This is a fan translation of Captain French, or the Quest for Paradise (Капитан Френч, или Поиски рая) by Mikhail Akhmanov and Christopher Nicholas Gilmore.

Note: Footnotes can be found at the end of the chapter.

Part III. SOLARIS.

Chapter 15

I was a pragmatist. All of us space traders were. One couldn't engage in trade if one wasn't pragmatic; it was not a task for the romantically inclined, as it demanded precise accounting and control. Some might object to that and claim that, for example, Regos had been a romantic, but they would be deeply mistaken. Romantics weren't the only ones capable of vengeance; in fact, the worst kind of vengeance could be done by a man with a cold, sober mind, who knew what needed to be done, how, and when. Regos had been that sort of man, and I had no doubt that all his actions had been calculated and deliberated thirty-three times. I knew that because I was like that myself. If I had to avenge Shandra, like Regos had done for Sdina Betin, I would have also calculated all the possible options and found the best way of reaching the perpetrator's throat. By the Black Holes! But God forbid I ended up in such a situation; after all, I was a peaceful man and hated bloodshed, especially on a planetary scale. Then again, my pragmatism didn't prevent me from looking for Paradise. This quest was my only romantic weakness, but, if one really thought about it, then its reasons were purely pragmatic. I assumed that Paradise, the real Paradise, not the afterlife one, had to exist now or become a reality in the future. And why not? Thinking about it, people had settled many star systems, people were virtually immortal, and all of them looked for happiness. And what was happiness but a heavenly life? So was it really possible that somewhere, on one of the hundreds of planets, they couldn't realize their dream? But not the way it had been done on Tranai and not the way it had been done on Triton, but in a different way, one more suitable for Captain French, space trader.

I did not speak with Shandra on this subject, thinking it was premature. Maybe I was simply afraid of her questions, the most important of which being what I would do after reaching this Paradise of mine. Indeed, that was a problem! Unfortunately, it currently remained unresolved… Even assuming that the Paradise did not have the Law of Confiscation, and that no one would try to lay claim to my ship… Then what? Should I stay there forever? Or for a time? Or get away as fast as possible to avoid the temptation? To fly away, knowing that I had finally found my Paradise and lost it of my own volition?

I had no answer to that question, which was why the thought of Paradise simultaneously attracted and frightened me. But, ignoring emotions, I thought that the primary driving force of my quest was curiosity. I figured that I wouldn't stay there, but it would be nice to take a look at such a place. Imagine, a Paradise in accordance with the personal inclinations and dreams of Graham French, space trader! Rest assured, it would be something indescribable! But I hadn't yet found anything, even though I had already been to nearly all inhabited planets. Well, a large part of them, and, to be sure, there were a great many of them… So where was my Paradise, my coveted Haven, lost among hundreds of worlds?.. Unfortunately, all of them were more reminiscent of Purgatory, and each in its own manner. And, in that respect, they weren't that different from our ancient homeworld. So then, besides curiosity, what pushed me towards this quest? Obviously, not the thirst for comfort and a carefree life; the Circe provided all that, and much more, for me. Like a true pragmatist, striving to trace the chain of cause and effect, I had spent a long time musing on this subject, until I decided that, in a way, my solitude was the reason. I had to admit that Archon Geoffrey had been right: I was lonely! Well, I had been… My marriages had not been very happy, and I instinctively assumed that fortune would await me in Eden; after all, that was why it was Eden! There and only there I would find my woman! The one I had dreamed of for millennia!

But now, it seemed that I had found her, and not in Paradise, but on Murphy, yet another Hell. Funny, wasn't it? But did that mean that I could stop looking? No, I didn't think so; even if I had found Shandra, my curiosity remained! My unsated curiosity! And it suggested that it was far more interesting to look for Paradise together.

So, about my pragmatism… I was remembering the way Shandra had looked at the children in that ancient cave city, and vague premonitions were beginning to torment me. None of my wives, except the very first one, back on Earth, had given me a child, for obvious reasons; a fetus could not be carried to term on a spaceship, at two percent of normal gravity. The thing that was born would be a Sacabon, and two-three decades in weightlessness would only stabilize the situation, and no genetic correction would be able to reverse it. A child needed to gestate "down" there, on a planet, not "up" above; and the child needed to live there for at least five or six years, although twenty would be preferable, until they reached physical maturity. An incredibly long time, if one recalled the threat of confiscation! This was why space traders had no children. There were also other reasons, which I wasn't going to get into now.

