The Worshippers and the Way

by Hugh Cook

  "Such impertinence ill becomes a Combat Cadet when he addresses a Startrooper," said Lupus Lon Oliver, with all the scorn at his command.

  This was not much scorn, for, unlike the Frangoni, the Ebrell Islanders are not natural orators. Amongst the purple-skinned Frangoni, a man can win great renown through the strength of his boast, so the making of speeches has been brought to a high art; but the Ebrell Islanders have ever preferred to demonstrate their manifest superiority through the deed.

  "Why do you call me impertinent?" said Dog Java, brown-skinned child of the Pang. "I thought we were co-conspirators - not idiots playing Startrooper games."

  "It's not a game!" said Lupus, shaken by such a rage of anger that he almost smashed the unfortunate Dog.

  "Dog Java backed off.

  "I'm sorry," said Dog. "I misspoke myself."

  Now Dalar ken Halvar was a regular hell-broth of incompatible races and religions, with divisions of class and caste further complicating the social divisions of the city, which divisions were amplified by the linguistic diversity of the peoples there resident. But the students of the Combat College did not usually clash with each other in anger, for they were united by their common loyalty to the Nexus. So Dog was taken aback to find Lupus Lon Oliver so angry with him, for Dog had failed to realize the extent to which Lupus had imported the prejudices of Dalar ken Halvar into the confines of the Combat College.

  "I apologise," said Lupus, with some effort. "I'm very sorry. I was wrong to speak to you in anger. You're my valued colleague, and I hope you know it. It's just - it's just that there's so much at stake. It's not you, it's Hatch who's making me angry. I'm very sorry I used that tone of voice to you."

  Lupus spoke thus because he had seen the patent shock and pain on Dog Java's face. In the city of Dalar ken Halvar, a lordly Ebrell Islander in his redskinned pride would never have apologised to one of the lowly Yara - though he might conceivably have essayed politeness in the presence of one of the Yara, a member of the rich and therefore Real upper class of the people Pang. But Lupus realized that the habits of Dalar ken Halvar could be fatal to his purposes, so he would have to control himself, and use the techniques of identification, encouragement and motivation which had been so carefully taught to him by Paraban Senk.

  They worked, those Nexus techniques. But - they were so alien! It hurt Lupus to parley with this Yara creature as if it were almost an equal. But he had to - in order to serve his purpose.

  With apologies done with, Lupus Lon Oliver and Dog Java got down to business. The business was simple. Lupus Lon Oliver was endeavoring to persuade Dog Java to murder Asodo Hatch. By now the last year of Lupus Lon Oliver's training had come to an end, sliding away in a dream-daze of eternal study, training and physical preparation - the physical preparation being essential, because the savagery of the mentally exhausting theoretical examinations would be quite sufficient to ruin the health of anyone who was not in peak physical condition. Those savage theoretical examinations had already begun, and were almost complete. The results were confirming was everyone in the Combat College had suspected for a long time.

  Three years earlier, following the murder of Hiji Hanojo, it had been generally thought that a half-dozen elite students had a serious chance of winning the instructorship of the Combat College in competitive examination. Of those six, Darius Flute and Sefton Ten Guy were dead. Scorpio Fax had suffered a nervous breakdown, from which he had only recently recovered, and that had set his training back severely. And as for Son'Sholoma Gezira, why, he had been expelled from the College for arson and attempted rape.

  That left the Frangoni warrior Asodo Hatch and the Ebrell Islander Lupus Lon Oliver to duel it out for the instructorship.

  In the theoretical examinations, Lupus had proved to have an edge in pure mathematics, physics and mechatronics, but Hatch had surpassed him in linguistics, applied politics and non-coercive conflict resolution. When it came to military tactics and strategy, nothing separated the two. The end result was that both were proving equally qualified for the instructorship, so decision by combat was called for.

  When it came to the question of a physical resolution of the competition for the instructorship, Lupus Lon Oliver preferred the certainties of murder, but was too intelligent to strike down Hatch with his own hand.

  Hence this conspiracy with Dog Java.

