Vale of Stars (42 page)

Each adult god in the chamber was at least two meters tall, and Iede could see elongated bones sheathed in brown skin. All the gods were the same shade of toast-colored tan. All were entirely bald—no hair on even their bodies. The hairless, slender bodies seemed incredibly fragile; Iede wondered if she looked hard enough, would she see their hearts beating in the thin, corrugated chests?

Iede’s gaze wandered towards the genitals once again. The nearest god was situated in such a way as to afford Iede a clear look. Iede could not suppress a slight shudder as she finally understood what she had been seeing in her furtive glances: the gods were hermaphrodites. A small vagina bisected a dual scrotum in which Iede could make out tiny testicles drawn up against the god’s body. As she watched, the god shifted position slightly, and Iede could see the miniature head of the god’s penis peeking out from within the vagina.

“Iede.” Groundseer’s voice caused her to start in shame. She looked around to see him motioning her over. She let go of the stanchion and pushed off, careful that her course did not take her too close to any gods. She needn’t have bothered—the gods moved blithely out of her way as she approached until she reached the other side of the chamber where Groundseer and another god waited.

“This is Groundseer Deefor. She will explain why you were brought here.” He pronounced the pronoun ‘shuh-he.’ Iede mentally assigned the female gender to Deefor.

Deefor nodded and began in a voice that was almost identical to Groundseer Aywon’s, “We in Ship, and especially those of us in the Groundseer line, believe you are embarking on a path that will lead you to ruin.”

Iede blinked. “My Lord, I have been trying to bring more and more followers to Your glory. We of Newurth are but vile creatures crawling under Your grace. I thank You for Your wisdom and ask humbly how I might bring more of my fellow creatures to the truth.”

Deefor and Aywon exchanged unreadable glances. Aywon said, with some gentleness, “No, Iede. We don’t think Newurth is on the wrong path. You yourself are.”

Iede cast her eyes downward. “Again, I thank You that You should bring me here, to your glorious Above, to correct me in—”

“Iede! Stop that!” Aywon’s voice had lost what little compassion she had heard earlier and was now clearly annoyed.

Iede continued to look down. “In what way have I strayed from Your plan? How have I misinterpreted Your words and precepts?”

“Iede, you must abolish this religion. Immediately.”

“As my Lord wishes. I am but a humble servant.”

“Iede—” Aywon said, but Deefor interrupted.

“Ay, she will not listen. She cannot hear you.” Iede heard the contempt in Deefor’s voice but did not look up. The god continued, “This is what comes of interference. We should never have involved ourselves. Costellan was right.”

“And I was wrong?”

Iede looked up at this. It dawned on her with incredulity that she was listening to an argument between two of her gods.

“I said so sixty years ago. I say so now again.”

Iede looked at Deefor in astonishment. The god was more than sixty years old? S(he) did not look older than twenty. In the back of her mind, Iede remembered that the gods did not record the years in the same fashion as those on Newurth. She converted the figure according to the information contained in the Verses and was still astonished: Deefor was over thirty-five years old and looked much younger.

Aywon sighed in a most human fashion. “I’ve thought about that. I’ve tortured myself about it for those sixty years.”

Deefor said, “You have affection for her.” Iede knew that she was being referred to, although Deefor had made no motion in her direction.

“I do.”

“You even feel responsible for her. You personally.” Deefor said it with an air of indictment.

“Yes. How can I not?” Aywon turned to Iede and spoke directly to her. “Sixty years ago, which is thirty-six years ago to you, your mother and two other people were attacked by people you used to call Domers.”

“My Lord, I have studied the histories. I know of the miracle You enacted.”

“Yes. It was me.”

Iede’s eyes widened. “You, my Lord? You were the god who…my Lord!” She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists. “I cannot…express to You—”

“Quiet, now,” he said firmly. Iede calmed herself somewhat and heard Deefor mumble something under her breath. Iede could not make out the words, but Deefor’s tone was unmistakably disgusted.

Aywon looked away and said, “What you don’t know is that I acted without authority. I did not consult with the Arch-Captain. For that, I was assigned control of the Groundseer hub that I might correct my mistake. I have spent the last sixty years trying to do so.”

