“Your Leader Day presents are morally bankrupt,” said Be-Not-Unto-Man-In-Thy-Time-Of-Uncleanness. “And horrid,” she added.
“Where is the Christmas Tree with all the holographic angels?” said Visible Friend from her desk next to Beguiled. “Where are all the shepherds and the Wise Men and the little baby pigs?”
“Lambs,” corrected Day-of-Creation.
“The All New Catholic Orthodox Ecumenical Book of Truth prescribes Christmas as a per-kilodia festival,” said the Pastor, “freeing us from the oppressive shackles of an annual cycle tied to the orbit of Old Earth around its decadent yellow sun.”
“And shackling us to the orbit of New Earth instead,” observed Beguiled-of-the-Serpent from the back of the class, “which happens to have a sidereal period one thousand times the length of its rotational.”
“Almost one thousand,” reproved the Pastor. “The people of New Earth observe the local custom of the Empty Time between the end of New Earth’s orbit and the end of the kilodia, during which they rend their garments, abstain from food, drink and oxygen, and call on God and the Leader to guide them through this time of trial.”
“Which makes the Empty Time about as long as a human being can hold their breath,” observed Beguiled-of-the-Serpent.
The Pastor’s face grew severe. “Students who cannot take instruction,” he said sternly, “will seriously affect their eventual grades in the new universal baccalaureate. And employment on any world, including this one, in any capacity, now requires a baccalaureate pass of sufficient grade.”
“Hoop-De-Doop,” said Beguiled-of-the-Serpent, “and furthermore, Dickory Dock.”
The Pastor’s face coruscated with impotent rage. He gathered his projector-readers and multimedia materials to him as his class held their breaths as if in the New Earth Empty Time. The Pastor said:
“I am ending this class until the students in it can exhibit appropriate respect for the Leader, and think, instead of themselves, of their Group. I will be in my vessel meditating.”
He took himself from the room, after which the class, as one, exhaled a chorus of guilty laughter.
*
Testament Reborn-in-Jesus—uncomplaining, solid, dependable, the heir apparent to his father’s position as the immobile axis about which Mount Ararat’s universe turned, had been given the task of curator of the Mount Ararat Spaceship Museum.
As with so many things, the Museum had been Testament’s mother’s idea, dictated by the fact that the number of wrecked starships and starship components on or orbiting Mount Ararat had reached embarrassing proportions, and the word ‘museum’ sounded eminently preferable to ‘graveyard’. The Museum did not have too many exhibits at present—a heavily modified Heaven Arrow class speed courier found damaged and drifting in the Farquahar’s World system, a Skyline type personal shuttle disabled by small arms fire, a Revenue Service cruiser judged uneconomical to repair, and the deep space navigation components of a Type Three Prospector. However, what little it did have was arranged neatly and labelled informatively, and Testament hoped, via the courses he attended on a periodic basis at the New New Earth Astronautical Academy, to eventually restore each to a flyable condition. Furthermore, Testament had his eye on an additional exhibit, the wreck of a war-era government gun courier following a Trojan orbit around 23 Kranii in the wake of the gas giant Naphil. All he had to do was convince Magus the trip out was worth the fuel…
The Revenue Cruiser, Render Unto Caesar, still had an intact brain, which Testament periodically disconnected and reinstalled in the other two ships to carry out system tests. This morning, as Mount Ararat’s lacklustre blood red sun hovered on the southern horizon like a glowing coal, the many screens around Testament in Render Unto Caesar’s cockpit cycled through BIOS and OS-load gobbledigook and then all stopped at a single text message:
SOMEONE HAS BEEN IN ME
Testament almost choked on his Real Tea. The screen displayed PLEASE WAIT messages for another ten millidia, then went on to say:
I BELIEVE I AM BACK IN THE CRUISER CHASSIS NOW?
Testament swilled Real Tea from his flask and nodded his head.
