The Jesus Incident Read online

  She wanted to glance back. There had been some strangely shaped people hugging the rear of the throngs in the room, some with colors even stranger than her own. Something in Murdoch’s manner prevented her from turning.

  He took her hand then and placed her palm on the sensor-scribe beside the hatch—”To record your entry time.” She felt an odd stinging sensation as her palm touched the scribe.

  Murdoch smiled, but there was no mirth in it. His free hand went out to the lock-cycling switch. The hatch hissed open and he thrust her into it.

  “In you go.”

  She heard the hatch seal behind her, but her attention was on the inner hatch as it opened. When it had swung wide, she realized that what she had thought was a grotesque statue standing there was actually a naked living creature framed by the open end of the lock. And . . . and there were tears streaming down the creature’s cheeks.

  “Come in, my dear.” His voice was full of hoarse gruntings.

  She moved toward him hesitantly, aware that Murdoch was watching through the sensors overhead. The room she entered was lighted by corner tubes which filled the entire space with a deep red illumination.

  The gargoyle took her arm as the hatch sealed behind her and he swung her into the room.

  His arms are too long.

  “I am Jessup,” he said. “Come to me when you are through.”

  Rachel looked around at a circle of grinning figures—some of them male, some female. There were among them creatures even more grotesque than Jessup. She saw that a male with short arms and bulbous head directly in front of her had an enormous erection. He bent over to grasp it and point it at her.

  These people are real! she thought. This is not a nightmare.

  The rumors she had heard did not even begin to describe this place.

  “Clones,” Jessup whispered beside her, as though he had been reading her mind. “All clones and they owe their lives to Jesus Lewis.”

  Clones? These aren’t clones; they’re recombinant mutants.

  “But clones are people,” she whispered.

  Bulbous-head lurched one step toward her, still holding that enormous erection pointed at her.

  “Clones are property,” Jessup said, his voice firm but still with those odd gruntings in it. “Lewis says it and it must be true. You may develop an . . . appreciation for certain of them.”

  Jessup started to move away, but she clutched his arm. How cold his flesh was! “No . . . wait.”

  “Yes?” Grunting.

  “What . . . what happens here?”

  Jessup looked at the waiting circle. “They are children, just children. Only weeks old.”

  “But they’re . . .”

  “Lewis can grow a full clone in a matter of days.”

  “Days?” She was clutching at any delay. “How . . . I mean, the energy . . .”

  “We eat a lot of burst in here. Lewis says this is the reason his people invented burst.”

  She nodded. The food shortage—it would be amplified enormously by the requirements of making burst.

  Jessup leaned close to her ear, whispered: “And Lewis learned some beautiful tricks from the kelp.”

  She looked at him, full at him—that too-wide face with its toothless mouth and high cheeks, the pinpoint eyes, the receding forehead and protruding chin. Her gaze traveled down his body—enormous chest, but sunken and incurving . . . and narrow hips . . . pipestem legs . . . He was . . . he was not just he, she saw, but both sexes. And now she understood the grunting. He was fucking himself . . . herself! Little muscles at the crotch moved the . . .

  Rachel whirled away, her mind searching wildly for something, anything to say.

  “Why are you crying?” Her voice was too high.

  “Ohhh, I always cry. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Bulbous-head lurched another step toward her and the circle moved with him.

  “Entertainment time,” Jessup said and pushed her roughly toward Bulbous-head.

  She felt hands clutching her, turning her, and, presently, her memory left her . . . but for a long time she felt that she heard screams and she wondered if they might be her screams.

  Chapter 31

  Absolute dependence is the hallmark of religion. It posits the supplicant and the one who dispenses gifts. The supplicant employs ritual and prayer in the attempt to influence (control) the dispenser of gifts. The kinship between this relationship and the days of absolute monarchs cannot be overlooked. This dependence on supplication gives to the keeper of those two essentials—the ritual paraphernalia and the purity of prayerful forms (that is, to the Chaplain)—a power akin to that of the gift dispenser.

