“
Allahu akbar
,” Rashid intoned, with the others.
God is greatest
. He went on to murmur a prayer from the sacred
Qur’an
: “Praise be to God, the Lord of the worlds! The compassionate, the merciful! King of the day of judgment!—”
When the holy words were complete, the pious men put away their prayer mats and laving bowls. They were only a few kilometers from the desert town of Awen, where their goods would be delivered. It would be a busy day, and Rashid was not feeling that well. He would write to Malia tomorrow, or perhaps the next day.
* * *
Dixie Lou Jackson, a black female who grew up in poverty and became a prostitute and a murderess, could become the most important woman in the world, if the
Holy Women’s Bible
was successfully received around the world. Though she’d seen a “message sent” confirmation that the entire book had been transmitted over the Internet, she still worried. Had her incredibly important publication actually gone through?
Another serious problem. After transmitting the holy book, she had sent an emergency e-mail message to the UWW base in Tunisia, where she intended to set up a new headquarters. Under the protocol she had established, there should have been an immediate response, but there had been none. This gave her an uneasy feeling, a sense of being alone. What if the Bureau had gotten to that base and destroyed it? Or, what if they had laid a trap there, and were waiting to spring it on her when she arrived?
Odd hieroglyphics had appeared on the last page of the
Holy Women’s Bible
computer file, and on her e-mail message to Tunisia. The purported glitch with Malia’s computer, but what if it was something else?
And she had other big concerns. Since leaving Monte Konos, the seven she-apostles still in her custody were behaving more and more strangely. They didn’t seem interested in playing with toys, didn’t even seem to care when their favorite foods were withheld from them. Even though the gospels of these seven were purportedly complete, Dixie Lou had been using the translators to try to get the children to talk more about ancient times, to reveal information she was sure they were withholding. It was something the Chairwoman had been sensing in recent days, that they knew something very important, even essential, but were keeping it to themselves.
Considering how to deal with them, she sat alone in her tent. Through a mesh window she saw the sun rising over Libya’s northern desert, splashing the sky with tints of red, orange and gold. Sunrises and sunsets never ceased to delight her, filled as they were with subtle colors that changed from moment to moment.
This was a Muslim country, and as a black woman Dixie Lou knew something of the faith from childhood friends and members of her family, who had converted to it. She knew Islam had a code of honor and high moral standards, but it was one of the male-dominated religions that would require the most attention from United Women of the World, in order to improve the position of women. In the Muslim faith women did not lead; typically they wore veils and followed the commands of their husbands, fathers, and brothers. Under such circumstances the radical male government of Libya would not be pleased to learn of the existence of a rebel contingent of women on their soil.
For a lot of reasons, she hoped no one would think to look for her here.
Hearing a noise behind her, she turned.
Deborah Marvel poked her blonde head in through the open flap of the doorway. “Some of the councilwomen are troubled that only your political opponents were left behind on Monte Konos, presumably to die there.”
“Who’s asking?” Dixie Lou snapped.
“Sorry, I should have said
all
of them are asking.”
“Including you?”
She shook her head. “I’ve always been your friend, Dixie Lou. I’m only relaying the message.”
“Tell them it was a coincidence. Katherine must have been meeting with her friends when the BOI struck us, and they just got unlucky.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Deborah said. She bowed and left.
As far as she knew, the council had ten members now instead of sixteen (assuming Wendy Zepeda and Fujiko Harui were still alive), and all would vote as Dixie Lou wished. Anyone who didn’t would be eliminated.
Chapter 10
My hosannas have been forged in a crucible of doubt.
—Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky
The air pad on which Alex lay was uncomfortable, and he had not slept well. Awake for only a few moments, he heard the low voices of women as the encampment began to awaken.
He sat up, and through a mesh window he saw a large black bird fly by, flapping its wings laboriously. Fatigue saturated his bones and muscles, and the side of his neck ached where his mother had hit him with the gun barrel. How he loathed that woman!
He heard the ever-present guards talking outside his tent, saying Dixie Lou Jackson had published the
Holy Women’s Bible
on the Internet two days ago.
