Brother Joseph stood on the edge of the cornfield, taking respite from the heat in the shadow of the now wild, overgrown crop. He took a swig of water from the old plastic bottle, and then mopped his sweaty brow with a dirty cloth. Looking at the Catholic priest he travelled with, he sighed heavily and then handed over the mostly empty bottle of water.
"Thank you," the priest croaked through his parched throat. The water disappeared in a single gulp.
They, like the others of the group, looked up at the sharp sound of the Torlan fighter that whizzed by overhead. It had appeared too suddenly for any of them to run and hide, but the pilot ignored them and their band of weary followers. Instead, a furious elctro-pasmic torrent was unleashed on the position of the Sammarin camp they had quietly crept passed the night before.
"Those poor people," Father Murphy muttered, crossing himself as he did so.
"Demon magnets for more demons," Brother Joseph rumbled, and then spat on the ground as if the words themselves had been bitter on his tongue.
"They are good people, Joseph, it's not their fault ..."
The Baptist minister cut him off, "Yes, yes, I know the arguments. The Sammarins brought kindness and peacefulness with them along with starships full of hard workers just looking for a home. A real blessing for our world." His last sentenced was delivered with rolling eyes and a curled lip.
"It's not their fault," Father Murphy began, "that the ..."
"What do you mean it's not their fault?" The protestant spun on the catholic cleric. "If those demons hadn't come here, and our asinine governments hadn't welcomed them with open arms, then their masters would never have pursued them here! Their demon masters wouldn't have turned our world into a shooting gallery for the Sammarin vermin! Then our world wouldn't have become ..."
Father Murphy, the black, Irish cleric, held up both of his hands, "Please! Brother Joseph, let's not have this same argument again. We know that application of brotherly love is the first rule we must apply to those in need. That's from our Master's own words. The Holy See applauded the world's acceptance of the poor wayfarers who arrived in our orbit and ..."
His face reddened, he could no longer contain his rage. Joseph Davis took one step forward and his balled fist flew, aimed squarely at the priests jaw.
Before becoming a man of the cloth, Michael Murphy had been a hardworking, hard drinking miner from Omagh, County Tyrone, in Northern Ireland and he hadn't lost his street fighting reflexes. However, instead of pummeling the American Baptist preacher into a bloody pulp, he adeptly dodged the flying fist. Adding a slight push of his hand onto the follow through of the American's swing, the younger protestant found himself prostrate and tasting dirt. He quickly bounced back to his feet, shocking those around the two men with his liberal violation of the third commandment, quickly dropping into a boxer's stance.
"ENOUGH!" Carmella shouted at them. The half human, half Sammarin love child of a long dead two-species couple strode up to the men and stood between them. Father Murphy had no desire for the hostility to continue, and Brother Joseph quickly stepped back from the orange-skinned abomination of the devil, wearing a purple paisley dress and a frown.
"You two are grown men, men of God! How dare you," she was addressing Joseph, "sully your oath with this barbarism!"
The other thirty followers watched in silence, torn between supporting the respective leader of their two flocks; afraid for what a rift in the group would mean for their survival; abhorred that it was the half-breed that had been the one to intercede. Having the woman in their presence, with her oddly shaped eyes, a ridge bone on her forehead, and skin the colour of a tangerine, was not an item of contention: they all hated her presence equally because of the danger she brought them. But Father Murphy had insisted, refusing to leave her injured on the side of the road where they found her. For the last three months she had been with the group, drinking their water, eating their food, sharing the warmth of their evening cook fires, and contributing just as much as any other, perhaps more. For some reason that medical science had not had the time for the opportunity to find out, the human-Sammarin hybrid's had exceptional night-vision and were incredibly successful hunters. Much of the food that crossed the group's taste buds had been brought down, dressed, and placed in the metaphorical larder by Camella and the other hybrid woman, Poteni.
"I've told you before not to speak His name, demon."
Carmella's shoulders slumped as she sighed. Unfortunately, she was too used to the man's vitriol and name-calling.
"We're not demons," Poteni said as she stepped up behind Carmella. "We're just ..."
