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Keeping me waiting to teach me my place.
The self-constructed persona of Raja Thomas dominated this thought, but there were distant echoes of Flattery in it—distant but distinct. He felt like an actor well seated in his part after many performances. The Flattery self lay in his past like a childhood memory.
What have You hidden in the depths of the sea, Ship?
That is for you to discover.
There! That definitely was Ship talking to him.
The LTA creaked against its tethers. Thomas stepped from beneath it and peered up at the sphincter leaves of the skydoor—a vast shadowy circle in the dim light. His nostrils tasted a faint bitterness of Pandoran esters in the air. Colony had found that some volatile renderings from selected demons insulated the area around them against other ravening native predators—especially against Nerve Runners. Nothing was forever, though. The demons soon developed counter-responses.
Thomas looked back at the shadowed sub—a smooth black rock held in the tentacles of an artificial hylighter . . . a smooth black rock with glittering lines down its sides.
Again, the LTA creaked against its tethers. There was a draft in the hangar and he hoped this did not mean some unguarded opening to Pandora’s dangerous exterior. He was unarmed and alone here except for perimeter guards at the ground-level hatches, and a watchman off somewhere brewing tea. Thomas could smell it faintly—a familiar thing but marked by the subtle differences of Pandoran chemistry.
Am I being set up to go the way Rachel Demarest went?
He was a doubting man but there was no doubt in his mind about the way of Rachel’s passing. It had been too convenient, the timing too good.
Who could question it, though?
Such things happened every day on perimeter patrol. Colony had a number for this attrition: one in seventy. It was like losses in a war. Soldiers knew. Except that most Shipmen appeared to know very little about war in the historic sense.
They knew soldiering, though.
He sniffed.
A faintly sweet undertone of native lubricants drifted on the air. This made him acutely aware of how grudgingly this planet gave up any of its substance to Colony. He had seen the reports—just cutting in the wells for those lubricants had cost them one life for every six diurns. And there was a general reluctance to go for cloned replacements—an unexplainable reluctance.
Fewer and fewer clones around, except out at that mysterious project on Dragon.
What was Lewis doing out there?
Why the growing split between clones and naturals? Was it something about being groundside?
We originated on a planet.
Was there some atavistic memory at work here?
Why don’t You answer me, Ship?
When you need to know, you will know without asking.
Typical Ship answer!
What did Oakes mean by new clones? Are You helping him on that project, Ship? Are these new clones Your project?
Who helped you make Me, Devil?
Thomas felt his throat go dry. There had been barbs in that response. He glanced at the sub suspended off to his left. Quite suddenly, he saw it as representing a fragile and foolish venture. Sub and LTA had been shaped to simulate a hylighter carrying its characteristic rock ballast. No matter that the sub did not look much like rock.
I should be out preaching Ship’s demand instead of risking my ancient flesh on this venture.
But Ship had given him no stature for this game, no platform upon which to stand.
How will you WorShip?
No matter the different ways Ship phrased the question, it came out the same.
Who would listen to an unknown, self-proclaimed Ceepee awakened from hyb? He was an admitted clone, member of a minority whose role was being redefined by Oakes.
Talk to the sentient vegetable. Did the kelp have an answer? Ship hinted at it, but refused to say definitely.
That’s for you to discover, Devil.
No help there. No clues on how he could open a conversation with this alien sentience. In the abstract, it was an exciting idea—talk to a life form so different from humankind that few evolutionary parallels could be drawn.
What strange things could we learn from them?
What could the kelp learn from him?
Again, Thomas glanced at his chrono. This delay was getting ridiculous!
Why do I permit it?
By this time Waela will have our poet in her cubby.
A deep sigh shook him.
Processing had released Panille less than an hour before nightside. They delayed him deliberately . . . the way Oakes is delaying now. What did they have in mind?
Waela, if . . .
Could that be the cause of Oakes’ delay? Had Oakes discovered that Waela . . .
Thomas shook his head sharply. Foolish speculation!
He felt cold and exposed waiting here in the hangar, and there was no denying his uneasiness at thoughts of Waela.
Waela and the poet.
Thomas felt torn by his own imagination. He had never before experienced such a powerful physical attraction toward a woman. And there was in his background, dredged up from that ancient conditioning process, a terrifying drive toward possession—private and exclusive possession. He knew this ran directly counter to much of the behavior Ship had allowed . . . or promoted.
Waela . . . Waela . . .
He had to force a mask of distant, deliberate coolness. The delay with Panille could have been the time for preparing him to act against me. They could have been briefing him. It was necessary that Waela become intimate with this poet, peel away his masks and find . . . What?
Panille . . . Pandora . . .
More
of Ship’s doing?
Waela would find out. She had her orders. She must turn this Panille inside out, peer at the center of his being. She would learn and report back to her commander.
Me.
Who obeyed Oakes that way? Lewis, certainly. And Murdoch. And that Legata. What a surprise to find she was the Hamill of Ship’s briefing. Did they set traps the way he had set this one for Panille?
Waela would do it right. It must seem a fortuitous accident to Panille. The right time . . . the right conditions . . .
Dammit! How can I be jealous? I set this up!
He knew he was performing according to Ship’s design. And probably according to Oakes’ design. What was the relationship between Oakes and Ship?
Blasphemous man, Oakes. But Ship allowed the blasphemy. And Oakes might be right.
Thomas had come to suspect more and more that Ship might not be God.
What did we make when we created Ship?
Thomas knew his own hand in that creation. But had there been other, unseen hands in that construction?
Who helped you make Me, Devil?
God or Satan? What did we make?
At this moment, it did not much matter. He was tired in body and emotions and his dominant personal hope was that Panille would see through the sexual trap and defy it. Thomas did not really expect that to happen.
I’m doing Your job to the best of my ability, Ship.
“A function of my Devil is to frustrate good works. Shipmen must extend themselves beyond anything they believe possible.”
Those had been Ship’s words to him.
Why? Because frustration helped us to succeed with Project Consciousness?
Were they only replaying an old theme which had worked once and might work once more?
It occurred to him then that the Moonbase director who had supervised the building and the crew preparations for that original Voidship—old Morgan Hempstead—had served this identical function.
He was our Devil and we knew it. But now I’m Ship’s Devil . . . and best friend.
Thomas found cynical delight in this thought. Being a friend of Ship carried special perils. Oakes might have chosen the better role. Enemy of Ship. Thomas knew his own role, though. Ship chided him with it often enough.
