Carrelli shrugged. “Perhaps it’s not our place to get involved in the political struggle of other races. I don’t know. We’d have to discuss that when the colony is set up, the legislature functioning.”
“Perhaps tell him that we are all for the dissemination of the truth, and against the rule of tyranny,” Hendry said, “and leave it at that.”
Carrelli nodded. “I’ll give him hope,” she said, “without definite promises.”
Hendry watched her relay the words to Ehrin, and wondered if the politicking had begun already, the mealy-mouthed compromises and half-truths that had been part of human interaction since time immemorial.
“Am I imagining it,” Kaluchek said a short time later, “or are we losing height?”
Hendry gazed down. The land was closer now. The grazing animals, spooked by the arrival of the sails, started nervously and set off across the plain, the herd moving as one with the gestalt empathy of a shoal of fish.
Hendry turned and stared into the distance, and then saw it.
It stood in the distance on a plateau of land in the shadow of the mountain range, a towering ziggurat of perhaps fifty levels, its baroque bronze surface refulgent in the morning sun.
The sight of it filled his throat with an odd, choking emotion.
There could be no mistaking that this was their destination: all around the massed sails were converging, the leading sails settling to earth before the edifice, the Ho-lah-lee dismounting and prostrating themselves in euphoria at the climax of their pilgrimage.
Kaluchek gripped his arm. “Joe, Joe... isn’t it beautiful?”
Hendry wondered why it was so affecting; it was simple, and vast, its rounded architecture was pleasing to the eye—and all this taken together, along with the knowledge of what it represented, made it a thing of wonder.
Kaluchek whispered, “What kind of beings would have made the helix, Joe?”
He shook his head. He could not imagine them physically—it was almost as if he dared not imagine the Builders incarnate for fear of being disappointed with the reality, if or when they revealed themselves. No creatures of flesh and blood, however impressive, could do justice to the immense achievement of the helix.
Their sail swept low over the plain, slowing as it went. To either side, sails came down and their Ho-lah-lee passengers alighted on the grass, gazing in awe—at least, that was how Hendry interpreted their goggle-eyed stares—at the towering immensity of the ziggurat before them.
Their sail slowed and came to a sedate halt. Hendry eased himself from the membrane’s embrace and shuffled down the curve, jumping the last two metres to the grass and turning to assist Kaluchek, Carrelli and Ehrin. Then the sail rose like a curtain to reveal the bronze magnificence of the ziggurat.
For long minutes, all they could do was stand and stare in silence.
The Ho-lah-lee, thousands of them, were filing towards the ziggurat in a slow procession, heading for an arched entrance in the base block of the edifice and then passing silently inside.
Kaluchek took his hand and they began walking.
They were a hundred metres from the great entrance when Carrelli said, “Do you feel it, or is it only me?”
Kaluchek nodded. She put her fist to her lower chest. “Here.”
Hendry felt it too. It was hard to describe—a kind of euphoria that filled his chest, a physical sensation like a wall of sound drumming against his diaphragm, only in silence. Power, he thought; some resonating power that communicated itself in some way from the Builders of the helix to its lowly inhabitants.
He wondered if this was how believers might feel in the presence of their god.
He was eager to see inside, over the heads of the massed Ho-lah-lee. The archway loomed, the interior shadowy. They came to the threshold, slowing as the press of aliens created a brief bottleneck, and then they were inside.
Hendry opened his mouth as he stared. He had had no idea what to expect, and might have been disappointed if merely told what he would behold when inside the ziggurat. But the reality was different, and staggering.
They were in a vast chamber, the greatest space he had ever experienced bounded by walls, and when he looked up, following the lead of the thousands of Ho-lah-lee before him, he saw that the rising levels of the ziggurat were hollow, creating a dizzying, diminishing perspective that seemed to rise to the stratosphere and beyond, to penetrate the very core of the universe.
But perhaps more moving still was the great bronze oval that stood in the centre of the chamber. It was perhaps fifty metres high, a perfect ovoid that throbbed with silent power; it seemed to thrum and throw at him an ineffable force, almost forcing him backwards, and yet at the same time drawing him forward in awe.
Before them, the Ho-lah-lee parted as if by some silent command, and the humans, accompanied by Ehrin, stepped towards the effulgent oval of bronze.
Hendry glanced at Kaluchek, surprised by her expression of mixed wonder and fear, though realising that these emotions were what he felt, too.
They came to the foot of the ovoid and paused, and in his heart Hendry knew that whatever happened now could only be an anticlimax.
And then Carrelli reached out and touched the bronze of the great ovoid, and then passed through the surface. She turned, smiling, and beckoned them after her. They obeyed - stepping through the wall as if it were gossamer - and found themselves in a chamber filled with sourceless light. He was aware of Kaluchek by his side, clutching him as if in fear, and aware too of his racing pulse.
