The Domination

Chapter Eleven

TRANSIT STATION SEVENTEEN

MASHAD, PROVINCE OF HYRCANIA

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

JANUARY 23, 1976

About three hundred of us, Marya estimated. It had taken an hour for the big room to fill; this one was square, under the same warehouse roof. Absolutely blank, except for a waist-high dais and comp terminal at one end. Four of the big steel-mesh doors, one in each wall. No chairs, of course. No talking allowed; one prisoner had persisted, and the guards had picked her up and thrown her into the wall, just hard enough to stun, and the shockrods were always there. There was another white line around them on the floor; the prisoners had learned enough to treat it like a minefield. Marya had worked her way to the second line from the front with slow, careful movements. They’re going to give us some sort of information, she decided. I’ll get it all, and make my own use of it.

This place had the depressing regularity of a factory; it was designed to make you feel like sausage meat. That is information, too. The door behind the dais opened, and two more Orpos stepped up on it, one going to the terminal; she laid a hand on the screen, then made a few keystrokes. A tall woman, hard to tell age with the shaven head. The uniform was a little more elaborate, with a sidearm and complicated equipment on a webbing belt; she had the traditional metal gorget around her neck on a chain. Chain-dog, Marya remembered. That’s what the serfs call the Order Police. Appropriate.

“All of them supposed to understand talk,” Marya heard her say to her companion. Talk must mean English. She filed the datum away.

“Right.” The voice, amplified now, boomed out over the huddled crowd. “Listen up, cattle.” The face scanned them; tight shin stretched over bone, a white smile. “Y’all are serfs. I’m a serf. There are serfs and serfs; y’all are cattle, I’m you god, understand?” An uneasy silence. “Yaz all from India. Yaz here because our noble mastahs—” Marya’s ears pricked. Was that a note of sarcasm? Listen. Wait. “—are souvenir hunters. That what yaz are. Trinkets. We shippin’ yaz fo’ that. Sometimes, trinkets get broke.”

The Orpo jerked a thumb toward one of the crowd. Marya recognized the young man she had helped earlier, with dried blood caked on his lower face and the nose swollen. A Bengali, slight and dark and with a nervous handsomeness apart from the injury, about twenty. A junior officer in the Indian ground forces, from his mannerisms. The crowd parted to leave him in a bubble of space as the guards closed in, shoved him roughly to the edge of the dais. The Orpo noncom had lit a cigarette; now she flicked ash off the end and looked down at the Indian.

“Just in case yaz thinkin’ y’all too valuable to hurt,” she said, and nodded.

The guards moved in; Marya could see their elbows moving, hear the heavy thuds of fists striking flesh. A moment, and the young man was hunched over when they parted, dazed. The Orpo with the cigarette nodded again, and her companion on the dais stepped forward, pulled a wire loop from his belt and bent to throw it around the man’s neck. Marya drove her teeth into her lower lip and made herself watch.

The greencoat grunted and lifted the slight Bengali youth without perceptible effort, holding the toggles of the strangling wire out with elbows slightly bent. The youth bucked, heels drumming against the dais, made sounds. His face purpled under the brown, tongue and eyes bulging, sounds coming from him. From behind her, too, she could hear vomiting. A stain spread down the front of the Bengali’s overall, and she could smell the hard shit-stink as his sphincter released; see the thin smile on the executioner’s face as he jerked the wire free of the man’s neck and cleaned it lovingly with a handkerchief. Blood trickled down Marya’s chin.

I will remember you, too, my friend, she thought grimly.

“Yaz nothin’,” the amplified voice continued. Gray-suited attendants came in, threw the corpse on a wheeled dolly and took it away. The door slid shut behind them with an echoing clang. “Y’all barely worth the trouble of keeping alive. Yaz cattle, meat, dogshit. Understand?”

The man who had used the wire noose bellowed: “That’s Yes, thank you, ma’am, apeturds!”

Marya opened her mouth and shouted with the others. Words are nothing, she told herself.

“One lesson an’ it all yaz need. Do what y’ told. Anything y’ told, anythin’ at all. Right now yaz total worthless; with hard work an’ tryin’ mebbeso yaz work up to just worthless. Understand?”

“YES, THANK YOU, MA’AM!” the prisoners screamed. Someone behind Marya was crying again, slow racking sobs.

“Oh, one mo’ thing.” The Orpo noncom pulled a flat crackle-finished box from a pouch at her waist; it was roughly the size of a pocket novel, and a miniature keyboard showed when she opened it. “Them pretty-pretty bracelets. They new. Space research, monitors. Trace yaz anywheres, identify yaz to the comps. Take readin’s heartbeat. And a little nerve hookup, inductor. Right to a center in yaz brains, if y’ got any.” Her fingers stabbed down on the controller.

