“Play the game, Devil.”
Yes, he had to play the game even though he lost.
A scraping noise intruded on his awareness. The sound came from the locker area where the sub crews prepared for their flights. Dead men’s lockers, the Colony called them.
Something moved in the shadows over there, a waddling figure clad in a white shipsuit. Thomas recognized Oakes. Alone. So it was going to be that kind of a meeting.
Thomas took a handlight from his pocket and waved it to show where he stood.
Responding to the light, Oakes changed his path slightly. Oakes always felt diminished by the hangar area. Too much space used for too little return.
Bad investment.
Thomas appeared dwarfed by the immensity of the semi-inflated bag overhead.
These thoughts firmed his resolve. It would not pay to cancel this project outright without a dramatic motive. There were still some who supported it. Oakes knew the arguments.
Learn to live with the kelp!
You did not live with a wild cobra; you killed it.
Yes, Thomas had to go . . . but dramatically, very dramatically. Two Ceepees could not co-exist in Colony.
Oakes did not want to know what Lewis and Murdoch had arranged. An accident with the submersible, perhaps. There already had been enough accidents without arrangement. The cost in Shipmen lives had reached abrasive levels. Colonists expected casualties while they subdued this planet, but the latest attrition rate went beyond the tolerable.
As he came up to Thomas, Oakes smiled openly. It was a gesture he could afford.
“Well, let’s look at this new submersible,” Oakes said.
He allowed himself to be guided to the sub’s side hatch and into the cramped command gondola at the core, noting that Thomas offered no small talk, none of the unconscious obeisance of language which Oakes had come to expect from those around him. Everything was business, technical: Here were the new sonar instruments, the remote-recording sensors, the nephelometers . . .
Nephelometers?
Oakes had to cast back into his medical training for the association.
Oh, yes. Instruments for collecting and examining small particles suspended in the water.
Oakes almost laughed. It was not small particles which needed study but the giant kelp: fully visible and certainly vulnerable. In spite of his amusement, Oakes managed a few seemingly responsive questions.
“What makes you say that everything in the sea has to serve the kelp?”
“Because that’s what we find, that’s the condition of the sea. Everything from the grazing cycles of the biota to the distribution of trace metals, everything fits the growth demands of the kelp. We must find out why.”
“Grazing cycles of . . .”
“The biota—all the living matter . . . The mud-dwelling creatures and those on the surface, all appear to be in a profound symbiotic relationship with the kelp. The grazers, for example, stir the toxic products cast off by the kelp into a layer of highly absorbent sediment where other creatures restore these substances to the food chain. They . . .”
“You mean the kelp shits and this is processed by animals on the bottom?”
“That would be one way of stating it, but the total implication of the sea system is disturbing. There are leaf grazers, for instance, whose only function is to keep the kelp’s leaves clean. The few predators all have large fins, much larger than you’d expect for their size, and . . .”
“What does that have to do with . . .”
“They stir the water around the kelp.”
“Huh?” For a moment, Oakes had found his interest aroused, but Thomas had all the earmarks of a specialist blowing his own private horn—even to the esoteric language of the specialty. This was supposed to be a communications expert?
Just to keep things moving, Oakes asked the expected question: “What disturbing implications?”
“The kelp is influencing the sea far more than simple evolutionary processes can explain. Perhaps it supports the marine community. The only historical comparisons we can make lead us to believe that a sentient force is at work here.”
“Sentient!” Oakes put as much disdain as he could muster into the word. That damned report on kelp-hylighter relationships! Lewis was supposed to have made it inaccessible. Was the ship interfering?
“A conscious design,” Thomas said.
“Or an extremely long-lived adaptation and evolution.”
Thomas shook his head. There was another possibility, but he did not care to discuss it with Oakes. What if Ship had created this planet precisely the way they found it? Why would Ship do such a thing?
Oakes had absorbed enough from this encounter. He had made the gesture. Everyone would see that he was concerned. His guards were waiting back there at the hatch. They would talk. Losses were too high and the Ceepee had to look into it himself. Time to end it.
Oakes relaxed visibly. How nicely things were working.
And Thomas thought: He’s going to let us go without a struggle. All right, Ship. I’m going to pry into one of Your secret places. If You made this planet to teach us Your WorShip, there have to be clues in the sea.
“Well, I’ll want a complete report when you return,” Oakes said. “Some of your data may help us begin a useful aquaculture project.”
He left then, muttering loud enough to be heard: “Sentient kelp!”
As he walked back across the hangar, Oakes thought it had been one of his best performances, and all of it caught by the sensors, all of it recorded and stored. When . . . whatever Lewis had arranged happened, they would be able to edit excerpts from the record.
See how concerned I was?
From the sub’s hatch, Thomas watched Oakes leave, then slipped back down for a final inspection of the core. Had Oakes sabotaged something? All appeared normal. His gaze fell on the central command seat, then on the secondary position to the left where Waela would sit. He caressed the back of the seat.
