The Jesus Incident Read online

  “But how did you . . .”

  “Keyed the whole conversation on a ten-minute delay.”

  “But . . .”

  “See how standard you are on com? I can tape my whole side of a conversation with you and get it right down the line.”

  “But the . . .” He nodded at the hatch into software storage.

  “Oh, that’s where you always are when nobody can find you—somewhere in there.” She pointed to the storage area.

  “Hmmm.” He took her hand and they headed out toward the west shell.

  “Why so thoughtful?” she asked. “I thought you’d be amused, surprised . . . laugh, or something.”

  “I’m sorry. Lately it’s bothered me when I do that. Never take time for people, never seem to have the flair for . . . the right word at the right time.”

  “A pretty strong self-indictment for a poet.”

  “It’s much easier to order characters on a page or a holo than it is to order one’s life. ‘One’s life’! Why do I talk that way?”

  She slipped an arm around his waist and hugged him as they walked. He smiled. Presently, they emerged into the Dome of Trees. It was dayside, the sunglow of Rega muted through the screening filters. All the greens came with soothing blue undertones. Kerro took a deep breath of the oxygenated air. He heard birds twittering behind a sonabarrier off in heavier bushes to the left. Other couples could be seen far down through the trees. This was a favorite trysting place.

  Hali slipped off her pribox strap and pulled him down beside her under a cover of cedar. The needle duff was warm and soft, the air thick with moisture and sun dazzled through the branches. They stretched out on their backs, shoulder to shoulder.

  “Mmmmmm.” Hali stretched and arched her back. “It smells so nice here.”

  “It? What’s the smell of an it?”

  “Oh, stop that.” She turned toward him. “You know what I mean—the air, the moss, the food in your beard.” She brushed at his whiskers, wove her fingers in and out of the coarse hairs. “You’re the only Shipman with a beard.”

  “So I’m told.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I don’t know.” He reached out and traced the curve of the small wire ring which pierced her left nostril. “Traditions are strange. Where did you get this ring?”

  “A robox dropped it.”

  “Dropped it?” He was surprised.

  “I know—they don’t miss much. This one was repairing a sensor outside that little medical study next to Behavioral. I saw the wire drop and picked it up. It was like finding a rare treasure. They leave so little around. Ship only knows what they do with all the scraps they carry off.”

  She slipped her arm around his neck and kissed him. Presently, she pulled back.

  He pulled away from her and sat up. “Thanks, but . . .”

  “It’s always ‘Thanks, but . . .’” She was angry, fighting the physical evidence of her own passion.

  “I’m not ready.” He felt apologetic. “I don’t know why and I’m not playing with you. I just have this compulsion toward timing, for the feeling of rightness in things.”

  “What could be more right? We were selected as a breeding pair after knowing each other all this time. It’s not like we were strangers.”

  He could not bring himself to look at her. “I know . . . anyone shipside can partner with anyone else, but . . .”

  “But!” She whirled away and stared at the base of the sheltering tree. “We could be a breeding pair! One pair in . . . what? Two thousand? We could actually make a child.”

  “It isn’t that. It’s . . .”

  “And you’re always so damned historical, traditional, quoting social patterns this and language patterns that. Why can’t you see what . . .”

  He reached across her, put his fingers over her mouth to silence her and gently kissed her cheek.

  “Dear Hali, because I can’t. For me, partnership will have to be a giving so deep that I lose myself in the giving.”

  She rolled away and lifted her head to stare at him, her eyes glistening. “Where do you get such ideas?”

  “They come out of my living and from what I learn.”

  “Ship teaches you these things?”

  “Ship does not deny me what I want to know.”

  She stared morosely at the ground under her feet. “Ship won’t even talk to me.”

  Her voice was barely audible.

  “When you ask in the right way, Ship always answers,” he said. Then, an afterthought as he sensed it between them: “And you have to listen.”

  “You’ve said that before but you never tell me how.”

  There was no evading the jealousy in her voice. He found that he could only answer in one way. “I will give you a poem,” he said. He cleared his throat.

  “Blue itself

  teaches us blue.”

  She scowled, concentrating on his words. Presently, she shook her head. “I’ll never understand you any more than I understand Ship. I go to WorShip; I pray; I do what Ship directs . . .” She stared at him. “I never see you at WorShip.”

  “Ship is my friend,” he said.

  Curiosity overcame her resentments.

  “What does Ship teach you?”

  “Too many things to tell here.”

  “Just give me one thing, just one!”

  He nodded. “Very well. There have been many planets and many people. Their languages and the chronicle of their years weave a magic tangle. Their words sing to me. You don’t even have to understand the words to hear them sing.”

  She felt an odd sense of wonder at this.

  “Ship gives you words and you don’t understand?”

  “When I ask for the original.”

  “But why do you want words that you don’t understand?”

  “To make those people live, to make them mine. Not to own them, but to become them, at least for a blink or two.”

  He turned and stared at her. “Haven’t you ever wanted to dig in ancient dirt and find people nobody else even knew existed?”

  “Their bones?”

  “No! Their hearts, their lives.”

