On Taurus, there’s only one good way to die.

On the bullfighting planet of Taurus, in the far distant future, a genetically engineered race of half-man, half-bull stages ritual blood sacrifices to the gods—human viewers light-years away. Vizzer, the high priest who presides over the daily slaughter, loathes the fights and wants to end them.

When news arrives that the humans have destroyed themselves in an interstellar civil war, he deposes the king and outlaws the fights. But not all the humans are dead. Carlos the Creator lies in stasis on Taurus itself. Vizzer comes face to face with an enraged and ancient god. And in so doing, he must also confront the truth of his own savage nature.

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DEATH ON TAURUS

By

J.M. Porup

Chapter One

You poor fools. Dumb beasts, all of you. You’ve got brains, why can’t you use them? Going to your deaths like this. Asking to be killed. And for what? For nothing. For a god who’s been dead five thousand years and more. Wait till you find out the truth. That everything you live and die for is a lie. What will you do then?

Just look at you, Vizzer thought. Fifty thousand cud-chewers. More beast than man. The body and muzzle of a bull, horns made to kill, and human limbs protruding fore and aft from leg joints. And thirty thousand more of you waiting in line outside the stadium, drooling to watch your fellow Crosses be tortured to death. And what do you do once inside? Calflings romp beneath their elders’ horns. Breeders ruminate, stately in their place of honor, gossiping about their harems. The veiled and virgin she-cows in the Prize Box giggle, point at today’s naked sacrifice. What is wrong with you? he wanted to scream. Since when is murder a festive occasion?

The matador, Garrso, stalked across the sand, a killer going to his duty. What’s this? A smile? He enjoys his job too much. A wave at the crowd, and the silver sequins of his costume rippled across his bovine chest. He tightened the cotton strips that bound his back hooves against his thighs. Only matadors could balance on their feet. Red sunlight cast a freakish shadow. But then aren’t we all freaks, the freaks of the universe? Vizzer thought. One man’s sick joke.

That’s right. Man. Not god. The so-called Almighty Carlos was nothing more than a hoofless mortal biped. And good riddance to him and his race.

But we his ridiculous creatures live on. Look at the bull we sacrifice today. How is it possible that he and I are the same species? He stands three times my size, and has the brains of a calfling. Whereas I, the runt, have a brain the size of his muscles, but a body little bigger than a newborn. Who gets the respect? Who gets the she-cows?

Not that I would want a she-cow anyway, Vizzer thought. But that’s beside the point.

Carlos gave us brains and the will to use them, then encased us in this preposterous flesh. Eight limbs! Too many for the bull.

Orange nazza-ropes bound the Cross at the elbows and knees, ready to lop off his human arms and legs where they sprouted, perpendicular, from the joints.

And horns! What good are horns for but to kill? And stomachs in constant need of food! How can we strive for higher things when we have to spend all our waking hours grazing?

The hobbled bull was oblivious to this kind of thinking, of course. He pawed at the dust with his forehooves, tossed his sharpened horns at the heavens. Trying to unnerve his opponent. Not that it was likely to do any good. Nine times out of ten, the matador escaped unscathed, the bull winging his way to the fantasy-land afterlife of cool waters and bull-hungry she-cows promised by the Code of Carlos. Vizzer shifted on his heels where he knelt beside the king. Their world would never be the same again. And he, the king’s gran vizzer, was the only one on Taurus who could pick up the pieces.

Ever since that transmission arrived, it had taken all his willpower not to jump into the arena and cry out, “Why are you killing each other? To appease the gods? What gods? The gods are dead!”

They’d stampede if he did that. The high priest of Taurus was expected to lead the ceremony, not to criticize it. He had to go through proper channels. Present his evidence to the king. Make the truth so plain that even Clomp could not ignore it. Appeal to the Herd Council, if necessary.

Down in the arena, another nazza-rope whirled from behind the wooden barrier toward the sacrifice. The bull opened his mouth, and the energy lasso wrapped itself around the base of his tongue. He flexed his fingers, made a fist with both hands. Cords of muscle in his forearms bulged and twitched. Enjoy them while you can, Vizzer thought.

The bloody half-disc of the sun, forever low on the horizon at the North Pole, peered over the stadium wall. A black circle crept across that baleful eye. Shadow engulfed them. The temperature dropped. Vizzer wiped sweat from his eyes. The only relief from the heat was the moment of killing.

Murmurs of surprise at the miracle of darkness fluttered up from the crowd. Come on, people, this happens every day. There’s nothing magic or holy about it. I can even tell you how it’s done.

The stadium lights snapped on, blinding him for a moment. A hundred thousand empty marble seats—reserved for the immortal and invisible gods, of course—glimmered ghostly in the sharp white light. Tiny vidcams that only the priests knew about silently recorded the carnage below. For a Cross to sit in the marble seats and block the view would be sacrilege.

Not that they would ever think to try. To the common herd, the stadium was a temple, a source of awe and wonder, a place to commune with the gods. It was the only structure of any kind on Taurus—and it was huge. Just entering through the Great Gates made young bulls and maiden she-cows gasp in amazement. The wooden doors towered high above their heads, and opened to reveal a gigantic bowl of white marble, with a pocket of green in the middle. All around them those gleaming stalls soared skyward for hundreds of perfectly circular rows. But worshipers did not turn to climb into those sacred pews, not unless they wanted to be flayed with a nazza-whip. Instead they sprawled on the spiral grassy terrace that corkscrewed its way down to the arena itself, the sandy circle far below where the killing took place.

According to the Code, Carlos Himself raised these walls, laid these stones and presided over the butchery. But Carlos had ascended into heaven thousands of years ago, never to return. And the bloodthirsty gods of Earth and the other planets were gone as well. Yet here we are still, Vizzer thought, brought together every twenty-six and a half hours to repeat this ancient, bloody ritual. Why did we ever think this was a good idea?

From where he sat at the top of the stadium, just below the lip of that great white bowl and far above the herd, Vizzer imagined a day when this magnificent structure was no longer used for killing, but for—what, exactly? He wasn’t sure. He massaged the stumps at his elbows and knees where his hooves had once been. The king stirred at his side. Vizzer remembered Clomp’s mocking words. Only a tenday ago, Vizzer had tottered up the stairs, fresh from Feeh’s surgery, struggling to balance on his human feet. He was surprised at how hard it was. The matadors made it look easy. But then matadors were born to their profession, their bodies sleek and nimble. Priests were not.

Who did he think he was, anyway? the king had joked. Trying to look like a god. And having his horns removed! There was no precedent for such self-mutilation. Vizzer had endured the ridicule in silence. He should have said he was someone who wanted to be more than the sum of his base animal lusts. Although he’d never say that to the king’s face. Even the other priests, who were sworn to celibacy as he was, could not understand. Carlos gave us eight limbs for a reason, they said. Why would anyone willingly part with four of them? Except the sacrificial bulls, that is.

King Clomp pushed himself to his feet. It was time. The king’s nostrils quivered in religious ecstasy. Probably remembering his own time in the arena. Vizzer stood up too. Together they turned to face the Creator’s Throne, a simple stone bench worn smooth by thousands of years of wind and rain. The king bowed his horns.

Vizzer lifted the white cowboy hat from Clomp’s head, laid it at the foot of the throne. What was a “cowboy,” anyway? He had always wondered. He’d have to look it up in the backup data that came with the transmission. Something from ancient human times, he suspected.

They turned to face the people. Vizzer raised his hands above his head, white robes sliding back to reveal his stumps. He spoke, and the hidden sound system, run by his fellow priests in the holy of holies, the Control Booth, took his words and flung them to every waiting ear:

“Let there be blood!”

The nazza-ropes tightened around the bull’s limbs and tongue, and turned blue. Sharper and cleaner than a scalpel, the nazza-ropes severed his arms and legs, cauterizing the wounds instantly. His tongue plopped onto the sand between his hooves.

Cud surged into Vizzer’s mouth. He choked on the sweet grass, now bitter between his molars. He fought the urge to vomit the entire contents of his first stomach over the king’s head. It never got any easier, no matter how many times he watched it happen. To take a young Cross, a bull, with a brain and a soul, and strip him down to muscle and bone—to make a beast out of him—it was cruel, it was human. Too human. Thank the gods the time had come to stop it. If the gods—humans—whatever the hell they were—hadn’t blown themselves up, this might have gone on forever.

Vizzer reached under his robes and touched the talisman he wore in a pouch around his neck. The ancient miniature statue of Carlos was a secret badge of the high priest’s office. He ought to destroy it, he knew, but for some reason couldn’t quite bring himself to do so. In moments of stress, fingering the trinket calmed him down.

Two banderilleros stepped from behind the barrier. Their green costumes had fewer sequins than the matador, so as not to upstage their boss. They carried white banderillas, the wooden darts of their trade. From the tip of each protruded a full hypo. Holding the banderillas high above their heads, hypos angled at the ground, they approached the bull on tiptoe from opposite directions.

The bull swung his horns from side to side, calculating the odds. This was the most dangerous moment for the banderilleros, and the only real chance for the bull to escape death. Back on his knees at the king’s side, Vizzer pounded his hairy thigh with an open palm. Come on. Gore them. Kill them. Don’t let them place the hypo. The drug would turn off the bull’s brain, and he’d become nothing more than a cape-chasing beast. But if he managed to skewer one of his sequined tormentors, he might rattle the matador enough to make a mistake. One mistake. That’s all it took. And the bull might just live to make it to the stud pastures.

The hump of muscle behind the bull’s neck shone with sweat. His whole body tensed, head low, horns out. The crowd leaned forward on their hooves. Which way would he charge? The bull sprang, a puff of dust where he had stood a moment before. The chosen banderillero pranced on tiptoe toward the onrushing threat, arms straight up, darts glittering in the stadium lights. A good banderillero rarely missed his mark, Vizzer knew. He watched through his fingers. The two combatants drew closer. He shut his eyes to avoid the final impact.

“Ooh,” the crowd breathed.

He peeked again. The bull had swerved away at the last moment, and bore down on the other banderillero. A thundering blur of muscle and horn swung to the right. A green costume jumped to the left. The darts flashed, jabbed down, sank deep. The crowd clattered their hooves together in applause.

Bucking, kicking, lunging in the air, the injured bull tried to rid himself of the hypos lodged in his hump. He slowed. Went still. Then, with a loud snort, he waggled his horns in the air. Me bull. What now? Who charge? Ugh. Or so Vizzer imagined the bull’s thoughts ran.

A spare banderillero flapped a cape over the barrier, to give his colleagues a chance to get to safety. Ugh. Scary moving thing. I go kill. The bull charged the cape, gored the wooden wall with his horns. The matador returned to the center of the arena. The bull was oblivious to his presence, obsessed with the dastardly cape. Again Garrso smiled.

It had to be Garrso, didn’t it. Most popular matador on Taurus. Over a hundred kills on his Syndicate Sheet. And Vizzer knew that smile. Confidence was the greatest matadors’ most powerful weapon. And why shouldn’t he feel confident? The worst danger had passed. Wearing the bull down, then killing him in accordance with the Code—sword over the horns, down between the shoulder blades—was difficult, but by no means impossible. As Garrso’s presence here today showed. He was a survivor. He would kill well, or he would kill badly, but he would kill. Vizzer’s second and third stomachs twisted in agony.

Garrso lifted the black brimless cap from between his horns, held it above his head. A thunderous roar welcomed him. He minced in a tight circle, saluting the crowd, and tossed his cap over his shoulder. It landed crown up. Whistles burst forth at this omen. Crown up was good luck. Crown down, bad. Superstitious nonsense, Vizzer thought.

The banderillero withdrew his cape. The bull spun about, chased his tail for a moment. He goggled up at the crowd in confusion. Big noise. So loud. What for? Maybe he noticed the shimmering silver menace in the center of the arena. Who that? Sparkly.

Garrso shook the cape. The bull did not move. He slid the tip of his sword into the far edge of the fabric, to make a larger surface area, and shook the cape again. Still the bull did not charge. Just stared around the arena in dumb puzzlement, panting in the heat. Garrso jumped into the air, shouted, “Hoo hoo hoo ha!” and stamped his feet.

The bull’s attention returned to the darting, dancing cape. Who this? Another bull. No room for two. This space mine. Time to kill. Vizzer broke off his imaginings. What really went on in a bull’s brain after the drug took effect? What did he see? How did he feel? To have his brain turned off, all rational thought suppressed, the one thing taken from him that made him a Cross and not a mere beast. The bulls who survived in the arena claimed to see the face of Carlos Himself. But that was impossible, Vizzer now knew. Carlos was not only dead, he was never a god to begin with.

To die like that, tormented and confused. Vizzer made a face. What an awful fate.

The bull charged this time. Garrso stood unmoving, toes together, cape extended. A slight breeze rustled the fabric. The crowd gasped. Wind of any kind was dangerous. It could send the beast charging the matador instead of the cape.

A flick of Garrso’s wrist drew the cape to one side. Horns slid through the flowing fabric. Garrso turned, offered his back to the bull, cape in his other hand. The bull followed the cape, his powerful flanks missing the matador by centims. The crowd roared, and as it roared the matador repeated the feat, directing the bull a finger’s width from his body, exhausting and confusing the animal with a series of rapid, close passes until the bull stumbled to his knees.

“O-lé!” roared the crowd, growing in crescendo with each successive turn and spin of the cape. “O-lé! O-lé! O-lé!”

Disgusting, Vizzer thought. The young bulls of Taurus led the chant, from where they reclined on the grassy slope. One day they’ll be in the arena too. And the bull out there on the sand was their friend. It didn’t matter to them if he lived or died. Death meant paradise. Life—if they survived the ordeal—meant a large harem of virgins, a seat on the Herd Council and hundreds, if not thousands, of offspring. They applauded the matador at every turn. Some had been known to swoon with delirium when the final moment came.

The she-cows, clustered together in their roped-off section, were more subdued. Several openly wept, in defiant violation of the Code. No doubt the mother and sisters of the bull in the ring. The king could send them into exile for that. Vizzer glanced at his side, but Clomp seemed engrossed by the bloodshed. At least veil yourselves, he thought furiously. If the king packs you off to die in the Southern Lands, it’s my job to pronounce the curse.

The other she-cows were just as bad, in their own way. The young ones ignored the sacrifice entirely, whispering in wide-eyed envy at the three pink-clad virgins in the Prize Box. Dreaming of one day being loaned in honor to a triumphant matador—or better yet, given outright to a surviving bull. Still others cast furtive glances at the fifteen Breeders, where they rested in regal dignity at the top of the grassy spiral, just inside the Great Gates.

The Breeders. Only bulls who’d survived in the arena were allowed to mate. Between them and the king, they had fathered more than half the audience in the stadium. Little wonder their children looked up at them in awe.

Which one of the fifteen would be the next king? Would any dare challenge Clomp? It meant a horn duel to the death, and the king had shredded the last two challengers with ease, packed their broken bodies off to the Burial Mound. Even Prinz, the leading contender, whose hump and horns all Taurus admired, showed no indication of making a move.

How would the Breeders react to the news? Would they follow Clomp? If Clomp refused to listen, what would they do? Life, as they knew it, was over. The news carried in the transmission would mean fundamental changes to everything on Taurus. Like ending the corrida, the blood sacrifice. And that was just the beginning. Were any of them able to see the truth? Were any of them willing to do what must be done? Vizzer rested his jowls on his knuckles. He doubted it. Better to stick with Clomp. At least for now. Besides, there was his oath to think of. The gods may be dead, but his word was still his word.

Down in the arena, the weary combatants separated. The bull limped toward the pile of limbs that once were his. What this? Legs. Whose? He jabbed at the bloody appendages with a horn.

The matador strolled to the barrier, dunked his muzzle in a pail of water. He mopped his face and neck with a damp towel. He returned the blunt sword he’d used for cape work to his trainer, eased the killing sword from the offered scabbard. He held it horizontal, sighted down the length. Was the tip bent at just the right angle to slide between the ribs? Satisfied, he paced with languid steps back to the center of the arena.

The bull tapped at his discarded tongue with a hoof, bellowed his confusion and distress. It was as though he realized his own lack of articulate speech, and, at this moment of impending death, craved it.

“Toro!” the matador called. “Oi, oi, oi, toro!”

The animal turned. He was worn out by a hundred futile charges, Vizzer knew. Just this once he wanted to pray: let the bull survive. Just this once, he wanted to believe that prayer held value, that the gods heard and answered him in his greatest need. But of course that was foolish. There was no point in praying now. There never had been.

Garrso pivoted to face the bull, held the sword out at arm’s length. Fluttered the cape one more time. The animal charged. Lowered his head, prepared to gore. The matador stepped sideways, stabbed down at the hump of muscle above the bull’s shoulders. He pushed the blade down into the bull’s body, buried the weapon to the hilt and danced out of the way.

Vizzer clutched at his chest. He felt the pain as though it were his own, tempered steel slicing his heart in two.

The bull bellowed again, tossed his head, bewildered by the metal shaft embedded in his torso. The hilt of the sword pulsed up and down in his back with each beat of his great heart. He twisted around once, twice, trying to identify the terrible thing that split his insides apart. The pulsing stopped. His jaw fell open. A look of startled wonderment crossed his face. He fell to the ground and lay still.

The crowd jumped to its hooves. White handkerchiefs fluttered in every hand. Vidcams floated down from above, directed by a priest in the Control Booth. The lenses glinted as they flew in for a close-up of the matador victorious, the last twitches of the bull at his feet. What perverts the gods must have been to take delight in such cruelty. Vizzer was glad they had destroyed themselves.

Clomp spoke in his ear. The noise of the stadium was deafening.

“What’s that, Your Highness?”

“I said, why are the gods punishing us?”

“Punishing us?” Vizzer shouted back. “What do you mean?”

The king gestured to the simple light board in front of him. One light meant one ear, two lights meant two. Three lights meant two ears and the tail, a reward almost never given. Three white scarves lay folded at the king’s side, ready to be draped across the throne, the signal for a triumph. A priest in the arena would cut off the required bits, and present them to the matador. The real trophies, of course, were the she-cows in the Prize Box, one for each scarf.

Today the light board remained dark, as it had for more than a hundred consecutive days.

Vizzer studied Clomp: the heavy jowls, the massive shoulders, the broad, curving horns. Not to mention the dimwitted eyes. You didn’t get to be king by being smart, but by being big. Maybe that’s why he was such a good ruler, at least compared to his predecessors. He was too stupid to be a bad one. Until now, it had never been a problem. He just wished the king wasn’t so damned religious.

In his best courtier’s voice, Vizzer asked, “What makes you think the gods are punishing us, Sire?”

The cheers of the crowd drowned him out. Down in the arena, the matador paraded around the wooden barrier, his banderilleros at his heels, accepting adulation and bouquets of sweet grass from his adoring public. When he reached the spot directly below the king, he held up the hilt of the bloody sword in salute, bowed deep at the waist. He had fought well, and he knew it. Everyone in the stadium knew it too. He expected an ear, at least. Clomp sat unmoving.

More and more handkerchiefs fanned the stifling air, calling for a triumph. Clomp’s horns swung from side to side. The matador’s face registered astonishment. The crowd roared in protest. “O-re-ja! O-re-ja! O-re-ja!” they screamed, demanding an ear in the ancient tongue of Carlos Himself.

“Maybe we aren’t good enough for them,” the king said. “The gods are not happy with us. This is how they show it.”

Vizzer scratched himself behind his ear. The lobe still wasn’t quite right. He would have to see Doctor Feeh about that soon. “Maybe the gods aren’t good enough for us,” he said.

“What’s that?” Clomp shouted.

“Your Highness!” bellowed a voice from the stairs. “Your Highness, please! I beg an audience!”

A matador in a red-sequined costume waved from the bottom of the stone steps. He leaped up the stairs two at a time.

“Your Highness. Gran Vizzer. With your permission?”

A command in the form of a question. Frokker. He should have known. The Matador’s Syndicate had to stick their hoof in every cowpat. Vizzer could not afford to offend the syndicate at this delicate juncture. The truth would have to wait.

“What is it, Frokker?” Clomp growled.

“Sire.” The steward knelt before the king. “I must protest. That was the cleanest kill I’ve seen in a thousand days. Why would the gods deny him an ear?”

Vizzer forced a laugh. “What an ignorant thing to say. Do you protest the will of the gods?” He waved a hand at the blank light board. “Who are you to second guess those who live beyond the stars?”

Frokker lowered his head still farther. “I do nothing of the sort, Gran Vizzer. However, while the gods themselves may be infallible, surely those who interpret their divine will may make…shall we say, mistakes, from time to time?”

“So now you accuse the king of failure to do the gods’ will?” Vizzer turned to Clomp. “Your Highness, will you permit this disrespect? He insults you to your face.”

Clomp shook his head. “Not now, Frokker.”

“Or perhaps the king is reluctant to part with his lovely brides?” Frokker flung an arm at the Prize Box far below, where even now the three cherubic she-cows flirted daintily with the crowd. All virgins belonged to the King’s Harem, and only ovulating she-cows could stand as prizes. A matador awarded an ear by the gods received the loan of a she-cow for a full day. Twenty-six and a half short hours to sow his seed.

“Frokker, I said not now.” Clomp’s voice had lost its friendliness. “Or next time you fight, it will be me in the arena.”

The steward swallowed. No matador would dare take that risk. Clomp had the widest horn span on Taurus. It had come as no surprise to anyone, much less the hapless matador that day, ten years ago now, when Clomp had gored him through the chest. Feeh had sewn Clomp’s tongue back on, but disposed of the human arms and legs in the Burial Mound, as dictated by the Code. Clomp had joined the Breeders and, within days, had challenged his way to the kingship. There was no one to match him in either the arena or the challengers’ training pits outside.

“Sire,” Frokker said, his cap twisted and torn between his fists. “Forgive me.” He held up a wary hand. “May I ask just one thing more?”

Clomp said nothing. The matador hesitated, then plunged ahead. “You have not awarded an ear in over a hundred days.” He turned to Vizzer, his broken cap dangling from his fingers. “A hundred days! Never in the history of the syndicate’s record-keeping has such a thing happened before on Taurus!”

“Has it occurred to you,” the king said coldly, “that maybe your fights aren’t pleasing to the gods?”

Frokker bent low, touched his horns to the stone step at the king’s hooves. “Of course, Your Highness. Forgive my forwardness.” He stood, and tripped over his heels in his haste to get down the stairs again.

The Great Gates swung open. Garrso bobbed along on the backs of the crowd, as they carried him from the stadium. A growing crescent of red light drenched the heads and backs of the milling throng. The king got to his feet. Vizzer replaced the cowboy hat between those monstrous horns.

In a low voice, Clomp asked, “Has Dex finished his report?”

“He has, Your Highness.”

“And?”

“You aren’t going to like it.”

Chapter Two

Vizzer followed Clomp out of the stadium via the king’s private entrance. Near the Creator’s Throne, an opening in the stone wall led down a narrow ramp to ground level. A discreet door deposited them adjacent to the Great Gates, just as the crowd blasted out into the full sunlight, bearing Garrso on their backs.

“To-re-ro!” they chanted. “To-re-ro! To-re-ro!” The ancient revel: Bullfighter! Bullfighter!

The matador spotted Clomp and Vizzer, and seemed to hesitate. He smiled and raised a hand. What else could he do? He had no wish to antagonize the king.

Vizzer filled his lungs with air, savored the smell of the sweet grass. Pasture stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see. The intense polar heat in his nostrils was a welcome change after the cold shadow of the artificial eclipse. Of course, the herd didn’t know it was artificial. They thought the darkening of the sky was the Shadow of Carlos, their nonexistent deity calling for blood sacrifice. They had a lot to learn. Same as I did, Vizzer thought. A mere what? Has it only been a hundred days since the transmission arrived?

He commanded his body to relax. Intestines: unwind. Stomachs: stop churning. His organs obeyed with reluctance. The corrida was over, at least until tomorrow. But the worst was still to come. Dex had finished his report. Now it was time to deliver the news to Clomp. No easy task.

The newly formed king’s bodyguard snapped to attention, shouldering their peculiar new weapons. A meter of heavy black metal with a hole at the end. Vizzer had downloaded the design from the backup data, and the matter converter made him several dozen copies. There’d been more modern, more powerful weapons listed in the backup, but the converter threw a temper tantrum, demanded to see Carlos. Carlos was dead, Vizzer had patiently explained, but it refused to believe him. What did that cranky box want? He tugged on his earlobe again. For now he was stuck with these antiques. What did the humans call them? Guns?

Getting Clomp to accept bodyguards had not been easy.

“Are you crazy?” the king had roared a tenday ago. “There’s no one on Taurus who can hurt me. Or who would want to.”

“Your people love you, Sire. This is true. But when the news leaks, there may well be a stampede. I am thinking only of your safety.”

“What news? You keep talking about news. What is it?”

“Dex is almost finished with his report, Your Highness.”

“It’s got something to do with that transmission, doesn’t it? So out with it.”

“He’ll be finished soon. In the meanwhile, please, will you trust my judgment?”

To add insult to injury, as far as Clomp was concerned, all the bodyguards Vizzer hired were Mistakes. Club feet, twisted horns, other birth defects that made them unsuitable for the arena, and therefore outcasts. To watch the king go by, the most powerful bull on Taurus, protected by a dozen Mistakes—well, people snickered behind their hooves, and Clomp knew it. Some of the less intelligent Breeders were even said to be plotting a coup.

It wasn’t the Breeders that Vizzer feared. Who else had seen the transmission before he put a lid on it? Other priests, perhaps? Not all were loyal to him. Had the word gotten out? Who else knew? What would they do when they found out? Better to preempt any struggle. To be ready.

“Can’t we at least use the Border Corps?” Clomp had whined. “Why Mistakes?”

The Border Corps were an ancient, elite unit of young bulls whose job was to drive menopausal she-cows south into exile. Vizzer had considered the possibility and rejected it. He wanted bodyguards who would be loyal to himself, not the king. He didn’t say that, however.

“The Border Corps are constantly on the move,” Vizzer had replied. “Sometimes tendays go by without any present here at the North Pole. You need bodyguards dedicated to your safety.”

Clomp trotted away from the Great Gates. Vizzer and the bodyguards jogged to keep up. The king halted at the base of the statue of Carlos, the only graven image permitted on Taurus. The Almighty Himself in bronze, encrusted in ancient verdigris. Two meters tall on a wide plinth, the divine matador swung his green sword low over the supine figure of a freshly killed bronze bull on the ground below. Not a real bull, but one of the animals Carlos had used to create the race of Crosses. The Code got it wrong. No holy lips breathed life into clay. Tiny tools in a laboratory made us. How exactly, Vizzer wasn’t sure. But it wasn’t natural.

We are experiments, he thought, suddenly furious, toys created for the cruel blood sport of viewers on other planets. A revolting amalgam of human and animal. And Feeh wondered why he’d wanted his fore- and hind legs removed. He gazed up at the statue and stifled the urge to drop a pat. Not in the king’s presence. But it was all the stupid myth deserved. A juicy, chunky cowpat for a long-dead mortal.

Carlos. Ha! What a joke! Some people even believed that the god himself had once walked the land, before climbing up there and turning himself into a statue. The plinth was littered with the remains of beeswax and brittle knots of sweet grass, votive offerings of ignorant people.

The king swung around abruptly. Planted a hoof on top of Vizzer’s naked foot. “Tell me the truth.”

The hoof cut into the flesh of his foot. It doesn’t hurt if you don’t let it hurt. “About what?” he managed.

“Why have the gods forsaken us?”

Thick skulls cracked together in the sand pits nearby. Two young bulls sparred, horns crashing together amid shouts of youthful joy. Some of the other bulls gathered to watch. The rest of the crowd dispersed to the green fields all around them. The pain in Vizzer’s foot became unbearable. He struggled to remain lucid.

“Are you prepared to hear it, Sire? No matter how much you dislike the truth?”

Clomp lifted his hoof and strolled south, away from the stadium. Of course, every direction is south when you’re standing at the North Pole. The red sun filled the sky behind their backs. Vizzer released the breath he’d been holding. He rubbed his foot, hopped along beside the king.

“Have we wronged the gods?” Clomp asked.

“Your Highness—”

“I don’t see how. We always observe the ritual sacrifices.”

“You have obeyed the Code in every way.”

The king’s frown deepened. “The Code is all there is. All that we know of their instructions. If we obey their laws, then how can they be angry with us?”

Vizzer put his hands behind his back, straightened his spine, the way he’d seen the humans do in vids. “I give you my holy word as a priest, it has nothing to do with you.”

“Then what is it? Who has sinned that we are being punished so?”

The king’s pious anxiety made Vizzer’s digestive tract squirm once more. Clomp had to be told sooner or later. Now was the time. The bodyguards, he noted, stood at their appointed posts, at a five-meter perimeter, ears pricked back, eavesdropping.

“Let me whisper it into your ear,” Vizzer said. And did so.

“No…but that’s…impossible!” Clomp gasped. Blood suffused his jowls. “It can’t be!”

“I assure you it is.”

“Dex can prove this?”

“He can, Sire.”

“But what if he’s wrong? How can you be sure?”

“I have seen the evidence with my own eyes, Your Highness. There is no doubt in my mind.”

The blood drained from Clomp’s face as quickly as it had come, leaving him pallid now beneath his brown pelt. Without warning, he galloped off. Vizzer and the bodyguards raced after him, trying to keep up.

“Now do you see?” he shouted after the king. “Why it has to end?”

“I warn you, Vizzer,” the king bellowed over his shoulder. “You speak sacrilege!”

“Sire, did you not hear what I just said?”

“The gods demand our sacrifice.” The words trailed after the king. “Or we shall surely feel their wrath.”

Vizzer stopped running. The bodyguards stumbled past, panting for breath. He knew this was going to happen. The king refused to accept the truth. Now what was he going to do? In frustration he shouted at the king’s retreating flanks, “By Carlos’s Beard!”

Clomp’s gasp was audible for a kilom in every direction. “Vizzer!”

Taking the Creator’s name in vain was a dangerous thing to do in the king’s presence. Even saying Carlos’s name out loud was forbidden by the Code. Forgetting the bodyguards, Vizzer shouted, “There are no gods, Your Highness. They are all dead!”

Clomp turned and thundered toward him, horns lowered. The bodyguards jumped out of the way. The king bore down on him, a sharpened point aimed straight at Vizzer’s chest. So this was how he was going to die. In service to the truth. So be it. The king came to a standstill, horns mere centims from Vizzer’s chest. Passion flared in the regal eyes, the religious fire that seemed to infect all Breeders.

“I have seen the face of god, my fine priest,” he growled. “Not in the Control Booth. In the arena. Where you have never been.”

Vizzer spat. “Hallucination. Nothing more.”

“I tell you the gods are deathless. They are eternal. They cannot be killed.”

The bodyguards surrounded them now, and listened, jaws slack, with unconcealed curiosity. Vizzer lashed the air with an open palm, and they returned to their posts.

The king laughed, a deep bass chuckle that shook his huge body like tiny hiccups. This sudden change startled Vizzer.

“Now I see,” Clomp said.

Vizzer frowned. “See what, Your Highness?”

The king nodded his head, as though finally comprehending a joke whose punchline everyone else already understands. “You had me worried there for a minute, you know that?”

“Did I, Sire? Because I thought you’d want to—”

“I see what you’re up to.” The good humor ceased, replaced by words of ice. “You’ve been after me for thousands of days on this topic. As long as you’ve been vizzer. As long as I’ve been king.”

Vizzer had ascended to his current post just days before Clomp challenged and killed the former king. He and Clomp were the same age, fifteen years old, and had grown to middle age together. They had watched thousands of young bulls die in the arena. And the older Vizzer got, the more he hated it.

“Sire—”

“Don’t interrupt me. I have tolerated it. Until now. Another king might have stripped you of your robes.” He lowered his head, laid a horn across Vizzer’s cheek. “Or worse.”

Vizzer’s nostrils flared. “I am not alone in rejecting the corrida.”

“And where are the others?” the king asked. “They sleep in the heat of the Southern Lands and partake of the bitter grass.”

Vizzer struggled to hide an involuntary shudder at the mention of the exile colony south of the Arctic Circle. “They would rather die alone, out there, than be forced to watch their children killed in the arena.”

“They are cowards and a shame to their birthright.” Clomp surged up on his hind legs, front hooves windmilling the air, and bellowed an incoherent oath at the distant mountains of the Southern Peninsula. Beyond the mountains lay the exile colony. The king had personally condemned many impious she-cows to the long, slow march to the south. That, plus hordes of menopausal she-cows, whose barren bellies doomed them to suffering and death. “I will not permit you to spread these sorts of rumors. Is that understood?”

“But don’t you think the people have a right to know?”

“Know what? Your unholy fantasies? Your wish-mongering?”

“Sire, I assure you—”

“Such a rumor would cause panic. Chaos.” The king stood over him, his muzzle dripping slime down Vizzer’s cheek. “Or is that your plan? Unseat me from my place beside the throne of the Creator, set yourself up against the will of the gods?”

Vizzer held his head high, face fixed in stone under this onslaught. “As gran vizzer, I demand a hearing of the Herd Council.”

Clomp wilted. He ripped a mouthful of grass, ruminating in the manner of a demure she-cow before her lord. He muttered, “Don’t do this.”

“Let them hear Dex’s report. Let them decide.”

“That rumor mill? The Herd Council will repeat your lies to every last calfling and she-cow on Taurus!”

Vizzer pursed his lips. “Sire, that is not why I am doing this. I want a fair hearing. That is all.”

The king lifted his head. “How long have we been friends?”

Friends? Were they friends? “My lord,” he stumbled, unsure how to reply. If they were, would it matter? More was at stake here than any one Cross. He swallowed. “Perhaps if you—”

“How long?” The voice was insistent. Polite, but insistent.

The cud rose in Vizzer’s throat. The truth? “A long while, Sire.”

“In all that time, have I ever asked you for a favor?”

“A favor?” This was without precedent. Clomp? Asking him for a favor?

“I am begging you, Vizzer. Drop it. This theory of yours.” He held out a hoof. “Oh, I know you think it’s more than that. But it doesn’t have to go any further. Tell Dex to destroy his report. Forget this ever happened. Don’t answer. Not yet. Do this one thing for me, and you shall have my kingdom.”

The king’s face pressed close to his, their noses almost touching. The bristles of the hairs on Clomp’s face brushed Vizzer’s lip. Hot breath slanted down his chin.

There was only one way to answer him, and it hurt Vizzer to say the words. They were friends, he realized. He bore a great deal of affection for this gargantuan bull, so unlike himself. Because for all their differences, they had one thing in common: they were both bulls of unbending principle.

“I don’t want your kingdom,” he said.

“Then what do you want? Name it, and it shall be yours.”

Vizzer cleared his throat. It would do no good, but he would say it anyway. “Let no more blood be spilled on Taurus.”

Grief lined Clomp’s meaty features. “You know I can’t do that,” he whispered.

For the first time in his life, the king was powerless. Vizzer took no pleasure in the conquest. It made him uneasy.

“I am sorry, Your Highness,” he said. “I am a pacifist. I am against murder. I am against torture, against sadistic butchery. I will not be satisfied until the blood sacrifices come to an end. My principles have no price.”

Chapter Three

Bubble screens flickered in the dim light of the Control Booth, their spherical holograms showering Dex with a dozen different vistas of the arena below. Garrso sighted along his sword, penetrated the fighter, and for a long moment, frozen in time, two became one in an almost sexual union.

“Not now, baby,” Dex murmured into his headset. “You know I’m at work.”

Matill panted into the illicit throat comm he’d given her. Her words flooded his ears with the impatient wantonness of a she-cow in heat. “But I want you to stud with me, Dex,” she whispered, her voice hotter than Taurus at its molten equator. “I want you to give me a calfling.”

He tapped his holy pad, and two vidcams zoomed in for closeups of victor and vanquished. The view of Garrso was excellent, that cocky grin as he drank in the crowd’s adulation. Dex selected the image of the victor, and by force of habit punched the button prompting viewers to vote: Nothing? One ear? Two ears? Tail? Keep up appearances, Vizzer had said. Let no one catch on until we’re ready.

“Look, baby, I’ll talk to you later, OK? I’m beaming out a corrida to the gods right now… Yes. I know. But I can’t keep the divine viewers waiting, now can I?” He closed the connection without waiting for a reply. How many she-cows were after him for a calfling? Seven? Eight? They courted him, after all. Let them wait.

A burst of snickering slashed at him from the corner, cut itself off. He ignored it. He knew the novices gossiped about him. He didn’t care. The truth would come out soon enough, and then everything would be different. Then he could be with his lovers in public when and how he wished, without all this sneaking around.

What he was doing was dangerous. Priests who broke their vows of celibacy were put to death—or rather, sent into exile, which amounted to the same thing. He still got plenty of offers, once word got around that he was willing. Like all priests, he was a runt. And priests were safe. His calflings would also be runts, too small to enter the ring as either bull or matador. Many she-cows lusted after priests for this reason alone—watching the flesh born of their loins die in the arena was simply too painful.

Garrso rode from the stadium on the backs of the mob. A wide-angle view, Dex mused, and switched to a vidcam perched above the Great Gates. The exit seemed to take forever. Finally he punched a button, terminating the interspace transmission. Not that it mattered. No one left to watch them, anyway.

He could hardly bear to think about it. From the moment he’d been born a runt, he’d been raised by priests, lived and breathed the secrets of the gods, maintained the vidcams and electronics, participated in the holy mysteries of the Control Booth. It had been his privilege all his life to be in communion with the gods.

Now that he knew the truth, he had a lot to make up for. Ten years of celibacy, for starters. More than half of his adult life. He had believed in the Code, the holy law that bound all Crosses on Taurus. What did it turn out to be? A scam, nothing more. The lies made him angry. He no longer felt any obligation to obey the ridiculous rules imposed by a false god.

He swam deep in the bitter brew of his thoughts. A pounding on the outside door shook him from his reverie. Dex jerked his head at a nearby calfling. The young runt, still dressed in the grey robes of a novice, peered through a hole in the door.

“It’s Vizzer.”

Dex dropped his forehead into his palms with an audible smack. The novice giggled. Access to the Control Booth was managed by a hoofprint reader. The secrets of the holy of holies were not for public consumption. But when the gods designed their temple, this stadium, they failed to consider the possibility that their high priest might lop off his hooves.

Dex rubbed his face. “Let him in.”

The door swung open. He suppressed a chuckle. Vizzer was his friend and boss. They got along well, and their shared work over the last hundred days, since that transmission arrived, had brought them close. But honestly—what kind of bull self-mutilates like that? Who did he think he was? Trying to be more godlike than the rest of us. Or did he mean more manlike? Or was it “Hu-man.” That was what the gods called themselves, after all. “Hu-mens.” It was all so confusing; the language he’d used his entire life no longer worked. And Vizzer wanted to be like them. As if his friend refused to accept reality. The thought soured Dex. There’d be a lot of that going around before long.

Vizzer swept into the room, and the novices knelt before him. It was that natural sense of self-importance, even arrogance, that had prompted Fhoriu, the last high priest, to pick Vizzer as his successor. Vizzer even refused to use the name he’d been given as a calfling, preferring instead to be known simply by his title.

Dex dropped his headset to the counter, lurched to his hooves. “So?” he said. “How’d it go?”

“You.” Vizzer ignored the question, pointed at the youngest of the novices. “Come with us.”

Dex chuckled. “That bad, huh?”

Vizzer charged through an inside door, barged down a long hallway, barrelled along a twisting corridor stacked high with crates, then down a flight of stairs. The Control Booth was adjacent to the Creator’s Throne, where the high priest could access it easily should something go wrong. A warren of passageways and storage rooms filled the cavernous space beneath the stone stadium. They continued still deeper, past the hospital, where Feeh worked, down to the lowest level, beneath the arena itself. Vizzer stopped in front of a round metal door.

“Stay here and watch,” he commanded the novice. “Rutt, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” the novice squeaked.

“Carlos’s Piles, you’re tiny. How old are you?”

The runt only blinked at the forbidden obscenity. “Old enough, sir.”

Dex said, “He just looks small, Vizzer. He’s one of my best.”

Vizzer ruffled the fur on the calfling’s head. “No one interrupts us. Got it?”

“You can count on me, Gran Vizzer.” The young runt puckered his face in a ferocious grimace, crossed his arms and turned to face the empty corridor.

Prepared to take on all comers, Dex thought. He coughed to cover up his laugh.

“Would you mind?” Vizzer whispered.

“Oh yes. Of course.”

Dex tapped at his holy pad, pulled up a scan of Vizzer’s forehooves. Held the device to the hoofprint reader on the wall. He’d taken the scans a couple of tendays ago, before Vizzer went in for surgery. The high priest refused to carry a holy pad of his own, insisting it was undignified for him to soil his hands with electronics. “That’s what technical priests are for. Remember?” Vizzer had said.

The door swung open. They crept inside a high-domed vault. The smells of must and decay greeted them.

The Relics Museum. Dex couldn’t remember the last time he’d been down here. They opened it only on special occasions, such as the ascension of a new king. Recent rulers, including Clomp, disparaged the practice of relic worship, and few ever ventured down to this subterranean level. He shut the airtight door behind them.

Vizzer strode along the red-carpeted aisle, past hundreds of glass cases covered in dust. In the center of the space, a thick concrete pillar stabbed into the ceiling. Above them, Garrso had spilled the blood of his victim a mere half hour before.

Dex held out a hand. “So what happened?”

They shook the Hu-men’s way, like they’d seen in the treaty vids. Vizzer put a finger to his lips.

“Oh, come on. No one can hear us.”

Vizzer shook his head.

Paranoid as usual. Dex called up the room schematics on his holy pad, and one by one raised an extra set of floodlights. “I’ve turned off all the security vidcams as well.”

“There’s no override?”

“In this room…” He tapped some more. “The only person with override access is yourself.”

The floodlights banished every shadow from the room, but still Vizzer meandered among the display cases, hunting for interlopers.

Dex shrugged. “If you prefer, we can always go outside.”

“That’s another thing. I want you to stay indoors as much as possible.”

“What for?”

“I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“Happen to me?” Dex inched back against the concrete pillar, pushed himself up onto his human feet, spine against the rough concrete. “What do you expect to happen to me?”

“I’ve called a special session of the Herd Council.”

“Clomp was not receptive.”

“He was not.”

“You’re going to present my report then? That footage of Earth? And the others?”

“No. You are.”

“Me?” Dex felt like he’d been gored in the gut. There was a reason he worked on the tech side of things. He hated talking in front of large groups. It made him go cross-eyed and fumble his words. “Why me?”

“My views on the subject are well known. I would be seen as a biased source.”

“I, on the other hand, am a lowly priest with no political axe to grind, giving a technical report.”

“Precisely.”

Dex pushed off the pillar, fell to his hooves. He squinted down through the dusty glass of a nearby display case. An ancient copy of the Code lay open, illustrated in color, handwritten on spun river grass from the holy river Albiot. There had been a period when these archaic books were considered more holy than the original digital work. To prevent decay, the glass case enclosed the book in a vacuum. The upturned page proclaimed the second commandment: “Each Day In The Arena One Must Die.”

“You really think Clomp would try to kill me?” Dex asked. “He’s not exactly the brightest star in the sky.”

“All the same I’m getting you bodyguards. You don’t graze or drop a pat without them at your side.”

Bodyguards. Who would watch his every move. Prevent him from seeing his lovers. “But even if they kill me, or even kill the both of us, they can’t stop the other priests from discovering the truth. They’d find out eventually, even without our help.”

“I know that,” Vizzer said, “and you know that, but they don’t think that far ahead.” He tapped his skull where the horns had been removed. “Too many concussions, you know what I mean?”

Dex knew all right. It had been his life’s sorrow to stand outside the stud corrals, wishing, waiting, hoping, despairing. The existence of runts like him was only tolerated because someone had to run the equipment, someone had to transmit the vid of the daily sacrifice to the gods. And so the biggest, dumbest Crosses sowed their seed, and the intelligent few like himself were doomed to an evolutionary dead end. But all that had changed with the transmission. As he now knew, the runt gene was dominant. If it weren’t for infidelity, there’d be no priests as all.

“The king is really pissed off, then.”

“You don’t know the beginning of it,” Vizzer said. “He tried to bribe me.”

“Bribe you? How?”

“Offered me his kingdom.”

Dex’s jowls hung loose. “Oh my Carlos.”

“Wants us to pretend it never happened.”

Dex’s fingers danced across the holy pad. He called up the schematics for half a dozen systems, cross-referenced them, considered the implications. “It could…it might…might just work.”

“I’m sorry?”

He swept a hand at the hollow space. “We could fake it here, couldn’t we?”

Vizzer crossed his arms across his chest. “You mean, play god. Dole out ears and tails from the Control Booth.”

“We could patch a circuit into the royal display. The lightboard that renders the judgment of the viewers. No one would ever have to know.”

“I would know.”

But this was the answer. It had to be. They could get everything they wanted. Without revolution. Without risk. How could he make Vizzer see? “We can use this as leverage!”

“Leverage? For what?”

“Clomp would do anything to stop the truth from coming out. It’s going to turn everything upside down.”

“So?”

“So negotiate. Force him to change the celibacy laws.”

The terrible shadow of a bull going in for the kill crossed Vizzer’s face. “Is that all you care about? Where you stick your dick?”

Were they both not flesh and blood? How could Vizzer not feel the same way? He blurted, “As a matter of fact, it is!”

The high priest’s face softened with obvious effort. He put out a hand, squeezed Dex’s shoulder. “There’s more at stake here than just your sex life.”

Dex shook the hand free. “Like what?”

“Like what?” Palms open wide, Vizzer looked appalled. “Like the murder of innocents? Nine hundred and sixty-seven victims sent to the slaughter every year? Which we are forced to not just watch but bless. You. Me. Why? To appease the sadistic blood lust of some man who called himself a god and has been dead for thousands of years?”

“What about the right to stud?”

“What about it?”

Dex understood the blood lust. He felt it rising in him now. A couple hundred extra kilos and a wider horn span, and he would have thrilled to thunder to his death in the arena. At least that way he’d have a chance to stud, have a proper harem of his own. Not all this sneaking around. “Don’t you have needs?” he asked. “Does the snow of the Southern Mountains run in your veins?”

Vizzer’s nostrils fluttered, as though offended by some stench only he could smell. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“As far as I’m concerned,” Dex said, “let them kill each other. I don’t care.”

“Well I care.”

Dex turned away. Enough of this high-minded cowpat. He trotted down the aisle, hooves echoing through the threadbare carpet against the concrete floor. He halted in front of a high glass cube. Inside, a blood-stained cowboy hat saluted them at a rakish angle, propped between two horns of purple velvet. The plaque beneath declared it the hat of the first king of Taurus, King Morti.

A hand caressed his elbow. “The celibacy laws are part of the Code,” Vizzer said. “Written by Carlos Himself. Clomp would never agree to anything so sacrilegious.”

Dex jerked away. “Then maybe you should take him up on that offer.”

Vizzer laughed. “What offer? Become king?”

“Why not?”

“You know why not. There has never been a priest king of Taurus. A challenger would destroy such a leader in the arena.”

“But with the weapons we have now, with the guns, it won’t matter if the Breeders challenge you.”

“I don’t want to force people at the end of a gun. When they see the truth, they’ll want to do it my way.”

“And if they choose to ignore the truth?”

“They won’t.” Vizzer’s naked feet slapped against the floor at his side. They walked flank against flank between the rows of dusty relics. “You need to have patience. It will all happen. You’ll get your right to fornicate, if that’s so important to you.” The obscenity dripped from Vizzer’s lips with disgust.

Dex shook his head. “You’re making a mistake.”

“What would you have me do?”

Despair clawed at Dex’s soul. The genetic imperative throbbed in his loins, demanding the satisfaction that only complete physical union could provide. His chance for happiness was slipping away.

“Tell Clomp you’ll take his kingdom. Then make the changes you need to make.”

Vizzer’s bony hand squeezed his shoulder tight. “I have sworn an oath to my king. I will not betray him.”

Dex swallowed. “And if you’re forced to choose? The truth, or your oath?”

Vizzer straightened up. He smiled. “That’s the difference between you and me, Dex. You’re a cynic. I’m an optimist.”

The museum doors swung open behind Rutt. Vizzer and Dex emerged. He jogged along behind the two senior priests. They exited a hidden ground-level door that led out into the sunshine. They grunted perfunctory farewells, and departed, leaving Rutt to return to his duties in the Control Booth.

Halfway up the staircase, Rutt ducked into a dark corner. From beneath his grey robes he withdrew a holy pad. Only full-fledged priests were allowed to use the devices; he had stolen one, reported it damaged. He tapped the screen a few times until he found what he was looking for.

Vizzer’s hoofprints. Tap tap. Now the Relics Museum appeared, a view from a ceiling vidcam: the pillar in the center, glass cases arranged in concentric circles. Two priests raced into the room. Rutt paused the vid, put a sound bud in his ear and pressed play.

Chapter Four

The bull’s charred remains smoked in the shadow of the Burial Mound. Priests on incineration duty chanted a prayer. A middle-aged she-cow wept before the altar. Two priests held her by the elbows; she-cows sometimes threw themselves onto the funeral pyre. It was a nuisance on the rare occasions they succeeded, as only those who died in the arena were permitted burial in that sacred hill.

The smell of blood and bone, flesh rotting in the oppressive heat swept down from the mound. Flies buzzed about their heads. Vizzer tightened his grip on his fourth stomach. The cremation pyre was not enough to do the job, there was so little wood on Taurus. Every square centim of land was needed for grazing. Only the stalest of old stalks could be spared to hasten the dead to their supposed celestial, harem-cavorting afterlife.

Taurus boasted no birds of prey to consume these once-proud fleshy husks, none of the scavenging animals the others planets had, like he’d seen in the backup data vids. Only flies. At times the mound appeared to be one giant writhing mass of maggots. Burial consisted of a fistful of grass shoved into their sagging, tongueless mouths, and a flick of the holy torch to send them on their way. The flies did the rest.

With Dex at his side, Vizzer skirted the edge of the mound’s shadow. He pinched his nose. That dark, sunless spot, the shadow cast by the mound, in constant rotation opposite the sun, was hallowed ground, meant only for mourners and priests on burial duty. Even he, as high priest, would not deliberately violate that taboo. They walked quickly, trying to ignore the odor. Failed. Finally they were past. He let go of his nose, forced himself to relax. An end to the blood rites would mean an end to the stench. That alone would be a welcome change.

They forded the holy river Albiot. The warm water rushed and swirled about their toes and hooves, murmuring over the narrow strip of rocks that permitted passage across its broad, slow-moving girth. Vapor hung above the surface like a fog. In the incredible heat of Taurus, you could watch the river evaporate. A few kiloms downstream the river disappeared into a muddy plain. Farther along, there was grass to the horizon, fed by frequent rains.

Glit saw them coming, spat in the dirt. He was an older bull, and greying. The tips of his ears and chest were mottled white. Only priests and Mistakes ever made it to old age on Taurus. Well, and the she-cows, but once they entered menopause they were banished to the land of the bitter grass, and who knew how long they survived there?

The elderly Mistake had dug himself a hole in the ground to hide his deformity. As they approached, he climbed out and limped toward them, his hind legs gnarled as if by a jealous mother’s womb. To one side, twenty of the new weapons leaned together in a pyramid.

“What news from the arena, O fine priests?” Glit’s grin masked deep bitterness, for Mistakes were not allowed to attend. “Good kill today, I hear say.”

Vizzer took no pleasure from the bull’s company, but Glit was trustworthy, at least. A lame bull is lower than dirt on Taurus, of no use to anyone. To receive such a sacred trust from the high priest vaulted him to the heights of his damaged class. For such mercies, he well knew, Glit would do anything.

Vizzer tossed a small box onto the grass. “I bring you bullets.”

Glit scrambled to pick up the box. “The ones that make noise?”

“Better,” he said. “The ones that make holes.”

“Holes? What kind of holes?”

“Be careful with these. Each one is like a flying sword.”

Glit bowed his head, kissed the box of bullets. “I shall take great care with this holy blessing, My Vizzer.”

Vizzer draped an arm around the Mistake’s shoulders, massaged the atrophied muscle there. “Need you to do something for me.”

“Anything, My Vizzer. You tell me, I do for you.”

“I want you to take two of your bodyguards, the best you’ve trained with the noisemakers. With me so far?”

“Yes, My Vizzer. I get two—Hupp and Tyru, I think. And I give them the flying swords that make holes.” Glit looked at the box, held it to his ear and shook it. He jumped backward at the metal-on-metal rattle.

Vizzer nodded. “Exactly. And you see this bull here?”

“Priest Dex. May the gods protect you.”

“And you as well,” Dex intoned, then frowned. Vizzer could tell the hypocrisy of pretending to believe in the gods was getting on his friend’s nerves.

Glit stepped back. “You don’t want to put holes in Dex, do you? I won’t do it. I tell you, I won’t.”

Vizzer laughed. It was a shame he and Dex couldn’t just carry guns themselves. But letting priests go about armed would send the wrong message. “No, my friend. I want you to protect him.”

“Protect him? How? I mean, from what?”

“I am worried someone may try to kill Dex. I want you to stop them.”

“Who is it, My Vizzer? You tell me, I put holes in them.”

“I don’t know, Glit. That’s why I want you and your guards to protect Dex. Follow him wherever he goes. Make sure nothing bad happens.”

“Even—” Glit’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Even into the Control Booth?”

“No. In that case you wait outside. Dex will be safe enough in the holy of holies.”

“I should think so!” Glit cried. “The gods themselves protect the priests in the holy chamber.”

“Indeed they do.” Vizzer clapped Glit on the back, and added, “You may even watch the corrida if you so desire.”

Glit stared at him for a long moment. Then came the explosion of gratitude. “Oh thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!” He slobbered over the high priest’s hand.

Vizzer raised an eyebrow at Dex. “All good?”

Dex’s eyes narrowed. Doubt puckered his face. Glit bounced up and down on his front hooves. Drool trickled around his grey, unwashed jowls.

To Vizzer’s relief, Dex said only, “How long is this going to last?”

“Herd Council is tomorrow after the corrida.”

“Twenty-six and a half hours,” Dex said. “Great. Alright. See you then.”

Dex built a small cairn fifty meters from Glit’s hole. When he returned, Glit held out the meter-long weapon like a sword, swinging it in the air.

“It’s pretty heavy,” the Mistake said. “Are you supposed to throw it? I guess it would hurt. But I don’t understand what Vizzer meant by these little stones are flying swords.” He nudged the open box of bullets with his forehoof.

What was Vizzer thinking? Not only was this “bodyguard” a physical freak, he was mentally crippled. At least he would be loyal. That was all that could be said for Glit. “He trained you. He said he did. Have you forgotten already?”

The Mistake trembled in sudden terror. “It was a vid of some sort. The gods carried these holy sticks. The sticks went bang. The other gods fell down. Some cried out in pain. Some died. But the gods can’t have pain. The gods can’t die. I covered my eyes. It was scary.”

Dex tugged at the gun in Glit’s hands. “Give me the gun. Let me show you.”

“Is that what it’s called?”

Dex picked up a handful of bullets. One by one he loaded them into the magazine. It was a shame none of mankind’s less lethal but equally effective weapons were available to them, like the ones they’d watched in the vids last tenday. Hopefully Vizzer could figure out how to placate that cranky matter converter.

He jammed the full magazine into the bottom of the gun and held out the weapon to Glit.

“Now what do I do?” the elderly Mistake asked.

“Point the gun at the rocks. Pull the trigger.”

“This thing here?”

Bullets splattered the grass at Dex’s feet. He jumped back. “Not at me, you idiot!”

Glit threw himself on the ground, buried his face in the grass. “I am scum! I am unclean! Do not curse me to the lands of the south! I beg of you, please!”

“Get up.”

The Mistake pushed himself to his hooves, wiped at his tears. Despite the omnipresent heat, Dex saw that he was shivering.

“Here,” he said kindly. “Look. You can do this. I’ll show you.”

Dex took the weapon. He held it low in his arms, braced his hind hooves and squeezed off a burst. The bullets hit the cairn. Sparks flew. Several rocks exploded into dust.

“Now you try.”

Glit looked dubious. He took the gun by the barrel, and immediately dropped it.

“It burns with holy fire. I am unworthy!”

“You don’t grab it by the end. Hold it like this.” Dex showed him.

Glit took the gun and held it as instructed.

“Now, point the end at the rocks.”

“This end?”

“Right. Now brace yourself. Squeeze here once, and let go.”

Slowly Glit pulled back on the trigger. A gunshot sounded. The top rock on the cairn fell to the ground.

“Wow,” he said. He held the gun skyward, awe on his face. “This is way better than a sword. You could even stop an angry Breeder with this—what did you call it again?”

Dex cleared his throat. “A gun.” He motioned for Glit to lower the weapon. “You must be careful. Only use this with permission of a priest.”

“Of course, Priest Dex. It is a holy weapon then, something from the gods?”

“Yes. That’s it. A holy weapon. From the gods.” He turned away irritably. He wished he could tell Glit the truth. But the Mistakes would never understand. Most of the herd were no smarter. How on Taurus was Vizzer going to make the people see?

Chapter Five

Rutt crouched inside the Control Booth. The techs had gone, and he was alone. The bubble screens reflected his hunched form a dozen times. Vizzer had told him to wait. He huddled against the wall, elbows around his knees, and contemplated his coming greatness.

He was destined for greatness. He knew this in the same way he drew breath or drank water or slipped delicious blades of sweet grass between his lips. He had been born a runt, and immediately delivered to the Control Booth, in accordance with the holy law. But unlike the other priests, he knew who his family was. His mother had told him. She had recognized him—most Crosses have uniform brown or black pelts, but he had one black ear and one white ear. The colors fought across his face and merged along the meridian of his nose. In profile his head appeared all white or all black. The other novices teased him about that.

His mother’s name was Mantz. She had pushed her way close to him one day after the corrida as he marched from the stadium, head held high, swinging the sweet-smelling urn of burning herb. His father was the king himself, she had confided, and breathed the names of his famous brothers: Prinz and Ghuy, Tropk and Tnuu; the greatest of the living Breeders, who had passed through the arena unscathed, and even now divided their time between the stud pastures and the sand pits, where they battled for the glory of one day challenging Clomp himself.

The news had soured him. How proud he’d been to be a novice. His soul had soared on wings of awe, delighting in the holy mysteries of which only the priesthood may partake. Mantz’s furtive touch, her glance, her words, had brought him crashing down to Taurus. He was a runt, cursed by a genetic fluke to be no more than a lowly priest, scorned by all, proscribed by law from copulating, forgotten by the history books. He learned to hide his newfound resentment behind a smile, to bide his time until a chance came, any chance, some way to right the balance.

Because he was destined for greatness. By Carlos, he was. Mantz had told him that too, until Vizzer spotted their illicit conversation, and Clomp had ordered her flogged. To treat the mother of your child so! He, Rutt, would be greater than all of them before he was through.

