The 97th Step (22 page)

He shifted from the bed and walked to the window. He dialed the thincris to clear and stared out at the night.

A tropical moon hung somewhere out of sight, but its thin light lay over the compound palely; there, thirty meters away, an outdoor lamp projecting a yellow-orange glow drew a shifting cloud of insects, a shade of light he suspected was not supposed to attract such creatures. Only they didn't know that. As he watched the flitting bugs, he was reminded of an old entcom joke he had seen a long time ago: Two pioneers are perched atop a rocky hill jutting up from some alien landscape. The base of the rock is surrounded by large fang-bearing creatures that look very hungry. "Don't worry," one of the settlers is saying, "the Confed exploration report says they don't have claws and can't climb." Meanwhile, behind the settlers, unseen by them, a dozen of the hungry beasts are scaling the sheer wall, using everything from old-style pitons and ropes to motorized line crawlers and boosting jets. Dinner is about to be served.

He turned away from the window, not bothering to opaque it again. Why had he thought of that? Was it because he felt trapped? Or maybe because he somehow felt that things were not what they seemed? He wondered how many times men had died with the words, "They're not supposed to be able to do that!" on their lips.

Who
was not supposed to be able to do
what?

First he had been Mwili. Then Ferret. Now, he was Pen. Why? To what end? What was he supposed to be doing? What the hell did any of it
mean
!

He returned to the bed, his despair covering him like the shrouds that hid the brothers and sisters of the order in which he now found himself. Was life simply inertia? Move until you couldn't move anymore?

He leaned back against the wall, his legs outstretched on the bed, and stared at the distant light, aswarm in creatures drawn to it for reasons they could not possibly understand. He envied those people who had faith. It was so much easier than thinking. Let God handle the big questions. Trust something higher, watch where you step, mind your manners, and it will all be for some glorious end. Someday, all your questions will be answered, as you sit at the throneside of the Omnipotent, basking in His supernal light, secure eternally in bliss. Someday, you will have the big payoff. How much easier it would be to have that prosthesis as a prop, supporting you where your own shaky legs could not. Even the harshest religion could be adhered to, given that you believed in the payoff. What were a few years of denial compared to eternal happiness?

Pen sighed, and all his life was in the breath as it came and went. Why was he on this island, this planet, in this galaxy?

Well, come to it, he supposed it didn't matter. Everybody had to be someplace, and in the end, one place was as good as another. Might as well ride the currents a little longer.

After all, it was not as if he had somewhere else to go.

Moon mysterious, the woman who by virtue of her hidden features could be anything and perhaps all things, met him for breakfast. She began to answer his questions before he could ask them, but like an oracle, her words were wrapped in layers as opaque as her robes.

"There was an actor," she began, as he sipped at a tumbler full of cold and acidic fruit juice, "who lived several hundred years ago. Very famous in his time. Once, he was talking to a younger actor about criticism they had received on a performance. The younger actor was disturbed over the comments, and smiling ruefully said, 'Well, I guess you just have to ignore the bad reviews, eh?' The older actor returned the smile, and shook his head. 'Dear boy,' he said, 'you must also ignore the good ones.' "

Pen stared at her from behind his training shroud, certain she could see through it to recognize both the ignorance and stupidity on his face. More than anything else in his recent life, he felt a desire to please this deep-voiced woman. He wanted to be able to nod sagely, instantly understanding the meaning of her parable, to be able to say, "I see," and dazzle her with his brilliance as he explained the deeper meaning of it. Instead, all he could manage was, "Ah," because he had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

And she knew, of course. With that eye-crinkle he had quickly learned meant she was smiling, she said,

"There are some introductory lectures we have recorded for new students. I'll take you to the hall so you can run them. It's basic stuff, but we need to make certain you have it. Our courses are relatively informal, as such things go, but everybody starts new here. There are requirements, naturally, but you progress at your own speed. What takes some students a week will take others a month; our curricula are tailored to fit individual needs."

