"You had a death wish, too," Bickel said.
"That, too," Flattery agreed, recognizing how the deadly impulse had helped project him into his full awareness.
With that realization, Flattery began to glimpse the train of Bickel's cryptic words - their other meaning.
"There were Greeks who said that even the gods must die," Bickel said.
Flattery turned, looked at the big board. It was fully alight now, not a warning telltale showing, every gauge zeroed normal.
"It's programmed to take us to Tau Ceti," Bickel said.
Flattery began to laugh, almost hysterically. Presently, he stopped. "But there's no inhabitable planet at Tau Ceti. You know what all this is, John...et piece. We know what we are - cell-culture humans! A host gave a bit of himself containing the template of the total and the axolotl tanks took care of the rest. We were expendables!" He sighed, put down the urge to sink back into the deadly torpor. They're already growing our replacements, our duplicates, building another Tin Egg...back at UMB. Each failure teaches them something back at UMB. They've had a continuous monitor on the computer. When I depressed that key, that also launched a capsule back toward Earth - the complete report."
"Not quite complete," Bickel said.
"The ship is going to take us to Tau Ceti," Timberlake said.
"But the self-destruction program," Prudence said. And as she spoke, she saw what the others already had seen. The ship held control of its own death. It could die. And this was what had given it life. The impulse welled up into the AAT from the Ox circuits... and was repressed, the way humans repressed it. The ship had come to life the way they had - in the midst of death. Death was the background against which life could know itself. Without death - an ending - they were confronted by the infinite design problem, an impossibility.
All Flattery had done was to provide the AAT - the seat of consciousness - with a superenergizer.
"Nothing at Tau Ceti, you're sure?" Bickel asked.
"Planets, but not inhabitable," Flattery said.
A green action light began to glow on the main console.
"No sense going into hyb," Bickel said.
"We are happy," Prudence said. She stared at the green light. "It isn't fully conscious yet - the ship."
"Of course not," Timberlake said, and he thought how deftly she had phrased their emotional state. I would've said we are filled with joy. But joy has somewhat religious overtones. Prue's way is better.
Prudence grew aware that Flattery was looking at her. "Why not?" he said.
Yes, why not? she agreed.
But no woman had ever presided at a stranger birth.
She crossed to the main console, switched the computer's audio pickup into the main input channel.
"You," she said.
She kept her hand on the switch, the new sensitivity of her skin reporting the molecular shift of metal in direct contact.
They waited, knowing the outline of what was happening inside their robotic construction. That one word, internally powered by programmed curiosity and self-preservation directives, was winding its way through the as-yet semiconscious creation. Preservation - but there were many kinds of preservation, many things to preserve.
But there was only one receptor upon which "You" could impress itself.
Programs were firing, new cross-links being created, comparisons and balances being made.
Abruptly, the board in front of Prudence went dead. Every light extinguished, every gauge at dead rest. She waggled the computer switch, got no response. The entire ship began to tremble.
"Is that the self-destruction program?" Bickel asked.
A single word, metallic and harsh, boomed from the vocoder above them: "Negative."
The ship vibration eased, resumed, cut off sharply.
There came a weighted sense of drifting, a profound silence which they felt extended throughout the ship.
Again, the vocoder came to life, but softer: "Now, you will see on your screens a lateral view."
The overhead screen and the fore bulkhead screen came alight with the identical scene: a view of a solar system, planets picked out by the telltale red arrows of computer reference.
"Six planets," Flattery whispered. "Notice the pattern - and the sky beyond."
"You recognize it?" Timberlake asked.
"It's the view the probes brought back," Flattery said. "The Tau Ceti system."
"Why would it reproduce the probe view?" Prudence asked.
"Prudence," said the vocoder, "this is not a probe view. These radiations are what... . see now around me."
"We're already at Tau Ceti?" Prudence asked. "How can that be? We can't be there!"
"The symbol there is an inaccuracy," said the vocoder. "There and here shift according to a polarity dependent upon dimension."
"But we're there!" Prudence said.
"A statement of the obvious may be used to reinforce your awareness," the vocoder said. "You were to be conveyed safely to Tau Ceti. You have arrived at Tau Ceti."
"Safely," Flattery said. "There's no place for us to land."
"An inconvenience, no more," said the vocoder.
Every arrow but one on the screen winked out.
"This planet has been prepared for you," said the vocoder.
Bickel glanced sideways at Flattery, saw the psychiatrist-chaplain mopping perspiration from his brow.
"Something's wrong," the vocoder said. "You have but to look around you. You are safe. Observe."
The scene on the screens shifted.
"The fourth planet," said the vocoder. "That which is prepared can be preserved."
Flattery gripped Bickel's arm. "Can't you hear it?"
But Bickel was staring at the view on the fore screen...lanet growing larger, filling the screen: a green planet with atmosphere and clouds.
"How did we get here?" Bickel asked. "Is it possible for me to understand?"
"Your understanding is limited," said the vocoder. "The symbols that you have given me possess strange variance with nonsymbolized reality."
"But you understand it," Bickel said.
The vocoder seemed to take on a chiding tone: "My understanding transcends all possibilities of this universe. I do not need to know this universe because I possess this universe as a direct experience."
"Can't you hear it?" Flattery demanded, his grip on Bickel's arm tightening.
Bickel ignored the distraction, remembered that moment in the force of the field generator when he had faltered and fallen back from a transcendental awareness. He had not possessed the capacity. It was a built-in lack, functional.
He could only accept the accomplished fact because the evidence was visible on the viewscreen. They were coming down through clouds...eadow with trees beyond it and a snowcapped mountain lifted in the background. He could feel the G-pull increasing, steadying as the ship came to rest.
"You will find the gravity just a fraction less than that of Earth," said the vocoder. "I am now awakening colonists in hybernation. Remain where you are until all are awake. You must be together when you make your decision."
His voice rasping in a suddenly dry throat, Bickel glanced up at the vocoder, said: "Decision? What decision?"
"Flattery knows," said the vocoder. "You must decide how you will WorShip Me."