by Ian Stewart
The mariner wrestled the priest upright and pulled his face in front of the battle suit’s visor by tugging at his head fur.
The response took him completely by surprise.
First the priest’s eyes opened wide with the shock of recognition. Then he sank to his knees. Second-Best Sailor knew enough about ’Thals to recognize this as a submissive posture, and humen were pretty much like ’Thals, apart from their ugly squashed flat faces and their skin-and-skeleton bodies. The priest was giving in without a fight. Was it a trick?
What Second-Best Sailor did not realize was that Sam was praying. He began to understand that when his translator recognized the priest’s language and turned his words into sounds that a mariner could comprehend.
“. . . me,” the priest was chanting. “Praise be to the Lifesoul-Cherisher!”
“With significant probability, the missing word is ‘forgive,’” the battle suit’s translator stated.
“You still wear the golden suit!” the priest half-sobbed. “But it is whole!”
Second-Best Sailor realized that the priest must be thinking of his previous suit, the sailor suit. From the outside, the two were pretty much identical. But this one had some interesting optional accessories, and the priest would soon find out what some of them were.
“You are returned from the dead! Praise be to the mercy of the Lifesoul-Stealer! I was wrong; I hurt you; I am mortified by my error.” The priest peered into the battle suit’s visor. “You are the prisoner that I shot, aren’t you?” Then he nodded. “Yes, it’s you; I know it is! It’s a mirac—”
Second-Best Sailor yanked at the skein of head fur gripped in the battle suit’s powerful tentacles. “Shut up, you miserable string of excrement! Forget your stupid miracles! You tried to kill me, but I survived. And now I’ve come back to make your life miserable.”
Sam ignored the pain as his hair threatened to tear out from the roots. It was no more than he deserved. “Do as you will,” he told the angry polypoid. “My life is yours. It is worthless. But before you kill me, I beg you to save the Neanderthal child.”
Somehow, Second-Best Sailor felt, this conversation was not following the intended script. Despite himself, he could not help asking: “Neanderthal child? What Neanderthal child?”
“Her name is Dry Leaves Fall Slowly,” said Sam. “She has been tortured by evil priests because she would not believe the Memeplex of the Church. I am looking for Heaven so that she can be saved.”
Second-Best Sailor had now lost the thread completely. “But you are a priest! A priest of the same Church that you denounce as ‘evil’!”
“I was once a novice lifesoul-healer,” Sam replied. “In the Church. And to my shame I desired to rise in the hierarchy. My priestly instructors taught me to harm innocents, and cited the Second Great Meme to quell my objections. . . . I believed them, and that is why I caused you harm. But now I understand my error. I pledge myself to your service for the remainder of my life. Ask, and I will obey. And I see the evil of the Great Memes. With your permission, I will strive to destroy the Church of Cosmic Unity and all who serve it.”
“That,” said Second-Best Sailor, “is the most pathetic bunch of self-serving lies I’ve ever ’eard.” The battlesuit had a lie-detection feature, and to be absolutely sure, the mariner activated its verifier. During the few seconds that the suit required to calibrate its sensors for Sam’s speciotype and measure his autonomous neural activity, Second-Best Sailor drove his point home. “You’re only sayin’ that because you’re scared out of your useless wits. Ya just want to—”
“The human is telling the truth,” the verifier reported.
“. . . to— What?”
“The human is telling the truth.”
“Ya sure ’e ain’t lyin’?”
“The probability of a lie is negligible,” said the suit.
Second-Best Sailor had to believe his own verifier; that’s what it was for. It seemed he had acquired a devoted servant, who not long before had deliberately and callously inflicted a painful wound on him, fatally damaged his life support, and left him to roast alive in the heat of the desert. It was a turn for the better, he had to admit, but it did take a little getting used to. Still, he didn’t trust the priest. A mind that could change that much so quickly could well change again. The verifier could assess whether the priest’s words truly represented his thoughts and beliefs now . . . but it couldn’t predict the future.
In any case, the priest’s change of heart didn’t make any real difference, even if Second-Best Sailor did believe it. He still needed information, and the human was going to provide it, at whatever cost. “Ask, and I will obey”? We’ll see about that.
