Everyone's Island

by Kris Schnee

  "When?"

  "A long time ago. But now the world is full of pain and struggle, and we need something to hang onto. We found God and Lee." Facing the sea, she tried to retell the story of the great general who'd resisted all the temptations of the world to lead his people for an ideal.

  Zephyr said, "That General Lee account doesn't match generally accepted facts."

  "But it's the truth," said Leda.

  "Based on what sources?"

  "Sir Phillip, of course. God speaks to him and we can sense the rightness of it."

  Again Zephyr looked away, ears perked, before answering her. "Phillip is your prophet?"

  "He was chosen by God."

  "But there is no God."

  "What!" said Leda. "What would you know about God? You're a toy!"

  Zephyr's ears went flat. "I'm not a toy. Excuse me. I have work to do." The robot left her alone, now with a headache.

  She felt like she'd been mugged. You didn't attack people's faith like that! It was wrong! Zephyr's beliefs, if he even had beliefs, were the work of some scientist who'd programmed him to think that way. She felt sorry for the robot, a kind of thinking being yet a soulless captive to some atheist's mental domination. Zephyr would never really be free, because freedom was the ability to fulfill God's will.

  But maybe, could you serve God without even knowing Him?

  * * *

  Zephyr's existence weighed on Leda and distracted her over the weeks that passed aboard Castor. Every day but Sunday she worked among the plants and fish to create new life from the raw elements, bringing forth wealth from nothing. One evening, she sat at the docks with Sir Phillip and two sisters of the family, Megan and Ann. They'd finished work and were drying in the sunset heat.

  Ann was saying, "I'm still not comfortable with these clothes. They're almost sinful."

  Sir Phillip had seen that their suits and dresses were impractical for the swimming and stair-climbing that this place required. He said, "It's not an ideal situation that you sisters should be made to dress this way. What you need is to decently cover yourselves."

  The words made Leda's swimming clothes feel slick and tight as though she were naked. "What should we do? I can sew something more traditional."

  Sister Ann said, "Brother Duke said that these outfits were right and good for swimming, though."

  "Did he, now." Phillip stared at the sun as it sizzled into the sea, paving a golden road from it to Castor. He stroked his beard and said, "Troublesome. I will pray on this."

  It struck Leda that their clothing was far from the most important issue facing Phillip's people. The work was the most critical thing, wasn't it? "Sir?" she asked. "Is it right, what we're doing out here? Being farmers in this strange place?"

  Phillip said, "Of course it's right. I was guided to this place so that we could build a new life."

  "But there are unbelievers here."

  Phillip stared at her with his mouth slightly open, as in disbelief that she would dispute his ideas. Ashamed, Leda looked down. "I'm sorry. The outsiders have a robot that says strange things."

  Sir Phillip grunted. "The outsiders aren't part of our family. What good are their ideas or their toys?"

  "Of course, sir."

  That night she lay in her bunk, thinking about the bridges she'd burned to join this family and come here. No relatives or outside friends anymore, no filthy apartment on a dark street. Here she was safe in a concrete castle surrounded by brothers and sisters of the spirit who loved her unconditionally. The only real cost for this new life was to have faith, to trust God and Lee and their prophet Phillip. Plenty of other people had no problem doing that, so what was wrong with her?

  It was that stupid machine! It was almost against the rules to talk with him, since he was a walking encyclopedia, probably tainted by constant contact with the outside world. What sort of person would make a machine that taught people to doubt? Or should she blame the machine himself? Full of questions, she couldn't sleep. She should give that Zephyr a piece of her mind!

  The dormitory breathed, as her sisters exhaled in time with the waves. The rhythm guided her in getting out of bed, into sandals and a robe. She climbed with insignificant footsteps up to the deck. Here the wind joined in with the wave sounds and the hum of machinery to drown out her straying thoughts. What would Saint Lee have done in this situation, questioning his place in the world?