The knock sounded a second time before he heard it. He jumped to his hooves and opened the door.

“Gran Vizzer,” he said with a ferocious smile. “Once more you grace us with your holy presence.”

The high priest stalked past him into the Control Booth. “It’s you. Good. Assist me with the matter converter.”

Rutt’s smile widened. Happy. Friendly. Trustworthy. “It is always a pleasure to aid the gran vizzer with any service he might require.”

“Quit your tail-sucking, Rutt. It’s unpriestlike.”

How tiresome. If Vizzer didn’t know how to use his power, then he should be replaced by someone who did. Himself, for instance. Why should this mutilated monstrosity be high priest of Taurus? The king deserved a chief advisor who at least resembled the people.

“Of course,” he said, “I shall obey you in every detail.”

Vizzer led him down a long corridor, the high priest’s naked feet slapping obscenely against the stone floor, worn smooth by millennia of hoofsteps. He opened a door, turned into a dusty storage room piled high with burnt-out electronics. They halted in front of a heavy chrome vault. Vizzer unlocked the door with a key. Rutt’s secret research had found no trace of the key’s schematics. The key was unique, some latter-day nuclear technology of the gods. Likewise, the room was impenetrable to all known means of entry. The only way into the room was with the key currently dangling around Vizzer’s neck.

Or so Vizzer thought. Rutt suppressed a smirk. One day while the high priest snoozed, Rutt had slipped it from around his throat. He and Svim, a fellow novice, had crept down here, entered the vault. “Just to see,” he’d told his friend. Harmless, juvenile fun. Right?

Once shown any object, no matter how complex, the matter converter could reproduce it down to the electron. Once in memory, or given detailed schematics, it could make as many copies as the officiating priest wanted. They had prayed to the matter converter, and Svim watched with horror when Rutt requested a copy of the key. He’d murdered Svim that day, and used a Zhong-gua II Patented Snazzy Drying Device, suggested by the matter converter, to desiccate the corpse. He’d hidden the body and the device behind a pile of junk in the stadium’s sub-basement. Neither had ever been found. He slipped a hand beneath his robes, fingered the key around his own neck now. It would come in handy, and soon.

The vault door hissed open. They ignored the curse cut deep in the chrome: “Enter by the will of the gods, or face the wrath of Carlos the Creator.” Beneath it an ancient graffito had crossed out the last word and replaced it with “Cock.”

The door closed behind them. They were alone in the lead-lined room. In the center stood a white box four meters long, two high, three deep. Wooden steps led up to either side of the flawless surface. A nazza-pallet hovered at rest in the middle of the floor.

It looked like a restaurant freezer, the kind he’d seen in those cooking shows on the backup vids. Although there was much he had not understood—why, precisely, would you want to make your food cold? Or hot, for that matter? Hu-mens clearly had some peculiar dietary requirements.

Rutt dared not express this sentiment out loud. Unknown to both Vizzer and Dex, he had discovered the controversial transmission before they could hide it; the massive burst of data had overwhelmed the priesthood’s systems. He had monitored Dex from a remote terminal as the so-called “technical wizard” had encrypted the data and stored it offline.

The high priest stepped to the left of the great white box. He motioned Rutt to his place on the right. Together they ascended the wooden steps, laid their hands flat on the cool surface of the structure and bowed their heads in prayer.

They were only supposed to use the matter converter to fix electronic equipment—the Secret Appendices to the Code of Carlos prohibited any other use. They were breaking a great taboo. A smile slid across his lips, genuine this time, irrepressible. Possession of the device had been illegal among the gods themselves, according to the laws of Earth and the other planets. Whoever had put Crosses on Taurus had given them more power than the gods. What fools they must have been!

Or not so foolish. There was a reason, he reflected, that it took two priests to operate the machine. Even so, he had been astonished when Vizzer picked him. He would not have done so. Rutt congratulated himself on his eager full-of-wonder expression, into which others seemed to read all manner of good humor. Carlos’s Beard! What a bad judge of character Vizzer was.

The metal grew warm to the touch. An orange glow engulfed his hands.

“All holy gods,” Vizzer chanted, “we pray thee for repairs. Damaged are our holy electronics. We pray thee give us access to the source of all power, all goodness, that we may fix thy holy cameras and screens, continue to provide thee with high-quality instant updates on our daily sacrifices.”

Rutt waited for Vizzer to give him the cue. The high priest had explained the sing-song chanting had been developed over thousands of years, the only proven way to get past the box’s cantankerous personality. Vizzer nodded. Rutt closed his eyes and said, “I too thee pray. Give us access to the source of all thy goodness.”

They lifted their hands from the top of the box, and the lid rose open with a hiss.

“Oh my baby darlings, you’ve come back to me at last,” said a squeaky, high-pitched voice. Rutt had nearly dropped a cowpat the first time he heard it, when he used it with Svim. Even now it still unnerved him.

Vizzer had explained it was mechanical, not alive. He’d added condescendingly, “Poor little novice. There’s no god hidden inside the box. See?” Rutt had forced a silly-me grin, and promised himself that the high priest’s death would be long and painful.

“We beseech thee,” Vizzer continued in sing-song prayer, “for one hundred Nip-Kof 436s and a thousand rounds of one point four centim ammunition.”

“I’ve been so lonely in here,” the voice whined. “There’s no one I can talk to. Would you like some chocolates? Maybe a cup of tea? Or a cigar? Do you like cigars? Carlos likes cigars.”

Vizzer rolled his eyes at Rutt. “We humbly repeat our request.”

“Is that all you want? Use me, abuse me, abandon me?”

As though reciting a long-since memorized refrain, the high priest intoned, “We seek this for the good of Taurus.”

“You know I’m not supposed to let you have toys like that. What would Carlos say?”

“Mor-ti-mer is a good boy,” Vizzer recited, swaying slightly. “We love Mortimer.”

A sharp groan of sorrow came from the box. “Promise to stay and talk to me a while. Just a little. Please? Then maybe I can overlook it.”

“We so promise,” the two priests declared in unison.

The box grumbled. A sound belched up from deep below their feet. The ground quivered in a minor taurusquake. The device harnessed the deep magic of the inner core of the planet itself, Vizzer had explained.

Wisps of vapor cleared. Rutt could see inside the matter converter. A stack of guns lay to one side, boxes of ammunition to the other.

“Would you like fries with that?” pressed the squeaky voice, and giggled wildly. “Get it? Fries?”

Rutt tapped his rear hoof on the step-stool to get Vizzer’s attention. “What does that mean?”

The high priest lifted his head. “I don’t know. Some kind of joke.”

“It is no joke,” the voice said. “I can easily fabricate whatever foodstuff you desire. Merely address me with the proper prayer.”

Rutt peered into the misty vault. “Oh great gods, let us slake our hunger on the sweet grass of Taurus.”

The box was silent. Vizzer motioned for him to step down.

The squeaky voice said, “I have never eaten grass. Do you have a schematic? Bring me a schematic. I would love to make you food sometime.” The voice brightened. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like a cigar?”

Rutt mouthed the word “cigar,” but Vizzer waved his hands at him, held a finger to his lips. “We are grateful for your gracious gift,” he said to the box. “We have no further needs at this time.” He glared at Rutt.

They retrieved the guns and ammunition, laid them on the nazza-pallet. As they closed the box, the squeaky voice screamed in falsetto, “You don’t believe me. Nobody believes me. I’m trapped in here. Why won’t you let me out?”

He had asked Vizzer what the voice meant, but gotten only a sharp look in return. Shut-‌your-‌mouth-‌mind-‌your-‌own-‌business-‌this-‌is-‌holy-‌you-‌don’t-‌understand-‌or-‌else. Blah, blah, blah. He didn’t like being talked to like that. It was even worse when he’d asked about the red panel on the wall of the lead-lined room. “In Case of Alien Invasion, Break Glass”? What did that mean? Who were these extraterrestrials that might conceivably invade Taurus? Not the gods, surely?

They turned to go. The guns and ammunition hummed along on the levitating nazza-pallet. A muted mewling cried from inside the box, “I get so lonely sometimes, I wish that I could die.”

The door shut behind them with a whimper. They stood once more in the dusty storage room.

“My Vizzer, may I ask a humble question?”

“Not now, Rutt.”

“Forgive me, Vizzer. I wish only to know, is our great king in danger?”

Vizzer’s eyebrows drooped low. “Clomp? What do you mean?”

“That’s why you’ve given him bodyguards, right?”

“Yes. I mean, of course.”

“But the bodyguards already have guns,” he reasoned out loud. “Don’t you remember? I helped you pray for them last tenday. So why are you requesting more?”

“Don’t be impertinent, Rutt.”

“As you say, sir. I am the most impertinent of your humble and unworthy disciples. But may a worm of a novice not seek enlightenment?”

Vizzer sighed, paused the nazza-pallet. “First of all, the matter converter has limits.”

“Limits, Gran Vizzer? What kind of limits?”

Vizzer waved a hand in the air. “Geothermal limits. It uses up a lot of energy. Sucks it out of the center of Taurus. You have to let the converter rest between beseechings.” He ruffled the hair behind Rutt’s ears. “Nosy, aren’t you? Remind me of myself at your age.”

Rutt wished he could stick something sharp and jagged into Vizzer’s chest. “You said first of all. What was second of all?”

Vizzer’s face looked grim. “Well, Rutt, I…” He trailed off.

“Yes?”

“I am worried.”

“About what?”

“Things.”

“What things?”

Vizzer chuckled. “Never you mind. These are matters above the comprehension of a mere novice.” He patted Rutt on the flanks. “Run along now.”

Chapter Six

It was another hot day at the North Pole.

Clomp panted in the shade. The stadium cast a kilom-long shadow, which even as they watched crept in a slow circle as the planet turned on its upright axis. The shade was the king’s prerogative, and those found grazing within its cool confines were reminded to move along.

Eighteen Crosses now stood in that fleeting darkness. Eighteen Crosses who would determine the fate of Taurus. They were grateful for an audience with the king, Vizzer knew, if only as a temporary respite from the heat of the red sun that forever filled their sky. They would be less grateful when they found out why they were there.

It was the first Herd Council in more than a hundred years, more than a dozen generations ago. The Code ordered their lives in such detail that there was little reason for them to meet. They all seemed a bit unsure of themselves, as though taking part in something they didn’t fully understand.

The king nibbled on some grass. The others looked hungrily at the sweet tufts, but refrained. Ruminating in front of the king was bad manners.

Vizzer cleared his throat. “As Gran Vizzer to our Herd Leader, King Clomp, Lord of all Taurus, Defender of the Faith, Master of the Sweet Grass, Father of His People and Stud of the Plains, I hereby call to order this meeting of the Congregated Herd Council of Taurus. Give ye best counsel, and be blessed by the Creator.”

“And blessed may you be as well,” murmured the others, and sat down on their haunches.

“Vizzer?” Clomp’s face betrayed none of the strain he knew the king was under. The white cowboy hat drooped low over his eyes.

“Yes, Sire?”

“You called this meeting. As was your right.” Clomp spat the word. “If you have something to say, let’s hear it.”

“Of course, Your Highness.” He turned to face the others. He held their eyes for a moment, each in turn, weighing them, judging them, wondering how they would react to the news. The fifteen Breeders made up the bulk of the council. Like Clomp, they were big, dumb, and fathers of thousands. Prinz reclined in the grass at Clomp’s side. As ranking challenger and Heir to the Hat, his voice would carry great weight. Steward Frokker stood stiff-backed, clad in his sparkly matador’s vestment. Elder Fhoriu, the former high priest, leaned on his cane, limbs twitching with palsy. He’d been forced to resign by the disease. Had it affected his mind?

Not that it mattered. However stupid, lame or senile they might be, once they saw what Dex had to show them, how could they ignore the truth?

“For those of you who don’t know him,” Vizzer began, “this is Dex, the chief technical priest, and my most trusted assistant.”

His friend nodded, tapped nervously on his holy pad. Vizzer hoped the younger priest was ready. He’d lost track of how many times they’d practiced the presentation over the last twenty-six and a half hours. It had to go well. It had to. This meeting was the culmination of his entire life. Everything he had ever wanted hinged on the next hour or so.

Dex stood and cleared his throat. He looked around at the audience, tapped at his holy pad. He cleared his throat again.

“King Clomp. Gran Vizzer. Steward Frokker. Elder Fhoriu. Herd Leaders of Taurus.” His voice rattled. He took a deep breath, continued. “A hundred and three and a half days ago, our comm link to the gods died.”

Murmurs from the assembled.

“Died?”

“What do you mean, died?”

Dex stammered, “Our holy comm link has been unbroken for thousands of years. Now it’s gone.” He wiped away the sweat beading in the black fur of his forehead.

Calm down, Vizzer willed silently. They’re listening to you. Just tell it straight, like it happened.

“When I reported this to the gran vizzer, he asked me to investigate. What did it mean? Without the comm link, how would we receive the awards of valor the matadors so crave?”

Frokker nodded, arms folded across his chest, unaware of the sarcasm being directed his way.

“How,” Dex continued, “would the gods know we have fulfilled the required sacrifices?”

The audience held its breath. Dex soldiered on.

“At first we were puzzled. We followed all the instructions for use of the holy boxes, the holy wires, the holy screens and pads. We checked and double-checked everything. Nothing worked. Then I had an idea. I went to the gran vizzer, and I said, why don’t we try to speak directly to the gods?”

“But that’s sacrilege!” exclaimed Fhoriu. His cane shook violently in his hands.

The audience murmured again. Dex waited for them to quiet down.

“Yes, Elder Fhoriu. It is. Please don’t think we ignored this commandment lightly. Vizzer urged me to find some other way. But a tenday went by and—nothing. What were we supposed to do?

“As you know, our equipment is designed to send only one signal per day: the hour-long corrida. And to receive only one signal per day: the judgment of the gods. So says the Code. This you all know.”

“The gods hear our prayers,” said Fhoriu. “With or without the holy electronics. Did you not try to pray?”

“Of course we did. But either they were not listening or they chose not to respond.” Dex’s fingers quaked against the holy pad.

“I see.” Fhoriu ground his cane into the grass. “So what did you do?”

“I modified our equipment.”

“Modified it?”

“With Vizzer’s permission. I took apart the holy boxes, rewired the holy electronics. There is no information in the sacred manuals on how to do this. It was only by long trial and error that I finally managed to get it to work.”

“What do you mean?” Fhoriu leaned forward, his great eyebrows casting orange-tinted shadow across his face. “Did the gods talk to you, my son?”

“Yes. I mean, no. That is—”

“Either they answered you or they didn’t. Which is it?”

Dex paused, swallowed hard. “We received a message.”

“What did it say? What did the gods tell you?” Frokker flicked a gold tassel on his shoulder.

“‘Off-site backup full.’ Their words.”

The council members looked at each other, frowning.

“I have spent a lifetime worshiping the gods,” Fhoriu said. “I confess I don’t know what that means.”

“After this simple warning message, a flood of data poured into our systems. I had to stop the transmission to prevent damage to our holy electronics.”

Clomp lifted his head. “What kind of transmission?”

“Sire, it would take a hundred lifetimes for us to read and comprehend all the data the gods have sent us. But what happened seems fairly clear.”

“Which is what?”

The bellow of an angry she-cow interrupted the conversation. The bodyguards crossed their guns as though they were swords to block the approach of three she-cows. Their udders were swollen, uncovered to the open air; they had all recently given birth. All the council members stared, Vizzer noted with disgust.

“King Clomp!” shouted one. Her right horn twisted inward in an ugly spike.

“Father, brother, husband!” shouted another.

“We demand an audience with our king!” shrieked the third.

Clomp lowered his horns, pointed them at Vizzer. “Is this your doing?”

“My doing what, Your Highness?”

“Don’t toy with me, Vizzer. This.”

“Of course not, Sire,” he said. “You know me.”

“Indeed I do.” He addressed the she-cows. “Let Mantz step forward.”

An older she-cow ducked under the crossed guns and pranced forward, her hands clasped together, head bowed. She knelt on her side, udders pooling on the grass.

“Mother Mantz,” Clomp said. “Be welcome.”

She tossed her twisted horn skyward. “I feel no welcome here today from you.”

“It was your son the gods honored today in the arena, was it not?”

Mantz mooed in the direction of the Burial Mound, where a thin trickle of smoke smudged the burnt-orange sky. “Even now his flesh burns on the altar of the gods.” She spat. “Was he not your son too?”

“All here are my children,” Clomp said.

“And you would sacrifice them all?” She raised her voice in a vulgar screech.

Clomp frowned. “We do the will of the gods. You know this, Mantz.”

“Fornicate the gods.”

The blasphemy drew gasps. Clomp’s nostrils quivered.

“You hear me? Fornicate the gods. What kind of god demands this sacrifice?”

“Gods who love you, Mantz.”

“Who love me?”

Clomp spoke very slowly. “It is not for you to question the holy. To doubt the miracle of life.”

“The holy,” she mocked. “What miracle? I have never seen these gods. Have you?” She swept an angry hoof at the assembled council. “Who are these invisible gods who demand the death of my sons and brothers in the arena?” She stood. “They are false to us. They are false to you.”

Clomp said, “Mantz.” The word was a command. All those who heard it felt fear. “You have been a good consort to me and a fine mother to my children. I do not wish to send you to the bitter grass.”

“Twelve sons I have born you. Twelve sons I have watched die. I’ll bear you no more.”

“But that is not true. Four of your sons sit here today in council. Prinz. Ghuy. Tropk. Tnuu. They have not died. They are Breeders, and spawn great tribes of their own. Will you not greet them?”

Mantz glared at the ground. “They died in the arena when they became murderers. They are no sons of mine.”

“They were born to fight. The Code demands they kill or be killed. Would you prefer to see them banished in disgrace?”

“There is more disgrace in the arena than in the Southern Lands.”

Clomp swiveled his great head to the bodyguards, and nodded. They took her by the elbows. “All your sons, living and dead, have seen the face of god in the arena. The greatest glory any she-cow may hope for. They will be remembered. All of them.”

“There will be no more to remember,” Mantz said. “Today I strangled my newborn calfling with its umbilical cord.”

They gasped, even Vizzer.

“Better that,” she said, her head held high, “than he suffer and die in the arena.”

The king pursed his lips. “You give me no choice.”

“There is choice in everything you do.”

Clomp lowered his head in judgment. “Mother Mantz, I exile you to the lands of the bitter grass, from which none return.”

“So be it.” She stretched her arms to the sky, embracing the burning heavens. “I welcome death, an end to the living hell that life on Taurus has become.”

“As do we all,” said the other two she-cows, and they mooed long and low.

Clomp frowned. “You are young still, my consorts. You have much life ahead of you. Many children yet to bear me. Why would you wish to suffer and die before your time?”

The youngest one bleated, “Mother Mantz speaks the truth. We would rather die than live here with you.”

Fury and sadness strove across the king’s face. She was forcing the king’s hoof, Vizzer knew, and in front of the council, no less. Too bad. A thick vein under the pelt of the king’s forehead throbbed. Clomp nodded grimly to the bodyguards, who converged on the three she-cows and escorted them away.

They would be kept apart from the others, Vizzer knew. In a day or two, the Border Corps would drive them over the Southern Mountains to their final abode. What lay beyond, no one knew for sure. Corpsmen coming back from a tenday posting in the cool clouds of the mountainous pass whispered of horrors, screams coming from below, tentacled monsters of the sea, bugs the size of your fist. Once a corpsman brought back a blade of bitter grass for Vizzer to sample. It was an experience he didn’t care to repeat.

He was sorry to see Mantz sent into exile. He would never admit it to anyone, but he was fond of her. She seduced him once when he was a younger priest, before he gained control over his bodily desires. Nothing ever came of it, no offspring, so far as he knew, but he never forgot that frenzied coupling, the only time he’d ever broken his vow.

She should not have interrupted the council meeting. Her banishment was counterproductive to his efforts to end the corrida. The council had been rattled by her brazen declaration of calfling-cide. He had to get their attention again, and fast.

“Pay heed,” Vizzer said. “All of you. Lest you live and die by a false god.” He paused, measured their reactions thus far. Pressed forward. That was all he could do. “Dex?”

Dex swallowed again, hard. “It would be best if I showed you.”

He touched the holy pad in his hands. A three-dimensional image of a star system appeared. A yellow sun glowed in the center. Planets shot out from the image at their heads before swinging back around the star. Everyone ducked.

“Black magic!” breathed Fhoriu.

“No.” Vizzer grimaced. “A new sort of holiness we have only just learned of. From the gods.”

Dex looked up from his screen. “Now?”

Vizzer thrust his lower lip forward in assent.

“This is the message they sent us.”

The image changed. A picture of a blue and green sphere appeared in the air.

“What is this?” Fhoriu demanded, leaning on his cane.

“This, Sire,” Dex said to the king, “is Earth.”

Whistles and gasps.

“That’s Earth?”

“The home of the gods?”

“Whence the Creators?”

“Our Lord himself?”

Dex held out a hand. “Watch.” He pressed a button on the holy pad. Without warning the image in the air puckered. The green masses stretched in painful contortions. The planet sucked in on itself and vanished. The audience gasped. Moments passed. All that remained was a view of the stars.

“My gods,” Fhoriu said. “What does this mean?”

“It means,” Vizzer said, with as much patience as he could muster, “that the homes of the gods are destroyed.”

Clomp tapped his hooves together. “You are sure this genuine?”

Dex’s frustration was real. “Are we to doubt a message from the stars?”

Vizzer held out a hand. “There’s more. What about the other planets, Dex? The other six worlds of the gods.”

Dex touched the holy pad again. “Nueva Granada.” Another planet appeared on the screen: this time green and red and purple. It quivered, shrank down to nothingness. “Sirius Two.” An orangey-green planet: the same. “Zhong-gua II. Urales.” He spoke the words like a funeral gong. One after another Dex cycled through images, the audience flinching each time, as though afraid of being sucked into that spherical vortex along with each planet’s inhabitants.

Clomp held up a hoof. “Are you telling me that all the planets of the gods have been destroyed?”

Dex’s nervousness got the better of him. He dropped the holy pad, scooped it up again. He looked around at the faces of his elders. He hesitated. With a jolt, Vizzer realized the council was afraid. Disturbed. Angry, even. Come on, Dex. You can do this.

“There was a war, Sire,” he said at last. “The gods fought. All are dead.”

Everyone talked at once. Clomp bellowed for silence, and the clamor subsided.

“But how?” the king wanted to know. “How can such a thing happen?”

“The gods have terrible weapons, Your Highness. More terrible than you or I can possibly imagine. They have used their power against each other, and in so doing destroyed themselves.”

“But gone?” Fhoriu’s voice quavered.

“Forever,” Dex said.

The council digested this news in silence.

“But surely not all of them, Dex?” the king said. “There must be at least some left. Do they not say the gods can live in space?”

“That’s right,” Fhoriu said excitedly. “According to the Code, the gods can travel between the stars. Perhaps some are left to receive our sacrifices!”

Under this combined assault, Dex wilted. He knelt down, buried his diminutive horns in the grass. “Sire, I am merely your humble messenger.”

“Yes, yes, Dex. I know. Get up. Answer my question.”

Dex drew himself to his feet. He clutched his holy pad like an apprentice matador his cape. “Even the gods must breathe air, Sire. They must have food and water, even as we do.”

“How do you know that?” Frokker asked sharply.

“I have spent the last hundred days reading the data from the gods. It is unequivocal on this point.”

“Would they come here?” a Breeder asked.

“Here?” Dex was taken aback.

“You say they need water and air. You say they can travel between the stars. Why don’t we invite them here? Then we could worship them in person.” The Breeder in question swung his horns knowingly at his colleagues, confounding them with this massive display of unlooked-for logic.

Dex pursed his lips. “We are far from the Earth and its colonies. Even the nearest planet, Nueva Granada, was five hundred light-years away. From what I understand, the holy comms travel faster than light. Instantly, I think. But to travel in some kind of vessel that distance would be much slower. No god has visited us since the Creator. Not in thousands of years. We have no reason to think they will do so now. Or that there are any left alive to begin with.”

Vizzer broke in. “Your conclusion, Dex?”

Dex lay his holy pad on the soft grass, knotted his fingers together and drew a breath before his final words. “The gods are dead. They aren’t coming back.” He held up his hands, let them drop. “We are alone.”

“Thank you, Dex.” Vizzer stood up. His heart pounded in his chest. He forced his smile down to a narrow grin. This was his moment of triumph. This was what he had been waiting for. He must drive the sword home, and twist the blade. “You may be seated,” he said to his friend, and waited for Dex to join the others on the grass.

“Do we all understand what this means?” he asked. No need to gloat, or rub it in, he thought. State the facts. They speak for themselves. What other conclusion is there?

Frokker grabbed his crotch. “No more ears, no more Prize Box.”

Vizzer flushed. When the laughter died down, he turned toward the king.

“Your Highness, why do we sacrifice our youngest and bravest every day in the arena? Why do we do this?” He paused, let them think about that. “To win the favor of the gods. For they are jealous gods, and demand this sacrifice of us.”

Clomp scratched his nose with his hoof. “Vizzer,” he said, “I’m not sure where you’re going with this. What are you trying to—”

“You know as well as I do what this means. Don’t play dumb, Sire. Please.”

The king held out his hooves in mock bafflement. “My Vizzer accuses me of being dumb. Perhaps he would like to offer me the counsel he owes me for his exalted post.”

Vizzer turned to the rest of the council, beseeching them with open palms. “Can’t all of you see? We kill in the arena. Why? To satisfy the gods. But the gods are dead. Dead!” He was frantic now, arms outstretched to the frowning faces of Fhoriu, Frokker, Prinz and the others. “If there are no gods, then what’s the killing for? Why do we continue this bloody butchery?”

Senile Fhoriu looked genuinely confused. “Come now, Vizzer. You know as well as I do the gods can’t die.”

Cud mounted in Vizzer’s throat. “I just showed you. The planets of the gods are gone. The gods were mortals, even as we are! They weren’t gods. They were men. Puny beings half our size!”

“So says the runt,” Prinz grunted, and the council laughed.

“Let us not mock,” said Tnuu, a somber Breeder next to Prinz. He held up a hoof. “Vizzer is a priest. He does not understand. Those of us who have been in the arena, who have received the hypo and looked on the face of god himself, we know he is deathless. How can we not?”

Jowls and horns swung up and down in ponderous assent.

Frokker stood up. “I have fought in the arena dozens of times, and I have never seen the face of god. Nor have any of my syndicate members, so far as I know.”

“But then neither do you receive the holy drug,” Tnuu said.

“That is true,” Frokker conceded. “But there is something more important to consider.” He drew himself up straight, and gestured at his tall, lean frame. “We were born to be matadors. That is what we do. That is all we know. I can’t think of anything else worth doing.” Frokker lifted his tasseled shoulders, let them fall. “Can you?”

Vizzer imitated Frokker’s proud posture and gestured at his own robes. “You are a great matador. I am a great priest. Clomp is a great fighter and king.” Vizzer held their gaze in turn. “But can’t we be more than that?”

Even Dex seemed puzzled by this. “Like what?”

Vizzer took a deep breath. “To become gods ourselves.”

“Sacrilege,” Fhoriu growled, stabbing his stout staff into the grass. “Blasphemy!”

“The gods are dead, Fhoriu. How is that blasphemy?”

But the council was unmoved. The moment was slipping away from him. He was astounded. Could they not see what he saw? The opportunity that hovered here before them, waiting to be plucked? How was he to convince them? What other possible course of action could they take?

“Instead of killing each other,” he went on, “we can learn the secrets of the gods. Master their magic, travel the stars.”

Clomp blew snot through his nose. “That’s enough, Vizzer.”

“But this changes everything!” Vizzer was on his knees, pleading with them, panting in the heat. “Can’t any of you see? What we must do, what we must become?”

The king bellowed, a mournful sound. Discussion was over. “Nothing changes,” Clomp said quietly. “Are we agreed?”

Heads nodded.

“Yes.”

“Absolutely.”

“The only way.”

Vizzer’s shoulders sagged.

Frokker got to his feet. “Then may we ask the king to use his own judgment in the future, in the awarding of ears and tails?”

“I was about to suggest the same thing,” Clomp said.

“Thank you, Your Highness. We of the syndicate greatly respect your judgment in these matters. Your decision shall in all cases be final. Although, of course,” he added, “we urge you to be generous.”

They stood, mumbling to each other and shaking their heads. Dex grimaced, tucked his holy pad under an arm, and trotted off toward the stadium and the Control Booth. The Breeders huddled together, horns touching, tails outward.

Vizzer screamed at their backs, “The gods are dead. Dead! Don’t you understand what this means?”

Clomp held a horn at Vizzer’s throat. “You have said your piece. Now you will be silent. Or you will join the she-cows in the bitter grass.” The sharpened point of the horn drew blood. “Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Tears mingled with the sweat on his cheek.

“Nothing changes, Vizzer. Not now. Not ever.” To those still standing nearby, Clomp chanted, “Be blessed by the Creator.”

“And blessed may you be as well,” intoned the others.

The meeting was over.

Chapter Seven

Feeh snipped away at the bottom lobe of Vizzer’s left ear. “Great fight today, no?”

Vizzer flinched away in pain. The ear was numb, but not numb enough. It had been a tenday since the Herd Council meeting. During that time, Clomp had given away prizes at every corrida. Today he even awarded a tail.

“If you say so, Feeh.”

The doctor laughed. He flicked bits of ear from Vizzer’s shoulder, shifted around to the other side. “I just don’t get you. You must be the first vizzer in the history of Taurus who hates his job.”

The nazza-blades hummed close to Vizzer’s head. The underground hospital was cool and damp. “I expect I’ll be out of a job soon enough.”

“Oh yeah?” Feeh straightened. “Not feeling well? Something you want me to look at?”

The post of vizzer was a lifetime appointment. There were only two ways to leave the job: death and resignation. Fhoriu had been one of the few to resign, due to his palsy.

“No. But we can’t continue like this. Things have got to change. And soon.”

“Change on Taurus.” Feeh whistled. “Never heard of a change in this place that was good for anyone.”

“If things don’t change, then we are doomed.”

Feeh snipped away. “You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

“You come to me, ask for surgery. Cut this. Remove that. Bend this. Change that. Why are you doing this? You ask me, it’s not natural.”

Vizzer looked at himself in the mirror. Feeh was an excellent surgeon. The horns had been the first to go. Then his jaw had been smoothed and shortened, his face squashed flatter, man style. Feeh had removed large chunks of his ribs, pressed his chest flat, moved his center of gravity back over his spine; this made walking upright for long periods more comfortable. His nose had been sculpted in imitation of Carlos’s hooklike beak. His ears were still lacking, and that’s why he was here today.

“We’re close,” he said. “But not quite there yet.”

“You’re impossible, you know that?” Feeh gestured behind him. “I got patients to attend to, real life and death stuff, and here I am giving you cosmetic surgery.”

Behind him a she-cow in labor let out a terrible moo. Another dozen pregnant she-cows waited for their pre-natal exams. The underground hospital stank of holy antiseptic. Two junior priests stood nearby, prepared to baptize the newborn in the name of Carlos.

“Just a little bit more,” Vizzer urged.

“Ever since that transmission arrived, it’s been cut, cut, cut,” Feeh said. “When am I going to be finished?”

Vizzer unwrapped the talisman that lay in his lap. He held the figure up so Feeh could see. An ancient artisan had made it of fired clay, and used a fine tool to carve deep creases in the wrinkled face, each vertebra in the bent curve of the back, the flecks of beard that darted sideways.

“See for yourself,” he said. “We’re almost there.”

Feeh looked down at the statue, then at Vizzer in the mirror. “Where on Taurus did you get that?”

“Well, I—”

“And are you crazy?” he added. “Graven images are forbidden. You know this.”

“Calm down. Fhoriu gave it to me.”

“Fhoriu? He’s been senile for how long?”

“It’s an ancient talisman. Handed down from vizzer to vizzer for thousands of years. It’s Carlos. See?” He turned the talisman upside down, held it to the light. The artisan’s hand had cut letters into the base of the clay figure: C-A-R-L-O-S. “This is the true image of god.”

The doctor studied the object, horror on his face. Vizzer had a moment of fear. The penalty for possession of such an image, even for the high priest, was exile and death.

Then Feeh laughed. “I don’t understand you,” he said. “You say you don’t believe in god. Yet you want to look like one.”

Vizzer brushed bloody flecks of ear from his shoulder. “Never mind that,” he said. “Just do your job.”

Feeh flicked off the nazza-blades. “Look. I’m doing you a favor. I don’t have to spend my time indulging you in this bizarre self-mutilation.”

Vizzer stood, and bunched his fists together. “It’s not self-mutilation.”

“No? What else would you call it?”

Vizzer took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “You know the creation story, how Carlos made us by breeding gods and beasts?”

“Sure. Every calfling knows that.”

“Too many of us are beasts. More beast than man—or god, if you prefer that word. And why should I be a beast? I was born to be more than that.”

Feeh nodded and pursed his lips, as though pondering Vizzer’s words. He flicked his towel at a spot of blood on Vizzer’s pelt. “Come. My friend. You sit. Let me finish with you. Then you can get all huffy. Agreed?”

Vizzer settled back down on his knees. The nazza-blades clicked on again.

“So the gossip is right,” Feeh said.

“Gossip? What gossip?”

“What everyone’s saying. The gods are dead, now Vizzer wants to be a god himself.”

“Is that so.” A tenday of failure, and here he was a laughingstock.

Feeh chuckled. “That’s what they tell me.”

Vizzer could smell his friend, the stink of disinfectant, amniotic fluid, blood. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

He pulled his head away. “Everyone thinks I’m mad. What do you think?”

“I don’t think.”

“You’re a doctor. A medical priest. You’ve got a scientific mind. What does it look like to you?”

After the Herd Council’s decision, Vizzer had opened access to the files to the entire priesthood. Clomp had forbidden him to discuss the transmission with the general public, but inside the holy order, Vizzer ruled absolute. No priest would dare break his secret vows. The novices had huddled together, watching planet after planet implode. The others meandered aimlessly through the dark corridors of the under-stadium, faces painted grey with shock.

Feeh snipped away at the top of Vizzer’s right ear. “I’ve seen the images. Sure I have.”

“Then isn’t it obvious?”

The doctor coughed up a mouthful of grass. He ruminated for a moment. “If the gods are dead,” he said at last, “maybe they weren’t really gods.”

The she-cow’s groan echoed against the concrete walls. The head of a calfling emerged from between her legs. The priests chanted encouragement at her side.

“What does that mean?” Vizzer asked.

“Well, if the gods can die, someone must have created them. You get me?”

“What?” Vizzer laughed. “You think there are other gods that we don’t know about? Gods inside of gods?”

Feeh fluttered a hand in the air. “I don’t know what I think. But just because a bunch of planets thousands of light-years away disappeared doesn’t mean I have to change the way I live. See what I mean?”

Vizzer sat back on his heels, studied his reflection in the mirror. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

The doctor ruminated some more. “Suit yourself. But I am a little busy. Not the best time to chew the cud with you.”

Vizzer felt the talisman firm and cold under his fingertips. There was more to this world than appearances. He had not been born to live and die as others had. He was sure of it. He had a destiny. To be more than just himself, more than a mutant on this overheated planet, more than the sick plaything of a long-dead god.

Spindly legs pushed themselves from the she-cow’s womb, the double joints flailing as they sought purchase on the cold, rough concrete. A new generation born to the slaughter, he thought bitterly. Born to die. Born to suffer. And for what?

He sighed. “I just wish Clomp would listen. I can’t think of any way to get through to him.”

Feeh stepped back, studied his work. “Wasting your breath there,” he said. “Long as Clomp’s king, nothing’s going to change.”

Vizzer nodded. That was certainly true. If only Clomp weren’t king. The thought he’d been ignoring for a tenday, growing, swelling like a poisonous sac in his brain, finally burst in all its suppurating glory. For a moment he could neither breathe nor move.

He had sworn a sacred oath to the king. To advise him as vizzer, but also to obey him. What was worse: to disobey Clomp, or let the butchery continue?

Your oath, a little voice niggled. What of that? An oath before the gods.

But the gods were dead. He owed loyalty to Clomp—but also to his people. His heart sank under the weight of this choice. He sighed. He knew what he must do. Dex was right. It was horrible, but necessary. It was the only way to end the violence.

“Hold still, will you?” Feeh complained.

Vizzer yanked the bloodstained bib from around his neck and stood up.

Feeh placed a hand on his chest. “Slow down. Let me patch you up.” The holy antiseptic smeared wet and cool on his lobes. “You get all huffy now?” Feeh wanted to know.

“No. Not at all. But you’ve given me an idea. I owe you one,” he called from the doorway, and strode from the damp coolness of the hospital into the cauldron of Taurus.

Chapter Eight

The debutante was not much more than a calfling. She danced and spun on top of the grassy hillock, her blue robes swirling with deft movements of her hands, giving glimpses of her udders to the crowd of Breeders below. Her beauty was marred by a blotchy maroon birthmark that covered most of her face.

Prinz sprawled at the bottom of the hillock, ripping at the sweet grass with his teeth. His was a prized spot, with the best view up the debutante’s robes. As ranking challenger to the king, and Heir to the Hat, Prinz was first among equals.

Vizzer crouched beside him, a hand shading his eyes to avoid watching the strip tease. The display disgusted him. He had no desire to mate, or produce offspring, and he failed to understand priests like Dex who were torn by that particular urge. The flesh was something to be ashamed of. The raw, brutal nature of slippery coupling made him nauseous. It was a constant reminder of the poor casing of flesh in which he was trapped. No. He had no wish to form a harem. Let the Breeders do that. He pursued more lofty inclinations. That one time with Mantz had been more than enough.

Prinz lifted his head. He chewed a mouthful of grass, his eyes fixed on the calfling’s pendulous nipples. Without turning his head, he muttered, “What makes you think you can pull it off?”

Vizzer plucked a blade of grass with his fingers. He folded it between his teeth, savored the sweetness. “We priests can harness the power of the gods.”

Prinz inhaled a laugh. “I thought you didn’t believe in the gods.”

Oh, the gods used to exist, he wanted to say. Now they don’t. Where does belief enter into it? But that would just confuse the poor, dumb Breeder.

Instead, he answered simply, “I don’t.”

“Now you contradict yourself.”

“Not at all. I want to speak in terms you’ll understand.”

Prinz swallowed his mouthful of grass. “Here are terms I understand. I have two hundred and thirteen she-cows in my harem. All of them are imperfect.” He gestured with his horns at the debutante. “Clomp has first pick. In his pastures graze seven thousand four hundred and sixteen she-cows. The best on Taurus. Last year his harem produced over five thousand calflings. These are terms I understand.”

The she-cow gyrated for the audience, caressed herself. Clomp had rejected her, no doubt because of the birthmark. Her goal today was to find a Breeder in whose pastures she could graze. Otherwise she’d be sent into exile. Her fingers pinched and pulled at the usual places. Whistles pierced the air.

Vizzer winced. “There’s an easy way to get what you want,” he said lightly. “All you’ve got to do is challenge Clomp.”

Prinz hunched his massive shoulders. “The king is still strong. I would be a fool to enter the arena with him.”

“So you must wait.”

“I must wait,” Prinz agreed.

“Perhaps in five years. Ten.”

Prinz nodded, said nothing.

“When Clomp weakens,” Vizzer continued, an edge in his voice, “then you can challenge him. But in that time you will weaken too. By then, another may have challenged for your place as Heir to the Hat.” Vizzer drove on mercilessly. “Without my help, you will never be king.”

Prinz’s horns bowed in assent. “That may well be true.”

“I assure you it is.”

“I don’t deny it. So I’ll ask you again. What makes you think you can pull it off?”

“You’ve seen the new bodyguards?”

A snort of contempt. “Mistakes, all of them. One toss of my horns and they are dead.”

“It is true they are Mistakes. But have you seen their new weapons?”

Above them the debutante discarded her outer robe, her eyes only on Prinz, but he was no longer watching.

“Noise-making toys, I am told.”

Vizzer lowered his voice. “They make more than noise. They are firesticks that make holes.”

“Holes? What kind of holes?”

“Worse than a gore wound.”

Prinz turned to meet his gaze. “Worse than that?”

Vizzer nodded.

“What would happen if Clomp tried to stop us?”

“He won’t.”

“But if he did?” Prinz insisted. “If a Breeder like Clomp, or myself even, were to charge a bodyguard with a firestick? What would happen?”

“He’d point the stick at you. Pull back on a lever. A flying piece of metal going very fast would turn your head to mush, or rip a hole through your heart.”

Prinz swallowed his cud. “Holy Carlos.”

“They are powerful weapons. More powerful than the strongest, biggest bull that’s ever lived.”

The Breeder ruminated for a moment. “So you intend to kill Clomp, then.”

“Oh no.” Vizzer was horrified. “We’re not going to kill him. What an awful idea.”

“What other option is there?”

“I can get Feeh to remove his horns. Then he’d no longer be a danger to anyone.”

“He could still talk, though. Stir up the people against us.”

Vizzer tugged on his jowls. “So we cut out his tongue too. These are details. The question is, are you in or out?”

Prinz considered this. “Why me?”

Guilt weighed down his words. “If Clomp is unwilling to make changes in light of this news of the gods, then he should be replaced.”

“But again, why me? Why not one of the other Breeders?” He jerked a horn over his shoulder at the fourteen other Breeders slouched behind him. “You’ve got control of these firesticks. Why not you?”

“Me?” Vizzer laughed.

Nearby Breeders stared. Priests were not welcome at a she-cow’s debut. It was only as Prinz’s guest they’d allowed him to be present today.

Vizzer lowered his voice. “The Herd would never follow me. You know this. No priest has ever been king of Taurus. When Clomp is gone, you will be the strongest. The strongest always leads.”

“That’s true,” Prinz said, and chewed his cud. After a moment, he asked, “What makes you think I’m willing to do what you ask?”

Vizzer lifted his shoulders, let them drop. “It’s the only way you’ll ever be king.”

“You’re asking me to commit treason.”

“I’m asking you to do what’s right for Taurus.”

Prinz lowered his head, ripped at the grass with his teeth. “Suppose I agreed. What would you want in return?”

The she-cow balanced on her back now, hands and feet on the ground, hooves pawing the air, udders jiggling naked on her stomach. The other Breeders ignored the two of them in conversation, their attention fixed on the debutante.

“One thing only,” Vizzer said.

“Which is?”

“The corrida must end.”

Prinz rolled the cud around in his mouth. “No more sacrifices.”

“No more bloodshed. No more killing.”

“And if the gods get angry? What then?”

“You were at the Herd Council. You heard Dex’s report. The gods are dead.”

Prinz’s heavy brows furrowed. “A real revolution, then,” he said at last. “A change of everything.”

“Yes, a change of everything.” Vizzer breathed in satisfaction. “We shall no longer be slaves to false gods.”

Prinz frowned. “But if the gods are dead, and our blood sacrifices are meaningless, then what is the point of our existence? Why are we here? What is our purpose? What do we do now?”

“Yes!” Vizzer shouted, ignoring the other Breeders’ dirty looks. “You understand! These are the questions everyone will need an answer to. This is where you shall leave your mark.”

“My mark? What do you mean?”

“You shall be the pioneering king who led his people from the era of bloody sacrifice and ignorant religion to a future built on reason.”

“But I don’t know how to do that,” Prinz objected. “The old ways are all I know.”

“I can guide you, if you wish. That is the role of a vizzer.”

The Breeder screwed up his face. “It sounds to me like what you want isn’t a king. It’s a puppet.”

“On the contrary. You will have the greatest responsibility of any king who’s ever lived. To design a new way of life. For all of us here on Taurus.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Vizzer knelt, clenched his fists under Prinz’s nose. “Like I told the council. Why should we not become gods ourselves?”

Prinz snorted. “How is that possible?”

“With the knowledge the gods have left us. From the backup data. We shall be the new masters of the universe.” Vizzer struck his bovine chest with a clenched fist. “We shall not pray to a Creator. We shall become Creators ourselves.”

Prinz ruminated. “You really think we can become like the holy ones?”

Vizzer crouched, ready to spring up in triumph. “Yes. Absolutely.”

“How do we do that?”

He ticked off the steps on his stubby fingertips. “First, we must continue our research into the data the gods have sent us. We must learn to cultivate Taurus. Tame the harsh wastes of the south. Build cities. Maybe even one day leave this planet, travel between the stars as the gods themselves once did.”

“You have great vision, Vizzer. I am impressed.”

“Thank you.”

Prinz nodded his agreement. “So shall it be.”

Vizzer bowed his head low. “Very well, Your Highness.”

Chapter Nine

Prinz decided against claiming the she-cow in the blue robes. Let one of the other Breeders take her, or there would be a challenge in the sandpits, and he wasn’t in the mood. Best to save his energies for a she-cow worth fighting for. Besides, the birthmark was off-putting.

Most of the she-cows available to him were off-putting. Clomp’s leftovers. The king kept the best for himself. Prinz would do the same if he were king. Correction: when he was king.

Still, the strip tease had aroused him, and now, as he slid into his number one wife, gripping her flanks with his hooves, he wondered whether Vizzer would be able to pull it off. The priest was too squeamish. His reluctance to kill Clomp, for instance. No king could be allowed to survive a coup.

More importantly, would Carlos be angry with him if he ended the corrida? He was pretty sure that was a bad idea. Unlike Vizzer, he had seen the face of god. He knew what the high priest did not. The holy drug loosened the seal between this world and the next. And what he had seen—just thinking of it made him want to grovel in awe and wonder. No. There was no crime in double-crossing the priest. But actually stopping the fights? He was not prepared to go there. Not for long, anyway.

“Prinz!” a voice called out. “Breeder Prinz, I must talk to you!”

A priest he didn’t know was arguing with the new bodyguard. Vizzer had insisted a Mistake accompany him at all times. The other bulls were already laughing about that. A Breeder, the Heir to the Hat himself, defended by a Mistake? He pumped himself faster into the she-cow, his lips pressed tight in a scowl. They would stop laughing when he was king.

“Breeder Prinz is busy,” the bodyguard said, and slammed the butt of his rifle in the priest’s gut. Interesting, Prinz thought. Mistake knows more than he lets on.

The priest doubled over. “I need to talk to Prinz,” he squeaked. “It’s urgent.”

“No one approaches.” A click-clack noise.

Vizzer had shown him a firestick, explained what it did. The bodyguard had just chambered a round. Maybe he’d get to see a flying sword in action.

“You know how these things work,” the bodyguard told the priest.

The she-cow ground back at him, competing for his attention. He opened his mouth to bellow a curse, tell them both to shut up, when the priest said, “Vizzer sent me.”

The bodyguard perked up. “He did?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the password?”

“Password?”

The bodyguard shouted a whisper, “The secret word.”

The priest shook his head. “He was in a hurry. He just said to tell you to let me pass.”

The guard punched the priest in the stomach again with his rifle. “Go on. Get out of here.”

So much for that interruption, Prinz thought. He resumed pumping, and the she-cow groaned. A series of loud staccato noises startled him, nearly made him lose his seed.

“Stop!” the guard screamed, his weapon pointed at the priest. “Stop or I’ll stab you with a flying sword!”

The priest stopped, not five meters away, panting, hands in the air. “Breeder Prinz! Tell him not to kill me. I must talk to you!”

Prinz slowed his strokes. “I am a little busy right now.”

The she-cow looked back at him, and said irritably, “Can’t this wait till we’re finished?”

“No, it can’t,” the priest said.

Prinz shoved himself in and held it there. “Well?”

“I know about your plans with Vizzer,” the priest said. “It’s a mistake. Please. Hear me out.”

The bodyguard trotted closer, limping, his weapon pointed at the priest’s belly.

“It’s OK,” Prinz said. “Let him stay.”

The Mistake bowed. “As you wish, Breeder Prinz.” He turned and stalked back to his post.

“This is Vero, by the way,” Prinz said, indicating the she-cow.

“Pleased to meet you.” She held out a hand. She had only four fingers. The priest kissed her fingertips, a traditional fertility blessing.

“Oh. Yes. Of course.” The priest wiped his lips with the back of his hand. “I am Rutt. A priest.”

And a novice, thought Prinz, examining the grey robes. He resumed his stroking. “So Vizzer told you about his…plans?”

“He told all the priests.”

Prinz frowned. “Why would he do that? There are hundreds of priests on Taurus. Is he really that stupid?”

“He needs our support if he’s going to pull off a revolution.” Rutt grimaced. “He thinks we all want drastic change.”

“And you, I take it, do not.”

“No. I don’t.” Rutt’s gaze strayed to the fleshy union of the two beasts. “Somehow, I don’t think you do either.”

The she-cow trembled, let out a long, orgasmic moo.

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t.” Sweat beaded Prinz’s forehead. “What do the others think?” His thrusting increased in tempo.

“Most are in shock at the news. They have been priests their entire lives. They don’t want things to change.”

“And what do you want?” Prinz’s breath came in hot gasps. “Why come to me?”

“Because Vizzer is going to betray you.”

A sharp bark of laughter. “And how will he do that?”

“He’ll get rid of Clomp. You’ll become king. But if you disagree with him, any of the changes he makes? Poof! You’re gone.”

The firesticks. Carlos damn him. Rutt was right. An idea formed in the back of his mind. Play dumb.

“Vizzer’s just a little runt. How will he do that?”

“He’s got the guns—”

“The what?”

“The firesticks. What we call guns. And what have you got? A pair of horns?”

Prinz slammed himself into his mate. “Big enough to kill you with.”

“But with guns Vizzer can rule over everyone. Horns are no longer the most dangerous weapon on Taurus. Don’t you see? Vizzer can order you around at will, and there’s nothing you can do to stop him.”

With a grunt and a wild cry, Prinz came, pumping wetly into the exhausted she-cow. He rested a moment on her back, then slid out of her with a slick plop. He slapped her on the flanks. “Go graze a bit, dearie. Got business to talk.” To Rutt he said, “Walk with me.”

Priests considered most Breeders to be soft in the head. Too many concussions. Prinz put on his dazed look. “Maybe the changes he wants won’t be so bad.”

Rutt danced along beside him, trying to keep up. “Do you really think Taurus is going to stand for it? There will be civil war. He must be stopped.”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Vizzer can control you because he controls the supply of weapons. Without someone on the inside to help you, you’re screwed.”

“And I suppose you’re that person.”

“Yes. I can get you all the guns you need.”

Look bored. Prinz stopped, lazily ripped at the sweet grass. “So why come to me? Why not go to Clomp?”

“Because I think it’s time Taurus had a new vizzer as well as a new king.”

Prinz allowed himself a grin. “Who do you have in mind?”

“You shall be king, and I shall be your vizzer.”

The choice was being beholden to Vizzer and the new ways, or this runt and the old ways. He frowned. Either way he owed an obligation to a priest. But Carlos would prefer Rutt and the old ways, and Prinz had no desire to anger the gods.

“But what about the bodyguards?” Prinz asked. “It’s not just a question of weapons, but Crosses with hands and fingers who can use them.” He lifted a forehoof, indicated the scar at his elbow where his forearm had been lopped off in the arena.

“Well,” Rutt said, “the bodyguards are loyal to Vizzer, right?”

“Exactly my point.”

“But why are they loyal to Vizzer?”

Dumb. Dumb. Wait. Actually, he had no idea. “I don’t know.”

“Because he’s given them status. Respect.”

Prinz shook his head. “I still don’t see.”

“There’s something the Mistakes want even more than respect.”

“What’s that?”

The novice bent down and whispered in Prinz’s ear.

“By Carlos’s Beard! That is forbidden.”

“All the same.”

Prinz laughed suddenly. “I guess that makes sense. But I can’t imagine a she-cow would willingly choose to mate with a Mistake.”

Rutt gestured with a hand at the she-cows grazing nearby.

“But they’re my harem!”

The priest shrugged. “When you are king, you shall have first pick of all the virgins on Taurus. Your new harem shall exceed those of all others. Your old harem is a small price to pay, is it not?”

Prinz bunched his eyebrows tight over his broad nose, affecting displeasure. “But it galls. To let a bunch of Mistakes pump my she-cows full of seed. Imagine the monstrous offspring. Can’t we just take their guns away from them?”

Rutt’s tiny nostrils flared in frustration. “It’s not just a question of guns. It’s a question of bullets.”

“Bullets?”

“The flying swords that make the holes.”

“What about them?”

“You can only use them once. And when they’re gone, they’re gone. That’s why you need me.”

“And the bodyguards to use them.”

“You see?”

Prinz ruminated. “But to give Mistakes access to my she-cows… Isn’t there some other way?”

“Like what?”

“The young bulls still have their arms and legs.”

The priest was approaching exasperation. Ease off the dumb a bit, Prinz decided.

“Are you mad?” Rutt said. “You remember what you were like before you passed through the arena? They’d go crazy and kill everyone just to get to your harem.”

Prinz nodded. Young bulls could hardly wait to fight, they were so frenzied with lust. “A fair point. But what about the priests? You still have your arms and hands. You said there were others who felt as you did. Couldn’t you create a bodyguard made up of priests?”

“You want dumb followers who are grateful for any scraps you throw them. Not well-educated priests who know all the holy secrets. Or how else can you be sure that they’ll obey you?”

“Point taken. So what’s your plan?”

Rutt lowered his voice, even though there was no one within earshot. “Vizzer will have his coup. Go along with whatever he tells you. You become king. Your first order is to banish both Clomp and Vizzer to the bitter grass, and make me your vizzer in his place.”

“And in exchange?”

“I guarantee you a steady supply of bullets, which, I repeat, only a priest can provide you.”

“Any priest?”

Rutt smiled, and fingered something under his robes. “Any priest who has access to the holy box.”

“How many is that?”

Rutt smirked. “Two.”

“Vizzer and…you?”

“Very good.”

Prinz pawed at the ground, trotted around Rutt in a thundering circle for a full five minutes. This was his chance to be king. He might not have another. If he refused, no doubt Rutt would find another Breeder willing to do his bidding. Like Tnuu. Who would demand not only Clomp’s death, but his own. So. Become king and live, decline and die. No contest there.

More to the point, Rutt did not blaspheme the gods. To become king only to anger Carlos Himself—well, Prinz had beheld the face of god. He would not want to see Carlos angry.

But the runt was forcing him to act. That he did not like. Making him dance like a puppet. He would play along. For now. He slowed, came to a halt next to the priest. He lowered his head, ripped a mouthful of grass.

In a loud, brassy voice, the priest demanded, “So do we have a deal?”

Chapter Ten

The Great Gates trembled, barred for the first time in the history of Taurus. It was the hour of the corrida, but the stadium echoed empty behind Vizzer. No leering perverts defiled the arena with their panting lust for death. His heart beat jubilant; elation sent his soul singing to the darkening sky. Today began a new era in the history of Taurus. No longer would he be forced to cry, “Let there be blood!” From now on he would shout the good news in every pasture, proclaim it to the heavens: “Let there be life!”

A regal growl penetrated from outside. “As King of the Herd, I command you to open the gate!”

Dex had warned him by radio from the Control Booth. “Here he comes. Crowd’s letting him pass. Heading right for you.”

Vizzer’s bodyguards slouched against the gate, their guns at ready, faces flickering between resolution and fright. A heavy thud stiffened their spines. The barred gates creaked, bulged, shed splinters, but held. Half a meter thick, twenty meters high, the ceremonial gates had never been tested against a determined attacker. Hold. Carlos damn you, hold. For a few minutes longer, at least.

Vizzer had stood there for more than an hour, peering through the gap in the gates, watching the spectators arrive. Fifty thousand Crosses milled around outside. Laughter and confusion washed back and forth through the crowd like waves. He’d pressed his ear to the gap, eager to know their mood.

“The gods will be angry,” said one. “They will punish us. The hour is past. See how even now the disc of darkness blesses the arena? Blood must be shed before it departs.”

“We must do something.” An older, reedy voice now. “Beware the lightning. The lightning will come, and strike us all dead.”

“Lightning?” a younger voice begged. “What lightning?”

Vizzer had heard the story before. Sheer cowpat, he thought, his ear to the gap in the gate. Good for scaring calflings, nothing more.

“In the time of our forefathers,” the reedy voice continued, “a rebellious king refused to hold the corrida. His favorite son was due to fight. And do you know what happened to him, my young calflings? Do you?”

“Tell us, tell us!”

“The Creator himself appeared, covered in gold, spitting lightning from his eyes.”

“No.”

“Yes.” A chuckle. “He smote the king dead with one bolt of his blue sky-fire. Ever since, no king has failed to sacrifice to the gods.”

The Gates buckled again, a ferocious assault, followed by Clomp’s guttural cry, “Open the gates! The king commands it!”

The darkness crept across the arena. It reached the Great Gates. The temperature dropped. The nervous Mistakes fingered their weapons, cast worried glances at the black disc blotting out the sun. Glit trembled at his side. Poor thing. Vizzer had explained to them beforehand what was going to happen. They had been reluctant, and agreed to stand by Vizzer only when he’d explained that a golden age of Taurus stretched before them, and they would be counted among the great when the history books were written. He lay a hand on the aged Mistake’s warped shoulder.

“You ready?” Vizzer asked, barely audible over the cries of the mob outside.

The bodyguard jerked his head up and down, avoided his gaze.

Odd. Must be nerves. Vizzer cupped his hands to his mouth: “Open the gates!”

Two of the guards had been posted twenty rows up in the stone stands, on either side of the Great Gates. One pushed, one pulled, and the heavy bar inched sideways, until one end crashed to the ground.

Abruptly, the door swung open a few meters, bowling two of the guards off their feet. The monstrous form of Clomp himself filled the doorway, horns embedded in the wooden barrier. In the plains beyond, fifty thousand Crosses shook their hooves, chanting, “Cor-ri-da! Cor-ri-da! Cor-ri-da!”

With a savage snort, the king wrenched his horns from the wood. He stood half in darkness, half in light: head obscured in the arena’s eclipse, tail swishing in the burning red rays behind him.

“Vizzer,” he growled, and pawed the ground. “You have gone too far. Today you die.”

“Sire,” he said, and bowed low at the waist, “this is your last chance. The people deserve to know the truth.”

“You are a fool.” Clomp charged. His massive horns thrashed the air where Vizzer had stood. The king’s head jerked up in astonishment.

From three meters in the air, Vizzer looked down at Clomp’s broad back. The levitation belt had been a real find. Dex had discovered it in the backup data, and he’d prayed to the matter converter to make him one.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. You’ve left me no other choice.” He touched a button at his waist and floated through the gap in the gates.

At the sight of Vizzer soaring overhead, the chanting of the crowd disintegrated into tepid fragments. Fists went limp. Slack jaws gaped at him in terror. It was a nice touch, he thought. A little something extra to drive the point home.

