by Gunn, James
If he had grown moody and combative, if he had tried to ease his pain with ceuticals smuggled out of the pharmacy, if he had quarreled with Sharn too often and resisted her pleas to become the person she had first known, that she knew he once had been, the person who dreamed of something better—then her leaving him would have been understandable. But the way it happened—with no explanation, no apparent reason—leaving him was not.
Did the darkness brighten? Did sound and feeling return?
* * *
The disembodied voice was everywhere and nowhere. “We have a job for you.”
“Who is ‘we’?” Riley asked but he could not hear his own voice.
“That information is unnecessary; receiving it is unwise.”
Riley could not tell if the voice belonged to a man or a woman, or a machine. It was devoid of emotion, uninflected. “How can you hear my voice, and I cannot?”
“Unimportant.”
“Where am I?”
“Meaningless.”
“All right, then, what is the job?”
“You will join a pilgrimage starting from Terminal in some thirty days.”
“A pilgrimage to where?”
“That is what you are hired to find out.”
“A pilgrimage has to be headed somewhere.”
“It is seeking the shrine of the transcendentals.”
“But no one knows where that is.”
“Until you find out.”
“And how will I do that?”
“You will accompany the pilgrimage until it reaches its destination.”
“And how will the pilgrimage know where to go?”
“Most on the ship will not, but we have information that the Prophet will be among the pilgrims.”
“And who is that?”
“We do not know. That, too, you will discover.”
“Maybe the Prophet doesn’t know where to go. Maybe the whole thing is as illusory as all other religions. Maybe it’s all supernatural.”
“That, too, you will discover.”
“How do you prove a negative? If the pilgrimage gets nowhere, does that mean there is no shrine? That the Prophet was not aboard? That the Prophet was aboard but has forgotten where the shrine is? That the Prophet was aboard but discovered my presence or the presence of others and decided not to head for the shrine…?”
“Your assignment is to see that the pilgrimage reaches the shrine, if it exists.”
“You don’t ask much for your money!” Riley said as dryly as he could. “And, speaking of money, how much is this job worth?”
“Money is irrelevant.”
“Not to you, maybe.”
“You will be handsomely rewarded.”
“Easy for you.”
“Funds have been deposited to your account. They will pay for your expenses with a sizable sum left over. If you are successful, you will have your choice of a habitat, a habitable moon, or an estate on a favorable planet.”
“You seem sure I will accept.”
“You have no choice. Your family is gone.…”
“Except my mother,” Riley said.
“She, too. You have not heard yet, but she was killed in the last alien attack on Mars before the battle fleet was destroyed.”
“You bastard!”
“These are facts. Sharn has left you.…”
“What do you know about that?”
“Everything. We had to be sure you were the right person for the job.”
Resentment filled Riley’s mind. He would have tasted bile if he had been capable of tasting anything. “Why do you expect me to accept?”
“Because of the kind of person you are.”
“You have abducted me. You have raped my past. You plan to control me. Why should I want to work for you?”
“Because of the kind of person you are.”
“You think you know me.”
“Yes. You, too, were once in love with transcendence, but life has wounded you and disillusioned you, and now you want to immerse yourself in a task that will consume you. What better task than this? Adventure, violence, romance, adversaries, little chance of success, even of surviving.… This is what you were looking for on Dante. And this is a search for transcendence—the goal that you have abandoned.”
“Maybe you do know me,” Riley said. “But what makes you think I have any chance at all?”
“We have given you an edge.”
“What?”
“First of all, you will know more about the pilgrimage than any of the others. Second, you have a new pedia.”
“A new pedia?” He remembered that the back of his head hurt, when he could still feel.
“An advanced model. Perhaps one of a kind. It is many times as powerful as any predecessor.”
“In what way?” Riley said skeptically.
“It has a massive storage capacity stuffed with information and sensory extensions that make other senses seem pallid by comparison.”
“And you have implanted this without my permission, without my agreement to take this job?”
“We had no time for fine distinctions.”
“And why shouldn’t I have this thing yanked when I turn you down?”
“That would be fatal.”
* * *
After a silence that stretched into a gulf, Riley said, “Fatal?”
“The new pedia is a biological computer that establishes its own network throughout the brain. Therefore it not only is difficult to remove, the attempt leaves the brain damaged beyond repair. On the other hand, you will find the pedia so powerful you would feel only half a person without it.”
“Yeah?” Riley replied, contemplating the thing in his head like a metastasizing cancer—if it existed. “If this is so great, why doesn’t everybody have one?”
“Something like this, if it became generally available, has the potential to upset the balance of power in the galaxy, and if more than one were implanted the technology could spread beyond a few chosen users to many, and then beyond humanity to aliens, or, if aliens discovered that it exists, they might join to eliminate humanity before it achieves a unique advantage.”
