"Reprisals.' The single word came out with glacial coldness.
"Yes, sir. Counter-reprisals, really." Lantu crooked his fingers, inviting the colonel to continue. "The guerrillas make a point of hitting installations near the camps with the highest execution totals. They. don't leave much behind when they do. So Warden Colonel Huark and Father Shamar organized the extermination squads. Whenever we get hit, they pick out hostages or a village that hasn't been brought in for re-education yet and they, well, they exterminate them, sir."
Lantu closed his eyes, and his own words about supporting the Church were bitter on his tongue. How could something like that serve Holy Terra? He sat very still for a moment before he opened his eyes. "Well, Colonel Fraymak, you're under my orders, not Colonel Huark's, and we'll do this my way. Adjust your deployment to cover dependent and civilian housing, but the extermination squads are just going to nave to look after themselves."
"Yes, sir." The colonel's gaze met his with grim satisfaction before he executed a snappy salute and withdrew.
Lantu watched the door close and shook his head. Extermination squads. Sweet Terra, no wonder this planet was a shambles!
Not until much later did he realize Fraymak hadn't used the word "infidel" once.
"First Admiral?"
Lantu looked up at his secretary's soft, sweet voice and smiled. Hanat was tall for a Theban woman, her head reaching almost chest-high on him, and he'd instantly recognized who really kept things moving around here. She was a curious blend of the efficient and the traditional, managing somehow to handle everything that crossed her desk without ever overstepping the bounds which would set an old-fashioned male's teeth on edge.
"Yes, Hanat?"
"You were due in the fleet chaplain's office ten minutes ago."
"What?" Lantu looked at his chronometer and grimaced. "Damn. Excuse me," he apologized automatically, and she laughed softly. "Fortunately, I've known him a long time - I doubt he'll have me shot just yet." He stood and took down his pistol belt, buckling it distastefully. He shouldn't have to walk around armed inside the HQ compound.
"Don't forget your meeting with Colonel Huark at fourteen-thirty, either," Hanat admonished.
"As if I could." Lantu didn't bother to conceal his opinion of the Warden. "Did you get those figures to the fleet chaplain?"
"Yes, sir," she said with revulsion. That was why he didn't hide his contempt for Huark from her. "You were right. They're twelve percent over Archbishop Tanuk's execution ceiling."
"Terra!" Lantu muttered. "Well, I'll read them when I get back. Copy the data to my computer while I'm out."
"Of course." She reached out to adjust his pistol belt's buckle. "There. Can't have my boss looking sloppy."
Lantu grinned at her and walked out of the office, humming.
"Sit down," Manak invited, and the admiral dropped into a chair. His pistol caught on its arm, and he muttered a curse as he wrestled with it.
"Language, my son. Language!" Manak's gentle mockery made Lantu feel better. The old chaplain had been monosyllabic and despondent for days after their conviction by the Synod. Even now there was little of the old sparkle in his eyes, and Lantu sometimes thought he sensed a disquieting brittleness about his inner strength. Lantu had been a baby when his parents died, and the fleet chaplain had raised him as his own son. Seeing him so cavalierly reduced was one more coal in the admiral's smoldering resentment.
"Sorry," he said, then sighed in relief as the pistol came unsnagged. "Holy Terra, I hate having to wear this thing."
"As do I." Manak frowned and looked around what had been Archbishop Tanuk's office. Its splendid luxury had yielded to the fleet chaplain's spartan hand, and Lantu found its present austerity far more comfortable.
"I've received word from the Synod," Manak continued. "They've decided - for the present, at least - to confirm me as acting archbishop." He snorted. "I imagine none of the regular bishops wanted the job."
"Wise of them." Lantu was careful to limit the bite in his tone.
"Unhappily true. But that means 7 set policy now, and that's what I wanted to see you about. Colonel Huark and Father Shamar have both protested your new deployment orders."
`I'm not surprised, Holiness, but if they want to stop these attacks instead of just responding to them, then - "
"Peace, my son. I know you too well to question your judgment. unlike some others." The fleet chaplain's face was momentarily bitter, but he shook the expression aside. "I've told them you have my full support. In return, I'm going to need yours, I think."
"Oh? In what way, Holiness?"
"I've read the report your charming secretary put together." Manak smiled slyly, and Lantu grinned - Manak had badgered him for years about his duty to take a wife as Holy Terra expected - but the churchman sobered quickly.
"You're right. The execution totals are far too high, even excluding reprisals. If your figures are as accurate as I expect, we've killed almost thirteen percent of the population. That is not the way to win converts."
Lantu nodded feelingly.
"What you may not realize," Manak went on, "is that our conversion rate - our claimed conversion rate, I should say - is under five percent. I find that truly appalling. Surely infidels should be willing to at least pretend conversion to escape death."
"They're stubborn people, Holiness," Lantu said mildly.
"Indeed they are, but this is still highly disturbing."
"I suspect, Holiness," Lantu said cautiously, "that the Inquisition has been. over zealous, let us say, in its use of punishment."
"Torture, you mean," Manak corrected bitterly, and Lantu relaxed. That sounded like the Manak he knew and respected. "One shouldn't speak ill of the dead, perhaps, especially not of martyrs in the cause of Holy Terra, but Tanuk never could tefl right from left without an instruction book."
"I never knew the archbishop - "
"You missed very little, my son. His faith was strong, but he was ever intolerant. It's one thing to carry the jihad home against the infidels; it's quite another to slaughter them out of frustration, and that's precisely what the Inquisition is doing. If they prove impossible to reclaim, then we may have no option, but the Inquisition will win more converts with love than with hate. And whatever they may have become, they are still of the race of the Messenger. If only for the love we bear him, we must make a true effort to restore them to their Faith."
"I agree, Holiness. But I think our problem may be more difficult than simply restoring their Faith."
"Oh?"
"Holiness," Lantu considered his next words carefully, "I've been studying the planetary data base ever since we got here. There are many references to Holy Terra, but only as another world - the mother world, to be sure, but with no awareness of Her divinity. Could the infidels be telling the truth when they say they never heard of the Faith, much less rejected it?"
"Of course they are.' Manak sounded a bit surprised. "I thought you understood that, my son. The Satan-Khan's influence is pervasive. All references to the Faith have been suppressed."
"But, Holiness," Lantu said cautiously, "I see no gaps, no evasions. Could something so profound be suppressed so tracelessly?"
"Lantu, this planet was settled nine years after their apostate Treaty of Tycho. Believe me, it wouldn't be difficult to delete all reference to the Faith from a colonial data base and keep it deleted. When we liberate Holy Terra, we'll find the evidence."
He sounded so positive Lantu merely nodded, but the admiral found his very assurance disturbing. The Church had always been zealous to protect its children from spiritual contamination, which was why access to the original Holy Writ in Starwalker's computers was so restricted. But Manak's confidence suggested something else. Was it possible he knew how simple it would be to suppress data because it had already -?
He chopped off that dangerous thought in a hurry.
"Getting back to my original point, though," Manak continued, "I'm going to disband the extermination squads - which Huark will hate - and I'm going to cut Archbishop Tanuk's camp execution levels in half. Sha-mar will hate that, and he'll hate it even more when I send in chaplain inspectors to limit his use of torture and make sure ne abides by my quotas. They've both got powerful sponsors in the Synod, too; thats why I need your support."
"You have it, of course. What do you need me to do?"
"Just stand around and look efficient," Manak said dryly. "I'm basing my case on military expediency by arguing that a reduction in `punishment' and the death totals will undermine popular pressure to support the terrorists."