Ship?
What do you hear, Ekel?
She bent her head, listening. Hurried footsteps. She turned. A group of people rushed past her down the hillside. A young man hurried behind this group. He stopped beside Hali.
"You stayed the whole time and did not curse him. Did you love him, too?"
She nodded. The young man's voice was rich and compelling. He took her hand.
"I am called John. Will you pray with me in this hour of our sadness?"
She nodded and touched her lips pretending that she could not speak.
"Oh, dear woman. If he had but said the word, your affliction would have passed from you. He was a great man. They mocked him as the son of God, but all he claimed was a kinship to Man. 'The Son of Man,' he said. That is the difference between gods and men - gods do not murder their children. They do not exterminate themselves."
She sensed then in this young man's manner and his voice the power of that event on the hillside. It frightened her, but she realized that this encounter was an important part of what Ship wanted her to experience.
Some things break free of Time, she thought.
You can come back to your own flesh now, Ekel, Ship said.
Wait!
John was praying, his eyes closed, his grip firm on her hand. She felt it was vital to hear his words.
"Lord," he said, "we are gathered here in your name. One in the foolishness of youth and the other infirm with age, we ask that you remember us as we remember you. As long as there are eyes to read and ears to hear, you will not be forgotten...."
She listened to the earnestness of the prayer as it unraveled from his mind. The firm touch of his hand pleased her. There were faint veins on his eyelids which trembled as he spoke. She did not even mind the universal stink which came from him as it came from all of those she had encountered here. He was dark, like Kerro, but he had wild, wiry hair that framed his smooth face and accented his intensity.
I could love this man!
Careful, Ekel.
Ship's warning amused her as much as her own thought had surprised her. But one look at the old, liver-spotted hand that John held reminded her she walked in another time. This was an old woman's body which enclosed her awareness.
"...we ask this in Yaisuah's name," John concluded. He released her hand, patted her shoulder. "It would not be good for you to be seen with us."
She nodded.
"Soon we will meet again," he said, "at this house or that, and we will talk more of the Master and the home to which he has returned."
She thanked him with her eyes and watched him until he turned a corner and was gone among the houses below her.
I want to go home, Ship.
There came a moment of blankness and, once more, the tunnel passage, then the lab's dazzling lights pained her eyes after the Earthside dusk.
But those other eyes weren't the same as these eyes!
She sat up, feeling the vital agility of this familiar flesh. It reassured her that Ship had kept the promise to return her to her own body.
Ship?
Ask, Ekel.
You said I would learn about interfering with Time. Did I interfere?
I interfered, Ekel. Do you understand the consequences?
She thought about John's voice in prayer, the power in him - the terrible power which Yaisuah's death had released. It was unleashed power, capable of joy or agony. The sense of that power terrified her. Ship interfered and this power resulted. What good was such power?
What is your choice, Ekel?
Joy or agony - the choice is mine?
What choice, Ekel?
How do I choose?
By choosing, by learning.
I do not want that power!
But now you have it.
Why?
Because you asked.
I didn't know.
That is often the case when you ask.
I want joy but I don't know how to choose!
You will learn.
She swung her feet off the yellow couch, crossed to the screen and keyboard where this terrifying experience had begun. Her mind felt ancient suddenly, an old mind in a young body.
I did ask; I started i.... back in that ancient time when all I wanted was Kerro Panille.
She sat down at the keyboard and stared into the screen. Her fingers strayed over the keys. They felt familiar, yet strange. Kerro's fingers had touched these keys. She saw this instrument suddenly as a container which held raw experiences at a distance. You did not have to go in person. This machine made terrible things acceptable. She took a deep breath and punched the keys: ANCIENT HISTORY RECORDS - YAISUAH/JESUS.
But Ship was not through intruding.
If there is any of it you wish to see in person, Ekel, you have but to ask.
The very thought sent shudders through her body.
This is my body and I'm staying in it.
That, Ekel, is a choice which you may have to share.
***
My imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful as man.
- Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Shiprecords
"I LIKE to call this the Flower Room," Murdoch said, leading Rachel Demarest across the open area to the lock. It was bright there, and she did not like the way the younger clones pulled back from Murdoch. A clone herself, she had heard the stories about this place and wanted to hold back, to delay what was happening. But it was her only chance at the Oakes/Lewis political circle. Murdoch kept a strong grip on her arm just above the elbow and she knew the pain he could cause if she hesitated.
Murdoch stopped at the lock and glanced at his charge.
This one won't carry any more petitions, he thought.
The slightly blue cast to her skin, her nervous, gangly limbs made her appear cold.
"Perhaps you and I could work something out," she said, and pressed her hip against him.
Murdoch was tempte.... but that blue skin!
"I'm sorry, but this is standard for everyone who works here. There are things we need to know - and things that you need to know, too."
He really was sorry, remembering dimly some of the things which had happened to him during his own Scream Room initiation. There were things which he did not remember, to...disturbing fact in itself. But orders were orders.