He poked his head out, saw Deborah Marvel jog into camp and head for her own tent. Deborah always tried to stay in shape. She seemed like an interesting woman to Alex, and quite unlike his own mother. Still, she was supportive of Dixie Lou on the council, to the point where his mother considered her a close friend. Alex wondered about Deborah’s motives, though, and suspected she was doing it for her own career advancement. Or survival.
Seeing two rosy faced guards by his tent, he asked, “It’s published? The new gospels of the she-apostles? I didn’t know the book was ready.”
“Neither did we,” the shorter of the pair, a redhead, said.
“Your mother is up early this morning and in a good mood,” the other said, a tall brunette who had been flirtatious to Alex. “She received confirmation of the transmission, and feedback from people who’ve seen the e-book version on the worldwide web—a lot more positive response than she ever expected.”
Alex smiled, but with a hard edge to it. His eyes narrowed to slits. “My mother is in a good mood, actually cheerful? I don’t know if I can get used to that.”
“It does sound unusual,” the redheaded guard said.
“I’ll tell you this,” Alex said. “Even when she’s in a good mood, she’s dangerous. I once saw her shoot a guard in the back of the head. Had a uniform on just like yours.”
“Don’t kid with us,” the taller guard said, grinning. She stared at him with large blue eyes.
But the other guard wasn’t smiling. She backed up, nudged her companion. They went a distance away, spoke in low tones while looking over at Alex.
He didn’t care what they were saying, wasn’t afraid of his mother.
Suddenly a big commotion broke loose in the camp, as matrons and translators ran around, screaming that the she-apostles were gone—all except for Martha of Galilee.
At first, Alex worried about the children. Then he smiled to himself, and thought,
Lori must have saved them. I don’t know how, but she saved them!
The guards and other women searched carefully, scouring the camp and aircraft, running out into the desert and looking for tracks. They found no sign of them, and this pleased Alex immensely. It only left one child in the custody of his demented mother.
* * *
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” Acting Minister Tertullian said as he stared through wire-rimmed eyeglasses at a computer screen. His hair was uncombed. A dark stubble of beard covered his narrow face. Beside him stood Vice Minister Kylee Branson. They were in the reception area outside Tertullian’s office, where Branson had been summoned in the middle of the night.
Tertullian had briefly scanned the contents before Branson’s arrival. Now the Acting Minister made a voice command, and the dedication page of the
Holy Women’s Bible
appeared, a tribute to Amy Angkor-Billings, whom he had personally dispatched to the realms of hell. Below that were the words, “The ancients speak.” His heart was racing.
The ensuing pages were an introduction, and as Tertullian read them he felt his face heat up.
Gospels of the reincarnated she-apostles of Jesus? Blasphemy! The She-God?
He recalled the single sheet of paper he’d seen, a purported “gospel” of the Apostle Mary Magdalene. Using a search command he found it again:
Glory be to She-God Almighty, Creator and Destroyer.
Her power shall last forever.
Turning to another heretical “gospel,” he placed a fingertip against a touch-box on the screen. A baby appeared, dressed in a tiny black robe, with a golden sword-cross dangling from her neck—the reviled symbol of the UWW. A caption identified the child as a “she-apostle,” and she spoke gibberish that was supposedly ancient Aramaic. A translator explained her words:
Jesus said to the women who were his close companions,
“Go now and spread the holy word. Tell women everywhere
they are no longer to be treated as inferior, that they are equal
to men in all respects and shall lead great nations.”
Tertullian felt like smashing the computer screen. Slowly his gaze turned to meet the fearful eyes of Branson.
“This is all your fault, you know,” Tertullian said. “As Vice Minister of Doctrine & Faith, you should have been on top of this situation. You should have prevented the release of this book!”
“I uh—I don’t think that’s fair to—” Branson’s voice cracked, and in the face of criticism he couldn’t form a sentence.
Hot blood pumped through Tertullian’s veins. Angry sweat poured down his brow, stinging his eyes and fogging his wire-rimmed glasses. Blinking, he wiped the glasses, then fumbled with the computer, searching pages for publication information, for the location from which they had transmitted this. Nothing was obvious; the devious UWW women were still in hiding, making trouble from one of their devil-holes. Still, he would put his computer experts to work on it, to see if the blasphemers had overlooked something—a tiny detail that would betray their location.
