MacKinnie shrugged and did as he was told. The box made a whining noise as he spun the handles.

The dark glass above the table came to light. A diagram of some kind of complex equipment appeared. Then words.

“See! “Kleinst shouted.

“What does it mean?” MacKinnie asked.

“I don’t know. But — with time I will. And if not, some of the younger students can be trained. We will learn.”

“We have to,” MacKinnie said.

“I don’t quite understand who you are,” LeMoyne said. “But if His Reverence is satisfied, I am.”

“How long?” MacKinnie asked. “How long until we can have copies of everything?”

LeMoyne pursed his lips. “How long can you turn that crank?”

“It’s tiring. An hour, perhaps—”

“It would be useful to build a powered unit, but that is not easily done down here. If we could move this up to where we could connect water power—”

“Impossible,” MacKinnie said. “We hold this Temple, true, but these people are volatile. If we moved the relics they’d be scandalized, and God knows what they’d do.”

“Then you had better put your own officers to guard the doors,” LeMoyne said. “We can make the copies in four hours, but—”

“But indeed. But how long for you to learn?’’ MacKinnie asked Kleinst.

“I could study for years and not learn it all—”

“We don’t have years. We have weeks at most.”

“I know,” Kleinst said. “I will do the best I can. And we will make the copies …”

“Which we may not be able to read.” MacKinnie sighed. “The winter storms are coming. And we don’t know what’s happening at home. I know you’ll do your best.”

Firelight flickered across an old man’s face.

Datu Attik’s eyes dimmed with hidden tears as he watched two juramentados complete their ritual washing. The women came forward to hold high the crimson cloths for the binding. The young men’s bodies shone in the yellow firelight.

They sang. Their death chants rang through the darkness around the camp. Otherwise there was silence. Later the others of the band, warriors and women alike, would sing death chants for these two, but for now the tribe had seen too much of death.

Eight hundred of the clan lay beneath the wheat stubble beyond the fire. Eight hundred stiffened and cold in the earth, eight hundred among the thousands who had fallen to the Temple army. How would the clan live without the young men? And now two more would join them, and one the son of the Datu.

Futile. Futile, thought Datu Attik. My son will die, and for nothing, for less than nothing, for worse than nothing. The Temple is strong. The robed fools have found new strength with their new sultan.

He ground his teeth at the memory. It had been so nearly done! The black-robed ones of the Great Temple of Batav had been defeated, done, were finished, penned into their city to starve while the maris roamed at will, ate the city’s crops, rode to the very walls in challenge and laughed at the black robes—

And then came the new sultan from the far west, a giant of a man who made walls march and destroyed the greatest force the maris had ever assembled together.

It was done, it was done, Allah’s will was done, and the maris must now return to their barren hills, but first let the city feel sorrow as the maris sorrowed. Let no man say his triumph was complete. Let the Temple mourn as Datu Attik mourned.

“No good will come of this.” The voice came from his right side, from where his second son lay at his father’s feet. “The sultan cannot be killed. My brother will make new war, and it is war we cannot win.”

“Silence. Your brother sings his farewell.” But it was true, Datu Attik thought. The sultan has said that if there is more war between the maris and the Temple, the marching walls will come to the fields in winter and pursue the maris to the end of the world.

He will do as he has said, and my sons will die, and my people will die. Why has Allah spared me to watch? Does He hate me so?

The song of the juramentados burst out and struck Attik like a blow, and the old man knew it was too late. These messengers of death could not be turned from their task, not by him or by anyone. Only their death would slow them now.

“O God Thou are Almighty, Allah Thou are Almighty, we witness that God is one God, we witness that Allah is Almighty!

“When the leaves of the Book shall be unrolled, when Hell shall blaze forth, when Paradise is near, then shall every soul know what works it hath made! Witness that Allah is One, witness that Allah is Almighty!”

Veiled women came now to aid the juramentados. They bound the young bodies tightly with scarlet cloths, tightly to hold the blood, scarlet to hide the blood from their enemies. Young, young men, his son was a young man, and now would die, but he would die for the glory of Allah—

His second son brought a kriss and Attik raised it to his lips, then passed it to the lips of his first son. “Then shall every soul know the works it hath made,” Attik chanted. “So saith Allah, so saith the Almighty, every man shall submit to the will of Allah. Witness that Allah is One, witness that Allah is Almighty.”

“Worthy is Allah to be praised.”

The death songs hung over the camp long after the juramentados vanished into the night beyond the yellow circle of firelight. They were gone, running toward the city of Batav.

Faint sounds came from the city to the campsite: sounds of song and joy; the sounds of men and women in triumph. Datu Attik heard and shook his fist toward the magnificent blaze of the Temple rising above the city walls.

Temple!

The Temple of God, the Temple which held the very voice of God! The Temple stolen by the black-robed priests of Batav, the Temple which was so nearly in the grasp of the maris. For generation upon generation the false priests of false gods had held the Temple from the faithful. Attik’s grandfather was old when he died, and the oldest men his grandfather had known in his youth could not remember when the Temple was not held by the worshippers of the Prophet Jesus.

But Attik knew. Once there had been a time when men flew above the plains of Makassar, flew up to the very stars above. It was a time when God was not angry with men, and in that time the Temple was open so that all men could hear the words of God.

Surely Allah would not forever hold his people from his Word. Surely the juramentados would find the sultan MacKinnie, and then, and then — the maris might yet take the Temple! There were yet enough, and without the sultan to lead them, the black-robes might return to their futile ways of war—

“It shall be as Allah wills,” Attik said aloud. “I submit to the will of Allah.”

Then, since he was a practical man, Attik ordered the clan to prepare for their journey. It might be well to be far from the city when the juramentados struck. The sultan had ordered them away from the city plains in three days’ time, and that time was nearly past.

If the juramentados met success, there would be time to gather the clans and return. Without their sultan the Temple priests would lose battles as they did in the past, and the Temple would fall.

The Temple for Allah, and the city of Batav for the maris. The city, that lovely city—

The sack of Batav could go on for days!