Carrelli stood before them, and as they watched she transformed, became something other than what she had been, and seconds later they stared at a column of light that limned a vague humanoid form, the features of which were now indistinct.
A voice, though not Carrelli’s, issued from the living light.
“Welcome,” it said. “We have been awaiting your arrival for many millennia.”
* * * *
4
After the excitement of the chase came the disappointment of losing the quarry.
“I’m sorry, Elder,” the pilot said. “We have lost the ship’s signature. We traced it to the world below, and then it simply vanished.”
“Then search the world!” Cannak thundered. “It’s vital that we locate and destroy the ship, do you understand that?”
“Of course sir, but...”
Cannak glared at the trembling pilot. “But? But what?”
“The world, sir. It’s covered in... in vegetation a hundred yards high. The ship might be anywhere among it. A search would take weeks, and then might not be successful.”
Cannak considered the options. “Proceed to the next world, the home of these illusory Builders. Ehrin and the interlopers will make their way there at some point. We will be waiting for them.”
“Very good, sir.”
That had been hours ago, and Elder Cannak had quelled his rage and retired to his cabin, where he had immersed himself in the Book of Books.
The heretic Ehrin would not escape justice, he thought, thanks to Sereth. The irony of the betrayal was beautiful; it would be a shame that she could not reap the rewards of the righteous, but the fact was that he could not trust her silence when she returned to Agstarn. The crew of the deathship, on the other hand... they were trained priests, versed in the deceit of the anti-god, who knew what they were experiencing for the illusion it was.
He read, in chapter seventy-three of the Book of Books, that the pious should be wary of bogus gods, that the anti-god was a master of deception and that what seemed to be real might often turn out to be no more than a trap to snare the unwary believer. That, he realised, was an apposite description of their present situation. They were travelling through an illusion, a vast construct of evil made to entrap the believer.
They would destroy the base of the so-called Builders, and then they would track down Ehrin and his cohorts and their ship and destroy them too. No word of their exploits must reach the impressionable of Agst
arn, for fear of dissent and opposition to Church rule. Elder Cannak knew from experience that there were factions in society who would take advantage of unrest to foment their own godless agendas.
Ehrin and the aliens would be destroyed like the heretics they were. This evil illusion would dissolve, and Elder Cannak and the deathship would return to Agstarn in glory.
A soft tapping at his door interrupted his thoughts.
“Yes?” Could it be the pilot, come with good news? “Come in.”
A timorous snout appeared around the edge of the door. Sereth Jaspariot peered in, blinking. “Elder Cannak, please forgive my interruption. I... I hope you don’t mind, but I had to see you.”
Cannak laid aside the Book of Books. “Child, enter. Don’t be shy. My door is always open. How can I be of assistance?”
He gestured to a spare seat and Sereth sat down, glancing uneasily through a viewscreen at the sea passing below.
“Something worries you?”
Sereth avoided his eyes. “Elder... One can act correctly in the eyes of God, and yet find oneself in confusion and doubt.”
Cannak smiled. “A common dilemma of all citizens,” he reassured her. “The way of the righteous is not easy. God calls for sacrifices, and hard decisions. If in your heart you know that you made the right decision in the eyes of God, then any doubts are illusions...” He smiled and gestured through the viewscreen, “Just as all without is illusory...”
“Yes, Elder, but...”
“What troubles you?”
“Elder, I made the right decision, I know I did, in telling you. But... but I fear for Ehrin, and for all his sins hope that he will survive this episode and repent.”
Cannak stared at her. “You fear that he might be executed as a heretic, is that right?”
She lowered her head and whispered, “Yes, Elder.”
He gave his most reassuring smile. “Sereth, it is the ship he rides within that I must see destroyed, and the godless aliens who ride with him.”
“Then... then you will spare Ehrin?”
“I am a man of compassion. I do God’s duty, and our God is a God of boundless love.”
“But,” she began, before she could stop herself.
“Yes?”
She shook her head. “Nothing, Elder.”
“But...” he said, “you were wondering about the aliens upon the last planet, the insects who gave succour to the godless?”
She looked up, clearly terrified now. In a tiny voice she said, “Well, yes, Elder Cannak.”
“Child, they were but an illusion. They had no substance in reality. They were a trap of the anti-god. Do you carry with you the Book of Books?”
“Of course, Elder. In my cabin—”
“Then return there and study it, specifically chapter seventy-three. There you will find explanation enough.”
She stood and lowered her head and made for the door. “Yes, Elder, and thank you.”
He sat for a while when she had departed, and was about to return to his study when an urgent rap sounded upon his cabin door, and a young priest looked in. “Elder, the captain requires your presence. We have discovered something.”
Cannak stood and hurried after the priest. “Something? What, specifically?”
“I... I can’t rightly say, Elder. A building, a great building.”
He entered the bridge and stared through the viewscreen. The ship was hovering over a vast plain, perhaps twenty feet from the ground. Directly ahead he saw a rearing golden edifice, and he had to check his initial impulse to marvel at the construction. The captain came to him. “Sir, we have evidence that this was their destination.”
