It wasn't the fact that Gilgam Zinder's lab assistant had a horse's tail that was the oddest fact; the really strange thing was that she didn't seem to think her condition odd or unusual.
Zinder was tall and thin, a gaunt man with gray hair and a long gray goatee that made him seem even older than he was, and more drawn. His blue-gray eyes, bloodshot and surrounded with darkening shadow, showed his overwork. He hadn't thought to eat in more than two days, and sleep had become academic.
The place was a strange-looking lab at that. It was designed something like an amphitheater, with a circular raised pedestal about forty centimeters above the plain flooring that served as the stage. Above the stage was a device hanging like a great cannon but terminating in a small mirror with a tiny point coming out from it.
A balcony surrounded the apparatus; here, along the walls, were thousands of blinking lights, dials and switches, and central consoles, four of them, evenly spaced around the circle below. Zinder sat at one; directly across from him a much younger man in shiny protective lab clothing sat at another. Zinder's lab suit looked as if it had been made in the last century.
The woman standing on the raised disk was an ordinary-looking sort, late thirties and a little dumpy and saggy, the kind that looks far better with proper clothes than nude as she now was.
Only she had a horse's tail, long and bushy.
She looked up at the two men with puzzlement and some impatience.
"Well, come on," she called to them, "aren't you going to do anything? It's cold down here."
Ben Yulin, the younger man, smiled and leaned over the rail.
"Swish your tail awhile, Zetta. We're working as fast as we can!" he called down good-naturedly.
And she was swishing the tail, slowly back and forth, routinely, echoing her frustration.
"You really don't notice any difference, Zetta?" Zinder's thin, reedy voice asked her.
She looked puzzled, then down at herself, running her hands along her body, including the tail, as if to find out what they did.
"No, Dr. Zinder, I don't. Why? Is something about me—different?" she responded hesitantly.
"Do you know you have a tail?" Zinder prompted.
She looked puzzled. "Of course I have a tail," she replied in a so-what's-wrong-with-that tone.
"You don't find that, ah, odd or unusual?" Ben Yulin put in.
The woman was genuinely confused. "Why, no, of course not. Why should I?"
Zinder looked over at his young assistant, almost fifteen meters across the open stage.
"An interesting development," he commented.
Yulin nodded. "Creating bean pots, then the lab-animal stuff, that told us what we could do, but I don't think I was ready for this."
"You remember the theory?" Zinder prompted.
Yulin nodded. "We're changing probability within the field. What we do to something or someone in the field is normal to them, because we've changed their basic stabilizing equation. Fascinating. If we could do this on a large scale . . ." He let the thought trail off.
Zinder looked thoughtful. "Yes, indeed. A whole population would be changed and it would never know it." He turned and looked down again at the woman with the horse's tail.
"Zetta?" he called. "Do you know that we do not have tails? That no one else we know of has a tail?"
She nodded. "Yes, I know it's unusual to you. But what's the big deal? I haven't exactly tried to hide it from view."
"Did your parents have tails, Zetta?" Yulin asked.
"Of course not!" she responded. "Now what's all this about?"
The younger scientist looked across at the old one. "Want to go any further?" he asked.
Zinder shrugged lightly. "Why not? Yes, I'd love to do a psych probe and see how deep it goes, but if we can do it once we can do it anytime. Let's check out one thing at a time."
"Okay," Yulin agreed. "So now what?"
Zinder looked thoughtful for a moment. Then, suddenly, he reached over and touched a panel next to a recessed combination microphone and speaker.
"Obie?" he called into it.
"Yes, Dr. Zinder?" the voice of the computer that was in the walls around them replied; a pleasant, professional, and personable tenor.
"You have noted that the subject does not know we have in any way altered her?"
"Noted," Obie admitted. "Do you wish her to? The equations are not quite as stable in that situation but they'll hold up."
"No, no, that's all right," Zinder responded quickly. "How about attitude without physical change? Is that possible?"
"A much more minor alteration," the computer told him. "But, also, because of that, more easily and quickly reversible."
Zinder nodded. "All right, then, Obie. We translated a horse into the system matrix, so you have it completely and you have Zetta completely."
"We don't have the horse any more," Obie pointed out.
