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CHAPTER NINE


Well-preserved, if you like them mummified, Thomas Cairstens thought, shaking the woman’s hand.

Janeen Amier had been a notable actress in her day, and something of a celebrity in radical circles in the 1960s. Later she’d made a fortune of her own in exercise videos, and then married a much larger one. Now she was just plain lean and stringy, and the effects of too many facelifts were showing; you could see the same face anywhere in L.A. or San Francisco, anywhere money and a losing struggle against time came together. Her husband, Fred Lather was carrying his age better, a trim slender man with a graying mustache. He was the real power here in terms of money and political influence, but everything Cairstens had been able to learn said that his wife was at least half the brains.

“Glad to see you again, Fred,” he said. “Janeen.”

Fred was, he noticed, in cowboy gear again; well, this was a ranch—a buffalo ranch, to be precise; Lather was a fanatic for the beasts when he wasn’t doing those Civil War recreation things. All fieldstone and exposed Ponderosa-pine beams in here, with a fireplace big enough to roast one of Lather’s bulls. The communications magnate led them in and poured drinks; white wine all round, Cairstens noticed. Evidently his Western act didn’t extend to actually drinking whiskey. Some evidence of bicoastal civilization surviving, he thought mordantly, as they got the small talk out of the way.

“Now, what was it you had to say that was so urgent and confidential?” Lather asked.

Cairstens smiled with professional warmth. “Let’s be frank, Fred, Janeen—you’ve both been a little puzzled about IngolfTech, haven’t you?”

“I like to see a new company with a progressive attitude,” Janeen said.

On Cairstens’s advice IngolfTech had made carefully calculated donations to a number of Amier’s favorite causes over the past few years. For that matter, they were mostly his favorite causes too, or had been back when such things mattered. Fairly soon the fight against tobacco smoking was going to become completely irrelevant. Even nuclear waste wouldn’t be much of a concern. If the Project succeeded.

“I am a little puzzled by some of the stuff you’ve come up with,” Lather said. “My technical people are too.”

“It’s all been satisfactory, I hope.”

“That’s just it. It’s too satisfactory.” Lather spread his hands. “I know that sounds odd. But there aren’t any bugs in any of them. Everything works perfectly; and new products are never that way. There’s always teething problems, things that have to be worked out in practice.”

“You mean the products we’ve been selling you work like finished products. Like things that’ve been in widespread use for years.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“That’s because,” he said, opening his briefcase, “they have been in use for years.”


# # #


“Yeah, well, it wasn’t as if I had anything better to do,” Henry muttered.

He slowed. The roads to JFK were not at their best on a Saturday afternoon in February, not with sleet added in. Especially once you were off the Van Wyck Expressway, although the layout wasn’t as bad as the spilled-spaghetti setup they had at La Guardia, thank God. He peered through the windshield and its sludge of water and ice, then took the right-hand turn in a spray of slush and a long beeeeeep from the minivan behind him.

“I still appreciate it, Henry,” Jenny said, smiling at him in the mirror. “You’re the first person I’ve known in Manhattan in years who actually has a car. Real people, not CEOs.”

“Yeah, well, it sort of goes with the job.” He grinned. “New experiences—I drive, you get me to go to the opera.”

He’d actually enjoyed it, which was a surprise. Although come to think of it, granddad had loved Neapolitan operettas, which wasn’t quite the same thing.

“Wish I was going to the Bahamas,” he said as they pulled in. “So. Want to catch a movie next week, after you get back?”

His voice was a little too casual. Three dates in a month meant more than we-get-together-sometimes . . . Christ on a crutch, how can I be worrying about that at a time like this? Part of being human, he guessed.

“Sure,” she said quietly, reaching over to touch him on the arm. “I’d like that.”

The weather was a little less ghastly under the overhang. Carmaggio popped the trunk and swung out the driver’s door, buttoning his coat. She had a surprising number of bags for a five-day trip, all assembling onto a neat little folding carryall. Efficient.

“Look, Jenny . . . there’s something I’ve got to tell you.” She looked up, startled at his tone. He continued:

“This Ingolfsson broa—ah, woman. Her name’s come up in my line of work, you know? No charges, but . . .” He spread his hands. “I can’t go into details. Let’s just say she’s been associated with some questionable people down there.”