PAIN. Marya fell limp and boneless to the floor and her head cracked on the concrete and the skin splitting was wonderful because for a single fractional second it blocked the PAIN but then there was nothing but the PAIN and there had never been anything but PAIN and her heart and lungs were frozen and death would be wonderful but there was no death only PAINonandonandonandonandon—

It stopped. Marya drew breath, screamed, blood and tears and mucus covering her face, and then she curled around herself and hugged the hand with the controller bracelet and laughed because it stopped and the bleeding from her cheek was heaven and the stabbing behind her eyes was better than orgasm and the sensual delight that it had stopped and she knew she could never feel pain again because that had been pain not the pain of anything not surgery without anesthetic not grief not longing not fear, it had been everything and nothing and pure, purest simple pain.

“Up and quiet, or I give yaz anothah five seconds. Now, wasn’t that wonderful!” A shriek. “Understand?”

“YES, THANK YOU, MA’AM!”

They were all up, quiveringly silent. All except for one woman who lay motionless while the serfs with the dolly came and removed the body, and some of the others looked at it with envy.

“Most places, it’s bettah to live than to die. Here, we can make it bettah to die than to live. Remembah that, cattle.”

The van doors opened. “Out,” the serf guard said. Marya slid forward and looked around; they were in the Citizen section of Mashad. Startling after five days in the blank steel and concrete of the Transit station. The guard pushed her ahead, through a revolving door into a hotel lobby. Warm. The first real warmth since Kabul, and a fear worse than the gnawing anxiety of the cell came with it. Across the ornate marble-and-tile splendors of the lobby, the walls were sections from the mosques that had once made this city a wonder of Islamic architecture. An elevator, bronze rails and fretwork, that took them up five stories. Down a corridor, through a teakwood door. Her mouth was paper-dry again; she called up strength from the reservoir within.

But what do I do when it’s empty? she thought for a moment. Then: Never.

A serf came to meet them in the vestibule, a room of pale glossy stone walls and floors covered in rugs of incredible colors. She was odd enough to snap Marya’s attention aside for a moment; a black woman with yellow eyes and a flamboyant mane of butter-blond hair, in a white robe. There was pity in the brass-colored eyes, and in her soft voice.

“I’m sorry,” she said, after signing the invoice the driver presented. “I’m really sorry. I . . . tried.”

More corridors, then out into a double-storied lounging room, massive inlaid furniture and a glass wall looking out over a cityscape coming alive with evening lights, reflected on the falling snow. A Draka waiting in a reclining chair, smoking a water pipe, dressed in a striped djellaba with the hood thrown back. The face from Chandragupta Base. Thinner, with dark circles under the huge mad gray eyes; Marya lowered her own to hide the sudden stab of fury she felt. Looks older. Marya knew the lines that grief drew. Good.

“Stop,” the Draka said. “Look at me, serf.” Marya looked up. “I’m Yolande Ingolfsson. Remember me?”

“Yes, Mistis,” Marya said with equal softness. A smile twitched at the Draka’s lips. The American swallowed a sour bubble at the back of her throat.

The black serf spoke hesitantly. “Mistis—”

“Jolene,” Yolande said, “I heard you out. I said no. Now if you don’t want to watch, get out. I’m not angry with you. Yet.”

The African bowed silently and left; Marya could hear her steps quickening to a run.

“Take off the overall, and stand ovah there,” Yolande continued. Marya moved to obey, found herself in the middle of a three-meter rectangle of clear plastic sheeting; the rug scrutched underneath it, feeling bristly-soft to her bare feet.

“Oh, it’s good to see you again. Took a while, gettin’ leave, and I don’t have long until I have to report to the Astronautical, but it’s good to see yo, Yank. You fault, it is.”

“Now,” the Draka continued. “There’s somethin’ I want from you. Guess?”

Marya looked up sharply. The other’s eyes were fixed on her with a curiously impersonal avidness.

“Are you . . . going to abuse me again, Mistis?” she asked flatly. There was no sign of a drug injector.

Yolande chuckled; it had a grating sound. “Oh, not that way. That was a special occasion . . . No, there’s something else I want you to do fo’ me. It was you fault, aftah all.”

Her free hand pulled something out of a pocket in her robe. Crackle-finished in black, the size of a small book. Opened it. Marya felt herself begin to tremble, heard a moan. Knew that in a moment she would beg, and felt a brief stab of shame that she felt no shame, because nothing was worse than that.

“What—” she choked, swallowed to clear her mouth of saliva. “What do you want me to do?” she asked, clamping her hands together to halt the shaking.

Yolande opened the controller and poised her finger. Her eyes met the American’s, and Marya could feel them drinking.