Zinder sighed impatiently. "But you have the data on it, don't you? That's where the tail came from, right?"
"Yes, Doctor," Obie replied. "I see now that you were being rhetorical again. I'm sorry."
"That's all right," Zinder assured the machine. "Look, let's try for something bigger. Do you have the term and concept centaur in your memory?"
Obie thought for perhaps a millisecond. "Yes. But it will take some work to turn her into one. After all, there is the matter of internal plumbing, cardiovascular systems, additional nerve connections, and the like."
"But you can do it?" Zinder prompted, somewhat surprised.
"Oh, yes."
"How long?"
"Two or three minutes," Obie replied.
Zinder leaned over. The girl with the tail was pacing a little nervously on the podium, looking quite uncomfortable.
"Assistant Halib! Please stop that pacing and return to the center of the disk!" he reproved her. "We're about ready, and you did volunteer for this."
She sighed. "Sorry, Doctor," she responded and stood on the center mark.
Zinder looked over at Yulin. "On my mark!" he called, and Yulin nodded.
"Mark!"
The little mirrorlike disk overhead moved out, the little point in the center aimed down, and suddenly the entire area of the disk was bathed in a pale-blue light that seemed to sparkle, enveloping the woman. She seemed frozen, unable to move. Then she suddenly flickered several times like a projected image and winked out entirely.
"Subject's known stability equation has been neutralized," Yulin said into his recorder. He looked up at Zinder.
"Gil?" he called, slightly disturbed.
"Eh?" the other man responded absently.
"Suppose we didn't bring her back? I mean, suppose we just neutralized her," Yulin said nervously. "Would she exist, Gil? Would she ever have existed?"
Zinder sat back in his chair, thinking. "She wouldn't exist, no," he told the other. "As to the rest—well, we'll ask Obie." He leaned forward and flipped on the transceiver connecting him to the computer.
"Yes, Doctor?" the computer's calm tone came back.
"I'm not disturbing the process, am I?" Zinder asked carefully.
"Oh, no," the computer replied cheerfully. "It's taking only a little under an eighth of me to work it out."
"Can you tell me—if the subject were not restabilized, would she have any existence? That is, would she have ever existed?"
Obie thought it over. "No, of course not. She is a minor part of the prime equation, of course, so it wouldn't affect reality as we know it. But it would adjust. She would never have lived."
"Then—what if we left her with the tail?" Yulin broke in. "Would everybody else assume she had a tail all along?"
"Quite so," the computer agreed. "After all, to exist she must have a reason, or the equations would not balance. Again, it would have no effect on the overall equation."
"What would, I wonder?" Zinder mumbled off-mike, then turned back to Obie. "Tell me, if that's the case, why do we—Ben, you, and me—know that reality has been altered?"
"We are in close proximity to the field," Obie replied. "Anyone within approximately a hundred meters would have some knowledge of this. The closer you are, the more dichotomy you perceive. After about a hundred meters the perception of reality starts to become negligible. People would be aware that something was different, but wouldn't be able to figure out what. Beyond a thousand meters the dissipation would become one with the master equation, and reality would adjust. I can, however, adjust or minimize this for your perceptions if you desire."
"Absolutely not!" Zinder said sharply. "But you mean that everyone beyond a thousand meters of here would firmly believe she had always been a centaur and that there was a logical reason for it?"
"That is correct. The prime equations always remain in natural balance."
"She's coming in!" Ben called excitedly, breaking off the dialogue.
Zinder looked out and saw a shape flicker into the center of the disk. It flickered twice more, then solidified, and the field winked out. The mirror swung silently away overhead.
It was still Zetta Halib, recognizably. But where the woman had stood, the creature was Zetta now only down to the waist. There her yellow-brown skin melded into black hair, and the rest of her body was that of a full-grown mare of perhaps two years.
"Obie?" Yulin called, and the computer answered. "Obie, how long before she stabilizes? That is, how long before the centaur becomes permanent?"
"It's permanent now, for her," the computer told him. "If you mean how long it will take the prime equations to stabilize her new set, an hour or two at most. It is, after all, a minor disturbance."
Zinder leaned over the rail and looked at her in amazement. It was clear that he had exceeded his wildest dreams.
