Part 1

THE MISSIONARY

By J. F. BONE

ILLUSTRATOR EMSH

_What value has a promise when you make it to the Father of Evil? To slay him, I could promise anything--and still be free of sin. Indeed, his death would make me holier._

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

My leg itched. The knitting fracture beneath the cast was letting me know in no uncertain terms that a simple fracture is simple in name only. There is nothing like a nagging, unscratchable itch. It doesn't really hurt, but after awhile it can become unadulterated torture,--and all you can do is grin and bear it. Ultimately you stop grinning.

To make matters worse, I had Wolverton for company. Zard knows, I despised the man enough before I saw him and contact had only served to change my dislike to active loathing.

He sat across from me, draped bonelessly in the contoured comfort of a Varkhide chair fashioned for him by one of his Halsite retainers--a tall, angular man of indeterminate age, sandy-haired, lean-cheeked, beak-nosed, with piercing yellow eyes that flashed golden under tufted brows. His face was leathery and hatched with innumerable fine wrinkles, but his eyes and voice were young.

* * * * *

To give the devil his due, he had a wonderful voice--cajoling, persuasive, domineering and demanding. He could use it with all the skill and passionate conviction of a Bearer of the Word. His tongue was a weapon--a club and a rapier--and I had been pounded and pierced with it for nearly two weeks. I hated it, but I had to listen for I was literally a captive audience.

"As I was saying last time," Wolverton continued, "rabbits have nothing on the human race. Given a halfway favorable opportunity and sufficient time, humanity can make a planet look like the Australian bush. Men don't understand it until it's too late--and then, stifled by their own swarm, they either degenerate or strike out to find a new world where a man can breathe. Always they go in pairs--male and female--and pretty soon another world becomes another rabbit warren."

"What's a rabbit?" I asked.

Wolverton looked at me and laughed. "It's obvious you've never been on the Inner Worlds, have you?"

I shook my head. "I am an Adept," I said. "I am satisfied here in Promised Land."

"Thought so. You wouldn't be asking about rabbits if you had. The early colonists took them along as food animals,--and it's touch and go whether men or rabbits are the dominant species on some planets."

He didn't explain any further, but I got the general idea.

"But that isn't the point," Wolverton went on, his voice mellow and persuasive. "Rabbits maintain a fairly balanced ecology because they're more subject to natural forces which we humans ignore or circumvent. We change environment to meet our needs--and in those rare instances where environment changes us, we adapt to it and change ourselves. Take Samar for example, normally a human being is monogamous either by nature or by law--but what happens when women outnumber men?"

I stiffened. I had heard of Samar from traders and from the Word itself. "Samar," I said, "is a disgrace--a sink of iniquity--a foul blot upon the face--"

"Oh stop it," he said wearily. "You can't blame environmental forces. Nor can you blame men for adapting to them. Sure, you can point with holy horror at Samarian social customs, but even so, they aren't as bad as your ancestors'. They don't murder excess girls."

"They should," I retorted brutally. "The old days were harsh, but they were necessary. One man must cleave to one mate. The Word demands it. Polygamy must be stamped out at the source if Faith is to survive.

"But it did no good population-wise," Wolverton said. "You're now exceeding safe growth limits for your territories. That's why you want mine."

"Lies," I muttered.

"Not at all. And you know it. Your people already _want_ my land. Soon you will _need_ it. And in a few centuries, _you won't be able to exist without it_!" His voice was flat with certainty.

* * * * *

"Lies," I said, but my voice wasn't as certain as his. I had seen the crowding in the towns and fields of Promised Land, and we _did_ need Wolverton's Holding to absorb good farmers who had no land to farm. Wolverton was right about that. We had lived up our naturally tillable acreage and reclamation projects were slow to provide needed soil. Deviants were already appearing who defied the Word by advocating birth control. Yet the Word said, "_Be fruitful and replenish the land._"

"Back in the Dark Ages on a planet known as Earth," Wolverton went on inexorably, "a man named Malthus predicted our birth rate would fight a losing battle with famine. So far we have managed to avoid it by laws, by finding new frontiers, and by improving food technology. But laws and technology can only retard the growth, and frontiers are getting even harder to find. Time is catching up with us."

"I don't see--", I said. Wolverton looked at me grimly. "I know you don't," he said. "I haven't made the slightest impression."

"You've made an impression, all right," I assured him with equal grimness.

He shrugged. "There are all kinds of impressions," he commented wryly, "and not all of them are good."

"Yours has not been," I said boldly. "I place my trust in Zard, not in the voice of Evil."

