Hali heard jeering laughter all around her. She had to clasp her hands across her breast, forcing herself not to rush forward. This was barbarous! She trembled with frustration.
We are all children of Ship!
She wanted to shout this to these fools. It was the lesson of her earliest WorShip classes, the admonition of the Chaplain.
Two soldiers lifted the length of wood, hoisting the man who was nailed to it by his wrists. He gasped as they moved him. Four soldiers, two on each side of him, lifted the timber on their spear points into a notch on a tall post which stood upright between the other two victims. Another soldier scrambled up a crude ladder behind the post and lashed the crosspiece into the notch. Two more soldiers moved up to Yaisuah's dangling feet. While one soldier crossed the ankles, the other nailed the feet to the upright. Blood ran down the wood from the wound.
She had to open her mouth wide and breathe in gulping gasps to keep from fainting.
She saw the brown eyes flash with sudden agony as a soldier shook the upright to test its firmness. Yaisuah slumped forward unconscious.
Why are they causing him such pain? What do they want him to do?
Hali pressed forward in the suddenly silent throng, elbowing her way through with a strength which she found surprising in this old body. She had to see it close. She had to see. Ship had commanded her to observe. It was difficult moving in the press of people even with the strength of her inner drive. And she suddenly became aware of the breath-held silence in the throng.
Why were they so silent?
It was as though the answer had been flashed on her eyes. They want Yaisuah to stop this by some secret power in him. They want a miracle! They still want a miracle from him. They want Shi.... God to reach out of the sky and stop this brutal travesty. They do this thing and they want a god to stop it.
She pressed herself past two more people and found that she had achieved the inner ring of the crowd. There were only the three timber constructions now, the three bodie....
I could still save him, she thought.
I play the song to which you must dance. To you is left the freedom of improvisation. This improvisation is what you call free will.
"THE MEETING will please come to order."
Oakes used his wand-amplifier to dominate the shuffling and buzzing in the Colony's central meeting hall. It was a domed and circular room truncated by a narrow platform against the south wall where he stood. When not being used for meetings, the room was taken over by manufacture of food-production equipment and the sub-assembly operations for the buoyant bags of the LTAs. Because of this, all meetings had to be called at least ten hours in advance to give workers time to clear away machines and fabrics.
He still felt beset by the tensions of moving from shipside to groundside. His time sense was upset by the diurnal shift and this meeting had been rushed. It was almost the hour of mid-meal here. There would be psychological pressures from the audience because of that.
This was the wrong hour for a meeting and there had been some muttering about interference with important work, but Murdoch had silenced that by leaking the announcement that Oakes had come groundside to stay. The implications were obvious. A major push was impending to make Colony secure; Oakes would command that push.
On the platform with Oakes stood Murdoch and Rachel Demarest. Murdoch's position as director of Lab One was well known, and the mystery surrounding that lab's purposes made his presence here a matter of intense curiosity.
Rachel Demarest was another matter. Oakes scowled when he thought about her. She had learned things while acting as a messenger between Ferry and groundside.
Sounds in the room were beginning to subside as the stragglers made their way in and took seats. Portable chairs had been provided, many constructed from the twisted Pandoran plant material. The unique appearance of each chair offended Oakes. Something would have to be done to standardize appearances here.
He scanned the room, noting that Raja Thomas was present in a seat down front. The woman beside Thomas fitted the description Murdoch had provided of one Waela TaoLini, a survivor of the original kelp-research projects. Her knowledge might be dangerous. Wel.... she and the poet would share Thomas' fate. End of that problem!
Oakes had been groundside for almost two diurns now and much of that time had been taken up in preparation for this meeting. There had been many eyes-only reports from Lewis and his minions. Murdoch had been quite useful in this. He would bear watching. Legata had provided some of the data and, even now, was back shipside gathering more.
This meeting represented a serious challenge to his powers, Oakes knew, and he intended to meet it head on. Lewis had estimated that about a thousand people were here. The larger part of Colony personnel could never be spared from guard and maintenance and building and rebuilding. Two steps forward, one step back - that was Pandora's way. Oakes was aware, though, that most of those facing him down on that floor carried the proxy votes of associates. There had been an unofficial election and this would be a real attempt at democracy. He recognized the dangers. Democracy had never been the ship-side way and it could not be allowed groundside. It was a sobering thought and he felt adrenaline overcoming an earlier indulgence in wine.
The people were taking a devilish long time to get settled, moving about, forming groups. Oakes waited with what show of patience he could muster. There was a dank, metallic smell in the room which he did not like. And the lights had been tuned too far into the green. He glanced back at the Demarest woman. She was a slight figure with unremarkable features and dull brown hair. She was notable only for her intensely nervous mannerisms. Demarest had been the instigator of the electio...petition-bearer. Oakes managed a smile when he looked at her. Lewis had said he knew how to defuse her. Knowing Lewis, Oakes did not probe for details.