  —“Training the Chaplain/Psychiatrist,” Moonbase Documents (from Shiprecords)

  RAJA THOMAS strode along a Colony passage with Waela TaoLini at his side. They both wore insulated yellow singlesuits with collar attachments for breather-helmets. It was first-light of Rega outside, but in here was the soft gold of dayside illumination that any Colonist could remember from shipside.

  The food of this diurn’s first meal sat heavily in his stomach and he wondered at that. They were adding some odd filler to the food. What was happening to the shipside agraria? Could it be possible, as Oakes’ people hinted, that Ship was cutting down on hydroponics output?

  Waela was oddly silent as she matched his pace. He glanced at her and found her studying him. Their eyes flicked past a confrontation too brief to call recognition, but an orange glow suffused her neck and face.

  Waela stared straight ahead. They were bound for the test-launch apron to inspect the new submersible gondola and its carrier. It would be tried first in the enclosed and insulated tank at the hangar before being risked in Pandora’s unpredictable ocean.

  Why can’t I just say no? she wondered. She did not have to get at the poet in the way Thomas ordered. There were other ways. It occurred to her then to ask herself about the society of Thomas’ origins. What was his conditioning that he thinks sex is the best way to lower the psyche’s guards?

  As happened on rare occasions when she was with others, Honesty spoke within her head: “Men ruled and women were a subordinate class.”

  She knew this had to be true. It fitted his behavior.

  Thomas was speaking silently to himself: I am Thomas. I am Thomas. I am Thomas . . .

  The strange thing about this inner chant which he had adopted as his personal litany was that it increased his sensitivity to doubts. Could it be something built into the name?

  Waela no longer trusts me . . . if she ever did.

  What is this poet and where is he? Processing was taking an unconscionably long time with him. Will he be an arm of Ship?

  Why were they getting a poet on their team? It had to be a clue to Ship’s plans. Obscure, perhaps . . . convoluted . . . but a clue. This might be the element of the deadly game which he was required to discover for himself.

  How much time do we have?

  Ship did not always play the game by rules that were just and fair.

  You’re not always fair, are You, Ship?

  If you mean even-handed, yes, l am fair. The answer surprised Thomas. He had not expected Ship to respond while he walked along this corridor.

  Thomas glanced at Waela—silent woman. Her color had returned to its normal pale pink. Did Ship ever talk to her?

  I talk to her quite often, Devil. She calls me Honesty.

  Thomas missed a step in surprise.

  Does she know it’s You?

  She is not conscious of that, no.

  Do You talk to others without their knowing?

  Too many, very many.

  Thomas and Waela turned a comer into another portless passage, this one illuminated by the pale blue of overhead strip lighting—the color code which told them that it led outside somewhere up ahead. He glanced at Waela’s hip, saw the ever-present lasgun in its holster there.

  Waela broke the silence. “Those new clones that Oakes says are being used out on Dra
gon—what do you suppose they are?”

  “People with faster responses.”

  “I don’t trust that Lewis.”

  Thomas found himself in agreement. Lewis remained a mystery figure—the brutal alter-ego to Oakes? There were stories about Lewis which suggested that Ship had held nothing back when lifting the lid of Pandora’s box.

  They had come to the hatch into the hangar. Thomas hesitated before signaling the dogwatch to admit them. He glanced through the transparent port, saw that the sky doors of the hangar were closed. There should be little delay.

  “What’s eating you, Waela?”

  She met his gaze. “I’ve been wondering if there’s anyone I can trust.”

  Pandora’s curse, he thought, and chose to direct her suspicions at Oakes.

  “Why don’t we insist on an inspection team to explore everything Oakes is doing?”

  “Do you think they’d let us?”

  “It’s worth finding out.”

  “I’ll suggest it to Rachel when I see her.”

  “Call her when we get inside.”

