Part 10 (1/2)
”Actually,” said Pierce, when Arro let him have his mind back again, ”I don't mind this as much as I thought I would.”
”That's because we're squashed together like peas in a piccolo. Be careful, you're flattening my . . . accoutrements. ”
”My dear Marshmallow,” said Pierce gravely, ”I am of the opinion that your accoutrements, as you call them, are unflattenable.”
She blushed and then smiled. ”Sakes alive,” she said, ”I do believe that's the most gallant thing anyone's ever said to me.” If she hadn't been so much taller than Pierce, they could have made their bondage into one long wonderful kiss.
”There,” said Arro, through Frank Poole's mouth, ”Inow have you all helpless. Our conquest proceeds as scheduled.”
”What about the battle fleet?” asked Pierce.
”I'm getting to that,” said Arro. ”The lizard's dread-nought is closing on us, too. Let's see.
What would I do if I were Commodore Pierce?”
”I'll tell you what I'd do if I were First Officer Arro,” said the Protean-Pierce in a rage. ”I'd ask my commanding officer for advice and orders!”
”Ah, yes,” said Arro gratefully. ”Commodore, would you be so kind-”
He was interrupted by Screen 3 suddenly coming to life in living holovision and multiphonic sound. On it was the image of a human being, tall, well built, his handsome head shaved completely bald. He wore a black suit and a cravat with a huge diamond stickpin. ”Greetings,”
said the man. ”I am one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the entire galaxy. I understand your situation, and I am prepared to withhold the vast firepower of my fleet until I've made my demands known. Following that, you will have exactly sixty seconds to surrender. Do you under- stand me?”
The lizard general fretted against the tight coils of rope that held him immobile. The human- Pierce gulped and tried to think of an answer: Yes or no. He wished he could work a hand free to flip a coin.
Meanwhile, Honeylou Emmyjane Goldberg's eyes opened wide. ”Good grief!” she cried. ”It's Daddy!”
Arro was still motivating Frank Poole, the Modular Ident.i.ty Snythecator. He was experiencing a kind of tingling in one of his upper left foresacs. The tingling could be translated into human terms as stark, raving terror. ”Commodore Pierce!” he cried in a hoa.r.s.e voice. ”You should see what I can see!”
”Well,” shouted the gasbag Pierce in frustration, ”if you'd only turn your campack on it, I would see it on my monitor!”
”Oh,” said Arro in an embarra.s.sed voice. He aimed the camera lens at the viewscreens. One still showed the rapidly approaching battle fleet, the other the imposing head and upper body of Daddy.
”Yipe!” went the gasbag Pierce involuntarily. Every one of his sacs deflated with sharp blatting noises. He took a moment to reinflate himself. Then, in a hushed voice, he said, ”It's G.o.d. We're meeting G.o.d.”
”He looks just like the mysterious monster on the ceiling of the Cistern Chapel.”
”I was ready for the battle fleet,” said the Protean Pierce, ”but I wasn't prepared to meet my Maker.”
”Sir,” said Arro thoughtfully.
”Shut up, Number One. I'm looking through the Red Tape Index to see if there are any necessary forms we have to fill out before or after we come face-to-face with the Almighty.”
”Sir,” said Arro again.
”Maybe we have to send requisitions and permissions forms up through the chaplain's side of the chain of command.”
”Sir,” demanded Arro, ”why would G.o.d appear with a battle fleet?”
Pierce bratted a sac impatiently. ”G.o.d can appear however He wants. He's ent.i.tled. Now leave me alone while I-”
”Maybe that's His Heavenly Host in those other s.h.i.+ps, and they always show up in paintings as gasbags with wings-which is redundant, if you ask me, but I'm no theologian-and wings won't work in a vacuum, so I guess-”
”Nope. No forms. No contingency plans for such a situation. We're on our own here, Arro, my friend. We're opening new territory. We're going to live together in pride and splendor through all eternity if we handle this right. Now, listen, here's my plan. I want you to go say h.e.l.lo to G.o.d and wish Him all the best. Give Him my regards and tell Him that we're well on our way to conquering the universe for His greater glory.”
