Voyagers IV - The Return Page 15

  Jo leaned her head against his shoulder. “You really think it’s best for them to go down there?”

  “They’re part of this,” he said, his voice low but firm. “They’ve got to see for themselves, make up their own minds.”

  “I suppose so,” Jo agreed, reluctantly. “But . . . it’s worse than we thought it ever could be, isn’t it?”

  Stoner nodded, his bearded face taut with apprehension. “The problem is so damned deep,” he said.

  “Maybe it’s in their genes,” she said.

  “No,” Stoner replied. “It’s learned. Culture, not genes. At least, I hope so.”

  “If it is genetic, then there’s nothing much we can do about it, is there?”

  Stoner nodded. But he said, “I’m certain it’s cultural. Bakhtiar, the Iranian astronomer we talked with, he saw right away that our ship has technology that the Iranian military would snap up and use, if they could. And he immediately realized that he couldn’t tell anyone about it, not even his own brother.”

  “One man,” Jo said.

  “There are others,” said Stoner. “There must be.”

  “You hope.”

  Stoner said nothing for several heartbeats. Then, “They’re so stupefyingly backward! They’re heading for the twelfth stupid century, for god’s sake. You’d have thought that by this time they’d know better than to let their population grow out of control.”

  “And their technology is nowhere near where it ought to be.”

  “They’ve stifled technological growth. Cut off whole lines of research in the name of religion.”

  “Their religions are out-of-date,” said Jo.

  “Religions are always out-of-date,” Stoner replied. “They’re designed to be conservative, to hold on to the values that the community has built up over previous generations.”

  “But when they’re faced with a new situation, with an environment that’s changing rapidly . . .”

  “They either change or crumble away,” Stoner finished his wife’s thought.

  “They’re turning their backs on the solutions they have at their fingertips. It’s like they don’t want to solve the problems they’re facing.”

  “We’ve got to make them understand,” Stoner muttered.

  “The immediate problem is to prevent the nuclear war that’s coming.”

  “We could control their leaders,” Stoner mused. “Manipulate them to do what we want.”

  Jo countered, “There’s billions of them and only the four of us. How can we control them all?”

  “And even if we did,” Stoner added, “they’d go right back to their usual ways the instant we stopped controlling them.”

  “Of course they would,” Jo said, her voice low, troubled.

  “We’ve got to make them understand,” Stoner repeated. “We’ve got to help them to see the right path and follow it.”

  “A nuclear war could kill them all,” Jo murmured. “And most of the other species, besides.”

  “Then there’d be nobody left,” Stoner said. “Nobody. Anywhere.”

  “There’d be the people living off-Earth,” Jo said. “There are enough people living off-Earth to keep the race going, even if Earth self-destructs.”

  “Do you think so? I wonder.”

  “I see what you mean,” Jo said. “If Earth self-destructs could the human race continue off-Earth? Would it change anything? Wouldn’t the survivors eventually fight each other? Wouldn’t they head toward genocide?”

  “Toward extinction,” Stoner muttered.

  “So what of it?” Jo’s tone hardened. “If they’re so dead set on destroying themselves why don’t we let them do it and get it over with?”

  “No,” Stoner said. “We can’t.”

  “Why not?” Jo insisted. “Why don’t we just leave them to stew in their own juices and go out and explore? It’s a big universe out there; somewhere there’s got to be—”

  “No,” Stoner repeated more firmly. “I ran away from Earth once. I’m not going to do it again. I can’t.”

  “Why not? Why should we kill ourselves trying to help them when they don’t have the brains to survive?”

  “Because it’s us we’re talking about!” Stoner shot back. “It’s not just them. It’s us! We’re part of the human race and whatever happens to them happens to us, too.”

  Breaking into a warm smile, Jo said, “Just as I thought: you’ve got a messiah complex.”

  He ignored her jibe. “We can’t just let them die. They’re part of us and we’re part of them. We can’t let intelligent life doom itself to extinction.”

