The Sea is Full of Stars

Ari didn’t like it, but he could only shrug. “You’re the boss.”

“You better believe it.”

The moment he’d given his commands, Angel found herself thinking of herself as Alpha. But she wasn’t Alpha. Alpha was—all she came up with was her. She could still recall much of her past, but not any other name. Worse, just trying gave her a series of tiny little shocks. Every time she just thought of herself and “Alpha” appeared as her identity, there was a tiny pleasure jolt. And what was Beta’s old name? Did she have a different name? It was impossible to remember, and Beta was mirroring her thoughts in reverse.

“Beta,” Wallinchky said, settling down in his padded chair, “go fetch me a fresh cigar. Alpha, you light it for me when it comes.”

The actions were instantaneous. It felt good, right, to do this and see his own satisfaction.

“Amazing, ain’t it, Ari? Not long ago they were strong personalities. Now I’m the center of their universe and I still got all that they know. And later on today we’ll teach ’em how to anticipate my desires.” He paused, blowing a big cloud of smoke. “What’s the matter? You disapprove? You sure don’t mind those sex bombs who can’t remember breakfast.”

“I can’t say anything about it,” he managed diplomatically. “So why the clown getup?”

Wallinchky sighed. “Ari, Ari! Perhaps one day we will educate you. At least I will point you to the painting, which happens to be here. So, it is aesthetic, and it also identifies their form and function no matter where they are.” He paused a moment, then added, “That’s not what you were really wondering about, though, was it? Come, come! Speak your worries!”

“I just wondered how you can trust the local neural net not to simply decide to make us all pets, or units. Particularly since you have given it a taste of real life and feeling.”

“Well, don’t worry about that. I think you have seen one too many horror shows, eh? You know I got that angle covered. Let’s get to the matters at hand here, though. I want to have some fun with the girls here.”

“Okay. Well, they located some emergency records on the remains of the City of Modar. I thought we got it all, but apparently for some reason they had a lot of it covered. Maybe Kincaid’s doing. Anyway, they know who was on and who got off. They probably assume that we have them, since they don’t even know about the pickup ship or Hadun’s involvement, at least not as far as we know. But the Geldorians are screaming bloody murder over Nakitt, and the Organized Crime Force wants a look at some of your personnel. There’s a missing persons on the cleric, but not much more.”

“Yeah, I been gettin’ threats for a week now. What about Kincaid? He show up?”

“Not yet. He’s not in the wreckage, but he sure wasn’t with us. I can’t figure it.”

“He had to be in the mod with the gizmo. Had to be. There was no place else for him to have been.”

“Maybe,” Ari answered thoughtfully, “but so far I haven’t heard that he was removed—they’ve still got a series of contracts out on him—and I also haven’t heard of any attempts on Hadun. And he sure didn’t sneak in with us, since he’d have had to use cryo. Nope, he’s a mystery. At least he’s not our problem.”

“For now, anyway,” Wallinchky agreed. “Well, how long will it take to thaw out the little weasel, and how do we control him until he’s picked up?”

“Why thaw him out?” Ari asked him. “He’s as useful to them frozen as not.”

“It’s a point. I’ll think about it. But what if we need him thawed?”

“A day to be fully functional and thawed out, maybe another to recover sufficiently to be ‘normal,’ whatever that is. About the same as us. He may look like a critter, but biologically he’s pretty close to us, you know. As for control, we could keep him sedated, but he’s pretty pragmatic. If he knew he was going home in one piece if he behaved, I think he’d suddenly be on our team.”

Wallinchky chuckled. “Yeah, I think you’re right. Okay, the Geldorians are due in—five days, give or take a day. Thaw him out two days from now and make sure he’s on the team. We’ll give him a little help in that regard, too. I want his memory scrubbed from the moment we took him in his cabin until he wakes up here. I don’t want him to remember who was on our lifeboat, and particularly that these girls were forced to come along. I don’t want to have to arrange an accident for him just so he won’t betray something to the wrong folks later on. Okay?”

An nodded. “We have the means here. I don’t think that’s a problem. Anything else?”

“Well, I don’t like this business from Hadun that we sold him an incomplete unit. I can’t help it if the damned thing is a crock of shit. I didn’t guarantee it was more than a pipe dream. Still, he’s a psycho of the first rank, right up there with the classics of history, and he’s still got quite a force in exile, so maybe we can work out something.” He gave a dry chuckle. “Now, where’s Kincaid when I really need him?”

“Okay, I can look over the messages and the options and prepare some proposals. How long will you be here?”

“I hope to leave when the Geldorians do. The Realm’s been turning up the heat lately, and I’m gonna have to talk to our people in the Senate and see how to cool it down. Then there’s the salvage job on the City of Modar train. A real mess, but nothing we can’t handle. Get along now. Bed with the bimbos for the next few nights if you want. I have my own company here.”

Ari nodded, understanding that he was dismissed, and left quickly.

Jules Wallinchky looked at Alpha. “Go to the doorway and just watch him until he’s gone. Don’t follow, just see.”

“Yes, Master.”

He leaned over to the computer console and activated it. “Put visual from Alpha on the screen.”

Instantly, he was seeing on his screen exactly what she was seeing, the figure of Ari Martinez walking slowly down the long hallway. She did a magnification and added adjusted infrared when he was lost in the far shadows, and he appeared, a bit ghostly but otherwise perfectly well, in front of the boss. He was delighted. “Do both of you have this capability?” he asked.

“No, Master. Alpha has magnification as well as full spectrum capabilities,” the one now known as Beta responded. “I have the full spectrum abilities but no magnification, but can show true color and true three dimensions.”

He was like a kid with a new toy, but he wasn’t forgetting business. “Alpha, you can come back now and stand beside Beta. Can I address Core and get answers from it through you?”

“Yes, Master,” they both chimed.

“Okay, so as long as you are close to me, one of you, no preference, will speak for Core. This is Code Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.”

“Sweeping, Master,” Beta responded. “Done. The room is free of unauthorized devices. Give command.”

“Change Code Rembrandt. Code Rembrandt invalid. New Code for function is Code Degas. Execute.”

“Done.”

When it was Core, there was no “Master,” and the response sounded more mechanical. That would do.

“Run sequence from point at which subject Ari Martinez first entered this room on arrival and accessed either Core or these units.”

He sat and watched as Ari’s image went over the programming of the girls and also as he interrogated them. He sat without much expression, but when it was done he said, “Code Degas. Beta and Alpha are to volunteer no knowledge whatsoever from data they have from experiences before becoming part of this system to anyone but me. This data is to be encrypted and coded so that it cannot be accessed by anyone other than myself, and then only with the Code Hypatia. This knowledge may be accessed and used to carry out orders, but cannot be revealed or accessed to others. Execute.”

“Done,” came the response.

“Okay, girls,” he said with a child’s cruel glee. “Now we’re gonna have some educational fun here.”

Tann Nakitt was delighted to be where he was even though he would have preferred to be anywhere else. The fact was, the moment the Mallegestor had burst through the door and fired at him, striking him and knocking him cold, his last frantic thought had been that this was the end of all things.

He had also had little problem cooperating with the probe that basically had excised a very tiny and totally