The Star Carrier Series Books 1-3: Earth Strike, Centre of Gravity, Singularity. Ian Douglas
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there is nothing for us back on Earth, or on any of the other colonies.”
“The Turusch will almost certainly kill you,” Gorman said, blunt, hard. “They are not known for their religious sensibilities.”
“Then, if it be God’s will, we will die. That has been our choice from the beginning, you understand.”
“No, sir. I do not understand.”
Hamid sighed. “The White Covenant? We will not sign that … that document. It is an affront against God.”
“Earthstar has said nothing about you signing the Covenant, Mr. Hamid. I’m sure there’s room for negotiation.”
“What you mean is that we will go back into the camps until we either sign or they find another … solution.” He sounded bitter.
On the landing field, the second Choctaw was buttoning up, the ramps pulling in, the openings slowly irising shut. Four more Nightshade gunships hovered overhead, waiting for the shuttle to lift off.
“There are … an infinity of worlds out here, Mr. Hamid,” Gorman said quietly. “You’ll be able to find another world, found a new colony.”
“Not an infinity. Many, perhaps. But still a finite number … and it’s a number made considerably more finite by the Shaitans.”
“You know what I mean, damn it. You may be back in the camps for a time, sure, but there’s plenty of new real estate available, and a lot of it is a damned sight better than this!” He waved his arm, taking in the desolate, flame-barren landscape, the poisonous and sulfur-laden cloud deck, the full orange light and heat.
“You do not understand.”
“Try me! Make me understand!”
“That is not easy.” Hamid thought for a moment. “We—the colonists of Haris—are called Mufrideen. Do you know why?”
“Of course. Mufrid is one of the names for this star, for Eta Boötis. Arabic, like the name for this planet, Al Haris al Sama. Your people were great astronomers back twelve, fifteen hundred years ago or so. Most named stars in Earth’s sky have Arabic names.”
“But we do not apply the name to our sun. Only to ourselves. The word mufrid means “alone.” Solitary. Within our religion, it has the special meaning of one who undertakes the hajj alone.”
“Hajj. That’s the Muslims’ pilgrimage to Mecca?”
Hamid nodded. “One of the five sacred pillars of Islam. And the one, of course, that we have been forbidden by your Confederation to observe.”
Your Confederation. Gorman started to respond, then thought better of it. Before 1 MEF’s deployment, representatives from the Confederation Bureau of Religious Affairs had briefed him on the Haris colonists, and he’d been warned that emotions among the colonists continued to be harsh and bitter.
The Eta Boötean colonists were the ragtag end of a long-time and seemingly unsolvable problem, one going back to the Islamic Wars of the twenty-first century and, arguably, even further back in history than that, to the Crusades and Jihads of the Middle Ages. With the end of the Islamic Wars, the newly formed Confederation had presented the world with the White Covenant, a document of basic human rights that included strong prohibitions of certain religious practices and activities. In short, all adherents of all religions had the right to believe what they wished so long as that belief did not harm others. Proselytizing, missionary work, and conversion by force or by threat all were proscribed as violations of basic human rights and dignity.
By the end of the twenty-first century, the Muslim nation-states of the world lay in ruins, their armies destroyed, their populations starving. Most Islamic leaders signed the White Covenant, if only to allow the beginning of relief efforts and food shipments.
Millions of Muslims, however, point-blank refused to accept the White Covenant’s terms, seeing them as a direct denial of God’s holy word. Numerous groups sprang up among the survivors, especially within the many relocation camps across Africa and the Middle East, calling themselves Rafaddeen, “Refusers,” because their leaders continued to refuse to sign the document.
That had been more than three centuries ago, and the Rafaddeen continued to be a thorn in the side of the Confederation. Most had chosen to remain in relocation camps that had eventually grown into small, self-contained and self-governing cities, each under the watchful eye of Confederation peaceforcers. Tens of thousands had moved off-world, to orbital cities and to extrasolar colonies, where they would not be a threat to the Pax Confoederata.
Another Choctaw drifted down out of the orange overcast, accompanied by its gunship escort. Landing legs grew from its flat belly, splaying wide as it settled onto the landing field, cargo doors dilating, ramps extending. The next load of Marines was already lined up in ranks at the edge of the field, ready to embark. At this rate, the evacuation would be complete well within the eight hours allotted for the operation.
“Muslims weren’t the only ones who didn’t like the Covenant,” Gorman said at last. “Most of my family were Baptists.” He didn’t add that he, personally, was a Covenant Reformed Baptist, and would no more preach the Gospel to someone who didn’t want to hear it than he would denounce the Corps.
“The Covenant was a gun aimed at Islam!” Hamid snapped back. “Not at American evangelicals! Not at Zionists!”
“It applied to all religions. All cultures. All belief systems. It had to, to be fair.”
“It denied the commandments of Allah to bring light to the unenlightened! It was not fair. It was blasphemy!”
“I am not going to stand here and argue bad theology with you, Mr. Hamid,” Gorman said. The capacity for members of various fundamentalist and extremist sects for clinging to battles, grudges, and wrongs done hundreds, even thousands of years ago was astonishing to him. “Seven thousand of your people can get off this rock if they want to.”
“I will … make the announcement,” Hamid said, his words and his manner stiff. “I imagine, though, that most of us will stay.”
“That’s your call. I recommend that that you let women and children have what space on the transports we can find.”
“The male children, certainly,” Hamid said. He sounded thoughtful.
The statement chilled Gorman. Traditional Islam—in particular the extremist sects, the Rafaddeen who’d rejected the White Covenant—still often valued men more than women, boys more than girls, an artifact of certain ancient tribal cultures more than of the Qu’ran itself. That, as much as the suicide bombers and the tactical nukes, had been a major part of the extremist Muslim doctrine that had led to so much bloodshed in the mid- and late twenty-first century. Most modern Islamic states back on Earth had embraced full equality of the sexes, but out here …
“All of your children,” Gorman said, putting iron into his voice. “Girls too. And the women as well. To care for them.”
To the Rafadeen, childcare was women’s work. Perhaps he could use that bit of sixth-century logic to force the issue.
Hamid gave Gorman a hard look. “You needn’t moralize at us. Our faith has served us well for over seventeen centuries, despite your Western preaching and your Crusades.”
Gorman took a step closer, towering above the smaller man. “All of the children, and the women,” he said. “As well as any men who want to go. My Marines will enforce this, Mr. Hamid. At gunpoint, if they have to.”
Hamid’s expression clouded, as though he was going to argue. Then he shrugged, backed down. “It scarcely matters. Allah has judged, and found us lacking.”
On the landing field, more columns of Marines were filing on board the open shuttle. He would need to talk with Simmons, the MEF’s