The room became exceedingly silent, awaiting her deciding vote.
But Corona fidgeted and wrinkled her face in discomfort. She went to one ear with her hand.
“The noise again?” McMurtrey asked. He realized now that he was afraid to touch her, rationalized that he didn’t know what good he could do for her. He wasn’t even sure who she was, if the Corona he loved was still alive.
“The comlink is locked open!” Corona shouted. “Ow! Shusher is wailing through it. . . . Those are gunshots! He’s saying so!”
“Somebody shooting at Shusher?” McMurtrey asked.
“I can’t tell!”
McMurtrey gathered his courage, went to her chair and ran his fingers through her hair. He heard nothing over the comlink. “You okay?” he asked.
She bumped his hand aside, looked at him without saying anything, her eyes screaming pain.
“Kelly!” He extended his hand toward her face.
She pulled away.
“Son of a whore!” McMurtrey cursed. He caught Orbust’s glare.
“We have a three-three deadlock,” McMurtrey said. “Gutan is guilty, but we can’t go further unless one of us shifts our vote, or unless Kelly comes out of this. To hell with the trial! I say we hold Gutan for the authorities on D’Urth. Or hold him for God’s judgment. Maybe we’ve done enough to get this ship going. Anyway, I’ve had it and I’m going to get medical help for Kelly.”
With that, McMurtrey walked briskly from the room, thinking of the infirmary nuns. He’d seen them in the main passenger compartment, with the others.
* * *
Minutes before, the main passenger compartment echoed with the staccato rhythm of automatic-weapons fire, and every fiber of Gutan’s body screeched: Flee!
But from his hiding place behind the chair, Gutan had seen others try for stairways and corridors, and thus far none had made it. The bodies of pilgrims lay blocking all egress, to the point where anyone attempting those paths would have to climb or leap over the dead and injured.
It had been only a brief time since the cyberoo killer opened fire from gunports all over its body, moments that seemed like much longer. Some of the pilgrims fought ferociously, screaming battle cries as they leaped into the fray. They hurled knives at the attacker, slashed at him with swords, fired guns, pulverizers and stunbows.
But nothing damaged the cyberoo, and it advanced interminably, stepped over and around bodies, peppering gunfire at anything that moved. Blood and body parts were everywhere. Terrible, chilling screams filled the room, then fell off to a pall of deathly silence that left Gutan feeling ill.
Something moved to his left. He glanced sideways, shifting his head only slightly.
It was the Middist atheist Shalom ben Yakkai, crawling toward a gruesome heap of bodies, trying to get behind them.
The killer cyberoo dispatched three pilgrims in a flurry of gunfire, then used its crotch-mounted howitzer to blow Sister Mary’s head off.
The black-robed Greek Hetox priest burst forth with his Blik Pulverizer rifle blazing, and he died in a volley that overkilled him. Four shots removed his arms and legs simultaneously, and the howitzer disintegrated what was left.
Yakkai froze in terror.
The cyberoo had seen Yakkai, fixing its human-simulated gaze on the pitiful, crouching man. Dispassionately, it stepped over two bodies, one of which was a boy, and skirted three others, approaching Yakkai.
“Take me first!” Gutan shouted, impulsively.
The cyberoo didn’t look in his direction. It was as if it knew all along where Gutan was hiding, as if it had a computerized roll call of those who had been and would be dispatched—as if it intended to deal with Gutan separately, in a more horrible way than any of the others.
It occurred to Gutan now that those who died first were luckiest
He realized he’d been thinking of the dead as dispatchees, as if the cyberoo were an executioner. It had to be so, Gutan decided, for cyberoos only did what they were programmed to do. But why? If this was a BOL operative, why hadn’t it killed the pilgrims sooner?
It waited for me to join the ship’s company, Gutan thought, with a sickening rush. It’s after me and the others—all in one neat package. . . .
Gutan felt like a steer being slaughtered the wrong way, its meat tainted by adrenal chemicals from the fear of watching its brethren die, from the screams and smells of death.
The faces of everyone that Gutan had dispatched raced across his mind, followed by the faces of all he had embalmed before that. The grim parade ceased.
“Over here!” Gutan shouted, as loudly as he could.
The cyberoo was motionless now.
Gutan leaped from behind the chair, and with fluid movements placed himself between the cowering Yakkai and the killer.
