The Jesus Incident

What's happening to my mind?

Daydreaming. That had to be it, letting his mind wander. The pressure of all those demons outside Colony's perimeter walls overwhelmed him with feelings of vulnerability. He had lost the insulation he had enjoyed shipside - exchanged the perils of the ship for the perils of Pandora.

Who would ever have thought I'd miss the ship?

The damned Colonists were too brash, too quick. They thought they could barge in any time, interrupt anything. They talked too fast. Everything had to be done right now!

His com-console buzzed at him.

Oakes depressed a key. Murdoch's thin face stared at him from the screen. Murdoch began speaking without asking leave, without any preamble.

"My day side orders say you wanted Illuyank assigned t...."

"Illuyank's dead," Oakes said, his voice flat. He enjoyed the look of surprise on Murdoch's face. That was one of the reasons for secret random sampling among the spy sensors. No matter what horrors you found, the information could make you appear omnipotent.

"Find someone else for my guard squad," Oakes said. "Make it someone more suitable." He broke the co

There! That was the way they did it groundside. Quick decisions.

The reminder of Illuyank's death brought back the knot in his stomach. Food. He needed something to eat. He turned, and once more found himself looking at the mandala.

Things will simply have to slow down.

The mandala rippled before his eyes, myriad grotesque faces weaving in and out of the design, folding upon themselves.

Belatedly, he realized that one of the faces was that of Rachel Demarest. Silly bitch! The Scream Room had driven her out of her min.... what was left of her mind. Ru

Everything reminds me of outside!

Someone else would have to be found to make the liquor deliveries to old Win Ferry. Pure grain spirits he wanted now. And Ferry would have to get the message - no more pestering questions about that Demarest woman.

Oakes found that his hands ached and he realized both fists were clenched. He forced himself to relax, began to rub at the begi

All this frustration! For what?

Only one answer, the answer he had given Lewis so many times: For this world.

Victory would give them their own safe world. Unconsciously, his right hand went out and touched the mandala. What a price! And Legata - historian, search technician, beautiful woman - perhaps she would be his queen. He owed her that, at least. Empress. His finger traced the maze of lines in the mandala, flowing intricacies.

"Politics is your life, not mine" Lewis had said.

Lewis did not know what it cost. All Lewis wanted was his lab and the safety of the Redoubt.

"Leave me alone here. You can proclaim and make policy all you want."

They were a great team - one in front and one behind.

Maybe just a little bit of the wine. He picked up the bottle and sipped from it. This Raja Thomas would be eliminated soon. Another victim of the kelp.

Lewis ought to drink more of this wine. They've really improved it.

Oakes sipped the wine, aerated it across his tongue with a slurping sound which he knew always made Lewis uneasy.

"You really should treat yourself to some of this stuff, Jesus. You might smooth some of those lines out of your face."

"No thanks."

"All the more for me, then."

"You and Ferry."

"No. I can take it or leave it alone."

"We have urgent problems," Lewis kept saying.

But urgency should never mean hurry, incautious rushing about. He had told Lewis in no uncertain terms: "If we're relaxed and reasonable in our urgency to complete the Redoubt, the solutions we find will be relaxed and reasonable."

No need for chaos.

He slurped more of the wine while staring at the mandala. The way those lines twisted - they, too, appeared to come right out of chaos. But Legata had found the design of it, duplicated it twice. Design. Pandora had its design, too. He just had to find it. Peel away all of this dissonance, and there would be the foundations of order.

We'll finish off the kelp, the Ru

He lifted the bottle to take another sip, found that there was no more wine in it. He let the bottle slip out of his hand, heard it thump on the floor. As though that were the signal, his com-console buzzed at him once more.

Murdoch again.

"Demarest's people are asking for another meeting, Doctor."

"Stall them! I told you to s.... stall them."

"I'll try."

Murdoch did not sound very happy with the decision.

Oakes took two stabs with a finger to break the co

Once more, he focused on the mandala.

"We'll have some order around here pretty soon," he told it.

He realized then that he had taken too much wine. It sounded ridiculous, talking to himself in quarters this way, but he enjoyed hearing certain things, even if he had to be the one who voiced them.

"Go

Where was that damned Legata? Had to tell her to get some order into things.

***

As the rock silences the sea, the One in one silences the universe.

LEGATA PUT her shuttle on automatic for its landing at the Redoubt station. She leaned back into her couch and watched the shoreline sweep past beneath her. This time was her own. It was early dayside and she did not have to deal with Oakes or Lewis just yet, nor with demons or clones. She had nothing to do but watch, relax and breathe easy.

Hylighters!

She had seen them on holo, and a few had skirted Colony while she was there, but these hung no more than two hundred meters from the plaz in front of her.

Ship's teeth! They're huge!

She counted twelve of them, the largest one half again as big as her shuttle. Their bronzed orange sails caught the wind and they tacked in unison, almost escorting her. The sunlight through the membrane of their sails shimmered rainbows all over them. Most of their tentacles were tucked up against their bodies. They each held a ballast-rock with their two longest tendrils. The larger ones allowed the rocks to drag in the sea, forming a frothy wake. They tacked, and tacked again, picking up on the shifts of wind. As her shuttle settled into its final glide-path, she saw two of the smaller hylighters separate from the rest, pick up speed and slam the boulders they carried into the plaz shield surrounding Oakes' private garden.

Garden, she shuddered at the thought of the word.

The boulders had no effect on the plaz - she could crash her shuttle into it and it might shatter, but rock....

The two hylighters disappeared in a flash so bright that for a few blinks she was blinded. When her vision cleared, she saw that her shuttle was down and linked with the entry lock, and that the two exploded hylighters had been a diversion. The others, all larger, slammed their rocks into the walls and plaz of the Redoubt where it had already been damaged by the clones. Each boulder chipped off a few more chunks of the buildings before the sentries focused on the sails. The other hylighters too, went up in a flash. The largest one was so close to the shuttle station when it exploded that it took part of the control tower and rigging with it.

They give their lives for this, she thought. They are either very foolish or very noble.