The Pandora Sequence: The Jesus Incident, the Lazarus Effect, the Ascension Factor (25 page)

What did the Hill of Skulls and the passion of Jesus have to do with these lights flickering in a sea?

Thomas stared at the screen in front of him. What was he supposed to see here?

Aquaculture?

Would Shipmen be forced to exterminate the kelp? Crucify it for their own survival?

Christmas and aquaculture . . .

The play of lights was hypnotic. He felt the silent wonder of watchfulness throughout the command gondola. A sense of revelatory awe crept over him. Here on the bottom was the record of Pandora’s budget, all the transactions which the planet’s life had made. This was more than the bourse, it was the deposit vault where Pandora’s grand geochemical and biochemical circuit of exchange lay open to view.

What do you here, mighty kelp?

Was this what Ship wanted them to see?

He did not expect Ship to answer that question. Such an answer did not fit into the rules of this game. He was on his own down here.

Play the game, Devil.

The pressure of the water around their gondola filled his awareness. They remained here by the sufferance of the kelp. By the kelp’s own tolerance could they survive. Others had come into this sea and survived by careful restraint. What might the kelp interpret as a threat? Those jeweled blinkings in the gloom took on a malevolent aspect to him then.

We trust too much.

In the silence of his fears, Panille’s voice came as a jarring intrusion.

“We’re beginning to get some pattern indicators.”

Thomas shot a glance at the recording board to the left of his console. The load-sensors indicated preparation for playback. This would control the sub’s exterior bubbles to replay any light patterns which the computer counted as repetitive and significant. Any such patterns would be played to the kelp.

“See! Now, we talk to you. What are we saying?”

That would catch its attention. But what would it do?

“The kelp’s watching us,” Panille said. “Can’t you feel it?”

Thomas found himself in silent agreement. The kelp around them was watching and waiting. He felt like the child of that faraway day at Moonbase when he had entered the crèche school for the first time. There was a truth revealed here which most educators ignored:
You could learn dangerous things.

“If it’s watching us, where are its eyes?” Waela whispered.

Thomas thought this a nonsense question. The kelp could possess senses which Shipmen had never imagined. You might just as well ask about Ship’s eyes. But he could not deny that sense of watchfulness around the sub. The presence which the kelp projected onto the intruders was an almost palpable thing.

The recorder buzzed beside him and he saw the green lights which signaled the shift to replay. Now, the extruded bubbles on the carrier surface were playing back something, he had no idea what. Exterior sensors revealed only a glow of many colors reflecting off particles in the water.

He could see no discernible change in the light play from the kelp.

“Ignoring us.” That was Waela.

“Too soon to say,” Panille objected. “What’s the response time of the kelp? Or maybe we’re not even speaking to it yet.”

“Try the pattern display,” Waela said.

Thomas nodded, punched for the prepared program. This had been the alternate approach. The small screen above the recorder board began to show what was being displayed on the sub’s hull: first Pythagorean squares, then the counting of the sticks, the galactic spiral, the pebble game . . .

No response from the kelp,

The dim shapes of swimmers among the kelp did not change their movements dramatically. All appeared to be the same.

Waela, studying her own screens, asked: “Am I mistaken or are the lights brighter?”

“A bit brighter perhaps,” Thomas said.

“They are brighter,” Panille said. “It seems to me that the water is . . . murkier. If . . . Look at the anchor cable!”

Thomas flicked to the view Panille’s screen displayed, saw the sensors signaling the approach of some large object from above.

“The cable’s gone slack,” Waela said. “It’s sinking!”

As she spoke, they all saw the first remnants of the LTA bag settling around them into the range of the dive lights—dull orange reflections from the fabric, black edges. It pulled a curtain over the bubble dome above them. This disturbed the creatures among the kelp and ignited a wild flickering in the kelp lights which vanished as the curtain settled around the sub.

“Lightning hit the bag,” Waela said. “It . . .”

“Stand by to drop the carrier and blow all tanks,” Thomas said. He reached for the controls, fighting to suppress panic.

