Chapter 37: Awful Authority

Six months later...

Time: August 18, 8239

Up ahead along the bend of the tunnel wall, I saw a complex shimmer through my passive-RF goggle display. I estimated my pursuers at forty meters and closing. Shaitan! They cut me off again! From their RF emissions, I estimated two full teams, a double patrol of eight hunters. How did they know?! There were other pursuit teams behind me, much too close for a backtrack attempt. Was I finally cornered? I tried to be stoic about the possibility, but my jaw still twitched at the thought of the coming pain.

I pulled up the images of the tunnel complex from my perfect memory. From the official maps, I was out of options. I went to my secondary source of information, the vast echo displays that I had tricked the Hydrocarbon Mining Guild commander into showing me.

There! Off to the side, twenty meters behind me. What was that funny squiggle on the sonic readouts? I ran back and found a small tunnel in the roof, barely wide enough for me to enter. I had no idea where it led to. I doubted it led anywhere at all, and it was less than even credits that I could push into it far and fast enough to hide my heat signature. But it was certain capture otherwise.

I paced below the hole on the rough floor. I estimated a 2.5-meter distance to the overhead entrance. Could I do this? My side was still numb from my recent encounter with a hunter. I crouched low and sprang with all my might and caught the rock lip with my fingers. Hold it Ilias! I can do this! In my mind, I kept shouting encouragements as I pulled and wedged myself into the rocks above me. Some sort of natural fissure I thought, not part of the charted mine complex. The crack was so small, it might not be logged into the hunters' computer maps. Did I still have a chance? Could I fit into this?

I crawled rapidly for a short while, grateful for the bend towards horizontal. I moved as silently as possible, and then instinct forced me to freeze. My nerves were screaming at me to go on, but the danger of an audio-seeker was just too great. My hunters were very well equipped. I shut down the infrared/RF optics on my goggles with a touch of my tongue and then began to breathe irregularly, hoping to confuse the audio processors of the seekers. If I could survive the next five minutes, I might still have a chance. I didn't want to think about the odds.

I began to Pray. Fateen had taught my class many relaxation prayers. It seemed like so long ago. The Holy! Was I still a child just five years ago?! Relax Ilias, relax... The Prayers of Suspension, my favorite...

My childhood... It seemed like another life. A part of me was still needed in the cave. I lowered my metabolism as quickly as I could, reducing my bio-signature. The other part of my mind drifted in the Prayers, back to my boyhood monastery. I returned to the memories of my martial arts training, my favorite kata when I was ten years old. It seemed so simple now, but how I worked on it in my youth, diagramming the needed body positions over and over again in my mind, until the entire dance became a single waterfall, each block and punch and kick flowing as gracefully and surely as a stream flowing down a mountainside. I was so proud. It was my very first kata I considered perfected.

That exact flowing movement had spared me from capture less than two hours ago. I was backtracking on a two-man scout team, giving them a false trail to follow, when I heard the rock ledge on a nearby trail snap. It had seemed so solid when I myself had crossed it less than twenty minutes before.

I raced to the area to investigate. One hunter had fallen to his death. The other had barely managed to slam his rock-axe into the coal, wedging it into the sheared wall. I called out my presence. The hunter's head snapped to look at me. I saw him activate his emergency beacon a second later. To activate it only to save his life would be a black-flag error, punishable by death. But reporting a sighting of me was a valid reason for breaking radio-silence.

I nodded once. He nodded back. I considered leaving. The hunter packs would rapidly be converging on the area. But the hunter's axe connection, would it hold? I boosted my optics, ignored the warning from my almost depleted batteries, and took a good look.

I wasn't happy with what I saw. The rock was soft coal, and could snap at any moment, just as the ledge had. I climbed down to the edge of the break and threw my hunter a thin lifeline.

With his free arm, he wrapped the line around his forearm and then began to climb. I was on knife-edge alert. My rescue effort would not change his prime mission. He would attack me at the first second of opportunity.

I backed up as he approached the edge of the break. He caught the lip firmly with both hands, and then a second later vaulted up and attacked me in one single motion.

The fight was brutal and fast, lasting only a few seconds. With the hunter pack converging on our position, I could not afford anything longer. For a second my hunter paused in a fighting stance before me, content to let my precious seconds disappear. So I offered him my side as a target for bait. We danced in a complex punch, kick, block combination for a second, and then he accepted the bait, striking my side with a back-knuckle blow. I absorbed the impact with a grunt and then pivoted to deliver a combination back-knuckle strike of my own, along with a simultaneous roundhouse kick. Both blows landing at the opposite sides of his helmet.

He dropped dazed to the floor, and I shuffled off as quickly as I could down one of the numerous tunnels. Shaitan! His blow had affected me more than I had anticipated. There was a great dull ache as I expected, but also a sharp pinpoint of pain. Did he crack a rib? Should I give up? Was my position hopeless? I had to admit, after the many hours of relentless pursuit, the finality of a prisoner cell had a certain seductive appeal to it. But I pressed on...

And here I am now, two hours later, trapped in what I now know is a cul-de-sac. I am deep within a vast abandoned coal mine in Antarctica. It's mid-winter in the southern hemisphere, and when I was topside seven days ago, the weather was deadly, black and 50C below with a howling katabatic wind blowing out from the pole. But all of that is a kilometer above me. Down here the temperature is a constant and comfortable +8C, though pitch dark of course without the RF boosters.

