Young Paolo Mavrides stepped through the soundproof field in
the doorway. "Nora says come see Kleo and Mr. Vetterling off."
"Thank you, Paolo." Juliano and the Regent Vetterling headed
for the doorway, small-talking about construction costs. Fetzko
tottered after them, his legs buzzing audibly. Ross took Lindsay
by the arm.
"A moment, Abelard."
"Yes, Arts-Lieutenant?"
"It's not Security business, Abelard. You won't tell Juliano that
I put Pongpianskul up to it?"
"The unproven treatment, you mean? No. It was cruel,
though."
Ross smirked. "Look, I almost married Margaret a few decades
back, and from what Neville tells me my marrying days may be
back any day now. . . . Listen, Mavrides. It hasn't escaped me
the way you've been looking these past few years. Frankly,
you're in decay."
Lindsay touched his graying hair. "You're not the first to say
so."
"It's not a money problem?"
"No." He sighed. "I don't want my genetics inspected. There
are loo many Security groups watching, and frankly I'm not all I
seem. . . ."
"Who the hell is, at this age? Listen, Mavrides: I figured it was
something like that, you being eunique. That's my point: I've
gotten wind of something, very quiet, very confidential. It costs
but there's no questions asked, no records: operations take
place in a discreet. Out in one of the dogtowns."
"I see," Lindsay said. "Risky."
Ross shrugged. "You know I don't get along with the rest of
my gene-line. They won't give me their records; I have to handle
my own research. Can't we work out something?"
"Possibly. I have no secrets from my wife. May she know?"
"Surely, surely. . . . You'll do it?"
"I'll be in touch." Lindsay put his prosthetic arm on Ross's
shoulder; Ross shuddered, just a little.
The wedding couple had made it as far as the alcove, where
they had bogged down in a crowd of well-wishers and hat-
fetching junior genetics. Lindsay embraced Kleo, and took
Fernand Vetterling's arm left-handed. "You'll take good care of
my sib, Fernand? You know she's very young."
Fernand met his eyes. "She's life and breath to me, friend."
"That's the spirit. We'll put the new play off awhile. Love is
more important."
Nora kissed Fernand, smearing his makeup. Back within the
domicile the younger set were hitting full stride. The dancing
across the ceiling footloops had degenerated into a near brawl,
where young Shapers, screaming with laughter, struggled to
shove one another off the crowded dance rig. Several had fallen
already and were clinging to others, dangling loosely in the half gravity.
High spirits, Lindsay thought. Soon many of these would be
married as well; few would find the convenient meshing of love
and politics that Fernand had. They were pawns in the dynastic
games of their seniors, where money and genetics set the rules.
He looked over the crowd with the close judgment that thirty
years of Shaper audiences had taught him. Some were hidden by
the trees of the garden, a central rectangle of lush greenery
surrounded by tessellated patio floors. Four Mavrides children
were tormenting one of the serving robots, which wouldn't spill
its drinks though they tugged it and tripped it up. Lindsay
leaped upward in the mild gravity to look past the garden.
An argument was brewing on the other side: half a dozen
Shapers surrounding a man in black coveralls. Trouble. Lindsay
walked to the garden roofway and leaped up onto the ceiling.
He pulled himself across the pathway with the ease of long
habit, clinging deftly to knobs and foot-niches. He was forced to
pause as a pack of three children raced past and over him,
giggling excitedly. His sleeve lace came loose again.
Lindsay dropped to the floor on the other side. "Burn the
sleeves," he muttered. By now everyone looked a little unraveled. He made his way toward the cluster of debaters.
A young Mechanist stood at the circle's center, wearing well-
cut satin overalls with black frogging and a suggestion of Shaper
lace at the throat. Lindsay recognized him: a disciple of
Ryumin's, come in with the latest Kabuki Intrasolar tour. He
called himself Wells.
Wells had a brash, sundoggish look: short matted hair, shifty
eyes, a wide free-fall stance. He had the Kabuki mask logo on
his coverall's shoulders. He looked drunk.
"It's an open-and-shut case," Wells insisted loudly. "When
they used the Investors as a pretext to stop the war, that was one
thing. But those of us who've known the aliens since we were
children can recognize the truth. They're not saints. They have
played on us for profit."
The group had not yet noticed Lindsay. He hung back, judging
their kinesics. This was grim: the Shapers were Afriel, Besetzny,
Warden, Parr, and Leng: his graduate class in alien linguistics.
They listened to the Mechanist with polite contempt. Obviously
they had not bothered to tell him who they were, though their
predoctoral overvests marked their rank clearly.
"You don't feel they bear any credit for detente?" This was
Simon Afriel, a cold and practiced young militant already making his mark in the Shaper academic-military complex. He had
confessed once to Lindsay that he had his sights set on an alien
diplomatic assignment. So did they alclass="underline" surely, out of nineteen
known alien races, there would be one with which the Shapers
could establish strong rapport. And the diplomat who returned
sane from that assignment would have the world at his feet.
"I'm an ardent Detentiste," said Wells. "I just want humanity
to share the profit from it. For thirty years the Investors have
bought and sold us. Do we have their secrets? Their stardrive?
Their history? No. Instead they fob us off with toys and expen-
sive joyrides to the stars. These scaly con artists have preyed on
human weakness and division. I'm not alone in thinking this.
There's a new generation in the Cartels these days-"
"What's the point?" This was Besetzny, a wealthy young woman who already spoke eight languages as well as Investor. She
was the picture of young Shaper glamour in her slashed cordless
sleeves and winged velvet headdress. "In the Cartels you're
outnumbered by your old. They'll deal with us as they always
have; that's their routine. Without the Investors to shield us-"
"That's just it, doctor-designate." Wells was not as drunk as he looked. "There are hundreds of us who long to see the Rings for
what they are. You're not without your admirers, you know. We
have third-hand Ring fashions, fourth-hand Ring art, passed
around secretly. It's pathetic! We have so much to offer each
other, . . . But the Investors have squeezed everything they can
from the status quo. Already they've begun abetting warmongers: cut down Ring-Cartel interflights, encouraged bidding
wars. . . . You know, the mere fact that I've come here is
enough to brand me for life, possibly even as an agent for Ring
Security: a bacillus, I think you call them? I'll never set foot in a
Cartel again without eyes watching me- "
Afriel lifted his voice. "Good evening, Captain-Doctor." He
had spotted Lindsay.
Making the best of it, Lindsay ambled forward. "Good evening,
doctors-designate. Mr. Wells. I trust you're not embittering
yourselves with youthful cynicism. This is a happy time. . . ."
But now Wells was nervous. All Mechanists were terrified of
agents of Ring Security, not realizing that the academic-military
complex permeated Shaper life so thoroughly that a quarter of