Vera Constantine's quarters were a measure of Kitsune's distrust. The young Shaper clanswoman had been under house
arrest for weeks. Her lodging was a three-room cell of stone and
iron, outside Kitsune's world-consuming embrace.
She sat at an inset Market monitor, studying the flow of transaction in a three-dimensional grid. She had never dealt in the
Market before, but Abelard Gomez, a kindly young Cicada, had
given her a financial stake to pass the time. Knowing no better,
she applied to the flow of the Market the principles of atmospheric dynamics she'd learned on Fomalhaut IV. Oddly, it
seemed to be working. She was clearly gaining.
The door unsealed and shunted open. An old man stepped in,
tall and thin in muted Cicada garb: a long coat, dark slash-
cuffed trousers, jeweled rings worn over white gloves. His lined
face was bearded, and a silvered coronet of patterned leaves
accented his white-streaked, shoulder-length hair. Vera rose
from her stirrup-chair and bowed, imitating the Cicada flourish.
"Chancellor, welcome."
Lindsay's eyes searched the cell, his sinewy brows knitting in
puzzlement. He seemed wary, not of her but of something in the
room. Then she felt it herself, and knew that the Presence had
returned. Despite herself, knowing it was useless, she looked for
it quickly. Something flickered in the corner of her eye as it escaped her vision.
Lindsay smiled at her. Then he continued to scan the room.
She didn't want to tell him about the Presence. After a while he
would give up looking for it, just as all the others did. "Thank
you," he said belatedly. "I trust you're well, Captain-Doctor."
"Your friends, Doctor Gomez and Undersecretary Nakamura,
have been most attentive. Thank you for the tapes and gifts."
"It was nothing," Lindsay said.
She feared suddenly that she was disappointing him. He had
not seen her in the fifteen years since the duel. She had been
very young then -only twenty. She still had the Kelland cheek-
bones and pointed chin, but time had changed her, and her
genotype was not pure. She was not Vera Kelland's clone.
Her sleeveless kimono mercilessly showed the changes brought by her years as an alien emissary. Two circulatory ducts dented the flesh of her neck, and her skin still had a peculiar waxiness. Inside the Embassy at Fomalhaut, she had lived in water for years.
Lindsay's gray eyes would not stop wandering. She was con-
vinced that he could feel the Presence, sense its pervasive eeriness. Sooner or later he would attribute that feeling to her, and
then her chance to win his favor would be gone. He spoke
abstractedly. "I'm sorry that matters can't be resolved more
quickly. ... In matters of defection it's best not to be rash."
She thought she heard a veiled reference to the fate of Nora
Mavrides. That chilled her. "I see your point, Chancellor." Vera
had no official backing by the Constantine clan, for they could
not risk denunciation within the Ring Council. Life was hard in
Skimmers Union these days: with the loss of the capitalship had
come a vicious struggle for the remaining scraps of power and a
hunt for scapegoats. Constantine clan members were prominent
victims. Once, she had been the favorite of their clan founder, showered with gifts and Constantine's strained affection.
But her clan had made too many bad gambles. Philip Constantine had risked their future on the chance to kill Lindsay
and had failed. The clan had invested heavily in Vera's ambassadorship, but she had returned without the riches they'd expected. And she had changed in a way that alarmed them. Now,
she was expendable.
As the clan's power dwindled, they had lived in terror of
Lindsay. He had survived the duel and returned more powerful
than ever. He seemed unstoppable, bigger than life. But the
attack they'd expected had never come, and it occurred to them
that he had weaknesses. Through her, they hoped to prey on his
emotions, on the love or guilt he felt for Vera Kelland. It was
the latest and most desperate of gambles. With luck they might
win sanctuary. Or vengeance. Or both.
"Why come to me?" he said. "There arc other places. Life as a
Mechanist is not so bad as the Ring Council paints it."
"The Mechs would turn us against our own people. They
would break up our clan. No, Czarina-Kluster is best. There's
sanctuary in the shadow of your Queen. But not if you work
against us."
"I see," Lindsay said. He smiled. "My friends don't trust you.
We have very little to gain, you see. C-K already swarms with
defectors. Your clan does not share our Posthuman ideology.
Worse yet, there are many in C-K who hate the name Con-
stantine. Former Detentistes, Cataclysts, and so on. . . . You
understand the difficulties."
"Those days are behind us, Chancellor. We mean no harm to
anyone."
Lindsay closed his eyes. "We could babble reassurances until
the sun expands," he said -he seemed to be quoting
someone-"and never convince each other. Either we trust each
other or we don't."
His bluntness filled her with misgivings. She was at a loss. The
silence stretched uncomfortably. "I have a present for you," she
said. "An ancient heirloom." She crossed the narrow cell to lift
a rectangular wire cage, shrouded in peach-colored velvet. She
lifted the cage cover and showed him the clan treasure, an
albino laboratory rat. It ran back and forth through its cage,
mincing along with bizarre, repetitive precision. "It is one of the
first creatures ever to attain physical immortality. An ancient
lab specimen. It is over three hundred years old."
Lindsay said, "You're very generous." He lifted the cage and
examined it. Within it, the rat, its capacity to learn completely
exhausted by age, had been reduced to absolute rote behavior.
The twitchings of its muzzle, even the movement of its eyes,
were utterly stereotyped.
The old man watched it searchingly. She knew he would get no response. There was nothing in the rat's jellied pink eyes, not
even the dimmest flicker of animal awareness. "Has it ever been
out of the cage?" he said.
"Not in centuries. Chancellor. It's too valuable."
Lindsay opened the cage. Its routines shattered, the rat cowered beside the steel tube of its water drip, its sinewy furred
limbs trembling.
Lindsay wiggled his gloved fingers beside the entrance. "Don't
be afraid," he told the rat seriously. "There's a whole world out
here."
Some ancient, corroded reflex kicked over in the rat's head.
With a squeal it launched itself across the cage at Lindsay's
hand, clawing and biting in convulsive fury. Vera gasped and
leaped forward, shocked at his action, appalled by the rat's
response. Lindsay gestured her back and lifted his hand, watching in pity as the rat attacked him. Beneath his torn right glove, hard prosthetic fingers gleamed with black and copper gridwork.
Me grasped the squirming animal with gentle firmness, watching to see that it did not crack its teeth. "Prison has set its
mind," he said. "It will take a long time to melt the bars behind
its eyes." Me smiled. "Luckily, time is in great supply."
The rat stopped struggling. It panted in the throes of some
rodent epiphany. Lindsay set it gently on the tablelop beside the
Market monitor. It struggled to its pink feet and began to pace
in agitation, turning in its tracks at the former limits of its cage.
"It can't change," Vera told him. "Its capacities are exhausted."
"Nonsense," Lindsay said. "Me merely needs to make a
Prigoginic leap to a new level of behavior." The calm assertion