No, it doesn't matter how drastic. Curiously: How did it happen?

Explain to me the overall history of the world for the past six hundred years, in one paragraph or less, Gwen said dryly.

He shrugged. Yes, of course. But . . . how drastic? What's it like for people, in that world of yours?

Peaceful, mainly. No war, no poverty, no sexism, very little crime, no illness except eventual death. Most people work on the land, or at handicrafts, or in domestic pursuits; we could do that by machine, but it's more . . . healthy the other way. The high-tech sector nearly handles itself.

She raised a hand. It isn't a democratic system. There's a genetic elite; I'm part of that. It's a static culture.

Yes, yes, Cairstens nodded. It'd have to be stable, to live in harmony with nature like that; it couldn't be our sort of grasping, wasting greed-society.

His eyes burned. You need me to help. If this got out, every spook and spy from every government in the world would be fighting to pick your bones. They'd never allow you to contact your people.

She nodded. I'm going to need a large organization; and a smaller one within it, of men and women who know the truth.

He shook his head again. I believe it, but I can't believe it.

Sleep on it. Tomorrow we'll talk again.

Another brandy, and some more of that raspberry cheesecake, please, Gwen said.

The waiter smiled and hurried off. Gwen finished the last sip of the VSOP Otard cognac, savoring the uncanny fresh-grape sweetness, the vanilla tang of Limousin oak. Relatives of hers held estates there; the product was surprisingly similar in this universe. One of the drawbacks of her enhancements was that ethanol was metabolized as rapidly as anything else; wine was pure taste, not kick, to adrakensis. Four or five brandies did produce a mild effect, though.

Amazing,she thought, running over the conversation with Tom Cairstens.And every word was the truth. Even if their response to pheromonal clues was spotty, humans could be manipulated verbally. She could tell exactly what their reaction was to every word, of course-scent aside, listening to their heartbeats and watching the pupil dilation and patterns of heat on the skin-and modify accordingly.

Cairstens was going to be invaluable; she couldn't be everywhere, and it wasn't good tactics to be under human observation too much.

Invaluable provided he didn't go off the rails. It would take him a while to assimilate the data; humans were like that, their conscious and subconscious severely out of synch. How odd it must be, to know something was true and not feel belief in it! Like the way she'd felt for the half-hour after the accident, but all the time. Gwen shuddered slightly. That had been utter nightmare, the closest she'd ever come in all the long years to losing control of herself. No wonder the humans had such trouble maintaining clarity of thought and purpose.

Yes, she'd have to nurture Cairstens along carefully, building up a teacher-acolyte relationship; he had the makings of a fanatic, a True Believer.Should I take him? she wondered. So many of these feral humans were just plainugly; it was a bit of a shock. The genetic engineers had eliminated that from the world of the Final Society long ago, along with inconvenient psychological characteristics. Cairstens was an exception, lean and hard, pleasant blue eyes, longish brown hair . . . probably an entertaining mount.

No, not for the present.Human males in this culture had odd ideas about sex and dominance. She'd wait until the parameters of the relationship were well-established, then integrate it as a reinforcement. She'd have to be careful, at that.Servus were protected against over-addiction to the stimulus ofdrakensis pheromones, sexual or otherwise. But wild humans were only vulnerable to a few of the more obvious stimuli, fear/dominance, lust/love, the basics-and when they were affected, didn't have any stops.

Gwen sighed. The geneticists who'd designed her species had wanted an aggressive, energetic, territorial breed. The same hormones produced a driving libido as well; that was deep in the primate inheritance, and would have required complete rewiring to change. Normally she didn't mind, but this wasn't the Domination, where body servants expected to do concubine duty as a matter of course. One human wasn't nearly enough-she didn't want to wear Dolores out-and going too long without could produce unfortunate results, like poor Jamie Simms. Not that she'd hurt him-she had better control than that-but he'd had an alarming night. Controlling the need eventually required a counterproductive amount of energy.

What I need is an isolated retreat,she thought. A Household, or as close as this world could come to it.

