never met anyone before.
I used to wonder what it was about music and math, why they're so integral to the human system that a few people know them instinctively. I'm no closer to understanding.
I can still help her with other subjects, and the teaching is a delight. But though she can continue beyond me by herself, I think it would be better for her to have some direction. Even more now, I wish my friend were still alive, because I think she would have gotten great joy from working with Mischa. She would have been able to help, but the navigator of the pseudosibs' ship knows barely more than I do. I think Subtwo gives out titles to make people happy and does all the real work himself. He's the only one left to ask.
Subtwo made an error, stopped, and reached toward the pressure-sensitive display screen. Placing the side of his palm hard against the plastic, until he could feel the material give against the force, he dragged his hand from one edge to the other, very slowly, obliterating delicate lines and numerals in a bright green glow. Ashamed of his outburst, he touched a control and cleared the screen more conventionally.
This was the second time he had erred in as many hours, and he was disturbed by his lack of concentration. He sat back in his chair and allowed the reactions of his body to impinge upon his consciousness. Fatigue (lactic acid excess). Hunger (hypoglycemia). Tension, muscle strain, impeded circulation. And a deep feeling of unease that he could neither analyze nor dispel. He looked at the chronometer, and would have thought it faulty had he not known better. There was no excuse for mistreating his body; he had not rested nor fed it for two days, and for days before that he had acted in a similar irresponsible manner. He had not left his suite nor spoken to another human being for ten days, fifteen days. The isolation did not disturb him, but its effect on his attempts to live like other people did.
He doubted he would ever succeed completely, but such withdrawals would make his differences all the more obvious, preventing even the appearance of normalcy. Now he should get up, leave his comfortable quarters, go to gym or common room or cafeteria, and play or work or eat with his people, instead of by himself as he pleased.
He did not want to do any of those things. He wanted to stay all alone, unreminded of his loneliness. Never before had he been jealous of anything, of anyone, especially of his outcast followers. They had always seemed pitiful to him; they were running from what would find them eventually, or toward what they would never find. They could not adjust, they could not adapt, they could not survive anywhere but in the exile-world they made for themselves. They would not try, because of some flaw of intellect or character, Subtwo did not know which. Yet they were content. He resented their trivial happinesses.
Though recognizing his body's need for food, if only concentrates here in his suite, he remained before his console. There was a great frustration inside him—that for all his own intellect, for all his dedication, he had found no path to contentment or happiness.
He keyed the records of the entrance hallway and watched Madame, the last time she had come to his rooms. He took comfort in her grace and poise, but felt distress that her image of perfection remained flawless even when she was alone. Of course she knew of the cameras. But Subtwo wondered if she ever allowed herself to relax, if she had any place where she knew she would not be watched.
In the spring, when they left again—perhaps a little before, if he could convince Subone to make the early departure—he could ask Madame to go with him. He would steal her away and give her her freedom. Steal her. he did not like to think of human beings as stealable, and therefore property; he did not like to think of Madame subject to the whims of Blaisse's cruelty, her fate, even her survival, in his hands, a saleable commodity.
A saleable commodity.
Saleable.
He left his machines and walked into the corridor. No longer did it please him, for Subone had changed it, strewing trash and artifacts on its floor, painting the clean, smooth walls with indelicate designs.
The alice tube took Subtwo to Blaisse's section of the Palace. He ignored the slaves who bowed to him as he passed. He could have ordered them to stay out of his sight, but he preferred to avoid any behavior patterns common to his pseudosib and Blaisse.
The guard at Blaisse's door announced Subtwo with questionable civility, a reaction he could not comprehend until he recalled the other guard, the murdered woman. He wanted to say something to this cloudy- faced young man who glared so at him, but he could not think of anything that would not injure his own pride. He would not make excuses for Subone.
Blaisse lay in bed, Saita beside him. Subtwo's upbringing, alone in a controlled environment, had produced in him an unintended modesty, which continued to be disturbed by such sights. He must have revealed his distress, or Blaisse remembered the party, for the Lord laughed at him. 'You are a prude. I didn't know there were any in these fine days.'
'I simply value my privacy.'
'Yes, I know.'
'I meant no censure.'
'Nor I.'
Conversations with Blaisse never took the direction Subtwo planned. Without waiting to be invited, he sat down in a chair that faced the bed, and rubbed his fingers across the brocaded upholstery. He could feel that the stitching was done by hand: inefficient, inexact.
'I've been observing your customs.'
'And—?'
'Some of them appear. quite agreeable.' Subtwo despised himself for the lie.
'Which ones, in particular?' Blaisse was smiling that dreadful, incomprehensible smile.
'Machines are insufficient companionship. Other options interest me.'
'Your brother—pardon me, your pseudosib—seems to find everything he needs in Center.'
'His needs are not mine.'
'What are your needs?'
'A relationship of longer duration than those contracted in Center.'
'Something permanent, you mean.'
'Yes.'
'But to your convenience alone, of course.'
'Yes,' Subtwo said, perhaps too quickly. He wondered if Blaisse could detect the reluctance of his answers.
'Then we shall certainly have to satisfy your urges. What you want is advice in selecting a slave.'
Subtwo thought it politic to agree.
'A young one,' Blaisse said. 'To train yourself. That's always the most satisfactory arrangement. There's no worry about one's own sufficiency of knowledge. Of course you must be careful to train them, not teach them.'
Subtwo felt that he must be purple with repressed fury, and he thought that his idea might fail simply because Blaisse would be offended by his manner. Saita watched, her usually gentle and unreacting expression troubled. Subtwo wanted to explain to her what he was doing, what he was trying to do, though he knew he should not care so much what people thought about him. Blaisse laid his hand on Saita's breast; she started and her color heightened, silver dulled and blue darkened, with embarrassment or fear for having let her attention drift from her master's pleasure. Blaisse looked down on her, but she did not meet his gaze; he glanced languidly back at Subtwo. 'You see how well Saita and I get on?'
'I had in mind,' Subtwo said carefully, 'someone more mature.'
'Indeed?' An ironic lift of eyebrow. 'More mature. Older, you mean. And you so young. Well. No accounting for taste. So our problem will be finding a mature female who is not too badly used. Ah—excuse me—a female? Or a male? Or something more exotic? You've given me no chance to observe your preferences.'
'A woman,' Subtwo said, trying to resign himself to this humiliation of the spirit. He hoped Madame was not nearby, to hear herself discussed in such terms. It suddenly occurred to him, a dreadful thought, that she might misunderstand, just as Saita had, his aims. Even the knowledge that her misunderstanding would be for only a short time disturbed him.
'This is a difficulty,' Blaisse said. 'We may have to contact Clarissa's relatives and see if they have anything of the sort.'
'I had someone under consideration, as it happens,' Subtwo said. He understood Blaisse well enough, he
