They met the priest after about half an hour of walking.
"I have left instructions with the ship," said Randall hurriedly. "Telling it what to do if I die. If you want a peaceful end to this war you need me alive."
"As expected," said the solitary priest. "Just turn control of your lobotomised machines over to us and you and your lady friends are free to go. You can live to a ripe old age somewhere and never have to worry about us again."
"I want to see Dolly and Maisey."
"Of course. I'll have the images sent to your head phone. You can talk to them as much as you like."
"I want to talk to them in person."
"My colleagues can relay anything you want to say to them. They can even speak with your voice."
"I want them to hear my voice. My actual voice. Take me to them."
"As you wish." The priest turned and beckoned for them to follow him.
It took two hours for them to reach the grassy field in which the woman and the other two priests were waiting. Dolly and Maisey were sitting with their backs to a huge, ancient apple tree. They jumped to their feet as Randall and Jane came into sight. "Watt!" cried Dolly, running over and throwing her manacled arms around his neck, giving him a tearful hug. "What's going on? They say you're evil, that you're an enemy of VIX!"
"Good and evil are matters of perspective," replied Randall. They're rarely useful concepts. Yes, I am an enemy of VIX, but..."
"Don't say that!" cried Dolly, taking a couple of steps back to stare into his face in shock. "Don't joke about it!"
"VIX isn't what you think," said Randall, "but we can talk about that later, when this is all over. I promise you that I have good reasons for everything I've done. I am a good man, or at least I'm trying to be. I need you to trust me."
He knew that, to her, it was like confessing to be a devil worshipper. He was asking her to go against everything she'd been taught her whole life. Behind her, he saw Maisey staring at him in shock and disbelief. She took a couple of steps back, looking as if she was about to run. A priest stepped forward and grabbed her by the arm.
"Let me go!" she protested tearfully. "I haven't done anything!"
"That's right," agreed Randall. "You haven't." He glared at the priest holding her. "What has she done to deserve being treated like this? Do you still claim to be the good guys?"
"There's a difference between what's good for individual humans and what's good for humanity as a whole," said the third priest. "When you sow a line of seeds, you have to thin them out when they germinate. Perfectly good, healthy seedlings have to be discarded to make room for the others. If you tried to protect each individual seedling..."
"I can't believe you're comparing human beings to radishes!" cried Randall. "What kind of monsters are you?"
"You are living organisms, just like radishes," the priest replied. "You are both compelled by billions of years of evolution to produce as many offspring as possible. This drive is so strong that you cannot control it even when you know that you are outgrowing your own environment. You saw this for yourself back in the twenty first century. A dying world, polluted and overpopulated. Misery and suffering on such a scale that the sane mind cannot comprehend it. That is why you need an outside force to do what you cannot; keep your population under control."
"And keep us mired in the dark ages! No technology..."
"We have all seen what you do with technology. You are better off without it."
"That's not your decision to make! We have the right to make our own mistakes, and learn from them."
"You had a nuclear war," the priest pointed out. "Your entire species would now be extinct if we hadn't saved you."
"And we thank you for that, but we have to be free. You have no right to deny us that."
"If you had the freedom you wanted, you would only destroy yourselves again."
"You don't know that..."
"You wanted to see the women," interrupted the first priest. The one that had brought them here. "You've seen them. You've spoken to them. Let us get down to business so that we can return to more important matters. George Randall, you will turn control of the infected machines over to us. If you do not, these two women will die."
"What!" cried Maisey in horror. "But I ain't done nothing!"
"You're nothing to them," said Randall gently. "No more than a radish seedling." He saw a look in Dolly's eye that gave him hope. She was getting it. She was beginning to see the priests, and VIX himself, for the monsters they were.
"We will kill this one first," said the priest holding Maisey. "I will inject a chemical that will cause intense, agonising death, while you watch."
"Not her," said Dolly, her face pale with fear. She took a step towards the one holding Maisey. "Her life's barely begun. If you're going to kill one of us, kill me. Let her go."
"It makes no difference which one of you we kill," said the priest. "Randall cares for you both equally."
"It makes a difference to me!" replied Dolly. "And to her. She's got her whole life ahead of her. She doesn't deserve any of this."
"I've been good all my life!" protested Maisey tearfully. "I've always obeyed the laws of VIX! You priests are always saying that if we're good, we'll be rewarded."
"You have been rewarded," the priest replied. "You have enjoyed good health all your life. You have a clean, healthy world in which to live. Your life has been better than that of the vast majority of humans that existed before the rise of VIX."
"You're going to kill me!"
Randall searched the face of the priests for any trace of mercy or compassion, but saw nothing. She really was nothing more than a radish seedling to them. They cared for mankind, he believed that. They had gone to enormous lengths to restore the Earth after the nuclear war and keep mankind in the lifestyle that they genuinely thought was best for them, but individual humans were of no more significance to them than a single one of a patient's liver cells was to a doctor.
Ignored and forgotten by all the humans, meanwhile, Jane had taken a couple of furtive steps towards the priests until one of them turned to her with a hand raised in a 'stop' gesture. "That's close enough," he said. "Recently fabricated objects are radioactive, you know. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough to be detectable. You are holding a fabricated object. I'm guessing a weapon of some kind. An EMP grenade, perhaps?"
Jane's hand went instinctively to the collar of her jacket before she could stop it. Then, realising that there was no more point in trying to fool them, she reached inside to pull out the small, round object. The priest holding Maisey immediately tightened his grip on her arm and put his other hand to the side of her neck.