Kids, kids… Technically, I had many of them, thousands or even tens of thousands, but I would not consider them my own. A better term would be "genetic offspring". Definitely not the same thing as one's own child, conceived the old-fashioned way… A child that grew up in one's arms, sat on one's knees, babbled some nonsense, demanded a story and a kiss before bedtime… I'd only had one child like that, Penny, my little girl; she lived out her life on Earth and died there, before immortality became a reality. Perhaps, I would see her in Paradise?.. No, I doubted it… My Paradise was real, not a place for afterlife encounters. I hoped that Shandra would not rush the events, and, at the same time, I dreaded the moment she would start talking about kids. But she remained silent, and my pragmatic inner voice's whispers grew quieter and quieter, until they vanished completely. In order to drive away all apprehension, I taught her to use the Circe's computer and to fly the ship; that took only half a day and was great fun for both of us. At the end of the lesson, I told her that she was now an excellent navigator, as good as me and all the other space traders.

Shandra stared at me dubiously with her green eyes.

"Are you joking, Graham? I thought this was only the first lesson! That there would be many more!"

"Why? You've learned to use the navigation programs, to set the necessary course and the Ramsden field exit point. Everything else is up to the Circe! Besides that, you know how to open the airlock, how to operate the RITs, allowing the ship to spin, how to fill the tanks with reaction mass, and how to control the life support system. That's all, as far as the primary functions of the crew go. Everything else, we do for entertainment; for example, you like to take care of the plants, even though a robot could be doing that."

Shandra smiled.

"Let's say I now control the ship at least as good as you, Graham, and you're supposed to be a great pilot. Does that mean I'm a great pilot too? Massaraksh! That's ridiculous, my darling!"

"Who said that I was a great pilot?" I furrowed my brow in deliberate confusion. "Oh, yeah, that's what Schaefer and Gius wrote… my strategy of flights and the method of that thieving Shard… Don't believe them, honey; scholars are prone to overcomplicating even simple things. In the age of supercomputers, there's no such thing as a great navigator or pilot. All we need to do is to set the destination vector and estimate the possible spread of the end points. The longer the vector, the vaguer our future position and the greater the risk. Assessing the risk is the final and only task that demands our involvement; the Circe handles everything else. It's her, not me, who's a great navigator!"

"And a person can't compete with her?" The smooth arcs of Shandra's eyebrows rose. "Not one person, not even one as wise and experienced as you?"

"Man isn't all-powerful, my girl. It's one of the misconceptions of the medieval era, perhaps the most persistent and harmful one… And Goethe—there used to be a thinker and a poet by that name on Earth—claimed that there was nothing more damaging to a new truth than an old error."

Green sparks flickered in Shandra's eyes, a sure sign that the topic interested her.

"So what is this new truth, Graham? Something more complicated than navigating the stars?"

"Not at all. The truth is that no human can become all-powerful without losing his own humanity. There are several paths to omnipotence, both quick and slow, but they're all disastrous for the human race. For example, one method is to implant electronic and mechanical devices into us to be able to compete with the Circe and her robots on equal terms… But then we'd become cyborgs, paying for the power with our human nature. Does such a cost work for you?"

She shook her head slowly.

"Of course, not. But are there other means? After all, man can do so much…"

"Including having the power over his own body. And this brings us to another method, honey! Radical genetic correction, directed mutations, creation of new physiological systems; and then, who knows, we might learn to produce geniuses on demand! Telepathic eggheads with a huge head and a rickety body… or no body at all, just a sack with brains… In my time, it was thought that, in the future millennia, that was exactly what humanity would become, thanks to the evolutionary factors and the reduction of physical activity. But then they discovered CR, and longevity and stability are enemies of evolution, so our heads are still smaller than our bodies, even among the Sacabons. We are incapable of emitting deadly beams, we require food and air, we think slower than computers, and we're not telepaths, like the white birds of your legendary kingdom… But we remained human!"

