The Jesus Incident Page 7

  It was what you did with data, not the data, that was important. Every king, every emperor had to know that one. Even his theology master had agreed.

  “Sell ’em on God. It’s for their own good. Pin the little everyday miracles on God and you’ve got ’em; you don’t need to move mountains. If you’re good enough, people will move the mountains for you in the name of God.”

  Ahh, yes. That had been Edmond Kingston, a real Chaplain/Psychiatrist out of the ship’s oldest traditions, but still a cynic.

  Oakes heaved a deep sigh. Those had been quiet days shipside, days of tolerance and security of purpose. The machinery of the monster around them ran smoothly. God had been remote and most Shipmen remained in hyb.

  But that had been before Pandora. Bad luck for old Kingston that the ship had put them in orbit around Pandora. Good old Edmond, dead on Pandora with the fourth settlement attempt. Not a trace recovered, not a cell. Gone now, into whatever passed for eternity. And Morgan Oakes was the second cynical Chaplain to take on the burden of Ship.

  The first Ceepee not chosen by the damned ship!

  Except . . . there was this new Ceepee, he reminded himself, this man without a name who was being sent groundside to talk to the damned vegetables . . . the ’lectrokelp.

  He will not be my successor!

  There were many ways that a man in power could delay things to his own advantage. Even as I am now delaying the ship’s request that we send this poet . . . this whatsisname, Panille, groundside.

  Why did the ship want a poet groundside? Did that have anything to do with this new Ceepee? A drop of sweat trickled into his right eye.

  Oakes grew aware that his breathing had become labored. Heart attack? He pushed himself off the low divan. Have to get help. There was pain all through his chest. Damn! He had too many unfinished plans. He couldn’t just go this way. Not now! He staggered to the hatch but the hatch dogs refused to turn under his fingers. The air was cooler here, though, and he grew aware of a faint hissing from the equalizer valve over the hatch. Pressure difference? He did not understand how that could be. The ship controlled the interior environment. Everyone knew that.

  “What’re you doing, you damned mechanical monster?” he whispered. “Trying to kill me?”

  It was getting easier to breathe. He pressed his head against the cool metal of the hatch, drew in several deep breaths. The pain in his chest receded. When he tried the hatch dogs again they turned, but he did not open the hatch. He knew his symptoms could be explained by asphyxia . . . or anxiety.

  Asphyxia?

  He opened the hatch and peered out into an empty corridor, the dim blue-violet illumination of nightside. Presently, he closed the hatch and stared across his cubby.

  Another message from the ship? He would have to go groundside soon . . . as soon as Lewis made it safe for him down there.

  Lewis, get that Redoubt ready for us!

  Would the ship really kill him? No doubt it could. He would have to be very circumspect, very careful. And he would have to train a successor. Too many things unfinished to have them end with his own death.

  I can’t leave the choice of my successor to the ship.

  Even if it killed him, the damned ship could not be allowed to beat him.

  It’s been a long time. Maybe the ship’s original program has run out.

  What if Pandora were the place for a long winding-down process? Kick the fledglings out of the nest a millimeter at a time.

  His gaze picked out details of the cubby: erotic wall hangings, servopanels, the soft opulence of divans . . .

  Who will move in here after me?

  He had thought he might choose Lewis, provided Lewis worked out well. Lewis was bright enough for some dazzling lab work, but dull politically. A dedicated man.

  Dedicated! He’s a weasel and does what he’s told.

  Oakes crossed to his favorite divan, fawn soft cushions. He sat down and fluffed the cushions under the small of his back. What did he care about Lewis? This flesh that called itself Oakes would be long gone when the next Chaplain took over. At the very least he would be in hyb, dependent on the systems of the ship. And it may not be a good idea to tempt Lewis with that much power, power that would be contingent upon Oakes’ own death. After all, death was the specialty of Jesus Lewis.

  “No, no,” Lewis had said to Oakes privately, “it’s not death—I give them life, I give them life. They’re engineered clones, Doctor E-clones. I remind you of that. If I give them life, for whatever purpose, it is mine to take away.”

