His enemy, on the other hand, was triumphant, and John was determined to reverse that. An open attack had failed, and obviously had had no chance to begin with against the Satanic weaponry the Heaveners used-little wonder they were willing to sell machine guns when their own armament was so much more powerful! There were other methods besides open attack, though. After much careful thought and study, and some indirect questioning of the machine that called itself Cuddles, John had come to the conclusion that there were no more than five hundred of the Earth-born Heaveners on Godsworld; they controlled thousands of Godsworlders, true, but the Earthmen and Earthwomen were, relatively, only a handful. If he could bring their followers to see them in their true light, as agents of Hell come to destroy Godsworld, John was certain that he could bring even the corrupted and decadent population of the Citadel to rebel. After all, just a few years before the Citadel of Heaven had been an independent city-state; some vestige of pride and Christianity must linger.
It puzzled him that the Earthers had made so little effort to conceal their actual origins. Surely they knew that the people of Godsworld were aware of Earth's evil nature!
Against a popular uprising their weapons would not be enough; they could not bomb their own homes, after all. Even if they were able to hold out indefinitely in their fortress-their Corporate Headquarters, Cuddles had called it-they would have no further influence on Godsworld, and that would be enough to satisfy John.
All he had to do was stir up a rebellion.
He turned and entered the Righteous House inn, Miriam close behind.
The Heaveners had given him money-reparations, they called it, a word he had never heard before. He was able to book a comfortable room and order himself an ale without worrying about the cost. With the cold mug in hand-chilled by a Heavener machine called a “frizh", instead of with honest ice stored from last winter-he settled at a large table, annoyed by the softness of his chair's upholstery and the gentle feel of his own clothes.
Miriam, after buying herself wine with her own reparations money, sat down two seats to his left.
John knew exactly what he wanted to do, but he was not quite sure of how to go about it. He was not a preacher. He had had some experience in speaking, in telling his troops what he wanted and firing them up for battle, but that was not the same thing as trying to convince someone of something. The men had been a captive audience, already proud and eager, and had respected him and known him; now he would be speaking to strangers, individuals or small groups at most, most of whom would be reluctant to believe him, and all without the madness of crowds to help him.
He sipped his ale and tried to prepare himself, planning out what he would say.
Twenty minutes after he sat down, as he had known would happen as the inn filled up with the lunchtime crowds, a young man sat down on his right. “Excuse me, sir,” the fellow said, “I hope you don't mind if I sit here."
“Go right ahead,” John said. “Glad of the company. Joel Meek-Before-Christ is my name.” He put out a hand.
The other reached across to shake it. “J'sevyu, Mr. Meek,” he said. “Aaron Blessed-of-Heaven."
“Really? I knew a family by that name, back in North Dan. Kin of yours?"
“I can't say; my folks are from Naphthali, but we aren't traced. Don't know anyone in Dan, north or south, but they might be kin somehow."
“Naphthali? What brings you to the Citadel, then?"
“Oh, I'm not from Naphthali; when I was a baby my folks’ village was burned in a border war, but they slipped out and headed this way. We've got a place in the hills a few miles east of here; I'm in town for some supplies.” The man's initial formality had faded away.
“What do you think of this place?” John asked.
“The inn?"
“The whole town."
Aaron shrugged. “It's a town. It's nice enough, since the New Heaveners arrived, but too crowded for me."
“New Heaveners?"
“The tall ones who talk funny. The folks around here have always called themselves the People of Heaven, ever since I was a baby, anyway, but they were just plain folks until the new people showed up a few years back and started trading."
“Where'd these new people come from?"
Aaron shrugged again. “Couldn't say. I've heard rumors, but you can't trust those."
John looked down at his mug for a moment, then back at Aaron. “I'll tell you, Mr. Blessed, it happens I know where they're from-I was in their headquarters for something, and I found out. Wasn't any chance I misheard or misunderstood, either; they're from Earth.” He watched closely to see how Aaron took this.
“Well,” Aaron said, lifting his mug, “that's the rumor I'd heard. I don't know what they're doing here, then-what we've got here that would be worth the trip."
“I think that's plain enough, Mr. Blessed-it's us they're after. They're not Christians, you know-when our people left Earth they were the last true Christians around, though there were still some heretics claimed the name. The people of Earth all sold their souls to the Devil centuries ago, and now they've come here to collect ours, too.” John kept his voice low, but a certain intensity crept into it.
Aaron glanced at him, surprised by that intensity, then took a healthy swig of ale before answering.
“Mr. Meek, I can't say you're wrong-but does it matter? Seems to me that we've done a pretty fair job of consigning our own souls to perdition right here on Godsworld. Jesus said to love our neighbors, but I'm here now, instead of down in Naphthali, because some of those loving neighbors didn't like the way my grandpa said his prayers and burned him out. They hanged him, as a matter of fact-him and sixteen other men-and raped my grandmother and all the other women they could catch. That's not any sort of neighborly love I know. Now, these Earthers, if that's what they really are, have come here and paid us all good prices for what we could trade, sold us what we wanted at fair prices, and they haven't burned any villages or hanged or raped anybody, so far as I've heard. That's no sort of evil I ever heard of; it's more my idea of a good neighbor. If they aren't good Christians, and that's as may be, I figure that's their own concern, so long as they don't try and stop me and mine from being what we are."
“They killed six thousand men last month-fried them, out on the plain, and took over their homeland."
“The True Worders?” Aaron frowned. “I heard about that-a bad business, no doubt about that. But those men were coming here to attack us; they were offered a chance to turn back, and a lot of them took it-and those who did weren't hurt. Seems to me that when someone's attacked he has a right to defend himself. And the Heaveners didn't take away the True Worder homeland; all they did was sign a treaty to defend it against the Chosen of the Holy Ghost, or any of the other troublemakers up that way.” He paused, drank more of his ale, then looked at John. “You said North Dan,” he said. “Were some of your folks in that army? Most of North Dan's True Worder land now."
“I was in that army,” John admitted. “I was wounded."
“And they brought you here to patch you up? Now, you see what I mean? That was just plain neighborly-good Samaritans, these New Heaveners. The Samaritans hated the Jews, you know, but in the parable a Samaritan helped a Jew-you can't judge everyone just by where they come from. Did you ever think that maybe the New Heaveners were outcasts from Earth, same as our ancestors were? Maybe they came to Godsworld looking for the true path, hoping we could show it to them. Fine welcome your people gave them! I don't know if that's the truth, but it could be. I'll judge them by what they do, not by what our ancestors told us about Earth."