”Me?” squeaked Arro. All by myself?”
”You're the first officer, I'm the commodore. I have to stay back here in the Forward Recon Unit and record the history-making event.”
Arro let out another squeal from a tightly pinchedsac. ”But I haven't been to conception lately. What if G.o.d is still mad at me?”
”I don't know,” muttered Pierce. ”Wave a white flag or something. Hey, how about a Battlefield Absolution? In the absence of any duly authorized chaplain or chaplain's mate, I'm sure I have the power to give you one.”
”Think so?”
”Arro, you're absolved. Go and sin no more.”
The first officer wasn't much cheered by that, but he was a good warrior and he always followed his orders. He abandoned the MIS Frank Poole and drifted up close to the viewscreen showing, depending on how you looked at it, the father of Honeylou Emmyjane Goldberg, or the Lord of All Creation. Actually, from Marshmallow's point of view, they were pretty much the same thing.
Arro slowly but thoroughly squeezed his psychosac until his consciousness shot out through cold, empty s.p.a.ce to the flags.h.i.+p of the great s.p.a.ce armada. He arrived on the s.h.i.+p's bridge, and then he reached out toward the looming presence of the most powerful Being in the universe. Arro expected a barrier of some sort between his puny Protean intellect and the unknowable mind of G.o.d, and he was shocked when he touched and found-nothing.
”Commodore,” said the first officer in a low voice, ”He's not here.”
”Of course He's there,” said the gasbag Pierce, wobbling a bulging sac impatiently. ”G.o.d is immanent in all things. He's here, He's there, He's everywhere.”
”I don't mean like that,” whispered Arro. ”I mean He's not here in any but the usual way. I don't think we actually saw G.o.d. I think it was one of those humanoid creatures-not the scaly ones but the soft pink ones. I think it was one of those creatures pretending to be G.o.d.”
”Don't be sacrilegious.”
”I'm not being sacrilegious,” said Arro forcefully. ”It was that humanoid who was being sacrilegious.”
”The campack on your body is still pointed at the viewscreen, and I still see Him or him or whoever it is.” The gasbag Pierce stopped to think for a moment.
Slowly, the great bald head of Daddy smiled, then grinned, then broke into a disparaging laugh. ”I can tell that you've worked your mental magic or whatever,” he said contemptuously.
”As you can see, I am not an easy man to put your hands on-if you've even got hands. In fact, Mr. Energy Being, you're not so much in command of the situation aboard that small craft as you thought, are you? You hold all those cards there, but I have the trump. I have you. I have you alone in an empty sh.e.l.l of a s.p.a.cecraft which, because of its huge size, you naturally took for the major s.h.i.+p in the fleet.” Daddy grinned. ”Sorta demeaning somehow to find you can be suckered just like everybody else, ain't it?”
Arro was caught for a moment in frozen confusion. He sent his mind to see what the still very solid-looking man in front of him was talking about, and he found that it was true. The entire flags.h.i.+p, or what looked like one, was one huge, empty hulk.
Well, not completely empty. There was, for example, an elaborate remote computer control for what functions were necessary, including main batteries and propulsion. There were no provisions for life-support.
And now, for the first time, the first officer of the Pel Torro realized that ”Daddy,” too, was a remote handled by that computer. A holographic image so real, so perfect, that even now it was impossible to think of him as not really there at all.
In a way, it was demeaning. Arro was the one who dealt in energy creatures, not these gross humanoid monsters.
The big man continued to stare at him, and Arro realized that he was, in fact, looking at the great man himself-but relayed from who knew where else? Probably, from one of the other s.h.i.+ps, or maybe from even farther away if these beings had such technology. ”Commodore Pierce,” Arro reported, ”this blasphemous-looking monster controls scientific wonders far superior to our own.”
Arro found himself relieved that he was not, after all, confronting G.o.d. Still, the coincidence of the appearance of Daddy would be something the greatest Protean minds would puzzle over, perhaps for centuries.