  “I don’t want to hear it.” He waved Lewis away with a brush of his hand.

  “Have it your way,” Lewis said, “but that doesn’t change the facts. I do what I have to do. And I do it for you . . .”

  Yes, Lewis was a brilliant man. He had learned many new and useful genetic manipulation techniques from the genetics of the ’lectrokelp, that most insidious indigent species on Pandora. And it had cost them dearly.

  A successor? What real choice would he make, if he truly believed in the process and the godhood of Ship? If he could exclude all the nastiness of politics?

  Legata Hamill.

  The name caught him off guard, it came so quickly. Almost as though he did not think it himself. Yes, it was true. He would choose Legata if he believed, if he truly believed in Ship. There was no reason why a woman could not be Chaplain/Psychiatrist. No doubt of her diplomatic abilities.

  Some wag had once said that Legata could tell you to go to hell and make you anticipate the trip with joy.

  Oakes pushed aside the cushions and levered himself to his feet. The hatch out into the dim passages of nightside beckoned him—that maze of mazes which meant life to them all: the ship.

  Had the ship really tried to asphyxiate him? Or had that been an accident?

  I’ll put myself through a medcheck first thing dayside.

  The hatch dogs felt cold under his fingers, much colder than just moments before. The oval closure swung soundlessly aside to reveal once more nightside’s blue-violet lighting in the corridor.

  Damn the ship!

  He strode out and, around the first corner, encountered the first few people of the Behavioral watch. He ignored them. The Behavioral complex was so familiar that he did not see it as he passed through. Biocomputer Study, Vitro Lab, Genetics—all were part of his daily routine and did not register on his nightside consciousness.

  Where tonight?

  He allowed his feet to find the way and realized belatedly that his wanderings were taking him farther and farther into the outlying regions, farther along the ship’s confused twistings of passages and through mysterious hums and odd odors—farther out than he had ever wandered before.

  Oakes sensed that he was walking into a peculiar personal danger, but he could not stop even as his tensions mounted. The ship was able to kill him at any moment, anywhere shipside, but he took a special private knowledge with him: he was Morgan Oakes, Ceepee. His detractors might call him “The Boss,” but he was the only person here (with the possible exception of Lewis) who understood there were things the ship would not do.

  Two of us among many. How many?

  They had no real census shipside or groundside. The computers refused to function in this area, and attempts at manual counting varied so widely they were useless.

  The ship showing its devious hand again.

  Just as the ship’s machinations could be sensed in this order for a poet groundside. He remembered the full name now: Kerro Panille. Why should a poet be ordered groundside to study the kelp?

  If we could only eat the kelp without it driving us psychotic.

  Too many people to feed. Too many.

  Oakes guessed ten thousand shipside and ten times that groundside (not counting the special clones), but no matter the numbers, he was the only person who realized how little knowledge his people had about the workings and purposes of the ship or its parts.

  His people!

  Oakes liked it t
hat way, recalling the cynical comment of his mentor, Edmond Kingston, who had been talking about the need to limit the awareness of the people: “Appearing to know the unknown is almost as useful as actually knowing.”

  From his own historical studies, Oakes knew that this had been a political watchword for many civilizations. This one thing stood out even though the ship’s records were not always clear and he did not completely trust the ship’s versions of history. It often was difficult to distinguish between real history and contrived fictions. But from the odd literary references and the incompatible datings of such works—from internal clues and his own inspired guesswork—Oakes deduced that other worlds and other peoples existed . . . or had existed.

  The ship could have countless murders on its conscience. If it had a conscience.

  Chapter 13

  As I am your creation, you are Mine. You are My satellites and I am yours. Your personas are My impersonations. We melt into ONE at the touch of infinity.

