The Race for God

by Brian Herbert

  What an assortment, McMurtrey thought. No wonder we’ve fallen out of the race.

  Finally Gutan spoke his last, and there were no more questions.

  Corona ordered that Gutan remain in place while she and the other judges retired to Assembly Room B-2 to arrive at their decisions.

  Yakkai remained where he was by the wall, without a word.

  The judges sat in a row, on the side of the assembly room facing the window. This gave McMurtrey a distraction, for he stared into space when he should have been participating in the conversation around him. Outside and covering the expanse of the window were glimmering white balls, with each spaced a meter or so from the other, and these stood in three-dimensional relief against parallel white lines that stretched into infinite space. Between the lines, squinting or not, McMurtrey saw only stars that blinked faintly. Somewhere in that sprinkling of solar systems lay the planet Tananius-Ofo.

  Makanji was talking, something about there being no question of Gutan’s guilt.

  “Does anyone think the man is innocent?” Makanji asked. “Certainly he did everything he said he did, and I’m inclined to believe him about the girl. I don’t understand how he came to have the girl in his arms or how he traversed the universe, but I don’t think he killed her.”

  Zatima and Orbust voiced concurrence, and McMurtrey perceived irony in these two agreeing on anything. The fight with Singh marked an apparent turning point in Orbust’s behavior. Still in his healing packs, he seemed like a different man, quieter and more polite, probably because he felt weaker and less sure of himself without the gun, the chemstrip and the Snapcard. What a humiliating experience the beating must have been!

  Makanji again, saying a godless man could only know God in another incarnation.

  McMurtrey’s eyesight glazed over, and he recalled the vision he’d had just before the trial, when in another dimension he looked into the Nandu’s timeless, pale eyes. What color had the bespectacled eyes been? McMurtrey couldn’t recall, didn’t know that they’d been of any color he could distinguish.

  Like a dreamer unable to awaken, he couldn’t find the dimension in which Makanji spoke now. The eye color was in that dimension. . . .

  For an instant, McMurtrey perceived himself at the center of everything, at the nexus of all life, of all death, of all matter and all nonmatter. It was a featureless pinpoint of light with dulcet visual harmonies, where McMurtrey bore all of the contents of the universe.

  The pinpoint of light twinkled, and in slow motion McMurtrey saw it expand into human form. The form shuddered, became pale aura-yellow and then reshaped to a fetal ball that became a perfect white ball.

  McMurtrey’s sensation of self shifted. His eyes stung and he blinked them. Now he saw the white balls outside the window again, and one of them uncurled, back to human form. McMurtrey’s gut jerked, his heart fluttered and he couldn’t catch his breath.

  He was looking at an albino of himself, an ungodly creature that stared at him with sightless eyes. It flattened its face against the glass, screamed desperate shapes with its mouth.

  “Let me in!”

  McMurtrey was outside, looking through the plexwindow at his fat, flesh-warm self. He couldn’t breathe in the rarefied air.

  “Break the glass!”

  Something shook him. A strong hand on his arm. Corona’s face came into focus, her expression tender and concerned.

  “How you doing, Ev?” she whispered.

  “Oh, fine. No problem. My mind’s been wandering.”

  “Well, keep track of it!” Corona smiled.

  “What are you two whispering about?” Feek demanded.

  “Nothing,” Corona said, resuming her seat. “Let’s see, we were all agreeing that Gutan is guilty of despicable crimes. No murders, but on balance he’s probably worse than some murderers. Gutan’s own admissions tell us more than any of us want to know. The man makes me sick, and I’d like to strangle him with my own hands.”

  McMurtrey felt his breathing and heartbeat resume regularity, and he inhaled deeply.

  “Or blow his brains out,” Zatima suggested. “What a worm to lay across our path.”

  “What do we do with the son of a bitch?” McMurtrey asked.

  Looking sidelong, McMurtrey saw Corona smiling wryly. “We kiss him and ask him to be a good boy from now on,” she said.

