As they walked across the darkened violet sands they had talked little, but there had been one conversation that had raised Snow’s suspicions.
‘Your hand, how did you lose it?’
‘Andronache challenge. It was shredded by a flack shell.’
‘How is it now?’
Snow had paused before replying. Did she know?
‘What do you mean; how is it? It was amputated. It is no longer there.’
‘Yes,’ she had said, and no more.
The sun was breaking the horizon and the night asteroids fading out of the sky when they reached the rock field at the edge of the Thira. With little energy to spare for conversation, Snow set up his day tent and collapsed inside, instantly asleep. When he woke in the latter part of the day it was to discover himself undressed under a blanket with Hirald lying beside him. She was up on her elbow, her head propped on her hand, looking at his face. As soon as she saw that he was awake she handed him a carton of mixed juice. He sat up, the blanket sliding down. She was naked. He drank the juice.
‘I’m glad you came along,’ he said, and the rest of the day was spent in pleasant activity.
That night they moved deep into the rock field. The following day passed much as the one before.
‘I think it fair to tell you I have an implant,’ Snow said as he rested after some particularly vigorous activity. ‘You won’t get pregnant by me, and my sperm is little more than water and a few free proteins.’
‘Why do you feel it necessary to tell me this?’ Hirald asked him.
‘As you know, there is a reward out for my testicles, stasis-preserved. This is not because the Merchant Baris particularly wants me dead. I think it is because he is after my genetic tissue.
It has value, of a kind. At the water station the Androche … seduced me.’ Snow was uncomfortable with that. ‘She did it so she could collect my sperm, probably to sell.’
‘I know,’ said Hirald. Snow looked at her and she went on, ‘He is after your testicles to provide him with an endless supply of your genetic material.’
Snow considered that. Of course there had to be more to Hirald than he had supposed, but the Olympic screwing had clouded his thought-processes somewhat.
‘He wouldn’t get that. . meiosis only leaves half the chromosomes in each sperm,’ he said.
‘He would get there eventually. Your testicles could be kept alive and producing spermatozoa for a very long time. It is the next best thing to having your entire living body to provide the genetic material. I suspect Baris thought it unlikely he could get away with that. He’d never get you off-planet without your consent. This way he also corners the market.’
‘You know an awful lot about what Baris wants.’
Hirald looked at him very directly.
‘How is your hand?’
Snow looked down at the stump. He unclipped the covering and pulled it off. What he exposed was recognizably a hand, though deformed and almost useless. The covering had been cleverly made to conceal it, to make it look as if the hand was missing.
‘It will be no different from its predecessor in about six solstan months. I intended to walk out of one water station without a hand, then into another station with a hand and a new identity.’
‘What about your albinism?’
‘Skin dye and eye lenses.’
‘Of course you cannot take transplants.’
‘No … I think you should explain yourself.’
‘The people I work for want the same as Baris; your genome.’
‘You’ve had opportunity. .’
‘No, they want the best option; you, willingly. I want you to gate back to Earth with me.’
‘Why?’
‘You are regenerative. It is the source of your immortality. We know this now. You have known it for more than a thousand years.’
‘Still, why?’
‘We have managed to keep your secret for the last three hundred years, ever since it was discovered. Ten years ago a mistake was made and the knowledge was leaked. Now many organizations know about you, and what you represent; whoever can decode your genome has access to immortality, and through that, access to wealth and power unprecedented. Baris is one who would like this. He was the first to track you down. There will be others.’
‘You work for Earth Central.’
‘Yes.’
‘Wouldn’t it be better just to kill me and destroy my body?’
‘Earth Central does not suppress knowledge.’ Hirald smiled at him. ‘You should be old enough to understand the futility of this. It wants this knowledge disseminated so that it cannot cause damage, cannot put power into the hands of the wrong people. The good it would do is immense also. The projections are that in ten years a treatment could become available to make anyone regenerative, within limits.’
