Haynes examined the area around the door and immediately spotted the gel lens. “Oh I think you can do better than that,” he cajoled confidently. “What’s the use of a handscan that you don’t have on file? How’s that going to identify me?”
“You are not on file, therefore you need to be put on file for future identification,” the computer voice replied. Haynes could not be sure whether the merest hint of challenge in the voice was his imagination.
Haynes considered the plate, which still glowed its ominous red colour as if challenging him, and wondered how much voltage could pass through it. Enough to kill him anyway.
“Oh well.” He shrugged and laid his palm against the plate. It hummed briefly, but Haynes found himself decidedly unelectrified.
“State designation,” the voice demanded.
“Kaymer Haynes,” he said, choosing quickly.
“Kaymer?” Keely asked in surprise. He hadn’t been asked his name since being accepted as the Prophet of Manure. She added quickly, “I mean it’s a good name. I like it.”
“Status?” the voice queried, cutting in.
“Owner,” Haynes waited for objections from the youngsters, but it was the computer that complained.
“This ship is the property of Eli Wallacher,” it said promptly. “Status denied.”
“Eli Wallacher, locally known as Uncle Silas, is dead. I claim right of salvage under the Galactic Republic articles of ownership,” Haynes quoted.
“Status denied,” the computer told him.
“That’s a no then,” Simeon translated.
“No?” Haynes queried the gel lens.
“Status denied,” the computer reiterated.
“Simeon, how much metal occurs naturally on this planet?” Haynes asked without taking his eyes off the lens.
“None, you know that,” the younger man said, confused.
“How much of this ship do you think could be used if it was stripped down?”
“Are you joking?” Simeon asked and then saw that he wasn’t. “Well everything. The structural plasteel could be used anywhere. There’s miles of optical cable for the comms system in Capital City. The central computer could supply chips for a thousand school or hospital systems. Gel lenses for security, power generation systems, environment control equipment... There wouldn’t be a rivet left after a month.”
Haynes raised a quizzical eyebrow. The door popped open with an almost palpable reluctance.
“Status of Haynes, Kaymer?” Haynes asked, holding back the other two as they started for the door.
There was a perceptible delay and then the voice conceded, “Owner.”
“And it wouldn’t be considered proper to fry, asphyxiate or otherwise terminate the owner or his companions now would it?” Haynes mused out loud.
“Please restate the question using more precise parameters.”
“Never mind,” Haynes muttered and stepped through onto the flight deck.
As he did so, the lights inside glowed into yellow, murky life. He could barely see to the far side of the chamber through the gloom. It was dominated by an inert screen that filled the front curve of the deck from floor to ceiling and wrapped a full 180 degrees around the room. Three wide and comfortable-looking flight couches were situated in the centre of the screen’s arc with a number of panels set out before them. Other panels were set out around the remainder of the room.
“Nice,” Simeon commented as he followed Haynes across the threshold.
“Decoration’s a bit spartan,” Keely added, joining them.
“Pity none of it’s working,” Simeon ran his fingers over one of the panels and found it unresponsive.
“Computer,” Haynes commanded, standing in front of the large screen, “bring all lights to standard operating levels.” When nothing happened, he added in a conversational tone, “and if you mention that power levels are too low I will hack directly into your core operating systems interface not ten metres away from where I am standing, short out your higher brain functions, reroute the algorithmic processing units through a bypass and just yank out the AI personality boards, leaving you little more than an automated sliderule.”
Abruptly, the lights brightened considerably, causing the trio to blink against the unexpected illumination, and the screen also lit up to display swirls of colour flowing across it in agitated patterns.
“Is that better?” the computer asked, but this time the voice was soft, silky and undeniably female.
Simeon looked around, startled whilst Keely frowned.
“Much,” Haynes assured the voice, reassessing the flight deck in the new light. It looked smaller now that he could see it all. “Is there a name that we should be calling you?”
