Ex Machina

by Christopher L. Bennett

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I have not served God from fear of hell for I should be a wretched hireling if I served Him from fear; nor from love of heaven for I should be a bad servant if I served for what is given; I have served Him only for love of Him and desire for Him.

  —al-Hasan al-Basri (642–728)

  FOR THE FIRST TIME since setting foot on Lorina, Kirk was experiencing déjà vu. The entrance to the underground quarter of the city was a cluster of two-meter metal cylinders, just like the one on Yonada. But they seemed incongruous here in the middle of a lush parkland.

  Kirk stepped forward and depressed the footplate that triggered the outer cylinder to rise, revealing the entrance to the spiral stairway leading below. Chekov moved forward, frowning. “I don’t like this, sir,” he said. “Too narrow. Perfect for an ambush.”

  “I’ve survived one ambush from these things, Mr. Chekov.”

  “With respect, Captain, that was just a warning. These terrorists want to kill you.”

  “And the longer we keep standing around here, the better targets we make.”

  With a glower, Chekov preceded the captain into the stairwell and gestured to Nizhoni to take up the rear. Kirk glanced back at the young Navajo woman. “I hope you’re not claustrophobic,” he said.

  “Oh, no sir,” she replied with a brief, pretty smile, not letting herself get distracted from her vigilance. “I love caving. My big sister and I are always crawling through holes in the ground.”

  “Hm. When you’ve been trapped in as many caves as I have, Ensign, they tend to lose their appeal.”

  “You get trapped in caves a lot, sir? Then I guess it’s a good thing I’m around now.” He threw her a glare over his shoulder, and she replied with an insouciant shrug.

  The stairwell soon opened up into an antechamber with four corridors leading off from it. The architecture was a match for that on Yonada—wide corridors with flat concrete walls and bare rock overhead, with arch-topped supports at regular intervals. The walls were mostly bare, with only occasional geometric patterns carved into them. There were no directional signs; among the mostly illiterate Yonadi, the only writing had been associated with the temple and religious art. Recalling Lindstrom’s directions, Kirk led the party down the north corridor. Chekov insisted on staying ahead of him again.

  Down here, the people tended to be attired as they had been on Yonada, in brightly patterned robes. Most of them quailed at the sight of Chekov’s phaser and pressed against the walls as the party moved past. “Easy, Mr. Chekov. We’re not here to frighten these people.”

  Nizhoni stared at their garish outfits. “God, if those clothes don’t frighten them, nothing will.”

  “This,” Chekov replied, “from a woman who insists on wearing nonregulation beads and feathers.”

  “Oh, you’re one to complain about taking pride in one’s heritage,” she shot back with a grin, tacking on “sir” as an afterthought.

  “Well, if some crazed killer grabs you by the necklace—”

  “It’s under my armor!”

  Mercifully, they soon arrived at the entrance to the temple, framed by the familiar triangular panels of Fabrini script. But Chekov wasn’t quite finished. “You still insist on going in alone, don’t you, Captain?”

  “Pavel, if we want to earn their trust, we have to be willing to show a little of our own.”

  “I am willing to show a little, sir. I just prefer it to be as little as possible.”

  Kirk gave Chekov a look, then raised his wrist communicator. “Kirk to Chief Rand. Is the transporter lock holding?”

  “Yes, sir, I’ve got you loud and clear. Do you need beamout?”

  “No, Chief, just checking. Kirk out.” He smiled. “Trust in Allah, Mr. Chekov, but tie up your camel. Satisfied?”

  “Aye, sir,” the lieutenant said, though he didn’t look it. “We’ll be right outside if you need us.”

  “That makes me feel very secure.” Kirk clapped him lightly on the shoulder, then strode up to the doors and pushed them open.

