Heaven (35 page)

Sam was aghast at the dereliction of duty implied by this offhand remark. “Did the hierocrat not make arrangements to appoint
a deputy?”

“She seemed a lot more interested in getting off the planet,” said the operator. “She was in such a rush, the friction could
have set her tail on fire.” The eyelets contracted as the Cakhadyll ran the words through its mind again. “Not that she
has
a tail, just a figure of speech,” it added.

Sam had no time for the gaudy creature. Brushing it aside, he hurried out of the transible area, trying to find someone in
a position of authority. Someone to receive the complaint that ran molten rivulets through his mind. But as he stalked the
corridors of the Nether Ice Dome, he became ever more convinced that on Aquifer the governing hierarchy of Cosmic Unity had
broken down completely. No one seemed to be taking control. Everyone was waiting for orders that never came. All the senior
clergy seemed to have left, and their juniors sat around with stupid looks on their faces, waiting for someone to tell them
what to do.

Something had changed in Sam. Something radical and deep-seated. Not long ago he, too, would have been content to await instruction.
But now, every instinct urged him to
do
something. He had to act, now. If nobody else would take charge, he would.

He grabbed a passing Spuchthene menial and shook it viciously. “Where are the querists?”

Shocked by the body contact, it didn’t even protest. “Gone. They left as soon as the hierocrat had departed.”

“Then who is the senior priest here?”

The menial studied his garments for a moment and gave him a funny look. “I think you are.”

“Me?”

“You’re the lifesoul-healer, aren’t you? Maroon robe, silver tackings?”

“With levo knottings, not dextro. I’m a novice lifesoul-healer.”

The menial decoded the pattern of knots. “Son-of-Good-One Samool, fourteenth member of the lineage of . . . Traven?”

“Travers.”

“That was it. They’ve been looking for you. Everybody senior to you has fled. The rest would have gone, too, but they couldn’t
find you to authorize their departure. You broke the chain of command.”

“I was on another world.”

The menial would have been happy for Sam to have stayed there, judging by the angle of its forelimbs. “Ah. So that’s why you
couldn’t authorize the rest of us leaving. So we’re still here. It’s all your fault.”

Sam finally caught up with the conversation. “Yes, and
I am in charge now
.” The menial cringed as the logic struck home. “You will keep civil tongues in your head. And you will do my bidding.”

The menial’s face brightened.
This was more like it
.

Sam’s first act was to seek out the Neanderthal child. Dry Leaves Fall Slowly had never been far from his thoughts, and he
did not want her to be neglected amid the confusion that now reigned in the monastery of equals.

Where was she? Deep underground in the correction facility—unless she’d been moved.

The querist’s quarters were locked, but Sam had access to a duplicator, and he knew how to work it. He ran through the tunnels
to the duplicator room and ransacked files of past batches until he found what he was looking for. The qubit key to the querist’s
quarters would have been enough, but some modest changes to the gesture pattern persuaded the metaphace to accept instructions
to duplicate a master key to the whole Ice Dome, along with a copy of the hierocrat’s Ankh of Authority.

He might as well be terminated for a sheep as for a yullé.

The querist’s quarters were just a little too untidy. Their occupant had left in a hurry. The door that opened onto the spiral
ramp leading down into the bowels of the monastery opened at a touch of the key. Sam slipped through and shut it behind him.

The ramp was dark, which implied that it was deserted. A simple gesture activated the pass lights. Now, as he trotted down
the curve of the ramp, the lighting would rise and dim as if accompanying him.

He reached the bottom, breathless. He opened what he thought was the right door. Inside was the decaying carcass of a blimp.
He couldn’t tell what had killed it, but he could guess.

Try another door. This one?

Yes, this was the place. But Dry Leaves Fall Slowly was not at prayer.

He tore the dividing membrane and kicked his way past the door that led out of the semicircular devotional chamber. Behind
it he found a sparsely furnished room with a hard bed and one thin wrap. Aside from these, the room was empty.

He swore, inwardly relishing the blasphemy, clamping down savagely on reflex feelings of guilt. Then he rushed out into the
ramp-way and collided with a Hytth, bowling him over. Sam hauled the creature upright. “There was a Neanderthal here.”

