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= REPRIEVE =

a sf short story in the Empire of Time series

by John Argo

(3)

Some time later, like a somnambulist, he stood musing in front of D-34. He realized that he had begun to hate her for her imperturbability. As though she could have a faith stronger than his! But that, he knew, would not affect his attention to duty.

She still sat mutely on the bunk, alone now that her cellmates had been processed. After reviewing the security videos, he saw that she had not moved all night. If she slept she did it sitting, with her eyes open. He sighed.

From behind him came the sound of a throat being cleared. He turned but saw no one at the observation slot of D-35.

"Advocate?"

He stepped to D-35. Below the level of the slot a woman, too short to reach the aperture, leaned against the door.

"Advocate?"

"What is it?"

"I know you're interested in that one over there..."

"Am I?"

"I—I, yes, sir. Aren't you? Listen! Listen! I was in the van with her when they brought us in. If you'll help me I will tell you a few things."

The Advocate looked up and down the corridor. "I have little influence with the Authority, sister."

"I have nothing to lose, Advocate. I throw myself on your mercy. That one—she said she was here to find her mate."

"We know all that," he said impatiently, turning away.

"She said that they would change things for our whole world! She said they had a gift—something she called 'touching of palms.' Have you ever heard of that, Advocate?"

Laying on of hands? He licked his lips. A healer? Was that what she was? She and her mate? That was totally against doctrine.

Hungry for her information, he felt himself going for the bait. He came close to D-35 and looked down through the slot. "What is it you claim to know, woman?"

Her eyes rolled up imploringly. Her voice was a frail tremble: "They—the ones already dead, the women who were with her—they said she spoke gladly of her mate. That he would give us the keys to paradise."

"Blasphemy!"

The woman's sky-blue eyes became circles of horror, and she cringed back holding her hand over her mouth.

"Go on," he said, gathering control of himself. "Speak the truth as best ye know."

"Yes." She rose, brushing her mussy hair with trembling hands. "She said that they were people from far away, at another star. A great star, a city of the galaxy, some such thing." She laughed nervously to show that she did not believe such nonsense. "She said her mate had come as an ambassador." The woman looked dully away. "And when she learned in her cell that you, that we, had killed him, she grew angry and said our kind would never enter paradise now."

"What about this paradise?" he demanded. "What kind of paradise? Of this mortal life, or of some Satanic abomination that goes against Scripture?"

"I don't know," she wailed. "I assume we could get there right away before we die, Sir. Something about wonderful cities among the stars, and an end to war and suffering."

"What else?"

She shook her head, and tears ran down her cheeks. Tapped out, he thought.

Knowing that he should not act while in the grips of fervor, he nevertheless turned and, unlocking D-34's door, flung it open.

He entered the cell and slapped the strange woman across the face. "Your immortal soul is at stake here. I am not doing this for myself."

She smiled faintly, bitterly—maybe. Her expressions were hard to read.

"What is this paradise of which you told your cellmates?"

She remained silent.

"Shall I call the Questioner again?" Judging from her power to heal, he knew even as he spoke that threats were useless. He felt frustrated and powerless. He stalked out, infuriated.

Back in his office, the Advocate called Inquiry police and spoke with the lieutenant again. "There was more about that man we discussed earlier," he said. "I know there was. I'll come in and examine the records, if I may."

"No need for that," said the official quickly. The Advocate was grimly pleased to hear fear in the lieutenant's tone. "A moment, please, Advocate." The connection went on hold for a minute. "Sir, there was an incident in the gas chamber last week. That one, the male you ask about, walked out alive after the gassing. It does happen, though rarely. They find air pockets under the bodies as they pile up, and—"

The Advocate barked: "Yes. What else?

The lieutenant sounded injured. "There were graffiti everywhere. On the walls, the floors, the ceiling—even on the bodies around him. I can't imagine how he could have done it. Even his body was covered with these same light gray symbols and cyphers like a dozen foreign alphabets jumbled together. The camp police said it scared them that he walked out, naked and unharmed, stepping over piles of bodies, and there seemed to be these letters floating in the air like alphabet soup."

The Advocate blinked in puzzlement at the telephone. "Where are these symbols now?"

"Sanitation scrubbed them off the stones, Sir. They burned the bodies, including his. And the letters lingering in the air just sort of blew away."

"Holy Name!" He couldn't mask his astonishment.

"I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't see any of this—I'm just reading from the report."

Why couldn't you have told me this before, you fool?

"Thank you." The Advocate hung up.

He began to fear that something had gone terribly wrong. The Authority was too efficient, too quick to kill. In 20 years he'd never found a single prisoner to give a Scripture-based reprieve. Why, why, why? He ground his fist into his palm as he paced around in his office. What was the purpose of all this killing anyway? One never saw enemy troops—only these frightened peasants who were put to death by the thousands. It was said the other side was set up similarly. What if a demon made his way in there and gave them knowledge that would help them defeat God's people? He tore his collar open and broke into a profuse sweat.

At that moment, he looked at the security monitor.

She was staring directly up into the camera. Into his eyes. Into his soul.

Her face remained expressionless, but he felt her cold contempt like a bony finger against his spine. He shoved the door aside and rushed across the hall. Fumbling with the combination lock, he entered her cell to shake her, roughly, but stopped. Those eyes, like yellow glass ... Involuntarily he stepped back.

For a moment, he glimpsed what could have been—not a vision, in the sense of what one saw with eyes—but a wonderment, a feeling, almost like he'd imagined heaven—a billowing whiteness and goodness filled with golden light, in which people were kind to each other, men walked with lions and stately silver ships filled the skies—

After a moment of this, the goodness was torn from him like a bandage from a wound, leaving it torn and oozing. He stepped back, tumbled, and went sprawling. Crawling away from her using his elbows, he cried, "I'm sorry!"

Someone screamed—cell D-35 maybe.

Boots came trampling, running.

The woman raised her arms.

Of course, he thought, we overlooked that too.

Men stood in the doorway, holding machine pistols—they stood frozen, the dim light gleaming on their leather straps and holsters, absorbed into their mustard-green police uniforms. They stood transfixed, mouths agape.

Arms apart, she floated inches above the floor.

Her face underwent a transformation—unreadable, manic, not human.

Her body began to turn, slowly at first, her thin garment rippling, then faster. A rushing, roaring, filled the Advocate's ears. He backed away until the wall stopped him.

Faster she spun, faster in a golden aura.

Blinded, he raised his hand to shield his eyes.

With a soundless detonation the air filled with flying letters, numbers, icons, cyphers—the key to the universe. She'd possessed it, he saw that now. The mate was only a test. She was the One.

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