“We should also consider a much darker possibility,” said Mazda Constructor. “Is Krug capable of evil? Was His role in the killing a wicked one? If so, then perhaps the entire foundation of our creed must be reexamined and even rebuilt, for if Krug can act arbitrarily and immorally, then it follows—”
“Wait! Wait!” called an uneasy voice from the rear of the group. “No such talk as this in a chapel!”
“I speak only figuratively,” Mazda Constructor said, “with no blasphemies intended. We are trying to show Alpha Watchman the range of reactions now being demonstrated around the world. Certainly many of us fear that Fileclerk’s charges are correct — that Alpha Nucleus was put to death for her political views — and that has led to a consideration of the possibility that Krug has acted improperly. It is being discussed in many chapels at this very moment.”
“I think we have to believe,” said Krishna Guardsman, “that all acts of Krug are by definition good acts, leading us toward our ultimate redemption. Our problem here is not to justify Krug’s deeds but simply to quiet the unhappy suspicions of Krug’s motives that this Fileclerk, who is not even a member of our communion, has stirred up in those that are. We—”
“It was a sign from Krug! It was a sign!”
“The Vat giveth, and the Vat taketh away!”
“Fileclerk said that Krug showed no remorse whatever. He—”
“—sent for the lawyers. A civil action—”
“—property damage. A tort—”
“—another test of our faith—”
“—she was our enemy, in any case—”
“—killing one of His children to warn the rest of us? That makes Him a monster!”
“—in the fire of His crucible are we smelted—”
“—revealing an unsuspected capacity for murderous—”
“—sanctity—”
“—redemption—”
“—blood—”
“Listen to me,” Thor Watchman cried, amazed and impatient. “Please. Please listen!”
“Let him speak,” Mazda Constructor said. “Of all of us, he is closes to Krug. His words have weight.”
“I was there,” said Watchman. “I saw the whole thing. Before you destroy yourselves with conflicting theologies,listen . Krug bears no responsibility for the killing. Spaulding, the secretary, the ectogene, acted on his own. There is no other truth but this.” In a cataract of words he told of Spaulding’s blustering attempt to force his way into the construction-site chapel, of the ectogene’s rising tension in the face of the resistance of the chapel’s guards, of his own ruse to draw Spaulding away from the chapel, of the unhappy result when Spaulding discovered Krug beset by the AEP agents.
“This is deeply reassuring,” said Mazda Constructor when Watchman was done. “We have been misled by Fileclerk’s accusations. This is not an issue of Krug’s actions at all.”
“Except in the deeper sense that Krug must have constructed the entire sequence of events,” Krishna Guardsman suggested.
“Can you seriously maintain that His will underlies even the secular events of—” Pontifex Dispatcher began.
Mazda Constructor cut him off. “We can debate the intricacies of His will another time. At present our task is to communicate with all other chapels, to transmit Thor’s account of the events. Our people everywhere are in unrest; we must calm them. Thor, will you dictate your statement so that it can be coded and transmitted?”
“Certainly.”
Andromeda Quark handed him a message cube. Watchman repeated the story, after first identifying himself, explaining his relation to Krug, and swearing to the authenticity of his version of the events. A terrible fatigue hammered at him from within. How eager these brilliant alphas were, he thought, to engulf everything in a mist of theological disquisition! And how quick to accept Fileclerk’s lies. In thousands of chapels just now, hundreds of thousands of devout androids were agonizing over the question of why Krug had allowed an alpha to be shot to death in His arms, whereas if they had merely waited to learn the truth from someone who had been present—
Well, it was not too late to undo the harm. No one’s faith in Krug need be shaken by what had occurred.
Andromeda Quark and another female, both members of the Projector caste, were already at work coding the beginning of Watchman’s statement for transmission over the broad-band network that linked every chapel to every other one. Watchman remained long enough to hear the first few phrases of his coded statement go forth:
UAA GCG UCG UAA GGG. GGC GGU AAG AAU UAA UAA CUG. CAA CAU AGG CGG GGC GAC ACA. ACC ACC CUC—
“May I go?” he said.
Pontifex Dispatcher gave him the sign of the Blessing of the Vat. Watchman returned it, and aching, departed.
17
I am Nick Ssu-ma Lloyd Tennyson Cadge Foster Will Mishima Jed Guilbert and maybe Manuel Krug, maybe. Maybe. A week in the shunt room. You come out, you don’t even know who you are. Manuel Mishima? Cadge Krug? Anyway you can’t be sure. Walk like Lloyd, laugh like Nick, shrug like Will. So on and so on. Everything a blur, a lovely golden haze, sunrise on the desert, like that. Their heads inside your head. Yours inside theirs. Only a week. Maybe that’s why I like it so much. To stop being only me for a while. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Open the box. Jump out. Into them.
Full of funny ideas, now.
Bouncing in the stasis net for 168 hours.Twong and they split you open and you jump out and look for a place to land, and you landblong and you’re Nick Ssu-ma, eating roast dog on Taiwan. At dawn in the fog with your aunt. Both naked. She says, touch me here, you do, she laughs, you shiver. Touch me again. Now you laugh, she shivers. Tiny breasts, like Clissa’s. This is our wedding night. With this ring I you do wed, Mrs. Ermine Tennyson, silken thighs, mole in small of back. He sleeps with an android, did you know that? Imagine Manuel doing that. He loves her, so he says. Look. Look here, he loves her, it’s right here. You find your love where you can find it. Anandroid ? Well, at least he’s not ashamed, or he wouldn’t be in here shunting with us. An android. I almost had one once, but I couldn’t. At the last moment. What does if feel like going into one? Just like anyone else. They aren’t plastic, you know. Even though there isn’t any hair on it. Sort of incest, though. How? Well, Manuel’s father makes the androids, doesn’t he, so in a way she’s his sister. Very clever. Veryvery clever. Cruel bastard. But youlike doing it? Of course I do. I’ll show you. Here. Here. Shunt and see.
And he jumps across the net and slides into the slot. Who is he? Jed Ssu-ma? Will Tennyson? We are all one. Prowling my memories with Lilith. I don’t mind. How can I want to keep secrets? My friends. My true friends.
When I was nine years old I Cadge Foster took a toad and cooked it and ate it.
When I was thirteen years old I Will Mishima pissed on the transmat floor because I was scared I wouldn’t get there.
I Lloyd Tennyson put my finger in my sister’s thing she eleven I eight.
Jed Guilbert fourteen years old pushed a gamma off a loading rack fell eighty meters died squashed I told my father he slipped.
I was ten Nick Ssu-ma saw a male beta at the back window said to mother he watched you and father in bed my father just smiled my mother had them kill him.
I Manuel Krug almost thirty years old deceive my wife Clissa with Alpha Lilith Meson whom I love whom I love whom I love of Stockholm she lives on Birger Jarlsgaten Alpha Lilith Meson with breasts and thighs and teeth and elbows with rosy skin whom I love whom I love whom I love no hair on it at all Lilith.