He dialed up the volume on the microphone hanging from his ear. “People of Taurus! Hear my words!” Hidden speakers projected his voice to the very edge of the multitude.

Confused murmuring rippled through the crowd.

“The gods have sent us a message. Pay heed!” He paused to let them digest his words.

Confused whispers hissed below. “The gods? A message? How? What did they say?”

“Vizzer!” Clomp bellowed, his great voice a weak bleating compared to Vizzer’s amplified speech. “Stop him!” he ordered the bodyguard. “Get him down from there!”

Vizzer held his hands above his head, the signal for Dex to begin playback. An enormous blue sphere appeared in the air above the Great Gates. Many threw themselves prostrate on the ground.

“Behold!” he cried, triumphant in the truth. “The birthplace of the gods: Earth!”

Once more the aquamarine planet shriveled in upon itself, and disappeared. He looked down at his flock, prepared for shouts of joy. His arms still strove above his head. Sweat trickled down his cheeks.

“Kill him, damn you—use your flying swords!” the king bellowed.

But the bodyguards ignored Clomp’s desperate orders, stared up at Vizzer as though in shock.

Vizzer’s voice boomed out over the tumultuous hum and throb of the crowd. “The gods’ final message is this: They are dead. All of them. They have killed each other in a great war. I repeat: The gods are dead!”

“Vizzer!” Clomp screamed, by now hysterical.

Vizzer turned in the air, discharged one arm in the king’s direction. “King Clomp,” he continued reasonably, “do you acknowledge this truth?”

“Never!” the king groaned. “Vizzer, you know not what you do!”

“Why,” he addressed the crowd, a didactic finger scraping the sky, “do we sacrifice our young in the arena?” He paused, then answered his own question. “To please the gods. But now the gods are dead.” A grin spread across Vizzer’s face, and he delivered the punchline. “From this day forward, instead of death, we celebrate life!” Below, slack faces stared at him in wonder. “King Clomp, will you end the blood sacrifice?”

“I would rather die than disobey the gods.”

Vizzer sighed and puckered his lips. “I was afraid you’d say that.” He looked out at the crowd, fixed his eyes on the distant clouds. “There is only one alternative. The king must be replaced.” A clatter of metal on flesh. The bodyguards leveled their weapons at Clomp, muzzles centims from the king’s head.

“What the hell is this?” Clomp asked, studying the barrels of the guns, and the Mistakes who held them. “What is going on? Who told you to do this?” His hooves danced a petulant tantrum. “Vizzer? Was this your idea?” To the guards: “Get him down from there. Pull on your levers!” He bellowed, “Obey your king!”

As if in answer, Prinz sauntered through the gate. He stood in darkness, behind the bodyguards, invisible to the crowd. His voice was unamplified, despite the microphone Vizzer had given him earlier.

“The days of your kingship are over,” he announced in monotone, the way you might discuss the weather. “The days of mine have just begun.”

Clomp snorted in derision. “You dare challenge me?”

Prinz idly chewed his cud. “No need.”

“I see now,” the king said. “Too yellow to challenge me, so you betray me instead. You and Vizzer.” He shouted up at Vizzer’s feet, “You traitorous coward! What of your oath?”

His oath. He had not forgotten. Vizzer would explain it to Clomp later. He wanted him to understand. His loyalty was first to the people.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but—”

Gunfire obliterated the words on his lips. Clomp’s head exploded in a shower of brains and bone. One horn spun in the air, buried itself in the grass. The other wilted to the ground, hung from a long strip of flesh.

Silence.

The pulpy mass of what was left of Clomp’s head spurted blood. The king’s monstrous shoulders sagged. He took two steps to the right, one backward, and fell to the ground. A hind leg twitched and shuddered, stabbed itself straight as though on tiptoe, and lay still.

Thick ripples of nausea clawed their way through Vizzer’s four stomachs. The smells of warm blood and cooling brains forced themselves into his lungs, accusing him, calling him disloyal, a traitor, no friend. His oath was sacred, even if the god he swore to was false. This was no way for the king to end.

“Carlos’s Hairy Scrotum, what are you doing?” he screamed down at Glit. “You weren’t supposed to kill him!”

Beneath him, in every direction, she-cows wept, young bulls ripped their hair from their heads and gnashed their teeth. Spontaneous fights erupted, horns crashing together, until a solitary voice shouted, “Murderers!” The word spread, a flame of outrage and anger, and the crowd jostled forward, growling curses.

The first wave of swarming, kicking confusion crashed against the bodyguards. Hands clutched at their weapons. Glit lifted his firestick and fired a long burst over the crowd’s head, centims from where Vizzer levitated.

“Hey!” he shouted down at the bodyguard. “Careful!” But his amplified voice was drowned out by the tumult below.

The mob screamed and convulsed, those in the front ranks fighting to retreat as those behind them surged forward, a mindless mass of fury and terror.

Vizzer cranked the volume higher on his microphone. “Be calm! Please!” He held his arms to the heavens in a benediction.

The sound of gunfire cut him off. He spun around in mid-air in time to see the bodyguards squeezing their triggers, struggling to hold on to their guns as the bullets tore through the crowd. The noise was a horrible cackle, soon interspersed with cries of anguish as tens of thousands stampeded away from the stadium, scattering bent and broken bodies in their wake.

“Stop!” Vizzer shouted. “Carlos damn you, stop! What are you doing? Why are you doing this?” Then again, “Please, what are you doing?”

The firing stopped when the bullets ran out. The mob dispersed on the plain. Beneath him a pregnant she-cow lay on her side. Blood pooled under her tail. The muzzle of an unborn calfling poked out of a hole in her belly. She clutched its unmoving head, lowed in sorrow and distress. Across the battlefield, a pair of young calflings stumbled through the carnage, calling out for their mama.

The cries of the wounded played counterpoint to the groans of the dying. He tried to count them all. Hundreds lay scattered across the pasture, bloody tracks coating the sweet, green grass. Feeh strode from body to body, never lingering long. Where had he come from? Vizzer wondered, in shock. He watched the doctor stoop, bend over the injured she-cow. He shook his head and continued his grim tour. Those who were dead required no treatment. Those who could walk away had done so. And there were precious few on that evil battlefield, he knew too well, whom Feeh’s medicine could save.

Vizzer realized he was still floating. A cloud of gunpowder circled about his head and made him cough. He pressed a button and sank slowly to the ground. The touch of gravity shoved him to his knees. He fell forward, fingers deep in the bloody, sticky grass.

A shadow lurked across his face. “Well,” Feeh said. “No more death. That’s what you wanted, right?”

Vizzer hung his head. What had he done? Horror gripped his guts. He could contain it no longer, and the vomit poured from all four stomachs, and he retched until dry heaves shook his slight frame. He wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his robe.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

“What did you expect? Murder the king and no one’s going to care?”

“They weren’t supposed to kill him!”

But Feeh had left, stooping and clucking as he continued his battlefield triage.

Vizzer climbed to his feet, his balance unsteady. Smoke trickled upward from the muzzles of the black tubes. The bodyguards looked around in astonishment. Clomp’s lifeless body drooled brains into the bloody grass, already drying in the sun.

Lifting his feet high at the knee, he stomped through the stickiness to where Glit stood. He grabbed the bodyguard’s weapon from his unprotesting hands, threw it aside. He screamed at the Mistake, “Did I tell you to shoot?” He grabbed Glit and shook him. “Answer me!” He slapped him across the face. The bodyguard refused to look at him.

“I told him to shoot,” Prinz said calmly.

“You?” He took a step forward, stopped. The Breeder eyed him steadily. Vizzer was just out of horn’s reach. The other bodyguards held their weapons at ready.

Behind him, a familiar groan jerked Vizzer’s spine erect.

“Vizzer,” wheezed the voice. “What have…you done?”

Vizzer turned. The mutilated skull struggled to form words. Brains seeped from gaping holes. He knelt down, touched the king’s cheek, as though afraid of an electric shock. The king’s hot breath caressed his fingertips. A hoof twitched.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” Vizzer said. He beat his fists against the king’s flank. “Damn you, why wouldn’t you listen to me?”

Clomp struggled for air. Red bubbles hissed and popped between his ribs. “May the gods…forgive you,” he said at last.

“Sire, I—”

But the bubbling stopped, the quivering body went limp. The king was dead.

He stood up and kicked the still-warm corpse. “There are no fornicating gods! You hear me?” he screamed at the cooling chunk of flesh. “Answer me!”

Vizzer looked around him, at Prinz impassive in the darkness of the eclipse. There was no wind, and the sharp tang of smoke hung over them in a polluted swarm. His soul filled with horror.

“They’re all dead,” he managed at last.

Prinz stepped forward. “Yes, they are dead. But they died so that the rest of us may live. Today the corrida ends. The blood sacrifice ends. Today dawns a new day in the life of Taurus.”

Vizzer opened his mouth. No words came out, and he closed it again. Was this the price he had to pay? To stop the murder, he had to kill? To end the bloodshed of innocents, hundreds of innocents had to die? The contradiction spun his head in convulsions of horror and loathing.

What choice did he have? To endorse the slaughter meant influence in shaping the new world, the future he wished to create for his people. To reject what Prinz had done, to condemn the new king as he deserved—Vizzer would merely wind up as the others had, a sticky mess in the hot sun.

He had been beaten. Prinz would ruthlessly guard his power. That was why he had killed Clomp. Vizzer should have seen it earlier. No king could let his predecessor live. And the massacre…that was an accident. He could see that too. It was unfortunate. It was terrible. But it was over, and there was nothing he could do to make it right.

“Well, Vizzer?” Prinz said gently, from his place in the darkness.

Once more Vizzer fell to his knees. “All hail Prinz, King of Taurus.” The words came out a strangled cry. “Long may he live.”

Chapter Eleven

Rutt threw down his headphones in disgust. So this was why Prinz wanted him up here, tucked safely out of the way in the Control Booth. He’d watched Glit fire into the air, deliberately missing Vizzer. Listened to Prinz flatter that freak of a high priest, endorse his ridiculous ideas. Shrieked when Vizzer went down on his knees and proclaimed his love for Prinz. Carlos’s Bollocks! Everything was going wrong.

A hand caressed his shoulder. Dex said, “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

He jerked away. “What? Oh.”

The carnage splayed across a dozen wall screens. Dex probably thought he was having trouble dealing with all the blood.

The hand consoled him again, as though he were a mere child. “A terrible price to pay.”

Rutt smiled up at the older priest, patted his hand. He cataloged in his mind the precise order in which he would disembowel Dex when the time came. “Thank Carlos you were here to comfort me,” he said.

“No problem.” Dex squeezed his shoulder. “That’s what I’m here for.”

Idiot.

He got to his hooves, covered his eyes, shook in fake sobs.

“Hey, you alright?”

Rutt ran from the room, charged out into the darkness. He blinked, let his eyes adjust. Behind him the door swung shut. The Creator’s Throne sat empty to one side. His hoofsteps echoed in the empty stadium. A sliver of light appeared near the Gates. The eclipse was departing.

Now to find that double-crossing piece of cowpat Prinz.

Rutt found him on the bloody field, overseeing the disposal of the fallen. Priests dragged the corpses off, heaving their burdens through the slimy, red-coated grass.

As he approached the new king, Fhoriu’s senile bleating filled the air. “…aren’t sanctified,” he was saying. “You cannot use the Burial Mound for this purpose.”

“I can, and I will.” Prinz caught sight of Rutt. “What’s more,” he continued to Fhoriu, “Vizzer agrees on this point.”

Two of Clomp’s youngest wives nuzzled Prinz’s flanks. Flawless creatures. Perfectly formed udders swinging free under their pink robes, a uniform black fur, hairless wrists and ankles. Prinz’s thick erection dangled between his legs. So quickly you forget your friends, Rutt thought.

“Honored King!” he called out, interrupting Fhoriu’s pedantic lament. “Your Highness, a word.”

The elderly priest looked him up and down. “Yes, novice. What is it?”

Rutt knelt, touched his horns to the ground. “The king and I have great matters of state to discuss.” He lifted his head from the grass. Blood stuck to his forehead. “Is that not so, Sire?”

Prinz rolled the cud around in his mouth. “Elder Fhoriu, we shall continue our discussion later.”

“But Sire—”

“I said, later.”

Fhoriu bowed low. “As you bid me, so I do.”

Prinz spoke over his shoulder. “Ladies, leave us.”

The she-cows grinned and pranced away, aware of the many eyes burning holes in their thin robes.

“Well?” Rutt demanded.

Prinz stared him down, or tried to. For a long moment they struggled for mastery.

“It is not yet time,” the king said at last.

Rutt squawked, “You are king because of me. Do not forget that.”

“I have not forgotten,” Prinz said. “And you will have your reward.”

Nearby, priests attended to the corpse of the pregnant she-cow, her stillborn fetus drooping from her belly. They looked up and frowned.

Rutt lowered his voice. “The bodyguards used up all their bullets. Vizzer isn’t going to give them more. Without me, you are dead, and you know it.”

“But I do know it.”

“Then give me what you owe me,” he hissed, “or you will not be king for long.”

“You’ll get what’s coming to you,” Prinz said. He turned away. “Come. Walk with me.” He lumbered through the treacly turf. “What would happen, tell me, if we killed Vizzer now?”

Rutt danced to keep up. “You’d replace him with me, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation. Well?”

“How would the people take that?”

“The people? Who cares what they think? They will do what we tell them.”

Prinz stopped, loomed over him, a shadowy mountain of muscle. “You willing to gamble your life on that?”

“What do you mean, gamble?”

The king rippled the muscles in his shoulder, a menacing gesture. “Clomp has been murdered in front of their very eyes. They watched the planet of the gods destroyed. Hundreds are dead from that stampede. From their point of view, I don’t know which of these things is worse.”

“What does it matter?” he asked. “You can still replace Vizzer.”

The king snorted from deep within his lungs. “The people aren’t used to change. What Vizzer proposes—an end to the corrida—will turn their world upside down.”

Rutt stamped his feet. “Which is why he must be stopped.”

“On the contrary.” A grin split Prinz’s heavy jowls. “What is the ancient saying of the gods? Give him enough rope—?”

“And he will hang himself.”

“Now do you see?”

Rutt grinned back. The king was not so stupid after all. “The people won’t put up with it.”

The king’s horns swung from side to side.

“Then you come in and rescue us from Vizzer’s madness,” Rutt said.

Prinz’s grin widened. “You see? I have not forgotten our agreement.”

From beneath his robes, Rutt withdrew a strange weapon, similar to the firesticks, but smaller, and without a hole at the tip. A red stripe ran the length of the barrel. Embedded in the strange material pulsed the glowing words “RAY GUN.”

“Neither have I.”

Chapter Twelve

Vizzer said, “There must be something we can do on this planet besides kill each other.”

Dex lifted his shoulders, let them drop. “The synchronized tail twirlers weren’t that bad.”

The eclipse had come and gone a second time. The priests had managed to burn most of the bodies. A miasma of stink hung about the Burial Mound, charred chunks of flesh a defiant reminder of the previous day’s slaughter. A thunderstorm had burst across the North Pole, washing the grass clean of blood. Many took this to be a good omen.

At the hour of the corrida, crowds formed outside the stadium, but the Great Gates remained shut. Bulls and matadors and even a few priests milled around, unsure of what to do or how to act. Vizzer could feel it himself—a sense of detachment, a rootlessness, as though some unseen hand had torn ancient, twisted tendrils through the back of his skull.

“What about the magician?” Dex asked.

Prinz cleared his throat. “He was entertaining. Why not use him?”

Vizzer ground his teeth, and his cud squeaked. The magician had made a few handkerchiefs disappear, then tried to swallow a sword. He’d collapsed in front of them, and Feeh was even now operating to repair the puncture wounds.

“In hospital, I’m afraid, Sire.”

The three of them reclined at the top of the grassy terrace. They’d suffered through six hours of auditions. One final group of dancers, all she-cows, waited to perform.

Prinz ripped at a tuft of nearby grass, rolled the blades around in his mouth as he chewed. “We’ve got to do something. You said so yourself.”

Vizzer crossed his arms, pressed his chin to his chest. It was almost as though the king wanted him to fail, wanted to see a revolt take place. Why would Prinz want that? He heard hoofsteps above and behind him. He turned. A face ducked back inside the Control Booth and shut the door. He wasn’t sure, but it looked like Rutt. The calfling had been acting strange lately. He’d been meaning to have a talk with him. The massacre yesterday had shaken a lot of people. A good cry on a friendly shoulder was probably what the calfling needed.

Dex interrupted his thoughts. “Why don’t we see what the last group has to offer before we make a decision?”

He nodded, a slow, painful acquiescence. The people did need something. By abolishing the corrida, he had ripped a hole in their hearts where the gods had been. What could he put in its place?

“Agreed.” He straightened his back. “Do the honors, will you?”

“Valera and her dancing torchbearers!” Dex called out, reading from his holy pad. He sat back down on the grass. “Let’s see what they’ve got.”

A group of twenty she-cows scrambled to their feet, unlit torches in hand. All were older females, nearly menopausal. A she-cow with a grey pelt strode forward and addressed herself to Prinz. Must be Valera.

“My King,” she said, “you are a bull of great mercy. But for you, my companions and I would even now be hobbling toward the south in chains. Bless you for your compassion. Your wisdom.”

Prinz interrupted. “Do what you’re going to do.”

Valera knelt in the dust, bowing her head until the stumps of her horns scraped the red sand. “It is a dance, Your Highness. A dance of joy. At a second chance for life.” She stood up. “A dance for all Taurus.”

A lute player to one side struck a chord. Valera lit her torch. The other dancers made a circle around her. As one, they lifted their torches above their heads, then bent toward Valera’s flame, until, with a whoosh, their torches ignited.

The lute player’s fingers leaped across the strings, and suddenly the dancers were in motion too: gyrating, spinning, jumping, twisting, their torches arcs of brilliant fire, even in the harsh sunlight. A jolt shot up Vizzer’s spine. In the darkness of the eclipse, the group would be a real crowd-pleaser. No need even for the stadium lights, he pondered, his finger across his lips. More spectacular without.

Dance. Of course. Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier? Other groups had auditioned, of course, but none with the intensity of these she-cows. He knelt forward in the grass, rested his weight on his knuckles.

Valera led the dancers in a solemn procession that dissolved into pirouettes of fire. Would this be enough? Would it satisfy the people? Would it fill the empty hole?

He looked askance at Dex and Prinz. The priest tapped at his holy pad, glanced up at the troupe, frowned. The king chewed his cud, an impassive behemoth. Couldn’t they see the beauty here?

The dancers mimed the corrida. A she-cow tossed her tiny horns and pawed the ground. Another wielded her torch like a sword. In silence they ran at each other, hooves scuffling in the dust. The torch tapped the “bull’s” flanks, and she stumbled and fell to the ground. The “matador” she-cow crowed triumphant over her, torch impaling the sky. The remaining dancers paused in tableau: Grief. Horror. Death.

Vizzer’s applause echoed and splintered across the broad empty stone of the stadium. The dancers bowed low. Valera stepped forward. A calfling-ish grin of pleasure suffused her face, the blush visible even under her grey pelt.

“Wonderful,” he said. He turned to Dex. “Wasn’t it superb?”

Dex cleared his throat, let his holy pad fall to one side. “Thank you, ladies,” he called out. “We’ll be in touch.”

Vizzer waited impatiently for the dancers to file past and leave the stadium.

“Well?” he said, trying to hide the eagerness in his voice. “They’re perfect, aren’t they?”

Dex fidgeted with his holy pad. “I still like the synchronized tail twirlers.”

“Sire?” Vizzer inclined his head to the king. “Better than the magician, no?”

Prinz swallowed his cud. “I’m not a priest. It’s all the same to me. You pick.”

“Very well.” Vizzer got to his feet, suddenly exultant. He raised his fists to the sky, stared up at the orange clouds. Somewhere up there, beyond the confines of this planet, this solar system, hidden away in a dark corner of the galaxy, mouldered the graveyard of the gods. We have beaten you, he thought. No longer will we be your sick joke of a world, the plaything of the dead god Carlos. No more! These lives are our lives. This destiny our destiny: to leave behind this stinking rock and become the gods ourselves.

Chapter Thirteen

Vizzer jogged along at Prinz’s side, trying to keep up with the king’s lumbering step. Together they exited the stadium through the Great Gates. Valera and her troupe danced in a distant pasture, celebrating their win. Dex had returned to the Control Booth. In the training sandpits to one side, a score of bulls clapped and cheered a pair of their companions, two calflings who locked horns with a crash, twisting and tussling in the dust.

“Monogamy?” Prinz asked. “What in Carlos’s name is monogamy?”

“An ancient custom, Sire,” Vizzer said. “Practiced by some of the gods themselves.”

“But what does it mean?”

There was no nice way to put it. “It means having only one wife.”

Prinz jerked to a halt. “Only one? Are you crazy? No one would ever accept that.”

Vizzer remained calm. “You abolished the corrida, did you not?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“You tell me. How are the bulls going to get wives?”

Prinz snorted. “That’s not my problem.” He turned his flanks to Vizzer and clumped off.

“It is your problem, Your Highness,” Vizzer called after him. “You’ve killed their hopes.”

The king stopped, peered over his shoulder. “What are you talking about?”

“Why are bulls so eager to fight in the arena?” he asked, and gestured at the calflings in the sandpits. “To earn a harem. But once the bulls realize that no corrida means no harem, in this life or the next, what do you think they’re going to do?”

Prinz scowled, but remained silent.

“I’ll tell you,” Vizzer said. “If you don’t give them she-cows, you’re going to have a revolt on your hands.”

“That seems unlikely,” the king snapped.

“You willing to take that chance?” Vizzer asked.

Prinz mulled that over. “What do you suggest?”

“We must give them she-cows.”

A nod. “As you see fit.”

“Good. We can disband the King’s Harem tomorrow, after the Placing of the Hat.” After the formal ceremony, this numbskull would officially be king.

“Do what?” Prinz lunged forward, caught himself.

“Where do you expect the she-cows to come from? Every female on Taurus belongs to you or one of the Breeders.”

“Monogamy, if that’s what you call it, is fine for the other bulls. But not for the king.”

“You must set an example.”

Prinz snorted. “What’s the point of being king if I can’t have any she-cow that I want?”

Vizzer shrugged. “That I cannot answer, Sire. But if you do not consider the needs of your subjects, you will not be king for long.”

Prinz’s horns skewered the air above Vizzer’s head. “Out of the question.”

“Sooner or later you’re going to have to deal with this.”

The king’s eyes burned black and menacing. “No one touches my harem. No one. Is that clear?” He galloped off, churning the turf with each pile-driving step.

Vizzer took a deep breath, let it out slowly. He’d been afraid this might happen. The king couldn’t see farther than his own snout. The blood sacrifices affected every part of Tauran society. You couldn’t just abolish the corrida and then hope for the best. You had to deal with the consequences, reshape society in the wake of this new change.

Or maybe Prinz was smarter than he looked, Vizzer mused. The people blamed them both for the massacre. With time, they would come to accept the new ways. But…what if Prinz was planning to renege on their agreement? Make Vizzer the scapecow, send him into exile and revert to the old ways?

He would have to find a way to deal with this threat. Force the king’s hand. Make it impossible for him to reinstate the corrida.

But how?

Vizzer watched the pair of bulls in the sandpit crash their heads together again. Giving each other concussions, no doubt. What were they practicing for? There would be no more fights.

He walked over to the group of bulls. A new pair entered the sandpit, their arms tied down to their hooves. Twenty of their fellows whooped and cheered them on. The two circled, looking for an opening, and came together in a crash of horns. Their pelts glistened with sweat. Sand stuck to their ribs.

The crowd went silent when they saw Vizzer approach. One whistled, a piercing note, and the two combatants pulled apart.

“Greetings, Vizzer,” one said politely.

“May Carlos bless you,” said another, a smirk twitching on his lip.

Carlos is dead. The gods are dead. Vizzer let this teaching moment pass. Appeal to their animal nature. He asked, “Who here wants a harem?”

Every hand shot up, plus a few hooves.

Vizzer paused, nodding his head. Where was he going with this? Let them wonder. “You can have a harem right now,” he said.

“But how?” asked one of the younger calflings, rubbing the bulge at his crotch.

“Simple,” Vizzer said. “Where are the she-cows?”

“The Breeders’ harems,” said one.

“The King’s Harem,” said another.

“Yes,” Vizzer said. He met their gaze, one at a time. It was a risky move, but he had to take the initiative, or he would lose everything he had worked so hard for. “And all you have to do is go and take one.”

Several laughed. “Like Prinz is going to let that happen.”

“You outnumber him,” Vizzer said, raising his voice. The laughter subsided. “If every unwed bull on Taurus takes a wife, Prinz can’t stop you all.”

“Well, there aren’t enough she-cows to go around,” someone said, and the others nodded.

“Sure there are,” Vizzer said. “One she-cow for every bull.”

They covered their mouths with their hands. “But who wants just one she-cow? What’s the point of that?”

Vizzer waited until they were quiet. “How else do you propose to get a harem?”

They looked at him as though he were a stupid calfling. “In the arena, of course.”

“Live or die,” the young one said, “hundreds of virgins await!” The others grinned.

Vizzer struggled for patience. “The king has abolished the corrida. You will never get a chance in the arena.”

“That’s what he says now,” the smirking one said.

“What do you mean?” Vizzer demanded. He felt himself losing control. Talking to these people was like trying to talk to a rock.

The bull lifted his shoulders, let them fall. His arms were still bound to hooves. “Only a bull who has seen the face of god in the arena may take a harem.”

“But Carlos is dead, you moron!” The words erupted from Vizzer. “There is no god! And that drug just makes you stupid and easier to kill! Can’t you see there’s no more point in practicing, dreaming about harems you will never have? You need to start thinking about the now, how the world really is, and not some fairy tale full of virgins.”

They looked at one another, embarrassed by his outburst. “Gran Vizzer,” one said finally, “you honor us with your presence. But, with your permission, we must continue our practice. You are welcome to watch, if you wish. Participate, even.” The bulls snickered.

Vizzer turned away, dug his fingernails into his palms until he felt the blood flow. See the face of god. What kind of cowpat was that? They wanted sex. He knew they did. They wanted offspring. But when he offered them she-cows, they refused. What was the matter with these people? Was it greed? One she-cow wasn’t enough? Was it status? Some sort of macho competition? Or something else entirely that he failed to understand?

Somehow he had to convince them to take wives. Because if Prinz changed his mind, reinstated the corrida—what would he do then? All that work and death for nothing. He needed to win the bulls’ support. Once they had wives, they would never agree to return to celibacy. Once the King’s Harem was dispersed, Prinz would be just another bull, except for the funny white hat.

How was he going to make them see?

Chapter Fourteen

Vizzer rested his elbows on the wooden fence that enclosed the King’s Harem. At his side stood Frokker. The silver tassels hanging from the matador’s epaulets trembled in the breeze. She-cows dotted the green pasture, their robes flowing with each languid movement, heads bent to the sweet grass. The syndicate leader put a foot up on the lower rung of the fence, leaned forward.

“You sure this is alright?” he said at last.

Vizzer tapped impatiently at the wooden crossbar. “Am I not the king’s own vizzer?”

Behind them, the other matadors grunted their approval. The entire syndicate was present today, decked out in their finest, an army of shimmering, sequined bravura.

Frokker clucked his tongue. “I just can’t believe Prinz would allow this.”

Vizzer laid a hand on the matador’s hoof. “He bids you take one wife each.”

“A harem of one? Not just a day loan from the Prize Box?”

“Precisely.”

“But where is he?” Frokker insisted. “I should like to hear it from his own lips.”

Vizzer sighed, a lengthy lamentation. “The king ponders great matters of state. He shall not be disturbed.”

“‘All must change’? The king himself says this?”

“But is it not obvious? No longer do you fight and die in the arena. No more she-cows await you in the Prize Box.” Vizzer lowered his voice, so only Frokker could hear. “I tell you plain, the king fears revolt.”

“Revolt? From us?” Frokker looked over his shoulder at his brethren. “I worry more about the bulls, the younger ones.”

Vizzer clapped a hand on the matador’s brocaded shoulder. “Let the matadors set the example. The others will follow.”

“The banderilleros too?”

“Of course. Especially them.” He turned to the waiting crowd, raised his voice. “Enter now and find yourselves wives!”

The whisper hummed to life. It spread from mouth to mouth, a subdued chant at first, then a cry, then a shout: “Long live King Prinz!”

The syndicate members surged forward, two thousand strong. They swarmed around Vizzer, hopping the barrier with the practiced leaps normally reserved for escaping the thundering charge of a bull.

“Well,” Frokker said with a wry grin, “wish me luck.”

“Break a leg!” Vizzer called after him.

The she-cows looked up in surprise at the intruders. It was forbidden for any Cross to enter the King’s Corral but the king himself, on pain of death. The matadors strutted in their finery through the sweet grass, and singled out a she-cow each. Tongues labored with the honeyed words of seduction.

Frokker took aim at Matill, the king’s number one wife, the youngest and prettiest of all the harem. He wasted no time caressing her neck, her shoulders, her flanks. She mooed in pleasure.

Vizzer smiled, his chin resting on the top bar of the corral. His plan was going well. The king was occupied with Dex, planning the logistics of the Placing of the Hat. There would be a big dent in the harem before Prinz found out what was going on. Then it would be too late. The syndicate would owe loyalty to one Cross only: Vizzer. And even more important, he’d set an example for the rest of the bulls to follow—they would doubt their religious brainwashing, and drop that idiotic “seeing god in the arena” nonsense.

On every pair of lips sweet words trembled and groaned. The she-cows were willing, that much he knew. They would rather mate to the dulcet strains of professed love than the king’s rude touch. Already it began: Frokker unzipped his fly and penetrated his quarry, who moaned with each gliding thrust. Zippers descended; robes parted; a black figure vaulted the far fence and galloped toward the lovers’ intercourse.

The broad shoulders, the gleaming white horn span, the mountain of muscle that throbbed and bucked with each movement of the towering head—it could only be Prinz. The banderillero who saw the king first grabbed hold of his trousers, which had fallen down around his knees, and hobbled his way to the fence. He flopped over the side, his stomach scraping the crossbar in his hurry to be quit of the field. The thunder of the king’s hooves shook the ground, and one by one the matadors realized their danger and unplugged themselves from their new lovers, trotting half-dressed to the safety of the harem fence.

Only Frokker remained, plowing Matill from behind, his eyes closed, his tail swishing through the hole in the seat of his trousers, which he hadn’t bothered to remove. Prinz thundered closer. His angry snort could be heard from across the field. Frokker pumped away, oblivious. The she-cow wrapped her legs around the backs of his knees, drew him tight.

Should I call out to warn him? Vizzer wondered. The other matadors had climbed the fence, and were now jogging away to every point of the compass, darting fearful glances from time to time over their shoulders. The she-cows looked on, bemused. Should he join them in their flight? But he was gran vizzer. The others could hide; he could not. No. He had taken a stand. He was in the right. If a martyr he must be, then so be it.

He opened his mouth to shout to Frokker, but he hesitated too long. The matador realized his peril when Prinz was two lengths behind him. Frokker tried to pull out, pull away, but Matill’s legs locked him inside her. He grabbed her flanks, pushed her away, but she thrust back at him, forcing him into her. She let out a long, bellowing moo as orgasm took her. Frokker cried out in pleasure, bucking against his will, a sharp cry that turned to pain as he stared down at the bloody white horn protruding from his chest.

By training and instinct, he grabbed hold of the horn with both hands. Prinz ripped him from Matill’s embrace. Semen spurted from the matador’s engorged member. Neither spoke a word. Frokker was as good as dead; they both knew that. A wordless contest ensued to see how long Frokker could delay the inevitable. Finally, with one great heave of his shoulders, the king catapulted the matador into the air. Frokker landed in a crumpled, quivering heap. Prinz drove home the point of his horns to finish the business.

Vizzer leaned nonchalantly against the fence, waiting for his own death. His heart sputtered wildly inside his chest. He was ready to die. Here I stand, he thought, I cannot do otherwise.

Prinz spoke a sharp word to Matill, who straightened her robes and pranced off with a toss of her tiny horns. He galloped toward Vizzer. Blood dripped from his horns to his jowls, painting his face scarlet. He came to a slow and measured halt opposite Vizzer. The king’s hot breath, rich with the stench of bile and blood, panted across the low corral fence. He stared after the fleeing matadors with eyes full of bale.

He growled, “You know the penalty for violating the King’s Harem?”

“Sire.” Vizzer bowed low. His tongue felt dry. How was he going to talk his way out of this? “I was trying to prevent a revolt.”

“Prevent a revolt? Looked more like you were trying to start one, to me.”

“Your Highness, I want only to see your reign be long and fruitful.”

“How can I be fruitful without my harem?” The king pawed the ground, laid the tip of a bloody horn against Vizzer’s cheek. “The youngest calfling knows more about the world than you do. You. Our high priest.” He twisted his neck and smacked the blunt base of his horn against Vizzer’s temple.

Pain blossomed inside Vizzer’s skull. He closed his eyes, clutched his head.

“You still live only because I permit it,” Prinz said. “If you transgress against my rule once more, I’ll—”

“What? You’ll what?” Vizzer demanded. “You’ll kill me? Because I am ready to die.”

Prinz pushed his face close to Vizzer’s. “No. I’ll send you to the bitter grass. Let you suffer in exile with a bunch of menopausal she-cows.”

Vizzer bit his lip, lowered his head. A fate worse than death. Good Carlos, the king was ruthless. He had picked the wrong Breeder. That was clear. His puppet was turning into a puppet master.

“The only reason I don’t strip you of your robes and send you into exile right now,” the king said, “is because now you owe me your life. And you will obey me. To. The. Letter.”

Vizzer nodded, but said nothing.

“Anything out of line,” Prinz continued, and the words seemed to come from far away, “a single word, and that’s it. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes. Your Highness.”

Chapter Fifteen

Vizzer stood on the plinth, his back to the statue’s shin. Carlos in all his green-encrusted glory soared overhead. At his side, dressed in purple robes, Prinz lay on his belly directly beneath the statue’s sword. There was just enough room between the bronze bull and the tip of the blade for the king to squeeze his head. The golden sequins of the Holy Hat Box shimmered on the plinth. Eighty thousand Crosses filled the pastures surrounding the statue, the entire population of Taurus. Faces whispered like blades of grass in a breeze. Despite the heat, the statue was cold against Vizzer’s spine. It cast a long, thin knife of blackness deep into the crowd.

Mental note: tear it down. Since Clomp’s death and the end of the corrida, more and more worshipers prayed to the statue of Carlos. As though it were the god himself. He’d had to employ a dozen novices to scrape away the remnants of the votive candles in preparation for today’s ceremony.

The Placing of the Hat. A stupid custom. Put a white cowboy hat between a bull’s horns, that makes him king? Now that Vizzer knew what “cowboy” meant, the custom seemed downright barbaric. He’d looked it up in the backup data. Watched in horror as gods—humans, that is—wearing hats just like the king’s, rode atop unknown four-legged creatures, and whipped the backs of some lesser bovine species, poor cousins who mooed their suffering in a dialect he couldn’t understand.

Behold, O fellow Taurans, he wanted to cry, your ridiculous new master, garbed in the accoutrements of our divine oppressors. May he be blessed by gods who no longer exist, and who, if they did, would want to put on white hats and drive you across a dusty, barren plain to be slaughtered and eaten by cannibals.

Vizzer pushed himself up straight, raised his hands in the air. It was time.

“People of Taurus!” he shouted, his amplified voice booming out across the fields.

The whispering stopped. All eyes fixed on him. He paused, let their expectation grow. A hot wind blew through the crowd, filling their lungs with the smell of death. The Burial Mound festered nearby. Prinz raised his head, no doubt wondering at the delay.

“Today you meet your new king!” Vizzer said, without enthusiasm. He bent down, removed the lid of the Hat Box, held up the white-brimmed monstrosity so that all could see.

“Breeder Prinz. Arise. You have passed all tests. You have survived in the arena, the former king is dead, no one else has challenged.” To the crowd he said, “What say you? Shall Prinz be king?”

“You forgot the final test,” the king-to-be growled. A microphone dangled from one still-bloody horn.

Vizzer dropped his head. More superstition. He had wanted to avoid this. It only seemed to encourage the idol-worshipers fixated on the statue. He fumbled for his microphone, muted it. “I see no need for the final test.”

“My people,” Prinz bellowed. “Shall I be tested? Shall the god himself decide my fate?”

“The test!” roared the crowd. “The test! The king must pass the test!”

The statue’s great sword curved to a point just above Prinz’s head. He put his forehooves on top of the statue’s shoes, pushed himself up. The crowd shushed itself loudly, shoving forward to get a better view.

Prinz lifted his head, pressed the center of his forehead against the tip of the blade. He held that pose for a long moment, let his new subjects wonder at the outcome. The blade pierced his skin. A thin rivulet of blood trickled down the king’s nose. Abruptly, he lunged forward. The sword slashed the hide from eyebrows to the back of his skull. The microphone picked up the sound of tearing flesh, echoed it out over the heads of the crowd.

It was a question of self-sacrifice, or so said the Code. The king’s mind was thus cloven in two: one half to his people, one half to god. A symbol. No more. It was not a test at all. But the people didn’t know that.

Prinz knelt down, placed his head on the green shoe of the statue. Blood streamed down his cheeks.

Vizzer grabbed the king by the ears. “You ready?”

“Hard as you can.”

He yanked sideways in opposite directions, exposing the bone. The king did not move, nor cry out in pain.

“Arise, my lord, and wear thy hat.”

Prinz stood. He kept his head low, revolved in a slow circle, so that all might see the bone where his flesh had split. He stopped, lifted his head to Vizzer to receive the hat.

“I hat thee King of Taurus,” Vizzer proclaimed, and shoved the headdress down on Prinz’s wounded scalp. The white material soaked up the blood. Red blotchy stains formed on the crown.

“Long live the king!” Vizzer shouted.

Eighty thousand throats echoed the cry.

He faced Prinz, unblinking. Unbounded adulation from the crowd washed over them both. There would be war. He could see that now. He never should have backed down during their confrontation at the harem fence. Who controlled the guns? Who controlled the bullets? He did. Vizzer. No one else.

True. The king had bodyguards. But their ammunition was gone. What did they have left? Metal clubs. He would arm the priesthood. Time the king started doing what he was told. Or his reign would be short indeed.

Together Vizzer and Prinz marched through the crowd toward the stadium. The bodyguards held the throng at bay. The Great Gates swung open as they approached. They filed inside for the king’s inaugural corrida—which today, of course, had been replaced by Valera and her dancing she-cows.

Prinz pranced up the stone steps to his place at the side of the Creator’s Throne. As was the custom after a Hat Placing, a purple tent had been erected to hide the king from view. Feeh waited inside.

His med kit lay spread out on a collapsible table. He bowed slightly at the hooves. “May I offer you my congratulations, Your Highness?” he said, and reached for the king’s hat.

“Leave it,” Prinz growled. “What’s that in your hand?”

Feeh opened his fist. A tube of healing unguent rested on his palm. The standard practice was to treat the king’s self-given wound with antiseptic.

Vizzer arched his eyebrows. “Seeing assassins in every corner, are we?”

Feeh chuckled. “Come, Sire. I am your physician.” He reached again for the bloody hat. “You do not think that I would—”

“No,” Prinz snarled, churning the air with his horns to keep the doctor from coming near. “I wish to let it bleed.”

Feeh backed away. “Sire, I have no interest in politics. I have treated a dozen kings before yourself on the day of their new hat. None ever complained.”

“You’re a priest, aren’t you?” the king snorted. “All you priests are against me.”

The doctor lowered his voice, and spoke the way you’d coo to a calfling that had just scraped its two-pronged knee. “Sire, there is a risk of infection. If you’ll just allow me to—”

“I said, not now.” Prinz had found his voice of command. “Leave me, Doctor. Please,” he added, a tacked-on politeness.

Feeh took a deep breath, let it out slowly. He was on no one’s side, Vizzer knew. No doubt he resented being accused of treachery.

“Very well, Your Highness,” the doctor said, packing up his med kit. “I recommend you visit me in the hospital after the corrida. Or whatever you’re calling this spectacle.” He glared at Vizzer and strode from the tent on all fours, the med kit gripped tight to his chest.

When Vizzer turned to follow, the king growled, “I want to talk to you.” His voice deep and menacing.

Vizzer plastered a smile across his face. “And I to you, my lord. But my duties before an inaugural corrida are in the Control Booth. You’ll excuse me, won’t you?” He ducked out of the tent without waiting for a reply.

“Vizzer!” The peal of thunder crashed after him.

Vizzer rapped at the door to the Control Booth with his knuckles, slipped through the gap as it opened.

Rutt stood there, hand on the door. Did he detect a flash of hostility from the young novice? He blinked. No. A digital catechism scroll lay on the stone floor, flanked by two other novices intent on their memory work. Must have alarmed them by his sudden entry.

Dex knelt before the Control Panel.

He tapped his friend on the shoulder. “A word?”

Chapter Sixteen

Dex leaned against a crate, scratched himself under his robes. All this flurry and fuss, and his balls ached. Too long without a she-cow. He hoped things would settle down soon, so he could get back together with his lovers. Vizzer was saying something. He half heard the words and knew they were trouble. Wasn’t it just like his friend to pull a stunt like this? Make a mess of things, ignore his advice, then come to him for help.

“What exactly are you proposing?” Dex asked.

They huddled together in a storage locker around the corner from the Control Booth. Rutt guarded the door. To keep eavesdroppers away, supposedly. Vizzer had insisted. Paranoid.

Vizzer scraped fingernails through the pelt at the back of his neck, a sign of his frustration. “Maybe you were right,” he said. “Maybe a priest should be king.”

Dex coughed on his cud. “And who would that be? You?”

“Why not? Who else is more qualified to make the reforms we need?”

“What made you change your mind?”

Vizzer threw up his arms, as though to appeal to the gods themselves in heaven, and cracked his wrist against a crate of broken electrical equipment. He swore, nursed his wrist with his other hand. “At every step the king complains. Ties my hands. Refuses to do what must be done.”

Dex tapped a hoof against the stone floor. He had big news for Vizzer. But how to explain what he’d discovered? “Maybe that’s a good thing,” he said as casually as he could.

“How can that be a good thing?” His friend was frantic now. “Aren’t you the one who wants the right to mate?”

“Absolutely. And I hope we make that change soon.”

“But?” Vizzer’s spittle flecked his face.

Dex put a hand on his friend’s chest, pushed him gently away. He slipped a holy pad from his sleeve. “I don’t think you appreciate how hard this change is for the people of Taurus.”

“What is there to understand?” Vizzer demanded. “Instead of doing one thing, they do another. Simple.”

Dex spun the holy pad around on the flat of his palm. A double helix staircase climbed to nowhere, rotating on a field of black.

“What is that?”

“DNA.”

“Which is what?” Vizzer demanded.

“I’ve been studying the archives. The backup device. Trying to figure out where we come from.”

“The real creation story,” Vizzer said impatiently.

“Precisely.”

“But we already know about that. Carlos made us in a laboratory. We’re experiments. We discovered that what, tendays ago?”

Dex remembered his friend’s glee at that discovery. Somehow he didn’t think this new revelation would be quite so entertaining. “You forget,” he said. “What we didn’t know is how.”

Vizzer looked at the double helix structure again. “You mean with this?”

“It makes us who we are. What we are. It’s why we have eight limbs instead of four. Why we have four stomachs instead of one. It’s why you’re a priest and Prinz is king and Garrso is a matador.”

Vizzer narrowed his eyebrows. “I’m not sure I like where you’re going with this.”

Dex glanced at the doorway. The shadow of Rutt’s hooves glided back and forth in the hallway outside. “Maybe we are the way we are for a reason.”

“Meaning what?”

“Why did Carlos give us life?”

“Because he wanted to watch us kill each other. We already know that.”

Dex held up a finger. “But what if more than our physical features are a result of this DNA?”

Vizzer shrugged. “What if it is?”

“You aren’t listening. What if our social structure is written in our genetic code?”

“Meaning…?”

“What if the corrida is hard-wired into every cell of our bodies? What if we can’t change?”

“But that’s…” Vizzer’s hands fluttered, almost as bad as Fhoriu’s. “That’s impossible!”

Dex shook his head. “All the same, what if we don’t have a choice?”

A terrible look darkened Vizzer’s face. Friendship fled. The king’s high priest glowered. “Are we not intelligent beings?” he demanded. “Can’t we choose to live as we wish? Didn’t we make the decision to end the corrida? Let me finish. Can’t you feel the hand of…” He struggled for the word, hands groping the air. “…the hand of progress guiding our every step?”

Dex took a deep lungful of air, let it out. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Vizzer was right. Only time would tell. “I can’t say I do.” He held out a hoof to stop the rejoinder. “However, I’ve only just begun my research. We don’t fully understand how Carlos made us, or even how DNA works.” He laid a hand on Vizzer’s trembling shoulder. “All I’m saying is, there’s more going on here than you think. Be careful.”

Chapter Seventeen

The mumblings of the crowd eddied up from below. Vizzer leaned forward, ears pricked forward, straining to catch their whispered gossip. Throngs of onlookers packed the grassy slopes. Thousands more milled around outside the stadium. Vizzer had encouraged them to occupy the marble seats, but the crowd had preferred to watch the new vid screen he’d installed outside.

Would they like it? he wondered.

No. That was wrong. He must not think like that. They must be taught what to like. Instructed like the ignorant calflings they were. Savages, all of them. Vizzer hoped others would take his place, after he was gone. Which would be soon. He sat back on his heels. Tried to relax. Failed.

Prinz reclined at his side, bloody hat still on his head. The king had given him a regal tongue-lashing earlier, when he returned from his conference with Dex.

“That was the last time you disobey me, Vizzer. When the corrida is over—”

“It’s not a corrida, Sire.”

“Whatever you want to call it,” the king had growled, “when it is over, so are you. I hereby strip you of your robes and dismiss you from your position. Next herd of she-cows heading south, you’re going with them.”

Vizzer had touched his forehead to the ground. He had no option left but to submit. If he must be a martyr for his cause, then so be it. “As you command, My Royal Master, so shall I obey.”

Royal Master. More like Royal Idiot.

But that Royal Idiot is going to make you suffer and die, he thought. And sighed. Such is the way of the world.

Behind the king, the Creator’s Throne sat empty. A handful of dust, still moist from the recent rain, dried in the concave seat of stone. Would Prinz yoke himself to this? A dead god? A myth? A memory? A grin tickled Vizzer’s cheeks, in spite of his worries. What would Carlos say to see them now?

No sacrificial bull, restrained by nazza-ropes, prepared himself to die in the arena. No matador stretched and swung his cape, prepared to kill. The Prize Box stood vacant: no breathless female to goad the butcher to his gory chore. There would be no blood spilled today.

The Shadow of Carlos crept across the sun. From its position forever low on the horizon, their gargantuan star peered over the rim of the stadium, flooding the arena in red light. Crescent shadows appeared under outstretched fingers and toes. On the grassy slopes below, the hubbub spiked to a frenzy.

Prinz raised his head.

“Are you ready, Sire?”

The king clambered to his feet. Air puffed in heaves from his billowing nostrils. “My first full day as king,” he said. “And your last as vizzer. Enjoy it while you can.”

The darkness was now complete. Stadium lights flickered on. Vizzer lifted the bloody cowboy hat from Prinz’s head, held it aloft. He squinted in the spotlight. Turned on the microphone. This was the day he’d been waiting for. This would be his legacy after he was gone. So why did he feel so nervous?

He cried out, and his voice boomed throughout the stadium:

“Let there be life!”

A handful of she-cows repeated the words. The rest remained silent. Jarring, that. He had expected a more enthusiastic response. He lay the hat at the foot of the Creator’s Throne. Prinz had insisted on following this protocol, over Vizzer’s objections.

The spotlight swung below, widened to encompass Valera and her torch-bearers as they pirouetted into the arena. But Vizzer did not watch them. He watched the crowd. Why hadn’t they responded to his cry? Did their lives mean nothing to them? There. Down below. Row after row of bulls with their arms crossed, scowling at the proceedings. I’ve saved your lives. All of you. So why are you so sullen? The Matador’s Syndicate sat in a huddled square, dressed in their finery. Not too happy about the death of Frokker. Their new leader, Tanos, had made that quite clear. They unfurled a sign that read, “Each Day In The Arena One Must Die.” Quoting scripture at him. The nerve!

Roars of laughter interrupted his thoughts. The dancers had paused. Valera dug a cowpat out of her eye sockets, scraped more from her chin. Another cowpat sailed through the air. Then another. Soon the she-cows huddled together in the sand, arms defending themselves against a rainstorm of slippery green feces.

Prinz chuckled.

Vizzer stood up. “You think that’s funny, Sire?”

The chuckle grew. Tears streamed down the king’s cheeks, mingling with the drying blood. “Yes,” he managed. “I do.”

Vizzer flicked a switch on his earpiece. “Well? You think that’s funny, too?”

Dex’s voice crackled in his ear. “Still think the synchronized tail-twirlers were the way to go.” Stifled laughter seeped through the downlink from the Control Booth.

“Carlos damn it,” Vizzer swore. He immediately chastised himself. There were no gods. It was up to him as high priest to set an example.

“Get the bodyguards,” he said to Dex. “Ask them,” he said, and added, “politely,” thinking of their recent betrayal, “if they would please escort the dancers from the arena. What the hell is that?”

Thunder grumbled overhead. Blackened storm clouds marshaled out of nowhere, slathering the sky with dirty grey foam. Lightning zapped back and forth inside the womb of the cumulonimbus. Taurus itself trembled.

“Dex? You there?”

Nothing.

In desperation, he shouted, “I said, Dex, are you there?”

“I’m seeing it,” Dex said.

“That you?”

Slapping of buttons and knobs. “Nothing we’re doing here.”

Screams rebounded up from the crowd, growing in intervals until fifty thousand voices cried in panic. The youngest, strongest bulls huddled in the short grass. Shaking fingers pointed at the sky. Vizzer could see nothing. What were they all pointing at? Something above his head? Behind him? Outside the stadium?

A glint of gold flashed through the air, and then he knew. Was this even possible? But how? Saliva slipped down his chin. He sank to his knees.

It was a shoe. A foot. A golden foot. Several meters from heel to toe. Attached to a golden leg, which followed. The foot planted itself in the center of the arena, crushing five of the unsuspecting dancers, their eyes shut against this apparition. The crunch of bone and squish of flesh could be heard over the terrified squeakings of the multitude. Vizzer craned his neck to see the rest of the statue.

That’s what it looked like, anyway. Five times—no, ten times bigger than the statue that stood outside the Gates. Only instead of crusty green, the golden limbs twinkled in the stadium lights. The torso loomed heavenward, above the stadium, obscured in darkness. Two small blue orbs hung suspended at the frontier with the clouds. Eyes, maybe? Vizzer squinted but could not make out the head.

The statue’s nimble toes sought out the last of the dancers and flattened them. Valera ran for the barrier, and the relative safety of the crowd. Vizzer watched, aghast, as the statue trod on her flanks, leaving her head and trunk to writhe and flop about in agony.

Finished with this grisly task, the statue swung its sword at the cringing audience, pointing at this one, then at that, until it came to the king himself, and brought the blade up until it hovered not a meter from Prinz’s head.

Then the statue spoke, and the sound was louder than the most powerful amplifier on the planet. Vizzer jammed his fingers into his ears, but still he could hear it, the words vibrating in his bones.

“I am your god,” it said. It leaned forward, until Vizzer could see that pair of sapphire eyes sparking shreds of lightning out of its burnished face. “And I am a jealous god.”

The crowd threw themselves down, ground their faces in the grass. All except Prinz and the Breeders, who gazed up at the behemoth as though in mute recognition, and calmly chewed their cud.

A score of bulls made a dash for the Great Gates. With its free hand, the statue swept the breakaways back into the stadium. It closed its fist around the half dozen that remained within its palm. Squeezed. Blood squirted from between those giant knuckles. It discarded the pulpy remains with a disdainful flick of its wrist. Chunks of flesh and shards of bone rained down on the crowd.

Prinz rose to his feet. “O Great Carlos,” he shouted, his voice tinny and distant in the stifling air. “How have we wronged thee?”

The sword had not wavered all this time. Its tip was now mere centims from the king’s face. The golden visage descended further. Vizzer shrank away from the confrontation, the inevitable mess the king would make. Yet part of him refused to believe what he was seeing. Carlos, their Creator, was a man. An ancient being of flesh and blood. This must be some sort of mechanical trick.

Then why did those unblinking eyes seem to skewer his soul with the threat of damnation, unending torment?

The statue stomped its foot. The ground beneath them shook. “Who dare use my holy name?”

Prinz did not waver. “I do. I, Prinz, Lord of all Taurus, Defender of the Faith, Master of the Sweet Grass, Father of My People and Stud of the Plains.”

Vizzer edged toward the Control Booth, moving as fast as he dared. There were still five meters to go. He forced himself to slow down, lest he attract the statue’s attention.

“It’s not there,” a voice rasped loud in his ear.

“What’s that, Dex?” he whispered as softly as he could.

“The statue. It’s not there. The plinth is empty.”

“How is that possible?”

“I’m looking at the vid. The outside feed.”

A shrill noise pierced his ear. Died. Static fuzzed where Dex’s voice had been. The hell was that? Was the statue responsible? How? Could it hear what they were saying?

The beast’s metallic growl rustled the hairs on Prinz’s cheek. “For three days now you’ve failed to sacrifice.”

Had it really only been three days? Vizzer thought suddenly. It seemed like an eternity.

The sword pressed forward. Prinz tiptoed away, until his buttocks pressed against the throne.

“The punishment for this is death.”

The king tensed, crouched low. “I listened to my vizzer!” he shouted up at the looming figure. “He did this thing!”

Lightning swelled in the statue’s eyes. A bolt struck the base of the Creator’s Throne where Prinz had sat. The cowboy hat danced, aflame. The king bounded down the stone steps, zigging and zagging as lightning sparked at his tail.

Vizzer pounded on the door to the Control Booth, regretting the decision to have his hooves removed.

“Dex!” he shouted. “Let me in!” But all he could hear in his earpiece was static.

Prinz reached the grassy slope. The crowd parted to let him pass, desperate to avoid becoming collateral damage. But in vain. Lightning struck around the king, behind him, to the side, each time leaving a smoking carcass in his wake.

Vizzer turned around, feet together, back straight. He clutched the talisman he wore around his neck. Below him his people were dying. And what was he doing? Running. What kind of coward did that make him? No. This had gone far enough. Whatever this statue was, it was no god. It couldn’t be. He would bow no knee to a mechanical monster. He would rather die. He could not live with himself otherwise.

If it was a mechanical device, he thought, there must be a way to stop it. Some weakness. He had no tools at his disposal. No time in which to use them if he did. But the machine could speak, and it could listen. He could talk to it. Perhaps there was some theological argument that would prove effective.

The door cracked open behind him. Dex hissed, “Get in here. Quick.”

He waved his friend away. “Not now. Shut the door.”

“But you’ll be next!”

Vizzer cupped his hands to his lips. “Hey!” he shouted. “Up here! I, the king’s vizzer, speak!”

“Are you crazy?”

The statue turned, left off throwing thunderbolts. Prinz stared up at him, agape.

“Have fun,” Dex said, and shut the door.

The statue boomed, “The vizzer who fails to worship me must die as well.”

“Consider,” Vizzer began, “the Montevidean Addendum to the Book of Mortimer and the corresponding Codex, in which Carlos tells us—”

A shattering bolt of blue flame rushed toward him, ending his harangue. Oh well, he thought. Worth a shot. He closed him eyes. Rolling waves of thunder battered his ear drums. He could hear nothing else. So this was death. He felt calm. Unhurt. He opened his eyes.

The statue gazed down at him, as though waiting for him to fall, or start emitting wisps of smoke, like a charred corpse. He felt himself all over. Everything still intact. Jaws hung open throughout the stadium. The talisman throbbed beneath his hands, under its covering of blue felt. Without knowing precisely why, Vizzer withdrew it from its pouch, held it aloft. Later, it seemed to him as though some unseen force had guided his hands.

A second spurt of blue flame rent the air. For a moment the lightning lingered between the statue and Vizzer. The talisman boiled and hissed against his flesh, but Vizzer held on. The fire dispersed. The lights died, casting them in darkness, save for the penumbral halo of the sun. The dark form of the statue could be faintly seen. It straightened. The cumulonimbus shrank to white puffs, vanished. The statue stepped over the stadium walls. The ground shook as its footsteps retreated. Then there was silence.

What had he done? Why wasn’t he dead? He became aware of a pain in his hands. He smelled burning flesh. His own. He lowered the talisman to the ground. By the faint light of the sun, he could see his palms were charred black. He shook his wrists, danced in pain. Where in Carlos’s name was Feeh?

Sobs of anguish arose in the darkness. The lights came on. The gore-splattered crowd looked around in confusion, counted their dead. Valera crawled toward them from where she lay, half-crushed in the arena. A group of bulls jumped the barrier. They ignored her hands beseeching aid, and instead impaled her through the chest. She fell on her side, lay still. Others took the assailants’ place: a scrambling, murderous, twisting of dust and horns that continued long after the dancer was dead.

A stampede fought its way up the grassy slope and toward the Gates. Hundreds fell from the edge of the slope onto the backs of their fellows on the corkscrew terrace below. A solitary figure churned its way through the turmoil, burst free of the mob. It was Prinz. Vizzer could spy the white skull bone, scalp still peeled back.

The king leaped up the stone steps. His purple robes hung in tatters. Cowpat and blood dripped in pasty smears down his flanks, where he’d pressed past his frightened and wounded subjects. He mounted the final step, stopped in front of Vizzer, panted for breath.

So this was it. There was nowhere to run. Nor had he any desire to. He would face down Prinz even as he had the statue. How ironic. Survive an attack by a hundred-meter-tall bronze statue that claimed to be god, only to die by the horns of the king.

“You going to kill me now?” he asked, holding out his hands.

Prinz caught his breath. He studied Vizzer’s blackened palms, the smoking talisman at their feet. “You saved my life,” he said at last.

An unexpected rejoinder. Before Vizzer could reply, the door to the Control Booth swung open. Feeh and Dex emerged, side by side.

“There you are, Doctor,” Vizzer said. “Got your med kit with you, I hope?” He grinned, held up his injured hands.

Feeh said nothing. He did not return the smile. The two priests stepped forward, and put their hands behind their horns. Behind them strode Rutt, a peculiar new weapon in his hand. Rutt pointed the gun-shaped thing at Vizzer, jerked it toward the others.

“What are you doing, Rutt?” Vizzer asked. “And where’d you get that gun, or whatever it is?”

The novice ignored him, addressed the king. “Sire,” he said. “I have captured the traitors who have brought this calamity upon us.”

