Mars the Divine (Empire of Time Series) by John Argo

Page 5.

"How did you get into the tower? I must ask you to—"

"No time," he snapped, coming closer. I could smell his sweat and the rankness of his hair. They do not bathe, nor do they cut their hair. "The Holy Mother will be assassinated."

"What?" I made the sign of Horizon, clutching my left hand to my heart and moving my two pointing fingers from left to right over my head in an arc. "Why have you singled me out for your offensive talk?"

"I was one of you," he said. His breath stank and his remaining teeth were brown as he spoke close to my face. I was being contaminated spiritually by his unwashed and unpurified presence, and I shuddered at the days of fasting and propitiation now thrust upon me.

"Get back," I whispered harshly, afraid someone might overhear and charge me with consorting with the unclean.

"I've chosen this place because you are alone, Brother. Do you recognize me yet?"

I shook my head. Should I know him? I stared at him closely. He tried to be helpful by turning his head this way and that, and by holding his beard aside.

"Does the name Brother Gaunt mean anything to you?"

I was still trying to find a way to dart past him, but now I froze. "Brother Gaunt? Why... he has been dead two or three years." That is Mars time, but by the sacred temple clocks, which measure something called Man Years, it's more like four to six years. Religious literalists claim that refers to time measured on the mythical Erdith. In short, or in long, it was a long time.

"It was my monkish name. My given name, Brother Farr, was Timony Eastgarden..."

"...no," I interjected, remembering my playmate Sudie Eastgarden down the lane past the grape bowers and among the hydroponic bean fields.

"...and you used to come to play with Sudie in the old days before they vocationed you to the Temple."

I shook my head, suddenly feeling tearful. "I haven't seen Sudie in years."

He nodded. "As well you wouldn't, because she was expelled along with the rest of my family after I left this prison of limited ideas."

I understood then how dangerous my situation was becoming by the second. If the authorities connected me somehow with this traitor, I would be seen as a danger to the dome and could be sent packing by a side gate with whatever I could carry in a sack, and the gate would be locked at my back forever. I would lose everything. To a Domer, that was like dying. "You have to get away from me," I told him. Now I really did push him aside and start down the stairs. He was wiry and strong, and grabbed my shoulder as he followed me down the winding stairs. Our feet made scuffling sounds on the metal, and in the raw concrete pillar our flying clothing and grabbing hands made muffled slapping sounds. "Wait!" he cried.

"Get away!" I said. "You can take your information to Brother Gate." I referred to the member of our order who is on duty at any given time at the outer gate of Graniston 2, which is the entry point to our gated preserve in the Blue Hills.

"I'm not stupid," he said, "and for a moment, don't you be. Do you understand what would happen if I were to tell them the Holy Mother is about to be murdered?"

I froze. I must have turned white as an ammonium lick on the far sands as I turned slowly. "You speak the most frightful treason..."

"Not treason, but an offer of help." He gripped my shoulders with his hands. He was bigger than I by half a head. Now that he knew who he was, he seemed no longer a demented Triber, but an old neighbor gone bad, gone mad, whatever.

"This must be serious for you to risk your life coming here." It was the first crack in my resistance, and the beginning of the unraveling of my life. And indeed now nothing can ever be the same again in our world.

He spoke earnestly: "Brother Farr, do you know why I was expelled?"

"Expelled? We were told you became a heretic and left us."

"If these lunatics are sane, then I am a heretic. I had a vision, Brother Farr, an insight, because I found something from the long ago past that convinced me the story of ancient Erdith is true. We were not put here by any Godpods. We came here, sent by the warring powers of old Erdith, who then destroyed themselves with wondrous weapons." Seeing the fear and disbelief in my eyes, he shook my shoulders and nodded vehemently while saying "It's true, and I know you are the smartest among this pack of hydroponic pea-pods. If anyone can understand that, and save the Holy Mother, you can."

My fate was already sealed, but I didn't know it yet.

"Beware of Suharto, Duke Balesso. He was exiled by the king of Olympus Mons, and has spent time among the Domers and the Tribers, and places you cannot even imagine. He intends to overthrow both Temple and State, and make himself absolute tyrant."

"That would be unthinkable," I said.

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