Jennifer nodded, serious. She knew all about confidentiality. He could see she wasn’t surprised; well, dealing with offshore Caribbean money probably involved rumors of that sort fairly often.

“So watch yourself down there, okay?”

“I will, Henry.” She leaned forward and kissed him, a quick touch. “And thanks. Don’t worry, nothing happens to investment analysts.”

He stood and watched her vanish into the terminal before slamming the trunk shut and dropping back into the driver’s seat of the Mazda. She was right.

“Shit, I hope so,” he said, waiting with his hand on the keys.

Should I have said something else? What the hell could he say? “Your company’s prospective client is some sort of mad-dog inhuman killer with a ray gun who consorts with giant spotted baboons”?

Oh, great. That would really be convincing. Talk about consigning yourself to the tabloid-reading realms of the trailer trash in one fell swoop.

“The hell of it is, when I come right out and say it I don’t believe myself,” he mumbled.

An airport security guard was looking at him from the shelter of the overhang; probably for taking up too much time at the drop-off. Fuck you very much too, asshole, Carmaggio snarled under his breath, pulling out into the laneway.

Jenny wasn’t in any danger, anyway. Whatever Ingolfsson was after, right now she seemed to be concentrating on making large amounts of money, serious money, legitimate money. You didn’t do that by hurting investment analysts; the financial world had a severe aversion to physical violence in its own ranks. The most that could happen would be a heavy swindle and the loss of her job, and he didn’t expect that to happen either. Jenny was as bright as anyone he’d ever met, and she knew the twisted rules of her field as well as he knew his.

Carmaggio slammed on the brakes. Sweat broke out on his forehead and clammily under his arms as he felt the greasy skid of the tires on slick pavement. When the car halted he took several deep breaths before restarting the stalled motor; you could get yourself dead easy in this weather, driving with your mind in a fog of worry.

He concentrated on the road with a ferocious effort of will. Occasionally his hand would reach into his coat for cigarettes that weren’t there.


# # #


“Whoop!” Gwen said, and caught the falling child.

He had been twelve feet up the coconut palm. A half-scream of terror turned to a giggle. Gwen tossed the slender black form up again, rolled him over her shoulders and tucked him under one arm head-down, grinning toward the ground and the delighted white smile.

“Hey, put me down now!” the boy said in the Haitian Creole patois.

Gwen did, watching with mild affection as he somersaulted off his hands and ran to join a half-dozen other youngsters playing outside a small concrete-block schoolhouse. This section of the property was sand and rock, scrub-covered with a few taller pines or coconuts. It was a fine winter’s day, sun bright through the thin foliage overhead, a little over seventy degrees. The brisk sea breeze brought scents of salt, silty mangrove swamp, pine, fresh-cut stone, and human. That was more agreeable now that she was used to it again, although she missed the odors of Draka and servus. She walked slowly, bare feet gripping the stone beneath her, savoring a feeling of relaxed well-being.

“You like children?” Tom asked over his shoulder as they walked; he and Alice preceded her down the pathway. She could hear undertones of surprise in the man’s voice.

“Children and puppies, yes,” Gwen said. “They’re among my favorite things.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “And wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings, no doubt,” he said.

Gwen looked at him, liking his smile. There was no insolence in it, and outright fear was a crude tool of dominance. I’m getting the knack of dealing with humans, she thought. Killing them was fairly easy, gross manipulation with terror, bribes or pheromones not too difficult, but really managing them took skill. Centuries of dealing only with servus and her own kind had let hers rust, but mining her memories and careful study were bringing it back.

“That’s a quotation?”

“From a musical . . . a movie with singing. An unbearably sentimental one.”

“It’s unhealthy not to like children,” she said. “Not good evolutionary strategy. I’m very fond of mine.”

“Hard to imagine you having children,” Alice said.

“Oh, I only contribute the egg,” Gwen said. “We fertilize in vitro and transplant the ovum. Sex is recreational and social, for us.”

Alice looked back over her shoulder, caught Gwen’s eye on her and blushed—thoroughly visible, since the Australian was in bikini and sarong—put a nervous hand to her hair, and glanced away. Delightful, Gwen thought. She’d become enthusiastic very quickly. Besides being an efficient administrative assistant.

