Omega к-4

by Джек Макдевитт

  She pushed him away and ran for the lander.

  He followed happily, using his remote to switch on the navigation lights. Her clothes had become transparent.

  IT WAS STILL dark when he came fully awake. He listened and heard a distant sound. Felt it in the lander.

  Voices.

  Chanting.

  Kellie was asleep beside him. He lifted himself carefully out of the blankets, but couldn’t see anything from inside. He pulled on his e-suit and went out into the night. It was coming from the temple grounds.

  He walked to the edge of the crag and looked down. There were torches and movement. And the chant.

  But it was impossible to see what was happening.

  His experience with the Goompahs told him that they weren’t big early-morning risers.

  He went back inside and woke Kellie.

  THERE WAS A pair of Goompahs wearing black hoods and robes and carrying torches, led by another in white. It immediately felt like déjà vu, here they come again, where’s the javelin? And sure enough, there it was, hauled along by a bearer.

  The crowd had grown. Someone was playing a set of pipes, and the marchers were chanting, although Digger could catch only an occasional word. “Darkness.” “Righteousness.” “Your glory.” “Help.”

  Help.

  Help us put a new roof on the temple?

  Help us in our hour of need?

  They were crowded together. Digger and Kellie kept a cautious distance.

  The three robed figures moved along one of the walkways, staying in step, not military precision, but practiced nevertheless. The crowd fell in behind. He estimated it at several hundred, and they were joining in the chant and becoming more enthusiastic.

  The rain had cleared off, and the stars were bright and hard.

  The procession moved through a patch of woods and issued finally onto a beach. When Digger got there, well in the rear, the three leaders had thrown off their sandals and advanced a few paces into the surf. They spread out into a semicircle. The one in white looked older than the others, and he wore a wide-brimmed white hat.

  “Creature of—”

  The onlookers had gone quiet. They all stayed back out of the water.

  “—the night—”

  Digger suddenly realized he hadn’t brought a pickup. He had no way of recording this.

  “—Depart—”

  They got as close as they could, moving down into the wet sand, leaving footprints. But it was too dark for anyone to notice.

  The marchers were looking out over the sea—

  No, in fact they were looking up. At the black patch, which was sinking toward the northwestern horizon.

  “—Hour of need—”

  A large wave rolled in, and the one in the white robe floated over the top.

  He raised his arms and the night fell silent. He stood several moments, and it seemed to Digger he was hesitating. Then he went a step or two farther out. The bearer appeared alongside him and offered the javelin. He took it and held it aloft. His lips moved. Trembled.

  More Goompahs were arriving at every moment, some coming from the temple area, others arriving from the far end of the beach. But they were all silent.

  He aimed the javelin in the direction of the omega, jabbed at it a few times, and handed the weapon off to one of the others. And as Digger watched in growing horror, he strode out into the waves, his robes floating, until at last he was floating. Then he was swimming, struggling to move forward against the tide. The sea tried to push him back, but he kept going and at last he got beyond the breaking waves.

  He continued swimming for several minutes.

  And he disappeared.

  The one who had received the javelin stripped off his outer garment to reveal a white hood and robe. He raised the weapon over his head, and called out to Taris, the defender of the world.

  “We beg you accept our (something). And protect us from T’Klot.” The hole. The omega. “Malio takes our plea to your divine presence. Hear him, we beg you, and extend your hand in this our time of need.”

  LIBRARY ENTRY

  Religion is like having children, or taking medicine, or eating, or any of a thousand other perfectly rational human activities: Taken in small doses, it has much to recommend it. One need only avoid going overboard.

  — Gregory MacAllister

  “Slippery Slope”

  Editor-at-Large, 2227

  chapter 27

  On board the al-Jahani, in hyperspace.

  Wednesday, September 17.

  SIX MONTHS AND three days out. Collingdale had expected his people would be climbing the walls by then. But they were doing okay. It was true that some of the early enthusiasm had worn thin, but that might have been because there was less to be gleaned from the stream of data coming in from the Jenkins. By and large, they had recovered an extensive vocabulary, and they understood the syntax. From there on, mastering the language would be largely a matter of pronunciation and nuance.

  Once they’d gotten on top of things, Judy had cut back on the Goompah-only requirement. They’d derived some serious benefits from the restriction, but it had lost its charm quickly and, despite the early compromises, it had begun to strain relations between the Shironi Kulp and the other passengers. In a nonstop voyage of record-breaking duration, it just wasn’t a good idea. So the linguists continued to limit themselves to Goompah in the workshop, but they had long ago become free to use whatever language they liked, with the provision that they were to regard Goompah as their native tongue, and to resort to it as the language of choice.

  It had worked well.

  The brief tensions that had appeared subsided, the Goompah jokes lost their edge, and Collingdale noted a decrease in the resentment that everyone on board had developed toward him and Judy.

  Well. There you were. But, as he’d explained to Alex, and to several others, Judy had had a job to do, and the language policy had been the best way of getting it done.

  They’d extracted a series of Goompah aphorisms from the library material, which were posted on a bulkhead in the workroom. Deal justly with your neighbor.