  “Can’t. The roster says she’s on vegetation patrol, south perimeter. I’ll call her nightside.”

  Without knowing precisely why, Thomas felt a chill at hearing this. Was that stupid Demarest woman in danger? He shook his head. They were all in danger, every moment.

  Again, Thomas peered through the port at activity in the hangar. There were bright lights around the sub. The LTA was lost in shadows above. Many workers moved around in the lighted area. He could see that they had opened the floorgate to expose the testing basin beneath the hangar. The lights glistened off exposed water beside the plaz gondola and its carrier-sub. Ahh, yes. They were mating the sub and gondola.

  So Rachel would not be back from south perimeter until nightside. He was caught by the curious persistences in Waela’s shipstyle language.

  Nightside.

  The irregular diurns of a planet with two suns caused few circadian problems for Colonists. They had been Shipmen, and Shipmen had a ready referent at hand: Day and Night were not times, but sides. Was there a clue here, something to help him in his search for a way to the heart of these people? He had thought that if he succeeded in communicating with the ’lectrokelp, this would give him the desired status.

  Anything to help us fit into the rhythms of Pandora.

  If Colonists learn to trust me . . . if they look up to me . . . then I can tell them what Ship really wants of them. They will believe and they will follow.

  That sub in there—would it be the key? Persistent symbols. What would persist in the symbols of an intelligent vegetable? It was intelligent. He was convinced of it. So was Waela. But the symbols remained a mystery.

  Fireflies in the night of the sea.

  Did they talk to each other beneath the waves?

  We do.

  Waela gestured at the signal switch beside the hatch.

  “What’s the delay?”

  “They’re mating the new gondola and the sub. I didn’t want to call anyone away from that.”

  He nodded as he saw the gondola swing into place, then he depressed the switch.

  Presently, a green-clad workman unsealed the inner locks and the hatch swung open. Slow procedure, but this was a dangerous area. Hatches could be locked either side—from inside when the skydoors were open. Everything groundside was designed to contain an attack.

  There was a musty aroma of outside within the hangar which set Thomas’ nerves on edge.

  Waela preceded him across the hangar floor, striding out with that watchful swing which Colonists never put aside, head turning, gaze darting about. Her pale singlesuit fitted her body like another skin.

  He had insisted they go through Stores for the new suits. As he had ordered, they were insulated against the sea’s chill, eliminating the need for insulation on the gondola. Plaz was an excellent conductor unless doubled or tripled. This decision gave them a few extra centimeters in the gondola core.

  Waela had disconcerted him when they picked up the suits. In shipside style, there were no separate dressing rooms. She had moved right into the try-on area with him. That habit of bodily candor still bothered him. He always found it necessary to turn his back when dressing or undressing with a female companion. Waela, on the other hand, remained frankly direct.

  “Raj, did you know that you have a funny-looking mole on your butt?”

  Without thinking, he had turned his head toward her just in time to see her stepping into her suit—breasts and pubis exposed. There was just the slightest hesitation in her while she continued dressing, as though she spoke only to his eyes, saying: “Of course I’m a woman. You knew that.”

  He found himself intensely aware that she was a woman, and there was no denying the magnetic attraction she worked on him. There also was no denying that she knew this and was amused by it in an undefinably gentle way. This knowledge in her might even have contributed to her upset when he asked her to apply sexual pressure to the new team member.

  She was right, too. It was cheating.

  But what if Ship is cheating us?

  Doubts—always doubts. He found himself in silent agreement with some of the things Oakes had said. On the other hand, he could not fault Waela’s argument: “We don’t help ourselves by cheating each other.”

  That open candor in her attracted him as much as the chemistry of her physical presence.

  But I am the goad, the devil’s advocate, the challenger. I am the knight among the pawns.

  And he knew he did not have much time. Ship might hand him an impossible deadline at any moment. Or Oakes and his crew might make good on their unspoken threat to cut this project off at the pockets as soon as they dared.

