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Why shouldst Thou cause aaid, when it is in Thy power, O Lord, to vouchsafe him his necessities in an honorable fashion?

- A Kahan, Atereth ha-Zaddikim, Shiprecords

HALI KEPT a careful watch on Waela as the E-clone assistants prepared an obstetrics area within their temporary medical shelter The cliff shadow covered the filled the air with discordant noise: shouts, grunts, the crunching of the cutter’s wheels on the sand She felt a sense of relief as the dehtened her now Her soft-voiced poet friend had beco inner fire He was keeper of the kind of terrible power she had seen at Golgotha

Heavy as she ith the unborn child, Waela moved with a supple quickness She was in her natural habitat: Pandora This place had changed Waela, too Was that why Panille had uished stab of jealousy

I am a med-tech I am a Natali! An unborn child needs me I want joy!

She tried not to think about what ht happen out there on the plain Thomas had warned her what to expect Where had he learned about battle? She had been unable to suppress feelings of outrage

"Those people ill die, how are they different from us?"

She had hurled the question at hihter tendrils, the red streaks of dayside fingering a gray horizon on their right It had been a nights of hylighters The great orange bags had floated souarded the descent of those who stayed afoot

Hundreds of people, tons of equipment

Thomas had not answered her question until she repeated it

"We have to take over the Redoubt Ship will destroy us if we don’t"

"That makes us no better than them"

"But ill survive"

"Survive as what? Does Ship say anything about that?"

"Ship says, ’When you shall hear of wars and the rus must needs be; but the end shall not be yet’"

"That’s not Ship! That’s the Christian Book of the Dead!"

"But Ship quotes it"

Thomas had looked at her then and she had seen the pain within his eyes Christian Book of the Dead

Ship had shown parts of it to her on request, displaying the words within the tiny cubby where Panille once had studied If Thomas really were a Ceepee, he would know those words She wondered if Oakes knew thee that no one shipside had responded to her careful questions and probes about the events on the Hill of Skulls

Thoain their breath on a little rock platform deep in a fissure

"Why did Ship show you the crucifixion? Have you ever asked yourself that, Hali Ekel?"

"How do yo how do you know abou ?"

"Ship tells s"

"Did Ship tell you wh?"

"No!"

Thomas set off down the steep trail She called after him: "Do you knohy Ship showed ap in the fissure, looked out at thebrilliance of reflections off the Redoubt’s plaz in the distance She caught up with him

"Do you know?"

Thomas rounded on her, the pain terrible in his eyes "If I knew that, I’d kno to WorShip Did Ship give you no clues?"

"Only that we lared at her "Tell me what you saw there at the crucifixion!"

"I saw a man tortured and killed It was brutal and awful, but Ship would not let me interfere"

"Holy violence," Thomas muttered

"The nized me He knew I had come far to see him there He said I was not hidden from him He said I should let them knoas done"

"He said what?"

"He said if anyone understood God’s will, then I must understand i but I don’t!" She shook her head, tears close "I’m just a med-tech, a Natali, and I don’t knohy Ship showed me that!"

Thomas spoke in a whisper: "That’s all the man said?"

"N he told the people in the crowd not to weep for hireen tree"

"If they do these things in a green tree, ill they do in a dry?" Thomas intoned

"That’s it! That’s what he said! What did he row more deadly in times of adversity - and what they do in the roots can be felt to the ends of the branches - forever"

"Then why have you created this ar out there t ?"

"Because I must"

Tho to respond to her Others who had chosen to cliht up, pressed close She had no other opportunity to speak to him They were at the foot of the cliffs soon and she had her own duties while Thomas set off about his war

Ferry was one of the people Thoned to ht about the old man and this prompted her now to kindness toward him While she worked with Ferry in the rude fabric shelter below the cliffs, she heard Tho to his arth, which teaches ht"

Was that any way for a Ceepee to talk? She asked this of Ferry while they worked

"That’s the way Oakes talks" The old er to help her