Shandra looked at me with a smile.

"Not everyone believes that, Graham, honey! Remember the sisters Camilla, Esmeralda, and Seraphima! To them, you're a space monster. Or even worse, the Devil himself!"

"But that doesn't frighten you, does it?" I muttered, burying my face in her fluffy hair.

The hour was late, and, soon enough, my princess was able to prove to me that she didn't frighten easily.

The first jump in the Ramsden field took the Circe seven light years away from Malacandra. Disembodied spirits once again surrounded us, whispering voices were persistently saying something unintelligible, cried and complained, occasionally wailed, like a pack of stray dogs on ruined ashes… Then it was all over; the world attained its familiar colors, smells, and tastes, the vague shadows, sating their appetite, no longer hid in the corners, the light stopped flickering and shaking, and the Circe's trusty hull once again closed around us, like a steel cradle, protecting its fragile core from the darkness and the cold.

We started to orient the Circe for the second jump, but I wasn't in a hurry; I wanted Shandra to perform the necessary tasks with her own hands, so she would know which of the three of us was a great navigator. And also a great financier, as the course plotting did not prevent the Circe from calculating the balance and totaling up the Malacandran revenues. The final result was displayed in the platinum equivalent, and I familiarized my princess with these figures.

"This is the bottom line that relates to our profits, baby. And this is your personal account. This includes the royalties from the sale of the silver and the fee from Madam Udongo… may she fall into a Black Hole! But even in that case, you're a wealthy woman. Almost two kilograms of platinum equivalent, a solid capital!"

"I seem to have paid for myself," Shandra commented. "Why not transfer the money to your account? As a compensation for the losses suffered by you at the hands of the Archonate?"

"Who are you calling a loss, my dear? You're a treasure!" I countered, gently holding her by the waist. "This money is yours, and you can spend it at your own discretion. Buy anything you want!"

Shandra stared at me with interest.

"Like what, honey?"

"Well, let's say…"

I fell silent in confusion, unable to think of anything sensible. Clothes, cosmetics, jewelry, books, and recordings — she had plenty of that, and the Circe could double the size of her wardrobe within a week. Damnation! What did she need the money for? Paying for the robots' services?..

Shandra was gazing at me with an indulgent smile.

"You once said, honey, that money was the equivalent of freedom. But am I not free? You and our love are my freedom! What would I buy, what would I spend this money on? You've been paying for everything on Malacandra: the hotel suite, our entertainment, and my clothes… You told me that it was an Old Earth tradition, that it was one of the ways of expressing your love… I don't need anything else!"

I chuckled, trying to hide my embarrassment. She was right! Money meant so much when one didn't have it, but if one did, then its might was ephemeral. At least, compared to the things that had true value. Beauty, love, and power… Shandra had all that, even power; after all, I'd been sensing it grow with each passing month and each passing day.

"You did end up buying something once," I said, running my gaze over the lines of text on the screen. "Was it something I couldn't have bought for you?"

"Of course you could have. But this isn't for me, Graham, it's for you. Do you remember when you took me to a shop with that funny owner… Van Roch Baleki, I think?.. You got carried away selecting pearls, and Baleki and I had time to speak privately. He offered me one thing, a very ancient object from Earth, and said that, once, it had been considered a pledge of marital fidelity and happiness. That Baleki must be a great scholar of Old Earth traditions! He asked a lot, but I bought it… Here!"

Unzipping her jumpsuit, she took something out of the inner pocket, stretched out her hand with a closed fist towards me, and opened her fingers… There was a golden gleam on her palm, a smooth wedding ring, exactly my size. Without a doubt, it was very old; people didn't wear such jewelry in our day and age, preferring something more luxurious. Besides, a long life tended to promote loose morals, and it wasn't customary to underscore one's marital status on developed worlds.

"Will you wear it, Graham?" Shandra's eyes gleamed suspiciously and became moist. "Will you wear it? For me?"

