Mama, don’t be cross.”

  While they quarreled, Cathy looked through the kitchen doorway back into the living room. Two beds stood against the wall, neatly made up. Apparently the whole family lived in these few rooms. The furniture was hard used, the carpeting threadbare. But it was all clean. The kitchen smelled of spices and something that was simmering in a pot on the gas stove.

  Once Mina had finished her minor spat with her mother, Cathy asked, “Five sisters? Do you have any brothers?”

  “Three,” Mina answered. “They work with my father at his repair shop. They’ll be home soon.”

  “Are you the oldest?”

  “The oldest daughter. One of my brothers is older than I am.”

  The mother grudgingly set out a pair of tall glasses and poured tea for them. Mina and Cathy sat at the wooden kitchen table while the other daughters grouped themselves across the room in a semicircle of unmatched chairs and fell to talking among themselves. Cathy smiled as she accepted her glass of sweetened tea and almost said her thanks in Arabic. She caught herself just in time. Mama trudged across the room and joined her daughters.

  “Are you married?” Cathy asked Mina.

  “Not yet. My sister Ismaela got married last year.”

  “And she has a baby already.”

  Mina frowned momentarily. “That is why she had to get married. Otherwise my father would have had to start a blood feud.”

  “Blood feud?”

  “For the honor of our family. Either that or an honor killing. But my father is too tender to kill his own daughter, even if she brings shame upon us.”

  Cathy fell speechless. In her mind she heard her mother’s bitter voice: They kill their daughters, but they won’t even think of birth control.

  As if she sensed Cathy’s stunned disapproval, Mina changed the subject slightly. “I will be married next year, after I have saved enough money from my job as a tour guide.”

  “I see.”

  “And then I will have babies, too. Many babies; you’ll see.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Mina’s eyes widened at the question. “What I want? Of course it’s what I want. What woman doesn’t want to be married and have lots of babies?”

  Cathy looked from Mina to her mother, old and weary before her time. She can’t be more than sixty, Cathy thought. Nine children, and grandchildren coming along. And they want to live this way?

  CHAPTER 6

  “The Archbishop has asked me to work directly with him on the Stoner business,” Angelique said as she sat before Bishop Craig at his desk.

  Craig seemed on edge, jittery, his hands fluttering over his desktop, his eyes blinking constantly. Angelique knew that the bishop had always felt secure, confident, when he was seated behind his desk. It’s like a protective fortification to him, she thought. But this morning he was uncertain, stressed out, frightened.

  She repeated, “Archbishop Overmire has asked me to work with him.”

  Normally, Craig’s power-sensitive antennae would have alerted him to a possible danger. Now he merely said, “The Archbishop?”

  Angelique nodded. It wasn’t a lie, she told herself. It was merely an anticipation. She would go to the Archbishop in his hospital room before the morning was over, and by the time she left he would have indeed asked her to work directly with him. She’d see to that.

  Instead of being suspicious, Craig seemed resigned. “That means you’ll be leaving my office?”

  Angelique put on an unhappy expression. “I’m afraid I’ll have to, Your Worship. Temporarily.” Then she let a tiny hint of a smile appear. “But isn’t it better for you to have a loyal worker inside the Archbishop’s staff? Someone who could let you know what the Archbishop is doing, what he’s planning, what he’s thinking—before anyone else knows?”

  Craig leaned back in his swivel chair and stared up at the cream-colored ceiling, his fingers still twitching. At last he said, “I suppose that could be an advantage.”

  “The Archbishop’s going to be in hospital fo
r a few days,” she went on. “He’s asked me to run his office as if he’s still there. No one but his closest aides will know that he’s not. And you, of course.”

  The bishop stared at her for several moments. At last he sat up straighter in his swivel chair and asked, “Can you get him to appoint me as his acting Archbishop? Strictly on a temporary basis, of course. Until he’s back on his feet.”

  Angelique gulped at the man’s naked ambition. Terrified of Stoner or not, he still wants the Archbishop’s ring.

  “I’m not sure that would be wise, Your Worship,” she said softly. “Not at this moment.”

  Craig sank back in his chair. “Probably not. You’re right. He wants to keep his incapacity secret.”

  “It will only be for a few days, at most.”

  The bishop’s face showed his thought clearly: Too bad.

  “In the meantime, Your Worship, you will have to deal with the problem of Stoner.”

  “No! I don’t want to be anywhere near him! He’s in league with Satan.”

  Angelique saw the unabashed fear in his eyes. She said, “The Archbishop doesn’t believe so.”

  “Stoner’s got to be stopped.”

  Feeling some alarm, Angelique replied, “But if he can help us to prevent nuclear war, isn’t that a good thing?”

  “What if God wants us to have a nuclear war?” Craig asked. “He sent a flood once, when the human race had turned its face from Him. Maybe now He’ll send a nuclear war.”

  “But we haven’t turned away from God!” Angelique cried. “The New Morality has brought the people back to God’s way.”

  His brows knitting, Bishop Craig muttered, “True. True. But is it enough? Have we made mankind pleasing in the sight of God?” He ran a hand over his eyes. “This whole business of Stoner is unsettling.”

  “Of course, Your Worship,” Angelique murmured.