I heard the hunter teams moving back and forth in the tunnel under me. They knew they had me boxed in. They knew it! How?! Had I dropped something? In a sickening instant, I heard to spark-snap of a mobile high-voltage grenade. It was right behind me, probably less than a meter from my feet, and it had just completed its final arming sequence. I barely had time to roll my tongue back in my mouth so I wouldn't bite it off, and then the grenade activated and I went into convulsions.

Four months later...

Time: Judgment 2, 8240 12:03 AM

There was an eerie air of solemnity as the silent nod of heads progressed around the table, signifying agreement that no further changes need be made. With a deep sigh, Abdul Quddus tapped a single button on the console before him. That one small act set in motion the worldwide signaling of the end of Judgment.

Within seconds, 8,672 boys at the capital's and 120 townships' monasteries would realize in despair that they didn't make the cutoff. So close! They were all at their twenty-first year and at the very threshold of adulthood. Even as I thought of the horror, their visions would be fading into blackness. And here I am, at the center of a Supreme body that has just passed Judgment on their fate. Does that make me a mass murderer?

I worked hard to keep my facial expressions neutral and free of grimaces. There was nothing I could do to stop the culling process, not yet anyway. But someday...

"The fastest Judgment in more than a century Ilias," Jibran commented dryly on my left. "We almost finished before midnight. And we would have made it too, if it weren't for the child haggling. It seems your vision of a new society has born its first fruit."

I sighed and offered a small smile. "Not just my vision Jibran. Nine hard months for all of us. I'm just glad it's over."

CL-30 Faisal on my right looked at me in puzzlement. "Over? We are still at the dawn of the change times Ilias. The new world is yet to be."

I nodded wearily. "Oh yes, I agree. I was thinking of the framework construction, the seclusion, the insane hours." I laughed. "It was so easy to lose track of time. But no more! In four days I leave for Qataban, and I'm finding the anticipation is as enjoyable as I'm sure the trip will be."

Faisal nodded, stretching and yawning. "I admit that too. The thoughts of my cathedral at Giza pull at my heart. It will be good to be home." And then he blinked and laughed. "And now I have four homes! Imagine me the Domine of a ship operations township! This is going to take some time getting used to!"

It was true. Historic changes were about to take place throughout Royalty. Almost all of the 3,500-some Great Mufeto (CL-16 to CL-19) would be moving from Bandar Arenas right after Judgment 5, to begin their new lives as township administrators under the command of the Glorious and Grand Mufeto Domines. The 500-some Gallant Mufeto (CL-20 to CL-23) would stay at the capital, and become the core of a much leaner world administration.

And as for the Supreme Council members, we would rotate at three-month intervals, running our meetings via teleconference except for October through Judgment, when we would all be at the capital. For myself, I had decided to spend January through March at Qataban, April through June at Dalma, and July through September at Dakar. My wives would be flown to Qataban in a few days to meet me. With the strict seclusion of the government reorganization, my wives and I haven't seen each other for ten months.

I chatted informally with Abdul Quddus and the other Council members for a few minutes, and then Jibran and I headed off to our private quarters. They were small by capital Royalty standards, but very well appointed. I invited Jibran to have a drink with me before retiring, and he readily accepted.

As was normal, there were several special-weapons police guarding the entrance to the hall of our quarters. The officers snapped us very sharp salutes as we approached. Jibran ignored them. I snapped a salute back. I don't spend the hours of practice at it as they do, but I hoped my salute would have passed their professional specs. After we passed, the guards returned to scanning the approach to our private area.

Jibran smacked his lips with appreciation as he tasted the wine I poured him. "Ah, an excellent vintage!"

I nodded. "It's a first growth from 8196. That bottle is over forty years old." I took a sip of my own, savoring the flavor. "Faisal got me into this, being a connoisseur of fine wines, a very enjoyable hobby. This bottle was a present from him."

"Ah..." Jibran nodded and took another sip. He thought for a moment about the taste. "Luxor area?"

I laughed. Jibran mentioned the township at the ancient site of San Diego, California, which is near some of the largest vineyards on the planet. I shook my head no. "I've been teasing Faisal about that, saying he picked ship operations as a Domine just to be near his beloved wines. But this bottle is from much further north, the ancient state of Oregon."

Jibran blinked in surprise, almost swallowing his sip badly. "That's beyond the legal limit for agriculture."

What he said was true. An ancient limit from the first millennium had through the ages transformed into custom and then into semi-official law. The distance from Bandar Arenas to Anqara sets the maximum distance allowed for agriculture. Mining operations through Royal permits can occur anywhere, and the Conservancy and Restoration Guilds are free to operate anywhere on the planet.

I looked at my guest. "It's a special permit owned by the Botanical Conservancy Guild at Bel'darstan. Granted by Abdul Razzaq I think, Servant of the Provider, early in the fourth millennium." I took another sip of the fine wine and grinned. "There are vast wild vineyards in the ancient Oregon lands. Every twelfth year, at the start of each Holy Decade, a small portion is allowed to be harvested. Faisal will be at Luxor the same three months I'll be at Dakar. We have a plan to tour the Oregon winery then, assuming we can find the time."

Jibran grinned back and settled into his chair. "This is good! Select a few bottles for me when you're there."

I laughed. "Oh, they don't warehouse the wine there! That would be illegal! But I have several cases at Dakar. I'll send you a case from 8208. It's distinctly different than this, but just an excellent a quality."