I kissed her eyelids and slipped her gift onto my finger. The ring turned out to be unexpectedly heavy, but this weight was pleasant. I remembered that I had never worn such rings, even during my first marriage back on Earth. Penny's mother hadn't been overly romantic and not a fan of such sentimentality. Shandra sniffled. At that moment, she looked similar to how she'd looked during our wedding ceremony, when we'd said our vows and recorded them into the Circe's permanent file. I was also deeply moved; I suddenly felt the image of a tall, golden-haired prince, my wife's possible choice under different circumstances and at a different twist of fate, move away and fade. Moreover, I, gray-haired, short, and old, suddenly felt myself as this chosen prince, as if my youthful years had returned to me in all their beautiful naiveté along with Shandra.

I muttered, in order to relieve the tension, "Thank you, my girl… I've never received a more precious gift in all my life, not counting you. But each gift requires reciprocation, doesn't it? Let's say, a crystalsilk dress or—"

She gave a loud laugh, interrupting me.

"A dress! Graham, honey, there's an entire storeroom full of my clothes! I won't be able to wear all of them in a thousand years! But your wardrobe needs replenishment."

"What makes you say that?"

"I've checked the Circe's inventory. You have six work jumpsuits and only five suits, not counting the black-and-silver uniform you wear for official events. There's also sportswear, shirts, sweaters, and jackets… Not much for the elder of the space traders! You worry about my clothes but are completely indifferent to yours. Why? Yet another tradition of Old Earth?"

"You're right," I managed to keep myself from smiling with some difficulty. "I have to explain to you that my habits—"

"Don't! I know that you can explain anything in the world, anything! Why red looks red, why water is wet, and how much clothing a space trader ought to have… But I don't need any explanations in order to take care of your wardrobe."

"But, honey—"

"Do you want me to bite you?"

This ended our discussion. Unfortunately, I was not a dandy! And I was perfectly fine with just five suits and an official uniform! Mea culpa [Footnote 1]! I would add that Shandra wasn't the first woman to trip over this character flaw of mine, but none of the others had infringed on my clothes. On the other hand, they had also not given me wedding rings… And, as they said, a wedding ring was the first link in the chain of marriage… But, by all black holes, I was ready to wear these shackles! With pleasure, damn it!

Our journey continued. In the tiny, warm, cozy world of the Circe, day gave way to night, followed by another day, and each one brought something new, something that forced me to dive into a maelstrom of thoughts. Shandra was changing. Naturally, she was no longer that stubborn, intractable, bitter creature I had bought out from Archon Geoffrey. She was also not that daring girl who had been ready to leap into the arms of a cyborg and a slave trader just to leave Murphy and her accursed convent. All that had been a mask, worn out of desperation and fear and kept with remarkable bravery, which distinguished Shandra from all the other women I knew.

But the trust between us was growing, and Shandra was changing. There were other reasons for her metamorphoses as well; I figured that the success and the honors that had accompanied her in the Malacandran kraals changed her at least as much as Cassilda's lessons. Having experienced the power of her beauty and mind for the first time, she was no longer helpless and as vulnerable as before, and her cute childlike touchiness was being slowly replaced by confidence and the proud awareness of her own strength. She was blossoming, like a heat-loving flower, which had been replanted from a grim shade into the light of the sun, from poor soil into fertile ground. I had noticed many times that a woman, confident in her man's love and grateful for that feeling, possessed an irresistible charm; it did not depend on her physical perfection, her personality, her temper, or her intellectual virtues. Truly, love worked miracles, but only for those who knew how to love.

I did not subscribe to the conventional wisdom that everyone possessed the gift of love, like a tendency to breathe, digest food, or scratch an itch. Love, not sex, but love in its highest form of expression, was as much a rare gift as the brilliant ability to turn sounds into music, words into poems or songs, formulae and abstract concepts, which could not be expressed in either sounds or words, into mathematical theory. Yes, love was akin to the creative talent, but not each of us was as generously gifted with it as Mozart or Tchaikovsky, Shelley or El Greco, Dante or Baudelaire… I didn't think it was important where and how genius appeared, what served as its instrument: a brush or a quill, a violin or a bed; in all cases, the important thing was the divine talent, the subtleness of the senses, the intensity of the emotion, the power of the imagination… Without that, there was no music, no poetry, no beautiful paintings, and, of course, no love.

