“It is civilized! More civilized than Earth!"
“Oh, come on, you know better than that!"
“We have the perfect way of life here, following the word of God! How can anything be more civilized than that?"
“The perfect way of life? Living on the edge of starvation, fighting petty little wars over whether to use wine or grape juice to simulate human blood?"
“That war was over centuries ago! The prohibitionist heretics were wiped out!"
“That's civilized?"
“Yes!"
“I think we may have a problem in translation here; you may have noticed that those pop up, where words have changed their meanings over time. Godsworlder English isn't exactly like the evolved Old American that the machines taught us before we came here. Just what do you mean by ‘civilized'?"
John opened his mouth, then closed it again. “I don't know,” he admitted.
“That's what I thought."
“It seems to me, though, that a guest should respect a host's customs, and we don't allow mixing men and machines here."
Kwam? shrugged. “Get used to it,” he said.
“We also try and keep our appointments; when is this strategy session going to start?"
“When Blessing gets here. That idiot minister of yours is probably arguing about some stupid detail."
“He's not my minister. And I still think picking a black and a cyborg was… inconsiderate."
“Oh, I don't know,” Blessing said from the doorway. “I think they wanted someone impressive. And you must admit, Captain, that to your little pale people here, I am impressive."
“I didn't hear you come in,” Kwam? said.
“I didn't want you to,” Blessing replied.
Impatiently, John said, “Forget that. Sit down, Mr. Blessing, and let's talk."
“Gladly.” He sank into one of the cushions; it billowed up around him, supporting his weight and pillowing him on all sides. “The robots have started digging our headquarters. I hope, Captain, that Godsworld has no taboos about building underground? There is no sacred earth here, no burial ground? Mr. Bound-for-Glory made no objection, but he might have been constrained from speaking by some custom of which I am unaware. He did not appear happy, however."
John stared at him. “You can't build underground on Godsworld; the soil's only a few feet deep. You'd need to blast out rock. We don't have any laws against it-I don't know what you mean by ‘taboo'-because we never needed any."
“Oh, we can go through rock; that's no problem. It explains our host's misgivings, though. ITD learned its trade on planets where the atmosphere was not breathable, Captain; we always build underground unless local custom forbids it. It would be a shame to disturb the fields here, wouldn't it?"
John accepted another amazing accomplishment of Earther technology without further argument. “Oh,” he said. “Well, there's no graveyard here; if there were there would be headstones."
“Ah. Good. That makes it easy.” He nodded. “Then the robots should have the basic rooms ready in a few hundred hours. Already we have arranged to purchase a few tons of this fungoid you call ‘nearwood’ from the village here, in exchange for firearms, in addition to leasing our headquarters site for a few tons of cheap styrene."
“Firearms? You mean guns?"
“Yes, guns. Your people seem very fond of them."
“These aren't my people; I'm a True Worder, not from Savior's Grace."
“All Godsworlders, Captain; I meant no offense. At any rate, they seem pleased to have us here. We should be able to make quick progress."
“Do you expect the People of Heaven to try and stop you? Are you putting your headquarters underground for defensive reasons?” John asked.
“No, no, Captain; I told you why we build underground. The People of Heaven certainly know we're here, and will undoubtedly try to prevent us from establishing ourselves on Godsworld; I expect them to cut their prices and aggressively expand their trading."
“Cut prices?” John sat stunned for a moment as vague misgivings that had been mounting since the ship landed suddenly crystallized. Blessing and Kwam? did not notice; Blessing was inquiring what Bechtel-Rand's former employee thought would be the best-selling products on Godsworld.
John was realizing clearly for the first time that ITD and Bechtel-Rand were not immediately going to start shooting at each other. America Dawes and Gamaliel Blessing were merchants, not warriors.
They would not kill each other off.
He had made a mistake, a disastrous and irreversible mistake. ITD and Bechtel-Rand were not going to drive each other off Godsworld. They would split the planet between them.
He might still be able to salvage something from the situation, he told himself. The two were competitors. If he could keep them nibbling away at each other they might yet leave the rest of Godsworld alone.
And at the very least, Godsworlders would now have the choice of two Satanic organizations to surrender to, instead of only one. Somehow, John did not find that thought comforting.
He returned his attention to the meeting, and found that one of Blessing's remote floaters was projecting an incredibly detailed topographic map of Godsworld on a nearby cream-colored bulkhead.
“We're here,” Blessing said, pointing to a spot in the northeast of Isachar. “And Bechtel-Rand's base of operations is here, in the Hills of Judah, far more centrally located. Of course, with the opening contract and development license, they were able to pick any spot on the planet. Now, where would you two suggest we send our first batch of envoys?"
Kwam? shrugged. “That's not my field,” he said.
John looked at the map carefully, trying to match it up with the distorted and crudely-drawn maps he was familiar with. “Would this be the Little New Jordan River, here?” He pointed.
“Yes,” Blessing said after an instant's hesitation, “That's what the ship's records call it."
“Then this must be the marshes; there's a village there that I don't see on here."
“Oh, we can't show every single village on that map! If you like we can have it enlarged until the village does show. Why? What did you have in mind?"
“Oh, I'm just trying to get oriented. I was thinking you might try Little St. Peter. I have three men there loyal to me who might be able to sabotage the defenses."
“Captain, we aren't trying to capture towns from Bechtel-Rand's net quite yet; first we need to establish ourselves. We'll be cutting into their markets soon enough, but for now we need to turn a profit quickly to convince the home office it's worth investing further, and to do that we want previously-untapped markets, where we can set our own prices. Once we have more funds available we can start picking at the edges of Bechtel-Rand's little empire."
“Oh.” That was just good military sense, of course; build a base first, exploit that to support your attack…
But there wouldn't be any attack. ITD was not interested in killing or converting the people of Godsworld, but only in buying and selling. Odd, John thought, how very similar the strategies might be.
“What about the other villages in these hills around us-Isachar, they're called?” Blessing asked.
“Yes, Isachar. Probably not worth bothering with, actually,” John said without thinking. “Too many of them, too small, all independent of each other. It would take years to pick them all up piecemeal. That's why nobody ever conquered them-too much time and trouble for little gain."
“Ah. Small markets, then. We'll send out a few people to see what they have to offer, but I'd prefer something larger for our major campaign. What about this city-state here-doesn't it have something of an empire of its own? And trade, as well?” He pointed to a dot that John realized must represent Spiritus Sancti.