Part 21 (1/2)
Hama said with difficulty, ”I am not-happy.”
”You were promised integration, not happiness.”
”I failed to find the girl. La-ba.”
Arles smiled in the vacuum. ”I traced her. She escaped to the sensor installation.”
”The sensors?”
”Another renegade lives up there. To what purpose, I can't imagine,” Arles murmured.
”This place is flawed,” Hama said bitterly.
”Oh, yes. Very flawed. There is a network of drones who provision the renegade. And there are more subtle problems: the multiple births occurring in the Vat, the taking of trophies fromkills, the dancing . . . These drones seek satisfaction beyond the Doctrine. There has been ideological drift. It is a shame. You would think that in a place as isolated as this a certain purity could be sustained. But the human heart, it seems, is full of spontaneous imperfection.”
”They must be punished.”
Arles looked at him carefully. ”We do not punish, Hama. We only correct.”
”How? A program of indoctrination, a rebuilding-”
Arles shook his head. ”It has gone too far for that. There are many other Observation Posts.
We will allow these flawed drones to die.”
There was a wash of agreement from the Commissaries all over the Supercl.u.s.ter, all of them loosely bound to Hama's thinking and Arles's, all of them concurring in Arles's decision.
Hama found he was appalled. ”They have done their duty here for sixty thousand years-Lethe, a third of the evolutionary history of the human species-and now you would destroy them so casually, for the sake of a little deviance?”
Arles gripped Hama's arms and turned him so they faced each other. Hama glimpsed cold power in his eyes; Arles Thrun was already a thousand years old. ”Look around, Hama. Look at the Supercl.u.s.ter, the vast stage, deep in s.p.a.ce and time, on which we fight. Our foe is unimaginably ancient, with unimaginable powers. And what are we but half-evolved apes from the plains of some dusty, lost planet? Perhaps we are not smart enough to fight this war. And yet we fight even so.
”And to keep us united in our purpose, this vast host of us scattered over more galaxies than either of us could count, we have the Doctrine, our creed of mortality. Let me tell you something. The Doctrine is not perfect. It may not even enable us to win the war, no matter how long we fight. But it has brought us this far, and it is all we have.”
”And so we must destroy these drones, not for the sake of the war-”
”But for the sake of the Doctrine. Yes. Now, at last, you begin to understand.”
Arles released him, and they drifted apart.
La-ba stayed with the Old Man.
She woke. She lay in silence. It was strange not to wake under a sky crowded with people.
She could feel her baby inside her, kicking as if it were eager to get to the Birthing Vat.
The floor shuddered.
The Old Man ran to her. He dragged her to her feet. ”It begins,” he said.
”What?”
He took her to the hatch that led to the hollow cable.
A We-ku was there, inside the cable, his fat face split by a grin, his stick-out ears wide.
She raised her foot and kicked the We-ku in the forehead. He clattered to the floor, howling.
The Old Man pulled her back. ”What did you do?”
”He is a We-ku.”
”Look.” The Old Man pointed.
The We-ku was clambering to his feet and rubbing his head. He had been carrying a bag full of ration packs. Now the packs were littered over the floor, some of them split.
The Old Man said, ”Never mind the food. Take her back.” And he pushed at La-ba again, urging her into the cable. Reluctantly she began to climb down.
She felt a great sideways wash, as if the whole of this immense cable was vibrating backand forth, as if it had been plucked by a vast finger.
She looked up at the circle of light that framed the Old Man's face. She was confused, frightened. ”I will bring you food.”
He laughed bitterly. ”Just remember me. Here.” And he thrust his hand down into hers. Then he slammed shut the hatch.
When she opened her hand, she saw it contained the scrimshawed bones.
The cable whiplashed, and the lights failed, and they fell into darkness, screaming.
Hama stood in the holding cell, facing Ca-si. The walls were creaking. He heard screaming, running footsteps.
With its anchoring cable severed, the Post was beginning to sink away from its design alt.i.tude, deeper into the roiling murk of the hot Jupiter's atmosphere. Long before it reached the glimmering, enigmatic metallic-hydrogen core, it would implode.
Ca-si's mouth worked, as if he was gulping for air. ”Take me to the Shuttles.”
”There are no Shuttles.”
Ca-si yelled, ”Why are you here? What do you want'?”
Hama laid one silvered hand against the boy's face. ”I love you,” he said. ”It's my job to love you. Don't you see that?” But his silvered flesh could not detect the boy's warmth, and Ca-si flinched from his touch, the burned scent of vacuum exposure.
”.. . I know what you want.”
Ca-si gasped. Hama turned.
La-ba stood in the doorway. She was dirty, bloodied. She was carrying a lump of shattered part.i.tion wall. Fragmentary animated images, of glorious scenes from humanity's past, played over it fitfully.
Hama said, ”You.”