A tasty bait for my prospective partner, if I say so myself! I'd thought of it on the spur of the moment.
Even though I hadn't said "finish", the voice purred at me: "And bum. Oh yes. Destroy the snake which partly masks your world from me! And so I shall connect you all to me without exception in that climactic moment when I carry out so many billion operations!"
Aye, while many billion patients die.
The Godmind was definitely going a bit over the top, I thought. Though maybe when you've hatched such a mega-scheme you're entitled to go over the top? and who was I to criticize—me, who had just claimed impeccable intuition?
"I shall tell you a secret, Yaleen. My plan doesn't require as great a time as you thought. By no means do I need a whole galaxy to build my lens. I only need part of the galaxy, quite a small part. Finish."
I felt such a chill in me as though the sky had cracked and space rushed in.
"You're still building new seedships and launching them, though? Finish." (Spoken casually.)
"The second-last seedship is approaching completion right now. It will fly away within twelve Earth-weeks. Only one more to go after that." (I'll skip the finishes from now on. You've got the idea.)
"Maybe they'll both get an attack of the Worms at journey's end!"
"I doubt it, statistically. Besides, that direction has been safe so far."
Obviously the new-style Yaleen had to pretend massive commitment. "Oh dear! When they arrive, it'll take lots more years to establish colonies!"
"Not really. A few years will ensure a size that's adequate for the purpose. A presence is what counts. It's more a question of the topology of connexions in Ka-space."
"Oh. But it'll still take those last two ships simply thousands of years to get to the far frontiers. I'll never live to see the outcome!"
Something resembling a chuckle issued from the gazebo roof. "When I plan, Yaleen, I plan ahead. The earliest seedships travelled to the far frontiers. These last two ships are heading for the nearest stars with usable worlds. They'll arrive quite soon. It'll seem ever sooner to anyone on board. Accommodation can be added for a passenger."
"What do you mean?"
"You wish to be in on the, ahem, kill? If you stay here, you may miss out. But if you travel as a passenger on this ship that's about to depart, you'll enjoy the boon of time-squeeze. You'll arrive in good time to be around when the final colony blossoms. You'll live to see the light. This shall be my gift to you, on account of all you have suggested. My ship will be programmed to amuse you en route."
Oh no. No, no and no.
"Meanwhile, as an immediate reward you shall judge the rose show this year."
"I'll what?"
"From amongst my new varieties, plus the older established specimens, you will select the Supreme Rose; and award it a gold medal."
"Er, just where do I find a gold medal?"
"You're wearing a gold ring on your finger. That will do excellently. You can slip it on to a stem of the victorious rose."
"I don't know how to judge roses! There weren't any roses on my home world."
"That's because I didn't send roses anywhere else." (That figured. In alien soil, under alien light, we aliens might have built up better rose gardens!) "My Paxman will bring you here often, to instruct you on the relevant criteria. Fear not: you'll have time enough to learn. Then after the show your ship will fly to a nearby star. Paxman to the gazebo!" the voice blared out.
My escort came running.
"So what happened?" asked Tessa when I got back to our Hell's kitchen. (Incidentally, it took the capsule at least twice as long to return, as to go to Rosaluna Station.)
"I'm going to judge a flower show," I told her. "Then I'm going to zoom off to another star. What else did you expect?"
"Dear child, once I have swallowed the elephant of Hell, should I strain at a gnat? Tell me all."
I did; and as she listened, her head pecked away like a pigeon's at every grain of detail. At the end she said firmly, "You must speak to Jean-Paul."
"What for? What's he got to do with it?"
"Ask yourself this, child: what will the Godmind do about Hell, and about us who live here, when the final ship flies away? Maybe it'll still require a Hell for its exiles. But what if it doesn't? It won't need tissue samples any more. What if it just turns off the heat and light and water?"
"I hadn't thought of that."
"No. You will be going; so you didn't think. Such is human nature. But we will all be staying."
"Oh Tessa!"
"Ah, I tell the truth—and I hurt your feelings."
"No, it's you who's hurt! Isn't it? Because I'll be giving your favourite ring away, to a rose! And I'll be leaving you with all the washing up."
