"No, Wade. We want to make the universe more efficient," Besser said. "What's wrong with that?"

A group of sisters came down the warren, their clone smiles sharp in unthinking bliss. Efficiency, Wade thought. They were carrying buckets of defected fetuses to the meat shredder.

"The sisters are just lower order interspeciels. The Supremate activated them for this annexation target because they were best suited for earth's atmospheric specifications. The actual metisunits that we'll use for recolonization exist in a mult.i.tude of varieties and are much more genetically advanced."

Wade slumped, looking away. "What's in it for you?"

"Immortality and governorship, the reward granted to any loyal nativeemissarial."

"I don't get it," Wade said.

"All social orders, even perfect ones, need a chain of command."

"So for betraying your entire planet, the Supremate's going to let you and Winnie be his sergeants," Wade concluded.

"Something like that. But not Winnie, I'm afraid. She's out of the picture. After recolonization, the earth will need an overseer." Besser's eyes shined in glory. "Me."

But Wade sensed a deeper picture. Didn't power corrupt, even at the highest levels? "What about Winnie?"

"She outlived her serviceability, so I disposed of her. The Supremate didn't need her anymore."

"And when you're finished with the first phase of your 'master plan,' you won't need Jervis anymore either."

"Of course not. Jervis will be disposed of too."

"But you promised him immortality," Wade reminded.

"We lied. Sometimes deception is necessary for a greater cause."

"So it's just you, huh, Prof? You get to rule the world."

"Yes," Besser said. "As a disciple of the Supremate, the world will be mine."

Wade had trouble containing the urge to laugh. He knew a Brooklyn Bridge deal when he saw one. The Supremate had Besser, in his mad delusions, duped. Hook, line, and sinker.

They extromitted down. The transposition from one place to another felt like pa.s.sing through a wall of sand. The bizarre light in these lower warrens seemed darker, yet more intense. In an unfitting contrast, Wade actually felt aroused.

"It's the psilight," Besser explained, "and it serves many purposes. One effect is the obvious excitation. The Supremate likes to maintain an ambience of fecundity. We're not rapists, Wade. The progenitors of destiny should be willing. Another effect is simple communication."

"How does simple communication explain my b.o.n.e.r?"

"Think of the psilight as the Supremate's influence. It's actually a conduction flux, like static electricity."

"And I guess you have some ridiculous thirty letter name for it."

"Exordipathicsignaltrancination. The Supremate feels us with it." He held up the sensor ring which girded his fat pinky. "It connects us to him telepathically. It's like the labyrinth's blood, consolidating all components, be they living, dead, or inanimate. It also transfers power from the stasisfield to the labyrinth's processing systems. In fact, it was focused wavelengths of the psilight which originally allowed the Supremate to communicate with Winnie and me before the labyrinth arrived."

So the psilight was like a power line. What would happen to it during the labyrinth's recharge period?

"Psilight?" Wade said. "Stasisfield. What does this have to do with the agro site?"

"On landing," Besser explained, "which we call termination of annexation transfer, the labyrinth must r.e.t.a.r.d its reentry by means of electromagnetic counterpulses. Regrettably this activity generates a momentary wavelength aberration which causes irreversible physiological damage in any life form within a limited perimeter. The agro animals were too close to the pulse upon termination. This proximity resulted in instant degeneration of the complex organ systems. They died at once, as did any wildlife within the perimeter. It also caused our first transfection failure. Apparently Penelope was near the site during the labyrinth's descent. The counterpulse damaged her reproductive faculties. Tom buried her just past the clearing."

"I've seen the cozy little graveyard," Wade confirmed.

"Then we decided on a more scientific approach. From the campus medical records, we identified the healthiest candidates available for transfection. Can you imagine the catastrophe of inducting a surrogate or holotype that wound up with some inherent biological defect or genetic disorder?"

"No," Wade said. "I can't imagine it." But there was one more explanation he wanted. "The grove. What did you do to the grove?"

"The green fog isn't really fog," Besser told him. "It's a waste by product of the psilight generators. We simply vent the conduction and element cores on occasion. The ga.s.ses happen to possess some amusing metamorphic effects on any plant and wildlife that's exposed to it for a sustained period."

