Small Gods

The Unnamed Boat clipped along gently, the wind filling Urn’s robe attached to a mast made out of bits of the sphere’s framework bound together with Simony’s sandal thongs.

‘I think I know what went wrong,’ said Urn. ‘A mere overspeed problem.’

‘Overspeed? We left the water!’ said Simony.

‘It needs some sort of governor device,’ said Urn, scratching a design on the side of the boat. ‘Something that’d open the valve if there was too much steam. I think I could do something with a pair of revolving balls.’^{65}

‘It’s funny you should say that,’ said Didactylos. ‘When I felt us leave the water and the sphere exploded I distinctly felt my—’

‘That bloody thing nearly killed us!’ said Simony.

‘So the next one will be better,’ said Urn, cheerfully. He scanned the distant coastline.

‘Why don’t we land somewhere along here?’ he said.

‘The desert coast?’ said Simony. ‘What for? Nothing to eat, nothing to drink, easy to lose your way. Omnia’s the only destination in this wind. We can land this side of the city. I know people. And those people know people. All across Omnia, there’s people who know people. People who believe in the Turtle.’

‘You know, I never meant for people to believe in the Turtle,’ said Didactylos unhappily. ‘It’s just a big turtle. It just exists. Things just happen that way. I don’t think the Turtle gives a damn. I just thought it might be a good idea to write things down and explain things a bit.’

‘People sat up all night, on guard, while other people made copies,’ said Simony, ignoring him. ‘Passing them from hand to hand! Everyone making a copy and passing it on! Like a fire spreading underground!’

‘Would this be lots of copies?’ said Didactylos cautiously.

‘Hundreds! Thousands!’

‘I suppose it’s too late to ask for, say, a five per cent royalty?’ said Didactylos, looking hopeful for a moment. ‘No. Probably out of the question, I expect. No. Forget I even asked.’

A few flying fish zipped out of the waves, pursued by a dolphin.

‘Can’t help feeling a bit sorry for that young Brutha,’ said Didactylos.

‘Priests are expendable,’ said Simony. ‘There’s too many of them.’

‘He had all our books,’ said Urn.

‘He’ll probably float with all that knowledge in him,’ said Didactylos.

‘He was mad, anyway,’ said Simony. ‘I saw him whispering to that tortoise.’

‘I wish we still had it. There’s good eating on one of those things,’ said Didactylos.

It wasn’t much of a cave, just a deep hollow carved by the endless desert winds and, a long time ago, even by water. But it was enough.

Brutha knelt on the stony floor and raised the rock over his head.

There was a buzzing in his ears and his eyeballs felt as though they were set in sand. No water since sunset and no food for a hundred years. He had to do it.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, and brought the rock down.

The snake had been watching him intently but in its early-morning torpor it was too slow to dodge. The cracking noise was a sound that Brutha knew his conscience would replay to him, over and over again.

‘Good,’ said Om, beside him. ‘Now skin it, and don’t waste the juice. Save the skin, too.’

‘I didn’t want to do it,’ said Brutha.

‘Look at it this way,’ said Om, ‘if you’d walked in the cave without me to warn you, you’d be lying on the floor now with a foot the size of a wardrobe. Do unto others before they do unto you.’

‘It’s not even a very big snake,’ said Brutha.

‘And then while you’re writhing there in indescribable agony, you imagine all the things you would have done to that damn snake if you’d got to it first,’ said Om. ‘Well, your wish has been granted. Don’t give any to Vorbis,’ he added.

‘He’s running a bad fever. He keeps muttering.’

‘Do you really think you’ll get him back to the Citadel and they’ll believe you?’ said Om.

‘Brother Nhumrod always said I was very truthful,’ said Brutha. He smashed the rock on the cave wall to create a crude cutting edge, and gingerly started dismembering the snake. ‘Anyway, there isn’t anything else I can do. I couldn’t just leave him.’

‘Yes you could,’ said Om.

‘To die in the desert?’

‘Yes. It’s easy. Much easier than not leaving him to die in the desert.’

‘No.’

‘This is how they do things in Ethics, is it?’ said Om sarcastically.

‘I don’t know. It’s how I’m doing it.’

The Unnamed Boat bobbed in a gully between the rocks. There was a low cliff beyond the beach. Simony climbed back down it, to where the philosophers were huddling out of the wind.

‘I know this area,’ he said. ‘We’re a few miles from the village where a friend lives. All we have to do is wait till nightfall.’

‘Why’re you doing all this?’ said Urn. ‘I mean, what’s the point?’

‘Have you ever heard of a country called Istanzia?’ said Simony. ‘It wasn’t very big. It had nothing anyone wanted. It was just a place for people to live.’

‘Omnia conquered it fifteen years ago,’ said Didactylos.

‘That’s right. My country,’ said Simony. ‘I was just a kid then. But I won’t forget. Nor will others. There’s lots of people with a reason to hate the Church.’