“Wait!” Panille called. “Wait for all of the bag to settle. We could be trapped in it, but the sub can cut a way through it.”

I should’ve thought of that,
Thomas thought.
The bag could trap us down here.

Chapter 42

Hittite law emphasized restitution rather than revenge. Humankind lost a certain useful practicality when it chose the other Semitic response—never to forgive and never to forget.

—Lost People,
Shiprecords

LEGATA SAT back, her whole body shaking and trembling. She could tell by the flickering cursor on the com-console that it was almost dayside. Familiar activities soon would begin out in Ship’s corridors—familiar but with a feeling of sparseness because of the diminished crew. She had kept illumination low during nightside, wanting no distractions from the holorecord playing at the focus in front of Oakes’ old divan.

Her gaze lifted and she saw the mandala she had copied for Oakes’ quarters at the Redoubt. Looking at the patterns helped restore her, but she saw that her hands still shook.

Fatigue, rage or disgust?

It required a conscious effort to still the trembling. Knots of tension remained in her muscles, and she knew it would be dangerous for Oakes to walk into his old cubby right now.

I’d strangle him.

No reason for Oakes to come shipside now. He was permanently groundside.

The prisoner of his terrors.

As I was . . . until . . .

She took a deep, clear breath. Yes, she was free of the Scream Room.

It happened, but I am here now.

What to do about Oakes? Humiliation. That had to be the response. Not physical destruction, but humiliation. A particular humiliation. It would have to be at once political and sexual. Something more than embarrassment. Something he might think of to do against someone else. The sexual part was easy enough; that was no challenge to a woman of her beauty and genius. But the politics . . .

Should I conceal the evidence that I’ve seen this holo?

Save that information for the proper moment.

That was a good thought. Trust her own inspiration. She keyed the com-console and typed in: SHIPRECORDS EYES ONLY LEGATA HAMILL. Then the little addition which she had discovered for herself: SCRAMBLE IN OX.

There. No matter who thought to search for such a datum, it would be lost in that strange computer which she had discovered in one of her history hunts.

I’ll stay shipside this diurn.
She would not feel well. That would be the message to Oakes. He would grant her a rest period without question. She would spend her time here pulling every trick of computer wizardry she could to get the complete record on Morgan Oakes.

Political humiliation. Political and sexual. That had to be the way of it.

Perhaps that other Ceepee brought out of hyb, that Thomas, might hold a clue. Something in the way he looked at Oakes . . . as though he saw an old acquaintance in a new role . . .

And she owed a debt to Thomas. Strange that he should be the only one to know she had run the P. He had kept the secret without being asked . . . or asking. Rare discretion.

She had no thought of fatigue now. There was food shipside when she needed it. The power of Oakes’ position made that no problem. She sent her message to Oakes groundside, turned to the console.

Somewhere in the records there would be a useful fact or two. Something Oakes had hidden or that he did not even know about himself—perhaps something he had done and did not want revealed. He was good at this concealment game but she knew herself to be better at it.

She began at the main computer—Ship’s major interface with Shipmen.

Would it take fancy programming? A painstaking search through coded relationships which could hide bits of data far in the recesses of offshoot circuitry such as that Ox gate? How about the Ox gate? She hid things there, but had never asked it about Oakes.

She tapped out a test routine, keyed it and waited.

Presently, data began flowing across the small screen on the console. She stared. That simple? It was as though the material were waiting for her to ask. As though someone had prepared a bio for her to discover. Everything she needed was there—facts and figures.

“Suspect everyone,” Oakes had said. “Trust no one.”

And here he was being proved right beyond his wildest fears. The text kept rolling out. She backed it up, keyed for printout, and set it in motion once more.

The heading of the record was the most surprising thing of all.

MORGAN LON OAKES.

Cloned. Raised, as he would put it, “like a common vegetable.” Out of the axolotl tanks and into an Earthside womb.

Why?

There it was even as she asked. “To conceal the fact that it could be done, the birth was made to appear natural.”

It was a feat of politics worthy of Ship . . . or Oakes. Did he know? How could he know? She stopped the printout and asked who else had called up this data.