“I want you to scream,” she said, and pressed down.

NEW YORK CITY

FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT

DONOVAN HOUSE

JANUARY 21, 1977

“I still say it stinks, General,” Frederick Lefarge said. His body somehow gave the impression of tension, even when he sat relaxed in the stiff government-issue office chair.

Nathaniel Stoddard nodded, considering the man who sat across from him. Thinner, he thought. And not just in body. Pale as well, with the pallor that comes from long months inside a submarine, or a spaceship.

“I agree, but . . . ” He pressed a spot on the desk screen, and a thin-film rectangle slid up along one wall.

“India hurt us,” he said quietly. “Not so much physically—it was the sinkhole of the Alliance—but in our souls. Our first major brush with the Domination, and we lost. Granted it was the Indians’ own damn fault, that disinformation campaign wouldn’t have produced secession if they hadn’t been completely irrational about it. Granted, but we still lost, and another three hundred million went under the Yoke.”

He rapped the desk with his knuckles. “First, we needed a victory and the asteroid agreement is that. What we have to guard against is not treason, that’s the enemy’s problem. What we have to fear is defeatism; the turning-away from useful work into hedonism, because people don’t think there is a future. That’s the real danger, in the short term.”

“I’d rather have kicked the Snakes out of the belt and everything outward.”

Stoddard shook his head. “Not feasible, Colonel. It was turning into a struggle of attrition, and they outnumber us.” He produced his pipe, took comfort from the ritual of lighting it. “Nor can we fight full-scale near Earth, not anymore. India took us to the brink of that, and it’s only the sheer insanity of Draka ruthlessness that let it get that far.” He puffed. “Now, list for me the positive aspects of these miserable few years.”

Lefarge shrugged. “The Alliance will stand, now.”

Stoddard nodded; the constituent nations had agreed to a full merger of sovereignty. A pity in a way—he had always regretted the increasing uniformity of life in the Alliance—but necessary.

“And not just among the electorate, either.” His expression became wholly blank. “Now, I’m about to tell you something that requires complete commitment. If I’m not satisfied by your reactions from this point on, then the only way you will leave this building is as a corpse.”

Lefarge sat upright, a slow uncoiling motion. His eyes met the other man’s for a long moment.

“You’re serious,” he said flatly.

“Never more so. Want me to continue?”

The moment stretched. “Yes.”

Stoddard cupped the bowl of the pipe. “We—that is, the permanent staff just below the political level—we’ve become convinced that if things go on as they are, we’re headed for the Final War. If only because the limits of the Domination’s ability to adapt to technical progress are on the horizon, and they’ll bring everything down in wreckage rather than see us reduce them to irrelevance.”

Lefarge smiled. “Then the only alternatives are annihilation or surrender?”

“Surrender is annihilation, certainly for freedom, probably for humanity,” he said, nodding agreement. “And the Final War is annihilation, too; it’s the seeping realization of that that’s been paralyzing our leadership echelons.” He touched another spot on the screen, and a starfield lit the rectangle that hung from the ceiling.

“Tell me, Fred, what do you know about fusion power?”

Lefarge blinked narrow-eyed at the older man. “Controlled? Still a ways off. Plasma confinement, we just reached break-even, possibly a workable reactor by the turn of the century. Inertial confinement shows some promise. Solid-state tunneling reactions are tricky and we still don’t understand them: much longer.”

“Look at this, then.” A schematic appeared, a huge sphere with a tube protruding from each end, like a straw through an orange. “Build a big sphere; doesn’t matter much of what, as long as it’s thick enough. Throw fusion bombs in through this magnetic catapult. Set them off; we’ve got an electron-beam system that looks likely to work, but uranium’s cheap off-planet these days. Bomb goes off, vacuum, no blast. Just radiant energy; shell absorbs the energy, you extract the energy, then beam it anywhere you want via microwave. Simple, robust, nearly as cheap as solar past Mars . . . ”

“Useful,” the younger man said without relaxing his lynx stare. “Particularly in the Belt. With that, we could really set up a self-sustaining system, and fast. But that isn’t what you had in mind.”

“No. Incidentally, we think the Draka are using a much cruder form of this to mine ice from Sinope or Himalia, off Jupiter.” Another tap on the screen. The artifact that appeared this time was a simple tube of coils and large-scale industrial magnets floating free in space, contained by the outline of an enormous box. “What’s buried in New Mexico and eats power?”

“Linear accelerator . . . ” His hands gripped the rests of his chair. “Antimatter, by God!”

“Right the first time, give the man a cigar.” The stem of the pipe pointed. “And that’s the first of the secrets you’ll be expected to guard. You think, Fred. Think.”

