never let it go. He let his eyes sweep over the incredible green sky. "It does, doesn't it?" His voice mounted with pride. Cartman was on his feet now, moving toward Caine, (he thought) his judge.
"If a man dies for his cause he is a martyr, I'm told." Caine's voice was patient. "Let us not talk about how you got here. Let us talk simply about you. That is more important."
"What is there to say?" Cartman took in the whole domed field, the grasses and the greenish sky. "All this" -- he made an expansive gesture -- "is more beautiful than any place I’ve ever seen."
Caine's voice was low and he hardly spoke the words. "Then you must not have traveled much." He moved closer. "It is I who decide whether you are to stay here. Will you obey me?" (In the grasses the brutes' voices rose to a shrill, many-throated screech.)
Cartman looked around proudly. "Once a martyr, I am beyond obeying."
"That is what is said." Caine was looking at the golden book now. It swung against Cartman's breast. He could not take his eyes off it. He lowered his lashes on them so they would not shine so hotly. "However, if you wish to stay, you must give me the book. That is all I ask." His vengeance was never complete without the priest's consent. "You must give it and give it freely."
Protectively, Cartman's hand went to the chain about his neck. But his eyes seemed to see nothing but the field and the glittering grasses and the greenness of the sky, and his ears made magic, turning the cries of the rough-shouldered brutes into compelling music. He spoke, but his mind was on the gold-tipped grasses and the music. Somewhere beyond those grasses, he was sure, were heavenly fountains. "It is written that a sun-priest must never part with his book," he said. "Next to his own brain it is the thing all men hold most sacred."
"You want to stay here?" Caine saw the hesitation. He saw the domed sky reflecting greenly in Cartman's eyes. Cartman would be the last sun priest to come to his field. (The first had been the man who ravished his mother in the name of the pseudo-religion -- and left her to die of shame.) It was important that he
