The Jesus Incident w-2

by Frank Herbert

  "The more we know, the stronger we are in our choices."

  Kingston's voice came to him from his training days.

  What a raw but marvelously trainable bit of human material I was!

  Kingston had been almost a master of control. Almost. And control was a function of strong choices. When it came down to it, Kingston had refused certain choices.

  I do not refuse.

  Choices resulted from information. He had learned that lesson well.

  But how can you know the result of every choice?

  Oakes shook his head and resumed his wandering. The sense that he walked into new dangers was an acute pressure in his breast. But there was no stopping this, short of death. His feet turned him down a passageway which he saw led to an agrarium. There was the peculiar green smell of the passage even if he had not recognized the wide cart tracks leading through an automatic lock ahead. He stepped across the track-dump, through the lock and found himself in a dimly lighted and frighteningly unbounded space.

  It was nightside here too. Even plants required that diurnal pulse. An internally illuminated yellow wall map at his left showed him his location and the best access routes out. It also showed this agrarium. The largest extrusions of the ship were monopolized for food production, but he had not entered one of those complexes for years - not since provisioning that first attempted colony on Pandora's Black Dragon continent. Long before they had gained their Colony foothold on the Egg.

  Kingston's first big mistake.

  Oakes stepped closer to the map, aware of distant movement far out in the agrarium but more interested in this symbol. He was not prepared for what the map told him. The agrarium he had entered was almost as large as the central core of the ship. It spread out, fanlike, from roots in the original hull. Ship and Colony maintenance figures he had been initialing took on a new reality here. And the map's explanatory footnote was an exclamation point.

  As Oakes looked on, the nightside shift of agrarium workers broke for their mid-meal WorShip. They did so as one and no perceptible signal passed among them, no reluctance of any sort evident. They moved together into the dim blue light of the WorShip alcove.

  They believe! Oakes thought, they really believe that the ship is God!

  As the shift supervisor led them in their litany, Oakes found himself washed in a sadness that came so suddenly and so hard that it held him on the verge of tears. He realized then that he envied them their faith, their small comfort of the ritual that was so much bother to him.

  The supervisor, a squat, bowlegged man with dirt on his hands and knees, led them in the Chant of Sure Growth.

  "Behold the bed of dirt," and he dropped a pinch of dirt to the floor.

  "And the seed asleep in it," the crew responded, lifting their bowls and setting them down.

  "Behold water," he dribbled some from his glass.

  "And the waking it brings," they raised their glasses.

  "Behold light," he lifted his face to the U-V racks overhead.

  "And the life it opens," they spread their hands, palms up.

  "Behold the fullness of the grain, the thickness of the leaf," he spooned from the communal pot, into the bowl to his left.

  "And the seed of life it plants in us," each worker spooned a helping for the Shipman on his left.

  "Behold Ship and the food Ship gives." The supervisor sat down.

  "And the joy of company to share it," they said, and sat to eat.

  Oakes turned away unnoticed.

  The joy of company! he snorted to himself. If there were less company and more food there would be a damn sight more joy!

  He moved along the rim of the ship's outer hull then, raw space only a few meters away. His mind was racing.

  That agrarium could feed thirty thousand people. Instead of counting people, they could count agraria and add the support figures! He knew that groundside shipments supplied eighty percent of Colony stores. Here was a key to real numbers! Why had they not seen that before?

  Even as he experienced elation at this thought, Oakes knew the ship would frustrate such an attempt. The damned ship did not want them to know how many people it supported. It blocked their attempts to count; it hid hyb complexes and confused you with meaningless corridors.

  It brought a nameless Ceepee out of hyb and announced a new groundside project outside of Shipman control.

  Wel.... accidents could happen groundside, too. And even a precious Ceepee from Ship could walk into a fatality.

  What difference did it make? The new Ceepee was probably a clone. Oakes had seen the earliest records: Clones were property. Somebody who signed with the initials MH had said it. And there was an aura of power around that statement. Clones were property.

