The Wyzhnyny didn't farm the way his people had, who needed lots of woods for each farm. In the older settled districts the rule was at least one acre of woods for every three or four acres of field and pasture, depending on fertility. Enough to grow back, each year, all the wood you cut that year. Trees needed for building-logs, and for splitting out planks, roof shakes, and everything else needed. But especially for firewood, to take you through the long winters-a pile the size of the house. And logs and poles for fence rails. His dad had said about 8,000 rails for forty acres, plus replacements.
Esau didn't doubt the number. He'd sawed and chopped and split enough just in his own few years. But the Wyzhnyny had cleared away the farm woodlots. Didn't need them, apparently. Seemed they liked open ground best.
Ordinarily, Esau preferred to meet trouble at least halfway, but it was a mile or so across to the next good cover. It was hilly over there-maybe sinkhole country-not suited for farming. They'd been told it was where the Wyzhnyny would attack from. He sure as heck wouldn't want to cross a half mile of open ground with people shooting at him.
What he and his folks were waiting for was a whole new level of trouble. And a chance to learn what they were up against before they went charging into something. Even after Pastor Luneburger's World, where they'd trained and trained, supposedly doing everything they'd do here. Done it by day and by night, in heat and in cold, hungry, wet, and sleepless.
But two main things were different: on Luneburger's they hadn't killed anyone, and nobody'd tried to kill them.
Excepting Moses Wheeler, who'd murdered poor Spieler-shot him from behind-and the miserable dog turds back on Terra that'd sabotaged batches of stuff. Grenade detonators, power slugs… and parasails, particularly Isaiah Vernon's. "Sabotage." It'd been a new word to Esau. Sergeant Hawkins said it was supposed to be done with now. Things got inspected in the making, the packing, and the shipping, and the "saboteurs"-the people to blame-got caught and put in jail.
Now the getting ready was over. Somewhere off across that field was a whole army of Wyzhnyny, wanting to kill all the human beings they could. Including himself. They'd already disappeared the seventy percent of the human beings that chose to stay. They'd included just about all the older folks, and most of the younger with families of children.
And not satisfied with killing everyone, they'd knocked down and burnt every building, their foundation stones cracked and scattered. Or so the army said.
When he'd been a child, Speaker Motley had taught them the Testaments. And one thing he'd stressed was that the Lord God claimed all vengeance for himself alone. Which doesn't leave much for us, Esau told himself. But it seemed to him the Lord wouldn't hold it against him for feeling satisfaction whenever his blaster cut down a Wyzhnyny. And he intended to cut down a lot of them.
Standing beside her husband, Jael Wesley thought not of killing but of dying. Not morbidly or fearfully though. In his Contemplations on the Testaments, Elder Hofer had described Heaven as a place of perfect justice and grace and love. In the lowest realm of Heaven-what some called Purgatory-angels helped the newly dead confront the wrongs they'd done, and those done to them. Helped them learn to truly forgive, themselves as well as others, with complete responsibility and love, till they became angels themselves. Then they moved higher, learning from more experienced angels of the splendors of Heaven's higher realms, growing in godliness, readying themselves to join the archangels.
She'd never been able to envision what it would be like, but it seemed fitting, and she had no doubt it was true. Some did doubt. She'd had it in strictest confidence from a girlhood friend who'd doubted. Miriam had stayed behind during the evacuation, and was almost surely long-since murdered. Doubt had been a burden to Miriam, but Jael was sure her friend was in Heaven. Knew it without question. Miriam had always treated people with love, except sometimes her wretched brother, who bedemoned her whenever the notion took him. He'd be dead now too, unless he left in one of the evacuation ships.
It'll be interesting to die, Jael thought. But she was in no hurry. A person was born to live their life as best they could. Live it through, and die when it came time. She smiled. Her time was not yet. She and Esau were supposed to have children, bring them up in love, send them on their way with joy, and see her grandchildren through their childhood. Being a man, Esau had the advantage there. On New Jerusalem, pregnancy and childbirth taxed a woman sorely, and not many lived to see their grandchildren grow up. She would though; loving and spoiling them. She felt sure of it.
Isaiah Vernon waited in the forest shade. The day was warm, and the breeze that rustled the leaves overhead didn't visit down among the trunks. Sitting in the shade meant his cooling system didn't have to work hard.
They'd arrived near the end of the season known as "greening," when the new growth was burgeoning, and thunder showers were most frequent. We're lucky the weather was good when the marine squadrons were doing their work, he told himself. The rumor was, today would be the day the Wyzhnyny would attack. Then he'd learn what war was really like, and whether they-organics, bots, the army-were as good as they needed to be.
Probably more than anyone in the division, it seemed to him, he had a perspective on being killed. Been tested, proved, and come through cleanly, to be reprieved almost after the fact.
He looked back to their first months in training. The prospect of killing had begun troubling him sorely. He'd known the stories of Joshua, David, Judas Maccabaeus and others who'd won victories for the Lord. Fighting, killing, being killed. Without them, the worship of Jehovah probably would have died out, and the Hebrews as a people might easily have disappeared, ceased to exist. Then there'd have been no Jesus. But at least some of those Hebrew heroes had been harsh ruthless men, lacking the love that Jesus came to teach. Strange men to serve the Lord. And what of the sixth commandment? "Thou shalt not kill!"
Some said that didn't apply to the Wyzhnyny; that they had no souls. Isaiah didn't believe that for a minute. Except for the number of limbs, they were too much like human beings. Like the Assyrians and Romans-human beings who didn't know Jesus.
He could have asked his questions of Speaker Spieler, but it had seemed to him the speaker would only tell him what he already knew, resolving nothing.
One hazy autumn evening at Camp Stenders, he'd taken his misgivings to Sergeant Hawkins, who'd told them to let him know if they had problems. The Sikh would have a non-Christian perspective, but Isaiah couldn't doubt his Christian compassion. And it seemed to him that what Hawkins had to say might fit with the teaching of the Lamb of God.
He could remember that evening clearly and in detail. It wasn't so far back, if you didn't count the time in stasis on the way to New Jerusalem, but it seemed longer than it was. That was before his body'd been killed-before he'd wakened in a bot body. There'd been a knee-high railing protecting the little patch of lawn in front of the orderly room. He and Sergeant Hawkins had sat down on it in the thickening dusk, and he'd described his problem.
After he'd finished, he'd waited. Sergeant Hawkins had sat gazing northwestward, where the dark gray sky was smudged with the last dusky red of sunset. Had sat there for perhaps a minute without talking. When finally he spoke, it was quietly. "Yeah, I can see how that might trouble you. Try this out for fit. The human species has all kinds of people, right?"
"Yessir."
"Some of them are pretty good people, but don't have much tolerance for those who openly disagree with them. They might be good friends-even fiercely loyal friends-but they're intolerant. Do you know people like that?"