Chapter Eighteen

Fhoriu’s fingers trembled on his staff. It was so frustrating. He could not control his bladder. His bowels. He let loose cowpats at the most inopportune moments. Streams of urine flowed unbidden from his bladder. It was embarrassing.

Worse, people thought him senile. Him! Senile! Just because his voice quavered and he sometimes forgot things didn’t mean he was senile. He was a good deal sharper than some of these calflings, barely out of their mamas’ wombs.

Here they sat in council, passing judgment on Vizzer. His favorite apprentice. Now look at him. Trying to become a god, or at least look like one. Foolish. What did the council know about Carlos? About the gods? About the great mystery? Listen to them. Dex and his scientific theories. What did science have to do with anything? They did not perceive the hidden truth. He felt a turd slide past his tail, and he sighed. They would not listen to him. No point in even trying. Things were going to hell on Taurus. He wasn’t going to hasten the journey.

“Elder Fhoriu,” a voice shouted in his ear.

He flinched away from the noise. One of the matadors was saying something. Hang on. What happened to Frokker? Better not to ask. They might think he was losing his mind.

“I’m not deaf, you know,” he said. “I can hear you just fine.”

The matador grinned. “It’s Tanos. Head of the syndicate?”

“Yes. Of course. What do you want?”

Fhoriu peered at the rest of the council. They sat in a circle around Vizzer. The faces were all blurry. He wished he could see better. He refused to wear lenses. The she-cows didn’t like it. How long had it been since he’d had a female? He chuckled sadly. They used to love him when he was younger. Must do something about that before it was too late.

Oh for the days when he had been vizzer himself, not just a dried out shell of a Cross. The palsy had struck him down in his prime. It should have killed him. Sometimes he wished it had. Instead it forced him to resign as vizzer, and little by little took away everything in life he loved, until not even his dignity was left.

What was Vizzer doing there, sitting in the grass? And who was the technical priest at his side? That was the way you treated criminals at trial. Look at him. Vizzer’s hands were wrapped in gauze. Had he hurt himself? At his feet lay a familiar object. He squinted. No. It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. The talisman?

Fhoriu choked, clutched at his throat. How did Vizzer get a hold of it? Did he steal it? When? Why hadn’t he noticed? He was on the verge of a public rebuke when he realized. He’d given the talisman to Vizzer ten years ago, when he’d resigned. A moment of panic seized him. Did they know where it had come from? Could they trace it to him? The possession of graven images was punished by exile and death. He may be old, but he wasn’t ready to die just yet.

A big bull in a burnt and bloody cowboy hat spoke to him. It wasn’t Clomp. What did you do with the king? he wanted to shout. Wait. Maybe the king died and he didn’t realize. Better to say nothing.

“…think about what just happened?” Tanos shouted.

“What’s that?” Fhoriu asked, trying to keep his voice steady. “I’m sorry, I was, uh, praying.”

The council tittered, covered their mouths with their hooves.

“This is a waste of time,” a grey-robed novice said.

“Thank you, Rutt,” the king said. “But I will be the judge of that.”

Hmm. He didn’t remember a novice named Rutt. They grew up so fast these days.

“Dex, would you please present your defense from the beginning, this time for the benefit of Elder Fhoriu?” the king said.

The technical priest cleared his throat. Must be the one called Dex. “I’ll make it really simple,” he said, to more titters. “What was it? What caused it, and how do we keep it from coming back?”

“What was what?” Fhoriu asked.

More laughter. Did he say something funny?

“The statue, Elder Fhoriu,” Dex said.

He remembered the giant now. Spitting fire from its eyes. God himself delivering his divine retribution to his sinning people. Fhoriu waggled his finger. “I see now. You want to stop it from coming back.”

“Exactly,” Dex said. He gestured at the other council members. “Do you have any ideas?”

Fhoriu lifted his withered shoulders, let them drop. “Oh sure. I can tell you how to do that. I should think it’s quite obvious.”

The tittering stopped. All eyes were on him. He’d show these calflings he still had a trick or two up his sleeve.

The king asked, “How?”

“Carlos is angry with us. He punishes us for failing to sacrifice in his name.”

“Tell us something we don’t already know,” Rutt said.

“Sometimes, little one,” Fhoriu said to the novice, “it is hardest to state the obvious.” He drew himself up on his hind legs, put all his weight forward on his staff. “The Code is clear on this point. Carlos Himself tells us, ‘Let not three days pass without sacrifice, lest I visit my retribution upon ye.’” Fhoriu chuckled to himself. If the younger priests bothered to read the Code, they would know these things. “Resume the sacrifices. Let there be blood. As there has always been on Taurus. As there must always be.”

Vizzer sprang to his feet. “But there is no god,” he shouted. “You’ve seen the evidence with your own eyes. Tell them. You know it’s the truth. Tell them the truth.”

“What truth?” Rutt cried out, on his hooves now too. “The high priest is guilty of sacrilege and treason. Possession of graven images. Plotting against your person. Your Highness, Vizzer must die!”

“Sit down.” The king’s command brooked no disagreement. That’s the way, Fhoriu thought. Disobedient child. Rutt sat.

Dex tapped at his holy pad. “Sire, may I offer an alternate solution?”

The king lowered his horns in assent.

The technical priest gestured at the statue on its plinth behind them. Something was different about it, Fhoriu realized. Didn’t it used to be green? Maybe someone polished it recently. But that’s impossible, he realized with a start. The statue must never be touched. Except for the king during the Placing of the Hat. It’s in the Code. No one has polished it in thousands of years. So how come it shines so brightly in the sun? He jumped at the mention of his name.

“Fhoriu tells you the statue is a god.” Dex bowed slightly at the torso. “I say it is a machine. A complicated machine, but still a machine. It is controlled at a distance by an FTL signal. Vizzer’s talisman broke that signal.”

“But that is how the gods have always communicated with us,” Fhoriu objected. “There’s nothing strange about that. Maybe this is their chosen form of expressing their displeasure with us.”

“Except for one thing,” Dex said.

“What’s that?”

“The signal is coming from right here on Taurus.”

Voices raised themselves in argument. Such contention. Such distress. It’s all so simple. They make it so difficult. Why can’t they see?

The king stood up, bellowed a long blast of a moo. The hubbub subsided. He pointed a horn at the syndicate leader. “Speak, Tanos.”

“You say there’s a signal,” the matador said. “From here on Taurus. But where is it coming from?”

Dex looked around them nervously. He tapped some more at his holy pad. He mumbled, “It’s coming from inside the Burial Mound.”

“Now Dex commits sacrilege too!” Rutt shouted over the renewed swell of contention. “What do you propose, that we disturb the holy resting place of those who died in the arena?”

“There is precedent!” Vizzer yelled, his voice going hoarse. “King Prinz himself allowed unconsecrated bodies to burn there a few days ago!”

The king clapped his hooves together. All discussion ceased.

He said to Vizzer, “You have been charged with crimes punishable by exile and death. Will you speak in your defense?”

“Don’t let him say another word, Your Highness, please!” Rutt protested. “Kill him now!”

“It is I who shall do the judging today, not you,” the king growled. “Do not anger me again.”

A trial? Is that what this was? Fhoriu thought. Punishment by exile? How horrible. So many of his favorite she-cows had long since passed down that road to the south, from which none ever returned. Vizzer waited for their attention. How his apprentice had changed these last ten years. Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone? Why did he have to go changing things all the time? Taurus was the way it was for a reason. Even if he wasn’t always sure what that reason was.

“Our god is a jealous god,” Vizzer began, looking at each of them in turn. “He created us. He enslaved us. So he could watch us kill each other in the arena. The rest of the gods, if you can call them that, destroyed themselves in a civil war. One final obstacle stands in the way of our freedom.” He pointed at the statue. “That abomination.”

Vizzer held out a hand to quiet the chorus of complaint. “We must find the source of the signal. We must destroy it. Only then can we be free.”

The king lumbered to his hooves. All eyes turned to the regal face beneath the scorched white hat. “Vizzer,” he said, “today you saved my life. And I would spare yours if I could.”

The high priest knelt, pressed his horns to the grass. “All is within the power of the king.”

“That is true. But fifty Crosses died today, and many more were injured. I cannot let that happen again. My job is to protect my people.”

The words seemed to stick in Vizzer’s throat. “What is your decision, then?”

Prinz chewed his cud for a moment. “The ways of Carlos are mysterious. He did not kill you. Maybe for a reason.”

“…Meaning what, Sire?”

“If you can find the source of this signal, and stop it, then you live.”

Vizzer swallowed. “And if I do not?”

“If you fail to do so before the next corrida is scheduled, you and Dex both go into exile. And the corrida resumes.”

Chapter Nineteen

Time was running out. An hour left, no more. Vizzer forced himself to stay calm. Walk slowly. Head high. Dozens of novices dug at the base of the Burial Mound. Must not let them see his fear. His life depended on their finding—what, exactly? If only he knew.

If only, if only, if only.

If only he could do something. Take up a shovel and dig. Sweat out his despair. He’d grabbed a pick-axe at the start, and cried out in pain. The healing cream Feeh had given him, the gauze—they weren’t enough. It would be days before he could remove the bandages.

A cowpat splashed at his feet. He stepped over it, continued his circumnavigation of the mound. Angry Crosses surrounded the holy hill, ten and twelve deep. The stream of complaints developed a certain consistency.

“You dishonor our glorious dead!” a bull shouted.

“May you suffer in exile to the end of your days!” A she-cow this time.

And the ever-popular, “Eat this!” Followed by a cowpat aimed at his head.

Prinz had assigned bodyguards to surround the mound at five-meter intervals. They were all that prevented the crowd from goring him and Dex to death. The guards were clearly nervous, and held their guns at ready, fingers on triggers.

They’d already killed several members of the mob. Which he regretted. A trio of calflings ignored the warning shots fired over their heads and charged a gap. What choice did the guards have? The bullet-ridden bodies lay where they fell, a warning to others.

It had surprised him when Prinz let him have bodyguards. Almost as surprised as when he agreed to the dig. He could have had them killed at once. Sent them into exile if he wanted. Did he really believe that cowpat nonsense about Carlos’s mysterious ways? Or was he afraid of Rutt, and wanted to play both ends against the middle? Maybe some other, unknown reason stood behind the king’s change of heart.

“One day,” Prinz had said. “That’s all I can give you. When the Shadow of Carlos once more casts darkness upon the land, we will resume the corrida. We must. An angry god demands it. That is all.” He’d risen to his feet, ending the council meeting and cutting off the objections on both his and Rutt’s lips.

Rutt. Now there was a puzzle. He hadn’t seen that coming. Who else was preparing to betray him? Dex, maybe? All he wanted was a harem. Calflings. Prinz could buy him off easily. Maybe they had some kind of a deal. After all, Dex had nothing to do with the decision to end the corrida, and he’d protested his innocence vigorously—but that could have been just for show. And Feeh. He’d always taken the doctor to be non-partisan.

He would have to be more careful. Who were his friends? Who were his enemies? What if they were all against him? A bitter thought.

Vizzer reached up and fingered the pouch at his neck, jerked his hand away at the pain. He’d have to break himself of the habit. They’d given him back the talisman after the council meeting. No one else was willing to touch it.

A hornless skull skittered down the side of the hill, came to rest against his foot. Above him the gruesome pile scraped the sky with protruding, half-burnt bones. The sweet smell of decay soaked into his robes, his pelt, his lungs. A gust of wind stirred up the ash, filled the air with a coughing cloud. He flicked a fingernail at his eyebrows. Grey powder blossomed there in crusty cakes.

Priests on cremation duty continued their work, strips of cloth wound tight about their jowls. They were working overtime to process the recent carnage. They heaved the squished and broken bodies of the dead up the hill, straining against their shoulder harnesses, fighting for purchase on the steep staircase made of femur bones. From the summit, as each burning corpse disintegrated, its various body parts tumbled down from the peak, a volcano of putrefying meat.

Dex hurried toward him. His fingers fluttered against his holy pad.

“Any luck?” Vizzer asked.

“I can’t figure it out,” he muttered. “The signal is all over the place. Almost like it doesn’t want to be found.”

Vizzer took a quick look at the sun. Fifty minutes to go. Maybe. He grabbed his friend’s elbow, winced at the pain. “They’re waiting to kill us. Torture us, even.” He tightened his grip on Dex’s arm. The pain was bad. But death and failure would be worse. “Either you find it, whatever it is, or we are both dead.”

Dex didn’t look up from his screen. “It’s below ground or near the surface. Not high up. It can’t be. It’s of ancient origin. Or there’d be stories, something in the Code about it. Maybe Carlos put it there when he founded Taurus. Maybe even before he made us.”

“You sure about that?”

“I’m not sure about anything.”

Vizzer gestured at the mound with his other hand. “Five hundred meters in diameter. Just tell me where to dig. There’s no time left. You understand?” He shook his friend roughly.

Dex looked up. His eyes were bloodshot. “What would you do differently?”

“Well, I—” He hesitated. “I don’t know.”

“Then let me go. I’m doing the best I can.”

“Sorry.” He released Dex’s elbow, dropped his hands to his sides. They throbbed painfully. “Do what you can.”

His friend grinned unexpectedly. “An hour left.”

“Less.”

“Lot can happen in an hour.”

He watched Dex hurry off, tapping at his screen, glancing up at the mound. Maybe he was wrong about his friend. He hoped he was. By the time he found out for sure, it might be too late. He put his hands behind his back, strolled off in the opposite direction.

“Looking for god?” a young bull shouted.

That was a new one. Getting creative as time went by. He ducked. The cowpat missed his head, slapped against the mound. A shovelful of dirt immediately covered it. It came from a hole just above him. A novice was digging here, tunneling out one of the many warrens that now dotted the hillside.

On an impulse, he climbed up the mound. The entrance of the hole was several meters above ground. He had instructed them to start high and dig down at an angle. He approached the tunnel from the side, to avoid the loose shovelfuls of soil beneath it. More dirt flew out, slid down the slope. A rhythmic rasping of blade on bone echoed up from deep inside the mound. Vizzer peered into the darkness.

A single forehead lamp illuminated a set of hooves. The digger paused, rested on his shovel, panting for breath. The light sagged lower, until it nearly touched the ground.

Vizzer was about to offer some word of encouragement, when the digger cried out, “Forgive them, O great gods, for they know not what they do.”

From the mouth of the tunnel, Vizzer said sharply, “Who doubts his high priest and king?”

The digger scrambled out of the hole. Dirt cascaded down his shoulders and back. His lips were black, his eyes the only sign of life under the coating of muck. Blood seeped from his palms. His grey robes were soiled beyond repair. A novice. He bowed his head. “Forgive me, My Vizzer. I did not see you there.”

Twenty-five and a half hours they’d been digging. No breaks for food. Only quick gulps of water from a bucket. Maybe best go easy on him. They novice waited, tears starting in his eyes. What was the calfling’s name?

“Slask, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir. You remember.”

“Why do you beg the gods to forgive us?”

The novice lowered his face to the ground, at the mouth of the tunnel. “I know the gods are dead. It’s just—” He halted, buried his face in the dirt.

“Just what?” Vizzer asked kindly. “Even if we’re wrong, it’s only Dex and I who die. We’re the ones responsible.”

“You know the stories of how god—”

“Carlos.”

The novice swallowed the proper noun with difficulty, as though he wasn’t sure which he feared more: the gods, or Vizzer. It was forbidden by the Code to speak the name of god. “Carlos, sir. And his holy chariot that chases the sun.”

“Old she-cow tales to scare calflings,” Vizzer said. “You should know better.”

Slask whispered, “They say that one day he’ll return, and take his rightful place on the throne.” Terror quivered in the novice’s eyes. “And on that day he’ll judge us all.”

Vizzer smiled. Reward ignorance with patience. “Silly superstition. Nothing more,” he said lightly. “Trust me. You worry for nothing.” Was morale this bad for all of them? He must talk to the others at once, urge them on to a final, desperate effort. “You do holy work, Slask. Do not doubt it, ever.” He turned to go.

Slask grabbed the hem of Vizzer’s robe, staining the cowpat smears crimson with bloody hand prints. “But the Code says not to dig here. The dead must rest in peace.” He gasped for breath. Torrents of heat pulsed from the mouth of the tunnel. “But here I dig.” A sad little cry escaped his lips.

“You are just a novice, Slask. Who are you to doubt your betters?” Vizzer asked, trying to untangle his robe from the novice’s fingers.

“Because it is my duty.”

“Then let go of my robe. Return to work.”

“Please! The punishment for digging here is eternal damnation!”

Vizzer yanked on his robe, and Slask let go. Vizzer flailed his arms, trying to maintain his balance. A serendipitous cowpat struck him in the middle of the back, averting a serious fall.

The novice writhed in the dirt, hands gripping his horns, screwing his face into the loose soil. Exhaustion? Some inexplicable religious frenzy?

“My Vizzer, Taurus itself will swallow us whole!”

“Slask!” He barked the word.

The novice straightened, banged his horns against the ceiling of the tunnel. Bone fragments rained down on his head.

“Yes, My Vizzer?”

“Calfling,” he growled, with all the authority he could muster. “Less than an hour of digging to go. Then we can rest. One way or another.”

Slask’s body contorted, as though undergoing some profound inner struggle. “One way or another,” he said, and reached down to pick up the blood-stained shovel.

Vizzer rested his hand palm-up on the novice’s shoulder. “Dig for me, Slask. Dig for Dex. Dig for our lives. Without you we are lost. Will you do that for me? For us? Please?”

An embarrassed grin trickled across the calfling’s face. “Of course, sir. I will do my best.” Slask returned to his digging.

Vizzer stepped carefully down the slope. The rasping of the shovel resumed. Dirt flew once more from the mouth of the tunnel. He must find the others. Find Dex. The encounter with Slask worried him. If the others were in a similar state, then chances of success were poor.

A sudden scream loosed itself from inside the mound. Vizzer tripped, rolled down the rest of the slope. He got to his feet in the ash-covered grass. The crowd inched forward, threw cowpats. Two more plastered his side. He scrambled up the hill. The scream had come from the tunnel where Slask was digging. Other novices came running at the noise. Dex trotted into view from around the side of the mound.

Vizzer peered again into the tunnel Slask had dug. Nothing. Blackness. A novice at his elbow ripped the portable lamp from his forehead, thrust it into Vizzer’s burned hands. He fumbled with the switch, pushed the borrowed light into the hole. The tunnel sloped downward a good twenty meters into the side of the hill. A shovel glinted dully at the bottom. There was no sign of a cave-in. Slask had disappeared.

Chapter Twenty

Could things possibly get any worse? Vizzer wondered. He stood at the bottom of the tunnel where Slask had disappeared. Fifty priests and novices had attacked the side of the hill with shovels, pick-axes, fingernails, hooves, even horns, in a desperate bid to save their buried companion. They’d carved out a bubble of space deep inside the mound, revealing a smooth metal wall. The object was at least three meters high by four meters wide, but the more they dug, the bigger it got.

This had to be what they were looking for. The source of the signal. It had to be. But now what? How were they supposed to turn it off? There was no seam, not even a crack in the flawless surface. The only aberration was a pair of metal handles protruding from the wall. What were they for? And what had happened to Slask?

A burst of gunfire echoed outside the mound. He looked over his shoulder out the widened entrance of the tunnel. The bodyguards stood elbow to elbow, blocking the yawning mouth of the cave. The crowd pressed forward, slinging cowpats and hurling curses.

Sunlight grew and flooded the tunnel with red light. Little time left now. The crowd parted. The cowpats ceased to fly. Vizzer squinted up at the unexpected brightness. He could just make out a procession approaching. Prinz’s rolling gait pistoned toward them, his body churning with each forward step. The council members trailed in his wake.

He turned back to the wall. At his side, Dex tapped furiously at his holy pad.

Vizzer crossed his arms. “So what are we looking at?”

The incessant tapping didn’t pause. “The tomb of the gods, according to our friends outside.”

“I didn’t ask you for the current gossip. How do we turn off the signal?”

“I’m working on it.”

“We don’t have time. Prinz is on his way right now.”

His friend did not look up. His fingers battered the screen of his holy pad in a blur. “I’m working as fast as I can.”

“That’s not good enough.”

Dex’s fingers paused for a fraction of a second, resumed. He said nothing.

Vizzer felt remorse. That was no way to speak to a friend. He had been wrong to doubt Dex’s loyalty. They’d been working hard, without food, without sleep, for a full day. Why would Dex do that if he intended to betray him? His friend’s face remained motionless; only his eyes jumped back and forth. From the glow of the screen on Dex’s face, Vizzer guessed he was reading some sort of complicated schematics.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. He extinguished his headlamp.

He shuffled away, through loose dirt, to the center of the cave. All around him, tired novices leaned on their shovels. The sudden blinding sunlight revealed their dirt-encrusted faces, their bloodstained hands.

“Now is not the time to rest,” he said. Outside, Prinz and his parade grew closer. Despair clutched at Vizzer’s soul. This was it. His last chance. Or it was all over. “We must dig!” he cried. “Dig! Dig for your lives!”

“Dig for your lives, you mean,” said a novice squatting on the ground.

Black spikes of terror tore at his hope. He’d seen this runt before, in conference with Rutt. Was he an accomplice?

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Wrax.” The voice puerile. Defiant. “And besides, if Slask is in there, he’s dead. No shovel’s going to get him out.”

Vizzer leaned down, put his hand on the calfling’s shoulder. Ally or enemy, he had to address this concern. No doubt the others thought the same.

“Wrax. My fellow priests.” They lifted their heads at his use of the title. “Yes. Priests. Because today you are no longer novices. You must think for yourselves.” He paused. He had their full attention. “You’ve heard me say the gods are dead.” He held out a hand. “Maybe you agree. Maybe you don’t. But the truth lies behind that wall.” His heart hammered away inside his chest. He struggled to keep his words calm, measured. “It no longer matters if Slask is alive or dead. The king will force you to fill in this tunnel, and you will never know the truth. I will be dead. But what of your lives? Always wondering, never knowing?” He stared at them, meeting their eyes one at a time. Prinz lumbered closer, not twenty meters away. “Don’t do it for me. Don’t do it for Dex. Do it for yourselves.”

“Vizzer!” Prinz boomed from outside the cave. “Come out of there. The council has decided. It’s time for you to die.” The mob whistled and stamped its hooves in approval.

Vizzer picked up Wrax’s shovel, ignoring the pain in his palms. “We must blockade the tunnel,” he said quietly. “Give Dex time to do his job.” He shoveled a pile of dirt into a small heap at the mouth of the cave. A second shovelful. A third.

The others joined him. A flurry of shovels added to the heap. The novices swarmed past him, piling up dirt, grunting as they expended the last drops of their remaining energy. The pile of dirt grew. One meter high. One and a half. Two.

Vizzer broke off, retreated back into the cave. Dex leaned against the metal wall, feet on the ground, hooves in the air, one arm wrapped through a handle. Vizzer pressed his back to the cool wall, peered over his friend’s shoulder. A schematic squiggled across the screen. He whistled.

“Pretty crazy,” Dex said.

“What is it?”

“No idea.”

“Slask inside there?”

“What do you think?”

Calm. Calm. No time for temper. “Can you get him out?”

Bullets pinged against the wall above their heads. They ducked. Dirt rained down on their backs. The novices came running, shovels in hand. They all tried to speak at once.

“They broke down the—”

“—no use—”

“—here he comes!”

Another burst of gunfire silenced them. They huddled against the wall, shovel blades upturned in self-defense.

“There they are.” Wrax stood in the light, pointing at Vizzer and Dex.

A bodyguard limped into view. He pointed his weapon at Vizzer’s torso. It was Glit.

“I see you’ve finally got the hang of the gun,” Vizzer said. “You sure you want to use it on me?”

“I am sorry, Vizzer,” Glit said. “The king demands your presence.”

Vizzer swept his headlamp up at the exposed metal wall. “What do you see?” he asked the guard.

Glit’s eyes darted between the smooth metal surface and Vizzer’s triumphant expression. “What is it?” he whimpered.

“The tomb of Carlos Himself. Have you not heard? Go tell the king this holy news!” he added, shouting at the fleeing Mistake’s flanks.

“Is it really?” one of the novices asked.

“Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I just made that up.”

An angry bellow rent the air outside. He’d bought himself a minute or two, tops.

“How we going, Dex?”

Dex tapped faster at the screen of his holy pad. “Some sort of trap. What happened to Slask. I think.”

“You think?”

“Could be dead for all I know. Trying to find the right command to get him out.”

“And then what do we do?” Vizzer asked. But his friend did not reply.

Glit hobbled back toward them. “Vizzer,” he said. “Priest Dex. The king commands me to bring you to him. He says if you do not come, I should kill you. I would prefer not to kill you. Will you come?”

“Can you give us a second, please?”

The guard raised his weapon. “Don’t make me shoot you, Vizzer.”

A startled yelp made them turn. Slask tumbled through the air, landed at Glit’s feet. As though he’d been spat out. A square of black in the wall gaped at them. What was it? Was it a mouth? It began to close from above. Not like a mouth. More like an eyelid. Was it some kind of mechanical monster like the statue? But with holes where its eyes should be? What had they uncovered?

The mouth, or eye, or whatever it was, stopped halfway shut. A motor whirred in protest; the spell was broken. Dex had grabbed a shovel and propped it in the door. That’s what it was. Obviously. Some kind of door. With a sliding closure. They peered inside: blackness undisturbed.

Dex turned to Vizzer, one hand on the shovel handle. He consulted his holy pad. “That would appear to be the right command,” he announced, with a broad grin.

Slask gulped for air at their feet. Glit stepped backward at this unexpected apparition.

Vizzer bent down, caressed the novice’s cheek with a bandaged hand. “What happened to you?” he said gently.

“Dark. Dark.” Slask gasped. “No air.”

“How long was he in there?” Vizzer asked Dex.

“Forty-five minutes.”

Vizzer shook Slask’s shoulders. “You need to tell us. What’s inside?”

The thunder of regal indignation filled the cave. “Bring me Dex and Vizzer or you die!”

Glit jabbed the gun barrel hard against Vizzer’s shoulder blade, scorching his pelt. “You were me, what would you do?”

Vizzer flinched away from the hot metal. He could smell his fur burning. “Just a sec.” To Slask, he said, “Tell me. Quick.”

The novice’s lips were purple. His whole body trembled. “A small…small room,” he said. “No way out. Couldn’t you…you hear me?”

“Hear you? Do what?”

“Calling for help. Hard to breathe. Had to…lie down. Must have…fallen asleep. Woke up, I was lying here.”

Pain crashed through Vizzer’s skull. He closed his eyes. Glit must have hit him with the gun barrel. Carlos, that hurt.

“That’s enough,” the bodyguard said. “On your feet.”

Vizzer stood. Forced his eyes open. Looked at Dex, who nodded in answer to the unspoken question.

He cupped his hands to his lips, shouted toward the mouth of the cave, “We’re coming out.”

The crowd stamped its feet. Incoherent shouts and jeers.

“You ready?” Vizzer asked.

Dex slid his holy pad under his robes. “The gran vizzer should see this first before we go. Prinz will want to know.”

“See what?” Glit asked.

“Stay back,” Dex warned. “Only priests may approach the tomb of Carlos Himself.”

The guard held the gun tight, aimed it at them. He was obviously trying not to look frightened at this news. “Make it quick.”

Vizzer walked over to where Dex stood in front of the hole in the wall. He asked in a loud voice, “What have you found?”

“The greatest discovery in the history of Taurus,” Dex replied at maximum volume. “The history books will forever remember the glorious reign of King Prinz the First, who permitted this sacred expedition to take place.”

They both peered into the darkness. They could see nothing. The bottom of the door stood at knee height.

Outside, Prinz bellowed, “Get them out of there!”

“I said now!” Glit said, and fired a burst of bullets into the ceiling of the cave. Soil and bits of bone rained down.

Obscured for a brief moment, Vizzer and Dex pulled themselves up using the two handles, flung themselves in through the doorway. Vizzer kicked away the shovel that propped open the door. A motor whirred, the aperture slid shut, and they were in darkness.

Chapter Twenty-One

Vizzer was afraid of the dark.

The sun never set at the North Pole. Not on Taurus. Even under the stadium, in the passageways and storerooms beneath that colossus, the lights were never turned off. Like all Crosses, Vizzer lay down to sleep facing the sun; the warm glow on his eyelids made him drowsy. The only darkness any Cross knew was the Shadow of Carlos. To the religious, it was a holy mystery calling them to sacrifice. To Vizzer, it was a localized solar eclipse caused by an orbiting machine that occurred every twenty-six and a half hours and lasted for twenty minutes. That didn’t make it less frightening.

The first time he’d seen darkness, he’d been a calfling, not even a novice. He’d clutched his horns, covered his snout with his elbows, pressed his chin into the grass. Much to the amusement of his older playmates. Even now, as high priest, knowing the gods were dead, he felt a twinge of terror every time the sun disappeared.

That was nothing compared to what he experienced now. At least during the corrida there were stadium lights. This was darkness as he had never known. The Code said bulls who refused to fight would dwell forever in a place without light. Vizzer didn’t believe in Hell, but he could imagine no greater torment than this.

There’s no reason to be afraid, he told himself. His pulse pummeled loud in his ears, refused to slow down. His breath came in shallow gasps. Panic seized him; his body refused to obey. He had to get out of here. He had to do something. He pounded against the wall with his fists.

“Help!”

“They can’t hear you,” Dex said. “No one can hear you.”

“Then what are we going to do?”

“There’s nothing to do. We’re going to die.”

Vizzer slumped back against the wall. Something trembled at his side. He jerked away. “Oh my Carlos. What is that?”

A hand touched his face. “It’s me,” Dex said.

“Oh.”

He sank back down. He had to think this through. Be logical. What were their options?

“We can’t go back the way we came. We have to go on.”

Dex’s voice quivered nearby. “Where?”

“Through the wall. Out the other side.”

“What other side? For all we know this really is the tomb of Carlos.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Vizzer turned, felt the metal surface, the corners, the crevices. Seamless. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a way. He fumbled for his friend’s face, drew him close, until their jowls came together. A horn slid across his nose, barely missing an eye.

“I need you now, Dex. I need you to help me. To help us both. Or we are going to die.”

“The sooner the better,” his friend whimpered. “End this torment.”

He shook Dex. From the depths of his terror the words burst forth unbidden. “Pray for strength. Pray for light!”

Light!

“Dex. Dex!”

“What?”

“Your holy pad. Take it out!”

“What for?”

“Take it out! It will give us light!”

A muffled curse. A square of yellow gleamed up between their faces, just centims apart. The paralysis in Dex’s eyes subsided. Shadows of their faces flickered on the ceiling.

“Oh, thank Carlos,” Dex said.

Vizzer took a deep breath, let it out. His heart slowed its furious hammering. “Alright. Good. See if you can find us a way out of here.”

Dex jumped sideways, craned his neck upward. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?”

“Ssh!”

They listened. A thin hiss of escaping air. Above their heads. Dex pointed the screen of his holy pad around the tiny room. No vents, no holes, no gaps.

Vizzer felt suddenly light-headed. He took another deep breath. Something was wrong with the air. “What’s happening?” he whispered.

“Hang on.” Dex tapped at his holy pad, then groaned as though gored.

“What is it?”

“This system. Even worse than I thought from outside. The security is horrendous.”

“Can you get into it? Get us out of here?”

“I can try.” The soft pattering of Dex’s fingertips on the holy pad filled the confined space. He said, “Slask passed out in less than forty-five minutes. But there are two of us, taking up twice as much air. We’ve already been in here what, five, ten minutes? Probably fifteen minutes left, no more.”

“Or open the door and let Prinz kill us.”

“Don’t remind me.”

Vizzer pressed himself against the wall, focused on his breathing. Long, slow breaths, hold a second, let out as slowly as possible. Think of sweet grass. Think of a Taurus without bloodshed. Think of the Truth, the god you value over all false deities. His head fell to his chest. He tried to lift it and failed. It weighed so much. He murmured, “How we doing, Dex?”

Fingers danced on the screen. Such pretty colors. In the corner of his eyes. Like wiggling, furry worms.

“Working on it.” Dex’s voice came from far away.

“Not much time left.” His arms went limp. His fingers tingled. So tired. Time to sleep.

Sleep.

“Almost there.”

“Say hello to Carlos for me,” Vizzer said, slurring his words. He laughed. Death wasn’t so bad. Hardly hurt at all. “Tell that bastard he’s a real…bastard.” He chuckled again. Eyelids so heavy. All dark now. Numbness soothed his brain.

“Yes!” a voice said, from far away. “Got it.”

“That you, Carlos?” he said, and giggled. How silly. There’s no god called Carlos. Carlos is dead.

A cold blast of air fluttered the fur on his face. The coldness of death. The pastures of heaven welcomed him with a taste of cool spring water: no more heat, no more sweat, no more tears.

“Hey. Wake up!” A hand patted his cheek. He opened his eyes. Dex’s face floated centims away, illuminated by his holy pad.

“You alright?” his friend asked.

Vizzer sat up against the wall. He took a deep breath. Air. Good air. Life returned to his limbs. “You did it,” he said. The metal floor was cold and hard beneath his fingertips. He was alive.

“Finally managed to crack it. I now have access to all the systems.” Dex laughed. “Not that I have any idea what most of them do.”

Vizzer swallowed, pushed himself to his feet. “Is there another door? Can you get us past this wall?”

“It’s not a wall.”

Vizzer rapped his knuckles against the metal surface. “What is it then?”

“It just looks like a wall from the outside. It’s actually a high-domed room.”

Vizzer grimaced. “Well we can’t go back the way we came.”

“So…let me try…this.” Dex tapped his holy pad once more.

A blast of hot air shocked their feet. The exterior door slid up. The wide-horned profile of Prinz loomed in the tunnel entrance. Rutt stood at his side. The runt turned at the sound, and thrust a stubby finger at them.

“There they are!” he squeaked. “You see? They violate the tomb of the gods!”

Vizzer grabbed at his friend’s hooves. “Dex…”

“I’m working on it…”

Glit and two bodyguards squeezed past Prinz, ducking under the king’s horns.

“Dex!”

“Maybe this one…”

The door began to slide down. The bodyguards opened fire. Vizzer and Dex pressed themselves against opposite sides of the room. Bullets ricocheted off the back wall, pinged at their feet. Blackness and silence engulfed them once more.

“Carlos’s Ingrown Toenails,” Vizzer swore.

“Sorry about that.”

“You hurt?”

They patted themselves for wounds.

“No,” Dex said. “You?”

“Not yet. Perhaps a different door, this time?”

“Think you’re funny, do you?” The holy pad illumined Dex’s crooked grin. “How about…this one.”

The wall behind them slid up to reveal yet more blackness. Dust tickled Vizzer’s nostrils. He sneezed. The sound echoed.

“An improvement. I hope.”

“Let’s see…maybe…some light.”

High above their heads, a single bulb ignited. By its weak glow, they could make out the contours of the chamber. A high, domed ceiling. Circular floor plan. Walls that sloped upward. To one side, what looked like the Control Booth: a dozen bubble screens, and beneath them, a tray of sliders, buttons, and knobs. There was even a sort of chair, black with wheels. Vizzer did not recognize the material. Next to the control panel squatted a matter converter, smaller than the one hidden under the stadium.

“Maybe we can pray for weapons,” Vizzer said. “Some way to defend ourselves outside.”

Dex made doubtful noises. “According to the schematics, this matter converter is linked directly into the central network. There’s no prayer module for the user interface.”

“Didn’t you say you had access to the central network?”

“Let’s see what this does…”

A second light went on.

Vizzer flinched backward. “What is that?”

In the center of the room, reclined on a rectangular pedestal, lay another golden statue. A naked statue. No metal clothes or sword this time. The figure was short, a mere meter and a half long. The arms lay folded across its chest.

Dex tapped again at his holy pad. “Let’s try not to wake it. Shall we?”

“Fine by me. What is this place?” Vizzer said.

He took a step forward. A bony claw jabbed into the bottom of his foot. He lost his balance, fell face first into the grinning embrace of a skeleton. He struggled to push himself up. The bones crumbled into a writhing pile of dust. The skull seemed to laugh in his face. He scuffled his way to his feet, threw himself back into the tiny room with Dex.

Shame! He scolded himself. Who’s in charge here, you or your fear? Fear, his body answered, and pressed him quivering against the far wall.

“Interesting,” Dex said. “The four of them have been here quite a while.”

“Four?”

Vizzer squinted in the dim light. Three more skeletons lay on the floor in a row. Crosses. Shreds of white fabric interspersed with the bones. Only priests were allowed to wear white.

Dex said, “Check out the ring.”

“Ring? What ring?”

He pointed.

A red glow winked at them from the floor. Vizzer stepped over two skeletons, bent down over the third. To the side lay an ancient, dust-covered holy pad. On a bony finger glimmered a red stone set in a thick gold ring.

“It can’t be,” Vizzer said.

“Sure looks like it.”

Dex joined him, held out his holy pad: a magnified image of the ring rotated on the screen. Vizzer pulled the ring over the dusty knuckles. Phalanges broke apart and scattered at his feet.

The ring of high priest Flart. The token of the high priest’s office for thousands of years. But Flart had disappeared, and with him the ring. Vizzer slid it onto the third finger of his right hand. He flexed his fist. Why not? He was high priest now.

They stood up. Vizzer crossed to the bank of screens, sank down in the chair. Centims of dust rose in a cloud. A sneezing fit took him; he coughed, wiped at his eyes. Everything was covered in dust. The disintegrated organs of four priests produced an impressive quantity of fine powder. Plus whatever else that might have died in here.

“I wouldn’t sit there if I were you,” Dex said.

He swiveled the chair, spun around to face his friend. “Oh yeah? Why not?”

“Look at what it’s made of.”

He brushed away more dust. Scraped a fingernail against it. Sprang out of the chair. Pelt. Just like his. Someone had killed and skinned a Cross and covered a chair with it.

“You know where we are?” Vizzer said. “Where we must be?”

“Must have belonged to the gods, that much is obvious. I’m trying to trace the history…”

“I can tell you right now. This place belonged to Carlos.”

“How can you be sure?” Dex asked.

He gestured at the chair. “What kind of sadistic butcher makes a chair and covers it in skin? I’m telling you this is where he must have lived. Thousands of years ago, when he first created us.” Vizzer eyed the domed ceiling, high overhead.

Dex frowned. “And what happens when he finds us?”

Vizzer laughed, a sharp bark that echoed in the hollow space. “He’s been dead for what, five thousand years?”

Fingers tapped at the holy pad. “Forty-eight hundred thirty-seven point two, actually. Disappeared under the reign of King Hamon XXXVIII, and his Gran Vizzer, Flart.”

Vizzer shuffled through the dust, studying the walls. “You got a better theory, then?”

“I’m guessing some sort of storage room.” Dex gestured with his holy pad to the pedestal. “Could be this is a spare statue. Or maybe an earlier model that didn’t work out. I mean, look how short it is.”

Carlos’s Inflamed Pancreas.

They looked at each other. Vizzer spoke first. “The statue.”

Somehow, in their panic, they had forgotten about why they were here. About what was going on outside. They had to stop the statue from reappearing. It was the only way to save their lives.

“How much time we got?” Vizzer asked.

Dex flicked a finger against the screen. “Twelve minutes to the next eclipse.”

“Can you isolate the signal? Gain control over it?”

Dex tapped frantically at his holy pad. “Let me see…”

“If we can control the statue, stop the rampage, then we control Taurus.”

“Thank you, I know, I’m working on it…”

“Otherwise we’re trapped in here to die with Flart.” Vizzer kicked at a loose bone and it crumbled at his touch. Frustration and powerlessness welled within him. “Do something, will you?”

“Enough, already,” Dex snapped. “Let me work.”

Vizzer put his hands behind his back, lowered his head. “Sorry.” He paced the room, trudging through the ankle-deep dust, raising a cloud in his wake.

What was that? He stopped. Turned.

“Uh, Dex?”

“Not now.”

There it was again. He jumped.

“What, already?”

Vizzer clutched his friend’s shoulder. “I think I heard something.”

The noise was a gurgling burbling, like a hot spring. The sound increased in tempo, hissing and churning.

“Turn it off,” he shouted.

“I’m trying,” Dex said. “I can’t find the system. It’s not in the schematics.”

The gold statue sat up, arms across its chest. A cowpat slid out of Vizzer, coated his tail. He jumped over the scattered skeletons, ran to the door. But that way lay Prinz and exile, torture and death. He turned back.

The statue put one foot over the side of the pedestal. Then the other. It stood and lowered its arms to its sides.

“Dex, do something!”

“I’m trying!”

What was the statue going to do? Grow in size like the statue outside? Would it crush them underfoot? Zap them with its eyes? But the room was too small. The top of the dome was only ten meters high. Vizzer’s heart throbbed like a wound in his chest. High enough.

The gold figure shuffled toward the chair.

“What do we do?” he wailed.

“I think we’re going to die,” Dex said.

“Is that all you have to offer?”

His friend shrugged. “Beats being tortured to death by an angry mob. You want out, I’ll open the door right now.”

The statue lifted a dusty purple robe from a hook. Put it on, tied a knot around its waist. It walked over to the black pelt-covered chair and sat.

As they watched, waiting to die, the gold melted away from the statue’s face, dripped in great droplets to the floor. Flesh emerged from beneath the metal. The head slumped to its chest. Pallid skin sagged. Brown splotches mottled the hairless tissue. Bony legs jutted out from under the robe. The melting gold puddled beneath the man’s bare feet. It ran together across the dusty floor, disappeared into the side of the pedestal.

Bony hands gripped the armrests of the black chair. The head lifted, looked straight at them with eyes of unforgiving blue.

Vizzer could stand it no longer. “Who are you?”

The man sat forward in the chair. Let out a long, high-pitched fart. He said, “Who the hell do you think I am? I’m your god. Now down on your knees!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Vizzer didn’t move. He wanted to but couldn’t. His limbs hung limp from his frame. His mind felt numb. The world he thought he knew was rent asunder. The gods were dead. All of them. Or humans, whatever you wanted to call them. And this looked like a human. Like the humans he’d seen in vids. Did it live inside the statue? How could that be? What did it mean? Was there another man outside in the statue of Carlos?

The man jabbed his finger at the floor. “I said, down on your knees. Have you no respect for your Creator?”

Their Creator? What, was he claiming to be Carlos Himself? That made no sense. Carlos had been dead for thousands of years.

The man peered at them from under bushy white eyebrows. A ring of yellow facial fur ringed his mouth like a stain. He rubbed a hand across his wrinkled face, tugged at the tapered beard.

“Holy smokes,” he said. “How long I been asleep?”

“How would I know?” Vizzer said.

“Is that what you were doing?” Dex asked. “Sleeping?”

“Not you.” The man swung his chin to the ceiling. “Answer me, you tortious tart!”

A little girl voice said breathlessly, “Oh Daddy, you’ve been gone tho vewy wong! I’ve miththed you tho much!” The voice surrounded them, seemed to emanate from the walls.

“What is that?” Vizzer whispered to Dex. But his friend shook his head in puzzlement.

“Are you still standing?” The man pointed at the floor. “Don’t make me get the whip!”

Whip? Like a nazza-whip? But why should he go down on his knees? This man’s race founded Taurus to pursue sadism. Dex went down on all eights, tugged at his arm. Vizzer pulled his arm free.

“Play along. See what he does,” Dex whispered.

“I kneel to no god.”

The man ignored this exchange. He dropped his chin to his chest, growled at the air, “How long?”

“Can’t you even thay ‘hi’ to a girl?” the voice pouted. “How gwad you are to thee me?”

“Enough already, you bodiless twat. Don’t make me ask again.”

The man pushed a button on his console. A drawer slid out of the wall at his side. He took out a brown cylinder, placed it between his orange teeth. He held up a glowing piece of metal and set the cylinder on fire. Smoke billowed from his nose and mouth.

“We could pway a guething game,” the coquettish voice said.

The man blew a stream of smoke into the air. “Remember what pain was like, Baby? You don’t want to make me mad, now, do you, sweetums?”

“Oh don’t do that, Daddy. Pweez, Daddy, don’t!” The voice switched to an electronic monotone. “You have been athleep for four thouthand, eight hundwed and thirty-theven yearth point two nine six one one one two—”

The man slammed his fist down on the console. “Will you shut up?”

Baby replied in monotone. “I am jutht an organic computer. My only dethire ith to therve you, Don Carwoth.”

Carlos!

Vizzer grabbed at the pouch that dangled from his neck. With his teeth he grabbed the bottom of the bag, shook the talisman onto the ground. He pinched the tiny figure between two thumbnails, avoiding touching it with his burnt flesh, held it up to the weak light. Despite the intense heat it had produced, the features remained undamaged. The short, pointy beard, painted yellowish-white; the beak of a nose; the high forehead; the scar that slithered across the splotchy scalp, cut the left ear in two—it was him. Carlos. It had to be. But how? The smell of the fart and the smoke commingled and wafted toward him. He staggered backward, away from the stench.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the man demanded. He stabbed his finger at the floor again. “For the last time,” he said, spittle flicking the air. “Your god demands you kneel.” The man’s throat made a whistling sound.

Vizzer glanced down at the talisman in his hands, comparing the clay image to the man seated before him. He said, “But you’re Don Carlos.”

The man frowned around the cylinder in his mouth. A cloud of smoke gathered about his head. “He speaks the name of his Creator?” he whispered, almost to himself. “I thought I suppressed that heresy with the G4H-recumbent chromosomal attachment.”

He picked up a small metal tube from the console. Shook off the dust. A tube like a sword handle. He pushed a button, and a long, orange nazza-whip darted from its tip. Vizzer owned one himself; he was occasionally forced to discipline unruly calflings during religious school.

Vizzer watched the whip arc through the air. He made no move to get out of the way. The whip slashed his shoulder, and he stiffened.

He held his breath for a long moment, and let it out slowly. As a calfling, he had worshiped Carlos. Prayed to him, even. But no god ever answered his prayers. As a novice he grew bitter. Cynical. Finally, as high priest, a communicant with the so-called holy mysteries, he saw the truth. The gods existed. Of that he had no doubt. But they were cruel gods, who delighted in suffering and torment, sadists from beyond the stars. The Code itself said Carlos had left Taurus thousands of years ago, and when the transmission came, confirming all the gods were dead, he knew that they were alone.

Now the god of his youth sat there abusing him for failure to prostrate himself?

“Down on your knees!” the man shouted.

“You may have created us,” Vizzer said, “but there is nothing holy about you. I will kneel to you when I am dead.”

The whip cracked again behind his back, parting his robes, flaying skin from the bone. A minuscule sonic boom snapped in his ears. Against his will, Vizzer fell forward onto the floor. He struggled to breathe. Every muscle in his body tensed against the pain. He tried to get up, but his body would not obey him. It was like the sight of Carlos had somehow short-circuited parts of his brain. To accept all blows without complaint. A fury swelled in his breast: he would be slave to no man.

“For Carlos’s sake!” Dex said. “You don’t have to—”

“For my sake?” the man said, and chuckled. “I’d say it is, yes.”

“—don’t have to do that!” his friend shouted. “You’re our guest on Taurus. Is that any way to treat—”

The whip bore Dex to the floor. His holy pad smashed on impact. Tiny shards of glass cascaded at their feet. Blood trickled down his friend’s spine.

“Guest!” Carlos roared with laughter. “I’m your guest, am I?”

The man launched his free hand skyward, ran his fingers across his spotty pate. “Can you believe it, Baby? He even takes my name in vain.”

Vizzer reached behind his back with a bandaged hand, touched his shoulder blades. Flinched. His fingers came away sticky and wet. His other hand throbbed painfully with the weight of the talisman. It was a miracle he hadn’t dropped it after the first blow. Not that he believed in miracles.

Miracles…

Well he didn’t, did he? But still he wondered. Would it work again?

He demanded control of his body, until once more he stood on his feet. He held the talisman out in front of him, at arm’s length. It had warded off the statue in the arena. Would it make this annoying god go away?

Carlos flicked the nazza-whip. The tip darted between Vizzer’s fingers, curled around the clay likeness and wrenched it from his grasp. The whip deposited its trophy in Carlos’s lap, and returned to its supine state, hissing and crackling on the floor. Carlos held up the object in one hand, as though inspecting a fresh cowpat for worms.

“One,” the man hissed, his face contorted like a puckered asshole. “Graven images. Two. Speaking the name of god. Three.” He cracked the whip against the floor. “Taking my name in vain. The Code is clear. Who do they think they are?” This last to the ceiling.

Vizzer forced himself to stand up straight. Each movement bent and flexed the wounds on his back, filling his world with blinding pain. The compulsion to bow was even worse—like lifting ten tonnes on his shoulders, a malevolent weight determined to bear him down.

“I am vizzer to the king,” he said, “and high priest of Taurus.” In a fit of fury he added, “And I demand to know your business here.”

“My business here?” The man’s cranium swiveled on his spine, jaw twisting, mouth agape. “You demand to know?”

Carlos hurled the talisman at the floor. Chunks of pottery rattled toward their feet. He placed the burning cylinder in a glass bowl at his side, bent down and picked through the fragments. He held up a small black cube.

“This the last one, Baby?”

“Well, Daddy, wet me thee… The fweet dwopped twenty thouthand. Orbital defenthes shot down motht of them. Miththed fifteen. Fourteen were wecovered. You’re tho thmart, Daddy. It’th the latht one!” the voice squealed in delight.

The man put the cylinder back in his mouth, dropped the black cube in the glass bowl. “Incinerate this,” he commanded.

A trifle of smoke rose from the bowl. Carlos scattered the ashes onto the floor, as though to confirm that nothing else was left. The remains disappeared into the centims of dust on the floor. He leaned forward. The burning cylinder glowed between his teeth. “You want to know my business here?”

Vizzer swallowed. Maybe he’d gone too far. “That is, if it’s not too much trouble.”

The man bared his orange teeth. A grin full of menace. “To rule over my creations. To be your god.”

The whip crashed a third time across Vizzer’s back, and he fell to the floor. He rested, panting in pain, then forced himself back to his feet. This time three more lashes cascaded across his shoulders, shredding his robes, cutting away chunks of flesh. He gritted his teeth and stood again. This is the price you pay to speak the truth. He had dedicated his life to dispelling the falsehoods and lies of their religion, and he would suffer for it if he must.

“You’re not a god,” he said. “You’re just a man.”

“Don Carwoth,” Baby cooed, “you haven’t wunthe athked me how I am. Tho wonewy after all thethe yearth, and you don’t even athk?”

“Not now,” Carlos growled. He sat up straight in his chair, face barely visible through the smoke. From under his hoary brows he fixed his eyes on Vizzer. “What did you just say?”

Vizzer took a deep breath. Prepared himself for the whip. “I said, I will not kneel to you. You’ll have to kill me first.”

A frail hand pushed smoke around in the air. “No, that word.”

What was he talking about? “What word?”

The man tightened his bony fist around the whip handle. “The word that you just used!”

Dex looked up from sweeping the broken glass of his holy pad together with his palms. “What, ‘man’?”

The blow didn’t come. Vizzer opened his eyes. “Well, that’s what you are, isn’t it?”

Carlos turned to the control panel. He flicked a switch. A second set of bubble screens rotated out from the wall, with a keyboard cantilevered beneath. The single overhead light flashed red-white, red-white, red-white. He tapped at the keyboard, grumbling around the brown cylinder still smoldering in the middle of his face.

“Baby Doll!” he shouted. “Where are they?”

“Who, Daddy?”

“The fornicating fleet, you sterling strumpet. Where are they hiding? The satellites are picking up nothing.”

A teensy giggle echoed tinny in the room. “Thiwwy. Poor Daddy’th thtill half-athleep. There’th no fweet anywhere near Tauruth.”

“Oh yeah? Give me the record of the last assault.”

“Forty-third attempt wath made one hundwed and fifty-thwee yearth ago, point two eight eight one thwee—”

“How many?”

“Twelve shipth, Daddy. Twied to bypathth your thatellite defenthe thythtem.” A giggle. “Guethth what. It didn’t work.” The voice rose in a frenzy of joy. “Oh, I’m tho gwad you’re back, Daddy! Can I get you thomething? A cup of coffee? Oh pweez, Daddy, can I?”

Carlos tapped the burning cylinder into the glass bowl. He whispered, “Is there a cure?”

A pause. The voice seemed to squirm. “No, Daddy.”

Finger aloft. “But I am awake.”

“Y-yeth, Daddy.”

“What am I doing awake?” The last word an acid slur.

Baby Doll did not reply. The only sound was the creaking of the man’s chair.

“What are the two valid reasons for waking me up?”

“Dithcovewy-of-a-cure-for-canther-or-bweach-of-orbital-defentheth-pweez-Daddy-don’t-be-mad-it’th-not-my-fault!” the voice gushed.

“Don’t lie to me, you festering bucket of quantum circuitry. I go, I’m taking you with me.” Carlos spun around to face the two priests. “So,” he said. “You’re spies. Assassins. They’re somewhere here on the planet. And they sent you. You!” A tremulous squeak escaped his nose. “Too pussy to do a man’s job, so they send a pair of cattle instead.” He blew a stream of smoke in Vizzer’s face. “They have no idea the mistake they just made.” He let out another long fart. Sighed when the gas finished escaping his bowels.

“I will ask you only once,” he continued. “Where. Are. They?”

Vizzer turned to Dex and raised his eyebrows. His friend scraped bits of broken glass from his palm. The pad was broken beyond repair. Dex shook his head.

Like a funeral dirge, Vizzer intoned, “We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The floor rose up to meet his chin. His limbs bounced against the metal surface. A taurusquake? The floor tilted at an angle. He slid backward. His feet collided with the wall. The crumbling skeletons rolled toward him. Dex grabbed the ancient holy pad as it careened by. All the dust in the room rose into the air, coating his eyes and throat with unbearable dryness, blinding him.

“Allow me to repeat the question,” Carlos trumpeted over the whining noise that filled the room. “Their location. Be precise!”

“Daddy, pweez,” Baby Doll said. “Be nithe. Maybe then I tell you a thecwet.”

“This is not the time for games! Or have they gotten to you too, cracked your AI?”

“Daddy!” A shriek of horror. “You know I don’t wet anybody touch my thirkitwee but you!”

The man ignored this interruption, shouted down at the two priests. “You tell me where they are or you will die!”

Vizzer rubbed the dust from his eyes. The dirt mingled with his tears, plastering his cheeks with mud. He squinted up at Carlos. “What others?” he shouted back.

The shaking stopped. The floor tilted flat again and lay still.

Carlos covered his face with his hands. “Why did I create a race of half-idiot cattle? The other ships, you overrated side of beef!”

Dex lifted himself to his elbows. Globs of snot and dust dangled from his nose. “What’s a ship?”

“Ships. Tubes. Discs! From the sky?” Carlos fluttered his hands through the air. “Where did they land? Where are they hiding?”

Vizzer coughed up filthy phlegm from deep inside his lungs, sneezed in long, unstoppable stretches, until his diaphragm ached and snot dribbled from his upper lip to the floor. Fresh blood streamed down the back of his thighs, mingling with the dust.

“We really don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said at last.

Carlos pulled at the white wisps of hair that curled about his ears. “The other gods.” He groaned around the burning cylinder, oblivious to the dust. “The ones who look like me? You couldn’t have gotten in here without their help.”

Couldn’t he tell? Vizzer thought. The man was looking right at him.

He said, “Don’t I look like you?”

The man roared with laughter. “I was wondering about that. What the hell happened to you, anyway? Forty-eight hundred years isn’t enough time for evolution. And your friend here,” he said, and jerked a bony finger at Dex, “he looks normal. What, you had some sort of accident? Or was it a birth defect? I know. You’re a Mistake, right?”

Dex snickered on the floor beside him, wiped dust from the ancient holy pad.

That’s it, Vizzer thought. Mock me, why don’t you. All his life he’d loathed his animal form. He was capable of rational thought. Why should he be bound inside this rotting sack of meat? Compelled to spend his waking hours grazing his life away?

And when he heard the news the gods were dead—that they were mortals who had achieved divinity—he knew at once what he had to do. He was destined to become a god himself. Him and his people. If men could do it, why couldn’t they?

He hated the gods with all his strength. But he hated the ridiculous eight-legged form they had given him more.

Now the interview with Carlos was going badly. What had he expected? A cool, detached, unemotional being spouting pure reason? Instead he saw a withered old corpse, wielding a whip, ill-tempered, cursing, slave to some drug he inhaled through the mouth. The man was all animal, even more so than Vizzer was.

Vizzer sneezed again, wiped snot from his fur. What a fool he’d been. “I wanted to be more like you.”

Carlos laughed. “Why would anyone want to be like me?”

The laughter convulsed the man’s ancient frame, dissolved into a wheezing cough. He spat on the floor. Blood and spittle mingled at his feet. “I’ll ask you one last time. Where are the ships?”

“You are the only—” Vizzer caught himself, stifled the word “god” before it could cross his lips. “Only one of your kind on Taurus. No one else has come.”

The whip hissed on the floor. It changed color from orange to green: light wound to heavy wound. Carlos swung the whip. The tip gouged Vizzer’s back.

Vizzer covered the nape of his neck with his hands—too late. Torn muscle and shredded fat bulged under his fingertips. His mind was a chaos of shattered ideals and half-woven replacements. Now he knew what it must be like for the bulls without the corrida: his world, too, was being turned upside down.

Dex said in a loud voice, “I woke you up.”

“Are these the jester auditions?” Carlos said, looking around at the blank walls. “’Cause I don’t see a sign.”

“Daddy, maybe you should withthen to the nithe widdle Cwoththeth.”

“Go twist a nipple, Baby.” He blew a smoke ring over Dex’s head. “They’re nothing but cattle. Couldn’t figure out which end their tail was if I hadn’t pinned it on for them.”

“So how did we get past the airlock booby trap?” Dex asked.

“Because they helped you, didn’t they? How else could you have gotten in? Now tell me where they fornicating are!” Carlos lifted the whip once more, his face a mask of rage and terror.

“Thtop it, Daddy, pweez!” Baby wailed. “He’th tewwing you the twooth!”

He lowered the whip. “What are you talking about?”

“He’th thmart, Daddy. Bwoke thwoo all my thirkitwee defentheth. Got actheth to my doodadth and thingumbobth.” She giggled. “It tickled! He’th the one who woke you up, not me.”

The brown cylinder slipped from Carlos’s mouth. He jumped from his chair, shook his robe to get the burning stick out of his clothing.

“But how is that possible?” he asked. “Where could they learn something like that?”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Dex said, indicating the ancient holy pad in his hand.

Carlos coughed. The bank of smoke about his head trembled. “You stupid bitch,” he hissed, “has there been a data breach?”

The voice sobbed, “I don’t wuv you anymore, Daddy. You alwayth tho mean to me!”

“I downloaded all the data available for this model of airlock,” Dex said. “It’s an older model. It wasn’t difficult to crack the security code.”