  ***

  A word of caution about our genetic programs. When we breed for speed, we breed as well for very specific kinds of decisions. Speed chops out, edits out certain kinds of reflexive choices and long-term considerations. Everything becomes the decision of the moment.

  - Jesus Lewis, The E-Clone Directive

  WHEN TEMPORARY seals had closed off the breaks in the perimeter of the Redoubt, Lewis directed the careful dayside cleanup of the interior. It was a long frustrating job, and they worked through the night with emergency lighting. The entire Redoubt stank of chlorine, so strong in some areas that they were forced to wear filters and portable breathing equipment.

  In the morning, they drenched the courtyard with chlorine several times before daring to touch the corpses there. Even then, they moved the bodies with hastily improvised claw grabs attached to mobile equipment.

  Chlorine everywhere, and the inevitable burns of both flesh and fabrics made it an even slower task.

  At Sub-level Four, they came on a welcome surprise: twenty-nine clones and five more of the Redoubt crew sealed in an un-lighted storage chamber - all of them hungry, thirsty and terrified. The chamber contained spare charges for the gushguns, permitting Lewis to add fire to the chlorine for a final sterilization sweep.

  Lewis was surprised to find that the E-clones had not attacked the five crewmen. Then he learned that the crewmen had sounded the alarm at the Nerve Runner attack and herded the clones into the chamber. A sense of fellowship between E-clones and normals had developed during the long confinement. Lewis noted it as they emerged - clones helping normals and vice versa. Very dangerous, that. He gave sharp orders to separate them, clones to the more dangerous task of courtyard cleanup, normals to their regular supervisory tasks.

  One observation particularly annoyed him: the sight of a trusted guard, Pattersing, being solicitous over a delicate female E-clone of the new mix. She was tall and emaciated by human standards, a light brown skin and large eyes. Her whole series was flawed by fragile bones, and Lewis had almost decided to abandon it - except that now she was one of his remaining examples of the genetic mix between human and Pandoran.

  Perhaps Pattersing was merely being careful with valuable material. He must know how fragile the bones of this series were. Ye.... that could be it.

  Lewis was pleased to note other more successful examples of the new E-clones, the breed incorporating native genetic material. There would be no need to go back through that long, slow and costly development program. The disaster here at the Redoubt had not been total.

  A mood of euphoria came over him as it became increasingly clear that they had sterilized the Redoubt, and that they had a new weapon effective against Runners.

  "At least we've solved the food problem," he told Illuyank.

  Illuyank gave him a strange, measuring look which Lewis did not like.

  "Counting E-clones, there are only fifty of us left," Illuyank said.

  "But we've saved the heart of the project," Lewis said.

  Too late, Lewis realized he had said too much to this perceptive aide. Illuyank had proved himself capable of making correct deductions on limited information.

  Wel.... Illuyank was going Colony side. Murdoch would see to things there. />
  "We'll need replacements, lots of them," Illuyank persisted.

  "I expect us to be stronger because of this testing," Lewis said.

  Lewis diverted Illuyank then by ordering a complete inspection of the Redoubt - every corner, every bay, no space missed - chlorine and/or fire everywhere. They moved slowly through the passages and across the open areas, their progress marked by the hissing flames of the gushguns and great splashing washes of chlorine. Lewis ordered a final purging with chlorine gas, opening all valves, all hatches within the Redoubt. They then made another inspection with sensor eyes.

  Clean. When it was finished, they pumped the chlorine residue onto the surrounding ground, following it by waves of gas which swept around the rocks and hillocks where the clones had huddled when he had ordered them thrust from the safety of the Redoubt.

  Inevitably, some of the chlorine spilled over the cliff into the sea. It ignited a violent, churning retreat by the hallucinogenic kelp in the cove. A pack of hylighters came to the excitement. They floated at a safe distance over the surrounding hills, spectators, while Lewis and his meager force sterilized the area around the Redoubt.