"Would she breed true—if we had a male?" Yulin asked the computer.
"No," the computer responded, sounding almost apologetic. "That would take a lot more work. She would breed a horse, of course."
"You could make a breeding pair of centaurs, though?" Yulin persisted.
"Most probably," Obie hedged. "After all, the only limit to this process is my input. I have to have the knowledge of how to do it, how things are put together, before I can work something out."
Yulin nodded, but he was plainly as excited as the older man whose life's work this was.
The centaur looked up at them. "Are we just going to stay here all day?" she asked impatiently. "I'm getting hungry."
"Obie, what does she eat?" Yulin asked.
"Grass, hay, anything of that nature," the computer replied. "I had to take some short cuts, of course. The torso is mostly muscle tissue and supporting bone. I used the horse's part for the organs."
Yulin nodded, then looked over at the older scientist, still somewhat dazed by what he'd wrought.
"Gil?" he called. "How about some cosmetic touch-ups, and then we can keep her this way awhile? It would be interesting to see how this alteration works out."
Zinder nodded absently.
With one more pass, Yulin was able to give the new creature a younger human half; he tightened her up and restored what appeared to be youthful good looks.
They were almost finished when a door opened near the old scientist and a young girl, no more than fourteen, walked in with a tray. She was about 165 centimeters tall, but she weighed close to sixty-eight kilograms. Pudgy, stocky, awkward, with thick legs and fat-enlarged breasts, she wasn't helped by dressing in a diaphanous dress, sandals, and overdone makeup, or by the obviously dyed long blond hair. She looked somehow grotesque, but the old man smiled indulgently.
"Nikki!" he said reprovingly. "I thought I told you not to come in when the red light was on!"
"I'm sorry, Daddy," she responded, sounding not the least bit sorry, as she put the tray down and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "But you haven't eaten in so long we were getting worried." She looked over, saw the younger man and smiled a very different sort of smile.
"Hi, Ben!" she called playfully, and waved.
Yulin looked over, smiled, and waved back. Then, suddenly, he was thinking hard. A hundred meters, he thought. The kitchen was about that far away, above ground.
She put her arms around her father. "What have you been up to for so long?" she asked in that playful tone. Although physically adult, Nikki Zinder was emotionally very much a child and acted it. Too much, her father knew. She was overly protected here, cut off from people her own age, and spoiled rotten from an early age by her father's inability to discipline her and everybody's knowledge that she was the boss's kid. Even her slight lisp was childish; often she seemed more like a pouting five-year-old than the almost fourteen she really was.
But, she was his, and he couldn't bear to send her away, to put her in a fancy school or project far away from him. His had been a lonely life of figures and great machines; at fifty-seven he had had clone samples taken, but he wanted his own. Finally he had paid a project assistant back on Voltaire to give him a baby. She had been the first one willing to do it, just to see what the experience was like. She was a behavioral psychologist, and Zinder had had her assigned to his project until Nikki was delivered, then he paid her off, and she left.
Nikki looked like her mother, but that didn't matter. She was his, and during the most trying periods of the project she had kept him from blowing his brains out. She was immature as hell. But he really didn't want her to grow up. Nikki Zinder suddenly heard a woman cough, and she bounded up to the rail and looked down on the centaur.
"Oh, wow!" she exclaimed. "Hi! Zetta!"
The centaur looked up at the girl and smiled indulgently. "Hello, Nikki," she responded automatically.
Both Zinder and Yulin were fascinated.
"Nikki, you don't see anything, er, odd about Zetta?" her father prompted.
The girl shrugged. "Nope. Why? Should I?"
Ben Yulin's mouth dropped open in honest surprise.
Over a week passed during which they noted various reactions to the new creature. Just about everyone at the center saw nothing unusual in Zetta Halib being half horse; that is, nothing newly unusual. They knew, of course, that she was a volunteer for the biological scientists attempting to adapt people to different forms. They knew she had been manipulated after conception to grow up as she had, and they remembered when she had arrived and recalled the initial reactions.
Everything checked out, of course, except for the fact that none of what they remembered had actually happened. Reality needed to explain her and had adjusted accordingly. Only two men knew the truth.