Shandra had been given this talent in abundance, enough for the both of us. I felt that her gift would redeem my flaws: my pragmatism, my rationality and my tendency to moralize, my excessively long and bitter experience of dealing with people. I knew of these sins of mine, but I could not change myself; after all, people were the way nature created them, at least with respect to their psyche, character, spiritual inclinations, and intelligence.

The knives of the biosculptors and the genetic correction allowed us to fix some flaws, but that only affected the body, not the mind. We could burn out brains, but we couldn't produce geniuses on demand and would probably never learn to do so. The current percentage of brilliant people was even smaller than during the medieval era; such was the cost of our longevity, the lack of a regular generational change, the relative stability of our civilization. Geniuses, as well as other strange personas like clairvoyants and telepaths, predominantly appeared on the worlds of the Periphery, where there were no restrictions on the number of offspring, but no planet had yet to bear them in a great number or discovered the secret of brilliance. Did that mean that, by mastering immortality, humans had slowed down evolution? Undoubtedly, yes! Like all great discoveries, CR had its negative consequences, and I could guess what was written on the other side of the coin. Stagnation, decline, loss of interest in life… Then again, twenty thousand years was too small a time period for a definitive conclusion, but long enough to accept that I myself would never be a genius or a telepath.

But who knew?.. At times, strange things happened on alien worlds; their influence on humans awakened amazing qualities and mysterious abilities in the Homo sapiens. Take Corinth, for example… I hadn't been to this remote planet, but I heard some things about it, more than enough to be astounded. Ignoring those white birdies from Shandra's mythical kingdom, the galaxy did not have many telepaths; likely, all of them lived on twenty or thirty worlds, and it was possible that all of their gifts were totally fake. Corinth didn't have any telepaths either, but, if one believed the rumors, half of its inhabitants possessed a paranormal ability, which had been obtained during the very first century of the settlement. When speaking of half of the population, I meant women, as male Corinthians were fairly unremarkable, except for, perhaps, their indomitable marital fidelity. The women were another matter; they had the ability to enter into a trance of a sort, which allowed them to find the one love that fate had chosen for them. This ability was hereditary, but it had awakened under the influence of Corinth's native flora, a certain plant that looked like a terrestrial orchid and emitted a delicate scent. It was probably a drug, like an aphrodisiac, to which women were sensitive, and I was prepared to believe in such a marvel; after all their erotic experiences were far more delicate and deeper than men's.

Many things were told of the flower that had gifted such a wondrous talent to the Corinthian women, including the fact that it could not bear a male gaze. Was it fiction? A myth? At the very least, it was an amusing story, which I wanted to tell Shandra. I did not remember it in detail, but the Circe forgot nothing, so we could get the proper reference.

"The Modest Orchid (Orchidaceae pudica) is a flowering plant native to Corinth (its past existence is likely, but no scientific data exists). According to the stories of the first female settlers, it possesses mysterious qualities and a pleasant gentle scent, reminiscent of the smell of a blossoming bird cherry tree. The natural color of the blooms is white, but the flower has a unique ability to shrink and turn purple if a man's gaze were to touch it, no matter the distance. The speed of this metamorphosis is so great that the eye does not have time to react; therefore, no man knows the true shape and color of Orchidaceae pudica. Male gazes not only force the blooms to darken, but they also have a depressing effect on the entire plant; it withers, dries out, and, eventually, dies. At the beginning of Corinth's colonization, the modest orchid was growing on all continents, but then, thanks to the increase in population (and, of course, the number of men), it has virtually disappeared. The special, mysterious emotionality and clairvoyance of the Corinthian women at the moment they choose their spouses is attributed to the flower's influence. The latter fact is quite reliable and has been confirmed by multiple sources."

After familiarizing herself with this text, Shandra raised her eyebrows in confusion.

"So no woman could show this flower to her chosen man?"

"Looks like," I confirmed.

"But that's ridiculous, Graham! Why couldn't they have dried out or froze a bloom, or made a holographic recording? In their place, I would've—"

"You're fine where you are. As for this story, the point is not the orchid itself but the legend. I think it's very poetic: a flower that darkens and dies under the gaze of a man, while women are gifted the chance to make an infallible choice by it… You may consider it a fairy tale, my dear, like the story of Puss in Boots or Jack the Giant Ripper. After all, you're not planning on trying to find out how they made boots for a cat or how they managed to fit them on its paws, are you?"

