Donald Moffitt - Genesis 01

Tools—too many of the same kind for anyone to have a use for them: Fifteen or twenty axes, a half dozen sledgehammers, agricultural implements in the form of poles with curved blades attached at one end.
    Bram was trying to puzzle it out when the door groaned and a pair of men in monos with the sleeves sawed off came into the room with another load of billhooks. They saw Bram and let the implements rattle to the floor. One of them had retained a hook. The other grabbed for one of the wooden billets piled at the entrance.
    “How’d you get in here?” the one with the club demanded.
    Bram could think of nothing to say. They grabbed him roughly and pushed him toward the door. “You’re coming with us.” The end of the club prodded him in the kidney.
    He let himself be herded. Voices stopped and faces swung toward him as he was given a final push into the room. “We found a spy in the armory,” the one with the billhook said.
    “Oh fine, that’s just great,” a disgusted voice said. “Now he’s seen Penser.”
    “Well, what were we supposed to—”
    “Oh, shut up, Chonny. You have the brains of a sweeperbeast!”
    Bram looked about with interest. He was in a huge, tall room: the one with the skylight he’d seen from outside. A draped bulk under the skylight, too big to be moved, was a piece of sculpture in the form of a reclining figure; Bram could make out the general form of a head and shoulders under the covering, and a gigantic unfinished bare foot stuck out at one end.
    About two dozen men and women were scattered in a loose arc across the uneven floor, standing, leaning, or sitting on whatever they could find. One of them was Kerthin; Bram saw her right away, bunched with a small group that included Pite, Fraz, and Eena. Pite raised his eyebrows in ironic salute. Bram smiled at Kerthin, but she flushed and didn’t try to speak to him.
    The gathering, whatever its purpose, was focused on the tall pale man Bram had seen at the spaceport. He was sitting at a small table, flanked by two men in short robes and tight legwear that Bram took to be Juxt One fashions.
    The pale man studied him with pursed lips. So this was Penser? Bram stared back openly. The splinter faction’s notorious leader was not what he had expected. Penser had a pasty, unhealthy face and a body that showed signs of flab under the drab gray garments he affected. The flesh around his eyes looked bruised: heavy lids and bluish pouches. But the eyes themselves were totally compelling. They burned with a dark intensity, an utter certainty. It was impossible not to be impressed by the man.
    Chonny, the one who had been reprimanded for stupidity, was whining a protest. “Well what about you, Treg? You were the one who said Penser’s name out loud. If the fat wasn’t out of the pan before, it is now.”
    Penser put a stop to it firmly. “That’s enough.” He returned his bruised gaze to Bram. “What is your name?” he asked.
    “They call me Bram.”
    “How did you get here?”
    Bram hesitated. Pite spoke out from across the room. “That’s easy. He followed Kerthin.” He looked Kerthin over coldly from top to bottom. “You were kind of careless, Kerth.”
    “Never mind that now,” Penser said. “Can he be trusted?”
    Pite sucked his cheeks in thoughtfully. “Brammo isn’t one of us,” he said. “On the other hand, he isn’t a member of the Accommodationist wing or some Doctrinalist softhead, so maybe that’s a plus. He knows how to keep his mouth shut, all right. I tested him. Maybe he’s not committed, but he’s got the right number of legs. And he’s bonded to a member of the Cause. I don’t think he’s the type to go running to the council or to the yellowlegs.”
    Penser’s dark-pouched eyes measured Bram. “Pite says you’re not a squealer,” he said. “Is that true?”
    “Yes,” Bram said.
    One of Penser’s flanking confederates from Juxt One, a comfortable, well-fed man with red cheeks and an upward-curving gray beard, leaned over and whispered something in Penser’s ear.
    Penser listened, pinch marks forming beside his nose, then said, “I have decided.” He fastened his eyes on Bram again. “I’ve just been advised to have you locked up until it can be decided what to do with you. But I’ll take a chance on you for the time being. In view of what you have already seen, it cannot matter a great deal more if you stay.” His voice grew hard. “But you will stay. I cannot risk having you