Ben Yulin puffed on his curved pipe in his boss's office, rocking lazily back and forth in a spindly chair.
"So now we know," he said at last.
The older scientist nodded and sipped some tea. "Yes, we do. We can take any individual, anything, and we can remake it if we can come up with the data Obie needs to make the transformation properly, and nobody will even know. Poor Zetta! A one-of-a-kind freak with a full history and memory of growing up that way. We'll have to change her back, of course."
"Of course," Yulin agreed. "But let's let her keep her good looks. She's earned that much from us."
"Yes, yes, of course." Zinder responded as if that meant little to him.
"Something is still bothering you," Yulin noted.
Gil Zinder sighed. "Yes, quite a lot. This is a terrible power, you know, to play god like this. And I don't like the idea of the Council getting control of it."
Yulin looked surprised. "Well, they didn't blow all this money for nothing. Hell! We've done it, Gil! We've knocked conventional science into a cocked hat! We've shown them how easily the rules of the game can be changed!"
The older scientist nodded. "True, true. We'll win all sorts of awards and all that. But—well, you know what's the real problem. Three hundred seventy-four human worlds. A lot. But all but a handful are Comworlds, conformist fantasies. Think what the rulers of those worlds could do to those people with a device like ours!"
Yulin sighed. "Look, Gil, our way is no different than the crude methods they use now—biological manipulation, genetic engineering, all those things. Maybe things won't be so bad after all. Maybe our discovery will make things better. Hell, it can't make them much worse."
"That's true," Zinder acknowledged. "But the power, Ben! And," he paused, turned in his swivel chair to face the younger scientist, "there's something else."
"Huh? What?" Yulin responded.
"The implications," the physicist said worriedly. "Ben, if all this, this chair, this office, you, me—if we're all just stable equations, matter created out of pure energy and somehow maintained as we are, what's keeping us stable? Is there a cosmic Obie someplace, keeping the primary equations balanced?"
Ben Yulin chuckled. "I suppose there is, one way or another. God is nothing but a giant Obie. I kind of like that thought."
Zinder didn't find it amusing in the least. "I think there is, Ben. There must be, if everything else is correct. Even Obie agrees. But who built it? Who maintains it?"
"Well, if you want to be serious about it, I suppose the Markovians built it. For all I know they still maintain it," Yulin responded.
Zinder considered that. "The Markovians. Yes, it must be. We've found their dead worlds and deserted cities all over. They must have done all this on a giant scale, Ben!" He was suddenly excited. "Of course! That's why they never found any artifacts in those old ruins! Whatever they wanted, they just told their version of Obie and there it was!"
Yulin nodded approvingly. "You might be right."
"But, Ben!" Zinder kept on. "All the worlds of theirs we've found! They're all dead!" He sat back in his chair, voice and manner calming a bit, but his tone still agitated. "I wonder—if they couldn't handle it, how can we?" He looked straight at the other scientist. "Ben, are we producing the means to wipe out the human race?"
Yulin shook his head slowly from side to side. "I don't know, Gil. I hope not. But we haven't much choice. Besides," he smiled, tone lighter, "no matter what, we'll all be long gone before that point is reached."
"I wish I had your confidence, Ben," Zinder said nervously. "Well, you're right on one thing. We have to deliver. Will you set it up?"
Ben walked over and patted the old man on the shoulder. "Of course I'll make the arrangements," he assured the other. "Look, you worry too much, Gil. Trust me." His tone changed, became more self-confident. The other didn't notice. "Yes, I'll set it up."
In the old days there were nations, and they reached for space. And then there were planetary colonies of these nations, and they all had differing philosophies and life-styles. There followed wars, raids, engineered revolutions. Man expanded, the nations vanished, leaving behind only their philosophies for their heirs. Finally, rulers sick of it all got together and formed a trust. All competing ideologies were to be given free reign until one dominated a planet, but never by force and never with help from outside. Each planet would choose a member to sit on a great Council of Worlds and cast its vote.
The great weapons of terror and destruction were placed under seal and guarded by a tough force born and bred to the service—a force that could not itself use those weapons without authority. Such authority could come only from a majority of the 374 Council members, each of whom would have to appear personally to open his share of the seals.
