"Why'd he come up? Why take the risk of bringing up that monster Dravan?"

Suddenly the breath seemed to go out of her. She felt as if she was going to red out. The moment pa.s.sed. "Neg," she whispered. "Neg, Jes, that isn't the question. Listen ... the real question is where did Dravan come from? How did he get up here? How do you disguise . . . that?" She actually felt a little frisson at memory of that face, the absolute barbaric aspect of that animalistic man.

They sat frozen for a long minute, staring at each other.

"You've got it, Golden! An animal like Dravan ... he couldn't come up here. Not openly. Yahna-I've got it. He was in that box!''

179.

"Shh."

He lowered his voice but the excitement remained. "He was in that box. The Handsome Man brought Dravan up here. Come to think, he must have taken Dravan out to the carrier and returned on the first carrier we saw. The pilot was already dead-boxed! He had to be-he couldn't be allowed to see Dravan! Not for long, anyhow . . . Dravan looked big enough and savage enough to break the poor bug's neck that way."

She had known that she was caught up in his excitement, but now she clouded over and sighed. "d.a.m.n. There's a hole in that, Jesti. He couldn't have brought Dravan up on the shuttle. Not in a box that big-it's against the rules."

"Rules? Against bringing up belongings?"

She nodded. "Stevedore's union! They have the contract to bring up everything except carry-on things. So ... he had Dravan sent up and held for pickup, while the Handsome Man came up on the shuttle. And let him out. Then ..." She trailed off.

He banged his fist on the table hard enough to attract a couple of curious glances and one stare, from a Terasak s.p.a.cefarer who sat alone at a table toying with a Habibula Sphere and a beer.

"Dravan would've had to be dead," Jesti said. "That box has no holes in it. None. He couldn't breathe."

"An ... air tank, maybe?" Her tone was plaintive. They were so clever and so close-couldn't we just get it? Can't we work it out and Do Something? ' The weird thing is that last I heard, Dravan the d.a.m.ned was dead."

"Dravan the Marked. Well, he didn't look dead to me."

Once again she was staring, almost gla.s.sy of eye. He saw a new revelation behind those eyes, and he stood it as long as he could in silence: about three sees. He demanded words.

"Jesti ... he was dead," she said in a dull voice, narrow-eyed in thought. "He-I'm sure of it. And he still is. That wasn't Dravan! That was one h.e.l.l of a good dupladroid! We've used 'em in the Akima Mars holos . . .

180.

and that was one of the very best. That must be what we saw! He-the-I mean . . ."

He touched her hand with his green-gloved one. "Easy now, you're doin' great. Go on-how what?"

"The ship. We saw that speeder go City! It didn't seem all that necessary, Jes, not right then. Believe me, going Forty Percent City is an absolutely last resort. Unless . . . there was no person on that s.p.a.cer!''

"Ah! Sure, a dupladroid wouldn't be affec-you've got it!"

Triumph . . . while the Why, Where, and How of it were separate questions whose answers remained beyond deduction. Even the near-euphoria of this much progress had drawn Yahna's muscles so tight they ached. Unfortunately their deductive breakthrough gave no hint as to the whereabouts of their quarry. The Handsome Man. Looking down at the tabletop, Jesti pointed that out. Bitterly.

Yahna shook her head. More than ever, she felt calm and in control. "Negatory, Jes. It isn't that bad. We're closer than you think."

"We are?"

"Pos!" She smiled. "You see, a simulacrum has a heart, Jes." She paused while he frowned and groped mentally. "Not the mechanism that powers it. The mnemosyne." Again she paused; in her mind, she was back at the Psychesorium at Koba, listening to the lecturers explain the subtleties of such matters. "The sort of dupladroid we make today was made possible by the biochemist Hee Sun Hsu's development of the gel we call Hsu's Colloid. What makes it special is that it has a sort of memory (someone coined the word mnemory). A human mentor can transfer his own reaction patterns to-well, it's installed in the droid in a synaptic globe, and the droid will respond to stimuli according to the instructions conditioned into it by the mentor.''

