The Jesus Incident

Chapter Sixty-Four

When humans act as spokesmen for the gods, mortality becomes more important than morality. Martyrdom corrects this discrepancy but only for a brief interval. The sorry thing about martyrs is that they are not around to explain what it all meant. Nor do they stay to see the terrible consequences of martyrdom.
- You Are Spokesmen for Martyrs, Raja Thomas, Shiprecords
LEGATA SWITCHED the big screen from sensor to sensor, trying to make sense of what the instruments reported. Images blurred, re-formed in different perspective. Cutter beams slashed across the plain, she could see bodies, odd movements. Alarm buzzers signaled damage to a section of the Redoubt's perimeter. She heard Lewis dispatch repair and defense teams. Defense cutters beamed into action, directed by key people in the Center. She kept her attention on the mystery in the screens. In the split-screen images an occasional blur slipped past - as though some outside force were confusing the instruments.
She wiped a sleeve across her forehead. The two suns had climbed high while the confused battle went on, and the Redoubt's life-support had been reduced to minimum, shunting energy to weapons. It was hot in the Command Center and the nervous movements of Oakes at her elbow irritated her. In contrast, Lewis appeared unaccountably calm, even secretly amused.
It was carnage on the plain, no doubt of that. The clones in the Command Center affected extreme diligence at their duties, obviously fearful that they might be sent outside into the battle.
Legata hit replay. Something blurred across the big screen.
"What was that?" Oakes demanded.
Legata hit fix, but the sensors failed to resolve an image. Once more, she hit replay and zoomed in close to the blur. Nothing sensible. She touched replay again and slowed the projection, asking the Redoubt's computer system for image enhancement. A slow shape writhed across the screen, vaguely humanoid. It moved between two rocks, struggled with some heavy object, then moved away.
A harsh blue beam snaked from somewhere within the blurred area, alarm signals were indicated by flashing blinkers at the corners of the screen. She ignored them - that was past, and Lewis had met the emergency. Something more important was indicated on the screen: a slow blossom of red-orange which had not revealed itself there before.
"What are you doing?" Oakes demanded. "What caused that?"
"I think they're influencing our sensor system," she said. And she heard the disbelief in her own voice.
Oakes stared at the screen for several blinks, then: "The ship! The damned ship's interfering."
Sweat droplets glistened on his upper lip and jowls. She could smell him beginning to crack.
"Why would the ship do that?" Lewis asked.
"Because of Thomas. You saw him out there." Oakes' voice was breaking.
Legata switched sensors, keyed for the broad view of the cliffside staging area where the attack had originated. The demons were gone, not visible anywhere. The poet no longer sat his perch atop the pinnacle. The arc of watching hylighters had diminished to a thin rim atop the cliffs. The whole scene stood out in the glare of double sunlight.
"Where are the hylighters?" she asked. "I didn't see them go."
"None in close," Lewis said. "Maybe they've gone off somewhere t...." He broke off at a commotion near the open passage hatch.
Legata turned to see a dark-haired Natural, a crew supervisor, slip into the Command Center. Sweaty and nervous, he hurried across to Lewis. There was celltape covering a gory burn on the man's bare left shoulder and his eyes showed the glazing of a painkiller.
So there are Naturals outside, too, she thought.
"We're getting lots of wounded clones, Jesus," the man said. His voice was hoarse, tense. "What do we do with 'em?"
Lewis looked at Oakes, fielding the question.
"Set up an infirmary," Oakes said. "Clones' quarters. Let 'em treat their own."
"Not many of them understand medical care," Lewis said. "Some are pretty young, remember."
"I know," Oakes said.
Lewis nodded. "I see." He glanced at the crew supervisor. "You heard it. Get busy."
The man glared at Oakes, then at Lewis, but obeyed.
"The ship's interfering with us," Oakes said. "We can't spare medical people or any others right now. We have to devise a plan fo...."
"What is going on out there?" Legata asked.
