Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

“We’re home,” Sav said gruffly.

The holy man’s jaw worked slowly like he was gumming a thick porridge. He looked older, frailer than when Sav had first seen him. But apparently Sav’s words had penetrated his sleep-numbed brain. Climbing stiffly from the craft, Ruen eased himself down the wing on his hands and knees, still clutching his cane in one fist, its ferrule scraping along the fuselage. Sav could hear the holy man’s joints creaking and popping as he dropped to the ground.

Ruen straightened, held himself erect, his spine rigid. But the illusion of authority had fled: his hair was tangled and unkempt, glistening with perspiration; his robe was creased where it had gathered beneath him as he’d slept; his eyes were shot through with red. And on his left shoulder was a stain left by his drool. He looked preposterous, a thin, elderly man, breathing heavily from his minor exertions, perspiring freely beneath his heavy, burgundy cloak.

“Come on. I’ll introduce you to the others.” Sav said.

Josua regarded the holy man from the seat behind his desk. The momentary astonishment that he had shown as Sav led the patrix into his office had vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. “So,” Josua said in an even voice, “you wish to save our souls.”

“No.” Ruen stood in the middle of the room; he had refused the seat proffered him, choosing instead to lean on his cane. For the last hour he had explained, as he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, how he had been chosen to witness the Dissolution. With sweeping hand gestures and oratorial flourishes, the goiter bobbing up and down fervently in his neck, he summed up the beliefs of his sect, Josua listening to it all with polite interest, prompting the patrix from time to time with a question, Sav’s irritation growing at Josua’s unexpected patience.

“Not souls,” Ruen said in answer to another question. “Your essence. The concept of soul is far different. An essence is not individuated; it is merely a segment, like any other, a single link in an infinite chain, if you will.”

“And the Dissolution will set free these ‘links’?”

“Yes. To rejoin ahnaa-10 in the old pattern when the universe unfolds and the false vacuum returns.”

“I see.” Josua steepled his hands and touched them to his chin contemplatively.

From his chair in the far corner, Sav had quietly watched the exchange, amazed at how quickly Ruen had adapted his beliefs to the situation. anhaa-10 had been the higher dimensional consciousness in which the sect had believed. And he’d equated the manifestation of his god, the dissolution, with the advent of the plague on Bh’Haret. It made a weird sort of sense: a higher dimensional object piercing three-dimensional space could appear in seemingly random places in the lower dimensional space. As the plague had appeared, Sav thought. It would have been a natural connection for Ruen to make. So he co-opted the plague as evidence for the existence of anhaa-10. Back at the collegium the holy man had said his greatest fear had been that he might have short-circuited the Dissolution by submitting to suspension. But shortly after he had launched into his impassioned speech, he had declared that he now understood his true purpose was not merely to witness the Dissolution: he had also been granted the inestimable honor of preparing the last survivors-the longhaulers-for the Dissolution.

“I still don’t understand,” Josua said. “What is it you hope to accomplish here?”

“To help you prepare for the Dissolution. For the end of true vacuum.”

“I’m afraid you won’t find any believers here. Nor are you likely to make any converts.”

At the mention of converts, Sav thought about Liis. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“Nevertheless,” Ruen continued, “it is my duty.”

“And it’s my duty to ensure the survival of my crew.”

“We are both leaders.” Ruen had lowered his already deep another octave. It was an affectation meant to command respect, although here, in this room, it struck Sav as laughable. “We shall both take care of their needs.”

“And if their needs conflict?”

The holy man hesitated. Then he said, “They do not.”

Josua rose from his chair and walked around his desk until he stood next to Ruen. Looking down on the patrix, he said, “I won’t tolerate conflicts. Or anything that might compromise the safety of anyone here.” His voice had gone cold, all traces of his earlier interest vanished. “Perhaps you would be better off back at the collegium where you could look after your own preparations for the Dissolution.”

Ruen swallowed, his prominent goiter moving like a burrowing animal; drops of perspiration beaded on his upper lip and brow. Apparently the prospect of facing the Dissolution alone-or starving to death before it occurred-didn’t figure into the holy man’s plans. “My place is here,” he said. His voice quavered, but he still remained defiant, eyes locked unwaveringly on Josua’s. “I can see no reason why there should be any conflicts.”

“Nor can I. As long as you understand that I’m in charge. Survival is my only concern. Everything else is a luxury.”

Ruen seemed to contemplate this. Then, much to Sav’s surprise, he nodded, an abrupt movement of his bald head. “You are in charge.” But he said it not as if he were capitulating, but as if he were agreeing to delegate his own authority to Josua.

“You will follow my orders like the other members of my crew?”

As Hebuiza does? Sav thought.

“Yes,” Ruen said. “As long as I am free to practise my beliefs.”

“What you do on your own time is your own business.”

“Then, I shall stay.” The patrix pulled his thin lips into a smile; perhaps he meant it to be a conciliatory gesture. “I would appreciate being shown to my quarters.”