Yeah, amusing, Wade thought. He remembered the faced mushrooms, the flesh covered trees, and the hideous gilled fog snakes.

Now they stood in a short black warren before a pair of blank door sized rectangles. A small plate hovered between them. Besser touched a b.u.t.ton of some sort, and the left rectangle filled with dark kaleidoscopic light. This shifting effect, Wade realized, was something vast beyond the rectangle, something scrolling at incredible speed.

"This is the hold egress," Besser said, "the access to the main holotype hold. As you can see, we've an abundant supply."

"Access?" Access to what? Wade wondered.

"Meet your new brothers," Besser bid.

The rectangle pulsed blurred images, like flitting a deck of cards. Wade saw things-living things-in the port, the physical likes of which beggared sane description. Besser slowed the scrollmode's speed to afford Wade a more detailed inspection. One per second, the cramped, glowing holds switched by. Intent, otherworldly figures crouched close to the repulsion screens. All were different yet exclusively abominable, and most seemed to possess overly prominent genitals.

"Monsters," Wade uttered, staring.

"Not monsters, Wade. Men. Just like you."

"Pardon my prejudice, but I don't have three b.a.l.l.s and a forked d.i.c.k, and I have two eyes in my head, not two dozen. Those things are not just like me."

"They're men," Besser repeated. "They're just different because they come from different places. I a.s.sure you, Wade, you're as grotesque to them as they are to you."

Besser halted the scroll to an empty hold. Its stockcode read, in almost epitaphic letters: #1003WADEST.JOHN.

"Beginning to get the picture yet?" Besser asked.

Wade was incapable of response.

"And now that you've met the men, it's time to meet the women." Besser activated the adjoining port. He flashed the female holds by much more slowly.

Wade looked but wished he hadn't. The flashing grotesquorium locked his gaze. These were the female counterparts of what he'd just seen, only most had been decalcified. They sat slack in corners like limp sacks, eyes peering out from settled, skull less heads. Gorged b.r.e.a.s.t.s hung from collapsed shoulders, and boneless legs lay splayed (many had more than two), joined hiplessly by flaccid pink grooves that could only be v.a.g.i.n.as.

Then the scroll stopped. Besser said, "Ah, here she is. Your first date, Wade. Take a good look."

The hold's occupant resembled a conical mound of gray, spotted blubber. It seemed collapsing in on itself around a pudgy yellow tongue that emerged to lick a wanton smile. Not one but several v.a.g.i.n.as encl.u.s.tered at its groin. It winked, and raised a sagging loop of an arm and waved.

"Really, Wade," Besser resumed, "a ladies' man such as yourself should be delighted by this unique opportunity." Besser's sarcastic chuckle sounded like footsteps in muck. "Now, Wade, you're the ultimate ladies' man."

"You're going to make me have s.e.x with alien piles of blubber!" Wade gasped, spitting bile. "Bimbos from s.p.a.ce!"

"Exactly. Didn't we tell you what an honor this would be? Your sons and daughters will repopulate worlds."

Besser shoved Wade into the empty hold, then keyed closed the repulsion screen. He t.i.ttered, grinning in. "I'll be back shortly, Wade, with some sisters. We'll be taking you for your final acclimation regimen. And after that...it's pa.s.sion for eternity."

"You evil fat piece of s.h.i.t!" Wade yelled into the screen.

"And I'd learn to be more respectful of your superiors. Please don't call me fat. Remember, I'm your new lord now, forever. If you're not nice to me, I might decide to have you rea.s.signed to one of the communal holds. The holotypes there aren't particularly given to gender when it comes to pastime activities, if you get my meaning."

"Aw, Jesus," Wade groaned low in his gut.

"So behave yourself. And until we meet again...welcome."

-YES, WADE, another voice announced. -WELCOME TO MY FAMILY.

CHAPTER 34.

Symbols, he thought.

