Legata stood there, looking at where Oakes had knelt, and she could not keep the tears from coursing down her cheeks.
Hali stood up beside the litter where her patient slept. She felt emptied and angry, robbed of her role. She stared up at the passing immensity of Ship.
Is this what I was supposed to let them know? she demanded.
Show them, Ekel!
Still angry, she played the images of the crucifixion, then: "Ship! Is that how it was with Yaisuah? Was he just another filament from one of Your dreams?"
Does it matter, Ekel? Is the lesson diminished because the history that moves you is fiction? The incident which you just shared is too important to be debated on the level of fact or fancy. Yaisuah lived. He was an ultimate essence of goodness. How could you learn such an essence without experiencing its opposite?
The shadow was gone from them, flowing away over the cliffs, carrying off the bits of humanity remaining up there - the Natali, the hyb attendants, the hydroponics worker....
"Ship is leaving us," Legata said. She crossed to Panille's side.
In the midst of her words, she felt the blaze of awareness which Ship had shared with them - Shiprecords, all of the pasts carried into the smallest cell on the plain.
"We've been weaned," Panille said. "We have to go it alone now."
Hali joined them. "No more shiptits."
"But alone has lost all of its old meanings," Panille said.
"Is this what the expansion of the universe is all about?" Legata asked. "The fleeing of the gods from their own handiwork?"
"Gods ask other questions," Panille said. He looked down at Hali. "You were midwife to us all when you brought us Vata and the Hill of Skulls."
"Vata brought herself," Hali said. She put a hand in Panille's. "Some things don't need a midwife."
"Or a Ceepee," Legata said. She grinned. "But it's a role we all know now." She shook her head. "I have only one question - What will Ship do with those people up there?"
She pointed upward at the vanishing ship.
They all heard it then, Ship's presence filling the people on the plain, then fading, but never to be forgotten.
Surprise Me, Holy Void!