The farming village of Uchal was situated in the border region to the west of the great forests of southern Kroaxia. Its cluster of houses, including the central church and village hall, the headrob's manor next to its private plot of land, and the outlying barns and animal stables, were grown from foundations that had started as artisan-produced seed cultures. The growing walls were trained to merge into enclosed structures, and the doors and windows formed at the same time by pruning and shaping. In the surrounding fields, rows of tube-forming machines and frame welders supplied a steady harvest of basic body parts for a variety of domestic animals, while orchards of crystallization furnaces extruded purified silicon to supply the assembly centers of new robeings as well as animals. The village also kept herds of wheeled glass crushers and three-legged hole tappers, as well as free-range oil siphoners that brought back mixtures to feed the separation columns at the communal dairy.
This prosperity was due in no small part to the remoteness of the district, which generally left it untouched by the wars and squabbles between Kroaxia and the neighboring nations. The attentions of the royal tax collectors were another matter, but even that burden had eased considerably in the course of the last eight bright periods. Eskenderom, the former king of Kroaxia, had fled into exile, along with his court and priests, after the people had rejected their outmoded doctrine of the Lifemaker and adopted the teachings brought by the "Lumian" gods from their world of light beyond the sky. Now the new ruler of Kroaxia, whose name was Nogarech, was changing to ways modeled on those the rebel leader Kleippur had instituted in his breakaway state, Carthogia, which he had proclaimed independent and had defended successfully even before the Lumians had arrived. In Carthogia no robeing was enslaved to another; all citizens were free to own property and to trade or work for their own profit; the rulers could be dismissed by the people; and knowledge was regarded not as a sacred mystery to be revealed by the Lifemaker's chosen priests but as an understanding that could be gained by anyone through diligent observation, inquiry, and reason.
Thirg was a Kroaxian who now lived in Carthogia. Before the fall of Eskenderom's regime, he had been known in Kroaxia as Asker-of-Forbidden-Questions. He had lived as a recluse in order to pursue his inquiries after truth in peace, without interference from priests and free from the scrutiny of the Holy Prosecutor's informers. Now he was an adviser on philosophy and science to Carthogia's ruler, the former general, Kleippur, outside whose capital city of Menassim the Lumians had erected their camp. Thirg's prime task was to study—and, as far as was possible, adapt for the use of the Carthogians—the awesome knowledge of the Lumians: knowledge that enabled them to ride in huge, wheeled, animallike vehicles that were not alive, to command weapons capable of annihilating whole armies, and to actually rise up into the sky in strange craft that the robeings had at first thought to be dragons.
Thirg had come to Uchal to visit an old friend of his called Brongyd, who in former days had also entertained thoughts that it was wiser not to talk about and had conducted his own unauthorized researches. Brongyd's fascination had always been in trying to understand how it was possible for a suitably arranged combination of nonliving parts to take on the quality that was called life. He had spent hundreds of brights cataloging and classifying the thousands of species of immobile sorters and roaming collectors, the scavengers, metals extractors, plastics strippers, and chip recoverers, trying to piece together the puzzle of intricate, interdependent pathways by which nature recycled its materials as it constantly renewed the living world. He had followed components through miles of forest conveyors and transfer lines and had constructed charts of the merging and branching patterns by which assemblies grew and flowed uncannily to their destinations. And he had dismantled hundreds of dead animals and static machines to trace where their component parts and raw materials had come from. It had amazed him to think that a bearing lining picked out of the undergrowth by a forest browser in Kroaxia might end up twelve brights later in the rotor of a centrifuge on the far side of Carthogia. And now Brongyd was wondering if he need have bothered. For the Lumians, by the sound of things, created life as routinely as Robia's wagon makers directed the growth of racing bipeds or a noblerob's four-legged carriage.
"So art thou saying 'tis true what I have heard?" Brongyd asked. The surface thermal patterns around his imaging matrices formed flickering whorls of wonder. "The beasts that live yet are not alive, the Lumians make in farms created for the purpose?" He and Thirg were standing at the edge of the village, beside the lane leading to the headrob's manor, watching laborers clearing metal shavings from workheads in an adjacent field. Rex, Thirg's mecanine that had journeyed with him to Carthogia and now back into Kroaxia, sat on its haunches a few feet away, sniffing the breeze and occasionally twitching one of its collector horns.
"So it would appear," Thirg affirmed. "And the farms were not cultivated by clearing forests and seeding deserts, but assembled by machines that the Lumians made with other machines, which in turn were shaped by means of simple tools fashioned from metals that they melted out of lifeless rock."
"So on their world they made the first machine!" Brongyd concluded.
"They regard it as no more than an elementary craft," Thirg said. "The feats of the armorers in Menassim, who merely cause self-repairing hydrocarbon mail to grow in methanated soils and coax it into assuming robody contours, impress them more."
