Lek tried a few times to teach Bertran to play catch, but the child couldn’t really manage it, connected to Nela the way he was, even though he wore lifts in his shoes to get his shoulder above hers. Lek also tried taking them fishing (Nela got seasick), and to a football game (Nela was afraid of crowds). Lek told Marla it was all her fault, she was the one who filled Nela’s ears with how sick she, Marla, got in boats and how she, Marla, hated mobs.
“She’s like her mommy, is all,” said Marla. “You couldn’t expect her not to be like her mommy.”
“She should be exactly like her brother,” Lek said. He had been discussing his problems with a counselor at work, one hired by the management to keep the production line functioning, despite the employees’ personal problems. The counselor, up to his ear holes with drugs and sex and alcoholism, had welcomed Lek’s situation as a taster might relish a rare vintage found among a clutter of vins ordinaires.
Lek went on, “The psychologist says they have to be geneic … genetic … the same. He says it’s a law of nature. They started out as one egg and one sperm, and they’re exactly alike!”
Lek had come to this understanding too late. It was no longer true. Biology had been bypassed. Reality had left genetics gasping. Gender had been imposed. Nela looked up at her daddy through her eyelashes and smiled at him flirtatiously, her delicate hands picking at the smocking on her muslin dress.
“Have you got me a present, Daddy,” begged Nela, winsomely.
Bertran scowled manfully, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his jeans.
“Hi, Dad,” said Bertran. “Whudja bring me?”
“How can you say they’re alike?” Marla demanded in a shrill, angry voice. “How can you say such a thing, Leksy. Why, they’re nothing alike. Nothing at all.”
2
Tolerance on Elsewhere: the Great Rotunda. There, on what is still called the Arrival Floor, brightly uniformed guards stand in imperturbable immobility around the Doors. The big Door, the one all the refugees arrived through long ago, is thought to require guards. Persons could still come or go through it, theoretically at least, and the guards are needed to make sure no one does. The other Door, the twisted, corroded loop of metal, is an Arbai Door, not unlike many other such Doors that the enigmatic Arbai left scattered around the galaxy. Despite the seeming dormancy of this one, there is always the possibility it might be functional, so it too is surrounded by a complement of Frickian armsmen. Besides, in the opinion of Council Supervisory, it makes a pleasant symmetry to have uniformed men around both Doors during the ceremonial changing of the guard.
An excellent view of these recurrent rituals can be had from the mezzanine, a high-ceilinged, softly upholstered dining balcony reached from the Arrival Floor by a dramatically curved flight of stairs. By convention, certain sumptuously furnished tables on the mezzanine are set aside for senior members of the Council Supervisory. Other tables, more sumptuous still, are located upon a small upper balcony used only by members of the Provost’s Inner Circle. The upper balcony is quite private. Conversations held there cannot be overheard. Not least for this reason, it is a place much favored by Boarmus, the current Provost.
Today Boarmus has an appointment with Zasper Ertigon, sometime Council Enforcer, who has petitioned the Council for retirement so he may return to his native province of Enarae. Boarmus knows a good deal about Zasper, as he does about most Council Enforcers. He is inclined to grant Zasper’s request, but before he does so, he wants something in return.
Zasper has given as his reason for retirement that the burden of constant travel is wearing him down, which is not precisely true. He hasn’t really minded the travel; his real reason for retiring is this other thing he’s been noticing and feeling and worrying over without being able to pin it down. This nastiness that seems to be getting worse. The extent to which twisted people are doing nastily kinky things, even in places where twisted people and kinky things have been more or less usual.
More child sacrifice, more female and child slavery, more wife killing, more ritual rape.
More pain and flagellation and maiming of celebrants.
More complicated torture. More mobs, more mayhem, more murder, more meanness.
Zasper has been around long enough to notice the increase, and he wants out. If it takes some kind of pro forma meeting with the Provost to get out, he’ll attend the meeting.
So they come together on the upper balcony, the jowly Provost and the stocky Enforcer, the latter now dressed in undistinguished civilian garb, the former—so far as anyone knows—extending this exceptional courtesy to a good Enforcer now growing old, who is—so far as anyone can tell—enjoying the honor of a personal farewell. That neither of them has ever much liked the other isn’t considered important, even by themselves.
“More tea?” offers Boarmus, ignoring Zasper’s untouched cup.
“Thank you, no,” says Zasper, who drinks ale when he can get it and believes herbal infusions to be at best old womanish and at worst disruptive of the bowels.
“I asked you here to take advantage of your experience,” says Boarmus smoothly, making no further offer of refreshment. “In the field, as it were.”
“Sir,” says Zasper. It is an all-purpose word, essentially meaningless.
“Confidentially.”
An interesting interpolation, but the same word serves. “Sir.”
Boarmus sits back and looks at his guest, almost smiling. Stiff-necked bastard. A good Enforcer. One of the best, but no give to him. Which is what’s wanted. “Confidentially,” he says again, with an unmistakable emphasis.
Zasper blinks. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.”
Boarmus takes a package