That would be the best base of operations.And perhaps I should reproduce.

No otherdrakensis around for gene-merging, of course, but she could clone herself. The technology was simple, not far above this world's level; remove the nucleus of an ovum, replace with cell nucleus, remove the postfetal inhibitors, and stimulate to divide. A human female would do well enough for a brooder. The immune-markers were compatible; that had been built in as a failsafe way back in the early days. For that matter, she had a functional womb herself, if she cared to spend a year to bring it up from standby status.

She pursed her lips in distaste. Nowthere was a perverse thought.

Yes, a child was definitely a possibility. It would be comforting to have another Draka to help out, if the Project took that long.

The cheesecake arrived. My compliments to the staff, she said, and slipped a fifty into the waiter's hand.

He beamed at her, and Gwen smiled back. She hadn't had this much fun in centuries.

Hunhf.Twelve.

Henry Carmaggio sat up on the weight bench, wheezing a little and wiping his face with the sweat towel slung around his neck. Any excuse to delay moving from the bench press to the goddamned preacher curls; last year or so they'd set off a twinge in his left shoulder, the place where he'd broken it playing touch football back when he was sixteen. It hadn't hurt since, but now . . .

The gym wasn't very full, for a Saturday afternoon. Enough for the usual heavy smell of sweat, people pumping away at the Nautilus machines, pedaling fast to nowhere on the Life Cycles and going to the same place on foot on the StairMasters. The small windows up along the roof under the outside wall were steamed up, but the big mirrors at the far end were clear enough. They showed one middle-aged cop, a stocky thickset man with heavy shoulders and a waist only a little thicker than the best that could reasonably be expected. Heavy craggy features with a beak nose, hazel eyes, a solid frosting of gray at the temples of hair worn unfashionably short. The shorts and T-shirt he was wearing showed arms and legs corded with muscle and thick with curling black hair; a line of old white scars ran down his left leg from thigh to calf.

One good thing about working up a sweat,he thought.It takes your mind off itches you can't scratch.

Like the warehouse case. Not just being taken off it, but he hadn't heard zip on the street, either.

Of course, a co-ed gym also reminded you of other itches. On the good side, better than two-thirds of the men here were gay, which reduced the competition. On the bad side, the women tended to be way, way above his income and education bracket. And whatever current theories said should be, that still made a great wonking difference.And face it, you expected to stay married until you were in a wheelchair.

He rose, wincing at how his knees crackled, and ambled over to the weights section for the preacher curls. As usual, somebody had put the weight disks back on the stands any old way, meaning you had to heave them around to get the ones you needed to fit on the bar.

Patron,a voice said.

He started slightly. Jesus! he said.

Jesus winced, probably because people had been making jokes about his name ever since the family moved from San Juan to New York when he was three.

Got a message for you, Lieutenant, he said.

Carmaggio's eyebrows rose. It was Saturday, and he wasn't working the weekend this week.

Lady wants to talk to you. From the Feds.

Ahhh,he thought, and suddenly the aches in his muscles and the sweat running down his barrel-shaped torso ceased to matter.

Wants to talk about you-know-what, if you're interested.

You bet your ass, Carmaggio said softly. His teeth showed. Bet your ass,paisano.

I'm Special Agent Claire Finch, the FBI agent said, sliding into the booth.

Carmaggio sized her up as they shook hands. Finch was small-wouldn't have gotten into law enforcement before the height requirements were removed-and extremely pretty in a businesslike way: reddish-brown hair, fox-sharp face with a hillbilly point to her chin and a very faint trace of mountain accent. Scots-Irish, probably, maybe with a trace of Cherokee: West Virginia, or East Tennessee. He'd had guys from that area in his platoon. One of them had been the best shot he'd ever met.

Detective Lieutenant Henry Carmaggio, he said.

There was an awkward moment of silence while the waitress brought their coffee: cappuccino; they were north of Canal Street, in an area where Italian was slowly giving way to Asian. He sipped, relishing the familiar bitterness.

So. You wanted a meet?

Finch nodded a little jerkily. Highly unofficial, she said.

