Infinite Day (32 page)

“I thought your Moshe Adlen set up the sentinels against the return of all evil. Not specifically against the forces of Jannafy's Rebellion.”

“As did I. But I am now coming to the view that he b-believed something
had
survived. Do you know he consulted with Below-Space theorists for the rest of his life? I have found no records of what they talked about, but it seems significant.” He tapped his long fingers on the table, and when he continued he seemed to be speaking to himself. “I have been reading again the document we call “Adlen's Testament.” It's the last thing he wrote—in 2168, the year of his death. By then the War of the Rebellion was a distant memory. It's a long letter, in which he asked that the original be preserved in perpetuity. There's something odd in it. But I can't put my finger on it.”

“Interesting, but more pressingly, does all this—” Merral gestured at the screen—“help you understand Nezhuala? There is a vast time gap between Jannafy and him.”

“Y-yes. Many of the distinctives of the Dominion that we are coming to recognize are present in Jannafy's thinking. The relentless drive—whatever the cost—for advancement in technology, whether it be genetics, space travel, artificial intelligence . . . The fear of death and the attempts to fight mortality. The open spirituality with its pursuit of the quest rather than the acceptance of certainty. All are there with him and the idea of the ‘Free Peoples,' who later became the Freeborn.”

“And what can you give me to help us?”

Vero stared at the screen for a moment. “My friend, as I look at the Dominion, I see logic at work, but I find that it is subservient to fear and hate. Those two emotions rule. A potent brew.”

“Fear and hate?”

“Yes, they are linked. Fear and hate feed on each other, don't they?”

“We fear, and so we hate.”

“Yes. But it is more than that. Hate can only be countered by forgiveness. And fear is a poor soil for forgiveness.”

A brief silence followed.

“A last question: do you now have more sympathy for Jannafy?”

“Sympathy?” echoed Vero. There was a long, drawn-out pause. “No.
Understanding,
my friend. But not sympathy.”

Then, after some conversation on more trivial matters, Merral left Vero to his studies. But as he walked along the corridors toward the bridge, Merral found himself troubled.
Vero's pursuit of knowledge is harmless, isn't it? Is it conceivable that understanding might turn into something more?

Increasingly though, Merral felt a dark mood settle on people. Azeras maintained his gloomy frame of mind and seemed to be so preoccupied with his own thoughts that, as someone put it, he was “present in body but absent in mind.” Even Luke seemed to become openly gloomy and talked about “the winter of the soul.”

Merral began to long for an end to their journey.
We need to see daybreak; we need to act. We look like ghosts, and if this lasts much longer we may indeed be ghosts of all we once were
.

On the
Dove of Dawn,
former Advisor Clemant was also finding travel in Below-Space problematic. His concerns increasingly centered on the prebendant. Delastro definitely seemed to have been invigorated by Below-Space, and his twice-daily addresses now stormed and raged against sin and the Dominion with extraordinary energy and venom.

During one sermon, Clemant risked glancing around and saw intent gazes and nodding heads.
It's not the man's energy that worries me; it's the way he is making disciples.
Indeed, so complete was the dedication of many of the men to the prebendant that Clemant was obliged to show wholehearted support lest they turn against him.

His concern for his own security meant that the fate of Captain Huang-Li was not as pressing as it might have been. She showed no signs of relenting in her opposition and had even ceased attending the prebendant's evening talks. Clemant had been struck by how Delastro had been apparently untroubled by this. In public at least, Delastro seemed careful to express his appreciation of the captain and her right to dissent. What he said in private Clemant no longer knew, because he had given up secretly observing the prebendant.
I don't want to know what he is planning; ignorance is innocence.
And in keeping with that maxim, Clemant deleted his records of what he had overheard. Once or twice, the uncomfortable irony struck him that, after a lifetime of gathering facts, he was now in the position of hiding them.

Deleting the records had a positive effect in that Clemant now found that he was able to persuade himself that he must have misunderstood Delastro's rhetoric and the captain was therefore in no danger
.
Yet if he was convinced no threat existed to the captain, he was increasingly convinced that she posed a threat to him. The document on her computer now entitled “What
really
happened on Farholme,” seemed to grow daily.

Soon their emergence at Bannermene was just days away, and Clemant recognized that he had no idea what to do about this document.
Perhaps, like these wretched manifestations, it will just vanish in the daybreak
.

In contrast to both Merral and Clemant, Lezaroth was in better spirits than when he had started the voyage. The captain surfaced three times to check their course; each time the measurements were satisfactory and within hours they were back in the Nether-Realms and on their way.

