Free The Pandora Sequence: The Jesus Incident, the Lazarus Effect, the Ascension Factor by Frank Herbert Page B

Pandora. And it had cost them dearly.
    A successor? What real choice would he make, if he truly believed in the process and the godhood of Ship? If he could exclude all the nastiness of politics?
    Legata Hamill.
    The name caught him off guard, it came so quickly. Almost as though he did not think it himself. Yes, it was true. He would choose Legata if he believed, if he truly believed in Ship. There was no reason why a woman could not be Chaplain/Psychiatrist. No doubt of her diplomatic abilities.
    Some wag had once said that Legata could tell you to go to hell and make you anticipate the trip with joy.
    Oakes pushed aside the cushions and levered himself to his feet. The hatch out into the dim passages of nightside beckoned him—that maze of mazes which meant life to them all: the ship.
    Had the ship really tried to asphyxiate him? Or had that been an accident?
    I’ll put myself through a medcheck first thing dayside.
    The hatch dogs felt cold under his fingers, much colder than just moments before. The oval closure swung soundlessly aside to reveal once more nightside’s blue-violet lighting in the corridor.
    Damn the ship!
    He strode out and, around the first corner, encountered the first few people of the Behavioral watch. He ignored them. The Behavioral complex was so familiar that he did not see it as he passed through. Biocomputer Study, Vitro Lab, Genetics—all were part of his daily routine and did not register on his nightside consciousness.
    Where tonight?
    He allowed his feet to find the way and realized belatedly that his wanderings were taking him farther and farther into the outlying regions, farther along the ship’s confused twistings of passages and through mysterious hums and odd odors—farther out than he had ever wandered before.
    Oakes sensed that he was walking into a peculiar personal danger, but he could not stop even as his tensions mounted. The ship was able to kill him at any moment, anywhere shipside, but he took a special private knowledge with him: he was Morgan Oakes, Ceepee. His detractors might call him “The Boss,” but he was the only person here (with the possible exception of Lewis) who understood there were things the ship would not do.
    Two of us among many. How many?
    They had no real census shipside or groundside. The computers refused to function in this area, and attempts at manual counting varied so widely they were useless.
    The ship showing its devious hand again.
    Just as the ship’s machinations could be sensed in this order for a poet groundside. He remembered the full name now: Kerro Panille. Why should a poet be ordered groundside to study the kelp?
    If we could only eat the kelp without it driving us psychotic.
    Too many people to feed. Too many.
    Oakes guessed ten thousand shipside and ten times that groundside (not counting the special clones), but no matter the numbers, he was the only person who realized how little knowledge his people had about the workings and purposes of the ship or its parts.
    His people!
    Oakes liked it that way, recalling the cynical comment of his mentor, Edmond Kingston, who had been talking about the need to limit the awareness of the people: “Appearing to know the unknown is almost as useful as actually knowing.”
    From his own historical studies, Oakes knew that this had been a political watchword for many civilizations. This one thing stood out even though the ship’s records were not always clear and he did not completely trust the ship’s versions of history. It often was difficult to distinguish between real history and contrived fictions. But from the odd literary references and the incompatible datings of such works—from internal clues and his own inspired guesswork—Oakes deduced that other worlds and other peoples existed . . . or had existed.
    The ship could have countless murders on its conscience. If it had a conscience.

Chapter 13

    As I am your creation, you are Mine. You are My satellites and I am yours. Your