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“Oakes is a very curious and very private person.”
“How about someone on the staff?”
“Lewis?” Her tone was derisive.
Kerro scratched his cheek reflectively.
“The ’lectrokelp and gene sampling, Hali, I don’t know about the gene sampling . . . that has a peculiar stink to it. But the kelp . . .”
She interrupted, excited: “This creature could have a soul . . . and it could WorShip.”
“A soul? Perhaps. But I thought when I saw that record: ‘Yes! This is why Ship brought us to Pandora.’”
“What if Oakes knows that the ’lectrokelp is the reason we’re here?”
Panille shook his head.
She gripped his arm. “Think of all the times Oakes has called us prisoners of Ship. He tells us often enough that Ship won’t let us leave. Why won’t he tell us why Ship brought us here?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know.”
“Ohhh, he knows.”
“Well, what can we do about it?”
She spoke without thinking: “We can’t do anything without going groundside.”
He pulled his arm away from her and dug his fingers into the humus. “What do we know about living groundside?”
“What do we know about living here?”
“Would you go down to the Colony with me, Hali?”
“You know I would but . . .”
“Then let’s apply for . . .”
“They won’t let me go. The groundside food shortage is critical; there are health problems. They’ve just increased our workload because they’ve sent some of our best people down.”
“We’re probably imagining monsters that don’t exist, but I’d still like to see the ’lectrokelp for myself.”
A high-pitched hum blurted from the ever-present pribox on the ground beside Hali. She pressed the response key.
“Hali . . .” There was a clatter, a buzz. Presently, the voice returned. “Sorry I dropped you. This is Winslow Ferry. Is that Kerro Panille with you, Hali?”
Hali stifled a laugh. The bumbling old fool could not even put in a call without stumbling over something. Kerro was caught by the direct reference to someone being with Hali. Had Ferry been listening? Many shipside suspected that sensors and portable communications equipment had been adapted for eavesdropping but this was his first direct clue. He took the pribox from her.
“This is Kerro Panille.”
“Ahhh, Kerro. Please report to my office within the hour. We have an assignment for you.”
“An assignment?”
There was no response. The connection had been broken.
“What do you suppose that’s all about?” Hali asked.
For answer, Kerro drew a blank page from his notebook, scribbled on it with a fade-stylus, then pointed to the pribox. “He was listening to us.”
She stared at the note.
Kerro said: “Isn’t that strange? I’ve never had an assignment before . . . except study assignments from Ship.”
Hali took the stylus from him, wrote: “Look out. If they do not want it known that the kelp thinks, you could be in danger.”
Kerro stood, blanked the page and restored it to his case. “Guess I’d better wander down to Ferry’s office and find out what’s happening.”
They walked most of the way back in silence, intensely aware of every sensor they passed, of the pribox at Hali’s hip. As they approached Medical, she stopped him.
“Kerro, teach me how to speak to Ship.”
“Can’t.”
“But . . .”
“It’s like your genotype or your color. Except for certain clones, you don’t get much choice in the matter.”
“Ship has to decide?”
“Isn’t that always the way, even with you? Do you respond to everyone who wants to talk to you?”
“Well, I know Ship must be very busy with . . .”
“I don’t think that has anything to do with it. Ship either speaks to you or doesn’t.”
She digested this for a moment, nodded, then: “Kerro, do you really talk to Ship?”
There was no mistaking the resentment in her voice.
“You know I wouldn’t lie to you, Hali. Why’re you so interested in talking to Ship?”
“It’s the idea of Ship answering you. Not the commands we get over the ‘coders, but . . .”
“A kind of unlimited encyclopedia?”
“That, yes, but more. Does Ship talk to you through the ‘coders?”
“Not very often.”
“What is it like when . . .”
“It’s like a very distinctive voice in your head, just a bit clearer than your conscience.”
“That’s it?” She sounded disappointed.
“What did you expect? Trumpets and bells?”
“I don’t even know what my conscience sounds like!”
“Keep listening.” He brushed a finger against her ring, kissed her quickly, brotherly, then stepped through the hatch into the screening area for Ferry’s office.
Chapter 9
The fearful are often holders of the most dangerous power. They become demoniac when they see the workings of all the life around them. Seeing the strengths as well as the weaknesses, they fasten only on the weaknesses.
—Shipquotes
WINSLOW FERRY sat in his dimly lighted office unaware of the random chaos around him—the piles of tapes and software, the dirty clothes, the empty bottles and boxes, the papers with scribbled notes to himself. It had been a long, tense dayside for him, and the place smelled of stale, spilled wine and old perspiration. His entire attention focused on the sensor screen at the corner of his comdesk. He bent his sweaty face close to the screen which showed Panille walking down a passageway with that lithe and succulent med-tech, Hali Ekel.
A wisp of gray hair fell over his right eye and he brushed it aside with a deeply veined hand. His pale eyes glittered in the com light.
