representation of me as a tattletale is bogus, I won't provide any details," he said. He grinned, and pulled on the lead rope attached to the goat's halter. "Come, dear Blevins. Let's get you and your best friend out into the sunshine again, shall we?"
He led the way back the way they'd come, for the nearly two mile trek to a little used, larger than average entryway into the tunnels. Puny kept his eyes riveted on his goat companion and followed, with Leo pretending to lead him. After they'd passed, Tim and Tom fell into line, with their smaller, but less docile, bulls. Behind them, Stanley got the engineering detail in order, and followed. Ott heard a man point out that this was lousy planning since it meant they'd be following manure manufacturing units. He heard Stanley reply that he'd weighed that particular downside against the downside of being in front of a bull that could run them down if he got spooked – and probably would run them down, this being a tunnel – and had made the executive decision to put up with steaming fresh manure rather than risk being stampeded to death. He asked if there were any objections. They were too far away by then for Ott to hear the answers, if any.
He was wondering who he should assign to clean up the manure, when Joel Johnson started shoveling it into buckets.
Joel saw Ott taking note of what he was doing, and laughed. "Don't waste your time wondering what I did to deserve this, sir. It was nothing more serious than drawing the short straw when we drew straws. Really. You can ask anybody."
"Carry on, Johnson," Ott said. He turned to leave. He nearly ran into Anthony Davis.
Anthony was looking at the manure. "Do I want to know what just happened here?" he asked.
"Pull up a seat and I'll tell you all about it while I work," Joel said.
"I have a better idea," Anthony said, retrieving a washrag, a mop, and a bucket of sudsy water from a tool stand. "Many hands make light work. Tell me while we both work, eh?"
Lt. Ott left, a bit upset that the pastor seemed to be fishing for every man on his team, either to convert him, or to rope him into a deeper commitment to Jesus if he was already Christian. He wanted to be fair about it, but from a manager's point of view it would be helpful if not so many men at once were different from one day to the next. On the other hand, he didn't want to discourage anyone. He'd just have to learn to deal with it, he guessed. Like his granddaddy said, sometimes you just had to grin and bear it.
On his way, Ott stuck his head in to see how the prisoner Gills was getting along. The man was sitting in a corner, intently reading a Bible, his branded brow furrowed in concentration. He was another fish in Anthony's increasingly big net, apparently.
Ott rolled his eyes, shook his head, and left without offering a word to the prisoner or his guards.
Gills was struggling to understand the book that had been given to him. Most of it made no sense. Some of it was downright scary. The chaplain had told him that he'd need spiritual eyes to understand it, and that didn't make sense either. Still, he'd come to want to understand it. And, surprisingly, more and more of it made sense, or at least caused him to reconsider himself and the world, which – incredibly – seemed to have supernatural elements after all. Here. Now. Not just out in the cosmos, where the Life Force came from and where spirits escaped to when a person died. Here. Now. Actively working in people's lives. It was amazing, and mind bending.
Even without all that, the principles set forth, especially by Jesus Christ and his apostles, were turning his world upside down. Notions of some people being superior from birth, of the importance of status, of meekness being a weakness – those, and more, were in danger of crumbling. Boasting was bad? Who knew? Doing things simply for the recognition of other men was robbing yourself of a greater reward? How could that be? A man had to be born again? He'd never heard of that before.
He caught motion out of the corner of his eye. He glanced up just in time to see Lt. Ott roll his eyes and shake his head and walk off.
"Excuse me," he said to his jailers, employing the manners of the place instead of the ones he'd been raised with. "Who was that, please?"
"That, Gills, was Lt. Ott. The top man around here. He's been to see you before. Did you forget?" the snarkier of the guards told him.
"No, I did not forget. I did not get a clear view of him before he left. That is all," Gills said. He put the Bible aside, grateful to the government to send him such a warning. He still didn't understand the training he was being put through, but it was clear now, blessedly clear, finally, that he was not meant to take the odd book seriously. Perhaps he was being trained to go behind enemy lines and destroy people who took it seriously, and he would need to know what lines to spout, or what fables they used as a degraded means of communication. He wished his superiors would be more clear, but perhaps the uncertainty was part of the test? Perhaps he must prove his loyalty first?
