The vast creature spoke a crude form of Marain. Horza opened his mouth to tell them his name, but Fwi-Song continued. “You

have been

sent to us in our time of testing, a morsel of human flesh on the tide of nothingness, a harvest-thing plucked from

the tasteless wash of life, a

sweetmeat to share and be shared in our victory over the poisonous bile of disbelief! You are

a sign from Fate, for which we give thanks!" Fwi-

Song’s huge arms lifted up; rolls of shoulder fat wobbled on either side

of the turret-like head, nearly covering the ears. Fwi-Song shouted out in

a language Horza didn’t know, and the crowd echoed

the phrase, chanting it several times.

The fat-smothered arms were lowered again. “You are the salt of the sea, ocean-gift." Fwi-Song’s syrupy voice changed back

into Marain

once more. “You are a sign, a blessing from Fate; you are the one to become many, the single to be shared; yours

will be the gaining gift, the

blessed beauty of transubstantiation!"

Horza stared, horrified, at the golden giant, unable to think of anything to say. What

could

you say to people like this. Horza cleared his

throat, still hoping to say something, but Fwi-Song went on.

“Be told then, gift of the sea, that we are the Eaters; the Eaters of ashes, the Eaters of filth, the Eaters of sand and tree

and grass; the most

basic, the most loved, the most real. We have labored to prepare ourselves for our day of testing, and

now that day is gloriously near!" The

golden-skinned prophet’s voice grew shrill; folds of fat shook as Fwi-Song’s arms opened

out. “Behold us then, as we await the time of our

ascension from this mortal plane, with empty bellies and voided bowels and

hungry minds!" Fwi-Song’s pudgy hands met in a slap; the fingers

interweaved like huge, fattened maggots.

“If I can—" croaked Horza, but the giant was talking to the crowd of grubby people again, the voice bubbling out over the

golden sands and

the cooking fires and the dull, malnourished people.

Horza shook his head a little and looked out over the expanse of beach to the open-doored shuttle in the distance. The more

he looked at

the craft, the more certain he became it was a Culture machine.

It was nothing he could pin down, but he grew more certain with every moment spent looking at the machine. He guessed it was

a fortyor

fifty-seater; just about big enough to take all the people he had seen on the island. It didn’t look particularly

new or fast, and it didn’t look armed

at all, but something about the whole way its simple, utilitarian form had been put

together spoke of the Culture. If the Culture designed an

animal-drawn cart or an automobile, they would still share something

in common with the device at the far end of the beach, for all the gulf of

time between the epochs each represented. It would

have helped if the Culture had used some sort of emblem or logo; but, pointlessly unhelpful

and unrealistic to the last, the

Culture refused to place its trust in symbols. It maintained that it was what it was and had no need for such

outward representation.

The Culture was every single individual human and machine in it, not one thing. Just as it could not imprison itself with

laws, impoverish itself with money or misguide itself with leaders, so it would not misrepresent itself with signs.

All the same, the Culture did have one set of symbols it was very proud of, and Horza didn’t doubt that if the machine he

was looking at was

a Culture craft, it would have some Marain writing on or in it somewhere.

Was it in some way connected with the mass of flesh still talking to the scrawny humans around the fire. Horza doubted it.

Fwi-Song’s

Marain was shaky and ill tutored. Horza’s own grasp of the language was far from perfect, but he knew enough about

the tongue to realize Fwi-

Song did it some violence when he or she used it. Anyway, the Culture was not in the habit of loaning

out its vehicles to religious nutcases. Was

it here to evacuate them, then. Lift them to safety when the Culture’s high-technology

shit hit the rotating fan that was the Vavatch Orbital. With

a sinking feeling, Horza realized this was probably the answer.

So there was no escape. Either these crazies sacrificed him or did whatever it

was they were set on doing to him, or it was

a ride into captivity, courtesy of the Culture.