Shandra chuckled and shook her head.

"Probably not… But if the flower is just a fairy tale, then what about the women? I mean their ability to make the right choice. Is that a fairy tale too?"

Instead of answering, I nodded at the screen with the words, "The latter fact is quite reliable and has been confirmed by multiple sources."

"As you can see, it's not! Their gift is real, although no one knows if it's the result of the flower or other factors that have disappeared in time. There are many wonders in the galaxy, my dear, and the Corinthian women are one of them, just as amazing as the Sacabons, crystalsilk, and the giant trees of Barsoom."

"You mentioned other factors that have disappeared in time…" Shandra repeated slowly. "So, by going to Corinth and settling in that world, I won't learn anything? I won't become a real Corinthian woman?"

"Unfortunately not!" I spread my arms with deliberate regret. "The flower has died out under the gaze of men, and now the mysterious ability is only passed on hereditarily. And only Corinthian women possess it, just them, in all of human space!"

Shandra thought this over for several minutes, furrowing her brow and glancing at the screen, then shook her head decisively.

"So be it! Fine! I already know that I've made the right choice! Without any magical orchids or telepathy!"

The next moment, she was on my lap, and her warm wet lips slid from my cheek to my lips.

However, my pragmatism told me that I would not be able to get away with just kisses and tales of magical flowers. And that was exactly what happened after the second jump, which transported us nine and a quarter light years closer to Solaris. We were resting after exercising in the gym; the tall dome above us, which was imitating the sky, was shining crystal blue, and in the distance, where there was a coral island in the midst of azure waters, shaggy palm tree canopies were tossing and rustling in the wind. Warmth, peace, and quiet, the heat of the sun on the skin and a jug of cold lemonade under the nose… But Shandra broke this idyll.

"Graham…" I turned to her, peering into her darkened green eyes.

"Graham, could you tell me about your past wives?"

I produced a deep sigh. The inevitable had happened; she wanted to know not only of Daphne, but of all my passions over the past twenty thousand years. Why? I had already mentioned some of the reasons, but there were others. Imagine, if you would, a young lady with a vivid imagination and an inborn tendency to love; imagine that she'd spent a long time in a dungeon, in conditions where her feelings were being ignored and suppressed; then add to then her innocence and my obvious experience, and you would get a hellish mix called an "inferiority complex." Ergo, Shandra could not forget about my previous wives; despite knowing almost nothing about them, she, nevertheless, compared herself to them and assumed that the comparison was not in her favor. After all, she was so unsophisticated, so inexperienced! Of course, her pride would not let her go down the path of self-destruction, but, in order to catch up, she was prepared to jump in any other direction. I sighed again.

"Why don't you look into the Circe's permanent files? They hold the contracts with all my wives, except the very first one, Penny's mother… if you recall, she lived and died on Earth… and I parted with her so long ago that I can no longer remember her eyes, her lips, or her face. But the Circe has preserved the appearance of all the others. You can take a look at each of them and be assured that none of them are prettier than you."

"Flatterer! An incorrigible flatterer!" She bit my shoulder, then, rising up on her elbow, she asked, "Why do you keep these records? These contracts, pictures, holograms? Are they dear to you?"

"You could say that, but, I think, this is not the real reason. They are an equivalent of my conscience, honey; they remind me of the women who have shared my bed, and of how I dealt with them. I tried to be fair with each of them… I tried hard… as much as the circumstances allowed…" I remembered Yoko, and my face went grim; then, casting off the heavy thoughts, I added. "Either way, you should search through the Circe's archives, there's a lot of interesting stuff there. All my trade deals, cargo manifests, passenger agreements, financial reports, and descriptions of extraordinary situations."

"Which ones?" Shandra perked up.

"Extraordinary. Times when it was necessary for me to use force and my authority as captain."

It seemed as if my attempt to put her off was successful: Shandra's mouth opened, her eyes went wide, and she was staring at me with interest.

"You used force? When, Graham? You're a man of peace! You've told me that many times!"