He waited until he was sure that the guard who'd spoken to him was watching, then shoved the Bible away.
The guard laughed.
Gills could have danced. He had been tested, and from the guard's response, he was sure he had passed with flying colors.
To be more precise, he had passed this test. There would probably be more. He had nearly fallen into this trap. He must be careful not to fall into any more.
"Hey, how ya doing?" Anthony asked his brother, from the doorway of Billet 32.
"Home again, home again, something, something, lady bug," Harvey replied, trying, and failing, to remember a nursery rhyme that seemed to fit the occasion.
"That scary, eh?" Anthony said.
Harvey hesitated. The nurse in attendance said she'd go take a walk, and left.
"I hope you never get to find out how scary," Harvey said, opting to be serious for a change. "I can get around one way or another, to some degree, using a wheelchair some of the time, and the exoskeleton now and then. But I topple a lot, usually with no warning whatsoever."
"Ouch. Then there's all that having to depend on other people to help you get set up so you can get around one way or another. And needing help getting dressed, and using the bathroom, and other fun stuff. That can be tough," Anthony prompted.
"I'd rather not talk about it," Harvey said.
"As you wish," Anthony said.
"Sit down, why don't you," Harvey said.
"Glad to," Anthony said, and sat.
"Could we talk about something other than me? I'm sick to death of talking about me," Harvey said.
"That depends. Are you dodging your minister, or going stir crazy from the self-centered insanity of early stage disability?"
"Who are you, and what did you do with Tony?" Harvey said, but with a gentleness that surprised his brother. "And to answer your question, probably a bit of both," he added, with a candor that also surprised his brother.
"Who are you, and what did you do with Harv the Marv?" Anthony asked, joking, but with an overlay of encouragement.
He got eye contact. Seeing light inside that hadn't been there before, he decided to let Harvey steer the conversation away from himself after all.
"So," Anthony said, "Just in case you've missed a briefing or two, we're in communications blackout, except for long distance runners with good memories – at any rate, we sincerely hope they have good memories and aren't embellishing or deleting information. We're not hearing from spies topside anymore, by any means of communication. Whether that's from them all being dead in the depersonings war that's going on between different departments, we don't know. We're hoping they're alive but afraid to send messages just now. But that's just a hope. No evidence for that yet. You might have been the last man out." He watched Harvey's reaction. "Please don't get a case of survivor's guilt. I can probably deal with it, if we need to, but really, I have my plate full just now."
"So I've heard. From what I've heard, Ott thinks you're turning the world upside down, raking in converts left and right."
"I prefer to think of it as turning the world rightside up, but I have to concede that we've got a lot of men in the process of
transformation right now. Including the guy who shot you, by the way."
"I heard."
"He'd like to apologize in person, but doesn't want to intrude."
"Send him over any time. I should be easy enough to find."
Anthony held his tongue.
"I won't chew him to bits, I promise," Harvey said.
"No, I don't believe you would. Thanks. How about Remna?"
"What brought her up?"
"I did."
"Off limits."
"All right. For now."
"Off limits."
"All right. Changing the subject, has anyone told you anything about Gills?"
"Yeah. They say he's probably going to be another of your converts. Congratulations."
Anthony shook his head. "He was seeking. Now he's not. He's openly scornful again. I wondered if you had any idea why?"
Harvey shook his head. "Hey, Anthony, are you all right?" he asked.
"Do you remember the parable Jesus told about seed being scattered? Some fell on the path and got eaten before it grew, some grew in shallow soil and withered, some grew all right at first but got choked by thorns, and some grew in good soil and yielded a huge harvest?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Because Gills is the first man I've had snatched from me after he appeared to be growing good and hard and healthy. And I don't know what to do about it. It gets worse. At night, I'm dreaming about the man who got rid of one demon, swept the place out, didn't fill the