"Thou dost not cozen me. I know thy tricks, adding that which I should not eat to my food. I've caught thee in that trick before, Tallah."
"Well, you just die, then!" said Tallah. She was, Hal saw, very angry indeed. "Go ahead and die!"
"Hush," said Rukh to her.
"Why don't you order him to eat?" Tallah turned on her. "He'd eat some decent food if you ordered him."
"Would you, James?" Rukh asked the older man.
"I would not," said Child-of-God.
"He would if you really ordered him."
"Hush, I said," said Rukh. "If it becomes really necessary, James, I may have to order you to eat foods you consider sinful. But for now, at least, you can eat a decent amount of what you will eat. If I refill your tray will you trust me not to put anything in it you Wouldn't take yourself?"
"I trust thee, of course," said Child-of-God, harshly. "How could it be otherwise?"
"Good," said Rukh.
She stood up, took the tray from his hand and was halfway to the serving line before he started to his feet and went after her.
"But I need no waiting on - " he called after her. He caught up; and they went to the food container holding his vegetable stew together.
"These old Prophets!" said Tallah, furiously, turning to Hal. She glared at him for a moment, then broke suddenly into a grin. "You don't understand?"
"I ought to," Hal said. "I have the feeling I ought to know what this is all about, but I don't."
"There aren't many like him left, that's why," said Tallan. "Where did you grow up?"
"Not on Harmony," said Hal.
"That explains it. Association's hardly a comparable world of the Lord. James - now don't you go calling him James to his face!"
"I shouldn't?"
"None of us, except Rukh, call him James to his face. Anyway, he's one of those who still hang on to the old dietary rules most of the sects had when we were so poor everyone ate grass and weeds to stay alive - and when anything not optimum for survival was supposed to be flying directly in the face of the Lord's will. There's no human reason now for him to try to live on that antique diet - as if God wouldn't forgive him one step out of the way, after the way he's fought for the faith all his life, let alone he calls himself one of the Elect."
Hal remembered that the self-designated Elect in any of the sects on Harmony or Association were supposed to be certain of Heaven no matter what they did, simply because they had been specially chosen by God.
" - And we can't, we just can't, get the vegetables he'll eat all the time, on the move as we are. There's no way to give him a full and balanced diet from what we have. Rukh'll just have to end by ordering him to eat."
"Why hasn't she done it before?" Hal tasted his own portion of the vegetable stew that had been the only thing on Child-of-God's tray. It was strange, peppery and odd-flavored, not hard to eat but hardly satisfying.
"Because he'd still blame himself for breaking his dietary laws even if it wasn't his fault he broke them - here they come, and at least she got his tray decently filled."
Tallah went off. Rukh and Child-of-God came and sat down again.
"We've got two tasks," Rukh said to Hal. "In the coming months we'll be trying to do them while dodging the Militia and covering a couple of thousand kilometers of territory. If we get caught by the Militia, I'll expect you to fight; and if we don't, I'll expect you to work like everyone else in the Command; which means as hard as you can from the time you get up in the morning until you fall into your bedsack at night. In return for this, we'll try to feed you and keep you alive and free. This Command, like all those hunted by the slaves of the Others, doesn't have any holidays, or any time off. It spends all its time trying to survive. Do you understand what you're getting into?"
"I think so," said Hal. "In any case, if I was trying to survive out here by myself, it'd be a lot worse for me than what you describe."
"That's true enough." Rukh nodded. "Then, there's two things more. One is, I'll expect you to give instant and unquestioning obedience to any command I give you, or James gives you. Are you capable of that, and agreeable to it?"
"That was one of the first things I learned, growing up," Hal said. "How to obey when necessary."
"All right. One more point. Jason's been with a Command before, and he's also of the faith. You'll notice in the next few weeks that he'll be fitted right in with the rest of us, according to his capacities. You, on the other hand, are a stranger. You don't know our ways. Because of that, you'll find that everyone else in camp outranks you; and one result of that is going to be that almost everyone is going to end up giving you orders at one time or another. Do you think you can obey those orders as quickly and willingly as you can the ones from James and myself?"
"Yes," said Hal.
"You're going to have to, if you plan to stay with us," Rukh said, "and you may find it's not as easy as you think. There'll be times when something like your training with weapons is concerned, when you may be positive you know a good deal more than the person who's telling you what to do. In spite of how you feel then, you're still going to have to obey - or leave. Because without that kind of obedience our Command can't survive."
"I can do that," said Hal.
"Good. I promise you, in the long run you'll get credit for every real ability you can show us. But we can't take the time or the risk of accepting you as anything but the last in line, and keeping you that way, until we know better."
Rukh went back to her eating.
"Is that all?" asked Hal. His own tray was empty and he had visions of not being able to get back to the serving line in time to refill it.
"That's all," said Rukh. "After you've finished eating, help the cook people to clean up, then look up Jason. He'll have found a tent and equipment for the two of you. Once you're set up in that respect, if it's already dark, you'd probably better turn in, although you're welcome to join whoever's around the campfire. Think before you stay up too late, though. You've got a long day tomorrow, and every day."
"Right. Thanks," said Hal.
He scrambled to his feet and went back to the serving line. There he filled and emptied another trayful of food, then hesitated over taking a third until Tallan saw his uncertainty and told him it was all right to eat as much as he wanted.
"… For now, anyway," she said. "When the Command's short on rations, you'll know it, everyone'll know it. Right now we're fine. We're in rich country and it's good to see people eat."
"Rich country?" Hal asked.
She laughed.
"This is a district where there're plenty of the faithful, and they've got food and other things they can afford to share with us."
"I see."
"And when you're done, you'd better get busy with these serving cans. Take them down to the stream and wash them. Then you can go."
Hal ate, cleaned the cans and went. It was unmistakably twilight now. He cast about under the trees for Jason, hoping to find him without having to ask. Finally, he was reduced to querying a nearly-bald, but still young-looking, man, who was seated cross-legged in front of one of the tents, putting new cleats on the bottoms of a pair of boots.
The man spat staples out of his mouth, caught them in the palm of his left hand, shifted his hammer to join them, and reached up with his right hand to clasp Hal's.
"Joralmon Troy," he said. "You're Howard Immanuelson?"
"Yes," said Hal, shaking hands.
"Jason Rowe's set a tent up for the two of you back by the beasts. He's either there now, or still feeding and caring for them. You're not of the faith?"
"I'm afraid not," said Hal.
"But you're not a scorner of God?"
"From as far back as I can remember I was taught never to scorn anything."