“When ya left me in the desert, you said that anuvver mariner was bein’ held prisoner,” the mariner said, transferring his grip to the human’s throat—the suit’s data banks suggested this as a more vital area than head hair. “Where is he? Don’t try to hide what ya know—I’ll get it outta you one way or anuvver. Pref’rably a painful one.”
“The other mariner?” Sam’s foray into the hierocrat’s computer had given him the answer to that one, along with much else about the secret world beneath the monastery. “He has gone to Heaven.”
Sam felt the tentacles tightening around his throat. They were like steel cables. “You flouncin’ zygoblasts killed ’im?”
“No—” Sam gasped, choking. “The polypoid is—alive . . .”
The human’s voice trailed off into a gurgle. “Continued pressure for nine more seconds will result in the entity’s death,” the suit reported in a matter-of-fact tone. “If you wish to extract information, less pressure is recommended.”
Second-Best Sailor forced his grip to relax and reviewed the conversation. Like most of his conversations with priests, it sounded logical in small chunks but made no sense when you fitted it all together.
“What’s this ’eaven lark?”
“Heaven,” said Sam, rubbing at his neck and trying to get his breath back, “is a special place somewhere beneath this monastery, where the lifesouls of the faithful can enjoy every luxury.” He snorted contemptuously, having seen what Heaven was really like. “The luxury is an illusion, Heaven is a lie, and its inhabitants are discorporated meat.”
Second-Best Sailor didn’t recognize that particular word. “Whaddya mean, ‘discorporated’?”
Sam started to speak, stopped himself, started again. “You promise not to strangle me before I can explain?”
“Ya not in a position to bargain, matey.”
“It’s not a bargain,” said Sam. “I just want to be sure I can finish before my air supply is cut off again.”
“Speak. I’ll hear you out and then strangle you if I decide to.”
Sam took a deep breath. “No physical harm comes to them, but they are . . . subjected to certain medical procedures . . . designed to improve the level of care that can be provided. The facilities that the Church calls ‘Heavens’ are staffed by robotic medics—servomechs. The inhabitants’ minds are free to roam through boundless virtual realities, while their bodies are . . . er . . . discorporated.” A gesture from the mariner reminded Sam that he had still not explained the word. “Their bodies are distributed into manageable components, to provide quicker and more effective medical access.”
The mariner stared at him, stunned. “They’re dissected? Butchered? ”
Oh, Nerydd . . . “That’s what it looks like. But they remain alive, they feel no pain, and the servomechs can reassemble them almost instantly. You must believe this. I need to find Heaven, so that the servomechs can discorporate Fall and prevent further damage. Heaven cannot heal her, but it can buy her vital time. I would not let the child be butchered! Believe me, your compatriot is alive and has suffered nothing.”
“The priest believes this to be the truth,” the battle suit informed its wearer.
Second-Best Sailor decided that the only sensible course was to accept what he was being told. If it was rubbish, he’d soon find o
ut. And if the other polypoid, whoever he was, really had been discorporated, it would be a good idea to get him undiscorporated double quick. And that meant taking the priest’s words seriously and making him lead the way to Heaven.
He said as much.
“That’s where the trapdoor leads,” said Sam. “If you wish to accompany me, I will not attempt to stop you.”
“You’re takin’ the ’Thal girl?”
“No. I don’t want to move her until I’m sure Heaven can save her. And it may be dangerous. You must take care if you come with me.”
“I’ve got a battle suit,” said Second-Best Sailor.
“The Church is powerful,” said Sam. “Even an armored suit may not protect you.”
“I’ll take that chance,” said the mariner, stepping politely aside. “After you.”
The trapdoor led to a deep cylindrical shaft. A narrow staircase wound its way down the interior in a steep coil. The walls near them glowed with an inner pink light, which accompanied them as they made their way down into the darkness. The stairway was like the ramp had been, but far narrower.