Yakkai was whimpering, face buried in his hands. His fingers were wet with tears.
The cyberoo looked at Gutan with a quizzical expression. Then its gaze moved to Yakkai, and back to Gutan.
The gunports all over its body receded into flesh, eluding the penis howitzer. The penis went limp, and in front of Gutan stood what looked like an entirely nude man, looking more bewildered than guilty.
“I am Jin,” the man said simply. “A Plarnjarit. Excuse me, but I must find my broom. We’re required to whisk away any bugs in our path, you know, lest we step on one. It would never do to step on a bug.”
Jin turned toward the doorway through which he had entered, and as he walked in that direction a pile of bodies in the doorway shifted, creating a path.
A big man stood in the doorway, looking in. It was McMurtrey, one of the judges.
Jin passed between the bodies and nudged past McMurtrey, disappearing from view.
“What in the name of God happened in there?” McMurtrey asked, as Jin passed.
But Jin’s eyes appeared entranced, and he didn’t look at McMurtrey. Instead Jin climbed the stairs, slowly.
McMurtrey couldn’t believe the carnage before him, nearly gagged. His breathing was erratic. He slipped to one side of the shredded doorway, fearful of entering the room, and remained there several minutes.
Finally he took two deep breaths, exhaled slowly and peeked around the doorway into the main passenger compartment. High above the carnage, on the sixth-level mezzanine, Jin padded along by the railing. Soon Jin disappeared from view, in the vicinity of his cabin.
An eery silence penetrated McMurtrey’s awareness, and he became aware of movement across the room. Two figures—Gutan and Yakkai. Gutan was helping Yakkai to his feet.
At first McMurtrey thought the armed pilgrims had annihilated one other. Then Gutan went to him and related a startlingly different story. Yakkai was with Gutan, confirmed the details.
Yakkai told more, of Gutan’s heroism.
Gutan looked away with misty eyes while this was being related.
McMurtrey felt a tightening in his stomach, said, “I’ve noticed Jin’s weird ways for a while now. I think he took Orbust’s Snapcard and chemstrip, and maybe other things. He wasn’t adhering to the nonattachment doctrine of his religion, seemed to favor material objects . . . but not this, dammit!”
The acrid opium odor of Gutan touched McMurtrey’s nostrils.
“Let’s get away from here,” Yakkai said. “I can’t bear it any longer.”
They retreated to Assembly Room B-2.
Corona was in her chair, and McMurtrey sat by her. Her eyes no longer bore evidence of the pain that had sent McMurtrey for medical aid, but she said nothing. Cautiously, McMurtrey extended a hand and grasped one of hers.
She squeezed his hand.
In one ear, McMurtrey heard the low sonar whine of Shusher, a gentle noise unlike the cacophony Corona had described. One crisis seemed to be passing: Corona was better. But a larger one had taken its place.
Gutan retold the startling tale, but again said nothing of his heroism.
Feek the Afsornian fidgeted while Gutan spoke, and finally Feek seemed unable to e
ndure any more.
“Sorcery!” he exclaimed. “Gutan is a sorcerer! I change my vote to death!” With a wavering voice he added, “Among my people, sorcery is always punishable by death. The vote is four to two for execution now, so it doesn’t matter how Corona votes. This evil must be erased!”
“Jin’s the killer, not Gutan!” Yakkai shouted.
Then Yakkai told of Gutan’s noble act, and this astounded most of the judges.
But Feek believed none of this, and howled loudly, “The sorcerer’s spell has been cast over Shalom ben Yakkai! He knows not what he says! We must act quickly, or all of us will be captured by the spell!”
McMurtrey felt Corona’s grip on him tighten, and when he leaned across her and looked into her eyes, he saw the softness that he remembered so fondly. His spirits bounded, for he had been longing for this indication, this sign that Corona was once more the Corona of old.
Impulsively, he whispered to her, “Kelly, I . . . ”
But McMurtrey hesitated, afraid Appy or others connected to the computer might overhear what he had to say.
Corona’s grip weakened, and he detected fear in her eyes. Eavesdroppers no longer mattered to McMurtrey, for now his words had nothing to do with anything he wanted or needed. They were for Corona, to bring her back.
