The Pandora Sequence: The Jesus Incident, the Lazarus Effect, the Ascension Factor (11 page)

Ship’s history was cloudy with migrations and hints at a paradise planet somewhere awaiting humankind.

But Ferry was revealed as one of the doubters, one who questioned Ship’s version of history. Such doubts thrived because Ship did not censure them. The only time Panille had referred to the doubts, Ship had responded clearly and with a creative style to inspire a poet.

“What is the purpose of doubts, Panille?”

“To test data.”

“Can you test this historical data with your doubts?”

That required thought and Panille answered after a long pause. “You are my only source.”

“Have I ever given you false data?”

“I’ve found no falsehoods.”

“Does that silence these doubts?”

“No.”

“Then what can you do with such doubts?”

That involved more careful thought and a longer pause before answering. “I put them aside until a moment arrives when they may be tested.”

“Does that change your relationship with Me?”

“Relationships change constantly.”

“Ahhh, I cherish the company of poets.”

Panille was shaken out of this memory by the realization that Ferry had spoken to him several times.

“I said, ‘Wha’s’s?”

Panille looked at the object in Ferry’s hand.

“It was my mother’s comb.”

“The stuff! The material?”

“Tortoise shell. It came from Earth.”

There was no mistaking the avaricious glint in Ferry’s eyes. “Well . . . I dunno about this.”

“It’s a keepsake from my mother, one of the few things I have left. If you take it I’ll lodge a formal complaint with Ship.”

Ferry betrayed definite anger, his eyes squinted, his hand trembled with the comb. But his gaze strayed to the silver net. He knew the stories about this poet; this one talked to the ship in the quiet of the night and the ship answered.

Once more, Ferry made a notation within the shielded secrecy of his com-console, then delivered himself of his longest speech: “You’re assigned groundside to Waela TaoLini and it serves you right. There’s a freighter waiting in Fifty-B. Take it. She’ll meet you groundside.”

Panille stuffed his belongings back into the bag while Ferry watched with growing amusement.
Did he take something while I was daydreaming?
Panille wondered. He preferred the man’s anger to his amusement but there was no way to take everything out of the bag once more to check it. No way.
What had happened to the people around Oakes?
Panille had never seen such slyness and greed in a Shipman. And the smell of that stuff on his breath! Dead flowers. Panille sealed the bag.

“Go on, they’re waiting,” Ferry said. “Don’t waste our time.”

Panille heard the hatch open once more behind him. He could feel Ferry’s gaze on him all the way out of the reception room.

Waela TaoLini?
He had never heard the name before. Then:
Serve me right?

Chapter 20

Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. You shall repent of the injuries you inflict

—Frankenstein’s Monster Speaks,
Shiprecords

OAKES SAT in shadows watching the holographic replay. He was nervous and irritated. Where was Lewis?

Behind him and slightly to his left stood Legata Hamill. The dim glow of the projector underlighted their features. Both of them stared intently at the action in the holofocus.

The scene holding their attention revealed the main finger passage behind Shipbay Nineteen and leading out to one of the treedomes. Kerro Panille accompanied by Hali Ekel walked toward the pickup which had caught the scene. The treedome could be glimpsed in the background framed by the end of the passage. Ekel carried her pribox over one shoulder, its harness held loosely by her right hand. Panille wore a recorder at his hip and a small bag from which protruded notepad and stylus. He was dressed in a white one-piece which set off his long hair and beard. The hair was bound in a golden ring, plaited and with the tip draped down his chest on the left. Issue boots covered his feet.

Oakes studied each detail carefully.

“This is the young man of Ferry’s report?”

“The same.”

The rich contralto of Legata’s voice distracted Oakes and he was a few blinks replying. During that time, Panille and Ekel walked from the range of one sensor and into the range of another. The holographic point-of-view shifted.

“They seem a little nervous,” he said. “I wish I knew what they wrote on that pad.”

“Love notes.”

“But why write them if . . .”

“He’s a poet.”

“And she is not a poet. What’s more, he resists her sexual advances. I don’t understand that. She appears quite pneumatic, eminently couchable.”

“Do you want him picked up and the notepad examined?”

“No! We must move with discretion and subtlety. Damn! Where is Lewis?”

“Still incommunicado.”

“Damn him!”