“Ship.”

It was an answer she had never before seen. Ship had worked with this data. Fearfully, she asked why Ship had called up the bio on Oakes.

“To store it in a special record for Kerro Panille should he ever desire to write a history.”

She pulled her hands away from the keys.
Am I talking to Ship?

Panille was one of those who said he talked to Ship. Not one of the fools, then.

Am I a fool?

She found herself more fearful of this discovery than she had been of the Scream Room. Ship dealt in powers far beyond those of Oakes and Lewis and Murdoch. She glanced around the enlarged cubby—pretentious damned place. Her gaze fell on the mandala. He had taken the movable hangings. The mystical design lay exposed against a bare metal bulkhead of silvery gray. It appeared lifeless to her, robbed of some original breath.

I’m not worthy of talking to Ship.

This had been an accident . . . a dangerous accident. Hesitantly, she started the Oakes bio printing once more. Words again flowed across the screen and the printer rattled with its text.

Legata heaved a deep sigh of relief. Perilous ground. But she had escaped.

This time.

She felt that something strange was happening, some new program awakening in Ship. It was a feeling in her shoulder blades. Something even more awesome might happen and she was right in the middle of it.

Her attention returned to the Oakes bio. That had been a time of great scurrying about Earthside, great secrets. Salvation and survival—whatever the label—the arrival of Ship and the desperation of doomed people.

Desperation breeds extremes if nothing else.

“Legata.”

It was Oakes calling her name and she felt her heart skip a beat. But it was the console override. He was calling her from groundside.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“My job.”

She glanced at the com-console telltales to see if he could find out what she was reading. It was still blocked by the Ox gate.

He recognized the sound of the printer, though.

“What are you printing out?”

“Some data you’ll find interesting.”

“Ahhhh, yes.”

She could almost see his mind working on this. Legata had something she would not trust to the open channels between Ship and ground. She would show it to him, though. It must be interesting.

I’ll have to find something juicy,
she thought.
Something about Ferry. That’s why I’m here.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I’ve been expecting you groundside.”

“I’m not feeling well. Didn’t you get my signal?”

“Yes, my dear, but we have urgent matters demanding our attention.”

“But it’s not full dayside yet, Morgan. I couldn’t sleep and I still have work here.”

“Is everything all right?”

“Just busy,” she said.

“This cannot wait. We need you.
^,;

“Very well. I’m coming down.”

“Wait for me at the Redoubt.”

At the Redoubt!

He broke the connection and it was only then that she realized he had spoken of needing her. Was that possible? Alliance or love? She did not think there was much room for love in the convoluted patterns of Morgan Oakes.

Sooner expect Lewis to start raising a pet Runner.

Either way, Oakes wanted her presence. That gave her a wedge into the power she needed. Something still nagged at her, though—the one fear above all other:
What if he does love me?

Once, she had thought she wanted him to love her. There was no question that he was the most interesting man she had ever met. Unpredictably terrifying, but interesting. There was much to be said for that.

Will I destroy him?

The printer finished producing the Oakes bio. She folded it, crossed to the mandala looking for a place to conceal the thick wad of Shipscript. The mandala was fixed solidly to the bulkhead. She turned and glanced around the cubby.
Where to hide this?

Do I need to hide it?

Yes. Until the right moment

The divan? She crossed to the divan and knelt beside it. The thing was fixed to the deck by bolts. Could she call a serviceman? No . . . she didn’t dare let anyone suspect what she was doing. Gritting her teeth, she put two fingers on a bolt and twisted. The bolt turned.

Strength has its purposes!

The bolts removed, she lifted the end of the divan.
My! It was heavy.
She doubted that three men could lift it. She slipped the text under the divan, restored the bolts, twisting them tight.

Now for something juicy about Win Ferry.

She stood up and returned to the console. Ferry gave her no difficulty either. He practiced no discretion whatsoever.

Poor old fool! I’m going to destroy Oakes for you, Win.

No! Don’t trick yourself into nobility. You’re doing it on your own and for yourself. Let’s keep love and the glory of others out of it.