Presently, Rachel Demarest came forward on the platform. Leaving her wand-amplifier on its clip at her wrist, she raised both arms, twisting her palms rapidly. It was interesting that the room fell silent immediately.
Why didn't she use her amplifier? Oakes wondered. Was she an anti-tech?
"Thank you all for coming," she said. Her voice was high and squeaky with a whine at the edge. "We won't take much of your time. Our Ceepee has a copy of your petition and has agreed to answer it point by point."
Your petition! Oakes thought. Not my petition. Oh, no.
But evidence from Lewis and Murdoch was clear. This woman wanted a share in Colony power. And she had managed most cleverly to say Ceepee with an emphasis which made the title appear foolish. Battle, therefore, was joined.
As Demarest stepped back, glancing at him, Oakes produced the petition from an inner pocket of his white singlesuit. Making it appear accidental, he dropped the petition. Several pages fluttered off the platform.
"No matter." He waved back people in the front row as they moved to recover the pages. "I remember everything in it."
A glance at Murdoch brought him a reassuring nod. Murdoch had found chairs for himself and Demarest. They sat well back on the platform now.
Oakes hunched forward toward his audience in a gesture of confidence, smiling. "Few of our people are here this morning and you all know the very good reasons for this. Pandora is unforgiving. We all lost loved ones in the four failures on Black Dragon."
He gestured vaguely westward where the rocky eminences of Black Dragon lay hidden beyond the mists of more than a thousand kilometers of ocean. Oakes knew that none of those failures could be laid at his hatch; he had been very careful about that. And his presence permanently groundside imparted a feeling of excitement about Colony prospects here on the undulating plains of The Egg. That sense of impending success had contributed to the confrontation brewing in this room. Colonists were beginning to think beyond the present state of siege, rubbing their wishes together, shaping their desires for personal futures.
"As most of you know," Oakes said, lifting his amplifier to make his voice carry, "I am groundside to stay, groundside to direct the final push for victory."
There was a polite spatter of applause, much less than he had expected. It was high time he came groundside! He had loyalties to weld, organization to improve.
"The Demarest petition, then," he said. "Point One: elimination of one-man patrols." He shook his head. "I wish it could be done. Perhaps you don't understand the reason for them. I'll put it plainly. We are conditioning the animals of Pandora to run like hell when they see a human!"
That brought a rewarding burst of applause.
Oakes waited for it to subside, then: "Your children will have a safer world because of your bravery. Yes, I said your children. It is my intent to bring the Natali groundside."
Shocked murmurs greeted this announcement.
"This will not happen immediately," Oakes said, "but it will happen. Now - Point Two of the Demarest petition." He pursed his lips in recollection. "'No major decision about Colony risks or expansion shall be made without approval by a clear majority of Colonists voting in Council.' Do I have that right, Rachel?" He glanced back at her but did not wait for her to respond.
Glancing once more at the scattered papers of the petition on the floor below him, he looked hard at the front row and swept his gaze across the audience.
"Putting aside for the moment the vagueness in that word 'clear' and this unexplained concept of 'Council,' let me point out one thing we all know. It took ten hours to clear this room for a meeting. We have a choice. We keep this hall clear and ready at all times, thereby putting a dangerous strain on production facilities, or we accept a ten-hour delay for every major decision. I prefer to call those survival decisions, by the way." He made a show of looking back at the large wall chrono, then returned his attention to the audience. "We've already been here more than fifteen minutes and obviously we will use more time on this."
Oakes cleared his throat, giving them a moment in which to absorb what he had said. He noted a few squirmers in the audience sending signals that they would like to comment on this argument, and he had not missed the fact that Murdoch had taken Rachel Demarest's arm, whispering in her ear and, incidentally, keeping her from interrupting.
"Point Three," Oakes said. "More rest and recuperation back on the ship. If w...."
"Ship!" Someone in the middle rows shouted. Oakes identified the speaker, a guard on the hangar perimeter squad, one of Demarest's supporters. "Not the ship, but Ship!" The man, half out of his seat, was pulled back by a companion.
"Let's face that then," Oakes said. "I presume that a Chaplain/Psychiatrist has a modicum of expertise with which to address this question."
He glanced at Rachel Demarest who still was being held quietly but firmly by Murdoch. You want to use titles? Very well, let us put this title into its proper perspective. Not Ceepee, but Chaplain/Psychiatrist. All the traditions of THE ship stand behind me.
"I will spell it out for you," Oakes said, turning once more to the audience. "We are a mixed bag of people. Most of us appear to have come from Earth where I was born. We were removed by the shi...."