The Ascension Factor

The tones sounded again and seemed distinctly longer, sadder. Final boarding call. The tones once again made her think of Ben, who was still not found, who might be dead. He was no longer her lover, but he was a good man. She rubbed her eyes.

A young security captain with very large ears entered the waiting-room hatch. He nodded his head as a courtesy, but his mouth remained firm.

"The search is finished," he said. "My apologies. It would be best for you to board now."

She stood up to face him and her clothing clung to her in sleepy folds.

"My equipment, my notes haven't been released yet," she said. "It won't do me a bit of good to — "

He stopped her with a finger to his lips. He had two fingers and a thumb on each hand and she tried to remember which of the old islands carried that trait.

Orcas? Camano?

He smiled with the gesture, showing teeth that had been filed to horrible points — rumored to be the mark of one of the death squads that called themselves "the Bite."

"Your belongings are already aboard the ferry," he said. "You are famous, so we recognize your needs. You will have the privacy of a stateroom for the crossing and a guard to escort you."

"But. "

His hand was on her elbow, guiding her out the hatchway.

"We have delayed the ferry while you board," he said. "For the sake of the project, please make haste."

She was already out in the passageway and he was propelling her toward the ferry's lower boarding section.

"Wait," she said, "I don't think. "

"You have a task already awaiting you at the launch site," the captain said. "I am to inform you that you will be doing a special Newsbreak there shortly after arrival and before your launch."

He handed her the messenger that she usually carried at her hip.

"Everything's in here," he said, and grinned.

Beatriz felt that he was entirely too happy for her own comfort. Certainly the sight of his teeth gave her no comfort at all. She was curious, in her journalistic way, about the hows and whys of the death squads. Her survival instinct overrode her curiosity. The security escort met them at the gangway. He was short, young and loaded down with several of her equipment bags.

"A pleasure to have met you," the captain said, with another slight bow. He handed her a stylus and an envelope. "If you please, for my wife. She admires you and your show very much."

"What is her name?"

"Anna."

Beatriz wrote in a hasty hand, "For Anna, for the future," and signed it with the appropriate flourish. The captain nodded his thanks and Beatriz climbed aboard the ferry. She had barely cleared the second lock when she felt it submerge.

* * *

Worship isn't really love. An object of worship can never be itself. Remember that people love people, and vice versa. People fear gods.

— Dwarf MacIntosh, Kelpmaster, Current Control

The early morning light clarified the new drift that Ben's life had taken. He knew that he would use Crista's holy image on Shadowbox, much as Flattery had used it on Holovision, to manipulate the people of Pandora. He would use Crista to whip them up against Flattery. He knew that doing this would further bury her humanity, her womanhood. Knowing he would do it cost him something, too. He vowed it would not cost them their love that he already felt filling the space between them. There would be a way.

Damn!

Ben had not wanted anything to step between himself and the story he'd set out to get. Now he was the lead story on prime time. He and Crista had watched the Holovision newsbreak the night before in one of the Zavatans' underground chambers. Though it didn't surprise him, he found it ironic that Beatriz was taking his place.

"Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," she began, "I'm Beatriz Tatoosh, standing in for Ben Ozette, who is on assignment in Sappho. In our headlines this evening, Crista Galli was abducted a few hours ago from her quarters in the Preserve. Eight armed terrorists, thought to be Shadows. "

Maybe she thought she was doing me a favor, he thought.

But it was no favor, at least not to Ben. He was not on assignment in Sappho, and there had been no eight armed terrorists. They'd simply walked away. Beatriz read the lines that Flattery's hired maggot fed her. Wrapped up as she was in the Orbiter and Project Voidship, she probably didn't know the difference.

Ben wondered what was going on in the boardroom of Holovision right now. Holovision was owned by Merman Mercantile, and the Director had acquired control of Merman Mercantile through bribery, manipulation, extortion and assassination. This was the story that Ben had begun to broadcast on Shadowbox. What had started as the biggest story of his life had become an act that would change his life forever, probably change Crista's life forever and perhaps save the people of Pandora from the Director's backlash of poverty and hunger.