"Is this the place you call the Scream Room?" Her voice was barely a whisper as she stared at the hatch into the lock.
"It's the Flower Room," he said. "All of these beautiful young clone...." He waved vaguely at the room behind her. "All of them come from here."
She wanted to glance back. There had been some strangely shaped people hugging the rear of the throngs in the room, some with colors even stranger than her own. Something in Murdoch's manner prevented her from turning.
He took her hand then and placed her palm on the sensor-scribe beside the hatch - "To record your entry time." She felt an odd stinging sensation as her palm touched the scribe.
Murdoch smiled, but there was no mirth in it. His free hand went out to the lock-cycling switch. The hatch hissed open and he thrust her into it.
"In you go."
She heard the hatch seal behind her, but her attention was on the inner hatch as it opened. When it had swung wide, she realized that what she had thought was a grotesque statue standing there was actually a naked living creature framed by the open end of the lock. An.... and there were tears streaming down the creature's cheeks.
"Come in, my dear." His voice was full of hoarse gruntings.
She moved toward him hesitantly, aware that Murdoch was watching through the sensors overhead. The room she entered was lighted by corner tubes which filled the entire space with a deep red illumination.
The gargoyle took her arm as the hatch sealed behind her and he swung her into the room.
His arms are too long.
"I am Jessup," he said. "Come to me when you are throu
gh."
Rachel looked around at a circle of grinning figures - some of them male, some female. There were among them creatures even more grotesque than Jessup. She saw that a male with short arms and bulbous head directly in front of her had an enormous erection. He bent over to grasp it and point it at her.
These people are real! she thought. This is not a nightmare.
The rumors she had heard did not even begin to describe this place.
"Clones," Jessup whispered beside her, as though he had been reading her mind. "All clones and they owe their lives to Jesus Lewis."
Clones? These aren't clones; they're recombinant mutants.
"But clones are people," she whispered.
Bulbous-head lurched one step toward her, still holding that enormous erection pointed at her.
"Clones are property," Jessup said, his voice firm but still with those odd gruntings in it. "Lewis says it and it must be true. You may develop a.... appreciation for certain of them."
Jessup started to move away, but she clutched his arm. How cold his flesh was! "N.... wait."
"Yes?" Grunting.
"Wha.... what happens here?"
Jessup looked at the waiting circle. "They are children, just children. Only weeks old."
"But they'r...."
"Lewis can grow a full clone in a matter of days."
"Days?" She was clutching at any delay. "How...I mean, the energ...."
"We eat a lot of burst in here. Lewis says this is the reason his people invented burst."
She nodded. The food shortage - it would be amplified enormously by the requirements of making burst.
Jessup leaned close to her ear, whispered: "And Lewis learned some beautiful tricks from the kelp."
She looked at him full at him - that too-wide face with its toothless mouth and high cheeks, the pinpoint eyes, the receding forehead and protruding chin. Her gaze traveled down his body - enormous chest, but sunken with incurvin.... and narrow hip.... pipestem leg.... He wa.... he was not just he, she saw, but both sexes. And now she understood the grunting. He was fucking himsel.... herself! Little muscles at the crotch moved th....
Rachel whirled away, her mind searching wildly for something, anything to say.
"Why are you crying?" Her voice was too high.
"Ohhh, I always cry. It doesn't mean anything."
Bulbous-head lurched another step toward her and the circle moved with him.
"Entertainment time," Jessup said and pushed her roughly toward Bulbous-head.
She felt hands clutching her, turning her, and, presently, her memory left he.... but for a long time she felt that she heard screams and she wondered if they might be her screams.
***
Absolute dependence is the hallmark of religion. It posits the supplicant and the one who dispenses gifts. The supplicant employs ritual and prayer in the attempt to influence (control) the dispenser of gifts. The kinship between this relationship and the days of absolute monarchs cannot be overlooked. This dependence on supplication gives to the keeper of those two essentials - the ritual paraphernalia and the purity of prayerful forms (that is, to the Chaplain...power akin to that of the gift dispenser.
- "Training the Chaplain/Psychiatrist," Moonbase Documents (from Shiprecords)
RAJA THOMAS strode along a Colony passage with Waela TaoLini at his side. They both wore insulated yellow singlesuits with collar attachments for breather-helmets. It was first-light of Rega outside, but in here was the soft gold of dayside illumination that any Colonist could remember from shipside.
The food of this diurn's first meal sat heavily in his stomach and he wondered at that. They were adding some odd filler to the food. What was happening to the shipside agraria? Could it be possible, as Oakes' people hinted, that Ship was cutting down on hydroponics output?
Waela was oddly silent as she matched his pace. He glanced at her and found her studying him. Their eyes flicked past a confrontation too brief to call recognition, but an orange glow suffused her neck and face.
Waela stared straight ahead. They were bound for the test-launch apron to inspect the new submersible gondola and its carrier. It would be tried first in the enclosed and insulated tank at the hangar before being risked in Pandora's unpredictable ocean.
