Her outstretched hand bridged half the distance between us. It felt small and warm. I was in the process of shaking it when Sasha appeared in the distance. Her eyepatch seemed out of place, or was it me? Our fellow passengers seemed as oblivious to the patch as they had been to my chrome-plated head. Same deal, probably. She treated me to one of her characteristic frowns and sat where she could watch. Alerted by the loss of eye contact, Linda turned and looked over her shoulder. “Am I missing something?”
I shook my head. “No, an old acquaintance, that’s all.” I plastered a phony smile on my face and waved. Sasha glowered in response.
I turned my attention to the lovely Linda. She had pale blue eyes, and they fastened on me as though I was the only man in the world. Her voice was soft and confidential. “Can I tell you a secret?”
I nodded earnestly. “Please do.”
“I sat here on purpose.”
Blood roared in my ears. She liked me! The only woman who had liked me prior to this time had been paid to do so. Had I been equipped with a tail, I would’ve wagged it. Now to say something clever. “Really? Well, I’m glad you did.”
“Me too,” she said sweetly. “Have you chosen a costume yet?”
“Costume?” I asked stupidly. “For what?”
“Why, the ball, silly,” Linda said lightly. “It will be held on A Deck, and everyone’s invited. I hoped you’d be my escort.”
A storm of conflicting thoughts and emotions whirled through my head. Pleasure at being asked, fear of having to dance, and a sense of confusion. “Why no, I mean yes, I’d love to go. When is it?”
“2000 hours day after tomorrow,” Linda answered smoothly. “I’m coming as an eighteenth-century noblewoman. You’d make a marvelous pirate.”
“And so I would,” I replied in my best pirate cackle. “Hoist the mainsail and belay the hatches!”
Linda giggled, I felt a rush of pleasure, and the ship broke contact with the asteroid known as Deep Port.
If the Jupiter Ball had been invented to keep the passengers busy, it did an excellent job. The next twenty-four hours were a whirl of preliminary fittings, intermediate fittings, and final fittings, all under the rather autocratic supervision of an android named Perkins.
It was Perkins who adjusted the plume on my hat just so, dictated that Joy would be dressed in an outfit identical to that worn by Linda, and helped rehearse our entrance. An entrance that would be judged against all others for one of three prizes. Prizes that meant nothing to me, but seemed important to Linda.
And we were typical. All the people around us were caught up in an absolute fever of preparation. And, just to make sure that everyone got involved, the ship’s staff did everything they could to hype the occasion by running stories on the internal news system, holding pre-party parties, and peppering us with invitations, gifts, and special meals.
Though somewhat stiff at first, I found myself becoming more and more involved in the pre-party activities, until I actually worried about the color of my waist sash, the fit of my vest, and the edge of my aluminum cutlass.
Which is why I was exhausted by the time that Linda and I parted company and welcomed the opportunity to sleep. It came quickly, floating upwards to wrap me in its arms, then holding me in its dark embrace. What followed was similar to the dreams I had experienced in the past and was clearly related.
My first impression was of lying on my back watching ceiling tiles pass overhead. My thoughts were slow, ponderous things, weighed down by the drugs the medicos had given me, and wholly unfocused. The ceiling tiles were interspersed with glow panels. I felt sure that someone wanted me to count them, to make an exact record of how many glow panels I had seen, but the numbers had a slippery, eellike quality and eluded my grasp. People walked to either side of my gurney. One, a woman with swept-back hair, a long straight nose, and a white lab coat, glanced at me but addressed her comments to the balding man on my left. “You’re sure this will work.”
“No, I’m not,” the man replied calmly. “Bio-storage is a fledgling science. I believe it will work but make no guarantees.”
It was as if the woman hadn’t even heard him. “A zombie would be too obvious. The trick is to stash the research in his head, yet leave him functional. The unionists are almost sure to discover it otherwise.”
“I’m aware of that threat,” the man said dryly. “I’ll do the best I can.”
The woman wanted to say more but gave a short, jerky nod instead.
The autogurney turned a corner, I lost count of the glow panels, and felt a desperate need for water. My mouth felt dry, terribly dry, and I croaked pitifully. The woman glanced in my direction but made no effort to learn what the problem was.
An airtight hatch came and went. The ceiling panels disappeared and were replaced by a seamless surface. It was translucent, and light seeped through.
The gurney stopped under a vent. Cool air caressed my face. The smell of disinfectants stabbed my nostrils. I caught a glimpse of OR greens. An operating room! They were taking me into an operating room! But I wasn’t sick…was I? I struggled against my restraints, and feeble though the movements were, the woman noticed them. She frowned and turned towards the person behind me. “The pre-meds are wearing off…take him down.”
“But not too far,” the bald man cautioned. “I need access to his reactions.”
I fought to free myself, gave up, and floated on an ocean of light. I heard voices, felt the gurney move, and knew we had entered the operating room when the large circular lights came into view. Metal clanked as the side rails were released. Hands felt along my sides, took hold of the sheet beneath me, and a voice said, “On three. One…two…three.”
I felt myself lifted into the air and lowered to the surface of the operating table. A distant part of my mind told me to do something, but I was unable to respond.
Time passed. There was talk of “local anesthetics,” “head preps,” and “neural interfaces.” None of which meant anything to me. Then it started, the general sense of inflow, of words and numbers that tumbled around me to build vast informational structures so large and complex that they could be compared with cities, except that try as I might I was unable to comprehend them in their entirety, to back away far enough to see and understand their function and purpose.
But I did notice that as the city grew larger and larger, I became smaller and smaller, until it towered over and around me. The air grew thick with words and numbers until I choked and couldn’t breathe. It was then that I decided to escape, to leave the whole affair behind, and exist somewhere else.
And no sooner had the thought occurred to me than I was gone, drifting up to hover under the ceiling, while the bald man and his staff shouted to each other and struggled to bring me back. I saw my body jump as they passed electricity through my heart and watched as drugs were injected into my veins. The light grew even brighter, and seemed to beckon me onwards, but I hung there unsure of what to do. And then, like fishermen pulling in their catch, the medics reeled me in. My head was full. So full I thought it would explode. I screamed…
…and was still screaming when I awoke to find myself in bed, the sheets soaked with sweat.
It was a terrible dream, made all the more horrible by the certain knowledge that it or something like it had actually happened, leaving me forever crippled. I was afraid to sleep and spent the rest of the cycle staring at the ruby-red light over my head. It belonged to the smoke detector, and blinked on and off with machinelike patience.
The first day of my relationship with Linda Gibson had passed without much in the way of serious conversation. By the afternoon of the second day, I wanted to know more about her. Perkins had approved our costumes, the ball was hours away, and Linda had agreed to a drink.
The Constellation Room consisted of a clear duraplast bubble accessed through a pipelike structure that connected it to the hull. The place was half full. Glasses clinked and conversation hummed. Linda was beautiful. Stars decorated her hair, diamonds twinkled at her ears, and her perfume made my head spin. I raised my glass. “To us.”
Linda smiled and did likewise. “To us.”
We took a sip and placed our glasses on the table. “So, tell me about Linda Gibson. Where she’s from, and