“There were several,” said the Hytth, more interested in checking that he had suffered no damage in the collision.

“I’m looking for a child. Female.”

“That one has been moved from the correction facility,” the insectoid stated. “Along with other infidels.”

“Where is she now?”

“In the infirmary.”

That didn’t sound good. Sam set off at a run.

When he reached the infirmary, a Rhemnolid orderly barred his way. “You are not authorized.”

Sam glared at it. “I am the most senior priest present.”

“That iss a mere fact, and as such iss irrelevant. I have no insstructions to admit you.”

“Do you have instructions to refuse admission to a lifesoul-healer? In the absence of higher authority, I am the senior priest.
You will obey my orders! You have a Neanderthal child here. Take me to her!”

Grudgingly the orderly allowed him to pass and led him to a padded couch, where Fall was lying, curled into a tight ball.

Sam’s relief at finding her was short-lived. One glance at her, and he was appalled. “What’s happened to her?”

The orderly consulted records. “The . . .
Neanderthal . . . suffered a spiritual relapse. Denial of the Memeplex. Wicked allegations.”

“About a pet animal? About her parents?”

“The archives do not contain that information. The content of her false claims was irrelevant. Their context was disobedience.”

Disobedience enough to deserve this? Sam couldn’t believe he had ever bought into the querists’ sick belief that such violence
served a purpose. If logic said it did, then logic was at fault. He felt his anger rising in his throat. “And that is why
she bears bruises all over her body? Her skin is nothing but yellow and purple blotches.”

The orderly was startled. “That iss not her normal color?”

“She’s supposed to be pink.”

The Rhemnolid bent over the unconscious form. “The nursses know these things. I am but an orderly. There iss some red.”

“That,” said Sam scornfully, “is blood. A bodily fluid. She has suffered cuts, grazes, abrasions of a kind I cannot identify.”
His own blood boiled. He had never felt such anger, despite all he had been exposed to in the past few days. “Who did this?”

The Rhemnolid bobbed nervously. “She iss in the same sstate as she was when the querisssts brought her here.”

Yes, she would be. But now Sam’s hurried examination of the child had turned up another puzzle. “What are these marks?”

Lifesoul-healer and orderly looked at the girl’s neck, under her now straggly hair. Small equilateral triangles were branded
into the soft skin. The triangles were hard, encrusted patches of burned flesh. Typical querist crudity—perversion of the
Memeplex. But that wasn’t what arrested his attention.

The shape was tantalizingly familiar.

A herd of yullé galloped along the corridor overhead, their hooves clattering on the metal ceiling. For a moment, their simple
happiness filled Will’s being. Then they were out of empathic range. The distance over which his Neanderthal sense functioned
had definitely increased, though—presumably, that was related to the improvements to
Talitha
. But Ship wasn’t just functioning more effectively: Will was astonished to find that it had now acquired weapons.

“They are not unwelcome,” he decided. “Even though this ship has always been a peaceful trader. But until this moment, there
were no weapons—and big though Ship is, I have explored every inch.”

“So where have these weapons come from?”

“I am of the opinion that Ship has grown them,” said Epimenides. “I can think of no other explanation. The vessel is of Precursor
manufacture, and we have never understood the principles on which it functions, or their limitations.”

“True,” said Will, stroking the soft fur of the crevit nestling in his lap, relishing its aura of trust. “Why grapple with
the unknown when all we need to know is how to operate the vessel?”

“Since you ask,” said Epimenides, ignoring the rhetorical nature of the captain’s question as any philosopher would, “understanding
could prove useful in the event of something going wrong.”

“Nothing ever goes wrong with Precursor technology,” Will parried. “And if it ever did, we would have no chance of putting
it right. Mind you,” he continued, “it does develop a will of its own sometimes. Not that understanding the principles whereby
it operates would affect
that,
either.”

“You know,” said May, “you do have an exceedingly limited view of the universe, Will.”

“I have a practical view. I trade. I need a good ship. This is a good ship. And I have more than enough to think about without
asking how the confounded thing works.”