“All that is”—a word appeared in his mind—“Machiavellian.”
“Machiavelli’s advice to his prince was aimed at giving his masters an advantage. Our goal is to maintain the status quo.”
“And that is why you want me to sabotage the pilgrimage.”
“Not sabotage. First of all, discover if there is any truth to the rumors. If a practical method of transcendence exists, humanity must have equal access, or it must be destroyed. Destruction may be safer.”
“If it exists, how do you propose I destroy it—whatever it is?”
“You are an ingenious man. You will think of something.”
“And if it is only another religious myth?”
“Even myths can be powerful. Maybe more powerful than the reality. If you discover who the Prophet is, you will kill him.”
“It’s a person?”
“It may be an alien.”
“Death is pretty final.”
“Millions have died already. Better one should die than many millions more. Think how many died in the name of the ancient prophet Christ.”
“As I recall,” he did recall, “he was killed.”
“That is a chance we are prepared to take.”
“And who is ‘we’?”
“As we said before, that is unimportant, and it would be unwise for you to know.”
“Well then, what gives you the right to make these decisions for humanity?”
“All of that is irrelevant. We have the right; we have the knowledge; we have the means. You have your instructions and the resources to accomplish them.”
“One last question: who else knows about the pilgrimage and the Prophet?”
“The pilgrimage: many. The Prophet: perhaps one, perhaps several.”
“And who else knows about my assignment?”
“
Only us.”
“The royal ‘us’?”
“Only us.”
“And how will I contact you if I need help?”
“If you need help, the mission has failed; it will do no good to contact anyone. Good luck and good-bye.”
The darkness faded to a neutral gray. Riley felt again: his bruised body, his aching head. He opened his eyes and sat up, rubbing the slime from his face and eyes. He was back in the sim tank. Maybe he had never left. Maybe the whole experience had been a sim. He felt the back of his head. A surgical incision had been neatly sealed with glue.
Where am I? he thought.
“You are in a simulated experience tank in Sim City on Dante off Rigel,” a voice replied. It sounded very much like the voice that had spoken to him in the darkness.
Who was just talking to me?
“I was activated only one thousand nanoseconds ago,” the voice said.
Who activated you?
“The information is not available in my data bank.”
As Riley rinsed the slime from his body and got dressed, he considered his options. They were few. He had this thing in his head that he could not remove, or he could try to have it removed but if the voice was correct it would be his last action. The thing in his head might be the voice that had given him his instructions. That made his flesh prickle: the possibility that he might be carrying his employer around with him, and what would determine the fate of humanity, what was acting in the name of humanity but perhaps not in its best interests, was a biological computer in his head. Or maybe the voice had simply used the computer to converse with him.
Who had spoken to him? Who had known all these things about him and about the pilgrimage? Were they what they said? Were they acting for humanity? For all he knew, they might be a renegade group of humans with a crazed agenda, or some devious plan to seize power, or to start another war. On the other hand, they could even be aliens, with their own alien plans.
He shrugged. There was no way to know. He had to depend upon his own judgment, his own ingenuity, and the pedia inside his head.
He bought passage to Terminal.
CHAPTER SIX
Riley woke with the feeling that Martian sand spiders had been running over his body all through the sleep period. What made his skin crawl? The memory of the treachery that had put him here? The realization that someone hated him or feared him enough to want him dead? Or simply wanted to be rid of him, which was maybe more disturbing. To be killed for a reason is understandable. But the thought that someone might want him to be killed because he was an inconvenience made him feel as inconsequential as a sand spider someone might step on. No place was safe anymore; he could never relax.
He didn’t feel good, either, about the half-sentient thing that lived in his head, warning him of dangers while propelling him into their midst. And making all those comments about his thoughts and behavior, like a wife who now recognizes the flaws that the blinders of the courting process had led her to overlook—or to believe she could change.
Outside or inside—there was nowhere to hide.
No use contemplating extinction, he thought. Death had been a companion for too long to treat like a stranger.
“‘A coward dies a thousand deaths—’” said his pedia.
“Oh, shut up!” Riley said aloud. The words reverberated in the compartment and spurred Riley into motion.
Climbing down the ladder, he saw Tordor at the entrance to the passengers’ lounge and Asha beyond, talking to the Alpha Centauran near the food dispensers. Tordor had been watching Asha, Riley thought, but looked up as Riley approached.
“Greetings, Representative,” he grunted. Now there was almost no delay between his utterance and the pedia’s translation.
“Greetings,” Riley said. He hesitated and then continued, “In my last excursion I noticed the disrepair of the ship and the lack of discipline in the crew. At the first crisis, everything may fall apart. The captain is competent enough, but he has been given a shoddy vessel and a surly crew.”
“So I saw.”
“We must do something.”
“What?”
“The passengers have more experience and skills than the crew. You commanded a ship, true?”
“A fleet.”
