I can’t leave her. Not after . . . last night.
Take a real good look at yourself, boy. Rutting with a bubblehead primitive on a filthy mat in a tepee. Some friend, she filled your brain with two kinds of shit. That’s not how Valisk’s future ruler is going to behave. Is it?
No, sir.
Good boy.
He started to pick up his clothes.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Home.”
“He told you to.”
“I . . . What is there here?”
She gave him a forlorn look over the white poncho which was still clasped to her body. “Me. Your friend. Your lover.”
He shook his head.
“I’m human. That’s more than he is.”
Come on. Leave.
Dariat pulled on his shoes. He paused by the entrance flap.
“It’s Anstid,” she said in a mournful tone. “That’s who you really talk to.”
Pseudobabble. Ignore her.
Dariat walked slowly out of the village. Some of the elders gave him strange looks as he passed their steaming cooking pits. They couldn’t understand. Why would anyone leave Anastasia’s bed?
That’s their trouble, boy. They’re too backward. The real world is beyond them. I really must get round to cleaning them out one day.
Now Dariat knew what he was, what he was destined for, the didactic courses took on a whole new level of importance. He listened to Rubra’s advice on the specializations he needed, the grades he had to achieve. He became obedient, and a shade resentful at his own compliance. But what else was there? Starbridge?
In return for acquiescence Rubra taught him how to use the affinity bond with the habitat. How to access the sensitive cells to see what was going on, how he could call on vast amounts of processing power, the tremendous amount of stored data that was available.
One of the first things Rubra did was to guide him through a list of possible replacement girls, eager to bury the lingering traces of yearning for Anastasia Rigel. Dariat felt like a voyeuristic ghost, watching the prospective candidates through the sensitive cells; seeing them at home, talking to their friends. Some of them he watched having sex with their boyfriends, two with other girls, which was exciting. Rubra didn’t seem to object to these prolonged observations. At least it meant he didn’t have to pay for bluesense fleks any more.
One girl he chanced on was nice, Chilone, nine months older than him. As black as Anastasia (which was what first caught his attention), but with dark auburn hair. Shy and pretty, who talked a lot about sex and boys with her girl friends.
Still he hesitated from meeting her, even though he knew her daily routine, knew her interests, what to say, which day clubs she belonged to. He could contrive a dozen encounters.
Get on with it,rubra told him after a week of cautious scrutiny. Screw her brains out. You don’t think Anastasia’s still pining over you, do you?
What?
Try using the sensitive cells around the tepee.
That was something he’d never done, not using the habitat’s perception faculty to spy on her. But the tone Rubra used had a hint of cruel amusement in it.
Anastasia had a lover, Mersin Columba, another Starbridge. A man in his forties; overweight, balding, with white pallid skin. They looked horrible locked together. Anastasia flinched silently as she lay underneath his pumping body.
The old white-hot infantile fury rose into Dariat’s mind. He wanted to save her from the repellent humiliation; his beautiful girl who had loved him.
Take my advice. Go find young Chilone.
Like juvenile Edenists, it hadn’t taken Dariat long to discover how to fox the habitat’s sensitive cells. Unless Rubra’s principal personality pattern was concentrating on him in particular, the autonomous monitoring of the subroutines could be circumvented.
Dariat used the sensitive cells to follow Mersin Columba out of the tepee. The podgy oaf had a smug smile on his face as he made his way down to the stream. Anastasia Rigel was curled up on her rug, staring at nothing.
Mersin Columba made his way down the valley before stripping off his shirt and trousers. He splashed into a wide pool, and began to wash off the smell and stains of sex.
The first blow from Dariat’s wooden cudgel caught him on the side of his head, tearing his ear. He grunted and dropped to his knees. The second blow smashed across the crown of his skull.
Stop it!
Dariat aimed another blow; laughing at the surprise on the man’s face. Nobody does that to my girl. Nobody does that to me! A cascade of blows rained down on Mersin Columba’s unprotected head. Rubra’s furious demands were reduced to a wasp’s buzz at the back of Dariat’s raging mind. He was vengeance. He was omnipotent, more than any realm Lord. He struck and struck, and it felt good.
The water pushed at Mersin Columba’s inert body. Long ribbons of blood wept from the battered head, turned to tattered curlicues by the current. Dariat stood over him. The bloody length of wood dropped from his fingers.
I didn’t realize what I’d created with you,rubra said. The silent voice lacked its usual conviction.
Dariat shivered suddenly. His heart was pumping hard. Anastasia is mine. Well, she certainly doesn’t belong to poor old Mersin Columba any more, and that’s a fact.
The body had drifted five metres downstream. Dariat thought it looked repugnant, sickly white,