"That blank, sanctimonious stare!" he said acidly. "You Worders--gah! You're so filled with catechism and cant that you won't see a fact if it hits you in the face. Of all the possibilities on this benighted planet, the one with all the proper qualities turns out to be mentally defective." He glared at me. "I don't know why I waste my time. Ordinarily I'd condition you and let it go at that."

"But you won't," I said confidently.

He winced and I smiled. It wasn't often that I won an advantage over him, and the taste of it was sweet in my mouth.

"The power of Faith," I said sententiously, "is the greatest force in the universe. It even restrains you."

* * * * *

He looked at me with the pitying contempt an adult has for a not-too-bright child. "What you need is an education," he said slowly. "You've never had a chance."

I groaned inwardly. Always he tried to shake my faith--but he had failed before and would fail again for my course was unalterably clear. "_Avoid the smooth tongue of Evil lest ye lose your immortal soul. For the Evil will come to judgment--and the tortures of Hell are everlasting._" So said Zard in the days of his Teaching--and so we all believed. The Word of Zard was more than a symbol. It was a way of life, and Promised Land had bloomed and flowered under it.

Admittedly I was ignorant of the heathenish jargon Wolverton advanced. I knew nothing of nucleonics, spaceways, genetic factors, chromosome patterns, economies or sociology. Nor did I care. Our people had known it once but they had passed it by as childish--as men put aside the games of children. For us there was the Word. For did not Zard write in letters of fire upon the riven rock, "_Be steadfast in thy faith. Fix thine eyes upon the joys of heaven and abjure Evil. For the Faithful Man is a bright beam in the Almighty's eye and naught shall harm him who walks the fourfold path of Righteousness._" Zard's words were comfort. Wolverton's were pain. I was thrice thankful I had learned the Word. It was so much a part of me that not even Wolverton could shake my belief. I was strong--in faith and in will. For I was an Adept--next only to a Bearer of the Word.

Wolverton with his machines could contain my powers--but that was all. He could not capture my soul. And that was what he wanted. My body was useless to him. He had many bodies of flesh and metal to serve him, but none had my powers to seek into the hearts of men, to know their inmost thoughts, to bring things to me by the power Zard had given. To kill, if need be.

It was because of my powers that I was here, nursing a broken leg, helpless in the house of the Father of Evil, a prisoner of a primitive idol worshipper who exalted his machines above the Word.

* * * * *

Wolverton eyed me speculatively. "If you would get the idea through your thick head that you are eventually going to join me--that you are _not_ going to leave here until you do--that you are going to see things as they really are and not as you wish they were--we'd both have an easier time and I wouldn't be forced to keep a Halsite watching you, or waste power blanketing this place with ultra frequencies. But if I have to take ten years to pick the scales off your eyes one by one, I'll still do it and count it time well spent. You see, you are unique. There's no one quite like you anywhere in the known Universe--and what's more, you are necessary."

I laughed at him and rejoiced in the black anger which came to his face. Then the lines smoothed and the hard glitter vanished from his golden eyes--and again I was afraid. Not for myself, but for my soul.

"Well, let's try again," Wolverton said with forced cheerfulness.

I tried to find his true meaning--but he was blank--a smooth, cold-hard surface which I could not penetrate. Not like the others. They were soft and fuzzy. Their pictures were not clear--distorted--wavering--unreal, but that was due to Wolverton's machines. I could not communicate with them, but I couldn't even _reach_ Wolverton. And as usual, my failure increased my determination. He was inhuman, a soulless monster, blacker than the Pit of Night. The Bearers were right. Promised Land would never be safe until we were finally rid of him. Wolverton must die.

But Wolverton was not dead. He survived and prospered. His Halsite mercenaries guarded his island Holding--and the broad reaches of his lands, innocent of the plow, were as lush and untamed as they had been in the days of the first-comers.

The followers of the Word could gain no foothold on his lands--for behind Wolverton was the might of his machines, which men could neither influence nor withstand. Wolverton's ancestor had found this world, and therefore the Holding was his--half a million square miles of island kingdom that cried in darkness for the Word. The fierce Halsites Wolverton employed and the hidden telltales scattered through his lands inevitably found trespassers and most of these were promptly and urgently returned to Promised Land. But not all. Adepts who tried to kill him never returned.

It was infuriating. It was a disgrace to our world. It was intolerable. And so it was that I had volunteered to kill Wolverton with an ancient weapon of horrid power, and in the bright cleansing flame of the explosion purge our world forever of the face of Evil.

* * * * *

But Evil, it seemed, was not defenseless. High as I was--I was seen from below and a flaming lance of power reached up from the forest to touch me,--and I fell. In shameful cowardice I dropped the Weapon without setting the detonator.