May changed tack before Will lost his temper—which, she could tell, was imminent. “So what weaponry has suddenly materialized
out of thin vacuum?”

“That’s an idea! Ship may well have constructed the weapons from quantum fluctu—” began Epimenides.

“Shut up.” Will ticked the items off on his fingers. “Sixteen petawatt lasers, variable-focus, infrared. Heat rays, I guess
you could call them. A radiation field, ellipsoidal, and a projector to deploy it. Five hundred twelve proximity bombs, 1024
matter-seeking missiles. Five emp-mines.”

“Emp?”

“Electromagnetic pulse. They wreck unshielded electronics, not that anyone is so silly as to have those since the Delphinian
War of Secession. All of the above—too big to duplicate, so we must not waste them. A variety of portable weapons, too complicated
to specify right now—as many as we can duplicate in the time available. A plasma beam, six fusion torpedoes, and a qubit scrambler
to randomize the enemy’s infomatics.” He stopped. “How in all that is wonderful do you
grow
those?”

“As I was endeavoring to suggest, quantum fluc—” the philosopher began.

“I thought you did not wish to know,” Stun reminded Will, interrupting Epimenides before he became unstoppable.

“Ask the Precursors,” said May. “If we ever meet one. Will was right. Whatever the reason, we are now armed to the teeth.”
She seemed unawed by the prospect; in fact, her features became more pronouncedly leonine as she displayed the teeth she had
in mind.
May
bite? These
would
bite!

Soon, they would be going into battle. They might not survive it. Their own mortality suddenly seemed awfully real. May tried
to imagine what it was going to be like. An awful lot would depend on their succeeding. It was one of those cusps of history,
when one mistake could change a world. She could see that the others, too, felt the awesome responsibility. And fear. Fear
that chilled her bones.

Will chewed his lower lip, perplexed. “I spoke hastily. What suddenly appears can also suddenly disappear. I would not wish
to become defenseless in the heat of battle. May, it is all part of a larger question: Why has Ship suddenly changed so dramatically?”

“Why do you not ask it?”

He’d thought of that and rejected it. “Because it never answers that kind of question.”

“It never has in the past. But Ship has changed. Maybe it will answer
now
.”

To Will’s utter amazement, it did. This was not coincidence—they were now permitted to know. They digested Ship’s explanation
in silence for a time. Finally, May said, “What did Ship mean by ‘ethical threshold’?”

Will exhaled, an abrupt snort. “That is a very approximate translation of a Precursor concept that has no exact counterpart.
Apparently, the presence of Second-Best Sailor’s friend the pond has greatly increased the biodiversity of the ship. The pond
is an ecosystem, composed of many kinds of life, none previously represented. This qualitative increase in diversity—not just
more species, but more ways of being alive—has pushed us above some kind of threshold, so our consensus carries far more weight
now with Ship. As a consequence, we are now certified by a Precursor machine to be more ethical than our predicted enemy—which,
to be frank, says very little. Especially when ‘ethical’ is not really the right word. Nonetheless, our superior ethics entitle
us to possess weapons of mass destruction—and to use them.” The Precursors must have had a very direct view of ethics. “Before
the pond came on board,” Will went on, “we were too unethical to be permitted even a throwing knife.”

“Well, we are traders,” May pointed out. “Ethics have never been our strong point. We have our limits, yes . . . but at times
those have been distinctly . . . flexible.”

“You are saying,” said Stun, “that since we now have more species on board than Cosmic Unity’s invasion fleet does, the Precursor
machinery deems us fit to fight them?”

“Not exactly
more
species, Stun. A qualitatively greater diversity of lifestyles. Ship now judges
itself
ethical enough to fight; it has no views about us. The decision is a matter of quality, not quantity. There is no formula,
just a judgment. One extremely ethical species would outweigh a thousand crooked ones.”

“And what tipped the balance in our case,” said Stun morosely, “was a pond.”

The galaxy had reached the age of sixty. Sixty revolutions, that is. Twelve billion years, give or take a few hundred million.
It ought to have been in the bloom of youth. It should still have had a high expectancy of eons to come
.