The Race for God

by Brian Herbert

  There were stories, going back countless centuries, of God’s anger, and of His great cunning. Often He put people to supreme tests, when He grew tired of their foolish, selfish natures, or when He wanted to teach a great lesson. McMurtrey was thinking in Wessornian terms, he realized, even though he wasn’t formally religious. These were the concepts most familiar to him, and now he became conscious of them filtering his thoughts. He was in a mindset of age-old patterns and channels that were almost instinctual to him. There were so many other versions of God he barely understood, even with the comparative-religion book-tapes he had studied. Maybe God was altering the course of mankind. A final, concentrated race, and what would they discover?

  The announcement of God’s location, even with all its apparent detail, wasn’t so simple. It wasn’t clear-cut, a trip from hither to yon. Some of the ships on display were not ships at all, but seemed instead to be places of worship in ships’ skins. This strongly suggested that certain people involved in the event, primarily the Eassornian belief-systems, did not intend to leave D’Urth in their journey to God. These were the ones who had no image of God as a bearded old man in the sky. To them, He was either everywhere or internal, and for them the journey would be altogether different.

  McMurtrey understood this, to a limited extent, but it confused him that some of the followers of Eassornian philosophies were nevertheless physically journeying on Shusher. Did this mean they harbored doubts, especially with the announcement God made?

  * * *

  On the highest level of the ship, Kelly Corona passed her hand near a triangular-shaped hatch at the end of the corridor. She was alone here, and from far below came the echoing voices of the passengers, nearly drowned out by the authoritarian, oddly accented tones of Appy emanating from a speaker near Corona. There were speaker systems all over the ship, presumably to impart urgency to all statements made by the biocomputer.

  Loud tones demanded immediate action. Fainter ones could be set aside. With speakers everywhere, Appy seemed to be everywhere, like a nagging parent.

  The level on which Corona stood, and two just beneath, were much smaller mezzanines than those below, and on each of the three were two triangular hatches. This was the last hatch she had tried.

  Corona assumed they were hatches, from their large size, from the heavy framing around them, and from parallel scrape marks on the hatches, apparently caused by their sliding aside. The scrape marks were perplexing, as they ran in different directions on each surface, as if each hatch operated differently. She hadn’t gotten any to move yet, noted that the parallel lines on the one in front of her ran from the right leg of the triangle toward the lower left. She hadn’t expected any of them to move, and this one didn’t surprise her. She grunted with a last effort, withdrew her hands and took a deep breath.

  Signs had been posted on each of these levels, but she had gone on past: On the lowest level of the three it was: KEEP OUT BY ORDER OF GOD; then on the middle level: PROCEED AT PERIL TO YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL; and on the top level: THIS AREA IS A NO-NO!

  It took more than signs to deter this veteran of thirty-two missions beyond the solar system.

  Corona turned away from the hatch, scanned the short, empty corridor before her. The walls were smooth and silvery, with a matching, tightly woven carpet. This carpeting didn’t muffle sound, perhaps by design, and when she walked on it she heard a sloshing and squeaking, as if her shoes were full of water.

  There had to be intruder alarms somewhere, maybe in the carpet. They had to know she was here.

  Armed robots would block her exit any moment now.

  Something metallic clicked behind her, like the safety catch on a Blik Pulverizer.

  Corona swallowed hard, whirled toward the hatch. Nothing there. Then she saw it: gaps around two legs of the triangle. The triangular hatch had slipped upward a bit, to the right! She kneeled, saw something scarlet beyond.

  Cautiously she touched the metal hatch near the gap, slid her fingers into the gap for a microsecond and withdrew them, fearing a snap that could cut them off.

  The hatch moved no further.

  She knelt way over, peered through the gap and saw a scarlet room beyond. No furnishings or electronics were apparent.

  Back into the gap went her fingers, for a little longer before she jerked them back. Then a third time, and she tried to pull the triangle up to the right. It was a thick plate, its thickness at least half the length of her longest finger, and again the plate did not budge.

  She withdrew once more, sighed.