Jervis reminded himself to be creative. More and more, he viewed his new life as a progression of symbols. He was not so much doing things as he was wielding the hand of destiny. Everything meant something else, something deeper. But what else could the warm, black cube symbolize but death?

Besser had called it an s cla.s.stacticlepyrotechnicserviceordnance-its yield was equivalent to about five hundred kilotons. Jervis understood the importance of the Supremate leaving it behind, but...

Was he actually having doubts, after all he had done, after all the people he'd murdered?

No, it wasn't doubt. It was despair.

Paragons don't despair, he thought.

It was Sarah.

Jervis forced the thought shut. It was one or the other. It was destiny or sucking up to the b.i.t.c.h who'd dumped him. Could love be so focused as to divert him from immortality?

"No!" he shouted aloud. "No!"

I will not despair.

The pyrotechnic would kill thousands. It would kill Sarah too.

"I will kill them all," Jervis said. "But I'll kill her first, and I'll do it myself."

Lydia retrieved her Colt Trooper Mark III from Besser's office, where Wade had dropped it. Even though she knew it was useless, she felt she had to bring it. It was the only good luck charm for a girl who didn't believe in luck. The office was silent. There was no sign of the exchange that had taken place earlier in the day.

Next she drove back to her apartment. Absurdly she took a shower, brushed her teeth, and put on a new uniform.

Am I really going to do this? she thought. It was still not too late to get on the interstate and blow. Something was giving her a dozen last chances to balk.

She drove the Vette to the student shop. She had the UV spotter, but she didn't even know if it would work. When she entered the shop, she felt more asinine than scared. "G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Wade," she said to herself. "You better be worth this."

Tom's pendant hung around her neck; the extromission key felt warm in her cleavage. Her eyes scanned the wall and found the dot. One last luxurious image lodged in her mind: the Vette cruising swiftly into the next state, the top off, and Lydia behind the wheel, her hair a blond tumult in the breeze. I'm walking to my death, she thought giddily. "Oh, what the f.u.c.k," she said.

She inserted the key into the dot and entered the labyrinth.

CHAPTER 35.

Wade sat drenched in sweat in the hold. A lot of sisters seemed to be filing by. He knew now, they were just bred to order slaves, like drones in a bee colony. That's all the Supremate wanted. Unifying the galaxies under one peaceful order was bulls.h.i.t-he wanted brainless, obedient laborers to harvest the resources off all the planets for the material benefit of his own race, whatever and wherever that was. The Supremate was as diabolical as anyone in a position of power.

Sisters kept peeping in as they filed by. Hundreds must've done so thus far-where were they all going to? This was the first opportunity he'd had to see them up close without their sungla.s.ses. Their eyes were huge silver orbs-the size of cue b.a.l.l.s-each with a black point for a pupil. The black, he guessed, was just an inbred variation of the same material in Besser's sensor ring, and the rods in Tom's and Jervis' heads, a genetic conduction relay that linked all of their minds to the Supremate. Instant blind allegiance built right in. What more could tyranny ask for?

And what of him?

Yesterday I was a college student. Today I'm an intergalactic stud. What a deal.

"What are you looking at!" he yelled at the screen. Another sister was grinning in. "How about a little privacy, huh!"

-We wish we could be you.

"Yeah? Why?"

Black veins traced faintly beneath her white chiffon skin. Her large b.r.e.a.s.t.s were nippleless. -We want to make babies too.

"Make tracks instead. Leave me alone. Bubblehead."

But why did she seem so sad? She was a clone. -We're going now. The Supremate is done with us. She smiled a last time, showing rows of gla.s.sine teeth. -Goodbye, Wade.

"Good riddance. And see a dentist. Soon."

Then she was gone. Her strange laments surprised him; perhaps they weren't as mindless as he thought. It wasn't Wade they envied-it was life itself. It was love, joy, pa.s.sion, creativity, all the things that their warped existence had left them without. Wade almost felt sorry for her.

We're going now, she'd said. But going where? The labyrinth wasn't set to leave until midnight. When Wade looked up at the screen again, the melancholy procession of sisters had ended.

Then a shadow loomed. Besser. "It's time, Wade."