Authors: Gregory Benford
He settled back into his cranny, hoping nothing had seen where his one shot had come from. The cyborg scrambled on, downslope.
It was nearly out of sight before a ringing shot burst beside it, spewing brown soil into the air. Killeen blinked. Mechs
seldom used ballistic weapons. They preferred cleaner, lighter, more precise electromagnetic means.
Then a second shell struck the cyborg in its middle. That apparently cut a prime mental function, for the long chunky body
convulsed, jerking in spasms of almost sexual frenzy.
The cyborg turned on its pursuers. There was a desperate, abandoned look to the maneuver. Killeen sensed stubborn, fatalistic
defiance in the cyborg’s movements. Its arms came up in a clenched gesture, like six fists shaking in rage at once.
It fired everything it had at something out of view. But its cause was hopeless. It lurched to the side and took another massive
blow. Smoke poured from it. Small rattling bursts struck its natural, organic body, leaving shallow red craters in the rough
hide.
Without pleasure Killeen watched the thing die. The cyborgs were, for all their uncaring brutality and deep strangeness, based
on natural beings, organically derived from the world. He had felt some strange respect for the one which had spared him,
cast him onto this maimed planet. He was not happy to see one brought down by mechs, even though he himself had been among
the killers.
The faint calling came to him as he thought this, and at first he did not register it. Only when the small human figures came
running into view, waving their puny weapons in triumph, did he understand.
The tent was worn and frayed and stained. Killeen wondered if this was for camouflage, since it blended well into the jumbled
terrain.
All during the walk here his escort had said nothing beyond curt orders. He had not been surprised that their thickly accented
speech was in his language; it had never occurred to him that humans spoke more than one way.
They had led him through rambling encampments of tattered tents and lean-tos of scrap and brush, past more people than he
had ever seen assembled. Even the Citadel had held fewer Bishops than this. Flapping pennants with unfamiliar symbols suggested
that this was a full Tribe. No such grand meeting had occurred on Snowglade within living memory.
A woman in gray coveralls pulled back a tent flap and someone poked Killeen in the buttocks. He walked in, taking long quick
strides to avoid another poke, and to maintain some shred of dignity.
The tent seemed larger from inside, with a high peak lit by a phosphorescent ivory ball. Oil lamps glowed along the tent’s
four oblique diagonals, casting blades of yellow down onto the heads of dozens of people. They were gathered at an orderly,
respectful distance from the man at the very center of the tent.
A black desk of polybind ceramic dominated the room. Killeen wondered if these people had carried that heavy mass around with
them. It looked mechmade, smoothly curved and sculpted so that its sharp arc focused the eye on the small man behind it, lounging
in a light metal chair.
The figure did not seem impressive enough to merit the fixed, hushed attention of everyone else in the tent. He was
short, stocky, with hair as black as the ebony desk. A long gash of sullen red ran from above his right temple down across
the swarthy skin to the hinge of his jaw. Something had nearly struck his eye, for the mark burrowed into his heavy eyebrows.
About a dozen men and women flanked the desk like guards. No one said anything. They were all watching the man eat a large
piece of green fruit. Juice ran down his chin and dripped onto a white cloth set on his chest. The man’s uniform was made
of a cool-blue, light, comfortable-looking fabric unlike any Killeen had seen before. He smacked his lips. He was giving all
his attention to his eating and everyone else seemed to be, too.
The long silence continued. Killeen wondered if this show was for his benefit and dismissed the thought when he saw the rapt
look on the faces around him. This was some sort of privileged, special audience, unlike any meeting of a Cap’n and his Family
that Killeen knew. The man eating wore no signifying patch. The people nearby had makeshift uniforms of rough cloth, with
insignia vaguely similar to the house emblems of Snowglade. Their faces, though seemingly dazed, bore a certain intense look
of authority. Some wore small medals of tarnished, ropelike silver. Could these be the Cap’ns of the legions he had seen outside?
Finally the small man sucked on his snaggly teeth, smacked his lips, and tossed the remnant core of the fruit over his shoulder.
As someone moved to pick it up the man leaned back and stretched, yawning, still not looking at anyone in particular. Then
he seemed to notice Killeen and regarded him with unreadable blank eyes. “Well?” the man said.
