“Now the Seladorians in Tenoya have begun actively expanding their area of cultivation. That’s brought on conflict with their neighbors, which has brought on killings. Retaliating for several deaths, a band of believers has wrecked a number of robots belonging to Arods, and even some municipal machinery. Their creed has technophobic implications, and the extremists among them are mechanoclasts.
“The city’s aboil. The garrison’s barely able to keep a semblance of order. A control team has to go in and attack the trouble at its heart. I’d frankly prefer a more seasoned man, but every one of them is engaged elsewhere. And this could be the making of your career, Panthos.”
Ardency blazed. “Thank you, sir!”
The session went on for a pair of hours. At the end, when they parted, Firix said low, “I wish it didn’t have to be you. Not that I don’t have confidence in you, but — your mother’s been my favorite niece.”
“I’ll be fine, sir,” Panthos assured him. He snapped to attention and lifted his arm in salute. “Service to the Coordinator.”
Firix’s response was correct but without fire. Perhaps he was thinking of that painted giggler who sat in the Uldan Palace.
Panthos chose a slow transport for the flight to his destination. It gave him the time and the equipment-carrying capacity for direct mnemonic input. He arrived with some knowledge of the political situation and well-informed about the geographies. Nonetheless, what he saw from aloft struck him hard.
Perhaps it was the westward desolation, a rain-gullied plain stretching farther than his sight, dust scudding between scattered shrubs and clumps of harsh grass. Eastward the land sank down to a former lake bottom. That vast expanse of moister soil was green, cropland and groves streaked with irrigation pipes and studded with units processing the materials the plants yielded. Attendant robots moved about; brief sparks flashed where metal reflected sunlight. After the throngs in Sanusco and other cities — and the castles, preserves, villages, and archaic human-worked plantations in their hinterlands — desert and sown felt alike forsaken. Thyria seemed light-years distant, a dream half remembered.
Perhaps it was Tenoya, sprawling over square kilometers. Toward the center, folk and vehicles beswarmed the streets. Tenants filled Cyclopean buildings once devoted to other purposes but not yet fallen. Small houses made from wreckage huddled beneath. Here and there lifted the bulbous spire that marked a temple. Three antique towers, refurbished, soared in graceful lines and pastel hues close to the fortified garrison compound.
A haze blued the city core, dust and smoke, man sign. At night, Panthos knew, lights would flare hectic. But, more than the surrounding hectares of ruin and abandonment, this life shocked him. He thought of maggots in the corpse of a beautiful woman.
Enough. He had work to do.
The carrier set down in the compound. He led his men out, told them to wait, and reported to the summarian. “I suggest an immediate reconnaissance, sir,” he said. “We’re fully prepared, and in fact want some movement after all that sitting. It’ll familiarize us, and a show of force ought to make for a healthier attitude.”
“I’m not sure,” the senior officer replied slowly. “Yesterday we got word that Houer Kernaldi is in town. We don’t know when he arrived. Maybe days ago.”
The note of hopelessness, the acceptance of being pretty well bottled up within these walls, chilled Panthos. He kept his tone respectful. “Who, sir?”
“You haven’t heard of him? Houer Kernaldi. Double name, you notice. A Kithman by birth, but a Seladorian convert. He’s been evangelizing and organizing for a good ten years, while maintaining connections with his kinfolk.”
He must be a lonely one, Panthos thought. If he’d abandoned the star ways, what had he left but tiny Kith Town and the rare ship from outside? Well, there were his fellow believers here on Earth, few though they were. And his god — or Atman, Entelechy, Ultimate Motive, Meaning, whatever the word was in various languages. The Executive and the educator program hadn’t told Panthos much about that. They didn’t know much. “A troublemaker, then, sir?”
“Not really, at least not by intent. He’s never preached sedition, and may well be trying to calm his followers down. It could have the opposite effect, as crazy as everybody in Lowtown is.”