“So you talk to Ship as I do,” Panille mused. “Yet you do not hear your own words. Now, I see why Ship needed a poet here.”

“What we really need is an experienced military leader,” Thomas said. “Lacking that, I guess I’ll have to serve.” He turned and strode toward the nearest batch of terrified survivors.

“Where are you going?” Panille asked.

“Recruiting.”

Chapter 60

Chapter 60

Through the process of nostalgic filtering, Earth assumed for the Shipmen fairyland characteristics. The different strains of people, telling their different historical memories, could only make such stories mix in a paradise setting. No Shipman ever experienced every Earthly place and clime and society. Thus, over the many generations, the reinforcement of positive memories left only the faith in how things were.

—Kerro Panille, History of the Avata

LEGATA SAT at a comdesk in the working space assigned to her at the Redoubt. It was a small room and showed signs of hasty construction. Directly in front of her across the desk was an oval hatch leading into her own private cubby, a space she seldom occupied now. But Oakes was busy somewhere and she had seized this opportunity.

She punched for shiprecords, keyed for her own private code, and waited. Did they still have contact with Ship?

The instrument buzzed. Glyphs danced across the screen in the desk. She punched for the Ox gate, set up a random-barrier lock and began transferring the data on Oakes into the Redoubt’s own storage system.

There you are, Morgan Lon Oakes!

And the printout remained secreted in Oakes’ old cubby shipside should she ever need it. It was remotely possible that Oakes might stumble on this record here, might erase it and even trace back to the original to erase that. But the printout would remain, stamped with Ship’s imprimatur.

When she had reviewed the data to reassure herself, and once more checked the random-barrier, she keyed the lock, then turned to the question of Lewis. It was not enough to have power over Oakes. Lewis held to his own power base like a man aware of every threat. She did not like the way he stared at her, secretive and measuring.

The Ox gate gave her its open-files response and she asked for anything available about Jesus Lewis.

Immediately the activity light at the command console winked out. She jiggled the switch. Nothing. She tried the override sequence, Oakes’ private code, the vocoder. Nothing.

When I asked for material on Lewis.

It had to be a coincidence. She went through the entire contact routine once more. Ship’s records could not be brought into this console. She stood up, went out and into the passage, through the tension and bustle of E-clone Processing, and borrowed one of their consoles. Same result.

We’re cut off.