Aybee swore internally and shrugged. “Dunno. I just write what I think of.”
“If you can think that way consistently, there’s more in your future than a job as a maintenance engineer. I want to do something special with you.”
“What do you mean?” Aybee did not like the look in her eye. “I want to take you to meet the big boss—the head of the whole revolution and movement. We have his orders to sift for unusual potential and report it to headquarters.” She misread his concern. “Don’t worry, I wouldn’t send you there alone. We’d go together, just you and me, on one of the special high-acceleration transit ships. I’d be your sponsor.”
“When?” The training course had five more weeks to run.
“In a couple of days. Jason and the other assistants can handle the training course easily enough. It’s five days travel from here to headquarters in the new ship, but we wouldn’t waste the time. You have a lot to learn. I’d give you personal coaching and special training.” Gudrun had moved Aybee all the way to the end of the bed, and he could not retreat farther. Her golden-brown eyes were gleaming. She took his hands in hers and stared at him possessively. “And we still haven’t done that form-change, have we? The one that we talked about when you signed on. You’re still too tall for comfort. We’ll work on that. There might be some spare time for a form-change on the journey, too. I want to make you look more like one of us—less like a Cloudlander.” She squeezed his hands. “What do you say, Karl? It’s a one-time opportunity.”
Five days confined to a high-g transit cabin with Gudrun. Five days of “personal coaching” and “special training.” What did that include? He had horrible suspicions. Aybee avoided her gaze, but she was very close. Everywhere he looked he saw nothing but bare flesh, plump thighs, arms and shoulders and breasts.
“Well, Karl, what do you say?” She was whispering, close to his cheek.
Aybee closed his eyes in horror. Do I have a choice?
He took a deep breath. Look at it this way, Apollo Belvedere Smith: You go to headquarters and the chances of finding out if your ideas are right are a hell of a lot better there than they are here. Whatever happens on the journey, you can handle it. So say yes quick, before you decide you can’t stand the idea.
He nodded, eyes still closed. “It sounds… wonderful.”
He felt Gudrun’s hand on his thigh. “I’ll make sure that it is,” she said. “We’ll leave tomorrow. I’ll put a form-change tank and size-reduction programs on the ship, too. You can use them as much as you want to. But you’d better get some rest now, Karl. You need your rest.”
“Yeah.” Aybee swallowed. “I think I do.”
She was moving slowly away from him. He could breathe again. He looked at her red lips and half-open mouth. She seemed ready to eat him.
Just make sure the form-change tank and size-reduction program is there, Gudrun, he thought. I’ll use ’em, all right. In fact, if this trip is anything like I imagine, I’ll use ’em over and over. I’m going to arrive at headquarters as a two-foot midget.
Chapter 20
“I disapprove of every conspiracy of which I am not a part.”
Sylvia Fernald had agonized over the decision for a long time. Who should be told what she was planning to do, and how much should they be told?
On the one hand, her attempt to contact Paul Chu was in no sense an official mission. She had not been ordered to do it or even asked to think about it. On the other hand, Bey Wolf and Aybee Smith believed that the rebels were behind the technical malfunctions in the Inner and Outer Systems, and they agreed with Cinnabar Baker that the rebels’ end objective might be to instigate an all-out war between the other two parties. If that were the case, and if Paul were part of the rebel group, a dialog with him was supremely important. Sylvia knew of no one else who might be able to open that dialog. Paul had always been secretive and mistrustful, but he would talk to Sylvia.
Wouldn’t he? They had been very close, but in the final months she had never known what Paul was thinking or even what he was doing. But surely he would at least talk to her—they had been partners for more than three years. On the other hand, if he had become a rebel himself, she ought not to be talking to him, and if she did meet with him, she should not tell anyone she was doing it.
Sylvia wondered and worried and at last settled for a compromise. Since she would be using a Cloudland ship in her travels, someone in government had to know and approve it. But the fewer people who knew, the less the danger that her mission would be leaked to others.
Sylvia looked at her options. Leo Manx was a good man but pedantic in approach and—much more dangerous—apt to gossip. Bey Wolf would not talk, but he would probably try to stop her. Aybee, her first choice, was off who knew where, and all her other close friends in the harvesters would be overwhelmed by the implied responsibility. They would feel a compulsion to tell their superiors—who might then tell anyone.
In the end, Sylvia called Cinnabar Baker directly and asked for a private meeting. If the information were likely to end with Baker, it might as well begin there.
The other woman asked her—typically—to come to her quarters that same day, but at one o’clock in the morning. Sylvia spent the next twelve hours making final preparations for her departure and rehearsing what she was going to say to Baker. But when she finally entered the bare-walled apartment, she forgot about her prepared speech.
Cinnabar Baker looked terrible. She had lost fifty or sixty pounds, and her gray-toned skin was lined and pouchy. From time to time she rubbed at her eyes, wheezed deep in her chest, and produced a rumbling cough. Turpin sat blinking on her shoulder. Each time she coughed, the bedraggled crow provided an impressive imitation of the sound. He must have had plenty of time to practice.
“I know.” Baker saw Sylvia’s dismay. “Don’t tell me I look like hell, and don’t worry. It’s not permanent. I’ve been overworking, and everyone here is scared to let me near the form-change machines for a remedial session. The machines are so messed up, people are afraid I’ll turn into a pumpkin. What can I do for you? We have ten minutes.”
Sylvia jumped into her description of how she had found a trail that should lead to Paul Chu. Half her explanation proved unnecessary—Cinnabar Baker knew more about the relationship with Chu than Sylvia had dreamed. Baker waved her on past that, then listened in a silence broken only by her coughs and hoarse breathing.
At the end of it Baker sniffed and pinched the end of her nose between her fingers. “I’ve heard your reports, and the ones from Leo Manx. Do you agree with him that the rebels are behind Bey Wolf’s problems with the ‘Negentropic Man’?”
“I think so.”
“You’ve saved Wolf’s life at least once, probably twice. Do you know what the ancient Chinese, back on Earth, used to say if you saved a man from drowning?”
Sylvia shook her head in confusion. Cinnabar Baker had lost her.
“They would say you are then responsible for the welfare of that man for the whole rest of his life. Let me ask you, how much of what you’re proposing to do is for the sake of the Outer System? And how much are you doing to help with Wolf’s personal problems?” The suggestion floored Sylvia.
She had acted to save Bey on the transit ship and on the space farm without thinking for a moment about her own motives. She would have done as much for anyone. And as for sitting beside the form-change tank while Bey Wolf was in it…