Hurtling down to certain death, I berated myself and swore a mighty oath on Zard's bones never again to give way to weakness of the flesh if I were permitted to survive. For it was borne upon me as I fell toward the rocky ground below that I had never really expected to die despite my proud boasts of sacrifice.

And Zard heard my prayer and was merciful--yet tempered his mercy with a stern reminder of his power. For although I recovered enough control to break the force of my descent, I did not escape completely. I did not die on the cruel rocks, but as punishment for my sins of pride and cowardice, my right leg was snapped between ankle and knee--a reminder that while Zard was merciful, he was also just and meted out punishment when it was deserved.

A Halsite found me an hour later--faint and weak with pain and shock. I could not reach him as he advanced upon me warily. But his fierce crest flattened back upon his head when he saw my helplessness and his yellow fangs bared in a travesty of a human grin as he came forward with gliding steps, lifted me in his huge arms, and ran with catlike leaps down the mountainside. My weight was nothing to him, nor was the pain of my broken leg. At the third dizzy leap and jarring landing, I fainted and knew no more until I opened my eyes and saw Wolverton.

I was lying on a couch in a small inner courtyard. Around me towered his fabulous stronghold--a mighty pile of metal and stone anchored to the top of a hill, bristling with structures of metal and weird spiderwork fabrications that rotated endlessly on gimbals. My head was filled with buzzings and dizzy pinwheels of color as he bent over me and examined my torn and dirty sacramental robe. "Hmm--an Adept," he said--"Wonder what you're adept at?" He chuckled. "You're lucky that my boy obeyed orders and brought you in. You had no business over my land. And judging from that bomb you were towing, you were loaded for bear."

I looked at him curiously. "What's a bear?" I asked.

"It's a--" he stopped abruptly and scowled. "You're pulling my leg," he accused.

"I am _not_!" I said firmly. "I haven't touched your leg, although you have broken mine."

He winced. "I asked for that," he said. "I mean, you were carrying an Atomic."

I nodded. "I was," I said calmly, "and if it hadn't been for that Halsite--"

"You wouldn't have done anything except destroy yourself," he interrupted. "This place is shielded like a Base Fortress. But I didn't want you dead," he chuckled. "You're more useful alive."

I choked back a gasp of pain.

* * * * *

He noticed it. "Well," he said, "let's have a look at you." He gestured at the Halsite. The humanoid produced a long knife, and slit through my tight underdrawers, exposing my leg from ankle to thigh. The shame of it was almost more than I could bear. Wolverton looked, whistled through his teeth, and turned to the Halsite.

"Fetch doctor," he said.

The humanoid grinned, flapped his ears in acknowledgment, and disappeared into the dark interior of the pile with a catlike bound.

And presently he came back with the doctor. She was an apostate, the barred, tattooed circle of the Faith still visible on her right wrist--a natural blonde--big-boned and graceful--carrying a small medikit. She set it down, opened it, took out a fluoroprobe and examined my leg, ignoring my ritual gesture of abomination.

Her diagnosis was swift and impersonal. "Transverse fracture of the tibia and fibula," she said. "No complications. Probably it will be difficult to set since the leg muscles are so well developed, but it should heal within two weeks under stimuray."

I was embarrassed. To be examined by a female, and an apostate at that, was bad enough, but to hear the diagnosis spoken so plainly was unbearable.

I retched violently--and it wasn't entirely a ritual spasm.

Wolverton chuckled as he turned to the doctor. "This one's a _real_ hardshell," he said. "Better check for psi potential when you get back to the infirmary--we don't want to get caught with our pants down like we did last time." He laughed--a high-pitched cackle that grated on my nerves and turned to face me. "Don't worry," he went on. "You will get used to doc. You'll have to. She's the only medic we have."

The doctor looked at me with complete distaste.

"Do your worst," I said bitterly. "After your unclean hands have touched me, I can stand anything."

"I'll do my best--even for _you_!" the doctor said. She looked into my eyes until her own slid aside from the force of my superior will. "You probably _can_ stand anything--and possibly even more," she admitted grudgingly. She gestured to the Halsite who picked me up as though I were a child and carried me into the building down corridors, past courtyards and fountains to a small white room where he laid me on a table and held me while the doctor set my leg--ignoring my flinching revulsion to her touch.

So that was how I came to be seated in a wheelchair with a Halsite at my back, listening to Wolverton's voice--the Voice of Evil. The Halsite who attended me scratched idly at an insect bite on one massive arm and eyed me speculatively. But I had seen quite a few Halsites these past two weeks and so I didn't feel particularly disturbed. My itching leg occupied most of my attention.