“His assistants now say Lewis is occupied with a special problem.”

Oakes nodded. Special problem. That was their private code for something which could not be discussed in the clear. No telling who might eavesdrop. Were the neck pellets then no longer immune to spying?

Panille and Ekel had stopped near the hatch to Ferry’s office in Medical.

Oakes tried to remember all the times he had seen this young man shipside. Panille had not invited much interest until it had become clear that he really might be talking to the ship. Then that order from the ship for Panille to be sent groundside!

Why does the ship want him groundside?

A poet! What use could there be for a poet?
Oakes decided that he really did not believe Panille talked to the ship.

But the ship, and possibly that Raja Thomas, wanted Panille groundside.

Why?

He turned the question over and found no shadow.

“You’re sure the request for Panille came from the ship?” he asked.

“It’s been six diurns since the request . . . and it didn’t read like a request to me; it read like an order.”

“But from the ship, you’re certain?”

“As certain as you can be of anything.” The irritation in her voice bordered on insubordination. “I used your code and made the complete cross-check. Everything scans.”

Oakes sighed.

Why Panille?

Perhaps more attention should have been paid to the poet. He was one of the originals from Earthside. Have to dig deeper into his past. That was obvious.

The scene in the holofocus showed Panille and Ekel parting. Panille turned and they had a view of his back—a wide and muscular back, Legata noted. She called this to Oakes’ attention.

“Do you find him attractive, Legata?”

“I merely point out that he’s not some dainty flower-sniffer.”

“Mmmmmm.”

Oakes was intensely conscious of the musky odor coming from Legata. She had a magnificently proportioned body which she had kept from him so far. But Oakes knew himself to be a patient man. Patient and persistent.

Panille was entering the hatch to Ferry’s office. Oakes slapped the switch to stop the replay, leaving the carrier light still glowing. He did not care to have another run through that scene with Ferry. Stupid, bumbling old fool!

Oakes glanced at Legata with only the barest turning of his head. Magnificent. She often presented a vapid mask but Oakes saw the consistent brilliance in her work. Few people knew that she was shockingly strong, a mutation. She concealed an extraordinary musculature under that smooth warm skin. He found this idea exciting. She was known shipwide as a history fanatic who frequently begged Records for style displays to copy in her clothing. Currently, she wore a short toga which exposed most of her right breast. The light fabric hung precariously from her nipple. Oakes felt the pulse of her strength, even there.

Taunting me?

“Tell me why the ship wants a poet groundside,” he said.

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

“We can guess.”

“It may be a very simple and open thing—communication with the ’lectro. . . .”

“Nothing the ship does is open and simple! And do not use that high-sounding term with me. It’s kelp, nothing but kelp. And it’s a damned nuisance.”

She cleared her throat, the first sign of nervousness that Oakes had detected in her. He found this pleasing. Yes . . . she would be ready for the Scream Room soon.

“There’s still Thomas,” she said, “perhaps he can. . . .”

“You are not to question him about Panille.”

She was startled. “You’re satisfied with the answers he gave you?”

“I am satisfied that he’s too much for you to handle.”

“I think you’re overly suspicious,” she said.

“With this ship you cannot be too suspicious. You suspect everything and know you’ll miss something.”

“But they’re just two. . . .”

“The ship ordered this.” There was a long pause while Oakes continued to stare up at her. “Your term: order. Is that not so?”

“As far as we can determine.”

“Do you have any indication, even a faint hint, that Thomas and not the ship initiated this?”

“There’s only one order from Ship adding this . . . this Panille to the Colony roster.”

“You hesitated over his name.”

“It slipped my mind!”

Now she was nervous and angry. Oakes found himself enjoying that very much. This Legata Hamill had potential. She would have to be broken of that habit, however, saying Ship rather than the ship.

“You don’t find the poet attractive?”

“Not particularly.”

The fingers of her left hand twisted a comer of her toga.

“And there’s no record of communication between Thomas and the ship?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t find that odd?”

“What do you mean?”

“Thomas had to come from hyb. Who ordered it? Who briefed him?”

“There’s no record of any such communication.”

“How could there be no record of something we know took place?”

Now fear edged her anger. “I don’t know!”

“Haven’t I warned you to suspect everything?”

