“Where is this captain? I’d like to talk to him.”
The man gave an uncomfortable shrug, seemingly unaware that he was lying strapped down on a medical table connected to all sorts of tubes. “Somewhere down below. We don’t see him much, y’know? Like most cap’ns. They just pass down the orders. Ours not to reason why…”
“Stow the ancient quotes. Where did they take my children?”
Another shrug. “All over. Dunno. Lotsa places. Booby trapped places, see.”
“What if we took hostages?”
“Wouldn’t matter. ’Less, o’course, you can find the ossifers. Rest of us, all expensable.”
“You mean expendable?’
“Yeah, that’s it. Exprendable.”
“The villagers—are they crew, too?”
“Not most of ’em, no. They was already here. Stuck here long, long ago. Got conned, y’see. Old con. Used t’do it myself in the old days. Take their stuff, drop ’em nowhere while you fake a fight, lose the fight, then they’re stuck. You spend their money, nobody remembers they was born.”
Woodward looked over at Cromwell. “Pirates all right. It’s amazing that we can learn the basics of subatomic physics, the magic of faster-than-light travel, and still the human soul stays right where it’s always been.”
Cromwell nodded. “Amen to that.”
Woodward turned back to the captive. “Were you ordered to attack my children out there just now? You and the woman?”
“No, not like that,” the man managed. “See, we was just—just—we was kinda rear guards, see? Slow down anybody chasin’ till they can split up the hostages and get ’em set up.”
“You figure you did your job?”
“Oh, sure. I mean, I guess so.”
Woodward sighed and stepped back. “Keep working on him. I want every detail his rather empty head contains, no matter how small. What about the woman?”
“His partner, more or less,” Cromwell told him. They were having an expert female security interrogator work with her in another room using pretty much the same techniques. “More vicious because, we think, she’s of the first group. She managed to snare one of them and dominate him and get entry into their better society, but she’s done it by being meaner than they are. I have a feeling that taking her out of circulation might gain us some local friends.”
“Well, we’ve tried finding local friends,” the Doctor noted, “and it’s gotten us nowhere. No, I don’t think this is a time for being diplomatic. Those stranded pirates were helped by many of the local villagers. You can see it on the recordings. No, I think it’s time we fought the devil on some of his own ground. Tomorrow morning I want every single child in the closest and surrounding villages picked up. Babies to maybe ten or eleven. All of them. Bring down some of our child-care people to help out with them. Treat them fine, but keep them inside here, out of sight. Don’t bring any of their babysitters. If there’s any resistance, knock ’em cold and leave ’em where they fall.”
“You really think that’s going to do anything to help our people?”
“Tom, I have no idea. What I do know is that nothing in your ferret operation here or the other one to the north showed any children underground. Men, women, yes, but no kids. And the kids up here are all getting educated, whether they’re pirate or villager. Let’s see if we can at least get our pirates to talk on a timetable of our choosing, huh? I also want this village locked down. They can stay inside the village, but nobody leaves. Nobody goes anywhere outside. If they want to leave they’re going to have to do it underground and probably with us watching. Let’s see what they think when they see their kids taken away.”
“But surely we’re not going to do anything to the children!”
“Of course not! You know that, and I know that. But do they know that? If we can’t pressure those bastards underground one way, let the villagers do it. Sometimes you can fake even the devil out.”
He paused a moment, then added, “I’d like you and all the Elders to meet me in the Meditation Room in one hour. I believe that, before we act, we must consult a higher power. Only with His will and strength behind us will we have a good ending here tomorrow.”
VII: MOUNTAIN MOVES FAITHS
The question really was, when was faith truly faith and when was it a synonym for doing something stupid? How many cult types in human history had jumped off cliffs or taken poison because they were convinced it was the act of faith God wanted?
It was so easy to go through these problems in classes, to imagine yourself in this or that position, but it was like contemplating death: you knew it was possible, but there was always the chance that an exception might be made.
The one problem with martyrs was that they were all dead.
Not that she didn’t believe in God with all her heart, but her group taught that it wasn’t as simple as that. Believing wasn’t enough; you had to act on that belief, and you had to do it without God’s instructions from the omnipresent parallel dimensions called Heaven. Get it wrong, and you wind up with all the cultists of history in that other set of extra-dimensional ether some called Hell.
If she spit food back in the faces of her captors next feeding, would it mean martyrdom or degradation?
The pirate leader seemed almost disappointed by the lack of real resistance. Captain Morgudan Sapenza had actually attended all but the last of the Doctor’s lectures, and he’d been quite impressed with the old patriarch. Sapenza hadn’t been raised Christian, but there was a lot to like in the old man’s tough and gritty brand of it, and some good common sense as well. His mother had believed in seven Heavens and nine Hells; his father allowed as how there might be something else to life but that it wasn’t worth looking at because all it did was cramp your style. He was his father’s child, and always had been.
He finished off a beer and lit a cigar. He knew the damned things were bad for people but he’d gotten this far and that was pretty far indeed, at least until he’d wound up against this damned dirt ball of a wall.
There was suddenly an awful commotion down one tunnel and everybody’s hands went to their sidearms, but it was soon clear that it was just a woman with a really big mouth almost hysterical about something.
“What is it?” he shouted to the woman as she tried to shake off restraining hands and run right to him. “Let her go!”
She ran up to him. “The children, sir! The children from Village Nine!”
“What about them?”
“They came this morning and they took them! Took them all away to their big ship! Troopers with guns, not holy folks in robes!”
He sat up. “Just calm down. Sit, get a drink. We’ll take care of this!”
Now she allowed herself to be taken away, and he started to think hard. He hadn’t expected this. These people were after his own heart. They thought ugly.
He had only pragmatic regard for the kids; he had none himself that he knew of, but some of his people had them and they wouldn’t be easy to control if their kids were suddenly taken up to a Holy Joe education never to be seen again. It was time to start playing the hand he’d dealt. “Megak! Tollya! Front and center!” he called in an authoritative tone.
Two ragged-looking members of the band, one male, one female, came over to him and waited expectantly.
“We haven’t gotten any would-be martyrs or principled sacrificial lambs, it seems,” he said, “so we’re just gonna have to use what we got and pick a couple at random. Tollya, go to the nearest holding pen and pick some woman at random. Meg, you do the same with one of the men. Keep ’em sedated, treat them like your worst enemies, because from what I saw they’re probably very well trained and could break your necks if given half a chance.”