Hundreds of people, tons of equipment.
Thomas had not answered her question until she repeated it.
“We have to take over the Redoubt. Ship will destroy us if we don’t.”
“That makes us no better than them.”
“But we will survive.”
“Survive as what? Does Ship say anything about that?”
“Ship says, ‘When you shall hear of wars and the rumors of wars, be you not troubled: for such things must needs be; but the end shall not be yet.’”
“That’s not Ship! That’s the Christian Book of the Dead!”
“But Ship quotes it.”
Thomas had looked at her then and she had seen the pain within his eyes. Christian Book of the Dead.
Ship had shown parts of it to her on request, displaying the words within the tiny cubby where Panille once had studied. If Thomas really were a Ceepee, he would know those words. She wondered if Oakes knew them. How strange that no one shipside had responded to her careful questions and probes about the events on the Hill of Skulls.
Thomas had frightened her then as they paused to regain their breath on a little rock platform deep in a fissure.
“Why did Ship show you the crucifixion? Have you ever asked yourself that, Hali Ekel?”
“How do you . . . how do you know about . . .”
“Ship tells me things.”
“Did Ship tell you why I . . .”
“No!”
Thomas set off down the steep trail. She called after him: “Do you know why Ship showed me that?”
He stopped at a gap in the fissure, looked out at the morning light growing on the plain, the glistening brilliance of reflections off the Redoubt’s plaz in the distance. She caught up with him.
“Do you know?”
Thomas rounded on her, the pain terrible in his eyes. “If I knew that, I’d know how to WorShip. Did Ship give you no clues?”
“Only that we must learn about holy violence.”
He glared at her. “Tell me what you saw there at the crucifixion!”
“I saw a man tortured and killed. It was brutal and awful, but Ship would not let me interfere.”
“Holy violence,” Thomas muttered.
“The man they killed, he spoke to me. He . . . I thought he recognized me. He knew I had come far to see him there. He said I was not hidden from him. He said I should let them know it was done.”
“He said what?”
“He said if anyone understood God’s will, then I must understand it . . . but I don’t!” She shook her head, tears close. “I’m just a med-tech, a Natali, and I don’t know why Ship showed me that!”
Thomas spoke in a whisper: “That’s all the man said?”
“No . . . he told the people in the crowd not to weep for him but for their children. And he said something about a green tree.”
“If they do these things in a green tree, what will they do in a dry?” Thomas intoned.
“That’s it! That’s what he said! What did he mean?”
“He meant . . . he meant that the powerful grow more deadly in times of adversity—and what they do in the roots can be felt to the ends of the branches—forever.”
“Then why have you created this army? Why are you going out there to . . .”
“Because I must.”
Thomas resumed his way down the trail, refusing to respond to her. Others who had chosen to climb down caught up, pressed close. She had no other opportunity to speak to him. They were at the foot of the cliffs soon and she had her own duties while Thomas set off about his war.
Ferry was one of the people Thomas assigned to medical work. She knew what Thomas and Kerro thought about the old man and this prompted her now to kindness toward him. While she worked with Ferry in the rude fabric shelter below the cliffs, she heard Thomas speaking to his army.
“Blessed be Ship, my strength, which teaches my hands to war and my fingers to fight.”
Was that any way for a Ceepee to talk? She asked this of Ferry while they worked.
“That’s the way Oakes talks.” The old man seemed resigned to his fate but eager to help her.
The army was busy at its preparations then, Panille standing nearby like a cold observer. She did not like the nearness of the demons, but he said they would not harm the people here. He said the hylighters had filled the demons’ senses with a false world which kept them in check.
Ferry shambled past her then, glancing oddly at her nose ring.
She wondered how Ferry felt about the way Thomas talked. Thomas spoke about the old man in front of him as though Ferry were not there.
“This old fool doesn’t have any real power,” Thomas had said. “Oakes thinks he has a corner on the real power and the symbolic power, right here on Black Dragon. He doesn’t share power. He’s set himself up here for easy pickings compared to what we’d have encountered at Colony.”
“I told him he was moving too soon,” Ferry had said.
Thomas had ignored him, addressed Panille. “Ferry’s a liar, but we can use him. He must know something valuable about Oakes’ plans.”
“But I don’t know anything.” The old man’s voice quavered.
One of the Naturals Thomas had named as an aide had come up then with organizational problems. Thomas had stared at the hashmarks over the man’s right eye. They had gone away together, Thomas muttering: “Helluva way to slap together an army, out of somebody else’s rejects.”
She had seen some sense in his orders, though, the E-clones grouped according to design: runners, carriers, lifters . . . He had taken a training inventory—equipment operator, light-physics technician, welder, unskilled labor . . .
She thought about this as she prepared the medical facilities under the cliff. What difference did it make to her how Thomas organized his force? When they arrived here, they would merely be wounded.
Waela, helping with the preparations for the delivery, stopped in front of Hali. “Why do you look so worried? Is it something about my baby?”
“No, nothing like that.”
And Waela heard her old inner voice, Honesty, marking time: The baby will be born soon. Soon.