"Just what? What are you?" Joseph's anger was boiling over again, strong enough for him to forget his fear of the two freaks in front of him. "Well? What are you if you're not demons? You're certainly not human like us!"
"We're half human," Carmella said quietly, already knowing what his response would be.
Before the man could speak, Father Murphy tried to intervene, "Please, children, brother Joseph, let's not ..."
"No! Do not side with them you dogan bastard, do not try and make what they are, to be okay."
"We're not demons!" Poteni wasn't as calm as the other hybrid. She had some Scottish in her human side and that Scottish blood was having none of it. She pushed past Carmella and stepped right up to Joseph's face. "We're on the run like you, we're bringing as much to this group -- maybe even more than the others. What right do you have to ..."
"HALF OF YOU IS NOT OF MANKIND! YOU ARE OF THE DEVIL HIMSELF!"
"Aaarrrrggghh!" Poteni growled, throwing her hands up in the air.
"You parents bred with Satan's issue! God created the heaven and the earth, it's in the holy word. It doesn't say he created life elsewhere, only on earth! So if you come from elsewhere, you can only come from Lucifer."
"And that ancient tome was written for ancient people who would not have understood the concept of other worlds! They were barely able to bring order to chaos in their own tribes let alone think of life on other planets!"
Brother Joseph sneered at her, "The devil can cite scripture for his purpose." He looked at Father Murphy, nodding his head, encouraging his agreement.
Murphy bowed his head and folded his hands in front of him, muttering sotto-voce, "That's a line from the Merchant of Venice."
Undeterred, Brother Joseph pushed his attack, "You were not created by God: you are an alien thing born from the sin of human lust for a lustful thing of the demon realm!"
"Wait a minute, haven't you yourself preached that all life was created by God?" asked Tom, one of the Catholic flock that had been with the group for almost two years, wandering the scorched and chaotic dystopian flat lands of the American Midwest.
"Yes, all life created on earth," Brother Joseph responded, "but not life created in the realms of Satan, and God certainly did not create a life that was a union of His children with the fallen one's spawn."
Poteni was back in his face, "God created all life on Earth?"
"Yes," Brother Joseph sneered, he liked sneering.
"So, in your Holy Book, God created Adam and Eve, correct?" Poteni asked, not quite as loud.
"Yes."
"And you, like everyone else, is a descendant of Adam and Eve, right? That there is no such thing as evolution, there is only what your God has created?" she had lowered her voice a bit more; people were moving a bit closer.
"Yes," Brother Joseph was nodding his head. He hoped she was getting it; that she was finally getting why she was an abomination and why she was evil. In his mind, the only thing more evil than a Sammarin half-breed was a full-blood.
"And Adam and Eve were white, right? So it's impossible for someone like me, someone with orange skin to be created by Him?"
"Yes," he voice was almost triumphant. People were moving closer. Brother Joseph looked around at them, almost beside himself with the joy that would be had when the demon spawn revealed the truth that she was evil incarnate.
"Then I have only one question left, Brother Joseph," Poteni's voice was almost a whisper, people were pressing close around them so they could hear her. "Would you indulge me, and help me understand this?"
"It is my duty to preach God's word, demon. Ask what you will." The hatred in his voice was almost palpable.
Poteni looked at the faces in the crowd, then she looked at Father Murphy, and then she smiled. Turning back to Brother Joseph she spoke in much louder voice, "If God created Adam and Eve, and there is no evolution, and Adam and Eve are white; then tell me brother Joseph, how do you explain black people?"
Joseph opened his mouth to retort, but found that there were no words on his tongue. He looked at the crowd around them, most of the dozen black faces in that crowd coming from his own flock; he looked at Father Murphy, the man's African black skin glistening with sweat from the heat, and his mouth turning up in a smile; he looked back at the two half-breed, orange-skinned demons, with ridge bones running down the middle of their foreheads, standing in front of him. Fortunately or unfortunately, he did not have time to respond to them.
It was at that moment that a platoon-sized Torlan unit emerged from the tall crop of corn the group had stopped to rest near.