The vanes around the coolant outlets of Brongyd's lower face ruffled in bemusement as he thought through the implication. Allegedly, the Lumians were composed of glowing jelly that needed to be bathed constantly in hot, corrosive gases inside their flexible casings. Such gases formed the natural atmosphere of the Lumians' home world, which had oceans of liquid ice and was hot enough to melt mercury.
"But the Lumians are formed from organics, even though they be of a kind unknown to us," he finally said. "If there were no machines on Lumia originally, Thirg, then what form of intelligence grew the first Lumians?"
It was the same question, turned upside down, that generations of robeing thinkers had asked themselves when they pondered on what had built the first machine. By now Thirg was getting used to thinking from the Lumian viewpoint, where everything happened upside down or inside out. Instead of their offspring being put together naturally at assembly stations that all shared and maintained in common, the Lumians grew them individually inside their own bodies, with all kinds of attendant problems when the time came to eject them. They replaced their worn parts in the same way, by assembling them from the inside out of molecules circulated in fluid solutions—how the molecules knew to attach where was something Thirg had never understood. But things like roadways and bridges for their nonliving "animals" to move on, and the homes they lived in, they assembled laboriously, piece by piece, from the outside. Impossible as such a scheme of things sounded at first mention, from his dealings with the Lumians on behalf of Kleippur, Thirg was getting an idea of how they believed it could all have started.
He replied, "They speak of origins long ago, under conditions far hotter and more violent than exist in Robia, in which chemicals borne in liquids were able to assemble themselves into forms that, though beyond any experience or indeed powers of imagination of ours, acquired that ability to manufacture replicas of their kind which is designated as possessing life. From that life that was not aware, there emerged the aware form of life that was not machine yet could create machines."
"So this 'chemical life' of which you speak was able to appear of itself, out of no life?" Brongyd asked.
"Thus we are assured."
"And it was the descendants of this chemical life who built the machines on Lumia and have now traveled thence from beyond the heavens?" Brongyd went on. "They are not gods, nor do they have need of any Lifemaker doctrine to render comprehensible the fact of their existence."
"It seems a failing of robeings to invent fanciful explanations that lie beyond comprehensibility rather than to make the effort of expanding their powers of comprehension," Thirg replied.
Brongyd frowned at the obvious question that statement left unanswered. "Thus are the Lumian machines and flying beasts explained," he agreed. "But thou canst not proclaim that in similar fashion did these strange chemical intelligences of which you speak bring forth the life that abounds on Robia. If no Lifemaker created robeing, but it was the mind of robeing that created Lifemaker, whence, then, Thirg, came we?"
Thirg sighed. "Of that even the Lumians confess ignorance," he admitted. "They conjecture that we, and all the life of Robia, emerged from simpler ancestors, built by another race still and sent hither from a different world whose distance defies even the comprehension of the Lumians. Why to this place, and how many twelve-times-twelves of twelve-brights ago, are questions to which perhaps none, neither Lumian nor robeing, in the remainder of the course of time will ever know the answers."
Suddenly Rex began gnashing its cutters and sprang to its feet, tense and alert. Thirg and Brongyd stopped talking and looked around, aware now of the sounds of voices and general consternation growing louder. The villagers nearby had stopped work and were staring, too. Along a track leading from the edge of the forest a double line of armed riders was approaching, followed by a growing crowd of curious, chattering workers and children from the surrounding fields.
The weapons the newcomers bore were mostly a mixture of traditional carbide-edged swords, axes, and lances. In addition, however, some carried the newer "hurlers" developed by Kleippur's artisans in Carthogia: tubular in form, that used explosive gases to shoot a projectile capable of shattering a slab of ice a finger's breadth thick at over a hundred paces. The Lumians possessed weapons that seemed to function in the same general way, although capable of operating at speeds that staggered the imagination and with immensely greater power. They could also call down heat darts from the sky that detonated with furnace light, one of which was enough to demolish everything within a circle of forest twenty paces across.
The riders wore cloaks of laminate mail or heavy woven wire over body armor made of acid-resistant and heat-absorbing organics. Their expressions were harsh, and they ignored the shouts from the villagers on either side. At their head was a thick-bodied figure with a red beard of accumulated cupric plating and a grim set to his cooling louvers. Although this was clearly not a military force, he was wearing a Kroaxian army helmet of wheelskin with a plume of bronze threads. The rider beside him carried a pennant with a design that was new to Thirg, of three circles interlinked. Halfway along the column of horserobs was a six-legged cart being drawn by a pair of spring-wheeled tractors, with several figures riding in it. Thirg looked uneasily at Brongyd. They moved to follow the growing throng, with Rex staying suspiciously at Thirg's heel.
