whirled in his head. Could a rival agency have compromised this facility? Perhaps someone from the Caliph’s staff? Could—
“Yousef.”
He jumped at the sound of his name, sending his chair spinning and throwing his body into a slow, low-gravity arc toward the ceiling. He grabbed the quiescent control console to stop his movement. He turned his head in the direction of the voice.
She stood in the doorway, facing him, naked, unarmed, and terrifying.
“What is this?” he repeated.
“Ask,” she said. “Ask for the name of my master, the name of your fate.”
Yousef slammed his hand down on the emergency alarm button.
Nothing happened.
She stepped forward, smiling. “Do not rely on your machines. The three days I’ve been here have been long enough for my spirit to traverse the whole of this small moon.”
He slammed the alarm button again, and a sharp blue arc of electricity leaped from the console, searing his arm and throwing him back to fall, slowly, onto the floor. He clutched his chest, gasping for breath, barely able to get the words out. “Who . . . are . . . you?”
She knelt slowly over him and touched his cheek.
“There is no God but Adam, and I am his prophet.”
Her skin against his was warm, then hot, then burning. He tried to pull away, but she grabbed the other side of his face, forcing him to stare into her eyes. He grabbed her wrists, but her hold on him was impossibly strong. Inside his head he felt as if her long fingers caressed the surface of his brain.
“Choose to serve my God,” she whispered to him. “Abandon your superstitions, your naive bonds of the flesh, partake of paradise within this world.”
No voice came from his lips, just ragged shallow breaths as he felt her flesh melting against his, penetrating his. His heart hammered as his universe shrank to encompass only her dark, smiling face.
“I offer you life and an existence beyond imagining . . .”
Somehow he retained enough of himself, enough mind and motor control, to spit into the demon’s face.
Saliva dripped down the sharp edge of her nose. She gently shook her head and whispered, “Pity.”
Yousef’s mouth opened in a soundless scream as her fingers sank deep into his skull. His arms and legs spasmed, jerking against the floor beneath her as his flesh turned plastic and flowed like thick paste. Her flesh rippled as well, pulsing and flowing, mixing with his. Even his clothing melted into an indistinguishable mass.
The thrashing slowly ceased as her hands sank deeper into Yousef’s body, her flesh indistinguishable from his as she pulled her pulsating arms down along his body.
When the Prophet of Adam finally stood, he wore the outward form of Yousef Al-Hamadi, Eridani, Caliphate Minister-at-Large in Charge of External Relations. On the floor, at his feet, was a naked corpse that bore the form of Ms. Columbia.
The new Yousef looked down at the body and shook his head. “You should have accepted.” He sighed and picked up the corpse, which was fairly light in the weak gravity.
He needed to return the body to the cell and arrange for its disposal. The death at Yousef’s hands would go unquestioned by the men running this facility. The news of it would never reach beyond the borders of Yousef’s private little prison.
Within an hour, the corpse was replaced in the interrogation room, and all signs of tampering had been flushed from the systems. Another hour, and the person who had been Mr. Antonio, and Ms. Columbia, left the small moon Khamsin 235 in a human body indistinguishable from the late Yousef Al-Hamadi. He left in Yousef’s ship and set course for Khamsin and the capital of the Caliphate itself.
There was much work left to do in preparation for Adam’s arrival.
