“In His Supremacy. And their inevitable victory, I guess.”

“This is…” Killeen’ s voice trailed off as he looked beyond the woman’s pleading, reddened face. In the narrow gully three more girders had been jammed into the soil and kept nearly upright with stones. Each held an upside-down body. He remembered suddenly the “art” that the Mantis had displayed years ago. Human artworks. These crude monuments to human evil had a strangely similar quality.

He took a few steps toward them before he saw the cloud of insects that whispered and buzzed around each. He approached the nearest on wooden legs, scarcely believing the sight of hundreds of mites swarming over the inverted body. They buzzed angrily as he came near and stooped to see the congested, blood-black face.

“This is Anedlos!” Killeen cried.

Jocelyn tugged him away. “Don’t look. They put him up days ago. Yes’day he died. Other two are Tribe—from Card Suit.”

Stunned, Killeen stammered, “Anedlos—Anedlos was a good crafter. He…he…”

“He wouldn’t take part in their religious service. He argued with His Supremacy.”

“And for that—” Killeen made himself stop, try to think. “What did you do?”

“His Supremacy? I pleaded, but—”

“Pleaded? That’s all?”

“What could I do?” Jocelyn asked defiantly.

“Tell that maniac that nobody hands out justice in Family Bishop ’cept Family Bishop.”

“That’s…that’s not the way things work here.”

“No decision by the Tribe can set aside a Family’s justice, you know that.”

Jocelyn spread her hands in a gesture of futility. “Old rules don’t work here. His Supremacy says he’s God’s embodiment and what he says is law.”

“He’s crazy.”

“Yeasay, but he has many, many Families who think he’s God.”

“Killing mechs doesn’t make you God.”

Jocelyn shrugged. “These Families, they always had Gods and stuff. His Supremacy pulled it all together some way.”

Killeen remembered the Nialdi Aspect he had earned years before, an ardently religious man Nialdi was never any real use, though the Aspect had given guidance to Cap’ns down through the ages. As soon as he became Cap’n, with power over Aspect assignments, he had put Nialdi in chip-store.

Religious fervor…typically arises in times…of unsettling change. End of the Chandelier Epoch saw…much ardor…Nialdi…came from…shortly after… seems likely His Supremacy carries…several such personalities…and may give him…charismatic power…over the Tribe…

His Grey Aspect whispered weakly. Killeen saw her point. Nialdi applied the apparent truths of that time to the present. His Supremacy was doing the same. Maybe the trick of hiring his people out to mech cities had given the man enough power to let the underlying powerful Aspects come into play.

Killeen said, “Still, we can’t let—”

“Look,”’ she said heatedly, “I been tryin’ ever’thing. His Supremacy put me in charge since we thought you were dead. It’s all I can do, just getting food. We were pretty bad off when we landed. These people took us in. We’re lucky—”

“Crazy man will do you in bad, you follow him,” Killeen said, exasperated.

He stalked back to the woman, unsheathing a tool to unwind the wires. They were hard to free because the wire had cut deeply into her wrists. Before he was through he saw that blood was running out of her mouth, spattering the gray mud and mingling with the spitting rain that came blowing into the gully. She was dead.

Back in the Bishops’ camp he assembled Cermo and Jocelyn and Shibo and questioned them closely. He started with the escape.

Shibo had led the flight from the station. She had even reactivated the Flitter where Jocelyn was hiding. The Cybers who captured Killeen had ignored the craft. As soon as they moved away and lifted their control of it, Shibo had commanded it to join the dispersed Flitter fleet that carried the Family.

They had been very lucky. When the cosmic string stopped spinning Shibo saw their chance. Her deft handling of the shuttles’ microminds had brought them on a steep dive into the atmosphere. One shuttlecraft had come apart with four Bishops aboard. She guided them to a rough landing a day’s hardmarch from here. They had come down at night. The watch here had sent a runner to see who they were.

“Thing is, who’re they?” Killeen asked.

“Tribe of Cards. They’ve got pasteboards they play games with, got their Family names on ’em,” Cermo said. His face was drawn and crusted with beard.

“Um. Seems funny, makin’ Family from some game,” Killeen said. “But they’re all we got here.”

Shibo said, “A Niner told me our Families come from a game.”

Killeen snorted in disbelief. “Bishops ’n’ Kings ’n’ Rooks?”

Shibo shrugged. Cermo said, “I bet they made that up. Just ’cause we thought was funny they’re named for li’l cards.”

Killeen said thoughtfully, “We got lot in common though. Tribes, Families, even same rules.”

Shibo said, “Must’ve come from same place.”

Jocelyn nodded. “His Supremacy says we’re all from same Chandelier.”

Cermo asked, “How’s he know?”

“His Aspects,” Jocelyn said. “I bet Aspects kept us all ’bout the same. Rules and such—Aspects’re big on those.”

“And talk,” Killeen said. “Aspects always nag about speakin’.”

Shibo said, “That might explain why we can still understand these Cards.”

“Makes sense,” Jocelyn said. “Our language changes, we couldn’t understand our Aspects. Or trade ’em with these Cards.”

Killeen said carefully, “Who says we’d do that?”

“His Supremacy,” she answered.

“Why?”

“Pool our tech.”

Killeen said, “The Sebens’ Cap’n didn’t seem interested in that.”

“Well, His Supremacy says he wants to check out the Aspects the Bishop officers use.”

They looked at each other.

Shibo said, “Maybe he thinks we don’t have enough God-loving Aspects?”

Jocelyn said, “All I know is what His Supremacy tells me.”

“Which sure’s not much,” Cermo said.

“I can deal with him,” Jocelyn said proudly. “I got us food and tents.”

Killeen remembered how, years before they left Snowglade, the Family had been surprised at night and had to leave behind all their bedding and tents and a lot of cooking gear. Though they had fallen far from the wonderful, hypnotically exotic comforts of Argo, he was glad to see that the Family had adjusted quickly to the hardships of the land.

Nearby a metal-crafter was fashioning a carryrack from some wrecked mech tubing. The Bishop camp stirred with effort as old talents came into play again, and Killeen could see on faces a reborn confidence that came from finding the old methods still good and true.

He covered the arrangements Jocelyn had made with the Tribe, details of supplies and food. He dispatched fifty Bishops to help with the day’s foraging, which was conducted as a coordinated effort ranging far from the Tribesite. There were many matters of Family business to straighten out. Killeen had to decide how to reconfigure the Family’s elaborate sequence of order-giving, since they had lost the four in the shuttlecraft and, of course, Anedlos. That matter Killeen dealt with, speaking between clenched teeth. “We won’t take such treatment. But we’d better look sharp till we understand things better.”

His lieutenants nodded. Even as he went on to discuss other issues he knew that there was really nothing he could say that would inspire much confidence among them. The plain bare facts of their predicament spoke in the barren plain. Here they squatted in the ancient manner, ready to jump up and move at the slightest alarm. They had lost everything, the Argo and their dreams as well, in the span of a few days.

It was Shibo who made their thoughts plain. “Comes a chance, I say we get back aboard Argo.”

“Wish you could’ve gotten control of it,” Killeen said gently. “Could’ve gotten away then.”