The Jesus Incident

There was a scream from Murdoch and she saw his ear skid like a fragile blossom across the red-smeared deck. It was then she realized that Ferry had recovered the scalpel. She whirled to the panel, threw it open and found a hold program key. In desperation, she hit the key.

I hope I haven't trapped us.

An ominous ticking issued from the control panel.

Ferry thrust her aside, slipped a small metal wafer into a slot in the panel. His trembling hand touched the add program key and the freighter's hatch popped open. They pushed the gurney inside and, as they moved, Waela sat up. She looked at Ferry, then at Hali, and said: "My child will sleep in the sea. Where the hylighters calm the waves to the touch of a cradle, there my child will sleep."

Her head fell forward onto her chest. They slipped her from the gurney and wrestled her gently across to a passenger couch, locked her in it. As they worked, Hali heard the freighter's hatch hiss closed. The freighter quivered. Ferry propelled her toward one of the forward control couches and they strapped in.

"You ever fly one of these?" Ferry asked.

She shook her head.

"Me neither. I had simulator experience, but that was a long time ago."

His hand hesitated over the launch program key and, before he could move, the red automatics light flashed on the board. Hali looked forward to the plaz curve nested into the bay, expecting it to separate. Nothing happened.

"What's wrong?" She felt hysteria bubbling in her throat. "Why doesn't it launch?"

"Ferry! Ekel! Shut that thing down and come back inside!"

"Murdoch," Ferry said. "Always spoiling things. He must've escaped from the bay. He's taken over the auto-pilot and we can't release the docking bolts."

"Ferry, Ekel - if we don't get TaoLini back into Sickbay, she could die. You want that on your conscience? Don't let yourselves in for trouble ove.... ."

Ferry snapped off the vocoder.

Hali took a deep breath. "What now?"

"This will either be the ride of your life or no life at all. Hang on."

Ferry cleared the console and hit the reset key, then override and manual. His finger hesitated several blinks over launch program.

"Hit it," Hali said.

He depressed the key. A powerful trembling rippled through their cabin.

Hali looked at him. She had never suspected such action and determination in old Ferry. He seemed beyond desperation, caught up in some overriding program of his own. She realized then that the old man was sober.

"If we only had a flight manual," he said.

A metallic female voice startled them, crackling from an overhead vocoder: "You have a manual."

"Who the hell are you?" Ferry demanded.

"I am Bitten. I am the system of this freighter. I am designed for conventional or conversational program in emergencies. You wish to separate from Ship, correct?"

"Yes, bu...."

A roar shuddered through the freighter. The forward plaz displayed a blinding glimpse of Rega, then a panorama of stars as they shot free of Ship. They began a slow one-eighty turn toward Pandora, and Hali saw a gaping hole that had been Docking Bay Eight. Roboxes already were swarming over the area like insects, starting repairs on the ragged edges.

"Well," Ferry muttered, "what now?"

Hali tried to swallow in a dry throat, then: "What Waela said - the cradle of the sea. Does she know something abou.... ?"

"Life support has been activated," Bitten a

Hali jerked around and studied her patient. Waela lay in quiet sleep, her chest rising and falling evenly. Hali unstrapped, crept back to Waela's side and ran a test series: Everything read as normal as could be expected - blood pressure up a bit, adrenaline on the high side but dropping. No medication was indicated.

Ferry's voice intruded on Hali's thoughts then as he asked Bitten for their ETA to Pandora's atmosphere.

Hali turned and stared at the planet with a growing sense of wonder. Her shipboard life was ended. The only thing she knew for sure about her life now was that she still had it.

Bitten's metallic rasping filled the cabin: "Two hours, thirty-five minutes to atmosphere. Additional twenty-five minutes for entry and docking at Colony."

"We can't dock at Colony!" Hali said. She made her way back to her seat and strapped down. "What are our alternatives?"

"Colony is the only docking station approved for this vessel," Bitten intoned.

"What about a surface landing?"

"Certain conditions permit surface landing without damage to vessel and crew. But our departure destroyed all forward landing gear and docking valves. These are not necessary at Colony."

"But we can't land at Colony!" She stared at Ferry, who sat frozen either in fear or complete resignation.

"Survival of unprotected crew elsewhere on Pandora surface not likely," Bitten intoned.

Hali felt her mind whirling. Survival not likely! She had the sudden feeling that this whole thing was high drama, something staged and unreal. She looked at Ferry. He continued to stare out the forward plaz. That was it: Ferry was acting out of character - too far out.

But Murdoch's ea.... that hole in Shi....

"We can't go back to Ship and we can't dock at Colony and we can't land in the open," she said.

"We're trapped," Ferry agreed, and she did not like the calm way he said it.

***

Behold, these are a small troop, and indeed they are enraging us; and we are a host on our guard.

"WHAT YOU'RE talking about is war," Panille said, shaking his head. He sat on the warm ground, his back against a jungle tree, moon-shadowed darkness all around.

"War?" Thomas rubbed his forehead, looked at the shadowy ground. He did not like looking at Panill...naked Pan who seemed to flow in and out of contact with native life - touching a tree here, the tentacle of a passing hylighter there. Contact, physical contact: always touching. "Shipmen have had no experience of war for many generations," Panille said. "Clones and E-clones have no experience of it at all, not even stories or traditions. I know it only from Ship's holos."

With one moon full and another raising its pale face on the jagged horizon, Panille saw Thomas haloed against night sky, a hazy outline amidst the stars. A very disturbed man.

"But we have to take over the Redoubt," Thomas said. "It's our only hope. Shi.... Ship wil...."

"How do you know this?"

"It's why I was brought out of hyb."

"To teach us WorShip?"

"No! To acquaint you with the need to solve that problem! Ship insists w...."

"There is no problem."

"What do you mean there's no problem?" Thomas was outraged, "Ship wil...."

"Look around you." Panille gestured at the moon-shadowed basin, the gentle stirrings of the moist air in the leaves. "If you care for your house, you are sheltered."

Thomas forced himself to take a deep breath, to assume at least the outward appearance of calm. The jungle - yes, there did not appear to be any demons in this plac.... this nest, as the hylighters called it. But this place was not enough! No place was safe from Oakes or from Ship. And there was no escaping Ship's demand. Panille had to be made to understand that.

"Please believe me," Thomas said. "Unless we learn how to WorShip, we are through. No more humankind anywhere......don't want that to happen."

"Then why should we attack the Redoubt?"

"Because you say those are the last people groundside - Colony's destroyed."

"That's true, but what would you teach those people by attacking?" Panille's tone was maddeningly reasonable, a voice which kept its disturbing pace with the sounds of breeze-stirred leaves.