Oakes turned, saw that once more she was running through the sensors, showing several at once. He glanced up at the screen and, at first, did not see what had attracted her attention. Then he saw i...rectangle high up on the right showed a silvery something creeping over the Redoubt's walls. It moved like a slow-motion wave, blanking out sensors, creeping up and up. Legata compensated for the obscured sensors, moving back and back through new sensors. The wave was composed of countless glittering threads bright in the glare of the double suns.
"Spinnerets," Lewis hissed.
The entire room became so quiet that the air was brittle with listening.
Legata continued, busy at the console.
Lewis turned to the Naturals guarding the Command Center. "Harcourt, you and Javo take a 'burner and see what you can do to cut through that Spinneret mesh."
The men did not respond.
Legata smiled to herself at the continued quiet in the room. She could feel the tensions building to the precise moment she desired. It had been right to wait.
There was a heavy stirring in the room. She glanced back, saw more clones pressing into the center from the passage. Some of them were the more outre E-types. Most appeared to be wounded. They obviously were looking for someone. A guttural voice called out from amidst the newcomers: "We need medics!"
Lewis faced the two Naturals he had ordered to meet the Spinneret attack. "You refuse to obey my orders?"
Harcourt, his face red, repeated his protest: "Send some clones. That's what they're for."
From somewhere in the center of the room, a thin voice shouted: "We're not going out there!"
"Why should they go?" Legata asked.
"You stay out of this, Legata!" Oakes screamed.
"Just tell them why clones should go," she said.
"You know why!"
"No, I don't."
"Because the first out on any dangerous mission are clones. Harcourt's right. Clones first. That's the way it's always been, and that's the way it'll be."
So he's pitching for the loyalty of the Naturals.
Legata looked at Lewis, met his gaze head on. Was that amusement in his eyes? No matter. She depressed a key on the console controlling the big screen, watched the people in the room. They could not miss what was happening on the screen. She had set the program to fill it.
Ye.... the room was becoming a tableau, all attention shifting to the screen, locking on it.
Puzzled, Oakes turned to look at the screen, saw his own likeness there. Below the image, a biographical printout was rolling. He stared at the heading: "Morgan Lon Oakes. Ref. Original File, Morgan Hempstead, cell dono...."
Oakes found it difficult to breathe. It was a trick! He glanced at Legata and the cold stare he met there iced his backbone.
"Morga...." How sweet her voice sounded. "...I found your records, Morgan. See Ship's imprimatur on the printout? Ship vouches for the truth of this record."
A tic twitched the corner of Oakes' left eyelid. He tried to swallow.
This is not happening! Muttering drifted through the room. "Oakes a clone? Ship's eyes!"
Legata stepped away from the console, moved to within a meter of Oakes. "Your nam.... that's the name of the woman who bore you - for a fee."
Oakes found his voice: "This is a lie! My parent.... our sun went nov....... ."
"Ship says not so." She waved at the screen. "See?"
The data continued to roll: Date of cell implantation, address of pseudo-parents, name....
Lewis came up to stand at Oakes' shoulder. "Why, Legata?" There was no denying the amusement in his voice.
She refused to take her attention from the stricken look on Oakes' face. Why do I want to comfort him?
"The Scream Room was a mistake," she whispered.
Someone off toward the edge of the room shouted: "Clones first! Send the clone out!" It began as a chant, grew to a pounding rage: "Send the clone out!"
Oakes screamed: "No!"
But hands grabbed him and Legata was powerless to prevent it in the crush of people without using her great strength to kill. She found herself unable to do this. Oakes' voice screaming: "No! Please, no!" grew fainter across the room, out into the passage, was lost in the shouting of the mob.
Lewis moved to the console, shut off the data, keyed a high sensor still free of the Spinneret webs. It showed the sudden gush of a 'burner opening a gap through the web where the wall had been breached by a cutter beam from outside. Presently, Oakes stumbled into view outside, running alone across Pandora's deadly plain.