Pen nodded.
Why did you choose me. Moon
? he wanted to ask. But he could not.

"Eventually, you will learn for the right reasons; to begin with, it is only necessary that you learn at all."

Another of her ambiguous and mud-clear comments. Pen could see that impressing Moon was going to be a difficult job, especially given the fact that he felt like an idiot.

The holoproj took the form of a sibling, fully enshrouded, standing on an otherwise empty stage in a small classroom. Pen was alone, watching the projection, unsure as to the figure's sex even after it began to speak. The voice was midrange and neuter, and he figured they did that on purpose.

It said:

"The Siblings of the Shroud came into being in the year 2275, founded by Diamond. He did so to promote what is a complex and diverse philosophy. To the outside world, the Siblings have been thought of and called many things: existential humanist/pacifists; elitist intellectual pantheists/positivists; meddling sons-of-bezelworts. There is some truth in all of these, but no simple statement can encompass the entire range of the Siblings. Essentially a humanist order, the Shroud's beliefs and actions are eclectic and far-ranging. Siblinghood asks much, but demands little."

"There may or may not be a God or gods; the Siblings do not concern themselves with proving or disproving such a thing. By definition, gods are more powerful than men, and thus quite able to fend for themselves without help. Worship may fulfill a human need, but it is not a primary function of the Shroud to speak to this need. Other religions may do so as they see fit."

"We believe that all life is sacred, but that some lives are more sacred than others. A conscious and reasoning human mind is, until shown to be otherwise, the peak of galactic evolution as we now know it.

There have been alien intelligences before us and may be more after, but neither are they our concern—humankind, in all its altered forms, is. Nurturing of the human mind and spirit lies at the core of the Shroud. Natural evolution has brought people to the point of being able to effect their own evolution through intent. As a sibling, this is a primary drive: if one can help, one must. To do less is to beggar one's humanity. We believe in faith, but it is for each person to find that faith in him or herself, and extrapolate it into faith in humankind."

Pen shifted in the plastic chair. It was not uncomfortable, but he was. All this talk about helping humanity caused it. The thief's rule was to look out for yourself, first, last and ever. That didn't fit in too well with this altruistic stuff.

As if the holoproj could hear his thoughts, it spoke to them, startling him.

"More important, however, than helping others is helping one's self. A medic with a fatal disease is apt to be a poor one; without a sound mind in a sound body, urging someone else to that state is difficult at best. Self-knowledge and self-development are therefore the first goals of a sibling. 'When you know who you are, you know what to do.' This is wisdom old when Diamond came to understand it. A person drowning can save no one else."

Pen nodded. That was reasonable. So the Shroud wasn't altogether some head-in-the-vacuum organization.

" 'As above, so below,' " the anonymous sibling said. "The microcosm is the macrocosm, the disk spins from the center outward, the wheel turns eternally. These are truths, but each is only a part of the larger whole. In your training, you will learn to take the longer view, you will be taught to understand as much as possible, to reach for the overview. Small things often represent larger things, and the totality teaches more than the singularity. Ideas are linked, and even the smallest particle has a place in the cosmic schematic. Learning that place is paramount."

Whoops, it's starting to slide off into mumbo-jumbo, Pen thought. He wondered how much longer the introductory lesson was going to take.

"Welcome, then, to the Siblings of the Shroud. Your journey will be personal and at times intense.

Remember through it that there is a reason for everything. Your purpose as a sibling is to learn what you can, and to pass it along. Good luck be with you."

The projection faded slowly, the figure misting into ghostly gray before it vanished completely.

That's it? The Siblings were some kind of cosmic do-gooders? Some purpose.

Well
, said his inner cynic,
at least they have a purpose. That puts them several hundred parsecs
ahead of you, doesn't it
?

Pen sighed. He couldn't argue with that.