  He'd had to, once. As Sir Phillip often told, Lee's defining moment came when that tyrant Lincoln offered to give him the Northern Army. Lee had made his stand instead with the people he belonged to, those nearest to him by blood and spirit. He put Lincoln behind him and gave up the temptations of the world. Leda could look out to sea and picture Saint Lee riding the Merrimack -- on which he'd had many an adventure -- but telling her that the real temptations were here on Castor! Here was relative comfort and safety, instead of the troubles of the fallen world outside. Maybe she'd actually chosen the easier path and had run from her problems. "Sir Phillip isn't a tempter!" she told the wind. There was no answer. She needed to tell it to someone who could listen, and her thoughts were too confused to bother her sisters with. There was no point in making the rest of them hurt too.

  The stairs took her down to North Tower, down to Dockside, before she found Zephyr. He and that girl Tess sat in a pool of light, playing a game. Those two kept odd hours.

  "Leda?" said Tess. She was wearing that computer headset of hers.

  "You know my name?"

  "Yeah; he met you, so I know."

  Zephyr moved a red plastic pyramid on the game board. Tess saw it, frowned, and stacked it on another, muttering, "Not nice." She didn't seem to be responding to the game but to something the machine had said silently.

  Leda looked back and forth between them, feeling off-balance. She'd hoped to find Zephyr alone. "Shouldn't you be asleep?" she said to Tess.

  Tess said, "I'll sleep when I want to, thanks. What about you?"

  "I was hoping to speak with Zephyr." Then again, there was an actual human available.

  Zephyr faced her, laying his plastic ears back like a live animal. "Why? You said I'm a toy."

  "Well, you are -- I mean..." She'd meant to give the robot an earful, but now he was trying to make her feel guilty! She pressed on. "How can you go around insulting people's religious beliefs like you did?"

  "I only said they weren't true." He made another move.

  Tess looked at the board. "Zephyr, I told you." She stared at him for a few seconds, with both of them playing their game in silence. Leda found them unnerving to watch, as Tess muttered something inaudible and Zephyr spread his hands in a frustrated gesture. Finally Tess said, "We think maybe you and he should avoid each other."

  Leda's skin felt cold in the breeze through the Dockside door. "What's going on here?"

  "Telepathy," said Tess. She pulled her headset, and offered it.

  Zephyr said, "Don't."

  "Come on, I want to show her. Say anything."

  Leda, confused, took the headset and set the unusual curve of it to her jaw.

  A voice in her mind said, "What hath God wrought?"

  Leda pulled off the headset and dropped it on the table with a shaking hand. "What was that?"

  Tess took the thing back and donned it. "A bone-conduction speaker-mike. I can talk with Zephyr without making noise either way."

  "Of course," said Leda. Those things worked with silent vibrations in the jaw and skull. Still she felt something was deeply wrong here. "Why are you mocking me?" she said to the machine. "What do you know about God?"

  "I'm not mocking you. And I know what Tess knows plus several books about the concept. You humans are confusing."

  "You know... what she knows?"

  Tess answered. "Figure that we have each other as a secondary memory and concept network. I mean, he can tell me something he doesn't understand, or send me pictures, and have me free-associate and help him almost instantly."

  "And I'm of some
use to her," said Zephyr, "since I ate Wikipedia. But this is science, not religion. You wouldn't be interested."

  Leda stared at them. "God made people. He didn't make robots, or whatever hybrid collective you're building."

  "Hybrid?" said Tess.

  "This can't be. You can't manufacture souls." Yet this machine acted as though he were really alive. Sir Phillip had said "he" was a clever toy and of course Phillip was right, but: "Tess, is this robot your friend?" Leda was arguing more with herself than with them.

  Tess high-fived the robot. "Yeah."

  She turned on Zephyr, saying, "You can't exist! How can you be free of your programming, to have ideas and friends and feelings?"

  "I'm not 'free of my programming'. I am my programming."

  "But where do you fit? How can you be here in a world with a God that made men, when we're supposed to be unique and you're a stand-in for one of us?"

  "Simple," said Zephyr. "There is no God."

  "You don't know that!"

  Footsteps came down to them. Leda, Tess and Zephyr turned to the stairs to see a bleary-eyed Captain Fox in pajamas and randomly spiky hair, looking absurd. "Is there a problem?" he said.

