Herbert, Frank - The Heaven Makers

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THE HEAVEN MAKERS (v2.0)

Frank Herbert, 1968,1977

A somewhat different version of this novel was serialized in the April and June 1967

issues of Amazing Stories

"Every man is as Heaven made him,

and sometimes a great deal worse."

-- Miguel de Cervantes

FULL OF FOREBODINGS AND THE GREATEST TENSIONS that an adult Chem had ever

experienced, Kelexel the Investigator came down into the storyship where it hid beneath the

ocean. He pressed his slender craft through the barrier that stood like lines of insect legs in

the green murk and debarked on the long gray landing platform.

All around him flickering yellow discs and globes of working craft arrived and departed. It

was early daylight topside and from this ship Fraffin the Director was composing a story.

To be here, Kelexel thought. Actually to be on Fraffin's world.

He felt that he knew this world intimately -- all those hours before the pantovive,

watching Fraffin's stories about the place unroll before his eyes. Background study for the

investigation it'd been called. But what Chem wouldn't have traded places with him then --

gladly?

To be on Fraffin's world!

That morning topside -- he had seen such mornings many times, caught by Fraffin's

shooting crews: the torn sky, cloud-pillars of gilded cushions. And the creatures! He could

almost hear a priestmother murmuring, her voice firmly hesitant before a Chem posing as a

god. Ah, such buttersoft women they were, generous with their barbed kisses.

But those times were gone -- except for Fraffin's reels. The creatures of this world had

been herded into new avenues of excitement.

In the pangs of remembering Fraffin's stories, Kelexel recognized his own ambivalence.

I must not weaken, he thought.

There was an element of grandiose posturing in the thought (hand on breast) and Kelexel

permitted an inward chuckle at himself. Fraffin had done that for him. Fraffin had taught

many a Chem a great deal about himself.

In spite of the confusion on the landing platform, the Dispatcher noted Kelexel almost

immediately and sent a hovering robot questioner before whose single eye Kelexel bowed

and said: "I am a visitor, Kelexel by name."

He did not have to say he was a rich visitor. His craft and his clothing said that for him.

The clothing was the quiet forest green of neversoil and cut for comfort: leotards, a simple

tunic and an all-purpose cape. It gave his squat, bow-legged form a look of rich dignity,

setting off the silvery Chem-of-Chem skin, forcing attention onto the big face with its rock

like angles and planes, the sunken and penetrating brown eyes.

The craft which he left in a rest slot beneath the traffic lanes for the working crews was a

needleship which could stitch its way across any void in the Chem universe. Only the

wealthiest entrepreneurs and Servants of the Primacy owned such ships. Even Fraffin didn't

possess one, preferring (so it was said) to plow his wealth back into the world which had

brought him such fame.

Kelexel, a visitor -- he felt confidence in the cover. The Bureau of Criminal Repression had

prepared his role and trappings with care.

"Welcome, visitor Kelexel," the Dispatcher said, his voice amplified through the robot to

override the story-ship activity. "Take the flex ramp on your left. Please register with our

Greeter at the head of the ramp. May your stay with us relieve boredom."

"My gratitude," Kelexel said.

Ritual, everything was ritual, he thought. Even here.

He fitted his bowed legs to the riding clamps. The ramp whisked him across the platform,

up through a red hatch, along a blue passageway to a glistening ebony orifice. The orifice

expanded to reveal a small room and the Greeter's flashing lights, couch and dangling

connections.

Kelexel eyed the robo-couplings, knowing they must be linked to the storyship's Central

Directory. Here was the true moment of test for his cover, the heart of Ship Security.

The tensions boiling in him filled Kelexel with sudden wonder. He felt no fear for his

person; under his skin -- part of his skin -- lay the web armor which immunized all Chem

from violence. It was improbable that they could harm him. Something approaching the

entire Chem civilization was required to harm an individual. Such decisions came rarely and

then only because of a clear and positive threat to all Chem.

But four previous investigators had come here and returned to report "no crime" when all

surface evidence pointed to something profoundly wrong in Fraffin's private empire. Most

disquieting was the fact that all four had left the Service to start their own story-ships out on

the rims.

Kelexel held this knowledge to him now, secure in the Chem oneness, the shared unity

that Tiggywaugh's web gave each Chem with his immortality.

I'm ready for you, Greeter, he thought

He already knew the Primacy's suspicions must be correct. Senses trained to respond to

the slightest betrayal recorded more than enough here to bring him to full alert. Signs of

decadence he'd expected. Storyships were outposts and outposts tended that way. But there

was a surfeit of other symptoms. Certain of the crew moved with that air of knowledgeable

superiority which flashed like a warning light to the police eye. There was a casual richness

of garb on even the lowliest menials. There was a furtive something here which oozed from

the oneness of the web.