Waela stared at Hali.
“What has you so worried?”
Hali looked at Waela’s mounded abdomen. “If the hylighters hadn’t brought us that supply of burst from Colony . . .”
“Colony didn’t need it anymore. They’re all dead.”
“That’s not what I . . .”
“You’re afraid my baby would’ve been robbing you of your years, your life and . . .”
“I don’t think your baby would take from me.”
“Then what is it?”
“Waela, what are we doing here?”
“Trying to survive.”
“You sound like Thomas.”
“Thomas makes a great deal of sense sometimes.”
Three E-clones intruded, staggering into the shelter, two of them helping a third who had lost an arm. All of them had been burned. One held the severed arm against the stump, bloody sand all around the wound.
“Who’s the med-tech here?” one of them demanded. He was a dwarf with long, flexible fingers.
Ferry started to step forward, but Hali motioned him back. “Stay with Waela. Let me know when she needs me.”
“I’m a doctor, you know.” There was hurt in the old voice.
“I know. Stay with Waela.”
Hali led the injured trio to the emergency alcove partly sheltered by the black rocks of the cliff. She worked quickly, closing up the severed stump with celltape after powdering it with septalc.
“Can’t you save his arm?” the dwarf demanded.
“No. What’s happening out there?”
The dwarf spat on the floor. “Hell and damn folly.”
She finished with his companions, looked at the dwarf. His comment surprised her and he saw it. “Oh, we can think well enough,” he said.
“Come here and let me tend to you,
” she said. His right arm was badly burned. She spoke to distract him from his pain. “How did you come to be with the hylighters?”
“Lewis pushed us out. Like garbage. You know what that means. There were Runners. Most of us didn’t get away. I hope the Runners get in there.” He gestured with his good arm at the Redoubt across the plain. “Eat every one of those shiptit bastards!”
The dwarf slid off the treatment table as she finished. He headed toward the exit.
“Where are you going?”
“Back to help where I can.” He stood with the fabric flap held back and she stared out the opening at the Redoubt. Blue flashes filled the air there. She could hear distant shouts and screams.
“You’re in no condition to . . .”
“I’m well enough to carry the wounded.”
“There are more?”
“Lots of ’em.” He lurched out the opening, the fabric falling closed behind him.
Hali closed her eyes. In her mind she could see a mill of people. It changed to a crowd and the crowd became a mob. Foul-breath and the salty stink of blood were on the wind. The tiny lips of cuts and the great smears of burn wounds filled her imagination. A pair of broken knees blurred through her memory—the men on the crosses.
“That’s not the way,” she muttered. She took up her pribox and an emergency medical kit, stepped to the opening, flung it back. The dwarf already was a small figure in the distance. She strode after him.
“Where are you going?” It was Ferry’s voice calling after her.
She did not turn. “They need me out there.”
“But what about Waela?”
“You’re a doctor.” She shouted it without taking her gaze off the smoke billowing in the distance.
Chapter 67
When humans act as spokesmen for the gods, mortality becomes more important than morality. Martyrdom corrects this discrepancy but only for a brief interval. The sorry thing about martyrs is that they are not around to explain what it all meant. Nor do they stay to see the terrible consequences of martyrdom.
—“You Are Spokesmen for Martyrs,” Raja Thomas, Shiprecords
LEGATA SWITCHED the big screen from sensor to sensor, trying to make sense of what the instruments reported. Images blurred, re-formed in different perspective. Cutter beams slashed across the plain, she could see bodies, odd movements. Alarm buzzers signaled damage to a section of the Redoubt’s perimeter. She heard Lewis dispatch repair and defense teams. Defense cutters beamed into action, directed by key people in the Center. She kept her attention on the mystery in the screens. In the split-screen images an occasional blur slipped past—as though some outside force were confusing the instruments.
She wiped a sleeve across her forehead. The two suns had climbed high while the confused battle went on, and the Redoubt’s life-support had been reduced to minimum, shunting energy to weapons. It was hot in the Command Center and the nervous movements of Oakes at her elbow irritated her. In contrast, Lewis appeared unaccountably calm, even secretly amused.
It was carnage on the plain, no doubt of that. The clones in the Command Center affected extreme diligence at their duties, obviously fearful that they might be sent outside into the battle.
Legata hit replay. Something blurred across the big screen.
“What was that?” Oakes demanded.
Legata hit fix, but the sensors failed to resolve an image. Once more, she hit replay and zoomed in close to the blur. Nothing sensible. She touched replay again and slowed the projection, asking the Redoubt’s computer system for image enhancement. A slow shape writhed across the screen, vaguely humanoid. It moved between two rocks, struggled with some heavy object, then moved away.
A harsh blue beam snaked from somewhere within the blurred area, alarm signals were indicated by flashing blinkers at the corners of the screen. She ignored them—that was past, and Lewis had met the emergency. Something more important was indicated on the screen: a slow blossom of red-orange which had not revealed itself there before.
“What are you doing?” Oakes demanded. “What caused that?”