  The plate snapped shut, then slid all the way open in the other direction, filling her eyes with the scarlet of the room. The walls, the ceiling and the floor were all of one color and texture, as if molded from a single piece of plazymer.

  She sprang over a threshold lip and through the opening, rolling head over heels into the room.

  It wasn’t scarlet from the inside, and now the only scarlet came as light through the triangular hatch, from the corridor outside. But there had been no such color out there, and, now it seemed, no such color inside either.

  Now the walls, ceiling and floor of the room were like those of the corridor, smooth and silvery. They pulsed around her, like heaving, living membranes, and she nearly cried out in terror.

  Shusher? McMurtrey said the ship was a separate personality. . . . Was it a LIVING entity?

  Corona crouched near the doorway, ready to spring through and free. Then the floor began to spin as if it were a lazy Susan, and with a whirl of silver color around her it accelerated. Something unseen beneath her held her in place, prevented independent body movement.

  She heard and saw nothing, felt nothing except the motion, and gradually even this residual sensation passed. She was blind and senseless, with only the thought of nothingness separating her from a vast void.

  The void focused down as a thought image to the tiniest of apparent points. Then it exploded with Corona at the center, and her senses returned.

  She found herself kneeling on the floor of a silver room, staring at what looked like a black, projected shadow of herself on one wall. The shadow pulsed by itself, and bulged toward her from the wall as if it were filling with air from the other side.

  Stinging perspiration ran into her eyes, and though unable to turn her head she sensed that the entry hatch was behind her, throwing the light that made her shadow.

  A sliver of whiteness appeared on the left side of her shadow, and like zippers going in two directions this whiteness went around the perimeter of the shadow until it delineated all except a short horizontal section at the bottom.

  Startlingly, the shadow flopped open as if a hinge were on the bottom. Corona felt powerless to move, saw the shadow stretch open before her, falling toward her. She thought the shadow brushed her forehead and the tip of her nose as it dropped in front of her, but as in the attempted recollection of a dream she wasn’t sure.

  The shadow plopped to the deck, and like a thing melting, it became flat and wide, extending right and left all the way to the walls on each side of Corona.

  How could a shadow change shape and move around independently? And how could she have felt it? Why couldn’t she move now? Unanswered questions hurtled through her mind, bounced against one another in their eagerness for primacy.

  It was as if a fragment of Corona’s life had fallen away and died at her feet, and in the shape on the wall where the black shadow had been, there was now an outline of white against silver.

  She caught her breath.

  Black on the wall had become white, and remained there like an aura—evidence of life that hadn’t yet faded. It was a steady tone of white.

  The shadow on the deck before her kneeling place was black and amorphous, a pool of darkness. She could move now, and touched it Her hand passed through into a warmth that seemed bottomless. She withdrew her hand, feared that she would topple in if she didn’t hold her balance.

  When she moved on her knees, ever so carefully, the whi
teness on the wall changed shape with her, a reassurance that something remained of her. But the shape on the deck before her did not move.

  Then the white fell away from the wall, seeming to brush her face once more. Now the amorphous pool on the deck had become white, and the shape on the wall was black.

  Corona was transfixed.

  Then, like a climactic upheaval of dead cells, black peeled away from the wall, revealing white. Then white peeled away, then black, seemingly ad infinitum in a dizzying, rapid display that made a faint fanning sound as the shapes brushed against her face. They caused no wind.

  It was a purring, soothing sound. When it ended, the shadow of her body remained on the wall, but now stood as a translucent lavender veil over what appeared to be another opening.

  Before her on the deck, a wide pool of darkness prevented her from crossing to the wall. As before, this fear-inspiring pool extended all the way to each wall on her right and left.

  As she moved her knees a little, the lavender veil on the wall made corresponding movements, but the residue on the deck was stationary.

  Now the veil melted away into the wall, and with this, an intense stream of lavender flowed toward her across the dark pool. She sensed something alien, perhaps of another dimension, crossing the frigid expanse of the universe from afar, and it made her shiver. She was bathed in coolness that from the color should have been warmth. It filled every pore of her body.

