Ripley anxiously pressed the door switch again, but it remained yellow, and still the gears clicked and the steel bolts retracted.
“Annunciata?” he called. “Annunciata?”
The only emotions that mattered, said the Beekeeper, were those that clearly contributed to survival and to the fulfillment of his magnificent vision for a one-world state of perfected citizens who would dominate nature, perfect nature, colonize the moon and Mars, colonize the asteroid belt, and eventually own all the worlds that revolved around all the stars in the universe.
Like all of the New Race, Ripley’s spectrum of emotions remained limited largely to pride in his absolute obedience to his maker’s authority, to fear in all its forms — as well as to envy, anger, and hate directed solely at the Old Race. For hours every day, as he labored on his maker’s behalf, no emotion whatsoever interfered with his productivity any more than a high-speed train would be distracted from its journey by a nostalgic yearning for the good old days of steam locomotives.
Of the emotions he was allowed, Ripley proved best at envy and hate. Like many others, from the brainiest Alphas to the shallowest Epsilons, he lived for the day when the killing of the Old Race would begin in earnest. His most satisfying dreams were of violent rape, mutilation, and mass slaughter.
But he was no stranger to fear, which came over him sometimes without apparent cause, long hours of unfocused anxiety. He had been afraid when he witnessed Werner’s catastrophic cellular metamorphosis — not afraid for Werner, who was nothing to him, not afraid of being attacked by the thing Werner was becoming, but afraid that his maker, the Beekeeper, might not be as omniscient and omnipotent as Ripley had once thought.
The implications
With twenty-four simultaneous
The formidable barrier swung open on its single, thick barrel hinge.
Having burst out of and torn off its garments long ago, the Werner thing stepped naked from the transition module, into the monitoring hub. It was not as handsome as Adam in Eden.
Apparently, it continuously changed, never achieving a stable new form, for it was in significant ways different from the beast that had regarded the overhead camera in the transition module only moments earlier. Standing on his hind legs, the new Werner might have been a man crossed with a jungle cat and also with a praying mantis, a hybrid so strange that it seemed utterly alien to this planet. The eyes were both human now — but they were much enlarged, protuberant, lid-less, and staring with a feverish intensity that seemed to reveal a mind in the triplex grip of fury, terror, and desperation.
Out of the wickedly serrated insectile mouth came a subhuman voice full of gargle and hiss, yet intelligible:
Ripley could think of nothing either informative or reassuring to say to Werner.
Perhaps the bulging, feverish eyes revealed only rage, and not also terror and desperation, for Werner said,
Ironically, considering that he was an Alpha with a high IQ, Ripley only now realized that the Werner thing stood between him and the only exit from the monitoring hub.
CHAPTER 8
Bucky and Janet Guitreau stood side by side on the dark back lawn of the Bennet house, drinking their neighbors’ best Cabernet. Bucky held a bottle in each hand, and so did Janet. He alternated between a swig from the left bottle and a swig from the right.
Gradually the warm, heavy rain rinsed Janet clean of Yancy and Helene.
“You were so right,” Bucky said. “They really are pussies. Did it feel as good as doing the pizza guy?”
“Oh, it felt better. It felt like a hundred times better.”
“You were really amazing.”
“I thought you might join in,” Janet said.
“I’d rather have one of my own to do.”
“Are you ready to do one of your own?”
“I might be almost ready. Things are happening to me.”
“Things are still happening to me, too,” Janet said.
“Truly? Wow. I would’ve thought you’re already … liberated.”
“You remember I watched that TV guy twice?”
“Dr. Phil?”
“Yeah. That show made no sense to me.”
“You said it was gibberish.”
“But now I understand. I’m starting to find myself.”
“Find yourself — in what sense?” Bucky asked.
Janet tossed an empty wine bottle onto the lawn.
She said, “My purpose, my meaning, my place in the world.”
“That sounds good.”
“It is good. I’m quickly discovering my PCVs.”
“What’re they?”
“My personal core values. You can’t be of use to yourself or to the community until you live faithfully by your PCVs.”
Bucky pitched an empty wine bottle across the yard. He had drunk more than a bottle and a half of wine in ten minutes, but because of his superb metabolism, he would be lucky to get a mild buzz from it.
“One of the things happening to me,” he said, “is I’m losing the education in law I got from direct-to-brain data downloading.”
“You’re the district attorney,” she said.
“I know. But now I’m not sure what
“It means ‘have the body.’ It’s a writ requiring a person to be brought to a court or a judge before his liberty can be restrained. It’s a protection against illegal imprisonment.”
“Seems stupid.”
“It is stupid,” Janet agreed.
“If you just kill him, you don’t have to bother with the judge, the court, or the prison.”
“Exactly.” Janet finished the last of her wine and discarded the second bottle. She began to undress.
“What’re you doing?” Bucky asked.
“I need to be naked when I kill the next ones. It feels right.”
“Does it feel right just for the next house or is it maybe one of your personal core values?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it is a PCV. I’ll have to wait and see.”
Toward the back of the yard, a shadow moved through shadows. A pair of eyes gleamed, then faded into rain and gloom.
“What’s the matter?” Janet asked.
“I think someone’s back there in the yard, watching.”
“I don’t care. Let him watch. Modesty isn’t one of my PCVs.”
“You look good naked,” Bucky said.
“I feel good. It feels so natural.”
“That’s odd. Because we aren’t natural. We’re man-made.”
“For the first time, I don’t feel artificial,” Janet said.
“How does it feel not to feel artificial?”
“It feels good. You should get naked, too.”
