Lilith: A Snake in the Grass

Chapter Two Transportation and Exposure

Except for regular meals I had no way to keep track of time, but it was a fairly long trip. They weren’t wasting any money transporting prisoners by the fastest available routes, that was for sure.

Finally, though, we docked with the base ship a third of a light-year out from the Warden system. I knew it not so much by any sensation inside my cloister but by the lack of it—the vibration that had been my constant companion stopped. Still, the routine wasn’t varied; I supposed they were waiting for a large enough contingent from around the galaxy to make the landing worthwhile. I could only sit and go over my data for the millionth time, occasionally reflecting on the fact that I probably wasn’t very far from my old body (that’s how I’d come to think of it). I wondered if perhaps he didn’t even come down and take a peek at me from time to time, at least out of idle curiosity—me and the three others who probably were also here.

I also had tune to reflect on what I knew of the Warden situation itself, the reason for its perfection as a prison. I had not of course swallowed that whole—there was no such thing as the perfect prison, although this one had to come close. Shortly after I was landed on Lilith and started wading in and breathing its air I would be infected with an oddball submicroscopic organism that would set up housekeeping in every cell of my body. There it would live, feeding off me, even earning its keep by keeping disease organisms, infections, and the like in check. The one thing that stuff had was a will to live, and it only lived if you did.

But it needed something, some trace element or some such that was only present in the Warden system. Nobody knew what and nobody had been able to do the real work to find out, but whatever it needed other than you was found only in the Warden system. Whatever it was wasn’t in the air, because shuttles ran between the worlds of the Diamond and in them you breathed the purified, mechanically produced stuff with no ill effect. It wasn’t in the food, either. They’d checked that. It was possible for one of the Warden people to live comfortably on synthetics in a totally isolated lab such as a planetary space station. But get too far away, even with Warden food and Warden ah-, and it died; and since it had modified your cells to make itself at home, and those cells depended on the organism to keep working properly, you died, too —painfully and slowly, in horrible agony. That distance was roughly a quarter of a light-year from the sun, which explained the location of the base ship.

All four worlds were more than climatologically different, too. The organism was consistent in what it did to you on each planet, but—possibly because of distance from the sun, since that seemed to be the determining factor in its life—it did different things to you depending on which world you were first exposed to it, and whatever it did stuck in just that fashion even if you went to a different world of the Diamond.

The organism seemed somehow to be vaguely telepathic in some way, although nobody explained how. It certainly wasn’t an intelligent organism; at least it always behaved predictably. Still, most of the changes seemed to involve the colony in one person affecting the colony in another—or others. You provided the conscious control, if you could, and that determined who bossed whom. A pretty simple system, even if nobody had yet been able to explain it.

As for Lilith, all I would remember was that it was some sort of Garden of Eden. I cursed again not having been fed the proper programming to make me fully prepared. Learning the ropes there would take time, possibly a lot of it.

About a day and a half—five meals—after I’d arrived at the base ship, a lurching and a lot of banging around forced me to the cot and made me slightly seasick. Still, I wasn’t disappointed. No doubt they were making up the consignments and readying for the in-system drop of these cells. I faced the idea with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I wanted desperately to be out of this little box, which provided nothing but endless, terrible boredom. On the other, when I next emerged from the box it would be into a much larger and probably prettier box—Lilith itself, no less a cell for being an entire planet. And what it would make up for in diversion, challenge, excitement, or whatever, it would also be, unlike this box, very, very final.

Shortly after the banging about started, it stopped again, and after a short, expectant pause, I again felt a vibration indicating movement—much more’ pronounced than before. Either I was on a much smaller vessel or located nearer the drives. Whatever, it took another four interminable days, twelve meals, to reach our destination. Long, certainly—but also fast for a sublight carrier, probably a modified and totally automated freighter. The vibration stopped and I knew we were in orbit. Again I had that dual feeling of being both trapped and exhilarated.

There was a crackling sound, whereupon a speaker I’d never even known was there suddenly came to life. “Attention, all prisoners!” it commanded, its voice a metallic parody of a man’s baritone. “We have achieved orbit around the planet Lilith in the Warden system,” it continued, telling me nothing I didn’t know but probably informing the others, however many there were, for the first time. I could understand what they must be going through, considering my own feelings. A hundred times mine, probably, since at least I was going in with my eyes open even if no more voluntarily than they. I wondered for a fleeting instant about Lord Kreegan. He had gone in voluntarily, the only one I ever knew about. I couldn’t help but wonder why. Perhaps there were things about the Warden Diamond that were outside the knowledge of the Confederacy.

“In a moment,” the voice continued, “the doors to your cells will slide open and you will be able to leave. We strongly recommend you do so, since thirty seconds after the doors open they will close again and a vacuum pump will begin sterilization operations within the cells. This would be fatal to anyone who remains.”

Nice touch, I thought Not only did their method ensure against breakouts en route, you moved or you died on their schedule. I couldn’t help wonder whether anybody chose death.