  Jo’s smile turned bitter. “You’re assuming that we can do something to prevent it.”

  “We’ve got to help them,” Stoner insisted.

  “But how?”

  “I wish I knew,” Stoner said. “We’re so damned limited! It’s like trying to hold back the tide with your bare hands.”

  “You could make them behave,” said Jo.

  “Set myself up as their god?” He shook his head. “No thanks. They’ve got to work this out for themselves. We can help them, but we can’t force them.”

  Jo touched her husband’s shoulder. “You’ll find a way, Keith. If anybody in the universe can find a way, you will.”

  He gave her a grudging smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But how?”

  “You’re going to see Archbishop Overmire, aren’t you? That’s the place to start.”

  “Maybe,” he said, uncertain. Then, “Or maybe the place to start is with that woman, Sister Angelique.”

  BOOK III

  ANGELIQUE DUPRIE

  The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking.

  Albert Einstein

  CHAPTER 1

  Angelique could not sleep. She lay on her bed staring at the shadows playing back and forth across her ceiling as traffic rolled past on the interstate outside her thick, soundproofed window. Her home was a Spartan studio apartment set high in one of the glass and steel towers on the edge of the New Morality’s headquarters complex. Twelve of the building’s twenty-two floors were occupied by her order, the Sisters of the Savior.

  Stoner is more than human, she kept thinking. He has powers beyond any human capability. And he wants me to help him. Me. Bishop Craig is frightened of him. Good. I’ll move Craig out of the loop and take Stoner to Archbishop Overmire myself.

  She smiled to herself. All Craig is interested in is becoming the next Archbishop. He’ll never get there. He’s a weakling, terrified of Stoner. I can see the fear that underlies his life; Stoner’s brought it out into the open. Instead of seeing Stoner for the opportunity he is, the bishop is terrified of him. All right. Good. I’ll bring Stoner to the Archbishop myself. I’ll become the power behind his throne. With Stoner at my side, I can control the entire New Morality apparatus. I can control the entire nation and all its dependencies.

  With a little luck and a lot of skill, she thought, I can eventually control the whole world.

  As long as I have Stoner at my side.

  She was born Aretha Deevers in one of the tent cities that dotted the Georgia landscape after the greenhouse floods had swept away most of Florida and the Gulf Coast communities all the way up to Houston and Shreveport. She never knew her two brothers, both drowned when their rattletrap school bus overturned on a washed-out road in the middle of a blinding midnight thunderstorm.

  Her father had worked in the county tax collector’s office, but losing his home, his city, his career, his sons broke his spirit. He sank into a numb acceptance of the fact that his life was finished; he was just going through the motions, living on the government’s dole, moving from one tent city to another, then to a hastily erected refugee center, and, finally, to a spanking new housing complex built by the New Morality in the heart of what had previously been the seediest, most run-down neighborhood of sprawling Atlanta.

  Her mother never surrendered to poverty or despair, not even whe
n her two sons were killed. All during her pregnancy with her daughter she worked ceaselessly to organize the dazed and battered refugees in their tent city. As they moved from one relocation center to another, she became a local force, an ardent spokeswoman for her downtrodden neighbors. Eventually, inevitably, the New Morality appointed her the watchwoman for their new community.

  She wanted twelve-year-old Aretha to join the New Morality’s Urban Corps. But Aretha had plans of her own. Young as she was, she recognized that the New Morality held the power over the people. The Urban Corps was too low on their ladder of advancement to suit her. She aimed higher and got her school’s placement advisor to recommend her for a training position in the New Morality’s headquarters.

  But she was gang-raped one afternoon by a band of local toughs who left her sprawled in an alley, bleeding and half-unconscious. While her mother wailed and the police dithered, Aretha marched her battered body to the convent of the New Morality’s Sisters of the Savior and, head high, asked them for sanctuary.