  —Raja Flattery, The Book of Ship

  FROM THE instant the Redoubt’s first hatchway exploded, Jesus Lewis stayed within arm’s length of his bodyguard, Illuyank. It was partly a conscious decision. Even in the worst of times, Illuyank inspired a certain confidence. He was a heavily muscled man, dark-skinned, with black wavy hair and a stone-cut face accented by three blue chevrons tattooed above his left eyebrow. Three chevrons—Illuyank had run outside around the Colony Perimeter three times, naked, armed only with his wits and endurance, “running the P” for a bet or a dare.

  Testing their luck, some called it. When the hatch blew, they all needed luck. Some of them were barely awake and had not yet eaten their first dayside meal.

  “The clones got a lasgun!” Illuyank shouted. His clear, dark eyes worked the area. “Dangerous. They don’t know how to use it.”

  The two men stood in a passage between the clones’ quarters and a random huddle of survivors who waited behind them near a half-circle of hatches leading to the core of the Redoubt. Even in this moment of peril, Lewis knew how he must appear to the others. He was a short man, thin all the way—thin straw-colored hair, thin mouth, thin chin made even more so by a deep cleft, a thin nose, and oddly dark eyes which never seemed to reflect light in the thin compression of his lids. Beside him, Illuyank was everything Lewis was not.

  Both stared toward the core of the Redoubt.

  There was a real question in their minds whether the core of the Redoubt remained secure.

  Knowing this, Lewis had deactivated the communications pellet buried in the flesh of his neck and refused to answer it even when insistent calls from Oakes tempted him.

  No telling who might be able to listen!

  There had been some disquieting indications lately that their private communications channel might not be as private as he had hoped. By now, Oakes would have received word about the new Ceepee. Discussion of that and the possible breach of their private communications system would have to wait.

  Oakes would have to be patient.

  At the first sign of trouble, Lewis had hit an emergency signal switch to alert Murdoch at Colony. There was no certainty, though, that the signal had gone through. He had not been allowed time for a retransmit-check. And the whole Redoubt had gone onto emergency power then. Lewis had no way of knowing which systems might be working and which not.

  The damned clones!

  A loud whirr sounded from the direction of the clones’ quarters. Illuyank flattened himself on the floor and the others were showered with shards of passage wall.

  “I thought they didn’t know how to use that lasgun!” Lewis shouted. He pointed at a gaping hole in the wall as Illuyank leaped up and spun him around toward the others at the hatch circle.

  “Downshaft!” Illuyank called.

  One of the waiting group whirled the downshaft hatchdogs and opened the way into a passage lighted only by the blue flickering of emergency illumination.

  Lewis sprinted blindly behind Illuyank, heard the others scrambling after them. Illuyank shouted back at him as he ran: “They don’t know how to use it and that’s what makes it dangerous!” Illuyank tucked and rolled across an open side passage as he spoke, firing a quick burst down the passage from his gushgun. “They could hit anything anywhere!”

  Lewis glanced down the open passage as he ran past, glimpsed a scattering of bodies blazing there.

  It soon became apparent where Illuyank was leading them and Lewis admired the wisdom of it. They took a left turn into a new passage, then a right turn and found themselves in the Redoubt’s unfinished back corridors, skirting the native rock of the cliffside into the small Facilities Room on the beach side. One plasma-glass window overlooked the sea, the courtyard and the corner where the clones’ quarters joined the Redoubt itself.

  The last of the followers dogged the hatch behind them. Lewis took quick stock of his personnel—fifteen people, only six of them from his personally chosen crew. The others, rated reliable by Murdoch, had not yet been tested.

  Illuyank had moved to the maze of controls at the cliff wall and was poring over the Redoubt’s schematics etched into a master plate there. It occurred to Lewis then that Illuyank was the only survivor from Kingston’s mission to this chunk of dirt and rock named Black Dragon.

  “Is this how it was with Kingston?” Lewis asked. He forced his voice to an even calm while watching Illuyank trace a circuit with one stubby finger.

  “Kingston cried and hid behind rocks while his people died. Runners got him. I cooked them out.”