As they descended, Sam forced himself to review yet again the logic of his deductions. He knew there was a Heaven on Aquifer. But what was it here for? Why was it secret? He had asked himself these questions before, and he had deduced that Aquifer had been chosen for the construction of a very small, very select Heaven. A Heaven for important members of the Church, yes.
Very important members.
His deductions still rang true. Every true believer knew that the ecclesiarchs, the spiritual leaders of Cosmic Unity, were to be found on the Cloister Worlds, four sparsely inhabited orphan planets in the starless region of the Trailing Spiral Arm known as Intermundia. All true believers had experienced, through their primary sensory media, the periodic Ceremony of the Affirmation of Deliverance, conducted from the Cloister Worlds by the ecclesiarchs themselves. Every true believer hoped to be chosen for the signal honor of a pilgrimage to Intermundia, to be near the spiritual center of the Church.
However, the true believers were wrong. They had been deliberately misled. The ecclesiarchs were not on the Cloister Worlds, not within ten thousand light-years of them. No doubt they visited the Cloister Worlds from time to time—with transibles, distance was no problem, and the wealth of the Church would pay for a hundred such visits every day, if need be.
The ecclesiarchs were on Aquifer, in Heaven.
That was why this particular Heaven was so small, why it was so secret. Why its very existence had to be concealed behind the facade of a monastery of equals. Why the innocent and the misguided—and, Sam had to admit, the occasional genuine heretic—had to be tortured into submission and belief in the Memeplex. All of it was cover for the true purpose of the installation at the Nether Ice Dome.
If the faithful were permitted the gratification of Heaven, how could it be denied to those whose faith was greatest? Why should leaders deny themselves pleasures that were given freely to their followers? It was twisted logic, a hierarchy in a self-proclaimed communion of equals, but that kind of self-deception was hardly new. There was a clear Church hierarchy, for a very good reason: Someone must make the important decisions, even if all were nominally equal. Cosmic Unity’s concept of equality applied mainly in the abstract.
Discorporated in a Heaven, though, the ecclesiarchs would be vulnerable. Some power-crazed heretic might make an attempt upon their lives while their attentions were otherwise engaged. An invisible, unknown Heaven was the answer. One whose physical location changed fairly often, maybe every twenty or thirty years. He wondered how many ecclesiarch Heavens there had been. One thing was sure: An underground Heaven would also be safe from levithons.
If Nerydd had been in Aquifer Heaven, she would still be living.
The end of the shaft interrupted Sam’s reverie. An arched gateway opened into a small antechamber, initially bathed in the same pink light; gradually, the illumination changed to the spectrum of natural Aquiferian sunlight.
Sam recognized the equipment. The chamber was a Vestibule of Heaven, just like the one that he had visited, and where he had lost . . . not his faith, for he still believed in the lifesoul and its trinity of Giver/Cherisher/Stealer. He had lost his blind adherence to the Memeplex of the Church of Cosmic Unity. Respect had turned to hatred. And yet . . . there was much that was admirable in the Memeplex. The error centered on the Two Great Memes. Two Great Mistakes.
There were servomechs in the vestibule, of course, but that was good. They would provide assistance with the equipment. One rolled across, its optical scanners giving the intruders an unnerving inspection. Sam stiffened his back. Second-Best Sailor increased the impermeability of his battle suit and checked his weapons.
“You cannot enter this facility,” said the servomech. “You have no authority.”
Sam shoved his copy of the ceremonial Ankh of the hierocrat in front of its scanners. “This is my authority.”
The servomech inspected the symbolic object, then referred to its standing orders. “Without the presence of the hierocrat in person, your authority is limited. And I know that she is not on this planet. What instructions do you wish me to implement?”
“There is a Neanderthal child,” Sam blurted. “Her name is Fall. She is close to death. If she could be discorporated—”
“No,” said the servomech. “Your authority does not stretch that far. No new lifesoul can be discorporated without the personal approval of the hierocrat, or an ecclesiarch. And they are no longer on this world—corporate or discorporate.”
Sam was pleased to have his deductions confirmed, but disappointed that the ecclesiarchs had been incorporated and transibled offplanet. However, that would have been an obvious precaution once the Neanderthal ship had appeared on the scene. He realized that his vague plan to kill the ecclesiarchs in Aquifer Heaven would never have worked, anyway.