  Corona felt like an intruder, that she wasn’t supposed to be there. But she knew innately that she belonged here, that it was as much her birthright as anyone else’s.

  The first prayer of her life, whispered, caught in her throat and didn’t make it out: “Oh God, I’m so afraid. Please . . . ”

  Corona felt a compression change in her ears, heard an angry whine that ebbed and flowed in pitch and intensity like the signalings of a porpoise. For a moment she felt in limbo, without a sense of place.

  Then a lavender wind roared out of the wall, and a firehose of black wind streamed from the dark pool, knocking her backward. She tumbled derriere-over-teakettle out the hatchway behind her.

  The hatch snapped shut with an angry thump.

  Corona struggled to her feet, and on rubbery legs retreated down the corridor. Noises in her ears. That angry whine in one, and in the other a voice—a vaguely familiar voice.

  As with stereo sound, she distinguished separate and distant vocal tones, tones that grew in intensity until she could identify whispered words.

  “You’re a fool, Shusher,” the voice whispered. Appy! But this voice came to Corona across no speakers, though there were speakers in this corridor.

  She felt another compression change in her ears, then heard Appy talking separately across the ship’s speakers, simultaneously saying different things from what she heard through the alternate channel.

  Both ears popped, and subsequently she heard only the whisperings of Appy across this private channel, which came to Corona as if he were speaking into her left ear. And in her right ear were the porpoise sounds, ebbing and flowing like the yelping of an unhappy pet.

  Corona retreated down the corridor, stopped dead in her tracks when she heard Appy’s scolding tones in one ear: “You let the hatch slip open, I didn’t do it! Don’t give me any of that!”

  In Corona’s right ear:” Wawaah! . . . wheezo . . . wheezo . . . wauuwo!”

  Shusher? Corona thought. Am I hearing Shusher’s language?

  Appy had said that Shusher was stupid, so maybe the ship spoke a primitive language.

  “Shush, Shusher!” Appy commanded. “Shush and listen!”

  The whining ceased.

  One of them at each ear? IN each ear!

  Corona saw goose bumps on the backs of her hands, and each bump pulsed, as the eerie convex shape on the wall had done.

  “You rest awhile, Shusher,” Appy said, “and when I’m ready for takeoff this time, do as I command! You’re misinterpreting T.O.’s instructions!”

  T.O.? Corona thought. Tananius-Ofo . . . How do I know that? That’s . . . that’s . . . God’s name in this dimension I’ve tapped! Isn’t that also the name of the planet we’re supposed to go to!

  Appy was continuing his diatribe: “I am preeminent in some tasks and you—T.O. help us—in others! Takeoff is mine!”

  “Whee . . . suuu . . . rooooh!” Harsh tones.

  “No, no, no. Not that matter of ship’s speed again. Just because you can adjust the ship’s speed doesn’t mean you’re entitled to make decisions about it. I’m in charge of that. Takeoff and speed are mine! Get it straight!”

  What in the hell is going on! Corona wondered.

  A ship run by committee, by this pseudo-holy trinity of Tananius-Ofo, Appy and Shusher? This Shusher entity, whatever it was, seemed to have some rather essential input—on the speed of the ship, on certain hatchways, on noise.

  A ship that demanded quiet? Why?

  She heard a din coming from the passenger area below, wondered if this might end at Shusher’s insistence when they were in flight.

  But did Shusher also have an input in the selection of who was to captain the craft, as Appy claimed? It seemed unlikely.

  It seemed that this ship’s company did not always function as a cooperative effort, that it was instead a strange and disjointed amalgam of separate and strongly willed performers.

  At least Corona presumed T.O. had a strong will: It fit the image of God she’d always had. But she realized with what was happening around her that she would have to erase the old preconceptions. Some of them, many of them, might hold true. But many would not

  Were there other computers and other living ships in the fleet assembled at St. Charles Beach? Or were Appy and Shusher on all of them collectively? Might there be other options?