  The temple interior resembled the one from Yonada, but it was larger, and somehow more inviting. The floor was covered in long, cushioned platforms lined up like pews, presumably for kneeling. Triangular text panels and geometric patterns adorned the walls, with the Oracle’s starburst and the graphic of Fabrina’s planetary system holding pride of place. Yet there were other, less familiar decorations: icons and paintings of humanoid figures. Kirk moved to study a few of them more closely. He couldn’t interpret the accompanying text, but they appeared idealized, larger than life, powerful yet comforting, like images of saints. He hadn’t realized the Yonadan religion had included such figures. He’d only heard about the Oracle and the Creators, the latter mentioned only as an inchoate collective, not personified in any way.

  Though the main temple was unoccupied save for Kirk, he heard voices coming from a room off to the side. The main voice was a woman’s, warm and energetic. The others sounded like children of various ages. Once Kirk reached the half-open doorway, his eyes confirmed what his ears had told him. It seemed to be a class of sorts, though not a large one. The students were mostly adolescents and young adults, and there were not too many of those on Lorina yet.

  The woman teaching the class was not striking to look at—middle-aged, black-haired with slight tinges of gray, plain-featured and stocky, dressed in simple beige homespun robes. But the students, seated on high hexagonal cushions, watched her raptly as she spoke. “…And Vari saw that the World would be consumed by Nidra’s fire, and he wept. Yes, children! Vari himself, he who has the strength to lift the World in just one hand, wept. For he knew that it could not be stopped, that the fire of deception came through all material things, and so the World was doomed by its own essence.”

  Many of the children were caught up in the tale. “Oh, no!” “Could it be?” “What did Vari do?”

  “But then came Baima, our wise mother Baima, and she placed her hands on Vari’s eyes and made him see beyond the surface, beyond the lies, to where the pure souls of the People shone. And Vari saw our souls, children, brighter than the fire, oh yes! And he knew that the People could be saved, and the World reborn.”

  “Yes!” “Vari will save us!”

  “And so Vari the Mighty brought all the Creators together. Picture it, children! Here sits Baima the Wise, mother to us all, smiling down on us with her patient love. Here’s Miura the Farmer who feeds our souls and bodies….” She continued with a substantial roster of names, not merely setting the scene but paying tribute to each Creator’s gifts. It had a ritual quality, but there was a sense of improvisation at the same time, and the children were free to chime in with their own expressions of praise. “And now Vari stands before his brothers and sisters, equal yet greater than them all, the Power that moves every one of us. And he tells them, ‘Brothers and sisters, we must not fight the fire, for that is not the Way. To fight Nidra’s deceptions is to fall under yet another deception, and let ourselves be lost. We must allow the World to burn!”

  “No!” “Can he mean it?” “Vari, no!”

  “ ‘Yes!’ Vari cries. ‘We must let the World burn, even as we make a new World! The sins and lies under which the People struggle will be burned away with their flesh, and they will be reborn within our new World, saved and made pure.’ ” The children gave cries of relief and joy—most of them, anyway. Several of them watched the rest with an air of skepticism or disdain. Evidently the priestess wasn’t preaching only to the converted.

  “But now hear Dedi the Questioner, littlest brother with the sharpest eye. ‘Can they remain pure?’ Dedi asks. ‘So long as they live in a World, so long as they have flesh, then Nidra will have her grip on them.‘

  “ ‘And so it must be,’ says our mother Baima. ‘For she is our sister, and though she walks alone, yet she is forever with us.’ Yes, children, heed her words! ‘And so she will have her will,’ says the wise mother, ‘even as we have ours. The People have been lost
, but they will be saved.’ ”

  “Yea!”

  “ ‘Yea, they will be lost again, but they will be saved again.’ ”

  “Yea!”

  “ ‘Yea, the People will be reborn into the new World we create for them. And when that World reaches its end, we will have another waiting.’ ”

  “So says the Promise!”

  “But see there, as Dedi rises again. ‘Must the cycle go on without end?’ asks the Innocent One. ‘Are the People doomed to be lost again after each salvation?’ ”

  “No, Dedi!” “That’s not the way!” “Tell him, Baima!”

  “Yea, now Baima turns her gaze upon him, upon us all, and now she tells us, ‘No, the People are not doomed! For I see a time when the souls of the People will find their way free of the flesh.’ ”

  “Yea!”

