"Time for what? Tea?"

Behind the screen's electrostatic fog, Besser's goateed face looked like a cross between Henry VIII and Lucifer. Two sisters stood at his side. "It's time for immortality," Besser said. "The Supremate wants to give you his gift now."

"Tell him to wait till my birthday. I hate to feel obliged."

Besser dropped the screen. The sisters' huge eyes blinked above their grins. They grabbed Wade and pulled him out. They followed Besser down the servicepa.s.s and extromitted several times. The sisters exchanged grins as their hands roamed Wade's body. I'm being felt up by aliens! he thought, outraged. Their curiosity grew incessant; their fingers worked into his shirt. More envy: the s.e.xless exploring the fertile, touching that which it wasn't. "Hey, careful with the merchandise!" Wade complained when one of the hands slid over his crotch.

Wade sensed he was higher in the labyrinth now. The servicepa.s.ses were darker, the psilight had grown dull. Warrens he'd seen glowing earlier were black now; others blinked off before his eyes. It was obvious: They were conserving their stored energy, shutting down their production areas. Wade presumed that just about everything here sapped power in some way-power they no longer had. The psilight seemed to waver, soon in time with a familiar screech.

The hash room, Wade realized. That's where the sisters had been filing to. He gazed into the channelwork and saw them.

There were hundreds.

"Power conservation," Besser said. "Transception cells consume power, so we're disposing of most of the sisters. Now that the initial bifertilizations are done, only a skeleton crew is required to maintain the replication systems."

"You're turning them into food? All of them?"

"Of course. It's a perfect cycle, Wade. When things are no longer needed, we turn them into something else."

Food, Wade thought. He watched the conveyor feed living sisters into the shredder one by one. Each shriek of the blades was followed by a soft splat. Gobs of black meat poured into hoppers, which then rolled to dropchutes and emptied.

"How many sisters will be left?"

"Just a few, to monitor the systems once we've departed. And when we need more" -Besser smiled- "we'll make more."

If this was perfection, perfection sucked. "You've got your holotype and surrogates now. What are you waiting for? Why doesn't the labyrinth leave right now?"

"Wade, haven't you learned anything in college? I've already explained, the labyrinth a.s.similates electromagnetic energy as a propulsion mode. The earth attracts EM waves to the contour of its physical shape. But the sun's constant radioactivity, and its equally constant release of neutrons, exert force against any lateral EM plane. Thus, the field surrounding the planet is depressed on one side."

"The side facing the sun," Wade realized.

"Yes, and that's why recharge must occur at night, when there's more electromagnetic energy at our disposal."

"The Supremate," Wade remarked. "He's one smart dude."

"He's part of the greatest intelligence that's ever existed."

"How about letting me meet him?"

Besser turned. "You want to meet the Supremate?"

Wade knew he was beaten. He wanted at least to see the face of the force that had beaten him. "It would be an honor to meet the guy responsible for unifying all collective life in the universe. It would be a trip."

Besser pondered the request. "I'm glad you're coming around."

"Look, I've seen it all now and I know it's all for the best," Wade lied through his teeth. "So I might as well go with the flow."

"A sound conclusion." Besser's face was a smiling nod. "Very well, Wade. You shall meet the Supremate."

They extromitted through several subinlets. Again, Wade sensed they were rising. More signs floated by: SYSTEMSJUNCTURE#730, SYSTEMSJUNCTURE#525, SYSTEMSJUNCTURE#419. With each extromission they covered a great distance in no time.

"The extromitters are programmed by thought," Besser mentioned. "Without that function, it would take weeks or even months to cross merely from one level to the next."

"How long would it take to walk the entire labyrinth?"

"Years," Besser said.

This impressive statistic deepened Wade's despair. The further up they went, the more bizarre he felt, the more abandoned.

Was this how slaves felt before they met their lords?

Next sign: SYSTEMSJUNCTURE#1.

Wade felt light headed. Besser inserted his key and extromitted them into the Supremate's shrine.

