Jocelyn said, “They suck the core dry, take all its metal, we’ll have nothin’ but scrap left. That’ll kill all the plants, and prob’ly us, too.”

Killeen listened to Arthur a quick moment and said, “My Aspects say there won’t be any big change in temperature for a while. Quakes are the big problem.”

“His Supremacy says—”

“Look, a man who thinks he’s God can’t be trusted much.”

“I think we should believe in him.”

“Believe him, or in him?”

Jocelyn said warily, “I’ve watched him several more days than you have. He was most gracious. After all, we were people who suddenly dropped from the sky and placed demands on his Families—food, shelter. He helped us get away from the shuttles, before the Cybers tracked them. He is a natural commander!”

“Look, ’member how Fanny was? That’s leadership. This guy—”

“He is using new methods,” Jocelyn said adamantly. “These are terrible times, the old ways don’t work.”

“They’re all we’ve got.”

“Well then, by our mutual laws, as Elder he should have appointed a new Cap’n. You were gone, prob’ly dead. So if he’d stuck by the laws, you wouldn’t be Cap’n now.”

Ah, he thought. “Who would?”

She hesitated, then said, “His Supremacy asked me and I took on settling into camp. Negotiated with other Families.”

“You’re to be commended. That’s all for now,” Killeen said, giving her a clipped salute. He pointedly turned his back to survey the valley again.

His Ling Aspect broke in on his thoughts:

That officer likes the taste of command. My experience is that even dangerous times do not slake that thirst.

Killeen kicked a stone, enjoying the satisfying thunk as it bounded down the slope.

EIGHT

His Supremacy’s tent was sultry with sweet incense and tangy sweat. The fifteen Cap’ns arrayed in a crescent before the broad black desk stood stiffly at attention, as ordered. A layer of blue smoke hung over their heads. The cloying smell caught in Killeen’s throat, making him cough. His Supremacy frowned at the sound and repeated his command.

“All Families will commit the same strength in this attack. We strike simultaneously. We all risk, we all triumph.”

Killeen thought, And if we lose, nobody’ll be positioned for rear guard, nobody’ll cover our ass. But he did not dare say it.

“We shall follow our same, victorious tactics—the way of right action that has brought us so far. Following the assault, we must destroy as many of the Cyber buildings as we can.”

Killeen said, before caution could intervene, “I am most sorry, but I do not know the proper tactic.”

His Supremacy turned almost lazily to gaze directly into Killeen’ s eyes. Until now the swarthy, compact man had delivered his speech with his eyes fixed on the blue haze, as though secrets lurked high in the tent.

“I had imagined that you would have learned the revolutionary developments in battle I have brought about.”

“I’ve seen your weapons. Quite extensive, some I’ve never heard about, but—”

“Cap’n of the Bishops—a Suit unfamiliar to me as yet, but one I am willing to allow into my company of the devout—I understand your ignorance. When I foretold the arrival of your Family, I said the help which would fall from heaven would demand shaping. I and my officers are willing to fashion you to my higher ends, rest assured.”

“Well, sir, I appreciate that. My Family will need—”

“Perhaps you have not noticed that no one, in addressing me, uses the slight and paltry honorific ’sir.”’

Killeen made the gesture he had seen the other Cap’ns use—a bow, while stepping back and casting his hands down at the floor. It seemed to imply total acceptance.

His Supremacy nodded, looking almost bored. “You practiced the frontal assault, on whatever world sent you?”

“On Snowglade, yeasay—but hardly ever, ’cause mechplexes got their perimeters bracketed. Pick you off fast…” It took an effort to conclude, “Your Supremacy.”

“I devised a devastating new way to use the frontal attack. It involves designating one Family as prime warriors, those who expose themselves early, to draw fire. A second party then surprises the enemy by springing forth from concealment. Then the main body assaults the nest.”

“That second party—how do they stay hidden…Supremacy?”

“By slipping into the tunnels of the vile Cyber nests.”

Killeen frowned and said nothing. But the short man in his brilliant uniform looked reproachfully at him and said, “You have much to learn here, Cap’n. My revelation, which yielded this splendid method, assured me of our victories. It is not as though we proceed forward in shadow and uncertainty.”

Killeen nodded, not knowing what he could say.

“I foresee our triumph, carried on the wings of God, and my shoulders. You see, Cap’n of the Bishops, I have ascended to the panoply of Gods. As the representative of the Essential Will of nature, I am necessarily Divine in my own right.”

His Supremacy explained this as if he were talking to a bright but ignorant child. Killeen had questions to ask but something in the curiously blank eyes of His Supremacy kept him silent.

His Supremacy nodded as if satisfied and then shouted suddenly, “Sound the convocation! I must prepare the Families for the next step in their destiny!”

Cap’ns and underofficers scurried to alert their Families. A rank of armed men and women fell to, their full running gear gleaming from a fresh polish. They clanked and wheezed as they escorted His Supremacy outside, dwarfing him in their sheathed shock boots.

Killeen sent a quick summons to Jocelyn, Shibo, and Cermo. The assembly was already nearly complete in the valley outside, their Bishops positioned in rectangular ranks to the right flank of the formation. The brief address by His Supremacy to his Cap’ns had barely followed what Killeen knew of Tribal forms. Most of it he had found incomprehensible. Now His Supremacy would address the entire Tribe.

The Tribe comprised all the surviving Families of this portion of New Bishop. No one spoke of the other Tribes which had lived on this world. Apparently mech cities had lately begun using humans in their conflicts. Though there had been incidents of that on Snowglade, Killeen’s Family lore held that competition among mechs was more like pruning unwanted branches from a fruitful plant. Here, though, mechs warred with one another. Had the Cybers timed their invasion to take advantage of that?

Killeen walked down onto the valley floor beside the Cap’n of the Treys. Afternoon sunlight broke in patches through the cloud cover. He searched for the cosmic string but it was invisible. If it began spinning and preparing to suck again from the core, Killeen intended to get his Family to flat ground, no matter what the Tribe did.

It seemed like a long time since the Treys’ Cap’n had led him away from His Supremacy’s tent, past the transfixing burial ceremony. Killeen mentioned that to her and the Cap’n replied, “Had a few more since. Cybers’re operatin’ over the next mountain range—what’s left of it. Couple Cybers nailed some Sebens, left the bodies with those mite eggs buried in their guts.”

“Cybers could plant somethin’ more in the bodies, too,” Killeen said delicately.

Lines furrowed the Cap’n’s already weathered, resigned face. “Like what?”

“Tracers. Find us, usin’ ’ ’em.”

She shook her head. “They don’t care enough. Just shoot our people when they get in the way. Not like mechs—least not yet.”

“You worked for mechs.”

“Sure—only way we’d survive.”

“Where I came from couldn’t trust mechs that much.”

“They got crazy. Started bustin’ up each other.”

Killeen said cautiously, “That question I asked back there…I didn’t understand all he said.”