I’m an old fool. What would I do? Waste precious time with a useless dalliance? And what if she refused to respond to me? What then, old fool?
Old!
Who but Ship even suspected how old? Original material. A clone, a doppelganger—but original material. Nothing like it alive and moving anywhere else in the universe.
So Ship said.
Don’t you believe Me, Devil?
The thought was a static burst in Thomas’ awareness. He spoke as he often did to answer Ship when alone. No matter that some thought him slightly mad.
“Does it matter whether I believe You?”
It matters to Me.
“Then that’s an edge I have and You don’t.”’
You regret your decision to play this game?
“I keep my word.”
And you gave Me your word.
Thomas knew it did not matter whether he said this aloud or merely thought it, but he found himself unable to prevent the outburst.
“Did I give my word to Satan or to God?”
Who can settle that question to your satisfaction?
“Maybe You’re Satan and I’m God.”
That is very close, My Doubting Thomas!
“Close to what?”
Only you can tell.
As usual, nothing was settled in such an exchange except the re-establishment of the master-servant relationship. Thomas slipped into the command seat, sighed. Presently, he began going through the instrument checklist, more to distract himself than for any other reason. Oakes had not come to sabotage but to make a show of some kind.
Devil?
So, Ship was not through with him.
“Yes, Ship?”
There is something you need to know.
Thomas felt his heartbeat quicken. Ship seldom volunteered information. It must be something momentous.
“What is it?”
You recall Hali Ekel?
That name was familiar . . . yes; he had seen it in the Panille dossier which Waela
had supplied.
“Panille’s med-tech friend, yes. What about her?”
I have exposed her to a segment of a dominant human past.
“A replay? But You said . . .”
A segment, Devil, not a replay. You must learn the distinction. When there is a lesson someone needs, you do not have to show the entire record; you can show only a marked passage, a segment.
“Am I living in a marked passage right now?”
This is an original play, a true sequel.
“Why tell me this? What are you doing?”
Because you were trained as a Chaplain. It is important that you know what Hali has experienced. I have shown her the Jesus incident.
Thomas felt his mouth go dry. He was a moment recovering, then: “The Hill of Skulls? Why?”
Her life has been too tame. She must learn how far holy violence can extend. You, too, need this reminder.
Thomas thought about a sheltered young woman from the shipside life being exposed suddenly to the crucifixion. It angered him and he let that anger appear in his voice.
“You’re interfering, aren’t You!”
This is My universe, too, Devil. Never forget that.
“Why did you do that?”
Prelude to other data. Panille has recognized the trap you set for him and avoided it. Waela failed.
Thomas knew he could not conceal his elation and did not try. But a question remained: “Is Panille Your pawn?”
Are you My pawn?
Thomas felt a tight band across his chest. Nothing worked the way he expected. Presently, he found his voice.
“How did he recognize the trap?”
By being open to his peril.
“What does that mean?”
You are not open, as My Devil should be.
“And You told me You wouldn’t interfere with the roll of the dice!”
I never said I would not interfere; I said there would be no outside interference.
Thomas thought about that while he fought to overcome a deep sense of frustration. It was too much and he spoke his feelings: “You’re in the game: You can do anything You want and You don’t call that . . .”
You, too, can do anything you want.
This froze him. What powers had Ship imparted to him? He did not feel powerful. He felt helpless before Ship’s omnipresence. And this business of Hali Ekel and the Jesus incident! What did it mean?
Once more, Ship intruded: Devil, I tell you that some things take their own course only if you fail to detect that course. Waela really feels a powerful attraction toward young Panille.
Young Panille!
Thomas spoke past an emptiness in his breast: “Why do You torture me?”
You torture yourself.
“So You say!”
When will you awaken? There was no mistaking Ship’s frustrated emphasis.
Thomas found that he did not fear this. He was much too tired and there was no more reason for him to stay here in the sub. Oakes had approved the venture. They would go out on schedule—Waela and Panille with him.
“Ship, I’ll awaken early tomorrow and take out this LTA and its sub.”
Would that this were true.
“You intend to stop me?” Thomas found himself oddly delighted at the prospect of Ship interfering in this particular way.
Stop you? No. The play must run its course apparently.
Was that sadness in Ship’s projection? Thomas could not be certain. He sat back. There was a stabbing ache between his shoulder blades. He closed his eyes, sent his fatigue and frustrations out in thought.
“Ship, I know I can’t hide anything from You. And You know why I’m going out to the sea tomorrow.”
Yes, I know even what you hide from yourself.
“Are You my psychiatrist now?”
Which of us usurps the function of the other? That has always been the question.
Thomas opened his eyes. “I have to do it.”
That is the origin of the illusion men call kismet.
“I’m too tired to play word games.”
