“How can I be sure of that?”
“Try it.”
The silvery net had come out of the pneumatic slot beside the screen. Fingers trembling, Panille opened the round carrier, examined the contents and put the net over his head, tucking his long black hair up into it. Immediately, he sensed a special silence in his head. It was frightening at first and then exciting.
I’m alone! Really alone!
The words which had flowed from him then had achieved extra energy, a compulsive rhythm whose power touched his fellow Shipmen in strange ways. One of the physicists refused to read or listen to his poetry.
“You twist my mind!” the old man shouted.
Panille chuckled at the memory and tucked the silver snood into his shipcloth bag.
Zen placebo?
Panille shook his head; no time for such thoughts.
When the bag was full he decided that solved his packing problem. He took up his bag and forced himself not to look back when he left. His cubby was the past—a place of furious writing periods and restless inner probings. He had spent many a sleepless night there and, for one period, had taken to wandering the corridors looking for a cool breeze from a ventilator. Ship had felt overly warm and uncommunicative then.
But it was really me; I was the uncommunicative one.
At Shipbay Fifty, he was told to wait in an alcove with no chair or bench. It was a tiny metal-walled space too small for him even to stretch out on the floor. There were two hatches: the one through which he had entered and another directly opposite. Sensor lenses glittered at him from above the hatches and he knew he was being watched.
Why? Could I have angered The Boss?
Waiting made him nervous.
Why did they tell me to get right out here if they were going to make me wait?
It was like that faraway time when his mother had taken him to the Shipmen. He had been five years old, a child of Earth. She had taken him by the hand up the ramp to Ship Reception. He had not even known what Ship meant then, but he had been sensitized to what was about to happen to him because his mother had explained it with great solemnity.
Panille remembered that day well—a green spring day full of musty earth smells which had not vanished from his memory in all the Shipdays since. Over one shoulder, he had carried a small cotton bag containing the things his mother had packed for him.
He looked down at the shipcloth bag into which he had crammed the things for his groundside trip. Much more durable . . . larger.
The small cotton bag of that long-gone day had been limited to four kilos—the posted maximum for Ship Reception. It had contained mostly clothing his mother had made for him herself. He still had the amber stocking cap. And there were four primitive photographs—one of the father he had never seen in the flesh, a father killed in a fishing accident. He was revealed as a redhaired man with dark skin and a smile which survived him to warm his son. One picture was his mother, unsmiling and workworn, but still with beautiful eyes; one showed his father’s parents, two intense faces which stared directly into the recording lens; and one slightly larger picture showed “the family place” which was, Kerro reminded himself, a patch of land on a patch of planet lost long ago when its sun went nova.
Only the photo survived, wrapped with the others in the amber stocking cap within his shipcloth bag. He had found all of this preserved in a hyb locker when the Shipmen had revived him.
“I want my son to live,” his mother had said, handing him over to the Shipmen. “You have refused to take the two of us as a family, but you had better take him!”
No mistaking the threat in her voice. She would do something desperate. There were many desperate people doing violent things in those days. The Shipmen had appeared more amused than disturbed, but they had accepted young Kerro and sent him into hyb.
“Kerro was my father’s name,” she had explained, rolling the r’s. “That’s the way you say it. He was Portuguese and Samoan, a beautiful man. My mother was ugly and ran away with another man but my father was always beautiful. A shark ate him.”
Panille knew that his own father had been a fisherman. His father had been named Arlo and his father’s people had escaped from Gaul to the Chin Islands of the south, far across a sea which insulated them from distant persecution.
How long ago was that? he wondered.
He knew that hybernation stopped time for the flesh, but something else went on and on and on . . . Eternity. That was the poet’s candle. The people who were keeping him waiting now did not realize how a poet could adjust the candle’s flame. He knew he was being tested, but these Shipmen hidden behind their sensors did not know the tests he had already surmounted with Ship.
Panille idled away the wait by recalling such a test. At the time he had not known it was a test; that awareness came later. He had been sixteen and proud of his ability to create emotions with words. In the secret room behind Records, Panille had activated the com-console for a study session—to explore his own curiosity.
Ship began the conversation, which was unusual. Usually, Ship only responded to his questions. Ship’s first words had startled him.
“As has been the case with other poets, do you think you are God?”
Panille had reflected on this. “All the universe is God. I am of this universe.”
“A reasonable answer. You are the most reasonable poet of My experience.”
Panille remained silent, poised and watchful. He knew Ship did not always give simple answers, and never simple praise.
Ship’s response had been, once more, unexpected. “Why are you not wearing your silver net?”
“I’m not making poems.”
Then, back to the original subject: “Why is there God?”
The answer popped into his head the way some lines of poetry occurred to him. “Information, not decisions.”
“Cannot God make decisions?”
“God is the source of information, not of decisions. Decisions are human. If God makes decisions, they are human decisions.”