  “He does seem contrite,” Feek said.

  McMurtrey had been entrusted with one seventh of the decision about Gutan’s life, and was angry with himself for daydreaming when he should have been paying attention. His behavior was unconscionable, and seemed to be yet another failing of his mind, like the spells of mental paralysis he used to suffer at the sight of another person’s nervous tics.

  The new spells were debilitating to McMurtrey in a different way. Now McMurtrey’s thoughts weren’t paralyzed, weren’t an amorphous, unusable mass. His thoughts were too abundant, too rich and consuming. Was Appy doing this to him?

  Through it all, McMurtrey didn’t seem to have missed anything critical in the trial. Gutan had confessed and seemed remorseful for his acts. But what difference did remorse make?

  I’m doing it again! What are they discussing? . . . the sentence . . .

  “‘Some shall they cause to be put to death,’” Orbust intoned. “We cannot tolerate such failure of virtue.”

  “According to our Isammed law of Haria,” Zatima said, “punishments normally only apply if the crime is committed within an Isammed state. Victims, or the families of victims, can take vengeance upon the perpetrator. This situation calls for flexibility, but of a different variety from that suggested by the Afsornian. I have decided to assign a punishment as if Gutan’s acts occurred in an Isammed nation. Death by stoning is appropriate, or by the hurling of available heavy objects at the accused. I will perform the task myself, if no one else has the stomach for what must be done.”

  She finished, and McMurtrey realized that he was seated next in line.

  The sentence! McMurtrey thought. They’re looking at me! “Death,” McMurtrey said, not very loudly. “By a humane method . . . like lethal injection.”

  “There’s a lot of information in data storage about the methods of punishment employed by other cultures and religions,” Corona said. “I’m suspicious of it, but I want to study the data before offering an opinion.”

  “I don’t think this trial is the answer at all,” McMurtrey said. “I think if everyone on this ship can cooperate, can work together, we’ll advance closer to God, we’ll reach God! This ship represents D’Urth, our solar system and all of mankind—the whole course of humanity from here on. If we don’t go forward, man doesn’t go forward. If this ship doesn’t get closer to God, man doesn’t get closer to God.”

  “But there are other ships coming behind us,” Zatima said, “with more chances aboard each ship.”

  “Do we know for certain they’re in flight?” McMurtrey challenged. “What if we’re the only one?”

  “I think we should come up with a sentence,” Corona said.

  McMurtrey shook his head in annoyance, looked away. He felt betrayed by Corona.

  “We can’t take the prisoner’s life,” Makanji said. “Gutan’s actions will force him to seek the suffering of rebirth, into another incarnation. Only when he discovers the purity of nonattachment, when he shuns material objects and pleasures of the flesh, will he be free of worldly suffering.”

  “He must not be killed,” Taam the Hoddhist priest agreed. “There will be other incarnations, and one day he will be free of ignorance, free of suffering.”

  “What goes around comes around,” Orbust commented. “So we’re addressing suffering, after all. I think Gutan should suffer in this life. Vote for death!”

  The Hoddhist shook his head stubbornly.

  “It’s three to two favoring death,” Zatima said.

  Now Feek gathered his elegant robe and paced as he spoke. “Mr. Gutan killed no kin, so he has committed no crimes worthy of de
ath. He should be banished from the tribe, placed in isolation to spend the rest of his miserable days reflecting upon his antisocial ways. He was never born and his name will never again be uttered.”

  Orbust whispered to Zatima, out of McMurtrey’s hearing range.

  Zatima’s features darkened, and she glared at Orbust. But she nodded her head in apparent affirmation. Incredibly they not only agreed on certain points, but they were communicating with one another.

  “I’m the tie-breaker,” Corona said. “Although any of you can change your votes. Let’s spend a while reviewing alternatives, and hopefully we can agree on something.”

  * * *

  Jin awoke to the surging green noise of his Duplication program. He heard nothing else, saw nothing else. The headache was no more, but he felt out of synchronization.

