Culture of Life

Captain Craddock, commanding officer of the starship Carpathia, strode across the council chamber and shook the elderly man's hand. "Mr. Proulx," he said. "So good to meet you."

"After so many hours and days talking over the screens, yes," Mr. Proulx returned warmly, squeezing the captain's hand.

Captain Craddock withdrew his hand and gestured behind him. "These are my senior officers," he said. "First Officer Wilkins, Diplomatic Officer Corey, Security Guards Trevors and Gerrold. And, as you requested, ship's Chief Medical Officer Yves."

Each officer nodded and smiled as his or her name was called. They looked handsome in their dress uniforms, standing in the impeccable whiteness of the round council chamber, which rose tall and smooth to an overhead skylight. The day's brightness filled the room, the walls gleaming. They looked for all the world like marble, though that mineral was a cosmic rarity. Well, rare as it might be, perhaps Sonida was one of the few known planets where it existed in abundance.

The elderly man bowed to each officer in turn. "Doctor, I do hope I have a chance to consult you about a few health related matters. Trivial matters, I'm sure, to someone with your knowledge and resources." He smiled. He was thin and energetic, his movements fluid and seemingly without pain despite his advanced years. Craddock wondered if that was a matter of good medical care or good genetics. The people who had colonized Sonida had been out of contact for more than three centuries; who knew how they had adapted to the local environment, or what health advances they had made.

What little Craddock and his crew did know of Sonida they had gathered over the last six weeks, ever since Carpathia had detected a faint electromagnetic signature on a long-disused part of the spectrum. Comm Specialist Honan had identified it as radio - not in the 26th century sense of the word, which referred to quantum entanglement transmissions, but rather in the original sense of the word, which had ben applied to a centuries-old means of transmitting auditory information.

Honan hadn't needed much to rig up the equipment needed to send out a signal and then listen for a response, but it had still posed a technical challenge; he'd needed to build some of the parts for his makeshift ham radio from scratch. That time consuming process was compounded by radio's speed limitation; messages could only travel back and forth at the speed of light. Corey and Honan had worked together to script an introductory message that the captain read off, and then they transmitted their greetings.

It had taken two weeks to get an answer. Several answers, actually; as Honan had suggested, the source of the EM transmissions was a lost Earth colony. Honan pinpointed the origin point of the signal and Carpathia followed the radio pulses like breadcrumbs to an unlikely solar system: Four planets, three of them in far-flung, highly eccentric orbits. The fourth world steadily followed a nearly circular path around its star, transiting right in the sweet spot of the habitable zone.

Carpathia could have arrived at the inhabited planet sooner than it did - could have arrived in a matter of minutes, in fact, but Craddock wanted to suss the situation out. He'd ordered the ship to approach only gradually, to give the crew and the colonists time to get used to the idea of meeting. Both sides of this new exchange were excited. Many early colonies had failed, hitting hard times and then defaulting to savage infighting over dwindling resources, a hopeless downward spiral that, in the end, condemned everyone concerned to death. But a few colonies had survived, at least in a minimal fashion - and a very few had flourished. Colonizing others planets had not been the plug-and-play proposition the early space settlers had hoped for. Setting up a self-sustaining outpost on a new world and then expecting imported terrestrial life to thrive was foolish for all sorts of reasons, many of which had been entirely unforeseen.

The case of Sonida had been a success story, but only after a very close call with chaos and extinction. As the weeks passed and the ship grew slowly closer, Craddock had spoken with a few different people in positions of authority on Sonida: The triumvercrats, as the three-person ruling partnership referred to themselves; various ministers and scholars; and, finally, Proulx, who was both a historian and an advisor to the triumvercrats. It was with Proulx that Craddock had spent the most time talking, and it was from the older man that the captain got the saga that had been the colony's history.

It was a familiar one, at least in its beginnings. The crops had failed to grow, thanks to a combination of alien soil chemistry, the makeup of the new world's atmosphere, and ambient radiation levels that were unlike those of the Earth. Sonida had a magnetic field and an ozone layer, but the star - an orange dwarf dubbed Sonis Aleg that had only been discovered in the late 21st century because it had previously been hidden behind a dark matter nebula - offered more than its share of hard radiation. The colonists could shield themselves with buildings and proper protective attire, but the crops could not.