"Peace, yes, but who likes it when there's a blaster being waved in front of his face?" I replied. "Do you remember that story with the Children of Light and their Prophet? When I employed weapons?"

The bait was set, and Shandra immediately swallowed it up. I had no doubt that the issue of my previous wives would surface in the future, but now she wanted to listen about the Children of the Lord's Light, whom I had picked up on New Macedonia and thrown off the ship on Belle Reve. I ended up having to once again retell all the heart-wrenching details: the Prophet, whose mind had gotten clouded during the transition, the Philip Farmer Three Stars blaster, the severed arm, and the Prophet's two-year stint in my brig. Shandra had no sympathy for the Prophet, but, after I mentioned that his followers had been disenfranchised and lost their reproductive rights, she exclaimed, "That's unfair, Graham! Unfair! Maybe they were fanatics, maybe they were hated and despised, but is that a good enough reason to prevent them from having children? You told me that Macedonia was a developed world, which means humane, but I don't see any humanism or justice in such a decision! Only cruelty!"

"Technological progress and humanism don't really go hand-in-hand, and the Macedonians weren't an exception," I explained. "Their society was democratic, but their leaders were so committed to the democratic idea that the ancient motto 'the ends justify the means' didn't seem profane to them. Vis pacem, para bellum! If you want peace, prepare for war!"

"What does that mean?" Shandra asked, furrowing her brow.

"Only that they were adherents to Lee Herbert's theory. I didn't tell you about it?" Shandra nodded, and I realized that she was firmly on the hook. "Well then, according to Lee Herbert, each of the populated worlds cycles through three stages: democratic, totalitarian, and theocratic. The weakness of democracy is that it doesn't approve of bloody reprisals of the opposition, which means that it, sooner or later, unites into a small but monolithic group and takes power. This is followed by a redistribution of property, collectivization, and labor camps for dissidents; some are imprisoned, some are tortured, some are hanged, and some are simply shot. Most of the population finds itself enslaved, and that can't continue for very long; a rebellion is inevitable, and it's followed by retribution and repentance of the sins of the past. At this time, there is a surge of religiosity: the former leaders appeal to the Creator as a source of mercy, the former slaves see Him as the Supreme Judge, who punishes injustice. In the end, God reconciles everyone, under the condition that his adepts rule the world. And they rule with an iron fist, until the mystical fog dissipates, once again revealing the alluring form of Goddess Democracy… And then everything starts all over again!"

"And the people of Macedonia believed it?"

"Not only did they believe it, but they conducted experiments in order to extend the democratic phase. Macedonia is a fairly old world, which has gone through several stages, so their sociologists had a solid comparative base. They claimed that each stage was accompanied by a dominant genetic archetype, an average personality pattern of sorts, which gravitated towards the ideals of liberty, fanatical faith, or submission. They thought that these attributes were passed down genetically and determined the change of the social formations. In other words, a genome that has been programmed into one of these three modes by nature, which means that the faith in God, an infallible Leader, or democracy is given to us at the moment of conception. Do you understand?"

Shandra admitted that she didn't, and I burst out laughing.

"I do, but I don't believe it. It's all too simple, my girl! The connection between genetics and sociology is too primitive… And the conclusions are too clear! Simply determine the genetic type and destroy anyone leaning towards mysticism and totalitarianism… or deny them their reproductive rights… A single global act of genocide, but then there will be Paradise! A Paradise of eternal democracy! That's what they believed on Macedonia, but I won't judge them. For my part, I have long ago picked out the best of all social orders."

"Really?" Shandra's eyebrows went up. "Which one?"

"Monarchy, baby, monarchy. Here, on the Circe, we have an absolute monarchy: I'm the king, and you're my queen!"

She liked that, and I decided that Shandra had become a faithful adept of my social system. Then we returned to the Children of the Lord's Light. At my command, the Circe showed us the Prophet, his plump smug face hovered at the backdrop of the azure waters and the white cliffs of an atoll. His eyes were burning with a hungry wolfish flame.

Shandra glanced at the hologram with distaste.

"A vile man! Looks like Archon Sylas…"

I hadn't met this Sylas on Murphy, but I was prepared to believe the worst about him; after all, he'd made a career out of polishing the minds of Shandra and the other poor prisoners of the convent. Fortunately, he did that with just words, in his own amateurish manner, without a cerebroscope-annihilator or genetic engineering.