  The two had to meet inside the Combat College, for any connection between the two would certainly excite public comment if it took place in the city of Dalar ken Halvar itself. In public in Dalar ken Halvar, Lupus had ever held himself aloof from the Yara, even those who were fellow-students in the Combat College, and so any change in his habits would be noted.

  Yet to conspire in the Combat College was difficult, since Paraban Senk could see and hear much of that which took place in most parts of the College.

  However, there were, it was known, certain conditions under which the Combat College could not monitor student activity. When students met in the laboratory, for instance - since that great cave at the rear of the Combat College remained but a hollow in the living rock, untenanted by any of the machineries of the Nexus.

  Furthermore, the illusion tanks themselves were an ideal venue for a conspiracy - under certain circumstances. When the illusion tanks ran a war program, Paraban Senk had the option of monitoring everything, count by count. But when the same tanks ran a peace program, Senk could only guess at what was happening. This was an idiosyncracy of the system. Either a design flaw, or something which had been deliberately arranged to give the students the psychological comfort of having some private sphere of action free from the overlording surveillance of the Teacher of Control. Certainly this idiosyncracy of the system was very convenient for those engaged in conspiracy.

  Naturally, with twenty millennia of experience to back its judgment, Paraban Senk could often guess what was going on, and with some accuracy. Particularly when a student was doing, for example, a freetime run of that peace program program known as Backstreet Beds, or the related program known as Harem Lord, for in both of these illusion tank peace programs the range of options was strictly limited. But Lon Oliver and Dog Java had the freedom of an entire MegaCommand Cruiser, so Paraban Senk could only guess whether they were buggering each other or burning the Great God Mokaragash in effigy.

  For the purposes of conspiracy, Lupus Lon Oliver had chosen to meet with Dog Java on the MegaCommand Cruiser in the environment generated by that peace program known as Routine Cruise. It was a tried and tested guidebook program which was free from glitches and caprices, a program in which it was guaranteed that nothing would go wrong. Nothing would attack, engulf, corrode, implode or otherwise imperil the illusionary MegaCommand Cruiser on which Lupus and Dog were busy with conspiracy. The crew would not fight, mutiny or orgy. Unless pressed hard for a reaction, both crew and ship would ignore the wandering students.

  So.

  The MegaCommand Cruiser.

  In deep space.

  Here the stars were an alien white. Even now, Lupus could well remember when he had first seen those white-bright stars, and had thought their lack of color to be a defect of the programming. Though Lupus had lived out his childhood under a white sun, he had still been surprised to learn that the white suns were the Standard Stars of most of Known Humanity, that these cold icechip lights were the dominant luminaries of the night skies of any planet in any universe in the Standard Probability Range, and that the Nexus seldom opened a Chasm Gate into a cosmos configured otherwise.

  "Pretty," said Dog Java, watching the stars.

  "Pretty?" said Lupus.

  Whatever doubts he had about Dog Java were confirmed by that one word.

  Still, Lupus pushed on, and made his final offer to Dog Java. As has already been stated, Dog was a member of the Yara, the Unreal underclass of Dalar ken Halvar's dominant people, the Pang. Dog wanted to join the Free Corps, but membership of that august body was largely restricted to Ebrell Islanders and members of the Chem,
the wealthy upperclass of Dalar ken Halvar's Pang.

  "The Brick has reconsidered your application," said Lupus.

  "And?" said Dog.

  "It has been agreed that you will be accepted into the Free Corps if you kill Hatch. Kill him and you can become Real."

  "Good," said Dog, simply. Then said: "Abort."

  With that word, Dog exited from the simulated MegaCommand Cruiser, leaving Lupus Lon Oliver alone with his anxieties. Dog was a poor tool. Lupus would much rather have employed someone with a streak of desperation in his nature - like Yolombo Atlantabara, the Frangoni deserter who was known to be living a precarious and criminal life somewhere in Dalar ken Halvar. If Lupus could only get Atlantabara, then - then he might have a serious hope of seeing Hatch dead. But Dog? Lupus was dubious about Dog's abilities.

  Hence his anxiety.

  For Lupus, winning the instructorship - by fair means or foul - was desperately important. It would mean wealth. And status.

