The Gemini Contenders Read Free

man I know.”
    “You shall look into the eyes of the Lord,” said the holy father, “and you will not waver. In His eyes you will find perfect grace.”
    “I thank my God,” said Petride once again.
    He shook his head and blinked his eyes, forcing the reflections out of his mind. The priests by the truck were still standing immobile; the hum of whispered chants came from rapidly moving lips in the darkness.
    There was no time for meditation or prayer. There was no time for anything but swift movement—to carry out thecommands of the Order of Xenope. Petride gently parted the priests in front of him and jumped up into the truck. He knew why he had been chosen. He was capable of such harshness; the holy father of Xenope had made that clear to him.
    There was a time for such men as himself.
    God forgive him.
    “Come,” he said quietly to those on the ground. “I’ll need help.”
    The monks nearest the truck looked uncertainly at one another. Then, one by one, five men climbed into the van.
    Petride removed the black drape that covered the vault. Underneath, the holy receptacle was encased in the heavy cardboard, wood framing, and the stenciled symbols of Xenope; identical except for size and shape to all the other crates. But the casing was the only similarity. It required six strong backs, pushing and pulling, to nudge it to the edge of the van and onto the freight car.
    The moment it was in place, the dancelike activity resumed. Petride remained in the freight car, arranging the crates so that they concealed the holy thing, obscuring it as one among so many. Nothing unusual, nothing to catch the eye.
    The freight car was filled. Petride pulled the doors shut and inserted the iron padlock. He looked at the radium dial of his wristwatch; it had all taken eight minutes and thirty seconds.
    It had to be, he supposed, yet still it annoyed him: His fellow priests knelt on the ground. A young man—younger than he, a powerful Serbo-Croat barely out of his novitiate—could not help himself. As the tears rolled down his cheek, the young priest began the chant of Nicaea. The others picked it up and Petride knelt also, in his laborer’s clothes, and listened to the holy words.
    But not speaking them. There was no
time! Couldn’t they understand?
    What was happening to him? In order to take his mind off the holy whispers, he put his hand inside his shirt and checked the leather pouch that was strapped to his chest. Inside that flat, uncomfortable dispatch case were the orders that would lead him across hundreds of miles of uncertainty. Twenty-seven separate pages of paper. The pouch was secure; the straps cut into his skin.
    The prayer over, the priests of Xenope rose silently. Petride stood in front of them and each in turn approached him and embraced him and held him in love. The last was his driver, his dearest friend in the order. The tears that filled the rims of his eyes and rolled down his strong face said everything there was to say.
    The monks raced back to the trucks; Petride ran to the front of the train and climbed up into the pilot’s cabin. He nodded to his brother who began to pull levers and turn wheels. Grinding shrieks of metal against metal filled the night.
    In minutes the freight was traveling at high speed. The journey had begun. The journey for the glory of one Almighty God.
    Petride held on to an iron bar that protruded from the iron wall. He closed his eyes and let the hammering vibrations and rushing wind numb his thoughts. His fears.
    And then he opened his eyes—briefly—and saw his brother leaning out the window, his massive right hand on the throttle, his stare directed to the tracks ahead.
    Annaxas the Strong, everyone called him. But Annaxas was more than strong; he was good, When their father had died, it was Annaxas who had gone out to the yards—a huge boy of thirteen—and worked the long, hard hours that exhausted grown men. The money Annaxas brought home kept them all together, made