  She shook her head slowly.

  “I just don’t understand you, Kerro. But I love you.”

  He nodded silently, thinking: Yes, love doesn’t have to understand. She knows this but she won’t let it into her life.

  He recalled the words of an old earthside poem: “Love is not a consolation, it is a light.” The thought, the poem of life, that was consolation. He would talk to her of love sometime, he thought, but not this dayside.

  Chapter 7

  Why are you humans always so ready to carry the terrible burdens of your past?

  —Kerro Panille, Questions from the Avata

  SY MURDOCH did not like coming out this close to Colony perimeter, even when sheltered behind the crysteel barrier of Lab One’s private exit. Creatures of this planet had a way of penetrating the impenetrable, confounding the most careful defenses.

  But someone Lewis trusted had to man this observation post when the hylighters congregated on the plain as they were doing this morning. It was their most mysterious form of behavior and lately Lewis had been demanding answers—no doubt jumping to commands from The Boss.

  He sighed. When he looked out on the unprotected surface of Pandora, there was no denying its immediate dangers.

  Absently, he scratched his left elbow. When he moved his head against the exterior light, he could see his own reflection in the Plaz: a blocky man with brown hair, blue eyes, a light complexion which he kept meticulously scrubbed.

  The vantage point was not the best available, not as good as the exterior posts which were always manned by the fastest and the best the Colony could risk. But Murdoch knew he could argue his importance to the leadership team. He was not expendable and this place did serve Lewis’ purpose. The crysteel barrier, although it filtered out almost a fourth of the light, framed the area they needed to watch.

&
nbsp; What was it those damned floating gasbags did out there?

  Murdoch crouched behind a swivel-mounted scope-cum-vidicorder, and touched the controls with a short, stubby finger to focus on the ‘lighters. More than a hundred of them floated above the plain about six kilometers out.

  There were some big orange monsters in this mob, and Murdoch singled out one of the biggest for special observation, reading what he saw into a small recorder at his throat. The big ‘lighter looked to be at least fifty meters in diameter, a truncated sphere somewhat flattened along the top which formed the muscular base for the tall, rippling sail membrane. Corded tendrils trailed down to the plain where it grasped a large rock which bumped and dragged along the surface, kicking up dust, scattering gravel.

  The morning was cloudless, only one sun in the sky. It cast a harsh golden light on the plain, picking out every wrinkle and contraction of the ‘lighter’s bag. Murdoch could make out a cradle of smaller enfolding tentacles cupped beneath the ‘lighter, confining something which squirmed there . . . twisting, flailing. He could not quite identify what the ‘lighter carried, but it definitely was alive and trying to escape.

  The mob of accompanying ‘lighters had lined out in a great curved spread which was sweeping now across the plain on a diagonal path away from Murdoch’s observation post. The big one he had singled out anchored the near flank, still confining that flailing something in the tentacle shadows beneath it.

  What had that damned thing captured? Surely not a Colonist!

  Murdoch backed off his focus to include the entire mob and saw then that they were targeting ground creatures, a mixed lot of them huddled on the plain. The arc of hylighters swept toward the crouching animals which waited mesmerized. He scanned them, identifying Hooded Dashers, Swift Grazers, Flatwings, Spinnerets, Tubetuckers, Clingeys . . . demons—all of them deadly to Colonists.

  But apparently not dangerous to hylighters.

  All of the ‘lighters carried ballast rocks, Murdoch saw, and now the central segment of the sweeping arc dropped their rocks. The bags bounced slightly and tendrils stretched out to snatch up the crouching demons. The captive creatures squirmed and flailed, but made no attempt to bite or otherwise attack the ‘lighters.

  Now, all but a few of the ballasted ‘lighters dropped their rocks and began to soar. The few still carrying rocks tacked out away from the capture team, appearing to search the ground for other specimens. The monster bag which Murdoch had studied earlier remained in this search group. Once more, Murdoch enlarged the image in the scope, focusing in on the cupped tendrils beneath the thing’s bag. All was quiet there now and, as he watched, the tendrils opened to release their catch.

  Murdoch dictated his observations into the recorder at his throat: “The big one has just dropped its catch. Whatever it is it appears to be desiccated, a large flat area of black . . . My God! It was a Hooded Dasher! The big ‘lighter had a Hooded Dasher tucked up under the bag!”

  The remains of the Dasher struck the ground in a geyser of dust.

  Now, the big ‘lighter swerved left and its rock ballast scraped the side of another large rock on the plain. Sparks flew where the rocks met and Murdoch saw a line of fire spurt upward to the ‘lighter which exploded in a flare of glowing yellow. Bits of the orange bag and a cloud of fine blue dust drifted and sailed all around.

  The explosion ignited a wild frenzy of action on the plain. The other bags dropped their captives and soared upward. The demons on the ground spread out, some dashing and leaping to catch the remnants of the exploded ‘lighter. Slower creatures such as the Spinnerets crept toward fallen rags of the orange bag.

  And when it was over, the demons sped away or burrowed into the plain as was the particular habit of each.

  Murdoch methodically described this into his recorder.