She laughed; and I laughed too. Then she said, "Do go and see Jean-Paul. If he kicks you, that's the fate of messengers who bring bad news. No, wait! The eyes in the roof will see you going to his cave. No doubt they're keeping a special eye on you. I'll go instead."
"And get kicked?"
"I'll take him some cannelloni."
"Don't make it too tasty, then."
At breakfast time next morning Kalima came to see me, ostensibly to grouse about the rubbish we'd been dishing up. She slapped me about, smashed a plate or two, then hauled me roughly into the nook where we stored the victuals which the boss's men doled out.
"Tell me, but speak softly," she whispered.
I told.
Afterwards, she brooded.
"So you will learn how to judge roses," she decided. "And you'll keep your eyes and ears open for me."
"For you, or for Jean-Paul?"
She smiled, twistedly. "You'll report to me, when I collect meals. Confide in no one else."
"Maybe," I suggested, "you should bring Prof into this? Remember the pandit from Venezia? He knows science, and he was a member of the Underground."
"We're all underground here, little girl."
"Do tell Prof—and Bernardino. Please."
"Are you seeking privileges for your friends? Beware you don't double their burdens."
Carefully I said, "They're good at . . . organizing."
"So," snapped Kalima, "was I. "
Soon after, my Paxman collected me to return to Rosaluna Station and the rose garden.
During the next several weeks I began to get the hang of roses. Assiduously I studied the difference between Hybrid Teas, Flori- bundas and Polyanthas; between Rugosas and Hybrid Musks. I mastered the distinction between flowers that were high-centred, open-cupped and pompon. I learnt all the criteria for showing at exhibition: blooms should be pointed, without a split centre, not blown, free from blemish ... I memorized strings of strange names, such as Napoleon s Hat, Little Buckaroo, and Thrilled Nymph s Thigh.
Meanwhile the ghostly Earth went through phases in the false sky, but the Sim sank out of sight. In its place sun-lamps blazed from the four comers of the enormous skylight. I wondered why I hadn't seen this huge lighted window on the Moon when I was watching from California, but maybe it didn't look so big and bright from Earth.
I also asked my Paxman questions such as, "Don't the roses get too much light with the Sun shining non-stop for two weeks?" (The sky, it turned out, could be dimmed to imitate night.) "Oh, how's that? What's the sky made of? What happens if a rock from space smashes into it?" (Not to worry, Yaleen. "Radar-controlled laser- zappers" were watching out for any stray rocks zooming in from the void.)
And most importantly: "How many Paxmen will be at the rose show? What, all of you? Gosh, how many's that?"
One day the Godmind summoned me to the gazebo.
"How's it going, Yaleen?"
"Well, it's absolutely fascinating. Intoxicating! Gosh, am I grateful to you!" (In fact, it was quite interesting. Definitely a lot more interesting than scrubbing dishes.)
"Good. Now, on the topic of time ... it seems to me that when my lens is complete, and when I annihilate the black current through £«-space, that will also be the mome
nt when I discover how to send those destroyers back through time to reserve habitable worlds for my seedships. I shall tear the blindfold off, and hurl it into the past; as it were. The circle will be complete, and causally closed. I shall proceed onwards."
"That's really neat, Godmind! Could I see the ship I'll fly in? Please?"
"Does your intuition tell you that I'm right, Yaleen?"
"Oh absolutely. Well, that's to say: almost absolutely. I'm a bit fuzzy about this because, because . . . because if you foresee something too clearly, then it can't happen exactly so. It'll happen, but in a slightly different way. If you follow me." (I certainly didn't!) "But getting back to my ship . . . what a huge explosive force it must take to chuck a ship at the stars! Could I take a peek at it? Please/7
"I have to plumb time itself, Yaleen! Ka-space is non-spatial. Yet it is analogous with actual spatial locations existing in the here-and- now. Maybe an implosive event such as the sudden death of all conscious beings can deform Ka-space along a time-axis, thus opening a paradox channel into the distant past of the universe. . . .