As supplies ran low, unrest spread, fueled by a deep physiological unease. The planet was drier than Earth; its gravity was heavier; its nights were never quite dark, thanks to a distant companion star that swung across the sky and kept the nocturnal hours as bright as three full moons for weeks on end. As the colony fractured along religious and ideological lines, civil war seemed imminent. Then an autocrat rose to power, seized complete control, and established a dictatorship that had endured for hundreds of years. It was only within the past few years that the corrupt old order, having grown weak and ineffectual, had fallen. The triumvercrats had spearheaded the coup - a partnership between leaders, with a military general, a high priest, and a popular representative of the workers joining in a pact and marshaling their respective demographics behind them.

Craddock had spoken with all three of them. The military leader, Arral, was cold and brilliant; she gave a sense of having little patience for niceties or incompetence. The high priest, Richards, had seemed judgmental, though he'd been unfailingly polite. The representative of the workers, Conuel, had been zealously idealistic; he was charismatic, but he struck the captain as more than a little unstable.

And now Craddock and his people were on the surface of a world whose man colonists had been forgotten by history. It was a rare privilege to renew contact with a human culture that had survived on its own for so long.

"His Magnificence the High Elder Richards will join us shortly," Proulx said, turning his attention from the crisply arrayed Carpathia officers back to their captain.

"Are the others ready to meet, also?" Craddock inquired.

"Ah, yes." Proulx sighed the words, and closed his eyes. A look of melancholy came over him. "Regrettably, plans for your reception have changed a bit." He gave the captain an apologetic look.

"Is everything all right?" the captain asked him.

"Captain, I'm afraid..."

Proulx didn't get to finish the sentence. The chamber had six doors spaced equidistantly around its curving wall; now those doors sprang open and hundreds of men and women in dark gray robes marched in. They moved silently, briskly, and with a dangerous intensity. The council chamber was a large space, but it quickly began to fill; the robed figures poured in, flowing like floodwaters between the concentric seats where councilors sat during deliberations, black plush seats that ringed the outer edges of the chamber. They marched inward to the center of the chamber, where four tables stood arrayed around a central podium. Craddock, his officers, and Proulx had met in the space just beyond the tables.

Within moments, Craddock and his crew were surrounded, the robed men and women pointing what looked like projectile weapons at them.

"Think of these commitants as an honor guard," Proulx said. "They're the High Elder's army."

"Your High Elder has his own army?" Craddock asked. "What for? What about the military?"

"They are in retreat," Proulx told him. "They insist that it's a strategic retreat, but, historically speaking, zealots have the advantage over soldiers. They don't care about strategy as much as devotion. And they're perfectly happy to die if that's what the High Elder tells them to do. After all, they believe they are going to die anyway."

Craddock knew the Sonidans had some sort of strange and mordant belief system that placed death at the center of their social order. He had never quite understood just how their culture worked, or what role death played in it.

He had a sudden, apprehensive feeling he was about to find out first hand.

There was a commotion among the gray-robed figures. They almost seemed excited, though no one raised a voice or cracked a smile. Craddock looked around and saw that beyond the press of robed people was another rank of tightly packed figures - civilians, he was sure. Workers, he guessed. They also wore gray, though of a lighter hue, and their clothing was less ritualistic and more practical. Craddock presumed them to be workers - the planet's largest caste by far.

Then Craddock's eye was caught by a single figure that moved through the crowd easily, making rapid progress through the throng's close quarters. Somehow, despite the crush of the crowd, people in his path were stepping aside. Craddock heard a faint susurration and then realized that the people the figure moved past were murmuring something. A blessing, perhaps? A greeting? Or maybe words of praise?

The white robed figure was drawing closer to Craddock and his men. As the last people between himself and the man in the white robe moved aside, Craddock heard what they were saying. In soft, whispery voices they uttered the words "The blessings of life."

The man in the robe, Craddock saw, was the Richards, the High Elder. Richards stared at Craddock for long moments. "So here you are," he intoned.

"Mr. Richards," Craddock began.