They stood tiny in vast, black s.p.a.ce. Wade thought of an auditorium the size of a football field, with black walls, a black floor, and a black ceiling. Wade was about to meet the brains behind this entire business. What could something like that look like?

Set into the corner was a kind of inverted sconce. Wade could easily picture something grotesque sitting in it, an abominable, fleshy overlord with giant eyes and fish lips. Yet all that seemed to be resting in the sconce was a black box about the size of a VCR. The Supremate must be farther back in the nave, having not yet emerged.

The two sisters fell immediately to their knees.

"Okay," Wade said. "I'm ready. Where is he?"

"Right there," Besser said.

Wade squinted. All he saw was the black box in the empty sconce. "You mean the box?"

Besser nodded, his face uplit in a triumphant, twisted smile. "Say h.e.l.lo to your new master."

Wade looked at the box and frowned deeply. "You've got to be s.h.i.tting me. That box is the Supremate?"

"Yes."

Wade was mortified. "That thing looks like my f.u.c.king CD player." He glared disgusted at the meager black box. "I was expecting some big toad faced thing sitting on a throne."

"It's a logic circuit, Wade, an integrated processing terminal. It's as conscious as you or I-only that consciousness is too complex for a physical body."

The Supremate's a machine, Wade thought. A bunch of transistors and solder. No, it was impossible. It must be a joke. "I cannot believe that the brains behind this entire operation is a ridiculous black box!"

-GREETINGS, WADE, the black box said.

Besser chuckled.

-HOW DOES IT FEEL TO MEET G.o.d?

Her extromission seemed to turn her inside out and back again. Lydia stood in the mouth of a subinlet. The production warrens were in total darkness. The psilight was much dimmer now. And where were the sisters?

She spent a half hour extromitting from one random place to another. The mindsigns numbered in the hundreds, but each extromission progressed her only one number at a time. POINTACCESSMAIN#16, the next sign read. She examined the keyplate. It was just a black plate with a hole in it, nothing more. There weren't even any b.u.t.tons on it, just a keyhole. There had to be some trick to this, some way to program extromission to a specific location.

When she inserted the key, she was inadvertently remembering her brief stay in the temphold, and the absolutely disgusting thing that awaited her in the next cell. When she came out the next access, she expected to find herself at pointaccessmain#17. Instead, the mindsign glowed TEMPHOLDS.

Thought, she thought. Maybe that's the trick. The idea had some definite possibilities, but before she could contemplate them, footsteps stopped behind her.

Lydia whirled.

-Lydia! You're back!

One of the bigger sisters faced her, naked and grinning. Lydia gaped at the sight. The sister's eyes were huge spheres. Her stretching grin showed a mouth crammed with teeth. And worse was what stood directly behind her: the same holotype that had been reserved for Lydia earlier. When it recognized her, it flexed up on its stout legs and howled.

Lydia was shaking, stepping back. The sister and her escort stepped forward. The holotype's meaty face pinched up in l.u.s.t.

-I can't wait to watch, the sister said.

Lydia didn't need to be told what she meant. The holotype's preposterous genitals were already swelling in arousal.

They backed her into a dead end. The holotype fondled itself to full erection, chuckling deep from its slatted throat.

Now or never, Lydia thought. She raised the ultraviolet spotter, aimed its purple bulb at the sister's face, and flicked the switch.

The sister giggled.

Nothing happened.

CHAPTER 36.

The sisters hustled Wade out of the Supremate's nave. Besser seemed amused by Wade's colossal disappointment.

"In a sense, Wade, the Supremate is G.o.d. He's omnipotent, omnipresent, and forethoughtful to a higher goal."

"G.o.d, my a.s.s," Wade complained. "If that f.u.c.ker's G.o.d, my favorite beer is Bud. G.o.d is not a black box."

Besser stopped a moment. His voice hung in the air like an incantation. "My G.o.d is here, Wade. Where's yours?"