**<()>**
Icheb put his hand in his mouth and bit down hard, the pressure in his jaw muscles taking the strain of his bodies urge to scream at the pain in his leg. He stayed motionless, watching from under the brush, his back pressed up against the wall, the warmth of the blood still trickling over his skin. He knew he had to wrap up the gash, but the fighter had landed and the Torlan pilot was walking around the ruins of the camp. Every few seconds there would be an electrical snap, a flash of green light, and another survivor became a victim.
The electro-plasma bolts of energy had destroyed everything in the camp, every structure in the camp, and everyone who had been inside the structures. But not everyone in the camp had been inside. Many were wounded or outright killed by the fragments of the explosions. Some had unwittingly run straight into a blast of the energy. Those were the lucky ones, vapourized within nanoseconds.
After what seemed like an hour, the pilot finally made his way back to the fighter craft and lifted off for a new target.
Icheb knew that at least two others had survived, he saw them running flat out in the loping stride of a full-blood Sammarin, like him. They had disappeared into the forest on the far side of the camp. Whether or not they would come back, he didn't know. Not likely though, they would believe that the pilot, assassin would be a more appropriate term, left nothing behind. Except that Icheb had been left behind because he had been too quick in his concealment for the pilot to notice him.
The earth born alien lay there for another half hour, hand clutching the wound on his leg as he tried to fathom what his next move was going to be. This camp had been the only full-blood Sammarin camp he'd encountered in years. It had been a respite and a refuge for the alien who had travelled either on his own, or as part of small groups. Until recently, the Torlan had never made a push into what was supposed to be the wilds of the farm belt, but that modus operandi seemed to have changed. This was the third time in as many weeks that he had seen a Torlan fighter craft.
Emerging from the brush, using his arms to pull himself forward, dragging is wounded leg behind him, Icheb found a piece of laundry that had been blown clear of one of the huts. He ripped it up and wrapped lengths of the dark fabric around the wound on his calf. He had no time to worry about cleanliness or infection, but Sammarin physiology was highly resistant to microbial life so he wasn't overly concerned. Dragging himself a few more feet brought him to the remains of a shovel handle. It was just big enough for him to use as a crutch.
Seeing that there was nothing left to salvage aside from a cooking knife, a short length of rope and a half-empty water bottle, he set out into the woods, heading towards the farm fields not that far away. There was a new human settlement of disposed city dwellers, fleeing from the Torlan aerial bombardments due to the high concentration of Sammarin's. Hopefully this settlement would be small enough for the Torlan's not to focus on, but large enough to get some help for his leg.
Besides, he knew heading for the farm fields would be his safest option. He figured that if the Torlan had ground troops in the area, they would be in the trees looking for runners and not crouched in the corn fields like cowards setting up an ambush.
**<()>**
Father Murphy ignored Brother Joseph who was limping at the Catholic priest's side. He thought the American's ankle was broken, but the man refused help and refused to rest.
The group was quiet except for a few sobs, and a few whispered prayers. The two men paused for a breath as their blended flock trudged forward. No one glanced back at where it had happened. The last of the Torlan soldiers had disappeared back into the overgrown corn field and no one wanted to fall under their attention. The Torlan's had no problems with humans, but they were not unknown to treat a human like a Sammarin when the mood took them.
They had tried to run, Carmella and Poteni, but were stopped. Brother Jospeh had reacted quickly, grabbing both of them. He argued in his own mind that he was doing God's work, by delivering the demons to the Torlans -- to those who would eliminate the abominations from the earth.
But Brother Joseph had never seen what Torlan's do with Sammarin's, aside from what their airborne fighter craft did. He sneered in triumph when Father Murphy had screamed at him to let them go. With a smile and a chuckle he had thrust the two orange skinned women towards the closest Torlan ground-fighter.
The smile didn't last.
Even he had cried at the brutality of the assault the two women had endured before death gave them peace. Even he had begged the Torlan's to stop as they peeled strips of skin and hair -- trophies -- from the screaming women before death had fully taken them.
Carmella and Poteni's bodies lay on the ground where they had been grabbed. Stabbed a dozen times each, gutted, scalped, and their eyes gouged out -- death had come slowly. There had been no hesitation when the Torlan soldiers converged around the group. There was no time, and no possible way, for the group to disguise or hide the half-breeds had not Brother Joseph betrayed the teachings he so lavishly expounded upon to others.