"I am your Magnificence, the High Elder!" Richards roared, his voice so loud and fulsome that it must have been artificially enhanced - though Craddock couldn't see how it was done. "You will speak when I tell you to," Richards added.

Craddock nodded his acquiescence, wondering what in Hell was going on.

Richards turned, his eyes looking past the robed members of his army. He seemed to be addressing the crowd of workers who lined the wall.

"See them," he cried, pointing to Craddock. "See the ones who deny you life!"

"What the fuck," Craddock said to himself, in a voice so hushed and bewildered that no one heard him above the High Elder.

"See them!" Richards cried again. "The ones who impose death upon you! The invaders! The punishers!"

Craddock managed to make eye contact with Wilkins through the crowd, and her look was just as shocked as he felt.

Richards was still crying out to the crowd, from whom a roar of approval was building. "Kill them!" the crowd seemed to be chanting, though there was such tumult it was hard to hear.

"Let them suffer for their sins against you!" Richards was screaming. "Let them die, who would deprive you of your lives!"

Craddock, pinned in place by the weapons pointed at him and by the press of the crowd, slipped instantly into problem solving mode. He didn't understand what was happening, but he was going to find a way out of it. From the look of things, he was going to have to - or die trying.

***
The dungeon that Craddock and his officers found themselves in was dark and cold, but at least it was dry. The chamber had a look of disrepair about it - that was not too surprising given that Carpathia's scanners had shown much of the colony was built along primitive lines and the handful of more modern buildings - at least, modern at the time of the colony's founding, three centuries earlier - had not been well maintained.

There were no others in the dungeon - probably, Craddock reflected, because the High Elder didn't want to risk any sort of cultural contamination by allowing even his prisoners to mix with the offworlders.

The High Elder's hooded minions had roughly searched the members of the landing party and taken their weapons, communications units, and other gear. What they had not taken were the sub dermal commbeads that Craddock, Wilkins, and Dr. Yves had gotten implanted just before leaving the ship. When Wilkins - of all people, regs-mad Wilkins - had questioned the need for such a measure, Craddock had chided her, saying, "I'm not one of those reckless captains who goes haring off on half-assed missions at the drop of a hat."

Now, glancing at Wilkins, Craddock beamed an "I told you so" smile at her and reached behind his left ear with probing fingertips. The area where the bead had been implanted was still sore, and the device was easily palpable. It felt like a seed trapped under the skin.

Craddock pressed down on the seed and heard a warble as the comm activated, automatically opening a channel to the ship.

"Carpathia, this is Craddock. Respond," he said.

A moment later Communications Specialist Honan's voice seemed to fill Craddock's head. That was an illusion, of course, created by bone induction. No one else could hear Honan, but to Craddock he sounded as if he were speaking right into the Captain's ear.

"Carpathia here, sir," Honan said.

"Mr. Honan, please speak softly," Craddock said, wincing. "I'm using the comm bead."

"Yes sir, sorry sir," Honan said, his voice softer now. "I can see you are using the comm bead. Has something happened down there?"

"I'll say," Craddock replied. "Patch Security Chief Rao into this transmission, and stay with us. I need to talk to you both."

"Yessir..."

A moment later, Rao's voice boomed through Craddock's skull. "Sir? What the hell is going on down there?"

"You don't have to shout, Mr. Rao," Craddock said.

"Sorry, Captain," Rao said, his voice now more tolerable. "Please apprise me of the situation."

Craddock quickly filled Rao and Honan in on recent events.

"Those mother - " began Rao.

"Not helpful, Chief," Craddock interrupted. Rao had a way with words, but Craddock suspected there might not be much time to keep their conversation private.

That reminded him of something.

"Mr. Honan, is there any indication that our location is being monitored?"

"It's a little hard to tell, Captain. Are you being held underground? I'm not getting any indications of either video or audio monitoring systems in operation in the building as a whole," Honan said in a rush. He was young and nervous, Craddock thought, and probably a little scared by the situation. Craddock, by contrast, was getting less apprehensive all the time. These people were far from the Carpathia crew's technological equals, and they seemed to be complete amateurs at keeping watch over prisoners. All of that worked in the favor of Craddock and his crew, except for one thing: The High Elder wasn't stupid. He must know that the situation was untenable. Whatever he intended to do - and it didn't sound like hospitality was on his mind - he was going to want to do it quickly.