A splendid pair, she thought, viewing them together. And they’d make a good breeding combination, when we have time. They might be past prime reproductive age when this operation was complete; best if she had sperm and egg samples preserved. The servus modifications only applied to a minuscule fragment of the archaic-human genome, and there were other qualities here it would be useful to preserve.

She inhaled, catching a feral scent. Chalmers, she thought with distaste. Here again.

“Ms. Ingolfsson!”

A human hurried up, carrying a clipboard. One of the local officials; and not one of the many that the energetic Captain Lowe had on the payroll. Lowe’s strain I will not preserve. Even modified. He was useful here and now, though. This other feral wasn’t useful even in the short term. A nuisance.

“Dr. Chalmers?” Gwen said politely.

Tom and Alice turned at her back; the plump Bahamian health official goggled a little at the Australian’s cleavage, notable even here on an island nation of beach resorts. He reacted to Gwen with a bristling nervousness that stained his white shirt at the armpits despite the mild air. Her sex pheromones were naturally low right now anyway, with her appetites satisfied for the present, and she kept them throttled back. Aggression she let swell a little, watching with a secret amusement as the human’s fear-defiance cycle intensified. The Bahamian didn’t know what he was sensing, but his subconscious was wiser than his waking mind. It remembered the caves, and the smell of tiger.

“Ms. Ingolfsson, I’ve completed the health inspection of your Haitians.”

Dislike and fear understressed in the word. The Bahamians’ contempt for their southern neighbors was well-seasoned with consciousness of their numbers and desperation, and of the difficulty of keeping them out—the more so as the native-born were increasingly unwilling to do the menial work the Haitians accepted gladly.

“Yes?” Gwen arched an eyebrow.

It was a bit frustrating not to simply grab the annoying little human by the neck and arm and pull until he came apart—the image made her smile slightly—but there was a hunter’s satisfaction in playing him along, for now. Time enough to rebuke insolence when the beacon was established.

I’ll throw him to the ghouloons, Gwen decided, making a mental note. They like to play with their food. This planet was inconveniently overpopulated, anyway. She imagined him weeping slow tears of absolute despair as he clung to the top of one of the palms, long wet fangs beneath him, and clawed hands reaching up with mocking slowness. The first scream . . .

“They are all in perfect health,” Chalmers said.

“Doctor, you seem disappointed,” Gwen said. “I’d have thought you’d be pleased—the Bahamas are so particular about tropical diseases.”

If the dirty savages were sick, I could deport them, Chalmers thought/subvocalized. How did she get so many permits? A human would have seen only a glare.

“I’m sure your government realized the potential of IngolfTech,” she said. Quite true; genuine productive enterprise was rare in this banking-smuggling-tourism enclave nation. “And I have high standards for my . . . employees. You’ve seen our clinic, and we spare no expense.”

Also quite true. Even in the Old Domination, her human ancestors had been strict about conditions for their plantation hands; she could remember her mother’s pride in that. There was no satisfaction in owning inferior stock.

Chalmers gave a curt nod and strode away, back toward the vehicle park.

Tom was sensitive enough to guess something of her moods by now. She heard him clear his throat.

“Is it wise to bait him like that?” he said. “I know he’s only a minor bureaucrat, but this is a small country.”

“Indulge me,” she said dryly. Tom bowed his head. “No, that’s not a criticism; keep telling me when you think I’m making a mistake. We’re not infallible.”

She cocked her head, focusing on his gestalt. “Yes, I do take the whole matter seriously, Tom,” she said to his unspoken question. “But remember, I’m designed to actively enjoy conflict and its risks. Speaking of which,” she went on, “have the weapons arrived?”

Tom nodded, unhappily. “Young Lowe brought them in on the last flight,” he said. “I’ve had them unpacked and taken to the armory. Vulk says the Haitians he picked are learning quickly—enthusiastic, according to him.”

Disgusting thug, he added unconsciously. Tom did not like the man who called himself Vulk Dragovic, but the Serbian was useful.

Gwen made no comment on Tom’s subvocalization; it was fair enough, by the American’s standards.

“Is it really necessary?”

“It never pays to neglect basics,” she said. “We’ve accumulated substantial wealth and power here, by local standards—industrial espionage can be crude as well as subtle. Besides, it’s . . . interesting to have human guards. Reminds me of my childhood.”