"Half-understanding that doesn't help me find my man."

"Yes it does, Jes! Hsuloid's hardly a ma.s.s production synchem! Not many places stock it. All we have to do is-"

"Let's go!"

181.

They went. As it turned out, the only outlet in Marmot for either Hsu's Colloid or mnemosyne was a rather shabby dispensolab in one of the older precincts snuggling around the shuttleport. The creep in charge was small, spindly, rouged, and with a tendency to stroke everything he touched, whether animate or in-, as if it were a pet. His complexion was an unfortunate gray-rust.

Yahna found him worse than distasteful. He eyed her speculatively, ignoring her faceplated companion (which was fine with Jestikhan).

Hsuloid? Pos, he carried it. Not too much call for it, of course. Androids and droidal servomechanisms weren't too popular; people preferred created helpers that didn't look like people. Yes, he had sold three, not too long ago. To whom? Oh my-it had been a call-in and pickup. Cash. Sorry.

A stell-note, not of the lowest denomination, transferred itself from Yahna's bosom to his hand. The little downer tucked it away, pursing his lips, eyeing her even more interestedly than before. Uh, well, maybe the runner who'd processed the order would remember more about it ...

The runner was as big and chocolate as his superior was spindly and grayish. He remembered the call. Rush order out to the zoo-the bionarium. Left the package with the gate-guard. That was all. . . . Knowing he'd never smell what she'd given his boss for nothing, Yahna slipped him a one-stell note and was almost knocked down by his bow.

"Oh good," she said to Jesti. "We'll have to go out there some day."

"Uh," he said disinterestedly, and they thanked and ambled out and along to the corner, rounded it, and ran like h.e.l.l to the tube way station.

The bionarium was Marmot's pride and a nice source of revenue, the most respected interplanetary zoo in the Galaxy. Huge and echoic, equipped with life-support systems to fit a Galaxy-wide range of specimens, including a few off uninhabited and uninhabitable worlds. The gate-guard, spiffy in red with black piping and skin-hugging tights, knew nothing about the Hsuloid. She was, after all, new here.

New?

182.

Firm. The old boy who held this job had suffered a fall down the marble steps not long ago. Cracked his skull. Tragic. Just one of those things, though. Must've tripped over his own feet. A visitor had seen it happen and called for help. Too late. The fracture had been too bad, almost as if the old man's head had been smashed in with a plasteel club.

Like Rafi, Jesti thought, while Yahna said casually, "The visitor?"

"Whew! Never forget him! Named Dhofar something-or-other. Name's on the report of course. What a handsome devil!" She rolled her eyes at Yahna, who smiled. "Too good-looking to believe, you know? He was here at the bionarium quite a bit for awhile, studying alien life-forms. Dull work for such a doll. Lives somewhere close-he's from offplanet-probably the palace." She gestured. Used to be some Ghanji prince's palace, you know? About the only place available around here. Boy, I know one that handsome dog could share!"

"Well, thanks. That's not of any interest to us, of course."

Leaving the guard looking embarra.s.sed at having rattled on because the man was so handsome, Jesti and Yahna left. Outside the park-like bionarium, Jasbir's dome-controlled darkness was descending. Yahna squeezed Jesti's hand.

"Same man!" he said. "Killed the old guard, killed Rafi. Same man!"

"In a palace, no less! We're close, Jesti! Tomorrow, we can-"

"No. Not tomorrow. Now!"

Yahna sighed. His tone told her not to bother trying to dissuade him. She wondered what she was doing here. It would be different if she were in command of her own feelings. It was so hard, hating Jestikhan Churt and wondering if she didn't really love him. Her destiny had got itself tied to a driven madman's! Worse, now that she knew she could walk away without his stopping her-she didn't want to. Couldn't. So-here she stood beside the 183.

fixated madman in his bizarre disguise, in the bionarium's lenghtening shadows.

Stood? No, already he was moving, on his way, eyes gleaming fever-bright behind the faceplate that made his face midnight black.

