Abruptly he deflected his glowering, building rage down to where Killeen knelt, and in a long sigh the rage evaporated. In a blink his eyes regained their neutral emptiness.

He said mildly, “And I am glad that you have come to aid in my time of need.”

Killeen said carefully, “I am alone now, sir. My—”

“Supremacy!” a hard whisper in his ear urged.

“I am alone, Supremacy, my Family—”

“The Bishops, you called them?” the short man said judicially.

“Yeasay, they—”

“I had thought they were lying. I had never heard of any such Family, and fancied them wastrel renegade Deuces or Trumps.”

Killeen asked excitedly, “Bishops? Here?”

“You understand, a mind focused on the defense of our race cannot but leave details to others. I reserve my time for communion with the spirit that moves over and within and through us.”

“They’re here, Supremacy?”

The heavy, dark eyebrows arched in an expression of bemused interest. “We found them wandering. They had a story about landing in mech craft and escaping the Cyber air raids that we had seen the day before. I thought this a mere fashioned lie. Now that you appear—a Cap’n, I judge from your insignia—this explains it.”

“How many?”

The man’s face froze and Killeen realized that he had made some error. What could it be? Was his question too direct? The complete silence of everyone around him suggested that he could amend his mistake….

“Your Supremacy, I beg you—yield to me the number who have lived.”

His Supremacy’s mouth lost some of its tightness and he flicked a glance at a woman to his left.

“Over a hundred,” came the reply.

Killeen’s breath caught. Most of the Bishops had gotten out.

“I shall cause them to be released,” His Supremacy said grandly, his arms making a sweeping gesture. Everyone in the tent cheered, as though this were some unique act, as though this man who called himself by a ridiculous title had somehow saved the Bishops’ lives.

The swarthy man’s face knitted into a reflective cast, his eyes wandering up to the peak of the tent. “I had judged them as scabrous cowards, laggards from destroyed Suits in the Families. As such, they were unworthy of any role in our grand assaults to come, and so would be used for labor. Fighting within our invincible Tribe is an honor not lightly dispensed. You understand, I am sure.”

“Uh, yeasay.”

The eyebrows met in a scowl.

“Yeasay, Your Supremacy.”

The eyebrows parted and the face relaxed, the eyes again sliding into blankness. “Now they may take part in the heroic struggles to come. I expect you to assume command of them again, as Cap’n.”

“Yeasay, Supremacy, as soon—”

“And sacrifices will be exacted.”

Killeen looked at the man but could not read his meaning.

His Supremacy gestured and someone unbound Killeen’s arms. Should he get up? Something in the way the short man stood, hands on hips and legs stiff, told him to remain kneeling.

His Supremacy pursed his lips, eyes wandering again. He said distantly, “I understand, in my all-reaching facets, your confusion. You have voyaged here from some other sphere of human action, and that was as I wished. You moved in response to my injunctions, though ignorant and in darkness. I was the unseen force which drew you across the night canyons that separate the worlds. I desired it and sent my emanations to guide you.”

A murmur greeted this speech. Hushed exclamations of awe filled the tent.

“Now you enter onto the full stage of human destiny.”

This speech had the ringing quality of a set piece. “Ah, yeasay…Supremacy.”

“I am the given. You have in this conversation verged on disrespect toward me.” The eyebrows knotted. “Mayhappen this arises from ignorance. If so, now it is just and proper that I reveal to you my deepest nature.”

Killeen said guardedly, “Yeasay.” The tent rustled with anticipation. Someone damped the lamps and shadows crowded the tent further. A hushed expectation rustled among the men and women like a sudden wind.

“Witness!”

The short man extended his arms and abruptly his entire body shimmered and glowed. Against the blue fabric a yellow skeleton appeared, like a second entity that lived inside the man. It moved with him, bones and ribs and pelvic girdle performing their rubs and rotations as His Supremacy stepped first to one side, then to another. Atop the curved spine a death’s-head grinned, turning proudly. The bones worked smoothly, suggesting that a creature made of the pure, radiating hardness could walk and know the world, encased in its enduring strengths. It oozed ample light into the tent, cutting a blackness as deep as that in the unblemished spaces between stars. In these dim working shadows, with breezes flapping the tent like far-off thunderclaps, the intricate lattice of crisp light implied an interior race of invulnerable beings, harder than human.

Its burnt-yellow jaw pulsed on an unseen hinge as His Supremacy said, “I am the essence of humanity itself, come to avenge and save. Through me human destiny will be made manifest. The mechs and Cybers shall be vanquished alike.”

In the thick, shadowy air his skeleton vibrated with life. Vagrant hues shot through the bones as they articulated, knotty joints swooping with artful animation in the framing dark.

“Mortal?” he cried. “No. Mortality lies within me and yet I am not mortal. I am the manifestation! God Himself!”

Killeen gathered that this techtrick was supposed to impress him. He let an expression of amazement settle onto his face while he tried to see how the moving rib cage and legs were imaged on the blue.

“I am the immanent spirit of humanity, as given by Divine God! In this most dire and yet pregnant hour of mankind, the glorious truth is that I have been endowed with godliness entire. No longer does God act through me. He has become me. I am God! This is why the Tribe will follow me to its certain destiny. This is why you, Cap’n of the lost Bishops, will give your final effort to my cause, the cause of humanity’s true God!”

FOUR

The human sprawl down the valley was broad and impressive. Two women escorted Killeen through the knots of Family gatherings. They were both Cap’ns but Killeen asked them nothing.

He had allowed himself to be led into this massive encampment because the men and women who had found him insisted. But every sense in him shouted Caution! These people were grim, silent, and the interview with His Supremacy had unsettled Killeen considerably. He remembered his father’s wry advice: “Thing about aliens is, they’re alien.” That might apply to this distant vestige of humanity, too.

Twilight cast slanted sulfurous rays across the wracked land, picking out details for fleeting amber moments.

A wheezing old man passed, dragging a carryframe that dug deep ruts in the soil. Young couples held hands around smoky campfires, squatting together with their small babies. Beside a spitting orange lamp, a dumpy matron made an outraged face as she haggled with a trader over a plastic sack of grain. Children scampered among lean-tos, aiming and firing at one another with sticks and calling Family battle-cries in hoarse, excited voices. Men sat solemnly checking and oiling weapons, the shiny parts carefully arranged on worn dropcloths, their scarred stocks held between bulging, augmented knees. A young woman leaned against a commandeered mech transporter, idly playing a lightly liquid tune on a small harp. She kept her boots and calf sheaths on, pneumatic collars gleaming and tight at her ankles, plainly still on ready-guard. But the music lilted on the tumbling breeze, promising a lightness nowhere to be seen.