The Old Domination had used janissaries, slave-soldiers, back before the Last War. There was no need for them in the Final Society, but there was a fascination to recapitulating the technique, even if only on this miniature scale. It was profoundly satisfying to have human slaves not only willing to obey but to fight and die for her.

“Speaking of basics,” she went on, “I want another meeting of the inner circle tonight to go over protocols for the American financial group. It would be . . .”

Tom and Alice paled a little at her expression.

“. . . extremely inconvenient if they were to stumble on anything they shouldn’t. Killing them would put a severe crimp in the Project.”


# # #


Jennifer Feinberg looked out the window of the floatplane. The west coast of the Abacos glittered in the afternoon sun, pinkish-white beaches and palms, tidal marsh, a scrubby olive-green landscape with patches of pine trees standing up from the low bush. Roads were black strings through the countryside, and an occasional tin rooftop showed through. Soon, she told herself. She felt jet-lagged, sandy-eyed and weary after the brief stopover in Nassau.

At least I get a trip to the tropics, she thought. New York had been crazier than usual, this November of 1998. And an excuse to stop worrying whether she’d pass the CFA 2&3 or get shelved for the rest of her life. Henry had been properly envious.

Why am I sitting back here with the secretaries? she wondered again. I should be up there with the rest of the team.

There were three of them, Vice-President Coleman, Managing Director Klein, and her, one Series 7 Investment Analyst. Was he just making tasteless jokes, or was that a pass? she thought, glowering at the back of the VP’s balding head. There were times when she wished she’d stayed in premed instead of switching to economics, but . . . oh, the hell with it: there were assholes in any line of work. Besides, after her father died the money was too short. You had to wait too long in medicine.

She looked out the window again. The clouds on the western horizon were turning crimson and gold, casting a path of light down the waves. Jennifer could see a cluster of people waiting by the long white pier jutting out into the water, and the pools and roofs of a settlement not far away. Several of the buildings looked new.

“Boss, boss, de plane, de plane!” she murmured to herself.

“What’s that?” the secretary said, bewildered.

“Never mind,” Jennifer replied. That made her feel ancient for a second. Thirty-four’s not old. The secretary was from Minnesota or somewhere, with those blue eyes that made you think of deep wells. Empty wells. No room for brains with all those hair roots. “Classical reference.”

“Ladies an’ gentlemon,” the pilot’s voice said, in his lilting Island accent. “Fasten seat belts an’ prepare for landin’.”

The hull touched the surface with a skip . . . skip . . . skip motion that was unlike anything Jennifer had ever felt before.

The gullwing hatch of the pilot’s compartment opened and the plane was hauled alongside the pier. Fresh warm air gusted in; she held grimly onto her attaché case as a swarm of very black men in white shirts and shorts descended on the Americans’ luggage. Others handed them out onto the dock, where the IngolfTech greeters waited.

That’s the CEO? Jennifer asked herself incredulously. Far too young and blond.

“I’m Alice Wayne, Ms. Ingolfsson’s chief executive assistant,” the woman said, with an Australian accent. “Please, this way. Everything’s waiting for you, and I’m sure you’d like to freshen up before dinner.”


# # #


Plenty of boat operators here in Martinique, Ken thought.

The problem was getting one who was . . . flexible . . . enough to do what he wanted but smart enough not to try and rob him and drop the body over the side out beyond the territorial limit.

“You wan’ to talk wit me, blanc?”

Ken rose and extended his hand over the table. The black man in the sailor’s cap looked at it a moment before extending his own. His eyes widened a little when Lafarge matched the crushing grip pressure for pressure. The local was taller than the Samothracian’s six-two, and heavier; a bit of a gut bulging the stained T-shirt, but most of it in heavy ropy muscle over his shoulders and arms, hands like callused hams. Many of the other patrons in the little bar had their hair shaved in symbolic patterns, but this man kept his in a plain close crop, with a wisp of beard along acne-scarred, eggplant-colored cheeks.

“You got balls, comin’ here.”

The voice was soft, accented—the Creole French of the islands that turned “r” into “w,” spicing English learned here in the Caribbean.