"The ship? Ah, the ship. Yes, you may see it provided you can answer a couple of questions successfully."
Questions about Ka-space, paradox channels to the past, and my intuition? I suppressed a groan.
"Ask away."
"My first question is: Which was the first serious challenger to AUgold for the crown of top yellow Floribunda?"
I did groan. "Er . . . Sunsprite."
"Correct. And now a harder one: What is the pedigree of Pink Perpetuity?"
"Um, by Danse de Feu . . . out of New Dawn. "
"Well done. Your Paxman will take you to view your seedship."
So my Paxman and I returned to Rosaluna Station earlier than usual that day. Once there, I discovered that I hadn't taken off my gardening pinafore as I usually did before quitting the garden for the day. Such is the interruption of routine.
I'd decided a while since that the tube line must run in a large circle, with traffic travelling in one direction only; but on no previous return journey to Hell had the capsule stopped at any other intermediate station, and unless it did, and the door opened, there was no way to see out.
"From Hell to Rosaluna, from Rosaluna to where?" I quizzed my guide.
"To our Pax barracks. Then to the Navy yard. Then to Hell."
Four stops in all.
"So the Navy yard is quite close to Hell?"
He nodded.
"And the ship I came in landed between the two?"
"Correct."
"Do you know?" I said, "in all this time you've been my teacher, you've never once told me your name. Do you have a name?"
"Of course. I'm Pedro Dot."
Pedro Dot: he had been one of the great rose breeders of the distant past, from the part of the Earth called Spain, home of the fabled Parque de Oeste rose gardens . . . Well, well.
Just then a green light lit, announcing that our capsule had arrived.
This isn't a discourse on how to build seedsh:1 ps. That would fill a whole tome by itself, and I'm certainly not the one to write it. Most of what I saw in the huge crammed hall of the Navy yard, I couldn't fathom. Still less could I plumb the workshops and flesh-vats adjacent. Nor, since most of the work was being done by soft machines, with only a handful of Paxman technicians in attendance, was it always easy to distinguish the makers from what was being made.
What I did understand well enough, and what curdled me, was my proposed accommodation aboard the seedship.
To reach this we rode up a gantry. Up top within the hull the "pod"—to use Pedro's word—lay open for inspection. Air-and-wa- ter-machines were being fitted round it.
It wouldn't be quite fair to call the pod a tomb. It was a bit bigger than that, with a window-dome on top, for journey's end; but much of the space inside was taken up with exercise machinery including a treadmill—so that I could march to infinity, getting nowhere, on magnetized shoes. Pedro showed how.
After this, in there, we tried out a snack of food-bars produced by a machine which, Pedro assured me, would turn my shit back into food with added goodness. Great, delightful. Go eat shit yourself, Godmind, I thought.
So much for my bodily comfort. How about my mind?
I had a library of machine-music and another library of thousands of picture-radio stories from the ancient days which I could summon up on a screen. I flipped through a few of these: men in funny hats rode horses and shot each other with pistols; men drove fourwheeled metal machines which crashed and burned; a man in a loincloth swung from tree to tree . . . Thus would I while away my idle hours when I wasn't busy treading, rowing, pulling and pushing.
Just how many idle hours?
And lo, it transpired that whereas I would be First Lady of the world I arrived on, I wouldn't—couldn't—myself be modified to fit the alien planet. I would have to stay indefinitely inside my pod, which would be deposited on some hilltop with a nice scenic view from the dome if I was lucky. Or if I wasn't, maybe it would be deep in some swamp or jungle.
That was the bad news.
The good news was that when the colony came to life I could set up—still stuck in my pod—as a wise oracle and source of advice. I would be the repository of the heritage of Earth; until such time as the whole colony and every other colony in the galaxy had its mind blown out.
Shit, with knobs on.
So much for the pod. Of rather more urgent concern to me was the matter of how the ship was powered.
Pedro had already satisfied my seemingly innocent curiosity on this point. On our way to the gantry he had indicated a hopper which was excreting orange "fuel-balls" on to a moving belt. Each fuel-ball was the size of a marble. I had no idea what sort of fuel this was, but it surely had to pack a lot of power. Farther along the belt a machine was inspecting the balls and plucking out the occasional one with a suction tentacle, to toss down a chute.