“You are the owner,” the silky voice reminded him. “You may call me anything that you like.”
“An option I will no doubt take advantage of,” Haynes examined the first of the flight panels and the controls glowed gently under the touch of his fingers, “but for now is there a name you would prefer?”
“Owner…former owner Eli Wallacher called me Diana,” Haynes picked up on the slip, but let it pass.
“Digital Intelligence Analyser and Nodal Assessor,” Haynes nodded understanding, adding to his companions, “A bit literal, Uncle Silas.”
“You seem very knowledgeable about these ships,” Simeon pointed out archly. “Just how is that?”
“Every boy at the time dreamed of being the pilot of one of these,” Haynes explained, flopping onto the main couch and feeling it mould itself around him to better protect him from the stresses of acceleration, “and then, later, everyone knew the story. You’re not going to do anything stupid like try to take over universe again are you?”
The swirling colours on the screen slowed until they were barely moving and muted through the blue spectrum towards purple. The voice, when it spoke was soft and mournful, “The others are all gone now, dismantled by creators who had grown scared of them. I continue to exist only because Eli chose not to listen to orders, not to take me back. Without all of us universal conquest would be impracticable.”
“One of the pilots disobeyed the order to destroy his ship and hid it in the last place anyone would look,” Haynes summarised. “Now that’s not a story the government went out of its way to advertise.”
“And Uncle Silas grew older whilst you...” Keely’s voice held almost as much pity as the computer’s had held sadness.
“Grew weaker,” the computer finished the thought for her, “and finally just stopped.”
“Well now you’re back so we can get moving,” Haynes jumped eagerly to his feet. “Can you fly?”
The screen swirled with startled purples, “On solar power? The receptors are pretty efficient, but most of these batteries have been completely drained for...”
“Uncle Silas died seven years ago,” Simeon supplied helpfully.
“...a long time. It takes more than a few watts of sunshine to kick start a fusion reactor you know.”
“What would you need?” Simeon beat Haynes to the question by barely an exhale.
“Simplest thing would be another fusion reactor,” the computer suggested.
“Not going to happen on this planet,” Haynes told the screen. “What’s next simplest?”
“Sacrifice a virgin and pray for a miracle,” the computer told him.
“Well, actually,” Simeon started to say, but Haynes interrupted.
“No virgin sacrifices. It takes too long to find one and even longer to get the smell out of the carpets.”
“I was thinking more about the fusion reactor thing,” Simeon told him.
“You have them?” Haynes took Simeon’s arm in a grip that spoke more of dangerous threat than eagerness. “I mean here, on Hochnar, you’ve built them?”
Simeon tried hard to extricate his arm before the grip cut the blood supply to the limb completely, “No, but the ship that brought the Founding Fathers...”
“And mothers,” Keely
interjected.
“Not really the time to make a feminist point,” Haynes hissed her to silence.
“First it was a monument to their survival, then it was scavenged to ensure their survival,” Simeon explained, giving up on trying to save his arm. Haynes noticed that he was still gripping the boy and let him go. “The fusion reactors were all damaged beyond repair, except for one.”
“Where is it?”
“Powering Central City,” Simeon told him.
“That’s not going to do us a lot of good out here,” Haynes pointed out. After a while’s silence, he asked, “How heavy is a fusion reactor?”
“Doesn’t matter how heavy it is,” Simeon told him practically. “The few hundred tonnes of concrete shielding is what will put your back out.”
“But if you could get it out from the shielding?” Haynes asked conversationally, not willing to give up. Not giving up had so far gotten him out of an escape-proof prison, made him a demi-god and found him a non-existent spaceship. He was not about to give up not giving up.
“A couple of tonnes maybe,” Simeon supposed.
“So we could bring it out here,” Haynes declared triumphantly.
“The radiant energy would strip the flesh from your bones in a very short time,” Simeon told him with a hint of satisfaction.
“Approximately seven one-hundredths of a second,” the computer calculated helpfully.
