The Jesus Incident

We originated on a planet.

Was there some atavistic memory at work here?

Why don't You answer me, Ship?

When you need to know, you will know without asking.

Typical Ship answer!

What did Oakes mean by new clones? Are You helping him on that project, Ship? Are these new clones Your project?

Who helped you make Me, Devil?

Thomas felt his throat go dry. There had been barbs in that response. He glanced at the sub suspended off to his left. Quite suddenly, he saw it as representing a fragile and foolish venture. Sub and LTA had been shaped to simulate a hylighter carrying its characteristic rock ballast. No matter that the sub did not look much like rock.

I should be out preaching Ship's demand instead of risking my ancient flesh on this venture.

But Ship had given him no stature for this game, no platform upon which to stand.

How will you WorShip?

No matter the different ways Ship phrased the question, it came out the same.

Who would listen to an unknown, self-proclaimed Ceepee awakened from hyb? He was an admitted clone, member of a minority whose role was being redefined by Oakes.

Talk to the sentient vegetable. Did the kelp have an answer? Ship hinted at it, but refused to say definitely. That's for you to discover, Devil.

No help there. No clues on how he could open a conversation with this alien sentience. In the abstract, it was an exciting idea - talk to a life form so different from humankind that few evolutionary parallels could be drawn.

What strange things could we learn from them? What could the kelp learn from him? Again, Thomas glanced at his chrono. This delay was getting ridiculous!

Why do I permit it?

By this time Waela will have our poet in her cubby. A deep sigh shook him.

Processing had released Panille less than an hour before night-side. They delayed him deliberatel.... the way Oakes is delaying now. What did they have in mind? Waela, i....

Could that be the cause of Oakes' delay? Had Oakes discovered that Wael.... ?

Thomas shook his head sharply. Foolish speculation! He felt cold and exposed waiting here in the hangar, and there was no denying his uneasiness at thoughts of Waela. Waela and the poet.

Thomas felt torn by his own imagination. He had never before experienced such a powerful physical attraction toward a woman. And there was in his background, dredged up from that ancient conditioning process, a terrifying drive toward possession - private and exclusive possession. He knew this ran directly counter to much of the behavior Ship had allowe.... or promoted. Wael.... Wael....

He had to force a mask of distant, deliberate coolness. The delay with Panille could have been the time for preparing him to act against me. They could have been briefing him. It was necessary that Waela become intimate with this poet, peel away his masks and fin.... What? Panill.... Pandor.... More of Ship's doing?

Waela would find out. She had her orders. She must turn this Panille inside out, peer at the center of his being. She would learn and report back to her commander.

Me.

Who obeyed Oakes that way? Lewis, certainly. And Murdoch. And that Legata. What a surprise to find she was the Hamill of Ship's briefing. Did they set traps the way he had set this one for Panille?

Waela would do it right. It must seem a fortuitous accident to Panille. The right tim.... the right condition....

Dammit! How can I be jealous? I set this up!

He knew he was performing according to Ship's design. And probably according to Oakes' design. What was the relationship between Oakes and Ship?

Blasphemous man, Oakes. But Ship allowed the blasphemy. And Oakes might be right.

Thomas had come to suspect more and more that Ship might not be God.

What did we make when we created Ship?

Thomas knew his own hand in that creation. But had there been other, unseen hands in that construction?

Who helped you make Me, Devil?

God or Satan? What did we make?

At this moment, it did not much matter. He was tired in body and emotions and his dominant personal hope was that Panille would see through the sexual trap and defy it. Thomas did not really expect that to happen.

I'm doing Your job to the best of my ability, Ship.

"A function of my Devil is to frustrate good works. Shipmen must extend themselves beyond anything they believe possible."

Those had been Ship's words to him.

Why? Because frustration helped us to succeed with Project Consciousness?

Were they only replaying an old theme which had worked once and might work once more?

It occurred to him then that the Moonbase director who had supervised the building and the crew preparations for that original Voidship - old Morgan Hempstead - had served this identical function.

He was our Devil and we knew it. But now I'm Ship's Devi.... and best friend.

Thomas found cynical delight in this thought. Being a friend of Ship carried special perils. Oakes might have chosen the better role. Enemy of Ship. Thomas knew his own role, though. Ship chided him with it often enough.

"Play the game, Devil."

Yes, he had to play the game even though he lost.

A scraping noise intruded on his awareness. The sound came from the locker area where the sub crews prepared for their flights. Dead men's lockers, the Colony called them.

Something moved in the shadows over there, a waddling figure clad in a white shipsuit. Thomas recognized Oakes. Alone. So it was going to be that kind of a meeting.

Thomas took a handlight from his pocket and waved it to show where he stood.

Responding to the light, Oakes changed his path slightly. Oakes always felt diminished by the hangar area. Too much space used for too little return.

Bad investment.

Thomas appeared dwarfed by the immensity of the semi-inflated bag overhead.

These thoughts firmed his resolve. It would not pay to cancel this project outright without a dramatic motive. There were still some who supported it. Oakes knew the arguments.

Learn to live with the kelp!

You did not live with a wild cobra; you killed it.

Yes, Thomas had to g.... but dramatically, very dramatically. Two Ceepees could not co-exist in Colony.

Oakes did not want to know what Lewis and Murdoch had arranged. An accident with the submersible, perhaps. There already had been enough accidents without arrangement. The cost in Shipmen lives had reached abrasive levels. Colonists expected casualties while they subdued this planet, but the latest attrition rate went beyond the tolerable.

As he came up to Thomas, Oakes smiled openly. It was a gesture he could afford.

"Well, let's look at this new submersible," Oakes said.

He allowed himself to be guided to the sub's side hatch and into the cramped command gondola at the core, noting that Thomas offered no small talk, none of the unconscious obeisance of language which Oakes had come to expect from those around him. Everything was business, technical: Here were the new sonar instruments, the remote-recording sensors, the nephelometer....

Nephelometers?

Oakes had to cast back into his medical training for the association.

Oh, yes. Instruments for collecting and examining small particles suspended in the water.

Oakes almost laughed. It was not small particles which needed study but the giant kelp: fully visible and certainly vulnerable. In spite of his amusement, Oakes managed a few seemingly responsive questions.

"What makes you say that everything in the sea has to serve the kelp?"

"Because that's what we find, that's the condition of the sea. Everything from the grazing cycles of the biota to the distribution of trace metals, everything fits the growth demands of the kelp. We must find out why."

"Grazing cycles o.... ?"