John stared for a moment, then dismissed the incongruity of a man claiming to be a nurse.

“Who's Cuddles? A doctor?"

“Oh, no, of course not! It's a comsim.” The final word was not any part of the Godsworlder version of English; the ‘medical assistant’ pronounced it even more strangely than he pronounced more familiar words.

“A what? Say it slowly."

“A comsim,” the young man repeated carefully.

John dug back in his memory, picking through the faint memories of childhood lessons about Earth and man's history there.

“Comsymp?” he asked, “Communist sympathizer?"

“No, no, comsim; computer simulation. It's not real, it's just an image the machines use to talk to you."

“Oh!” John had heard stories about machines that talked, machines that thought, or flew, or swam, or whatever, but he had not always believed them completely. He looked at the window; Cuddles smiled and nodded.

“Yes, I am a computer simulation,” Cuddles said. The image suddenly distorted and then reshaped itself, and John abruptly realized that what he had taken for a window was a screen of some kind on which the image of a face was projected.

“Cuddles, do you need me here?” Liao Hasan asked.

“No, I do not think I do,” Cuddles replied. “If the patient has no objection, you may continue your rounds."

“Do you mind if I go? Cuddles will take better care of you than I could, anyway, Mister… I didn't get your name."

With his army destroyed, John saw no need to dissemble-and he did not seriously doubt that his army was defeated, though perhaps not as thoroughly obliterated as the Heaveners claimed. “John Mercy-of-Christ, Armed Guardian of the True Word and Flesh,” he replied.

“Mister Mercy-of-Christ. Glad to have met you.” He turned to go.

“Wait!” John croaked.

The medical assistant turned back.

“What happened to my people?"

“I told you…"

“No, not the army; I mean my tribe."

“The True Worders? Oh, they've joined our protectorate as a client state; the treaty was signed four days ago. Cuddles can show you the tapes, if you like."

John looked back at the screen; the computer's bland artificial face gazed mildly back as Liao Hasan departed. “Would you like to see the tape of the treaty signing?” it asked.

“Yes,” John said, unsure of the proper way to address a machine.

“Do you have a preferred format?"

“Ah… no."

“Very well.” The face vanished from the screen, and John found himself looking at a gathering of people at a peculiar angle, as if peering up through a basement window. He was shocked to recognize all the Elders, and Habakkuk, on one side; on the other were various strangers in peculiar brightly-colored clothing.

The sounds of formal conversation swelled to fill the room, and John watched in horror as each of the Elders in turn first signed a paper, then pressed his hand to a metal plate. Finally, Habakkuk's turn came, and the ceremony hit a snag.

“This says ‘Armed Guardian of the True Word and Flesh'; that's not right,” said Habakkuk's familiar voice. “We don't know for certain John's dead, and you haven't deposed him. I'm just Acting Guardian."

“Just sign it and add ‘Acting’ after your name, then,” Lazarus replied.

“Let's get it over with,” Jacob called.

Uncertain, Habakkuk glanced about.

“Listen, even if John turns up alive, do you think we'll keep him around after what happened?” Paul Baptised-in-Fire demanded. “You're the Armed Guardian now, Habakkuk, like it or not. Sign the treaty; they want a military authority, and you're the best one we've got."

“All right,” Habakkuk said, as John struggled to rise to a sitting position. He accepted the pen and signed.

“Stop!” John called.

The scene vanished instantly, leaving the blank wall panel.

“You said that was four days ago?"

“Yes."

“Oh.” John sank back. A thought occurred to him. “You said a hundred and forty-seven men survived; what happened to them all?"

“One hundred and six were treated and released, and I have no information on their subsequent actions. Thirty-eight, including yourself, are now conscious but still hospitalized; all are due to be released shortly. Three are still comatose; one of those three may not survive, or at any rate may have suffered irreversible brain damage. Of the total, sixty-two ignored the warning to cover their eyes and may still be suffering impaired vision."

“What about the woman?"

“Miriam Humble-Before-God has been conscious and fit for release for over a day now, but refuses to leave until you do, Mr. Mercy-of-Christ. She left a message for you, to be delivered at your request."

“What's the message?"

The reply was not Cuddles’ voice, but Miriam's shriller one. “I told you I'd see you all fry, you bastard! You lived through this one, but I'll see you die yet-you aren't rid of me!"

“Oh, Jesus,” John muttered, fighting back tears of rage and frustration, “how did it come to this? What have I done wrong?"

Chapter Eleven

“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger."-Psalms 8:2

The clothes they had given him upon his release were strange, and so comfortable that John felt as if he weren't wearing anything, which he found disconcerting as he made his way up the street. Miriam followed close behind, but he ignored her. He was a warlord no longer, and therefore could have no prisoners, and was not ready to deal with Miriam on any other basis. She still hated him, yet she followed him without taking any openly hostile action against him. He had serious doubts about her sanity; in his opinion, a sane person would go on about her life-or rather, since her old life had been wiped out, would go about building a new life. The Citadel, with its insistence on treating strangers as equals, was probably the best place on Godsworld for doing that. Miriam's clinging to her pointless enmity, the last vestige of her old world, struck him as senseless. The People of the True Word and Flesh had been defeated, had become just another client of the People of Heaven; what more did she want?

His enemy, on the other hand, was triumphant, and John was determined to reverse that. An open attack had failed, and obviously had had no chance to begin with against the Satanic weaponry the Heaveners used-little wonder they were willing to sell machine guns when their own armament was so much more powerful! There were other methods besides open attack, though. After much careful thought and study, and some indirect questioning of the machine that called itself Cuddles, John had come to the conclusion that there were no more than five hundred of the Earth-born Heaveners on Godsworld; they controlled thousands of Godsworlders, true, but the Earthmen and Earthwomen were, relatively, only a handful. If he could bring their followers to see them in their true light, as agents of Hell come to destroy Godsworld, John was certain that he could bring even the corrupted and decadent population of the Citadel to rebel. After all, just a few years before the Citadel of Heaven had been an independent city-state; some vestige of pride and Christianity must linger.

It puzzled him that the Earthers had made so little effort to conceal their actual origins. Surely they knew that the people of Godsworld were aware of Earth's evil nature!

Against a popular uprising their weapons would not be enough; they could not bomb their own homes, after all. Even if they were able to hold out indefinitely in their fortress-their Corporate Headquarters, Cuddles had called it-they would have no further influence on Godsworld, and that would be enough to satisfy John.