  And more.

  In the years which Lupus had devoted to his studies in the Combat College, he had integrated himself with the life of the Nexus. In many ways, he had become one of the more intellectual and philosophical of the citizens of the Nexus, and in some ways this had made him a stranger in his own homeland.

  So while it is true that Lupus ruthlessly pursued his ambitions because he desired influence, and power, and the satisfactions of mastery, it is also true that he sought a permanent position in the Combat College as an instructor because he did not want to be exiled from his home.

  For Lupus, the Nexus was now home; and in a practical sense, for him the Combat College was effectively the Nexus. And he was possessed of a great and half-acknowledged fear of being exiled, of being cast out, of being driven from his home, of being cut off from his people and his culture and all the works and philosophies of that culture.

  And Lupus knew that unless he triumphed over Asodo Hatch in the combat trials which were to come, then in a very few days he would indeed be driven out of the Nexus, and the gates of return would be forever barred to him, and he would then be fated to endure a life of exile in an alien land until the end of his days.

  Lupus Lon Oliver could not bear the thought of being exiled for a lifetime to Dalar ken Halvar, the benighted City of Sun which lived and died in the dust, which fed itself on rice and polyps and which garbled its days away in primitive tongues bereft of computerized memory. In his dreams, Lupus stood on a high place in Dalar ken Halvar, and looked out across that city and looked out across the red dust of the Plain of Jars, and wailed:

  - This is hell.

  -

  Chapter Four

  The Nexus: transcosmic confederation which contains much of Known Humanity. Theoretically, Asodo Hatch is a Nexus asset - a trained Startrooper contending to win an instructorship in a Nexus Combat College. However the honor of the Frangoni warrior's oath of eternal fealty to the Nexus is unlikely to ever be tested - for the transcosmic Chasm Gates linking his world to the rest of the Nexus collapsed some 20,496 years ago, and the likelihood of those Chasm Gates ever being repaired is currently very close to zero.

  So then despite the crowd

  He was alone.

  Despite the sweat which waited, bloody-eyed -

  The sweat and skin:

  A living weapon, bladed,

  Hooked and barbed,

  And he the same, identical, and yet -

  Not quite the same, for only one would walk.

  Two futures waited, and the crowd -

  Then came the Sign.

  And so his father died, expiring on the sands in the Season, but Hatch was not going to die likewise, no, he refused that death, though everyone knows the son may follow when the father dies. At least when the father dies in that manner. But no, he would not, not now! Now the singlefighter was singing, now Hatch had his enemy in his sights, now he fired.

  "Burst away," said the singlefighter. "Burst away."

  The explosive shells hit home. Shells, brute metal and high explosive, primitive but reliable, just as a knife is likewise primitive but eternally reliable. Fire blossomed within fire. The wreckage wrenched itself apart and fell. The victorious singlefighter analysed an image-record of the attack and pronounced:

  "Drone destroyed. Drone - "

  "What?" said Hatch, in startled shock.

  " - destroyed."

  Yes. Yes. Surely. Hatch knew the trick. The singlefighter he had just savaged had been no more than an illusion gimmicked up by a drone. But drones were far too small to be swift. No drone could possibly match the speeds at which Hatch had hunted his enemy. He had arrowed high and far in pursuit of his quarry, blistering through the stratosphere at speeds impossible for anything short of a singlefighter to match.

  Which meant -

  Which meant the drone had recently been launched.

  So his true enemy was near.

  "Enemy behind us," said the singlefighter.

  So Hatch slammed the fighter into a wrenching turn, a turn so savage he had to tighten his stomach muscles to keep himself from passing out.

  And there was his enemy.

  In his sights.

  The enemy for real? Or a drone?

  Hatch hesitated, just for a moment, and a moment was far too long. His fighter screamed:

  " - hit hit hit - "

  And already Hatch was lost, was gone, was wrecked and doomed, his singlefighter smashed and ruined, the machine skidding, tumbling, losing control, spinning through the sky, screaming as it fell.

  "Abort," said Hatch. "Abort. Abort!"