“Mistake, My Lord?”

Aywon turned to Iede again. “I don’t want you dead, Iede. But my superiors believe you should never have been saved. We’re not supposed to meddle with your affairs.”

Iede nodded and quoted from Costellan’s poetry: “Verse Twelve: ‘Green mist hides those below/ Only birds under the fog/ All as it should be.’”

Aywon continued as if he had not heard. “But having saved you, I set in motion a chain of events leading to this…religion. It must end.”

“But My Lord, I only wish to worship You, to thank You for all You have done.”

Deefor laughed—a short, derisive burst of air. “It’s hopeless. You’ve twisted this creature so far out of shape she is no longer human. And she is twisting others.”

Aywon moved closer to Iede. “Iede, I am not a god. I am a human, like you. I eat, I bleed, and one day I will die. This place you are in is just a Ship.”

“My Lord, I have studied all of that. I know what You are. I still worship You—not for what You are, but for what You have done and what You will do.”

“What will we do?”

“It is written in Verse Thirty-Nine, the last verse: ‘The globe spins in space/ Night becomes day becomes night/ Life grows forever.’”

“What does that mean?”

Iede looked down. “My Lord, my understanding is flawed, being a lowly planetdweller, but in my limited intelligence I understand it to mean the gods will always ensure life. Whatever crisis we may face below, You will act in Your own way to keep life flourishing.”

Aywon turned to Deefor. “Can you argue with that? She may have twisted Costellan’s words completely out of shape, but she understands our purpose.”

“Our purpose is to study. We watch, we gather data, we watch more.” Deefor continued to look away from Iede.

“To what end?” Aywon asked with a sneer.

“There is no end.”

Aywon stared at Deefor for a moment, then said, “You are as twisted as she is. Your blind acceptance of doctrine is no less foolish than this poor human’s religion.” Aywon looked at Iede, and she saw kindness in his eyes. “I have something to show you.”

Deefor seized Aywon’s arm. “What are you going to do?”

“She needs to see what we have discovered.”

Deefor’s eyes widened. In her peripheral vision, Iede could see the other Groundseers turning from their workstations to stare at Aywon. Deefor whispered, “You can’t! We can’t influence their growth and development in any way! Look what one small act sixty years ago has done! If you reveal any more to her than you have already….”

“She’s here. We have changed her irrevocably as it is. We may as well complete the process. Unless you had in mind killing her outright rather than returning her to the surface?” Iede hoped she detected sarcasm in his voice.

Deefor murmured, “It would be the best possible solution.” Then, more loudly, “Failing that, we must keep her here forever. She must not be allowed to return to the surface. Even that will not correct the problem, but it will keep our interference to a minimum.”

“No. She’ll learn what she needs to know, then go and tell the others below.”

Deefor locked eyes with Aywon and said slowly. “I’ll tell the Arch-Captain what you are doing. She will not return to the surface, and you will be rendered to the tanks.”

Iede did not know the meaning of that last remark, but it chilled her nonetheless.

Aywon paused and licked his lips. “You’d do that? Yes, I see you would.” He lowered his head and sighed. “All right, then. I agree. We’ll keep her here.” He looked at Iede. “I’m sorry, Iede, but you cannot leave. Ever.”

Iede was overwhelmed with conflicting emotion. She had been assumed into Above where her gods reigned—in her own way, she was to become a god herself! She tried to dismiss the thought as unconscionable hubris, but found she could not entirely. She felt pride swelling in her even as she wept silently for all those she would leave behind and never again see or talk to. She had so much she would have taught them—but how could she question the will of the gods? She looked uneasily at Deefor. But was the will of the gods one will?

“Since she will remain here with us, there is no reason she cannot see everything we have discovered,” Aywon said. Deefor blinked and looked like she was trying to formulate an objection. Eventually, she shrugged slightly and said, “I suppose not.”

“Show her the city,” Aywon said. Deefor swam to a nearby control panel. The holo image that had been floating beside her vanished to be replaced by a long-range view of a nondescript patch of land.