As the two half-breed's lives finally ended, it was Brother Joseph's own flock that had turned on him. In particular, it was Tom, the large farmer that was as big as two men glued together. He had punched Brother Joseph, the spray of blood from the white man's nose sailing far into the corn field. He had then grabbed him up from the ground and proceeded to thrash him as only a westerner could. It had taken Father Murphy several minutes to push his way through his own resolute flock to stop the assault. The Christian flock merely stood by and watched, torn between the fear of the Torlan, their hatred for Brother Joseph, and their duty to God to be peace mongers.
It seems that hatred had won out that day, in many ways, and in many hearts.
**<()>**
Icheb moved cautiously through the tall stalks of overgrown corn, being careful to disturb them as little as possible. The cowardly Torlan ground-fighters had passed him fifteen minutes ago, slithering and skulking, past the spot where he held his breath and prayed to the Great Father for protection.
Pausing every few minutes, he heard no sound of movement. With an inaudible sigh, Icheb saw the edge of the corn field and moved towards it. He emerged into the shadow of the corn stalks, assuming he would be relieved to have a clear field of vision. However, his vision was filled with the horror of what he saw on the ground. They were half-breed's, they had to be by the look of them. He knew immediately that this had been the work of the soldiers that passed him.
Kneeling by the still warm bodies of the two dead half-breeds, Icheb reached inside his jersey and touched the medallion of Saint Angus of Ecrivain, the most revered of the saints in the Book of Life, the book that was the Holy Word of the Great Father. Icheb had never taken a life, and he did not understand how anyone could, regardless of their planetary origin. The Great Father taught that above all, love and peace for those you shared the world with, no matter what world it was, was one of the two great rules that was to govern all Sammarin's.
Completing his prayers, he looked around and saw no movement in the corn stalks or in the sky. Afraid of what may lay in the forests that were back from where he had come, he moved off down the dirt road in the opposite direction. He hoped he wouldn't find a Torlan patrol stationed at the small human settlement.
**<()>**
Brother Joseph lay on the side of the road, tears filling his eyes as he squinted against the noon sun. His ankle was obviously broken, but he had toughed it out, hobbling on it slowly. That is, until he had finally summoned the strength to turn and project a barrage of verbal condemnation on Tom. Tom had been talking loudly about the pastor's actions, and how unbiblical they were.
Father Murphy, though ready, wasn't as fast as the younger Farmer. Unfortunately, no one had seen Brother Joseph holding the pocket knife in his hand. When Tom came at him, kicking him viciously and breaking his leg, Joseph had lashed out with the knife, plunging it into Tom's heart.
Father Murphy had prayed over the Christian man's body, at length. He wept at the folly of dogma and sanctimony of all religions, wishing people would just follow the Word, and not the politics. When he finished praying, his own white collar lay in the dust of the road.
Now, propped up against the dead man's corpse, Brother Joseph let the tears run, wondering how he had allowed himself to fall so far from grace, how he had become that which he had despised: a killer. He thought about the looks on the faces of the people moving past him, some spitting on him, and some kicking him. He begged them for understanding, he begged them for mercy, and he begged them for forgiveness. But it seemed that everyone had turned their back on the holy teachings he had spread every other Sunday, and the ones that Father Murphy had spread on opposite Sundays. The greatest pain of all was when the last member of the group walked past him, Father Murphy.
Begging for understanding and forgiveness, Joseph had reached to the man he had considered his friend, only to be rebuffed.
"Joseph, your apostasy had brought this upon yourself."
The black Irish man had then turned his back on Joseph and followed his new blended flock down the road.
The hours passed.
The sun slowly moved across the sky.
He had no shade.
He had no water.
He had no hope.
Even the blanket comfort of prayer was eluding him as his actions kept coming back to him, and the way they were at odds with the teachings, the teachings that competed with his hatred of all things evil. Sweat trickled along every groove of his body as the heat, the confusion, the pain, and his ingrained hatred carried him off to unconsciousness.