A week before the
Comet
was due to enter Standard-Space near Gerazon-Far, Lezaroth found himself reviewing the situation with Isabella. On balance, he felt he had made good progress with her. He was pleasantly surprised how easily she had responded to his manipulation and indirect questions.
The secret is this: I have let her think that she is in charge and that
she
is manipulating
me
.
An example had been her questions about the social life in the Dominion and his lack of a woman. Here, his feigned embarrassment had made her think she had bested him, and in the resulting overconfidence she had revealed more about Merral. Indeed, the more he had persuaded her that she was the one doing the manipulating, the more she had revealed.

He was particularly proud of his masterstroke in privately interviewing the other delegates. In almost every case, he had asked them to collaborate with him in some way, often over a petty matter. And when they all refused, he insinuated that “some people” among them were being more helpful. Inevitably the conclusion was drawn that it was Isabella who was collaborating with him. The result was that she became even more ostracized—and that increasing isolation drew her closer to him.

He felt that he had actually rather enjoyed this mental seduction. Nether-Realm voyages were always dull, but playing with her had brightened this one. He smiled as he remembered some of their conversations.

“Commander, they don't seem to like me anymore,” she had said.

“I'm truly sorry. It's a bit unfair after all you've done for them. Do you know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think they realize, deep down, that you have come to terms with the new world better than they have. Things have changed, Isabella, for us all. They can't see it, and they know that you can.”

“It's jealousy then?”

“In a word, yes.”

And what, he asked himself, had she told him about D'Avanos? Not as much as she could have, but more than she realized. Lezaroth was impressed by the fact that, although she was clearly embittered with the man, in some areas she had manifestly refused to reveal any information. But despite her refusal, over the thirty or so meetings they'd had, she had let slip a lot. He had learned of their close relationship and that someone else had got in. He had no interest in that; what was more relevant was that D'Avanos's skills as a warrior really did appear to come from nowhere. At one time, Lezaroth had toyed with the idea that this man might have had a great interest in the wars of the past and that this knowledge of military history had, fortuitously, served him well in real events. Yet after talking to Isabella, he knew this was plainly not the case. The man had been a forester, loved his job, and—other than having some prowess on the sports field and an ability to manage men—had shown little promise. His rise to leadership in battle was striking and could not easily be understood apart from an extraordinary fluke or some manipulation by the powers opposed to the lord-emperor. Lezaroth now had no doubt that D'Avanos was the great adversary of legend. But proving it to the lord-emperor was not going to be easy.

He was also encouraged by the potential that Isabella had to serve the Dominion. She had firmly taken to heart the fantasy that she might be able to help bring peace. As he thought of her wide-eyed enthusiasm for such an idea, Lezaroth felt amused.
The safest way of persuading Assembly people to do your will is to convince them it's all in a good cause; they can't resist noble ideals.
Exactly how she might be used he wasn't quite sure. He felt that, with appropriate coaching and careful selection of what she saw in the Dominion Worlds, she might be a vital tool. They might even be able to send her back to the Assembly ostensibly to work for peace but in practice to act as a Dominion agent. It was a pleasing notion; there were few things he could offer the lord-emperor to compensate for the debacle at Farholme, but an embryonic Dominion spy was one.

And if the lord-emperor has other uses for her?
Lezaroth gave a mental shrug.
It matters little to me
.

The first of the three ships to arrive at its destination was the
Dove of Dawn
. As the
Dove
began its ascent from the depths of Below-Space and color began to creep back into the world
,
former Advisor Clemant found himself standing at the rear right-hand corner of a cramped bridge. In addition to Captain Huang-Li and two other crew members, Delastro, Gerry, and Zak had also squeezed in. Clemant noticed that Delastro had taken the single spare seat that, by rights, belonged to him as mission commander.
Typical; he thinks
he
is commander.
Nevertheless, Clemant did not really object to standing where he was; it was a location that allowed him to observe both events and individuals.

Gerry, so close to him that he could smell some sort of perfume, was clearly excited and constantly moving up and down on the balls of her feet. Already tall and striking, her persistent motion seemed to draw attention to her in a way that he found rather irritating. But he understood her excitement.
A lot rides on this for her: whether her alarm message was heard; whether her big, bad bomb can be made; and whether she can renew a relationship she feared was dead.

Ahead of her sat Delastro, his face a mask as he stared at the shuttered front ports. As Clemant considered the cleric, he felt seized by an extraordinary sense of unease.
I may need him, but that man utterly scares me
. Zak was standing by the door with a stiff posture that conveyed some sort of readiness.
A readiness for what?
And as the inquiry formed in his mind, Clemant realized he didn't want to know the answer. His eyes did, however, slide to the captain.
What are we going to do about that damning document on her computer? That must not be delivered. But how to stop it?