The ship's controlled our lives too long!

Oakes still tasted bitterness at the back of his throat. Now, Lewis was incommunicad.... sending notes by courier. Always something frustrating.

Damn Lewis!

Oakes glanced around his shadowed quarters. It was nightside on the orbiting ship and most of the crew drifted on the sea of sleep. An occasional click and buzz of servos modulating the environment were the only intrusions.

How long before Ship's servos go mad?

The ship, he reminded himself.

Ship was a concept, a fabricated theology, a fairy tale imbedded in a manufactured history which only a fool could believe.

It is a lie by which we control and are controlled.

He tried to relax into the thick cushions and once more took up the note which one of Lewis' minions had thrust upon him. The message was simple, direct and threatening.

"The ship informs us that it is sending groundside one (1) Chaplain/Psychiatrist competent in communications. Reason: the unidentified Ceepee will mount a project to communicate with the electrokelp. I can find no additional information about this Ceepee but he has to be someone new from hyb."

Oakes crumpled the note in his fist.

One Ceepee was all this society could tolerate. The ship was sending another message to him. "You can be replaced."

He had never doubted that there were other Chaplain/Psychiatrists somewhere in the ship's hyb reserves. No telling where those reserves might be hidden. The damned ship was a convoluted mess with secret sections and random extrusions and concealed passages which led nowhere.

Colony had measured the ship's size by the occlusion shadow when it had eclipsed one of the two suns on a low passage. The ship was almost fifty-eight kilometers long, room to hide almost anything.