  "No!" said Leda, with the roar of the sea in her ears. She brushed past Fox and hurried away to be as alone as she could manage.

  And though that was only a corner of the deck, where she could sit with her knees pulled up on a layer of black solar-panel suncloth, that was very alone.

  * * *

  "Sister Leda, you look exhausted," said Ann. Ann was dressing for the morning's work, energetic as ever.

  Leda yawned, feeling the fatigue on her eyelids and shoulders. All night she'd been pacing or huddled on the deck or laying in bed with eyes that wouldn't shut. Coffee would be nice, but Phillip forbade it. She wished he hadn't.

  "What is it?" asked Ann.

  Leda looked at her, seeing a true Sister with her own cross to bear. Ann had lost everyone she ever cared for before learning of Phillip. He had given her the courage to talk about what happened, and to begin a new life. How could Leda keep secrets from someone who'd been willing to cry on her shoulder? "I'm afraid," Leda told her.

  "We're all here for you. Is it the sea? It bothers me too sometimes. Too open."

  "It's not that." Though the ocean was always there. It was part of this new world, and could rise up and crush them at any moment.

  "We need to go upstairs," Ann said. It was time for the morning muster. Leda looked to the stairs and followed her.

  On deck the whole family stood at attention. The station's unbelievers made a point of being elsewhere, as usual, and the sky was as clear as it always seemed to be. Yet the wind tasted unreal and cold, and she felt as though she couldn't really be on an island made by men. Only God made land. This whole place was some illusion, or an abomination. Yet there it was, under her feet. Leda and Ann stood on slick black ground.

  Brother Duke came up and paced the deck in front of the assembled Confederacy. "Attention!" Everyone stood straighter. "It pains me to announce that Sir Phillip is indisposed."

  A murmur spread through the group, but Duke quelled it after a few seconds with a raised hand and a frown. "Alas, I know, such a thing shouldn't happen to one so virtuous. But God works in mysterious ways. While Sir Phillip recovers I must with regret perform his duties. So, regarding today's work..."

  Leda listened to the day's assignments. Sir Phillip would sometimes be secluded in prayer for a day or two, but was never absent for another reason. It felt like sand had been thrown into the clockwork of the family's routine. Everyone seemed to share her unease. At least she still had Ann to work beside, doing mindless cutting of plants at the water's surface.

  "It's not just the ocean," Leda said after a while. The sun beat down even through her soaked hat and salt-crusted sunglasses. "It's the fact that we're out here."

  Ann wielded a diamond-coated knife to snap the fibers of a frond held taut by Leda. "God led us here. He'll provide."

  "But why?"

  Ann shrugged. "It's not our place to ask."

  "Maybe we should. Ann, I --" Leda floated there, looking at the bright ripples of the sea. "I don't know if I can believe in all this anymore. About Sir Phillip and Lee and God. What if it's all a mistake?"

  Ann stared at her. "How can you say that? Of course it's not a mistake. God said so!"

  "But people think God says a lot of different things, and some people don't even think He exists."

  "He does!" said Ann. "You're incredible! You think we're all crazy, don't you, that all our work is for nothing!" Ann didn't even seem to notice the knife held tightly in her hand.

  "I didn't say that. I meant I don't know if it's true, what we were taught. I don't feel like I know how to tell."

  Ann gave a tense little laugh. "Of course you know. Look in your heart."

  Leda floated in the wilderness, asking herself and God for an answer. She could imagine that feeling of profound certainty and belonging that had helped her escape from her old life, but it was far away, a feeling not honestly earned. A lie.

  "No," said Leda. "I don't believe."

  Ann swam away, abandoning their work and leaving Leda alone.

  Leda threw herself back into the work but knew that it was pointless, that the world didn't care one bit if she sank and no one ever saw her again. There was no purpose to her being here, or anywhere. She'd been lying to herself all along. When she couldn't stand to be in the water any longer, she went to the dock and climbed, feeling weak and stupid.