The next recording was an introduction to Confederation politics, and a short history thereof. He found it very interesting, since he had never paid particular attention to the Confed's machinations before. There was more iron in the Confed's grip than he had thought, if this lecture had it right. As a thief, he had always carried his paranoia of authority with him, it was as natural as his clothing. They
were
after him, in truth, and circumventing laws was how he survived and prospered. According to this, many honest and standup citizens felt the same way. The Confed was repressive to ordinary folk in ways more heavy-handed than it was to outlaws. Odd. He had always accepted living with the small dread that there might come a knock at the door to any room in which he was staying; he had assumed that civilians had no such worries. If anything, it was worse for them. They could not simply catch a boxcar to a starliner and fade, as he often had. They had responsibilities, families, homes, and such things made them prisoners in a way he had never been. There was something basically wrong with that. The rules by which he had played the game gave the authorities the right to staple him, could they catch him; he understood and accepted that. But it hardly seemed fair that the Confed could, if it so desired, come down on anybody. Civilians, the honest standups, deserved to be let alone. They should have some kind of recourse. According to this lecture, the Confed was like a gigantic dinosaur, crushing anyone foolish enough to wander into its path, unseeing and uncaring about those beneath its massive feet. Great to be a citizen.

Pen grinned at the sexless lecturer. We're talking sedition here, pal. Conspiracy. If the Confed knew about this, it would squash the Siblings like a troublesome beetle. And me along with it.

That brought up an interesting question: Why didn't the Confed know? Something that big had to have blind spots, of course, but couldn't some disgruntled brother or sister have gone carrying tales? Surely there must be dropouts. Spies, even. How did the order get around that?

As the lecture ended, he resolved to ask Moon about that at an appropriate moment.

More time had passed than he had realized. As Pen left the classroom, which was in the second level of the auditorium, he saw that the afternoon's heat had been tempered with a shower. The building bordered on the central courtyard and gardens, and the tropical flowers were in brilliant bloom. Reds, yellows, blues, a riot of colors festooned the greenery. He thought about going to get something to eat, but found he wasn't particularly hungry. Moon had not specified when she would meet him again, so he wandered into the gardens, strolling along the pathways, enjoying the smell of the plants and rainswept air. He stopped to observe a particularly electric flower, a blend of red and violet and orange. The bell-like blossom was upturned toward the sun, and a long and flat fuzzy stalk emerged from the flower like a tongue.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" came Moon's voice from behind him. "It comes from Dirisha in the Ndama System.

It's called
kinywa-ororo
—the soft mouth flower."

"I've never been a particular fan of such things, but it is beautiful."

"It's a carnivore."

He glanced at Moon, unsure he had heard her correctly. An insect buzzed past him. "Excuse me?"

"Watch."

He turned, in time to see the insect, a fly-sized and shimmery green creature, alight upon the fuzzy tongue extending from the flower. Almost immediately, the fly began to buzz again, beating its wings as it attempted to take off. It could not, however. Something in the fuzz of the extrusion held it fast. As Pen watched, the tongue began to move. Slowly, to be sure, but within seconds, the trapped fly was reeled into the flower. The blossom began to fold inward, the "lips" of it meeting, until it formed a closed cup.

The flower shook, as the vibrating fly tried to escape. Abruptly, the flower expanded, almost as if someone had pumped air up the stem, as a child might blow up a balloon. After a beat, the flower deflated. The lips began to open, slowly.

"The flower produces a caustic gas," Moon said. "A strong base. The interior is, naturally, impervious.

But the fly is now a partially digested mass embedded upon a series of thornlike projections near the base of its tongue. In a few hours, it will be no more than protein soup, feeding the flower. The gas, incidentally, can cause severe burns to an unprotected finger or hand. You don't want to pick these blossoms."

Involuntarily, Pen found himself taking a step back away from the flower, "Nice," he said. "Real nice."

Under her shroud, Moon shrugged. "Everything alive wants to survive. The
kinywa-ororo
uses its beauty to catch prey. Things are not always what they seem."

He regarded her. "Ah," he said with mock gravity, "a lesson!"