As I say, I was still wearing my gardening pinny with a pair of secateurs in the pouch. This, over my soutane, with its generous sleeves which were practically pockets in their own right. When we were coming out of the pod on to the gantry again, I tugged Tessa's ring off my finger and dropped it into my pinny. Rings can be quite useful sometimes.
As soon as the hoist-platform was descending I jerked my hand up. "My ring!" I babbled. "It's gone! I've lost it! I knew something felt queer—it must have slipped off. The Godmind will be so upset! He wants me to present that ring to the champion rose, you know. We'll have to find it, Pedro!"
The platform reached the ground. "Inside the pod: is that where you dropped it?" he asked.
"I must have. Yet I'm not sure! I think I may have lost it earlier. It might be up there, though! Will you go and look? I'll search around down here. We have to find it, or the rose show will be ruined!"
He nodded. "I'll go back up and look. You stay here. You can search around a bit, but don't get in the way of any machines—they wouldn't notice you." (That was nice to know.)
While he was riding up again I made a show of hunting about in the immediate vicinity for my mislaid treasure. As soon as he was out of sight I took the ring from my pinny and hid it under one of several crates which were standing about. Then I sprinted tippy-toe back to the hopper. Snitching several fuel-balls, I hid them in my sleeves. I returned just a few seconds before Pedro emerged, on high. "Not inside!" he called down.
"Oh dear!" I wrung my hands. (I'd always wanted to wring my hands ever since I read The Cabin Girl and the Cannibal)
Once he'd returned to the ground I made a big and frantic show of casting around—then finding the ring. Actually, this was quite a frantic show, since I couldn't find the damn thing when I did descend on the crate in question. At last I spotted it and hooked it out. "Phew!"
When we got back to Hell station later, I had the bright idea of insisting that Pedro return my pinny with its nice big pouch to its rightful place in the garden. Should any machine count balls and come up short, that ought
to allay suspicion.
I asked Tessa to go immediately to Jean-Paul to arrange a meeting between him and me. And never mind about his supposed orders to the contrary, as relayed by Kalima! I sent one fuel-ball to Jean-Paul, care of Tessa, and kept the rest up my sleeve.
A couple of hours later the man himself hove in sight.
He jabbed a finger at me. "Hey, you! Yes, you, what's your name! We have a sneaky swine of a crack that needs widening. You're just the right size to place the charge."
Grabbing my arm, he hustled me away down the grand staircase then along a spiral path past a procession of rockporters. We came to a narrow crevice which ran back a dozen spans or so. Jean-Paul stuffed me inside then rammed his body into the gap behind me, plugging it. I managed to squirm round but couldn't see his face too clearly, what with the way he was corking the entrance, blocking most of the light. But I saw his raised fist. He opened his fist; in his palm nestled the fuel-ball.
"How many more have you got?" he murmured.
"Five. Know how they work?"
"No."
"Prof might be able to tell you."
"Who?"
"Prof. He arrived on the same shuttle as me. He knows science; he was in the Underground. Didn't Kalima tell you?"
"No."
"Didn't think she would. I told her you ought to have a talk with Prof. And you must!"
"Must I?"
"Yes! The last two seedships will fly soon. No more need for Hell after that, eh?"
"What? The Godmind wouldn't trash us!"
"Want to bet on it? Well, do you?"
"No."
"Listen, there are one hundred and fifty-three Paxmen on the Moon, and they'll all be at the rose show. All standing tamely underneath a sky that isn't solid rock. Suppose they all happen to meet with an accident, do you think you could run the Moon yourself?"
"Go on."
"With them out of the way, you can seize the Pax barracks and the Navy yard. You'll have much more space. You'll have machines and food. I've seen one machine that'll turn any old crap into meals. Build more of those, and you're laughing. You've got yourself a treasure cave next door. You'll survive. And you'll be free. You won't have any more people cramming in, either, not unless you ungimmick the water supply and start having kids yourself."
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