"Right." Ale could be heard leaving.
"Is that land just beyond the Island?" Bickel asked.
Brett shuddered. The newcomers always sounded so loud!
"It's land," Scudi said.
"It must be at least two hundred meters high," Brett said. He had to remind himself that neither this newcomer nor Scudi could see the land mass as clearly as he could.
The foil was into the enclosing arms of Vashon's harbor then. Brett popped the cabin emergency hatch beside him and leaned out into the wind, seeing the familiar outline of this haven he had known so intimately. That other time of intimacy with this place seemed to him now eons in the past. His position in the foil's control cabin gave him a commanding view of the approach - the rimlights, Islanders racing to grab the foil's lines as Scudi backed the jets. The hissing of the jets went silent. The foil rocked and then was snugged against the bubbly at the dockside. Scudi turned on the cabin lights.
Familiar faces looked up at Brett - Islander faces he had noticed in passing many times. And with them came the old familiar stench of Vashon.
"Whew!" Bickel said. "That place stinks!"
Brett felt Scudi's arm go around his neck and her head bent close to his. "I don't mind the smell, love," she whispered.
"We'll clean it up when we get on land," Brett said. He looked up at the great mass of starlighted rock that dominated the sky behind Vashon. Was that where he and Scudi would go? Or would they return down under and work to reclaim other places like this one?
A voice called up to them from dockside. "That you, Brett Norton?"
"Here I am!"
"Your folks are waiting at the Hall of Art. Say they're anxious to see you."
"Would you tell them we'll meet them at the Ace of Cups?" Brett called. "I've got some friends I want them to meet."
"Jesus Christ!" Bickel's voice was a sharp exhalation behind Brett. "Look at the deformities! How the hell can those people live?"
"Happily," Brett said. "Get used to it, Shipclone. To us, they're beautiful." Gently, he pressed back against Scudi, indicating that he wanted to get out of the control seats.
Together, they slid out of the seats and looked up at the towering figure of Bickel.
"What'd you call me?" Bickel demanded.
"Shipclone," Brett said. "Every living human being Ship brought to Pandora was a Clone."
"Yeah ... yeah." Bickel rubbed at his chin and glanced out at the throng on dockside. The newcomers emerging there towered over the Islanders.
"Jesus help us," Bickel whispered. "When we created Ship ... we never suspected ..." He shook his head.
"I would be careful who you tell your story of Ship's origin," Brett cautioned. "Certain WorShipers might not like it."
"Like it or lump it," Bickel growled. "Ship was created by men like me. Our goal was a mechanical consciousness."
"And when you achieved this ... this consciousness," Scudi said, "it ..."
"It took over," Bickel said. "It said it was our god and we were to determine how we would worship it."
"How strange," Scudi murmured.
"You better believe it," Bickel said. "Does anyone here have any idea how long we were in hybernation?"
"What difference does it make?" Brett asked. "You're alive here and now and that's what you'll have to deal with."
"Hey, kid!" It was Twisp calling from the passageway. "Come on! I've been waiting for you dockside. Lots of things happening. We've got Merman Patrols underwater all around that land mass - burning dashers. Dashers want back on the land, too."
"We're coming." Brett took Scudi's hand and headed toward the passage.
"Vata and Duque are gone," Twisp said. "Someone broke open the Vata Pool and they're just gone."
Brett hesitated, feeling the sweat start in his hand against Scudi's. Gallow? No ... Gallow was dead. Then some of Gallow's people? He quickened his pace.
A raucous sound came from the dockside, echoing up the passage.
"What was that?" Scudi asked.
"Haven't you ever heard a rooster crow?" Bickel demanded from close behind them.
"A hylighter brought them," Twisp called ahead of them. "Chickens, they're called. They're something like a squawk."
***
In the world you shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.
Vata lolled on a buoyant bed of kelp fronds, her head held high to give her a view across Duque nestled sleeping in the curve of her great left arm. The dawnlight of Little Sun cast a sharp horizontal illumination across the scene. The sea lifted and fell in gentle waves, their crests damped by the giant leaves.
When either of them hungered, minuscule cilia from the kelp wormed into a vein and nutrients flowed - kelp to Vata ... kelp to Duque. And back from Vata flowed the genetic information stored in its purest form within her cells: Vata to Avata.
What a wonderful awakening, Vata thought.
Probing kelp tendrils had crept through the walls of her pool in the depths of Vashon, admitting a great wash of sea water that swept away the watchers and the Chaplain/Psychiatrist. The swiftly darting tendrils had encased Duque and herself, pulling them out into the sea and up to the nighttime surface. There, a swift current had hurried them away from Vashon's injured bulk.
At some distance from the Island, hylighter tendrils had plucked the two of them from the sea and brought them to this place where only the sea prevailed.
In the grasp of the hylighter tendrils, Vata had found her true awakening.
How marvelous ... all of the stored human lives ... the voices ... what a wonderful thing. Strange that some of the voices objected to their preservation in the kelp. She had heard the exchange between Avata and one called Keel.
"You're editing me!" That was what Keel had said. "My voice had flaws and I could always hear them. They were part of me!"
"You live in Avata now." How all-encompassing, how calming that beautiful voice.
"You've given me an unflawed voice! Stop it!"
And true enough, when next she heard Keel's voice it had a different tone, something of hoarseness in it, throat clearings and coughs.
"You think you speak the language of my people," Keel accused. "What nonsense!"
"Avata speaks all languages."
That was telling him, Vata thought. But Duque, sharing her awareness of this internalized conversation, had grinned agreement with Keel.
"Every planet has its own language," Keel said. "It has its own secret ways of communication."
"Do you not understand Avata?"
"Oh, you have the words down well enough. And you know the language of actions. But you've not penetrated my heart or you wouldn't have tried to edit me and improve me."
"Then what would you have of Avata?"
"Keep your hands off me!"
"You do not wish to be preserved?"
"Oh, I have enough curiosity to accept that. You've showed us your Lazarus trick and I'm thankful I no longer have that old body's pains."
"Is that not an improvement, then?"
"You can't improve me! I can only improve myself. You and Ship can stuff your miracles! That's one of the real secrets of my language."
"A bit uncouth but understandable."
"That language was born on the planet where Lazarus lived and died and lived. My kind first learned to speak there! The original Lazarus knew my meaning. By all the gods, he knew!"
When Vata awakened Duque and expressed her puzzlement to him, Duque laughed. "You see?" he shouted. "We care who forces our dreams onto us!"