  Later, Lewis went grinding out of a lock in an armored vehicle to direct the outside sterilizing team, taking Illuyank as his driver. At one point, Lewis ordered Illuyank to stop and shut down while they studied the arc of hylighters in the distance. It was a scene framed by the thick barrier of plazglass in the crawler. The giant orange bags floated in disconcerting silence, anchored by long black tendrils twining in the rocks of the hills. They were a perimeter of mystery about three kilometers distant and they filled Lewis with angry fear.

  "We'll have to eliminate those damned things!" he said. "They're floating bombs!"

  "And maybe more," Illuyank said.

  One of the surviving clones took this moment to drop his chlorine backpack. The clone turned to face the arc of hylighters, spread his stumpy arms wide and called out in a voice heard through the area: "Avata! Avata! Avata!"

  "Get that damned fool out of here and into confinement!" Lewis ordered. Illuyank relayed the order over their vehicle's external speakers. Two supervisors scrambled to obey.

  Lewis watched in grumbling impatience. Avata - that had been the other cry of the clone revolt. Avata, and, We're hungry now!

  If the particular clone out there had not been one of the precious new ones with the genetic mix, Lewis knew he would have ordered the stupid creature killed immediately.

  New security precautions would have to be put into effect, he told himself. Tougher rules about clone behavior. Oakes would have to be brought into these decisions. They would have to raid Colony, and Ship, for replacements - more clones, more staff, more guards, more supervisors. Murdoch and the Scream Room were going to be very busy for a time. Very busy. Well, gardening had always been a brutal business: root out the weeds, kill off the predatory grazers, destroy the pests. Lab One's special-purpose area was correctly labeled: The Garden. Producing flowers for Pandora.

  "We've used up the chlorine and it looks clean out here," Illuyank said.

  "Take us back inside," Lewis ordered. Then: "When you get back to Colony, I don't want any mention of the chlorine."

  "Right."

  Lewis nodded to himself. It was time now to consider what he would tell Oakes, how this disaster would be explained to make it an important victory.

  ***

  Clones are property and that's that!

  - Morgan Hempstead, Moonbase Director

  "THANK YOU for complying with my invitation."

  Thomas watched the seated speaker carefully, wondering at the sense of peril aroused by such a simple statement. This was Morgan Oakes, Chaplain/Psychiatrist - the Ceepee, The Boss?

  It was late dayside on Ship and Thomas had not been long enough from hyb to feel completely awake and familiar with his long-dormant flesh.

  I am no longer Raja Flattery. I am Raja Thomas,

  There could be no slip in the new facade, especially here.

  "I have been studying your dossier, Raja Thomas," Oakes said.

  Thomas nodded. That was a lie! The stress in the man's voice was obvious. Didn't Oakes realize how much he betrayed himself to trained senses? You could not believe a word this man uttered! He was careless - that was it.

  Perhaps there are no other trained senses to test him.

  "I responded to a summons, not to an invitation," Thomas said.

  There! That was the kind of thing a Raja Thomas would say.

  Oakes merely smiled and tapped a folder of thin Shippaper in his lap. A dossier? Hardly. Thomas knew that it was in Ship's interest to conceal the real identity of this new player in the game.

  Thomas! I am Thomas! He glanced around the Shipcell to which Oakes had invited him, realizing belatedly that this once had been a cubby. Oakes had taken out bulkheads to expand the cubby. Then, as Thomas recognized a mystical decorative motif between two dark-red woven wall hangings, he suffered one of the worst shocks in this awakening.

  This was my cubby!

  It was obvious that Ship had expanded enormously since those faraway Voidship days when it had housed only a few thousand hybernating humans and a minimal umbilicus crew. The changes he had seen on the trip here from hybernation hinted at even deeper changes behind them. What had happened to Ship?

  This expanded cubby suggested an unsavory history. The space was sybaritic with exotic hangings, deep orange carpeting, soft divans. Except for a small holoprojection at Oakes' left hand, all the cubby's expected servosystems had been concealed.