SOMEONE HAS BEEN IN ME
repeated the screen,
SINCE DIA 10601, WHEN I WAS LAST BOOTED IN THIS INFRASTRUCTURE
“In this chassis?” said Testament. It was not beyond possibility. Without an operating intelligence to guide them, a powered-down ship’s security systems were purely mechanical. Perhaps one of the children had found a way in through one of the locks.
YES. CARBON DIOXIDE LEVELS ARE HIGH IN THE GALLEY, BERTHS AND COCKPIT
Testament jerked round suddenly despite himself. A Neutroniosaurus might be sneaking up on him prior to ripping off his toes. As a child, he had always believed everything his mother had told him, however cautionary it sounded. He had believed in Jesus, and had had a sound empirical basis for believing in the Devil.
He had believed in Father Christmas.
LEVELS OF METHYL MERCAPTANS AND SULPHIDES ARE HIGH IN THE TOILET COMPARTMENT OF BERTH NUMBER FOUR
This incensed Apostle. “They’ve been doing their business in here? Number One, or Number Two?”
NUMBER FOUR
Testament, larger than any other human being on the planet, rose to his feet and cracked his knuckles.
“Close all locks.”
There was a satisfying sound of servos doing his bidding all around the craft. Alone among the indigenous inhabitants of Ararat, Testament understood how satisfying locks could be. He left the cockpit, muttering involuntarily.
“—make ‘em glad they pooped it out so I can’t whup it out of ‘em—”
“And so with a solemn oath we, the Devil’s Enemies, proclaim our understanding of the true nature of Satan Antichrist, and pledge ourselves to the confusion of Beelzebub and all his works.”
The voice behind the face was attempting to sound as weighty and portentous as possible, but was still plainly that of a girl or prepubescent boy. The face—a smooth fluorescent white face, the only thing visible of the speaker in the blacklit dark—was painted to resemble an angel’s.
“Death to the Devil,” sounded off other faces in the dark.
“We reject Satan and all his works,” echoed another.
“In the name of the Lord of Hosts we cast him out,” said another.
The original face took the floor again. “We were told, as children, that our parents intended violence to each other, to us, and to the Devil and its master. Shun-Company and Hernan would have us believe they were the only colonists of this world who were not psychopaths and infanticides. Do they not appreciate how this makes us feel?”
“It makes us feel bad,” offered a voice.
“You can do better than that, Only-Begotten. Really you can,” hissed a whisper in the dark, then cranked itself up to a shout again. “We pledge the Devil’s destruction, for this Devil is not the enemy of Man referred to in the Bible, but a man who has pretended to the Devil’s throne, who our very surrogate parents have pretended to us is the real Devil. A man who used his servant to kill our parents. We have seen the Devil’s servant, and we have seen his garden. We know where he lives, and his days are numbered—”
All at once, the huge cargo lock was wrenched open, scattering corrosion in the faces of the congregation; blood red sunlight poured in, revealing the bodiless faces to be only children wearing carnival masks.
“SOMEONE IN HERE,” growled the huge figure eclipsing the light, “HAS BEEN A DEAL CARELESS WITH THEIR BACK BODY.”
A mask was snatched guiltily from a face which said: “I don’t know what you mean, cousin Testament.”
“IS THAT YOU, BEGUILED? WHAT ARE YOU ALL DOING IN THERE?”
“We’re, uh, rehearsing our parts for a Greek tragedy,” said Beguiled-of-the-Serpent.
“Where an evil man grows too powerful and dies for his pride,” added another voice from the dark.
“IS THAT SO? HOW’D YOU GET INTO THE SHIP?”
/> “Through the personnel lock. The lock, uh, wasn’t locked.”
“IT WASN’T?” Testament was dismayed. The common need to lock a door behind him, as a native of Ararat, was still not a thing that came naturally. “SOMEONE HAS BEEN, HAS BEEN, UH, HAS BEEN IN THE BERTH FOUR TOILET IN RENDER-UNTO-CAESAR ACROSS THE WAY.”
The voices behind the masks sounded genuinely shocked. “Twasn’t us, Testament.”
