"I see," she said.
"I'm sorry."
Arriangel began to lose interest in the handsome slaver; why pretend that he saw her as a desirable woman? Now she had only one significant quality: merchantability.
Memfis went to one knee beside her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's not as bad as that, Arriangel. You still possess the strengths you had before: your beauty, your wit, your passion. You have everything but your freedom." He spoke as though he could read her mind. She wondered if he was of a telepathic race or whether her thoughts were simply identical to those of any other newly informed slave.
She tried to smile. He did seem kind, for a slaver.'Then she wondered what darkness, what perversity his apparent kindness hid, and she became frightened. "If you buy me, what will you do with me?"
"Nothing terrible. My decision hinges on one question. Can you love?"
She was confused by the question. Memfis watched her with his beautiful amber eyes, apparently waiting for her to reply to his foolish question. "Can I love? Can't everyone?"
"Oh no; in fact, it's relatively few of us who can love. I'm not asking you if you can pretend to love; I'm not recruiting for a brothel. Though, if I don't buy you, a dozen whorebrokers will bid for you, I'm sure. Can you love?'
"I think so. I loved my father." It was still difficult for her to believe that so vital and forceful a man as Larimone could really be dead.
Memfis made an impatient chopping gesture with his hands. "No, no. That's not what I mean... not at all. I'm a specialist. I'm interested in the sort of love that runs hot from our hearts, that makes us bum for our lovers, that cooks us in our own passionate juices, until we're dizzy with desire. I'll ask you again: Can you love?"
The slaver's fine features seemed suddenly too taut; otherwise, she could not read his expression at all.
But, quite suddenly and perversely, she wanted to see a particular emotion on his face; she wanted to see those amber eyes grow warm. "Yes," she answered. "I can love."
A long, silent moment passed. Then Memfis smiled, an oddly intimate expression. "I think I will believe you, Arriangel."
SO HE bought her, and conducted her from the pens. When the outer doors clanged shut behind her, she felt a sudden lightening of her spirits, though perhaps she was foolish to feel so. Who knew what demands her new owner might make of her? But for the moment, he treated her with careful courtesy. He didn't attach a leash to the plastic collar around her neck, though he held her arm. She found the warm touch of his hand pleasant rather than restrictive, and she missed it when he released her to key open his tunnel car.
The car was luxurious, and she enjoyed this confirmation that Memfis possessed wealth, though she tried to tell herself to be sensible. She was just a possession now; she must learn how to deal with Memfis in a different way than she had dealt with any of the others.
When she was settled and the car was moving through the tunnels on its programmed course, Memfis spoke. "A drink? Smoke? Dust?" He gestured toward a small autobar, and it unfolded, to display a range of euphoriants.
"Perhaps some wine, something not too heavy . . . she answered diffidently.
He seemed pleased by her answer, and he poured her a goblet of some pale, flowery wine, and then one for himself. "You're moderate, even after all this time on the ice. That's an attractive quality, Arriangel. We sleep, on the ice, but our bodies still accumulate needs... though more slowly."
She sipped at the wine, and gazed at him over the rim of her goblet, aware that she made an appealing picture. She waited for him to speak again, but evidently silence caused him no uneasiness. He simply watched her with appreciative eyes. She found that she could not match him at this game, and so she asked him the question that most occupied her. "What will you do with me?"
"You asked that before, and I didn't say, did I?"
"No."
He leaned back in his velvet-upholstered seat and looked at her over his own goblet, in a gesture that was so clearly a mockery of hers that she flushed and set her goblet down, splashing a bit of wine on the polished surface of the table.
He laughed, without any discernible meanness, and it was so pleasant a sound that she was immediately disarmed. Then he set his own goblet aside and leaned forward. He took her hands between his and spoke earnestly. "Do you know what a love farmer is? No? Well, that's what I am, and between us, we'll grow love."
Her face must have betrayed some unreasonable hope, because he frowned and patted her hands gently. "That's not the way I should have said that, though you're a beautiful woman, and I would find you very intriguing under different circumstances. I didn't buy you for myself; your price was far too high for my personal pocket, and besides ... I've never understood the appeal of purchased lovers. No, I bought you in my capacity as a representative of the corporation."
Her heart fell, and she looked down. "I see."
"Not yet," he said, and sighed. "Well . . . better if I defer a full explanation until we arrive. Things will be clearer then."
He would say no more, turning aside her questions with charming and inconsequential pleasantries.
They drove through dark tunnels for thousands of kilometers, the car shuddering with the speed of their passage. After a while her anxiety moderated to the point that she felt a bit sleepy. She forced herself to remain alert.
More than an hour later, the car slowed and dropped through several switchoff tunnels before finally arriving at a floodlit security gate. Memfis said to her, "Were here, Arriangel. This is where we'll do our work together."
The gate was large and strong-looking, and it displayed a bas-relief in gold, inset with platinum and iridium detail. The carving occupied an oval area and was divided into two parts by the gate's vertical seam. On the right was the face of a woman who wore a sweet, soft smile; her eyes were dreamy and mild, and she wore a garland of flowers about her head. On the left side was a man with grim features, whose hair snarled about his head with the energy of angry snakes. His mouth was a bitter line; his eyes bulged with mindless outrage.
The sign that arched over the gate said, The Garden of Passions, Inc. The letters were backlit with a red glow so deep it seemed almost black, the color of iron cooling in a forge.
Memfis touched a button, and the gate split down the center. The two faces slid aside, allowing the car to enter.
He helped her from the car, and she stepped out into an empty loading bay. "Come," he said. "I'll see you settled in your rooms, and tomorrow I'll explain the work we do here."
He took her through a series of deserted corridors, past a hundred closed doors, and in all that way, they met no one else. The corridors were very quiet, and Arriangel began to think morbid thoughts. Was the soundproofing very good at the love farm, and did tormented people scream behind all those closed doors?
Memfis again seemed to sense the direction of her speculations. "Please, Arriangel, don't be afraid. I promise you, nothing bad will happen to you tomorrow."
He seemed so sincere that she gave him her first unforced smile. He laughed. "Very good, Arriangel. You have a lovely smile, and I hope to see it a great many times before we’re finished."
Finished? Her smile wavered — but only for an instant.
Her door seemed no different from all the others, but it opened when he pressed his palm to the ident plate. He ushered her inside with a courtly sweep of his arm, and she stepped over the threshold.
For all she could tell, she was in a luxurious apartment. The media room was decorated in an unfamiliar style, with warm colors and soft fabrics — she supposed fashions 'had changed over the centuries. There was a small kitchen, a large bedroom, and a well-appointed bathroom, in which sat a huge claw-foot bathtub with gold fixtures. In a shallow niche off the bedroom was the most ominous furnishing, a tall padded chair, equipped with heavy straps and a neural-inductance harness. Above it, set into the wall, was a large video screen. Memfis went to the chair and patted it affectionately. "This is the retroprobe. Here is where you'll do your work, Arriangel. Don't be afraid; I'll ask nothing unpleasant of you —just that you love. That doesn't sound so terrible, does it?"