If Ship could be considered to feel excitement, that was the moment for it and Kerro sensed this. There had been a pattern to the way Ship supplied information to him, and it was a pattern which only a poet might recognize. He was being trained, sensitized, to ask the right questions . . . even of himself.
As he waited at Shipbay Fifty, the questions were obvious, but he did not like some of the answers those questions suggested.
Why were they keeping him waiting? It signaled a callous attitude toward their fellows. And what use had the Colony found for a poet? Communication? Or were Hali’s fears to be believed?
The hatch in front of him scissored open with a faint swish of servosystems and a voice called out: “Hurry it up!”
Panille recognized the voice and tried not to show surprise as he stepped through into a reception room and heard the hatch seal behind him. Automatics. And yes, it was the bumbler, Doctor Winslow Ferry.
With his recent analysis of Ferry, Panille tried to see the man sympathetically. It was difficult. Painful powers centered on this room, which was functional shipside standard: two hatches in metal walls, instruments in their racks, no ports. The room was blocked by a low barrier and a large com-console behind which Ferry sat. A gate on the right led to a hatch in the far wall.
It occurred to Panille that Ferry was old for shipside. He had watery gray eyes full of false boredom, puffy cheeks. His breath gave off a heavy floral perfume. There was slyness in his voice.
“Brought your own recorder, I see.” He punched a notation into the com-console which shielded him from the waist down.
Ferry glanced at the shipcloth bag on Panille’s shoulder. “What else you bring?”
“Personal possessions, clothes . . . a few keepsakes.”
“Hrrrm.” Ferry made another notation. “Let’s see.”
The distrust in this order shocked Panille. He put the bag on a flat counter beside the com-console, watched while Ferry pawed
through the contents. Panille resented every stranger-touch on intimate possessions. It became obvious after a time that Ferry was searching for things which could be used as weapons. The rumors were true, then. The people around Oakes feared for their own flesh.
Ferry held up the flexible net of silver rolled into its tie bands. “Wha’s’s?”
“I use that when I’m writing my poetry. Ship gave it to me.”
Ferry put it onto the counter with care, went back to examining the rest of the bag’s contents. Some items of clothing he passed beneath a lens behind him and studied details in a scanner whose shields prevented anyone else from seeing what he saw. Occasionally, he made notations in the com-console.
Panille looked at the silver net. What was Ferry going to do with it? He could not take it!
Ferry spoke over his shoulder while examining more of Panille’s clothing under the scanner lens.
“You think the ship’s God?”
The “ship”? The usage surprised Panille. “I . . . yes.”
And he thought back to that one conversation he had had with Ship on the subject. That had been a test, too. Ship was God and God was Ship. Ship could do things mortal flesh could not . . . at least while remaining mortal flesh. Normal dimensions of space dissolved before Ship. Time carried no linear restrictions for Ship.
I, too, am God, Doctor Winslow Ferry. But I am not Ship . . . Or am I? And you, dear Doctor, what are you?
No doubting the origin of Ferry’s question. Ship’s godhead remained an open question with many. There had been a time when Ship was the ship, of course. Everyone knew that from the history which Ship taught. Ship had been a vehicle for mortal intelligence once. The ship had existed in the limited dimensions which any human could sense, and it had known a destination. It also had known a history of madness and violence. Then . . . the ship had encountered the Holy Void, that reservoir of chaos against which all beings were required to measure themselves.
Ship’s history was cloudy with migrations and hints at a paradise planet somewhere awaiting humankind.
But Ferry was revealed as one of the doubters, one who questioned Ship’s version of history. Such doubts thrived because Ship did not censure them. The only time Panille had referred to the doubts, Ship had responded clearly and with a creative style to inspire a poet.
“What is the purpose of doubts, Panille?”
“To test data.”
“Can you test this historical data with your doubts?”
That required thought and Panille answered after a long pause. “You are my only source.”
“Have I ever given you false data?”
“I’ve found no falsehoods.”
“Does that silence these doubts?”
“No.”
“Then what can you do with such doubts?”
That involved more careful thought and a longer pause before answering. “I put them aside until a moment arrives when they may be tested.”
“Does that change your relationship with Me?”
“Relationships change constantly.”
“Ahhh, I cherish the company of poets.”
Panille was shaken out of this memory by the realization that Ferry had spoken to him several times.
“I said, ‘Wha’s’s?”
Panille looked at the object in Ferry’s hand.
“It was my mother’s comb.”
“The stuff! The material?”
“Tortoise shell. It came from Earth.”
There was no mistaking the avaricious glint in Ferry’s eyes. “Well . . . I dunno about this.”
“It’s a keepsake from my mother, one of the few things I have left. If you take it I’ll lodge a formal complaint with Ship.”
Ferry betrayed definite anger, his eyes squinted, his hand trembled with the comb. But his gaze strayed to the silver net. He knew the stories about this poet; this one talked to the ship in the quiet of the night and the ship answered.