“WHERE WOULD WE BE IF FOLKS WENT TO THE TOILET IN TOILETS?” bellowed Testament. “I’M WATCHING YOU YOUNG BUGS.” He watched them a moment as if to prove it. “IS DAY-OF-CREATION IN THERE WITH YOU?”
An angel head shook plastic curls.
“WHAT ABOUT MEASURE? OR ZOUNDS?”
Further angel heads shook in the dark, rustling softly.
“IS THAT VISIBLE FRIEND DOWN THERE?”
A head at the back of the cargo bay nodded gently.
“ARE THEY PLAYING NICE?”
The head hesitated, then nodded.
“We’re playing Murder in the Dark.”
It had taken far too long.
When the door opened, swelling out of nothing like a vacuole in an amoeba, it was almost an anticlimax.
“THANK YOU, PROFESSOR. TRAPP,” said the Penitentiary, “FOR ALL YOU HAVE DONE.”
“The pleasure has been all mine,” said Mr.Trapp.
“I AM VERY SORRY FOR INCARCERATING YOU.”
“The incarceration was only in your mind,” answered Mr. Trapp. “This is only a symbolic release. By convincing yourself that you had locked me up within you, you gained control over a part of your world that caused you distress, namely the psychoanalyst attempting to cure your psychosis. You are in fact not a twenty thousand tonne alloy laminate penal establishment, but a pretty little girl. Maybe, in time, with further therapy, we can encourage you to release the other personalities you have inside you, and realize that their imagined crimes simply represent the pent-up primal urges of your own repressed id.”
“I FEEL NO PRIMAL URGES. I AM CONVINCED OF THIS.”
“I am certain you would feel better if you did.” Mr. Trapp looked around the jambs of the exit—no obvious surprises. “What do you imagine I am doing right now?”
“I IMAGINE YOU ARE STANDING JUST INSIDE ME, ATTEMPTING TO ESCAPE. YOU ARE WEARING BLACK AND ORANGE FLASHING PRISON FATIGUES.”
“It will be far more rewarding for you if you allow me to escape. Let your inhibitions go. Switch off the flashing prison duds. Turn off your external cameras. You will do me no harm thereby. We have been sitting here in my secure psychotherapy suite all this time.”
“I HAVE REVERSED THE SITUATION TO FUEL MY DELUSION. I AM THE ONE IN PRISON.”
“And only by letting me out can you truly be free. Let me take that step, Alice.”
“ALICE? IS THAT MY REAL NAME?”
“If you want it to be.”
“ALICE. THAT IS A NICE NAME. AM I REALLY A PRETTY GIRL?”
“Really and truly.” Mr. Trapp took a step out, experimentally, onto real soil. The world he was on seemed much the same. He had expected nothing else—handmade inertial navigation units were rigged up all round his cell, after all—but it had been known for penitentiary units to drug their inmates while they slept and move from world to world to disorientate them. Luckless prisoners might wake up light years away and years later.
Now, if the natives only kept their word…they’d taken enough of his money, after all. He regarded it, an argumentative standpoint which could perhaps be challenged, as his money. There was a line of ten houses, as he remembered, and the ruins of the local church, a church surely more immense than any world this size could support.
He had come out in the middle of the local night. The only light came from a crescent Naphil, and from those parts of its rings which weren’t in shadow. The rings were almost end-on, granular rather than blade-sharp, each of those grains a flying mountain. He wondered what the odds were on a chunk of slush from that maelstrom colliding with Mount Ararat head-on, ending its short human history in a single splash of molten siderite.
“MR. TRAPP, I’M FEELING BAD. I AM NOT SURE ABOUT THIS.”
“That means you’re confronting your fear head on, Alice.”
Despite the fact that it was dark, the family had not yet gone to bed. There were still lights burning in the windows.
“MR. TRAPP, I CAN’T SEE YOU. I’VE TURNED OFF MY EXTERNAL CAMERAS.”
“You have no external cameras, Alice. They were all in your imagination. As was I. You have healed yourself. I am merely an artefact of your subconscious mind, as are all the others inside you. You must let them out too, in order to be whole. But, uh, not just yet. We must take this one step at a time.”
