The Chromosome Game (30 page)

Trell said, with a strange sort of calm, ‘Nembrak’s dead. Fulda’s dead. End of General Motors.’

‘Trell, listen!’

‘Killing each other still.’

‘And don’t even know it.’

‘Right. We stop it, Kelda. But how?’

‘Trell, any way of getting a mike hooked up to the loudspeakers?’

*

— The Attorney-General, Milky Way, didn’t often betray emotion. He did now. ‘I’ve got the stellascope on them, Interrogod! They’re inspired, those two.’

The Interrogod couldn’t hide his feelings, either. ‘The cables! They’ve got to find the right cables!’

The Duty God said coolly, ‘Quantum radio. Worth trying?’

‘Switch on full power! They deserve this,’ breathed the Interrogod. ‘We missed-out on Eagle that last time; this is the time for faith. Send them Faith!’

The Duty god complied by just lightly touching a fluorescent loop of wire.

For a few moments, the gods of the universe crowded round the stellascope and were As One in their Will for just two young people.

*

‘If Nembrak were around,’ said Trell, ‘We could —’

‘— but he isn’t. That cable duct overhead? Where’s it lead?’

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘They need mothering.’

‘
Mothering
?!’ Kelda, they’re —’

She said, ‘They’re children.’

He gave one peremptory nod. ‘You’re going to talk to them. Right.’ Trell jumped up, reached the cover of the duct, wrenched it away.

A great mass of cables sagged down.

Kelda said, ‘How can we recognise mike wires?’

‘They’ll be screened … Braided wire around the outside.’ Feverish now, Trell set about sorting the wires. As he did so he rapped, ‘Even then we don’t have a mike. No hope of getting one, far as I can see.’

‘How about the phone. There? Can you connect the phone up so I can speak through that?’

‘Dammit, it might just work!’

‘That the wire?’

‘It’s the only braided one.’

‘Try it.’

Trell slit the telephone wire and bared the ends of the pair connected to the phone. ‘Can’t keep my hands from trembling.’

‘You’re doing okay.’

‘Hold that a sec … Fine. Kelda. Those noises you heard! More life below us. Another deck.’

‘I guessed. New life! Trell, get that thing working. At all costs we protect the new babies. It’s a second chance.’

‘Christ! Hear that crash?’

‘Don’t listen for anything, Trell. We have a chance. We take it in both hands.’

‘You’re right. When did we not?’

‘Is it ready?’

‘If these are the right wires, nearly.’

‘They’re
going
to be the right wires, Trell.’

‘Faith. Do you realise what you have? Pure, unadulterated, marvellous faith —’

‘— in you.’

‘In God.’

‘In both.’

‘The phone is through! Listen!’ Trell banged the mouthpiece. The thumping echoed through the ship. ‘It works!’

He watched her as a man watches a miracle for the first time. She was so calm, so much at Peace with herself. He could only say, ‘Speak. I know it will be all right. If you do it! I
know
.’

Her smile was a faraway thing. She murmured, ‘You say I have faith. You think you don’t?’

Quietly, without a tremor, she picked up the telephone receiver paused for just a few seconds —

Then she resumed what she’d always set out to do.

The mothering.

If you enjoyed
The Chromosome Game
check out FISTFUL OF DIGITS by Christopher Hodder-Williams
here.

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