  Assist the weak.

  Be kind to all.

  Everyone was invited to add to the collection, and Collingdale stopped to scribble one that he’d come across in a treatise of the teachings of Omar Koom. (That first name brought a smile. Were there also Goompahs somewhere named Frank? Or Harriet?)

  The principle that he’d added to the collection: Accept no claim without evidence.

  He liked that. Where’s the proof? I’m from Missouri.

  How peaceful would the history of his own world have been if that idea were universally accepted? Yet these were the same creatures who exorcised demons and had allowed one of their own to walk into the sea in an effort to head off the cloud. It hadn’t taken much analysis to confirm that was what it had been about, the idiot ceremony that Digger had watched.

  Well, humans weren’t very consistent either.

  He stood a few moments studying the list. Enjoy your life because it is not forever. Whatever gives pleasure without injuring another is to be sought, but let no pleasure become so ingrained that it overcomes reason. Beware addictions; the essence of the good life is a free exercise of the will, directed by reason.

  Beware addictions.

  Judy was talking about eventual publication. Goompah Wit and Wisdom. Might be a best-seller one day.

  He admired their utilitarian approach to life. Beauty equated to a kind of simplicity. Suiting the form to the purpose. No frills. They’d never have approved of Renaissance cathedrals or Main Line mansions. Keep a clear eye on what is important and do not get caught up in the frivolous.

  It was, he thought, mundane stuff. But it had a ringing clarity and lacked the Puritanical sense of guilt that this sort of code would have had back home. If you get something wrong, fix it and move on. Do not weep for that which is beyond your control.

  Accept responsibility. Bring no
one into the world whom you are not prepared to love and nourish.

  He wondered how a society that seemed to put no limits on sex managed that?

  ONE OF THE linguists had become romantically involved with Ed Paxton, a mathematician, and the captain had performed the wedding. Collingdale had always found mathematicians dull, methodical, and unimaginative. Why anybody would marry one, he could not understand. He’d wondered why evolutionary forces hadn’t wiped the breed out.

  Paxton had seemed typical of the tribe, but he had conquered the heart of Marilyn McGee, an attractive blonde who had shown a penchant for winning the shipwide chess tournaments.

  Another wedding was in the works, this time between two of the linguists. There was talk of doing a Goompah ceremony. Digger had captured a couple of isthmus weddings for the record, so they had models. And Judy was already designing a costume for the captain. Everybody involved would need an appropriately styled hat, and the only projected change would be a substitution of the Judeo/Christian God for Taris, Zonia, and Holen.

  They’d also done a few Goompah sing-alongs. Those had become popular with everyone. And they’d staged two native dramas.

  Judy had collected eight Goompah dramas from the scrolls, and two more that Digger had recorded. Two were tragedies in the classic sense; the others were like something out of the Baines Brothers, with lots of slapstick, characters running into walls, getting caught en flagrante, and constantly falling down.

  The shows frequently involved the audience. In one, a staged brawl spilled over into the front rows, where the patrons got caught up in the battle. Characters chased each other through the aisles. One comedy was apparently interrupted midway when bandits, fleeing from authorities, raced down a center aisle with bags of coins. One of the bandits tossed his loot to a patron, who was then set on and dragged off by the authorities. The audience loved it, and the human observers needed time to recognize that it was all rehearsed.

  Another show stationed a medical unit at the rear of the theater. Periodically, when someone fell down onstage, or walked into a chair, the actors called out “Gwalla timbo,” which translated roughly to medical team. The gwalla timbo would then gallop forward, bearing stretchers and splints, collect the injured party, plunk him unceremoniously onto the stretcher, and charge back out, usually dropping the patient en route. It was hilarious.

  He would have liked to spend an evening in a Goompah theater with Mary.

  THEY ALSO WATCHED three funerals. The dead were wrapped in sheets and interred in the ground in the presence of family and friends. The mourners did not give in to weeping or other signs of hysteria, although several had to be helped away, and two collapsed altogether.

  Collingdale and the linguists listened closely to the ceremonies. The blessings of the gods were invoked in two, and religious references did not show up at all in the third. There was no talk at any of them of a hereafter or suggestions that the deceased had gone to a better world, leading the humans to suspect that the Goompahs did not believe in an afterlife. He suggested to Judy that she advise her people not to mention the fact in personal messages home. “No point stirring up the missionary society,” he said.

  They also were able to interpret the signs that Jack and Digger had seen on the schoolroom wall on their first visit. It had been somewhat difficult because the characters were stylized. But they read THINK FOR YOURSELF and SHOW ME THE EVIDENCE.

  They had a record of one class in which the students were learning basic arithmetic. They were operating off a base twelve. Which meant that 14 + 15 = 29, but there are actually 33 items in the result. Ed explained it to him, but it gave Collingdale a headache, and he simply nodded yes when asked if he understood. It didn’t really matter anyhow.

  He was impressed by the fact that widespread literacy seemed to exist. That was no small accomplishment when one considered the paucity of reading materials.

  There was a priest class, whose actions Digger had recorded on several occasions.

  Think for yourself.

