“You're lying,” John said, but without conviction.

“No, I'm not. I know I can't prove it to you-you'd accuse me of faking the records-but it's true. Your religion has changed to fit the situation here, just as religions always do."

“You're lying,” John repeated. “You're an agent of Satan, trying to weaken me."

“Oh, d… No, I didn't mean to make you think that. Wait a minute.” She leaned back, then slowly settled back into her red-upholstered, oddly shapeless chair. “Sit down."

John hesitated, but then sat down.

“Captain, I don't think that your faith is what's really important to you-and hear me out before you argue!” John subsided, his protest half-formed. “I think that what really interests you is power-not having it, but getting it and using it. It's not religious fervor that drives you into battle, it's the need to prove yourself, the challenge, the chance to face and defeat a worthy foe. You need to win, to conquer. You want to fight for something. So far you've fought for the True Word, as you call it, and you've fought with guns and swords, but I don't think that's what's really important; I think you'd be just as happy fighting for New Bechtel-Rand, using credits and trade goods as your weapons. I can't afford to let you fight against us; I want you to fight for us. That's what I'd like to give you in exchange for peace."

“What?"

“Captain, I'm offering you a job."

He stared at her for a long, silent moment, wondering if she might be mad. “A job?” he asked at last.

“Yes. You're determined, a good leader-oh, you haven't done very well against us, but no Godsworlder could. You don't have the technology. You probably thought we knew where to find your army because of hidden lookouts, or that we found your guerrilla camp by questioning your deserters, but that's not true; we used satellites in orbit around Godsworld that were able to see everything you ever did. You thought that our most advanced weapons were machine guns, because that's what you saw, but that was because we consider those so primitive that we don't mind selling them to people we think of-forgive me-as little more than savages; how could you know we had limited fusion weapons? You put up a good fight, but you never had a chance. Join us, and we'll send you back to Earth for retraining, and next time you'll have that technology fighting for you, not against you. We have a dozen development projects planned for Godsworld that could use a man like you in charge."

“No,” he said, without thinking.

“Are you sure? You can take some time to think about it…"

“No,” he repeated.

“Well, then, perhaps somewhere else? New Bechtel-Rand is developing fourteen rediscovered colonies at present, and any number of other projects. We can find any work you like, anywhere in human-inhabited space."

“Working for you?"

“Not me, personally-I'm only in charge of Godsworld. But for the corporation, yes.” Before John could reply, she added, “If it bothers you, working for a woman-well, I hope you'll get over that, because that's one of the worst things about Godsworld, this whole sexist set-up you have here, but even if you don't, at the moment a man's running Bechtel-Rand, and I'm sure we could find a position where none of your direct superiors would be female."

A few steps behind, John asked, “You said you would ship me back to Earth?"

“Yes."

“How could you do that? It's a century each way; by the time I got back here you'd be long dead-probably all Godsworld would be dead, with the sustaining faith destroyed."

“Oh, Lord, Captain, you don't think we spent a century coming out here, do you? If we were still limited by that we'd have left Godsworld alone. It's been over a hundred years since faster-than-light travel was developed. That was what brought down the United Nation and started Earth moving again! We don't really travel through space at all, we sort of… I can't explain it in your language, but it's only a couple of hundred hours of subjective time to Earth, not a hundred years. Earth hours, at that, which are a little shorter than yours."

“Oh."

“Captain, I can see that this has all been a great deal to absorb. I'm going to have my people fly you back to your camp now, and at noon tomorrow we're going to wipe it off the planet, whether you and your people are in it or not. You can go on fighting us, but it won't do you any good, and if any more of our people die, either employees or stockholders, we're going to start removing your people, one way or another. I would much rather you joined us; we aren't the monsters you think us. Very few of us are like Tuesday; I'm sure that you have your own degenerates here on Godsworld, but we don't judge you by them, and we ask that you not judge us by ours. At least think it over, and if you decide to join us, come see me-announce your name in the entrance hall and the machines will bring you here. Just think it over, Captain-that's all.” She rose; John stood in response.

A section of the wall behind her slid aside, revealing gleaming golden walls; before John could see any details, she stepped through and the wall closed again. As she vanished, she called, “Remember, be out by noon!"

Chapter Fifteen

“When the wicked are multiplied, transgression increaseth: but the righteous shall see their fall."-Proverbs 29:16

For a moment he was alone in the room; he turned to look it over.

The door he had entered by had opened again, and the two men who had brought him were standing in the room beyond. “Whenever you're ready, Mr. Mercy-of-Christ,” one of them called. “The airship's waiting on the roof."

John took a final glance around, decided that there was no point in lingering, and marched out. His escorts fell in on either side as he stepped into the open door of the moving room.

The conversation with America Dawes was roiling in his head, with first one fact or question bubbling up, then another. As he felt the floor rising beneath him he glanced up automatically, and noticed the glowing ceiling.

“Why are your lights all that awful color, and so bright?” he asked. “Can't you make them any color you like?"

“Of course we can,” one of the guards replied. “That's the color of sunlight back on Earth. Earth has a yellow sun, you know, not a red one like yours. Godsworld seems pretty dim to us."

John noticed how much more respectfully he was handled now than he had been in being brought here, and guessed at the reason-before he had only been an enemy, whereas now he was a prospective member of the People of Heaven. These two were treating him with mild deference-if he accepted the offer of a job he would presumably be their superior, and that deference would be appropriate. He had no intention of working with the People of Heaven, though; if he did accept the offer of a job, it would be to attack them from within. He realized now that his enemy was not Dawes herself, but the people back on Earth who had sent her. He was still not sure exactly what a corporation was, whether a tribe, congregation, or as Dawes had said, merely an overgrown business, but he was sure that it was the New Bechtel-Rand Corporation that was destroying Godsworld, not any individual Earther.

And was Tuesday really not a part of the corporation? He still did not understand what a “stockholder” was, but whatever they were, if Dawes had not lied they were outsiders with special privileges. Had he been unfair in his assessment of the People of Heaven? That would bear some thought; they might not be the degenerates he had thought them. Oh, they were still his bitter enemies, there could be no doubt of that-they had destroyed Godsworld's traditional way of life, reduced the People of the True Word and Flesh to chattels and robbed them of their approaching triumph.