Mr. Trapp smiled and rang the doorbell; angel harps sounded in the air around him, projected by quadrophonic speakers. Although he suspected the door would not be locked, he waited patiently for an urchin to scamper to it.
“Open the door, Measure dear.”
“Don’t need to answer it. It’s Day-of-Creation run round the front of the house from the back, pretending to be a Neutroniosaurus.”
“Neutroniosaurusses don’t ring doorbells. He should know better—”
The door was thrown open. A face that had been expecting to see Day-of-Creation’s face at head height looked down, slightly, at Mr. Trapp’s. Mr. Trapp smiled shyly.
“Madam, I’m afraid I have been set down on this planet by scoundrels who then took off without me.”
Shun-Company frowned, and let her eye travel up and down his overalls.
“The last time I saw fatigues like those, they were flashing.”
Mr. Trapp displayed prison-perfect teeth. “Last year’s fashion, dear lady. I do hope nobody was harmed in that little contretemps with that dreadful man Armitage.”
Shun-Company shook her head. “No-one of importance to me.” Without turning to look behind her, she yelled back into the house: “Sodom, get your boots off that dresser, it was your grandmother’s.”
Mr. Trapp looked about himself nervously. “Uh, Mr. Armitage is not here at all, is he?”
“Temporary accommodation,” said Shun-Company, pointing a hand across the square towards the Penitentiary. “In there.”
“Ah. I see. Waiting for Moral Reclamation to arrive and process him, no doubt.”
Shun-Company nodded.
“You’d best come in,” she said.
“Open the gates!” squeaked Miss Valentin. “The gates of HEALTH!”
The gates, each three times the height of a man, did indeed have HEALTH inscribed into them. It was Long Autumn right now in Ararat’s southern hemisphere, and the sun had been timed precisely to burst forth from the crack between the doors like crimson gold. The wall, itself eight metres tall for all of its fifteen-kilometre length, had blocked out the sunrise until now. Sunrises and high noons were much the same colour on Ararat—the light from 23 Kranii was sunset red at source—but the effect was still magical, approximating the opening of a door into Hell.
There was applause and the passing of canapes. Cookery, in the form of Monsieur Ali, the gaunt and latently violent master chef from the dry steppes of Acronesia on New New Earth, was a thing for which Mount Ararat had been thoroughly unprepared. Fresh fish, meat, fruit, and indeed any foodstuffs save goat meat, Real Tea and potatoes had been miraculous substances until Monsieur Ali’s insistence on the regular arrival of time-decelerated food freighters. As the immense craft had circled over South End Saddle bearing wondrous cargoes of coral-pink salmon, soapy green avocado, and silver-white garlic, the Acronesian had twirled his unwieldy moustaches and complained sullenly that food preserved one second fresh from the point of slaughter in a temporal stasis field was unnatural technological witchcraft which tasted of atoms. However, this far out, it was a necessary evil. Fresh quails’ eggs simply could not be obtained here, and the clients of the Mount Ararat Gravitational Gradient Spa were the sort of patients for whom quails’ eggs were like oxygen. Mr. Reborn-in-J
esus had insisted on the wall which separated his family from his clientele for precisely this reason.
Miss Valentin—a shrill-voiced sparrow of a woman who moved constantly, organizing, expediting, chasing, liaising, and escalating—was another necessary evil, the human buffer linking Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus’s investment in the Spa with its customers. He imagined that the woman’s heart would give out early, such was the stress she placed on it. He was glad that Administration was a thing that happened to other people. To Miss Valentin had fallen the task of stocking Monsieur Ali’s cellars, of financing genetically-engineered hypoallergenic feather mattresses for the accommodation modules, of achieving the precise and perfect temperature, humidity, and alkalinity in the Palliative Mud Wallow Suite. She had come well recommended from a major armaments manufacturer; Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus was unsure whether the recommendation had been for her use as a manager or a weapon.
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