Studying the faces, Oakes recognized some of the group which had fled into the Command Center earlier. There was no avoiding the distrust in their expressions. And Oakes noted that Lewis had seen fit to don a bolstered lasgun and that the Naturals around the edges of the room were alert and watchful.
"I will not go back to Colony," Oakes began. "Never. We are here t...."
"You might run back to Ship!" It was a clone standing just to the left of Lewis.
"Ship will not respond to us," Legata said. "We are on our own."
Damn her! Oakes went pale. Didn't she know how dangerous it was to betray your dependence on others?
"We are being tested, that's all," Oakes said. He glanced at Lewis, surprised another fleeting grin on the man's face.
"Maybe we're supposed to go outside and run for it," Legata said. Her fingers danced across the screen's controls. "Maybe it's just a game like the Scream Room or running the P."
What is she doing? Oakes wondered. He shot a glance at her, but Legata continued to direct the screen's controls.
"They're doing something," she said.
Every eye turned toward the screen whose entire area she had focused on the view toward the cliffs. Panille was standing now, his right hand clutching a hylighter tentacle. More E-clones and others had massed around the cutter on the plain below him. Demons had moved out from the cliff shadows. Even the enclosing arc of hylighters appeared more agitated, moving about, changing altitude.
Legata zoomed in on a man standing beside the cutter's left wheel.
"Thomas," she said. "But the hylighter...."
"He's in league with 'em," Lewis said. "Has been all along!"
Legata stared out at the plain. Was that possible? She had been about to expose Oakes as a clone, but now she hesitated. What did she really know about Thomas?
As she thought this, Thomas lowered his right arm and Panille, atop the pinnacle, was picked up by one of the giant bags, carried gently down to the plain.
Thomas and his people were moving forward now, a ragged advance but spreading out on both sides of the cutter.
"There must be at least a thousand of them," Lewis muttered. "Where'd they get that many people?"
"What're the demons doing?" Legata asked.
The creatures had spread out below the cliff - Dashers, Spinnerets, Flatwings and more - even a few of the rare Grunchers. They were following the attackers but slowly and at a distance.
"If they get that cutter within range of us, we're through," Oakes said. He rounded on Lewis. "Now will you send out some attackers?"
"We have no choice," Lewis said. He glanced at the clones beside him. "You all see that, don't you?"
All of them were staring up at the screen, intently focused on the advancing cutter and the outrider demons.
"It's plain to see," Lewis said. "They cut open our perimeter and let the demons in. We're all dead then. But if we can stop the...."
"Everybody!" Oakes called out. "I grant full status as a Natural to every clone who volunteers. These rebels are the last real threat to our survival. When they're gone, we'll make a paradise out of this planet."
Slowly, but with growing momentum, the arc of clones moved toward the passage hatch. More joined them as they moved.
"Keep them moving, Lewis," Oakes said. "Issue weapons as they go out. We'll win by the weight of numbers alone."
Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame and of enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was capable of unfolding.
AS THOMAS gave the signal for the attack, he experienced the almost paralyzing sensation that he was not aiming a blow at the Redoubt but was striking out at Ship.
You set this up, Ship! See what You've done? Ship gave no response. Thomas moved forward with his army. The air was hot on the plain below the cliffs, both suns climbing to their meridians. The light was brilliant, forcing him to squint when he looked toward the reflected glare of the suns. He smelled a flinty bitterness in the air, dust kicked up by his ragtag group. He looked left and right at them. Had anyone ever dreamed of such a wild mixture on such a venture? The Naturals in Avata's collection were a vanishing minority - swallowed up in the press of strange shapes: bulbous heads, oddly placed eyes, ears, noses and mouths; great barrel chests and scrawny ones, thin limbs and conventional fingers, ropey tendrils, feet and stumps. They strode and rocked and stumbled along in obedience to his command. The improvised wheels they had attached to the plasteel cutter grated in sand, bumped over small rocks. Muttering, grunting, wheezing, his people moved forward. Some of the E-clones chanted "Avata! Avata! Avata!" as they shuffled along. He noted that the demons moved with him at a distance, just as Panille had said they would.
Waiting to scavenge.
What did the demons see here? Panille had said that he and the hylighters could project false images to hold the demons in check. Certain of the E-clones, too, exhibited this skill. Thomas guessed it to be a side-effect of the recombinant experiments with the kelp. It seemed a fragile defense against such potent creatures. This whole venture was based on fragility - not enough weapons, not enough people, not enough time to plan and train.
He glanced back toward the cliffs, saw the arc of trailing demons, Panille walking among them without fear. A gigantic Dasher brushed against the poet, veered away. Thomas shuddered. Panille had said he would not take active part in killing, but would protect this army as well as he could. The med-tech and a hand-picked crew of aides waited at the foot of the cliff. Everything now depended on whether this force could so overawe the Redoubt's defenders that Oakes would capitulate.
At the chosen moment, Thomas gave the signal for his people to spread out, dispersing wide across the plain. If Panille's powers continued to work, the defenders would see only one small tightly massed target of attackers coming straight on into range of the Redoubt's weapons. Thomas joined the crew of the cutter as they veered off to the left.
As he moved, doubts welled up in him. By his time reckoning, they had only hours until Ship carried out the threat to end humankind forever. This venture seemed hopeless. He would have to overcome the Redoubt, assemble the survivors, find the proper WorShip and prove to Ship that humankind should endure.
Not enough time.
Panille! It was Panille's fault that they had been delayed so long. To every argument for the need to attack the Redoubt, Panille had interjected a quiet remonstrance.
The nest was paradise enough, he said.
No doubt it was a paradis...continuous growing season for Earth plants - no rot, no mold, no insect parasite.... not even any demons to threaten the people there.
The crater nest was a blastula of Earth, a chaotic jumble of elements looking for growth and order.
A one-kilometer circle of Eden does not a habitable planet make.
And always Panille there with his senseless observations: "What you do with the dirt beneath your feet, that is a prayer."
Is that what You want, Ship! That kind of prayer?
No answer from Ship - just the rustle of sand underfoot, the movement of his army as it spread out wide across the plain and continued to advance on the Redoubt.
I'm on my own here. No help from Ship.
He remembered the Voidship Earthling then - the ship which had become Ship. He remembered the crew, their long training on Moonbase. Where were they now? Any of them left in hyb? He longed to see Bickel again. John Bickel would be a good one to have here now - resourceful, direct. Where was Bickel now?
Sand grated under his feet like the sands of the exercise yard at Moonbase. Sands of the Moon, not of Earth. All those years, looking up to the Earth at night - the blue and white glory of it. His desires had not been for the stars, not for some mathematical conception at Tau Ceti. He had wanted only the Earth - that one place forbidden to him in all of the universe.
Pandora is not Earth.
But the nest was a temptation - so like the Earth of his dreams.
Probably not like the real Earth at all. What do I know of the real Earth?