"You said that last time."
"It worked last time, too. We simply couldn't keep up with the food supply necessary t...."
"No freaks?"
"A clean job. All we get is accelerated growth to maturity. And that kelp isn't easy to work with. Lab people hallucinating all over the damn place and aging faster tha...."
"Are you still able to waste lab technicians on this?"
"They're not wasted!" Lewis was angry, exactly the reaction Oakes had sought.
Oakes smiled reassuringly. "I just want to know that it's working, Jesus, that's all."
"It's working."
"Good. I believe you're the only person who could make it work, but I am the only person who can give you the freedom in which to do this. What is the time frame?"
Lewis blinked at the sudden shift of the question. Cagey old bastard always kept you off balance. He took a deep breath, feeling the wine, the remembered sense of protective enclosure which Shi.... the ship always gave him.
"How long?" Oakes insisted.
"We can continue an E-clone's growth, the aging, actually, and arrive at any age you want. From conception to age fifty in fifty diurns."
"In good condition?"
"Top condition and completely receptive to our programming. They're mewling infants until they become ou.... ah, servants."
"Then we can restore the Redoubt's working force rather rapidly."
"Ye.... but that's the problem. Most of our people know this and the.... ahh, saw what I did with the clones and the sympathizers. They're beginning to see that they can be replaced."
"I understand." Oakes nodded. "That's why you have to stay at the Redoubt." He studied Lewis. The man was still worried, still holding something back. "What else, Jesus?"
Lewis spoke too quickly. The answer had been right there in front of his awareness awaiting the question.
"An energy problem. We can work it out."
"You can work it out."
Lewis lowered his gaze. It was the answer he expected. Correct answer, of course. But they had to produce more burst, their own elixir.
"I will give you one suggestion," Oakes said. "Plenty of hard work precludes time for plotting and worry. Now that you've solved the clone problem, put your people to work eliminating the kelp. I want a neat, simple solution. Enzymes, virus, whatever. Tell them to wipe out the kelp."
***
An infinite universe presents infinite examples of unreasoned acts, often capricious and threatening, godlike in their mystery. Without god-powers, conscious reasoning cannot explore and make this universe absolutely known; there must remain mysteries beyond what is explained. The only reason in this universe is that which you, in your ungodlike hubris, project onto the universe. In this, you retain kinship with your most primitive ancestors.
AS SHE stood frozen in terror of the foul-breathed stranger, Hali tried to think of a safe response. The terrible differences of this place where Ship had projected her compounded her sense of helplessness. The dust of the throng which followed the beaten man, the malignant odors, the passions in the voices, the milling movements against a single su....
"Do you know him?" The man was insistent.
Hali wanted to say she had never before seen the injured man but something told her this could not be true. There had been something disquietingly familiar about that man.
Why did he speak to me of God and knowing?
Could that have been another Shipman projected here? Why had the wounded man seemed so familiar? And why had he addressed her directly?
"You can tell me." Foul-breath was slyly persistent.
"I came a long way to see him." The old voice which Ship had provided her sounded groveling, but the words were true. She felt it in these old bones she had borrowed. Ship would not lie to her and Ship had said this.... a very great distance. Whatever this event signified, Ship had brought her expressly to see it.
"I don't place your accent," Foul-breath said. "Are you from Sidon?"
She moved after the crowd and spoke distractedly to the inquisitor who kept pace with her. "I come from Ship."
What were those people doing with the wounded man?
"Ship? I've never heard of that place. Is it part of the Roman March?"
"Ship is far away. Far away."
What were they doing up on that hill? Some of the soldiers had taken the piece of tree and stretched it on the ground. She glimpsed the activity through the crowd.
"Then how can Yaisuah say that you know God's will?" Foul-breath demanded.
This caught her attention. Yaisuah? Ship had said that name. It was the name Ship said had become Geezus and then Hesoos. Jesus. She hesitated, stared at her inquisitor.
"You call that one Yaisuah?" she asked.
"You know him by some other name?"
He gripped her arm hard. There was no mistaking the avaricious cunning in his voice and manner.
Ship intruded on her then. This one is a Roman spy, an informer who works for those who torture Yaisuah.
"Do you know him?" Foul-breath demanded. He gave her arm a painful shake.
"I think thi.... Yaisuah is related to Ship," she said.
"Related t.... How can someone be related to a place?"
"Isn't he related to You, Ship?" She spoke the question aloud without thinking.
Yes.
"Ship says that's true," she said.
Foul-breath dropped her arm and stepped back two paces. An angry scowl twisted his mouth.
"Crazy! You're nothing but a crazy old woman! You're just as crazy as that one!" He gestured up the hill where the armored men had taken Yaisuah. "See what happens to crazies?"
She looked where he had pointed.
The two men already hanging there were roped to the cross-pieces and she realized they were being left to die. That was going to happen to Yaisuah!
As the full realization hit her, Hali began to weep.
Ship spoke within her mind: Tears do little to improve acuity. You must observe.
She wiped her eyes on a corner of her robe, observing that Foul-breath had moved up into the crowd. She forced herself to climb up with him, pressing in among the people.
I must observe!
The armored ones were stripping the robe from Yaisuah. This exposed his wounds - cuts and bruises all over his body. He stood with a stolid watchfulness through all this, not even responding to the gasp which went up when the mob saw his wounds. There was an unguarded vulnerability to this moment, as though everyone here was participating in his own personal death.
Someone off to the left shouted: "He's a carpenter! Don't tie him on!"
Several large, crudely wrought nails were pressed up through that part of the crowd and thrust into the hands of an armored young man.
Others took up the cry: "Nail him on! Nail him on!"
Two of the armored men supported Yaisuah on either side now. His head swayed slightly from side to side, then bowed. Things were being thrown at him from the far side of the crowd but he made no attempt to dodge. Hali saw stones strike hi.... an occasional glob of spittle.
It was all s.... so bizarre, played in an orange glow of mute sunlight coming through a high layer of thin clouds.
Hali blinked the tears from her eyes. Ship said she had to observe this! Very wel.... She estimated that she stood no more than six meters from Yaisuah's left shoulder. He appeared to be a wiry man, probably active through most of his adult life, but now he was near the point of exhaustion. Her med-tech training told her that Yaisuah could survive this, given proper care, but she had the impression that he did not want such care, that none of this surprised him. If anything, he seemed anxious to get on with it. Perhaps that was the reaction of a tortured animal, cornered and beyond all will to fight or flee.