Clones are property and that's that!
- Morgan Hempstead, Moonbase Director
"THANK YOU for complying with my invitation."
Thomas watched the seated speaker carefully, wondering at the sense of peril aroused by such a simple statement. This was Morgan Oakes, Chaplain/Psychiatrist - the Ceepee, The Boss?
It was late dayside on Ship and Thomas had not been long enough from hyb to feel completely awake and familiar with his long-dormant flesh.
I am no longer Raja Flattery. I am Raja Thomas,
There could be no slip in the new facade, especially here.
"I have been studying your dossier, Raja Thomas," Oakes said.
Thomas nodded. That was a lie! The stress in the man's voice was obvious. Didn't Oakes realize how much he betrayed himself to trained senses? You could not believe a word this man uttered! He was careless - that was it.
Perhaps there are no other trained senses to test him.
"I responded to a summons, not to an invitation," Thomas said.
There! That was the kind of thing a Raja Thomas would say.
Oakes merely smiled and tapped a folder of thin Shippaper in his lap. A dossier? Hardly. Thomas knew that it was in Ship's interest to conceal the real identity of this new player in the game.
Thomas! I am Thomas! He glanced around the Shipcell to which Oakes had invited him, realizing belatedly that this once had been a cubby. Oakes had taken out bulkheads to expand the cubby. Then, as Thomas recognized a mystical decorative motif between two dark-red woven wall hangings, he suffered one of the worst shocks in this awakening.
This was my cubby!
It was obvious that Ship had expanded enormously since those faraway Voidship days when it had housed only a few thousand hybernating humans and a minimal umbilicus crew. The changes he had seen on the trip here from hybernation hinted at even deeper changes behind them. What had happened to Ship?
This expanded cubby suggested an unsavory history. The space was sybaritic with exotic hangings, deep orange carpeting, soft divans. Except for a small holoprojection at Oakes' left hand, all the cubby's expected servosystems had been concealed.
Oakes was giving his visitor plenty of time to study the space around him, using the time to return that scrutiny. What was Ship's intent with this mysterious newcomer? The question was engraved large on Oakes' face.
Thomas found his own attention caught by the computer-driven projection at the holofocus. It was a familiar three-dimensional analogue of a ship orbiting a planet, all glittering green and orange and black. Only the planetary system was unfamiliar; it had two suns and several moons. And as he watched the slow progression of the ship's orbit, he felt an odd sense of deja vu. He was in motion in a ship in motion in a universe in motio.... and it had all happened before.
Replay?
Ship said not, bu.... Thomas shrugged off such doubts, reserving them for later. He did not have to be told that the planet in the focus was Pandora and that this projection represented a real-time version of Ship's position in the system. Some things did not change no matter the great passage of time. Bickel had once monitored such a projection on the Voidship Earthling.
Morgan Oakes sat on a deep divan of rust velvet while Raja Thomas stood - an unsubtle accent on their positions in a hierarchy which Thomas had not yet analyzed.
"I'm told you are a Chaplain/Psychiatrist," Oakes said. And he thought: This man does not respond to his name in a quite normal way.
"That was my training, yes."
"Expert in communication?"
Thomas shrugged.
"Ahhh, yes." Oakes was pleased with himself. "That remains to be tested. Tell me why you have asked for the poet."
"Ship asked for the poet."
"So you say."
Oakes allowed silence to follow this challenge.
Thomas studied the man. Oakes was portly-going-on-fat, dark complexion, faint odor of perfume. His gray-streaked hair had been combed forward to conceal a receding hairline. The nose was sharp and flared at the nostrils, the mouth thin and given to a tight, stretching grimace; the chin was wide and cleft. The man's eyes dominated this rather common Shipman face. They were light blue and they probed, boring in, always trying to penetrate every surface they found. Thomas had seen such eyes on people diagnosed as psychotic.
"Do you like what you see?" Oakes asked.
Again, Thomas shrugged.
Oakes did not like this response. "What is it you see in me which requires such scrutiny?"
Thomas stared at the man. The genotype was recognizable and that first name was suggestive. Oakes could have Lon as a middle name. If Oakes were a clone instead of a replay-survivor rescued from a dying plane.... yes, that would be an interesting clue as to how Ship was playing this deadly game. Oakes bore a more than casual resemblance to Morgan Hempstead, the long-ago director of Moonbase. And there was that first name.
"I've just been very curious to meet The Boss," Thomas said. He found a seat facing Oakes and sat without invitation.
Oakes scowled. He knew what they called him shipside and groundside, but politeness (not to mention politics) dictated that the term not be used in this room. Best not precipitate conflict yet, however. This Raja Thomas posed too many mysteries. Aristocratic type! That damned better-than-you manner.
"I, too, am curious," Oakes said.
"I'm a servant of Ship."
"But what is it you're supposed to do?"
"I was told you have a communications problem on Pandora - something about an alien intelligence."
"How very interesting. What are your special capabilities in this respect?"
"Ship appears to think I'm the one for the job."
"I don't call the ship's process thinking. Besides, who cares what opinions come out of a system of electronic bits and pieces? I prefer a human assessment."
Oakes watched Thomas carefully for a response to this open blasphemy. Who was this ma.... really? You couldn't trust the damned ship to play fair. The only thing to believe was that the ship was not a god. Powerful, yes, but with limits which needed exploring.
"Well, I intend to have a go at the problem," Thomas said.
"If I permit it."
"That's between you and Ship," Thomas said. "I'm well satisfied to carry out Ship's suggestions."
"It offends m...." Oakes paused, leaned back into his cushions.... . when you refer to this mechanical constructio...." He waved a hand to indicate the physical presence of Ship all around. "...as Ship. The implication...." He left it there.
"Have you issued an order prohibiting WorShip?" Thomas asked. He found this an interesting prospect. Would Ship interfere?
"I have my own accommodation with this physical monstrosity which human hands loosed on the universe," Oakes said. "We tolerate each other. You have an interesting first name, do you know that?"