Hittite law emphasized restitution rather than revenge. Humankind lost a certain useful practicality when it chose the other Semitic response - never to forgive and never to forget.
- Lost People, Shiprecords
LEGATA SAT back, her whole body shaking and trembling. She could tell by the flickering cursor on the com-console that it was almost dayside. Familiar activities soon would begin out in Ship's corridors - familiar but with a feeling of sparseness because of the diminished crew. She had kept illumination low during nightside, wanting no distractions from the holorecord playing at the focus in front of Oakes' old divan.
Her gaze lifted and she saw the mandala she had copied for Oakes' quarters at the Redoubt. Looking at the patterns helped restore her, but she saw that her hands still shook.
Fatigue, rage or disgust?
It required a conscious effort to still the trembling. Knots of tension remained in her muscles, and she knew it would be dangerous for Oakes to walk into his old cubby right now.
I'd strangle him.
No reason for Oakes to come shipside now. He was permanently groundside.
The prisoner of his terrors.
As I wa.... unti....
She took a deep, clear breath. Yes, she was free of the Scream Room.
It happened, but I am here now.
What to do about Oakes? Humiliation. That had to be the response. Not physical destruction, but humiliation. A particular humiliation. It would have to be at once political and sexual. Something more than embarrassment. Something he might think of to do against someone else. The sexual part was easy enough; that was no challenge to a woman of her beauty and genius. But the politic....
Should I conceal the evidence that I've seen this holo?
Save that information for the proper moment.
That was a good thought. Trust her own inspiration. She keyed the com-console and typed in: SHIPRECORDS EYES ONLY LEGATA HAMILL. Then the little addition which she had discovered for herself: SCRAMBLE IN OX.
There. No matter who thought to search for such a datum, it would be lost in that strange computer which she had discovered in one of her history hunts.
I'll stay shipside this diurn. She would not feel well. That would be the message to Oakes. He would grant her a rest period without question. She would spend her time here pulling every trick of computer wizardry she could to get the complete record on Morgan Oakes.
Political humiliation. Political and sexual. That had to be the way of it.
Perhaps that other Ceepee brought out of hyb, that Thomas, might hold a clue. Something in the way he looked at Oake.... as though he saw an old acquaintance in a new rol....
And she owed a debt to Thomas. Strange that he should be the only one to know she had run the P. He had kept the secret without being aske.... or asking. Rare discretion.
She had no thought of fatigue now. There was food shipside when she needed it. The power of Oakes' position made that no problem. She sent her message to Oakes groundside, turned to the console.
Somewhere in the records there would be a useful fact or two. Something Oakes had hidden or that he did not even know about himself - perhaps something he had done and did not want revealed. He was good at this concealment game but she knew herself to be better at it.
She began at the main computer - Ship's major interface with Shipmen.
Would it take fancy programming? A painstaking search through coded relationships which could hide bits of data far in the recesses of offshoot circuitry such as that Ox gate? How about the Ox gate? She hid things there, but had never asked it about Oakes.
She tapped out a test routine, keyed it and waited.
Presently, data began flowing across the small screen on the console. She stared. That simple? It was as though the material were waiting for her to ask. As though someone had prepared a bio for her to discover. Everything she needed was there - facts and figures.
"Suspect everyone," Oakes had said. "Trust no one."
And here he was being proved right beyond his wildest fears. The text kept rolling out. She backed it up, keyed for printout, and set it in motion once more.
The heading of the record was the most surprising thing of all.
MORGAN LON OAKES.
Cloned. Raised, as he would put it, "like a common vegetable." Out of the axolotl tanks and into an Earthside womb.
Why?
There it was even as she asked. "To conceal the fact that it could be done, the birth was made to appear natural."
It was a feat of politics worthy of Shi.... or Oakes. Did he know? How could he know? She stopped the printout and asked who else had called up this data.
"Ship."
It was an answer she had never before seen. Ship had worked with this data. Fearfully, she asked why Ship had called up the bio on Oakes.
"To store it in a special record for Kerro Panille should he ever desire to write a history."
She pulled her hands away from the keys. Am I talking to Ship?
Panille was one of those who said he talked to Ship. Not one of the fools, then.
A...fool?
She found herself more fearful of this discovery than she had been of the Scream Room. Ship dealt in powers far beyond those of Oakes and Lewis and Murdoch. She glanced around the enlarged cubby - pretentious damned place. Her gaze fell on the mandala. He had taken the movable hangings. The mystical design lay exposed against a bare metal bulkhead of silvery gray. It appeared lifeless to her, robbed of some original breath.
I'm not worthy of talking to Ship.