The machine stopped. The GenSyn servants backed away, closing the doors behind them. Slowly the machine sank into the lush carpeting: dark yet pregnant with its inner light.
Beyond it, in the shadows, a stranger stood at Klaus Ebert's side. The two were talking, their hushed tones drifting across to where she stood. The man was much smaller than Ebert, a tiny creature dressed entirely in red. The Consensor. He looked at her with a brief, almost dismissive glance, then turned back.
Dry-mouthed, she watched him turn to the machine and begin to ready it for the ceremony.
"Nu shi Tolonen?" He stood before her, one hand extended. It was time.
She took his hand. A small, cool hand, dry to the touch. Looking down, she saw that he wore gloves, fine sheaths of black through which the intense pallor of his skin showed. Holding her hand, he led her to the machine.
The casing irised before her, spilling light. She hesitated, then stepped up into the brilliance.
He placed her hands on the touch-sensitive pads and clamped them there, then pushed her face gently but firmly against the molded screen of transparent ice, reaching around her to attach the cap to her skull, the girdle about her waist. The movements of his hands were gentle, and for a time her fear receded, lost in the soothing comfort of his touch; but then, abruptly, he moved back and the door irised closed behind her, leaving her alone, facing the empty space beyond the partition.
There was a moment of doubt so great her stomach seemed to fall away. Then the wall facing her irised open and Hans Ebert stepped up into the machine.
Her heart began to hammer in her breast. She waited, exposed to him, her body held fast against the ice-clear partition.
He smiled at her, letting the Consensor do his work. In a moment he was secured, his face pressed close against her own, his hands to hers, only the thinnest sheet of ice between them.
She stared into his eyes, unable to look elsewhere, although she felt so vulnerable, so hideously exposed to him that she wanted to close her eyes and tear herself away. The feeling grew in her until she stood there, cowed before his relentless stare, reduced to a frightened child. And then he spoke.
"Don't be afraid. I'd never hurt you, Jelka Tolonen."
The words seemed to come from a thousand U away, distant, disembodied, from the vast emptiness beyond the surface of his pale-blue eyes. And yet it was as if the words had formed in her head, unmediated by tongue or lip.
And still he looked at her. Looked through her. Seeing all she was thinking. Understanding everything she was feeling. Emptying her. Until there was nothing there but her fear of him.
Then, in her mind, something happened. A wall blew in and three men in black stepped through. There was the smell of burning and something lay on the floor beside her, hideously disfigured, bright slivers of metal jutting from its bloodied flesh.
She saw this vividly. And in the eyes that faced hers something happened: the pupils widened, responding to something in her own. For a moment she looked outward, recognizing Hans Ebert, then the memory grabbed at her again and she looked back inward, seeing the three men come toward her, their guns raised. Strangely, the memory calmed her. I survived, she thought. I danced my way to life. The partition between them darkened momentarily, leaving them isolated. Then it cleared, a circular pattern of pictograms forming in the ice; a tiny circle of coded information displayed before each of their pupils, duplicated so that each half of their brains could read and comprehend. Genotypings. Blood samplings. Brain scans. Fertility ratings. Jelka felt the girdle tighten, then a momentary pain as it probed her.
Figures changed. The ice glowed green. They were a perfect genetic match. The machine stored the figures dispassionately, noting them down on the contract.
The green tinge faded with the pictograms. Again she found herself staring into his eyes.
He was smiling. The skin surrounding his eyes was pulled tight in little creases, his eyes much brighter than before.
"You're beautiful," said the voice in her head. "We'll be good together. Strong, healthy sons you'll give me. Sons we'll both be proud of."
She pictured the words forming in the darkness behind his eyes: saw them lift and float across, piercing the ice between them; entering her through her eyes.
Her fear had subsided. She was herself again. Now, when she looked at him, she saw only how cruel he was, how selfish. It was there, at the front of his eyes, like a coded pictogram.
As the machine began its litany she calmed herself, steeling herself to outface him: No. You''II not defeat me, Hans Ebert. I'm stronger than you think. I'll survive you. She smiled, and her lips moved, saying yes, sealing the contract, putting her verbal mark to the retinal prints and EGG traces the machine had already registered as her identifying signature. But in her head the yes remained conditional.
I'll dance my way to life, she thought. See if I don't.
DEVORE LOOKED DOWN at the indicator at his wrist, then peeled off the gas mask. Outside his men were mopping up, stripping the corpses before they set fire to the level.
resell was unconscious on the bed, the Han girl beside him.
He pulled back the sheet, looking down at them. The woman had small firm breasts with large dark nipples and a scar that ran from her left hip almost to her knee. DeVore smiled and leaned forward, running a finger slowly down the cleanshaven slit of her sex. Too bad, he thought. Too bad.
He looked across. Gesell lay on his side, one arm cradling his head. A thick dark growth of hair covered his arms and legs, sprouted luxuriantly at his groin and beneath his arms. His penis lay there, like a newborn chick in a nest, folded softly into itself.
Looking at the man, DeVore felt a tight knot of anger constrict his throat. It would be easy to kill them now. Never to let them wake. But it wasn't enough. He wanted Gesell to know. Wanted to spit in his face before he died.
Yes. For all the threats he'd made. All the shit he'd made him eat.
He drew the needle-gun from his pocket and fitted a cartridge, then pushed it against GeselPs chest, just above the heart. Discarding the empty cartridge, he fitted another and did the same to the girl. Then he stepped back, waiting for the antidote to take effect.
The woman was the first to wake. She turned slightly, moving toward Gesell, then froze, sniffing the air.
"I'd keep very still if I were you, Mao Liang."
She turned her head, her eyes taking in his dark form, then gave a tiny nod.
"Good. Your boyfriend will be back with us in a moment. It's him I want. So behave yourself and you won't get hurt. Understand?"
Again she nodded, then shifted back slightly as Gesell stirred.
DeVore smiled, drawing the gun from inside his tunic. "Good morning, my friend. I'm sorry to have to disturb your sleep like this, but we've business."
Gesell sat up slowly, rubbing his eyes, then went very still, seeing the gun in DeVore's hand.
"How the fuck did you get in here?" he said softly, his eyes narrowed.
"I bought my way in. Your guards were only too happy to sell you to me."
"Sell. . ." Understanding came to his face. He glanced at the girl, then looked back at DeVore, some eternal element of defiance in his nature making him stubborn to the last.
"Mach will get you for this, you fucker."
DeVore shrugged. "Maybe. But it won't help you, eh, Bent? Because you're dead. And all those things you believed in—they're dead too. I've wiped them out. There's only you left. You and the girl here."
He saw the movement almost peripherally; saw how her hand searched beneath the pillow and then drew back; heard the tiny click as she took off the safety.