They sat. There was a slight relaxation among the onlookers, like a pack of junkyard dogs returning to their fleas but keeping the corners of their eyes on a possible meal. Games of dominos and low-voiced conversation resumed; men moved to the bar and back, drank beer and straight rum, listened to the thudding beat of reggae-rap from the machine in the corner. Occasionally someone would walk into the glaring white heat of the afternoon outside, broken only by a sad-looking palm whose fronds rustled dryly, a sound like bones. Despite the warmth many of them were wearing jackets of one sort or another. Sonic and microray scan showed a lot of metal: guns, mostly, and ratchet knives. The AI drew a schematic over the room for an instant, outlining the weapons. There were a fair number of cellular phones, too. The air smelled of sweat and sickly-sweet rum, faintly of ganja and mildew.

“I’ve got business here,” Ken said expressionlessly. “I need a boat.”

The black leaned back and stuck a toothpick in one corner of his mouth. “You want to fish, maybe? Marlin? I know someone who got a good deep-sea boat.”

“I’m not a tourist.”

“Funny, blanc, you look like one.”

Lafarge was wearing a loose colorful shirt, duck trousers and sandals. The shirt was useful in a number of ways, not least for what it let him wear next to his skin.

“I need,” he said, “a charter. Wooden boat, doesn’t have to be fast. A couple of runs past Andros, in the Bahamas; then a night drop-off inshore, the boat waits for a couple of hours, and back to Miami. No papers, no problems with the police.”

Smoky brown eyes regarded him expressionlessly. “You wouldn’t be a policemon, tryin’ to entrap a businessman, maybe?”

Lafarge grinned mirthlessly; the other man’s chair creaked as instinctive reaction tensed his body.

“Fort-de-France police?” he asked. “Would they send me?”

The black relaxed suddenly, with a mirthless chuckle. “Vwaimen, that not too likely.” Nordic types were wildly conspicuous in this section of town—in most of the island apart from the tourist areas, for that matter. “Maybe you want to step on toes, be cuttin’ on other mon’s turf, get me killed that way.”

Lafarge shook his head. “No boat in to shore, no cargo in or out,” he said. “One time, all cash, you walk away.”

“Plenty seen me with you now.”

Teeth showed between the Samothracian’s lips. “I need a man with balls,” he said. “Ten thousand on deposit with a bagman; you get it when I get back. I pay your costs upfront.”

antoine lavasseur, the AI supplied. A list of criminal convictions followed: mostly in Martinique. A wonder that he was still walking the streets. false identity, the machine supplied hopefully.

“Andros,” Lavasseur said thoughtfully. “Pretty long way, three days, peut-être. Staniard town? Kemp’s Bay?”

Ken shook his head. “Off the west coast, about halfway between Pine Cay and Williams Island.”

The sailor chewed on his toothpick. Suddenly he called out, without moving his basilisk stare from the Samothracian’s face:

“Ti’ punch!”

The bartender’s assistant hurried over; only the best for this customer. A bottle of Pere Labat rum went down on the table, chunks of cut lime on a plate, a pitcher of water, a bowl of brown sugar and two reasonably clean glasses. The local occupied himself with the ritual for a moment and then rolled the thick scratched glass of the tumbler between pink palms.

“Those bank waters, bad sailin’, beaucou’ shoal, reef, spiderhead, coral,” he said. “Can’ get nobody close, there.”

“A mile or two will do fine,” Ken said. “I’ll be going in alone, swimming.”

The toothpick stopped in its migrations. “Either you got balls like brass nuts, blanc, our you got malheuw d’tete,” he said.

“My head’s not sad enough to take money on board,” Ken said.

This was almost enjoyable, like a historical epic. Better than a neural-link simulacrum, because it not only felt real, it was. The hard wooden chair under him, the scarred surface of the table with its stains and chipped paint, the smell of stale tobacco and beer from the man across the table—none of them would dissolve if he told the compweb to end the scenario.

Of course if he got killed, that would be permanent too. Far worse: defeat would be real here as well.

Lavasseur took off his cap and threw it on the table. “Bon. We talk about the money.”


* * *


Gwen swiveled slightly in her chair, looking at the images in the monitors, picked up from the guest rooms. The three Primary Belway Securities executives, of course. Interesting. Two males in late middle age, and a female, younger—the analyst. It was going to be a challenge, making this all look like legitimate business. Alice was changing for dinner in her room; she looked up and winked at the spyeye.

