Heaven (36 page)

But, youthful though it might be, it had picked up many different infestations of life. Some were neutral. Some, like symbionts,
were beneficial; life forms that tended to restore order could even be considered as a kind of galactic immune system. Most,
like parasites, were deleterious. A few, like cancer, were malignant, metastasizing. Those infections were the ones that spread
rapidly and, if permitted to continue unchecked, would eventually prove fatal.

Physically the galaxy ought to have been healthy. Its stars still had plenty of fuel to burn; its supernovas were as energetic
as they should be; its black holes were unambitious and not especially greedy. It had a tolerably big entropy deficit to squander
before it ran out of order. But its “brain”—its ability to carry out algorithmic processes—was suffering physical damage.
Its mental processes were defective. It thought bad thoughts. On the galactic scale, its neuroses were bordering on the psychotic.

Only the galaxy’s immune system stood between it and madness.

It would have to cure itself.

And the only cure available was more of the original disease.

Second-Best Sailor sidled up to Will, diffident despite the protection of his golden sailor suit. He found the bulky, muscular
Neanderthal a bit intimidating, especially since it was Will who had been most dismissive about the pond’s alleged sentience.

“’Scuse me,” he said hesitantly.

“Yes?”

A trace of irritation there? Oh, well . . . “I hear a rumor that Ship ’as weapons now?”

“Yes.”

Will was unusually talkative today. A lot on his mind? Must ask anyway—time’s running out. “Can it do protective clothin’,
too?”

Will nodded. “Of course. Full battle armor. The new suits are elsewhere in the ship, undergoing testing. One has been constructed
to your dimensions. Externally it closely resembles the suit you are wearing, like all Precursor suits, but it has many additional
features. It will not protect you against explosions exceeding 1.72 kilotons, or class-six laser fire or higher. But it is
proof against any normal antipersonnel weapons—mines, vacuum grenades, laser rifles, quark shufflers.”

The polypoid digested the information with satisfaction. “Good. Then I want to go back.”

Will glared at him. “Back to No-Moon? That is where we are heading now.”

“No. Back to Aquifer.”

“
Aquifer
? Why?” asked Will, taken aback by such an improbable request. “To get more ponds to play with?”

Second-Best Sailor lost his patience. “It ain’t funny, Will,” he said. “One o’ my mates is bein’ held by religious fanatics
somewhere under Aquifer’s ice cap. Now, I’ve known about that ever since we was attacked in the bay, so ya could say nothin’s
changed. But—it has. Until now, I’ve always known that it’d be suicide to try to rescue ’im. Now . . . I got protection. You
just told me I have.” The mariner hesitated, then regained his courage. “Send me back.”

Will had not anticipated signs of bravery from the strange, rubbery mariner. Until this moment, Second-Best Sailor had seemed
lightweight, frivolous. Suddenly, it dawned on Will that his name was not Thousandth-Best Sailor, and that meant something.
He’d been underestimating the polypoid.

“We cannot send you back. The transible uses large amounts of energy, and we must conserve that when there is a battle to
be fought.”

Second-Best Sailor’s tentacles shook. “Ya haven’t asked it, then?”

“Asked what?”

“Ship. About the transible. I have. Ship’s so effective now that the energy used by a transible ain’t no problem no more.”

Will confirmed this statement with a quick query to Ship. That did change the situation. Ship also confirmed that it was now
in direct communication with the pond, and they would not need the mariner as a go-between. Even so, it would be a shame to
lose one polypoid in a suicidal bid to rescue another. “Are you sure you want to go?” Will asked, hoping to change the mariner’s
mind. “It will almost certainly mean your death.”

Second-Best Sailor didn’t hesitate. “If I don’t try, I’ll never forgive meself.” There, he’d said it. Now he was committed.
He felt sick and elated at the same time.

Will didn’t have time to argue. The incident with the pond had taught him not to put obstacles in the mariner’s way. And this
was a new side to Second-Best Sailor, a more serious side. One he hadn’t seen before.

