Oakes sensed that he was walking into a peculiar personal danger, but he could not stop even as his tensions mounted. The ship was able to kill him at any moment, anywhere shipside, but he took a special private knowledge with him: he was Morgan Oakes, Ceepee. His detractors might call him "The Boss," but he was the only person here (with the possible exception of Lewis) who understood there were things the ship would not do.
Two of us among many. How many?
They had no real census shipside or groundside. The computers refused to function in this area, and attempts at manual counting varied so widely they were useless.
The ship showing its devious hand again.
Just as the ship's machinations could be sensed in this order for a poet groundside. He remembered the full name now: Kerro Panille. Why should a poet be ordered groundside to study the kelp?
If we could only eat the kelp without it driving us psychotic.
Too many people to feed. Too many.
Oakes guessed ten thousand shipside and ten times that ground-side (not counting the special clones), but no matter the numbers, he was the only person who realized how little knowledge his people had about the workings and purposes of the ship or its parts.
His people!
Oakes liked it that way, recalling the cynical comment of his mentor, Edmond Kingston, who had been talking about the need to limit the awareness of the people: "Appearing to know the unknown is almost as useful as actually knowing."
From his own historical studies, Oakes knew that this had been a political watchword for many civilizations. This one thing stood out even though the ship's records were not always clear and he did not completely trust the ship's versions of history. It often was difficult to distinguish between real history and contrived fictions. But from the odd literary references and the incompatible datings of such works - from internal clues and his own inspired guess-work - Oakes deduced that other worlds and other people existe.... or had existed.
The ship could have countless murders on its conscience. If it had a conscience.
***
As I am your creation, you are Mine. You are My satellites and I am yours. Your personas are My impersonations. We melt into ONE at the touch of infinity.
FROM THE instant the Redoubt's first hatchway exploded, Jesus Lewis stayed within arm's length of his bodyguard, Illuyank. It was partly a conscious decision. Even in the worst of times, Illuyank inspired a certain confidence. He was a heavily muscled man, dark-skinned, with black wavy hair and a stone-cut face accented by three blue chevrons tattooed above his left eyebrow. Three chevrons - Illuyank had run outside around the Colony Perimeter three times, naked, armed only with his wits and endurance, "running the P" for a bet or a date.
Testing their luck, some called it. When the hatch blew, they all needed luck. Some of them were barely awake and had not yet eaten their first dayside meal.
"The clones got a lasgun!" Illuyank shouted. His clear, dark eyes worked the area. "Dangerous. They don't know how to use it."
The two men stood in a passage between the clones' quarters and a random huddle of survivors who waited behind them near a half-circle of hatches leading to the core of the Redoubt. Even in this moment of peril, Lewis knew how he must appear to the others. He was a short man, thin all the way - thin straw-colored hair, thin mouth, thin chin made even more so by a deep cleft, a thin nose, and oddly dark eyes which never seemed to reflect light in the thin compression of his lids. Beside him, Illuyank was everything Lewis was not.
Both stared toward the core of the Redoubt.
There was a real question in their minds whether the core of the Redoubt remained secure.
Knowing this, Lewis had deactivated the communications pellet buried in the flesh of his neck and refused to answer it even when insistent calls from Oakes tempted him.
No telling who might be able to listen!
There had been some disquieting indications lately that their private communications channel might not be as private as he had hoped. By now, Oakes would have received word about the new Ceepee. Discussion of that and the possible breach of their private communications system would have to wait.
Oakes would have to be patient.
At the first sign of trouble, Lewis had hit an emergency signal switch to alert Murdoch at Colony. There was no certainty, though, that the signal had gone through. He had not been allowed time for a retransmit-check. And the whole Redoubt had gone onto emergency power then. Lewis had no way of knowing which systems might be working and which not.
The damned clones!
A loud whirr sounded from the direction of the clones' quarters. Illuyank flattened himself on the floor and the others were showered with shards of passage wall.
"I thought they didn't know how to use that lasgun!" Lewis shouted. He pointed at a gaping hole in the wall as Illuyank leaped up and spun him around toward the others at the hatch circle.
"Downshaft!" Illuyank called.
One of the waiting group whirled the downshaft hatchdogs and opened the way into a passage lighted only by the blue flickering of emergency illumination.
Lewis sprinted blindly behind Illuyank, heard the others scrambling after them. Illuyank shouted back at him as he ran: "They don't know how to use it and that's what makes it dangerous!" Illuyank tucked and rolled across an open side passage as he spoke, firing a quick burst down the passage from his gusgun. "They could hit anything anywhere!"
Lewis glanced down the open passage as he ran past, glimpsed a scattering of bodies blazing there.
It soon became apparent where Illuyank was leading them and Lewis admired the wisdom of it. They took a left turn into a new passage, then a right turn and found themselves in the Redoubt's unfinished back corridors, skirting the native rock of the cliffside into the small Facilities Room on the beach side. One plasma-glass window overlooked the sea, the courtyard and the corner where the clones' quarters joined the Redoubt itself.
The last of the followers dogged the hatch behind them. Lewis took quick stock of his personnel - fifteen people, only six of them from his personally chosen crew. The others, rated reliable by Murdoch, had not yet been tested.
Illuyank had moved to the maze of controls at the cliff wall and was poring over the Redoubt's schematics etched into a master plate there. It occurred to Lewis then that Illuyank was the only survivor from Kingston's mission to this chunk of dirt and rock named Black Dragon.
"Is this how it was with Kingston?" Lewis asked. He forced his voice to an even calm while watching Illuyank trace a circuit with one stubby finger.
"Kingston cried and hid behind rocks while his people died. Runners got him. I cooked them out."
Cooked them out! Lewis shuddered at the euphemism. The grotesque image of Kingston's head crisped to char grinned across his mind.
"Tell us what to do." Lewis was surprised at his control under this fear.
"Good." Illuyank looked directly at him for the first time. "Good. Our weapons are these." He indicated the power switches and valve controls around them. "We can control every circuit, gas and liquid from here."
Lewis touched Illuyank's arm and pointed to a one-meter square panel beside him.
"Yes." Illuyank hesitated.
"We're blind otherwise," Lewis said.
For answer, Illuyank tapped out a code on the console beneath the square. The blank panel slid back to reveal four small view-screens.