Wolverton looked at me, sighed and shrugged his lean shoulders. "I wonder if you're worth it," he speculated audibly. "Possibly it'd be better to wait until you've married and try again with your children." He rose to his feet. "But I can't take the chance," he said. "Already it's getting too late--in another generation there might be no opportunity to salvage the race. Can't work with material like your society. There has to be _some_ balance--and the old civilizations are going downhill. There just doesn't seem to be anything now but nut cults and decadence. There's no middle ground except for a few places--and those are damn near Maximum Survival Density." He capitalized the last three words verbally.

I don't think he was really conscious of my presence at the moment, which was oddly annoying. For an instant he was miles away in a world of his own--a world which I did not understand. And for an equally brief instant I wished I could.

* * * * *

He walked out--leaving me alone with the Halsite.

"Take me outside," I said.

"Boss say no."

"Boss didn't say no--he just told you to watch me. You can watch me just as well outside as in here."

"Boss say keep you in house," the Halsite repeated, grinning cheerfully as he talked, exposing his long, yellow canines.

"Are you afraid of _me_?" I asked with mild incredulity.

"E'Komo afraid of no man," the Halsite said. "Men weak--poor hunters--poor fighters--but Boss say _inside_." His mouth closed like a trap and he looked sullen.

"You are afraid," I said, putting as much contempt into the words as I dared. "Afraid."

"E'Komo not afraid of any human."

"Of the Boss?" I asked insinuatingly.

"Even Boss--but he my chief. I put my hands in his and gave promise to be his man. Halsite no break word."

"Oh, well," I said, "you'll never convince me with all your talk that you're not afraid of Wolverton." I looked up at his broad, brutal face. He wasn't smart--and he was proud. For the past two weeks I had been feeling him out while my leg was rapidly mending under the doctor's expert care. I despised her, but she knew far more of medicine than did our best. At home, it would be a month away before I would be able to walk, but here I was almost well again. But it would do me no good as long as I was inside the house. Outside, the electronic field that blanked my strength might be weaker--and maybe if I could get far enough away I could escape. If I could once get away from Wolverton's influence he'd never catch me. I could return and tell the Bearers--

Just what _could_ I tell them? The thought jerked my plans for escape to a dead halt.

What had I learned about our enemy? What were his weaknesses? How could he be attacked and destroyed? Sure, I knew his strength--but other ones than I had learned of that. And here I was in the very heart of Evil's power and I had learned exactly nothing that would help the Word prevail.

* * * * *

I could have kicked myself for being so stupid--for not leading Wolverton on. Surely Zard must think me a weak reed--a coward--or at best a fool. One cannot fight Evil by ignoring it. The Word came to me, "_Smite Evil hip and thigh. Fight fire with fire--oppose craft to craft--strike down the evil doer with his own spear that the Word may triumph. For in my Kingdom honor waits for those who spread the Word--that the light of the spirit may be passed to other minds and the heathen rescued from the Pit._" What a fool I was to apply the "Canticles of the Young" to Wolverton. It should have been the "Missionary Creed." Against Wolverton, passive resistance could not win. It would take a sharp mind and resolute spirit to combat him. And it was time I displayed both.

Immersed in my thoughts I did not at first realize where the Halsite was taking me until a brilliant blaze of light struck my eyes. We were outside and the big fellow was pushing me rapidly down a smooth walk between rows of flowering shrubs.

"See--not afraid," he said as he came to a branch in the walk. "I take you outside. Now we go back."

I felt for him and he was all there--and with calculated force I struck! He crumpled, eyes rolling in their sockets, powerless to harm me as I stepped from the chair, limping a little from the weight of the brace on my leg. I looked down at the helpless Halsite for a long second, assimilating what I learned from him, and then I went over the fence and into the darkness of the forest beyond the grounds.

As the trees closed behind me I had a panicky feeling to fly and keep on flying until I was back home with my fellow Adepts in the cloister behind the great cathedral in Hosanna. I longed for the quiet and the comforting touches of my friends. Here I was alone in a savage land with the Father of Evil. The thought unnerved me. I was not used to Evil, and my cloistered days of study and practice as I mastered an Adept's powers were poor experience to pit against such a one as Wolverton. And then I remembered my vow to Zard, and the Missionary Creed, and I knew I must go back and fight him on his own ground. I must appear weak and inept until I could find an opening through which to strike. Yet I must not appear too easy. Wolverton must be allowed to recapture me, but I must make an obvious effort to escape. A pure cleansing wave flowed through me and my spirit was eased and my soul comforted. Zard was with me, and I felt no fear. He was pointing out my course--the only one I could possibly take. Slowly I turned and moved deeper into the forest, using my Adept's powers to confuse the trail.

* * * * *