Helix (54 page)

And
then Carrelli reached out and touched the bronze of the great ovoid, and then
passed through the surface. She turned, smiling, and beckoned them after her.
They obeyed - stepping through the wall as if it were gossamer - and found
themselves in a chamber filled with sourceless light. He was aware of Kaluchek
by his side, clutching him as if in fear, and aware too of his racing pulse.

Carrelli
stood before them, and as they watched she transformed, became something other
than what she had been, and seconds later they stared at a column of light that
limned a vague humanoid form, the features of which were now indistinct.

A
voice, though not Carrelli’s, issued from the living light.

“Welcome,”
it said. “We have been awaiting your arrival for many millennia.”

After the excitement
of the chase came the disappointment of losing the quarry.

“I’m
sorry, Elder,” the pilot said. “We have lost the ship’s signature. We traced it
to the world below, and then it simply vanished.”

“Then
search the world!” Cannak thundered. “It’s vital that we locate and destroy the
ship, do you understand that?”

“Of
course sir, but...”

Cannak
glared at the trembling pilot. “But? But what?”

“The
world, sir. It’s covered in... in vegetation a hundred yards high. The ship
might be anywhere among it. A search would take weeks, and then might not be
successful.”

Cannak
considered the options. “Proceed to the next world, the home of these illusory
Builders. Ehrin and the interlopers will make their way there at some point. We
will be waiting for them.”

“Very
good, sir.”

That
had been hours ago, and Elder Cannak had quelled his rage and retired to his
cabin, where he had immersed himself in the Book of Books.

The
heretic Ehrin would not escape justice, he thought, thanks to Sereth. The irony
of the betrayal was beautiful; it would be a shame that she could not reap the
rewards of the righteous, but the fact was that he could not trust her silence
when she returned to Agstarn. The crew of the deathship, on the other hand...
they were trained priests, versed in the deceit of the anti-god, who knew what
they were experiencing for the illusion it was.

He
read, in chapter seventy-three of the Book of Books, that the pious should be
wary of bogus gods, that the anti-god was a master of deception and that what
seemed to be real might often turn out to be no more than a trap to snare the
unwary believer. That, he realised, was an apposite description of their
present situation. They were travelling through an illusion, a vast construct
of evil made to entrap the believer.

They
would destroy the base of the so-called Builders, and then they would track
down Ehrin and his cohorts and their ship and destroy them too. No word of
their exploits must reach the impressionable of Agstarn, for fear of dissent
and opposition to Church rule. Elder Cannak knew from experience that there were
factions in society who would take advantage of unrest to foment their own
godless agendas.

Ehrin
and the aliens would be destroyed like the heretics they were. This evil
illusion would dissolve, and Elder Cannak and the deathship would return to
Agstarn in glory.

A
soft tapping at his door interrupted his thoughts.

“Yes?”
Could it be the pilot, come with good news? “Come in.”

A
timorous snout appeared around the edge of the door. Sereth Jaspariot peered
in, blinking. “Elder Cannak, please forgive my interruption. I... I hope you
don’t mind, but I had to see you.”

Cannak
laid aside the Book of Books. “Child, enter. Don’t be shy. My door is always
open. How can I be of assistance?”

He
gestured to a spare seat and Sereth sat down, glancing uneasily through a
viewscreen at the sea passing below.

“Something
worries you?”

Sereth
avoided his eyes. “Elder... One can act correctly in the eyes of God, and yet
find oneself in confusion and doubt.”

Cannak
smiled. “A common dilemma of all citizens,” he reassured her. “The way of the
righteous is not easy. God calls for sacrifices, and hard decisions. If in your
heart you know that you made the right decision in the eyes of God, then any
doubts are illusions...” He smiled and gestured through the viewscreen, “Just
as all without is illusory...”

“Yes,
Elder, but...”

“What
troubles you?”

“Elder,
I made the right decision, I know I did, in telling you. But... but I fear for
Ehrin, and for all his sins hope that he will survive this episode and repent.”

Cannak
stared at her. “You fear that he might be executed as a heretic, is that
right?”

She
lowered her head and whispered, “Yes, Elder.”

He
gave his most reassuring smile. “Sereth, it is the ship he rides within that I
must see destroyed, and the godless aliens who ride with him.”

“Then...
then you will spare Ehrin?”

“I
am a man of compassion. I do God’s duty, and our God is a God of boundless
love.”

“But,”
she began, before she could stop herself.

“Yes?”

She
shook her head. “Nothing, Elder.”

“But...”
he said, “you were wondering about the aliens upon the last planet, the insects
who gave succour to the godless?”

She
looked up, clearly terrified now. In a tiny voice she said, “Well, yes, Elder
Cannak.”

“Child,
they were but an illusion. They had no substance in reality. They were a trap
of the anti-god. Do you carry with you the Book of Books?”

“Of
course, Elder. In my cabin—”

“Then
return there and study it, specifically chapter seventy-three. There you will
find explanation enough.”

She
stood and lowered her head and made for the door. “Yes, Elder, and thank you.”

He
sat for a while when she had departed, and was about to return to his study
when an urgent rap sounded upon his cabin door, and a young priest looked in.
“Elder, the captain requires your presence. We have discovered something.”

Cannak
stood and hurried after the priest. “Something? What, specifically?”

“I...
I can’t rightly say, Elder. A building, a great building.”

He
entered the bridge and stared through the viewscreen. The ship was hovering
over a vast plain, perhaps twenty feet from the ground. Directly ahead he saw a
rearing golden edifice, and he had to check his initial impulse to marvel at
the construction. The captain came to him. “Sir, we have evidence that this was
their destination.”

