The Biomantics, with their inhuman alertness, depth of observation, and greatly augmented intelligence, were able to react swiftly enough to counter Selevand’s hostility. Each unit could continuously use its gestators and gene surgeries to remake itself and its motiles to adjust to local conditions. Each new pest and plague was soon greeted by a new organism evolved to defeat it.
Lanilla told this story dispassionately, but Octoff sensed a deep distaste beneath her detachment.
“I’ve never heard of these wonderful creatures,” he said, skeptical.
“You’re not from Selevand; why should you care about our ancient history? Besides, they’re long gone, all but this one.”
“What happened?”
“They went mad. Killed their Husbands, or made dangerous things.”
“Really?” He detected the ring of an incomplete truth in this explanation.
“Yes. But that’s not important. Just do as I say — be its friend.”
“Why?”
She frowned. The choke band contracted until he could get no air. He began to claw at the band, hopelessly.
“Octoff, listen,” she said. The band relaxed slightly and he drew one labored breath before it clamped down again. “What do you want most? Freedom? You can’t get it from anyone but me.” The band seemed to crush his throat. “Do as I ask, and I might let you go.” His vision began to dim.
When the band finally slackened, he gulped in air. Anger roared in his ears.
She stood in front of him, very close. “You’re so pretty when you’re in a killing rage. But don’t forget the deadman switch on the choke band, Octoff.” She touched the emitter behind her ear. “When I die, you die.” She made a circle of her left thumb and forefinger, and set her right fist on it. “Pop,” she said, and closed the circle. Her fist flew up, and Octoff imagined his head spinning through the air, a red-tailed kite with a screaming face. He suppressed a shudder, but she saw it and smiled cheerfully.
In the afternoon Octoff walked the manor’s gardens with Speaker.
“New Husband orders me to give you a tour of my grounds.” Speaker smiled, wagging her tail.
“She orders me to seek your friendship.”
“Truly? Then we can both obey with pleasure.” The lovely face glowed.
He looked down at her, puzzled. “Aren’t you curious? Don’t you wonder what she’s doing?”
“Oh, I know what she’s doing. She plans to kill me.” The dog spoke lightly.
He stopped. “How can you know that? Why would she want to hurt you? I thought she was here to oversee your operations.” Speaker sat back on her haunches and lifted that beautiful face. “Old Husband told me. SubStraight Corporation would like to close out the Biomantic operation. Economics partly, but mostly politics. And she hates me — that’s plain.”
“Economic reasons?”
“Yes. In these last hundred years... I don’t know why I didn’t notice sooner. I used to love the trading season, when the merchants would come in their big crawlers and contend for my goods. It was a lively time, and company for Husband. I haven’t thought about those years in so long....”
Speaker’s face filled with numb distraction and a veil fell over the wide eyes.
Octoff prompted. “And they stopped coming?”
Speaker seemed to shake off the weight of memory. “Yes. Fewer each year, and then none. I wonder if Old Husband didn’t deliberately distract me, to save me sorrow. ‘Fashions change,’ he would say, ‘and then they change back. Don’t worry; they’ll come again one day.’ Perhaps I should have worried more.” The dog shook itself again.
Octoff attempt ed a change of subject. “What do you grow?”
“Joy drugs, Octoff... as fine a selection as can be found anywhere on Selevand.”
“All,” said Octoff.
“And you? What is your business?”
“I’m just a slave now,” Octoff answered, feeling suddenly weary.
“No,” she said. “No, I meant before.”
Octoff struggled with regret, which for a moment threatened to drown him. “Before? It’s complicated. But to simplify a bit... I stole slaves and set them free.”
“Truly? And was this a profitable business?”
Octoff smiled. “Not very.”
The dog cocked its beautiful head in a gesture of puzzlement. “I see. Well, I’m sure there were ot her compensations.”
“It seemed so at the time.”
A little silence followed, as though Beauty was digesting this information. Finally the dog spoke again. “And those from whom you stole these slaves... were they annoyed with you?”
“Yes, very.”
“And so how did you deal with them?”
Octoff shook his head and sighed. “I killed them, when I could.” Remembered emotion burst over him, all the triumph and pain of his former life, when he had been Octoff Malheiro the great emancipator. Someone of significance. He found himself thinking of those he had killed, the pleasure he had taken in the ending of their evil lives, the look on those evil faces when they understood they were to die.
He tried to remember the faces of those he had freed, but nothing came.
“And so... your area of expertise was killing people?” Speaker’s voice was light, casual.
“I suppose you could look at it that way.”
“An uncommon skill, these days.”
“Not really.”
He followed the dog through a cool green avenue of old whisper elms, to an arched opening in a high stone wall.
“This is the Bubble Garden,” she said.
It was a small garden, with a few dozen potted plants precisely spaced on a checkerboard of black and white gravel. The low plants themselves were unremarkable, thick green leaves surrounding a central cluster of gray-pink blossoms.
From the hearts of these clusters rose shimmering shapes, a soap bubble menagerie. Nearest to the entrance, a gossamer plumed ape crouched and watched Octoff with crystal eyes. Just the faintest wash of color floated over the bubble creature, and every insubstantial surface danced with iridescence.
“What are they?” He examined a bubble shaped like a great snarling bear, its translucent fangs dripping, its tiny eyes hot with a pale pink rage. He reached out cautiously.
“No! Don’t touch them — they’re very delicate.”
Octoff jerked his hand back. “Sorry,” he said, and moved to look at the centerpiece of the collection, a beautiful human woman, naked, with long, intricately braided hair and wide, serene eyes.
“I didn’t mean to be rude, Octoff. Actually they’re not as delicate as they look, except when a human person touches them. They’re fugue-gas generators, tailored to provide specific emotional experiences — had you touched the bear, it would have sensed your humanity and released the gas.”
“What would I have felt?”
Speaker shivered. “That one was tailored for the Beaster Level in Dobravit. A sadeville, do you know it? Anyway, you’d have been hard to control — you might have damaged me, or yourself.”
“I’ll be careful.” He looked more closely at the bubble woman. His breath caused her transparent skin to quiver slightly. “And this one?”
“Is it the best of them, do you think?”
He looked about, considering the other bubbles: a heavy-world skeleton, a dancing wereweasel, a great greenfish, an angular robot. “It’s the one that appeals most to me.”
Speaker’s face shone. “It’s me, Beauty. Or so Old Husband told me.” Octoff looked cautiously at the dog. “You? Lanilla told me you were a biocomp.”
Her face fell. “Yes. Just tanks of neurofiber buried beneath the manse. But Old Husband... he was a poet, a little crazy.”
The plant bore the Biomantic’s mark on its tough fibrous leaves, repeated over and over. Looking up at the pale braids of the bubble figure, he realized that they echoed that pattern of interlocking chevrons. “Well, it’s lovely. What’s it like, this one’s fugue?”