  She entered the convent, changed her name to Angelique Duprie, willingly took the veil, and vowed eternal chastity, swearing to devote her life to helping others through the New Morality and its associated churches, knowing that this was the surest way to rise above her impoverished beginnings. She even trained herself to mimic the lilting Jamaican accent of her Mother Superior: it sounded so much more self-assured in her ears.

  Her mother died of a stroke two weeks after Aretha finished her schooling and was ready to re-enter the world as Sister Angelique Duprie. Her father lived on, stumbling through the days and empty nights, as passive as his wife had been active. He finally succumbed to an overdose of the medications he had been taking for hypertension and atrial fibrillation. There was no investigation into his death: Angelique saw to it that the local coroner ruled it accidental so that her father would not be stigmatized as a suicide and refused burial in hallowed ground.

  Alone now and unburdened by family, Sister Angelique worked her way upward in the New Morality’s labyrinth of bureaucracies until at last she was appointed to the staff of Bishop Zebulon Craig. And there she met Keith Stoner, who claimed to be a star voyager.

  She also met Raoul Tavalera, a lost and bewildered young man who somehow seemed to be in the middle of this star voyager problem. Tavalera was linked in some manner to Stoner, which told Sister Angelique that to stay close to Stoner she had to stay close to Tavalera.

  But more important, she had to push Bishop Craig to deal with Stoner. Or, rather, she had to move Craig out of the picture and advance herself into the good graces of Archbishop Overmire.

  Stoner was an opportunity, she knew. A godsend, literally. But perhaps a danger, as well. If she were truly religious she might be frightened of him. But ambition was what drove Sister Angelique Duprie. She feared nothing—except a descent back into the poverty and helplessness of her earliest years.

  Bishop Craig was clearly frightened.

  Angelique walked with him along the tree-lined arcade behind the central Atlanta cathedral, where they could speak without being overheard—unless some overzealous security officer was specifically shadowing them. Angelique was certain such was not the case: no one would dare pry into the bishop’s doings; the orders would have to come from the Archbishop himself, and she felt confident that Overmire had not and would not issue such a command.

  Still, Craig was obviously nervous. Perhaps, Angelique thought, he’s worried that the Archbishop is watching him? Or one of the other bishops, looking for an edge in their quietly ferocious competition for the Archbishop’s ring? She surreptitiously fingered the miniaturized audio recorder in the pocket of her ankle-length skirt. No bigger than a sugar cube, it was taking down every word they spoke.

  Craig was right to be worried about eavesdroppers, she knew. He was simply looking in the wrong direction. Angelique was compiling a dossier of the bishop’s maneuverings; she planned to show it to Archbishop Overmire if and when she had to.

  “How does he know what he claims to know?” Bishop Craig hissed, his voice low.

  It was a warm and bright spring day in late February, although Angelique knew the sweltering months of the long summer were only a few weeks away. She was glad to be outdoors, feeling the light breeze on her face, hearing the birds singing happily among the trees. The brick-paved walkway she and Craig strolled along was empty of other people. The bishop had told his security people he wanted privacy.

  She was several centimeters taller than Bishop Craig and found herself stooping slightly to hear his fretful, almost panicky whisper:

  “We’ve got to find a way to get rid of him. We’ve got to!”

  Looking down at Craig’s bald head, Angelique asked, “Who are you speaking of, Your Worship?”

  “This man Stoner! He claims to know that our government is building nuclear bombs. How could he possibly know that?”

  She very nearly smiled. The bishop’s dread was almost palpable. Stoner was something unexpected, unpredictable, a sudden intrusion into Craig’s plans to make himself Archbishop.

  “He is an extraordinary man, Bishop,” said Sister Angelique.

  He glared up at her. “I don’t think he’s a man at all. He’s a demon straight from hell.”

  “Do you really think that’s likely, Your Worship?”