  Something was terribly wrong, grossly dysfunctional, and it was beyond his ability to field repair.

  The drive to duplicate dominated him, colored green his entire artificial soul with program noise. All of his cyberoo survival instincts funneled into one thought: Fulfill the directives of the program.

  His parabolic sensor led him through noisy green darkness, and he ran into the screen of his cabin. With the strength of fifty humans he tore through, reaching the outer mezzanine.

  He knew approximately where he was, groped along the mezzanine railing to the stairway.

  His feet were negotiating stairs, and from his memory of the ship’s layout, he thought this must be down. But it didn’t seem like down, didn’t seem like up, either. His senses reported flatness.

  Tully skirted the edge of the main passenger compartment, toward the entrance to the stairway he had seen Nanak Singh enter only seconds before.

  Tully touched a wall button, and the door slid open. He glanced back at the crowd awaiting the decision of the judges, satisfied himself that no one was paying him any attention.

  He slipped into the stairway landing, and the door closed crisply behind him.

  A scuffling sound froze him where he stood, and looking up he saw Jin emerge from the landing above, naked as usual, rounding the turn there. Jin moved oddly, as if drunk or drugged, and from the sightless look of his eyes Tully speculated he must be immersed in a heathen trance.

  Jin didn’t seem to see anyone, and Tully scurried onto the down staircase.

  Tully would deal with that shameless pervert in due course. First the other one.

  Tully negotiated the steps with catlike control, making not a whisper of a sound. He reached the first landing below the assembly room levels, where he paused and peered over the banister.

  One level down, Singh touched a wall button, and a thick metal door slid open. The ParKekh disappeared into the opening, and the door thunked shut behind him, with unusual loudness.

  Tully knew the destination of his prey, for once before he had followed the man to a sublevel shrine room where Singh kept his eternal flame.

  It wasn’t eternal anymore, and the note in calligraphic script that Tully left would have predictable results. It read:

  I want it this way. You’ve been a fool all your life.

  -God

  Tully hurried to the doorway he had seen the ParKekh go through. He crouched there to one side.

  The wait was short.

  “Eeeeeyah!” Nanak Singh’s scream rang like a battle cry, and subsequently it came forth twice more, louder each time.

  “Eeeeeyah! Eeeeeyah!”

  The door slammed open, crunching into the wall, and in the doorway Tully saw the tip of a sword.

  Surprise had its advantages, and Tully knew what he had to do. He’d known it when he crouched here after setting in motion the rage of his adversary. Rage in an opponent blocked thought, made victory easier.

  Nanak Singh was in the doorway, heading for the stairs.

  With a leaping, powerful thrust of both hands, Tully broke the ParKekh’s neck before he could twitch the sword.

  Singh crumpled to the deck.

  Now I’ll slip back into the courtroom, Tully thought. With so many people, they’ll never know I was gone.

  He began ascending the steps, and the last thing he ever saw was a flaming baby howitzer, firing from Jin’s crotch.

  After pausing on the main passenger compartment landing, Jin had continued down the stairs behind Tully. From above, the cyberoo’s parabolic sensor had picked up the murder of Singh, transmitting it to Jin’s throbbing Duplication program.

  But Jin’s aberrant systems hadn’t transmitted the message with exactness, reporting to his interpretive core only one act, Tully’s. And it was an act without detail of method, simply the cessation of human life brought on by another human.

  Jin had to conceptualize his own means of duplication. Hence the artillery.

  Now it was after the gunfire and he was beginning to see—a green filtered vision. Beneath him in the stairwell lay two human bodies, and from somewhere came the disjointed grunts and hummings of human conversation. It was painful green noise, piercing his interpretive core, jabbing him rudely.

  He had to end the pain, end the noise.

  Jin whirled, began negotiating the stairs. Through green awareness he focused on the door to Assembly Room Level B, then passed it. Within moments he pressed the wall button beside the door to the main passenger compartment.

