“Hmm, I could tell when you came; that isn’t the same thing.” Yolande slipped her free hand under the serf’s neck while she kneaded softly with the other, rising on one elbow and bending her head to Marya’s breasts. The nipples were dark and taut, the large aureoles around them crinkled, ridged smoothness under her tongue.
“I . . . ” Marya caught her breath as Yolande bit gently. “I volunteered. This time.”
There was quiet for a few minutes, broken only by the increasing sound of the serf’s panting. Yolande leaned closer, studying the other’s face. The dark eyes were wide, iris swallowed in the pupil. Ah, nearly, she thought, laughing and increasing the feather-light pressure of her fingers. Marya’s arms went back, gripping the headboard, as her knees pulled up and wide; the cords in her neck stood out as she gave a series of gasps and then a sharp cry.
“I think maybe you do like it,” Yolande said. “Pity you don’t like me; it increases the pleasure.” She wiped her hand on the sheet.
Marya sighed. “You’ve been . . . You haven’t been as . . . strict with me these last few years, Mistis.”
Embarrassed, Yolande lay back. “Oh . . . Well, I wasn’t thinkin’ straight, fo’ a while after Myfwany was killed. You sort of stood fo’ the Yankees, in my mind. But that isn’t fair, of course; you aren’t a Yankee anymore, you my serf. Not fittin’ to abuse you. Besides”—she patted the other’s stomach for a second, then took her hand—“you bore Gwen. Not willingly, of course, but you still carried an’ nursed Myfwany’s clone-child; I couldn’t keep up the hatin’ after I saw her at you breast, could I?”
She was silent for a moment, letting drowsy thoughts sift through her mind. “Still . . . playin’ chess, you get to know a person somewhats.” She yawned. “You strange to me. As different as two bein’s of the same species can be. Draka I understand. An’ serfs. Yankees I meet in structured situations, like battle; logic of objective conditions forces a certain amount of similarity to they behavior. Most of my serfs like me well enough; I’m a good owner. You . . . ” She shrugged. “You wasn’t raised to think that way.” I think I’m still the enemy, in your heart, she thought. What do they taste of, the kisses of an enemy?
“Mistis, take me with you, on this visit?”
“Why so?”
“I . . . ” Marya turned her head away from the one on the pillow beside her. “You’re right, everyone here is still strange to me, even after all these years; but you less than the born-serfs.”
“ ’Kay,” Yolande muttered. She turned on her side and threw an arm and leg across Marya’s body. “Sleep now.” Her eyelids fluttered closed.
Marya’s right arm was free; she raised it in the dim light of the reflected Earth, letting it shine on the imperishable metal of the controller. Then she brought it to her lips, opening them to the cool neutral taste, slightly bitter. She lay so, motionless except for an occasional slow blink, as the hours crept by and the sweat cooled on her skin.
Chapter Eighteen
NEW YORK CITY
HOSPITAL OF THE SACRED HEART
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
APRIL 7, 1998
Nathaniel Stoddard grinned like a death’s-head at the shock in Lefarge’s eyes.
“Happens to us all, boy,” he said slowly. “Ayuh. And never at a convenient time.”
Lefarge swallowed and looked away from the wasted figure, the liver-spotted hands that never stopped trembling on the coverlet. I’ve always hated the way hospitals smelled, he thought. Medicinal, antiseptic, with an underlying tang of misery. The private room was crowded with the medical-monitoring machines, smooth cabinets hooked to the ancient figure on the bed through a dozen tubes and wires; their screens blinked, and he knew that they were pumping data to the central intensive-care computer. Doling out microdoses of chemicals, hormones, enzymes . . .
“I’d have told them to stop trying two years ago, if I hadn’t been needed,” Stoddard said. The faded blue eyes looked at Lefarge with an infinite weariness, pouched in their loose folds of skin. “But if I’m indispensable, the nation’s doomed anyway, son.”
Lefarge looked up sharply; that was the first time the old man had ever used the word to him. He reached out and clasped the brittle-boned hand with careful gentleness.
“My only regret is that you couldn’t take over my post,” Stoddard said. “But what you’re doing is more important. Janice and the boy all right?”
Lefarge smiled, an expression that felt as if it would crack his cheeks. “Janice is fine. Nate Junior is a strapping rockjack of thirty now, Uncle Nate. Courting, too, and this time it looks serious. We’ll have the Belt full of Stoddards yet.”
The general sighed, and closed his eyes for a moment. “The Project? What do your tame scientists say about the trans-Luna incident?”
Well, at least the information’s still getting through, Lefarge thought. I might have known Uncle Nate would arrange to keep a tap into channels.
“They . . . ” He ran a hand through his hair, and caught a glimpse of himself in the polished surface of a cabinet. Goddam. I show more of Maman every year. His cropped hair was as much gray as black, now; no receding hairline, though. “Well, the consensus is that it . . . mutated. They had to make it so that it could modify itself, anyway. The trigger is multiply redundant, but it’s just data, and if something knocks out a crucial piece . . . ”He shrugged and raised his hands. “No estimate on spread, either. Slow. Maybe ten percent penetration by now, if we’re lucky. Two years to critical mass. Absolutely no way of telling if there’ll be more, ah, mutations. Or if they’ll figure it out.” He shrugged again. “The Team says de Ribeiro was right; we took a . . . less than optimum path in computer development, way back when. Too much crash research, too much security. Though they practically end up beating each other over the head about what we should have done! Anyway, even the Project can’t redevelop an entire technology. They’ve pushed the present pretty well to its limits, and what we’re using is the product.”
Stoddard’s eyes opened again. “Fred . . . ” He fought for breath, forced calm on himself and began again. “Fred, don’t let them throw it away. We can’t . . . The Militants will win the next Archonal election in the Domination. Coalition . . . we’re pretty sure. War . . . soon after. Inevitable . . . fanatics. Think of the damage if they attack . . . first. Remember . . . Nelson’s eyepatch.”
Fred felt the hair crawl on the back of his neck. Admiral Nelson had been signaled to halt an attack; he put the telescope to his blind eye, announced that he had seen no signal, and continued.
A red light began to beep on one of the monitors. Seconds later a nurse burst into the room.
“Brigadier Lefarge!” she said severely, moving quickly to the bedside. “You were allowed to see the patient on condition he not be stressed in any way!”
He leaned over Stoddard, caught the faded blue eyes, nodded. “Don’t worry, Uncle Nate,” he said softly. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Brigadier—” the nurse began. Then her tone changed to one he recognized immediately: a good professional faced with an emergency. “Dr. Suharto to room A17! Dr. Suharto to room A17!” Her hands were flying over the controls, and the old man’s body jerked. More green-and-white-coated figures were rushing into the room; Lefarge stepped back to the angle of the door, saluted quietly, wheeled out.
The office in Donovan House was much the same, missing only the few keepsakes Nathaniel Stoddard had allowed himself, even the Parrish landscapes were still on the wall. Something indefinable was different, perhaps the smell of pipe tobacco, perhaps . . . I’m imagining things, Frederick Lefarge thought, as he saluted the new incumbent.