Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

reprimand. She tried to take a step forward, but Bram held her back.
    “Don’t, Marg,” he said. “Orris, come back here with me.”
    The big Penserite gave Orris a shove that sent him off balance. Orris caught himself, looking bewildered. Bram, with Kerthin’s help, got Orris and Marg to move a little distance away.
    “Do you know those people?” Marg said with outthrust chin.
    Bram squinted at the other tunnel entrances spaced out around the wooden cavern. All of them were guarded by Penserites, who were turning people back if they tried to leave. A real struggle was going on at one of the openings, where six or seven Penserites had converged to rough up a couple of stubborn cases.
    “They’re political zealots,” Bram said. “They’re followers of a man named Penser.”
    “Penser?” Marg said impatiently. “Who is he? I never heard of him.”
    Kerthin opened her mouth incredulously, and Bram cut in. “The Penserites are a kind of extreme offshoot of the Schismatist faction. They’ve been disowned by the main body of the Ascendist party.”
    “I don’t understand this at all,” Marg said. “They can’t go around behaving this way. I’m going to complain to the ship’s governing council.”
    “Wait,” Bram said, putting a hand on her arm. “Something’s happening.”
    There seemed to be a general movement toward the large open space in the center of the farm chamber, where bean fields and cabbage patches converged in wedge-shaped plots around a tiered circular service platform that formed a natural stage. Penserites were fanned out throughout the vast bowl, herding groups of stragglers, most of whom seemed to be taking the whole thing good-naturedly.
    “But what’s it all about?” said somebody from an unruly group of merrymakers who were dragging their feet as they passed, most of them still holding on to the drinks they’d had with them.
    “You’ll find out,” said one of the Penserites who were urging them along. “Keep going. Down this way.”
    As the group drew abreast, a Penserite made flagging motions. “You people over there. Come on. Everybody’s assembling down there.”
    “I don’t think …” Marg began. Some of the Penserites were spreading out to include Bram and the others in the befuddled little flock.
    “Do as he says,” Bram said. The Penserites were carrying sticks, lumps of metal, and tool handles. Nobody here had seen such things in use. Bram had.
    They let themselves be drawn along in the group’s wake. “It’s some kind of announcement,” somebody said knowledgeably. “Something important.”
    More people were trickling into the farm chamber from the connecting tunnels, with small teams of Penserites prodding them along. Strays were being rounded up. The movement was all in one direction. No one was being allowed out. The potential troublemakers were quickly singled out, grabbed, and hustled forcibly along or, in the worst cases, given a corrective punch in the belly or a tool handle in the kidney that quickly sapped the inclination to resist.
    By now, even the dullest-witted and drunkest realized that something odd and unpleasant was going on. A crowd murmur began to grow in the packed center of the mass of people in front of the tiered platform that had been selected as a focal point. Armed Penserites were spotted through the crowd, with more around the fringes to keep order.
    Penser stood gravely on the platform, talking to some of his Juxtian lieutenants, his hands clasped behind his back. He was wearing the same simple gray costume with the high neck and the gathered sleeves. A runner hurried up to him, spoke urgently while Penser nodded, then hurried off.
    The front ranks of the crowd, spilling up over the lower tiers of the platform, seemed to be composed entirely of Penserites—the rank and file members who were not part of the muscle squads. It was good strategy, Bram had to admit. They made a solid phalanx, conspicuously visible to the rest of the crowd, lending legitimacy to Penser.
    Even so, of the more than a thousand people present, not more than two or three hundred could be Penserites. But they knew what they wanted. And they were prepared to work in concert,
    Bram picked out Eena, a thin one-armed figure perched on the rim of a planting box. It was hard to tell at a distance, but he thought he recognized a number of people who had dropped out of the organization after the death of Lai. Either they had rejoined or they had only