The Jesus Incident

Even the seemingly immortal gods survive only as long as they are required by mortal men.

- The Oakes Covenant

OAKES BEGAN to sputter and snore. His body lay half-melted into cushions of the long divan which stretched beneath Legata's mural on the porch of the Redoubt. The light was dull red, the early dayside of Rega coming in through the plaz above the sea.

Legata untangled herself from Oakes, slowly eased the sleeve of her singlesuit from under his naked thigh. She stepped over to the plaz and looked out at the dayside light flickering off the tops of waves. The sea was wild turmoil and the horizon a thick line of milky white. She found the uncontrolled violence of the sea repellent.

Perhaps I was not made for a natural world.

She pulled her singlesuit on, zipped it.

Oakes continued to snore and snort.

I could have crushed him there in those cushions, thrown his body to the demons. Who would suspect?

No one except Lewis.

The thought had very nearly become reality back there on the divan. Oakes had been satyric all through the dark hours. Once, she had slipped her arms up around his ribs while he worked at her, sweating and mumbling, but she could not bring herself to kill. Not even Oakes.

Waves whipped high onto the beach across the bay as she scanned the scene. The water slashed high this morning. The pounding surf echoed a deeper trembling of the earth and she could hear the clatter of rock against rock. The sound must be frighteningly loud outside for it to be heard that well in here.

It's the job of waves and rocks to make sand, she thought. Why can't I do my job that wel.... without question?

The answer came immediately, as though she had thought it through countless times: Because changing rock into sand is not killing. It is change, not extermination.

Her artist's eye wanted to find order in the view out the plaz, but all was disorder. Beautiful disorder, but frightening. What a contrast with the peaceful bustle of a shipside agrarium.

She could see the shuttle station off on the isolated point of land to her left, an arc of the bay between, and the low line of the protected passage leading from Redoubt to Station. That had been Lewis' idea: Keep the Station remote, easy to cut off should attackers come from Colony.

She found herself wanting the roll and toss of kelp leaves in the bay, but the kelp was goin.... goin....

A chill crawled up her spine and down her arms.

A few diurns, Oakes had said.

She closed her eyes and the picture that haunted her was her own mural, the accusing finger which pointed straight at her heart.

You are killing me! it said.

No matter how hard she shook her head, the voice would not be still. Against her better judgment, she crossed to the dispenser and keyed it for a drink. Her hand was steady. She returned to the plaz-guarded view, and sipped slowly while watching the waves bite their way up the beach across the bay. The waves had buried the previous high-tide mark at least a dozen meters back. She wondered whether she should wake Oakes.

A hylighter suddenly valved itself low across the beach below the shuttle station. A sentry appeared at the beachside guardpost and snapped her heavy lasgun to her shoulder, then hesitated. Legata held her breath, expecting the bright orange flash and concussion. But the woman did not fire; she lowered her weapon and watched as the delicate hylighter drifted out of sight around the point.

Legata let out her breath in a long sigh.

What happens when we have no others to kill?

Oakes' desire for a paradise planet vanished when she confronted that seascape. He could make it sound so plausible, so natural, bu....

What about the Scream Room?

It was a symptom. Would people turn on each other, band together in tribes and attack each other in the absence of Dashers or Runner.... or kelp?

Another hylighter drifted past farther out.

It thinks.

And the vanishing kelp. Oakes was right that she had seen the reports from the disastrous undersea research project.

It thinks.

There was a sentience here which touched her where cell walls left off, somewhere within that realm of creative imagination which Oakes distrusted and would never enter.

Almost eighty percent of this planet is wrapped in seas and we don't even know what's under there.

She found herself envying the researchers who had risked (and lost) their lives groping beneath these seas. What had they found?

A pair of huge boulders down on the beach beneath her smashed together with a jarring crack that caused her to jump. She glanced at the beach across the bay. As quickly as it crossed the high-tide mark, the waters began their ebb.

Curious.

Tons of boulders had been rolled up against the cliff barrier across the compound. More of them obviously must be on the beach beneath her. The boulders she could see were gigantic.

That much power in the waves.

"Legata.

The abruptness of Oakes' voice and touch upon her shoulder startled her, and she crushed the glass in her hand. She stared down at the hand, the cuts, her own blood, shards of glass glinting in her flesh.

"Sit over here, my dear."

He was the doctor then, and she felt thankful for it. He plucked out broken glass, then unrolled strips of Celltape from a dispenser at his com-console to stop the bleeding. His hands were firm and gentle as he worked. He patted her shoulder when he had finished.

"There. You shoul...."

The buzz of the console interrupted.

"Colony's gone." It was Lewis.

"What do you mean, gone?" Oakes raged. "How can the entir...."

"A shuttle overflight shows nothing but a hole where Lab One was. Plenty of demons, hatchways to all lower levels blow...." He shrugged, a tiny gesture in the console screen.

"That'.... that's thousands of people. Al.... dead?"

Legata could not face Lewis, even on the screen. She crossed to the divan silently and stared out the plaz.

"There could be survivors holed up behind some of the hatches," Lewis went on. "That's how we made it here whe...."

"I know how you made it here!" Oakes shouted. "What are you suggesting?"

"I'm not suggesting anything."

Oakes gritted his teeth and pounded the console. "You don't think we should have Murdoch try to save anyone?"

"Why risk the shuttles? Why risk one of our last good people?"

"Of course. A hole, you say?"

"Nothing but rubble. Looks to've been the work of lasguns and plasteel cutters."

"Do the.... I mean, are there any shuttles left over there?"

"We disabled everything before leaving."

"Ye.... yes, of course," Oakes murmured. Then: "LTAs?"

"Nothing."

"Didn't you and Murdoch say that you cleared everything out of that Lab One site? Moved it all here?"

"Apparently the rioters thought there might be some burst hidden away there. They captured the only remaining communications equipment. They were demanding help fro.... the ship."

"They didn'...." Oakes could not complete the question.

"The ship didn't answer. We were listening."

A deep sigh shook Oakes.

Without turning to face him or the viewscreen, Legata called out, "How many people did we lose there?"

"Ship knows!" Lewis threw back his head, laughing.

Oakes hit the key to shut him off.

Legata clenched her fists. "How could he laugh that way a....?" She shook her head.

"Nervous," Oakes said. "Hysteria."

"He was not hysterical! He was enjoying it!"

"Calm yourself, Legata. You should get some rest. We have much to do and I'll need your help. We've saved the Redoubt. We have most of the food that was at Colony and far fewer people to eat it. Be thankful that you're among the living."

That worry in his tone, in his eyes.

It was almost possible to believe he felt genuine love for her.

"Legat...." He put out a hand to touch her arm.

She pulled away. "Colony's gone. The hylighters and kelp are next. Then what? Me?"

She knew it was her own voice speaking, but she had no control over it.

"Really, Legata! If you can't handle alcohol, you should not drink it."

His gaze went to the broken glass on the floor.

"Especially this early in the dayside."

She whirled away from him and heard him press the console key and summon a clone worker to clean up the broken glass. As he spoke, Legata felt the last of her hope shatter in the morning air, lost on the wild glinting of the waves she could see out there.

What can I do against him?