“OK, OK,” Haynes started to pace the room. He had yet to find a problem that wasn’t more easily solved when he was in motion. The escape from Srindar Djem had cost him several months of sleepless nights and several hundred miles of pacing. “So we switch it off.”
“Could be done,” Simeon said, a slight smile playing around his lips. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned against the doorway.
“You wouldn’t?” Keely was scandalised. She hadn’t spoken much since they had entered the control deck. “I mean, you couldn’t.”
“Why not?” Haynes waved away her objections. “After all, your brother just told us that it could be done.”
“But that powers the hospital and the schools and...”
“Oh we’ll get them portable generators or something in the meantime,” Haynes gestured expansively.
“I think that your young friend may have spotted the flaw in your plotting,” the computer said. Amused yellows flowed across the screen.
“Flaw?” Haynes demanded, whirling to face the treacherous Simeon. The idea was so close to becoming an actual plan that he could taste it, but he instantly suspected that a rug he didn’t know he was standing on was about to be tugged rapidly from beneath his feet. “What flaw?”
“You’re going to switch off the fusion reactor that you need to start this fusion reactor in order to get it here,” Simeon pointed out in a self-satisfied manner.
Haynes closed his eyes and slapped himself in frustration.
“What?” Keely demanded, not fully caught up.
“Once you’ve got it here, how do you start it again?” Simeon explained patiently.
“Oh,” she was crestfallen when she realised what he meant.
“We could drag the ship,” Simeon suggested. His moment of superiority over he automatically reverted to his normal, helpful self. “We get some cables and some of the trucks. We can even use lines of people if necessary.”
“Nobody’s dragging me,” the computer said flatly. “I’m not some block destined for a pyramid.”
“You have a better idea?” Simeon snapped back.
“I do as a matter of fact, geek boy,” the computer screen glowed with a faint red tinge of annoyance. “I said that I couldn’t fly, but I never said anything about not being able to drive.”
Haynes rubbed his eyes tiredly in the startled silence that followed. “Computer,” he asked with a voice that sounded as if it hadn’t known sleep since the first drops of rain fell on the roof of the Ark, “are you going to continue to be this obstructive throughout our relationship?”
“You are the one who didn’t ask,” the computer replied primly.
Haynes and Keely stood in the Great Hall of the god Manure in Central City. This being Hochnar, the hall wasn’t all that great, but it was the largest enclosed space on the whole planet. One of the disciples of Manure crossed towards them over a floor that had been polished into a mirror. Haynes realised that he could see what the disciple wore beneath his robes (or more importantly what he didn’t wear under his robe) and averted his eyes hurriedly, hoping that Keely would continue to be captivated by the roof murals and not choose to look down.
The murals told the story of Hochnar in large panels of brightly painted images. The first showed the oppression that had brought the colonists together to leave their homeworlds and the second showed the crash of their colony ship onto the planet’s arid surface. That being the whole history of the world, the rest of the panels were made up of general views of daily life. Haynes realised with horror that a new panel had been recently completed (no doubt over a scene of ploughing or something else equally exciting) showing a figure emerging from a vat of manure. The likeness wasn’t a great one, but there was no mistaking the face.
The acolyte reached them and bowed politely, his hands tucked inside the sleeves of his robe across his chest. “I am sorry but Master Bentham is unable to see you at this time.”
“What?” Haynes said, modulating the volume of the word halfway through as the hall amplified and echoed it.
“I am sorry...” the disciple began to repeat, but Haynes cut him off.
“You did tell him who wanted him?”
The disciple looked momentarily stricken at the thought that the Prophet might think that he had failed in his service to him, but then a suitably beatific expression returned to his face, “Of course.”
“And you do know who I am?”
The acolyte bowed his head once again, “Of course.”
“There was no message at all?”
“None that I believe was intended,” the disciple replied.