He told himself not to assume the worst. After all, he now looked like Kraiklyn, and it wasn’t

that

likely the Culture’s Minds had made all the

correct connections between him, the

CAT

and Kraiklyn. Even the Culture didn’t think of everything. But… they probably did know he’d been on

The Hand of God 137;

they probably did know he’d escaped from it; they probably did know that the

CAT

was in that volume at the time. (He

recalled the statistics Xoralundra had quoted to the

Hand

’s captain; yes, the GCU must have won the battle…. He remembered the

CAT

’s

rough-running warp motors; probably producing a wake any self-respecting GCU could track from centuries away)… Damn it;

he wouldn’t put it

past them. Maybe they were testing everybody they were picking up from Vavatch. They would know in seconds,

from just a single sample cell;

a skin flake, a hair; for all he knew he’d been sampled already, a micromissile sent from

the nearby shuttle picking up some tiny piece of

tissue…. He dropped his head, his neck muscles aching with all the others

in his battered, bruised, exhausted body.

Stop it,

he told himself.

Thinking like a failure. Too damn sorry for yourself. Get yourself out of this. Still got your teeth and your nails…

and your

brain. Just bide your time.

…

“For lo," Fwi-Song warbled, “the godless ones, the most hated, the despised-by-the-despised, the Atheists, the Anathematics,

have sent us

this instrument of the Nothingness, the Vacuum, to us…." As the giant said those words Horza looked up and saw

Fwi-Song point along the

beach to the shuttle. “But we shall not waver in our faith! We shall resist the lure of the Nothingness

between the stars where the godless ones,

the Anathematized of the Vacuum exist! We shall stay part of what is a part of us!

We shall not treat with the great Blasphemy of the Material.

We shall stand as the rocks and trees stand—firm, rooted, secure,

staunch, unyielding!" Fwi-Song’s arms went out again, and the voice

bellowed out. The gruff-voiced man with the dirty pale

skin shouted something at the seated crowd, and they shouted back. The prophet smiled

at Horza from across the fire. Fwi-Song’s

mouth was a dark hole, with four small fangs protruding when the lips formed a smile. They shone in

the sunlight.

“This the way you treat all your guests." Horza said, trying not to cough until the end of his sentence. He cleared his throat.

Fwi-Song’s smile

vanished.

“Guest you are not, sea-wanton, salt-gift. Prize: ours to keep, mine to use. Bounty from the sea and the sun and the wind,

brought to us by

Fate. Hee-hee." Fwi-Song’s smile returned with a girlish giggle, and one of the huge hands went to cover

the pale lips. “Fate recognizes its

prophet, sends him tasty treats! Just when some of my flock were having second thoughts,

too! Eh, Mr. First." The turret-head turned to the thin

figure of the paler man, standing with arms folded, by the giant’s

side. Mr. First nodded:

“Fate is our gardener, and our wolf. It weeds out the weak to honor the strong. So the prophet has spoken."

“And the word which dies in the mouth lives in the ear," Fwi-Song said, turning the huge head back to look at Horza.

At least,

Horza thought,

now I know it’s a male. For whatever that’s worth.

“Mighty Prophet," Mr. First said. Fwi-Song smiled wider but continued looking at Horza. Mr. First went on, “The sea-gift should

see the fate

that awaits him. Perhaps the treacherous coward Twenty-seventh—"

“Oh,

yes!

" Fwi-Song clapped his huge hands together and a smile lit up his whole face. For a second Horza thought he saw small white

eyes beyond the slits staring at him. “Oh let’s, yes! Bring the coward, let us do what must be done."

Mr. First spoke in ringing tones to the emaciated humans gathered around the fire. A few stood up and walked off behind Horza,

toward the

forest. The rest started singing and chanting.

After a few minutes Horza heard a scream, then a series of yells and screams, gradually coming closer. At last the people

who had left

came back, carrying a short, thick log, much like the one Horza was held by. Swinging on the pole was a young

man, screaming, shouting in the

language Horza didn’t understand, and struggling. Horza saw drops of sweat and saliva fall

from the young man’s face and spot the sand. The

log was sharpened at one end; that point was driven into the sand on the

opposite side of the fire from Horza, so that the young man faced the

Changer.