  There was no visual record of the sacrifice made at Saniusar. Digger had said there were several hundred locals in attendance. Pretty sparse crowd when you think of it, in a town with a population they’d estimated at around thirty thousand.

  That was 1 percent for a service intended to invoke salvation for the city. “It tells me,” Frank Bergen said, “that these critters don’t take their religious obligations very seriously.”

  THE ONE ASPECT of life on Lookout that Collingdale found unsettling was the open sexuality. That struck him as stranger even than the cleric who had gone into the ocean. Scheduled orgies could be found most nights in most cities. With signs inviting participants to pop by. The Goompahs no longer looked like the happy innocents of the early days.

  Hutch had also been surprised and had told him she would have liked to bury it for the time being, but the news had already gotten out. A number of politicians and religious leaders had expressed their shock. If you could do orgies at city hall, what kind of society were you running? No wonder they didn’t have time to conduct wars.

  The general public, Hutch thought, seemed to be taking it in stride.

  He was still in the workroom looking at the Goompah aphorisms when Bill broke in. “Incoming for you, David,” he said. “From the Hawksbill.”

  Julie Carson was about an hour and a half away via hyperlight transmission.

  One of the screens lit up with the Hawksbill seal, then Julie appeared. “Dave,” she said, “I wanted to say thanks for the material on the Goompahs. We’re getting an education. Whit, by the way, is trying to learn the language, but I don’t think he’s having much luck.”

  Collingdale felt a sudden bump and heard the steady thrum of power in the bulkhead change tones. It grew louder. And became erratic.

  “He thinks they’re more advanced than we are.” Julie smiled. At least he thought she had. Her image disintegrated, came back, and began to roll over. “He says they’re less violent and less hung up about sex. I’ve watched them pop one another in the street, and they don’t seem less violent to me. They just look funnier when they fall down.”

  The screen went blank. The captain’s voice broke in: “ Everybody please get to a harness. We’ll be making a jump in less than one minute. I say again. ”

  Collingdale’s heart sank. They were still ten weeks from Lookout.

  ARCHIVE

  We now know that the creatures the media have been so blithely referring to as Goompahs, with all the innocence and unsophistication that term implies, in fact worship pagan gods, practice an equivalent of human sacrifice, and engage in unrestrained sex. Margaret, this is shocking behavior, utterly beyond belief. It demonstrates the absolute depravity of the Nonintervention Protocol. Do these unfortunate creatures possess souls? Of course they do, or they wouldn’t be seeking their Creator. But they’re being misled, and they need to be shown the truth. I urge everyone who’s out there watching today to get in touch with their congressman, to write to the Council, to demand that the Protocol be declared null and void.

  When you think about it, Margaret, it’s already too late for a lot of them. A disaster of major proportions is about to overtake them, and large numbers of them are going to their judgment utterly unprepared. We have an obligation to act, and it seems to me if we fail to do so, we will share their guilt.

  — Rev. George Christopher

  The Tabernacle Hour

  chapter 28

  On board the al-Jahani.

  Wednesday, September 17.

  THEY WERE OUT under the stars again.

  “No chance?” he asked Alexandra, pleading with her, demanding that she come up with something.

  “I’m sorry, David,” she said. “It’s kaput.”

  They were moving at 20,000 kph. Crawling. “How about if we just try it? Just make the jump back? See what happens.”

  Alexandra was about average size, came up maybe to Collingdale’s shoulder. She lacked the presence of some of t
he other female captains he’d known, did not have the knack of putting iron into her voice when she needed to, did not have Priscilla Hutchins’s blue gaze that warned you to back off. Nevertheless she said no, and he understood that she would not risk the ship.

  She was blond, with good features, not beautiful, but the kind of woman you knew you could trust if you were in trouble. Under normal circumstances she was congenial, easygoing, flexible. “Overriding,” she said, “would pose a severe risk to the ship and the passengers, and we will not do it.”

  There wasn’t much jiggle room that he could see. He argued for a couple of minutes before reluctantly conceding. “I’d better let Julie know.”

  “I’ve already sent a message to the Hawksbill. They should be getting it in about”—she checked the time—“an hour.”

  “How about Hutch?”

  “I thought you’d want to do that.”

  Yes. The crash-and-burn transmission.

  First he needed to inform the passengers. He did it from the bridge, telling them what they’d undoubtedly already guessed, that they were stranded, that help would be coming, but that all possibility of moving on to Lookout was gone. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We took our chances, and it looks as if we lost.” He paused and shrugged helplessly. “I’m not sure yet how long we’ll be here. Broadside has been notified. They’ll send over a relief mission, but the captain tells me it’s going to take a few weeks to get to us, at best. So everybody make themselves comfortable.

  “I should add, by the way, that there’s no danger.”

  He sent the bad news to Hutch from his quarters, keeping it short, nothing but the facts. Engine burnout. Going nowhere. We’ve let Broadside know. Everybody’s safe. We have plenty of air and food. He tried to sound upbeat, knowing the news would hit her hard. There was nothing she could do, of course. She was too far. There’d be no rabbits out of the hat this time, like the ones at Deepsix and on the chindi.