“Anyway,” Riley said. He considered Tordor. “Apparently the process of joining this pilgrimage is more selective than the assignment to crew it.”
“Are you suggesting—mutiny?” Riley’s pedia hesitated at “mutiny.” Perhaps the Dorian language had no word for “mutiny,” maybe no concept.
“More like reformation. I suggest we combine our efforts, improve the ship, and retrain the crew.”
“And what will the captain be doing?”
“Nothing,” Riley said. “There are about thirty of us and a few more than that in the crew. They have weapons, it is true, and we have none—that we know of. But the captain cannot kill us or imprison us. Not simply because he can’t return with dead passengers and has no means of controlling us alive—he gets his navigation instructions from someone on board.”
“You?” Tordor asked bluntly.
“He doesn’t know who, and neither do I.”
“That’s what you would say if it were you,” Tordor said.
Riley shrugged. “It could be you or any one of us. Or one of the crew. Whoever it is conceals his identity for a reason, and the reason is that if he were known the rest would turn on him.”
“At least they would keep him alive,” Tordor said
“Or beat him to death trying to get information out of him. Not just our destination but what awaits us there—if he knows. Why should he take the chance?”
“Then the captain cannot act without risking the voyage. But is he committed to the voyage even if the difficulties are such that anyone else would turn back?”
“As much as you or me,” Riley said.
“As much as me? You I am not certain about.”
Riley recalled the captain’s remarks. “Nor I you,” he said. “Nor can we be sure of anyone’s commitment. Maybe we should find a way to peer into each other’s souls.”
“Souls?” Tordor said.
“Our inner selves,” Riley said. “The part that is peculiarly us. The part we keep separate from the world.”
“More Terran mysticism,” Tordor said.
“Maybe Dorians have no identity problems,” Riley said, “or any other galactic. But I doubt it. I think you’ve just stopped talking about it. And we’ve got to start talking about it if we’re going to organize ourselves into a group that has any hopes of survival.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
“That’s your problem,” Riley said. “They’ll listen to you. My problem is dealing with the captain.”
Tordor turned his ponderous body to look at the lounge, and grunted for attention. “We must organize ourselves to help the crew,” he said. Two dozen aliens turned toward him. “The ship needs our assistance if we are to achieve our ends. To do that we must accept roles, each according to the ability of each.”
The galactics turned once more to their council of consensus.
* * *
The galactics filed after Riley through the passenger compartment hatch. He led them toward the control room, crew members watching with expressions that ranged from surprise and alarm to disgust, He stopped at the captain’s quarters. The second-in-command was at the helm in the control room; the hatch to the captain’s quarters was closed.
Riley held the grab bar beside the hatch and pounded on the door. It slid open. The captain stood in the hatchway, fully dressed. Surprise competed with another emotion for control of his face. Concern? Frustration?
“What’s this?” the captain asked.
“We’ve come,” Riley said, “to give you some help.”
The captain looked down the hallway at the odd assortment of galactics and the crew members beyond. He waved dismissal at the crew. They slowly dispersed. “You know why t
hat is not only illegal but unwise,” he said to Riley but loud enough for Tordor and Asha to hear, and perhaps others beyond.
“Illegal maybe,” Riley said. “Unwise, no. Tordor and I agree—the ship is in poor condition and the crew isn’t much better.”
“I agree,” Tordor said.
“We make do with what we have,” the captain said.
“That isn’t good enough for a venture as fraught with peril and the unexpected as this one,” Riley said.
The captain studied Riley and then looked at Tordor and Asha. He shrugged. “When I agreed to a representative from the passengers,” he said, “I thought we had solved a problem. I see now that we have created a bigger one.”
“Whether we like it or not,” Riley said, “we’re in this together. You’d like to reach our destination safely—and return—and so would we. Tordor and I—and maybe others if they had had our chance to observe—don’t think the ship will make it as it is. The ship needs work and maybe the operating systems, too, if the rest of the ship is any indication, and the crew needs training and discipline.”
“That is true,” Tordor said.
“It is not a reflection on your command,” Asha said. “You were given a ship that should have gone to salvage and a crew that had no other choices.”
“Possibly this voyage was never meant to succeed,” Riley said. “It may have served as a convenient way to dispose of potential troublemakers.”
The captain looked at them with an air of superior wisdom. “It may be true, but is it workable?”
“We will make it work,” Tordor said. He waved his hand at the galactics behind him. “They have agreed to do it, and we have many skills represented here.”
“The crew may be the scrapings of the spaceports,” the captain said, “but they’re not stupid.”
“Neither are they suicidal,” Riley said. “They may not have our motivations—unless they have been selected by a process we don’t suspect—but they’d like to survive. Right now I’d say their best choice is—mutiny.” He said the last word softly so that only the captain and Tordor could hear. And maybe Asha.