Henry grinned. Your brass doesn't like weird shit either, hey?

We-Special Agent Dowding and I, my boss-got the reports on your homicides because there seemed to be a repetitive pattern, might be a serial killer. We put out a flag on it. Sure enough, we got a repetition of the MO.

Henry felt himself tense. Where? he whispered.

Through the DEA. Cali, Colombia.

Shit, they get twenty homicides aday there, sometimes.

Not this way. A couple of goons cut up-street-soldiers for one of the drug operators. Crushed like dixie cups, killed with their own knives. Then a bank executive, found in his apartment a lot like your Stephen Fischer. And a disappearance, a flight attendant named Dolores Ospina Pastrana. All associated with a woman matching the description of the one seen with Fischer. Operating under the name of Smith.

That's original, Carmaggio grunted. Was the bank in Colombia dirty?

InCali? Finch said.

Point taken, Carmaggio said.

Outside our jurisdiction, she went on. And some time ago, now. But you see the implications.

Money. We've got someone who drops into a major buy, kills twenty men, and walks out with . . . call it a million plus in very dirty bills. They stop over at an apartment for a few hours. Then at another for a week, a killing at each. Theremay have been another- What? Finch leaned forward.

Lowlife named Jojo Jackson, down around Times Square. Did false ID, among other things; we found him in an alley. Somebody grabbed him by the back of the neck and slammed his face into the wall,real hard.

I don't like this, Henry went on softly. I don't like this at all. Because it sayslearning, to me. Learning about things, killing the teacher to clean up, moving on.

And laundering the money, Finch said, with a tight controlled nod. Which means that whoever it is now has a million dollars-call it half that after the cut the cleaners take-in untraceable funds.

She cleared her throat. Its not a serial killer in the conventional sense. Not a drug thing under the DEA's mandate. Not just a homicide.

It's very fucking strange, Henry said quietly. Let's stop beating about the bush.

The agent hesitated, tapping her fingers on the linoleum, then came to a decision: Our esteemed friends at you-know-where near D.C. grabbed the arm, she said. My guess is they're studying the hell out of it somewhere and want the lid very firmly in place. Word's come down from above that it's a national security matter. Drop it, forget it, it never happened. The Company and Military Intelligence have whole sections dedicated to woo-woo stuff; TV to the contrary, the Bureau doesn't.

Henry tapped a finger on the table.

Who specifically? he said. You wouldn't happen to know about a couple of thick-ears, one of 'em twenty-five, brown hair, blue eyes, the other- Andrews and Debrowski, Finch said. Yes. They're wet-work specialists, operating for a new branch.

Bioterrorist threats. Mostly Company people.

Them, he said. I would have thought NSA. You might be interested to know that they paid a call on a friend of mine. They weren't real friendly themselves, and they picked up something important.

It's a joint operation, which is why technically theydo have domestic jurisdiction. Not that that ever stopped you-know-who from doing you-know-what.

The Company, Carmaggio said. Let me tell you about the spooks. Guy I know-this happened back in seventy, I met him years later in a VA hospital, Navajo guy-was in the Special Forces, his unit was up in the Highlands, running a Hmong camp. Seems there was an encryption group, Company people, operating out of the camp. Good men, with some equipment that was high-tech back in those days. They were reading local enemy signal traffic better than Victor C.

Finch's eyes turned intent at the policeman's tone. Carmaggio's voice went low and tight. He'd never been there himself when he was in-country, but he could see it-down to the feel of the heat, the black-pajama'd Montagnards, the long lean pigs rooting among the sandbags, chickens clucking, naked brown kids.

So they get Elint that the enemy's going to attack the camp. Do they pass it on? No, they do not. They ask permission from Langley. And Langley decides that it's a higher priority to keep the fact that we're-they're-reading the signals secret. So it goes back and forth between Langley and this pissant little firebase fordays, until the guy in charge of the listening post takes out his .45 and shoots up the radio and tells the Special Forces officer running the place what's coming down-only by then it's real late, and four hours later two battalions of NVA hit their wire. Couple hours after that, they were calling in strikes right on top of their own position.

