Владимир Андерсон – Struggle. Retribution in the Twilight (страница 3)

Now this drill is his personal security, not some punitive operations, for which both the Imperial Army and the SCK have enough forces. And let them deal with it by his own decree.

How foolish were those who decided that the Inquisition should be carried out by the hands of the Inquisitors. It's not their business at all. It's their business to judge, to pass judgment. But others can carry it out. And on the one hand, this will whitewash the executors from the gravity of the decision, and on the other hand – will not waste a single drop of blood and sweat of the clergy … Guzokh became directly disgusted with Nevrokh's approach to understanding the role of the holy Church in the modern world. He wanted to substitute himself for the given, to become the head of everything and subordinate everyone to his will, including the Central Committee of the Empire … What absurd stupidity. What an unprincipled departure from the essence of the holy Church, which presupposes wise counsel for rulers. Advice that cannot be refused. Advice that is given as if by the Black Stone itself. As opposed to the heavy words and orders that the current patriarch wants to enforce.

He doesn't deserve to be a patriarch. From the moment he stopped understanding the importance and advantage of soft power, capable of controlling the completely heterogeneous subjects of the Empire. He emphasizes brute force, which, while destructive in nature, will only do irreparable damage to the reputation and influence of the Holy See.

That is why they are so caught up in luxury, because they think too much about the strength and rigor of their beliefs, which must be extended to other minds. Therefore, for them, material things have become the main foundation on which they stand too shaky… And it would not be shaky if the strength of beliefs were held on the sure proof-grounded word that passes from mouth to mouth by itself. Without any pressure. When the plagues themselves want to tell each other the truth that they like, and that they will want to see everywhere.

The "unspoken resource" is a tool to shut the mouths of the irrepressible… But you can't shut the thoughts. They will remain. And will continue to spread like a plague from one to another at a rate faster than the real plague. And unlike the real plague, completely untreatable.

Just look at Samoh and what he's gotten himself into. To openly provoke in front of witnesses an official of not just the Empire, but the SCK itself. Weaving intrigues on the fly, in the

office of the head of the entire sector… And it's amazing that such things sometimes worked out… Although it's not so surprising when you find out that the deputy commander of the Korsa sector was in fact a full-fledged member of the Church, not the SCK. With such nefarious methods, one can really believe in one's own infallibility… Though what it leads to… Self-confidence… Careless self-confidence that has one tiny end.

They were now passing the section of road that the Maquis had recently blown up and the miners had hastily repaired. They had been shot at, and the Kiwis had had some kind of strange conflict. In general, of course, these Kiwis have become completely detached from reality, the reality that was even some 30 years ago, when they performed only security functions, and their numbers were so small that there was no thought of forming large units of them. Not like now, when they are doing the most dangerous and bloody work for the imperial army and the S.S.C. combat units.

Guzoch learned all this from a confession five years ago, when one of the veterans of the JFK needed help in easing his fate before he passed away. It happened at one of the defense plant security conferences. Guzoh was there, of course, on business for his favorite worker-chums. And one of the speakers had a heart problem, like a heart attack. He wanted repose for his soul and immediate confession, which Guzokh, as a clergyman of the highest rank nearby, provided.

The SSchekist told him of the complexities of his apparatus and how he had done nothing on his own to save the true foundations of the Empire, which was rotting from within and decaying like a human corpse. As he said, the Hiwi now made up the main fighting force of the JFC, and in some cases even the Imperial Army itself, rapidly approaching it in numbers. It was an experiment at first, but the effect was so striking that it was quickly adopted as a practice, and after only a few years of use, the balance had shifted dramatically. The commanders of the imperial ministries were constantly reporting to the top about successful operations to suppress the Maquis and establish links between the disparate parts of the empire with minimal casualties. Human casualties, of course, were of no interest to anyone, but no one thought that such practices would only multiply the influence and role of the Hiwi in the vital processes of the Empire. In some instances, the Hivi leaders themselves set the price for completing tasks, and given the balance of power, the price had to be paid – imperial officials were addicted to this means of solving problems like a drug. The dying SSchekist didn't give the exact numbers, but it was hundreds of thousands of fighters. All he asked was to be forgiven for the criminal inaction of this cancerous tumor against which he dared do nothing.

And so Guzokh looked at the surrounding space and saw that people were starting to do what they wanted. Blowing things up themselves, fixing things themselves, deciding for themselves when someone would or would not pass by. After all, he had gotten to the Deese sector so quickly because the prefect had let him through from the Korsa sector via his underground route. So that's it, the Metropolitan is let through by the man who runs the entire faction. Running it, mining it, developing it. All by himself and his own resources. Only paying the proper fee to the Empire.

Apparently, those who were involved in calculating resource extraction, production management and transportation also paid attention only to numbers. Which, obviously, suited them. And what it could threaten in the future, apparently, they did not care about, since it would not happen in their time.

No one but the Church seems to care what happens to the balance of plagues and people in the Empire itself. After all, the Church is the only one who cares how many of the living believe in the Black Stone and how many don't. Humans are not capable of believing in it. Plagues do. And that's where the Church sees the difference – the rest of us don't. The rest of us only see the difference in production, speed of delivery, shipping and sabotage losses and who gets rewarded or punished for it. This is the sense that the patriarch should have noticed. The sense of the main linchpin of the plague state. And if he had done so, like all the past ones before him, he certainly would not have allowed such decay in the Imperial Army, or in the SCK, or anywhere else. And he just counted his influence figures like everyone else.....

The Empire deserves a far better patriarch than Nevroh. And than most of those who came before him. The Empire only deserves to live if it is healthy. And the only health it has is faith in the Black Stone. Which humans may well believe in as well. And the Prefect has shown that this is not only possible, but necessary to preserve the Empire.

Prefect

Gora was pleased with himself. It had been a long time since he had felt that he had calculated all the moves so correctly. And there were many. And an even greater number of variations of them. To persuade Cobra to leave a passage for Samoh and his punishing drill, which they would not fail to take advantage of. Let Guzokh pass through the underground pathways to allow him to subdue that storm. And, of course, to convince the Metropolitan of his total allegiance to the only true faith on Earth, the faith in the Black Stone.

And surprisingly, as time went on, he began to realize that he understood the language of the plagues. And of different plagues. Gora was more than sure that plagues are different like people, from different races, nations, and that he should not have understood them all at the same time. But no, that was exactly what was happening. And now it was not even a secret to him why the plagues themselves had no problem with it – they too spoke one, apparently, some unified plague language.

How far this would go was yet to be seen, but Guzoh was not opposed to extending the autonomy of the Mountain to neighboring factions if the people who would fall under his command also believed in the Black Stone.

For her part, Ananhr was not against it either, as long as the nominal subordination of the other factions' sectors was left to the JFC, and the Hivi would provide ground cover for those facilities.

This was a very successful mechanism for expanding the prefect's influence. It had been practiced first in the Diza sector, and then in the entire Donetsk-Makeevka grouping. From the point of view of the Empire's development, it should not have hindered anything, but it was obvious that such a situation would not suit either the High Priest Nevrokh or the Imperial administration represented by Bluh. But both problems were more than solvable.