“You really mean this, do you not? Then I agree, there is no choice. You have my authority to use Ship’s transible. But I
regret that I cannot spare any crew to accompany you. They have all been assigned their stations for the coming battle, where
I will need every crew member that I have. Even your own absence will weaken us, but I concede that the risk is necessary.
However, I will
not
increase the risk by sending anyone else on a suicide mission, even if they were willing to join you. If you go to Aquifer,
you must go alone.”

“I know
that
,” said Second-Best Sailor dismissively, trying hard to forget the word “suicide.” Unseen, his skin turned the color of fearful
haste. “Just give me an armored suit and a laser rifle. That’s all I need.”

Will gestured. “Down the central corridor, second shaft, three levels outwards, then back this direction to the third intersection.
Big room, full of Tweel. Tell them you have priority; refer them to Ship if they dispute it. Let them finish checking your
gear for duplication errors. I will assign someone to give you basic training in the suit’s features. Have you ever traveled
by transible before?”

“No.”

“Then you will find it a novel experience.”

Sam completed his examination of Fall’s unconscious form. He was no medic, but he could recognize broken bones, and he didn’t
like her ragged breathing. From her condition, it would be a miracle if she was not suffering from internal injuries.

“How long?”

“Excuse?”

“How long before she
dies
?”

The Rhemnolid referred once more to the notes. “Two days. Maybe three. Unlesss she is given medical treatment.”

“Then
do it now
!”

The orderly looked horrified. “I am not authorized to carry out medical procedures, nor trained. You musst find a medically
qualified practitioner.”

Sam shook the Rhemnolid, trying to beat some sense into it.
“Where do I do that?”

“Not on this world. The medicss have all fled.”

Sam shoved the stupid creature aside, and it toppled, screeching. There must be some way to help the child. Did he dare move
her if she was as badly injured as he suspected?

Again he noticed the triangular brand marks on her neck. The size, the
shape . . .

The pressures that had been building in his mind finally breached all barriers and blew the remnants of his faith away.

“It was all wrong,” he said to nobody in particular, his voice flat. “Love? Tolerance? The Great Memes, the Memeplex?

“No! This wasn’t love. It was perversion. Wickedness. Evil.” The orderly stared at him, baffled. Was he talking to it? What
did he want?

The child hadn’t just been beaten to a pulp. She’d been systematically tortured by the querists. Her previous submissive state,
which had so impressed him—when he had watched her praying, quiet, peaceful—had not been conversion to the faith of Cosmic
Unity. It had been simple brainwashing.

And it hadn’t stuck. So then the querists had made their routine transition from talk to threats to violence.

On a child? Call
that love?

Worse, Sam had helped them. That was the awful discovery that was consuming his mind. Subconsciously he’d known about the
torture; what he hadn’t known was that the mark on her neck had been made from components that
he
had duplicated. He remembered them vividly, now that his mind had made the connection. A batch of ten thousand triangular
metallic objects. Electrical contacts? Heating elements? Something like that. They burned skin. They were
meant
to burn skin.

He had been
used
. By the Church to which fourteen generations of his lineage had devoted their lives. He had been duplicating instruments
of torture, in bulk, ever since he had arrived on Aquifer.
That was why they had sent him there
. The training as lifesoul-healer was an extra, when they’d discovered what he might be capable of.

Even back on
Disseminator 714,
much of his production had been components for similar instruments. Weapons for the enforced conversion of No-Moon’s sentients.

His whole life, his entire lineage, had been a farce. He and his forebears had been the unwitting tools of evil. And then—the
shame was unbearable—he had actually embraced the evil himself and become a willing accessory. Worse: a participant.

Lifesoul-healer? No. He had been training as a lifesoul-tormentor. That was what the Church meant by “healer.” He should have
listened when Fall told him . . . but he’d been so stupid that he’d believed the lies of the priesthood instead.
Everything she’d told him had been true
. Her father hadn’t contracted a rare disease; he’d been tortured. Both her parents had been killed—without doubt in agony.
The knife, the murder, the suicide—all fake. The priests had set it up so that their victims were blamed. And he knew without
any shadow of doubt that she had owned a pet, whatever the archives said. It was obvious. Neanderthals
always
had pets. How could he have been so blind? And he knew that Cosmic Unity had taken a blowtorch to her pet, in front of her
eyes, and in full knowledge of her acute empathy with the harmless creature. That was why they’d done it. The whole point
had been to make Fall suffer.