“Yes! You tell me to suspect everyone!”

“Good . . . very good.”

He turned back to face the light of the empty holofocus.

“Now, go and look some more. Perhaps there’s something you’ve missed.”

“Do you know of something I’ve missed?”

“That’s for you to find out, my dear!”

He listened to the whisk-whisk of her clothing as she hurried from the room. There was a brief flare of light from the outer passage as she opened the hatch, then shadows once more and she was gone.

Oakes switched from replay to real-time and coded in the passage pickups to follow her progress as she took the turn to Records. He switched from pickup to pickup, watching until she sat down at a scandesk in the command level of Records and called for the information she wanted. Oakes checked the readouts. She was asking for any messages between the ship and Pandora, all references to Raja Thomas and Kerro Panille. She did not overlook Hali Ekel.

Good.

Her next step would be to use some of Lewis’ people for actual surveillance. Oakes knew she already had scanned the Records data once, but now she would look even harder, seeking codes or other subterfuge. At least, he hoped that was her intent. If the secret were there, she could find it. She simply needed to be challenged, driven, goaded into it.

Suspect everything and everyone.

He shut down the holo and scowled at the darkness. Soon, very soon, he would have to go groundside for good. No returning to the dangerous confines of the ship. Pandora was dangerous enough, but the need for his own hole, a nest where he could not be watched by the ship increased with terrifying speed. This mechanical monster! He knew it followed every move he made shipside. It’s what I would do.

There were some who thought the ship’s influence extended farther. But the Redoubt would solve all of that. Provided Lewis had not failed him. No . . . no chance of that. This long silence from Lewis had to be some internal problem with the clones. There were too many fail-safe signals for real disasters. None of the signals had been activated. Something else was happening down at the Redoubt. Perhaps Lewis is preparing a pleasant surprise for me. Just like him.

Oakes smiled to himself, nursing the privacy of his innermost thoughts.
You do not know what I plan, Mechanical Monster. I have plans for you.

He had plans for Pandora, too, big plans. And the ship was no part of them. Other plans for Legata. She would have to go to the Scream Room soon. Yes. She had to be made more trustworthy.

Chapter 21

Nostalgia represents an interesting illusion. Through nostalgia, humans wish for things that never were. The positive memory is the one that sticks. Over several generations, the positive memory tends to weed out more and more of what really existed, refining down to a distillation of haunted desires.

—Shipquotes

FOR THE first time, Waela considered refusing an assignment. Not out of fear—she had survived in the research subs where no one else had, and still she accepted the fact that this project must continue at all costs. Beyond instinct, she knew that the ’lectrokelp was the most important factor in Colony life. Survival.

I’ve been down there and I survived. I should lead the new team.

This thought dominated her awareness as she and Thomas approached the bustle of early dayside activity around the new sub he was having rushed to completion.

Thomas worried her. One blink he seemed like a nice-enough fellow; the next . . . what? His mind appeared to wander.

He hasn’t been out of hyb long enough to handle himself here.

They stopped a few meters from the work perimeter and she stared at what was taking shape under the brilliant lights. All this energy—all those workers. They were like insects intent on a giant egg. She tried to fathom the sense of this thing. It did make a certain sense . . . but a transparent core of plaz? They had always used plasma glass in the subs, but this detachable core constructed entirely of plaz was a new concept. She could see that it was going to be crowded in there and didn’t know if she would like that.

Why Thomas? Why did they put him in charge?

She recalled their walk across the compound and into the LTA hangar. He had been too busy giving orders to her for him to see the telltale shadow-flicker of a Hooded Dasher breaking past the sentries. She had cooked it in mid-leap with a hipshot from her lasgun—and immediately began to shiver when she realized that she had almost left the weapon in her cubby. This perimeter was supposed to be secure, the sentries the best.

Thomas had barely noticed.

“Quick little devils,” he said, calmly. “By the way, there’s a poet coming onto our team from Ship.”

“A poet? But we need. . . .”

“We will get a poet because Ship is sending us a poet.”

“But we asked for . . .”

“I know what we asked for!”

He sounded like a man suppressing his own misgivings.

She said: “Well, we still need a systems engineer for . . .”

“I want you to seduce this poet.”

She had trouble believing what she had heard.

