The rest of the crew lived simply. They slept suspended in hammocks which translated the gentle swayings of the ship into sleep. Many incorporated padded pallets or cushions for those occasions that arose between men and women. That was for love, for relaxation, for relief from the long corridors of plasteel which sometimes wound tightly around the psyche and squeezed out your breath.

Breeding, though . . . that came under strictest Ship controls. Every Natural Natal had to be born shipside and under the supervision of a trained obstetrics crew—the damned Natali with their air of superior abilities. Did the ship talk to them? Feed them? They never said.

Oakes thought about the shipside breeding rooms. Although plush by usual cubby standards, they never seemed as stimulating as his own cubby. Even the perimeter treedomes were preferred by some—under dark bushes . . . on open grass. Oakes smiled. His cubby, though—this was opulent. Women had been known to gasp when first entering the vastness of it. From the core of the Ceepee’s cubby, this one had been expanded into the space of five cubbies.

And the damned ship never once interfered.

This place was a symbol of power. It was an aphrodisiac which seldom failed. It also exposed the lie of Ship.

Those of us who see the lie, control. Those who don’t see it . . . don’t.

He felt a little giddy. Effect of the Pandoran wine, he thought. It snaked through his veins and wormed into his consciousness. But even the wine could not make him sleep. At first, its peculiar sweetness and the thick warmth had promised to dull the edge of doubts that kept him pacing the nightside passages. He had lived on three or four hours’ sleep each period for . . . how long now? Annos . . . annos . . .

Oakes shook his head to clear it and felt the ripple of his jowls against his neck. Fat. He had never been supple, never selected for breeding.

Edmond Kingston chose me to succeed him, though. First Ceepee in history not selected by the damned ship.

Was he going to be replaced by this new Ceepee the ship had chosen to send groundside?

Oakes sighed.

Lately, he knew he had turned sallow and heavy.

Too much demand on my head and not enough on my body.

Never a lack of couch partners, though. He patted the cushions at his side, remembering.

I’m fifty, fat and fermented, he thought. Where do I go from here?

Chapter 3

The all-pervading, characterless background of the universe—this is the void. It is not object nor senses. It is the region of illusions.

—Kerro Panille, Buddha and Avata

WILD VARIETY marked the naked band of people hobbling and trudging across the open plain between bulwarks of black crags. The red-orange light of a single sun beat down on them from the meridian, drawing purple shadows on the coarse sand and pebbles of the plain. Vagrant winds whisked at random dust pockets, and the band gave wary attention to these disturbances. Occasional stubby plants with glistening silver leaves aligned themselves with the sun in the path of the naked band. The band steered a course to avoid the plants.