Again Kim wasn't quite sure that he did, but he nodded and, responding to Campbell's broad, generous smile, grinned back at him, reassured.
"As I see it," Campbell continued, "if I can keep you happy, you'll produce the goods. If you produce the goods, SimFic makes profits. And if SimFic makes profits we all grow fat. So it's in my best interest to keep you happy, neh?"
"I guess so."
They had stopped just before the group. The five men had turned to greet Campbell as he approached and now they stood there, their heads slightly bowed, waiting for the Controller to introduce them.
"This here is Hilbert, Eduard Hilbert. He's Head of Cryobiology and an expert in biostasis procedures. . . cell repair and the like. Our experiments are at an early stage, but we're hopeful, neh, Eduard?"
Hilbert bobbed his head. He was a thin, dark-haired man in his mid-thirties with the slightly haunted look of a man who preferred the laboratory to social gatherings. Kim extended his hand. "It's good to meet you."
"And you." Hilbert looked away, embarrassed, yet his brief smile had been friendly enough. Moreover, in turning he had revealed the pulsing collar about his neck. He too was a commodity slave.
"And this," Campbell continued, introducing a young Han in his early twenties, "is Feng Wo-shen. His background is in protein design, but he'll be working with you, Kim, as one of your assistants."
Feng bowed his head low in what was a very formal way. Straightening up, he met Kim's eyes, a natural enthusiasm burning in his own. "I am delighted to be working with you, Shih Ward. We are all very excited about the work ahead."
Kim returned his bow, then looked up at Campbell. "Assistants?"
The big man smiled. "Of course. We don't expect you to do all the experimental work yourself. You'll need assistants for that. To start with IVe allocated you four. If you need any more . . ."
Kim laughed. "No, no ... four's quite enough. It's just that. . . Well, I didn't expect to be treated quite so well."
Campbell looked genuinely surprised. "Why the hell not? Look, Kim, we've made a huge investment in you. It would be downright stupid not to get the best out of you. You're a theorist, right? That's what we bought you for, neh? Well then, it makes sense surely to free you to do what you're best at. To utilize your talents to their maximum capacity."
Kim thought briefly of geese and golden eggs, but merely smiled and nodded. "I take your point, Controller. Yet a great deal of my work is, of necessity, experimental. Feng Wo-shen and the others . . . they'll be of great help, but you must understand . . ."
Campbell raised a hand. "Whatever you want. And whichever way you want to do it. Just get me results, eh? Results." He turned back, putting out an arm to indicate the next in line. "Now, this here . . ."
For the next half hour Kim moved about the reception hall, meeting the people he was to work with, coming back, finally, to the group about the glass-topped table—a table which he saw, suddenly, was no table at all, but a huge display tank, its occupant, if occupant it had, hidden beneath a screen of greenery and rock. While Campbell went through the business of introducing him formally to Bonnot and Schram, Kim thought of the task ahead. At last he was to be given everything he'd been denied before: good equipment, well-trained staff, and whatever was needed to develop and manufacture a marketable product. The only real difference was in how the profit from the venture was distributed.
He smiled inwardly. What Campbell had said earlier was true. If he did well, they would all be happy. And who knew, he might even enjoy the work. Yet it wasn't quite as simple as that. He could see it in the way Bonnot and Schram looked at him, with a jealous hostility and a deep-rooted contempt for his stunted Clayborn body. Well, he could live with that. Besides, there was always Campbell's promise of protection.
As soon as was polite, he moved to one side of the group and leaned over the tank, looking down into its depths, his fingertips resting gently against the glass. The surface of the tank was cold, the ice thick, reinforced, as if the water within were being kept at a different pressure from the room.
For a time there was nothing, then, as if it had been waiting for him, it appeared, slowly at first, one appendage coiling like a snake about the rock, blindly searching with its tiny suckers. And then, with a dreamlike slowness that was mesmerizing, it hauled itself up through the concealing layers of weed, until its vast bulk seemed to fill the tank. . .
He stared at it, fascinated. It was like a spider. A giant aquatic spider, its long arms coiling sinuously along the restraining walls of the tank. As he watched, the mottled dome of its head turned through the shadows until it faced him, its huge eyes blinking slowly, then meeting his own in a cold, incurious stare that seemed to sum him and dismiss him.
Kim moved back, shivering. Once more mere knowing had failed him, for to be in the presence of such a creature—one of the ancient monsters of the deep—was to experience a sense of primal fear. Yes, simply to meet those eyes was to stare into something vast and dark and eternally alien, eternally withheld.
It was a deep ocean creature. How, then, had they trapped it? How brought it here? How kept it? As it turned, slipping back beneath the masking layers of weed and rock, he tried to estimate its length. Fifty, maybe sixty ch'i it was. Huge, even by the measure of its kind.
Kim turned, sensing another presence just behind him. It was Campbell. He stood there, one hand tugging at his goatee thoughtfully.
The Controller looked past Kim at the disappearing monster, then met his eyes again. "Well? What do you think of our pet? Impressive, neh? One of the deep-level units found him, more than a year back, some six li down in the center of the Abyss. They stunned him, then put him in a temporary capsule with a few tidbits while they decided what to do with him. In the end we had to build a special pressure chamber. Even then it took us almost two weeks to bring him up—a ch'i at a time, it seemed. But here he is. Our pride and joy." Campbell turned, looking back at Kim. "You're very fortunate, Kim. He doesn't deign to visit us that often. Most of his tank's down there, beneath the City. A huge thing it is. You can visit it sometime, if you want."
Kim gave a vague nod, then looked away. Six li. . . Which meant that the pressure in the tank had to be phenomenal.
"Has he a name?"
Campbell nodded. "We call him Old Darkness. Among other things. But look, let's talk about it later, eh? There's someone else I'd like you to meet. She'd have been here earlier, but her flight was delayed. Come, she's waiting over there."
Kim stared at the tank a moment longer, then followed Campbell across, giving the briefest nod of acknowledgment to Schram and Bonnot as he passed.
"Here," Campbell said, ushering him into a circle of people. "Bar-ratt and Symons you met earlier, but I'd like to introduce you to our new Commercial Advisor. I understand you know each other already . . ."
But Kim was no longer listening. At the first sight of the short, dark-haired woman, he had moved past Campbell and embraced her, holding her against him tightly, fiercely, his eyes brimming with tears. "Rebecca . . ." he said, amazed, moving his face back to stare at her, as if at a long-lost sister. "The gods forgive me, I thought you were dead. . ."
THINGS happened FAST. Within an hour of the attack, Gratton was on all channels, coast to coast, expressing his shock and sadness. His image was intercut with pictures looking down on the operating table as the surgeons tried to put Michael Lever back together again. Only the intercession of Kennedy got the floats out of there—under threat of expensive legal actions. Then, before three hours had passed, Kennedy himself spoke to reporters—calling a news conference in the anteroom at the hospital, a white-faced Carl Fisher standing at his shoulder as he talked.