On a well-settled Mars, the five major city Council regimes
struggle to meld into a stable, working government. Embracing an official
Unified Faith In Humanity, the Councils are teetering on the verge of pogrom
directed against Christians, Molesters, Jews, Rapists, Buddhists, Murderers,
Muslims, Thieves, Hindu, Embezzlers and Artificial Humans – anyone who
threatens the official Faith and the consolidating power of the Councils. It
makes good sense, right – get rid of religion and Human divisiveness on a
societal level will disappear? An instrument of such a pogrom might just be a
Roman holiday...To see the rest of the chapters and I’m sorry, but a number of
them got deleted from the blog – go to SCIENCE FICTION:
Martian Holiday on the right and scroll to the bottom for the first
story. They are HanAH, the security expert (m); DaneelAH, xenoarchaeologist (m); AzAH, language
expert (f); MishAH, pattern recognition (f).
After grabbing the Artificial Human boy, she
released him into HanAH’s tender embrace – a solid grip on the boy’s upper arm.
“Are you an agent of Paolo Marcillon?”
“Who?”
“Paolo – an underground Christian agitator who’s
wanted for sedition and terroristic actions.”
“No! I ain’t heard a no Polo! I work with the Rim
Preacher!”
DaneelAH stepped up, gesturing HanAH to release the
boy. Squatting down, he took the boy by both shoulders and said, “Your
master…former master!” he said when the boy’s shoulders tensed. He loosened his
grip. “Your former master is a Christian?”
The boy twisted free and DaneelAH let him go. HanAH
and MishAH were close by. He glanced at them then shook his torso. “I guess,
‘cept I don’t know what that means. Zactly. I just know he natural born, but he
ain’t like all the others. He’s good. All them others is bad.”
"Not every natural born
is bad," DaneelAH muttered, looking down at the blue boy.
"Yeah. Stepan
ain't. He's just sorta like a babe out where I live. But he do have connections
in the HOD,” said the boy.
"The HOD?"
HanAH said. “And you’re rather free with a Natural Born’s name.” He scowled
down at the boy.
"Stepan calls me Quinn.
If he do it, he don’t mind if I do.” He shrugged and continued, “Yeah, we was
in the Home Owner's District. We were there 'cause he had to meet with some old
guy." He shrugged. "That was weird. They chased him out 'cause he
wasn't someone they expected him to be."
"What's that
supposed to mean?" AzAH said.
"When we was there,
they kept calling him somebody named ‘Natan Wallach.’"
The vat mates looked to
each other, then down at the boy, stunned. DaneelAH finally managed, "Can
you take us to your preacher friend?"
He shrugged again,
“Sure. He be happy to see more of us at his roof farm.” He looked up at them,
scowling, “Why do you want to see him?” His gaze narrowed to suspicion, “You
gonna do something to him? ‘Cuz if that’s what you’re plannin’, I’ll make sure
something happens to you – now, on our way there, or after you hurt him. He’s
my…” he paused. “He’s my pastor. You mess with him and you mess with me.”
For an instant, the four
vat mates looked at each other, tempted to laugh. Then Quinn stomped on HanAH’s
instep. He drew back to strike the boy, but before DaneelAH could grab his
wrist, the boy dropped to the floor, scampered between MishAH’s legs, biting
her ankle; he swept his leg under AzAH, making his stumble and before he could
move, DaneelAH found the boy holding a shard of glass against his anterior trial
artery.
“If I push this just
hard enough,” he said without any trace of a burr or street-talk, “You’ll bleed
to death in five minutes.”
DaneelAH was careful not
to move a muscle as he said, “We have no interest in hurting your pastor nor of
exposing him. We want to find out if he knows where we can contact a man named
Paolo Marcillon, who is also a Christian…”
“You mean like my
pastor?”
DaneelAH raised an
eyebrow. “You believe that your pastor is one of those?” He lowered his voice, “That’s
illegal you know.”
The boy pricked DaneelAH’s
foot, making him yelp as AzAH said, “Quit teasing him!”
Quinn stood up and said,
“So being one of these Christian things is illegal?”
“Yes, it is,” said HanAH
gruffly. “And being a Christian inti
is more illegal, still! So don’t go getting ideas!”
MishAH smiled and said, “I
think he’s just gone way past getting ideas, brother.”
HanAH grunted as Quinn
said, “So, you guys Christians, too?”
“I’m not,” said HanAH.
MishAH and AzAH looked
at each other and said, “Undecided,” in unison.
Quinn looked up at
DaneelAH, “You ain’t sayin’ much, mister.”
“I’m not a ‘mister’, I’m
a heyou!” He twisted his mouth to one
side, sighed and said, “I suppose I may nearly be one.”
“Yeah,” said Quinn
matter-of-factly, “I’m mostly pretty close, too.”
The sisters laughed.
Quinn bristled which made them laugh harder. Finally AzAH said, “No disrespect
meant, young Quinn.”
“Disrespect taken!”
MishAH said, “It’s just
that you sound like we do when we talk about these Christians. We never meant
to attach ourselves to one – and now we find we’re entangled with two.”
“I ain’t never seen no
one named like you said, that Paul Oh. Stepan never said nothin’ about him,
neither.”
“Who’s Stepan?” HanAH
said.
“That ain’t important no
more.”
“Why?” DaneelAH said.
“‘Cause he gone be dead
if you don’t come with me.”
“What?”
“A monster in the
warehouse done eat him!” and with that blurt, Quinn broke down, weeping.
No comments:
Post a Comment