  There was no mistaking the latent anger in Waela—it betrayed itself in her stride (a bit too emphatic) and in the way she studied him now when she thought he was not looking. But she would get to Panille and ask all of the proper questions. That was the important thing.

  Thomas still felt remnants of her anger as they stepped into the glaring light and bustle at the testing apron where the new sub was cradled. She was all business as she stared up at this creation which had emerged from Thomas’ commands.

  It was a fat metallic teardrop, slightly elongated, its LTA attachment eyelets extending along the top in a double ridge reminiscent of the backbone of an antediluvian Earthside monster. The principle was relatively simple. Most of the external sub was carrier for the plaz globe of the gondola at the core. Only the drive motors and fuel storage were made strong against the sea’s pressures. The carrier had one more important function now visible to her eyes: Vertical lines of plaz-bubble lights extended up and down its sides—each bubble four centimeters in diameter. The trigger system to light them in sequence passed through a computer/sensor feedback program. What the sensor-eyes saw in the ocean depths, these lights could play back. The kelp’s patterns would be its patterns, the kelp’s rhythms its rhythms.

  The chief of Construction Services, Hapat Lavu, came out to meet them at the edge of the lighted area. He was a slender, driving man, completely bald. His gray eyes missed few details of his work and, despite a biting and accusatory tongue which delivered reprimands with thin-lipped fury, he was one of the best-liked Colonists. The common assessment was, “You can depend on Hap.”

  Dependability gained high marks groundside, and Hap Lavu was fighting for his reputation. Of all the equipment from his shops, only the subs had failed to match Pandora’s demands. Sixteen had been lost without a trace—there had been survivors from four, and the wreckage of three others had been located on the bottom. All had been crushed or otherwise disabled by giant strands of kelp.

  Lavu’s assessment was the opinion of many: “That damn stuff can think and it’s a killer.”

  He had become an admirer of Thomas during their short association. Thomas had taken the accepted sub-components and reworked them into this new design. The only parts of the plan Lavu distrusted invol
ved communications and pickup. He spoke to that as he greeted Thomas: “You should have something better than the rocketsonde. They fail, y’know.”

  “We’ll stick with it,” Thomas said.

  He knew what worried Lavu. The ubiquitous ’lectrokelp not only clogged the seas, but their electrical activity jammed the communications channels—sonar to radar. Hylighter exhibited similar phenomena. Was there a relationship? There was no pattern to the jamming; it was random squirts of signal activity. Because of this, they depended on high power and line-of-sight relays waterside. Even then, a cloud of hylighters rising from the sea could block transmissions.

  “You’ll have to surface before you can communicate,” Lavu said. “Now, if you’d let me adapt the anchor cable to . . .”

  “Too many lines to the sub,” Thomas said. “We could tangle in them.”

  “Then pray that y’can lift above interference for the relays to take your talk-talk.”

  Thomas nodded agreement. The plan was to anchor the LTA in a lagoon, slip down the anchor cable in a vertical dive and stay clear of the kelp barriers.

  “We’ll observe, play back their light patterns and seek any new coherent patterns in the lights or their electrical activity,” he had said.

  It was a workable plan. Several subs had survived exploratory dives by giving a wide berth to the kelp. It was when the subs went in to take specimens that violence occurred.

  Workable . . . but with unavoidable weaknesses.

  Their LTA would hang at the surface, tethered on its anchor-line and awaiting the sub’s return from the depths. A plan to have another LTA with a lift-gondola anchored or standing by aloft had been scratched. The winds were too unpredictable and it was argued that two LTAs anchored in the same lagoon would pose dangerous maneuvering problems. The necessary size of such an LTA made them difficult to handle in tight quarters. The standard procedure at the hangar was to winch them down after grappling the downhaul hawser. Instead, their LTA bag had been triple-reinforced with compartmented cells.

  These arguments went through Thomas’ mind as he studied the new submersible.