After mentally wishing Sylas the hottest of all the infernal cauldrons, I turned to the Prophet.

"See how important he is? This guy has a face of a man who speaks with the Creator… Speaks without ceremony! And God listens to him intently."

"He's cut from the same cloth as our archons," Shandra noted. "Now I think that those Macedonian sociologists were right: people like that shouldn't have children. Why does he need kids anyway? He only loves himself… and he threatened you with a blaster… I'm surprised you didn't throw him out the airlock!"

"I thought about that," I admitted. "But it seemed that I was partly to blame for what had happened: I should have anticipated the events and prevented them. Ultimately, I had known what newbies experienced in the Ramsden field, especially those who hear God whispering in their ears! I should have given him a tranquilizer shot for the transition or an erotic neuroclip… He would have assumed his visions were a devilish temptation, but it would still be more humane than throwing him out into the void."

I waved a hand, and the image changed. Now we were looking at the Prophet the way he was during the debarkation on Belle Reve. An incredible contrast! Instead of a smug domineering cleric, there was an emaciated prisoner with a dim gaze, fallen, dirty, thin as a stick… He looked like he had been punished with aging, but none of that was my fault. I'd fed him generously and did not deny him entertainment; everything else was between him and God. Shandra's eyelashes fluttered anxiously.

"He looks terrible! Graham, honey, I hope you didn't starve him."

"Don't you worry, he was eating from the captain's table. A robot delivered him food four times a day, and, each morning, clean clothing and a fresh jumpsuit awaited him. He had a monitor, connected to the Circe's film library, there were recordings and neuroclips, paper and stationery, so he could entertain himself any way he pleased. Finally, no one denied him the basic amenities: the brig has facilities with a toilet, a bath, and a jacuzzi. He could sit under a warm shower for days, listening to angelic choirs and drinking lemonade!"

"Not bad, not bad at all," Shandra commented. "But I think he was tormented by loneliness. Or did you allow his followers to visit him?"

"That would have been unforgivably careless; he could have persuaded them to mutiny, and a mutiny aboard a ship isn't much better than a reactor breach. No, I didn't let anyone come to him! And, since the Children of Light had started giving me dirty looks, I instructed the addition of armored bulkheads, separating the habitation area, and posted guards at my bedroom and the bridge. This is how we traveled for two years… I wouldn't say it was a pleasant time!"

"You haven't visited him either?"

"No. He had paper and a stylus, so he could have given a robot a note to pass on to me. I didn't keep his messages, they were full of curses and other nasty things. The robot also got its share; I was seen as either Satan or Lucifer, while the poor machine was my accomplice from the category of low-level demons. Once, our Prophet switched from words to deeds and threw excrement at the robot… Can you imagine? He clogged up its video sensor! I had to send the poor thing to the hydroponic sections. There, he was scraped out, and everything extra was thrown into the chlorella tank…"

Shandra nodded with a sympathetic look, then reflected and whispered, "This man was sitting in prison, just like me… But he was guilty and dangerous, while I hadn't done anything bad to anyone… Besides," her voice grew stronger, "he knew that his imprisonment would end soon, while no one promised anything of the sort to me… On the contrary! I was told that I would be cleaning those damned cauldrons forever!"

I kissed her hand.

"Your labors haven't been for naught, my girl. Imagine the biggest cauldron, polished to a shine, and inside it, there's Geoffrey and Sylas, and our Prophet, and the three chaste sisters, Camilla, Seraphima, and Esmeralda… A marvelous sight, isn't it?"

She chuckled sadly and shook her head.

"No, honey, I don't need that. You know, if Hell was real, and if they ended up there, I would not gloat. Not at all!"

"Would you have forgiven them?" I asked, peering into Shandra's darkened eyes attentively.

"No… I don't think so… They wouldn't get forgiveness or compassion from me, but I don't want to throw wood into their fire either. After all, their suffering won't give me back what I lost…"

Shandra buried her face in my chest, and I realized that she was talking about her father.

Footnotes

1) Latin for "my fault."