“I love you,” he whispered. “Do you remember saying that to me, Kelly? ‘I love you, Ev’?”
Someone called for a vote recount.
She turned her head slowly, and now her gaze was a dark-eyed, unbespectacled version of the Nandu, Makanji, that he had seen in the vision. It was a timeless gaze again, this one of love. McMurtrey and Corona might have been here or anywhere else, in this age or another. They might have been themselves or others.
The Afsornian said something, but McMurtrey didn’t hear the words.
McMurtrey had this moment of love, of limitless, trusting adoration, and it transcended his own need for life. He had lived and experienced everything worth experiencing, because he had found this wondrous private niche in the complexity of the cosmos.
“I love you, Ev,” she said.
“How do you vote, McMurtrey?” someone said. McMurtrey realized seconds later it had been Feek, and now he saw the elegantly robed Afsornian standing over him with the others.
“You must vote,” Feek said.
“I need more time,” McMurtrey said. He exchanged glances with Corona.
“I need time to consider my vote too,” Corona said. “My pain has passed.”
“We must deal with Gutan now!” Feek exclaimed.
“We must deal with Jin now!” Yakkai said, so forcefully next to Feek that his words nearly knocked the Afsornian over. “That killer could strike again, probably will. He ripped a door right out of the wall. No human weapon fazed him. He just kept coming!”
“Where is Jin now?” Zatima asked.
“I saw him go upstairs,” McMurtrey said, “to his cabin.”
“I think he’s meditating,” Corona offered.
“You can’t see him through Shusher or Appy?” McMurtrey asked.
McMurtrey couldn’t see anything like that himself, though he was touching Corona. He never had seen anything or obtained access to Appy’s program data by touching her: thus far it had only been a listening tap into the Shusher-Appy comlink. But now it was occurring to McMurtrey that when Corona picked up Appy’s program it might have placed her on a closer connection, one that could see all areas of the ship.
“No,” Corona said.
“You can’t see places inside the ship? Remember we were wondering about . . . ”
“I remember. I’m okay now. So far, nothing . . . no information on how passenger information in Appy’s data banks was obtained; it’s just there.”
“What do Shusher and Appy know of Jin?” McMurtrey asked.
“A total blank, which is inexplicable. Before the collision, Appy built a volume of data on the pilgrims—can’t tell how he did it. I have access to those records. Nothing on Jin at all, not a solitary entry. Jin doesn’t even appear on the passenger list. As Kelly Corona, I know more about him than Appy does.”
“Jin isn’t human,” Gutan said, “He’s some kind of robot, and I think I know what type. I operated a top-secret piece of equipment, the mnemonic memory machine. One day I came on shift and found a couple of men in gray suits standing by Mnemo, arguing with Commandant Wimms, the top man in my unit, Wimms lost the argument—it would be more accurate to say he backed down—and later I overheard him tell an assistant that those men in gray suits weren’t men at all. They were Bureau of Loyalty cyberoos—robots with bionic parts. Tough sons of bitches,’ Wimms called them. I think the killer upstairs is with the BOL, which explains why Appy can’t pick up information on him. The Bureau made its operative invisible to electronic surveillance. Jin is a stealth unit.”
“But Appy isn’t an ordinary computer with ordinary electronics,” McMurtrey said. “He’s God’s biocomputer. Surely God can override Bureau cloaking.”
“Further proof of your mythical God’s weakness,” Yakkai sneered. “There is no God!”
“I think this whole trip is a Bureau operation,” Gutan said. “The cyberoo has been assigned to kill every pilgrim aboard, and it’s probably after me, too. I’m a small cog, so mostly it seems like a power play to cut the hearts out of any organizations that might oppose them, that might compete for the loyalty of the citizenry.”
“If so, why such an elaborate setup?” McMurtrey asked.
“For dramatic effect,” Yakkai suggested. “With a little massaging of the facts, the BOL can make it look like God has abandoned humanity, that God isn’t worth a hunk of shit. Of course, some of us know that God doesn’t exist at all, but that’s a different subject. The BOL would rather assume He exists and ridicule Him for His inadequacies.”