Gwen smiled. The challenge made her feel good, loose and hungry and alert. That was the problem; the Race had been designed for conquest, and then they’d won so thoroughly that they had to devise artificial stimulants to keep from terminal boredom. This was far more exciting than hunting grizzly bears with spears, combat on levels far beyond the physical. One drakensis against six billion humans, with a whole planet for prize . . .

She turned away from the monitors and looked out the tall windows, out over the planet.

“I’m hungry,” she whispered.

A gluttonous feeling, like an infinite banquet; the promise at last of satisfaction to match the power of her appetites. Appetites for which food and rut were simply symbols.

Closing her eyes, she ran through the dossiers on the three Primary Belway Securities executives. Money, fear, personal glamour—there would be a key to each of them. Probably money; it was the counter in the game they played. She stroked the information, looking for weaknesses and strengths; neurosis, obsession, trauma. At the same time she set herself for the proper pheromonal clues; nothing too heavy, of course. Not at first. A tang of apprehension; fear would produce respect. A muted undercurrent of sexual attraction. And dominance; humans would perceive that as personal magnetism. There.

She concentrated for a minute or two, then took a deep open-mouthed breath to test the scent. Perfect.


# # #


Jennifer looked at the head of IngolfTech out of the corner of her eyes. It was indecent. Women that good-looking were supposed to be in the profession of being good-looking; it must take hours a day just to keep that figure, especially if she was the early-thirties the records indicated. The surprisingly incomplete records. You could be born rich and look like that, or marry the money, but unless you were an actress or model you couldn’t earn yourself rich and look like that. There wasn’t the time, on top of a real career. Not unless you had more luck in the genetic lottery than any one human being was due.

“We’ll save the numbers for tomorrow morning, I think,” Ingolfsson said.

There was a murmur of agreement around the table. The meal had been long, complex and memorable; the dining room was cool and palely elegant, open to the tropical night through tall french doors. The founder of IngolfTech was looking elegant herself, although Jennifer admitted she wasn’t overdoing it. The gold and ruby brooch at her neck was the only spectacular item, shaped in the form of a tiny bat-winged dragon, grasping something in its claws.

She went on in the same mellow, purring voice: “Except the basic ones. I came here in ’95 with a few hundred thousand dollars. Two months later I had eight million dollars . . . and that might have been luck. Now, by your own conservative estimate, my company has a net worth of one hundred and seventy-eight million dollars, and that cannot be luck.”

“Ummm . . .” Vice-President Coleman said. “Ah . . . how exactly was your initial financing arranged?”

Gwen smiled with white even teeth. “With respect, Mr. Coleman, that’s irrelevant. What is relevant is one hundred and seventy-eight million dollars’ worth of developments in biotechnology and other fields, every one of them bought, developed, patented, and then sold or licensed by IngolfTech. The patents and contracts are a matter of public record. Our cash flow this year should be better than twenty million from licensing fees alone. That’s not counting any new products; and believe me, you’ll be seeing enough of those to assure you of doubling, or possibly trebling that figure.”

Jennifer cleared her throat. “Ms. Ingolfsson, I have been going over the figures with some care. Your R&D overheads are . . . well, they’re extremely low.”

The servants brought in coffee and liqueurs. Gwen nodded and thanked them in some musical language that sounded like French but wasn’t; Jennifer couldn’t place it. The entrepreneur went on: “That’s how you make profits, Ms. Feinberg. Low overheads, high receipts.” The green eyes turned on her, and Jennifer felt a sudden prickling over the skin of her face. “My concept isn’t complicated; I search out cheap scientific talent—in the former Soviet bloc, in South Asia, elsewhere. There are a lot of very good people there, although they don’t have the infrastructure they need. I provide seed money. If the idea looks promising, I buy it—fee-for-service—and develop it to commercial stage. Dr. Mueller and Dr. Singh do, rather.”

She nodded at the two heads of research: a pale soft-looking middle-aged German and a lean dark Punjabi.

“Then we sell it.”

Director Klein smiled. “Essentially, IngolfTech’s main asset is your nose for salable ideas, then, Ms. Ingolfsson.”

