What the hell are we going to do with them?

The circle closed in on the little church. A few fights broke out, and ended with more stunned or weeping men and women sitting on the curbsides, handcuffed or hugging bruises. More and more ordinary townsfolk were following along behind, drawn by the noise and the appearance of the streetlights. Deubel's congregation were hammering on the door and calling on their leader, but the door was locked against them, and the church's windows showed empty and dark. A last surge of pushing and shoving, and the would-be aronists let themselves be led down between the ranks of club-bearing volunteers and regular police.

"You're all under arrest, under the emergency powers invested in me by the Town Meeting," Cofflin said harshly, when they'd been gathered together. "You'll get a fair hearing. Now sit down and be quiet, will you?"

It was less formal than the pre-Event procedures, but it'd serve. "Hell of a thing, George," he said. "Better than twenty of them."

"Just glad you called it ahead of time, Chief," the younger man replied.

"So am I-but this's as far as I thought. Get the doorknocker, would you?" A piece of law enforcement equipment rarely used on the island before, but they did have one in stock.

It came up with four of his old officers staggering up the stairs under its weight, a steel forging with handles; shooting the lock out of a door was also something that looked a lot easier-and safer-in the movies. In real life the ricochets and flying metal made it a last resort.

"Pastor Deubel, please open this door. We don't want to damage your church." True in the literal sense; in the metaphorical, he wanted to get rid of Deubel's church and congregation, and get the people in it acting sane again. "Pastor Deubel, this is your last warning."

Cofflin sighed. It had been years since he had had to break down a door, and he'd never liked it. There ought to be a place where a man could go and lock the world away; on the other hand, people ought to be able to sleep secure in their beds without fear of a lunatic burning the roof over their heads.

Suddenly a sound cut through the murmur of voices and the distant wail of fire-truck sirens. A huge thudding boom, coming from the east, down toward the harbor. A cloud of smoke rose skyward, shot with sparks of firelight.

"Uh-oh," Cofflin said. "That was-"

George Swain took the phone from his ear. "-the warehouse with the guns and stuff, Chief."

Cofflin winced. Maybe that wasn't such a bright idea after all, he thought. Then: No, goddammit. Think what Deubel might have done with some firepower.

"Get some more volunteers down there," he said. "All right, Ted, Caitlin, Matt, Henry. Go for it."

He signed everyone else back from the steps and drew his pistol, holding it up in the two-handed grip that made it more difficult to grab. Only the second time he'd drawn iron as a policeman, other than to clean the piece. Deubel's crazy enough for anything. Sometimes he wondered what God thought of the number of people who claimed to act in His name. What had that old book said? A fanatic is someone who does what he knows God would do if only the Almighty knew the facts of the case.

Boom. The police officers staggered back as the steel rebounded from the stout doors, but there had been splintering as well. Stronger than a house door-those gave in at once. Boom. This time the splintering was louder. Boom. The doors swung open, and the team staggered a few steps into the aisle, drawn by the momentum of their ram. It was nearly pitch-dark in there, only a few gleams from the streetlamp up the road penetrating. Cofflin unhitched the L-shaped flashlight from his waist and shone it within.

"Christ," he whispered.

Deubel was there, all right-swinging from an iron light bracket, the cord that had once fed the light deep in his swollen neck. Matter dripped from his feet to the floor below, the usual release of bowels and bladder, and the stink was heavy inside the musty closeness of the church. He'd made a hash of hanging himself, too. Not enough drop, and his hands were still fastened to the cord where they'd scrabbled to stop his slow choking.

"The poor man," a voice said behind him. Cofflin looked back; it was Father Gomez, from St. Mary's.

Cofflin nodded to the priest. "Excuse me, Father." Louder. "Ladder in here, and a stretcher." Not much doubt about the cause of death; no need to rout someone out for an autopsy.

"The poor deluded man," Gomez said again, crossing himself, as the blanket-covered body was carried out. Deubel's followers looked at it as it went by, some weeping, some impassive, a few cursing or spitting at the dead cleric who'd left them to face the consequences of his preaching.

"Manichaeism is always a temptation," Gomez went on. "Chief Cofflin, I think if I talked to some of these people…"

"Do you think it would do any good, Father?" Cofflin asked. He wasn't Catholic himself, but he had a fair degree of respect for the little priest. Certainly he took his job more seriously than some of the other clergy on the island, and he'd been a voice of good sense since the Event. "They're not exactly of your denomination."

"We're all Christians, Chief Cofflin," Gomez said.

"What was that… Manni-something?"

"A perennial heresy-imagining that Satan is as strong as God. Poor Deubel thought that the Incarnation could be halted-which is to say that God's will could be defied. But even Satan is part of God's plan; He is omniscient and omnipotent, or He's not God at all. I don't pretend to understand what's happened to us here, but then there are many things we're not supposed to understand or can't understand. Mystery is at the heart of life. If God makes many worlds, He'll arrange them as He pleases-including when and where to send His son in this one."

Cofflin looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, I think it might be a good idea if you did have a talk with these people," he said.

"I will." Gomez hesitated. "Not to tell you how to do your own job…"

"Go ahead-everyone else does. It's a free… island."

"But it might be better if any formal trial, any Town Meeting, were held off for a week or so. People were frightened enough without this, and…"

"… frightened men are vicious, I know," Cofflin said. And by then I can figure out something, I hope. I'll ask Martha.

Cofflin rubbed a hand across the back of his aching neck. "I hate this job," he muttered.

"And that's a very reassuring thing, my son," Gomez said.

CHAPTER SIX

April, Year 1 A.E.

The coast of England was green and silent, save for birds in numbers that made the sky restless. It might have been a morning before man, except that-she focused the binoculars-there was a haze of smoke a little farther to the northeast.

Well, well, Marian Alston said to herself. Then, aloud: "Soundings."

"Forty feet and shoaling, ma'am. Twenty-three feet under the keel."

"Twenty-three feet, aye," Captain Alston replied. "Keep it comin'."

At least they had the depthfinder; she'd have to remember to have someone trained in throwing the lead line from the bowsprit nets against the day that it unrecoverably wore out. It made her teeth stand on edge to come this close to shore when her shoal charts were useless and the only repair facilities for a steel-hulled ship were a long, long couple of thousand years away. At least the weather looked fair and the glass was steady, just enough wind to scatter whitecaps across blue ocean. Water was lighter over shoals and mudbanks, of which the area looked to have more than its share. The low coast ahead stood green and wild, marsh and tossing forest and occasional clearings. Some of it looked like second growth, scrubby trees and underbrush. Now and then they saw a plowed field green with new crops, but some of the little clusters of round huts were burned and deserted.