How old had she been then? Probably six.
Six!
Sam stared blankly at the broken form of the Neanderthal child and sobbed his heart out. She had loved him, he knew: the simple
love of a child. Total commitment. And he had returned her love . . . like this.

He might have stood there indefinitely, wallowing in self-pity. But he needed to save the life of Dry Leaves Fall Slowly,
in order to give his own life meaning. He would devote himself to her, utterly.

If she lived.

In his desperate search for a way, he was subconsciously reexamining the past few months, trying to make new sense of them,
to reassemble his experiences into a new, stable pattern.

Now he’d found one.

There had been enough clues. He had been duplicating an awful lot of stuff. Much of it, he now knew, had been destined for
the torture chambers. The numbers appalled him. But even so, most of his production must have been for other purposes. What
of the endless tubes, wires, trays, brackets . . . ?

Suddenly, it all fell into place. The installation on Aquifer, the monastery of equals, was a sham. Camouflage. The torture
chambers were incidental—necessary local color, a cover for its true purpose.

The Nether Ice Dome had been constructed for a very different reason. Aquifer was home to a Heaven. A secret Heaven. A special
Heaven.

The conclusion was obvious, once the evidence was assembled, but enough of Sam’s training remained that he forced himself
to ask the difficult questions. Intuitive leaps of logic, he knew, could give a powerful feeling of knowledge. But it felt
just as certain when you were wrong.

Why did he think Aquifer housed a Heaven? Because he, personally, had been duplicating huge quantities of the same equipment
that he had seen on his visit to the Heaven of Sadachbia. It had seemed familiar, but what he’d been duplicating were isolated
components. When it was all assembled, it had looked different. And his mind had been focused on other things.
Rivers of blood, mountains of entrails.

Nerydd
.

Deduction confirmed. He’d been duplicating pieces of Heaven. But why did the Heaven have to be
here
?

First, because it would be stupidly and uncharacteristically inefficient to have him duplicating all that plumbing if it was
intended for use elsewhere. Transibles were costly; duplication was cheap. More efficient by far to send him and the duplicator
to the place where all the bits would be needed. Which, basically, was what they had done, except that the duplicator was
already in place when he’d arrived.

So the duplicator must have arrived . . . how?

With the team that first constructed the facility at Aquifer’s pole.

Why had
he
been needed, then? The answer was chilling. He had been a replacement. None of the original construction team could be allowed
to tell the outside world what they had wrought. Either they had been discorporated and were now living in the Heaven that
they had built, or they had been killed.

Another question posed itself. When he’d been sent to Heaven, had he in fact visited the one on Aquifer? With the servomechs’
mastery of virtual reality, he could have been anywhere. For all he knew, everything he was experiencing might be fake . .
. Nuts. He knew that the Heaven he had seen was real. He
knew
(wanted to believe?) that Nerydd had been real.

The levithon had been real, too.

That Heaven had had open skies, open enough for levithons to soar unimpeded. The Aquiferian Heaven had to be underground,
underneath the monastery. They were not the same.

So why had Cosmic Unity sent him to a distant Heaven, at great cost, when there was one at hand? Because they wanted him to
experience a Heaven, but they didn’t dare risk his deducing that there was one on Aquifer. A subterranean Heaven surrounded
by walls of ice? A dead giveaway.

It all fit.

Finally, the big question: Why the need for such secrecy? Because—he racked his brains—because this was a relatively small
Heaven . . . a select Heaven . . . a Heaven for important beings in the Church . . .

Oh, Cherisher. Of course
.

Suddenly, Sam knew that he held in his hands a weapon that could destroy the filthy, perverted, twisted cult that called itself
Cosmic Unity but had degraded into Cosmic Uniformity.