Thomas said: “Your skin’s a regular rainbow when you get upset. Just consider this a team assignment. I’ve seen a holo of the poet. He’s not unattractive in . . .”

“My body is my own!” She glared at him. “And nobody—not you, not Oakes, not Ship, tells me who I will or will not let into my body.”

They were stopped in the compound by then and she was surprised to see his hands up and a grin on his face. She realized that she had instinctively raised her lasgun to focus between his eyes. Without reducing her furious glare, she lowered the gun and holstered it.

“Sorry,” he said. And they resumed their walk toward the hangar. Presently, he asked: “How important is the kelp team to you?”

He should know that! Everyone knew, and since Thomas had been groundside he had shown an amazing ability to seek out critical information.

“It’s everything to me.”

Words began to pour from him. He wanted to know if Panille was a free agent. Was Panille really sent by Ship? Could Panille be working for Oakes or this Lewis people mentioned in such fearful tones. Who? Who? Doubts—a cascade of doubts.

But why the hell should she have to seduce Panille to find out? There was no satisfaction in the answer Thomas gave.

“You have to get through all of Panille’s barriers, all of his masks.”

Damn!

“Just how important is this project to you?” Thomas demanded.

“It’s vital . . . not just to me but to the entire Colony.”

“Of course it is. That’s why you must seduce this poet. If he’s to be a working member of this very bizarre team, there are things we must know about him.”

“And a hold we must have on him!”

“There’s no other way.”

“Pull his records if you want to know whether he prefers women. I will not . . .”

“That’s not my question and you know it! You will not refuse my orders and remain on this team!”

“I can’t even question the wisdom of your decisions?”

“Ship sent me. There is no higher authority. And there are things I must know for this project to succeed.”

She could not deny the intensity of his emotions, but . . .

“Waela, you’re right that the project’s vital. We can’t play with time as we play here with words.”

“And I have nothing to say about the team?” She was close to tears and did not care that it showed.

“You have a . . .”

“After all I’ve been through? I watched them all die! All of them! That buys me some say in how this team goes, or it buys me the R & R I can collect shipside. You name it.”

Thomas, aware of the deepening flush in her skin, felt the intensity of her presence. Such a quick and perceptive person. He felt himself giving over to feelings he had not experienced in eons.

It’s been Shipcenturies!

He spoke softly: “We consult, we share data. But all key decisions are mine and final. If that had been the case all along, this project would not have been botched.”

Waela keyed the hangar door and they stepped inside to the brilliant focus of lights and activity, the noise and smell of torches. She put a hand on his arm to stop him. How thin and wiry he felt!

“How will seducing the poet make our mission succeed?”

“I’ve told you. Get to the heart of him.”

She stared across at the activity around the new sub. “And replacing the plasteel with plaz . . .”

“No single thing will make it for us. We’re a team.” He glanced down at her. “And we’re going in by air.”

“By . . .” Then she saw the stranded cables reaching up and out of the brilliant illumination into the upper shadows of the hangar—a gigantic LTA partly inflated there. The sub was being fitted to a Lighter-Than-Air in place of the usual armored gondola.

“But why . . .”

“Because the kelp has been strangling our subs.”

She thought back to her own survival from a doomed sub—the writhing kelp near the shore, the bubble escape, her frantic swim to the rocks and the near-miraculous dive of the observation LTA which had plucked her away from predators.

As though he read her thoughts, Thomas said: “You’ve seen it yourself. At our first briefing, you said you believed the kelp to be sentient.”

“It is.”

“Those subs did not just get tangled. They were snatched.”

She considered this. On every lost mission where they had the data, they knew that the sub had been destroyed shortly after collecting samples.

Could the kelp think we were attacking?

Her own reasoning made this possible. If the kelp is sentient . . . Yes, it would have an external sensory matrix to respond to pain. Not blind writhing, but sentient response.

Thomas spoke in a flat voice: “The kelp is not an insensitive vegetable.”

“I’ve said all along that we should be attempting to communicate with it.”

“And so we shall.”

“Then what difference does it make whether we drop in or dive in from shoreside? We’re still there.”

“We go by lagoon.”

Thomas moved closer to the work, bending to inspect a line of welds along the plaz. “Good work; good work,” he muttered. The welds were almost invisible. When the conversion was complete, the occupants would have close to three hundred and sixty degrees of visibility.