Once more, Ferry made a notation within the shielded secrecy of his com-console, then delivered himself of his longest speech: “You’re assigned groundside to Waela TaoLini and it serves you right. There’s a freighter waiting in Fifty-B. Take it. She’ll meet you groundside.”
Panille stuffed his belongings back into the bag while Ferry watched with growing amusement. Did he take something while I was daydreaming? Panille wondered. He preferred the man’s anger to his amusement but there was no way to take everything out of the bag once more to check it. No way. What had happened to the people around Oakes? Panille had never seen such slyness and greed in a Shipman. And the smell of that stuff on his breath! Dead flowers. Panille sealed the bag.
“Go on, they’re waiting,” Ferry said. “Don’t waste our time.”
Panille heard the hatch open once more behind him. He could feel Ferry’s gaze on him all the way out of the reception room.
Waela TaoLini? He had never heard the name before. Then: Serve me right?
Chapter 20
Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. You shall repent of the injuries you inflict
—Frankenstein’s Monster Speaks, Shiprecords
OAKES SAT in shadows watching the holographic replay. He was nervous and irritated. Where was Lewis?
Behind him and slightly to his left stood Legata Hamill. The dim glow of the projector underlighted their features. Both of them stared intently at the action in the holofocus.
The scene holding their attention revealed the main finger passage behind Shipbay Nineteen and leading out to one of the treedomes. Kerro Panille accompanied by Hali Ekel walked toward the pickup which had caught the scene. The treedome could be glimpsed in the background framed by the end of the passage. Ekel carried her pribox over one shoulder, its harness held loosely by her right hand. Panille wore a recorder at his hip and a small bag from which protruded notepad and stylus. He was dressed in a white one-piece which set off his long hair and beard. The hair was bound in a golden ring, plaited and with the tip draped down his chest on the left. Issue boots covered his feet.
Oakes studied each detail carefully.
“This is the young man of Ferry’s report?”
“The same.”
The rich contralto of Legata’s voice distracted Oakes and he was a few blinks replying. During that time, Panille and Ekel walked from the range of one sensor and into the range of another. The holographic point-of-view shifted.
“They seem a little nervous,” he said. “I wish I knew what they wrote on that pad.”
“Love notes.”
“But why write them if . . .”
“He’s a poet.”
“And she is not a poet. What’s more, he resists her sexual advances. I don’t understand that. She appears quite pneumatic, eminently couchable.”
“Do you want him picked up and the notepad examined?”
“No! We must move with discretion and subtlety. Damn! Where is Lewis?”
“Still incommunicado.”
“Damn him!”
“His assistants now say Lewis is occupied with a special problem.”
Oakes nodded. Special problem. That was their private code for something which could not be discussed in the clear. No telling who might eavesdrop. Were the neck pellets then no longer immune to spying?
Panille and Ekel had stopped near the hatch to Ferry’s office in Medical.
Oakes tried to remember all the times he had seen this young man shipside. Panille had not invited much interest until it had become clear that he really might be talking to the ship. Then that order from the ship for Panille to be sent groundside!
Why does the ship want him groundside?
A poet! What use could there be for a poet? Oakes decided that he really did not believe Panille talked to the ship.
But the ship, and possibly that Raja Thomas, wanted Panille groundside.
Why?
He turned the question over and foun
d no shadow.
“You’re sure the request for Panille came from the ship?” he asked.
“It’s been six diurns since the request . . . and it didn’t read like a request to me; it read like an order.”
“But from the ship, you’re certain?”
“As certain as you can be of anything.” The irritation in her voice bordered on insubordination. “I used your code and made the complete cross-check. Everything scans.”
Oakes sighed.
Why Panille?
Perhaps more attention should have been paid to the poet. He was one of the originals from Earthside. Have to dig deeper into his past. That was obvious.
The scene in the holofocus showed Panille and Ekel parting. Panille turned and they had a view of his back—a wide and muscular back, Legata noted. She called this to Oakes’ attention.
“Do you find him attractive, Legata?”
“I merely point out that he’s not some dainty flower-sniffer.”
“Mmmmmm.”
Oakes was intensely conscious of the musky odor coming from Legata. She had a magnificently proportioned body which she had kept from him so far. But Oakes knew himself to be a patient man. Patient and persistent.
Panille was entering the hatch to Ferry’s office. Oakes slapped the switch to stop the replay, leaving the carrier light still glowing. He did not care to have another run through that scene with Ferry. Stupid, bumbling old fool!
Oakes glanced at Legata with only the barest turning of his head. Magnificent. She often presented a vapid mask but Oakes saw the consistent brilliance in her work. Few people knew that she was shockingly strong, a mutation. She concealed an extraordinary musculature under that smooth warm skin. He found this idea exciting. She was known shipwide as a history fanatic who frequently begged Records for style displays to copy in her clothing. Currently, she wore a short toga which exposed most of her right breast. The light fabric hung precariously from her nipple. Oakes felt the pulse of her strength, even there.
Taunting me?
“Tell me why the ship wants a poet groundside,” he said.