The Ascension Factor

"Stow it," Mack ordered, smiling his own wide smile. "Just get her in here, pronto."

* * *

Men are moved by two principal things — by love and by fear. Consequently, they are commanded as well by someone who wins their affection as by someone who arouses their fear. Indeed, in most instances the one who arouses their fear gains more of a following and is more readily obeyed than the one who wins their affection.

— Machiavelli, The Discourses

The fuel warning buzzer sounded its piercing screech above his console, and Spider Nevi cursed under his breath. They were very close now, very close, but he didn't dare take chances on making contact with dry fuel tanks.

"We're going to have to set down in that muck," he said. "Make sure both screens and filters are intact. I don't want kelp clogging our inlets."

They'd seen several cargo train survivors on the surface, working to clear their intakes. They all moved in the slow-motion, dreamlike manner of those who are under the influence of one of the kelp's toxins. Surface travel on Pandora's seas was dangerous enough with the kelpways intact. Like great veins, the kelpways helped clear the waters of the storm-damaged fragments of fronds and other troublesome debris.

Zentz grunted an acknowledgment, then paled.

"But — but I'll have to go out there after we set down," he said. "That kelp is — it's crazy. With only two of us. "

"With only two of us, one of us has to go out there. It's your fault we're out here at all, so you get the duty."

The look on Zentz's face was the one that Nevi wanted to see: fear. Not fear of the kelp, or fear of the sea, but fear of Spider Nevi. The expression of fear represented power to him, a raw power that even Flattery didn't wield among the people. Flattery maintained the politician's mask, and such a mask implied hope to anyone who witnessed it. Nevi projected no mask, no hope.

"If I go out there to clear those intakes, you will leave me."

Nevi released upon Zentz one of his rare smiles.

"It pleases me that you have due respect for my — abilities," he said. "But I promised you a very special part in this drama, and your time has not come yet. I would not sacrifice you here for nothing. You know one thing about me if you know nothing else: I kill for something, not for nothing. I value human life, Mr. Zentz, this you must realize. I value it for what I can get out of it, what I can spend it on. The word 'value' implies 'commodity,' don't you think? The pleasure of killing ranks very low, in my book, as a good reason. Much as I might like to kill you just to get rid of a certain annoyance, I'm sure someone, somewhere would make it worth my while to wait for the right price, the right trade, the right favor. Understand?"

Zentz stared straight out the cabin plaz. He was pale, appeared slightly more bloated than usual, and his pasty fingers crawled nervously over each other's backs.

"Do you know why I kill?" Zentz asked him.

Nevi finished the final attitude adjustment and settled onto the slightly choppy sea in a spot that he judged to be relatively clear of the kelp debris. As they descended, he saw that there was no clear spot. The struggle in this stand of kelp must have been tremendous.

"Yes, I know why you kill," Nevi said. "Like any of the lower animals, you kill to eat. It is your job, and you see no farther than that. You kill by orders, to someone else's plan, because to not kill means you yourself die. That is a difference between the two of us. I think of myself as a sculptor, a societal sculptor. The populace is my stone, and I shape it chip by chip into a form that suits me. The stone keeps growing, and my task is a relentless one. But I have time."

In a flurry at his keyboard Nevi set the foil up for seawater intake and hydrogen conversion. The intakes clogged within blinks. Even with Zentz out there to clear them, this would take longer than Nevi felt they could afford. He checked the fuel gauge.

Fifteen minutes, he thought, maybe twenty at the outside. Shit!

"Forget the intakes," Nevi said. "There's a wild stand just northwest of here. We'll set up there to take on fuel, then I'll see what I can learn from the Director," he said. "Don't worry. Leaving you to the kelp would be a waste, and I'm not a wasteful man."

The convolutions of Zentz's brow unwrinkled somewhat. He lifted his sullen bulk out of his couch and donned a dive suit.

"Just in case," Zentz said, "I'm ready. I've heard about wild kelp. People disappear out here, and the kelp doesn't have a reason."

Nevi throttled up and lifted them off. Much as Zentz disgusted him, Nevi intended to keep him alive until the time came when it simply wasn't handy to do that anymore.

The run to the blue sector took only ten minutes, and all the time they were heading into the afternoon squall. A black wall pushed across the sea toward them, though when they set down in the blue kelp's lagoon they were haloed in the magnificent afternoon sun.