“Look carefully, Iede.”

Iede stared at the holo but could not identify the landscape. She was looking at perhaps a thirty-square kilometer area, judging by the size of surface features. A river snaked through the center of the display. Most of what she saw was fairly flat and heavily wooded.

“My Lord, what—”

“Deefor, now show us the enhanced holo.” He added to Iede, “We have many ways to observe, Iede. What you are seeing now is a combination of rather complex visuals, including ultraviolet, x-ray, penetration ray, and other enhancements that I’m afraid would take rather a long time to explain.”

Iede stared at the holo, her mouth open. The landscape was still recognizable, although now the river shone out as a bright pink ribbon of light and the trees had faded to near transparency. The landscape revealed a ghostly image of circles and lines that Iede immediately recognized as order.

“What is it, My Lord?”

“You know what it is, Iede.”

Aywon was right—she did. Her mind had simply refused to accept what was being presented to it, for the image calmly overthrew everything she had known about her home.

“It’s…a city.”

“Ruins of a city, yes. We estimate it is over ten thousand years old—six thousand, one hundred Newurth years.”

“Who built it?”

Aywon motioned to Deefor, who pressed a key on the control panel. The image vanished. Aywon turned to Iede. “We don’t know.”

Sirra examined the prison—there was no other name for the structure into which she had been placed—and thought ruefully that Fozzoli had tried to warn her. She tried her flash again in the vain hope that the vix had left an obvious weakness to their stone jail that was only visible to ordinary light. Her sonar told her that she was sealed in on all sides, and her flash confirmed this. She could see the true nature of the cell—rock walls that had been crafted with subtle angles and strange corners.

Her sonar had initially sent her contradictory messages. Depending on how she turned, the cell grew or shrank in size. Now she knew that the vix had designed this prison to torment any of their brethren placed within. Sonar bounced crazily off the walls, reflected by the oddly shaped rock, to return to the sender with false data. Only Sirra’s flash had revealed the irregularities in the rock walls of the cell. It was not hermetically sealed, but the hairline cracks in the ceiling and floor allowed for “ventilation,” nothing more.

She had spent the last ninety minutes alternately tapping out desperate messages to any vix who could hear her and brooding over her decision not to run when she’d had the chance. She knew the pursuing vix could have impaled her and probably would have, but that quick death would have been preferable to this slow one. She did not want to check her life-support gauge again.

When it had become clear that no messages were making it out of the cell (or if they were, they were being ignored), she had rigged her vixvox in what she hoped would prove her miracle weapon. But the weapon required the partial cooperation of the Bishop’s guardian vix—she needed them to open the cell. They had stubbornly refused to do so.

Despite the impending thought of her own demise, the question of the vix’ behavior still burned in her mind. Why had they done this to her? Bishop was obviously some kind of religious leader—she now suspected that Vogel was merely a vicar at best, carrying out the orders given to him by Bishop.

Sirra’s eyes widened in her helmet. Was that it? Was Bishop upset that Sirra and the rest of the scientists had usurped his authority as the shaman? Sirra almost laughed at the irony. Had a religious leader taken action against the very gods he worshipped because Their arrival had rendered him irrelevant?

Before she could further pursue the thought, her sonar image told her of a change in the environment. The great stone wall that had been rolled into place to close the cell was opening. Sirra started towards the opening, then checked herself when she saw the sonar image of a guard’s spear-helm entering the cell.

“Come with me, Damned Saint.”

Her right hand went immediately to her left armband controller. She knew that she should act now. Her jury-rigged vixvox was set to produce a single high-frequency howl she hoped would simultaneously blind and deafen any vix within a few meters. The cell was open, and only a lone vix floated in the opening. She would most probably not get a better chance.

Her hand did not quite activate the vixvox. She had less than fifty minutes of oxygen left and was almost certain to be herded to a place with many more vix to guard her, but her curiosity, mixed with a feeling that the sea creatures did not seriously intend to harm one of their gods, stayed her hand.

She swam towards the opening. The vix guard backed away, undulating gracefully while keeping his lance pointed directly at her chest.