  Corona’s mind raced, so far ahead of the information she had that it gave her a headache. How had she understood the reference to T.O., without explanation? And why wasn’t she automatically privy to anything else?

  She listened carefully for Appy and Shusher, but for the moment heard nothing further.

  Chapter 5

  Morality tends to interfere with the successful operation of any religious organization. Efficiency and survival, these are the bywords of holy business.

  —The Apostolic Manuscripts,

  Uncensored Edition

  McMurtrey shifted position, felt the dinette chair flex beneath him. His screen was up, and he was in the chair facing away from the headboard wall. Moments before, Appy had ordered everyone back to their cabins. No sign of Corona yet.

  McMurtrey gazed thoughtfully past the black mezzanine railing to four saffron-robed monks walking on the other side. They rounded a partition, disappeared from view. McMurtrey was thinking about God’s message, trying to get an angle on it.

  There had been authentic statements from on high before. About that, McMurtrey harbored no doubts. But had they been as seemingly concise as the one he received? It struck him from his studies that prior messages had not been at all concise, and that literal interpretations invariably got people into trouble.

  The great theologian O’Robin, for example. He misinterpreted a passage in the Babul about eunuchs serving the Kingdom of Heaven and castrated himself. He later came to regret his act, but too late. The Babulical passages about casting out an offending eye might have entered O’Robin’s thoughts as well, and if not his, they certainly caused great pain to others who in documented cases read the passages literally and then physically harmed themselves.

  God spoke in metaphors, didn’t He? But always? Every word? It didn’t seem possible. How were people to recognize the difference? How could an announcement of His location with exact astronomical coordinates be interpreted in different ways? Couldn’t this, in and of itself, be interpreted as a condemnation of certain Eassomian religious beliefs? It seemed to be an assertion that God was in fact “out there” as a separate deity.

  The astronomical coordinates and the ships suggested an
apparent means of reaching God in this plane of existence, the physical human plane of the year 387.

  This thought of the year re-triggered his disturbing awareness of a Wessornian mindset and the limitations this imposed upon him. It was a Janovian calendar year, marked from the mythical point of Krassos’ birth. McMurtrey was coming to realize, as he never had before, that he was a captive of certain beliefs, that many of these beliefs were not recognizable as such and were instead presumed to be facts.

  The Isammedans had their own calendar. So did the Middists, and to a ceremonial extent the Florientals had theirs as well. This wasn’t 387 to everyone. But what did this really have to do with mindset, with different views of a single event? He wasn’t certain. But it seemed like a chink in the armor and veneer of his own thought processes. Familiar, safe old patterns were suddenly vulnerable and fragile.

  Because they interpreted God’s latest message differently, the followers of mankind’s religions were venturing forth with varying expectations.

  McMurtrey realized that he was thinking more lucidly than he ever had before. His mind seemed less parochial, less restricted by the screens of experience. He was emerging from the detritus of a lifetime, from those memories and the clutter of activities on D’Urth that inhibited pure thought.

  He laughed to himself. Pure thought! What did he know of ‘pure thought,’ and was there such a thing?

  Two heavy women on the opposite side of the passenger compartment caught his attention, one level up. They appeared to be KothoLu nuns—one in a white habit, the other in black. They stood by their adjacent berths, smiling and chatting as they gazed down toward the main deck.

  Near them McMurtrey recognized Tully, tinkering with the buttons of his berth. Moments later the priest McMurtrey had designated Redneck came into view, and he spoke to Tully. Orbust wasn’t around, although McMurtrey had seen him board.

  “Locate the brass switch that slides vertically on each of your main control panels,” Appy said, through the P. A. system. “Slide that up, and it opens an intercom to my mainframe, so you can carry on conversations with me. Through a networking arrangement I can speak with all of you simultaneously in separate, private conversations. Before we proceed with that or with anything else, I will mention a number of things. It will be advisable for each of you to drop your sleeping compartment screens during takeoff and landing, as this makes available to you a foam body-cush system that activates automatically in the event of impact.”