Why can't I just say no? she wondered. She did not have to get at the poet in the way Thomas ordered. There were other ways. It occurred to her then to ask herself about the society of Thomas' origins. What was his conditioning that he thinks sex is the best way to lower the psyche's guards?
As happened on rare occasions when she was with others, Honesty spoke within her head: "Men ruled and women were a subordinate class."
She knew this had to be true. It fitted his behavior.
Thomas was speaking silently to himself: I am Thomas. I am Thomas. I am Thoma....
The strange thing about this inner chant which he had adopted as his personal litany was that it increased his sensitivity to doubts. Could it be something built into the name?
Waela no longer trusts m.... if she ever did.
What is this poet and where is he? Processing was taking an unconscionably long time with him. Will he be an arm of Ship?
Why were they getting a poet on their team? It had to be a clue to Ship's plans. Obscure, perhap.... convolute.... but a clue. This might be the element of the deadly game which he was required to discover for himself.
How much time do we have?
Ship did not always play the game by rules that were just and fair.
You're not always fair, are You, Ship?
If you mean even-handed, yes, I am fair. The answer surprised Thomas. He had not expected Ship to respond while he walked along this corridor.
Thomas glanced at Waela - silent woman. Her color had returned to its normal pale pink. Did Ship ever talk to her?
I talk to her quite often, Devil. She calls me Honesty.
Thomas missed a step in surprise.
Does she know it's You?
She is not conscious of that, no.
Do You talk to others without their knowing?
To many, very many.
Thomas and Waela turned a corner into another portless passage, this one illuminated by the pale blue of overhead strip lighting - the color code which told them that it led outside somewhere up ahead. He glanced at Waela's hip, saw the ever-present lasgun in its holster there.
Waela broke the silence.
"Those new clones that Oakes says are being used out on Dragon - what do you suppose they are?"
"People with faster responses."
"I don't trust that Lewis."
Thomas found himself in agreement. Lewis remained a mystery figure - the brutal alter-ego to Oakes? There were stories about Lewis which suggested that Ship had held nothing back when lifting the lid of Pandora's box.
They had come to the hatch into the hangar. Thomas hesitated before signaling the dogwatch to admit them. He glanced through the transparent port, saw that the sky doors of the hangar were closed. There should be little delay.
"What's eating you, Waela?"
She met his gaze. "I've been wondering if there's anyone I can trust."
Pandora's curse, he thought, and chose to direct her suspicions at Oakes.
"Why don't we insist on an inspection team to explore everything Oakes is doing?"
"Do you think they'd let us?"
"It's worth finding out."
"I'll suggest it to Rachel when I see her."
"Call her when we get inside."
"Can't. The roster says she's on vegetation patrol, south perimeter. I'll call her nightside."
Without knowing precisely why, Thomas felt a chill at hearing this. Was that stupid Demarest woman in danger? He shook his head. They were all in danger, every moment.
Again, Thomas peered through the port at activity in the hangar. There were bright lights around the sub. The LTA was lost in shadows above. Many workers moved around in the lighted area. He could see that they had
opened the floorgate to expose the testing basin beneath the hangar. The lights glistened off exposed water beside the plaz gondola and its carrier-sub. Ahh, yes. They were mating the sub and gondola.
So Rachel would not be back from south perimeter until nightside. He was caught by the curious persistences in Waela's ship-style language.
Nightside.
The irregular diurns of a planet with two suns caused few circadian problems for Colonists. They had been Shipmen, and Shipmen had a ready referent at hand: Day and Night were not times, but sides. Was there a clue here, something to help him in his search for a way to the heart of these people? He had thought that if he succeeded in communicating with the 'lectrokelp, this would give him the desired status.
Anything to help us fit into the rhythms of Pandora.
If Colonists learn to trust m.... if they look up to m.... then I can tell them what Ship really wants of them. They will believe and they will follow.
That sub in there - would it be the key? Persistent symbols. What would persist in the symbols of an intelligent vegetable? It was intelligent. He was convinced of it. So was Waela. But the symbols remained a mystery.
Fireflies in the night of the sea.
Did they talk to each other beneath the waves?
We do.
Waela gestured at the signal switch beside the hatch.
"What's the delay?"
"They're mating the new gondola and the sub. I didn't want to call anyone away from that."
He nodded as he saw the gondola swing into place, then he depressed the switch.
Presently, a green-clad workman unsealed the inner locks and the hatch swung open. Slow procedure, but this was a dangerous area. Hatches could be locked either side - from inside when the skydoors were open. Everything groundside was designed to contain an attack.
There was a musty aroma of outside within the hangar which set Thomas' nerves on edge.
Waela preceded him across the hangar floor, striding out with that watchful swing which Colonists never put aside, head turning, gaze darting about. Her pale singlesuit fitted her body like another skin.
He had insisted they go through Stores for the new suits. As he had ordered, they were insulated against the sea's chill, eliminating the need for insulation on the gondola. Plaz was an excellent conductor unless doubled or tripled. This decision gave them a few extra centimeters in the gondola core.
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