Councillor Antor Trelig was one such guardian and a strong political force on the governing body. Technically, he represented the People's Party of New Outlook, a Comworld where people were bred to obedience and to function perfectly in their jobs. Actually, he represented a lot more, for he had a great deal of influence over other Council members as well. Some said he was ambitious enough to dream of one day controlling a majority, of holding in his hands the keys to the weapons that could wreck worlds.
He was a big man, around 190 centimeters tall, who had broad shoulders and a strong hooknose set atop a squared jaw. He looked as though made of granite. But he didn't look like the power-mad villain many painted him as being, not standing there, fascinated, watching two men and a machine unmake a centaur.
The scientists performed a few additional demonstrations for him, even asked him if he wanted to try it. Trelig declined with a nervous laugh. But, after talking to the girl who walked off the raised disk and after seeing reality readjust to her original existence, he was convinced.
Later he relaxed with a very un-Com-like brandy in Zinder's office.
"I can't tell you how stunned I am," he told them. "What you did is incredible, unbelievable. Tell me, could a huge one be built? One large enough to control whole planets?"
Zinder suddenly became hostile. "I don't think doing so would be practical, Councillor. Too many variables."
"It could be done," Ben Yulin put in, ignoring the angry look from his colleague. "But the cost and effort would be enormous!"
Trelig nodded. "Such a cost would be negligible when compared with the benefits. Why, this could wipe out any possibilities of starvation, vagaries of climate, and what not. It could produce a utopia!"
Or it could reduce the few free and individualistic worlds left to happy and obedient slavery, Zinder thought morosely. Aloud, he said, "I think it's a weapon, too, Councillor. A terrible one in the wrong hands. I believe that is what killed the Markovians a few million years ago. I would feel better if such a power were placed under Council Seal."
Trelig sighed. "I don't agree. But, we'll never know without trying it out. Such a scientific breakthrough can't just be locked away and abandoned!"
"I think it should be, and all traces of the research erased," Zinder maintained. "What we have is the power to play god. I don't think we're ready for that yet."
"You can't uninvent something once invented, regardless of its implications," Trelig pointed out. "But, I agree, word should be kept under wraps. If even the knowledge of your discovery got out, it would inspire a million other scientists. I think, for now, you should pull the project out of here and move to some place safe, isolated."
"And where would this safe place be?" Zinder asked skeptically.
Trelig smiled. "I have a place, a planetoid with full life-support, normal gravity maintenance, and the like. I use it as a resort. It would be ideal."
Zinder felt uneasy, remembering Trelig's sleazy reputation.
"I don't think so," he told the big man. "I think I'd rather put the matter to the full Council next week and let the members decide."
Trelig acted as if he expected that response. "Sure you won't reconsider, Doctor? New Pompeii is a wonderful place, much nicer than this sterile horror."
Zinder understood what he was being offered.
"No, I stand firm," the old scientist told the politician. "Nothing can make me change my mind."
Trelig sighed. "That's it, then. I'll arrange for a Council meeting a week from tomorrow. You and Dr. Yulin will attend, of course."
The big man stood up and moved to leave. As he did so, he smiled and nodded slowly at Ben Yulin, who returned the nod. Zinder didn't notice.
Ben Yulin would set it up, all right.
Nikki Zinder slept quietly in her own room, a room littered with exotic clothes, various toys, games, and gimmicks strewn about in no particular order. Her huge bed almost enveloped her.
A figure stopped at the door to that room and, after checking to make sure that no one was approaching, took out a small screwdriver and unscrewed the door pressure plate, carefully, so that the door alarm wouldn't be triggered. The plate off, the figure studied the small exposed modules and placed some spirit gum at several critical points. One module was removed and adjusted by placing a small strip of silvery material between two contacts not otherwise connected.
Satisfied, the intruder replaced the covering plate and meticulously screwed it back on. Replacing the screwdriver on a tool belt, he hesitated a second, tension getting to him, then pressed the contact.
There was a soft click, but nothing else happened.
Breathing easier now, he removed a tiny nodule of clear liquid from another pouch on the belt and attached an injector tab to it. Holding it carefully, injector out, he went to the twin solid door to the girl's room and slowly pressed on one section with his free hand, then moved it slightly to the right.