  But his voice was lost in the howl of his wounded machine, or else the programming was glitched, glitched again, and whatever it was he was falling, falling, lancing down toward the burning sea, diving toward the -

  - the -

  - the blur -

  - the freezing freeze-framed -

  - the frozen blur of the sea, green fading, blue denying, yellow phasing, passing, fading, gone -

  Gone.

  The world wavered in silence, and Hatch felt as if he was deep under water, held deep by a pressure too great for him to speak or breathe or feel or think -

  - think -

  What did he think?

  - the sea -

  Then the wavering sea-deep silence was nothing but a memory, and he was back in the Combat College, back in the initiation seat, back in the combat bay, his heart pounding and his uniform wet with sweat. Hatch put his face in his hands and kneaded his eyes with his fingers.

  It was some time before Asodo Hatch raised his head again and looked at the screen. The screen displayed the olive-skinned face of Paraban Senk.

  Since Paraban Senk was an asma, a computational device, Senk was not actually encumbered by anything so grossly inconvenient as a body, so did not possess a face in the fact of the flesh. But for the last twenty thousand years, the unembodied Senk had ever displayed the one and the same unchanging olive-skinned visage on the screens of the Combat College.

  "Critique," said Senk. As per usual, the Teacher of Control was calm, neutral, remote, disinterested. When Hatch did not respond, Senk amplified the command. "Critique. Critique your own performance. Come on, Hatch, what's wrong with you?"

  "I'm a trifle tired," said Hatch.

  "You're a Startrooper, trained and tested," said Senk. "Startroopers don't worry about trifles. The critique. Please."

  "I was fooled," said Hatch heavily.

  "Certainly something went wrong," said Senk. "You had him in your sights. He shed the shield and you had him."

  "I know," said Hatch.

  He knew, he knew.

  A Scala Nine singlefighter could shield itself from observation with a force field. But only at a cost. By the time a singlefighter shed such a shield, it had expended so much energy that it was temporarily helpless, unable to defend itself.

  "When you chanced that turn," said Senk, "I naturally thought you must have had his shield-shedding in mind. You know your singlefighter
was barely a hair from breaking up."

  Hatch knew. The savagery of the turn, the savagery which had made him clutch the muscles of his stomach, had been an artefact. A warning. Nexus singlefighters were engineered to cancel out all effects of sound, turbulence, acceleration, deceleration, heat and light - then all these informational resources were engineered back into the machine to give the pilot survival data.

  "So you almost destroyed your machine." said Senk. "Through such risk you got your rival in your sights. Helpless. Yet you hesitated. What were you thinking of?"

  "I was thinking the - the thing I saw, I was thinking it might have been a second drone," said Hatch. "I didn't want to be, to - I didn't wanted to waste out my ammunition and be left - I didn't want to be helpless."

  "So you chose to be dead instead," said Senk. Then, when Hatch made no answer: "I quote the Stormforce Combat Manual. Quote. An apparent enemy will be treated as a real enemy. Unquote. Engrave it on your heart, Hatch."

  "The master speaks," said Hatch, speaking briskly as he tried to shake off his despondency by an act of will. "The student hears. To hear is to obey. I have but one question - who was I up against?"

  "Data unavailable," said Senk, imitating the basic-speech curtness of a much simpler machine.

  "Oh, come on!"

  "It's not material."

  "But I'd like to know."

  "It's not material," said Senk.

  Since the Teacher of Control was far better at stonewalling than any human-in-the-flesh, Hatch gave up the unequal struggle and quit the combat bay. In the cream-colored corridor outside, other Combat College students were patiently queuing, most seated with study-manuals in their hands. Initially the Combat College had been possessed of twenty combat bays, but now, with only seven remaining functional, there was almost always a queue of students waiting for their turn in the illusion tanks.

  The first person in the queue outside Hatch's combat bay was Jeltisketh Echo, a Startrooper who had the distinction of being the one and only person of the grayskinned Janjuladoola race to be a student in the Combat College. He promptly replaced Hatch in the combat bay. A brief quickstep down the corridor, Lupus Lon Oliver was exiting from a similar combat bay, yielding that facility to Umka Ash, a piebald Combat Cadet of uncertain breeding.