Jepp remembered the text, turned toward the holo, and discovered it was dark. Then, before he could give the matter further thought, the shuttle flared in for a landing. The human sought his space suit. There were heathens to convert—and God was waiting.
There were sixty-seven youngsters in a line that wound away from the Spirit of Gatlw and out toward the perimeter of the crater. They were clad in spacesuits, bulky affairs with which they were well acquainted and decorated to their liking. Some bore markings, some sported text, and others had been painted in fanciful ways.
Lis was one of the oldest and, along with some other sixteen-year-olds, nominally in charge. It was her job to bring up the rear, urge laggards to greater speed, and keep an eye on the robot assigned to erase their tracks.
A little one, no more than five, tripped on something. He went head over heels, hit the dry, powdery soil, and sent a wail over Channel Two. Were the machines listening? It was best to assume that they were.
Lis hurried to pick the youngster up, rapped on his faceplate, and gestured for silence. Wonderfully, amazingly, he obeyed. She put the cub down and looked back over her shoulder. The sweeper, oblivious as to the reason behind its current assignment, continued to run backwards, as it erased its tracks. Satisfied that the machine was operating properly, Lis turned and hurried to catch up. A male named Rak had set the pace—and the little ones had a hard time trying to keep up. Legs pumped, arms windmilled, and dust marked their passage. Would it settle before the machines arrived? And did she really care? Subcommander Homa was her father—and would die with all the rest. No, they hadn’t told her that, but didn’t need to. It, like most of the really important events in her life, needed no explanation. Another youngster went down. A pair of ten-year olds pulled her back up, and the column wound in among some ancient rocks. Many were quite large. The ground sloped upward now, reaching toward the crater’s rim, leaving the flat behind. Lis slipped, managed to regain her footing, and looked back over her shoulder.
The robot had stalled. Its drive wheels threw plumes of dirt up into the airless atmosphere as it struggled to find purchase. Lis said a word she wasn’t supposed to say, directed the youngster to proceed without her, and waited to make sure. He waddled up the slope. An eight-year-old saw and took his hand. Conscious of how the seconds were ticking away, Lis dashed down the slope, eyed the robot, and knew the situation was hopeless. The maintenance unit had been designed to operate within the confines of a spaceship and couldn’t handle the uneven terrain.
Something flashed off to the east. The sun reflecting off a rock face? Or the hull of an incoming shuttle?
Lis threw herself forward, hit the robot with her shoulder, and pushed to machine over. It hit the dirt and struggled to right itself. She slapped the kill switch. The robot went inert, the youngster showered the machine with dirt, and fell facedown as a shadow slipped past.
The shuttle, which shimmered with light, dropped toward the ground. Had the machines been able to spot her? Lis didn’t think so—but hurried anyway. The ground rose in front of her, the incoming air rumbled in her ears, and sorrow filled her heart.
Convoy CommanderPolBaySeph met her visitors at the main lock. They were different from what she had expected: two biologicals and a robot of Thraki origins. Where were the firebreathing shiny-assed machines? It really didn’t matter, not if the aliens had the power to negotiate for the machines, which apparently they did. Both removed their helmets. The larger of the two spoke. His robot handled the translation. “Hello, my name is Jepp, Jorely Jepp, and this is Veera. The Hoon asked that we speak with you.”
Though a bit misleading, the human felt the lie was justified. He realized that the Thraki was female, guessed she was older rather than younger, and saw the intelligence in her eyes. She offered some sort of gesture. “You are welcome ... especially if your presence will help to avoid bloodshed.”
“It may,” Jepp answered agreeably, “God willing.”
“One never knows what games the gods may play,” Seph said politely. “Come ... let’s find a more comfortable place to talk.”
The Thraki led their guests down a passageway, and Veera, who had no role in the negotiations, took everything in. She noticed that in spite of the fact that the ship was in good repair the fittings bore the patina of hard use.
Another item that attracted the Prithian’s attention was the considerable number of robots deployed throughout the ship and their degree of sophistication Based on travels with her father, Veera knew that most spacefaring sentients had such machines, but couldn’t remember another race that was quite so dependent on them or had taken the science of robotics so far.
It seemed that most members of the crew had what amounted to pet robots, which scurried, pranced, rolled, and jumped wherever they chose. The result of all this activity was a sort of benign chaos that Veera found annoying but the Thraki seemed completely unaware of. Not Sam, however, who uttered a squeak of delight, jumped off Jepp’s shoulder, and joined a round of wall tag. Veera had the distinct feeling that these observations all added up to something, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Commander Seph took a turn and led the visitors into a relatively large space. It looked and felt like a communal living room. She gestured toward some amorphous looking chairs. “You are welcome to sit... although I’m not sure how comfortable you’ll be.”
Jepp eyed the furniture, decided it was too small to support him, and did his best to sound friendly. “I’m afraid you arc correct. Besides, our pressure suits would get in the way, and we don’t have enough time to remove them. May I be frank?”
“Of course,” Seph answered smoothly, wondering how the youngsters were doing. “Say whatever’s on your mind.”
“Thank you,” Jepp replied. “Here’s the situation . . . The Sheen are governed by a machine intelligence called the Hoon. It has orders to destroy the Thraki race.”
Seph felt a crevasse open at the pit of her stomach. Contrary to the dictates of both logic and common sense, she had allowed herself to hope—that the stories were wrong, that the machines had changed, that something good would happen. Fur rippled away from her eyes. “Then why did you come? To tell us our fate?”
The words had a hard almost metallic edge to them. The human didn’t blame her. “No, that was not our purpose. I came to ask that you embrace the one and only all-knowing, all seeing, all-powerful God.”
Like 99 percent of her race Seph believed in a pantheon of gods and considered the god the alien described to be patently impossible. After all, how could one god, no matter how capable, possibly handle the running of the universe? The idea was laughable. Still, there were the Children to consider, and if the alien proved sufficiently gullible, the rest of the convoy as well. “One god? What an interesting notion. Tell me more.”
Veera, whose father had trained her to look for lies, watched in silent amazement as the exprospector turned amateur messiah not only fell for the Thraki’s attempt at deception, but proceeded to spew the same line of nonsense he had tried on her.
It took the human the better part of twenty minutes to rattle off all the stuff about how the machines were a gift from God, the mission to which he alone had been called, and the opportunity that stretched before them. “I can save your souls,” Jepp said importantly, “and deliver them to the Lord.”