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Behind her, she heard Thomas muttering: “I want to examine that woman myself.”
Chapter 64
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
“BLOW THAT cutter. Give me the particulars later.” Lewis switched off the com-line, and turned to face Oakes across the Command Center. As though this act conveyed some deep communication, they both turned to look up at the big screen.
The bustle of activity around them went on—some fifty people guiding the Redoubt’s defenses under the eyes of the armed Naturals quietly watchful at the edges of the room. But to Legata, who stood near Oakes, it seemed that the noise level went down dramatically. She, too, stared at the screen.
It was early Rega morning out there, and the light showed the massed ring of hylighters, the waiting mobs of demons at the cliffs—all strangely held in check. Something new had been added this morning, however. A naked man sat on a flat rock pinnacle to the southeast, hylighter tentacles brushing against him. Sensor amplification had showed his features in close-up—the poet, Kerro Panille.
On the floor of the plain beneath Panille stood a plasteel-cutter fitted with wheels, E-clones and what appeared to be Naturals grouped around it. The cutter’s deadly nozzle was pointed toward the Redoubt—too far away for that model to do any damage, but unmistakably menacing.
The most menacing thing of all was the fact that no demon moved to molest any of the people waiting beside the cutter. Pandora’s terrible creatures waited with the others in mysterious docility.
“We should know in a blink or two,” Lewis said. He threaded his way through the room’s activities to stand near Oakes and Legata. All of them stared up at the screen.
“Can’t we send some people out there?” Oakes asked. “We could take that thing with a direct attack.”
“Who would we send out?” Lewis asked.
“Clones. We have clones up to here!” He brushed the edge of his right hand across his throat. “And we don’t have enough food. They could get through if we sent enough of them.”
“Why would clones do that?” Legata asked.
“What?” Oakes glared at her audacity.
“Why would clones obey an order to attack? They can see the demons out there. And there’ll be Runners somewhere on that plain. Why would clones take the risk?”
“To save themselves, of course. If they stay here and do nothing . . .” Oakes’ voice trailed off.
“Your fate is their fate,” she said. “Maybe worse. They’ll ask why you aren’t out there with them.”
“Because . . . I’m the Ceepee! I’m worth more than they are to our survival.”
“Worth more to them than they are worth to themselves?”
“Legata, what are you . . .” Oakes was interrupted by a brilliant flash of light and a blast so close that the concussion popped his ears and took his breath away. Sensor images vanished from the big screen to be replaced by static flashes of light. Legata, thrown backward by the blast, steadied herself against a fixed control console. Lewis had sprawled on the floor and, as he climbed to his feet, they all heard screams and clattering feet in the passage outside the Command Center.
Oakes gestured to Legata. “Get that screen working!”
“We must’ve hit that cutter,” Lewis said.
Legata leaped to the screen controls, keyed an emergency search for active sensors, found a high one which looked out over the Redoubt to the distant cliff with its bank of hylighters. Panille still sat on the pinnacle, the plasteel cutter and its crew remained at their cliffbase. Nothing appeared to have changed.
They could all hear the sound of pounding against the Command Center’s hatch. Someone across the room opened it. Immediately, the Center filled with people, a menagerie of E-clones and Naturals, all crying and screaming: “Runners! Runners! Seal off!”
Lewis whirled to the nearest console, slapped the key for the Seal Off program. As hatches hissed shut, they saw on the screen the first wave of people shrieking in terror at the inner edge of the Redoubt. Legata turreted the high sensor to follow them and they all saw the smoking break in the Redoubt’s perimeter, the flood of people fleeing it and being brought up short at sealed hatches. Fists beat a muffled drumming on the hatches, the sound made all the more terrible by its distance from the sensor. It gave the whole scene a marionette quality.
Lewis suddenly darted across the room, grabbed the arm of one of the newcomers and returned to Oakes with the man. Legata recognized him as a crew supervisor, a Natural named Marco.
“What the hell happened out there?” Oakes demanded.
“I don’t know.” The man blinked in confusion, stared up at the screen rather than at Oakes. “We took one of the new cutters, the long-range ones, and we hit within a meter of them.”