“We are faced with a great challenge,” Branson said, solemnly.
Tertullian sneered at the remark. He directed a number of insults in response, then said, “Find out what that kid was really saying, assuming it’s really the Aramaic spoken in biblical times. I want the translation checked.”
“Yes, Acting Minister.”
“This is a UWW trick. I know it. I just don’t know how they’re pulling it off, how they’re getting babies to do that. A computer animation trick?”
“We’ll find out sir.”
“Get on the fraud angle right away.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’d better do it fast,” Styx said. “A lot of damage is being done.”
Branson bowed and departed. As Tertullian hurried into his office, he feared that the damage was irreversible.
Chapter 11
There is no word for the ability to think without words.
—Martha of Galilee
On the morning of her third day in the desert, Lori wore a heavy coat when she went outside, zipped all the way up. It was early, the first daylight, when it was safest to do the work, without the worry of lights that might be detected at night. Nearby, the stocky pilot, in a leather jacket, stood on a platform, still working on the engine. The day before Rea Janeg had taken the fuel system and air filtration units apart and cleaned them, and she’d said there were other supposedly minor mechanical problems. Today she was putting things back together, clanking tools inside the engine compartment. She had a bandage on her forehead where she had bumped it the day before, and her knuckles were red and nicked from the work.
Just before going outside, Lori had been in the passenger compartment of the helicopter, which had now become a brig for Wendy Zepeda and the two guards, all three of whom remained under confinement. The tough little Fujiko Harui had the primary responsibility of watching the handcuffed prisoners, including feeding them and allowing them bathroom privileges. Lori had decided to trust her completely.
Inside, Lori had spoken to the prisoners one by one, probing their thoughts in an effort to determine their loyalties. Preferring not to keep them locked up, she had hoped to be able to release one or all of them. But after intensive questions she’d decided to leave them there, convinced that they could not be trusted. It was a responsibility of command that had fallen on her shoulders, and she didn’t particularly like it. But she saw no reasonable alternatives. For their own safety out here in the desert she couldn’t let them go, and for the safety of the rest of her group she couldn’t let them go, either. And she certainly couldn’t kill them.
She had noticed something curious during the individual sessions with the prisoners. It was as if the process caused her to assume a personality she didn’t know she had, as if she had become a skilled military or police interrogator asking probative questions. As she spoke with each of the captives, the incisiveness of her own questions had surprised her, the way she was looking through windows into individual personalities and motivations. At one point she even found herself examining the whole process while it was occurring, like watching herself and the prisoner Wendy Zepeda through a high-powered magnification glass.
“I’ve decided to help you,” Wendy had said. “I never liked Dixie Lou Jackson anyway.”
“Why don’t you like her?” Lori had asked. A simple enough question, not particularly incisive in and of itself.
“A lot of us on the council don’t. We’re just afraid to oppose her.”
That had made some sense, but for a moment, Lori had found herself trying to listen for subtleties in Zepeda’s tone of voice and inflection, for hesitations, for stammering. The things a professional interrogator might notice, techniques she had read about and seen in movies. She’d even looked for a flickering of the eyes, for moisture on the upper lip and brow, and muscular twitches. All might be indicators of deception.
But after only a few moments she’d discarded these methods, replacing them with another. Her visceral reaction. An almost innate sense in the pit of her stomach about what was right and what was wrong.
This councilwoman was not to be trusted, no matter what she said or how she said it. And neither were the two young guards. . . .
Now, gazing out on the desert, it looked to Lori as if it should be warmer than expected today, or at least her eyes relayed this information to her brain. But the exposed skin on her hands and face tingled with cold. And out on the desert, she saw sand carried laterally by the wind, but she felt nothing where she stood. In all, it was as if her eyes and skin were in separate realms, or separate locations.
She wished she was back in Seattle, and that none of the terrible events since the goddess circle had transpired. But she knew it was impossible to turn back the empyrean mechanism of time. Like the universe itself, it was a relentless perpetual motion machine, unstoppable in its progress.
With a deep, agitated sigh, Lori tried to accept what had happened and to tell herself that she had been given an important destiny by a higher power, that she had been placed on this path for a reason.