In the center of the village the leading riders parted below the steps leading up to the communal hall and drew up into two lines facing outward across the square while the cart halted in front of them. It was carrying a long bundle, Thirg could now see, wrapped in a sheet of metallic braid and fastened with cord. The way the rest of the riders fanned out to station themselves like guards at the ends of the streets entering from among the surrounding houses added to his rising apprehension. The crowd, which had grown quickly, seemed similarly affected and became subdued. Ol Skaybar, the village headrob, appeared from the direction of the manor house, accompanied by a number of his helpers and lieutenants. They looked bewildered, shaking their heads at one another and gesticulating among themselves. Nobody seemed to know what was happening.
The leader and the standard-bearer dismounted in the space in the center, between the horserobs facing the crowd, and climbed the steps in front of the hall, which was the customary place for addressing gatherings. Two henchmen who had been riding behind followed them. While the leader and the standard-bearer turned to face the crowd, the other two moved behind them and unfurled a banner showing the same three interlinked circles as had appeared on the pennant. They fastened it to the doors of the hall as the leader began speaking.
"My name is Varlech, Avenger-of-Heresies. We have been sent to this place by the defenders of the Lifemaker's True Faith, who even now are organizing to protect the sacred teachings that have guided Robia for uncounted generations against the blasphemies being spread by the Dark Master's agent, Kleippur." Alarmed mutterings broke out anew around the square. Several villagers started to protest but were quelled into silence by threatening gestures from the mounted guard. Varlech continued:
"Kleippur will destroy all that was handed down by your fathers as holy. He will steal away the minds of your children. Even as I speak, robeings in the service of Kleippur take Lumian desecrators into the deepest parts of the forest to violate the assembly shrines that are the very sources of life. Even now, Carthogia's schools reject the wisdom of ages to disseminate alien falsehoods that deny the existence of Lifemaker Himself."
Now the assembled crowd was quiet and less sure of itself. Varlech gestured with his arms, turning from one side to the other to take in all of them. "Can you not see what this means, O brothers and sisters of Uchal? Nogarech has been beguiled by the sorcery of these impostors from beyond the sky. He is selling the souls of Kroaxians in return for the temporal power the Lumians can confer upon him for a while. Even as I speak—and this have I seen with my own matrices—Lumian and Carthogian sorcerers conspire in vile experiment to devise methods whereby the life process of Robia shall be perverted to produce aberrant, unnatural forms to satisfy the covetousness of Lumians.
"But . . ." Varlech raised a steel finger in warning. "It shall be only for a while. The Lifemaker will not forget or forgive, for do the Scribings not tell that the transgressors in heresy and blasphemy and those who follow false doctrines shall be consigned to the great reduction furnace? But it is not too late to renounce thy errant ways and return to the path." He turned to indicate the banner hanging behind him. "There you see united the true power that shall protect thee, spiritual, moral, and temporal: the forces of Lifemaker, clergy, and nobility intertwined as one trinity. This is the message that we have brought."
As if on cue, several voices among the crowd began shouting.
"He speaks truly. We have strayed!"
"To serve aliens, Kleippur would have us melt?"
"Loyalty to the trinity!"
Thirg leaned close to murmur to Brongyd. "Who are they who call out thus, so promptly?"
Brongyd shook his head. "Strangers here. I know them not."
"Were they sent ahead secretly by this Avenger to perform thus, thinkest thou?"
"Possibly, Thirg. It is possible."
Nevertheless, some of the villagers were already showing signs of wavering. Ol Skaybar, the headrob, however, was less easily swayed. Followed by Izonok, one of his cousins, who was also the bailiff, and two more of the local officials, he strode up the steps and confronted Varlech in a loud voice.
"I know not what powers have sent thee hither, Reviver-of-Faith-That-Is-Baseless. But an enemy of robeings, Kleippur is not. For I have traveled widely in Carthogia, and I have seen. Kleippur is the true servant of his people, not of any Dark Master that inhabits only the unlit recesses of thy own imaginings. The Carthogians live in freedom and dignity, untrammeled by priestly superstitions or the terrors visited by inquisitors. Lumian knowledge is truth, for by its power do not Lumians travel hence from distant realms? By Lumian truth do the Carthogians prosper, and Lumian power protects them—"
To the horror of Thirg and the watching villagers, Varlech calmly raised his hurler and fired it at Ol Skaybar's chest. The headrob staggered backward, his front casing pierced by a jagged hole from which violet sparks poured, and collapsed. A shriek came from one side of the square. Thirg turned his head and saw Ol Skaybar's wife and several others of his family standing with more guards, who must have brought them from the manor house. But even as the first shouts and screams started coming from the rest of the crowd, Varlech produced a smaller, hand-held hurler and before their eyes dispatched Izonok in similar fashion, while the two villagers who had gone up the steps with them were cut down by Varlech's other lieutenants.