She nodded coolly. “I wouldn’t expect anyone to value that highly without a track record,” she said. “That’s why I haven’t taken the company public to date. However, now we do have a track record.”

“And a rather impressive one,” Klein said genially.

“We’ll go into the details tomorrow,” she said, lifting her wineglass. “In the meantime—to a long and profitable association between IngolfTech and Primary Belway Securities.”

They all raised theirs in return. Gwen’s head turned towards Jennifer, and her nostrils flared very slightly. “That’s Scheherazade you’re wearing, isn’t it, Ms. Feinberg?”

Jennifer put her wrist to her face reflexively. “Why, yes,” she said, startled. The perfume was barely detectable to her, and the IngolfTech CEO was sitting four places away.

Gwen smiled again. “I have a very sensitive nose,” she said.


* * *


Adieu foulard, adieu madwas

Adieu, gwain d’or, adieu collier-chou

Doudou a moin li ka pa’ti

Helas, helas, c’est pou’ toujou’ . . .


The clumsy weights of the scuba gear clanked together as Ken walked to the side of the motor-schooner lying nearly motionless under bare poles two miles off the coast. The crew were looking elaborately innocent; Captain Lavasseur stood at the wheel, singing the old Creole folk-song under his breath.

There it is, Ken thought. There were lights; probably the main house, although there was a seaplane dock and a beach chalet. They moved slowly with the gentle sway of the ship; the headlights of a car went by somewhere inland, flickering between trees. He could hear faint music, and a dog barked. The seaplane was docked at the pier, next to a paved landing ramp. So peaceful . . .

Philosophers he’d read on this Earth sometimes doubted that evil was a real or tangible thing, relegating it to a matter of perspective and custom. Samothracians had never had that luxury; they lived in the same universe as the Domination and its masters. It waited there: a living, breathing snake. He’d studied them all his adult life, killed—and been killed by—thousands of them in neural-link simulations. Odd. Only here in another universe have I ever walked the same planet with one.

Anger was a calm thing; the neural implants wouldn’t allow more than that with combat to await. Still . . . kill it and I save a whole world, he thought. Repeal the unhealed wound of the Last War.

A sudden thought shocked him. Kill it and I’m stuck here forever. Wondering about the future wasn’t something you did much of when you’d volunteered for a suicide mission. He filed the thought for later consideration.

“Exactly here,” he said to Lavasseur.

The islander tapped the GPS monitor mounted by the binnacle. “Exactly, blanc.”

The local satellite positioning system was crude by Samothracian standards; back home, the implants everyone had made it impossible not to know precisely where you were at all times. It was functional enough for this. Lavasseur’s eyes and teeth showed briefly as the display lit them; for the rest the deck was very dark, only starlight on the waves to glint on rare pieces of metal. The Mait’ Carrefour was surprisingly clean, but the crew did not go in for polishing the brightwork. Just an innocuous little working boat of the type that still knocked around the out-islands or took an occasional tourist charter . . .

Ken took the rubber-tasting mouthpiece between his teeth and went backward over the rail in the approved local style. A knotted rope dipped down to the bottom a hundred feet below; he stripped off the native gear and bundled it, laying it on the sandy seabed. A quick gesture, and the transparent face-film of his softsuit covered eyes and nose and mouth. He spat the bitter salt of seawater out and rinsed his mouth with fresh. Across his eyes the film adjusted, thickening into a lens that corrected the distortion of seawater and amplified light.

Magnification 5x, he thought/commanded.

In a floating, toe-touching walk reminiscent of a low-gravity asteroid, he began to stride toward shore. The equipment clipped around him was all his own, small and non-metallic and nearly undetectable.

Not as powerful as he’d have liked; given his choice, a miniature antimatter bomb from twenty thousand kilometers would do nicely. Too bad about the bystanders, but worth it considering the stakes. That was exactly what he must not do, of course; far too much noncongruent energy release to be safe, with the Domination’s scientists searching the continua. He’d have to do this . . . what was the local’s expression?

“Up close and personal,” he murmured.

