By the time he’d finished breaking up the firewood and stowing it in the box, he heard a man’s voice calling to him from down on the hill. “Yaa sarbaaz!” came the high-pitched, wavering cry. It was Rostam, who traveled out from the village of Ashnistan twice a week with supplies.

Jân Muhammad grunted. He was looking forward to the goat cheese and fresh bread the old man was bringing. Quickly he threw a handful of sticks onto the crumbling coals in the stove and blew the fire into life. He poured water from a hanging goatskin into a small teapot and put it on to boil.

“Yaa sarbaaz! Soldier! Turn off your guns!”

Jân Muhammad made sure that the scrawny, bearded trader was alone, then slapped off the automatic ranging and firing mechanisms. Then he went outside. “It’s all right, O my uncle. Come on up.” He watched Rostam pick his way slowly among the rocks, leading his raw-boned, red-eyed mule.

When Rostam came close enough so that he didn’t need to shout, he gave Jân Muhammad a nod. “Salam alekom,” he said hoarsely.

“Alekom-os-salam,” said Jân Muhammad. “Come inside, I’m making tea.”

“Thank you, my son.” The old man lifted a coarse sack from the mule’s back and followed the soldier into the stone strongpoint.

Jân Muhammad checked the water, but it wasn’t hot yet. He turned back and offered Rostam the single chair in the bunker; he himself sat down on the edge of the cot. After a moment, he realized that the old man was staring at him. Jân Muhammad had forgotten to put his cap back on. Rostam was looking at the two chrome-steel plugs in the young man’s skull. The soldier leaned forward, grabbed his tan forage cap from where it lay on his data monitor, and jammed it low over his brow.

The old man pushed his lips out, then in, then out again. “Aga, I’ve brought you flour, lard, cheese, tea, and a little dried meat,” he said. “I’ve also brought you what we talked about a week ago.”

Jân Muhammad raised his eyebrows.

Rostam looked around nervously, as if there were listening devices hidden in the bare stone room. As a matter of fact, the comm unit in the military data deck could transmit everything that was said in the observation post, but Jân Muhammad had learned how to cut himself out of the net. He preferred to use the portable equipment. If he ever needed to use the deck’s link — if, for instance, the portable unit was disabled — he knew how to patch himself back in. “Don’t worry, O my uncle, we may talk.”

Rostam let out his breath in a rattling sigh. “I have brought you tobacco and some white liquor. I’ve brought magazines, too, aga. They’re printed in some language, I don’t know which, but they have good pictures. You know what I mean? Good pictures?”

Jân Muhammad nodded wearily. Rostam was his one connection to the village, to the world beyond his observation post. The soldier was not permitted to leave his small stony domain. From what his superiors said, this one hill guarding an unused pass through the Persian mountains was the key to the future of the Mahdi’s army, a vital position that guaranteed the inevitable Islamic conquest. Jân Muhammad didn’t believe all that, of course. He only knew that the post and the rocky defile below were his responsibility, and he was doomed — “honored,” in the words of his sergeant — to remain there like a mad hermit saint until he was killed by Mohâjerân raiders or until the rest of the world acknowledged the supremacy of the young savior, whichever came first.

The young soldier jingled his few remaining coins in his pocket. The payroll officer wouldn’t be coming by for at least another two weeks. Jân Muhammad guessed that before then, as usual, he would have to go a week or ten days without meat and tobacco. “How much do you want?” he asked.

“Twenty tuman, aga,” said Rostam.

The soldier gave him a sharp look. The price was twice what the supplies were worth.

“Eighteen tuman,” said Rostam. “It is getting difficult for me to bring these to you, my son. The shopkeeper in the village has sympathies with the Mohâjerân, he does not like selling me these things, knowing that they come to you. He charges me more than his other customers. And I am not as strong as I used to be, aga. The long journey from the village — “

“All right, I’ll give you sixteen.”

“You are the soul of your father,” murmured Rostam, catching the coins.

“You had better go now,” said Jân Muhammad. He was suddenly in a hurry to see the old man on his way back down the hill. “If the Mohâjerân should return while you’re here, I can’t guarantee that you’ll be safe.”

Rostam’s eyes opened wide. He got slowly to his feet. “You are right, my son. Thank you. Praise be to Allah for your kindness.”

“May you go in peace, O my uncle.” He watched as the old man hurried as fast as he could out of the bunker and down the hill. Rostam picked up a heavy stick and began beating his mule, which didn’t seem to pay any attention to the blows; it neither quickened its pace nor strayed from its path. Jân Muhammad waited until both man and animal were out of sight, then he took the water off the stove and dropped a healthy pinch of tea into the pot.

When he’d finished his refreshment and began stowing his supplies, the data deck interrupted him with a recorded call of a muezzin. Jân Muhammad immediately let a bag of flour he held fall onto his cot. He went to the deck and made a quick security check of the area outside. Then he went to the goatskin and let out a little water into his hands. He thought, “I perform the ablutions to prepare myself for prayer and seeking the nearness of Allah.” He drew his moist right hand briskly down from his hairline to his chin. He removed a ring on his right hand and quickly washed his right arm from elbow to fingertips. He did the same with his left arm. He drew the wet fingers of his right hand from the middle of his head forward to the hairline. He put the heel of his right hand on the toes of his right foot, and brought his fingers up to the ankle, then washed his left foot. He took his prayer rug and went outside, where he stood facing the southwest, toward the Kaaba in Makkah. While he prayed, all thoughts of his bloody battle that morning vanished. As usual, he murmured a prayer for the health of the Mahdi, and for his quick victory over the unbelievers. Jân Muhammad also added a prayer for the Muslims — like those he fought now in Mazanderan — who were in error, who had gone astray and did not recognize the Messiah who had come out of what had once been Algeria.

After his devotions, he couldn’t put off the unpleasant task of tending to the slain Mohâjerân any longer. He returned the prayer rug to its place, made another security check, then decided to chip in a personality module to take his mind off his work. He chose a blue plastic moddy manufactured in Riyadh, and settled it in place on his posterior plug. He chipped in three add-ons as well, one that would override his fatigue, one to override thirst, and a third that contained the entire text of the noble Qur’ân.

The moddy took possession of his consciousness and transported him from the barren Persian landscape to a fully-realized fantasy of Paradise. He wasn’t aware of the morbid labor he was performing. It was as if Jân Muhammad’s soul had left his body, or as if he had been lifted physically, still alive, into Heaven. Wonder and reverence enthralled him. Here was his reward for a lifetime of faithfulness. Here was ample payment for all the hardships he had endured for the sake of his love of Allah. He was refreshed, and the pleasures of Paradise were far greater than any his earthly imagination could have invented. What he had forsaken in life was now his to enjoy. The most delicious wine gurgled from exquisite fountains. Houris more beautiful than any mortal woman smiled at him and made him welcome. Above everything else, though, was the joy of his union with God. He felt a terrible sadness when he thought of the unbelievers, how they had scorned the Straight Path and would never know this peace.