The door opened quietly, without the pneumatic hiss or any other appreciable sound that could be heard or detected over the residual air conditioning of the building. Opening the door just enough to slip inside, he turned and closed it quietly behind him.
By the dull glow of a baseboard nightlight he made out the sleeping figure of Nikki Zinder. She lay on her back, mouth open, snoring slightly.
Slowly, stealthily, he tiptoed to her bedside, until he stood almost over her. He froze as she mumbled something in her sleep and turned slightly on one side, moving away from him. Patiently he leaned over and peeled a bit of the sheet away from her, exposing her upper right arm. The hand with the injector and nodule reached over, and he placed it firmly on her arm.
His touch was so gentle that she did not awaken, but gave out a low moan and turned again on her back. Nodule empty, the man withdrew the tiny packet and put it in his pocket.
She did seem to be awakening a little, left hand coming over and feeling the muscle on the right. Then the arm suddenly seemed to lose its ability to move, and it limply fell away. Her breathing became heavier, more labored.
Taking a deep breath, he leaned over, touched her, shook her hard. She did not respond.
Smiling in satisfaction, he sat beside her on the bed, bent over close to her.
"Nikki, do you hear me?" he asked softly.
"Uh, huh," she mumbled.
"Nikki, listen carefully," he instructed. "When I say 'one hundred' again, you will begin counting down from there to zero. When you reach zero, you will get up, go out of this room, and come immediately to the lab. To the ground floor of the lab, Nikki. There you will find a large, round platform right in the middle of the floor, and you will stand on it. You will stand on it and you will not be able to move from the middle of it, nor will you want to. You will be frozen there, and you will still be sound asleep. Do you understand all that?"
"I understand," she responded dreamily.
"Avoid being seen going to the lab," he cautioned. "Do anything to keep from being seen. But, if you are seen, act normal, get rid of anyone quickly, and don't tell where you're really going. Will you do that?"
"Uh huh," she acknowledged.
He rose from the bed and went over to the door, which still worked on automatics from the bedroom side. It was free, though, and he opened it a crack, saw no one, then opened it a little wider. He stepped into the hall, turned, and almost closed the door.
"One hundred, Nikki," he said, and closed it all the way.
Satisfied, he walked down the corridor almost a hundred meters, meeting no one and noting with satisfaction that all the doors were closed. He entered the elevator, and the door to the capsule closed.
"Yulin, Abu Ben, YA–356–47765–7881–GX, Full clearance, Lab 2 level, please," he said. The elevator checked him visually, checked his ID number and voice prints, then descended rapidly to the lab floor.
Once on the balcony, he walked over to his control panel and switched it to active mode.
He flipped the switch to Obie.
"Obie?" he called.
"Yes, Ben?" came that soft, friendly reply.
Yulin punched some buttons on his keyboard.
"Unnumbered transaction," he responded with a calmness he didn't feel. "File in aux storage under my key only."
"What are you doing, Ben?" Obie asked curiously. "That is a mode even I can't use. I had no idea it was in there until you used it."
Ben Yulin smiled. "That's all right, Obie. Even you don't have to remember everything."
What Obie had discovered, and Ben was enjoying, was the mode by which he could use Obie and then have Obie file the record of what was done in such a way that even the great computer couldn't get at it. Obie would still perform normally, but have a case of total amnesia not only about what Ben was about to do but about his even being there.
Yulin heard the elevator door open below. He looked over the balcony and saw Nikki, dressed only in that flimsy nightgown, walk normally and deliberately into the lab chamber and step up onto the disk. Centering herself, she stood erect, her eyes closed, and she seemed frozen, a statue except for barely perceptible breathing.
"Record subject in aux mode, Obie," Yulin instructed. The big mirror overhead swung out, centered over the disk, and shot out the blue ray. Nikki flickered once or twice, then vanished. The ray cut off.
It would be tempting, Yulin thought, just to leave her there. But, no, the risk was too great. She would probably have to be produced in the end, and he didn't want her on that disk with Zinder at the controls.
"Obie, this will be an unstable equation. It will not adjust. The act of change shall in itself be part of reality."
"Yes, Ben," the computer responded. "There will be no reality adjustment."