  “ ‘When they will no longer be blinded by desires and cravings and ambitions…’”

  “Yea!”

  “ ‘… and they will know the Truth as we, their Creators, know it now. Do not forget that we were they once. And so, in time, they must become us, and be saved forevermore.’ ”

  “Saved!”

  “ ‘Yet until they are ready, my Children, we must shelter them with our love, and give them a World wherein they may face Nidra’s tests and gain wisdom from them.’

  “Now the Creators all agree, and they remove their protection from the burning World. Now hear—the People cry, ‘O great ones, why have you abandoned us?’ ”

  “Tell them, sister!”

  “But those who have faith in the Creators know they will be saved—so long as they surrender to the Creators’ love and crave nothing else, not food nor drink nor sex nor wealth nor life itself!”

  “Yea!” “Saved!”

  “Now Tilu the Source brings forth earth and ice from the heavens. Now Vari the Mighty takes them to his forge and crafts them with his great, gentle hands. And even bright Nidra comes down from her scorching sky and gives of her fire to fuel the forge. Yes, children! For though the Creators ever strive against her lies, against her beauty that distracts and blinds the unwary soul, still she is their sister and their love, and she knows that this new World will be hers as well as theirs.

  “But fear not! For now Miura the Farmer sheds his tears and sweat on the earth and brings forth life.”

  “Let the life grow!”

  “But Baima the Wise bids him caution—she tells him to leave the surface of the World barren, as a reminder to the People that all surfaces are barren of truth.”

  “We hear you, Baima!”

  “Yea, we hear, children, and we see—as the old World burns and dies, a new World is born! Yea, and now the faithful are reborn within it, born through the vehicle of the Creators’ love!”

  “I feel their love!” “Mother Baima, Father Vari!” “I see the World being born!”

  “And now you see, children! You see why the Creators’ love pervades every aspect of our lives, why it defines our very existence! You see why it will always save us, if we have the faith and the devotion to value it above all things!”

  “Yea, sister!” “I see it!” “I feel it!”

  “All praise to the Creators!”

  “Praise them!”

  “All praise to the Creators!”

  “Praise them!”

  A wave of devotional fervor surged through the room. Even those students who’d been watching skeptically, who hadn’t joined in before, got caught up in the chanting. Kirk almost expected a gospel song to break out. But after a few more hosannas, the dark-haired woman lowered herself silently onto her cushion and closed her eyes. Gradually, the students’ ardor subsided and they joined her in silent contemplation. It seemed an odd anticlimax, but it gave Kirk a chance to evaluate what he’d just experienced. He’d felt almost as caught up in the energy of the tale as the students. Rishala (for that was who the woman presumably was) had spoken with great vitality and passion—but not the blind passion of the fanatic, nor the fierce passion of the holy warrior. The tale had contained some apocalyptic elements, but she had downplayed them in favor of joy and hope.

  Now one of the students, a girl in mid-adolescence, spoke a bit breathlessly. “Priestess…”

  “Please, just Rishala,” the older woman smiled, confirming Kirk’s suspicions.

  “Ahh, Rishala,” the girl started over, “where is that written in the Book of the People? I don’t remember seeing it.”

  “The Creators speak to us in many ways, Tanila. Until recently, only a very few could read a book. But the Creators wanted all the People to know their wisdom. This story, like many others, has been passed down from mouth to ear since the second World was born.”

  “But if it’s not in the Book, it can’t be true, can it? That’s what Sonaya preaches.”

  “Well, does it feel true?”

  The girl seemed unsure how to answer. A younger boy spoke up in her place. “In the schools they teach us that the Creators were just our ancestors. That they made Yonada from an asteroid, using ships and machines and rays. That the People moved there in ships, instead of dying and being reborn.”

  Rishala mulled over his words. As she did so, she briefly made eye contact with Kirk, registering his presence but not acknowledging it yet. “And, Nikuri, is that the truth of the story?” she said with added meaning. “If you tell it that way, does it stop meaning that the Creators saved us through the power of their love? Is the story about the how, or the why?”

