The Jesus Incident

If anybody had told me back at Moonbase that one day I'd land a freighter with my mind and a couple of plants that sing in the dar....

And think!

The Avata intrusion could not be avoided. Avata would not accept that designation as plant. Thomas sensed more than the aural projection, something not quite pride, but not completely separated from pride.

Avata confuses me, he apologized.

You confuse yourself. Why do you hide your true identity?

Thomas jerked his hand away from the warm tentacle, but the Avata presence remained in his awareness.

You're prying where you don't belong! Thomas accused.

Avata does not pry. There was no denying the hurt in this response.

Panille felt like an eavesdropper on a private argument. Thomas was smoldering with anger now, aware that he could not break off the Avata contact at will, aware that Avata wanted to pierce the wall behind which this private idea of himself lay hidden.

"Let's get the freighter down," Panille said. "Probes are coming from the Redoubt."

Panille released his part of the beacon system then, telling himself that he had to concentrate on the probes. Thomas would have to make his own mistakes.

The first of the probes screamed down the beach, blazing toward them on a course which undoubtedly had been computed against a plot of the incoming freighter.

As Avata had taught him, Panille set up a terrain image all around and transmitted it to the probe. He felt the projected illusion mesh with the probe's electronic functions. The probe almost shattered from the Gs it pulled, avoiding a sudden cliff which was not there.

They're getting closer, he thought.

He knew why. Each illusion of mistaken terrain formed a pattern of error from which the computer at Redoubt could derive significant results.

Avata numbers appeared in Panille's awareness, telling him that he was being monitored constantly now.

Yes, he agreed. The patrols have increased.

Tenfold in twelve hours, Avata insisted. Why does Thomas not understand his role in this?

It is his nature, perhaps.

Have you identified your contact on the freighter?

Panille thought about this question, reviewed his own performance as a beacon, and experienced a sudden wash of insight. Knowing it was urgent, he reinsinuated himself into Thomas' performance, feeling the affirmation of contact with the freighter.

Thomas, who have you contacted on the freighter? Panille asked.

Thomas considered this. He could feel the approaching presence - almost palpable. If it was illusion, it was a most complete illusion.

Who? Panille insisted.

Thomas knew he could not be in contact with a Shipman up there. Shipmen would panic when alien thoughts intruded. Who could it be then?

Bitten.

The freighter's identification signal came to him clear and unmistakable: a simple intense concentration without emotion.

"Ahhhhhhh," Thomas said.

To Panille, the startling thing was Thomas' emotional response: deep amusement. Bitten was a flight-system computer, and the realization that his mind was in contact with a computer should not have amused the man. This could only be more evidence of the mystery which so attracted Avata.

They were both forced to concentrate on their mental linkage with Bitten then, but Panille could not explain why this aroused a deep fear reaction in him. He felt it, though, a fear which radiated from his own flesh and outward into every cell of Avata.

***

SHIP: I have taught you about the classical Pandora and her box.

PANILLE: I know how this planet got its name.

SHIP: Where would you hide when the serpents and shadows oozed out of the box?

PANILLE: Under the lid, of course.

WAELA FELT that she lived only in a dream, unable to trust any reality. She held her eyes closed, a tight seal against the world beyond her flesh. This was not enough. Part of her awareness told her that she was controlling the landing approach of a freighter. Insane! Another part recorded the moments before the suns lifted in the shadow of Black Dragon. Panille was there, too, somewhere low in the shadow. I'm hallucinating.

Halt!

Waela felt anxiety coming from Hal.... and Hali was nearby. It was an odd anxiety - tension overlain with a deliberate effort to remain calm.

Hali is terribly afraid and even more afraid that she will show it. She wants someone to take charge.

Of course - Hali has never been off Ship before.

Waela tried to move her lips, tried to form reassuring words, but her mouth was too dry. Speech required enormous effort. She felt trapped, convinced that she lay strapped into a passenger couch in a freighter diving toward heavy surf.

A piece of Kerro's poem floated through Waela's awareness then, and she focused on it in both fascination and fear, having no memory of where she had heard this poem:

Your course will be true when you sight

the blue line of sunrise, at night

low in the shadow of Black Dragon.

Hali was there, too, listening to the fragment and rejecting it. A wave of emotion rushed over Waela, made her want to reach out and hold Hali close, to cry with her. She knew this emotion - love of the same man. But she saw Pandora very close no...raging white line of surf. Waela wanted to cringe away from it. She could feel the child in her womb, another awareness whose share of life reached out and out and out and ou....

A cry escaped her, but the sound was lost in the abrupt roaring, metal-straining protest as the freighter made its first contact with the sea. For a few blinks, the ride smoothed; there was a gliding sensation followed by a cushioned deceleration and lifting, then a grating, grinding cacophony which ended in a thumping and stillness.

"Where are the people?" That was Hali's voice.

Waela opened her eyes, looked upward at the ceiling of the freighter's sparse cabin - metal beams, soft illumination, a winking red light. Somewhere there was a sound of surf. The freighter creaked and popped. Abruptly, it tipped a full degree.

"There's someone." That was old Ferry.

Waela turned her head, saw Ferry and Hali releasing themselves from the command couches. The plaz beyond them framed a seamed barrier of black rock only a few meters away illuminated by wavering beams of artificial light.

Ferry's hand moved to a control in front of him. There was a hiss near Waela's feet, then the sudden rush of cold sea wind through an open hatchway. It was night beyond those moving lights. The hatch was blocked for a moment by the entrance of two people. As though awakening from a dream, Waela recognized them - Panille and Thomas.

"Waela!" They spoke in unison, both appearing startled at the sight of her.

Hali pushed herself away from the control console, intensely aware that Panille was focused on Waela's mounded abdomen. Neither Panille nor the man with him, she realized, had expected to see Waela, and certainly not in the full bloom of pregnancy.

"Kerro," Hali said.

He faced her, equally startled. "Hali?"

Thomas threw his head back in sudden laughter. "You see? A surprise package from Ship!"

Waela fumbled with the straps holding her to the couch. Hali rushed to assist her, released the straps and helped her off the couch. The sound of the surf was loud and they could feel its pounding through their feet.

"Hello," Waela said. She took three short steps up to Thomas, hugged him.

Hali tried to identify the play of emotions across the man's face. Fear?

Panille touched Hali's arm. "This is Raja Thomas, leader of the army and nemesis of Morgan Oakes."

"Army?" Hali looked from Panille to Thomas.

Thomas gently released Waela's grip around his waist, steadied her while he directed a glare at Panille. "You joke about this?"