Yulin nodded in satisfaction.
"Psychological adjustment only, Obie," he told the great machine.
"Ready," responded Obie.
"Maximum emotional-sexual response level," he ordered. "Subject is to be fixated on Dr. Ben Yulin, data in your banks. Subject will be madly, irrationally in love with Yulin, and will think of nothing but Yulin. Will do anything for Yulin, will be loyal only to Yulin, without exception. Subject will consider herself the willing property of said Ben Yulin. Code it 'love-slave mode' for future reference and store in aux one."
"Done," the computer acknowledged.
"Sequence, then store as soon as both humans have left the lab."
"Sequencing," the computer said, and Yulin looked over the balcony. The blue light had flipped on again, and Nikki, still the same and still wearing the same nightgown, winked back in. She was still frozen.
Yulin cursed himself. It'd been less than twenty minutes since he had administered the dosage which was good for probably three times that. He'd taken no chances.
"Additional instructions, Obie," he shot back. "Remove all traces of the drug Stepleflin from subject and restore subject at full wakefulness, with the equivalent of eight hours sleep. Do this immediately, then return to previous instructions."
The computer accepted the new instructions, the blue light went on, Nikki flickered but did not wink out for more than half a second this time, then was back, awake, looking in amazement about the lab.
Yulin leaned over the railing. "Hey, Nikki!"
She looked up, spotted him, and the look on her face was suddenly so full of rapture that she appeared to be seeing the face of god. She trembled and moaned in ecstasy at the sight of him.
"Come up to this level, Nikki," he instructed, and she all but ran off the disk to the elevator. She was next to him in less than two minutes. She continued to look at him in awe and wonder. He lightly touched her cheek with his hand and an orgasmic shudder went through her. He nodded, satisfied.
"Come with me, Nikki," he ordered softly, taking her hand. She gripped it and followed. They boarded the elevator, and Yulin told it to rise to the surface.
The top level opened onto a small park, dimly lit by the artificial light of the clear dome. The stars shown distantly from horizon to horizon. She hadn't uttered a sound, asked a question, during all this.
There were a few people about. But since much of the research center was devoted to thousands of other projects, many kept different hours for various reasons, some just because of the need to share facilities.
"We must stay hidden from anyone, Nikki," he whispered to her. "No one must see us."
"Oh, yes, Ben," she responded, and they crept along the side of the walk, for the most part hidden in the bushes. There were some sharp needles on some of the bushes and plants that lined the walk, and Nikki was scratched and splintered by them, but aside from occasional rubbing or a near-silent exclamation, she didn't complain. Once he didn't see a short, dark man turn a corner, and she pulled him down behind a bush.
Finally they reached the grassy, unlit area that for obscure reasons some called the campus, and they cut across it, walking normally. Finally, crouched in a dark corner in the shadow of another building, they waited.
She kept her arm around him and leaned into him.
He put his arm around her, and she sighed. She was rubbing him and kissing his clothing.
He found the whole thing embarrassing and slightly nauseating, but he'd established the rules of the game and had to suffer for it.
At last, a small, sleek private carrier slid up to them in the blackness. A gull-wing was raised, and a man emerged and approached them. Nikki, hearing movement, looked around and then tried to drag Yulin back into the blackness.
"No, Nikki, that man's a friend of mine," he told her, and she accepted his statement and immediately relaxed.
"Adnar! Over here!" he called, and the man heard and came closer.
"You must go with Adnar," he told her softly. She looked stricken and clung even tighter to him.
"This is the only way we can be together, Nikki," he told her. "You must go away for a short time, but, if you make no complaints and do everything Adnar and his friends tell you without question, I'll come to you, I promise."
She smiled at that. Her mind was clouded; she could think only of Ben, and if Ben said something then it was true.
"Let's go," Adnar called impatiently.
Yulin steeled himself, then hugged the girl and kissed her long and passionately.
"Remember that while we're apart," he whispered. "Now, go!"
She went with the strange man. Unquestioningly, without complaint, they climbed into the black carrier, and it sped away.
Ben Yulin allowed himself to exhale, and for the first time noticed he was perspiring. Shakily, he made his way back to his own building and bed.