  Cooked them out! Lewis shuddered at the euphemism. The grotesque image of Kingston’s head crisped to char grinned across his mind.

  “Tell us what to do.” Lewis was surprised at his control under this fear.

  “Good.” Illuyank looked directly at him for the first time. “Good. Our weapons are these.” He indicated the power switches and valve controls around them. “We can control every circuit, gas and liquid from here.”

  Lewis touched Illuyank’s arm and pointed to a one-meter square panel beside him.

  “Yes.” Illuyank hesitated.

  “We’re blind otherwise,” Lewis said.

  For answer, Illuyank tapped out a code on the console beneath the square. The blank panel slid back to reveal four small viewscreens.

  “Sensors,” one of those behind them said.

  “Eyes and ears,” Lewis said, still looking at Illuyank.

  The dark man’s expression did not change, but he whispered to Lewis: “We also will have to see and hear what we do to them.”

  Lewis swallowed and heard a faint snap-snapping at the hatch.

  “They’re cutting in!” a voice quavered behind them.

  Lewis and Illuyank scanned the screens. One showed the rubble that had been the clones’ quarters. I’M HUNGRY NOW!, the new rallying cry of the clones, was smeared in yellow grease across one wall. The adjoining screen scanned the courtyard. A crowd of mutated humans—E-clones all—scoured the grounds for rocks and bits of glass, anything for a weapon.

  “Keep an eye on them” Illuyank whispered. “They can’t hurt us with that stuff, but all that blood out there will bring demons. There are holes all over our perimeter. If demons hit, they’ll catch that bunch first.”

  Lewis nodded. He could hear some of the others pressing close for a better view.

  Once more, there was that snap-snapping at the hatch.

  Lewis glanced at Illuyank.

  “They’re just pounding at us with rocks,” Illuyank said. “What we have to do is find that lasgun. Meanwhile, keep an eye on the courtyard. The blood . . .”

  The lower left-hand screen showed the clone mess hall, a shambles of security hatches broken open in the background, a turmoil of clones throughout the area. This screen suddenly went blank.

  “Sensor’s gone in the mess hall,” Lewis said.

  “Food will keep them busy there for a time,” Illuyank said. He was busy searching through the Redoubt on the remaining screen. It
showed a flash of the courtyard from a different angle, then a broken tangle of perimeter wall, cut to pieces by the lasgun and swarming with clones coming in from the outside where Lewis had ejected them, the action which had ignited this revolt.

  We have to cull them somehow, Lewis told himself. The food will go only so far.

  He turned his attention to the screen showing the courtyard. Yes . . . there was a lot of blood. It made him aware that he was badly cut himself. Celltape stopped his major bleeding, but small cuts began to ache as he thought of his condition. None of them was without injury. Even Illuyank bled slightly from a rock cut above his ear.

  “There,” Illuyank said.

  His voice coincided with a new thump and crackling agitation at the hatch. But the COA screen Illuyank had been using now showed the passage outside their hatch. It was filled with a mass of clone flesh: furred bodies, strange limbs, oddly shaped heads. At the hatch two of the strongest clones were trying to maneuver a plasteel cutter, but their actions were impeded by the press of others behind them.

  “That’ll get them in here for sure,” someone said. “We’re cooked.”

  Illuyank turned and barked orders, pointing, waving a hand until all fifteen were busy in the Facilities Room—a valve to control, a switch to throw; each had some particular responsibility.

  Lewis keyed for sound in the screen and a confused babble came over the speakers.

  Illuyank signaled to a man at the remote valve controls across the room. “Dump the brine tanks into level two! That’ll flood the outer passage.”

  The man worked his controls, muttering as he followed the schematics at his position.

  Illuyank touched Lewis on the elbow, pointed to the screen which showed the courtyard. The clones there were looking away from the sensor, all of them at full alert, their attention on a broken segment of wall which led to the perimeter. Abruptly, almost as one organism, they dropped their rocks and glass weapons and ran screaming off-screen.

  “Runners,” Illuyank muttered.