Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail

I nodded, feeling sick again. So this was what this business was all about. They were going to take great pleasure in making me watch, and I knew they could force me whether I wanted to or not.

“It’s actually rather unfortunate that all Medusans reach this base female pliancy. It would be useful to have some Goodtime Boys. But don’t think that all Goodtime Girls are mere sex objects. I’m afraid many of our top male administrators prefer to use them that way, as does the First Minister, but there can be a number of different types. My two, for example, are like very muscular young boys, very cute. Female, of course, but you’d hardly know.

“It’s the new art form I was talking about. The artists are our top psychs, who can actually feed information through the psych machines to the Wardens within a body, once all mental resistance is eliminated. Goodtime Girls to order, according to preference. All still smart, able to learn all sorts of things as instructed, and all totally and completely devoted to their owners.”

“Who is … she being made up for?” I asked, my previous meal turning sour in my stomach as I watched.

“Haval Kunser. He is my counterpart on the planet itself, you might say. He runs the administrative side of the government. Both of us are equals, just, below the First Minister, who sets the policies we carry out. Of course, Hav probably won’t keep her. He’ll give her to somebody as a reward or something. We even export a few to the other Diamond worlds. Ah! I see the psych is ready. Now watch.”

“I don’t want to see any more,” I snapped.

“What you want is of no concern,” she responded coolly. “I can freeze you in place and make you, so shut up. Whining doesn’t become a Confederacy assassin.”

And, of course, she was right. How different, really, was this from the young woman I’d killed on the train platform? The only real difference was that I hadn’t known that woman. Maybe Fallen was right, after a fashion, I told myself. The more I looked at myself coldly and dispassionately, the less I liked what I saw.

The process was fascinating to watch, in a macabre sort of way. The same fluidity I had used to become a bird and a bunch of people was now being used on Ching’s body, but not by her. She was effectively dead, I knew, although I couldn’t accept that fact emotionally yet. How many deaths had I caused in just this operation? Krega had said twenty or thirty minds were destroyed for nothing just getting one “take” in the Merton Process that had put a recording of my mind into Tarin Bul’s body.

Ching had always been short, slightly built, like many Medusan women, but now she was—well changing before my eyes. She did not grow in height but weight was redistributed to the hips and bust, and her whole body was becoming sleekly redesigned. The head was modified far less, although her slightly too large ears were trimmed back and her face was softened and slightly rounded at the mouth and chin. When they were done, I could still recognize Ching on the table, but probably nobody else could have.

Hair was added, but only on the head, and it grew with astonishing, almost comical speed—a light reddish brown in color, which surprised me. I had to admit I was fascinated even though revolted. “Hair color can be changed?”

“And eyes. Actually, anything can be almost anything. That is the beauty of it.”

In a few. more minutes Ching was physically complete. I could see the shadowy form of the psych punching in and controlling and mixing small recording modules. The last step—the mental buildup. Finally she was detached from die machine and all its connectors and left there in what looked like normal sleep. The lights came up, and I saw her stir.

“Now, you remember her,” Fallon said, “and you saw it all. Now observe her as she awakens there.”

It didn’t take long. The woman I’d known as Ching stirred, smiled, then opened her eyes, smiled wider, sat up, stretched, and looked wonderingly around the psych lab as if she’d never seen it before and had no idea what it was, which was. probably the case.

Fallon flipped an intercom switch. “Girl?”

She looked up in happy anticipation. “Yes, mistress?”

“What are you called, girl?”

“I am called Cheer, mistress. Please let me serve you.”

“Go through the rear door. There you will find a wardrobe. Pick out whatever clothing you feel is proper for you, use whatever cosmetics and jewelry you like, and brush your hair. Then go through die next door and stand and wait there until I come.”

“As you command, mistress. I live to serve.” And, with that, smile still on her face, she jumped down and walked out of the psych chamber and into the other room.

Fallon turned to me. “Well? What do you think?”

“Very impressive, but if this is to soften me up to spill all or something, it won’t work. I’m not that impressed.”

“You should be. She was, I understand, quite a fighter under the psych probes. We got very little information out of her on her life with or without you. However, she couldn’t avoid giving us information and impressions on you, since you were the reason for her resistance. Come. Let’s go into the other room.”

We walked down the corridor to a rather bare office that didn’t seem as if it were being used for much of anything, and waited. All I wanted now was to get this over with and get down to my ultimate fate. All this was leading somewhere, I knew. I wanted to know where.

In short order Ching appeared and then smiled and bowed low. “How do I please you, mistress?”

Fallen looked her over. She was a truly tiny and curvaceous beauty now, that was for sure; her moves were sexy and provocative. Her voice had a throaty tone that seemed at once sensuous and childish. Hell, I’d once been a thirteen-year-old boy myself.

She had chosen some small golden earrings, a matching necklace, and a silvery clinging slit dress, and she had expertly and discreetly applied some lip rouge and eye makeup, and painted her newly created long fingernails to match the lips.

Fallon turned to me with a slight grin. “Well? How does she please you?”

“She looks … stunning,” I managed.

“Want to see her do tricks?”

“No, I—”

“Cheer—get down on all fours and lick the man’s feet.”

I started to protest, but “Cheer” joyfully and immediately complied. The exercise was disgusting, somehow unclean, and I stood there only because I had to.

“That’s enough, girl. Get back up.”

“Yes, mistress.” In a moment she was back up and looking expectantly at Fallon.

“Now, go out this door. There you will meet a man dressed like me. He will be your master and will tell you what else to. do. Now—go.”

“At once, mistress.” She was gone.

“Definitely a giveaway,” Fallon commented, mostly to herself. “The kind who provides company for visiting dignitaries and the like and does dances on tables.” She looked over at me. “Useful to others, though. She’s frozen, just like that, for just about her whole life. No external aging, no physical changes that aren’t internal adjustments to climate or weather conditions, no attitudinal changes. If she got lost or separated down there, she’d plead with people to return her to her master. She’ll give pleasure, and only in serving her master will she find pleasure. Now, isn’t that better than the mines or death or a permanent job as a janitor someplace?”

“I’m not convinced,” I told her. “I don’t think I’ll ever be convinced.”

“Probably not,” Fallen agreed cheerfully, “but it’s the way of the world. Come—we have one more interim stop.”

Again we walked out into the corridor and went down to yet another office, this one obviously used and cluttered with all sorts of stuff. Fallon rooted through a desk drawer and finally came up with what looked like, and was, an artist’s sketch pad. She flipped over a few sheets, and I could see that there were, indeed, drawings in pencil and ink on them. Finally she found the one she wanted, held it up, and handed the pad to me. I looked at the image.

“What do you think?” she asked.

The drawing, a very good drawing by a very skilled artist, was of a stunningly beautiful woman, perhaps the most stunning vision of womanhood I’d ever, seen. Rendered in colored pencils, the drawing showed a dark-skinned beauty with long mixed blond and light brown hair, two very large and sexy dark green eyes, set in perhaps the