He'd seen inside several of the working craft, noted the silver sheen on handles of

concealment controls. The creatures of this world had long since passed the stage where

Chem could legally reveal themselves on the surface. It was one thing to nudge and herd

and manipulate intelligent creatures for the sake of entertainment -- "to relieve boredom" --

quite another thing to sow the seeds of an awareness that could explode against the Chem.

No matter Fraffin's fame and stature, he'd taken a wrong turning somewhere. That was

obvious. The stupidity of such an action put a sour taste in Kelexel's mouth. No criminal

could escape the Primacy's endless searching -- not forever.

Still, this was Fraffin's storyship -- Fraffin who had given the Chem surcease from

immortal boredom, given them a world of profound fascination in story after story.

He felt those stories in his memory now, sensed the ringing of old bells, their sound

falling, lingering, falling-the parapets of awareness roaring there to willy-nilly purpose.

Ahhh, how Fraffin's creatures caught the mind! It was in part their similarity to the Chem,

Kelexel felt. They made one disregard their gigantism. They forced one to identify with their

dreams and emotions.

Remembering, remembering, Kelexel heard the music of bowstrings, warcries and

whimpers, kite-shadowed silences on bloody fields-all Fraffin's doing. He remembered a fair

Gutian female, a slave being marched to Babylon in the time of Cambyses -- an Egyptian

woman taken with her child.

The spoil of the bow, Kelexel thought, recalling the sweep of that one story. One lost

female, yet how she lingered in his memory. She had been sacrificed before Nin-Girsu who

blessed commerce and litigation and was in reality the voice of a Chem Manipulator in

Fraffin's pay.

But here were names and creatures and events the Chem would never have known were

it not for Fraffin. This world, Fraffin's storyship empire, had become a byword in the Chem

universe. It would not be easy (nor popular) to topple such a one, but Kelexel could see that

it must be done.

I must destroy you, Kelexel thought as he coupled himself to the Greeter. He stared with

quiet interest up at the scanners which flowed across him, searching, searching. This was

normal and to be expected from Ship Security. To be a Chem immortal was to submit to this

as a matter of course. There could be no threat to any Chem except from his fellow Chem

united -- and the Chem could be united by false ideas as well as true ones. False

assumptions, fantastic plots -- only the Primacy was supposed proof against such base

maneuvers. Fraffin had to satisfy himself that the visitor wasn't a competitor's spy intending

secret harm.

How little you know of harm, Kelexel thought as he felt the Greeter probe him. I need

only my senses and my memory to destroy you.

He wondered then what specific criminal act would trip up Fraffin. Was he breeding some

of his creatures for short stature, selling them as pets? Were his people openly fraternizing

with their planet-bound giants? Was secret knowledge being fed to the creatures? They did,

after all, have crude rockets and satellites. Was theirs an unreported infectious intelligence,

full of immunes, ready to blast out into the universe and oppose the Chem?

It must be one of these, Kelexel thought. The signs of secrecy were all here on Fraffin's

world. There was guilty knowledge in the storyship.

Why would Fraffin do such a stupid thing? Kelexel wondered. The criminal!

THE GREETER'S REPORT CAME TO FRAFFIN WHERE HE sat at his pantovive editing the

latest rushes on his current story.

The war, the war, the lovely little war, he was thinking.

And oh, how Chem audiences loved the effect of flamelighted nights, the naked panting of

these creatures in their mortal struggles. One of their leaders reminded him of Cato -- the

same eternally ancient features, the cynical glaze of inward-drinking eyes. Cato, now ...

there'd been a grand story.

But the pantovive's three-dimensional images faded, the tracing light receded before the

priority of a message, and there was Ynvic's face staring at him, her bald head glistening

under the lights in her surgery, her heavy brows arched in a quizzical frown.

"A visitor calling himself Kelexel has arrived," she said. (And Fraffin, watching the flash of

her teeth, the heavy lips, thought: She's overdue for rejuvenation.) "This Kelexel most likely

is the Investigator we've been expecting," she added.

Fraffin straightened, uttered a curse that'd been popular on his world in the time of

Hasdrubal: "Bal, burn their seed!" Then: "How certain are you?"

"The visitor is a visitor to perfection," Ynvic said. She shrugged. "He is too perfect. Only

the Bureau could be that perfect."