As she had known she would, Yahna Golden moved with him. Out into the ruddy dusk toward the distant, white-walled compound indicated by the guard as housing Prince Somebody's palace. And . . . the Handsome Man at last?

16.

When Fortune flatters, she does it to betray.

-Publilius Syrus Gelor returned to find light gleaming at the windows of the Inner Palace.

He stopped with a jerk. Every nerve was instantly on edge. To Gelor the power of life and death brought with it a sense of surging strength and elation. Murder, that ultimate power, calmed him. The unantic.i.p.ated stole away that calm. It infuriated him that he was so const.i.tuted, but apparently there was no cure for it. He swallowed hard, and closed the compound's outer gate behind him. He saw to its lock. Keeping to the shrub-shadows that fringed the curving walkways, he moved toward the light.

He was very sure of one thing: he had left no lights on.

A woman's voice rose merrily. Someone said something and a burst of laughter followed. The words were too indistinct for him to understand. That did not blunt the impact of the situation. Women's voices could mean only one thing: somehow, incredibly, Shemsi and DeyMeox were still alive.

d.a.m.n them! This added up to menace. Alive, they would be working against him. Scheming. Plotting. And at a time when he had thought he at last had a chance to rest!

Would there never be an end to tension? Must he live 184.

185.

out his life this way? It was a bitter prospect, particularly since he hacl so successfully brought off his coup-Surely I have a right to enjoy it! To bask, at least for a little while, in ease and luxury. d.a.m.n them! His nerves deserved rest; the freedom to range the universe for his pleasure and intellectual stimulation. His every letch catered to by willing women. Instead, he was trapped here in this moldering palace with two too-intelligent and all too dangerous women.

d.a.m.n them! He crept closer, reached the Inner Palace. There could be no peering in at these light-radiant outer windows. They were set far too high. If, on the other hand, he entered by the postern door . . .

Ghosting around the building with as much speed as silence would permit, he pushed through the bushes that shrouded the cramped rear entrance, unlocked it, and eased it open. He stepped into darkness.

The pa.s.sageway to his left followed the exterior wall to the main hall, the big room he used as a central workshop/ lab. The corridor ended in a heavy door. To its right, a stairway rose. Halfway up it, a window looked into the sprawling workroom. Gelor crept up that stair, and peered through its inward-giving window.

Shemsi and DeyMeox sat at a cluttered table. DeyMeox was drinking the volcanic mineral water called Alive. Shemsi waggled a pottle of bose, the Franjese wine. Both wore their fine velour jumpsuits and both still laughed in hilarity. Unfortunately their words remained indistinct.

Not that it mattered. Gelor went back down the stair, trembling with anger, and flung open the door into the workroom.

The door hit the wall with a crash to shatter crystal. Both women whirled. Shemsi fell half off her chair. Their laughter cut off as if sliced by a knife. They stared. So did Gelor. He said nothing.

Shemsi's voice was a whisper: "We-" She tried again, "We-" She seemed unable to find or form further words.

DeyMeox: "You . . . did return."

"Unexpectedly to you, that's plain." Fists knotted, Gelor 186.

moved in closer to tower over them. "No doubt you have reason for all the laughter.''

DeyMeox wetted her lips. "We-were telling jokes."

"Of course. Hilarious jokes." He bared his teeth. "I need to laugh, too. Tell me one."

That elicited only silence and large, staring eyes.

The tension in him burst into fury. His lashing out at DeyMeox was a savage blow that caught her across the jaw. She was knocked to the floor with a crash. Her pla.s.s of Alive cascaded down to drench her. Gelor had already whirled. Seizing Shemsi by the hair, he jerked hej to her feet.

"Talk, you hust-b.i.t.c.h! What have you done? Why were you laughing?" He s.n.a.t.c.hed up the wine pottle. "Or would you rather have this up your ugly stash-all the way up to where it pours out your mouth?" He added emphasis by slapping her, back and forth. That felt good, and he did it again, watching the blows jerk her head this way and that.

"No, no!" she was screaming, choking, sobbing. "We-oh, oww-"

"Stop it, you animal!" DeyMeox yelled. "Leave her alone! I'll tell you, d.a.m.n you!"