She recalled the strange experience she’d had two nights ago, an event so vivid that it seemed real, of a bright light with the brilliance of a miniature sun bathing her in warmth and seeming to transport her—ever so briefly—to an ethereal realm. So odd, so vivid and strangely sensual. It reminded her in some ways of the earlier vision she seemed to have shared with Dixie Lou Jackson, in which a bright amorphous shape had hovered over Lori . . . a vision that ended with her holding a female child and Jackson backing away in terror and confusion.
Hearing a noise, the teenager turned and saw the children, all eleven of them, emerging from a pair of tents simultaneously, camouflaged habitats that worked in synchronicity with the electronic camouflage over the helicopter and the work area. Wearing robes or coats, the she-apostles walked on their short legs, following Mary Magdalene toward the pilot. It still amazed her to see the babies walking, even though they were not at all proficient. Sometimes they stumbled and fell on the soft sand, but quickly got back up.
Momentarily, the children stood and watched the pilot as she worked, and seemed transfixed on her. Glancing sidelong at them as she used a spanner, Rea Janeg at first made a perplexed face, then resumed her attention to the job. Every once in awhile, she glanced back at the children, but did not seem particularly upset by their presence. If she had been, Lori would have taken steps to remove them, since it was so important to get the helicopter running.
All the while the children watched intently, as if they wanted to understand what was going on mechanically, or as if they already knew, which seemed unlikely. They even examined tools and parts that were laid out on a tarpaulin, but didn’t touch them or say much of anything, just occasional words and what seemed to be sentence fragments, in their private language.
Iviapa . . . tiofi . . . obruku . . . aphem . . .
Curiously, Lori understood what she heard, but could not form her own thoughts or words in that language. It was as if she could only listen to them, and that she was mute, without a tongue of her own to speak.
Just as peculiar, the utterances didn’t seem to connect with the surroundings. The children were talking excitedly about flowers and trees and birds and animals, but in this desert there was little of that. Lori had seen a few withered flower petals, borne to their campsite by the winds, and flocks of birds heading south. It seemed peculiar to see them flying over the desert in their migration, but they undoubtedly knew where the oases were along the way, like rest stops for travelers.
Those words. So familiar and yet so elusive
.
Kneeling by Abigail, one of the babies, Lori held her hands, and looking into her cerulean blue eyes, said softly in English, “I want to speak with you in the secret tongue, but the words will not come to me. Why is it that I understand what you are saying, but I cannot form the words myself in that language?”
“Language is but an imperfect incarnation of thought,” the child said, in the ancient parlance. “You think you understand my words, but you are only picking up semblances of meaning. It is this way with all languages, and especially with ours. We she-apostles have an exclusive verbal lexicon, but to fully communicate with us you must learn to think without words, keeping in mind this important caveat: the very act of speaking the thoughts diminishes them, alters their original, pure meaning. Any vocabulary is inherently limited.”
“But
iktol
—the word means ‘murder’ in English. I understood it when Veronica mouthed it to me. It means an unwarranted killing. What subtleties are there to understand about such a word?”
“The very question reflects a lack of understanding.”
“But when will I understand?”
“When you are ready. This is how it has always been, and always will be. Compare this phenomenon of language with the questions you asked of the three prisoners, how you determined that they were lying.”
“How do you know about that?”
With her tiny hands, Abigail squeezed Lori’s fingers. “Maybe it’s because we are small and move quietly,” Abigail said. “We are able to eavesdrop much more easily than large people.” The child smiled, and her face showed an infinite intelligence, far beyond her years.
“You’re reading my mind, aren’t you?” Lori said, looking down at their linked hands. “When we touch, you can see into my thoughts!”
“Yes, I am peering into your mind now, but my ability is not perfect. I still face large gaps, blocked pathways and regions, although I am improving, growing stronger. When you questioned the prisoners, you considered using familiar lie detection techniques, but discarded them in favor of your gut feelings. That was an excellent decision on your part. You also want to know more about the She-Judas, but we must wait for the testimony of the real Martha of Galilee, not the fake one Dixie Lou brought in. As she-apostles we know some of the details, but it is Martha’s story to tell, her holy gospel.”