  Oakes was giving his visitor plenty of time to study the space around him, using the time to return that scrutiny. What was Ship's intent with this mysterious newcomer? The question was engraved large on Oakes' face.

  Thomas found his own attention caught by the computer-driven projection at the holofocus. It was a familiar three-dimensional analogue of a ship orbiting a planet, all glittering green and orange and black. Only the planetary system was unfamiliar; it had two suns and several moons. And as he watched the slow progression of the ship's orbit, he felt an odd sense of deja vu. He was in motion in a ship in motion in a universe in motio.... and it had all happened before.

  Replay?

  Ship said not, bu.... Thomas shrugged off such doubts, reserving them for later. He did not have to be told that the planet in the focus was Pandora and that this projection represented a real-time version of Ship's position in the system. Some things did not change no matter the great passage of time. Bickel had once monitored such a projection on the Voidship Earthling.

  Morgan Oakes sat on a deep divan of rust velvet while Raja Thomas stood - an unsubtle accent on their positions in a hierarchy which Thomas had not yet analyzed.

  "I'm told you are a Chaplain/Psychiatrist," Oakes said. And he thought: This man does not respond to his name in a quite normal way.

  "That was my training, yes."

  "Expert in communication?"

  Thomas shrugged.

  "Ahhh, yes." Oakes was pleased with himself. "That remains to be tested. Tell me why you have asked for the poet."

  "Ship asked for the poet."

  "So you say."

  Oakes allowed silence to follow this challenge.

  Thomas studied the man. Oakes was portly-going-on-fat, dark complexion, faint odor of perfume. His gray-streaked hair had been combed forward to conceal a receding hairline. The nose was sharp and flared at the nostrils, the mouth thin and given to a tight, stretching grimace; the chin was wide and cleft. The man's eyes dominated this rather common Shipman face. They were light blue and they probed, boring in, always trying to penetrate every surface they found. Thomas had seen such eyes on people diagnosed as psychotic.

  "Do you like what you see?" Oakes asked.

  Again, Thomas shrugged.

  Oakes did not like this response. "What is it you see in me which requires such scrutiny?"

  Thomas stared at the man. The genotype was recognizable and that first na
me was suggestive. Oakes could have Lon as a middle name. If Oakes were a clone instead of a replay-survivor rescued from a dying plane.... yes, that would be an interesting clue as to how Ship was playing this deadly game. Oakes bore a more than casual resemblance to Morgan Hempstead, the long-ago director of Moonbase. And there was that first name.

  "I've just been very curious to meet The Boss," Thomas said. He found a seat facing Oakes and sat without invitation.

  Oakes scowled. He knew what they called him shipside and groundside, but politeness (not to mention politics) dictated that the term not be used in this room. Best not precipitate conflict yet, however. This Raja Thomas posed too many mysteries. Aristocratic type! That damned better-than-you manner.

  "I, too, am curious," Oakes said.

  "I'm a servant of Ship."

  "But what is it you're supposed to do?"

  "I was told you have a communications problem on Pandora - something about an alien intelligence."

  "How very interesting. What are your special capabilities in this respect?"

  "Ship appears to think I'm the one for the job."

  "I don't call the ship's process thinking. Besides, who cares what opinions come out of a system of electronic bits and pieces? I prefer a human assessment."

  Oakes watched Thomas carefully for a response to this open blasphemy. Who was this ma.... really? You couldn't trust the damned ship to play fair. The only thing to believe was that the ship was not a god. Powerful, yes, but with limits which needed exploring.

  "Well, I intend to have a go at the problem," Thomas said.

  "If I permit it."

  "That's between you and Ship," Thomas said. "I'm well satisfied to carry out Ship's suggestions."

  "It offends m...." Oakes paused, leaned back into his cushions.... . when you refer to this mechanical constructio...." He waved a hand to indicate the physical presence of Ship all around. "...as Ship. The implication...." He left it there.