**<()>**
Icheb knelt, looking around him for signs of movement or ambush. The bodies in the road ahead appeared to be earth-men. They were still, and looked dead from so far away. However, they did not look like they had been ravaged by the Torlan. Perhaps, it had just been nature's efforts to cull the heard.
Sensing no immediate threat, and with no shadows for his dark orange skin to blend with, Icheb slowly inched forward on his hands, dragging his damaged leg and pushing with his good leg. He finally came close enough to see that one of the men was alive, propped up on the man that was dead.
Assuring himself that he was not being watched, Icheb sat beside the man and looked at his wounds. Using his knife to cut the shirt from the dead man, pulling it out from under the live man, he tightly bound the man's legs together. With nothing to make a splint from, it was the only way to stabilize the leg broken and resting at an odd angle. The unconscious earth-man awoke with a brief yell, but then lapsed back into unconsciousness as Icheb finished the knots.
Resting a few minutes, the Sammarin then began the process of putting the earth-man half over his back, then using the broken shovel handle to push himself up to standing. It took a few minutes, with much moaning and groaning of his own. Finally, he stood with the injured and unconscious earth-man in a fireman's carry and began the process of hobbling along the road, moving far slower than he had with just his injured leg.
**<()>**
It was a journey of many days for Icheb and the human who told him his first name was Brother.
Near the end of the first day, his own damaged leg was on fire as he sat the human down on the ground in the dwindling twilight. Looking around for a source of food, the only thing in sight was the corn field, which they were approaching the far reaches of. Reassuring Brother that he would return, Icheb pushed himself to his feet and slowly hobbled into the corn field, leaning on the broken shovel handle with each step. He returned a time later with his pockets and shirt stuffed with ears of corn. Providing both sustenance and liquid, that was all that the Sammarin and the human dined on that night.
Icheb listened to the human talking in a hushed voice to his God. The strain of the day, however, was pushing at his senses and Icheb fell asleep with dribbles of corn juice drying on his chin. He awoke with a start in the middle of the night, several times. Each time he sat up and listened intently for several minutes, but each time revealed no threat.
In the morning, feeling refreshed and his injured leg feeling stronger and less painful, he was shocked to find that Brother had not improved. When he woke him up, he wasn't the quiet remorseful man of the day before. Now he was bitter, and loud, spouting invective and insult. Icheb also noticed the odd smell coming from the man's broken leg where the bone was sticking through the skin. He didn't know what was causing the odor, but he knew if an animal smelled like that he wouldn't have eaten it, so it couldn't be good.
After another day of travel, with the human lapsing in and out of vitriolic consciousness, Icheb came across a group of humans that were resting near a field of berries and a stream of water. Stopping with them, Icheb was shocked that they rejected him because of the man he carried. They refused to help him, and refused to let Icheb join them if he continued to carry the man. Knowing that to leave the man would be a death sentence, Icheb merely hung his head and continued his journey. Before he went far, one of the humans, a tall black man wearing black clothes came up behind him and offered him a cloth full of berries, and an old plastic bottle holding some brackish water.
For two more days Icheb carried his living cargo. During his frequent rest stops to consume some of the dwindling supply of corn, the berries, and the horrible tasting water, Icheb often saw the group of humans following him. They stayed far enough away that he often lost sight of them but their obvious tracking of him had him worried.
Finally he came to the small settlement. It was a small town, a very small town, with an Inn and some shops, but the shops were all closed. The Inn was not.
With tears streaming down his face, tears of relief that his burden was at an end, he pushed through the door of the Inn to leave the human with humans. It was much to his surprised that he was greeted by a patrol of Torlan ground-fighters sitting around eating human food.
Seeing the Sammarin, they all leapt to their feet and advanced on Icheb. He stumbled in his haste to retreat and fell, dropping the human. Almost upon him, all the Torlan stopped as the human sat up with a blood curdling scream. His wide, wild eyes, filled with pain and torment looked directly at P'Lum, the Torlan squad leader, as he screamed with soulful agony.
The Sammarin looked up at the Torlan, terror in his heart. But instead of the assault of weapons, P'Lum just looked down at him, oddly. Then further amplifying the Sammarin's fear, the hideous Torlan took a knee.
"Vermin," the Torlan said in the Sammarin tongue while gesturing to the human's leg, "Did you do this?"