“Lagoons?” Waela asked as he stepped back.

“Yes. Isn’t that what you call those vertical tunnels of open water ?”

“Certainly, but . . .”

“We will be surrounded by the kelp, actually helpless if it wants to attack. But we will not touch it. This sub is being fitted to play back the kelplights—to record the patterns and play them back.”

Again, he was making sense.

Thomas continued to speak as he watched the work: “We can approach a perimeter of kelp without making physical contact. As you’ve seen, when we go in from shore, that’s impossible. Not sufficient room between the kelp strands.”

She nodded her head slowly. There were many unanswered questions about this plan, but she could see the pattern of it.

“Subs are too unwieldy,” he said, “but they’re all we’ve got. We must find a sufficiently large pocket of open water, drop into it and anchor. Then we dive and study the kelp.”

It sounded perilous but possible. And that idea of playing back the kelplights to the kelp: She had seen those coherent patterns herself, sometimes repetitive. Was that the way the kelp communicated?

Maybe Thomas really was chosen by Ship.

She heard him mutter something. Thomas was the only man she knew who talked to himself more or less constantly. He faded in and out of conversations. You could never be sure whether he had been thinking aloud or talking to you.

“What?”

“The plaz. Not as strong as plasteel. We had to do some buttressing inside. Makes things much more crowded than you might expect.”

He moved through a group of workers to speak to their foreman, a low-voiced conversation which came through to her only in bits: “. . . then if you lattice the . . . and I’ll want . . . where we . . .”

Presently, he returned to her side. “My design isn’t as good as it might be, but it’ll suffice.”

So he has his little mistakes but he doesn’t hide them.

She had heard a few snatches of talk among the workers. They stood a bit in awe of Thomas. The man showed a surprising ability at their work, no matter what the work—plaz welding, control design . . . He was a jack of all trades.

Master of none?

She sensed that this was a difficult man to influence: a fearsome enemy, that one friend who does not mirror but mocks when mockery is needed.

This recognition increased her uneasiness. She knew she could like this man, but she felt bad vibrations about the team . . . and it wasn’t even a team yet.

And the sub will be crowded even with three of us.

She closed her eyes.

Should I tell him?

She had never told anyone, not in the debriefings, nor in friendly conversation. The kelp had a special hold over her. It was a thing that began happening as soon as the sub started slipping through the gigantic stems and tentacles: a sexual excitement very nearly impossible to control at times. Absurdity, in fact. She had managed a form of balance by hyperventilating but it remained troublesome and sometimes reduced her efficiency. When that happened, though, the shock of it cleared the effect.

Her old teammates had thought the hyperventilating a response to fear, a way of overcoming the terrors all of them felt and suppressed. And now they were all dead—nobody left to hear her confession.

The closeness, the strange sexual air that had taken over the background of the project—the unknowns in Thomas—all frustrated her. She had thought of taking Anti-s to relieve the sexual tensions, but Anti-s made her drowsy and slowed her reflexes. Deadly.

Thomas stood beside her, silently observing the work. She could almost see him making mental notes for changes. There were gears turning in his head.

“Why me?” she muttered.

“What?” He turned toward her.

“Why me? Why do I have to take on this poet?”

“I’ve told you what . . .”

“There are women paid well to do just what you . . .”

“I won’t pay for this. It’s a project thing, vital. Your own word. You will do it.”

She turned her back on him.

Thomas sighed. This Waela TaoLini was an extraordinary person. He hated what he had asked her to do, but she was the only one he could trust. The project was that vital to her, too. Panille posed too many unanswered questions. Ship’s words were plain and simple: “There will be a poet . . .” Not: “I have named a poet,” or, “I have assigned a poet . . .”

There will be . . .

Who was Panille working for? Doubts . . . doubts . . . doubts . . .

I have to know.

By the old rush in his veins, he already knew that Waela would follow his orders, and he would sink into a sadness the likes of which he had almost forgotten.

“Old fool,” he muttered to himself.

“What?” She turned back toward him and he could see the acceptance and the resolve on her face.

“Nothing.”

She stood facing Thomas a moment, then: “It all depends on how much I like the poet.” With that, she turned on her heel and left the hangar with characteristic Pandoran speed.