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Stories from the Verse
A Dozen Verses
Chapter 117: Cooper 111
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Kondor 294
Restoring his backpack to his back and his duffel over his left shoulder, he grabbed his walking stick with his right hand and tried to leave the office.
The door was locked.
Right. This was a lynching, and he was the lynchee. Obviously once again he was being accused of witchcraft and heresy; it was starting to become a familiar song.
He didn’t really want to damage the church, but then, he didn’t want it to damage him, so he twisted the knob and threw himself against the door. The frame gave way some, and with a second strike the bolt broke through the wood, and he was out.
Now the trick was to avoid the mob. Unfortunately, he didn’t know the floorplan of the church. Nor would there be conveniently lit exit signs. His two choices seemed to be to head for the door through which he had entered and hope he beat the mob, or go deeper into the church and hope he could locate a back door, or even a window large enough for him to get through.
“We are in sovereign hands,” he said, and turned away from the front entrance to head further inside the building.
At least he wasn’t hungry.
He heard a commotion back toward the office. The mob had entered the building, and not having found him were starting to panic. He understood how they felt; he was trying not to panic himself. However, he seemed to be passing down a corridor filled with classrooms, and hoped that it would lead ultimately to an exit.
He reminded himself not to presume anything. After all, requiring public buildings to have multiple clearly-marked exits including fire escapes was all really very modern stuff--twentieth century, if he wasn’t mistaken. It was entirely possible that the building had only the single door. That, though, would be inconvenient for any building that was used for large numbers of people meeting. Entering and exiting would be impeded by the bottleneck. He could reasonably hope that there were several doors; he just had to find one.
Reaching the end of the hall, he found a last classroom to his left, and a set of steps down to a door on his right. That was his best guess, and as he took the stairs two at a time he nearly crashed into the door. It was not locked, and it did open to the outdoors, around the side of the building. Getting his bearings, he headed in the direction he was fairly certain was the rear, hoping that he could continue beyond the building and find his way elsewhere. He still had no idea where he was going, or why he was here, but for the moment he did not expect he would find out by being caught.
There was a line of trees behind the building, and beyond it a few houses on a side street. He set aside his qualms about cutting through peoples’ yards and headed that way at a brisk walk. He might have made it.
There was a shout behind him. Of course they would recognize him; his clothes were strange. He shifted into a trot, using the walking stick to keep himself moving. However, the voices behind him were increasing in number and urgency. He could tell from the sound that they were closing the gap, some running--and as good as his physical shape was, he was not a runner. He almost wished he had the sword in hand, and could call on its power. He didn’t have that.
When he thought they had closed the gap to a couple dozen yards, he whirled around to face them, and raising his left hand almost reflexively he shouted, “Stop!”
Several of those directly in front of him were knocked back a few feet, and three of them fell backwards.
What was that? Had he worked some magic he had never intended?
Wait--it was the glove. He was still wearing it. He had accidently activated it a couple times, and then used it to push The Energetic away from the surface of Mercury before he fell. He really didn’t know how it worked or what it could do, but he did know that it projected kinetic force of some kind, and it responded to physical movements.
He was going to have to figure it out, somehow, somewhere. This was not the moment.
“Spread out!” someone shouted. “Don’t let him use his witchcraft against all of us!”
Yes, that’s probably what he would have suspected had it happened to him back on earth. The notion of a machine that generated kinetic force was a bit difficult for him to accept; it must be many times harder for them.
“I didn’t come to hurt anybody,” he said. “I’m just a lost traveler looking for a place to stay.”
“Don’t listen to him! Don’t let him charm you!”
These people were worse than the inquisition. He turned back the way he had been headed, and started to run. However, he was burdened, and there were some young healthy farmers in this crowd, men who could outrun him in a fair race and could certainly catch him here. He thought about using the glove against them, but uncertain just how much force it exerted or how to control it (he had, after all, used it to shift the trajectory of a spaceship) he feared doing serious injury to someone.
Not surprisingly, he was tackled, and his hands pulled out alongside him. Someone stood on each arm.
There would be no formalities. They’d seen the magic with their own eyes. Several of the larger men crowded around him and stripped him, tossing his gear and his clothes in all directions. Then as they backed away, he saw he was surrounded, and his captors began pelting him with stones.
“I am in sovereign hands!” he cried out, but he felt the pain of the repeated blows. So this was the punishment inflicted on criminals under the Law of Moses; this is what the hypocrites had intended to do to the woman caught in adultery. It was certainly a gruesomely painful way to die.
A rock hit his head, and he swooned, felt his legs failing him, and collapsed.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #533: Characters Traveling. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
