The God Engines Read Online Free PDF Page B

whom Tephe did not recognize. He did recognize the apprehension both Chawk and Ero formed on their faces when the third bishop spoke. Whomever he was, he outranked them both, and significantly.
    “Yes, genocide,” continued the third bishop. “A systematic eradication of the faithful. Not to make it easier to steal
things
, or to barter hostages for money, or to loot and rape, but to destroy Our Lord by destroying that which sustains him!”
    Tephe glanced toward Chawk, whom to him seemed the most sympathetic to him on the panel. “What sustains Our Lord, Bishop Major?” he asked.
    “Faith sustains Him, Captain,” Chawk said, reprovingly. “As you must know from the commentaries.”
    “ ‘For I am nourished by the faithful, and draw upon their celebration,’ ” quoted Tephe. “I know my commentaries well, Bishop Major.”
    “Then it is perhaps that you do not understand them fully,” Chawk said. “When Our Lord speaks of being nourished by the faithful, He is not speaking in metaphor. Our faith sustains and strengthens Him, and gives Him the power to extend His grace to us, and to defeat and enslave His enemies, which in its turn allows us to travel the stars and find the space we need to increase our numbers and allow Him to grow more powerful and protect us further.”
    “And so to destroy His faithful is to wound Him directly,” Tephe said.
    “Even so,” Chawk said.
    “This is not in the commentaries,” Tephe said.
    “Our Lord is not a fool,” Ero said. “He does not reveal how He may be wounded.”
    “Neither has a genocide been part of the tactics those outside Our Lord’s grace have used against Him or the faithful,” Tephe said. “This is neither in the commentaries nor in the military histories.”
    The bishops were silent as Chawk and Ero looked toward the third bishop. He in turn moved his gaze to Tephe.
    “Prostrate yourself,” he said to the captain.
    Tephe fell to the floor, unquestioning.
    “You are charged with silence,” proclaimed the third Bishop. “What is spoken to you here is not to be spoken again, on remit of your soul.” From the floor Tephe quaked; he knew this bishop was warning him that his soul would be consumed. “I charge you again with silence; and charge you a third time. You may rise.”
    Tephe rose.
    “You have not heard of genocidal tactics being used because they have not been used for thousands of years,” Bishop Ero said. “You know from the commentaries that in the Time Before, thousands of gods contested for the souls of the faithful and that Our Lord prevailed. What is not spoken of are the tactics these gods used in their attempts to diminish Him.”
    “Genocide was used by some, then.” Tephe said.
    “By all, good captain,” Ero said. “By every one. And yet Our Lord still prevailed, and in doing so enslaved hundreds of the gods who contested against Him, and diminished the others so greatly that His preeminence was uncontested. These gods exist now on the margins of His empire, with only enough faithful to nibble at His feast. The looting and hostage taking of which we earlier spoke.”
    Tephe nodded. His earlier tours were a list of defenses against just such minor attacks and parries, and the goal in these engagements was twofold: to protect the faithful under attack and to capture rather than kill the gods who powered the enemy ships, so that they might be enslaved and thus used to increase the number of His ships.
    “Captain, what happened at Ament Cour was not the first of its kind,” Ero said.
    Tephe looked at the bishop, shocked. “Other genocides?”
    “Ament Cour was the third in the last month,” Chawk said. “Smar and Breese also were attacked. Their cities and the faithful within were put to flame and fire. Millions of the faithful taken from the grace of Our Lord. It would have been as this at Ament Cour, save for your actions.”
    “Many still died,” Tephe said.
    “Yes,” Chawk said. “But many lived who would not