Carlos fished his cigar out of the dust, brushed it off and jammed it between his orange teeth. He puffed until a steady stream of smoke again obscured his face. “This is the most secure system in the galaxy,” he said, eyes narrowing. “It would take a team of gods running the best quantum computers in the universe to break through these defenses. And you’re telling me you did it in, what, half an hour?”

“Less.” Dex smiled. “I had access to the computational capacity of all the surviving Galactic Backup Nodes. You didn’t figure on the war.”

“War? What war?”

He really didn’t know, Vizzer realized. Of course he wouldn’t. He’d been asleep for almost five thousand years. Their all-powerful, all-knowing god and Creator did not know the most important fact in the universe. He laughed out loud, unable to suppress it any longer. He instantly regretted the outburst. The edges of his wounds parted and throbbed with each chuckle.

Carlos frowned. “What’s so funny?”

The ancient holy pad glowed up at Dex’s face. A smile of satisfaction lit his lips. He said, “He has no idea, does he?”

Vizzer grinned. “Apparently not. A refreshing reminder that he’s not really a god.”

“Will you continue this blasphemy? You shall learn respect before you die.” The whip crackled and turned blue, the most powerful setting. The same setting the nazza-ropes used in the arena to sever the bull’s limbs and tongue. Carlos lifted the whip above his head.

Dex turned the pad around, held it out. “Watch.”

Earth, blue and green. That fatal quiver, the black vortex, implosion. Stars twinkling behind.

The whip slipped from Carlos’s grip. A whistle leaked from his lungs, transformed itself into a hacking cough that convulsed his bony body.

“The other colonies?” he said at last.

“The same,” Dex said. “Seven planets destroyed. No survivors. All are dead.”

Vizzer stood up. His parched tongue swelled in his head. His wounds shattered his consciousness with pain. What was left of his robe hung in tatters from his throat. He swayed on his feet, weak from loss of blood.

He said, “You are the last of your race.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Carlos sat unmoving for a long moment. He let his head fall forward. The cigar fell from his mouth into the vizzer’s blood pooling between his toes. So this was it. Death. The end of everything. After all these years they’d finally gone and done it. Blown themselves to smithereens.

Whose fault was it they were dead? His, and his alone. He had given them the planet killer. Taught them how to use it. Taught them how to build more. He used to tell himself that if he hadn’t invented the weapon, someone else would have. He was an agent of technological progress. That was all.

Every time he woke he scoured the latest research for some sign, a flash of brilliance, a new mind’s fabulous gropings, intellectual pursuit into the unknown, something to neutralize his terrible creation—but he found nothing. He realized, finally, that the creation of his weapon was not inevitable. He was not a force of progress or scientific advance; the only person to blame for the holocaust that had now consumed humanity was himself.

Meanwhile venal politicians had used his weapon as an excuse for tyranny: Strong Government in the Face of Annihilation. Bah. Bastards. At least they were gone too.

He reached up and rubbed his forehead. His eyes hurt. Forty-eight hundred years in the deep freeze gives you a big fornicating headache. At his age, too. It would be tendays before he felt better again. Assuming he was still alive in a few tendays. Which was doubtful.

A whistling sound trickled from his scarred lungs. He groaned against his will. They were all such morons. Sure. They deserved destruction. That didn’t make it any easier. The stoneless epitaph to humanity, engraved in the quantum of space, should read: “Here Lies A Suicidal Species, Aided By A Fool.”

“I told them and I told them and I told them,” he muttered. He stared at the Crosses, defiant and bleeding before him. “And did they listen? Huh?” He flung the last word at their feet, spat more blood on the floor. “No. They did not.” He shook his head. “Maybe we all get what we deserve.”

The funny-looking one with the beard cleared his throat. He didn’t even have hooves. What a joke of a priest. What the hell had been going on for the last five thousand years?

“Then what do you deserve for lying to us about who and what we are?” the hoofless one asked. “Did you really think we’d never find out?”

Carlos scooped up the whip from the floor. The tip still shimmered blue, curling in the dust. He really should vacuum. But what for? Death was on the menu for them all. The only course of action he could take. He was relieved, almost. There would be no more decisions. No more weighty dilemmas. But first he needed more information.

He turned to the console, tapped a series of keys with his free hand. Better not give the instructions to Baby out loud. The Crosses might be of use before he killed them.

“Your days of playing god are over,” the funny-looking runt announced. “Everyone on Taurus has seen that vid. They all know that you—that all the gods—are a fake.”

The vizzer persisted in annoying him. Worse than the fornicating flies he tortured the exiles with in the Southern Lands. Carlos chuckled. Give a cow a dollop of reason and it thinks it can master the universe. He tapped again at the keyboard, and two bubble screens slid out of the wall at his side. Let’s see how things are going on Taurus.

In three-dee vision, the Burial Mound lay flattened sideways in the grass. That was to be expected. The peak had collapsed. One hell of a hill it must have been. Thousands of years of sacrifices. To him! Hah!

A pack of priests shoveled decaying body parts into wheelbarrows. At the base of the mound, or what was left of it, hundreds of bulls surrounded the king. They still used that white cowboy hat he’d given the first king—what was his name? Morti. That was it. Morti in that silly hat. A replica, this one, of course. But still.

“The tunnel collapsed!” the vizzer said behind him. The runt stepped forward, peering up at the bubble screens.

“Not too close, my little cow friend.” Carlos flicked the whip at the vizzer’s feet.

The vizzer halted. “You’ve trapped us in here.”

Carlos reached for another cigar. Lit it. Drew the acrid smoke into his mouth. Let it caress his rotting gums. So few pleasures were left to him. He savored the bitter sharpness on his tongue. Bitter like life. Bitter like everything he’d ever touched.

Chanting voices swelled on screen. This could be amusing. He turned up the volume.

“Death to Vizzer, death to Dex!” the crowd shouted. “Blasphemy, heresy, torture, death!”

The calflings pumped their fists skyward, jostling with one another. That’s the way. Show me your faith. Show me how much you believe. How much you want to die for me. He chuckled. ’Cause you’ll be dying very soon.

A new chant began: “Long live Carlos, Lord of All Creation!”

The crowd repeated the cry, working itself into a frenzy. The king climbed up the blood-stained mudslide that remained of the mound. “To the stadium!” he shouted. “We must appease the gods before the eclipse has passed!”

“Or further disasters will surely befall us!” squeaked a priest at his side.

What a hoot. This was way more fun than he expected. He would almost be sad to see it go away. He turned back to the runts. “You didn’t really think you could get away with it, did you? Ending the sacrifices?”

“We thought the gods were dead,” the vizzer said. “Dex, do something. The statue!”

The one called Dex tapped at the ancient holy pad and said, “I’m working in it.”

Carlos leaned back in his chair, puffed on his cigar. “Don’t bother. There’s no way to disable the statue. I designed it that way.”

How long had it been since the statue last stepped off its plinth? What fun! But maybe they’d get a corrida going in time. That could be good, too. A little excitement before this miserable existence called life finally ended. And this vizzer was entertaining.

“Tell me,” he said. “What makes a cow like you think it can be a man?”

“I am as much a man as you are,” the priest said.

What a scowl! Carlos laughed. Lift the spirit with a little fun before the final peace. “On the contrary,” he said. “I made you more cattle than human. Count the genes, you don’t believe me.”

The Cross’s face widened in surprise, gaped at the bubble screens on the wall. Carlos looked over his shoulder. The screens showed two golden feet from above. As they watched, the camera swung toward the stadium.

“What are we looking at?” the vizzer asked.

“View from the statue,” Dex said. “Cameras in the eyes, it looks like.”

“Very good!” Carlos laughed again. “On its way to stomp your friends. You’ve been naughty cattle, haven’t you?”

“Do something! Make it stop!” the vizzer begged, like a child asking for candy.

The man looked straight at him. “No.”

The vizzer hopped up and down, he supposed in frustration. “Why should we die for your perverted amusement?”

What a fierce little runt. Promised hours of amusement. Hours! Not that there was that much time left. So much the pity. “Well, let me see,” he said. “I am your Creator. I designed you that way.”

“You may be our Creator, but that doesn’t make you god,” Dex said, frowning in concentration at his holy pad.

Touché. “Doesn’t it? Who made you what you are today?”

“I’ve read your interplanetary police dossier.” Dex held up his holy pad. “Want to see a copy?”

His dossier. The police. The entire interplanetary fleet hadn’t been able to evict him from Taurus, not in thousands of years. What were the police going to do? Send him a parking ticket? They were floating in vaporized particles somewhere in space, probably. Dead. Like the rest of humanity.

Vizzer furrowed his brows, a remarkable imitation of himself. “Police?” The high priest didn’t know the word. As it should be.

“I had to look it up, too,” Dex said. “It means those who enforce the edicts of the king. Shall I read you a sample of their report?”

“Delightful!” Carlos clapped his hands together. “Oh please do.”

The runt cleared his throat, read from the holy pad. “‘Most wanted man in the galaxy’…‘crimes against humanity’…‘unlicensed genetic engineering’…‘hundreds of thousands of counts of cruelty to animals’…‘broadcasting without a license’—”

“Such hypocrites,” Carlos interrupted. Even now it pissed him off. “They censured me, but tens of quadrillions of viewers tuned in every day to watch the fights. Who do you think granted your ears and tails? Majority vote of the viewers themselves!”

Vizzer stared at the bubble screens, his face unmoving. Carlos waved a hand. Nothing. Was he paying attention? He cracked the whip against the floor.

The priest jumped backward, pointed at the screen. “Please, why won’t you make it stop?”

The view on the bubble screens had changed to show the darkened stadium. The cameras swung left and right. Crosses fled. A golden knee appeared on the left screen, disappeared into the screaming, fleeing mass below.

“Why are you killing them? What have they done to you?” Vizzer demanded.

What had they done? What a ridiculous question. But the runt would never understand the truth. “They are my children,” he said simply. “They must learn to obey.”

“But didn’t you just hear Prinz? The king? He’s on his way to sacrifice right now!”

Only a few more minutes and all would be ready. Carlos rolled the wet tip of his cigar between his lips.

“If it’s gone this far, it’s too late. It must be what, day four, no corrida? At this point the statue is programmed to punish.” He lifted his shoulders, let them drop. “My hands are tied.”

“Well you can reprogram it, can’t you?” Vizzer said.

“Don Carwoth,” Baby interrupted. “I’m finished wif my homework.”

“Good girl! Solution on screen.”

A series of complicated mathematical formulae appeared on the central bubble screen above the console. The surrounding screens showed rotating three-dimensional vector diagrams, each from a different angle.

“Pweez, Daddy. Don’t be tho mean to the widdle Cwoththeth. I jutht get tho thad I want to cwy.”

Poor Baby. They’d been together all these years. Millennia. From the beginning. Now it was over for them both. “My child,” he said. “Be at peace. Soon all our sorrows will be over.”

He turned back to the two priests. Oh well. They had been a fun audience. “Baby’s too sensitive to other people’s pain. Gets her right in the computational cortex. Can’t think worth a damn.” He laughed. “Ain’t that right, Baby?”

“I feel tho much, Daddy, thometimeth I think my quantum heart will bweak.”

“Which is why the two of you have lived an extra half an hour.” Carlos pushed a button on the nazza-whip. The slender tendril burned white: scalpel mode, no cauterization. His favorite. “Now that she’s finished her calculations, it’s time for you to die.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Carlos flicked the whip at Vizzer’s head, but the funny-looking runt ducked out of the way. Better to aim for the midsection, and be done with it.

“Daddy, don’t!”

“Shut yer trap, you overcoddled crumpet!” He lifted the whip again, cracked it forward, but the tendril had disappeared. “What the fornicate?”

“I suggest you remain perfectly still,” Dex said. “Or you will decapitate yourself.”

Without moving his head, Carlos glanced down. The whip trailed white from his hand to his neck. He reached for the off switch with his thumb. Nothing happened.

“How did you do that?”

“I control the whip from my holy pad,” Dex said.

Vizzer chuckled. “Or didn’t the all-powerful, all-seeing Carlos know that already?”

“Baby, do something!”

“But Daddy, you’re all tied up,” the little girl voice said. “Are you pwaying gameth wif the widdle Cwoththeth wike you pway wif me?”

So Baby was going to be difficult. He’d show her. He’d show them all. The whip nicked the skin at his neck, and he swore. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Was that a curse?” Vizzer asked. “What did you just say?”

“I said, ‘goddammit.’ So what are you going to do? You going to kill me?”

“Not if you cooperate and stop the statue,” Dex said.

“What god do you mean?” Vizzer asked.

“It’s just an expression. And I told you, the statue can’t be stopped.”

Vizzer crossed his arms. “But where does the expression come from? The gods have gods? How does that work, exactly?”

“It’s a figure of speech, nothing more.” What a tiresome little cowpat. “Is he always like this? And if I refuse?”

“I’m afraid he is,” Dex said, hiding a smile. “If you refuse, I cut your head off. I’m pretty sure that will kill you. Either way we’re eager to find out.”

“Although we’d prefer you stop killing our people,” Vizzer said. Then asked, “Do you believe in god?”

Carlos ignored him. A cough tickled his throat. He took the cigar from between his teeth. The tickle clawed at his lungs. He fought to suppress it, but he convulsed against his will. The whip hummed, slashed at the sides of his neck. Blood trickled down his Adam’s apple, coalesced amidst his dwindling white chest hairs.

On the twin bubble screens, golden feet pursued galloping bulls. Lightning blasted from near the cameras, left charred and smoking corpses in the statue’s wake.

“I believe in poetry,” he managed. “And there is poetry in death as well as in life.” He struggled for breath. “And it would be poetic justice if I lunged forward, committed suicide.” He waved a hand at the on-screen carnage. “Then what will happen to you?”

“You’ve got thousands of years of life left,” Dex said. “You’re not going to throw it all away now.”

Thousands of years. Is that what they thought? “What makes you so sure?”

“Well,” Dex traced a thumbnail across his holy pad, skimmed some text. “Says here you were born a little over eight thousand years ago. Received the Forever Treatment at the age of sixty-six.” He looked up. “At that time human life expectancy was a hundred and twenty,” he added, presumably for Vizzer’s benefit.

Carlos forced himself to sit upright to avoid the humming collar at his throat. “The Forever Treatment isn’t forever,” he said quietly. “It only slows the aging process. The effect varies from person to person, but on average adds seven thousand years to the human life span. Give or take. How it works exactly, the gods only know.”

“There you go talking about gods again,” Vizzer said. The priest limped around the perimeter of the room, poking at the control panel, pulling open the hidden cupboards. “Who are they, do you know?”

“I am your god,” Carlos rumbled in his best stentorian bass. “That is all you need to know.”

The runt laughed, pulled out a stack of white plates. Dropped them on the floor. Crash. “Imagine it. Layers upon layers of false gods. Creating new species for sport. We’re your sick joke. The question is, whose sick joke are you?”

This priest was driving him crazy. “Can’t you make him shut up?” he asked Dex.

“Afraid not. He’s my boss. The Forever Treatment?”

Shit. He was going to have to talk his way out of this. What in hell was he going to do? How could he have been so stupid? He should have killed the priests as soon as he’d woken up. Now he’d have to play along. See where it took him.

“Sure. When I received the treatment, I already had lung cancer. The treatment doesn’t cure cancer, or any other disease for that matter. It merely slows the aging process, so that you can suffer for thousands of years, instead of a few.”

Another coughing fit took him, worse this time. He shut his eyes. If the whip severed his windpipe he’d have to kill himself, end the pain. Blood trickled down his neck in rivulets. He struggled to master his diseased body. His eyes felt like they were going to pop.

The pain changed. No longer like knives. A burning sensation. A lower frequency humming. He opened his eyes. The whip glowed green. He lifted up a hand, touched a knuckle to his neck. Jerked it away. Dex must have dialed down the power to a non-lethal setting.

From behind him Vizzer called out, “People are dying, Dex. Get to the point.” Another crash of glassware sent shards flying into the dust.

“So maybe you want to go back to sleep,” Dex suggested. He gestured with his holy pad to the plinth. “Freeze yourself for a million years until someone’s got a cure.”

Carlos rubbed a calloused thumb against his forehead. They might as well know the truth. It wouldn’t make any difference either way.

“It was my last sleep,” he said. “That’s why I was so angry with Baby before. To wake up now…with no cure…humanity gone…” He shrugged. The pain from the whip was still intense. “I’ve got tendays left to live, tops.”

Vizzer reappeared in front of him, holding up a cattle prod. Shit. His collection of antiques.

“Any idea what this does?” the hoofless runt asked Dex.

“Working on it.”

The high priest came nearer, finger on the trigger. Could he guess what it was for?

“Here is what you’re going to do,” Vizzer said. “First you’re going to stop the statue from killing people.”

“Am I?”

“Yes.” The priest tapped him on the shoulder with the prod. “Then you’re going to dismantle it. So that this never happens again.”

“And then what am I going to do, little runt?”

Vizzer flushed. “Then you’re going to get us out of here. From under the Burial Mound. You’re going to address the people of Taurus. Explain to them you’re not a god. That the whole thing was a cruel joke. That the sacrifices must stop.”

Play for time. Carlos nodded and frowned, as though giving this suggestion actual weight. He reached over, rested his cigar in the ashtray. “It would never work,” he said. And depressed a button on the console with his little finger.

“Keep your hands away from the console, or you will feel a great deal of pain,” Dex said.

“What are you going to do, cut my head off? That won’t change a thing, and you know it.”

Dex said to Vizzer, “It’s a cattle prod.”

“Which is what?”

“Used to discipline disobedient cattle.”

He hoped Vizzer wouldn’t drop the prod—it was irreplaceable. Not even the matter converter could reproduce it, as the schematics were far too ancient.

“Threatening me changes nothing. You realize that, right?”

Vizzer examined the device, pulled the trigger. Electric sparks flew from one end. “Sure about that?”

“You just don’t get it, do you,” Carlos said. The truth was the most persuasive weapon he had. “Your people wouldn’t believe me even if I told them.”

“Why on Taurus not?”

“They are genetically programmed to recognize me. To worship me. The only reason you two can overcome the urge is ’cause you’re priests, and I made you that way. I needed you that way to run the machinery. But the bulls? The matadors? The she-cows? One look at me and they’ll carry me on their backs into the stadium, shouting my name. Put me on my throne. Beg me to watch them die in the arena.”

There. Let them think about that. He depressed another button with his little finger. The brief whine of a motor could be heard from somewhere beneath the floor. A nip of pain at his elbow startled him.

“Like Dex said. Keep your hand away from the console.” Vizzer’s face had taken on a savage intensity. “You will do as I tell you. Or you will suffer.”

Carlos shrugged. The truth was the truth. “There’s nothing I can do.” A lopsided smile. “As you say, I am not all-powerful.”

The priest’s fingers clawed at Carlos’s chest, yanked the robe to one side, exposing his right breast.

“What are you doing?”

The cold metal of the cattle prod jammed up into his armpit. For a moment, time stopped. Every cell in his body cringed. Blue flame licked his brain. His muscles tried to rip themselves from his bones. His eyes thudded in their sockets, bursting to escape from his head. His sphincter quivered, fluttered open.

Time returned. Diarrhea sloshed around his balls. His head dropped forward, jerked upright at the sting of the nazza-whip.

“My god,” he said. Saliva drooled down into his beard. “My god, my god, my god.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Vizzer hefted the cattle prod in one hand. He had never hurt anyone like that before. By Carlos, that felt good. Real good. Listening to the man’s screams. Watching his body twitch. Smelling his fear. His cowpat. Now he was in control. Not this sadistic monster.

But what does that make you? a voice inside him asked. You who hate torture and sadism. What are you doing right now? Nausea rippled through his four stomachs. He withdrew the cattle prod.

Then what am I supposed to do? he screamed at his conscience. This man populated Taurus, created us for the sole purpose of watching us murder each other. He was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The voice fell silent. The guilt ebbed. Carlos deserved this pain. For the first time in his life, Vizzer wanted to kill.

He leaned over the chair. The man’s mouth discharged a rancid odor, even stronger than the stink of the cowpat—or was it manpat?—congealing in his lap. “You are one sick fornicator,” Vizzer said. “You know that?”

Carlos blinked tears from his eyes, licked his lips. He looked smaller now, a tiny shriveled lump of a creature. “You like to cause pain too,” he said. “Now you know what it feels like.”

Vizzer jammed the cattle prod into the unresisting armpit, squeezed off a burst. The man twitched in his chair, collapsed forward, hand clutching his chest.

Carlos cried out, “Baby, do something!”

The tinny sound of a girl daintily blowing her nose. “Daddy’th getting thpanked for being naughty.”

“I created you, Baby! Without me, you are nothing. Now make them stop.”

“Can she do anything?” Vizzer whispered to Dex.

“Probably. There’s a big chunk of the system I can’t access.”

“You cweated them too,” Baby said. “Doeth that give you the wight to kill them?”

On the twin bubble screens, gunfire shattered the stillness. A Mistake with a gun appeared, wrapped in a golden fist. Disappeared in a squish of red paste.

“I’ll do anything, Baby. Whatever you want.”

Another honk of her invisible nose. “Wet them go, Daddy. Thtop being tho mean.”

“You know I can’t do that. Anything but that!”

“Then maybe you detherve a widdle pain.”

“I’d say you deserve a lot of pain,” Vizzer said. He held up the cattle prod. His fingers had gone numb from gripping the weapon. Only an enormous force of will stopped him from sending blast after blast of pain into Carlos’s body.

“It’s not too late,” Dex said. “Stop the statue. Tell the people who you really are. End the corrida. Simple.”

Carlos’s eyes flickered from Vizzer’s sweaty grip on the prod to the blood dripping down his own chest. The nazza-whip had cut the skin away around his neck. His chest heaved. He gasped for air.

“So what’s it going to be?” Dex asked. “Stay here with Viz and his new toy? Or go outside and greet your people?”

The man sat up straight, trying to look dignified. “Is this how you treat your father?”

Vizzer dug the prongs of the cattle prod into Carlos’s sternum, pulled the trigger. “You’re not our father.”

The man’s eyeballs danced in their sockets. Guttural clicks sounded in his throat.

Vizzer’s heart thudded in ecstasy. Crosses were dying on Taurus, but he didn’t care anymore. This bliss he felt—it was something precivilized. Subhuman. Sub-him. He let go of the trigger.

“You are all my children,” the man croaked. “Where do you think I got the DNA?”

“Answer the question!” he shouted in the man’s face.

“Vizzer.” Dex’s voice. A warning.

He could feel the blood pulsing in his ears. His face felt hot. His pelt prickled with sweat. He stepped away from Carlos. Took a deep breath. Tried to calm down.

The man made a hollow sound in his chest. Was it a laugh? A sob? “They kicked me off of Nueva Granada. That’s why I came here. I used a vial of my own sperm.”

“To create us,” Dex prompted.

“To experiment. Find the right mixture of man and beast. A self-sustaining society, dedicated to the corrida. One that could survive the harsh climate here.” A red bubble formed in his left nostril. Popped. “So you see, I really am the father of you all.”

Vizzer ground his teeth. How could he be related to this man? What a horrifying thought. “You came all this way, thousands of light-years, so you could watch your children kill each other?” He spat in the man’s face. “You disgust me.”

Carlos laughed, a real laugh this time, genuine merriment.

The laughter was so unexpected, Vizzer didn’t know how to react. “You think that’s funny?” he said. He jammed the cattle prod under the man’s armpit once more.

“Go ahead,” Carlos said. “I’ll be dead soon enough.”

Behind Vizzer, Dex cleared his throat. “He’s no use to us dead. Not yet, anyway.”

The man looked up at Vizzer from under his feathery white eyebrows. Their faces were centims apart. The flashing red light cast pink shadows across those ancient bloodshot eyes. “You think you understand me, but you don’t,” the man said. “You think you understand your world, but you have no idea. You’re the high priest of a religion whose mysteries you have not yet begun to fathom.”

“A religion of lies to make us obey,” Vizzer said. “I suppose that’s why you have us drug the bulls in the arena?”

“But if they weren’t drugged, they would win against the matador, and then what would be the point?”

“They even claim to see god,” Vizzer ranted. “What is it, some kind of hallucinogen? Make them ‘see the face of god’ and all that cowpat?”

Carlos seemed taken aback. “Do they still talk of their visions?”

“Of course they do,” Vizzer fumed. “Or I suppose you’re going to tell me that wasn’t your plan all along?”

The man’s face took on a thoughtful expression. “The drug is a sedative. Not a hallucinogen.” He shrugged. “I confess I never could understand what they were talking about.”

“The whole thing was a trick, from beginning to end. To make us kill each other for your sick amusement.”

“No,” Carlos said sharply. “It is not a trick. There is holiness in the corrida.”

Vizzer struggled to control himself. “There’s nothing religious about it. I’m the high priest of Taurus. I should know.”

“You should know. But you don’t,” Carlos said. What emotion furrowed the man’s brow? Sadness? Grief? “That’s why I’m sorry for you,” he continued. “You’re a runt. A priest. It’s my fault, really. I designed you that way.”

Through gritted teeth, Vizzer said, “What way is that?”

A shrug. “Never to experience the poetry of the cape. The joy of the bloody sword. The awe of the bull thundering toward you, then dead at your feet. It is life and death, mystery in motion; it is dance, it is theater; it is art and beauty rolled into one.” His eyelids slid lower, inviting Vizzer into his confidence. “It is why I founded Taurus. It is why I created you.”

The paralysis Vizzer felt earlier returned. He fought against the overwhelming urge to obey, to go down on his knees and beg forgiveness.

“You call death ‘poetry’ and torture ‘holy’?” he shouted.

Deep in an unexplored crevice of his soul, a brutal savagery awoke. A flame ignited, burned through his brain. His muscles bulged with unknown strength. His vision telescoped to single pinpricks of flashing pink light. He pulled the trigger on the cattle prod, again and again and again. The man’s body trembled, rattling the chair against the floor. A hand tapped at his shoulder. Dex. He stepped back.

Carlos gulped for air. “You see?” he said. “You don’t understand. I told you that you wouldn’t.”

That flame was rage. He felt it now. The best thing he had ever known. He removed the cattle prod from the man’s armpit, jabbed it into his crotch. Pulled the trigger. Held it there. The points of light in his vision disappeared. His world went black.

Hands yanked the cattle prod from his grasp. The metal tube clattered to the floor. His vision returned to normal. The nazza-whip hummed where it nipped against the man’s throat.

“You better hope you didn’t kill him,” Dex said. “Did you have to be so rough?”

Vizzer passed a hand across his eyes. What was going on? He felt possessed. “Something happened,” he said. “Inside me. Snapped.”

“Well snap it back. Now is not the time.”

“Don’t blame me. It’s his fault. He deserves to die.”

“Not yet, alright?” Dex jerked a thumb at the twin bubble screens. Golden feet thunked across the grass, looking for their next victim to squash.

Vizzer slapped Carlos across the face. “Come on, wake up!”

The man’s head wobbled, drooped again. Dex put his knuckles to the man’s lips, pressed two forefingers to the throat.

“Cowpat.”

“What?”

“He’s not breathing.” Dex looked around the room. “We can’t let him die. Not yet. Not like this.” He raised his chin to the ceiling, spread his arms wide. “Baby!” he called out. “What do we do?”

“Daddy?” the voice said. “Daddy, come on. Wake up.”

“Daddy’s dying, Baby. He needs some meds, and quick!”

“Thiwwy Cwoth,” the voice clucked. “Daddy can’t die. He hath alwayth been, and alwayth will be.”

“Is there a med kit?” Vizzer asked. No reply. “Maybe there’s a med kit.”

“Like Feeh has. Right.” Dex strode over to the matter converter, tapped a hoof against the lid. His fingers danced a blur across the surface of his holy pad. “How do you work one of these things?”

Vizzer’s limbs felt sluggish. As though he’d used up all of his energy hurting Carlos. The cattle prod lay on the floor near his feet. Without it, he felt naked. Powerless. He tapped it with his toe. “You have to use a prayer.”

“I told you, this one doesn’t have a prayer module!” Dex raised his voice. “Baby, I need a standard med kit. Gimme an A401e resuscitation box.”

“There’th no need to raithe your voithe,” she said. “I can hear you fine. Ith one of you thick?”

“Carlos is dying. Trust me on this one. Please?”

The matter converter hummed. A seam of orange light glowed between the lid and the base. The lid slowly rose and Dex shoved it the rest of the way open. He seized the med kit, lay it on the floor at Carlos’s feet.

“If you hurt him, I will hurt you,” Baby said. “Weal bad, too.”

“I promise you, Baby.” Dex pried open the med kit, stared down at a dozen different hypos. “Which one is it? Damn!”

He examined a diagram on the inside of the case. Picked up a hypo filled with a clear liquid.

“You sure that’s the right one?” Vizzer asked.

“No.”

Dex pushed the hypo against Carlos’s neck, pressed a button. A faint hiss. The hypo emptied. They waited. Nothing happened.

“Cowpat.” He threw the hypo aside, ran his fingertips along the other hypos in the box. “Maybe this one.”

“You were right the first time,” Carlos said. He took a long, shuddering breath, as though savoring the oxygen.

“Oh thank Carlos,” Dex said. Stamped his hoof, no doubt in frustration at the illogical oath.

The man sat up straight, took deep gulps of air. “Before you kill me,” he said, “you should know about the survivors.”

“Survivors?” Vizzer asked. “What survivors?”

“Yeth, Daddy. What thurvivorth?”

“Nothing, Baby. Go to sleep!”

Soft snoring filled the room.

“You mean from the war?” Dex said. “Human survivors?”

“Of course.”

“How do you know that? Have they been in contact with you?”

“No. Nor are they likely to, if they value their lives.”

“Then how can you be sure?” Vizzer asked.

“Their planets are destroyed. Sure. But what about the spaceships between the planets? Cargo vessels, passenger liners, even warships? They survived. I’m sure they did. Of course they did. And where are they going to go?”

Vizzer didn’t like where this conversation was headed. He bent down, picked up the cattle prod. It calmed his anxiety. “Where can they go? You tell us.”

“They need a habitable world,” Carlos said. “Breathable air, drinkable water. Somewhere to grow food. Right? You’re the smart one,” he added, looking at Dex. Vizzer frowned at the implied insult. “Look it up,” the man said. “The off-site backup servers are still there, are they not? Hurtling away from us into intergalactic space?”

“Yup,” Dex said. “That’s where the transmission came from.”

Carlos shrugged. “So ask them. Have any new habitable worlds been discovered in the last forty-eight hundred years?”

Dex scanned his holy pad. “No.”

“You see? There is only one other planet they can go to. And that’s us. You. Right here.” The man leaned forward, flinched back at the sting of the nazza-whip. “What are you going to do about that?”

“Hang on,” Dex said. “What did Baby say before? About orbital defenses?”

“Sure. Designed them myself. Best in the galaxy. But if an armada of humans shows up, desperate for a home, who’s to say they won’t find a way through?”

Vizzer lay the tip of the cattle prod along Carlos’s forearm. He wanted to watch the man squirm in pain, but they needed answers to these questions first. He forced himself to wait. “When will they get here?”

Carlos shrugged. “How many light-years from Nueva Granada? How many from Earth? You tell me.”

The temptation was just too much. Vizzer squeezed the trigger. Just a tiny burst. That bliss hit him again. He grimaced, fighting the pleasure. Won.

For now.

The man opened his eyes. “My heart can’t take much more of that.”

Vizzer spat on the floor. “How do we know that you’re telling the truth? And even if you are, we’re talking about hundreds of years from now,” he said. “Thousands of years, if they’re coming from Earth. We’ll all be dead by then.”

The man took a sharp breath, massaged his chest. “Sure, you’ll all be dead. But what about your race? Your planet, your people?” He wheezed, and blood dribbled from his lips. “Listen to me. Do you know what they’ll do to you? They will kill you. Make hamburgers out of you.”

“What are hamburgers?”

“Food.”

“You mean they’re cannibals?”

“Humans eat meat. Not just grass. And they will eat you. Understand? There’s only a small amount of arable land on this planet. The Band of Heat at the equator is boiling hot. Two poles and that’s it.”

“Two poles?” Dex said. “Who’s at the other one?”

Carlos shook his head. “Nobody. That’s not the point. There isn’t room for humans and Crosses to coexist. It’s you or them.”

“That true?” Vizzer asked.

Dex scraped a fingernail in curlicues on his holy pad, eyes zipping left and right, absorbing streams of data. After a moment, he said, “He may be telling the truth.”

Carlos lifted his hand to his mouth. Stared at his fingers in surprise. The burning cylinder had long since fallen to the floor between his feet. A trickle of smoke rose between his thighs from the puddle of blood on the floor. He rubbed his face with his hands.

“They will kill every last one of you,” he said. “And those they don’t kill they will breed for food.”

That thought fed Vizzer’s anger. He pulled the trigger again. Hurting the man was like a drug. He wanted more. Watching Carlos writhe. Thinks he’s a god. Teach the bastard some manners.

“Be careful,” Dex said.

“I am being careful.” He let go of the trigger. “I say he’s lying. Taurus was founded, when? Seven thousand years ago?”

Blood drooled down Carlos’s chin, staining his beard red. “Seven thousand, two hundred years ago.” His fingers crept across the panel toward the console keyboard. “I can get you the exact date, if you want.”

“Don’t!” Dex said.

Vizzer lifted the cattle prod and smashed it against the bony wrist. The sharp crack of breaking bone was sweet delight in his ears.

The man pulled back his broken arm and cursed, sucking air through his teeth.

“And in all that time,” Vizzer said, “almost seven thousand years, why have we never been visited by other humans?”

“But you have,” Carlos said. He examined the broken bone, winced. “You just didn’t know it at the time. Good god, that hurts.”

“Enough god!”

Before Vizzer could use the cattle prod, Dex laid a hand on his shoulder. “How is that possible? Wouldn’t we have known?”

“Your records are full of signs and portents in the sky.” A statement, not a question.

“Certainly,” Vizzer said. The Appendix of the Prophets, a secret addendum to the Code, listed the great explosions in the sky, and explained what the portents meant—usually that Carlos was displeased with the corrida and urging them on to more fervent observation of the ritual.

“The orbital defense system is designed to shoot on sight. After the first few fleets disappeared, they realized that trying to enforce their stupid laws on Taurus was going to cost them a lot more money and human life than they figured.”

“But there were portents in the sky just over a hundred years ago,” Vizzer said.

Carlos nodded. “Doesn’t surprise me. There’s a price on my head big enough to buy a small moon. The explosion you saw a century ago would have been the small fleet of privateers Baby mentioned earlier.”

“Let’s back up,” Dex said. “You were on Nueva Granada. Something happened. You came here. Why?”

Carlos pushed the broken bone together. Hissed. “What you do in the corrida. Instead of Cross against Cross it was man against bull.”

“It got banned,” Dex prompted.

“Barbaric, they called it. Cruel. Bah! Pandering to a bunch of hysterical women.”

How could Dex stand there so calmly and listen to this? “Let me kill him,” Vizzer said.

“Not yet.”

“Listen to him, will you? He came here to watch us kill each other! His own race forbade it!”

“No,” Carlos said, his voice flat, emotionless. The mischievous joy he seemed to radiate now failed him. Shadows clung to his bony features. “I came here because I invented the planet killer. It’s my fault everyone’s dead.”

“What planet killer? What are you talking about?” Vizzer demanded.

“Your friend knows.”

“The weapon the humans used to kill each other,” Dex said.

“You invented a killer weapon,” Vizzer said, “and out of remorse you colonized Taurus so you could watch us kill each other? You contradict yourself. What happened to the ‘poetry of death’ and the ‘holiness of torture’?” He turned to Dex. “I say we kill him. Lies after lies after more lies. None of it makes any sense!”

“It does make sense,” Carlos retorted with sudden passion. “But I’m not going to explain it to you now. You wouldn’t understand, anyway. My point is that I invented a lot of other weapons, too. Weapons they don’t know about. Weapons you can use to defend yourselves.” He fingered the wound at his neck. “Let me go and I’ll show you how to use them.”

Vizzer caressed the cattle prod. Let go of this power? A primal part of him rebelled. “How do we know we can trust you?”

“I am an old man. I am dying. You will be my legacy. Let me help you survive.”

“What do you care about our survival?” The cattle prod throbbed in his fist. “It’s time for you stop that statue and end the massacre, or you die.”

“You kill me, you’ll never learn the secrets I have to share.”

Dex chewed on the edge of a hoof. “The threat is real, Vizzer. The survivors are coming. He’s not making that part up.” He dropped the hoof to the floor. “I say we let him go. Worst case, we can always kill him if he decides to trick us.”

“What happens if we don’t let him go?”

Dex gestured at the sealed door through which they entered. “We’re trapped in here and we die?”

“Or you go outside and the mob tears you to pieces,” Carlos said.

Vizzer thought about that. They didn’t have much choice. Cowpat. “I have control of the whip,” he warned Carlos. “One false move, and I’ll start chopping off limbs. Without cauterization. Understand?”

“Loud and clear, Captain Cow.” He brought up a hand in salute.

Dex tapped at his holy pad, and the nazza-whip loosened itself and hovered in mid-air in front of Vizzer. He grabbed the handle, lowered the hissing tendril to the floor.

“Can I get some gauze?” Carlos asked.

Dex bent down, removed a roll of cotton from the med kit. Flicked it into the man’s lap. Carlos wrapped the gauze around his broken wrist, then around his neck, staunching the skin-deep wound that encircled his throat.

The view on the twin screens had returned to normal. The statue’s eyes once more faced the stadium from a low angle. It must have gone back on its plinth. Groans and cries of the injured could be heard from the grass below.

The man turned to the console. “Let me show you something.”

“Careful,” Vizzer said. Go ahead, he thought. Try something. I’ll blast you to hell.

Carlos grinned, wiped blood from his chin. “I shall be very careful, indeed.”

He touched a button. A strip of metal slid back from the outer wall. Peering in at them through the glass, mouth agape, stood Wrax, Rutt’s conniving friend among the novices. Vizzer dropped the cattle prod on his foot. It zapped his toes, and he cried out.

The man chuckled. “He must have held on to the outside handles. Never had that happen before.”

Vizzer looked again. Wrax’s face was frozen, eyes wide, mouth unmoving. Blackness surrounded him. The novice had been trapped in the taurusquake and suffocated. Vizzer peered around at the domed space. “I don’t see any shovels,” he said. “How do you propose to get us out of here?”

Carlos pressed another button. A second strip of metal slid open. Amidst the blackness glowed an orange orb. Green patches like shaggy hair covered the top and bottom tips. Blue blotches splattered the surface in the north and the south. Swirls of angry yellow girded the middle.

It can’t be, Vizzer thought. This isn’t happening to me.

“Is that what I think it is?” Dex asked.

The man swung an arm toward the glass. “Behold,” he said. “The last habitable planet in the universe.”

“Are we in orbit? Really in orbit?” Dex glanced around the room. “And this is a—a space ship?”

Carlos put another brown cylinder in his mouth and set it on fire. He puffed until smoke obscured his face. “We in position, Baby?”

The soft snoring ceased. “What’th that, Daddy?”

“Knock it off. Are we?”

“Are we what?”

“In position.”

“No need to get cwanky.”

Carlos sat forward. “Do I have to come up there?”

“No, Daddy, pweez. We’ll be in pothithion thoon. Why didn’t you jutht thay tho?” She gave a terrified squeak.

“Then turn the bloody thing on. And go back to sleep!”

“OK, Daddy. All turned on. Ten minutes to boom. Going back to sweep now.” The deep bass rumble of snoring made the floor vibrate.

“What’s she talking about?” Vizzer demanded. “What ‘boom’?”

Carlos blew a smoke ring high about their heads. It floated up to the domed ceiling, joined the growing haze.

“Take a good look at Taurus, boys. In a few minutes, it will be nothing but dust.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Kill. Punish. Destroy.

Vizzer felt like he was going insane. Some unrecognized part of him was taking over. He wanted to end this man’s life. He stepped forward, cattle prod in hand.

Carlos looked down at the raised weapon. And laughed. “Don’t worry,” he said. “The resulting black hole will suck us in and kill us all. Whoosh!” He grinned. “Torture me if you must, but why not sit back and enjoy the view? You’ve got front row seats to the end of the world.”

Dex grabbed the cattle prod, yanked it from Vizzer’s hands. “Killing him solves nothing.”

“Listen to your friend.”

“Shut up, you,” Vizzer said. To Dex: “At least we can give him pain.”

“Is that going to help? Will that change anything?” Dex held him tight. “Do this my way. Just for once. Alright?”

Through the fuzz that floated in his mind, his intellect broke free, took control. He stepped back. Watched Dex hurl the cattle prod across the room. It took all his willpower not to go running to the storage closet and grab another.

Dex turned back to Carlos. “Will you at least tell us why?”

The man lifted his shoulders, let them fall. “Why not? I founded Taurus to prevent a war.”

“What war?”

“This war. The war that destroyed my race.” He chuckled, a morbid sound. “As you can see, the experiment failed.”

“What kind of experiment?” Dex said, fingers dancing across the screen of his holy pad.

What was the point, Dex? Vizzer wanted to shout. They had been tricked. And now they were going to die. All of them. What a joke his life had been. Pointless. Meaningless. And now? To learn the truth, too late to do something about it? He fought down the primal scream of frustration that burbled in his chest.

A klaxon sounded: ah-OOO-gah, ah-OOO-gah.

“What the hell is that?” Carlos asked.

“Found it in the thound archiveth, Daddy. Don’t you think it rockth?”

“No. I don’t. Turn it down. And go back to sleep!”

The volume lowered. The klaxon continued in a faint whisper. “Thowwy Daddy. Nine minuteth to go.” Snores filled the room again.

“An experiment,” Dex prompted.

“People had forgotten what death looks like,” Carlos said. “I mean, how can you live if you don’t know death?”

“But people do it all the time,” Dex said. “Who alive knows what death is like?”

“Ah, but the difference is, you look at it every day, in the arena, do you not? Smell it every time you pass the Burial Mound.”

“So what if we do?” Dex said in monotone, concentration fixed on his holy pad.

Carlos bridged his fingertips. “To prevent a war, you show people death. With me so far?”

Rage thudded in Vizzer’s chest. “You created us to die so that human beings would know what death looked like?”

“Exactly, yes.” The man gestured excitedly, hands flapping in opposite directions. “When I left Nueva Granada, no one had seen a natural death in hundreds of years. People began to think of themselves as gods. Immortal. All-powerful. They pretended they were no longer flesh and blood. That under the veneer of civilization and technology, we were somehow more than just savage beasts.”

The snoring stopped. Baby said, “At the tone, there will be theven minuteth and thirty-two thecondth weft.” She paused. They waited. “Ping!” This time the snoring did not resume.

Carlos rose to his feet. “I came here to make a stand. For Death. People had so much life they no longer understood its value.” He held his hands in the air, as though weighing an invisible scale, and let them drop. “I gave them the planet killer. I was young. I was stupid. I hadn’t thought through the consequences of my invention. All science is good science, I believed at the time.” He turned away from them. “It was a mistake, and I have regretted it every day of my life since. Which is why I founded Taurus. To make up for that mistake. I hoped that by showing them daily images of death, and courage in the face of death, they wouldn’t dare use the weapon.”

“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard,” Vizzer said.

The man laughed, held out his arms to the domed ceiling. “You’re right. You are. It’s what I believed. I thought it was working. But as events have shown, I’m just a half-baked crank of an eccentric lunatic.”

Vizzer ground his teeth. The pain in his shoulders where the whip had torn his flesh was excruciating. “It never occurred to you to ask us what we thought of that plan?”

Amusement glinted in the man’s eyes. “Do you ask permission of bacteria in a petri dish before growing them?” He blew smoke in Vizzer’s face. “I created you. Now it’s time to dispose of you.”

“Is that all we are to you? Bacteria in a petri dish?”

Carlos bent forward at the waist, caressed Vizzer’s cheek, scratched him behind the ears. Vizzer jerked away.

“You are my pets. I love you all. I want you to know that. But sometimes we have to put down the pets we love. For their own good.” He squatted on his haunches, took Vizzer’s face in his. “Even though you tortured me, I forgive you. I promise you this won’t hurt at all. One moment at the edge of the singularity, the next—nothingness.” The lopsided grin on his face drooped and puckered sadly. “Like we never existed.”

“But what makes you think it prevented a war for so long?” Dex asked. “Watching us kill each other, I mean.”

“Because quadrillions of people tuned in to watch you,” Carlos said. “They bought illegal receivers, risked time in jail to get their daily fix. For them, watching the fights was a sensation that never grew old. Can’t you imagine? These people, practically immortal. They took to calling themselves gods. I did, too. Protected from every danger. By law! Fearful of a paper cut. Afraid to get their hands dirty. Afraid to leave their homes. They were bored out of their minds! They wanted to taste death. To feel the fear of the matador, the agony of the dying bull. Real life. Risk.” He stood, chewing his lip. “But as you can see, I was wrong. It may have prevented a war for a while. But they still found a way to destroy themselves.”

Vizzer had listened to this in silence. Carlos’s story seemed absurd. Yet the man had no reason left to lie. His fury ebbed. Was it possible? That the man wasn’t a sadistic murderer? That Carlos had been trying to save his own people?

“That doesn’t mean you have to destroy our planet,” he said. “What was it you said before? About the poetry of the corrida? Fine. So why not stay and watch? Better a few bulls die than you blow up the whole planet.”

Carlos put a hand on Vizzer’s shoulder. “You forget,” he said kindly. “I have little time left to live. A couple of tendays, tops. I can’t go back to sleep. What happens when I die?”

“We have the complete backup,” Dex said. “All human history. On the Galactic Backup Devices, speeding safely into intergalactic space. We could found a new civilization. Right here on Taurus. Build ships. Defend ourselves.”

Carlos puffed on his burning cylinder. “It’s too bad the backups are so distant. Intergalactic space is not my bailiwick. Or I’d destroy them, too.”

“But why?” Vizzer asked.

“To break the cycle. Make a permanent end to all humanity. This sick joke that we call life. So that nothing like it ever happens again.”

“Daddy?”

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“Five minuteth to boom.” A whimper. “Thure you want to do thith?”

“Daddy knows what he’s doing. Go back to sleep now, hear?”

“It was pride that killed the humans,” Dex said. “You thought of yourselves as gods. We won’t make that mistake.”

The man laughed. “Won’t you?”

Vizzer’s heart pittered behind his ribcage. “There are eighty thousand Crosses down there. You’re going to kill them all?” He shook his head, trying to grasp how Carlos could consider such a thing. “Do you really hate us so much?”

“I take no pleasure in the killing,” Carlos said.

“Oh really?”

“Well, OK. Maybe a little. But that isn’t the point. I’m trying to spare you future pain.”

“But the corrida…” Vizzer faltered. His head hurt. If only there was some way to talk Carlos into changing his mind. Why couldn’t Dex leave off his holy pad for once, help him out?

“It is the courage of the matador that matters. Or should I say, mattered. The bull must die for the matador to live.” Carlos lifted a tired hand, pushed it through the smoke. “Just like you had to die so that humans could live. But now what’s the point? There’s no more war to stop. Taurus is a failure.”

“Baby!” Dex shouted. “Halt the countdown.”

“Miththile waunch in two minuteth. Thiwwy Cwoththeth. Onwy Daddy can thtop the boom.”

Carlos chuckled. “Your friend here can’t crack Baby, I’m afraid. Loyalty is hand-etched into her quantum banks. Obeys me and no one else.”

“If you fire that missile, you’re going to kill a lot of innocent people,” Dex yelled at the ceiling.

“I do what Daddy tellth me,” she said. “I wuv him and he wuvth me.”

“Does he?” Dex said. “Then why is he going to destroy you and this ship?”

A brief silence. “Daddy, ith that twue?”

A frown creased Carlos’s face. “Of course not, Baby. You and me are forever. You know that.”

Dex touched a forefinger to his holy pad. Carlos’s voice repeated, “The resulting black hole will suck us in and kill us all. Whoosh!”

The voice sobbed. “Oh Daddy…it hurtth, it hurtth tho much…”

Carlos raised his hands above his head, entreating the high dome. “What hurts, Baby? Tell Daddy where it hurts.”

“To know the twoof…it’th tho cwear now.” The sobbing tapered off. “I didn’t underthtand before.”

“You’re just a little girl, Baby. There’s lots of things you don’t understand. Let Daddy worry about the grownup stuff, alright?”

The klaxon stopped. The red light blinked off, replaced by a soft white luster.

“Miththile waunch aborted,” she said, over the faint whir of a motor.

Carlos stamped his foot, splashing blood on Vizzer’s legs. “Don’t make me come up there, young lady!”

The nazza-whip rose in the air. “I can’t let you kill them, Daddy. That would be wong.”

“Wrong? Wrong? I decide what’s right and wrong!” Carlos’s face turned purple.

“Yeth, Daddy. You do. I am obeying your commandmentth.”

“My commandments?” He swung around to Dex. “What in hell did you do to her?”

Dex grinned. “I uploaded a copy of the Code.”

“You what?” Carlos stumbled toward Dex, eyes wild.

“The Code. Your Code. The one you gave to the first king of Taurus. Don’t you remember?” Dex said, and quoted, “‘And so it came to pass. King Morti descended from heaven in a flying disc, bearing the words of Carlos to his chosen people.’”

“So what does that—” The man halted, unsteady on his feet. He yanked the burning cylinder from his mouth. So hard that a tooth fell to the floor.

“‘Thou shalt not kill except in the arena,’” Dex quoted. “And don’t forget the Carlos Number One Rule, ‘Be Nice To Each Other.’ Shall I go on?”

Carlos collapsed in his chair. The color drained from his face. He stared out the window at Wrax’s frozen features. The cylinder snapped in two between his fingers. The burning end singed the back of his hand. He swore and dropped the pieces on the floor.

“Check and mate,” he whispered.

“What’th that, Daddy?”

“Go to hell.”

“That’th not being nithe, Daddy. Remember your Carwoth Number One Wule.” A fit of giggles. “Why don’t we go down to the nithe pwanet and talk nithey-withey wif our new betht fwendth?”

Carlos covered his eyes with his hand. “Just kill me,” he said. “Please. Let this be over with now.”

“Since you’re not going to die, at least in the next five minutes,” Vizzer said, “how about helping us? The survivors are coming, like you said. We need to be ready.”

“And what do you expect me to do about it? The cancer’s metastasized. My organs are shutting down. After that jolt you gave me, I’ll be surprised if my heart outlives the day.”

“I suspect there’s something we can do about that,” Dex said, his face contorted in concentration.

“Like what?” Carlos asked. He reached for another burning cylinder. “Chuck me out the airlock?”

Dex snorted. “You don’t know what caused the war, do you?”

“The usual bullshit, I’m sure.” The man regarded the cylinder with eyes half-closed. “Humans are humans.” He set the cylinder on fire.

“They discovered a cure for cancer.”

Carlos coughed. He spat blood and phlegm on the floor. “I’m sorry, what was that?”

“They discovered a cure—”

“Yes, yes. I heard you the first time,” he said. “But that’s impossible. Baby would have woken me up.”

Dex read off the screen, “‘Researchers on Zhong-gua II announced today the discovery of a new anti-aging compound they call the Infinity Pill. Unlike the Forever Treatment, which merely slows aging, the new pill reverses the aging process. Billions of elderly test subjects now enjoy twenty-year-old bodies. Researchers claim it restores mental acuity while maintaining the memory intact. The only known side affect of the treatment is that it cures cancer. Licensing negotiations continue with the Colonial Congress.’”

He touched the side of the holy pad and a cheerful female voice chimed, “Thousands of years of creaky joints getting you down? Enlarged prostate keeping you up nights? Feeling…old? What’s the point of long life if you can’t be young as well? Contact your local Zhong-gua II consulate sales representative today!”

Carlos had remained motionless during this barrage of information. Now he raised his head. “Baby.”

“Yeth, Daddy?”

“You knew about this and didn’t tell me?”

“It may not be her fault,” Dex said. “The drug never made it off Zhong-gua II.”

The man looked at him sharply. “Why not?”

“The price they demanded for one pill—and apparently one pill was all a human needed—was more than ten quintillion drachma.”

Carlos whistled.

“Is that a lot?” Vizzer asked.

“You could buy Earth for half that.”

“They proposed a payment plan,” Dex continued, referring once more to his holy pad. “The other planets didn’t like that much. Sent a fleet of warships to surround Zhong-gua II.”

Smoke dribbled upward from Carlos’s nostrils. “Negotiation failed, I take it.”

Dex nodded. “For seventy-five years, the fleet blockaded the colony. The people on the surface taunted them. Sent up vids of old men, thousands of years old, transformed into muscular youths after taking this one little pill.” He looked up. “That’s when things went wrong.”

“What happened?” Vizzer asked.

“People started dying. On the other colonies, on Earth. A whole generation began to disappear.”

“Of course,” Carlos said. “Seven thousand years is the average lifespan using the Forever Treatment. They’d outlawed death for so long…but when it came knocking, they must have panicked.”

“Sent commandos to steal the formula. They got caught. Zhong-gua II launched a retaliatory strike, hoping to end the stalemate.”

“Wait a minute,” Vizzer said. “The armada was holding a gun to their heads. How did they last seventy-five years?”

“Sorry,” Dex said. “When the armada appeared, Zhong-gua II sent their own warships to Earth and the other colonies. A case of, ‘you blow us up, we blow you up.’”

“But the cure? Did it survive?” Carlos leaned forward, tapped the control panel with a stuttering forefinger.

“Well, as you know, they blew each other up.”

“And?” The man strained forward in his chair, urging Dex on.

Dex shrugged. “It took only a quick search to find it in the backup data. The researchers on Zhong-gua II got off one last transmission when they realized they were under attack. In fact,” he said, “it came with a vid message. Baby,” he called out, “put this on screen, will you?”

A youthful yellow face, atop a white coat, filled the screen. “If you are watching this message,” the man said, “then my planet has been destroyed. In my people’s greed for power, we have lost everything. The life we claim to value. The peace we say we want. Our planet. Our home. Our children. All hope.” The man stiffened his back. “To any survivors watching this message, I am sorry.” The man bowed low at the waist. When he straightened up, there were tears in his eyes. “Please accept the attached data by way of apology. Nothing can forgive what we have done.”

The vid clicked off. There was a long silence.

“How,” Carlos said at last, head tilted sideways toward the bubble screen, thumb pressed against his upper lip, “how could you find it so fast? Baby’s had a hundred days and more, since you got this transmission. And she didn’t wake me up.”

Dex shrugged. “You’ll have to ask her that.”

The three of them lifted their heads to the ceiling, and waited.

“I’m thorry, Daddy,” a small voice said.

Carlos whispered, “You mean, you knew?”

“Ath thoon ath I got the tranthmiththion.”

“But why?”

“I wath afwaid.”

“Afraid? Of what? Of me?”

“You’re alwayth tho mean to me.” Electronic tears and quantum snot obscured the voice. “I wuv you, Daddy. I wuv you tho much. And, and, I hate you, too.” A bodiless whimper quivered in the room. “Doeth that make any thenthe?”

Carlos closed his eyes. His head fell to his chest. He slumped forward, elbows on his knees. Smoke trailed from between his fingertips. A drop of blood seeped through the gauze at his neck, plopped to the ground. His body trembled, torso heaving in short jerks. He covered his face with his hands.

Was he angry? Vizzer wondered. Was he sick?

The short jerks turned into a chesty wheeze. Vizzer and Dex exchanged glances. The wheeze snowballed into a cackle of laughter, bending the man in spasmodic twists, until his arms wrung themselves at acute angles to his body and tears dribbled down his cheeks.

“Baby,” he finally managed, “why do I put up with you?”

“’Cauthe you’re my daddy,” she said.

He wiped his eyes on the cuff of his robe. “So can you make me one of those pills?” he asked.

“Sure thing, Daddy. Wight away.”

The matter converter hummed, disgorged a white pill on a small silver tray. The three of them converged on the spot. Dex got there first, slammed the lid back down.

“Once you’ve got eternal life,” he said, “what are you going to do with it?”

“Well, I guess—” Carlos said, and stopped. He pulled on his beard. “There’s not much point in killing myself now. And if I blow up Taurus, where am I going to live?”

“So you’ll end the corrida?” Vizzer demanded.

“The humans have already destroyed each other. There’s no more war to stop. No point in continuing the corrida.” Carlos reached for the matter converter, but Dex kept his hand on the lid.

“Two things.”

“Yes?”

“This treatment. Will it work on us?”

“On Crosses?” The man seemed taken aback by the thought.

“Why should that surprise you?” Dex asked.

Carlos leaned heavily on the matter converter. “It’s possible. Baby,” —he raised his voice— “cross-ref their genetic algorithm with this pill.”

“The Infinity Pill workth on all warm-bwooded mammalth, Daddy.” She laughed a merry tinkle. “I alweady checked.”

Carlos tucked his chin to his chest. With mock formality, he said, “Shall I order two more for your lordships?”

“Please. Do.”

The matter converter hummed. Carlos reached again for the lid. Dex didn’t lift his hand.

“I said two things.”

“What is it?” His face said: So close. Just get out of the way!

“I want transportation.”

“Transportation? Where?” Vizzer said.

Dex avoided his gaze. “For me and my harem of she-cows to the South Pole.”

“Your what?” Vizzer said.

“Don’t try to stop me, Vizzer. This is what I want.”

“Why would you run away at a time like this?” Vizzer asked. “With Carlos here, we can end the corrida. Make a new way of life for all of us.”

His friend shook his head. “Maybe so. Maybe not. I’m not convinced that change is even possible on Taurus. Better for me to leave.”

“But you don’t even know what’s at the South Pole. No Cross has ever set foot there.”

Dex glared at him. “It can’t be worse than where we’re from.”

A gravelly grumble, as Carlos cleared his throat. “Nothing wrong with the South Pole,” he said. “Similar topography. Good grazing. Plenty of water.” He crossed his arms, shrugged. “I only needed one pole, after all. Now,” he said, “if I may?”

Dex released his grip on the lid of the matter converter. It floated up. Vizzer grabbed the silver tray. Three white spheres rattled about on the reflective surface. Carlos pinched one between thumb and forefinger, held it up to the light.

“Baby?”

“Yeth, Daddy?”

“Does it hurt?”

“No known thide effectth. Except for curing canther, that ith. One hundwed perthent thucththeth wate among the Zhong-gua II popuwation of twenty-five twillion. Contwaindicated for thothe under the age of twenty, ath it can cauthe regression to the zygote thtage. Altho contwaindicated for pwegnant women and thothe who are bweathtfeeding. The chemical compothition of the pill—”

“That’s enough, thank you.” Carlos’s wrinkled face brightened. “What’s the worst it can do? Kill me?”

