Free Watson, Ian - Novel 06 by God's World (v1.1) Page B

Perhaps alone, perhaps in league with someone else, his
agent. Who? Natalya—who boasted that she could look after herself? Or Zoe—who
offered ‘love’ to Jacobik? While Li casually spoke of elimination . . .
                 At
this moment—just as in a flash of empathy once I understood how we are all
part of Captain K’s psychic laboratory—he resonates with me again; then is gone
again, gone utterly, blocked off . . .
                 He
is deliberately drawing the poison from the wound in ourselves, into himself.
He is acting as lightning conductor to ground the power of life and death which
one amongst us has arrogated. In so doing he re-establishes his authority as
our real commissar, alone possessing the authority of summary secret court
martial and execution. In accruing death and guilt, he distances himself.
Strangely, I feel that we have lost him now even more than we have lost
Jacobik. What happened to Jacobik was a psychic amputation—and now it is
cauterized by Captain K’s withdrawal of himself from us. There can be no more
killing now, even if a second Jacobik existed, for Captain K is the only one
who has such power. Ah, he is a diplomat of the soul,
                 “Perhaps,”
says Peter softly, “we have to shake hands with the devil in ourselves, before we
can unblock our inner drives. Perhaps it was unavoidable . ..”
                 Kamasarin
silences him. Now he is no longer Captain K— benign, almost avuncular. He is
Kamasarin, Grigory Arkadie- vitch, general and lion. We have all been only
children till this moment. But now we strengthen. Yes, we strengthen. All of
us.
     

Part Two
  BROUGHT LOW
     
     
Ten
                  
     
             At last! Suddenly, ending this hiccup
of non-time . . .
     
                 A
yellow sun bums forth. Thousands of bright stars are preciously distinct in the
velvet night. . .
                 We
have only been amoebic and formless till now, without rigidity. Now we crispen
and harden in that sun’s light, lumps of dough flash-baked by it. From a waking
dream we awake to the reality of day. We regard each other—sane, separate,
solid individuals again—with embarrassment mixed with relief. We’d been
travelling naked all that time without quite realizing it. Now we find
ourselves suddenly reclothed—entire within ourselves, no longer leaking
subjectivities.
                 Out
there, beyond the unmasked photochromatic viewports, rides a world: a less
brilliant double of the sun, shaved by darkness. It is a gibbous disc of
ochre, orange, yellow. On the face of that world floats a tiny black spot of
moon shadow. We pick out one tiny silvery half-moon, then another ...
                 “But
it’s a gas giant!” exclaims Salman. “We can only be a little under one AU out
from that sun. We’re right in the middle of the habitable zone . . . There’s
only a gas giant here. Where do we go?”
                 “To
work, ladies and gentlemen,” says Kamasarin calmly. “We go to work.”
                 Presently,
our instruments are yielding up their results . . .
                “Estimated mass of the sun is 0.91
of Sol,” reports Heinz. “Give or take. Radius likewise. Surface temperature
around 5,100 degrees. So it’s a class G5 star—that matches 82 Eridani.
Computer confirms the anticipated constellation pattern shift. We’re in the
right part of space.”
                 “Nothing
on the radio bands apart from some natural noise from the gas giant. Negative
on microwave sources.” Kendrick frowns. “There’s nothing I can interpret as
radio, TV broadcasts, radar or other significant power emissions. No one’s on
the air.” “Maybe they don’t use radio. They didn’t send the pyramid to Earth by
any conventional means.”
                “Let’s hope so, Rene. Or else, home
there’s no