"No, Lord, I did not," Icheb said through his panting breathe. He then told the Torlan the very brief story of finding him, attending as he could to the human's wounds, and the journey that brought them both to the Inn.
After a pause for contemplation of the story, the Torlan squad leader finally spoke, "I find it odd, Vermin, that the likes of you would endure such misery and hardship for one that is not your own. Why should I believe that you did not do this to the man, and bring him here to curry favour amongst ..." he paused and looked at the small group of humans in the Inn, standing behind his own warriors, "... to curry favour with these of his kind."
A new voice spoke up, a voice standing in the doorway. Icheb looked up and saw the tall black man that had given him the berries and the water, "What he says is true. It was my people that did this and left him to die."
Everyone looked at Father Murphy, then back down at Icheb and Brother Joseph.
P'Lum stood and spoke in his pidgeon English, "Then die should he? Die ... this?" the Torlan pulled a knife from his belt.
"No!" Icheb said, pulling Brother Joseph closer to him, "He is not Sammarin, Lord. It is with me that you have your anger, not the human."
The Torlan looked down at Icheb, confused. The vermin were wholly concerned about only their own. Looking back at the black man, P'Lum's memory finally recognized him. He had been with the group sheltering the two half-breeds his squad had eliminated several sleeps before, near the field of corn.
He looked down at the Sammarin again, speaking in the vermin's tongue, "But why do you care about this human? He is giving you nothing, it appears he has only been taking."
Moving past fear towards defiance, Icheb gritted his teeth, "Perhaps if you took the time to get to know your prey, you would find that we are not as you have been taught."
P'Lum stared at the Sammarin, working through some questions that had been forming in the back of his mind for many years, across many planets, during the Torlan's relentless pursuit of the Sammarin.
"Take my life, Lord, but do not take the life of this human. Let him live, what life he has left in him."
Taking a knee again, P'Lum raised the knife.
Icheb held up his hand, "But I beg of you first, that you allow me to bring this human back to health." He looked past the squad leader and directly at Father Murphy, still standing inside the door. "I do not trust that these ... humans who would not help us in our journey, will nurse him to health."
P'Lum didn't plunge the knife in the Sammarin, he lowered it, looking at him oddly. Finally he asked, "And how much life do you need to nurse this human or yours? And tell me, why do you feel the need to nurse him?"
Icheb chose his words carefully, "It is our way, Lord, that when we save a life, we are responsible for it. I am bound by all that I am to bring this man to health, to a point that he can care for himself."
And so it was that the Torlan squad took up residence at the Inn for twenty days. During that time, they watched the Sammarin carefully as he went on foraging and hunting trips, bringing back food not only for his rescued human, but for all the humans at the Inn. With the help of the Inn keeper's wife, Icheb quickly learned how to boild clothe, make dressings, and mix up a healing poultice for the septic wound in the man's leg. With the help of the Torlan squad's medic, at P'Lum's order, the broken bone was set and bound properly.
On the day that Brother Joseph was finally able to stand and walk on his own, the human's and Torlan gathered in the street in front of the Inn. Brother Joseph hugged his savior tightly, and with tears in his eyes turned to the Torlan squad leader and spoke very quietly, "Everything is possible for you. What happens next is your hands." Brother Joseph reached up and tore his old shirt open, baring his chest to the Torlan, "Take my life, and spare his."
An audible gasp arose from the crowd, humans and Torlans alike. Everyone was too shocked to see the smile on Father Murphy's face. It was not a smile of joy at the possible death of Brother Joseph, it was a smile at Brother Joseph's re-birth.
As the Torlan squad departed the small town, Icheb's bloodied corpse laying in the street, Brother Joseph fell to his knees as the side of the alien that has saved his life. Father Murphy knelt beside him and put an arm around him. Finally, all the human's knelt around the men and the Sammarin. One voice started, and then the rest quietly joined in the hymn.
Went down to the river, Jordan
Where John baptized three
Where I woke the Devil in hell ...
When the voices faded with the last chorus, Brother Joseph looked up at Father Murphy and finally spoke through his tears.
"He was a good Sammarin."