“Immediately after you enter the main corridor,” the voice continued, “you will stand in place until the cell doors close once again. Do not attempt to move from in front of your cell door until it closes or automatic guard equipment will vaporize you. There will be no talking in the corridor. Anyone breaking silence or failing to obey orders precisely will be dealt with instantly. You will receive further instructions once the doors close. Ready to depart—now!”

The door slid open and I wasted no time in stepping out. A small white box, complete with marks for feet, indicated where you were to stand. I did as instructed, galling as all this was. Being totally naked and isolated on a ship controlled only by a computer humbled you more than was right, gave you a sense of total futility.

I could still look around and saw that I’d been right We were standing in what was basically a long, sealed hall, along the sides of which were attached the little cells. I looked up and down and counted maybe a dozen, certainly no more than fifteen. The cream of the crop, I thought sourly. A dozen men and women —about half and half—naked and bedraggled, beaten prisoners about to be dropped and left. I wondered why these had been selected for transport rather than wiped, considering the transportation expense alone. What had the computers and psych boys found in these dejected specimens that dictated that they should live? They didn’t know, that was for sure. I wondered who did.

The doors snapped shut. I waited expectantly, listening perhaps for the scream of somebody who didn’t move fast enough as the air was pumped out, but there was no hint of melodrama. If anybody had taken that way out, the fact was not evident.

“At my command,” the voice barked from speakers along the ceiling, “you will turn right and walk slowly, in single file, as far forward as you- can. There you will find a special shuttle that will take you to the surface. You will take seats from the front first, leaving no empty seats between you. Immediately strap yourselves in.”

“Sons of bitches,” I heard a woman ahead of me mutter. At once a brief but very visible spurt of light from a side wall hit with an audible hiss just in front of her foot. She started in surprise, then muttered, “All right, all right.” She was silent once more.

The voice had paused, but now took up its instructions with no reference to the incident. “Right turn—now!” it commanded, and we did as instructed. “Walk slowly forward to the shuttle as instructed.”

We walked in silence, definitely in no hurry. The metal floor of the corridor was damned cold, though —in fact, the place wasn’t any too comfortable as a whole—and this made the shuttle at least preferable to this damned refrigerator.

The shuttle itself was surprisingly comfortable and modern, although the seats weren’t made for naked bodies. I found a seat about four rows back and attached the safety straps, then waited for the rest to enter. My first impression had been close, I noted. The shuttle itself could seat twenty-four, but there were only fourteen of us, eight males and six females.

The hatch closed automatically, and I heard the hiss of pressurization. Then, without further fanfare, there was a violent lurch and we were free of the transport and on our way down.

The shuttle was much too modern and comfortable for mere prisoner transport, I told myself. This, then, had to be one of the interplanetary ships regularly used for transportation between the worlds of the Warden Diamond.

The overhead speakers crackled, and a much nicer female voice that actually sounded human came on. It was a great improvement.

“Welcome to Lilith,” the voice said, sounding for all the world as if it meant it. “As has no doubt been explained to you, Lilith is your final destination and new home. Although you will be unable to leave the Warden system after debarking, you will no longer be prisoners but citizens of the, Warden Diamond. Confederacy rule ended when you entered this shuttle, which is owned in common by the Warden Worlds, one of a fleet of four shuttlecraft and sixteen freighters. The System Council is a corporate entity fully recognized as internally sovereign by the Confederacy and even with a seat in the Confederation Congress. Each of the four worlds is also under separate administration, and the governments of each planet are unique and independent. No matter who you were or what you might have been or done in the past, you are now citizens of Lilith and nothing more. You are no longer prisoners. Anything done prior to now is past history that will not be remembered, filed, or referred to ever again. Only what you do from this point on, as citizens of Lilith, Warden System, will matter.”

It—or she, I really wasn’t sure—paused for that piece of information to sink in. The contrast between the attitude and tone taken now and the one we’d all just been subjected to was enormous.

“Because of the unique properties of Lilith,” the voice continued, “the shuttle cannot remain long or it might become disabled. Furthermore, it has a schedule to keep, and others need to use it. We therefore would appreciate your debarking as soon as the hatch opens. Someone will be there to meet you, answer your questions and assign you to your new homes. Please cooperate with this individual, as Lilith is a primitive world and extremely dangerous to newcomers. We will arrive in approximately five minutes.”

Although the lid was off, nobody really said anything for the rest of the ride—partly because we were still conditioned by our recent imprisonment; the rest was nerves, me included. This was it, I told myself. Here we go.

A sudden sensation of falling as if we’d hit an air pocket in some flying craft was followed by the re-imposition of weight and a hard thump. They had come in as fast as was safely possible, and I wondered for a moment what their hurry was. Then the hatch hissed and opened; to my surprise, a sudden rush of tremendously warm, moist air hit us.

We lost no time doing as instructed—no use in alienating our new lords and masters before we even got the lay of the land—and debarked quickly. I was surprised to find a moving walkway extending from the shuttlecraft itself down to the bare ground. No spaceport, nothing. In a matter of moments we were standing, naked and disoriented and already beaded with sweat from the heat, on a grassy plain or meadow.

We had arrived on Lilith—and even as that first warm rush of native air had hit us our bodies were being systematically invaded.