Lori didn’t know whether to pull away or continue holding the child’s hands. She felt herself shaking with fear. In large part, she realized, it was a fear of the unknown. With a jerk of realization, she now understood why she had analyzed the prisoners in a visceral way, instead of trying to put labels on things or attach words to them. It was like the linguistic comments Abigail had made moments ago about the inadequacy of any lexicon to express true meanings.
“I was able to think beyond words,” Lori said. “That’s how I knew the three women were lying.”
“You are beginning to understand,” Abigail said. “We call it wordless purity. And earlier, you sensed something about the twelfth she-apostle that Dixie Lou brought in, before you knew she was a fake. What did you sense?”
“That something was strange about the baby, something that troubled me deeply.”
“And you could not put into words what you were feeling.”
Lori nodded, but as she looked at Abigail, she realized with a start that the other children were moving in synchronization with her, making the same facial expressions and even mouthing the same words with her—despite what she had said about wordless thought. Apparently oral speech was a subset of their main communication method, which Lori didn’t feel close to comprehending yet. Did they communicate through facial expressions, through subtleties in the eyes, or in some other visual fashion? Did they read each other’s minds when they touched hands, achieving wordless purity? If so, perhaps it worked better for the she-apostles to communicate with one another in this manner than it did for them to make physical contact with an outsider, such as Lori. She felt as if she were peering into a realm of infinite possibilities.
A shudder coursed Lori’s body. Looking up at the pilot, she saw that she still had her head in the engine compartment. The sounds of her tools seemed distant, as if coming from an entirely different dimension.
Letting go of Abigail, the perplexed teenager rose to her feet. She shook her head, and it seemed to clear. All the while, as if she were a laboratory specimen, the children watched her, their eyes bright. . . .
After testing the tandem engines another time, while Lori stayed with her, shadowing the process, the pilot climbed back down from the cockpit to the sand, muttering in displeasure. Her face was red, perspiring. Despite the chill in the air, she removed her jacket and tossed it aside.
“Engines are overheating now,” she said.
“Can you fix the problem?” Lori asked as she stepped onto the soft gray sand herself. She was growing increasingly concerned, beginning to lose her patience with the helicopter pilot.
“I’ll figure it out.” Rea’s voice had an edge as she stared at the helicopter.
Lori wondered if the pilot had the necessary knowledge, or if she might be delaying intentionally . . . preventing them from leaving. If that was the case, she was in league with Dixie Lou Jackson after all. The teenager felt her mind working in two ways as she thought about this. On the one hand, she still had access to her old way of thinking, and from an intellectual standpoint she suspected the pilot. Circumstantial evidence pointed to the possibility of deception. But on the other hand, utilizing her nascent visceral ability to discern another level, she didn’t suspect Rea at all, and believed in her.
Just then, the children gathered around the pilot’s jacket, where it lay on the sand. At first the pilot didn’t notice them, but Lori did, and wondered what intrigued them so much about the garment.
Dressed in a black shirt and trousers, Fujiko came out of her own tent. Rubbing her eyes, she looked at the she-apostles and the visibly upset pilot, then came over to see close up. “What’s going on?” she asked of Lori.
“Things aren’t going well.” She described the mechanical problem. “Do you think she’s faking it?” Lori asked, keeping her voice low.
“No.” The little Japanese woman shook her head, looked at the children. Lori followed her gaze.
Veronica was reaching into the pilot’s jacket pocket, and what she brought out caused Lori’s pulse to quicken. A small handgun.
The pilot saw this, and said, “Be careful with that!” She started toward the child.
Lori pushed by her, grabbed the weapon first. It appeared to be made of composites, and weighed only a few ounces. “What are you doing with this?” she demanded.
“We live in dangerous times,” Rea said, with a shrug.
“Whose side are you on?”
“Ours,” Fujiko interjected. “I knew Rea had the gun, saw her pick it up from a fallen guard when we were escaping from Monte Konos.” She paused. “I also have a gun. It’s in my tent.”
“So the two of you are in this together?” Lori asked.
“I didn’t know she had anything,” Rea said. “But she’s right. If I wasn’t on your side, Lori, I would have used the gun on you.”