The Jesus Incident

Did I turn that dial? I have to know!

She hugged her knees to keep herself from pounding the deck.

Did I turn that dial myself or did Oakes force my hand?

She held her breath, knowing that she had to remember. She had to. And she knew she would have to destroy Oakes, that she was the only one who could do it.

Even Ship ca

She felt that someone else's thoughts spun in her head - dizziness, dizziness. She shook her head sharply to rid it of the feeling.

Nothin.... i.... sacred.

Violent trembling shook her body.

The Scream Room. She had to remember what happened there! She would have to know her own limits before she went after someone else's limits. She had to face the blank places in her mind or Oakes would continue to own her - not her body, but her most private self. He would own her.

Her hands clenched into fists against her legs. Her palms ached from the bite of her own fingernails.

I must remembe.... I mus....

There was one fogged memory and she clung to it: Jessup kneading her maimed flesh with oddly gentle fingers whose deformity she had not even minded.

That memory was real.

She forced herself to open her clenched fists, relax her legs. She sat cross-legged on the mat, sweating and nude. One hand went out in the dark and groped for one of the bottles of wine she had taken from Ferry. Her hands were shaking so badly she was afraid she would crush a glass - besides, that would require her to stand, turn on lights, open a locker. She uncapped the raw wine and drank straight from the bottle.

Presently, a semblance of calm restored, she found the light control, tuned it for a low yellow, and returned to the bottle she had left on the deck. More of that? She had visions of herself reduced to Ferry's condition. No! There had to be a better way. She recapped the bottle, stuffed it in a locker, and sat on her mat, feet stretched out straight.

What to do?

Her gaze fell on her reflection in the mirror beside her hatch and what she saw made her groan. She liked her body - the suppleness, the firmness. To men, it appeared intensely female and soft, an illusion attributable to large breasts. But even her breasts were firm to touch, toned by a rigorous physical program which few besides herself and Oakes knew she enjoyed. Now, though, she saw red marks across her stomach, down one arm - the begi

She held up her left hand and stared at it. The fingers ached. In that slender arm and those fingers she held the strength of five men. She had discovered this early and, afraid it would mean a life of body-work instead of mind-work, she had concealed this genetic gift. But she could not hide from what the mirror showed - the shambles she had made of her hammock and the marks on her flesh.

What to do?

She refused to go back to the wine. Sweat was begi

Her green eyes stared back at her from the mirror and pried into her like Oakes' spying sensors.

Damn him!

She closed her eyes in a grimace. There had to be some way of breaking through the memory barrier! What happened to me?

Scream Room.

She spoke it aloud: "Scream Room."

Jessup's terrible fingers kneaded her neck, her back.

Abruptly, images began to rush through her mind like a storm. Bits and shards at first: a glimpse of a face here, an agony there. Writhings and couplings. There was a rainbow of sad clones mounting each other, always sweating, their freak organs slick, wavin....

I took none of them!

Her terrible strength had stu

Blood! She saw blood on her arms.

But I did not join them! None of it! She knew it. And because she knew it, there was a new strength in her. An objectifying freedom glared from her eyes when she stared once more into the mirror.

The holorecord!

Oakes had offered to play it for her, amusement in his eye.... and something else ther.... a fearful watching. She had refused.

"No-o-o. Perhaps some other time."

And her stomach was a knot of terror.

The wine or the holorecord? There was a certainty in her that it had to be one or the other, and she experienced an abrupt wave of sympathy for old Win Ferry.

What did they do to that poor old bastard?

There was no doubt about her choice. It had to be the holo, not the bottle. She had to see herself as she had appeared to Oakes. This was the horror required of her before the nightmares could be stopped.

Before Oakes and Lewis and Murdoch could be stopped.

If they're stopped, who keeps Colony alive?

Shipmen had tried four times - four leaders, four failures. "Failure" was the Shipman euphemism for the reality - revolt, slaughter, suicide, massacre. The records were there for a good Search Technician to winkle out.

The present Colony had suffered setbacks, true, but nothing even close to total wipeout - no retreat en masse back to the insulated corridors of Ship. Pandora had become no friendlier. Ship-men had grown wiser. And the wisest of all, beyond question, were Oakes and Lewis.

Ship only knew how many Shipmen crawled the surface of Pandora or the myriad passageways of Ship. And all survived, to whatever degree of comfort or discomfort, because of Oakes and the efficiency of his managemen.... and because Lewis knew how to carry out orders with brutal efficiency. To her knowledge, no other Ceepee team could make such a claim in all the histories of Ship.

Ship will care for us.

She felt Ship around her now, the faint hummings and susurrations of nightside.

But Ship had never agreed to care for Shipmen.

At one time, she had been interested in Shipman's place in the Ship scheme of things. She had pored through a confusing lot of histories seeking some agreement, a covenant, some evidence of even rudimentary formal relationship between the people and their god.

Ship who is God.

All agreements save one had been made by Ceepees on behalf of Ship. Back in the earliest accounts, she had come on one recorded line, a direct demand from Ship: You must decide how you will WorShip Me.

That had to be the origin of present WorShip. It could be traced to Ship. But the demand appeared suitably vague and, when she had recounted it to Oakes, he had seen it as emphasizing the powers of the Ceepees.

"We, after all, command the WorShip."

If Ship were Go.... well, Ship still appeared to be unwilling to interfere directly in the management of Shipman affairs. Every visible thing Ship did could be attributed to work at maintaining itself.

Some Shipmen claimed they talked to Ship, and she had studied these people. They fell into two obvious categories: fools and non-fools. Most of the claimants had a history of talking to walls, bowls, items of clothing and such. But perhaps one out of every twenty who said they talked to Ship were Ship's best. For them, talking with Ship represented the single rare absurdity of their records. It fascinated her that, for this small group, the talking incidents were isolated and seemingly i

Unlike Oakes and Lewis, she did not count herself a disbeliever.

But God or not, Ship apparently refused to interfere in the private decisions of Shipmen.

So what if I decide to destroy Oakes?

Did Ship care for him, too?

Oakes was too cautious, too painstakingly right about the things he did. What if he were the only reason Colony had survived? Could she watch Colony wither and die, knowing she had done it?