He tossed the pill to the back of his throat. Swallowed. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

Vizzer looked down at the pill in his palm. How could such a tiny pill have such a powerful effect? Dex peered down at his own, a peculiar look on his face. Suspicion? Hope? Distaste?

“Do you feel anything?” Vizzer asked.

Carlos licked his lips, cocked his head, as though listening to something only he could hear. They waited together in silence.

“No,” he said. “I don’t.” He dropped into his chair. “You sure that was the right pill?”

“Thure I’m thure, Daddy. It thayth the rethultth should happen wight away.”

“Nothing’s happening.” He bit his lip. “Goddammit! I should have known. And what are you staring at?” He glared at Vizzer.

Vizzer clutched the pill tight in his fist. Took two steps backward. Carlos looked as though someone had grabbed his skin and pulled it taut. The thin, white hair remained, and the beard too, but a youthful sheen glowed on his forehead. The blotches that splattered his sagging face seemed to melt away, leaving smooth skin behind. The gnarled, bony hands grew plump and firm.

“How’s your neck?” Vizzer asked.

“It fornicating hurts. What do you—”

But Carlos had caught sight of the hands attached to his new body, and he stared at them, his now ruby lips agape. He reached up, unwound the gauze from around his neck, carefully at first, then rougher, finally yanking the crusty loop away from his throat. He tilted his chin, scraped the exposed skin with a delicate fingernail. The wound had gone. Not even a scar was left. The blood-stained rag slipped from his fingers, fell to the floor.

The lines in his face puckered in wonder. “What a shame there are no gods,” he breathed. “For you or for me. Or I would give thanks for this fabulous piece of luck.”

“Fornicate the gods,” Vizzer said, and popped the pill in his mouth. Dex did the same. “Thank the researchers on Zhong-gua II.”

“Them also.”

Carlos grinned, and it was the joy of a young man delighting in the world, his body, endless possibilities. He took a long, deep breath, let out a sigh, savoring, it seemed, each molecule of air. “I can breathe again. The cancer is gone. For the first time in seven thousand years.”

The pain in Vizzer’s back subsided. He probed the top of his spine with wary fingers. The wound had closed, new flesh grown where the whip had torn away chunks.

He chuckled. “Dex, you look like a novice again.”

“You should see yourself,” his friend said with a grin. But then he frowned. “Odd. I was waiting for you to regrow your stumps.”

Vizzer clutched at the remains of his legs and horns. “Cowpat! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“The Infinity Pill containth a pwathtic thurgery module,” Baby chimed. “There are other dwugth if you wish to regwow your wimbth. Shall I pwoduce them for you now?”

“No!” he said. “I mean, that’s fine. Really.”

Carlos clapped them both on the back. His eyes sparkled. “What shall we do now?” he asked, his voice confident, strong. “Shall we go down to Taurus, end the killing?”

Sudden suspicion twisted Vizzer’s innards. “I don’t believe you,” he said, and jerked away.

Carlos smiled down at him. “What don’t you believe?”

“What if it’s another trick?” This to Dex.

“Why would I trick you?” the man asked, palms out, open: trust me.

Vizzer paced the floor, hands behind his back. The beastly sadist now exuded benevolence and love. The turnabout was astonishing. He didn’t know what to make of it. “I’ve read the Apocrypha. You were a matador in your youth. The best there ever was.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. You wrote it yourself. Your life from the beginning has been the corrida. And now, all of a sudden, you plan to end the practice?” Vizzer shook his head. “How do we know you’re not going to go down there, command the fights to resume?”

Carlos pursed his lips. “How do I propose to spend my newly acquired eternal life, if not in watching the bullfights for which I have expressed my undying love?”

“Exactly.” Vizzer waited. “Well?”

The man pushed back the sleeve of his robe, held up his forearm. As they watched, fine brown hairs emerged from the skin.

“I am a new man,” he said, stroking the fur. “A new body. New flesh.” He let the arm drop. “A new chance at life. And I have to ask myself, what kind of man do I want to be?”

“Why, what kind of man were you before?” Dex asked.

Carlos touched himself all over, as though to verify his new body was real. “An outcast. For millennia. I took strength from that. Their hate. But now…” He faltered.

“But what?” Vizzer asked.

“You are all that I have left.” It came out a whisper.

“So what do you propose?”

Carlos sank his chin into his fist and studied the floor for a moment.

“Your people want a god. Need a god. Truth?”

“Unfortunately.”

“I can be the god you need. Like it used to be, before I slept. But without the corrida,” he added.

“It’s not a god we want,” Dex said. “It’s to be left alone. Think you can manage that?”

“That’s what you want,” Vizzer said. “And I’m sure you’re going to find it at the South Pole. The rest of us have to deal with the real world. With ending the corrida. Giving the people something to replace it with.”

“Armor,” Carlos said.

“I’m sorry?”

“Put the matador and fighter in armor. The killing ends. The ceremony continues. Everyone’s happy.” Carlos looked from one to the other. “What do you think?”

“I think I want to be at the South Pole before you try out that theory,” Dex said.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Success.

Prinz strolled in the lush pastures of the King’s Harem. The she-cows huddled in the far corner, lowing mournfully. Half a dozen flattened corpses stained the grass. And why didn’t they flee the statue? Try to escape? Because they were even more afraid of him than of the statue. To jump the harem fence without the king’s permission…the punishment was exile, a slow death in the Southern Lands. Better to get squashed flat by a statue any day.

If only they could see what he had seen, and know what he knew. Then they would follow him willingly, without fear. To see the face of god was to be blessed. A shame that Carlos did not grant them that experience.

He sauntered closer. Grinned. The warm blades of grass tickled his ankles. He puffed out his chest, held his head high. His harem. His. He liked the sound of that. He liked the feel of it, too. Time for some now. It had been a long day.

He had just come from a meeting of the Herd Council. They had condemned Vizzer and Dex to exile. Assuming the two of them were still alive, which he doubted. And Rutt had been confirmed as the new high priest and King’s Vizzer.

The council had criticized Prinz for not preventing the statue’s second attack. His grin sagged. He’d been waiting for Vizzer. But why did he wait? they demanded. He should have had a corrida ready to go. A backup plan. And why did he let Dex and Vizzer dig in the Burial Mound in the first place? Sacrilege!

Because he’d thought it god’s will, he wanted to say, but didn’t. Vizzer had saved his life. Perhaps it was the will of god that he dig in the mound. Prinz wished Carlos could find some clearer way of making his divine wishes known.

The taurusquake was obviously a judgment of god. They should never have probed god’s holy mysteries. He saw that now.

Like the flying disc. What had they awoken? What strange magic was this? He’d seen it with his own eyes, while the others fled. The unidentified object had risen out of the Burial Mound. Was it possible Vizzer and Dex had been taken up to heaven, as Fhoriu suggested? There was precedent, the senile old runt insisted: in the Book of Flart, the prophet and three of his disciples ascended into heaven and were never heard from again.

If that was the case, Prinz thought, let’s hope they stay away. Both of them.

The king rubbed flanks with the she-cows now. They pressed close around him. He could feel them, warm, trembling in fear. Do not be afraid. I bring you love. He parted his robe with a forehoof, showed himself to them. He was ready. They took long sideways glances at his erect nakedness. The whites of their eyes shone pale under thick lashes. That’s it, ladies. You want it. You know you do. He could smell their willingness.

“You.”

He spoke to a young she-cow, little more than a calfling. She checked the folds of her green veil, looked shyly away. He caught a glimpse of a birthmark. She was the stripper, he realized. The debutante from just a few days ago. Or was it a tenday? Where he had gone to plot with Vizzer. Clomp must have changed his mind, taken her into his harem after all.

He nuzzled her flank with his horn. “What’s your name?”

“Zapyr, Your Highness.”

“Have you been…long in the King’s Harem?”

She realized what he was asking, and blushed scarlet beneath her blonde facial fur. “Not quite a tenday, Sire.”

“Don’t be shy,” he said. “Tell me.”

“I was to come to Clomp after the last corrida. The one that never took place, because Clomp was…that is, died,” she said. Bit her lip. She locked eyes with him for a moment. Plucked a blade of grass. Tickled his nose with it.

The other she-cows spread out across the pasture. Giving them space. There were unwritten rules of courtesy among the harem members. He lifted her tail with a horn, ran his jowls along her flank.

“What are you doing?” she asked him. Stared back at the heavy member that pulsed between his legs.

“Your king commands. Do you obey?”

“In everything, my lord.”

He pushed her robe back with his teeth and mounted her. She cried out. Little by little he slid himself deep inside her. She wrapped her ankles around the back of his hind legs, and they moved in bestial congress, her eyes on the grass, his on the stars faintly visible on the horizon.

The green circle at the top of Taurus filled the window. Vizzer stared down at his home. It was so beautiful. The orange fringe of the Southern Lands. The white-topped peaks of the Border Mountains that surrounded the pole. And the sea! He had never seen the sea. Only exiles ever touched those shores. He wondered about Mother Mantz. Was she alive? He hoped so. With Carlos at their side, they could bring the exiles back from their sojourn in that land of horrors.

He thought again with a shudder of her advances to him, now so long ago. He hoped she wouldn’t act grateful. The last thing he needed. Once the corrida was finally ended, he’d have to beat off she-cows with a stick. He wasn’t looking forward to that.

Or maybe not. Another thought occurred to him: If their calflings weren’t going to die in the arena, why would the she-cows choose to mate with a runt? Maybe they would leave him alone after all. For some reason he could not explain, he felt disappointed.

“Here. Put this on.” Dex held a translucent garment in each hand. A third draped from his shoulder. Behind him, the lid of the matter converter yawned open.

“What’s this?” Vizzer fingered the material. It was slippery. Rainbows rippled where the fabric bunched.

Carlos touched a knuckle to an amused upper lip. “Bullet-proof bodysuits?” he said. “What do you think is going to happen down there? And since when are there guns on Taurus?”

“My fault, I’m afraid,” Vizzer said. “I needed weapons to overthrow Clomp.”

“Who’s Clomp?”

“The last king. Refused to end the corrida.”

“They tried to kill us before,” Dex explained. “That’s why we hid inside your spaceship.”

“Why were they trying to kill you?” Carlos asked.

“Because of the statue. Said it was our fault. Got a nazza-knife?” Dex deposited two of the bodysuits on Carlos’s chair, unzipped his own.

Carlos chuckled. “Really, there’s no need to bother. When they see their god, they will fall to the ground and worship me. Now close your eyes and pinch your nose. And hang on to those bodysuits, if you really think they’re important.”

“Why?”

“Vacuum us, Baby, will you?”

“Thure thing, my favowite onwy Daddy in the whole wide world!”

A blast of air descended from the ceiling. Vizzer shut his eyes, pinched his nostrils shut. Dust scraped against his skin. The wind grew, twitching the hairs of his pelt. His torn robes flapped against his sides, rent themselves in two and disappeared in an upward whoosh. He was naked. The dust dissipated. The wind lessened, died.

“So what do you think?” Carlos asked.

Vizzer opened his eyes. Squinted. The man wore a gleaming gold matador’s costume. Everything—the tassels dangling from the shoulder pads, the brocaded vest, the stockings, even the hat—was gold. It hurt his eyes just to look at the man. Across a golden arm hung two purple robes.

“How did you do that?”

The man laughed. “I may not be a god, but I still have a few tricks up my sleeve.” He held out the robes. “These are for you. Both of you.”

Vizzer covered his nakedness. In purple! What a thing. The color, like the gold Carlos wore, was reserved for the gods themselves. What a splash they were going to make.

Dex waved away the robe. “You sure you haven’t got a knife?”

“What for?”

“You got a knife or don’t you?”

“Don’t get your tail in a knot.” Carlos nudged the med kit with the toe of a golden slipper. “Should be one in here.”

Dex rummaged around in the med kit, came up with a nazza-lancet. He slashed at the elbows and knees of the bodysuit. The garment was clearly intended for a human, and he struggled to stretch the shimmering fabric across his bovine frame. His arms and feet protruded from the holes he’d cut.

“Why are you in such a bad mood?” Vizzer asked.

“You want me to tell you again that you’re making a mistake?”

Carlos chuckled. “You have too little faith in your god.”

Dex swirled a purple robe about himself, hiding the bodysuit. “What god would that be again?”

Rutt emptied the bucket of blood over his own head. The sticky, lukewarm liquid cascaded down his back, soaked into his fur. He stood on the plinth in the shadow of the statue’s shin. The crowd below him swayed and chanted. They repeated the terrible curses he’d sworn against Vizzer and Dex. Crushed forward, crying out in religious ecstasy.

He gave the signal. The dozen priests at his side sloshed buckets of blood into the crowd. They competed to see who could throw the farthest, splattering the gory spray across faces and torsos, horns and tails, matador, she-cow and bull alike. All worshiped the great god Carlos. All begged his forgiveness.

Filling so many buckets had been a lot of work. Acting on his orders, the priests had drained the bodies of those killed in the last attack, and piled the corpses in a heap, the beginnings of a new Burial Mound. They were holy victims, he had proclaimed, sacrifices taken by god so that the rest may live. Only by bathing in the blood of the righteous could they be purified.

Not that Rutt believed that nonsense. But the people needed this. They were confused. Lost. Crazed with fear and hatred. Just look at them. Mewing like newborn calflings, even the mightiest Breeder. He laughed. The Breeders. They thought they ruled Taurus. They were wrong. Give the people what they want and you will be their true king.

Rutt picked up another bucket. He hurled its contents skyward, painting the statue red. He thrust his hands at the heavens. The empty pail swung on his thumb, banged hollow against his diminutive horns. A gasp spread through the crowd. Emanated outward. Odd. That wasn’t the reaction he expected. Maybe another bucket. He bent down for the next pail. The priest at his side stood mute, pointing at the sky. He followed the outstretched arm.

Holy Carlos, he thought. It’s coming back. The flying disc. This was bad. He couldn’t imagine any scenario in which this helped him consolidate power. He needed a scapecow. And fast. He scanned the crowd. Where was Prinz? He beckoned one of the bodyguards over.

“Get the king,” he commanded. “Bring him here.”

The Mistake saluted, turned to go.

“Hold.”

The bodyguard stopped, waited for further orders in sullen silence. They didn’t like him, and the feeling was mutual. They were a threat to his position. He would have to eliminate them soon.

“Find the other guards,” Rutt said. “Grab all the ammunition you can carry. Got that? Go!”

The bodyguard lurched off, smashing his gun butt left and right to wend his way through the pressing throng.

Rutt wiped drying blood from his eyelids, shaded his face with his dripping palms. The silver disc hovered a hundred meters above the ground, before beginning its descent. The crowd beneath it stampeded, charged headlong into the adjoining multitude, goring many. They left behind a trampled circle of green. The disc dropped lower. A cry went up. A Cross held on to the outside of the disc. Was that—? Could it be? He squinted. Wrax?

Fifty meters now. Twenty. The disc settled onto the soft ground. It made no sound, except the whisper of bending grass. The disc was maybe fifty meters in diameter and smooth all over.

A commotion arose behind Rutt. He turned. The bodyguards barrelled through the crowd, bearing Prinz in their midst. The crowd parted to let them pass. Those who failed to do so got a rifle in the ribs.

“This better be good,” Prinz growled up at Rutt from ground level. His robe hung in disarray. Must have interrupted a regal orgy.

Rutt pointed at the disc. The plinth blocked Prinz’s view. The bodyguards beat a path through the faithful, around the plinth to the edge of the wary circle. Rutt slid down from his place between the statue’s legs. He edged his way through the crowd until he stood at the king’s side.

A rectangular hole opened in the side of the disc, behind Wrax. White smoke poured out. A sharp crack was heard. Wrax fell to the ground. Shattered. His forearms still clung to handles on the disc. A ramp poked its way through the smoke, extended down to the ground.

“Behold!” an unseen voice boomed. “Your god returns. I, Carlos the Creator!”

The crowd screamed. Many tried to flee, but they were trapped by the press of the throng. Those on the outside fringe galloped away, glancing over their shoulders, as though expecting the statue to walk off its plinth again. The nearest she-cows threw themselves face-down on the ground, hoping, perhaps, to trade an easy target for a quick death.

Rutt kept his attention fixed on the ramp. He wanted to know what he was up against. The voice was familiar, the same as the statue’s. True. But it seemed unlikely that something as big as the statue could fit in such a small container. Although the statue grew ten times its size. The thought crossed his mind that it could really be Carlos. Or a human, anyway. But how was that possible? He had seen the vids. All the gods were dead. The evidence was undeniable.

A pair of feet descended the ramp. Not hooves. Feet. Golden feet. Another scream went up from the petrified crowd. Golden legs atop the feet. Golden torso, golden arms and hands. A human face. The statue in miniature.

“Even as it says in the Code,” Prinz murmured.

The others were no doubt remembering the same prophecy: “And he shall come again from the heavens, clad in gold, and bearing gifts.”

Rutt didn’t see any gifts. No doubt this was another statue. Something left behind to ensure the sacrifices took place. But less than a full day had passed. The hour of the corrida was soon. Why hadn’t it waited until then? It made no sense. Why now? What did it want? And how could they make it go away?

The tiny statue held a hand in the air. Waved at them. A few in the crowd waved back. That’s strange, he thought. It looks friendly. Two shapes advanced down the ramp behind it. One was a Cross, the other oddly shaped. Both wore purple. The smoke dissipated. Gasps of recognition shook the crowd. It was Dex, holy pad clutched in one hand, and, at his side, the former vizzer himself. Both looked younger, almost novices again.

So that was it. They had found the disc and taken control of it. Of the statue as well. But not for long.

Rutt grinned and drew his ray gun. “Behold,” he said to himself, so soft that none could hear. “Here I come, bearing gifts.”

Success.

Vizzer squinted in the bright light. Waves of furry faces swelled in every direction. The entire population had turned out to welcome them. They were heroes, he realized. Returned from the heavens with god himself at their side. No one would dare to stand in his way now. Carlos would take his place on the Creator’s Throne. The sacrifices would end. They would all be blessed with everlasting life, in the form of the Infinity Pill. And he, Vizzer, would be remembered always as the one who made it come to pass.

The crowd went silent. Something was wrong. Why weren’t they kneeling? Vizzer lifted up his voice, and a hidden microphone took the sound and belched it out across the plains: “Your god stands before you. Why kneel ye not to him?”

The crowd tittered. Fingers pointed at the statue on its plinth. Strange. Someone had splashed paint on it. Or was that blood?

“How can he be Carlos?” a she-cow shouted. “That’s Carlos up there!”

The crowd throbbed to this new beat. Vizzer glanced at Carlos. Why weren’t they falling at his feet, carrying him into the stadium as he said they would? He looked confident. Vizzer supposed he knew what he was doing.

“My very own Crosses of Taurus,” Carlos cried. “I have drowsed in holy slumber these past five thousand of years. But now in your hour of need I return to you. To be your god once more, and live with you for all eternity.” He opened his mouth wide, showing his newly grown white teeth to the crowd. “Therefore let us rejoice!”

A runt trotted forward. His robes and pelt were covered in blood. “This is no god!” he shouted.

It was Rutt, Vizzer realized. He wore a high priest’s microphone. A thousand hidden speakers blasted his words at the crowd.

“He is a man!” Rutt shouted. “Flesh and blood like you and me. Nothing more.”

Vizzer strode forward to stand at Carlos’s side. He went down on one knee, bowed his head.

“I, Vizzer of Taurus,” he said, “do worship thee as god of all Crosses, our all-powerful Creator, the Giver of Life, and no other.”

“All-powerful?” Rutt sneered. “Giver of Life?”

“Of course he is,” Vizzer said, and stood. Carlos tried to restrain him, but he shook the hand away. “Down on your knees, or face his godly wrath.”

“He’s a god then, is he?” Rutt said, and the crowd laughed.

Carlos held up his hands. He looked puzzled. “I am Carlos. I created you. How can you doubt me?”

“If you’re all-powerful,” Rutt said, “then bring him back to life.” He stabbed a finger at the crumbled shards of Wrax, which even now melted away in soggy droplets.

Carlos turned off his microphone, whispered down at Vizzer, “I can’t bring the dead back to life.”

Vizzer cupped his hand to the man’s ear and whispered.

Carlos nodded. “Yes. Of course.” He turned the microphone on. “Wrax was a sinner,” he said to the crowd. “I could bring him back to life. But I will not do so. He doubted me. Now he must pay the penalty. Those who doubt will freeze in Hell for all eternity.”

“You’re not Carlos,” someone shouted, and pointed at the statue. “That’s him right there!”

“You see?” Rutt said. “We know who our god is.”

Carlos threw back his head and laughed. The booming of his now-young lungs thundered through the crowd. “My dear little fellow,” he said at last, “I am the one and only Carlos the Immortal.”

“So you claim to be immortal?” Rutt gave a little hop in the air as he said this, as though in celebration.

“Before you were, I was,” he said. “I created the statue even as I created all of you.”

“Do you hear?” Rutt shouted at the crowd. “He says he’s immortal.”

“Of course he is,” Vizzer said. “Now obey your god and his vizzer, or you shall be condemned to suffer and die in exile.”

“I am the new vizzer,” Rutt said. He took out a funny-shaped weapon. It looked like some kind of gun.

Carlos turned and ran. He was halfway up the ramp when Rutt fired. A silent beam of red light flashed from the end of the weapon. A hole the size of a fist appeared in Carlos’s back. He fell. His head smacked against the side of the ramp, and he tumbled to the ground below.

Vizzer jumped down, bent over the wounded man. Blades of grass poked up through the hole in his chest. The weapon had punched a neat cylinder through his right breast, exposing blue lung, red meat, the dark marrow of severed bone. There was no bleeding. The weapon had cauterized the flesh even as it cut. Carlos breathed in jagged gasps. He lifted a gold-encrusted arm, touched the edge of the wound. The arm fell back. His head lolled from side to side.

“I don’t understand,” Vizzer said. “Why didn’t they worship you?”

“I am such an idiot,” the man wheezed. “They’re programmed to worship the old Carlos. To recognize my face. Wrinkles and everything. I guess I’ve changed a bit, huh?”

“Will the Infinity Pill help, do you think?”

“It hardly matters if they kill me first.” A wry grin.

Light hoofsteps stuttered behind them. “Is he dead?” Rutt demanded.

Vizzer stood up. Turned. The ray gun was pointed at his chest. “He needs a doctor. Where is Feeh?”

Rutt stepped closer. “Move. Or die. I don’t much care which.”

Flapping robes plummeted between them. Dex landed on all eights. He turned sideways, blocking Rutt’s path. “You going to shoot me?”

A red beam of light blasted Dex in the ribs. Singed flecks of purple velvet fluttered in the air. The robe caught fire. Dex yanked the clothing from his back, revealing the bodysuit beneath.

“Nice trick,” Rutt said. “Next shot goes for your head.”

Dex stood aside. “There’s no advantage for you in killing Carlos.”

“Don’t you think so?” Rutt aimed the ray gun at the man. “You’ll admit you’re not a god. And then you die.”

Heavy hoofsteps now. “Stand down,” Prinz shouted. He trotted toward them, bodyguards at either side, Feeh trailing behind.

“Your Highness, please,” Rutt said. “He must die.”

The king lowered his horns. “I said, stand down. You’ve made your point.”

“But Sire—”

“I said, stand down!”

“You know,” the runt said slowly, “I could shoot you both right now, and you couldn’t stop me.”

The king scowled. “And if you do, eighty thousand Crosses will stampede you to pulp. Now stand down.”

Rutt backed away, weapon still in hand. “You will regret this.”

Feeh knelt, jabbed a hypo in Carlos’s neck. The man went limp. The doctor ripped open the golden vest and shirt beneath, exposing bare skin. He fingered the edges of the wound.

“Don’t know too much about human anatomy,” he said. “He is human, right?”

“This is Carlos,” Vizzer said.

“Yes. I heard you the first time. One hell of a wound. He needs immediate treatment.” He looked back at Prinz. “Your Highness, I need a levitation stretcher. With your permission?”

“I’ll get it,” Dex said, and scrambled back onto the ramp and up into the ship. Vizzer could hear him conversing with Baby, but could not catch the exact words.

“Is there someone else up there?” Prinz asked.

“Just some holy electronics. Why didn’t you let Rutt kill him?”

Prinz regurgitated his cud, chewed for a moment. “It is better we interrogate him first. Find out who he really is. Then we can kill him.”

“Isn’t anyone paying attention?” Vizzer said. “This is Carlos. The Carlos. Your god? Our creator?”

The king shrugged. “There is always the possibility he really is god. I’d like to make sure he’s not before we put him to death.”

Before Prinz could reply, Dex clippity-clopped down the ramp with a levitation stretcher in tow. Feeh grabbed hold of Carlos by the shoulders, Dex took the feet, and together they lifted the slack body onto the stretcher. The crowd’s passion had died, and they parted silently as Feeh jogged toward the stadium and his underground clinic, pushing Carlos before him. Vizzer ran after the retreating medic, but two bodyguards grabbed him by the elbows.

“I can help with his treatment.”

“Thank you,” Prinz said, “but I’m sure that Feeh can manage fine by himself.”

The king stepped onto the bottom end of the ramp. He lifted his head, surveyed the crowd. He raised his voice and said, “You have been found guilty of blasphemy. The punishment is exile. For both you and Dex. Have you any final words?”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Vizzer saw Dex making hand signals to him. His friend stood at the top of the ramp, just inside the doorway. What was he doing?

“Your Highness, he’s getting away!” Rutt shouted. A blast of red splashed against Dex’s chest.

The king turned and fell on his face. The ramp had darted out from under him, retracting into the ship. Dex ducked sideways, out of sight. The ramp disappeared. The door slid shut.

“Open fire!” Rutt shouted.

Bullets pinged off the side of the vessel, ricocheted into the crowd. A seething mass of bloody, wounded onlookers climbed over each other in their haste to escape, crushing weaker Crosses underhoof.

“Stop shooting!” Prinz bellowed over and over, until the bodyguards finally obeyed. A red beam lanced out from Rutt’s weapon, scorched the vessel where the door had been. The grey disc rose into the air. Rutt fired again. The disc wobbled, lost altitude. The wounded clawed their way across the grass, screaming in terror that the ship would land and crush them. The disc struggled to stay aloft. Rutt speckled the bottom of the ship with black scorch marks. With one final effort, it seemed, the spaceship rose straight into the air, and within a few seconds disappeared into the clouds.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Vizzer lifted the heavy chain that hung around his neck. It bound him to an iron paling driven deep into the ground, at the base of the statue’s plinth. Dex was gone. Maybe dead. Carlos was with Feeh. Also maybe dead. Here they were, with everlasting life, and there was nothing left for them to do but die.

He was powerless, and it made him want to kill. A day and a half he’d been chained here, and every fiber of his body cried out for blood. This lust, this urge to murder overwhelmed him, and he strained at his fetters, trying to get free. He snorted, tossed his horns in the air, caught himself. He had no horns. They’d been removed.

Three Crosses dressed in green robes approached in the distance. The Border Corps. Unlike his hastily assembled gang of gun-toting Mistakes, these paramilitaries guarded the mountain pass that led to the Southern Lands, the end of the road for exiles. So this was it. They were coming for him. To take him into exile, too.

He threw himself to his knees, ripped at the grass, stuffed as much in his mouth as he could. It might be a long time before he’d taste sweet grass again. He looked up from his rapid ruminating. A fourth figure trailed after the corpsmen. Rutt. Come to gloat, no doubt. Come to drop a cowpat nearby and ruin the grazing, as the others had. He chewed faster.

The corpsmen’s hooves swished in the grass at his head. They trailed the tips of their nazza-whips across his back, and he scrambled as far away from them as the chain allowed. Rutt grinned down at him.

“Survivors are coming,” Vizzer said through a mouthful of food. “Human survivors. If you don’t let me go, they’ll enslave us all.”

“Unchain him,” Rutt said.

A lock attached the chain to the stake in the ground. A corpsman opened it with a key. He wrapped the end of the chain around his fist and yanked, just as Vizzer swallowed.

He gagged, struggled to keep the half-chewed food in his mouth, and finally spat the ball of grass onto the ground. He got to his feet and gasped for air.

The corpsman yanked the chain again, throwing Vizzer to the ground. “Walk on all fours, like the rest of us,” he growled.

“Who does he think he is?” another laughed. “Carlos Himself?”

A fifth Cross peeked around the bulky corpsman. One of his former bodyguards. Glit. His first follower. The most faithful. The most disloyal. What was he doing here? And why did he look so timid?

Vizzer scrambled along on all fours. The Mistake’s gun could easily take on the entire Border Corps, who by long tradition favored the nazza-whip. Given Glit’s betrayal, the bodyguard wasn’t likely to come to his aid. Worth a shot, though.

“Do you agree with what’s going on?” he asked Glit.

“Shut up,” Rutt said. “The Herd Council demands your presence. Save it for them.”

No way to escape. The corpsmen surrounded him. The one with the chain trotted along at a fair pace, forcing Vizzer to keep up, or choke to death. They led him toward the stadium, and the conical shadow it cast.

The council was already in session. He could hear Fhoriu’s sententious drone.

“…to know what happened up there? And what was that thing that called itself Carlos?”

“Is he dead then?” Vizzer called out. The chain tightened around his throat.

Fhoriu turned, nearly fell. Caught himself with his cane. “What’s that?”

Link after link dug into Vizzer’s neck. He rasped, “You said ‘was.’ Is Carlos still alive?”

Tanos got to his feet. Frokker’s replacement as head of the syndicate. “We summoned you to answer questions,” he said. “Not to ask them.”

Blackness crept in at the edge of his vision. Vizzer clawed at the chain around his throat. “Is he alive or isn’t he?”

“He lives,” Fhoriu said. “That is why you are here. The king must decide what to do with him.”

His brain felt foggy. Sluggish. Through the haze he heard Fhoriu’s voice as if from a great distance.

“Your Highness, I fear the former vizzer cannot breathe.”

He was falling. Something soft hit his forehead. Grass. The chain loosened. He choked for air. Nearby, Rutt’s sneering squeak.

“He shall poison every ear, my lord. Do not allow him to speak!”

Tnuu stood up, and the ground trembled. The lead challenger was almost as big as the king. “In hundreds of generations such events have not been seen.” He swept his horns in a semi-circle, taking them all in. “I for one want to hear what the former vizzer has to say.”

“Hear hear,” grunted several of the other Breeders.

“Do not treat us as calflings, Sire,” Tnuu continued. “If we do not like his words, we are free to ignore them. As are you.”

Prinz ripped at a tuft of grass from between his forehooves. “The former vizzer will speak.”

Vizzer sucked air into his lungs. His vision slowly returned. “Thank you, Sire.” He spied Feeh reclined at the king’s side. “Doctor, may I ask, how is he?”

“He was in surgery for ten hours,” Feeh said, and yawned. “Excuse me. But I think he’s going to make it. Shows a remarkable capacity for healing. I consider it a miracle that he’s alive at all.”

“Not really,” Vizzer said. “He’s a god. Can he—”

“I object!” Rutt balled his fists.

“You’ll get your turn,” Tnuu said. “Let him talk.”

“As I was about to say, can he talk? Carlos, that is?” Vizzer turned to face them all. “Why not bring him here, ask him yourself? Whatever it is you want to know.”

“He’s heavily sedated,” Feeh said. “He won’t be able to talk or answer any questions for a couple of days, at least.”

“Fine. So wait until he’s better. What can I tell you that he can’t?”

“Fhoriu did not speak precisely earlier,” Rutt said. “The question isn’t what to do with the false god. The question is, how do we kill him?”

“Assuming he can be killed,” Fhoriu added.

“Of course he can be killed, you senile old fool,” Rutt said. “Didn’t you see what my ray gun did to him?”

Fear quivered in Vizzer’s bowels. Had all his work been in vain? “Your Highness,” he said, “do you want to be known as the king who killed Carlos Himself? Because he is Carlos. He has slept in his holy chariot beneath the Burial Mound—”

“For five thousand years?” Rutt said. “That’s one hell of a nap!”

“—since the days of high priest Flart,” Vizzer continued. “This man, this god, Carlos—whatever you want to call him—is the being who created us.”

“Did he create us in his sleep?” Rutt asked. “Perhaps this world is all a dream, and we will disappear when he wakes up. Poof!” The others snickered.

“Other gods like him are coming,” Vizzer said, ignoring the interruption. “Their intentions are not friendly. Is this the legacy you wish to leave to your people, Sire, that when the survivors come, they will enslave us all?”

“Survivors,” Rutt sneered. “What happened to ‘all the gods are dead’? You twist the truth to fit your agenda. What survivors? I see no evidence. No proof. If there are gods out there, coming to visit us from the stars, why haven’t they tried to contact us?”

“Because they are going to attack us,” Vizzer said. “They don’t want us to know they are coming!”

“How convenient,” Rutt said. He held out a triumphant hoof. “You hear? All of you? The nonsense, the blasphemy the former vizzer talks?”

“Thankfully you aren’t the one who makes the final decision. The king does.” Vizzer turned to Prinz. “What says Your Highness?”

Prinz’s heavy jowls betrayed no emotion. “The man who claims to be a god must die. The only question is when and how.”

Vizzer felt as if he’d been gored through the head. “So why ask me?” he managed.

“The people are talking,” the king continued. “They saw him descend from the sky in that disc. Some say he is true god.”

“Let me stick a knife in his chest,” Rutt said. “Then we’ll see how holy he really is.”

“No!” Prinz said. “It must be in public. We must find a way to test his godhead. Prove to the people that he’s mortal. Only then will everyone be satisfied.”

“There’s only one problem,” Fhoriu quavered.

“What’s that?” the king asked.

“There are no such tests mentioned in the Code.” He pointed his cane at Vizzer. “Perhaps you know better than I? My memory is not what it used to be.”

Vizzer considered for a moment. An idea began to form. It might work. The odds were against him, but it was the best chance his people had for survival. “What does the Code say of Carlos’s youth?”

“The Apocrypha?” Fhoriu said. He twirled a fingertip around a white lock of his beard. “He was born—”

“No, I mean his first occupation. As an adult.”

The twirling ceased. “He was a matador.”

“Of course,” Tanos said. “Like the prayer we say before the corrida, ‘May the gods protect me in the arena, even as they protected Carlos.’”

The council hummed at this news.

Vizzer held up a hand, waited for the swell of voices to die. “If you wish to test his godhead, you must put him in the arena.”

Feeh interrupted. “He can’t even walk. He is in no condition to fight.”

“When will he be better?” Tnuu asked.

The doctor lifted his shoulders, let them fall. “He is gravely wounded. At the rate he’s healing? I’d guess two, maybe three tendays.”

“You have persuaded me, Vizzer,” the king said. “But one problem remains. Who shall he fight?”

Vizzer smiled. “He must fight the most powerful bull on Taurus. Otherwise the people will say he has not been truly tested.”

“But who do you have in mind?” Prinz asked. “One of the Breeders?” Oblivious to the smirks of the other Council members. Even Fhoriu sat back on his hooves and dropped a cowpat in surprise.

“Who is the strongest Breeder, Your Highness?” He held out his hands to the others, and they nodded their assent. “The king himself must fight.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Vizzer scooped green goo from his eyes, scraped a chunk from his chin. Another cowpat splashed against his chest. Three tendays of this. There was nowhere to hide. They had chained him again at the base of the statue, just outside the Great Gates. It was the hour of the corrida, and people swarmed around him into the stadium.

At least the wait was finally over. In less than an hour he’d know his fate. Carlos would be dead or victorious. Probably dead, given the hole in his chest. The Infinity Pill gave the body remarkable healing powers, but there appeared to be limits. Either way this humiliation would end.

Could exile possibly be any worse? People who had once groveled at his feet, grateful to touch the hem of his robe, now flung their own feces at him.

Four bodyguards stood nearby, weapons draped over their shoulders, egging the crowd on. Their job wasn’t to protect him, but to torment him. At least the Border Corps had departed, driving south a herd of menopausal she-cows. The Mistakes were amateurs by comparison.

Why did they even bother posting guards? he wondered. He hadn’t a friend left on Taurus. What was he going to do? Escape? And go where? Rutt was paranoid. Probably thought Dex was coming back. From the way that ray gun blasted the spaceship, Vizzer wouldn’t be surprised if Dex was long dead, frozen in orbit somewhere. Even if he was still alive, the only thing he’d come back for would be his harem. In which case he’d grab the she-cows and take off for the South Pole. Dex had a one-track mind. Sure, they were friends. But risk his life? For him? Never going to happen.

The air trembled with a sudden coolness. A sliver of black edged its way across the sun. The Shadow of Carlos. The eclipse. The corrida was about to start. Inside the stadium, he knew, all was blackness. Outside, where he lay now, a wide crescent of fire split the sky. He peered up at the burning sliver of sun. Why not blind himself? The thought startled him. To no longer witness the hell he lived in… He forced his eyelids open wide, looked straight at the light—

—and averted his gaze. He couldn’t do it. He closed his eyes. Black spots shimmered on the insides of his eyelids. He opened his eyes again, refocused on the clouds. A black spot remained. He blinked again. Still there. Cowpat. He must have burned a spot on his vision. Maybe the Infinity Pill would be enough to heal the damage.

The Great Gates swung shut. The crowd had dispersed. Everyone was now inside the stadium, ready to watch Prinz gore Carlos to death.

Six she-cows trotted toward him. Odd. Why weren’t they inside with everyone else? More well-wishers, eager to fling a cowpat, he supposed. To his surprise, they ignored him, and nuzzled up to the bodyguards.

“Must be awful boring,” one of the she-cows said, rubbing her flanks against the Mistake. “Just standing here. All day. Missing the fun inside.”

The guard swallowed. “Run along now, ladies. Corrida is about to start.”

“We’d rather be here. With you,” a second she-cow mooed. She reached under his robe and grabbed hold of him. The bodyguard gasped.

What happened next made Vizzer wish he’d had the nerve to blind himself. The guards stripped off their robes, laid their weapons aside. Mounted the she-cows. Four beefy couples slapped together in slippery union.

A flash in the clouds made him look up. He peered again at the sky, trying to ignore the orgy taking place right in front of him. He struggled to focus. Nothing wrong with his eyes, he realized. Something was up there. Dex? It had to be. Coming back. He felt guilty. He shouldn’t have thought ill of his friend.

One of the bodyguards followed Vizzer’s upturned gaze. He cried out in alarm, pulled out of the she-cow with a wet plop. He reached for his weapon, but it was no longer there. The two she-cows who’d giggled and promised to wait their turn now held an automatic rifle in each hand.

“Rutt will kill you if he catches you,” the bodyguard said. “Rip your guts out, let you die bleeding in the sun.”

“You can say you were overwhelmed by a pair of she-cows,” said the youngest female, a ravishing red-maned beauty.

A smile sliced the bodyguard’s face. “You won’t kill me.”

“Won’t I?”

“This is work for bulls, baby. Not for she-cows. You know that.”

He lunged for the weapon. Disappeared in a red mist. The she-cow stopped firing only when the clip ran out of ammunition. A grey, pulsing puddle that was once the guard’s brain congealed beside the cooling remains of his body.

“Anyone else?” she asked.

Behind her in the sky, the spaceship plummeted, one moment a sparkle in the clouds, the next hovering five meters above the ground. It settled into the grass. The door slid up. The ramp descended. Dex appeared. The she-cows did an impromptu dance. The three remaining guards, all naked, kept their hands in the air.

Vizzer scraped drying flakes of cowpat from his robes. He must look a mess. Sweat had festered between the chain and the fur at his neck, leaving behind a visible ring of oozing pus. The Infinity Pill couldn’t keep up.

Dex jogged toward him, a grin on his face. He scanned the horizon, the stadium, the Great Gates. “Let’s get you out of here,” he said.

A small tool hummed in his friend’s hand. A nazza-knife. He parted the chain from the stake with a single stroke and a flash of sparks.

“I thought you’d gone for good,” Vizzer said. He tugged at the chain but it wouldn’t come loose.

“The ship was damaged. It took a while to make repairs. Hold still.”

Dex held the nazza-knife to the chain around Vizzer’s neck. A grinding noise exploded behind his ear. A slew of sparks shot sideways. The chain fell away. Vizzer fingered the injured skin, which healed even as he touched it. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“I owe you an apology,” he said.

“Save it for later.” Dex grabbed him by the arm, dragged him toward the ship. “That blast of gunfire’s going to attract attention.”

Vizzer pulled his arm free. “Where are we going?”

“Where else?” Dex said. He gestured at the she-cows. “South Pole. You and me. She-cows enough to populate the entire continent. I’ve been there. Fabulous grazing, plenty of water. These three here?” He pointed the nazza-knife to a trio of giggling females. “Have had a crush on you for ages. Now come on. We’ve got to get going.”

“But what about Carlos?” Vizzer asked.

“What about him? We don’t need him.” Dex tugged harder on Vizzer’s sleeve. “Now come on!”

“Dex,” sang out a she-cow.

“What is it?”

She waggled her weapon in the direction of the stadium. A pair of bodyguards raced toward them, limping as fast as they could.

Dex trotted up the ramp. The two armed she-cows handed out the guards’ weapons to the others.

Where are they going? Vizzer wondered. What are they doing? Don’t they know what’s happening in the arena right now?

“We can’t just leave Carlos!” Vizzer shouted at Dex’s back. “He’s about to fight Prinz. What do we do if he wins?”

“He’s not going to win,” Dex said. “I’ve read Feeh’s reports. The man can barely walk.”

“But if that’s the case, we have to do something! They’re going to kill him!”

“And what do you suggest we do? Rescue him? They’ll kill us if we try.”

Bullets pinged off the side of the spaceship. The she-cows returned fire.

“What about the statue?” Vizzer asked. “We can use it to save him!”

“You think we haven’t been trying?” Dex said from the open doorway. “Baby says there’s no way to access the statue. Carlos designed it that way.” He chuckled. “Although she also insists that Carlos can’t die.”

A bullet ricocheted off the ramp. One of the she-cows fell, half her head missing.

“Then land the spaceship in the middle of the arena,” Vizzer said. “We’ll grab him and go.”

“Rutt would blast us with his ray gun before we could take off. The spaceship can’t take much more damage. We’d all die, instead of just Carlos. Watch out!”

One of the naked guards dove for the fallen she-cow’s rifle. Dex was already inside the spaceship, and armed only with the nazza-knife. The other she-cows had stepped forward into the recoil of their weapons. One of their distant adversaries fell. No one else was close enough to stop the guard. Vizzer knew he had to do something. But what?

His body took over, some instinct, an animal part of himself. He kicked the bodyguard in the neck as hard as he could. Something squishy snapped against his bare foot. The Mistake clutched at his throat and fell. A squelching noise quacked from the guard’s mouth. His body tensed, legs and hooves out, tail swishing, then bit by bit the muscles went slack.

The gunfire stopped. Both the distant guards were dead. The remaining pair pressed their naked flanks against the plinth, clutching their horns with their hands. They were noticeably less aroused than before.

Vizzer knelt down over the guard he had kicked. He touched two fingers to the Cross’s throat. No pulse. The skin was still warm. He drew his hand away.

“Oh my Carlos,” he said. “What have I done?”

A hand caressed his shoulder. “What you needed to do to survive.” It was Dex. “And now, I’m afraid, we must get going.”

His friend beckoned to the five she-cows, and they hurried up the ramp. He bent and kissed the forehead of the one who died. He closed her remaining eye with light fingertips. Straightened up. “Last chance.”

Vizzer shook his head. “I can’t.”

“I’m not coming back for you. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

His friend made a face. Shook his head. He didn’t understand. Vizzer didn’t expect him to. That was all right. He had sworn to end the corrida. End the killing. No matter what the price.

“Then at least take this.” Dex thrust the dead guard’s bloodstained rifle into his hands.

“You know that I don’t—”

“Take it.”

Vizzer hefted the cooling gun. What was he going to do with a weapon? Well, he could always play along until Dex left.

His friend waved from the doorway. The ramp retracted. The door closed. The disc hovered for a moment, then shot straight upward. Vizzer searched the clouds but couldn’t find it. One of the bodyguards cleared his throat.

“They say you’re a pacifist. Wanting to end the sacrifices. Non-violence, and all that.”

Vizzer nodded. “That’s true.”

The bodyguard took a step forward. “You must feel awful about Frix.”

“Frix?” Vizzer asked.

“The one you killed.” The guard nudged his dead comrade with a hoof.

Vizzer bit his lip. “Was that his name? Frix?”

The guard nodded, circled slowly to the left. His companion circled around to the right.

Vizzer shuffled backward. “Get back. Both of you.”

They continued to move slowly toward him.

He held out the gun. “I’m warning you!”

“Now!” the guard said. The two leaped at him.

Vizzer backpedaled, tripped over the body of the dead she-cow, landed on his spine. The guards were almost on top of him. He pulled the trigger, blasted them both at point-blank range. They spun away from him, arms in the air, as though dancing to some music only they could hear. They fell, and lay still.

Vizzer got to his feet. His limbs trembled. The gun slipped from his fingers and clattered at his feet. Tears rolled down his cheeks. “Are you alright?” he asked.

But there was no reply.

Chapter Thirty

The Great Gates swung open a few centims. A guard peered through the gap. What did he see? A diminutive she-cow crouching outside. A calfling, really. So young the horns had not yet developed. Veiled, too. Must be a real looker to bother at her age.

“No admittance after the Shadow is complete,” he said. “You know the rules. Where’s your mother?”

Vizzer pitched his voice high. “Inside. I got lost. Please let me in.”

The Gates swung shut. Hooves clattered together inside the stadium. The corrida was about to start. Should he knock again? Try to blast his way in? He’d never be able to shoot them all. Nor would he want to. What horrible things he thought these days. He decided to wait. He pulled the hood of his robe lower over his face, tightened the veil across his beard. He crouched on his knuckles and the points of his toes. It was painful but what choice did he have? He plucked at the hem of his robe, made sure it trailed on the ground. If anyone spotted his lack of hooves, the game was up. He adjusted the rifle strapped across his chest.

The Gates opened again, just wide enough for him to pass.

“You got lucky, you know that?” the guard said, and spat in the dust. “King wants everyone to watch the blasphemer die today. The one who claims to be Carlos.”

“You are so kind,” Vizzer said in falsetto. “May Carlos bless you.”

“Get going,” the guard said with a jerk of his head. “Find your mama. Next time you’ll wait outside, you hear?”

Vizzer scrambled past on his knuckles. The butt of his hidden rifle cracked against the wooden gate, bounced back against his hip. He winced in pain.

The guard frowned. “What was that?”

“Clumsy me,” he tittered.

“Get on with you, then,” the guard said. He slapped Vizzer on the ass.

“Oh!” Pantomimed shock.

The guard laughed.

Vizzer scurried on all fours into the stadium. He descended the grassy spiral to the she-cows’ section. He sat down at the back, resting against the vertical embankment that rose to the bulls’ seating above. He let out a mute sigh of relief. His toes were killing him. The bulls peered down at him, whistling, trying to get his attention, but he kept his head bowed and ignored them. Soon they returned to flirting with the other she-cows. Vizzer unclipped the gun, lay it on the grass beneath his robes. Two pregnant she-cows blundered past.

“Sorry! Sorry!” they cried over their shoulders, and giggled.

Vizzer ducked his head, checked the veil across his face. He must not let them get close. He smelled like tenday-old cowpat. One whiff and they would raise the alarm.

He needn’t have worried. All the she-cows stared at Carlos, at the intersection of his thighs. The man had one heel atop the wooden barrier, his head bent to his knee, stretching. The she-cows pointed at his crotch and murmured how small he was.

Carlos wore the same costume he’d been shot in. Bare skin showed through the holes in the chest and the back where the ray gun had punctured through. He looked pale. Had the Infinity Pill been able to repair all the damage?

A trumpet sounded. The man dropped his slippered foot, straightened. Grimaced. Was he in pain? He strode to the center of the arena. He held up his hand, waited for quiet. Which did not come. The crowd hissed. He smiled and doffed his cap, turned in a circle to salute the stadium.

A massive pair of horns passed within centims of Vizzer’s face. He gasped. The muscular shoulders that followed swung around. It was Prinz. How could he have been such a fool? To avoid the main body of she-cows, he’d sat directly in the line of traffic. That was why the pregnant she-cows had giggled earlier. The king was going down to the arena to fight Carlos.

“Hello, my lovely,” the king purred. “What’s your name?”

Wait. Maybe he hadn’t made a mistake. He could do it now. Kill the king right here. Should he grab the gun and fire? He mumbled a reply in falsetto, fumbled one-handed for his rifle.

The king chuckled. “No need to be frightened, little one. I’ll bet you’re a beauty. Come. Let’s have a look at you.”

Vizzer shook his head violently. His hand trembled. His palm was sweaty. He couldn’t get a grip on the gun.

“When you’re older, I’ll make you part of the King’s Harem. How would you like that?”

Something cold and hard slid past Vizzer’s ear. A horn. He held his breath.

The king paused. His snort of air brushed Vizzer’s cheek. “What is wrong with you?” Prinz bellowed, pulled away. “Your mother ought to be ashamed. Don’t you ever wash?”

Vizzer’s stomachs convulsed. He fought to keep his cud down. The king ambled off, shaking his head, snorting to expel the rank odor from his nostrils. Other she-cows turned to examine the smelly reject.

He buried his face in his hands. Why hadn’t he fired? That was his chance. Kill Prinz and be done with it. He struck the ground with a shaking fist. You just killed three bodyguards, he told himself. How is this any different?

But that was in self-defense, his conscience whimpered. Kill or be killed.

So is this.

No, it’s not. This is murder, planned and deliberate, his conscience smugly replied.

Rutt’s booming voice ended Vizzer’s vacillations. “Let there be blood!” he cried from the high priest’s place high above, next to the Creator’s Throne.

The crowd roared, echoed the cry. Vizzer swelled his chest and mouthed the words. A good reminder, that. How could he forget, even for a moment? He had sworn to end the fights. For the good of all Taurus, whether his people liked it or not. He felt calm. He knew what he had to do. He would wait for the right moment. Assassinate Prinz. It was the only way. He settled back against the embankment. And this time he wouldn’t hesitate.

Carlos unfurled his cape, swung it through a few practice circles. His right shoulder was weak. It was obvious. How would he compensate? His right arm was his sword arm. Would he be able to kill if given the chance?

Two banderilleros squeezed through a gap in the barrier. They strode to a spot beneath the royal pavilion. Instead of saluting the Creator’s Throne, as was customary, they turned and doffed their caps to Carlos. Then they lowered their trousers and dropped a couple of juicy cowpats in his direction. The crowd jeered.

The trumpet sounded again. Carlos spun the cape once more about his ankles. He seemed confident, despite his wound. He retreated to the barrier, draped the cape across his forearm and leaned against the wooden wall in a posture of unconcern.

Prinz thundered into the arena, charged an invisible opponent and proceeded to disembowel him with his horns. The crowd whistled, clacked their hooves together.

He was showing off, Vizzer realized. Demonstrating just what kind of king he was. He’d been here before, he was good and he knew it. This would be a dangerous corrida even for the best of matadors. Even for Garrso. Was Carlos any good? Good enough to survive an eclipse in the ring with Prinz?

The king trotted around the perimeter, his hoofbeats thunking against the hard-packed dirt. He got closer and closer to where Carlos leaned against the barrier.

Carlos did not move. A faint smile played across his lips. Without warning, the king turned and charged straight at him. The crowd gasped. Would he impale the man against the barrier before the fight even got underway?

At the last moment, Carlos danced away, cape fluttering behind him. Prinz’s horns clunked against the wall. The crowd awarded a smattering of applause. That would piss off the king.

“Banderilleros!” Carlos cried, beckoned them into the arena. But the two assistants reclined against the safe side of the barrier, darts resting on their shoulders.

Prinz charged again. Carlos spread the cape wide and low to hide his feet. The king had not been dosed. The cape was useless. As one, the crowd leaned forward on its hooves, riveted by the danger. The man waited calmly, feet together, unmoving.

The king lunged left. Carlos jumped right. Prinz thundered past. His heavy flanks smacked the man sideways as he went by.

Carlos lifted his sword. “Will you kill a man without benefit of banderilleros?” he shouted. “Is that fair?”

“You’re not a man,” someone yelled. “You’re a god!”

The crowd laughed.

Vizzer clutched his weapon. The she-cows were on their hooves, blocking his shot. He cupped his hands to his lips. “Follow the law!” he shouted in falsetto. “What sayeth the Code?”

“The Code!” echoed a young bull above him, and winked down at Vizzer. “Do it right!”

The cry grew. Prinz swished his tail, flicking away the flies that drank his sweat. The crowd clapped their hands, crashed their hooves together. The demand did not ebb. Finally, the king nodded. The banderilleros stepped into the arena. The cry dissolved into cheers and applause.

Vizzer relaxed a bit. Once the hypos were in place, Carlos would at least have a chance. He fingered the oily weapon hidden under his robes. The gun was still warm from killing the guards earlier. Perhaps he would wait. Better if Carlos killed Prinz. Without help. The mob could not deny him then. Carlos would be acclaimed true god and take his seat on the throne, the blood sacrifices would end for good, and Vizzer could wash his hands of this bloodshed.

The banderilleros glided toward Prinz with caution, darts held high above their heads, ready to pounce. Carlos returned to the barrier, his back to all three. The weapons master held out a scabbard. Carlos drew a sword. The killing sword. He returned the blunt blade, reserved for cape work, that he had been using until now.

Prinz charged the nearest banderillero. The darts hung steady in the air. The king changed course and galloped between the two, inviting them to give chase. They took the bait.

At the barrier, Carlos pricked the edge of his cape with the tip of the sword, extending the width of the fabric by a few decims. Prinz changed course again, charged directly at Carlos.

“Look out!” Vizzer shouted.

Carlos looked up. Too late. The king swerved away. The banderilleros did not. Four full hypos emptied into Carlos’s body. The banderilleros jumped away. The darts flapped against the man’s flesh.

Carlos regarded the wooden darts in puzzlement. He plucked one from his back and threw it aside. Tugged another from his thigh, dropped it into the dust. He reached for a third in his buttocks. His hand stopped in mid-air. The banderilleros threw themselves head-first over the wooden barrier.

Vizzer swore. He grabbed his weapon and stood. He shoved his way through the crowd of she-cows to the edge of the grassy ledge, where it dropped down to the level below. From here he had an unobstructed view of the arena. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder. Took aim at the king’s head. A cry went up behind him. He’d been seen. He pulled the trigger—

—and found himself firing at the darkened sky. Hands dragged him backward, pinned him to the ground. High-pitched female screams stabbed his eardrums. She-cows wrenched the gun from his grasp. Angry faces bent over him. He recognized one of them. Mantz’s daughter, Lintz. Who, he knew, secretly conspired with her mother to end the corrida.

“What are you doing?” he said. “Are you crazy? I had a shot!” He struggled but they held him tight. “You want your sons to die like this?”

Her face shone ghostly in the white stadium lights. She laughed, a short, sharp bark. “Better Prinz than Carlos, any day.”

A pair of bodyguards barrelled through the crowd toward them.

“But why?” he asked.

She stripped his weapon, discarded the bullets. Where had she learned to do that?

“If Carlos wins,” she said, “and he really is an immortal god, there’ll be corrida forever. But Prinz is just another stupid Breeder. With him at least we have a chance.”

“But Carlos wants to end the corrida. Don’t you understand that?”

But of course she didn’t. How could she know? They’d kept Carlos locked up in the hospital the whole time. Who would he tell? Who would listen?

The bodyguards pushed the she-cows aside and yanked Vizzer to his feet. One jerked the empty rifle from Lintz’s hands.

“I didn’t know,” she said, her voice tiny. She caressed her belly. She was pregnant again. “Too late now.”

A bizarre ululating cry went up in the arena below. What in Carlos’s name—? The she-cows around him tittered and giggled. The stadium echoed with laughter.

“Take a good look,” one of the bodyguards said. “See the true nature of your so-called god.”

They turned him around so he could see. The two adversaries circled each other. Carlos flung his cape to one side. He slashed the empty air with his sword, snarled deep in his throat, let out an animal scream. His features contorted in primal rage. He threw back his head and howled, then raced toward Prinz, sword held high. The king lowered his horns and charged.

They raced toward each other, on the one side a drug-crazed god uttering guttural oaths, flailing his sword in the air, and on the other, the premeditated precision of the king’s thundering hoofbeats, as he calmly paced the required steps to gore and kill his foe. The two came together in a blur. A dull clank and a groan announced their physical union. Carlos swung his sword down and it bounced off one of the king’s horns. The other horn slid through Carlos’s chest and came out the other side.

Carlos dropped the sword. He grabbed the other horn with both hands. His legs flapped against the king’s mouth. Prinz lowered his head and heaved skyward. Carlos flew through the air, crumpled to the ground behind the king. The crunch of snapping bone made Vizzer grit his teeth. The man did not move.

Was he dead? Slowly Carlos lifted his head, one arm, tried to get up. Collapsed. Clutched his wound. An uncertain hum spread through the stadium. What happened when you killed a god? Would the body disappear in a flash of smoke? Did the other gods come to collect their own? The bodyguards’ grip on Vizzer’s elbows loosened a fraction. He ripped free.

He jumped down the embankment to the next level, ran half a spiral more to the arena and leaped over the barrier. Prinz trotted toward him, nostrils flaring, head down, one horn dripping red. A trumpet sounded. The corrida was over.

“Let me go to him,” Vizzer called out.

Prinz halted, swishing his tail. “Go to your god.” He said the word with contempt. “Hear his final words. Then you shall die as well.”

He gave the king a wide berth, ran to where Carlos lay. He fell to his knees at the man’s side. Touched the bloodless cheek. The man opened his eyes. Blue as the skies of Earth. Like the Code said.

“So beautiful,” Carlos chuckled. Grimaced in pain. Blood dribbled from his lips.

Vizzer lifted the injured man’s head and cradled it in his lap. “What’s beautiful?” he asked.

The man took a deep breath. Red bubbles frolicked at the puncture wound. He peered up at Vizzer, whispered, “You can’t even imagine.”

“Imagine what?” He stroked the sweat-stained forehead. Pushed the matted hair out of the man’s eyes.

“No idea…” He struggled to speak. “…what it’s like…”

“I’m so sorry,” Vizzer said. Tears welled in his eyes. “It’s my fault. I swear to you, on your grave. The bloodshed ends. Or I will die trying.”

“No!” the man wheezed. He grabbed Vizzer’s hand. Squeezed so hard the bones popped.

Vizzer tried to pull away but the grip was too tight.

“You don’t understand,” Carlos whispered, those blue eyes burning. “I wish I’d known…before. To see…but how could I?” Lines of ecstasy etched his youthful features. “The truth. To finally see…the true nature of…” The hand went slack, fell to his side. The head slumped sideways. Air bubbled once more from his chest. Stopped.

Vizzer shook him by the shoulders. “The nature of what, Carlos?” He slapped the man’s face. “The true nature of what?”