Thomas slipped out of the command seat and stood up. He kept one hand on the seat back, spoke as much to himself as to Ship.
“We could all die tomorrow, Waela, Panille and I.”
I must warn you that truisms represent the most boring of all human indulgences.
Thomas felt Ship’s intrusive presence withdraw, but he knew that nothing had been taken away. Wherever he went, whatever he did, Ship was there.
He found his thoughts winging back to that faraway time when he had been trained (conditioned, really) not merely as a Psychiatrist, but as a Chaplain/Psychiatrist.
“Fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
Old Matthew knew how to put the fear of God in you!
Thomas found it took him several blinks to overcome a sense of panic so deep that it kept him locked in place.
Early training is the most powerful, he reminded himself.
Chapter 39
Man also knows not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them.
—Christian Book of the Dead, Shiprecords
FOR A long time after returning to Ship from the Hill of Skulls, Hali could not find the will to leave the room. She stared up and around at the softly illuminated space—this secret place where Kerro had spent so many hours communing with Ship. She remembered the borrowed flesh of the old woman, the painful and halting steps. The ache of aging shoulders. A feeling of profound sensitivity to her familiar body pervaded her awareness; each tiny movement became electric with immediacy.
She remembered the man who had been nailed to the rigid crosspiece on the hill. Barbaric!
Yaisuah.
She whispered it: “Yaisuah.”
It was understandable how this name had evolved into that of Jesus . . . and even to the Heysoos of Jesus Lewis.
But nowhere could she find understanding of why she had been taken to witness that agonizing scene. Nowhere. And she found it odd that she had never encountered historical records of that faraway event—not in Ship’s teachings nor in the memories of Shipmen who came from Earth.
In the first moments of her return, she had asked Ship why she had been shown that brutal incident, and had received an enigmatic response.
Because there are things from the human past that no creature should forget.
“But why me? Why now?”
The rest was silence. She assumed that the answers were her own to find.
She stared at the com-console. The seat there at the instruction terminal was her seat now; she knew it. Kerro was gone . . . groundside. Ship had introduced her to this place, had given it to her.
The message was clear: No more Kerro Panille here.
A shuddering wave of loss shot through her, and she shook tears from her eyes. This was no place to stay now. She stood, took up her pribox and slipped out the way she had entered.
Why me?
She wound her way out of softwares and into D passage leading back to Medical, into the workings of Ship’s body.
The beep of her pribox startled her.
“Ekel here,” she said, surprised at the youthfulness of her own voice—not at all like the ancient quavering of that old woman’s voice she had borrowed.
Her pribox crackled, then: “Ekel, report to Dr. Ferry’s office.”
She found a servo and, instead of walking, rode to Medical.
Ferry, she thought. Could it mean reassignment? Could I be joining Kerro groundside?
The thought excited her, but the idea of groundside duty remained fearful. So many nasty rumors. And lately, all groundside assignments seemed permanent. Except for the tight-knit political circle at Medical, no one made the return trip. Pressures of work had kept her from thinking much about this before, but suddenly it became vital.
What are they doi
ng with all our people?
The drain on equipment and food from Ship was a topic for constant anxious conversation; recurrent dayside orders exhorted greater production efforts . . . but few speculated about missing people.
We’ve been conditioned not to face the finality of absolute endings. Is that why Ship showed me Yaisuah?
The thought stood there in her awareness, riding on the hum of the servo carrying her toward Medical and Ferry.
It was clear to her that Yaisuah had ended, but his influence had not ended. Pandora was a place of endings. It gulped food and people and equipment. What influences were about to be sent reverberating from that place?
Endings.
The servo fell silent, stopped. She looked up to see Medical’s servo gate and, across the passage, the hatch to Ferry’s offices. She did not want to go through that hatch. Her body still throbbed with sensitivities ignited by what Ship had shown her. She did not want Ferry touching her body. It was more than her dislike for him—the silly old fool! He drank too much of the alcohol which came up from Colony and he always reached out to put a hand on her somewhere.
Everyone knew the Demarest woman brought him his wine from groundside. He always had plenty of it after her visits.
His food chits can’t support that kind of drinking.
She stared at the dogged hatch across the way. Something was definitely wrong—shipside and groundside. Why did Rachel Demarest bring wine up to Ferry?
If she brings him wine, what does she get in return?
Love? Why not? Even neurotics like Ferry and Demarest needed love. Or . . . if not love, at least an occasional couch partner.
A remembered image of Foul-breath shuddered through her mind. She could almost feel the touch of his hand translated to her own young flesh. Involuntarily, she brushed her arm.
Maybe that’s how they get so foul. No love . . . no lovers.
There was no evading the summons, though. She slid off the servo and crossed to Ferry’s hatch. It snicked open at her approach. Why was she reminded of a sword leaving its scabbard?
“Ahhh, dear Hali.” Ferry opened his palms to her as she entered.