Antor Trelig displayed the charming smile of a poisonous snake. He sat, relaxed, in Gil Zinder's office once more. The little scientist was visibly shaken.
"You monster!" he snapped at the politician. "What have you done with her?"
Trelig looked hurt. "Me? I would do nothing, I assure you. I am much too big a man for something like a petty kidnapping. But, I do have a lead on where she might be, and I have some facts on what's happened to her up to this point."
Zinder knew the big man was lying, but he could also see the reason for the pretense. Trelig hadn't done the deed personally, and he would have made very certain that it wasn't traceable to him.
"Tell me what you—they've done to her," he groaned.
Trelig did his best to look serious. "My sources tell me that your daughter is in the hands of the sponge syndicate. You've heard of it?"
Gil Zinder nodded, a cold chill going through him.
"They deal in that terrible drug from that killer planet," he responded, almost mechanically.
"Quite so," Trelig responded sympathetically. "Do you know what it does, Doctor? It decreases the IQ of someone by ten percent for every day it goes untreated. A genius is merely average in three or four days, and hardly more than an animal in ten days or so. There's no cure—it's a mutant thing unlike any life form we've ever encountered, produced by a mixture of some of our organic matter and some alien stuff. The effect is painful, too. A burning in the brain, I believe is the description, spreading to all parts of the body."
"Stop! Stop!" Zinder sobbed. "What is your price, you monster?"
"Well, remission is possible," Trelig responded, still sympathetic. "Sponge isn't the drug, of course, it's the remittent agent. Daily doses and there's no pain and little loss. The—ah, disease, is made dormant."
"What is your price?" Zinder almost screamed.
"I believe I can locate her. Buy off these men. My medical staff has some sponge cultures—quite illegal, of course, but we've discovered many people in high places in your situation, blackmailed by these villains. We could go after her, retrieve her, and give her sufficient sponge to restore her to normal." He shifted slightly, enjoying himself immensely.
"But I'm a politician, and ambitious. That's true enough. If I do something, particularly going up against an illegal band of cutthroats and then risking discovery of my illegal sponge, I must have something in return. To do it—"
"Yes? Yes?" Zinder was almost in tears.
"Report your project a failure and put in to close down," Trelig suggested. "I will arrange the transfer of—Obie, I think you call it—to my planetoid of New Pompeii. There you will plan and direct the construction of a much larger model than the one you have here, one large enough to be used at a distance on, say, an entire planet."
Zinder was appalled. "Oh, my god! No! All those people! I can't!"
Trelig smiled smugly. "You don't have to decide now. Take as long as you want." He got up, smoothing out his angelic white robes. "But remember, every passing day Nikki is more subject to the drug. Pain aside, the brain damage is ongoing. Consider that when thinking over your decision. Every second you waste the pain increases, and your daughter's brain dies a tiny bit."
"You bastard," Zinder breathed angrily.
"I'll initiate a search anyway," the big man told the scientist. "What I can spare, but not all-out, because it's merely in the name of humanity. Might take days, though. Even weeks. In the meantime, with a single call to my office saying you agree, I will put everybody on it, sparing nothing. Good-bye, Dr. Zinder."
Trelig walked slowly to the door, then out. It shut behind him.
Zinder stared hard at the door, then sank into his chair. He considered calling the Intersystem Police but thought better of it. Nikki would be well-hidden, and accusing the vice president of the Council of being a sponge merchant and kidnapper without a shred of evidence—Zinder knew the big man would have an ironclad alibi for the night past—would be futile. They'd investigate, of course, take days, even weeks, while poor Nikki . . . They'd let her rot, of course. Let her rot for five or six days. Then what? A lowgrade moron, washing floors happily for them, or perhaps a toy given to Trelig's men for sex and sadism.
It was that last he couldn't stand. Her death he thought he could accept, but not that. Not that.
His mind whirled. There would be ways later. Obie could cure her if he could get her back soon enough. And the device he was to build—it could be a two-edged sword.
He sighed, a tired and defeated little man, and punched the code for Trelig's liaison office on Makeva. He knew the big man would still be there. Waiting. Waiting for the inevitable response.
Defeated for now, he thought resolutely, but not vanquished. Not yet.