Gelor pivoted. He kept his fingers knotted in Shemsi's hair, dragging the squirming, sobbing andrist along with him.

Clutching at the table, DeyMeox clawed herself to her feet. Blood dribbled from the corner of her mouth and her eye on that side was closed. She kept blinking, as if she were having a difficult time hanging onto consciousness. Yet somehow, grotesquely, she was smiling. Sneering, he realized. Her good eye gleamed with a light that could only be labeled triumph.

"What we've done," she whispered hoa.r.s.ely, reeling, "is cost you Eilong! Eilong and your life, you melanomous monster! You gave CongCorp dead spores, not living ones! They will not reproduce and they will not infect. And the word on you is out, Gelor, out, over your own relays! CongCorp knows who you are and where to find you."

Oh, Shiva, how he wanted to kill her in that moment!

187.

Fear prevented him. Fear for his own neck; fear of CongCorp. And above all, fear for what she might not yet have told him. His gaze jerked around the room, eyes raging, glaring, less than sane.

One of Shemsi's dupladroid frames stood across the room. With a snarl, Gelor dragged both women to it. He locked a droid-claw about the wrist of each, double-checked, and hurried into the loading room adjacent to the spore chamber. He found the spare two-step canisters still in their neat row, precisely as he had left them.

Breathing hard, he checked the homeostats. It was true! Temperature, humidity, pressure-all had been changed. Temp upward, humidity down-and G-pressure right off the dial.

His brain rocked and he raged. Dead spores! The plague that was Teratogenesis Six had been reduced to mockery. Dead spores. He wanted to rave, and he could not. His mouth had gone dry as a waterless moon. His tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. Whirling, he ran for the relay room; the communications center.

There, a loop was endlessly transmitting: ''The man who cheated you is named Gel Gelor. Ident.i.tag is in your banks. Former employee CongCorp, compudator at Lanatia Station. Presently onboard speeder you gave him, bound for Shankar. (beat, beat) The man wh-"

Over and over it pulsed out the message. Over and over and over. Through three replays, Gelor stood frozen. A roiling haze hung before his eyes. Rage such as he had never felt churned through him so that he felt vomitous.

(Rage? Perhaps it was panic, he almost-thought almost-coherently; a panic so deeply rooted and pervasive that his brain dared not acknowledge it lest he fall apart completely? The concept of such fright was in itself a frightening thought.) Gel Gelor began to shake. His teeth chattered. The room swam lazily about him. It came to him that he was on the verge of fainting. Staggering, he slammed his elbow down onto the metal tabletop. Pain blasted through him so sharply,as to blow away the haze. His panic ebbed. Some- 188.

how the throb of pain sent a new thought: There is still hope. d.a.m.n them, d.a.m.n them . . .

The women had made their play based on a false a.s.sumption. They had taken it for granted that he was on the speeder and gone forever. Even they had not guessed at his true plot, the final genius-level twist. He was here and Shemsi's simulacrum was...o...b..ard the speeder, racing along the Tachyon Trail to surface again at a predetermined time and place.

That twist held his salvation. The speeder would still surface out off the Shanki satellite. Since only he knew where, he could still claim the booty his brilliance had earned. He could still live out his dream of wealth and power . . . the wealth and power I deserve!

Yet life would involve far less tension and apprehension if CongCorp's ruffos weren't searching for him in a lulling rage.

Besides ... it was not in him to let these two women bring him down. They had to die knowing that all their efforts had been in vain. That Eilong's doom was sealed just as he had planned it.

"Uh," he grunted, remembering. First came the matter of how they had tricked him! He hurried to DeyMeox's cell. His finger found the light and darkness vanished. And he stared. DeyMeox still lay on the disarranged vibrabed where he'd lain with her and left her.

It was the clever work of that s.l.u.ttish Sh'emsi: a dupladroid in the crober's image, hitched to a s.e.xulator. No wonder she had called for so much material and equipment! Grinding his teeth, Gelor actuated the . . . thing. The thing he had so pa.s.sionately sliced.