  When it was done, he scanned the plain once more. All of the ‘lighters had soared away. Not a demon remained. He shut down the observation post and signaled for a replacement to come up, then he headed back toward Lab One and the Garden. As he made his way along the more secure lighted passages, he thought about what he had seen and recorded. The visual record would go to Lewis and later to Oakes. Lewis would edit the verbal observations, adding his own comments.

  What was it I saw and recorded out there?

  Try as he might to understand the behavior of the Pandoran creatures, Murdoch could not do it.

  Lewis is right. We should just wipe them out.

  And as he thought of Lewis, Murdoch asked himself how long this most recent emergency at the Redoubt would keep the man out of touch. For all they really knew, Lewis might be dead. No one was completely immune to the threats of Pandora—not even Lewis. If Lewis were gone . . .

  Murdoch tried to imagine himself elevated to a new position of power under Oakes. The images of such a change would not form.

  Chapter 8

  Gods have plans, too.

  —Morgan Oakes, The Diaries

  FOR A long time, Panille lay quietly beside Hali in the treedome, watching the plaz-filtered light draw radial beams on the air above the cedar tree. He knew Hali had been hurt by his rejection and he wondered why he did not feel guilty. He sighed. There was no sense in running away; this was the way he had to be.

  Hali spoke first, her voice low, tentative.

  “Nothing’s changed, is it?”

  “Talking about it doesn’t change it,” he said. “Why did you ask me out here—to revive our sexual debate?”

  “Couldn’t I just want to be with you for a while?”

  She was close to tears. He spoke softly to avoid hurting her even more.

  “I’m always with you, Hali.” With his left hand he lifted her right hand, pressed the tips of his fingers against the tips of her fingers. “Here. We touch, right?”

  She nodded like a child being coaxed from a tantrum.

  “Which is we and which the material of our flesh?”

  “I don’t . . .”

  He held their fingertips a few centimeters apart.

  “All the atoms between us oscillate at incredible speeds. They bump into each other and shove each other around.” He tapped the air with a fingertip, careful to keep from touching her.

  “So I touch an atom; it bumps into the next one; that one nudges another, and so on until . . .” He closed the gap and brushed her fingertips. “. . . we touch and we were never separate.”

  “Those are just words!” She pulled her hand away from him.

  “Much more than words, you know it, Med-tech Hali Ekel. We constantly exchange atoms with the universe, with the atmosphere, with food, with each other. There’s no way we can be separated.”

  “But I don’t want just any atoms!”

  “You have more choice than you think, lovely Hali.”

  She studied him out of the corners of her eyes. “Are you just making these things up to entertain me?”

  “I’m serious. Don’t I always tell you when I make up something?”

  “Do you?”

  “Always, Hali. I will make up a poem to prove it.” He tapped her wire ring lightly. “A poem about this.”

  “Why’re you telling me your poems? You usually just lock them up on tapes or store them away in those old-fashioned glyph books of yours.”

  “I’m trying to please you in the only way I can.”

  “Then tell me your poem.”

  He brushed her cheek beside the ring, then:

  “With delicate rings of the gods

  in our noses

  we do not root in their garden.”

  She stared at him, puzzled. “I don’t understand.”

  “An ancient Earthside practice. Farmers put rings in the noses of their pigs to keep the pigs from digging out of their pens. Pigs dig with their noses as well as their feet. People called that kind of digging ‘rooting.’”

  “So you’re comparing me to a pig.”

  “Is that all you see in my poem?”

  She sighed, then smiled as
much at herself as at Kerro. “We’re a fine pair to be selected for breeding—the poet and the pig!”

  He stared at her, met her gaze and, without knowing why, they were suddenly giggling, then laughing.

  Presently, he lay back on the duff. “Ahhh, Hali, you are good for me.”

  “I thought you might need some distraction. What’ve you been studying that keeps you so shut away?”

  He scratched his head, recovered a brown twig of dead cedar. “I’ve been rooting into the ’lectrokelp.”

  “That seaweed the Colony’s been having all the trouble with? Why would that interest you?”

  “I’m always amazed at what interests me, but this may be right down my hatchway. The kelp, or some phase of it, appears to be sentient.”

  “You mean it thinks?”

  “More than that . . . probably much more.”

  “Why hasn’t this been announced?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I came across part of the information by accident and pieced together the rest. There’s a record of other teams sent out to study the kelp.”

  “How did you find this report?”

  “Well . . . I think it may be restricted for most people, but Ship seldom holds anything back from me.”

  “You and Ship!”

  “Hali . . .”

  “Oh, all right. What’s in this report?”

  “The kelp appears to have a language transmitted by light but we can’t understand it yet. And there’s something even more interesting. I can’t find out if there’s a current project to contact and study this kelp.”

  “Doesn’t Ship . . .”

  “Ship refers me to Colony HQ or to the Ceepee, but they don’t acknowledge my inquiries.”

  “That’s nothing new. They don’t acknowledge most inquiries.”

  “You been having trouble with them, too?”

  “Just that Medical can’t get an explanation for all the gene sampling.”

  “Gene sampling? How very curious.”