He forced his fingers to relax on the thick china cup. The Navajo guy got dusted out with an AK bullet through both knees. And that, he said softly, is what I think of the spooks. And they're doing it again.

Isn't it a coincidence, he went on in a lighter tone of voice, that your people at Quantico can't tell us any more about that skin sample we got from under Marley Man's fingernails, or return it?

Yes. Remarkable coincidence. The Bureau didn't object, and normally they wouldn't spit on the Company if they saw 'em dying of thirst in the desert, for fear it would give them the strength to crawl to water.

And the spooks don't much care about the unsolved homicides, do they?

The FBI agent cleared her throat and spoke, in her polite, barely accented voice: We do, Mr.

Carmaggio. It may sound strange, but we feel a certain responsibility to the American public. And whatever else we have, it's a pattern killer. I'm not rulinganything out, including mutants and space aliens, but whatever it is-it kills.

Carmaggio nodded heavily and finished the lukewarm remnants of his cappuccino. My gut tells me the pattern's not going to stay down in the land of coffee and nose-candy, either.

We did . . . retain the DNA pattern when the other people took the skin sample, Finch said. Unofficially, and just in case. You know the passport setup the Canadians have nowadays?

Bring in $250,000 and get their equivalent of a green card? Yeah. Getting a lot of heavy traffic out of Hong Kong that way.

It's also a natural setup for various sorts of crime, not to mention espionage, so we have some contacts with the RCMP, Finch said. My boss called in a favor and had them run a computer check on their applications. They do a DNA fingerprint-just satellite-DNA, not the deep stuff. They didn't see anything strange, but it did match the pattern markers I sent them.

Ahhh. A vast hunter's satisfaction warmed Carmaggio's belly.

A fax slid across the table to him. He felt his eyebrows rise at the picture.This was what had wasted Marley Man? He looked at the high-cheeked sculpted face.Looker. Maybe it was his imagination, but there was somethingwrong about it . . .

Gwendolyn Ingolfsson, he read. Colombian citizenship . . .

Which you can buy retail, Finch said.

Henry shrugged assent. With the amounts of money washing around down there, everyone was dirty and pretty well everything was for sale. The down side of that was that local ID was a trouble-flag to half the police forces on earth. Canadian papers were nearly as easy to get and not nearly as likely to arouse suspicion.

And resident in the Bahamas, she said. They don't like people asking questions there, not without very good reasons. We can't do anything; officially that skin sample no longer exists and never did. But . . .

Another piece of paper followed the picture. The header and signature had been blanked out when it was photocopied, but he recognized the style.

. . .damage to cranium is congruent with beam weapon. Laser is unlikely due to explosive deformationupon penetration. An energetic-particle or metallic charged-plasma beam, with the latter being the higher probability. Guide mechanism unknown. Effect indicates a power source in the multiple-megawatt scale; the effect could not be duplicated without capacitors and other equipment weighing in the seven- to twelve-tonne range . . .

I'll be goddamned, he said. Itwas a ray gun. No wonder the spooks are all over it.

Carmaggio leaned back and hooked an ankle over his knee. Now, Special Agent, that leaves one question. Why exactly are you coming tome about all this?

They're probably thinking in terms of some foreign connection, Finch said. We-my boss and I-don't think so. We don't know what, but it doesn't fit espionage.

The problem with setting up an organization to find bio-terrorists . . . Carmaggio said.

. . . is that theywill find bio-terrorists. Whether they're there or not. And my boss is convinced that if theydo find -she tapped the picture- her, they'll try to deal. Sure as fate, they'll try to deal; they want that stuff that badly. The only thing we're confident of is that there'll be more bodies.

They looked at each other for an instant. Somebody had walked into that warehouse and killed twenty armed men with a knife and bare hands. The picture didn't look like someone who could do that . . . but nobody could, anyway.

Not Rambo on his best day, Carmaggio said, and the FBI agent nodded. I do not understand this. Finch nodded again.