“We can’t go back to Ship and we can’t dock at Colony and we can’t land in the open,” she said.

“We’re trapped,” Ferry agreed, and she did not like the calm way he said it.

Chapter 59

Chapter 59

Behold, these are a small troop, and indeed they are enraging us; and we are a host on our guard.

—Muslim Book of the Dead, Shiprecords

“WHAT YOU’RE talking about is war,” Panille said, shaking his head. He sat on the warm ground, his back against a jungle tree, moon-shadowed darkness all around.

“War?” Thomas rubbed his forehead, looked at the shadowy ground. He did not like looking at Panille—a naked Pan who seemed to flow in and out of contact with native life—touching a tree here, the tentacle of a passing hylighter there. Contact, physical contact: always touching. “Shipmen have had no experience of war for many generations,” Panille said. “Clones and E-clones have no experience of it at all, not even stories or traditions. I know it only from Ship’s holos.”

With one moon full and another raising its pale face on the jagged horizon, Panille saw Thomas haloed against night sky, a hazy outline amidst the stars. A very disturbed man.

“But we have to take over the Redoubt,” Thomas said. “It’s our only hope. Ship . . . Ship will . . .”

“How do you know this?”

“It’s why I was brought out of hyb.”

“To teach us WorShip?”

“No! To acquaint you with the need to solve that problem! Ship insists we . . .”

“There is no problem.”

“What do you mean there’s no problem?” Thomas was outraged. “Ship will . . .”

“Look around you.” Panille gestured at the moon-shadowed basin, the gentle stirrings of the moist air in the leaves. “If you care for your house, you are sheltered.”

Thomas forced himself to take a deep breath, to assume at least the outward appearance of calm. The jungle—yes, there did not appear to be any demons in this place . . . this nest, as the hylighters called it. But this place was not enough! No place was safe from Oakes or from Ship. And there was no escaping Ship’s demand. Panille had to be made to understand that.

“Please believe me,” Thomas said. “Unless we learn how to WorShip, we are through. No more humankind anywhere. I . . . I don’t want that to happen.”

“Then why should we attack the Redoubt?”

“Because you say those are the last people groundside—Colony’s destroyed.”

“That’s true, but what would you teach those people by attacking?” Panille’s tone was maddeningly reasonable, a voice which kept its disturbing pace with the sounds of breeze-stirred leaves.

Thomas tried to match that tone: “Lewis and The Boss are destroying the ’lectrokelp and the hylighters. The native life is running out of time, too. Don’t they . . .”

“Avata understands what is happening here.”

“They know they’re being wiped out?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t they want to prevent that?”