She didn't hurt me. She talked and talked. Some of the questions made sense for interrogation, asking me about my unit, the chapel, the convent. She wanted to know how we had found the power station and whether we knew what we had done. She wanted to confirm that we were the team from hab-block D-M-48-9.
Other questions were medical, or asked about our needs. She asked again about the toothbrush and shower. I didn't answer anything. I tried not to listen at all. I just concentrated on the words of psalms and memorized prayers.
As she went, I scooted my chair back bit by bit, until I was far enough from the table that if I needed to do it, I could slam my head down against the right-angle edge. I didn't think it would kill me, but I might knock myself unconscious if she tried to force something unholy into my mind.
After a time, maybe an hour, she stopped asking questions and started talking about herself. My prayers receded to the simple pulse of Mina's rite. I listened. I kept expecting something horrible, but at the same time, it was intelligence on the enemy, and I wanted it.
The name she gave was Naomi. She was thirty-seven years old, a widow, with four children. One young adult on her own. Three living with relatives, believing that she was dead. She and her husband had been criminals. He had been executed. She had gone to a labor camp.
"I blame no one for his death," she said. "We were guilty. I am glad that I was punished and grateful that I was spared death. Do not think I chose this path for revenge."
In the labor camp, she met a man who never lied. Everyone in the camp lied all the time, she said. Everyone except for him. He had a quiet charisma. People gathered around him, because whatever he said was true. Sometimes it was harsh, sometimes revealing, sometimes damning. Always true.
He became a leader for the prisoners. The camp transformed. His following grew and shrank. Some were murdered. His ways spread slowly, but they spread. First to the prisoners. Then to the guards. Productivity increased. Cruelty ebbed and slowly ceased. There was always scarcity, but somehow there was always just enough.
At night, the people in the camp would gather on their own and sing a hymn, and the guards would gather and sing, too.
Naomi left the camp after her years were up, and went to find the Sanctifying Truth, whose message the man had taught.
"They showed me something wonderful," she said. "An idea, a true idea, of the way the world could be. The way all worlds could be, if we could suffer the pain of yielding up our lies."
I realized that she wanted to convince me. I wasn't being interrogated, at least not the way I had thought. I was being catechized. She had something she believed was beautiful, and she wanted me to know it too.
I wondered if the Fear was somehow made of things she believed were beautiful. That seemed impossible, looking at her. She seemed so normal. Good, even. Her face was kind. She had brown hair in a thick braid, just starting to go gray.
Everything she said had the shape of something good and true, at least on the outside.
On the inside, though, I knew her beautiful truth was terror and death. I had not seen the most direct consequences of the battle of 198, but I knew how many had died. I knew how many of those were children. I didn't need to know why her beliefs were wrong. It was a fact. I could leave the reasons to the philosophers, and act on what was plain to see.
I called forward in my mind an image that has haunted me forever. A little girl, seeming unhurt, but burned inside by toxic gas. Drowning. Drowning on dry land, while medics tried and failed to give her air. I made Naomi the one who had killed her. It was truth. She had no right to complain. Her sect had killed ten thousand girls just like her. Ten thousand little boys. Ten thousand infants abandoned in their cradles to die. I made her responsible, I saw the little face, and I listened to her talk of beautiful dreams.
In Naomi's Gaervalt—in her Imperium, someday—there would be honesty in all things. It would not just be persons refusing to lie to one another, as the Church commands. There would be honesty of the spirit: reason's light turned inward upon itself, rejecting falsehood, suspending unsubstantiated belief, holding to what could be known to be true. And there would be honesty of institutions: admitting ignorance, permitting doubt.
The whole world would be like Naomi's prison camp, she said. It had worked there, and it would work on a greater scale, if only people would embrace the sanctification of the truth. Not a world without sin and suffering, she said. "I'm not a fool; there will always be sin, and there will be xenos and the forces of Chaos until some day, far, far away, when humanity has killed them all." But in Naomi's world, there would always be a turning back to sanctity. And there would be productivity, and military success. Could I not see how afflicted we are by lies and corruption? Had I not seen units unable to do their duty because of lie stacked upon lie upon lie in their reports of their own readiness—until whole divisions seemed strong on paper, but crumbled when asked to do the slightest thing beyond their peacetime duty?
I could understand why she loved her vision. I think I understand the problems with it now, though I couldn't see the error in the logic then. But it didn't matter. I knew what they had done. If their beliefs led there, then they were evil.
For that first day, that was enough.
They took me back to the cage after many hours. I had a headache and I was desperate for the toilet. Naomi had asked me several times if I wanted water or a break, but I didn't answer. I thought it was a mistake, after it was over. I should have taken what she offered, to remain focused and strong.
Verity and Tara embraced me with tears and prayers of thanks when I returned. They hadn't expected to see me again alive. I told them everything.
Naomi watched us for the rest of the day, until lights-out. They continued to feed us. It seemed we would each get two ration bars a day. We were hungry, but we wouldn't starve.
In my dreams, Gwen was alive.
In the morning, they took me again.