  It was slow to open, so with his hands he ripped the pocket door out of the doorway and the wall.

  Chapter 11

  All things can be accomplished; it is the time limit imposed from within and without that presents the major obstacle.

  —Ancient Saying

  Corona had the floor.

  “As our Afsornian friend pointed out, and as I was unaware, among his people it is only murder to kill kin. Some societies even condone cannibalism, infanticide, the sale of dangerous products, theft and the killing of witches. In other societies a criminal must have mens rea, a “guilty mind,” in order to be convicted: This means he must be sane, must have intent and must understand the difference between right and wrong. Other societies don’t care about intent. They care only about consequence.

  “Assuming Appy hasn’t tampered with the data, this gives us a broader picture, which I feel the situation demands. We have an obligation not to restrict our decision to parochial views, for God did invite representatives from thousands of belief systems to his deep-space tea party.”

  The other judges agreed that this was useful information.

  Corona continued: “Politics and religion often come into play in the judgment of guilt or innocence and in the punishment meted out. Some societies have no terminology for crime. Sometimes alcohol or drugs legally diminish the culpability of a person, and it is known that Gutan took opium.”

  “Irrelevant,” Orbust said. “Gutan dispatched people and raped corpses both before and after he became addicted to opium. He took no drugs as a young funeral-home employee when he stole personal valuables from the dead. So he can’t blame his crimes on addiction.”

  “You’re right,” Corona said. She trembled slightly. “I’m hearing something. Gunfire? Do any of you hear it?”

  No one did.

  “Must be on comlink,” Corona said. “Usually I can tell, but somehow I couldn’t this time.”

  “What are you talking about?” Orbust asked.

  “The comlink between Appy and Shusher!” Corona snapped. “Something’s wrong!”

  “We weren’t going to talk about that,” McMurtrey said. “Kelly, you’re hearing gunfire?”

  “Yes!”

  McMurtrey: “It happened before Appy downloaded his program into Kelly. The way she got the comlink I won’t go into, but the fact she has it probably made her the best candidate for Appy’s ‘save’ maneuver.”

  “Shusher is whining,” Corona said. “Popping in the background. Maybe it isn’t gunfire.”

  “We don’t hear it,” Zatima said. “Should I go and get Singh?”

  “I don’t know,” Corona said.
r />   McMurtrey wanted to touch her, decided not to because of the others present.

  “We must continue,” Corona said. “We must not leave this room until we have arrived at our decision. I’m all right.”

  To McMurtrey she didn’t look all right. She was still trembling, looked tense and fatigued.

  “The options are not simply life or death,” Taam the Hoddhist priest said, “or even the means of life, the means of death. There is nothing we can do with him, nothing we should do with him, nothing we have a right to do with him. Karmic law will deal with Gutan in subsequent incarnations. I sought this council position not to render a decision but to insist that we take no action.”

  “I agree,” Makanji said.

  “Hogwash,” Zatima snarled.

  The Hoddhist shook his head and said, in a low tone, “We will produce more reform with gentle words than with all the punishments conceived by men. Release him gently, as a newborn, and all mankind will benefit.”

  “Three for death and three for life,” Corona said in a tremulous voice, “unless any of you wish to change your votes.”

  No one spoke up.

  She grimaced, said, “Makanji, in ancient Nandaic law, the Code specified that a judge should probe the heart of the accused, studying the eyes, the posture, the voice. . . . It was an ancient method of lie detection.”

  “My people no longer follow that code,” Makanji said. “They had capital punishment in those days, too. Much has changed since then.”

  “I must make a tie-breaking decision,” Corona said. “I have been observing Gutan’s every movement, every intonation, every drop of perspiration, and with the assistance of Appy I have been able to organize this information so that all of it is available to me. I couldn’t forget the tiniest detail if I wanted to, and in the absence of witnesses other than Gutan himself this is essential information indeed.”

  Zatima grumbled, kept her words to herself.

  With a pained expression Corona glanced from face to face, avoiding McMurtrey’s.