He was walking through coral in a thousand shapes, branched and brain-knobbed, crimson and white and starred with drifting clouds of fish colored like finned orchids. The water carried the grunts, groans, clicking sounds fish made—more were active at night—and the chitinous scuttling noises of the lobsters and sea urchins that marched across the bottom, eye-stalks swiveling to track him. Something heavier and gray swept its tail through the water above, dorsal fin and wicked little eyes, underslung jaw with multiple rows of shearing teeth born on a living torpedo of gristle and sinew. It half-rolled to examine him and then swam on, warned away by the vibrations his softsuit bled into the water.

“Up close and personal,” Lafarge said again, with an expression very much like the shark above him.


# # #


Jennifer tossed the pen down. She was too wired to take notes, by hand or on her laptop or the workstation, certainly not in a mood for sleep. Instead she rose and paced restlessly. The main house was old, though recently renovated, a rectangular block of pink-stuccoed coral blocks three stories high, with tall Doric pillars in front. The guests were housed in new wings on either side. Her own suite was three rooms giving out onto a balcony overlooking the rear gardens; bedroom, a sitting room with terminal and multimedia center, and a bathroom that centered on a huge D-shaped sunken tub that looked as if it were carved out of a block of marble. Nothing vulgar, exactly—the fixtures weren’t gold or anything—but there was something about the whole place . . .

She looked at the workstation. The electronics were set in smooth panels of tropical hardwood: swing-out keyboards, old-style and an adjustable ergonomic split kind, fax-modem, adjustable thin-section screen on a boom, all the latest. She settled for the speakerphone and punched out a number.

“Hi, Henry. Hope I didn’t wake you,” she said.

“Nah, I’m a night owl. You okay?”

Despite that, he sounded a little sleepy at first; it was past midnight. But the last words were sharper. Why did I call Henry, in particular? she thought. They’d only known each other a couple of months, really—that first time back after Stephen Fischer was killed didn’t count. Does sweetums want a big, stwong man to holdums widdle hand? she scolded herself. Then again, Henry was a friend . . . and he did have a different perspective on things.

“I’m fine, really. I just wanted to talk.”

“Fine by me,” Henry said, with a chuckle in his voice. “So, how are things going?”

What do I say? The truth, she supposed. “Fine, but I’ve got a weird feeling about it,” she said slowly. “For one thing, this place is odd. It’s too beautiful.”

“This lady’s rolling in it, from what you said.”

“Henry, she’s made it all in the last four years. You don’t have time to collect toys while you do that; believe me, I’ve known a lot of these entrepreneurial types. They don’t do that while they’re driving for the top.”

“This one does.” He was silent for a moment in turn. “There are,” he said neutrally, “some very rich people south and west of there. Who do go in for toys in a big way.”

She thought of a map. South America—Colombia.

“Henry, you don’t know anything about IngolfTech and drugs, do you?”

Another hesitation. “No, not exactly. And remember where you’re calling from.”

Oh, Jennifer thought. Right. Even more public than a cellular phone.

“No, I really don’t think so. It was just a comparison,” he said.

“Well, maybe she’s just jumping the gun,” Jennifer said. “There’s Lather and his buffalo ranches, and Trump liked to collect buildings. The other thing is that it’s pretty odd to stick a research facility out here in the boondocks. Offshore, yes, there are regulatory advantages, but why Andros Godforsaken Island? It’s pretty, but even these days you want to be in closer contact with things, you can’t do everything electronically. Why not Nassau? For that matter, there’s not much action in the Bahamas except in offshore banking, currencies, that sort of thing. No infrastructure for a high-tech company. So why not someplace in Europe, maybe?”

“Humpfh.” Henry grunted thoughtfully. “I’ll bet Ms. Ingolfsson does a fair bit of traveling, then. You’re right, it does look a bit screwy. What’s she like?”

Jennifer propped her head in her free hand. “That’s what’s got me really wondering. Far too good-looking, in a really strange sort of way. Far too . . . charming. Isaac Coleman’s as cold-blooded a son of a bitch as you can find on the Street, and she had him eating out of her hand. I can’t place her, either; not just that she’s got no paper trail, she doesn’t feel familiar. I’d say old money, probably European, but her accent’s as much American as anything. And charisma that feels like bumper-cables clipped onto your ears. Scary, fun in an odd sort of way, but scary.”

“Be caref—”

Henry’s voice cut off. An instant later, so did the lights.

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Framed