"To answer your question, yes, we're underground," Craddock said. "In what looks like a basement that's been crudely converted to a holding facility. There are narrow, horizontal windows situated about two meters and forty centimeters above the floor. They provide light but we can't really see outside."

"I can tell you what's going on outside, sir," Rao said grimly. "There's an army advancing through the city streets."

"Probably General Arral and her troops," Craddock said. "The workers seem to be allied with the High Elder."

"Well, the workers better get themselves armed and out of doors," Rao said, "because the people advancing on your position are looking pretty determined."

"Mr. Honan," Craddock said, "is there any possibility that the people of Sonida could listen in on our transmissions?"

Honan audibly scoffed. "None at all, sir. I've had to do a lot of jury rigging to get a working radio set going up here."

Craddock remembered how Honan had spent the better part of two days assembling an awkward-looking m�lange of components, a few of them amounting to little more than copper wire wrapped around spindles. Radios were primitive tech, but that didn't mean building one with contemporary parts was easy.

Rao spoke up. "Do you want me to launch a rescue mission, Captain?"

"I want you to prepare and be ready at a moment's notice," Craddock said, "but hold off for the time being."

Wilkins, who had watched Craddock with interest and was no doubt guessing, with her usual accuracy, what Rao and Honan were saying, looked surprised and alarmed at this. Rao was already objecting.

"I need a clearer picture of what's going on down here," Craddock told them both.

There was a sound of clanging - distant, but growing closer.

"How close is that mob of soldiers?" Craddock asked.

"They're about two kilometers from you, sir." Rao said. "They're started encountering resistance. Based on what I'm seeing, I'd say you have an hour... more like two, probably... before they reach your position."

That clanging had to be the hooded minions, or maybe some workers. The High Elder's people, in either case.

"We're about to have company," Craddock said. "I want you to keep an open channel and listen to what's going on down here, Chief. If the situation starts getting too dicey, I trust you to get down here in a hurry."

"Roger that, Captain," Rao said. "Do you have any specific instructions for how to go about extracting you?"

"Try not to kill anyone. Otherwise, I leave the tactics in your capable hands," Craddock said. Then he fell silent; the door on the far end of the room was opening with a loud clamor of rusted hinges and metal dragging on concrete.

Hooded minions, Craddock noted. And they had someone new in their clutches. Craddock squinted into the gloom, and realized they were bringing Proulx into the chamber.

Proulx staggered away from them the moment they released him. He looked toward the Captain and officers as the door resumed its racket. The hooded minions pulled the door shut with an effort, as Craddock shook his head. They had armaments, but even so they'd left themselves vulnerable to attack for a good half a minute while they wrestled with that door. These people had absolutely no clue about what they were doing.

The door ground into place. The sound of bolts echoed in the gloomy chamber. Proulx looked at Craddock and his people, and his face was an amalgam of guilt and fear.

"Join us," Craddock invited. "We're not going to hurt you."

"You're not angry with me?"

"Angry? For what?" Craddock asked drily. "Luring us into a trap?"

"That wasn't my intention. I thought everyone involved in our radio discussions was acting in good faith," Proulx said. "It wasn't until just a couple of days ago that some of the workers and the High Elder launched an assassination plot and killed Conuel."

"The leader of the workers?" asked Wilkins.

"The High Elder told them that Conuel was selling them out and had made plans with the military to use the workers as slaves and foot soldiers. The military had made a deal, in fact, but it wasn't with Conuel - it was with the High Elder."

"Of course," Craddock sighed. "Let me guess. The military was planning to betray High Elder Richards, but he betrayed them first."

Proulx smiled thinly. "You know your history, Captain."

"I do, and I'm thinking it suggests that the High Elder has concocted some ridiculous story to feed the people. Some story that features himself as the one and only hope for their salvation."

"Actually," Proulx said, "that story was first told long ago. The High Elder has simply found a way to perpetuate it."

"And what is that story, exactly?" Craddock asked.

"The first dictator, Porcid, claimed to be of divine ancestry. As time went on his stories grew. Eventually he declared himself a god and claimed that, as a god, he alone possessed the power to dilute life with disease, to drain it with infirmity, or to bring it to an end."