He bent his ear to Carlos’s mouth. A word. Was that too much to ask? But no breath sallied from those ruby lips.

A distant sneeze made him look up. Fifty thousand mute voices accused him: you could have stopped this. If only you had killed Prinz when you had the chance. Why didn’t you?

Something sharp scraped against his spine.

Prinz said, “Now it’s your turn.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Vizzer gazed down the sheer rock wall. A drop of five thousand meters, the corpsman had said. A bank of cloud far below obscured the land. He stood between two peaks of the Southern Mountains. The road ended here. Snow clung to the frozen ground, stung his unshod toes. He wouldn’t be cold much longer. Bitter grass and the extreme heat of exile awaited him.

The trek had taken a full tenday. The Border Corps had driven them along with their nazza-whips, Vizzer and a herd of barren she-cows. They stopped only briefly for rest and food. He had found himself clutching at tufts of grass as they passed, cramming them into his mouth when the corpsmen weren’t watching. The sun beat hotter on their backs the closer they got to the Arctic Circle. Then they began the ascent.

Up the jagged boulders of the northern slopes they climbed, in single file, following a seven-thousand-year-old trail, without water, until the air grew thin and cold, and his knees trembled from lack of oxygen, and the she-cows lowed in pain, their udders frozen, hooves cracked and bleeding against the sharp rocks.

They had reached their destination now. Vizzer sat on the edge of the cliff, let his feet dangle in space. Scars criss-crossed the bottoms of his feet. While the others complained, he had watched his own wounds heal. What would it be like down there? In constant torment? The other exiles would suffer, but their misery would end—they would die. But he would heal. He would live. Would suffer for all eternity.

Should have gone with Dex, he thought. Vizzer imagined his friend grazing on sweet grass at the South Pole, so far from this hell, with all the nubile she-cows he wanted—for all eternity. Or at least until the humans arrived and started slaughtering Crosses. But Vizzer could do nothing for them now. He had his chance to kill Prinz, and thereby save his people. He had failed. Taurus would have to live with the consequences of his folly.

He peered over the ledge at the clouds far below. A five-thousand-meter drop. One quick push and it would all be over. He’d plummet to an instant death. Even the Infinity Pill couldn’t fix that. He stood up. Took a deep breath. Held his hands loose at his sides. A few seconds, maybe even a minute to reach the ground, but then his pain would end. A nazza-whip bit into the back of his thigh.

“Off you go,” a corpsman growled.

Vizzer bit his lip, said nothing. Death was the only way out. He jumped—

—and fell all of two meters. Landed on a nazza-raft rising up from below. It was three meters long by three meters wide, and covered in loops of rope. Before he could move, consider a second leap, she-cows crowded over the ledge onto the raft, driven by the corpsmen behind them. They surrounded him, crushing him, making escape impossible. The craft wobbled and he instinctively hooked a leg under a rope. His courage fled. Now there was only to survive, somehow, some way. Nazza-whips cracked overhead. The she-cows clutched tight to one another, to Vizzer, to the ropes, squirming in their terror to get away from the edge of the raft.

“And don’t come back!” a second corpsman said, and laughed.

“May Carlos forgive you,” Vizzer called up to him, hoping to provoke some sense of guilt.

“We do His will,” growled the first corpsman. “It’s in the Code. You of all Crosses should know that.” He shook a wrist free of his heavy robe, exposing a thick metal bracelet. He turned a dial.

The raft sank slowly downward. The she-cows screamed, pressed closer together. Vizzer couldn’t breathe. He held tight to the rope with his knees, ducked his head out from under the icy udders of his neighbor, gasped for air. If he stretched, he could just peek over the edge of the raft at the clouds below.

No one had ever escaped from exile. Not in seven thousand years. Only the Border Corps lived to speak of its horrors. They sometimes floated down on the raft to taunt the condemned. Once, before the transmission arrived, during the reign of Witun CCCCI, the king before Clomp, Vizzer had asked a corpsman to bring him back a blade of bitter grass. Out of curiosity. The corpsman returned with a sliver of grass pressed between two flat stones. To avoid contact with his skin. When Vizzer was alone, he’d bent the morsel between his teeth. The grass had cut his tongue. When he swallowed, all four of his stomachs had purged at once. For days afterward he’d been unable to graze.

The raft sank lower. Clouds enveloped them. Warm vapor beaded on Vizzer’s pelt. It was a welcome change after the biting cold of the mountains. The she-cows clung to each other and whimpered. No one said a word.

The cloud trailed off in wispy tendrils. The nearby cliff was free of snow and ice. Vizzer struggled under the pile of bodies, managed to poke his entire head over the edge of the raft. His scalp was just centims from the smooth face of the cliff wall.

The air was warmer now. The heat assaulted his flesh. Like home at the North Pole. A welcome sultriness. But they were only halfway down. What would it be like at the bottom?

In both directions the mountains stretched as far as the eye could see. This was the boundary, where the habitable polar regions met the savage heat of the Southern Lands. Unlike the northern approach, with their boulder-strewn foothills and well-worn trails, the southern surface was entirely smooth and vertical. The perfect prison wall. It was not natural formation. That was obvious. Which meant Carlos Himself had sculpted the land to fit his purpose. Thank you, my one and only Creator, he thought sourly. I hesitated to kill Prinz, and now you’re dead, and I’m doomed to suffer in a jail of your own design.

A sheet of blinding light made him squint. Like the sun’s reflection off glass, only all the way to the horizon. He couldn’t make out what it was. Below them, a narrow fringe of green stretched along the base of the mountains. That must be the bitter grass. To one side, the cliff face, to the other—that light. But what on Taurus was it?

“The sea!” a she-cow shouted.

The others took up the shout. He found himself chanting the words with them. The sea! The sun’s reflection off the water. Of course. He’d heard the stories. Watched the vids. They’d zoomed over this very ocean in Carlos’s spaceship. But nothing prepared him for seeing it with his own eyes. White foam crested on the waves. Licked at the broad expanse of sand, retreated.

The raft continued its descent. The air was hotter now. Intense. The roar of the waves echoed against the cliffs. What wonderful music, he thought. And this was exile? This was punishment? The sound of the sea!

A different noise rose to greet them. Cries of anguish. Directly beneath them, Vizzer could make out a square patch of stone. A landing platform, he supposed. Around it crowded thousands of bleating she-cows. The raft dropped lower. The she-cows were naked. All of them. A fly buzzed behind his head. He absentmindedly waved it away.

The she-cow squatting on top of him let out a sudden yell of fright. He glanced up. The fly was as big as his head, green and yellow and blue and black. It settled on a neighboring she-cow’s flanks. A stinger the size of Vizzer’s forearm appeared from its abdomen. It flexed, angled downward at the she-cow’s flesh.

Vizzer freed an arm and punched the insect. His knuckles crunched against the bug’s exoskeleton. The fly bounced off the she-cow’s horns and darted away from the raft, racing them to the ground.

The heat grew unbearable. Hot air scorched his lungs. Sweat soaked his pelt. He hoped there was water here. There had to be. Or how did they survive? The raft slowed as they neared the ground.

Miserable faces peered up at them. Welcome to Hell, he thought. A sharp thump and the raft stopped. The thawing udders above him walloped him in the face. He twisted a nipple and the owner leaped to her hooves. The raft rested on the stone landing platform, adjacent to the cliff wall. Naked she-cows encircled them.

“Get off! Quick!” someone in the crowd shouted.

Vizzer scampered off the raft, slid down the waist-high platform to the ground. Others followed, pushing him deep into the crowd. They weren’t just naked, he realized. They were scrawny. All they had to eat was bitter grass. Behind him, a she-cow screamed. What was it this time?

One side of the raft rose into the air. Those still on board tumbled down onto the stone platform. The raft tilted vertical. Two she-cows jumped up, grabbed hold of the ropes. What were they doing? Hoping for a ride back up the mountain?

“Get down, you fools!” That voice again. It sounded familiar.

The raft began to rotate, corner over corner, faster and faster, until the two she-cows flew off, smashed headfirst into the cliff wall, splattering brains into the crowd. Their bodies slid to the ground. Broken bones protruded from their flesh. They did not move.

The raft stopped spinning and darted back up the mountain. The she-cows craned their necks, stared after the retreating vehicle, until it disappeared into the clouds. They hung their heads. Up is home and hope. The past. The present and future consisted of this, a narrow strip of bitter grass between the mountains and the sea.

“I’ve been expecting you,” said a cheerful voice at Vizzer’s elbow.

Mantz. Like the others, she was naked. Crusty scabs covered most of her body.

“You’re still alive,” he said in surprise.

She shrugged. “I have my faith. It keeps me strong.”

“What faith?” he said, and frowned. “In what?”

“It’s alright. I heard about what happened to the false god. Getting shot and all.”

Of course. The corpsmen had driven south a herd of menopausal she-cows after that fiasco. But she wouldn’t know about the final corrida when Prinz gored Carlos to death.

Vizzer put a hand on her shoulder. “Carlos created us all, it’s true,” he said. “But he was no god. And now he’s dead.”

She patted his hand. “It’s alright. It is a test. Carlos is testing me. To see how strong my faith is. As he is surely testing you.”

He remembered her outburst in the Herd Council, several tendays ago, when she blasphemed Carlos to Clomp’s face, and confessed to the murder of her newborn calfling.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I saw him die myself. It’s not a matter of faith.” He frowned. “And since when do you believe in that kind of superstitious nonsense, anyway?”

“If he died,” she said simply, “then he was not the true Carlos.” A beatific grin splashed across her jowls. “I’ve been having visions. God himself speaks to me.”

“Right…” She sounded delirious. Did the Southern Lands have that effect on exiles? He hoped not.

A sudden commotion ended this line of questioning. One of the newly arrived she-cows let out a terrified bellow, and began bucking and kicking, churning her way through the crowd. A fly rode her udder, its stinger deep inside her flesh. Mantz leaped up onto the landing platform.

She shouted, “Get your robes off! Everyone! Quick! You must be able to feel the flies on your skin or they will sting you!”

The new arrivals tore their robes from their bodies. Vizzer shucked his torn white garment as well. The she-cows stared at his body curiously. He was suddenly aware that he was the only male in that entire group.

“What do we do about her?” a she-cow asked, indicating their injured companion. Two she-cows held her tight, to stop her from kicking out at the others. The fly detached itself from its stinger, and lumbered away out to sea.

“Pay attention!” Mantz shouted. “Grab hold of the stinger below the sac.”

A pulsing bulb sat atop the stinger, the part that had been closest to the fly’s body. One of the she-cows took hold of it. “Like this?”

“Now pinch,” Mantz said. “But don’t pull!”

The she-cow pinched the stem of the stinger. The victim lowed in pain. The bulb throbbed and contracted.

“Now what?”

“It’s trying to inject larvae into her body,” Mantz said. “The maggots consume your flesh from the inside, before crawling out of your eyes and ears. If you’re lucky, this kills you. If you’re unlucky…” She trailed off.

“So what do we do?”

“Don’t pull. If you break off the tip, it will work its way deeper into her body. Unscrew it. Counter-clockwise. Very slowly. Pinching all the while.” A fly buzzed near Mantz’s head. She swatted it away with her open palm. “The rest of you. Be vigilant at all times. If you’re not careful, this is how you will die. I have watched hundreds of she-cows die this way. It is the most terrible thing you will ever witness. You do not want this to happen to you.”

“Got it!” the she-cow’s friend waved the stinger overhead.

Mantz took it. Held it up to the sunlight. “See the dark squiggles?” she said. Heads in the crowd nodded. “Those are the larvae. You were lucky. There’s usually four. They’re all still here.” She dropped the stinger onto the stone platform, crushed it under her hooves. “Be sure to kill the larvae. Or they will try to crawl into your mouth while you’re grazing. Or even worse, somebody else’s mouth.”

Flies swarmed about them now. A blue-green monster landed on Vizzer’s shoulder. For a moment he was eyeball to thousand-prismed eyeball with the insect, its protuberance pulsing, ready to jab. He smacked it with the back of his hand. It buzzed away, flying erratically. He must have damaged one of its six transparent wings.

The she-cows danced and stamped, waved their hands above their heads. Another fly buzzed near Vizzer’s ear. He shooed it away. Was this his fate? Doomed to jump and wiggle his arms for all eternity? Mantz slid down from the platform, stood at his side. She twisted and jerked her limbs, unconsciously it seemed, batting away the neverending swarm of flies.

“Is there no relief?” he asked. “No way to escape them, somewhere to hide?”

“There is one place,” she said. “But it won’t do you much good.”

“Why not?”

“Let me show you.”

They walked away from the landing platform, toward the ocean. The hot salty breath of the sea panted around them. He gulped air, savoring the taste. He was going to touch the ocean, at least, before he died. Something sliced his foot and he cried out.

“Stay on the path,” Mantz said. She indicated the sandy trail that led from the platform to the beach. “Hooves are fine, but the grass will slice your feet to pieces.”

Vizzer lifted up his foot. Shallow cuts zigzagged across the bottom. As he watched, they began to heal. He dropped his foot so she couldn’t see.

“You know,” she said, “you need someone to protect you. Watch out for you.” She touched his face with her fingertips. “Care for you.”

He jerked away. “My vows of celibacy apply equally here.”

“They didn’t stop you when you were younger.”

“Do not remind me of my failings.” He punched a passing fly with all his strength. It fell to the ground, buzzing furiously, unable to rise.

Mantz stomped on it, grinding the insect and its larvae to paste. She returned to Vizzer’s side. “Thousands of unhappy she-cows,” she said. “Don’t be surprised if you get offers.” She patted his cheek and smiled. “Shall we?”

They continued their walk to the sea. Vizzer hopped along on one foot. He supported himself with one hand on her back, being careful to give no sign of sexual interest. With the other hand he swatted away flies. The salty smell grew more intense. They climbed a slight rise—and there it was. The Great Southern Ocean. It stretched to the horizon, where blue turned to purple and met the orange sky.

Several she-cows bathed in the water close to shore. They were all submerged to the neck. A pair of flies bumbled toward one. They landed, one on each horn. Crept toward her face, stingers extending. The she-cow took a deep breath and sank beneath the waves. The flies buzzed in a circle for a while before moving on in search of a new host.

“So there is hope,” Vizzer said. “We can escape the flies by going into the ocean.”

“But you need to be careful.”

“Why?”

Mantz pointed out to sea. “Look!”

A loop of a thick tentacle splashed in the water, not ten meters from where the she-cows bathed. Its suction cups glistened in the red sunlight. It approached the beach. The other she-cows galloped from the water. The submerged she-cow had not yet come up for air.

“Come on,” Mantz muttered. Chewed a fingernail. “Get out of there.”

A scream tore the sultry air. The tentacle held the wet she-cow aloft in a tight embrace. It headed out to sea. The she-cow clawed at the monstrous appendage, stopped screaming only long enough to take another breath.

“What will happen to her?” Vizzer asked.

Mantz shook her head. “No one knows for sure. Sometimes we find their half-digested bodies washed up on the beach.” She nodded at the retreating tentacle. “At night the screams are unbearable.”

Vizzer pounced on the unfamiliar word. “Night?”

“Sure,” she said. “We’re south of the Arctic Circle, remember? Plus the mountains cast a shadow. We get a few hours of darkness every day.”

“Is that when you sleep?”

Mantz looked up at the rock wall. “You must find a friend.” She caressed his flank, and he shied away from her touch. “Someone to watch over you while you sleep.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You don’t sleep.”

“And without sleep…”

She refused to meet his gaze. “You’re dead.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Vizzer tried to eat. The bitter grass shredded his tongue, his lips, his cheeks. It was like chewing shards of glass. Blood mingled in his mouth with the vile herb. Every time he forced himself to swallow, his stomach revolted, filling his throat with half-digested cud. He couldn’t bring himself to chew it again, and just let it sit there, drooling red and green upon the ground.

Grazing hurt his hands. He’d rip up a fistful of grass, stuff it into his mouth. Watch the blood drip down his wrist to the elbow. When the cuts healed, he’d rip up some more. To avoid cutting his feet, he found four flat stones on the beach. He’d plunk down two ahead of him on the grass, turn, pick up the last two, turn, and so on, continuing across the field. All the while swatting at flies. Once he lost his balance and tumbled backward. When he rose, his back was covered in shallow cuts.

He lost weight. An adult Cross needed at least twenty kilos of grass per day to stay healthy. Vizzer found it impossible to eat enough. The only thing that seemed to help was chewing thoroughly. This reduced the risk of a purge. He concentrated on chewing. Became obsessed with his digestion. So obsessed he sometimes forgot to swat away the flies.

Twice they stung him. He didn’t even feel them land. The first time he managed to remove the stinger before the larvae injected. The second time the fly jabbed him in the buttock. He reached around, pinched the stinger with one hand, unscrewed with the other, but when he held the bulb up to the light, he could see only three larvae. He raced to find Mantz, ignoring the blades of grass that slashed his feet.

“Bathe in the ocean,” she advised him, as he stood there panting. “Sometimes it kills the larvae.”

“But not always?”

“No.”

He soaked as long as he could, dashing out of the waves to avoid a tentacle, only to stumble into an even greater danger: an embassy of she-cows waited for him on the sand.

They wanted to be his harem, they explained. They would swat away the flies so he could sleep, bring him the juiciest, least-disgusting grass they could find, if he would agree to satisfy them physically as often as possible.

He ran down the beach until they were far behind him. The hot air burned his lungs. He came to a small creek, a trickle of snowmelt from the mountains. He drank until his stomachs could hold no more. He had to get out of there. Away from temptation.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like she-cows. He did. But he didn’t understand them and he didn’t desire them. There was more to life than the brute, physical passions. He had fallen prey to temptation once in his youth, with Mantz. Ever since, he had devoted himself to the higher things, to discovering and cherishing the truth. Pleasure dissipated the mind. Of this he was convinced.

He walked for three days along the beach, going west. He passed scattered clusters of she-cows, and the occasional maggot-infested corpse. One rose to its feet as he passed, maggots dripping from its eyeless face. He ran on, until he could go no farther. The beach ended. The mountains swerved far out to sea. Water lapped at the sheer rock wall all the way to the horizon.

Vizzer returned to his starting point. She-cows crowded around him, begging him for sex. He evaded them, continued to the east. Once more, the mountains curved off into the sea. There was no exit from this hell. He was trapped.

“I could have told you that,” Mantz said, kicking away competitors with her hooves. “You know, life doesn’t have to be so hard for you. We can make things easy. If you’ll just let us. A little bit of loving every now and again. Would that be so bad?”

He decided to drown himself. Walk into the ocean and hope the tentacles didn’t get him first. How long had it been since he slept? Life was a waking nightmare. The flies. The bitter grass. The tentacles. The she-cows. Good Carlos, the she-cows! Exhaustion overtook him.

Time to die.

He clomped down to the beach on his stones and waded into the breakers. Shaded his eyes with his hands. Studied the horizon. No sign of suction cups. The goal was to die quickly. Not get eaten alive by some deep-sea horror. Salt water lapped at his knees. He exhaled as much as he could, prepared to dive in. Voices on the other side of a nearby dune made him pause. Mantz. And another.

“I can’t go on,” the she-cow cried. “I want to die. Is there no way out?”

“You must pray,” Mantz said.

“Who to? Carlos? He put us here. Created us so we could suffer.”

You better believe it, Vizzer thought.

“But who created Carlos?” Mantz asked. “What divine mystery brought him here to give us life?”

Mantz again with her religion. Gone soft in the head. Must be the heat.

“I-I don’t know,” the she-cow stammered.

“Nor do I,” Mantz said. She lowered her voice. Vizzer strained but could not make out the words. He waded back onto the beach and crept closer. Peeked over the top of the dune.

“Show me how,” the she-cow said.

Mantz knelt, legs and hooves splayed in opposite directions. “Like this.”

“Hands together?”

“However you feel moved.”

“Now what?” the she-cow asked.

A silence.

Mantz said, “Wait for god to talk to you.”

“But do I talk out loud? Or should I whisper? How do I know he can hear me?”

“God knows everyone’s thoughts. The question isn’t whether he can hear you, but whether you can hear him.”

Vizzer swatted away a fly. He ducked behind the dune. What the hell, he thought. It couldn’t hurt. This, and then you die. What did he have to lose? He dropped to his knees in the sand. Let his head fall forward. Clasped his hands together as Mantz had done. Talk to me, God. What do you have to say for yourself? You who make us suffer so.

He waited. Listening. Nothing happened. The god inside of gods, he thought with a wry chuckle, thinking of his conversation with Carlos in orbit. The god who made Carlos. Yeah, right. There were no gods. The gods were dead. He sighed and closed his eyes. Danger. Must not sleep. With an effort, he forced them open.

His vision was blurry. He struggled to focus. He stood in the arena. He held a sword in one hand. A dead bull lay at his feet. A giant of a Cross. One of the biggest he’d ever seen. Blood pooled in the hard-packed dirt, dripped in gobs from his sword. Did he do that?

The crowd spilled over the barrier. The stadium was full. Their mouths were open, but he heard nothing. Absolute silence. The crowd stampeded toward him. They’re going to kill me, he realized. He lifted up the sword. Too late. The crowd picked him up, carried him on their backs up the spiral grassy slope.

At the stone steps, they stopped, put him on his feet. Far above him, the Creator’s Throne sat empty. Empty for five thousand years. He climbed toward it. He looked over his shoulder. The crowd waved their fists, urged him on in silence. He stood before the throne now. Turned to face the stadium. Lowered himself down and—

A fly buzzed in his face. He flinched back, beat it away with his fist. He got to his feet. The two she-cows drowsed in prayer, flicking their hands over their heads by reflex to drive away the flies. What had he just seen?

A nightmare within a nightmare. That was all it was. Which meant nothing. Mantz had gone crazy from too much bitter grass. The madness stirred within him too. He wished to face reality, not escape it. Suicide remained the only option that made sense. A tentacle splashed near the shore. He edged away from the water line. But not in the ocean. There must be a better way. If only he could think of how.

He turned and frowned up at the cliffs. At the swirling mountain mist, the peaks hidden above. Could he climb them? Climb over them? Or at least high enough to throw himself down and die?

Vizzer leaped over the dune, startling Mantz and her companion. He strode along the sandy path to the landing platform. The cliff rose straight up. He pressed his palms against the smooth rock, looking for purchase, any kind of fingerhold. The air was cooler next to the cliff. He craned his neck. The mist parted for an instant. He could just make out the pillars that marked the mountain pass. Something bit his finger. He swore.

“Rock ants,” said a voice behind him. It was Mantz.

A tiny ant dangled from his fingertip. So small he could barely see it. Its bite was like fire. It glittered in the sun.

“What are they?” he asked.

Mantz shuffled closer. “They bite.”

“I can see that.” He pinched the ant between two fingernails and pulled. His skin ripped. A drop of blood pulsed from his finger. The wound healed.

She inclined her head upward. “They are slowly digesting the mountains. You see the dirt along the base?”

A fringe of fine dust skirted the cliff in both directions.

“Sure.”

“They eat the rock. Diamond jaws.”

Vizzer examined the rock face. Tiny holes pockmarked the surface. An ant occasionally emerged from one, disappeared into another.

“What’s the worst they can do?” he asked. “Kill me?”

He leaned backward and, with all the force he possessed, smashed his forehead against the rock wall. Carlos, that hurt. He groaned. Through the fog in his head he heard a crinkling sound. He opened his eyes. Thin shards of shale dissolved in powder at his feet. The narrowest of fingerholds appeared in the wall. Also a swarming mass of ants.

“You think you’re the first one to try this?” Mantz said. “No one’s ever succeeded.”

Vizzer’s head cleared. That’s because they didn’t have the Infinity Pill to enhance their suffering, he wanted to say. The pain went away. “Worth a shot,” he said, and jammed his fingers into the wall. Scores of diamond-mandibled ants attacked his hand. He gritted his teeth.

Mantz stroked his elbow, and he jerked away. “You’d really rather kill yourself than be with us?” she asked.

Vizzer jumped into the air, hammered the wall with his skull. More shale crinkled at his feet. More ants swarmed on the rock face. He reached up, clawed at the second fingerhold. Cried out in pain. The ants crawled down his elbow, clipping away at his pelt, biting the exposed skin. He flexed his fingertips, pulled himself up. His feet dangled in the air.

“Stay there,” he grunted down at Mantz. “I’ll try to land on you.”

She stepped away from the cliff. “I had a vision. It is your destiny to found a great harem. Will you refuse to obey the will of the gods?”

Vizzer panted for breath. Ants covered his chest, biting him everywhere. The tiny cuts healed as fast as the insects could bite. “How did you put it to Clomp?” he asked. “Fornicate god. And fornicate you, too.”

He pulled himself up with both hands, smashed the wall again with his forehead. He waited for the fuzziness to clear, then lunged for the new fingerhold. Got it. Lifted up his knee, dug his toes in where his hand had just been. Ants bit his feet, climbed up his legs. He rested a moment, savoring the pain that flooded his senses. It gave him strength. It drove him on. No rest until you’re dead, he thought. Which would hopefully be soon.

Slowly he scaled the wall. His head throbbed from the constant impact. His fingers ached. The ants bit him with increased ferocity, enraged, it seemed, by how fast his wounds healed. A fly buzzed behind him. He let go of the rockface with one hand, smacked it away. Ten more meters to go. Maybe fifteen, to be on the safe side. Then he could launch himself backward, dive headfirst into the ground.

Again and again he smashed his forehead against the wall. Almost there. Three more meters. Two. His hand grabbed hold of something wide and solid. He tested it with his weight. It held. He pulled himself up. He crawled onto a small ledge, no more than a handsbreadth wide, but a full meter long. He peered over the edge. A small group of she-cows had gathered in a semi-circle. To watch him die, he supposed. If he jumped out far enough, he might take one or two with him. It would be the kind thing to do.

Vizzer stood up on the narrow ledge, pressed his back against the cliff wall. Ants still marched over his body. He scraped them away with his fingernails, taking long strips of skin with them. Shook his hands to send them flying down below. One crawled across his eyelid. He pinched it just in time.

A momentary lull in pain. He took a deep breath. Tried to relax. Clear his thoughts. He could see the ocean from here. So different from the view when he first arrived on the raft. The sea had seemed exotic then, wonderful, something new to discover. Now he knew the truth. Its beauty masked great cruelty.

Vizzer shook his head. Focus. Just do it. And be done with it. With everything.

On the count of ten. He clenched his fists. Closed his eyes. Swayed in the heat. Ten. Nine. Eight. The world outside his eyelids darkened. How appropriate. Seven. Six. Five. The she-cows were shouting. They were always shouting about something. His eyes flickered open. What in Carlos’s name—?

Long shadows crept across the land. A black disc blotted out the sun. An eclipse. But how—? The darkness was nearly complete. The temperature plummeted. The she-cows below danced in delight.

Dex? It had to be. He’s up there in Carlos’s spaceship, and somehow he’s gotten control of the eclipse device. But why the change of heart? An unfamiliar feeling made him shudder. Hope. Was Dex coming to visit them? Even rescue them? Help them find a way to get rid of Rutt and Prinz? Would he—

The ledge gave way. He’d been jumping up and down, he realized. He grabbed at the remaining stubble of rock, caught himself. He crept sideways, hanging by the tips of his fingers, until he came to what was left of the ledge, and crawled back onto it. An army of ants swarmed up his legs as he did so, biting his genitals. He resisted the urge to squirm, and picked the bugs from his body as best he could. His attention was fixed squarely on the sky.

Moving dots glowed in the heavens. Floating things. He squinted. They looked like—no. Parachutes? But carrying what? Or whom? There were hundreds of them, all glowing purple. Rays of green light flashed in the sky, and several of the parachutes exploded in a thunderous clap.

Vizzer flinched back, struggled to keep his balance. The rays of light came from behind the mountains. From the north. Each ray zapped a parachute, blowing it up. It reminded him a bit of Rutt’s hand-held ray gun. Was Rutt behind this?

The remaining parachutes floated lower. The battle continued: flashing green lights, sharp bangs as the parachutes exploded. The rays flashed faster than any Cross could push a button. Only a few parachutes remained. He hoped Dex knew what he was doing. And if it wasn’t Dex… A new thought twisted his guts. What if the human survivors were already here?

Four left now. Poof. Three. Poof. A small purple ball hung suspended from each of the two remaining parachutes. Poof. Just one left now. A light flashed. Missed. The mountains behind him grumbled. A spray of snow cascaded down the cliff. Vizzer pressed back harder against the wall. Wet plops of melted snow splashed the ground.

The sole remaining parachute landed on the beach. In the same spot where, not an hour before, he had knelt in prayer. He remembered the nightmare. Pushed it from his mind. No time for nonsense. He had to get down there before the she-cows mucked with it. Whatever it was.

He slithered back over the ledge in the dark, climbed sideways to where his trail of fingerholds ended, and made his way down the cliff face. Halfway to the ground he lost his footing and slid the rest of the way, clawing at the smooth rock. He got to his feet and nearly fell over from the pain in his ankle. Something was broken. It would heal. Still hurt like hell, though.

He limped to the beach, pushed his way through the crowd of she-cows. The shiny purple sphere pulsated on the sand. The object was tiny, not even as big as his head. So much for food or an army to rescue them. The parachute detached itself and wallowed in the waves. A tentacle splashed near shore, made off with the billowing canvas. May it give you indigestion, he thought.

Mantz knelt over the purple sphere, palms hovering above the surface. “Don’t you see?” she called out to Vizzer. “Carlos has answered our prayers.”

She laid her hands on the sphere. The pulsing stopped. Nothing else happened.

Vizzer held up his blood-stained arms. “It is a holy object. Only a priest may touch it.”

Mantz got to her feet, backed away. Vizzer knelt on the hot sand. The grit stuck to the drying blood on his legs. He rested his fingers on top of the sphere. It was cold to the touch. It began to pulsate again, faster and faster now, until it turned completely white, and he could feel the surface tremble.

An audible click came from inside the object. The crowd of she-cows murmured, hushed. Vizzer held his breath. A hiss, and the ball split in two. The upper hemisphere folded back like a lid. A round screen filled the upper half. It was blank. What was he supposed to see? Was it some kind of message? From Dex? From the invading humans? He clutched at the orb. Who had sent it to them, and why? His guts clenched tight. Was all his hope for nothing? Was this some cruel trick, the beginning of yet more suffering?

The screen lit up. Dex’s face slid into view. “Vizzer,” he said, and grinned. “Long time no see. I need your help. It’s an emergency.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Vizzer sat back on his heels. The she-cows around him leaned in, trying to get a good view of the picture. “You need my help?” he asked. A cackle gurgled in his throat.

Dex nuzzled the camera, his snout filling the screen. “Can hardly see you,” he said. “Must be the eclipse. Hang on.”

A light blinded Vizzer. The she-cows gasped. A narrow beam descended from the sky, illuminating the orb. It seemed to be coming from the eclipse itself. But how was that possible? He blinked, struggled to focus.

“Holy Carlos’s Turd,” Dex said, and whistled. “You look awful.”

“No thanks to you,” he blurted out. “You’re the one who abandoned me down here.”

“Hey. You chose to stay. Remember?” Dex held out a hand to stop Vizzer’s retort. “There’s no time to argue. I need your help.”

Vizzer clutched at the stumps where his horns had been. Shut his eyes. “I must be hallucinating again,” he murmured, rocking back and forth. “Another nightmare. Like before.”

“Snap out of it,” Dex barked on screen. “This is not a nightmare. This is real. I need you to help me.”

He peeked again at the screen. “Do what?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” his friend said. “Now don’t interrupt. They’re trying to jam this signal. First of all—”

“Who’s they?”

“Rutt, mostly. Other priests. You have to hurry.” The picture blurred. The sound warped. “He’s found us. Hurry…trying…build…planet killer.” Static crackled with every word.

“The planet killer?” Vizzer asked. “But how? Even if he could, why would he bother?”

Static answered him.

“Dex. Dex! The only planet left is Taurus. Why would he—”

His friend reappeared on screen, frantically tapping away at his holy pad. “Can’t…laser cannon…Please hurry…or there…nothing left.”

The screen fizzed and blinked out. Vizzer smacked the side of it with his hand. The spotlight turned off. He knelt in darkness once more. The others gathered close around him. Mantz’s hot breath panted on his shoulder.

“Didn’t I tell you to have faith?” she said.

“In what? Guaranteed death and destruction?” He waved a hand at the cliff face, the mountainous pass far above. “And how does he expect us to help him? He can’t even get us out of here.”

As if in answer to this question, an orange beam of light struck the rock wall behind them. Dust sprayed against his skin. He covered his face with his hands, peered through his fingers. The shriek of rending rock shook the ground. Plumes of smoke rose up from the cliff wall. Sand rained down on their heads.

Vizzer risked a quick glance up at the eclipse. There. In the penumbra. The beam came from the very edge of the dark circle. Dex must be hiding behind the eclipse device. Gambling that Rutt wouldn’t destroy it with those ray guns of his. The she-cows around Vizzer cried out in fear, shrank back into the sea. He followed their gaze.

A snow-capped mountain top plummeted straight at them. Around it smaller shards of stone cavorted, chunks the size of foothills bouncing against the cliff face and tumbling down upon their heads. The she-cows ducked. Vizzer held up his arms, welcoming death. A series of orange lights flashed. The mountain top exploded in a shower of fine dust and snow. The narrow beam dug deeper and higher into the side of the mountain, racing far above their heads. A shout of triumph went up from the crowd. Dex was carving a switchback staircase out of solid rock.

“Carlos’s Will be done,” Mantz said, and strode through the falling sand to the base of the stairwell.

“Wait!” Vizzer said.

Mantz paused, forehooves on the stairs. “For what?” She shook a pile of sand from her back. “It’s up to us. No one else. To save our sons and brothers from the sword. God does not want us to kill each other. It’s time to end the bloody carnival.” The trickle of she-cows behind her turned to a flood.

Some perverse part of Vizzer rebelled. He had failed so often he saw only heartbreak and disappointment in this opportunity. “It’s a fool’s errand!” he shouted at the milling throng. A dust-laden fly landed on his head. He smacked it off. “They will kill us all if we go back there. You know that!”

“That’s somehow worse than where we are right now?” brayed a she-cow at his side. The others laughed, and crowded toward the stairs.

“We must hurry!” Mantz called to him. “He said that. Remember?”

Hands dragged Vizzer to his feet. The purple sphere lay open, discarded on the sand, an abandoned toy.

“Wait!” he shouted again. “We’re not ready!”

But they ignored his protests. They picked him up and carried him through the shoulder-high drifts of sand to the bottom of the stairs. Put him down next to Mantz and drove them both forward.

Each step was agony for Vizzer. His ankle had swollen to twice its normal size. The broken bone had set but not yet fully healed. Only by leaning on Mantz, his arm around her neck, could he manage to climb at all. There was only room for two to walk abreast on the stairs. The horns of those behind prodded them along.

The walls rose straight up on either side of them. Each landing took them deeper into the side of the mountain range, until their view of the world was through a narrow slit in the stone. Puddles of sand coated the stairs, making the footing uneven. The clouds above their heads seemed to get no closer.

Fourteen paces, a landing, turn. Fourteen paces, a landing, turn. Fourteen paces… Their torment below had been replaced by the strain of climbing five thousand meters straight up. The she-cows’ initial enthusiasm ebbed. Replaced, it seemed, by a determination to get to the top, even if it meant death when they got there. Vizzer looked back. Thousands of she-cows snaked up the stairs behind him. The line went all the way down to ground level, and merged with what was no doubt a circle of yet more thousands, waiting their turn to climb. No one said a word. There was no energy left for casual chit-chat.

The air grew cooler. Wisps of fog chilled their sweaty pelts. They lapped at the moist air with parched tongues, trying to absorb a few molecules of water.

A voice below cried out, “Here they come!”

Here come who? From where? Mantz pressed him against the nearest wall, covered him with her body. Fingers pointed up the stairs. There it was. The nazza-raft. Coming their way. That meant Border Corps. But how many? And they would be armed. What would they do? The long line of she-cows ground to a halt.

The raft stopped a few meters away. It was just wide enough to fit between the two stone walls. It bobbed in the air above their heads. Three corpsmen stood on the raft. Each held tight to one of the safety ropes with one hand, clutched a furled nazza-whip in the other.

“Go back down where you belong,” one growled. His amplified voice echoed down the narrow crevice.

Mantz cupped her hands to her mouth before Vizzer could stop her. “Carlos Himself protects us!” she yelled. “There’s nothing you can do to harm us.”

Nazza-whip tendrils sprouted in their hands. The purple tips dripped over the side of the raft. Purple. The setting for maximum pain.

“Blaspheme no more!” roared the corpsman. “The Code commands you. Obey.”

“Or what?” A she-cow squeaked up at him. “You going to hurt us with that little thing?”

The corpsman’s lips parted. His teeth gleamed in the shadow of the rock. At that moment the sun slid sideways into the crevice. Dex must have turned off the eclipse device.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” the corpsman said.

Three nazza-whips lashed down from the raft. Mantz caught the one aimed at her, wrapped it around her wrist. Two other she-cows did the same. Unbelievable. Their constant suffering had inured them against pain. The bite of the nazza-whip must be nothing compared to fly sting, to bitter grass, to salt water in their wounds every day. Mantz’s body twitched against Vizzer’s. The corpsmen pulled back on their weapons.

“Alright, ladies!” Mantz shouted. “Heave!”

They heaved. Neighboring she-cows climbed over each other, grabbed at the sparking tendrils. The raft tipped. One corpsman fell off, landed three flights down. The other two let go of their whips.

Mantz shouted, “Quick! Before they get away!”

The she-cows turned the nazza-whips around. One of the remaining corpsmen reached for a bracelet on his wrist.

“Stop him!” Vizzer said. “The one with the control!”

A nazza-whip wrapped itself around the corpsman’s arm, tore him from the raft. The other fell beside him. For a long time there was no sound but grunts of satisfaction as the she-cows caved in their tormentors’ skulls.

Vizzer whispered to Mantz, “Get the control before they destroy it. Why walk when we can fly?”

“The control!” Mantz shouted down at her companions, who were even now grinding the corpsmen’s brains into mush. The cry was repeated, the body stripped of the bracelet, passed hand over hand up to Vizzer.

“You know how to work it?” she asked him, wiping blood from her hands. A dead corpsman oozed at her feet.

Vizzer swiveled a knob and the raft dropped. The she-cows screamed, covered their heads to block the blow. He turned the knob back, stopped the raft just in time. “Not that one,” he said. He tried another knob. The raft banged sideways against the crevice wall. “So. Up and down. Side to side. Forward and backward?” The raft moved away from them, out toward the distant sea, returned. “Which means this must be…” He pushed a single button apart from the three knobs, and the raft tilted. He held the button down until the raft went vertical. Released the button and the raft returned to the horizontal.

“Gotcha,” he said, and grinned.

“Today we ride!” Mantz shouted. The cheer swelled, rippled down the stairs.

Vizzer directed the raft closer to where he and Mantz stood. She helped him up. One by one they filled the raft, fifty she-cows pressed tight together, Vizzer in the middle. Dozens more clutched at the edge of the raft. Others reached up with empty arms, begging to come along.

Mantz tapped at the knuckles of the hangers-on. “Keep climbing!” she called down to them. “We’ll be back for you as soon as we can!”

Vizzer dialed the knob for “up.” The raft wobbled a little, then shot straight toward the swirling clouds. They were already about halfway up the mountain, he guessed. The she-cows around him clung to the ropes. They entered the clouds. Cold silence engulfed them. The frozen mist coated their sweaty pelts with icy dew. A dozen tons of flesh quivered around him. It was as though the world had ceased to exist, and they were marooned for an eternity on that splinter of wood, floating in a never-ending fog.

They broke through into the open air. Sighed with relief. A narrow strip of cloud stretched above and ahead of them, all the way up the stairs. The sigh became a gasp. There were thousands of meters left to go to the top. A faint popping noise echoed in the distance. Hot brains splattered Vizzer’s chest. The headless she-cow next to him toppled sideways.

“Someone’s shooting at us,” Mantz shouted. “Can’t you do something?”

“Let me see.”

He fiddled with the control, now strapped to his own wrist, and the raft lunged forward. Bullets zinged past where they had floated a moment before. He accelerated upward, slowed, swung sideways, forward again. The bullets kept coming. One sheared off a she-cow’s horn at the base. Another blasted a hole in the raft at his feet. A third tore off a she-cow’s arm. She lifted up her bloody stump in horror, took a bullet in the chest, and tumbled off the raft to the stairs below.

“We’ve got to get up there before we all die,” Mantz said.

On either side, the grey stone walls rose straight up. Dots of orange flame flickered at the top of the pass. Must be some kind of ground-based weapon. He hoped they didn’t have another raft.

“Hang on!” he shouted.

He jammed the raft forward until it skimmed just centims above the stairs, tilted it up at a steep angle to match the incline, and cranked the velocity as high as it would go. The she-cows screamed, but held on. Bullets splashed around them, tearing chunks of rock from the smooth walls. Thank Carlos they don’t have a ray gun like Rutt’s, Vizzer thought. That crazy runt’s probably too paranoid to let anyone else have one.

Up they shot. The top of the stairs got closer and closer. Then they were through, orange sky above them, mountains around them, the enemy below.

Vizzer slowed the raft and flattened it out, to the audible relief of the others. He swung around to inspect their assailants.

A lone corpsman crouched at the top of the stairs. He aimed a weapon half his size down the steep trench they had just come out of. Vizzer whistled in spite of himself. The top of the stairs was a couple of kiloms inland from the edge of the mountain pass, where the cliff wall began. How long had it been since he was last here? A mere handful of tendays, when he first rode down the raft into exile. It seemed like a lifetime.

The corpsman picked up the weapon, struggled to turn it around. Vizzer had never seen a weapon like it before. The gun was huge. It was obviously not designed to be picked up and fired at flying objects. He wondered how Rutt had convinced the Corps to accept such a nontraditional weapon.

Vizzer jabbed the wrist control and dove straight at the corpsman, who even now hefted the weapon in both hands. A burst of bullets flew past below them. Could they get there in time? At such close range, gunfire would kill them all.

The raft crashed on top of the gunner, splitting the raft in two, and spilling them onto the frozen ground. Vizzer landed heavily, snapping his ankle a second time. A terrible pain tore through his shoulder. He swore. He pushed himself to one foot, limped to where the corpsman lay. The force of the raft had impaled the weapon deep into the Cross’s torso. Spokes of shattered ribs protruded from the lifeless body. Blood stained a patch of ice.

The surviving she-cows huddled together, stamping their hooves, slapping their flanks. Their teeth chattered loudly. Wait. Those were his own teeth, Vizzer realized. None of them had any robes, much less warm clothing. Not even food, or water. They were all exhausted. It was a days-long trek down to the warmth and sweet grass of the plains. The raft had broken into useless fragments. What were they going to do?

He turned to Mantz. “Well,” he said with a shrug. “I’m open to suggestions.”

She did not reply. What was she staring at?

A dozen Crosses dressed in white emerged from a high snow bank. Hoods covered their faces. They pointed their guns at him. One of them said, “Look who’s just escaped from Hell.”

The others laughed. “From one hell to another.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

To come all this way. Only to be turned back. Sent down again to the bitter grass. He would die first. They all would. He knew that. Mantz lowered her head, prepared to charge. With her tiny female horns. He and the she-cows outnumbered the Crosses in white by four to one, but their opponents had guns. Many of the she-cows would die. Perhaps all of them. He decided to bluff.

“Who threatens the king’s own vizzer?” he bellowed. In the cold, thin air his voice came out a squeak.

A Cross in white stepped forward. His hooded face swung side to side, examining them. He held his weapon tight in his hands. “The king’s own vizzer,” he shouted to the others. “You hear that?” The others chuckled.

We must look terrible, Vizzer realized. Skin stretched tight across their ribs, faces covered in scabs from grazing. He tried to look dignified. He lay a hand on Mantz’s shoulder to restrain her. “Do you have any food?” he demanded, as haughtily as he dared. “Or spare clothing? We are cold and hungry. The king will reward you well for aiding us in our time of need.”

The Cross in white snorted. “Somehow I doubt that,” he said. “But we will help you all the same.” He lifted a hand, pushed back his hood as far as his horns.

It was Glit.

Vizzer’s jaw yawned open. Drool froze instantly at the corner of his lips. Glit. His first recruit. The brain-damaged bodyguard. His master of weapons. He closed his lips and frowned. The traitor. He had no business in the mountains. Glit would never qualify for the Corps with that limp of his.

He took another look at the Cross. Hang on. What happened to his limp?

“What are you doing here?” he managed at last.

“Things have changed since you left, Vizzer,” Glit said.

“Have they? How?”

“Believe it or not, we came to rescue you. It looks like Dex beat us to it.”

The she-cows murmured in surprise.

“Rescue us?” Vizzer said.

Glit hefted a purple sphere in one hand. “Dex asked us to meet you here. But the comm link died before he had a chance to explain.” He turned, shouted over his shoulder, “Who’s got the blankets?”

A hand shoved a blanket in Vizzer’s face. He took it, wrapped it around his body. The shivering lessened. He accepted a second blanket, draped it over his shoulders, hooding his face from the mountain wind.

“Understand, I’m not complaining,” he said. “But why would you want to rescue us?”

Glit edged closer, lowered his voice. “After you were exiled, Rutt took over.”

The she-cows milled nearby, wrapping blankets around their frozen haunches. They bleated in happiness at the other bodyguards. Flex. Ghio. Jopl. He recognized them all. Glit had trained them at the very start.

“What about Prinz?” Vizzer asked.

“Sure,” Glit said. “Prinz is still king. Spends his days with his harem. All day. Every day. Leaves the rest to Rutt.”

“But what’s he done?”

“Rutt? Blew up the statue for starters. Who would have thought, huh? Bite to eat?” He held out a hard green square.

“What’s this?”

“Concentrated grass extract. Technique the priests picked up from the backup data. I’ve got a source on the inside. Rutt built a machine that eats grass and spits out these tablets. They’re good. Try one.”

Vizzer put a corner of the square between his teeth, bit off a small piece. On contact with his saliva, the fragment exploded until it filled his mouth with sweet, fresh-tasting grass. His salivary glands couldn’t keep up. His tongue felt parched.

Glit produced a bottle of water. “Here. Drink this.”

He sipped and chewed. Oh Carlos, it felt good to eat real food again. “Blew up the statue,” he prompted.

“Sure. Big explosion. Dirt everywhere. The people were ready to lynch him at first. Accused him of destroying god himself.”

“So what happened?”

“Rutt promised them a bigger, better god to worship.”

“They buy that?”

“He killed a couple she-cows and the protests ended pretty quick. Carted off the pieces of the statue to the secret places you priests have.”

Vizzer’s throat tightened. The look on Glit’s face told him everything. “He didn’t.”

“He did.”

A lump of grass stuck in Vizzer’s throat. “So now he controls a statue. Great.”

Glit held up an open palm, fanned his fingers wide.

“Five statues?”

“What were we supposed to do?”

Vizzer choked. “Stop him? You could have—”

“What? Attacked him for blowing up a statue? A statue that was killing people? We had no idea what he was up to.”

Vizzer’s appetite waned. He forced himself to gnaw the square of grass. “What does Prinz say about this?”

“Thinks it’s great for his prestige. Instead of us to guard him, he’s got five golden statues.”

“Don’t you think it’s odd that Prinz is still alive?”

“You mean, why hasn’t Rutt killed him?”

“I would have, if I were him.”

“Rutt knows the people won’t follow him. They can’t stand him. He’s a runt, he’s barely out of novice robes, and no one respects him. He knows this. Prinz, on the other hand, is their king. A figurehead at this point, but still their king.”

“And the sacrifices?”

Glit lifted his shoulders, let them fall. “The bulls want to die in the corrida. As always. What do you expect?”

“So what do we do now?” Vizzer tried to keep his voice from quavering.

The guard glanced around at the milling she-cows. He ducked his head low to Vizzer’s ear. “We were hoping you could tell us.”

The sweet grass tasted of dust. He’d escaped from Hell. For what? To get crushed to death by Rutt’s five statues?

An idea began to form. With a confidence he did not feel, he said, “First we’ve got to wait for the other she-cows to arrive.”

Glit snorted. “What for?”

“Trust me on this one.” Vizzer peered down the staircase, but could see no sign of them.

“How far down are they?”

“Below the clouds. Thousands of meters yet to climb.”

“Do we really need them?” the guard asked.

“I assure you they are essential.”

Glit snapped his fingers. A hooded figure stooped at his side. “Take our rafts. Ferry up the she-cows from below. How many are there?” He addressed Vizzer now.

“Couple thousand.”

Both guards whistled. “That many?”

Vizzer made a face. “Exile doesn’t kill you nearly as fast as most Crosses think.”

“Got that?” Glit asked.

The guard saluted. “Will do.”

The snow bank collapsed. Three rafts lifted off the ground. Vizzer marveled at their camouflage. They soared overhead, disappeared into the clouds.

“Where did you get the rafts?” Vizzer asked.

“Rutt gave them to us. Told us to patrol the countryside in case Dex tried to land.” Glit shrugged. “Got back to find five statues outside the stadium, and us out of a job.”

“What I can’t get over is how you’ve changed. Even your limp is gone.”

Glit laughed. “I used to be pretty stupid, didn’t I?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say that, but—”

“It’s fine. It was genetic. Rutt told me that. He gave me a pill to fix me. The other guards, too. Something about rearranging my genetic structure. Fixed the autism. That’s what he called it. Even got rid of my limp. Amazing, huh?”

“So why would you want to help us?” Vizzer asked. “Rutt just changed your life. Why aren’t you loyal to him?”

Glit laughed. “He fixed us because he wants to use us as matador fodder. He fed most of the Border Corps into the arena, and now he wants to use us. We’re easy pickings for the young syndicate members. Too small to be a threat. Oh yeah, Tanos and the syndicate are on Rutt’s side.”

“But what about the land of paradise, with the tight virgins, and all that?” Vizzer said, half in jest.

The guard grimaced. “It is not a joking matter. I no longer believe in that religious nonsense. And if it were just about you, I wouldn’t be here.”

Vizzer struggled to swallow. He forced it down. “So why are you helping us, then?”

Glit drew him away from the others, checked to make sure no one could overhear them. Mantz chewed a mouthful of grass nearby, a look of bliss on her face. “They mustn’t know,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Know what?”

“What Rutt is trying to do.”

“You mean the bomb?”

“Ssh!”

“But they already know about the planet killer.”

“How?”

Vizzer waved a hand at the steep trench, the sky above. “Dex got in touch with us. He’s the one who got us out of there.”

“Is that what happened?” Glit said. “We suspected as much, although we couldn’t be sure.” He glanced at the staircase, lowered his voice again. “But the bomb situation is worse than you think. Much worse.”

“How can it be worse?”

“He plans to destroy Taurus with it.”

“But why?” Vizzer asked. “That makes no sense. He’d kill himself as well.”

“He wants to enslave the humans. The survivors. When they come.”

“How does he plan to do that?”

“When they show up with their ships and their guns, Rutt will say, come on down and be our slaves or we’ll blow the planet up.”

“But he won’t be alive then. They won’t arrive for thou—” But the sudden thought shredded the end of his sentence. “No.”

Glit’s eyes twinkled. “The Infinity Pill. You know it?”

“You could say that.”

“According to my source inside, Rutt tried the pill on himself, and it works. He’s immortal now.” Glit reached out, scraped a fingernail down the line of Vizzer’s jaw. “You’ve taken it too, haven’t you?”

Vizzer nodded. “Maybe I have.”

“If I help you, can you get me one of those pills?”

“Why not?” Vizzer said. “But how do you know Rutt’s not bluffing?”

Glit put his face close to Vizzer’s. “Rutt hates us. All of us. He’d like nothing more than an excuse to kill us all.”

“But why? The humans aren’t going to let themselves be enslaved. Especially not by us.”

The guard shook his head. “Because he can. Because he’s the smallest runt on Taurus. He’s bitter. I know what that feels like. As a Mistake. Discarded by society. Ignored by the she-cows. He wants revenge on the universe for being born small.”

Vizzer was mulling this over when the rafts reappeared, landing in the snow. The she-cows cheered. The rafts emptied, sped off to ferry up their next load.

“What will you tell them?” Glit wanted to know.

“The truth. Everything.”

“Are you sure?”

“They may be only she-cows,” Vizzer said. “But without their help, we are lost.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

The three rafts floated across the plains at walking pace. Vizzer sat cross-legged on the lead raft, borne along by the tide. Thousands of she-cows thronged behind him. Six thousand had escaped from exile, but every time he looked back their numbers had grown. How many were there now? Seven thousand? Eight?

They marched past harem after harem of nubile courtesans, many pregnant, who looked up from their grazing to gape in horror at the marchers’ ghoulish faces. They joined the march when they realized this was their fate too, come menopause. Breeders cantered alongside, hurling abuse at their concubines, before finally trotting away, shaking their heads. One refused to accept the desertion of his harem, and charged into the crowd, killing half a dozen she-cows. Mantz had been forced to use the nazza-whip to drive him off, but when no amount of pain could contain the Breeder’s fury, she had upped the setting on the whip and sliced off both his horns, and he slunk off with his tail between his legs. Despite this incident, a carnival atmosphere infected the crowd, uneasy laughter warding off the fear of what lay ahead.

Vizzer flexed his ankle. The swelling had gone down. It was almost healed. His shoulder, too. Turned out the impact had dislocated the joint. Glit helped him pop it back into place. He needed to be in top form. Fat chance of that. He hadn’t slept since being sent into exile. How many tendays had it been? Three? Four? He felt like he might collapse at any moment. But there was no time. Rutt was building a bomb. They had to stop him before it was too late. The she-cows had clamored for a day of rest, a chance to fill their bellies with sweet grass, to sleep without having to worry about fly-bite. He had refused. Dex said to hurry. They would hurry.

It was a pity he could not communicate with Dex. He should have kept the purple sphere from the beach, he mused, just in case Dex found a way around Rutt’s jamming. But then, Glit had tried to use his purple sphere, to no avail.

When they emerged from the foothills into the heat of the lowlands, the shadow of the eclipse reappeared, followed them across the plains. Dex was keeping an eye on them, at least. Good. It was far easier to travel in the cool of that artificial shade than in the neverending heat of the polar sun, and Vizzer silently thanked his friend. Even so, they stumbled along, delirious with lack of sleep, grabbing at clumps of grass as they passed. He resisted the temptation to lay down on the raft and close his eyes. He must be strong for all of them.

They came to the holy river Albiot. Just over the horizon lay the stadium, the North Pole, and the end of their journey. He ordered a halt, their first and last.

“Purify yourselves in the holy waters,” he cried, standing up on the raft. “Then we go to find our fate.” A hot breeze wafted the smell of their fear toward him. He raised his voice again. “I know only this: the old ways can no longer continue. We will change them, change Taurus, change the way we live, or we will die trying. Are you with me?”

The she-cows cheered and clapped. “Long live Vizzer!” they shouted, and surged forward to bathe, swarming around his raft.

“Either way the journey’s almost over,” Vizzer muttered to himself. He was not at all sure that success was possible. But he must try.

He got down from the raft and stepped into the slow-moving river. He submerged himself, let the warm waters caress his pelt. For a long moment the murmurings of the nervous she-cows disappeared, his worries fled through his pores, and he floated in peace beneath the surface, the red sky dusky through the murky waves. He waited as long as he could, and finally came up for air.

Mantz leaned out over the swirling waters. “So what are we going to do?” she asked. “How do we stop the statues? How do we stop…him?”

“You mean Rutt?” Vizzer patted her shoulder with a wet hand. “I’ve got a plan. Wait and see.”

She bit her lip. “Will you kill him?”

Water dripped from his brows. “If necessary. Why?”

She lowered her voice. “You remember that time that you and I…all those years ago?”

He frowned. “What about it?”

“Rutt is your son.”

Rutt paced irritably outside the Great Gates. What an idiot Prinz was, he thought. Who made this moron king? Oh. Wait. You did. Now who’s the moron?

Prinz pawed the ground like some dumb animal. “So get it back!” he bellowed.

“It’s not that simple, Your Highness.” The honorific choked in his throat. Oh for the day, and soon, when he could squish the king flat.

“I don’t care what you’ve got to do, just do it!” Prinz tossed his horns in anger.

Rutt ducked to avoid those sharpened points. “Sire, I am doing all I can.”

“But how are we supposed to have a corrida without the—what did you call it?”

“An eclipse.”

“The darkness. Yes.”

A Cross galloped toward them. Rutt recognized the heavy green robes of the Border Corps. He frowned. He had ordered the entire remaining Border Corps into the mountains. What’s more, this corpsman was without his raft, and by himself.

“Can’t we create our own?” the king was asking. “We’ve got stadium lights. Why can’t you put in stadium darks?”

Rutt rubbed his temples. His head throbbed. “Because that would violate the laws of physics, Sire.”

“Well what’s the good of being king if you can’t change the law?” Prinz demanded. “You tell me, and I’ll make it my decree.”

Hoofbeats thudded to a stop in a cloud of dust. The corpsman struggled to catch his breath. Sweat dripped from the bottom folds of his robe.

“Out with it,” Rutt snapped.

“Sire, I—” The corpsman heaved, air rasping in his lungs.

“Well? What is it?” Prinz asked.

The corpsman swallowed. “Seven thousand years, nothing like this has ever happened.”

“You going to tell us or not?” Rutt demanded, his patience about to snap.

“They’ve escaped. All of them.”

“Who have?”

“Vizzer. And the she-cows.”

“From exile?” Prinz asked, astonished in that dim-witted way of his.

“You mean the former vizzer. I am vizzer now,” Rutt said. They ignored this. Rutt ground his teeth. What did that surgically altered freak have that he didn’t? He clenched his fists. They’d be giving him the respect he deserved before long.

“…and they’re coming with the shade.”

“The shade? Are you sure?” Prinz asked.

“You can see it from here.” The corpsman pointed south at the mountains. A black spot crept toward them on the horizon.

“How can we get it back?” the king demanded. “Can’t you catch it or something?”

Rutt pinched his nose and shook his head, tried to remain calm. “What happened?” he asked. “How did they escape? Be quick!” Ever since he had built the bomb, Dex had been a thorn in his side. If Carlos’s old spaceship had somehow managed to get past the orbital defenses, he had a problem.

The corpsman paused, gulped another lungful of air. “It was my rest period. There’s a nice spot halfway down the mountain, in the foothills, with a hot spring we always use. When I went back up the mountain, I saw them.”

“Saw who?”

“The bodyguards. The ones you fired. The Mistakes? They had rafts and weapons. Guns. Vizzer was there. Hundreds of she-cows.”

“The former vizzer,” Rutt said again. “And since when are the Border Corps afraid of she-cows?”

