REVOLT IN 2100 By ROBERT A. HEINLEIN

‘Eh? Frightened?’ .1 suddenly recalled how I had felt, how my voice had cracked, the first time I ever drilled a platoon. ‘Do not be. You will be sustained.’

‘Oh, I hope so! Pray for me, John.’ And she was gone, lost in the dark corridor.

I did pray for her and I tried to imagine where she was, what she was doing. But since I knew as little about what went on inside the Prophet’s private chambers as a cow knows about courts-martial, I soon gave it up and simply thought about Judith. Later, an hour or more, my reverie was broken by a high scream inside the Palace, followed by a commotion, and running footsteps. I dashed down the inner corridor and found a knot of women gathered around the portal to the Prophet’s apartments. Two or three others were carrying someone out the portal; they stopped when the reached the corridor and eased their burden to the floor.

‘What’s the trouble?’ I demanded and drew my side arm clear.

An elderly Sister stepped in front of me. ‘It is nothing. Return to your post, legate.’

‘I heard a scream.’

‘No business of yours. One of the Sisters fainted when the Holy One required service of her.’

‘Who was it?’

‘You are rather nosy, little brother.’ She shrugged. ‘Sister Judith, if it matters.’

I did not stop to think but snapped, ‘Let me help her!’ and started forward. She barred my way.

‘Are you out of your mind? Her sisters will return her to her cell. Since when do the Angels minister to nervous Virgins?’

I could easily have pushed her aside with one finger, but she was right. I backed down and went unwillingly back to my post.

For the next few days I could not get Sister Judith out of my mind. Off watch, I prowled the parts of the Palace I was free to visit, hoping to catch sight of her. She might be ill, or she might be confined to her cell for what must certainly have been a major breach of discipline. But I never saw her.

My roommate, Zebadiah Jones, noticed my moodiness and tried to rouse me out of it. Zeb was three classes senior to me and I had been one of his plebes at the Point; now he was my closest friend and my only confidant. ‘Johnnie old son, you look like a corpse at your own wake. What’s eating on you?’

‘Huh? Nothing at all. Touch of indigestion, maybe.’

‘So? Come on, let’s go for a walk. The air will do you good.’ I let him herd me outside. He said nothing but banalities until we were on the broad terrace surrounding the south turret and free of the danger of eye and ear devices. When we were well away from anyone else he said softly, ‘Come on. Spill it.’

‘Shucks, Zeb, I can’t burden anybody else with it.’

‘Why not? What’s a friend for?’

‘Uh, you’d be shocked.’

‘I doubt it. The last time I was shocked was when I drew four of a kind to an ace kicker. It restored my faith in miracles and I’ve been relatively immune ever since. Come on-we’ll call this a privileged communication-elder adviser and all that sort of rot.’

I let him persuade me. To my surprise Zeb was not shocked to find that I let myself become interested in a holy deaconess. So I told him the whole story and added to it my doubts and troubles, the misgivings that had been growing in me since the day I reported for duty at New Jerusalem.

He nodded casually. ‘I can see how it would affect you that way, knowing you. See here, you haven’t admitted any of this at confession, have you?’

‘No,’ I admitted with embarrassment.

‘Then don’t. Nurse your own fox. Major Bagby is broadminded, you wouldn’t shock him-but he might find it necessary to pass it on to his superiors. You wouldn’t want to face Inquisition even if you were alabaster innocent. In fact, especially since you are innocent-and you are, you know; everybody has impious thoughts at times. But the Inquisitor expects to find sin; if he doesn’t find it, he keeps on digging.’