"And people believed this?" Wilkins asked.

Craddock sighed. "Look at some of the things people on Earth have believed across the millennia. Stories they have wasted their own lives on, and the lives of others. Myths of gods and heroes. Episodes of magical thinking that always came to catastrophic endings when reality came crashing down."

"But, really," Wilkins protested. "Saying you can control death?"

"He also said that he knew every thought, every word, and every deed, and that the sins of all men were sufficient to corrode their flesh over time," Proulx said. "Death comes to those who deserve it, and over a lifetime we all deserve it. But the truly evil would suffer more and die sooner. And those who perpetrated unspeakable acts... they would drop dead where they stood."

"All of which accounts for aging, disease, and quick-acting natural causes like strokes, aneurysms, heart attacks." Craddock shook his head again.

"But not everyone believed this?" Wilkins said.

"No. Porcid's zealous followers repeated his claims, and accosted, beat, and even killed those who said otherwise. But in secret there have always been those who resisted those ideas. Those who cite ancient texts, now lost to us, that say death results from natural causes... that death is in fact a natural end result to the processes of life. But the people are terrified of this idea, and many of them protest that if death is part of nature - instead of being a supernatural punishment that the perfectly just could hope to avoid - then the universe has no real meaning."

"They can see death all around them," Wilkins protested. "Animals die. Plants die."

"Humans do not," Proulx said gently. "Faultless humans, that is. Humans created by gods like Porcid."

"And what about when Porcid died?" Wilkins demanded.

"He did not die, you see," Proulx said. "He returned to the Celestial Sea from time to time, always coming back among us refreshed."

"A dynastic succession," Craddock translated. "The old dictator aging and dying, to be replaced by suitably progeny. The affairs of the dictator's domestic life kept a closely guarded secret. The people knowing nothing of how the 'immortal' Porcid lived... and how he died."

"But there came a time when Porcid did not return," Proulx said. "An imposter took advantage of this. The people rose up and felled the imposter."

"How did they know he was an imposter?" Wilkins asked.

"Because 'he' was a she," Proulx said, and then cackled. "Imagine! A woman claiming divine heritage, demanding to be recognized as a god!"

"Imagine," Wilkins said acidly, rolling her eyes.

"Whatever the details, generations of people lived and died believing that death was not inevitable. It was the result of human weakness, something that befell them for their sins," Craddock said. "One more crock for the history books and the sociologists."

"They saw little evidence to the contrary," Proulx said. "Porcid's rule didn't leave any room for death by natural causes. He and his entire line were cruel, suspicious, and vengeful. For generation after generation the dictator's assassins were busy, and capital punishment for blasphemy, treason, and insulting the orthodoxy was a common fate."

"So, death as a punishment was the norm, but death as a function of life's biological processes was never observed," Yves piped up. "In short, everybody died so young that no one actually saw the effects of old age. Captain, over time a story like Porcid's could come to be accepted by those under his sway."

"Everyone grew up believing the stories about death that the orthodoxy taught, and most people never questioned it," Proulx confirmed. "Those few who dared challenge the orthodoxy were executed for it. Few lived long enough to die of infirmities that accrued over time." He raised his aged hands, made a gesture. "I am one such rare instance. Or at any rate, I thought I would be. But now..." He sighed.

"Sounds like the whole planet is fucking nuts," Rao said in Craddock's ear. The captain would have chastised Rao, except that he didn't want anyone outside the crew - not even Proulx - to know they were still in contact with Carpathia. Instead of taking Rao to task, Craddock cleared his throat meaningfully.

"Sorry, sir," Rao said, not sounding much abashed.

"Your arrival was almost like a gift from those supposed gods," Proulx continued. "After the fall of the old order, Richards and the others of the triumvercracy promised that no one would die, no one would become ill or gradually succumb to mental and physical weakness. Richards then declared himself our liberator from death, though he also warned that he had claimed the power to inflict it on those who challenged or displeased him."

"I'm sure that went over well with Aral and Conuel," Dr. Yves groused.

"But then..." Proulx paused.

"But then people kept getting sick. People even kept dying," Craddock said.