“It’s not so simple as that,” Corona said. “I’m convinced that God exists and that He’s linked to Appy. But Appy can’t detect Jin, and in Appy’s data banks there is no information on Jin transmitted from God. The traditional view of God holds that He ‘sees’ everything, so presumably He could observe Jin without Appy’s intervention. I can’t tell whether this is the case, but something tells me God has certain blind spots. I’m only guessing now from the information available to me, and of course this isn’t something Appy would ever say. Maybe God’s ‘blind spot’ is just that he’s too busy to watch everyone, or that He isn’t watching everyone because He’s made a decision not to.”
“You’re crazy!” Orbust exclaimed. “God has no weaknesses!”
Zatima knelt on the deck and gazed upward lovingly while quoting verse:
“‘Allah, there is no god but He,
The Living, the Everlasting;
He is the All-high, the All-glorious,’”
“I sense that God needs our help,” Corona said, “and He needs it desperately.”
“Nonsense,” Orbust said. “We need God. He doesn’t need us!”
“Why can’t it be a two-way street?” Corona queried.
“Enough of this,” Peek said. “We must deal with the matter of Gutan.”
“No longer necessary,” Corona said. “Don’t any of you feel it?”
“Feel what?” Orbust asked.
“The ship!” McMurtrey exclaimed. “It’s on!” He looked at Corona. “Are we moving?”
“We are. The matter of Gutan has been resolved, and I think I have an explanation. Information is flowing from Appy’s program to me. Today Gutan placed his life second to that of another human. Always he had been primary in his own thoughts; he was the taker. Today for the first time in his life, he gave something important, or at least offered it. He offered his life.”
“And the life offered to Jin was not taken,” McMurtrey said, pursing his lips thoughtfully.
Corona: “Appy is speculating that the very cosmic act of a momentous change in Gutan may have sent out energy waves, shutting Jin down. Here Appy isn’t certain, for he doesn’t know
the forces driving Jin. He may be a cyberoo BOL agent, may even be tied in with an antigod. If Jin was shut down with energy waves, they may have only a temporary effect; the odds are high that Jin could restart and resume his massacre.”
“Are you saying that Gutan’s single noble act makes up for a lifetime of sin and degradation?” Yakkai asked testily.
“I wasn’t saying anything,” Corona said. “I was quoting Appy. Apparently it isn’t a matter of ‘making up.’ This is a very misunderstood concept, and is in part the basis of the faulty KothoLu system of confession and absolution. Somewhere along the line, the KothoLu priesthood either misunderstood a statement by one of God’s prophets, Krassos, or they consciously altered it for their own purposes.”
“Right,” McMurtrey said. “Priests and nuns have a long history of making decisions that benefit themselves. Survival of the brotherhood, of the sisterhood, of the order . . . hiding twisted intentions behind holy garb, rituals and words. The perversion of sacredness.”
“Amen to that,” Yakkai said, with a steely smile. “Confession and absolution form part of a power game, a chapter in the ‘Keep ’Em In Line With Fear’ book. Tell us everything, the church says—we’ll put it in safety deposit, and the safety deposit fee is called a tithe. Since you’re a customer for our business, we’ll recommend you for membership in the Heavenly Gates Country Club. It’s a pretty exclusive club, but we can get you in if you do it our way.”
McMurtrey smiled. This guy is priceless!
Corona appeared to be feeling better. Her words came excitedly: “Humans are driven by emotion: by love, by lust, by hatred, by remorse, by fear, by pride, by valor—but at the basis of the human experience each man seeks logic. He seeks an answer to the reason for his existence and to the reason for the ordering of the universe. Man is obsessed with logic, with the need to prove, to find out. Even the religious man who denies this need would like to know. Though he rages denial, he too would like to see or experience something tangible, something logical that confirms what he ‘knows’ in his heart. He would like to see God, to touch him.”
“Fat chance,” Yakkai said.
“Inevitably in this search for logic,” Corona said, ignoring Yakkai, “man confronts his emotions. Life is a series of choices, one right after another. To speak or not to speak; to go or not to go; to do or not to do. Logic and emotion enter into each choice that a man makes. These are natural enemies, occupying their own specific realms of the brain, left and right. Human experience is a balancing act between these enemies. Like a house divided, logic can battle itself, disputing the criteria employed in arriving at ‘facts.’ Ultimately when all is reasoned out and torn to its logical foundation of foundations, there are no facts and no answers. There are only more questions.”
The Race for God Page 27
