The Jesus Incident

Panille smiled as he rolled the net and confined it in its own ties. Ship seldom refused to answer one of his questions; refusal signaled a defect in the question. But the day of this net had been memorable for refusals and shifting responses from Ship.

Insatiable curiosity - that was the hallmark of the poet and Ship certainly knew this. He had been at the Instruction Terminal, his request. "Tell me about Pandora."

Silence.

Ship wanted a specific question.

"What is the most dangerous creature on Pandora?"

Ship showed him a composite picture of a human.

Panille was irritated. "Why won't You satisfy my curiosity?"

"You were chosen for this special training because of your curiosity."

"Not because I'm a poet?"

"When did you become a poet?"

Panille remembered staring at his own reflection in the glistening surface of the display screen where Ship revealed its symbolic patterns.

"Words are your tools but they are not enough," Ship said. "That is why there are poets."

Panille had continued to stare at his reflection in the screen, caught by the thought that it was a reflection but it also was displayed where Ship's symbols danced. A...symbol? His appearance, he knew, was striking: the only Shipman who wore a beard and long hair. As usual, the hair was plaited back and bound in a golden ring at the nape of his neck. He was the picture of a poet from the history holos.

"Ship, do You write my poetry?"

"You ask the question of the Zen placebo: 'How do I know I am me?' A nonsense question as you, a poet, should know."

"I have to be sure my poetry is my own!"

"You truly believe I might try to direct your poetry?"

"I have to be certain."

"Very well. Here is a shield which will isolate you from Me. When you wear it, your thoughts are your own."

"How can I be sure of that?"

"Try it."

The silvery net had come out of the pneumatic slot beside the screen. Fingers trembling, Panille opened the round carrier, examined the contents and put the net over his head, tucking his long black hair up into it. Immediately, he sensed a special silence in his head. It was frightening at first and then exciting.

I'm alone! Really alone!

The words which had flowed from him then had achieved extra energy, a compulsive rhythm whose power touched his fellow Shipmen in strange ways. One of the physicists refused to read or listen to his poetry.

"You twist my mind!" the old man shouted.

Panille chuckled at the memory and tucked the silver snood into his shipcloth bag.

Zen placebo?

Panille shook his head; no time for such thoughts.

When the bag was full he decided that solved his packing problem. He took up his bag and forced himself not to look back when he left. His cubby was the pas...place of furious writing periods and restless i

But it was really me; I was the uncommunicative one.

At Shipbay Fifty, he was told to wait in an alcove with no chair or bench. It was a tiny metal-walled space too small for him even to stretch out on the floor. There were two hatches: the one through which he had entered and another directly opposite. Sensor lenses glittered at him from above the hatches and he knew he was being watched.

Why? Could I have angered The Boss?

Waiting made him nervous.

Why did they tell me to get right out here if they were going to make me wait?

It was like that faraway time when his mother had taken him to the Shipmen. He had been five years old, a child of Earth. She had taken him by the hand up the ramp to Ship Reception. He had not even known what Ship meant then, but he had been sensitized to what was about to happen to him because his mother had explained it with great solemnity.

Panille remembered that day wel...green spring day full of musty earth smells which had not vanished from his memory in all the Shipdays since. Over one shoulder, he had carried a small cotton bag containing the things his mother had packed for him.

He looked down at the shipcloth bag into which he had crammed the things for his groundside trip. Much more durabl.... larger.

The small cotton bag of that long-gone day had been limited to four kilos - the posted maximum for Ship Reception. It had contained mostly clothing his mother had made for him herself. He still had the amber stocking cap. And there were four primitive photographs - one of the father he had never seen in the flesh, a father killed in a fishing accident. He was revealed as a red-haired man with dark skin and a smile which survived him to warm his son. One picture was his mother, unsmiling and work worn, but still with beautiful eyes; one showed his father's parents, two intense faces which stared directly into the recording lens; and one slightly larger picture showed "the family place" which was, Kerro reminded himself, a patch of land on a patch of planet lost long ago when its sun went nova.

Only the photo survived, wrapped with the others in the amber stocking cap within his shipcloth bag. He had found all of this preserved in a hyb locker when the Shipmen had revived him.

"I want my son to live," his mother had said, handing him over to the Shipmen. "You have refused to take the two of us as a family, but you had better take him!"

No mistaking the threat in her voice. She would do something desperate. There were many desperate people doing violent things in those days. The Shipmen had appeared more amused than disturbed, but they had accepted young Kerro and sent him into hyb.

"Kerro was my father's name," she had explained, rolling the r's. "That's the way you say it. He was Portuguese and Samoan, a beautiful man. My mother was ugly and ran away with another man but my father was always beautiful. A shark ate him."

Panille knew that his own father had been a fisherman. His father had been named Arlo and his father's people had escaped from Gaul to the Chin Islands of the south, far across a sea which insulated them from distant persecution.

How long ago was that? he wondered.

He knew that hybernation stopped time for the flesh, but something else went on and on and o.... Eternity. That was the poet's candle. The people who were keeping him waiting now did not realize how a poet could adjust the candle's flame. He knew he was being tested, but these Shipmen hidden behind their sensors did not know the tests he had already surmounted with Ship.

Panille idled away the wait by recalling such a test. At the time he had not known it was a test; that awareness came later. He had been sixteen and proud of his ability to create emotions with words. In the secret room behind Records, Panille had activated the com-console for a study session - to explore his own curiosity.

Ship began the conversation, which was unusual. Usually, Ship only responded to his questions. Ship's first words had startled him.

"As has been the case with other poets, do you think you are God?"

Panille had reflected on this. "All the universe is God. I am of this universe."

"A reasonable answer. You are the most reasonable poet of My experience."

Panille remained silent, poised and watchful. He knew Ship did not always give simple answers, and never simple praise.

Ship's response had been, once more, unexpected. "Why are you not wearing your silver net?"

"I'm not making poems."

Then, back to the original subject: "Why is there God?"

The answer popped into his head the way some lines of poetry occurred to him. "Information, not decisions."

"Ca

"God is the source of information, not of decisions. Decisions are human. If God makes decisions, they are human decisions."