Josua returned to his chair. “There’s no lack of space,” he said. “Take whatever room strikes your fancy.” Lifting a sheaf of hard copies from his desk, Josua selected one, and turned his attention to it.

The patrix stood there, clearly uncertain if the interview had ended. Then he closed his eyes, and began a low chant, his right hand moving in a complicated motion from lips to heart to stomach then back to lips again. The words, at least to Sav, were unintelligible. Just as Josua raised his head, a quizzical expression on his face, Ruen stopped chanting. He turned and walked-no, Sav thought, strutted-to the door, his cane clicking on the floor in time to his steps. The sound faded as the holy man passed through the waiting room and disappeared into the corridor.

Josua stared after Ruen, a bemused expression on his face. “What do you think, Sav” he said, staring at the empty doorframe. “Have I just been blessed or cursed?”

Day 66 to 70

Ruen chose a room on level zero a short distance down the hall from Josua’s. Unlike the others, he rarely chose to shut his door. Often Sav saw him kneeling on the floor praying, his cloak folded under his knees. Less frequently, Sav would glance into his room as he passed to see the patrix standing naked-the flesh of his body loose and sagging with age-before a bowl of water, performing his daily ablution. Sav wasn’t sure if it was a ritual born of habit, or one prescribed by his religion.

Josua assigned the holy man small, unimportant, tasks. He set Ruen to cleaning the solar array with Liis or preparing new quarters for the returning longhaulers, tasks which the patrix performed sullenly, but without overt objection. Twice, at Ruen’s request and with Josua’s blessing, Sav allowed him to come along on local scavenging missions. On both occasions the holy man collected a puzzling variety of items, mostly electronics, and as many data cards as he could find. It didn’t seem to matter to him what the cards contained, as long as they weren’t corrupted. As soon as they returned, Ruen would haul his booty to his room. There he’d solder the new electronics into the growing tangle of canibalized equipment he referred to as ‘the holy database’. Sav thought Ruen’s efforts absurd, and perhaps indicative of an unhinged mind, but Josua paid it no mind, except perhaps as an amusing distraction.

A week passed, and Sav was surprised that none of the expected disputes had arisen. Ruen had taken Josua’s warning to heart, for he slipped into the group with barely a ripple, keeping his opinions more or less to himself and trying-none too successfully-to restrain his tendency to pontificate. Hebuiza treated the new member of their community no differently than he treated anyone else. His disdain, apparently, played no favourites. But there was little chance for conflict between the two men; Hebuiza avoided Ruen more diligently than he avoided Sav and Liis, as if he believed the patrix might be more infectious than they were.

And Ruen’s beliefs, as strongly as he professed them to be, seemed to bend nicely to conform to any circumstance. Even when Ruen learned of Josua’s experiment he didn’t balk; he accepted it without compunction, like it was a natural thing to use other human beings for such purposes. His equanimity about the whole thing nauseated Sav. Perhaps he secretly approved, Sav thought, retrofitting the experiment into his belief system as easily as he had adjusted to everything else. No doubt he saw Josua and Hebuiza as agents of ahnaa-10.

After all, weren’t they freeing the essences of those who had died in the chambers below to participate in his holy Dissolution?

Day 71

Sav sat cross-legged on the edge of the lift pad. An erratic wind swirled around him, tugging at his loose clothing. It was an overcast day, and darker, troubled clouds scudded across the sky towards him. Lightening flickered inside them; the distant rumble of thunder shivered through the ground. How long he’d been here he couldn’t have guessed; certainly it had been hours. But he knew the others, far below in the stone warren of the stasis facility, wouldn’t be worried about his prolonged absence. They were too wrapped up in their own private hells.

The storm clouds continued to roll towards him.

Footsteps crunched behind him; startled, Sav suppressed the urge to look.

“I need to talk to you.”

Sav turned reluctantly at the sound of Josua’s voice. Liis stood at his side.

“We’ve got a couple of things to tell you.”

“What things?”

“First, Liis is going to rendezvous with The Viracosa.”

The Viracosa. It was the longhaul mission due back. The ship was a ponderous ore freighter built to haul rare metals-primarily cerium and iridium, virtually non-existent in the crust of Bh’Haret-from nearby planetary systems. Sav had almost forgotten about it.

“It’s eight days from orbit,” Josua continued. “Radio contact is impossible-the screamers will be jamming its comm panel like they did ours. So I thought it would be best for one of us to meet them before they decide to turn tail and run to another system.”

Sav pushed himself slowly to his feet, looked at Liis. She’d have to take the Ea. And Hebuiza would lose his plague-free berth-and be trapped for an entire week in his suit. “How does the Facilitator feel about this?”

Liis shrugged. “He was pissed. Hell, I’d be more than pissed if I had to spend that much time in my suit. But there’s a Facilitator aboard The Viracosa that he desperately wants to see. A