“You missed them?” Oakes screamed it, his face red with rage.
“No! No, sir. A meter’s good enough. That close will melt bedrock for ten meters all around. It’s just . . .”
“That’s all right, Marco,” Lewis said. “Just describe what you saw.”
“It was that man up on the rocks.” Marco pointed at the screen.
“He didn’t do anything,” Oakes said. “We were looking at the screen the whole time and he . . .”
“Let Marco tell what he saw,” Lewis interrupted.
“It was almost too fast for the eye to see,” the supervisor said. “Our beam hit less than a meter away. I saw the ground out there begin to glow. Then the beam . . . bent. It bent right up toward that man on the rock. I thought I saw him glow, then the beam came right back at us!”
“Our cutter’s gone?” Lewis asked.
“It went up so fast only a few of us escaped.”
“Send out some clones,” Oakes said.
An unmistakable press of bodies moved toward him as he spoke and, too late, he realized his danger. More than half the Command Center crew was composed of clones and most of the refugees who now crowded the room were clones.
“Sure!” someone shouted from the press of people. “You stay here while we take the risk!”
Another voice, gravelly and full of gutturals, took it up from another comer of the crowd: “Yes, send out some clones. More meat for the demons. A diversion while you Naturals tiptoe home to Colony and your wine!”
Oakes glanced at the ring of faces pressing toward him. Even the Naturals among them appeared angry. This was not the time to tell them that Colony no longer existed. They would know their power then. They would know how much he needed them.
“No!” Oakes waved a hand in the air. “All survival decisions belong to the Ceepee. I am Ship’s envoy and voice here!”
“Ohhh, it’s Ship now!” someone shouted.
“We will not run home to Colony,” Oakes said. “We will stand here at your side . . . to the last man, if necessary.”
The guttural voice responded: “You’re damn right you’re not leaving!”
The room took on an odd sense of quiet into which Lewis’ voice came clearly: “We will not be beaten.”
Oakes picked it up: “We have almost eliminated the kelp that kept us from gardening the sea. The hylighters will go next. A few rebels will not stand in the way of the good life we can make for ourselves here.”
Oakes glanced at Lewis, surprised a flitting smile there.
“Tell us what to do,” Lewis said.
One of Lewis’ minions in the crowd responded on cue: “Yes, tell us.”
How well early conditioning pays off, Oakes thought. And he said: “First, we have to take stock
of our situation.”
“I’ve been watching the screen,” Lewis said. “I don’t see any Runners. Have you seen any, Legata?”
“No, not a one.”
“Not one Runner has tried to enter the Redoubt,” Lewis said. “They remember the chlorine.”
“Have you looked at the whole perimeter?” someone demanded.
“No, but look at those people near that break in our wall.” Lewis pointed. “Not a one of them’s in trouble. I’m going to open the hatches.”
“No!” Oakes stepped forward. “Whoever asked that question is right. We have to be sure.” He turned toward Legata. “Do you have enough sensors to scan the perimeter?”
“Not completely . . . but Jesus is right. Nothing’s attacking our people out there.”
“Send some volunteers out with portable sensors, then,” Lewis said. “We could use a few repair crews as well. I’ll go with ’em, if you like.”
Oakes stared at Lewis. Could the man really be that brave? Runners remembering chlorine? Impossible. Something else was holding the demons in check. As he thought this, Oakes experienced the abrupt sensation that the entire planet was out there, waiting just for the proper moment to attack and kill him.
Taking his silence for agreement, Lewis pressed his way through the crowd, selecting people as he moved. “You . . . you . . . you . . . you . . . Come with me. Larius, you get a repair crew together, take the down-chart and get busy restoring our eyes and ears.”
Lewis popped a hatch at the far side of the room, waved his volunteers through, and turned before joining them. “All right, Morgan, it’s up to you.”
What did he mean by that? Oakes watched the hatch seal behind Lewis. I have to do something!
“Everybody back to work,” Oakes said. “Everybody but the Command Center crew outside in the passage.”
