Amazon: Soldier's Aim

OLD NEWYORK-AD. 2076.

With imagination, it was possible to see that a large tunnel had once curved through the ruins where Benjamin Rufus and the woman stood.

Shafts of sunlight shining through cracks in the street above gave an almost eerie view of the remains. Dozens of broken slabs of concrete--some three times the height of a man, some worn and crumbled to less than a foot tall--had fallen against each other, leaving large and small jumbled openings in all directions.

"Subway," Benjamin Rufus whispered. "This was once the subway."

His overcoat hung on him, showing him to be thin and stooped. His gray hair was cropped short above a tired face. He coughed deeply after he spoke, so she had to wait to ask her question. "Subway?" "Before the Water Wars," he said, "trains ..." He stopped, seeing in her eyes that she did not understand train.

"... large steel boxes on wheels that moved people ran through here. The bombs of the war must have collapsed the tunnels."

Her smile was timid. "You know much." He returned her smile, looking past the dirt smudged like shoe polish on her face. She was only shoulder high to him, dressed in rags, with a shawl covering most of her head.

"You were born here," he said. "I was not." She looked at the ground, pausing to gather the courage to speak, then lifted her head again.

"Zubluk," she whispered, "the most feared ganglord of all. He said he knew you. How can that be if you were not born here?"

The old man closed his eyes, recalling his past. "it is a long story," he answered. "If we have time, I will tell you."

"We have time," she said. "I know Zubluk will not rest until he finds you. But here you will be safe. Not once have the work gangs found me here." She shuddered at the memories of the giant brutish ganglord and his bodyguards. "But if you go above ground ..."

Only an hour earlier, they had escaped Zubluk. They had been above, where the abandoned, steelscavenged skyscrapers formed the street canyons that towered over the slum's shacks.

Benjamin Rufus nodded and began coughing again. This longer, harder fit shook his body.

She left him quickly, disappearing behind a giant slab. She returned with a blanket, which she wrapped around his shoulders.

"Thank you," he said. "You have offered me safety and warmth, but I do not even know your name."

"Terza," she replied simply.

"My name is Benjamin Rufus," he said formally. Nothing about him gave her a clue that until taking a ferry across the Hudson River into Old Newyork the night before, he had been one of the wealthiest and most powerful men on Mainside. Now his name was as useless to him as the fortune and freedom he had left behind. The World United government did not permit anyone to cross the rivers back to Mainside. Taking a ferry into Old Newyork was a one-way trip; the Mainside shores were guarded by land mines and soldiers with dogs.

"You took a risk to save me," he said. "Yet you know nothing about me. Why put your life in danger?" "I listened to your words to the crowd," replied Terza. "That was enough. You spoke to my heart. It is as empty as you said. To hear that my body was more than flesh, that I had something more ... a soul ... it was like clear, cold wat

"God builds an emptiness into each one of us," he said. "It remains empty until we find him. Nothing else will fill it. Not money, not fame, not excitement. Believing that God came to earth as Christ, and seeking God through the Son will fill that emptiness. It brings life beyond death." "How do you know this?" Terza asked. "I have never heard of such things ..."

Benjamin Rufus sat down, using one of the concrete slabs as a bench. "Are there no Christians in Old Newyork?"

She frowned. "I don't think so. Unless you mean Churchians. But what little I know of them sounds nothing like the message you bring." The frown he returned was question enough.

"They hold secret meetings," she answered. "They have rules. Many rules. Those who don't follow the rules are condemned. They remain friends with only each other and do not accept those who do not share their beliefs."

Rufus shook his head in sadness. "Like the Pharisees of Christ's time." He saw the question in her eyes.

"I'm sorry to say I have an advantage." Benjamin Rufus sighed. "Here in Old Newyork two or three generations have lived without education. No one can read. There are more workers than work. No medicine, no technology. The slave system forces children to work in factories. You can't be blamed for what you do not know. Just as I cannot take pride in what my background has given me."

"I know you come from Mainside," she said, "even though you have not told me so. You could not be here because the government sent you as a prisoner, otherwise your forehead would be marked. Why are you here?"

"The answer is simple," he said after a moment's reflection. "There have been two or three generations here without an understanding of the message of Christ. They live without hope. The next generation must not live that way."

"You will pay with your life to deliver your message."

"Yes," he said. "Of that I have no doubt. I only pray it is later than sooner; where the ground is rocky and dry, many seeds must be sown in many places for the tree to grow."

The woman sat beside him. "Begin with me. Perhaps I can help put seeds in places you cannot go."