The Ascension Factor

"Yes," Flattery gloated, "so has everyone else. The kelp has been a very sensitive subject, as you know. Religious overtones and whatnot." Another dismissive wave of the hand. Flattery couldn't stop bragging.

"I had to accomplish two things: I had to get control of Current Control, and I had to find the point at which the kelp became sentient. Not necessarily smart, just sentient. By the time it sends off those damned gasbags it's too late — the only solution there is to stump the lot. We lost a lot of good kelpways for a lot of years that way."

"So, what's the key?"

"The lights," Flattery said. He pointed out his huge plaz port at the bed just off the tideline. "When the kelp starts to flicker, it's waking up. It's like an infant, then, and only knows what it's told. The language it speaks is chemical, electrical."

"And you do the telling?"

"Of course. First, keep it out of contact with any other kelp. That's a must. They educate each other by touch. Make sure the kelpways are always very wide between stands — a kilometer or more. The damned stuff can learn from leaves torn off other stands. The effect dies out very quickly. A kilometer usually does it."

"But how do you. teach it what you want?"

"I don't teach. I manipulate. It's very old-fashioned, Mr. Nevi. Quite simply, beings gravitate toward pleasure, flee pain."

"How does it respond to this kind of. betrayal?"

Flattery smiled. "Ah, yes. Betrayal is your department, is it not? Well, once pruned and kept at the light-formation stage, it doesn't remember much. Studies show that it can remember if allowed to develop to the spore-casting stage. You have just seen what the answer is to that — don't let it get that far. Also, studies show that this spore-dust can educate an ignorant stand."

"I thought it was just a nuisance," Nevi said. "I didn't realize that you believed it could think."

"Oh, very much so. You forget, Mr. Nevi, I'm a Chaplain/Psychiatrist. That I don't pray doesn't mean. well, any mind interests me. Anything that stands in my way interests me. This kelp does both."

"Do you consider it a 'worthy adversary'?" Nevi smiled.

"Not at all," Flattery barked a laugh, "not worthy, no. It'll have to show me more than I've seen before I consider this plant a 'worthy adversary.' It's merely an interesting problem, requiring interesting solutions."

Nevi stood, and the crispness of his gray suit accentuated the fluidity of the muscles within it.

"This is your business," Nevi told him. "Mine is Ozette and the girl."

Flattery resisted the reflex to stand and waved a limp hand, affecting a nonchalance that he did not at all feel.

"Of course, of course." He avoided Nevi's gaze by switching the holo back on. He keyed it to the Tatoosh woman's upcoming Newsbreak. She would accompany the next shuttle flight to the Orbiter, a shuttle that contained the Organic Mental Core for hookup to the Voidship. Already the OMC was an "it" in his mind, rather than the "she" who used to be Alyssa Marsh.

Flattery seethed inside. He'd wanted something more from Nevi, something that now smelled distinctly of approval. He didn't like detecting weakness in himself, but he liked even less the notion of letting it pass unbridled.

"Whatever you need. " Flattery left the obvious unsaid.

Nevi left everything unsaid, nodded, and then left the suite. Flattery felt a profound sense of relief, then checked it. Relief meant that he'd begun to rely on Spider Nevi, when he knew full well that reliance on anyone meant a blade at the throat sooner or later. He did not intend for the throat to be his own.

* * *

And out of the ground made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

— Christian Book of the Dead

A trail left the beach about a kilometer beyond the limits of the Preserve. It was a Zavatan trail, used by the faithful to transport their gleanings of the kelp from the beach to their warrens in the high reaches. Because it was a Zavatan trail it was well-kept and reasonably safe. Its rest spots were ample and afforded a sweeping vista of Flattery's huge Preserve. The jumbled, jerry-rigged tenements of Kalaloch sprawled from the downcoast side of the Preserve, covered today by a cloak of black smoke. Mazelike channels of aquafarms and jetties branched both up- and down-coast into the horizon. Distant screams and explosions echoed from the panorama below up the winding trail.

Two Zavatan monks stopped to study the clamor rising from the settlement a few klicks away. One man was tall, lanky, with very long arms. The other was small even for a Pandoran, and moved in a scuttle that kept him tucked inside the larger man's shadow. Both were dressed in the loose, pajamalike gi of the Hylighter Lodge: durable cotton, dusky orange that represented the color of hylighters, their spirit guides.