Presently, Rachel Demarest came forward on the platform. Leaving her wand-amplifier on its clip at her wrist, she raised both arms, twisting her palms rapidly. It was interesting that the room fell silent immediately.
Why didn't she use her amplifier? Oakes wondered. Was she an anti-tech?
"Thank you all for coming," she said. Her voice was high and squeaky with a whine at the edge. "We won't take much of your time. Our Ceepee has a copy of your petition and has agreed to answer it point by point."
Your petition! Oakes thought. Not my petition. Oh, no.
But evidence from Lewis and Murdoch was clear. This woman wanted a share in Colony power. And she had managed most cleverly to say Ceepee with an emphasis which made the title appear foolish. Battle, therefore, was joined.
As Demarest stepped back, glancing at him, Oakes produced the petition from an inner pocket of his white singlesuit. Making it appear accidental, he dropped the petition. Several pages fluttered off the platform.
"No matter." He waved back people in the front row as they moved to recover the pages. "I remember everything in it."
A glance at Murdoch brought him a reassuring nod. Murdoch had found chairs for himself and Demarest. They sat well back on the platform now.
Oakes hunched forward toward his audience in a gesture of confidence, smiling. "Few of our people are here this morning and you all know the very good reasons for this. Pandora is unforgiving. We all lost loved ones in the four failures on Black Dragon."
He gestured vaguely westward where the rocky eminences of Black Dragon lay hidden beyond the mists of more than a thousand kilometers of ocean. Oakes knew that none of those failures could be laid at his hatch; he had been very careful about that. And his presence permanently groundside imparted a feeling of excitement about Colony prospects here on the undulating plains of The Egg. That sense of impending success had contributed to the confrontation brewing in this room. Colonists were beginning to think beyond the present state of siege, rubbing their wishes together, shaping their desires for personal futures.
"As most of you know," Oakes said, lifting his amplifier to make his voice carry, "I am groundside to stay, groundside to direct the final push for victory."
There was a polite spatter of applause, much less than he had expected. It was high time he came groundside! He had loyalties to weld, organization to improve.
"The Demarest petition, then," he said. "Point One: elimination of one-man patrols." He shook his head. "I wish it could be done. Perhaps you don't understand the reason for them. I'll put it plainly. We are conditioning the animals of Pandora to run like hell when they see a human!"
That brought a rewarding burst of applause.
Oakes waited for it to subside, then: "Your children will have a safer world because of your bravery. Yes, I said your children. It is my intent to bring the Natali groundside."
Shocked murmurs greeted this announcement.
"This will not happen immediately," Oakes said, "but it will happen. Now - Point Two of the Demarest petition." He pursed his lips in recollection. "'No major decision about Colony risks or expansion shall be made without approval by a clear majority of Colonists voting in Council.' Do I have that right, Rachel?" He glanced back at her but did not wait for her to respond.
Glancing once more at the scattered papers of the petition on the floor below him, he looked hard at the front row and swept his gaze across the audience.
"Putting aside for the moment the vagueness in that word 'clear' and this unexplained concept of 'Council,' let me point out one thing we all know. It took ten hours to clear this room for a meeting. We have a choice. We keep this hall clear and ready at all times, thereby putting a dangerous strain on production facilities, or we accept a ten-hour delay for every major decision. I prefer to call those survival decisions, by the way." He made a show of looking back at the large wall chrono, then returned his attention to the audience. "We've already been here more than fifteen minutes and obviously we will use more time on this."
Oakes cleared his throat, giving them a moment in which to absorb what he had said. He noted a few squirmers in the audience sending signals that they would like to comment on this argument, and he had not missed the fact that Murdoch had taken Rachel Demarest's arm, whispering in her ear and, incidentally, keeping her from interrupting.
"Point Three," Oakes said. "More rest and recuperation back on the ship. If w...."
"Ship!" Someone in the middle rows shouted. Oakes identified the speaker, a guard on the hangar perimeter squad, one of Demarest's supporters. "Not the ship, but Ship!" The man, half out of his seat, was pulled back by a companion.
"Let's face that then," Oakes said. "I presume that a Chaplain/Psychiatrist has a modicum of expertise with which to address this question."
He glanced at Rachel Demarest who still was being held quietly but firmly by Murdoch. You want to use titles? Very well, let us put this title into its proper perspective. Not Ceepee, but Chaplain/Psychiatrist. All the traditions of THE ship stand behind me.
"I will spell it out for you," Oakes said, turning once more to the audience. "We are a mixed bag of people. Most of us appear to have come from Earth where I was born. We were removed by the shi...."
"Ship saved you!" That damned guard would not stay silent. "Ship saved you! Our sun was going nova!"
"So the ship says!"
Oakes gave it a bit more volume by a touch on his wand's controls. "The facts are open to other interpretation."
"The fact...."
"What have we experienced?" Oakes drowned him out and then reduced the volume. "What have we experienced?" Lower volume still. "We found ourselves on the ship with other people whose origins are not clear, not clear at all. Some clones, some naturals. The ship taught us its language and controlled our history lessons. We learn what the ship wants us to learn. And what are the ship's motives?"
"Blasphemy!"
Oakes waited for the stir of this outcry to subside, then: "The ship also trained me as a doctor and a scientist. I depend on facts I can test for myself. What do I know about Shipmen? We can interbreed. In fact, this whole thing could be a geneti...."
"I know my origins and so does everyone else!" It was Rachel Demarest breaking away from Murdoch and leaping to her feet. She still was not using her wand, but she fumbled with it as she moved toward Oakes. "I'm a clone, but I'm fro...."
"So the ship says!"
Again, Oakes hurled that challenge at them. Now, if Lewis and Murdoch had read the Colonists correctly, suspicions had been placed like barbs where they would do the most good when the vote was called.
"So the ship says," Oakes repeated. "I do not doubt your sincerity; I merely am aghast at your credulity."
She was angered by this and, still fumbling with her wand, failed to give herself enough amplification when she said: "That's just your interpretation." Her voice was lost on all but the first rows.
Oakes addressed the audience in his most reasonable manner: "She thinks that's just my interpretation. But I would be failing you as your Chaplain/Psychiatrist if I did not warn you that it is an interpretation you must consider. What do we know? Are we merely some cosmic experiment in genetics? We know only that the shi...." He gestured upward with his left thumb. "...brought us here and will not leave. We are told we must colonize this planet which the ship calls Pandora. You know the legend of Pandora because it's in the ship's educational records, but what do you know about this planet? You can at least suspect that the name is very appropriate!"