"Yes," Proulx said. "This presented a problem for the High Elder."

"Oh, I dunno," Dr. Yves said, sotto voce. "People will believe the most obviously untrue things, if it fits what they have already decided it true."

Proulx continued as though he had not heard Yves. Perhaps he hadn't; Craddock suspected hie might be hard of hearing.

"Richards declared those who had died to be traitors and blasphemers," Proulx narrated, "and after his betrayal of Representative Conuel and General Arral he said those who had died -- Conuel, his supporters, soldiers under Arral -- had been preparing to betray the faithful. His faithful, that is. Now, to cement his power, he will put you to death, Captain, along with your people. And he will kill me, as well, for I have attempted to resist him."

Given the old man's complicity with Richards in getting them captured, Craddock wondered when and how Proulx had ever resisted.

"So he kills us," Wilkins said. "And people still keep dying. What's he going to do then?"

Proulx looked lost for answers. But Craddock thought he knew exactly what Richards was up to. Unfortunately, he didn't see any way to avoid helping the High Elder with his plan -- not if he was going to get his people back home safely, and there was no way in Hell he would settle for any other outcome.

Suddenly, there was a new commotion at the door. As it creaked and scraped open, Craddock saw a number of hands appear around its edges. The hooded minions shoved mightily and finally got the door open all the way. Beyond the small crowd of underlings, Craddock saw Richards.

"Now you die," Richards said.

Craddock shot a sidelong glance at Proulx. "So it begins," he muttered.

***

Craddock and his officers were escorted through various corridors and along a wending pathway, covered with a roof to protect against the rays of the orange sun, until they reached what looked to be some sort of coliseum.

"This is our great court yard," Proulx said.

"Courtyard?" Craddock asked.

"Where we will be tried and sentenced," Proulx said.

"Oh," Craddock said. "Court. Court yard. I see."

"Captain," Rao's voice announced, audible only to Craddock, "I'm coming down there."

"Yes," Craddock said, as if still commenting to Proulx. "Good."

"This is not good, I promise you," Proulx said. "No one who stands trial here survives it." Maybe the old man wasn't so deaf after all.

"Six minutes, Captain," Rao said. "Maybe twelve."

Craddock looked around. Hooded acolytes and gray-clad workers filled the edges of the coliseum, which sported a huge roof high overhead. The coliseum had an open face turned Northwards... at least, on Earth, it have been North; Craddock wasn't sure how the locals dubbed their cardinal directions. In any case, the roof was large enough to prevent the sun's rays from reaching the crowd.

Richards approached in his white robe. He raked the space travelers with a look of burning contempt, and then turned to the crowd. Arms raised, he cried out, "Behold them! The killers! The bringers of death!"

"Death to them, and the blessings of life be upon us!" the people cried.

"Yes!" Richards cried out. "Their blood be upon them! We will have the blessings of life once they are nothing but ashes! Once we have eradicated every last deep state agent of the former regime - the Culture of Death that held us prisoner for so long! Yes! Then! Then we shall have a true Culture of Life!"

"The blessings of life!" the crowd roared in approval.

"But only death can root out those who inflict death!" Richards screamed, shaking his fists.

The crowd roared again.

Richards whirled and pointed at Craddock. "What do you have to say to these people?"

Was this supposed to be some sort of rite of testimony? A chance to speak in his own defense and on behalf of his officers? Craddock knew it for the cynical ploy it was, but there was a chance that he might say something to alleviate what was coming. Or... if not... perhaps he could offer words that would ring in a few ears, ears that could hear him -- hear reason. Words of logic and truth that could, like seeds, blossom - even if it took years, or decades, or generations...

"What I have to say is this!" Craddock shouted. "The High Elder lies to you! All life is a biological process, and biology is unstable. Life is limited! This is unavoidable!" It sounded to Craddock as though his words were simply dropping away into silence. He wasn't sure the crowd could hear him. He shouted all the harder, straining his voice. "The truth is sad, and frightening, but it remains true. None of us wishes to die, but that is the natural - and necessary - end of life for all things. Plants! Animals! And yes, humans!"

The crowd buzzed angrily. Some shouted back at Craddock.