“I think they’re influencing our sensor system,” she said. And she heard the disbelief in her own voice.
Oakes stared at the screen for several blinks, then: “The ship! The damned ship’s interfering.”
Sweat droplets glistened on his upper lip and jowls. She could smell him beginning to crack.
“Why would the ship do that?” Lewis asked.
“Because of Thomas. You saw him out there.” Oakes’ voice was breaking.
Legata switched sensors, keyed for the broad view of the cliffside staging area where the attack had originated. The demons were gone, not visible anywhere. The poet no longer sat his perch atop the pinnacle. The arc of watching hylighters had diminished to a thin rim atop the cliffs. The whole scene stood out in the glare of double sunlight.
“Where are the hylighters?” she asked. “I didn’t see them go.”
“None in close,” Lewis said. “Maybe they’ve gone off somewhere to . . .” He broke off at a commotion near the open passage hatch.
Legata turned to see a dark-haired Natural, a crew supervisor, slip into the Command Center. Sweaty and nervous, he hurried across to Lewis. There was celltape covering a gory burn on the man’s bare left shoulder and his eyes showed the glazing of a pain-killer.
So there are Naturals outside, too, she thought.
“We’re getting lots of wounded clones, Jesus,” the man said. His voice was hoarse, tense. “What do we do with ’em?”
Lewis looked at Oakes, fielding the question.
“Set up an infirmary,” Oakes said. “Clones’ quarters. Let ’em treat their own.”
“Not many of them understand medical care,” Lewis said. “Some are pretty young, remember.”
“I know,” Oakes said.
Lewis nodded. “I see.” He glanced at the crew supervisor. “You heard it. Get busy.”
The man glared at Oakes, then at Lewis, but obeyed.
“The ship’s interfering with us,” Oakes said. “We can’t spare medical people or any others right now. We have to devise a plan for . . .”
“What is going on out there?” Legata asked.
Oakes turned, saw that once more she was running through the sensors, showing several at once. He glanced up at the screen and, at first, did not see what had attracted her attention. Then he saw it—a rectangle high up on the right showed a silvery something creeping over the Redoubt’s walls. It moved like a slow-motion wave, blanking out sensors, creeping up and up. Legata compensated for the obscured sensors, moving back and back through new sensors. The wave was composed of countless glittering threads bright in the glare of the double suns.
“Spinnerets,” Lewis hissed.
The entire room became so quiet that the air was brittle with listening.
Legata continued, busy at the console.
Lewis turned to the Naturals guarding the Command Center. “Harcourt, you and Javo take a ‘burner and see what you can do to cut through that Spinneret mesh.”
The men did not respond.
Legata smiled to herself at the continued quiet in the room. She could feel the tensions building to the precise moment she desired. It had been right to wait.
“Send some clones.” Legata recognized Harcourt’s high-pitched voice.
There was a heavy stirring in the room. She glanced back, saw more clones pressing into the center from the passage. Some of them were the more outré E-types. Most appeared to be wounded. They obviously were looking for someone. A guttural voice called out from amidst the newcomers: “We need medics!”
Lewis faced the two Naturals he had ordered to meet the Spinneret attack. “You refuse to obey my orders?”
Harcourt, his face red, repeated his protest: “Send some clones. That’s what they’re for.”
From somewhere in the center of the room, a thin voice shouted: “We’re not going out there!”
“Why should
they go?” Legata asked.
“You stay out of this, Legata!” Oakes screamed.
“Just tell them why clones should go,” she said.
“You know why!”
“No, I don’t.”
“Because the first out on any dangerous mission are clones. Harcourt’s right. Clones first. That’s the way it’s always been, and that’s the way it’ll be.”
So he’s pitching for the loyalty of the Naturals.
Legata looked at Lewis, met his gaze head on. Was that amusement in his eyes? No matter. She depressed a key on the console controlling the big screen, watched the people in the room. They could not miss what was happening on the screen. She had set the program to fill it.
Yes . . . the room was becoming a tableau, all attention shifting to the screen, locking on it.
Puzzled, Oakes turned to look at the screen, saw his own likeness there. Below the image, a biographical printout was rolling. He stared at the heading: “Morgan Lon Oakes. Ref. Original File, Morgan Hempstead, cell donor . . .”
Oakes found it difficult to breathe. It was a trick! He glanced at Legata and the cold stare he met there iced his backbone.
“Morgan . . .” How sweet her voice sounded. “. . . I found your records, Morgan. See Ship’s imprimatur on the printout? Ship vouches for the truth of this record.”
A tic twitched the corner of Oakes’ left eyelid. He tried to swallow.
This is not happening!
Muttering drifted through the room. “Oakes a clone? Ship’s eyes!”
Legata stepped away from the console, moved to within a meter of Oakes. “Your name . . . that’s the name of the woman who bore you—for a fee.”
Oakes found his voice: “This is a lie! My parents . . . our sun went nova . . . I . . .”
“Ship says not so.” She waved at the screen. “See?”
The data continued to roll: Date of cell implantation, address of pseudo-parents, names . . .