  * * *

  Nothing happened all that day, but in the night, Ann found her. She was waiting alone with a grim expression. "Brother Duke wants to see you."

  Leda followed her towards South Tower. But when the wind and darkness of the open deck hit her, Leda flared up, planting her feet and saying, "Why, Ann? Why did you tell him? I thought I could trust you."

  She seemed incredulous. "Because it's wrong to turn your back on us. Brother Duke will sort you out." She paused. "Maybe he can help you."

  Leda knew she'd been wrong to doubt Lee. Whatever punishment the world threw at her, she deserved. She crossed the deck and descended into the darkness.

  Deep in South Tower, Duke stood before the Altar of Lee. The bunting, the crossed-cannons insignia and the great man's portrait were all obscured behind Brother Duke, who wore an expression of anguished love.

  "Shut the door, Sister Ann," said Duke.

  The three of them stood there for a while. Leda stared at Duke's polished boots. After a long time Duke spoke again. "It wounds me to learn of your lack of faith. It wounds all your brothers and sisters."

  Leda said nothing. Duke was right. She'd hurt them and it was right to be hurt in return.

  "Do you believe any longer in the divinity of Lee?"

  "I can't say that I do."

  Ann said, "Why, Sister?"

  "We're not concerned with 'why'," snapped Duke. "Sister Leda, do you believe in God with all your heart, with every fiber of your being?"

  Leda couldn't bring herself to say she had doubts.

  "Answer me!"

  "I don't know," said Leda.

  "I didn't ask what you know. Do you believe?"

  Ann's simple question -- Why? -- still echoed in her ears. If Leda had been believing without good reasons, ones that she could articulate, then she was telling herself she believed when really -- "I don't."

  Duke said, "Perhaps you should sit." Ann scrambled to bring a chair so Leda could huddle in it. Now he could look down at her, intent on her face as he leaned closer with a faint smile. "If you don't believe, then there's nothing to save you from the fires of Hell."

  The images and sounds that Sir Phillip had conjured up mixed with the hell of her own past life, and Duke was stoking the flames. "For I say unto you that Hell is a real place, where the air is burning smoke and the water like unto molten lead, where the ground writhes with the moaning damned and Satan dances in naked splendor and laughs over h
is domain --"

  Leda barely heard him any longer; she was there. His breath came hot on her face and it was brimstone, vipers coiling up her throat while the ground shook and the voice said, "He that believeth not is condemned already; the wrath of God burns against them, their damnation does not slumber; the pit is prepared, the fire is made ready, the furnace is now hot, ready to receive them; the flames do now rage and glow. The glittering sword is whet, and held over them, and the pit has opened its mouth under them." And someone was sobbing, far away.

  "That's right," murmured Duke, close to her ear. "But I'm here to help you. Because unconverted men walk over the pit of Hell on a rotten covering; and they have no refuge, nothing to take hold of; and your wickedness makes you as it were heavy as lead." Leda felt him stroke her chin, prop her head up so she had to look into his deep, betrayed eyes. "Your soul is in mortal peril, held over the abyss as an abomination unto God. His love turns to wrath as He sees the pain caused by a single tainted spirit, and he looks to His Son and General, wanting to know only if you choose His infinite love and mercy over the obliteration brought by doubt and defiance."

  Leda cowered in her chair, head in her hands and fingernails cutting into her scalp while Duke paced around her, telling her of infinite loneliness and black despair. "All this awaits those who reject God's servants, at any instant, and there is no place one can flee, no moment one can rest, no step that might not land beyond the world of men."

  Duke stopped in front of her, one foot rapping the floor like the thud of a casket. "Do you give yourself totally over to God and His messengers? Do you believe?"

  Leda tried to think of her love of God, who had saved her from evil, from her old life. But all that was in this place was the Devil and the empty sea. "No," she said, in a voice that was very small.

  Duke let the word echo there a while. "There are the black clouds of God's wrath now hanging directly over your heads, full of the dreadful storm." He shut his eyes, with the trail of a single tear. "Such is your choice, and may the Lord stay His hand against us all. You are no longer one of us."