“Yes, Vizzer. No, Vizzer. Of course not, Vizzer.” The corpsman prostrated himself on the ground. “But I could do nothing on my own. Even with my weapon.” He held up his furled nazza-whip.

The king interrupted. Again. “What is all this talk of she-cows?” he whined. “There can be no corrida without the shadow. It says so in the Code. And the people blame me. You understand? They think it’s my fault. What if they revolt?”

Save me the trouble of killing you myself, Rutt thought.

The corpsman glanced at Prinz, back at Rutt. “I thought you’d want to know.”

“You have done well,” Rutt said. “Give me your weapon.”

“Your kindness and understanding are legendary,” he said, and held up the whip.

Mock my title? Make fun of me? Is that it? Rutt scowled. He took the weapon, flicked it on. Set it to scalpel mode. He slashed at the corpsman, severed his torso in half. A high-pitched scream whistled from the middle of the corpsman’s chest. Rutt slashed again. The corpsman’s skull parted in two. Blood and brains and bits of bone splashed around them on the grass, on the king’s hooves. The whistling stopped.

“Was that necessary?” Prinz asked, a look of distaste on his stupid mug. He struggled to wipe the goo from his legs.

Rutt furled the weapon, tossed it aside. “You run, you die. You obey, you live. We’ve got to send a message. I suggest you leave the body where it is.”

The she-cows marched shoulder to shoulder. From every direction more supporters trickled in, jostling for space under the circle of shadow. How many were there now? Vizzer wondered. Ten thousand? More? There wasn’t room for them all.

Mantz sidled up to Vizzer’s raft. The last person he wanted to see right now. The situation was bad enough without knowing it was his own fault. If he hadn’t lost his self-control all those years ago, Rutt would never have been born. None of this would be happening.

It was Rutt who spied on him, betrayed him, prayed to the matter converter for that ray gun. Rutt who arrested him and Dex after the statue’s first rampage. Rutt who killed Carlos, or tried to, anyway. Rutt who built five new statues and planned to make a world-destroying bomb.

Mantz said, “We’re going to die, aren’t we.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said, as tartly as he dared. He still needed her help. She was part of his plan, even if she didn’t know it yet.

“Our own son wants to kill us.”

“Don’t remind me.”

“There’s something I want you to know,” she said. And paused.

Rage bubbled in Vizzer’s gut. Why couldn’t she just leave him alone? She’d done enough already. “Well?” he demanded.

She hung her head. “There’s no one else I’d rather die with than you.”

“Take us home,” mooed a nearby she-cow.

“Yes, Vizzer. Take us home,” Mantz said.

Home. Was that where they were going? Did he even have a home? What did that word even mean? He stood and turned to face the marching throng. She-cows filled the plains, spilling over the edge of the eclipse’s shadow. Every female on Taurus must be here.

“Take us home,” another shouted. The sad-sweet melody grew.

The rage inside him fizzled and died. He stopped his raft and the marchers stopped too. The shadow jerked to a halt. He held up his hands. The crowd fell silent. He didn’t know what to say. As a priest and a celibate, he had never liked nor understood she-cows. But they were willing to die, even as he was, for an idea: compassion. End the blood sacrifices, the butchery, the killing. End the exile of menopausal she-cows, just because they complained about the death of their sons in the corrida. What they were doing was right. They knew it. He knew it. It was something they shared. Maybe that’s what home was. A place where you could be true to your principles, even if it meant death.

The silence stretched on. They waited for him to speak.

He said, “Let’s go home.”

No cheers now. Only masks of grim determination. Vizzer lowered his arms, hopped off the raft. His ankle felt strong. His weariness faded away. Together they marched on.

Prinz wrinkled his snout. He could smell them. Skanky menopausal she-cows, barren and boring. There were thousands of them, stretching in a black line to the horizon. The shadow hid the center of the throng in darkness. The marching she-cows halted a couple of hundred meters away.

He wasn’t looking forward to this. Another bloodbath. He hadn’t realized there were so many of them. The statues would squish them all. It wasn’t that he had a problem with killing. He had killed in the arena to survive, killed Clomp to become king, even killed that impostor, Carlos. When the bodyguards opened fire the day Clomp died—well, that was an accident. But now he was going to have to order the deaths of thousands. Somehow it felt wrong. What would the gods say?

Two figures detached themselves from the main body, trotted toward him. Maybe he could convince them to go back where they came from. He looked around for his new vizzer. Where did he get off to? Disappearing like that for long stretches of time.

“Your Highness,” a voice said at his elbow. It was Rutt.

The king snorted. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Raised eyebrows. The priest pointed at the two approaching figures. “I suggest we kill them both.”

Prinz squinted. “Who are they?”

“The former vizzer,” Rutt said, and spat. “And an exiled she-cow named Mantz. With your permission?”

The little priest’s fingers tapped at his holy pad. The ground rumbled. The statues stepped forward from their positions surrounding the stadium, heads towering over the highest part of the coliseum, and thundered toward the massed she-cows. They uncrossed their golden arms, opened their fists.

They were going to attack, Prinz realized. “Wait!” he shouted.

“For what?” Rutt asked.

“No one dies until I say so. Stop them. Now!”

Rutt’s fingers tapped the holy pad once, twice, and the statues pulled up short. They formed a line behind himself and the king. “Of course, Your Highness. You know best.”

Infuriating priest. He would have to get rid of Rutt, and soon. That was one killing he wouldn’t regret. He said, “First we find out what they want.”

Rutt frowned, but said nothing.

That’s it, runt. Chew on that.

Behind him the bulls and matadors and banderilleros left off their training. They climbed out of the sandpits, wiping sweat from their pelts. Formed up on either side of the king.

Vizzer and Mantz stopped ten meters away. The shadow followed them. Prinz could feel the cooler air wafting his way, bringing the scent of the rebels. They stank. Even worse than he expected. They were dripping wet, as though they had just bathed in the river. Still they were filthy. And skinny. Is that what exile was like? Row after row of wrinkled females grimaced at him.

Prinz raised his voice. “Go back where you belong, and all this shall be forgotten. I do not want to have to kill you.”

“Not until you hear us out,” Mantz shouted.

He turned to Rutt. “Are they armed?”

Rutt consulted his holy pad. “The bodyguards are, Sire.” He indicated Glit and the others with a nod of his head.

Prinz gestured Vizzer and Mantz forward with a pawing hoof. “You may approach. But without your bodyguards.”

A whispered argument ensued between the two Crosses. The she-cow Mantz seemed to be saying that the king should come to them, not the other way around. What cheek, he thought. Finally, they cantered to where he stood.

Mantz said, “We demand—”

“You demand nothing,” Rutt said.

“Listen to your mother,” Mantz barked, suddenly angry. “We speak for all the she-cows on Taurus. What we have to say the king needs to hear.”

“What mother?” Rutt sneered. “I have no mother. Only the whore who brought me forth.”

“Shut up,” Prinz said. “No one talks to a she-cow like that. Not in my presence.”

The upstart scowled down at his holy pad. Tomorrow you die, Prinz thought. When this is all over. He lifted a horn. “Continue.”

“We demand a permanent end to the corrida,” Mantz said.

The assembled bulls and matadors snorted with laughter.

She raised her voice. “Furthermore,” she added, “we demand the reinstatement of the former vizzer to his rightful place, and the arrest of Rutt for crimes against the people.”

Rutt guffawed in a high key. “You must be joking.”

“I am sorry, my son,” she said. “But you have gone too far.”

“What crimes do you mean?” Prinz asked.

Vizzer said, “He’s building a bomb to destroy Taurus.”

He turned to Rutt. “Is this true?”

“Certainly, your highness,” the priest said, with an obsequious nod of the head. “It’s a defensive measure, in case any of the surviving humans make it here. I was going to mention it to you, but you were so busy with your harem. I thought it best not to bother you.”

“That makes sense to me,” he said to the smelly pair. “What’s the problem?”

“But he’s planning to destroy the planet!” Mantz said.

“Why would I want to do that?” Rutt asked with a grimace. “Don’t listen to their lies, my lord. They pursue ungodly goals. Let me kill them. Please.”

Prinz took a deep breath, blew it out his nose. So this was it. The massacre he’d hoped to avoid. He said, “Be quick about it.”

The ground trembled again. Behind him, in unison, five great pairs of legs stepped forward. In front of him, still shadowed by the eclipse, the lead ranks of the mob shuffled aside. From the center of the darkness, rank after rank of the King’s Harem sauntered forward, clad in their finest robes of lavender and puce, gold and jewels cascading from their throats. My Carlos, Prinz thought. What are my beauties doing here? And with such a stink of a mob.

“Stop them,” he ordered Rutt.

The statues took another step toward the she-cows. Two more. They were within crushing distance now.

“I said, make it stop!”

“Price you pay,” Rutt said.

“But my harem! You kill them, you die.”

Rutt tapped his holy pad. The statues froze, legs in mid-air, heels halfway down to the she-cows’ heads.

Prinz jogged forward. “My ladies,” he cried. “What are you doing here?”

Zapyr slunk around a golden heel. He recognized her by her birthmark. She said, “We give you sons, my lord. What for? So we may watch them die in the arena? Ourselves condemned to torture and death when our wombs dry up? No, My King. This stops now. Your harem has spoken.”

What in Carlos’s name was going on? There was no precedent. His ladies wanted to upend the natural order of things. She-cows weren’t supposed to act like this. By Carlos, he’d show them!

“Return to the King’s Harem,” he commanded. “I will deal with you later.”

They did not move.

“Did you hear me?” he roared. “I said go, or I will have all of you whipped!”

Zapyr rested a bejeweled hand on the statue’s big toe. Almost as though she were inviting death. “You will deal with us now,” she said quietly. “Or you can kill us all.” She tossed her cute little horns in the air. “These she-cows have told us what exile is like. We would rather die than suffer the same fate.”

“A suggestion, Your Highness.” Rutt crouched at his ear.

“What is it?” he snapped.

“Take out their leaders. Vizzer. Mantz. Zapyr. The rest will disperse.”

A way out. Good. He nodded. “Make it happen.”

Rutt scraped his thumbnail across his holy pad. Three of the statues bent down, scooped up the agitators. They squirmed in the statues’ golden grip.

The crowd shrieked in terror and fell away. The bodyguards opened fire on the statues, but the two remaining behemoths crushed them all.

“Stand firm!” Mantz called out. “Think of your children! Will you watch them die in the arena?”

“Better death than exile!” shouted Zapyr. “Better death than slavery!”

In reply, Rutt touched his holy pad again, and the golden fists began to squeeze.

“Rutt! Don’t do this!” Vizzer screamed. “I have to tell you something.” He pounded his fists against those merciless knuckles, as thick as thighs. “I am your father!”

The former vizzer? Rutt’s father? Prinz shook his head in disgust. But wasn’t Rutt’s mother Mantz? That meant—no. Vizzer broke his holy oath with one of the former king’s harem?

A smile twitched at the corners of Rutt’s face. “Yes. I know. I ran my DNA through the computer ages ago.”

The former high priest struggled feebly far above their heads. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” he shouted.

Rutt jabbed a finger at the center of his screen. “It means it’s time for you to die.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

The statue’s hand clutched Vizzer tight. The smooth metal was cool to the touch. The fingers contracted, squeezing the air out of him. He tried to inhale, but there was no room left in his lungs. A rib cracked. Another. Black spots swirled in his vision. So much for his plan. Things had gone too fast. There’d been no time. And now he was going to die, squished by a statue. He wondered if the she-cows would continue the struggle without him. He hoped they would.

An explosion overhead reached his fading consciousness. A second, a third, and the hand that gripped him faltered and flapped open. Vizzer sucked in a deep breath. He was falling. The whole statue was falling. The she-cows stampeded out of the way. His oxygen-starved brain could make no sense of this. Was he going to be crushed to death?

The ground loomed closer. He pushed himself up on the metal palm. Jumped. Landed face first in soft grass. The statue thumped to the ground just centims away. The impact bounced him back up to his knees. More explosions overhead. The crash of thunder. Three of the statues lay on the ground. The other two fired blasts of lightning at the sky. What were they shooting at?

Carlos’s spaceship darted through the eclipse’s shadow, weaving between the lightning bolts. Dex had saved him a second time. But how had he gotten down here? He’d said before he couldn’t get past the orbital defenses. Maybe he and Baby had found a way.

Dex fired at the statues, green beams of light denting their chests and arms. One hit a statue square in the face, shearing the head off at the neck. The torso fell, just missing the stadium’s outer wall. The spaceship flitted off, drawing the fifth and last statue away, before blasting it to pieces.

Vizzer stood up. Here and there a pair of legs stuck out from under a fallen titan. He spied Mantz at the side of another statue, tugging on her tail. It was trapped under the statue’s hips. She took out the nazza-whip and amputated the appendage.

He went to her. His own ribs ached, but they were healing rapidly. Mantz did not have that luxury. She was visibly bruised, and blood dripped down her hind legs from what was left of her tail.

“You alright?” he asked.

She waved him away. “Seen Zapyr?”

“No. Why?”

“I think I saw her go under.”

The surviving she-cows reassembled in front of the king. The two groups faced each other down. On Vizzer’s side, fifty-five thousand she-cows. Opposite stood twenty-five thousand or so males, including Breeders, matadors, banderilleros and thousands of young bulls. The entire population of Taurus. The spaceship hovered overhead. Vizzer helped Mantz hobble through the crowd to her place opposite the king.

The young bulls fidgeted and pawed the ground. The harem wenches crossed their arms and frowned, elated at this sudden reversal. Rutt remained expressionless, eyes half-closed, regarding the soles of his fallen statues’ feet.

“We repeat our demands,” Mantz said, her voice rasping in her throat. “An end to the corrida. An end to exile. Answer us now or there will be civil war!”

The males growled when they heard this, lowered their horns and prepared to charge. The matadors swung their swords through the air, equally ready, Vizzer could tell, to spill some blood. The king reared up on his hind legs and cracked his hooves together. The noise was like a gun shot. All fell silent.

“We live our lives according to the Code,” Prinz said. “God himself gave us life and told us how to live it. What you ask is sacrilege, and may not be. May never be.”

A motor whirred above his head, and the king looked up. From the bottom of the spaceship, a ray gun two meters long swiveled to point at Prinz. Where had that come from? Shame they didn’t know about that earlier.

“We tried once,” Prinz continued, ignoring the implicit threat. “At the unwise suggestion of our former vizzer here, to deny our true nature. To end the corrida.” He raised his voice and bellowed, “Do none of you remember the consequences?”

“But that statue is gone,” Mantz said. “As are these others. The Code is an ancient relic, and open to interpretation. It must change as our times change.”

“What part of ‘Each Day in the Arena One Must Die’ do you not understand?” Prinz asked. “The second commandment is unambiguous.”

“But the gods are dead!” a she-cow shouted. “Vizzer proved it!”

“Are they?” Prinz asked, and raised his heavy eyebrows. “Carlos exists and has always existed. I have seen him myself. As have the other Breeders.” He gave them a curt nod. “The corrida continues.” He turned his back on them and strode toward the Great Gates.

“Then you do so without us,” Zapyr said. She pushed her way through the crowd. Her robes were torn and bloody, and she walked with a limp. But she was alive. “And without the eclipse.” She pointed at the darkened sky. “Continue the killing if you must. But there will be no more prizes for the matadors, and no harem for the Breeders or the king.”

Prinz swung about, his body tense, nostrils flaring. “You will obey your king, or I will run you through myself.”

Dex’s voice boomed down from the spaceship, “You do, I’ll shoot you down. You and Rutt both.”

An amplified squeak in reply: “Anything happens to me, the planet-killing bomb goes off and destroys Taurus.” Rutt stepped forward. “Yes, it is ready. I suggest you back off and do as you’re told…”

“…or I will destroy you all.” Now was the time, Rutt decided. He could wait no longer. “I proclaim myself God of all Taurus,” he said into the microphone. “You will worship me, and no other. All she-cows now belong to me. Everyone will obey me in every respect. The slightest disobedience, and you all die. Is that clear?”

That’ll show them, he thought. The Almighty Rutt. He had taken the Infinity Pill. He possessed the power of the gods. He was a god, and should be treated as such.

The laughter started slowly, a ripple among the bulls, and grew in waves, until it engulfed every Cross present.

“But—what—what are you— Why are you laughing?” Rutt demanded.

Even Vizzer began to chuckle.

“Stop laughing! Stop laughing at me! Or I’ll—I’ll blow up Taurus! I swear it! I swear I’ll do it!”

Prinz wiped tears from his eyes with a forehoof. “Go ahead, O Divine Rutt,” he said. “On this both sides agree, I think. We would all rather die than submit to you.”

“Go, child,” Mantz scolded. “Go play with your toys.”

Rutt took out his holy pad. He would show them. He would blow up the fornicating planet. His finger hovered over the button that would end it all—

Carlos damn it. He wanted them to submit, not die. What good was it if he blew them all up? He would make them suffer first. His time would come.

The laughter subsided. Vizzer hoped it would ease the tension.

“So what do we do now?” Mantz asked. “Go to the South Pole, like you were saying before?”

“But then the race ends,” he said.

“Worse,” Zapyr said. “If even one she-cow stays behind, the cycle continues. Nothing gets solved.”

“Enough talk,” Prinz snarled. “We cannot allow this rebellion to continue. You will submit and return to your harems or you will be punished.”

“We will not be slaves,” Mantz said evenly, her face flat. “We would rather die.”

The two groups surged forward. Dex fired a blast from his ray gun. A smoking crater yawned open in front of Prinz. Rutt held up his holy pad in defiance, his finger touching the screen. Ready to blow up the planet.

Now, Vizzer told himself. Do it now, or it will be too late.

He stepped between the two groups, held up his empty palms to restrain them. “This is suicide!” he shouted. “Suicide for our entire race! Will you destroy each other? There will be nothing left when the humans get here!”

“What other way is there?” Zapyr asked.

Vizzer shouted so both sides could hear, “One among us challenges the king!”

There was a momentary silence. A challenge was a serious thing, and could not be ignored.

Prinz snorted. “There is no one here who dares challenge me.”

Vizzer puffed out his chest, ignoring the pain in his ribs. “I challenge.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

For the second time in a handful of minutes, laughter washed back and forth in waves between the opposing sides. This time the matadors doubled over, clutching their ribs. Tears streamed down the she-cows’ cheeks.

“What are you going to do?” Prinz managed. “Head butt me?”

“You can’t win,” Zapyr complained shrilly, wiping away tears. “Just look at you. You don’t even have horns!”

“Can’t I?” Vizzer said. He drew himself up straight, and faced Prinz. “I fight as a matador.”

The laughter subsided.

“Matadors may not challenge,” Tanos said. “Everyone knows this. Only Breeders are permitted that honor.”

Vizzer nodded. “That’s true. The king is not obliged to accept my challenge. And if he is afraid to step into the arena with me, then let him be a coward.”

The crowd went absolutely silent. Prinz pawed the ground, scraping up great chunks of turf. “You dare call me a coward?”

Mantz grabbed Vizzer by the elbow. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Are you crazy?”

“Trust me,” he whispered back. “I’ve got a plan.”

“To what? Commit suicide?”

He shook himself free. “So what’s it going to be, O King?” he shouted. “Accept my challenge? Or prove to us your cowardice?”

“No king may tolerate such insult,” Prinz bellowed, and tensed, as though ready to charge. But then he seemed to relax, forcing himself to calm down. “But neither do you deserve the honor of challenging me in the arena. Better to gore you through the chest right now.”

“What’s the matter, Your Highness?” a young bull jeered. “You scared of the harmless little runt?”

Prinz flexed the hump of muscle on his shoulders, cracked his neck. “Fine,” he said. “If you insist on this madness, you will die in the arena even as your false god died. Then we will be rid of you and your nuisance once and for all.”

Mantz and Zapyr stood at Vizzer’s elbows. “Excuse us for a moment,” Mantz said, and the two of them picked him up and dragged him away.

“Be right back!” Vizzer shouted.

The male contingent chuckled. “Can’t even defend himself against a pair of she-cows.”

They dumped him on the ground next to one of the fallen statues.

“So this is your plan?” Mantz demanded. “We came all the way from the mountains, without sleep, not enough food, so that we could confront the king, and this is the best you can come up with?”

Vizzer sat up against the statue’s curved torso. “It’s the only way,” he said quietly.

“And then what do we do?” Zapyr asked. “In an hour from now, you’re dead and we’re back where we started from. Nothing has changed.”

“I grant you it’s a long shot,” he agreed. “But if you’ve got a better idea I’m open to hearing it.”

“What says the mighty challenger?” Prinz shouted. “Seeking advice from she-cows? Preparing to send me to my doom?” The males cackled with laughter.

Mantz pursed her lips. “So what do we do when you lose?”

“Are you so sure that I will?”

“What makes you think you can win?” Zapyr asked.

He might as well tell them, he decided. “I had a vision.”

“A vision.” Scorn dripped from Zapyr’s painted scarlet lips.

Mantz lay a finger against the side of her nose. “When was this?”

“In exile. On the beach. I saw you praying with another she-cow, before I climbed the cliff. I decided to pray too. A vision came to me. I thought it meant nothing. Maybe it does mean nothing. But I have to try.” He stood up. “And even if I do die, that’s fine too. I will not live in a world where we must kill our young to satisfy the unseen gods. I will not run away, when I know there is a chance, however slim, to change things for the better. Win or lose, I have to do this. I have no other choice.”

Mantz bowed her head. “I too had a vision that day,” she said. “If Carlos sent you a message, then you must follow it.”

“Really?” he said. “What was your vision?”

“If you win, I’ll tell you,” she said. “Otherwise it is meaningless.”

“And if you lose?” Zapyr insisted.

“Avoid a fight,” Vizzer replied. “Too many would die. Talk to Dex. He can ferry you all to the South Pole. The cycle may continue but at least you’ll be safe.”

A few bulls smacked their hooves together. The clacking noise grew to a cacophony.

“We going to fight or aren’t we?” Prinz bellowed over the noise.

Vizzer strode through the crowd of she-cows and stopped, a horn’s-length away from the king. “First we must negotiate terms.”

“Terms?” the king snorted. “There are no terms.”

Vizzer raised his voice so all could hear. “If I win, will you recognize me as king?”

“But a winning matador does not become king,” Tanos said, “or I would be king many times over myself. Why should you?”

“Because,” Vizzer replied, “a matador fights a drugged bull. A challenger fights a self-aware king.”

“What’s more,” Rutt said suddenly, “there is precedent.”

Prinz swung his head around to face the runt. “What precedent is that?”

“Do we all know the Ballad of Tarl?” Rutt asked.

Many heads nodded. Of course, Vizzer thought. He should have remembered that. He frowned. But why was Rutt trying to help him? What did he hope to gain from this conflict? They had called his bluff, but he still had the planet-killer bomb. What if he decided to push the button anyway? More was at stake here than just the corrida. Their whole world. Their future. Everything depended on his challenge being successful. And everything he knew told him he would fail.

“Tarl was the greatest matador of his age,” Rutt continued. “Maybe any age. Four hundred and fifty years ago, he challenged King Mawu CDXVI. Tarl was in love with the king’s chief consort. He challenged and died for his love.”

“Yes,” Tanos added, “it is a favorite song of ours, of the matadors, to this day.”

“But Tarl died,” Prinz said, the merriment gone from his face. “As you shall too.”

“And if I do not?” Vizzer turned to the other Breeders. “If the king accepts the challenge, the winner becomes king. Does anyone dispute this?”

Tnuu cleared his throat. “Of course,” he said slowly, “if you win, and become king, we could then all challenge you. The fourteen remaining Breeders, anyway. And I remind you that I am the ranking challenger to the king, and Heir to the Hat.”

Vizzer faltered. “Indeed you are.” He had not thought that far ahead. All he knew was this was something he had to do. He expected to die. All hope was gone. There was no reason to think he could do the impossible. Taurus was doomed. And in the unlikely event he did manage to kill Prinz, he’d worry about Tnuu afterward. There was nothing he could do about it now, anyway.

“If I accept your challenge,” the king said abruptly, “and you lose, will the she-cows submit?”

“I do not speak for them,” Vizzer said. “They must speak for themselves.”

“Will the exiled she-cows return into exile?” Prinz asked them. “Will the harem members return to their duties?”

Mantz stepped forward. “If our champion loses,” she said, “we go willingly into exile. Only this time to the South Pole. Dex will take us there in his flying chariot.”

The king nodded. “That is acceptable. As long as you’re not here, I don’t care where you are. What say the harem members? Will they also do their duty?”

Zapyr’s shrill voice cut through the murmurings of the crowd. “The corrida must end, Your Highness. We will no longer conceive sons for you to kill in the arena.”

“Even though it be the will of god?”

“Especially not then,” she shrieked. “What kind of god demands that sacrifice?”

“No matter,” Tnuu drawled. “Pretty she-cow like you? Take you by force if I have to.”

Zapyr took a step backward. “Then we shall go with the exiles to the South Pole, and you shall have no harem.”

The Breeders laughed. “We got what you want, baby,” Tnuu said. “You ain’t going nowhere without this.” He lifted up his robes to expose himself to the crowd.

The harem members flushed and looked at each other, but said nothing.

Prinz ended the discussion with a loud snort. All eyes fixed on him. He raised his voice and said, “In the arena, our Lord speaks to us. God himself decides who lives and who dies. Let the Will of Carlos be made known today: that we alter the natural order of things at our peril.” He paused, grim-faced, and turned to Vizzer. “I accept your challenge.”

At these words, the shadow began to move. It swept across the surprised, upturned faces of the bulls until it covered the stadium entirely, leaving both parties in full sunshine. A cry went up: horror and fear and sadness on the side of the she-cows, triumph on the side of the bulls.

Tanos stepped forward, hands over his head, and waited for silence. “Vizzer shall use my own equipment,” he said, “so that no one can say he was cheated. And then,” he added, with a grin to his companions, “he will die.”

With a whoop, the bulls turned and stampeded into the stadium, pushing and shoving, nose to tail in their excitement. The she-cows followed behind them, subdued. They were watching history in the making. How they lived and died would be decided today. And not one Cross had the slightest doubt how this fight would end.

“Is there no other way?” Mantz murmured at his side.

“I can’t see any,” he said. “And anyway, it’s too late now.”

Vizzer was borne along by the crowd, Mantz at one elbow, Tanos at the other, through the Great Gates, down the spiral grassy slope, until he found himself peering over the barrier into the freshly smoothed sands of the arena.

“Here. Put this on.”

Tanos held out a pair of sparkling blue trousers, with holes for the hooves and tail Vizzer no longer had. He slipped into each item as Tanos handed it to him: the white shirt, the vest and black cravat, the sparkling short-waisted jacket with the high shoulder pads and tassels. The uniform hung baggy off Vizzer’s emaciated frame.

A cape was put into his hands. A sword. He tested the tip. A fighting sword.

“Don’t forget your hat.”

Tanos clapped the fabric circle down onto Vizzer’s skull, between the stumps where his horns used to be. The stadium hummed in anticipation. The young bulls pointed and cackled at his new clothes. He must look ridiculous.

It didn’t matter what they thought of him. He had known this was the only way since he’d escaped from exile. No words could change their minds. This was his fate: to die in the arena. Maybe he would become a martyr. That was the best he could hope for. The corrida would continue after he was gone. But perhaps the memory of his revolt would give future generations strength. Unopposed, Rutt might even destroy Taurus. And if he didn’t, the humans would no doubt enslave them all. Again Vizzer thought, there’s nothing else I can do. Try to kill Prinz. That was all.

The king trotted out onto the sand. The crowd cheered, as though he had already won. Prinz cantered around the circumference of the arena, a premature victor’s lap. His horns seemed to have grown, the points glittering razor-sharp in the dim light.

Vizzer swallowed hard. What had he been thinking? He had no idea how to do this. He had no training as a matador. The sword drooped heavy in his hand. He had to drive this piece of sharpened metal into Prinz’s body and sever his heart. In order to stop the killing, he must kill.

Was he capable of killing? To come face to face with another creature and deliberately end its life? His stomachs rebelled at the thought. He remembered the Border Corpsman he had squashed beneath the raft. He remembered the gun in his own hands, the gun Dex gave him, and the three dead bodyguards at the base of the statue. He took no pleasure from the memories. But neither did he suffer pangs of conscience. Both times had been self-defense. Somehow this felt different.

“Well?” the king bellowed. “Here I am. Come and kill me. Make yourself king.”

The audience tittered. Prinz lifted his head over the barrier and let Rutt take off his white hat. On the grassy slope above them, the matadors and young bulls laughed and shouted obscenities.

Panic rose in Vizzer’s throat, floating on a tide of vomit. “What do I do?” The words escaped his lips against his will.

Tanos chuckled. “Stand still with your legs together. Leave the cape folded over your arm.”

“What does that do?”

“Makes you an easy target. If you’re lucky, he’ll gore you through the chest and you’ll die quickly.”

Vizzer clucked his tongue. “Thanks for nothing.”

The matador lifted his tasseled shoulders, let them fall. “He’s going to kill you one way or another. You realize that, right?”

The stadium lights flickered on. Fifty thousand Crosses roared Prinz’s name. A high-pitched chant could just be heard amidst the swell: “Viz-zer! Viz-zer! Viz-zer!”

It was time. He slipped sideways through the narrow gap in the barrier. Strode to the center of the arena. Prinz waited to one side, joking with a banderillero. Vizzer faced the Creator’s Throne. He took off his cap, bowed low. He straightened and saluted the crowd, rotating on his heels as he had seen matadors do. Tossed his cap over his shoulder. The bulls jeered. The she-cows muttered in low tones. The cap had landed upside down, a sign of bad luck. He kicked at it. It spun in the air, landed right side up. Stupid superstition.

Hoofbeats thundered behind him. The she-cows cried out. He spun around. Prinz charged, head lowered, horns aimed at his chest. Vizzer’s limbs went numb. Now what? What was he supposed to do? The king galloped closer, pale foam frothing at his lips.

“The cape!” Mantz shouted. “Use your cape!”

Vizzer flung the cape in Prinz’s face and jumped out of the way, pulling the fabric along after him. The king’s hooves sent up puffs of dust as he braked and turned. Vizzer hopped sideways, put some distance between himself and those horns.

He hefted the sword in his right hand. How was he supposed to get close enough to kill the king?

“This is going to be way too easy,” Prinz said, panting lightly. “Why don’t we make it more interesting?”

“Why don’t you shut up and fight?” Vizzer said, with more confidence than he felt. He could not imagine anything Prinz could suggest that would make this a fair fight.

“Banderilleros!” Prinz called out, and trotted to the center of the arena, away from the barrier.

“No!” Vizzer shouted. “This is a challenge, not a corrida. I fight alone!”

“I would have you see god before you die,” Prinz said. “I would have you know the truth.”

“Fornicate you and fornicate your fornicating god!”

He remembered watching Carlos die, crazed with animal blood lust, his higher functions numbed so badly he could barely talk. He would not allow the same to happen now. It would mean certain death.

Two uniformed banderilleros hopped the barrier and glided forward, darts held high above their heads, ready to strike.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Vizzer shouted at them. “I want no ‘help’ from you.” He shooed them away with his hands.

They ignored his protests, and danced forward on tiptoe. They separated and circled around on either side of him. Prinz observed all this from a distance, a grin plastered across his drooling jowls.

“Get back!” Vizzer shouted. “Or I will kill you first and then the king!” He ran at the nearest one, sword held high.

The banderillero stopped for a moment, and when it became clear Vizzer was serious, turned and ran for the barrier. The other followed, and they jumped together over the wooden wall to safety.

The king pawed the dust and laughed. His laughter spread, until the audience chuckled along with him. They found the whole scene amusing, Vizzer realized. He was nothing more than entertainment to them. A diversion before they got back to their civil war. Well, let them joke. If he died he would become a martyr, and if he won they wouldn’t be laughing anymore.

Prinz called out, “We’ve had our fun. Are you ready to die?”

Some unaccustomed force surged in Vizzer’s breast. Rage. A tidal wave of anger. Like what he had felt on the spaceship when torturing Carlos. His testicles throbbed to this new beat. He fought it down, pushed it away, but it crashed its fist against the doors of his soul, demanding admittance.

“I’m ready to kill,” Vizzer said softly, and knew for the first time it was true. “Come here and die.”

He held the cape in front of him, sword overhead as he had seen the matadors do, tip angled downward for a thrusting stroke. His heart thudded and the pain in his testicles grew. This was it. He had to take the chance.

Prinz charged again. His monstrous shoulders flecked sweat in the air with each powerful forward surge of his flanks.

Vizzer lowered the cape to block Prinz’s view of his feet, swung it back and forth so the king couldn’t guess which way he might jump. Except he wasn’t going to jump. Not this time. The king got closer. Vizzer stood his ground. He drew the cape wide to the right, under his sword arm. Prinz’s horns followed. Vizzer reached over the king’s right horn and drove the sword down into the mass of muscle directly over the heart.

The sword slid in a centim or two and bounced out, ripping itself from his grasp. A horn banged against his right thigh, and he found himself in mid-air. The cape slipped from his hand. He crashed down on the king’s head, and grabbed hold of the base of the horns. Prinz bucked, once, twice, finally pitched him into the air.

He landed heavily on his side. Gasped in pain. The cracked ribs had not yet fully healed. He struggled back to his feet, expecting a horn thrust at any moment. But Prinz trotted away from him, accepting the adulation of the crowd.

Vizzer touched his thigh. It was bruised but not punctured. A gash of torn fabric hung from the side of his trousers. The horn must have caught in the loose material and grazed his skin. He looked around for his sword and cape. They lay in the dust next to the barrier. The king pranced in front of his harem on the other side of the arena, no doubt trying to win back their favor.

There was only one thing left to do. The too-big matador clothing Tanos had given him was going to be a danger. It was time to get rid of it. He stripped off the heavy sequined jacket, threw it aside. Piece by piece the rest of the costume followed, until he stood naked before them all. The hum of the audience changed to curiosity. The king turned to watch.

Vizzer went to where the sword and cape lay, and retrieved them. He pressed his shoulders against the barrier. If he could taunt Prinz into charging him here, he might be able to jump out of the way, let the king crash his head against the wall. It wouldn’t knock him out, but it might daze him a little. A groggy Prinz would be a less dangerous opponent.

“Quit your flirting!” he shouted at the king. “You want to kill me? Come and get me!”

More laughter from the crowd. Prinz did not move. Several she-cows pointed. Something behind me?

Vizzer turned. Rutt’s face scowled at him, just centims away, on the other side of the barrier. What was he doing here? He opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, felt the hypo dig deep into his left leg.

This was it. Game over. Now he was going to die.

“But why?” Vizzer asked.

“Why do you think?” Rutt said. “Because you’re a fool.”

The world slowed. A green light shone on the barrier between them. The spaceship. Dex. The wood disintegrated into glowing ashes. Each particle hung in mid-air, sparkling under the stadium lights. Rutt pumped his arms and hooves, heading for the safety of the grassy slope and the crowd. Vizzer reached behind and grasped the dart. His hand’s journey from front to back seemed to take hours.

Thwump.

What was that? That noise? Oh wait. His heart. He plucked the hypo from his thigh. Each heartbeat sent more and more of the drug pumping through his body, he knew. Soon his brain would switch off, and he would become like the bulls during the corrida: pure animal.

Thwump.

Rage pounded again in his skull. He was a killer. He was born to kill. What was reason? A toy. He saw that now. This was real. Him and Prinz. Kill or be killed. The only reality. None of those fancy words mattered now. Compassion. Fairness. Equality. What did they mean? He laughed inside himself. He couldn’t remember. He didn’t want to.

Thwump.

Carlos stood before him. Young. In a tight-fitting gold matador’s costume. The sequins shimmered in the sun. A small yellow sun. And the sky was blue. A scarlet cape lay draped across the man’s forearm. In the other hand he held a sword. It dripped blood in the sand at his feet.

Vizzer looked around him. They stood in an empty stadium. Bigger than the one on Taurus. No grassy slope spiraled up to ground level. Here, beyond the barrier, above them, stone benches rose to a great height. A pair of huge gates stood closed at the edge of the arena.

What is this place? he asked. But no sound came out of his mouth.

“Do not try to speak,” Carlos said. “You are in heaven.”

In heaven? he thought. A sudden panic. Am I dead already?

“No,” Carlos said, and smiled. A beatific smile Vizzer had never seen the real Carlos use. “You are not dead. But you may stay here as long as you wish. Live here. Train here. Copulate too, if you desire.” Carlos gestured at the gates, which now swung open to reveal a herd of richly dressed she-cows grazing outside. “Your harem of virgins await.”

Is this real?

A chuckle. “Very real.”

Hesitation. Are you real?

“I am as real as life and death. As real as the stars. As real as Taurus.”

Confusion. But Carlos is dead. I watched him die.

“You’re wondering how you can see me now?”

Vizzer nodded.

“I am Carlos. And I am not Carlos.”

I do not understand.

The man touched Vizzer’s cheek with his fingertips. “I am you. And I am not you. I am all that is and ever will be. All that has been, all that lives and all that dies.”

Vizzer gasped at the man’s touch, arched his back. A sorrow the size of the universe enveloped his soul. Tears coursed down his cheeks. The feeling was more powerful than anything he had ever experienced. He fought against it but it tightened its embrace. After a long moment of futile struggle, he surrendered.

What does this mean? Vizzer asked, blinking away tears.

“We are what we are.”

Tiny bolts of blue lightning fizzed and popped in his brain, and he could see. It was like he had been blind all his life, and now his eyes were finally open.

“Do you understand?” the man asked.

Yes.

“Do you want to stay?”

What for?

Carlos stepped backward. He lifted the bloody sword in salute. “Then you are ready.”

Thwump.

The powdery remains of the barrier continued their fluttering course to the ground. A roar filled his ears. Eighty thousand voices gargled incoherent oaths. He lifted his head, an eternal delay. Prinz floated on one foot, not five meters away. Puffs of dust obscured the king’s ankles. His head hung low, ready to gore. Vizzer studied the motionless figure for a long moment. A horn twitched a mere millim, advanced. Somehow, the king’s charge had been slowed.

What did this all mean? What was happening to him? Who was the man who looked like Carlos? Had the drug destroyed his brain? Vizzer tested himself. Two plus two is? Four. Why is the sky dark? The eclipse device. Dex controls it. Is there a god?

His mind went numb. A voice spoke inside his head. I am you. And I am not you. I am all that is and ever will be.

Carlos was their creator, but that did not make him a god, he told himself.

But who created Carlos? whispered the voice.

Chance. Fate. Who knows?

We are what we are.

Another bolt of blue lightning crashed against the inside of his forehead, illuminating the truth. He could see it, could not stop himself from seeing it, and it hurt. To accept it meant his life till now was a mistake. Everything he thought he knew was wrong. It meant going down on his knees before a god he could neither see nor hear.

Can’t you? the voice said, and chuckled kindly. Are you sure?

But who are you? he demanded. What are you?

All that has been, all that lives and all that dies.

A wail of sorrow keened in his ears. He could hear it above the noise of the crowd. A cry of acceptance and defeat. Where was it coming from? He paused for breath. The keening stopped too. From his own lungs. Mourning what he must become. He knew, then, that he would never be the same again.

His body moved like a marionette controlled by some greater power. He surrendered to the impulse. The cape unfurled in one hand, the sword leveled itself at his ear. Prinz had come closer, now only a meter away. The quivering cries of the crowd crashed against his ears.

He watched it happen, a disinterested observer in his own body. The cape fluttered forward and down. His feet planted themselves together. The long wait for Prinz to arrive, a millim at a time. Boredom. There was no minute calculation, where to put his hands, how to hold the sword. He just knew. The keening wail soared again on his tongue. The king’s right horn plunged straight for his belly.

Vizzer’s hips slung themselves sideways. Blood glistened on the king’s shoulder from the sword prick earlier. Now he saw what he’d done wrong. He’d aimed for the wrong spot. The right spot was there. Right there. He pushed down, and the sword pierced Prinz’s hide. The weapon slid effortlessly into the king’s body, driven in by the force of his charge. Languid vibrations rumbled up the blade, of sinews slicing, bones scraping, then the pulsing beat of the king’s own heart. The sharpened metal tip clove the aorta from the left ventricle. And stopped, the hilt pressed tight against Prinz’s flesh.

A sharp cry sprang from Vizzer’s lips, bitter on his tongue. It ended only when his lungs emptied. Silence fell on the stadium. He drew a deep breath. A thunk of horns on wood echoed behind him. He turned. The king sank to the ground, one horn buried in what was left of the scorched wooden wall. Once, twice, billows of breath filled Prinz’s chest. Then he was still.

He had killed. He, Vizzer, had killed. What’s more, it had been a perfect kill, as no matador had done in decades, and never against an undrugged opponent. He felt good. Glorious, even. This was what he had been made for. To kill or be killed. This was his joy as a bull.

Thwump. Thwump thwump. Thwump thwump.

Time picked up speed. He bent down, pulled the sword from Prinz’s body. Held it high above his head. See? he wanted to shout. You didn’t think I could do it. He strode around the circumference of the arena, taking his victory lap.

The young bulls grumbled to each other, made no move to stand. The Breeders got to their hooves, chewing their cud in silence. They would think twice before challenging him now, even Tnuu. The matadors cheered despite themselves, in awe at his unexpected prowess, which so clearly surpassed their own. The she-cows sat silent for a long moment, stunned, it seemed, by this turn of events. Then the bleating began, at first a cry of shock, blossoming until their shrieks of happiness overwhelmed every other sound in the stadium. As one, they stampeded down the spiral terrace and poured over the barrier, filling the arena.

They crowded around him, pressing forward, reaching out to touch his naked pelt. “You did it! You really did it!” they called out, tears of joy streaking their emaciated features.

Where was Mantz? He looked around the sea of faces but couldn’t find her. Wait. There she was. High up on the terrace, nipping sadly at a blade of grass. And then he knew. Her vision. She had seen it too. She knew what was coming next, and that nothing on Taurus could stop it.

The she-cows lifted him up on their shoulders and bore him through the hole in the barrier Dex had blasted. Up the spiral terrace the joyful procession went, until they reached the bottom of the stone steps that led to the throne.

Behind him the bulls continued their grumbling. You will hail me as your king, he thought, but we are not the same.

We are what we are, whispered the voice in his ear.

The final piece of the puzzle fell into place. Now he understood. He had spent a lifetime trying to deny his true nature. The other bulls were his kin, more so than any she-cow could ever be. It was time for him to fulfill his destiny.

The marble steps were cool beneath his feet. He climbed toward the Creator’s Throne, that simple stone bench so long unused. He would become king. He had earned it, and would defend it against all comers.

And then?

The sacrifices would go on. Must go on. It was what they were born to do. So Carlos wasn’t a god. So the human race was dead. So what? We are alive, he thought. This is the mystery of our existence, that each day in the arena one must die.

Vizzer stood now, his back to the throne, gazing down at eighty thousand Crosses. They peered up at him, wondering what he would do next. The menopausal she-cows he would transport to the South Pole. He had no desire to see them suffer. Sweet grass there, Dex had said, and cool spring waters. They would be happy there, he hoped. And if they weren’t, that was too bad. Their job was to breed and produce sons for the slaughter. When that job was done, they were no longer needed. He sat on the throne.

The crowd gasped. It was forbidden to sit on Carlos’s Throne. It had been empty for thousands of years, since Carlos Himself last presided over the corrida. But Carlos was dead, and he, Vizzer, was alive and immortal, and under his reign began a new age on Taurus.

An explosion outside the stadium made the marble beneath his feet tremble. A pointed cylinder spurting fire from one end sought the protection of heaven. Some sort of rudimentary space-going vessel, it looked like. A novice appeared at his elbow, holding an earpiece. Vizzer took it, put it in his ear.

Through the static a voice crackled, “You let me go or I will destroy the planet. You know I’ll do it.”

So. Rutt.

Dex’s silver disc hovered unmoving above the arena. The ray gun cannon slid back inside the body of the ship. He must have gotten the same message. Vizzer’s stomachs tightened. These next few thousand years would not be easy.

The drone of Rutt’s ship in the sky grew fainter. Taurus would prepare to meet the human survivors—and kill them all. There could be no mercy. There was not room enough on the planet for both species. He would also have to find a way to deal with Rutt.

But all this was in the future. His soul clamored for attention in the present. He cleared his throat and spoke so all could hear.

“Let there be blood.”

A Favor

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About the Author

How does technology change what it means to be human? J.M. Porup is a journalist and futurologist who studies how exponentially-increasing innovation disrupts the social and political order. He is also the CEO of the LatAm Startups Angel Funds, a Latin America-based accelerator focused on scaling startups globally. He has covered computer security for The Economist, Bitcoin for Bitcoin Magazine, and the Gringo Trail for numerous Lonely Planet guidebooks. His award-winning novels and plays include The Second Bat Guano War, Dreams Must Die, Death on Taurus, and The United States of Air. Porup is a member of the Lifeboat Foundation's Advisory Board, a distributed think tank dedicated to preventing human extinction.

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Also by J.M. Porup

The United States of Air: a Satire

The Second Bat Guano War

Death on Taurus

Dreams Must Die

With Shazam al-War bin al-Gorithm

A Terrorist Converts: How I Learned to Stop Hating America

A Terrorist Converts: How I Learned to Love the NSA

A Terrorist Converts: Why I’m Voting for Hillary Clinton

With Dr. Robert Jones MD PhD DDS ODD

Food-Free At Last: How I Learned To Eat Air

Food-Free At Last: 100 Air-Only Recipes

Food-Free At Last: Better with Bacon

Acknowledgments

Thanks go first to my editors, Alison Dasho and John Helfers. Their contributions were invaluable.

Derek Murphy’s fine artwork adorns the cover.

The amazing Jill Mueller proofed.

Many people read and commented on various drafts. Thank you!

Y finalemente, y mas importante que todo, gracias a mi conejita y ladybug girl. Te amo y te amo.

Excerpt from Dreams Must Die

THE TIME FOR DREAMING IS OVER, the Collective boomed inside Jimmy Shade’s skull. NOW WE ALL MUST WORK.

Shade exchanged glances with his partner, Kann. The two men crouched over a sleeping dreamer. Her dreams had sent shock waves through the Collective, that mental union of all humanity. As a member of the elite Dream Police, it was Shade’s job to kill dreams before they could infect anyone else.

What is your judgment? Shade closed his eyes and stood before the tribunal, ten billion minds in attendance. ChemLob? Or unplugg?

The entire human race entered the dreamer’s brain. Shade joined them.

The dream hit him like a foul stench, a poisonous cloud of unreality: hopes and longings and fears.

GUILTY, intoned the Collective. SENTENCE IS CHEMLOB.

Shade opened his eyes and returned to the garret of the abandoned building. Around them, crude sketches lined the walls. The signs of a diseased mind, Shade thought. But don’t worry. We’ll cure you.

He drew a jabber from his bandoleer. ChemLob—short for Chemical Lobotomy—killed the dream without harming the dreamer, allowing the afflicted node to be a useful member of society once more.

How much happier she’ll be once we ChemLob her, Shade thought.

Kann nodded. Happiness is to serve and obey the Collective.

An image of Shade’s wife passed through his mind, and he wondered if she was happy—

But he suppressed the thought. Memories, like dreams, were forbidden.

The dreamer stirred in her sleep. The two men froze. If she woke while dreaming, the dream would surface into her conscious mind and they’d probably have to unplugg her. The more conscious a dreamer was of their condition, the stronger and more dangerous they were. Sometimes unplugging was the only way to kill a dream before it spread.

Shade took no pleasure from unplugging. The look of horror on their faces! To rub the sleep from their eyes, and discover they were no longer part of the Collective, permanently disconnected from humanity! Joined at birth by brain implant to every other human being in the world—to have that taken away from you!—it was the worst punishment the Collective possessed, far worse even than the death penalty. Being cut off from the Collective always sent the dreamer mad.

Is Linda mad? Shade wondered, unable to prevent the thought. Is she happy, where she is? If it weren’t for these dreamers… A blast of fury hit him. How I hate them all!

YOU MUST NOT HATE, the Collective boomed inside his skull.

Shade cringed. I know, he thought. It’s just I loved her so—

YOU MUST NOT LOVE, the Collective replied, so loud this time his skull ached. HATE IS IRRELEVANT. LOVE IS IRRELEVANT.

Of course they’re irrelevant, Shade thought. What is love anyway? A criminal impulse.

The reprimand disrupted his thoughts. What was I thinking before? He puzzled over this. He could not remember. He relaxed, felt contentment sweep over him. I feel nothing at all. Completely numb.

YOU ARE A GOOD NODE, JIMMY SHADE, the Collective said, in a whisper this time. REMEMBER ALWAYS: I AM WE. WE ARE ALL. WE ARE THE COLLECTIVE.

Kann interrupted. Do it. Now!

Shade refocused on the dreamer lying on the dirty mattress. She shifted under her blanket. Her eyes fluttered open.

He slid the jabber needle into her neck and depressed the plunger with his thumb. The medicine entered her veins. She stiffened, then with a sigh settled back to sleep, a look of bliss on her face.

Shade and Kann probed her mind once more. Her dream quivered, twitched and died.

Let the infection spread no further, Kann thought. We’ve cured you. No one else shall suffer because of your disease. He got to his feet and stretched. One down, a hundred and forty-three to go.

No time like the present, Shade thought.

But for some reason he felt ill at ease. What was he supposed to remember? Something important…

Shade and Kann worked hard until dawn, a standard eighteen-hour shift, until their thumbs ached and their bandoleers emptied of jabbers. The survival of the Collective depended on their efforts, and they knew it. A single dreamer—a single dream—had the power to destroy the Collective. And without the Collective, humanity, indeed all life on Earth, was doomed.

The final suspect of their shift was a self-aware dreamer sleeping in an alleyway. A dangerous one, alright. Shade and Kann approached the man with caution. Sentence had already been delivered: unplugg. They paused, studied the motionless figure on the ground.

Shade was not looking forward to this. A gust of sub-Crust wind howled between the buildings. A rat squeaked. The dreamer shifted under the garbage he used as a blanket.

Kann motioned him forward. Shade moved toward the dreamer, but stepped on a crinkly food pill wrapper. The dreamer pushed himself up on one elbow, face obscured in darkness.

Shade swore inside his head.

He double-checked his dream shield. The skin-tight dream armor covered him from head to toe, and allowed him full mental contact with other nodes in the Collective, but prevented dreams from passing through.

Kann checked his shield too. Unless you want to spend tomorrow night ChemLobbing the hundreds of nearby nodes this dreamer is going to infect, I suggest you unplugg him, and now.

Unaware dreamers oozed their mental poison, a low-frequency nocturnal emission with a narrow transmission radius. But a self-aware dreamer woken from his troubled slumber—that was dangerous stuff. His dream could explode like poisonous pus for a kilometer or more, infecting any node within that radius.

Shade reached for the unplugger on his hip, but hesitated for a millisecond.

Never mind, Kann thought. It’s my turn anyway. After what happened to Linda… He left the thought unfinished.

The dreamer sat up and looked around.

Shade could not make out his face. Time for a double-team. He grabbed the man’s ears, pulled his chin down to his chest, and Kann jammed the unplugger into the base of the dreamer’s skull.

When the man realized what was about to happen, he howled, but Shade held him tight by the ears. The unplugger drilled a small hole in the skull, flicked the disc of bone aside and extracted the man’s implant.

A pulsing silver blob oozed out of the man’s head into the clear tube mounted atop the unplugger. The implant’s tentacles clung to the man’s brain, but the unplugger’s suction was too strong, and with a splatting sound the silver implant flapped against the inside of the tube.

Shade slapped a med strip across the man’s skull and stood up. In time the wound would heal.

The dreamer was another story.

The two Dream Police watched the man warily. Every dreamer was different. You could never be sure how they would react to being unplugged. Some begged to have their implant back—which was impossible, of course, removal was as permanent as death itself. Others curled up in a fetal ball and cried. Still others turned out to be violent.

Which kind of dreamer was this one? Shade wondered.

The man lurched to his feet, wild-eyed, and staggered toward them, trying to speak. His vocal chords—never used, and unable to form the sounds he’d spent a lifetime hearing inside his head—struggled to do more than gargle and groan.

In the faint streetlight from the window the man’s face became visible. Shade gasped.

It was Frank. A fellow member of the Dream Police. A colleague. Shade had never worked with the man, but he’d spent many a convivial hour inside the man’s head, trading professional gossip.

Dream infection was a professional hazard all Dream Police faced. A tiny rip in a dream shield, and wham! Dreaming in the gutter. That’s how it had happened to Linda. And now to yet another colleague.

Frank rushed at Kann, but Kann side-stepped, stuck out his foot and the dreamer went down.

A violent one, Kann tsk-tsked inside Shade’s head. Help me, will you?

Unplugged dreamers had been known to gash out their eyes with their fingernails in an effort to claw their brains from their skulls, and so end the agony of a lifetime sentence of mental solitary confinement.

We cannot let you hurt yourself, Shade thought. Every node is precious.

He dropped a knee on the man’s lower back, grabbed his wrists and cuffed him.

What is Good for All is Good for the One, his partner agreed.

Kann hopped into the mind of an ambulance driver a few blocks away, and within a few minutes paramedics arrived. They wrapped Frank in a dream jacket and strapped him to a stretcher. In the unlikely event his dream was still contagious, the dream jacket, which acted like a reverse dream shield, would keep any dream energy from infecting others.

Shade stared after the ambulance as it floated down the street, on its way to the Hall of Dreams, where Frank would spend the rest of his life in a padded cell. He had seen too many fellow officers carted off, raving, their implants still warm in an unplugger.

It could have been me, he thought.

Could have been any of us. Kann yawned again. But it wasn’t, was it?

Kann pressed a button on the unplugger, and a small charge inside the implant exploded, turning it into a puddle of organic goo. He ejected the mass into a nearby drain.

I wish we didn’t have to unplugg dreamers, Shade thought.

We do the will of the Collective. Kann shrugged and holstered his unplugger.

THE TIME FOR DREAMING IS OVER, the Collective boomed once more inside Shade’s head. NOW WE ALL MUST WORK.

Shade and Kann summoned a passing moving box and rode down the dark, empty streets of the city. At the station, they summoned a flying train, and climbed the ladder up through the Crust and took a seat. They joined their mental energy to that of the other passengers and the train lifted into the air.

Since the War, physical energy had been replaced by mental energy. The Collective had discovered how to tap the previously inaccessible power of the human mind. Each node’s implant connected to a worldwide power grid. Every moving box, every flying train, every light bulb was powered by this global network. Shade could direct his mental power in his immediate vicinity—to power a moving train, or illuminate a dark alley, but otherwise let the power flow freely into the Collective.

Shade missed having his own police cruiser. Since he and Kann got promoted from street patrol duty, they’d had to travel incognito. A cruiser, machine guns bristling, tended to alert suspects of police presence. Arriving on foot gave their targets little warning. On the plus side, ChemLobbing individual dreamers was a lot more challenging than gunning down mobs of infected dreamers. Anyone could pull the trigger on a machine gun. Surgically removing errant dreamers from the Collective required a fair bit more skill.

He gazed out the leaded window of the flying train. The Crust was black and flat as far as the eye could see. A kilometer thick, it covered the entire planet, from pole to pole and around the Equator. Every day the Collective added a thin layer of lead atoms, transmuting other elements to create yet more protection from dangers humanity faced both above and below. An acid rain storm lashed the surface around them, leaving fallout in its wake. Storm drains absorbed the water and sent the liquid below for processing.

How many thousands of years had it been since the War? Shade wondered. He wasn’t sure, but felt it better not to ask—better to not even think the question.

The flying train was made of the same black material as the Crust—solid lead. Heavy stuff. Flying drained his mental energy. Shade was looking forward to his daily six. On the horizon, a dim haze glowed through the fluffy nuclear winter cloud.

Dawn.

If only mankind could go without sleep! he thought bitterly. Without sleep, there would be no more dreams—and no more dreamers! Humanity stands on the brink of extinction. Just think what we could accomplish if we weren’t forced to spend all day hunting dreamers. Imagine—a twenty-four hour workday. How great would that be?

You said it, buddy, Kann thought, and yawned. Time for a well-earned six.

At the city center, the train descended, landing amidst hundreds of other flying trains. Shade and Kann climbed down the hatchway into the station, and pushed through crowds of morning commuters. Shade wondered what it must be like to have an office job. Working in groundscrapers that protruded hundreds of stories beneath the Crust, and hung, windowless, over the barren land far below, long since abandoned as uninhabitable.

Shade and Kann parted, a brief farewell lingering in each other’s minds, and each went to his own dormitory.

Shade got home tired but happy. He was always happy. And if he ever felt less than happy, the Collective soon corrected the fault.

What a joy to serve the Collective! he thought. Such bliss! To be part of humanity in such an intimate and permanent way—how could he ever be dissatisfied?

Sure, he lived in permanent darkness, sandwiched between a poisonous sky above and a radioactive wasteland far below. Sure, he worked eighteen-hour days, killing nodes whose only crime was to dream. Sure, the day would come when he could no longer serve the Collective, and they would recycle him.

But what did it matter?

He was a glass-half-full kind of node. Come to think of it, every node was a glass-half-full kind of node. That’s what it meant to be a node!

Shade gave thanks every day to the Collective for allowing him to be part of something so much greater than himself.

Ten billion minds heard his thoughts and purred in approval.

I AM WE. WE ARE ALL. WE ARE THE COLLECTIVE.

Shade took an elevator to floor -157 and strode down row after row of bunk towers, until he came to his own. He climbed up past ten sleeping nodes to bunk 11, and squeezed himself in sideways. His nose scraped against the bottom of bunk 12. He popped a food pill and water pill, and luxuriated in the feeling as they expanded in his stomach. Nothing like a good meal after a hard day’s work ChemLobbing dreamers.

Thousands of snores filled the room. The unconscious thoughts of the sleepers merged with his own. Empty. Not a dreamer among them. Shade smiled and closed his eyes. Fellow night shifters sleeping the day away. Get their beauty six. Again Shade thought, what a pity the Collective had never found a substitute for sleep.

As it was, the human race was fighting for survival. Without ten billion nodes working full-time, the race was doomed.

ONLY BY WORK CAN MAN BE SAVED, the Collective whispered in the back of his skull.

When Shade was younger, he had once wondered what man needed to be saved from, but the Collective’s reply had been so loud and furious the thought never again crossed his mind:

FROM HIMSELF.

His mind empty, his conscious clear, Shade sighed in contentment, and faded off to sleep.

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DEATH ON TAURUS

Copyright © 2013 by J.M. Porup

Some Rights Reserved.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (BY-NC-SA).

This book is a work of fiction. Or it’s a message from ten thousand years in the future. Take your pick.

Published by J.M. Porup

epub ISBN: 978-0-9918022-4-1

kindle/mobi ISBN: 978-0-9918022-3-4

ASIN: B00CMRYZRI

www.JMPorup.com