Good question, Wade concluded. He could not contemplate an answer. In a fraction of a second, Wade thought about his whole life, and how he'd blown every chance at being a decent person. G.o.d, whoever or whatever He was, had abandoned him. Even Wade could admit that it was fitting.

"Here we are," Besser said. "Your last stop as a human being."

Wade nearly wailed. The sign read IMPLANTATIONSURGERY.

The sisters dragged him into a small hold and slammed him down on a levslat, beside which hung a tray of instruments: pincers, retractors, and a good old Planet Earth type scalpel.

"Before you can join the Supremate's family, you must first undergo a few changes." Besser picked up a tiny black needle with wires coming out of it. "This is a ganglionicstaticreflexpulsemodificationdischargenode. It will integrate you with the labyrinth's sensor systems, and it will teach you obedience very quickly. Any thought contrary to the Supremate will trigger an instantaneous release of static electrical current into your central nervous system and, of course, your gonads."

"How charming," Wade remarked.

"Additional acclimations will embellish your immune system so that, barring any physical accident, you'll be impervious to all disease, and you won't age."

Wade indicated the black needle. "What exactly are you going to do with that?"

"Exactly? We're going to implant it into your brain."

Wade struggled against the two sisters, who giggled at his horror. "My health plan doesn't cover this kind of procedure. You better find yourself another guy."

One sister approached the instrument tray. The other held Wade down on the table. He jerked, and punched her in the eye with all his might, then howled. It felt like he'd just punched a steel ball.

"Be brave, Wade," Besser consoled. "The sisters know exactly what to do. They're trained brain surgeons."

"Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better!" Wade yelled.

The first sister vised his neck down with her hand like an iron brace. The second sister picked up the scalpel.

"The pain will be excruciating," Besser added, grinning. "But don't worry. It will go away in a couple of months."

Wade wasn't listening anymore. He was screaming.

Nothing happened when Lydia turned on the ultraviolet spotter. Either the battery was dead or the bulb was burned out. If the battery was dead, so was she. If it was the bulb, she could replace it with the spare stored in the receptacle, if she had time- -which, of course, she didn't. The holotype was all over her at once, jamming her into the corner, while the orb eyed sister stood as spectator. One moist padded hand pawed Lydia's b.r.e.a.s.t.s; the other hand squeezed her b.u.t.tocks. Lydia knew the .357 wouldn't work against the sisters, but what about the holotype?

Her gun hand, however, was pinned behind her back.

The beast's sweat soaked into her clothes; its breath blasted, foul as gas from a corpse pile. Its left hand popped open her pants and dragged them halfway down. The sister giggled softly as the hot mitten of meat plied Lydia's s.e.x.

Next she was slammed to her knees. Oh, no, she had time to think. Men all wanted the same thing apparently-even men from other planets. The holotype's hand positioned the huge glans before her lips. There could be no misinterpretation: Lydia had two choices-she could suck, or she could die.

-Stick it in! the sister urged, a cheerleader from s.p.a.ce. -Stick it all the way down her throat!

Lydia's entire face felt squeezed shut. The snoutlike foreskin was retracted; the glans nudged her sealed lips...

-Lydia! Open wide!

I am not going to give head to an alien, she informed herself. No way in h.e.l.l, uh uh, forget it.

But wasn't this her only chance?

Lydia Prentiss steeled herself then, as no woman in history had. The crotch stench alone stupefied her. Between the holotype's backward jointed legs hung a creviced s.c.r.o.t.u.m which encased two t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es the size of coconuts. With her left hand, Lydia took hold of the thing's p.e.n.i.s. She gave it a tender stroke. Then she opened her mouth, began to lean forward- With her right hand she drew her Colt Trooper and fired one round into the holotype's s.c.r.o.t.u.m.

The tight, hot bang! concussed in her ears. One of the testes exploded. The howl of agony which burst from the holotype's throat sounded like demolition in a deep canyon. It teetered back and fell over, pad hands agrope at the encased mash that was once half its malehood. Pale yellow blood spurtled out, like paint.