Chapter Five

Some fool had torched Gannitown and thick plumes of black smoke rose to mar the lavender clarity of the morning sky. Watching them Brak scowled; the town had no real value and its inhabitants little more, but without the ganni the irrigation canals would choke, the crops fall, dirt mount in the streets of the city. The old problems of labor-shortage now aggravated by some hothead out on a spree.

"Mel Jumay," said a voice behind him. "Yesterday he reached his majority and decided to celebrate."

Nadine who seemed at times to have the ability to read minds, but Brak knew there was nothing mysterious about her comment. Only a fool would have failed to recognize his irritation and the Jumays were notorious for undisciplined behavior.

"Three sections destroyed," she continued. "A dozen ganni burned and twice as many with superficial injuries. Cuts," she explained. "Singes. Most were asleep when it happened. The cost -"

"Will be met."

"By Mel Jumay?"

A boy, barely a man, with nothing behind him but his family's reputation. Brak smarted at the cynicism in her voice, the tone which hinted at his own weakness. One he rejected with brusque anger.

"The damage will be repaired and the expense borne by the boy and his family. Have no doubt as to that."

She made no comment and he was grateful. If nothing else the girl had a sharp wit and an acid tongue. Turning he looked at her, seeing the ghost which rested beneath the contours of her face. A harder, older visage, but one with the same dark enigma of the eyes, the generous curve of the lips, the strong jaw. The ebon mane of her hair was longer, the skin paler, but never could there be any doubt that she was his brother's child.

"Uncle?"

"Nothing." He turned from her stare, the question in her eyes. The memories were too strong and he brushed them aside as he limped to the far edge of the tower. "Why don't you go down?"

"Later."

He could have insisted and she would have obeyed, but what would have been gained by the exercise of his authority? Instead he leaned against the parapet, looking over the city, seeing other towers, the buildings which set them apart, the narrow streets which wound like serpents between high and featureless walls.

A complex of defensive structures enclosing stores, bunkers, arsenals buried deep. In the center lay the great square ringed with shops and sheds. Warehouse sprawled to the north now mostly empty. To the south lay the factories, too small and too idle. Instead of the flood of raw materials to be processed there was only a trickle of scrap, broken and obsolete parts, discarded rubbish. It had been too easy to acquire the new to replace the old. Too simple to take instead of making. Now the artisans capable of operating the machines were too few and far too expensive.

"A mistake," said Nadine. "One of timing."

Reading his mind again but his stance if not his face must have mirrored his thoughts. The factories had been established before she had been born. Greg had insisted on funds being set aside for the project. Strong in the Council his words carried weight, but interest had waned when he died.

Died. Greg dead. Why hadn't it been him?

A question asked countless times and still he had to find the answer. Instead he had only the scene repeated over and over in his mind as if it were a loop of film. The raid, the fires and smoke and stench of burning. The shouts and blasts of guns and the adrenalin running high. A neat, well-planned raid designed to achieve the maximum of loot and the minimum of damage.

It happened when the raid was over and the recall had sounded. A man, gun in hand, rising from a mound of rubble. Opening fire without hesitation. Bullets holding explosives in shaped charges which tore through amour as if it had been paper. The first had slammed into his hip. Greg had taken the rest, flinging himself as a barrier before him. A time of noise and confusion, the gun jerking in his hand, the stranger falling back a bloody pulp above his shoulders, then pain as he fought the crippling effect of his wound. Anger as his body refused to lift the deadweight of his brother. Near-dementia as others had torn him from the body and carried him into the waiting ship.

He had lived – that had been the hard part. Medical science had replaced his hip and healed his flesh but it could do nothing to assuage his grief. Nothing for the wife of his brother who had bequeathed him her daughter before following her husband into death. An act of bravery, but those of Kaldar had never wanted for courage. Yet had she guessed her ghost would haunt him each time he looked into the girl's face?

He doubted it; Marta had never been intentionally unkind. Not even when rejecting his love when, too late, he had begged her to become his wife. Greg had won her heart. Why had the wrong man died?

"Uncle, there are things to be done." Nadine appeared at his side. If she knew of the agony which tore at his heart it remained her secret. "Shall we go down?"

Below waited tedium. A host of tiresome details, decisions, judgments, unpleasant facts. Here, on the summit of the tower, he was free to dream and remember and, if some of the memories gave rise to pain, yet they still held the life he had once known.

"I won't go down without you."

He flared with sudden anger. "You talk as if I was stupid! Senile! A dotard! If I want to stay up here I will!"

"Of course."

"It gives me time to think. To plan." He saw her face, the set of her mouth, her chin. Hardness which matched and eliminated the thirty-year old ghost. She was reading him again and his anger vanished as quickly as it had come. What use to deny the truth? "Child, you should be roving or wed."

"Have I no choice?" Amusement lightened her features. "Does your assistant have no standing?"

Too much and they both knew it. As the Council knew it and others who fretted at her summations and proposals. Married she would have the protection of a husband and his family. Now she had only herself and the fading glory of his name.

"Don't worry about it," she said. "Things will work out." Pausing, she added, "Mel Jumay was more than careless during his celebration. He fired the church."

When an adolescent Brother Weyer had seen a man flogged almost to death for having stolen food. A common crime and a common punishment on Delt where starvation was a constant threat. The monk who had gone to his aid had been old, stooped, gaunt with privation. Unable to lift the moaning wretch he had appealed for help. Shamed, Weyer had supplied it, carrying the torn body to the flimsy shelter of the church.

Fifty years ago now and each had been spent following the path he had chosen to take. First at the great seminary on Hope where he had been taught, trained and tested. Then to be one of the great band of monks carrying help and hope to all who were in need. To teach the basic creed of the Church to all so that even the strong, the rich and powerful, when looked at those less fortunate than themselves would say, 'There, but for the grace of God, go I'

When all lived by that creed the millennium would have arrived.

"Brother!" Nealon came towards him, his face hard against the thrown-back cowl. Ash coated his robe and his feet, naked in their sandals, were thick with grime. "Two more ganni have just died. That makes five to date. Nothing seems to help. If only the city would send us doctors-"

"They would be just as helpless." Nealon had much to learn. "They are dying because they have lost the will to live. I have seen it often before. You are wrong to blame yourself."

"Who else?"

"Did you cause the fire? Spread it? Burn the victims?" Weyer masked his impatience. "You are not a judge to determine guilt or to apportion blame. You are a monk of the Church of Universal Brotherhood. Your task is to care for the afflicted. We can best do that in the infirmary."