“Who could outrun those who turn tail so quickly?”
“We took large losses. Eight—”
“All Families sustained such casualties,” His Supremacy said. Then he repeated it loudly, tolling out each word. People heard and came running.
Killeen watched as the Bishops were engulfed by the Tribe’s greater numbers. There was going to be a show.
“That is the way… we must follow… if we are to defeat these monsters.” His Supremacy boomed out the long sentence with relish, a clarion call. An exalted expression transfixed his face with passion as he turned to Killeen. “Other Families have not bellyached about their dead. They simply bury their heroes and carry on, obeying.”
“We buried no one,” Killeen said cautiously. “They were left on the field.”
“Ha! The Niners brought out over a dozen dead.”
“How many’d they lose doing it?”
A rustle from the gathering crowd. His Supremacy scowled.
“We do not count those losses as different. All fell in the noble cause.”
“I’d rather get hit on the attack, not haulin’ bodies around.”
“So I’m sure you would, Cap’n. I have noticed that you have little respect for our time-honored methods. Nor do you have any sense of your transgressions.”
Killeen started to reply and held back. This was to be a public humiliation. Or worse. He tried to see a way to mollify the short man whose face had a transfixed, glassy quality.
“Further, I have noticed that you have verged on disrespect toward My Holiness. I have until this moment been kind enough to ascribe this lapse to your origins around a foreign star.”
Killeen could not resist agreeing. “Yeasay, that might be it.”
His Supremacy’s eyes lost their odd blankness. A dark look narrowed them to menacing slits. “Perhaps you think that God’s rules do not apply to foreign Families?”
Killeen’s effort to catch his tart reply made his jaw go tense. Then he said slowly, “Of course not. Your tongue is different from ours. I have trouble speaking in it, maybe my meaning gets garbled. We humans been separated a long time, ’member. How…” He clenched his jaw again, then went on. “How could anybody possibly imagine that I lack respect for His Supremacy? For the greatest mind in the history of our race?”
The short, swarthy man nodded as though this last lavish compliment were simple fact. Killeen was relieved to see that flatout flattery did not bring forth the slightest suspicion. Such talk was probably a steady daily diet for this man who thought he was God Himself.
“You have a strange manner of showing your reverence, Cap’n. The battle was going well.”
“They swatted us like flies.”
“Every battle costs us—that is the glory of it! Only by great sacrifice can we win great victories. That is the point which eluded the shortsighted Elders and Cap’ns before me, and which only Divine intervention, in the form of myself, has countered.”
“I see, Your Supremacy.”
“It is our fierceness, our sacred rage, our Divine fearlessness of mortal wounds and even of death, that places us above the monsters and demons which curse our mother-world!
This brought a shout of agreement from the Tribe. Hoteyed, grinning, the mob was mesmerized. Their nostrils flared with anticipation. Killeen joined in their cheering tardily and so did his lieutenants. But His Supremacy noticed this and abruptly held his hands up, silencing the crowd.
“I see a slowness in you, Cap’n. A reluctance to follow the commandments of My Holy Self.”
“Naysay, I—”
His Supremacy’s eyes flashed. “Naysay?”
“Well, I—”
“The God of Sacred Rage does not like this word naysay. Especially from a Cap’n who runs. I think you speak it far too much. Knees!”
Officers instantly and expertly struck the back of Killeen’s knees so that he dropped forward to the ground. Someone pinned his hands behind his back, lifting them so that he bowed involuntarily. He looked up at the pendants that swayed from His Supremacy’s broad, scarlet belt. One was a tiny carved human head, grinning. Another seemed to be a fragment of a mech carapace fashioned to resemble a long stalk from which a large seed sprouted.
“You realize that bodies left on the field are used by Cybers?”
“Yeasay.” Killeen could not trust himself to say more; sarcasm crept in too easily.
“They infest our heroic dead with eggs. Demon eggs!”
“Yeasay.”
“Yet, knowing this foul fact, you chose to disobey.”
“Ah, I thought only ’bout my Family’s safety.”
“And how will you feel when you see demons crawling the hills, demons born of your abandoned dead?”
Killeen could think of nothing to say to this, so he simply bowed his head.
“A portion of my godliness urges that you be erased from our cause. I could order you to the spit, to abide there until corrupt fluids have drained from you.”
The crowd murmured with animal anticipation. Killeen saw Toby begin to edge a hand closer to his rifle. Killeen shook his head slightly. His son reluctantly let his hand drop. Killeen caught Shibo’s eye and saw there something he could not deflect. She stood still and compressed in a way he knew well.