  An older boy stared at her, looking scandalized. “But those are Fedraysha lies! You should punish Nikuri for even listening to such blasphemy!”

  “Quiet down, Tavero. We can’t decide what’s true or untrue unless we listen first,” Rishala said, still looking toward Kirk. “So it’s when we don’t listen that we’re led astray.” She studied the youth. “And tell me, Tavero, what do you think of my version of the tale?”

  The youth glared at her, but seemed cowed by her presence, holding back what he really wanted to say. “It was not the full truth.”

  “Why not?”

  “You made no mention of the Oracle.”

  Rishala shrugged. “The Oracle was the tool of the Creators, how they watched over their creation. I was telling a story about the Creators themselves, how they made the World and the Promise.”

  “The Oracle was the hand, the voice, the living embodiment of the Creators!” the boy insisted. “We must never forget Him! When He was taken from us, so were they!”

  Rishala took his hand. “We’re all the children of the Creators, Tavero. This is their hand. And you speak with their voice, like we all do.”

  He pulled his hand away. “No. Left to themselves, the People speak in too many voices. Only the Oracle is the voice of Truth. Else why would we need the Instruments of Obedience to keep us on the path?”

  “Do you hold the Creators’ love in your heart? Do you have faith in their wisdom and guidance?”

  “Of course!” Tavero exclaimed.

  “Then what other Instrument of Obedience do you need?”

  “And what of those whose faith is not as strong as mine? Who will keep them from leading others astray, as the schools have led Nikuri? Who…” The adolescent had turned to point at the younger boy, and this brought the entrance into his peripheral vision. At the sight of Kirk, he whirled and shot to his feet, knocking over his cushion. For a moment he was frozen in terror, as though he were gazing upon the devil himself (and in his theological terms, Kirk realized, that may have been exactly true). But then the terror transmuted into rage. “You! Killer of the Oracle! How dare you show your face in a holy place!” Even as he spoke, he lunged at Kirk.

  But it was a graceless attack, and Kirk was able to block it and drop Tavero to the ground efficiently and with minimal force. He looked down at the boy amiably and extended a hand. “Where I come from, fighting in a holy place is frowned upon… and usually everyone is welcome in them.”

  “It’s the same way here,” Ri
shala said, her eyes on Tavero.

  The youth scrambled to his feet, glaring at Kirk’s hand as though it were an obscenity, and then transferred that glare to the priestess. “Dovraku is right about you! You are soft on blasphemers, disloyal to the Oracle! You are a beggar, playacting in a role you have no true understanding of! You had better repent soon,” he added, a Parthian shot as he retreated from the room, “all of you, or you will be swept away in the fires of His rebirth!”

  Several of the other students chose to follow him out of the room, giving Kirk a wide berth. Rishala sighed. “I suppose that ends our session for today. May you all go with the Creators.”

  As the students filed out, some hastening to leave, others lingering to gawk at Kirk, he made his way over to Rishala and met her gaze sheepishly. “I apologize for disrupting your class,” he said. “I was actually quite enjoying it.”

  “So you’re not here to steal my soul?” she asked with humor, though there was challenge in her eyes.

  Kirk studied her for a moment. “It seems to be doing more good where it is.”

  She raised her brows. “That’s not the answer I would’ve expected.”

  “And you’re not what I was led to expect, Priestess.”

  “Rishala,” she corrected, though her eyes showed appreciation that he hadn’t presumed to drop the title without her leave. “Let me guess. You were told I was a rabble-rouser, a hateful fanatic preaching the overthrow of the state.”

  “Basically.”

  “Well… I try not to be hateful.”

  Kirk chuckled. “From what I saw just now, you succeed.”

  “I try. That’s all.” She looked him over. “So what was it you enjoyed so much about my tale?”

  “The skill of the teller,” he told her, locking eyes with hers. “Her sincerity and passion.”