  Craig began ticking off points on his slender fingers. “He appears and disappears like some genie out of the Arabian Nights. He claims that we’re heading for Armageddon. He says he wants to help us, but what if he wants to help us into everlasting damnation?”

  Sister Angelique murmured, “By their fruits you shall know them.”

  Looking more annoyed than ever, Craig went on, “If he’s right and the government is building nuclear weapons, then it must be with the knowledge and approval of the Archbishop. And if Archbishop Overmire has approved such a thing, he did it without my knowledge. Without informing any of the bishops, as far as I can see.”

  Angelique hesitated, thinking, It’s not Stoner himself that’s worrying him; it’s the fact that Stoner could upset his plans.

  “I don’t like having the Archbishop make such a move without consulting me about it,” Craig muttered.

  “At least he hasn’t consulted any of the other bishops, either,” she replied.

  “Do we know that for a fact? What about Van Wiesel? Or Morrison! I wouldn’t put it past him to sneak into the Archbishop’s good graces.”

  Feeling slightly alarmed at Craig’s suspicions, Angelique tried to calm the man. “Your Worship, I think the Archbishop has acted on his own in this matter. His staff might know about it, but they’ve kept it from everyone else.”

  Bishop Craig was silent for several paces. Then, “Do you really think so?”

  “Your Worship,” Angelique answered, “the Archbishop is a man, no more than you are. A very good man, of course, but he is quite advanced in years. Certain members of his staff might be manipulating him. After all, he is not infallible, as the Catholics once believed of their Pope. Archbishop Overmire is very old, and from what I hear he isn’t in the best of health.”

  Craig squinted up at her. “What are you suggesting?”

  “Simply that if the Archbishop did agree to the construction of nuclear weapons, he may have . . . overreacted, perhaps. Or even made an error of judgment.”

  Craig fell silent again. At last he muttered, “If his judgment is faulty he’d have to be replaced.”

  “Replaced?” Angelique feigned surprise.

  “That’s a serious step, though. A very serious step. I can’t just go before the board of directors and demand that Overmire step down.”

  “Of course not,” Angelique agreed. “That would be wrong.”

  “On the other hand, if the Archbishop is making mistakes of judgment—”

  “Or being maneuvered by certain members of his staff,” Angelique suggested.

  Craig nodded vigorously. “He’s too old and weak to control his own staff, isn’t he?”<
br />
  Angelique sidestepped that question by asking, “How will you proceed, then, Your Worship?”

  The bishop hesitated, his face furrowing with thought. At last he said, “This man Stoner. I think he’s an alien in human disguise. I think he’s a tool of the devil.”

  “The Archbishop will be meeting with him tomorrow.”

  “He’s too weak to face the challenge,” Craig insisted. “Too old and tired to face up to him.”

  “I’ve arranged for you to attend the meeting,” Angelique said. “You’ll be the only bishop there.”

  “None of the others?”

  “The Archbishop wants this meeting kept small.”

  “Not even Van Wiesel?”

  “You’ll be the only bishop in the meeting,” Angelique repeated.

  Craig grinned happily.

  “You’ll be with the Archbishop when he meets Stoner.

  You can observe his reaction to the star man. That could reveal his true inner condition.”

  Craig did not answer. But he did not contradict her. Angelique knew that she had set his mind one more step along the path to ultimate power.

  Her ultimate power.

  CHAPTER 2

  “It’s all arranged,” Angelique said to Tavalera. “The Archbishop is ready to meet with Stoner tomorrow.”

  She had invited Tavalera to lunch in a restaurant in the New Morality’s complex of buildings. He had eagerly accepted. Poor man, Angelique thought, he has nothing to do all day except wait for me to call him. She had scanned through the surveillance records: Tavalera spent his days watching television or playing harmless video games. He went to bed early and slept soundly. He has a clear conscience, she told herself. But a thread of suspicion wormed through her thoughts. How can he keep himself from being bored? Two days of being cooped up in that apartment; I’d be screaming and pounding the walls.