"Gods? There are none!" the captain shouted, feeling his voice start to go. He would be horse in moments if he kept this up. "The only dignity humans have in the face of limited life is to know the truth - to live graciously - to show grace to one another! To build something greater than one's own self!" His voice was losing power. Craddock tried even harder. "Death is not a punishment!" he cried. The crowd's angry responses were growing louder, drowning him out. "It is merely the end of life, that's all! It happens for many reasons - none of them magical or moral!"

The crowd's roar had swiftly built to a deafening crescendo. Craddock could barely even hear himself at this point. He gave up, and looked toward Richards, who regarded him with a nasty little smile - a smirk, Craddock realized. The son of a bitch was mocking him out of childish pettiness.

Craddock had nothing but scorn for Richards, but it galled him to know that he had done exactly as Richards wanted and expected him to.

Richards turned back to the crowd. "You hear his words! You hear his lies! You hear his blasphemies! Now watch and see the torments I devise for him and his demon kind!"

Hooded figures surrounded the officers, but they weren't there to inflict harm on the Carpathia crew. Instead, they grabbed Proulx and dragged him off toward Richards, who paced and gestured, his every movement theatrical and grandiloquent. A pair of goons stepped forward with an urn, and Richards held the vessel aloft to the crowd's delirious screams of excitement. Then Richards turned, walked over to Proulx, and dumped the urn's contents onto the man.

It was fuel of some sort. Proulx cried out and rubbed at his eyes, then cried out again as the rubbing only caused his eyes more irritation. Suddenly, Proulx burst into flames; Craddock hadn't seen how Richards had done it, but then, as Richards stepped back, he spotted the long, dark shape of an igniter in Richards' hand.

Craddock watched, horrified, as Proulx staggered back and forth, screaming, and then fell to his knees. The flame only burned for a few seconds; the fuel had not soaked into his clothing completely and was rapidly consumed. But the fire had done plenty of damage in that brief time. Proulx's skin was seared and his hair charred. He screamed again, throwing his arms up, and then fell back, writhing on the coliseum's stone pavement.

"An enemy from within our own numbers!" Richards shouted, pointing at the old man. "No more will he do us injury! No more will he betray us! No more will he mock our righteousness!"

Several hooded minions rushed forward just then, bladed weapons resembling machetes in their hands. They raised the blades and brought them down again and again. In seconds the old man lay still, blood spattered across the paving stones and pooling under his hacked corpse. One arm was severed. The top of his head was halfway sliced off and gray matter leaked from his terribly sundered skull, clotting in the burned remnants of his hair.

Richards turned to Craddock and his crew with a terrible light in his eyes. He was enjoying every moment, every extremity of action, and every accolade the baying crowd offered him.

"Now it's you!" Richards declared. But he didn't make a move toward the Carpathia crew. Craddock hadn't expected him to. In fact, Craddock was certain that Richards would find ways to continue the farce, feeding the crowd with hot rhetoric but never actually doing Craddock and his officers any violence. If he had to, Craddock knew, the High Elder would simply find some other helpless person to sacrifice.

It occurred to Craddock to rush Richards, smash his nose, snap his neck... But the hooded minions circulated around him, in numbers far too superior. Craddock would never reach the High Elder. He'd be grabbed, thrown down, held in place... and the mad torments would continue...

"Be there in a minute and a half," Rao's voice said in his ear. "Be ready to move, sir. Those military guys have finished off the workers and monks they were fighting with and they're moving in fast. I'll be there only a few seconds ahead of them."

Craddock didn't say anything in reply. Rushing Richards would be futile, so instead he stared at the High Elder, his eyes filled with accusation and rage. Hatred boiled inside him. Richards simply laughed at Craddock, as though the captain's fury delighted him no end, and Craddock was sure this was true. It gave Richards a rush of power to know that the captain of a starship - with such superior technology at his command - could do, would do, nothing to him.