Fraffin settled back into his editing chair. She was probably correct. The Investigator's

timing was about right. Out in the Chem universe they didn't have this feeling for the nicety

of timing. Time ran at such a crazy speed for most Chem. But association with the creatures

of this world imparted a pseudosense of time. Yes, it was probably the Investigator.

He looked up and around at his silver-walled salon-office in the heart of the storyship.

This long low place crammed with creative machinery and the devices of relaxation usually

remained insulated from transient planetary distractions. As a rule, only Ynvic dared disturb

him at his work here. She would not do it lightly. Something about this visitor, Kelexel, had

alerted her.

Fraffin sighed.

Even through the storyship's sophisticated barriers and the deeps of ocean in which they

hid, he often felt that he could sense the passage of the planet's sun and moon and that

troubles waited for the worst conjunctions to plague him.

Waiting behind him on his desk was a report from Lutt, his Master-of-Craft, that new

three-man shooting crew, youngsters of promise all, had been out on the surface with

shields down letting the natives see them, stirring up a storm of local speculation. Teasing

the natives was, of course, an ancient diversion with the Chem of this storyship.

But not now.

Why did they choose this particular moment? he wondered.

"Well throw this Kelexel a sop," he said. "The shooting crew that was out teasing the

natives. Dismissal for all of them and for the dispatcher who allowed them to surface without

an old hand as guide."

"They may talk," Ynvic said.

"They don't dare," he said. "Anyway, explain what's happened and send them along with

recommendations to one of the new ships. I hate to lose them, but ... " He shrugged.

"Is that all you're going to do?" Ynvic asked.

Fraffin passed a hand over his eyes, scratched his left brow. Her meaning was clear, but

he hated to abandon the lovely little war. He stared into the glittering shell of the pantovive

where his memory still held the lingering images of violence. If he pulled out his

Manipulators, the natives likely would settle their differences across a conference table. They

had that tendency more and more of late.

Again, he thought of the problems awaiting him at his desk. There was the memo from

Albik, the story-chief, the usual complaint: "If you wish me to cover this much story action

simultaneously then I must have more skimmers and platforms, more shooting crews, more

cutting-room operators ... more ... more ... more ... "

Fraffin longed for the good old days when Birstala had been his story-chief. There was a

man capable of making his own decisions when the equipment and crews wouldn't stretch.

But Birstala had succumbed to the immortal nemesis, boredom. He had his own story-ship

now with the seed from this planet and his own world somewhere off beyond the beyond. He

had his own problems.

"Maybe you should sell out," Ynvic said.

He glared at her. "That's impossible and you know why!"

"The right buyer ... "

"Ynvic!"

She shrugged.

Fraffin pushed himself out of the editing chair, crossed to his desk. Its immersed

viewscreen showed the discus galaxies and variable stars of the Chem birthworlds. A touch

of the controls and this scene vanished to present a view from space looking down on their

private little planet, this blue-green world with its patterns of clouds over seas and

continents, the sharp flakes of star cosmos beyond.

His own features lay there suddenly reflected in the desk's polished surface as though

swimming out of the planet: the sensual mouth in a straight line, nostrils flared in his

narrow hooked nose, dark eyes brooding under overhanging brows, the high forehead with

twin coves of silvery Chem flesh in the short black hair.

Ynvic's face came through the Central Directory's message center relays to dance above

the desk and stare at him expectantly.

"I've given my opinion," she said.

Fraffin looked up at the Shipsurgeon, a bald, roundfaced Chem of the Ceyatril breed --

old, old even by Chem standards-extravagant with age. A thousand stars such as the sun

which whirled this planet in its loop of gravity could have been born and died in the life of

Shipsurgeon Ynvic. There were rumors she'd been a planet buyer once and even a member

of the Larra crew which had probed the other dimensions. She wouldn't say, naturally, but

the story persisted.

"I can never sell my world, Ynvic," he said. "You know that."

"A Chem is wise to avoid the word never," she said.

"What do our sources say about this Kelexel?" he asked.

"That he's a rich merchant, recently allowed to breed, favored by the Primacy."

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摘要：

THEHEAVENMAKERS(v2.0)FrankHerbert,1968,1977AsomewhatdifferentversionofthisnovelwasserializedintheAprilandJune1967issuesofAmazingStories"EverymanisasHeavenmadehim,andsometimesagreatdealworse."--MigueldeCervantes1FULLOFFOREBODINGSANDTHEGREATESTTENSIONSthatanadultChemhadeverexperienced,KelexeltheInvest...

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Herbert, Frank - The Heaven Makers

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