“I, my name is—”
“Knees!” the man shouted.
Killeen blinked. “What? I—”
Someone hit Killeen hard yet neatly across the backs of his knees, knocking his support away so he dropped forward and hit
the floor, barely managing to stay on his knees.
“Signify!” a voice whispered near him.
“I come from Family Bishop. I honor these lands of, of…” Killeen had begun the old greeting in hopes that some idea would
come to him, but now he needed to insert the name of this Family.
“Treys!” the whisper said.
“…Treys, seeking help in a time of dire need, against the depredations and torments inflicted by our mutual—”
“Bindings!” the man behind the desk shouted.
Instantly hands grabbed Killeen’s arms and swiftly tied them behind him. He let them without protest, because of something
he glimpsed in the man’s eyes as the orders were given. The empty eyes had suddenly jerked with animated fire, a spasm of
wrenching pleasure.
The man stood up. Honorific pendants swayed from a broad scarlet belt that neatly bisected his blue suit. “He is disarmed?”
A whisper answered, “Aye, Your Supremacy.”
“He understands his position in our cause?”
The whisperer near Killeen hesitated, then said, “He is a Cap’n, Your Supremacy, so we did not feel qualified to instruct
him.”
Evidently this transparent attempt to shift responsibility worked, for the swarthy man nodded calmly and spread his hands
toward Killeen, as if addressing a problem. “I must attend to this myself, then.” Abruptly he frowned at Killeen. “Your Family?”
“Bishop.”
“No such.”
“We’re not from this planet.”
“Never heard such.”
“We came here searching for refuge from the mechs.”
“Ha! You chose well. Here we have vanquished them.”
“So I see.”
“You see only that which I determine,” the short man said reasonably. “You will understand that.”
“I, ah—”
“It is the devil Cybers we fight now. They too shall yield to our bravery and ardor and spirits of fire.”
“Cybers?”
His Supremacy nodded, eyes empty again. Lips pursed, expression expectant, he seemed to be listening to some distant voice.
Then his attention returned and the muscles of his face stretched his olive skin so that it gleamed beneath the cone of phosphorescent
radiance that cascaded around him. The brilliant ball directly above cast a pearly circle on the floor, with the swarthy man
as its center. The crowd kept its distance, venturing only as far as the softer glow of the oil lamps intruded into the hard,
white circle.
He continued abruptly, as though there had been no pause. “They cut the lands with their great sword. Just as victory came
to us, as the mechs fled before our assaults, these giant things fell upon us from the sky. Our triumph was denied. But we
shall conquer!”
This provoked loud shouts of agreement from everyone in the tent.
The man looked expectantly at Killeen. “This action is, of course, a tribute to my immortal nature. They send against me the
very worst that the evil-hinged skies can muster.”
His eyes left Killeen and shot around the room, moving intently from face to face beneath the oily yellow glow. His lips bulged
out as if barely containing a vast pressure.
“They compliment us! By sending their most awful and powerful, now that the mechs are rabble scurrying to escape our bootheels.
They do us honor! And they shall die.”
Abruptly he deflected his glowering, building rage down to where Killeen knelt, and in a long sigh the rage evaporated. In
a blink his eyes regained their neutral emptiness.
He said mildly, “And I am glad that you have come to aid in my time of need.”
Killeen said carefully, “I am alone now, sir. My—”
“Supremacy!” a hard whisper in his ear urged.
“I am alone, Supremacy, my Family—”
“The Bishops, you called them?” the short man said judicially.
“Yeasay, they—”
“I had thought they were lying. I had never heard of any such Family, and fancied them wastrel renegade Deuces or Trumps.”
Killeen asked excitedly, “Bishops? Here?”
“You understand, a mind focused on the defense of our race cannot but leave details to others. I reserve my time for communion
with the spirit that moves over and within and through us.”
“They’re here, Supremacy?”
The heavy, dark eyebrows arched in an expression of bemused interest. “We found them wandering. They had a story about landing
in mech craft and escaping the Cyber air raids that we had seen the day before. I thought this a mere fashioned lie. Now that
you appear—a Cap’n, I judge from your insignia—this explains it.”
“How many?”
The man’s face froze and Killeen realized that he had made some error. What could it be? Was his question too direct? The
complete silence of everyone around him suggested that he could amend his mistake….