Rao's promised ninety seconds were suddenly over, and a heavy shuttle hovered overhead with a roar of engines. The shuttle began broadcasting sonic suppression. Craddock, Wilkins, and Yves were protected from the effect of the ultra-low frequency barrage by their comm beads, but Corey and the two security men had not been so equipped. They, like Richards and like everyone in the crowd, staggered, clutching their heads, and then lost their balance and toppled over. Craddock almost dashed over to deliver a few well-placed kicks to Richards, but his men needed him and duty prevailed over revenge. Instead of stomping Richards to death as he deserved, Craddock grabbed Security Guard Trevors. Wilkins had Corey, he saw, and Yves was helping the other security guard. The shuttle had lowered until it was only a few centimeters off the ground. Rao, too, was now in the fray; he grabbed Trevors, all but tossed him through the shuttle's open cargo door, and then grabbed the captain and repeated the maneuver.

Evan as Rao was manhandling him, Craddock caught a glimpse of the warriors pouring into the coliseum - charging forth and then, as they came within range of the sonic suppressors, staggering and falling.

Abruptly, everyone was in the shuttle. The cargo door rolled shut, blocking out the noise of the engines, and the shuttle raced into the sky.

***

The first thing Dr. Yves did was give everyone a quick scan. As soon as the doctor nodded at him, Craddock headed to the bridge. He choked back the words he wanted to utter - a command to launch full weapons against the city below, targeting the coliseum in particular. But underneath his rage he knew that the rationalization he was using for a strike was flawed: He wanted to tell himself he was willing to wipe out the High Elder and the soldiers and the robed goons for the sake of the people they had oppressed with lies and force for centuries. But the truth was the robed goons and the soldiers were the people who had been lied to and oppressed. They were doing it to themselves, too afraid to face life's tough realities, too frail of spirit to thrive despite their own existential terror.

Craddock took a moment to find his voice - the voice of a responsible officer.

"Mr. Honan," he said at length, "hail the surface."

Honan tried. For minute after minute he summoned the colony, with no response forthcoming. Craddock stared at the planet's curvature, at clouds and oceans caressed with orange sunlight. Rao took up his post at the tactical scanning station and reported that a fierce battle was taking place at the coliseum; then, a few minutes later, he reported the hostilities had ceased.

Craddock waited an hour, then ordered Homan to hail the surface again - to no avail.

"Can they hear us?" he asked.

"I don't know, sir. They're receiving us - but I don't know if anyone's actually tending their radio."

An hour after that, he tried again. And then, after still another hour, a final time.

The planet rotated below, placid, inscrutable. The bridge crew went about their duties. Craddock finally gave it up and ordered Carpathia to depart.

***

Their respective armies looking on, Arral and Richards clasped hands. "Agreed," they said in unison. They had made a hasty deal, one that would mean sharing power - but one that would restore peace and order to their world.

Richards and Arral turned to their followers. "We are united," Arral called out.

The crowd cheered. Warriors and workers embraced. Hooded acolytes bent to tend the wounded.

"The demons came to turn us against one another," Richards declaimed. "But with strength and will, with blood and fire, we turned them out! They have fled to the sky from whence they came."

The crowd cheered again. Richards held up his hand, and quiet fell.

"The fight is not yet over," he cried. "The demons have departed the face of the world, but they hover above us - watching, seeing every moment of weakness, detecting every selfish thought. Misdeeds, sins, and corrupt thinking are gaps in our spiritual armor, and through those gaps the devils pour sickness and death! But we will not surrender. The fight goes on, brothers and sisters! We will have a world to be proud of - a Culture of Life!"

The crowd's roar of support brought a smile to Richards' lips - a smile he saw echoed on Arral's strong, classically beautiful face.

"We are the only ones who can guide you through the manifold dangers of this imperfect life!" Richards called out. "Join me in prayer! Know that I am the power that will defend you! Know that I will hold the demons at bay, so that never again will they drop from the sky to bring terror and discord!"

Richards raised his head and looked out over the crowd, at all their trusting, expectant faces. "The demons may impose death, a little at a time, for your weaknesses. But be sure that I will exact justice for those around you who betray your trust and weaken your righteous resolve. Know that I alone possess the power to bring swift death to those in our own number who deserve it. We will be just!" he cried, as the crowd began to shout with joyous abandon. "We will be strong! We will be blessed!"

And the crowd answered him, in its thousands of voices: "The blessings of life be upon us!"

Richards held his arms up to the sky, and - silently - both thanked and cursed the outsiders who had given him the means to protect what was his by right.