Elder Cannak hardly heard the words. The sight of the ziggurat was, he had to admit, staggering. But then, he reminded himself, what did he expect from the anti-god, who could create any illusion to turn the heads of the innocent?
He found his seat and sat down. “What evidence?”
“Elder, look...” The captain snapped an order. A screen dropped from the ceiling, and seconds later an image of the ziggurat appeared. The captain pointed out four small figures making their way towards the entrance of the imposing edifice. “This is a recording, made some ten minutes ago. It shows Ehrin and the aliens.”
Cannak leaned forward, pulse racing now that he saw the captain was correct.
“Elder,” the captain said, “we could fire now, destroy the entire illusion...”
Cannak watched as the godless quartet entered the archway of the ziggurat. He raised a hand. “Not yet, captain. They will emerge in time, and we will be waiting for then.” He turned to the young priest and ordered him to find Sereth Jaspariot and bring her to the bridge.
He looked from the small, recorded image of the ziggurat to the real thing, rearing magnificently on the plain, and anticipated the final confrontation with the godless Ehrin and his cohorts.
Minutes later Sereth appeared on the bridge and crossed to him, looking fearful. He smiled to put her at her ease. “Sereth,” he said, “we have located Ehrin and the aliens. All that remains now is to find their ship.”
She inclined her head. “Yes, Elder.”
“You have already excelled yourself in the eyes of God, child. But I wish of you one further mission.”
“How can I be of assistance, Elder?”
“When Ehrin emerges, we will hail him and demand he tell us the whereabouts of the golden ship. You will speak to him, claim that we have threatened your life if he does not give us the information.”
Sereth stared, wide-eyed, at Cannak. He smiled. “A ruse only, to test his loyalties, child.”
She said quietly, “I fear he will call your bluff, Elder. His love for me died when he fled Agstarn.”
Elder Cannak laid a compassionate paw upon Sereth’s head. “We shall see, my child. We shall see.”
He returned his eager gaze to the entrance of the ziggurat and waited.
* * * *
5
Hendry stood between Kaluchek and Ehrin in the chamber of light, staring at the figure that, until moments ago, had been Gina Carrelli. She existed now in a column of light much brighter than that which surrounded them—a human figure, though no longer recognisable as the Italian medic.
Hendry was the first to find his voice. “What have you done to Gina?”
“She will come to no harm,” the calm, avuncular voice reassured. “She will be returned to you when the audience is over, with no recollection of her ordeal.”
Kaluchek said, “Why Carrelli?”
The light responded, “We have... employed... Gina Carrelli to facilitate your arrival at the helix.”
It explained, Hendry thought, Gina Carrelli’s peculiar abilities—her adept translations, for one; her uncanny facility with alien technologies.
Kaluchek was shaking her head, as if in wonder. “For how long? I mean, for longer than we have been on the helix, right?”
The light pulsed, replied, “We have employed members of your race for perhaps two hundred years before the launch ofLovelock.”
Hendry opened his mouth to speak, but found that no words would come. He had questions aplenty, clamouring for expression, but where to begin?
Kaluchek spoke for him. “Employed? You mean, used? To what end?”
“Used,” repeated the light. “Employed. The terms are similar, though we did not coerce; we merely encouraged individuals whose mindset was already attuned to our ways and views.”
Hendry glanced to his left. To his surprise, Ehrin was speaking to the column of light—and no doubt, he thought, receiving replies in his own tongue. He reminded himself that he was dealing with a race far in advance of humanity’s paltry achievements.
Kaluchek said, “Who are you?”
The figure in the light spread its arms. “We are the Builders. That will suffice. Long ago we called ourselves by a different name, but almost as long ago, since the construction of the helix, we have known ourselves as the Builders.”
“
You built this, the helix...” Kaluchek whispered. “But the science, the technology...”
Hendry sensed that the figure in the light was smiling indulgently. “We are an ancient race. We achieved a high level of technical expertise many hundreds of thousands of your years ago. For twenty thousand years we laboured at building the helix piece by piece, planet by planet.”
“But... why? “ Hendry found himself asking. “For what purpose?”
The light pulsed, bathing them in its radiation. “In our early days,” it said, “we ranged the galaxy in our ships of exploration. We were a young race in a relatively young universe. We wanted company, but instead we found evidence of civilisations that had grown, attained technological sophistication and then destroyed themselves. Again and again we found the same. It was as if sentience was obeying some pre-ordained pattern, you might even call it a deterministic law of nature; as if the fight for survival dictated that enmity and wars were the only solution to conflicts. Oh, occasionally we did find races that had survived—that had either never attained a level of technology whereby they had the ability to self-destruct, or had attained it and then devolved before they could commit racial suicide. In both cases, we found races that had never had the opportunity to attain their full potential.”
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