and this time she says, ‘Father, I need you!’ ”
“What?”
“It was our daughter.”
“What do you mean
Fred nodded.
“Go on.”
“So I hand off the gunneries to my sidekick and run into the room. She’s lying in a pool of her own blood. She’s an adult woman, and she looks like what the daughter of a russ and ’leen might look like, if clones had children. Her uniform is torn, and there’s a big ugly gash in her side. She says, ‘This is real, Father. I need your help, or I will surely die.’ ”
“Wait a minute. Her uniform?”
“She’s a lieutenant, but not in my army. In my enemy’s army. So, I’m faced with the dilemma: to save our city or save my enemy daughter.”
By then it was full morning in the null room, and Mary’s gaze was locked on his. “What did you decide?”
“I woke up.”
“Liar! Coward! Tell me.”
“Honest, I don’t know. I woke up.”
They lay in each other’s arms, thinking about their dreams, unable to return to sleep. They listened to music for a while. Then they made love again. Compared to the first collision, this was a stroll down a familiar lane. They dallied at favorite places along the way, pausing in mid-intercourse for more discussion — about how much they missed each other, about their dreams, about the obvious fact that only people with a low drive for self-procreation were selected to start iterant germlines. They ground their hips against each other, generating only minimal heat to maintain a slow burn for hours, and in this manner they occupied the morning.
DURING THE NEXT couple of days, they napped, made love, watched vids from the suite’s extensive library, played games, and talked. Mary secretly worried about Ellen. Had her unplanned absence had any negative consequences? Fred made a secret list of things to do when they got out of the suite. At the top of the list was finding a place for them to live.
During their third evening, they lay in bed and watched colorful arabesques of light drift across the room. Without discussing it, they agreed to leave the suite the following morning. Finally, when they could avoid it no longer, they discussed Ellen Starke.
“Our confidentiality oaths never expire,” Fred said to start it off, “not even when we’re no longer employed by Applied People and not even in a null suite.”
“I know,” Mary replied. “That’s why I asked Ellen to grant us a personal waiver. It’s on file at Applied People. We are free to talk to each other whenever we want about anything we want regarding the Starkes.”
Fred grunted acknowledgment.
“All right, Fred,” Mary said, “I’ll go first. From what Ellen told me, I know that you worked several months for the Starkes when Ellen was a baby and her stepfather, Samson Harger, was seared. Of course she doesn’t remember it, but family legend says you were especially compassionate to Samson and helped him get used to his condition. And Cabinet says that after Eleanor was killed and while you and the Justice Department were arresting all of its mirrors and backups, that Cabinet asked you for special treatment, which you refused. Ellen and Cabinet deny any knowledge of how you acquired the false identity to break into the clinic. I assume that came from the TUGs, which is why you said you owe them a debt. How’m I doing?”
Fred grunted again.
“What I don’t understand, Fred, is why you’re so angry with them, with the Starkes, I mean. I’m the one who decided to risk my own life; they didn’t compel me. If you must blame anyone, you should blame me.”
“There’s enough blame to go around.”
The walls served up blue skies and a calm sea on which their soft raft drifted on gentle swells.
“How can I blame you?” Fred continued. “You were fighting for the survival of your entire germline, as you told me a hundred times. How can I find fault with that?”
“Well, that’s good to hear. But what about the Starkes? They’re good people. Why the grudge?”
Anger rose so quickly that Fred took several deep breaths to damp it down. “Listen,” he said as evenly as he could, “I know where we clones fit into the grand scheme of things, and I’m good with it. But the fact that I’m ‘good with it’ is only because I was bred to be compliant. I’m good with that too. Usually I enjoy my life! I was at the top of my game! I was exercising the talents I was given, and I was being recognized and rewarded for doing so. What more could any person ask for? I know that russes are bred to be protectors; it doesn’t bother me. That’s exactly what I like doing, helping people, protecting them. We’re serially loyal to our clients because it keeps us honest. Petty despots can’t get their hooks into us.
“But your Starkes are an old-fashioned dynasty. They need a palace guard made up of lifelong retainers, members of their extended service family. Their Cabinet did try to recruit me in the middle of an operation to escort it through probate. It would have meant subverting my duty to Applied People and our client, the UD Justice Department. That’s not a client you want to screw with, and I couldn’t deceive them, even if I wanted to, which I didn’t. So, in their desperation, the Starkes made a side deal with Nick, or somehow gamed the Applied People system, and arranged for
“Hold on,” Mary said. “Wait a minute, mister. Are you saying it was all about you? They didn’t want me or my sisters at the clinic for our own skills, but only to entrap you?”
“I know how it sounds, Mary, but basically — yes. We’re all chess pieces for them to move or sacrifice as conditions warrant, all in service to the king, who in this case is your buddy Ellen. I risked my life and the lives of two other officers to save her head before she ever made it to the clinic. Did they tell you that? Look up the Sitrun Foundation on the WAD. Remember the canopy ceremony when I had to leave? One officer was killed and another was diced to pieces, but was that enough for them? No, they turned right around and took you too. They broke faith with me, Mary, and nearly cost me the one person I love. And once broken, trust can never be made new, no matter how much cash they throw at it.”
Mary considered what he was saying for a long while. “I don’t see it in quite those terms,” she said at last. “To my way of thinking, the Starkes offered me a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to prove to the whole world that my Sisterhood mattered. I have never felt happier about myself than I do now. If at first I was a pawn, it didn’t stay that way for long. I became and I remain a player.”
“Is that why they arranged my acquittal on all counts?”
“You think the Starkes did that? Well, they didn’t. Ellen would have told me.”
“Then how do you explain it? I was looking at certain conviction.”
Mary didn’t know.
Their raft was drifting toward the shoals of an island with bird-stained bluffs. Mary said, “So what do we do now, Fred? Do I have to quit the Starkes before you’ll want to be with me?”
“I never said that.”
“Do I have to give up my Leena, and go back to work for Applied People?”
Fred had the good sense to make no reply, and Mary turned her back to him and tried to sleep.
New Kettle of Fish
Merrill Meewee addressed a meeting of prospective Oship colonists in person in Laurence, Kansas. He skipped the lunch banquet to hurry back to Starke Enterprises to make the scheduled GEP board meeting. The noontime rush was in full force and the Kansas City Slipstream station was crowded, except in certain small pockets of the platform where no one walked. They were like open meadows in a forest of people. Meewee was preoccupied with his thoughts when he absentmindedly walked through a holobarrier and across one of these meadows. Halfway across, his foot went through the marbelite floor tile up to his shin. The otherwise indestructible artificial marble