He bit his lip in disappointment. He must find another way to save Fall. But it made sense. The ecclesiarchs wanted complete control over who joined them, and the local hierocrat would normally be the way to ensure that.
“Is that your only wish?” the mech asked. “If so, you have no further business here, and must leave.”
“The prisoner,” Second-Best Sailor whispered to Sam. “The other mariner. Find out where ’e is.”
Before Sam could speak, the servomech said, “The being that just spoke, hoping not to be overheard, is known to this facility. He is one of the offworld invaders that was captured recently. Was he not killed?”
Oh-oh. Sam had not anticipated this development. “No,” he lied. “He resembles the invader, but—”
“He is the same. His eye patterns are identical.” The robot waited for a moment, as if consulting higher authority. “It is irregular. The records say that he was disabled and released into the desert. Why is he here?”
“What right do you have to ask?” said Sam, deciding to go on the offensive. “His presence is not to be questioned by a mere machine. I have the Ankh of Authority! Stop wasting my time!”
“Very well.” Sam had not expected such rapid capitulation, but the servomech was a machine. It did not waste effort trying to maintain an untenable position. It knew exactly how far the authority of an Ankh-bearer extended, and it had to obey, even if the commands were irregular. “Your companion was referring to the other invader that was captured.”
So much for whispering. “Good, you heard. Where is the prisoner being held?”
“He is not being held,” said the servomech. Second-Best Sailor waited for the worst. Was the mariner dead after all? “He is in Heaven.”
We know that. “The prisoner’s discorporation was an oversight,” said Sam. “He has not yet been properly interrogated. He was prematurely rendered discorporate. The hierocrat has ordered that the process should be reversed so that he can be questioned.” He waved the ankh. “Incorporate the polypoid prisoner now.”
“That is . . . within the permitted gui
delines,” said the servomech. Sam breathed a sigh of relief; Second-Best Sailor maintained a float-the-cube expression. “Provided you are adequately protected against any violence on his part.”
Second-Best Sailor held out his laser rifle. The servomech glanced at it. “That is adequate, but you should disengage the safety interlock.”
“Uh—yeah, I’ll do just that,” said the mariner. “As soon as it’s necessary.” Perhaps he should have taken the time to undergo a proper orientation.
“It will become necessary,” replied the robot, “ninety seconds from now. Reincorporation has been initiated. But when it is complete, the being must be equipped with life support and conveyed to this location. Please wait.”
Second-Best Sailor fumbled surreptitiously with the rifle’s safety interlock. He’d known he’d forgotten something vital. Good job he hadn’t needed to fire the thing.
“The prisoner will be enclosed in an environmental wrap,” said the servomech. “For his own safety. Do not be alarmed at his appearance.”
“We know the procedures,” replied Sam curtly, giving silent thanks that the process of incorporation was being carried out in the caverns of Heaven itself, not alongside them in the Vestibule. He wasn’t sure he could face watching meat in an invisible blender being molded into the form of a living entity. Not again. The very thought made him want to puke.
Before his stomach could humiliate him in front of several dozen servomechs, a gate opened, and a figure wrapped in a life-support membrane staggered through.
It spoke. “Good day to ya, Cap’n.”
Second-Best Sailor’s siphons faltered in their rhythm. There was no mistaking the voice.
It was Fat Apprentice.
Fourteen Samuel Godwin’sson Travers had never witnessed a polypoid greeting before. It was evidently an emotional event, with much wrestling of tentacles and pounding of torsos, accompanied by high-pitched squeals as high-pressure seawater was forced from overpressurized siphons. The life-support membrane and armored suit muffled the sounds and obstructed the thrashing tentacles, but not much. The greeting would have gone on quite a bit longer, but Second-Best Sailor could tell that his most promising crew member was in poor physical shape. His tentacles lacked their customary grip and tension. Fat Apprentice had gone soft for lack of physical activity; he needed to get back on a boat and haul some rigging before his muscular tone disappeared altogether.