"Silence!" Varlech's voice lashed around the square like a wagoner's tractor goad. All pretense of this being an attempt at persuasion vanished. The villagers cowered as riders leveled hurlers to cover them, and the rattle of weapons being unsheathed came from around the square. "Kleippur's words would render you as helpless and defenseless children to be delivered to the Lumians. A people worthy to preserve themselves need strength and discipline as were provided by the ways of old." He half turned and pointed scornfully at the four corpses lying at the top of the hall steps. "What use was the power of the Lumians to them! . . . And do you imagine that these skybeings themselves are served any better? Do you believe those who tell you that the Lumians are gods? Pah! Fools!" Varlech nodded down to the attendants who had ridden in the cart, and they began uncovering the wrapped bundle. "The Lumians are as mortal as robeings," he told the crowd. "And as subject to the Lifemaker's wrath. Witness the fate of even skybeings who displease Him!"
Varlech pointed. Gasps of awe went up as the attendants uncovered and raised into view a form that was like a robeing yet not robeing, with an outer casing that bent like organically grown polymer and a transparent outer head shaped into a dome. But the dome was shattered, and the grotesque inner head it contained, instead of writhing with the violet radiance that signified Lumian life, was still and cold. An attendant prodded through the outer head with his sword, and all heard the scraping sound it made. The face was as hard and lifeless as a rock lying in the desert. It was the body of a dead Lumian.
Thirg watched in dismay. He knew that the Lumians were not gods, nor had they ever claimed to be. What he was seeing changed nothing that he had previously believed. He had never doubted that mishap could strike Lumians, too, and was bound to, in some form or other, sooner or later. But the effect on others, even if merely confuting what had never been more than a product of their own gullibility, would be very different.
"We have not come here to ask agreement or beg favors," Varlech announced in a loud voice. "The village of Uchal and its surrounding holdings are placed forthwith under the law handed down by the Lifemaker to the protectors of the True Faith. They have directed that a force be formed of Redeeming Avengers to take up arms against the heresy now loose across these lands. Accordingly, it is decreed that in support of this holy mission, a tax of one-sixth of all produce and revenues shall be delivered every four brights. Further, a force consisting of one in six of all males of military age shall be raised to train as fighters with the Redeeming Avengers. And furthermore, the district of Uchal will render such accommodations, supplies, and other support as are deemed necessary to the success of the Redeeming Avengers' mission. To facilitate compliance, an officer of the Redeeming Avengers and a supporting staff will be installed here in place of the treacherous headrob who was in league with the dark powers. But the Lifemaker in his compassion will spare the others of his kin, who will be taken hence as guarantees of the people of Uchal's good faith."
A number of the Avengers turned out to be Kroaxian priests. When Varlech had finished speaking, they moved with soldiers through the crowd, picking out other individuals they perceived as threats, to be taken away also. These included more of Ol Skaybar's helpers and officials, the village schoolteacher, and two students who had visited Carthogia's university of learning. They took Brongyd, being an independent inquirer after truth like Thirg. But when one of the priests questioned Thirg, Thirg described himself as being an emissary from Menassim, the principal city of Carthogia. The priest seemed less certain what to do with him and sent for Varlech.
Rex snarled, coolant vanes bristling, as the leader approached. One of the Avengers drew back his spear threateningly. "Easy, Rex," Thirg commanded.
Varlech looked Thirg over coldly. "You are one of Kleippur's sorcerers who conspires with the alien impostors?" he inquired.
"I am a seeker of understanding who pursues truth wherever it may lead," Thirg replied.
"You seem to have no respect and precious little fear for one who holds your life as on a balancing edge," Varlech remarked.
Thirg shrugged his shoulder cowlings resignedly. "Whatever action you decide on cannot alter truth. What is true will remain so, indifferent to any wish of yours or mine that it be otherwise and unimpressed by however many we might induce by reason, deceit, or terror to share in our persuasions."
Incomprehension followed by anger flashed in the Avenger leader's eyes. He was evidently a fighter, not a thinker, and for a moment Thirg thought that he was about to be dispatched right then to join the four lifeless figures at the top of the steps. But then, just as quickly, a cooler but still irritated light prevailed. Possibly it was because Varlech was not disposed to risk an incident that might precipitate a confrontation with the Carthogian military just yet.
"Take him, too," he commanded. "The time will come when such loyalty to Kleippur will fetch a fair ransom."
Thirg and Brongyd were seized roughly and taken to a cellar where the captives were being herded. They remained there for the next half bright while Varlech went about installing the Avengers' overseer for the village and giving directives for its affairs. Then he readied his force again to proceed to the next village. Bound and guarded, with Rex wedged on the floor between them, Thirg and Brongyd left Uchal with the other captives in a wagon at the center of the column. After all the effort he had gone through to find sanctuary in Carthogia, Thirg wondered dejectedly if the same persecution and harassments he had thought he'd escaped from were about to overtake him again.