The Jesus Incident

"Look there." It was Lewis pointing to a screen showing the base of the inland cliffs. "Demons."

They became aware then that the entire rim of cliffs, as far as the sensors could reach, writhed with life. Legata felt certain that never before had such a mass of teeth and claws and stings assembled in one place on the face of Pandora.

"What are they doing?" Oakes asked, and his voice trembled.

"They look like they're waiting for something," Legata said.

"Waiting for orders to attack," Lewis said.

"Check security!" Oakes barked.

Legata keyed for the proper sensors and the screens flickered to re-form with views of the clean-up work on the damage left by the E-clone revolt. Orders from whom? she wondered. Crews were busy in every screen, mostly E-clones guarded by armed normals. Some worked in the open courtyard where the Nerve Ru

"Why aren't they attacking?" Legata asked.

"We seem to be at a stand-off," Lewis said.

"We're saving our energy," Oakes said. "My orders are not to shoot them at random. We cook them now only if they come within twenty-five meters of our people or equipment."

"They can think," Lewis said. "They think and plan."

"But what are they pla

Oakes turned. "Jesus, we'd better do some pla

They left, but Legata did not notice. She remained at the screen, working through the outside sensors. The whole landscape had turned into a golden dazzle of suns and hylighters, black cliffs as warm with demons, and a surging sea capped with white foam and spray.

Presently, Legata turned, realized that Oakes and Lewis no longer were in the Command Center.

I'll have to act soon, she thought. And I have to be ready.

She worked her way through the activity in the Center, opened a main corridor hatch and hurried toward her own quarters.

***

Poet

You see bones up ahead

where there are none.

By the time we get there

so do they....

HALI STUDIED the monitors on the reclining Waela with care. It was well into dayside, but Waela appeared to be asleep, her body quiet on the tightly stretched hammock which they had rigged in one of Ship's rim compartments. Her abdomen was a mounded hillock. There was no hatch to this cubicle, only a fabric curtain which rustled in faint stirrings from the agrarium to which this extrusion was attached.

This is not normal sleep, Hali thought.

Waela's breathing was too shallow, the passivity of her body too profound. It was as though she had slipped back into something approaching hyb. What did that mean for the fetus?

The compartment was slightly larger than a regular cubby, and Hali had brought in a small wheeled cart to support the monitor screen. The screen showed Waela's vital signs as visible undulating curves with synchronous time-blips. A secondary set of lines reported on the child developing in Waela's womb. A simple twist of a dial could superimpose one set of lines on the other.

Hali had been checking the synchronous beat for almost an hour. Waela had come to this Natali retreat without protest, obeying every suggestion Hali made with a sleepwalker's passivity. She had appeared to gain some energy after feeding at a corridor shipti...process which still filled Hali with confusion. So few ever received elixir at the shiptits anymore that most Shipmen ignored them, taking this as a sign of Ship's deeper intents or displeasure. Attendance at WorShip had never been more punctual.

Why was Ship feeding Waela?

While Waela drank from the shiptit container, Hali had tried to get a response from the same corridor station. No elixir.

Why, Ship?

No answer. Ship had not been easily responsive since sending her to see the crucifixion of Yaisuah.

The lines on the monitor screen were merging once more - fetus and mother in synchronous beat. As the lines merged, Waela opened her eyes. There was no consciousness in the eyes, only an unmoving stare at the compartment ceiling.

"Fly us back to Jesus."

As she spoke, the synchronous lines separated and Waela closed her eyes to sink back into the geography of her mysterious sleep.

Hali stood in astonished contemplation of the unconscious woman. Waela had said "Jesus" the way Ship pronounced the name. Not Yaisuah or Hesoos, but Geezuz.

Had Ship sent Waela, too, on that odd journey to the Hill of Skulls? Hali thought not. I would recognize the signs of that shared experience. Hali knew the marks on herself which came from that trip to Golgotha.

My eyes are older.

And there was a new quietude in her ma

Hali stared at the pregnant mound of Waela's abdomen.

Why had he bred with thi.... this older woman?

Fly us back to Jesus?

Could that be just delirious muttering? Then why Geezuz?

A deep sense of uneasiness moved itself through Hali. She used her pribox to call down to Shipcore and arranged for a relief watch on the monitor. The relief showed up presently, a young Natali intern named Latina. Her official green pribox hung at her hip as she hurried into the compartment.

"What's the rush?" Hali asked.

"Ferry sent word that he wants to see you right away down at WorShip Nine."

"He could've called me." Hali tapped her own pribox.

"Ye.... well, he just said for me to tell you to hurry."

Hali nodded and gathered her things. Her own pribox and recorder were beyond habit, a part of her physical self. She briefed Latina on the routine as she gathered her equipment, noting the log of synchronous beats, then ducked out through the curtain. The agrarium was a scene of intense dayside activity, a harvest in process. Hali wove her way through the dance of workers and found a servo going coreside. At Old Hull she took the slide to Central and dropped off at the Study passage which led to WorShip Nine.

The red numeral winked at her as she found the hatch and slipped into the controlled blue gloom. She could not see Ferry anywhere, but there were perhaps thirty children in the five-to-seven age range sitting cross-legged around a holofocus at the center of the WorShip area. The focus showed a projection of a man in shipcloth white who was lying on bare ground and covering his eyes with both hands in great pain or fear.

"What is the lesson, children?"

The question was asked in the flat and emotionless tone of Ship's ordinary instruction programs.

One of the boys pointed to another boy beside him and said: "He wants to know where the man's name came from."

The projected figure stood, appearing dazed, and a hand reached from outside the focus to steady him. The hand became another man in a long beige robe as the focus widened. Beside this other man, skittish and wild-eyed, danced a large white horse.

The children gasped as the horse stepped into, then out, then back into the holo. They clapped when the robed man got it under control.

Hali moved across to a WorShip couch overlooking this performance and sank into the cushions. She glanced around once more for Ferry. No sign of him. Typical. Tell her to hurry, then he was not here.

Neither of the projected figures was speaking, but now a voice in a strange tongue boomed from the holofocus. How familiar that tongue sounded! Hali felt that she could almost understand it - as though she had learned it in a dream. She tapped the translate switch on the arm of the couch beside her and the voice boomed once more: "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"