“Your Supremacy, I beg you—yield to me the number who have lived.”
His Supremacy’s mouth lost some of its tightness and he flicked a glance at a woman to his left.
“Over a hundred,” came the reply.
Killeen’s breath caught. Most of the Bishops had gotten out.
“I shall cause them to be released,” His Supremacy said grandly, his arms making a sweeping gesture. Everyone in the tent
cheered, as though this were some unique act, as though this man who called himself by a ridiculous title had somehow saved
the Bishops’ lives.
The swarthy man’s face knitted into a reflective cast, his eyes wandering up to the peak of the tent. “I had judged them as
scabrous cowards, laggards from destroyed Suits in the Families. As such, they were unworthy of any role in our grand assaults
to come, and so would be used for labor. Fighting within our invincible Tribe is an honor not lightly dispensed. You understand,
I am sure.”
“Uh, yeasay.”
The eyebrows met in a scowl.
“Yeasay, Your Supremacy.”
The eyebrows parted and the face relaxed, the eyes again sliding into blankness. “Now they may take part in the heroic struggles
to come. I expect you to assume command of them again, as Cap’n.”
“Yeasay, Supremacy, as soon—”
“And sacrifices will be exacted.”
Killeen looked at the man but could not read his meaning.
His Supremacy gestured and someone unbound Killeen’s arms. Should he get up? Something in the way the short man stood, hands
on hips and legs stiff, told him to remain kneeling.
His Supremacy pursed his lips, eyes wandering again. He said distantly, “I understand, in my all-reaching facets, your
confusion. You have voyaged here from some other sphere of human action, and that was as I wished. You moved in response to
my injunctions, though ignorant and in darkness.
I
was the unseen force which drew you across the night canyons that separate the worlds.
I
desired it and sent my emanations to guide you.”
A murmur greeted this speech. Hushed exclamations of awe filled the tent.
“Now you enter onto the full stage of human destiny.”
This speech had the ringing quality of a set piece. “Ah, yeasay…Supremacy.”
“I am the given. You have in this conversation verged on disrespect toward me.” The eyebrows knotted. “Mayhappen this arises
from ignorance. If so, now it is just and proper that I reveal to you my deepest nature.”
Killeen said guardedly, “Yeasay.” The tent rustled with anticipation. Someone damped the lamps and shadows crowded the tent
further. A hushed expectation rustled among the men and women like a sudden wind.
“Witness!”
The short man extended his arms and abruptly his entire body shimmered and glowed. Against the blue fabric a yellow skeleton
appeared, like a second entity that lived inside the man. It moved with him, bones and ribs and pelvic girdle performing their
rubs and rotations as His Supremacy stepped first to one side, then to another. Atop the curved spine a death’s-head grinned,
turning proudly. The bones worked smoothly, suggesting that a creature made of the pure, radiating hardness could walk and
know the world, encased in its enduring strengths. It oozed ample light into the tent, cutting a blackness as deep as that
in the unblemished spaces between stars. In these dim working shadows, with breezes flapping the tent like far-off thunderclaps,
the intricate
lattice of crisp light implied an interior race of invulnerable beings, harder than human.
Its burnt-yellow jaw pulsed on an unseen hinge as His Supremacy said, “I am the essence of humanity itself, come to avenge
and save. Through me human destiny will be made manifest. The mechs and Cybers shall be vanquished alike.”
In the thick, shadowy air his skeleton vibrated with life. Vagrant hues shot through the bones as they articulated, knotty
joints swooping with artful animation in the framing dark.
“Mortal?” he cried. “No. Mortality lies within me and yet I am not mortal. I am the manifestation! God Himself!”
Killeen gathered that this techtrick was supposed to impress him. He let an expression of amazement settle onto his face while
he tried to see how the moving rib cage and legs were imaged on the blue.
“I am the immanent spirit of humanity, as given by Divine God! In this most dire and yet pregnant hour of mankind, the glorious
truth is that
I
have been endowed with godliness entire. No longer does God act through me. He has become me. I
am
God!
This
is why the Tribe will follow me to its certain destiny.
This
is why you, Cap’n of the lost Bishops, will give your final effort to my cause, the cause of humanity’s true God!”