“What exactly did Master Bentham say?” Haynes added for extra emphasis, “Exactly?”
The disciple thought about this for a moment and then said, “He used some of the words that are forbidden to us and then ‘not now I’m too busy, no wait tell them only that I am unable to see them at this time’.” This was delivered in the monotone of perfect recollection and less than perfect understanding.
“Too busy to see me,” Haynes muttered in confusion, “too busy, to see me?”
“May I go now?” the disciple inquired.
“What? Oh yes, thanks.”
As the acolyte moved away, Keely leaned over and whispered to Haynes, “Did you know that you could see right up his robe in the reflection from the floor?” Watching him go, she added, “I know a few girls who wouldn’t mind changing his religious convictions.”
Haynes was about to respond to that when Simeon hurried into the hall and across to join them. He, too, was wearing disciple’s robes, but was only visiting and Haynes was pleased to note that he still had his street clothes on underneath.
“Something’s going on here,” Simeon said a little breathlessly. He had clearly been hurrying for some distance. “Something to do with you, and us.”
“I was certainly getting that impression,” Haynes agreed.
Simeon motioned them to silence as another acolyte passed by the doorway behind them, “the murals were painted by the Founding Fathers...”
“And Mothers,” Keely put in.
“...to celebrate First Landing,” Simeon continued to act like a tour guide until the acolyte has passed beyond hearing. “Let’s take a walk in the Arboretum.”
Arboretum was a little too grand a word for the small orchard of emaciated trees that struggled to produce enough foliage for any sort of shade from the sun. It was something else that had been done by the first colonists and the current populace was not about to give up on it. Hochnarians weren’t very good at giving up on thi
ngs either, Haynes had noticed.
“Considering the circumstances, shouldn’t the Founding...” he cast a sidelong glance at Keely, “...Parents have called it First Crashing?”
“Here’s what I have found out,” Simeon told them urgently. “Master Bentham has been locked away in his chambers for several days now. The only times that he has been out he’s gone into the library and returned directly to his rooms. Theological experts have been summoned from all over for audiences with him and left again without a word to anyone. Now a meeting of the High Council has been called without an agenda.”
“How come you didn’t know about it?” Keely asked, suprised.
“You’re on the High Council?” Haynes also asked, more surprised.
“Youth Representative,” Simeon shrugged. “They never listen to me, but it does give me access to certain things.”
“Like what things?” Haynes prompted him.
“Like the Librarian for one,” Simeon revealed, rather underwhelmingly in Haynes’s eyes. He was a lot less underwhelmed as Simeon continued, “I asked what books Master Bentham has been reading, just so that I could catch myself up in the subject at hand, you understand.”
Haynes and Keely both nodded.
“Heavy theological tomes, histories of the God and planetfall and other old stuff. Books not opened since the time of Thomas the Heretic.”
“He was hung, drawn and eighthed,” Keely added helpfully.
“I think you mean quartered,” Haynes corrected her gently.
“Oh no, there were definitely eight bits when they finished.”
“There was one other book that Master Bentham has been interested in more than the others,” Simeon revealed.
“Which is?” Haynes knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.
“ ‘Theses on the forms of the prophet’.”
“This is not good,” Haynes decided, starting to pace. “Come on, we’ve got to get that ship to the city’s power plant as quickly as we can.”
Master Bentham rubbed his eyes tiredly and stared at the parchments in front of him. They had been used many times over and then rubbed clean of the ink. As a result, the surface no longer took the ink well and the words blurred even as they were written. Despite this, there was no mistaking the columns of figures for what they were. It was yet another bill. He had seen more of those in the past few weeks than during the whole of the rest of his tenure as head of the order. This one was for another party. The Prophet (if that was, actually, what he was) seemed to like rewarding people by throwing lavish parties open to all and sending the bills to him. This party was being thrown on the outskirts of Central City itself and so the entire city was in attendance and the numbers on the bill in front of him were correspondingly high.
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