Elder
Cannak hardly heard the words. The sight of the ziggurat was, he had to admit,
staggering. But then, he reminded himself, what did he expect from the
anti-god, who could create any illusion to turn the heads of the innocent?

He
found his seat and sat down. “What evidence?”

“Elder,
look...” The captain snapped an order. A screen dropped from the ceiling, and
seconds later an image of the ziggurat appeared. The captain pointed out four
small figures making their way towards the entrance of the imposing edifice. “This
is a recording, made some ten minutes ago. It shows Ehrin and the aliens.”

Cannak
leaned forward, pulse racing now that he saw the captain was correct.

“Elder,”
the captain said, “we could fire now, destroy the entire illusion...”

Cannak
watched as the godless quartet entered the archway of the ziggurat. He raised a
hand. “Not yet, captain. They will emerge in time, and we will be waiting for
then.” He turned to the young priest and ordered him to find Sereth Jaspariot
and bring her to the bridge.

He
looked from the small, recorded image of the ziggurat to the real thing,
rearing magnificently on the plain, and anticipated the final confrontation
with the godless Ehrin and his cohorts.

Minutes
later Sereth appeared on the bridge and crossed to him, looking fearful. He
smiled to put her at her ease. “Sereth,” he said, “we have located Ehrin and
the aliens. All that remains now is to find their ship.”

She
inclined her head. “Yes, Elder.”

“You
have already excelled yourself in the eyes of God, child. But I wish of you one
further mission.”

“How
can I be of assistance, Elder?”

“When
Ehrin emerges, we will hail him and demand he tell us the whereabouts of the
golden ship. You will speak to him, claim that we have threatened your life if
he does not give us the information.”

Sereth
stared, wide-eyed, at Cannak. He smiled. “A ruse only, to test his loyalties,
child.”

She
said quietly, “I fear he will call your bluff, Elder. His love for me died when
he fled Agstarn.”

Elder
Cannak laid a compassionate paw upon Sereth’s head. “We shall see, my child. We
shall see.”

He
returned his eager gaze to the entrance of the ziggurat and waited.

Hendry stood between
Kaluchek and Ehrin in the chamber of light, staring at the figure that, until
moments ago, had been Gina Carrelli. She existed now in a column of light much
brighter than that which surrounded them—a human figure, though no longer
recognisable as the Italian medic.

Hendry
was the first to find his voice. “What have you done to Gina?”

“She
will come to no harm,” the calm, avuncular voice reassured. “She will be
returned to you when the audience is over, with no recollection of her ordeal.”

Kaluchek
said, “Why Carrelli?”

The
light responded, “We have... employed... Gina Carrelli to facilitate your
arrival at the helix.”

It
explained, Hendry thought, Gina Carrelli’s peculiar abilities—her adept
translations, for one; her uncanny facility with alien technologies.

Kaluchek
was shaking her head, as if in wonder. “For how long? I mean, for longer than
we have been on the helix, right?”

The
light pulsed, replied, “We have employed members of your race for perhaps two
hundred years before the launch of
Lovelock.”

Hendry
opened his mouth to speak, but found that no words would come. He had questions
aplenty, clamouring for expression, but where to begin?

Kaluchek
spoke for him. “Employed? You mean, used? To what end?”

“Used,”
repeated the light. “Employed. The terms are similar, though we did not coerce;
we merely encouraged individuals whose mindset was already attuned to our ways
and views.”

Hendry
glanced to his left. To his surprise, Ehrin was speaking to the column of
light—and no doubt, he thought, receiving replies in his own tongue. He
reminded himself that he was dealing with a race far in advance of humanity’s
paltry achievements.

Kaluchek
said, “Who are you?”

The
figure in the light spread its arms. “We are the Builders. That will suffice.
Long ago we called ourselves by a different name, but almost as long ago, since
the construction of the helix, we have known ourselves as the Builders.”

“You
built this, the helix...” Kaluchek whispered. “But the science, the
technology...”

Hendry
sensed that the figure in the light was smiling indulgently. “We are an ancient
race. We achieved a high level of technical expertise many hundreds of
thousands of your years ago. For twenty thousand years we laboured at building
the helix piece by piece, planet by planet.”

“But...
why? “ Hendry found himself asking. “For what purpose?”

The
light pulsed, bathing them in its radiation. “In our early days,” it said, “we
ranged the galaxy in our ships of exploration. We were a young race in a
relatively young universe. We wanted company, but instead we found evidence of
civilisations that had grown, attained technological sophistication and then
destroyed themselves. Again and again we found the same. It was as if sentience
was obeying some pre-ordained pattern, you might even call it a deterministic
law of nature; as if the fight for survival dictated that enmity and wars were
the only solution to conflicts. Oh, occasionally we did find races that had
survived—that had either never attained a level of technology whereby they had
the ability to self-destruct, or had attained it and then devolved before they
could commit racial suicide. In both cases, we found races that had never had
the opportunity to attain their full potential.”

Hendry
said, “Which is?”

“Which
is,” said the light, “the ability, the understanding, to live with their world,
their planet, in balance and harmony, with a reciprocal understanding of mutual
needs. Worlds are holistic systems that require respect and compassion. Again
and again we discovered materialistic races with no comprehension of this
universal truth.”

“So
you—” Kaluchek began.

“It
was too vast a task to monitor and aid the many races spread across the face of
the galaxy. We knew we had the wherewithal, the experience, to shepherd nascent
races through their times of trouble, to even influence their philosophies in a
bid to guide them to the truth. But our resources were stretched. We could aid
only a dozen or so localised races, which would have been better than aiding none
at all, but still far from satisfactory. Then our engineers suggested a radical
solution.”