Slowly. “It can’t be for bombs. We’ve already got bigger weapons than we can use.” A pause. “Spaceship drives?”

A nod. “Paahtly. The ultimate reaction drive. We’ve tested models with the minute amounts we’ve made here Earthside. A great advantage, even over the improved pulsedrive models we’re working on. Even over the fusion models that we’ll have in a decade.”

“But not enough,” Lefarge said. “It’ll never be enough, a better weapon, more weapons, even when we’ve got a lead we’re too gutless to use it.”

The general frowned. “Fred, the price of open war is too high. And getting higher! They can at least copy what we do.” He shook his head, waited for a second, then summoned up another image. “All right, look at this.”

This was a spaceship, with an outline he recognized beside it for comparison; a Hero-class deep-space cruiser, the type he had been operating out of in the Belt. Those had a 7,000-tonne payload . . . and this one was dwarfed by the model beside it. A huge cylinder, basically; a wheel and a ball at one end, at the other a long stalk and a cup.

Awareness struck him. “Judas Priest!” he wheezed. “A starship!” For a moment he was a boy again, watching Bat Markam, Alliance Future Patrol, planting the blue-and-gold on a planet of green-ten-tacled aliens . . . Then his teeth skinned back. “Shit.” A bolthole.

“How do you feel about the idea, Fred?”

“Jesus . . . ” He ran a hand over his face. “General, could we do it?”

A shrug. “Ayuh. Theory’s all right, the engineering is big but nothing radical. Have to test the drive, but the math works. Alpha Centauri in forty years. And, Fred, they’ve been looking that way with the Big Eye.” That was the fifty-kilometer reflector at the L-5 beyond Lunar farside. “There’s a planet there.”

The excitement surged again, mixed sourly with bitterness at the back of his throat. “Inhabitable?”

“Mebbe. Mebbe not. It’s got an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, water vapor, continents and oceans . . . Yes, the definition’s that good. A little smaller than Earth and further out, and the orbit’s funny, what you’d expect.” The Centauri system had three stars, that must be complex. “A Mars-type as well, subjovian gas giants, moons, asteroids we think from the orbital data. A planet by itself isn’t enough these days.” More slowly: “How do you feel about it, Fred?”

Unconscious of the general’s stare, the younger man rose and paced, running a hand through his close-cropped black hair. “Christ. I love it; that’s something I’ve dreamed since I was a kid. When the news flash came through about the Conestoga reaching orbit, I was on my first date, you know? Sheila Washansky. Her folks were away for the afternoon, we were on the couch upstairs, I had my hand up her skirt and the TV on downstairs—and I dumped her on the floor, I got up so fast. Never even noticed her walking out the door. Thirteen, my first chance to score, and I never noticed: that shows you how I feel.”

He stopped and drove a fist into one palm. “And I hate it, the idea of running away. Even as a last resort—” He swung toward the general. “It is a last resort, isn’t it?”

“Ayuh.”

“Just to get a few hundred clear—”

“More like a hundred thousand, Fred.”

At his surprise, Stoddard continued: “The other side aren’t the only ones who do technological espionage. They’ve about perfected a reduced-metabolism system that works; down to less than one percent of normal. Our biology people say they can work out the remaining bugs without using their methods.” They both grimaced slightly; one reason the Domination made faster progress in the life sciences was its willingness to expend humans.

“So the passengers age less than a year. Crew in rotation; no more than five years each. Seeds, animals, frozen animal ova, tools, knowledge, fabricators . . . all the art and history and philosophy the human race has produced. Enough to restart civilization—our civilization. America was started by refugees, son. What’s your say?”

Lefarge nodded once, then again. “Yes. As a last resort, because too much is at stake. It’s not as if the resources were crucial. The Protracted Struggle isn’t going to be tipped by a percent here or there.”

Stoddard sighed with relief, and his smile was warm.

Hell, that’s Uncle Nate’s smile, Lefarge noted with surprise.

“Fred, you just passed the test,” he said, coming around the desk to lay a hand on his shoulder. “And I can’t tell you how glad I am.”

“Test?”

“Yes. Look, Fred, we’ve got lots of antiDraka fanatics, the Domination produces them like a junkyard dog does fleas. They’re useful; that’s one reason India cost the Draka the way it did. But fanatics are limited; they can’t really think all that well, not where their obsession is concerned, and they aren’t reliable. They’ve got their private agendas, which is fine if they happen to coincide with the command’s, and if not—” He shrugged. “This is too big to risk.”

Lefarge nodded slowly. “And I’ve just shown I’m not a fanatic? General, don’t bet on it.”

“Mebbe there’s a difference between that and a good hate.” He made a production of refilling the pipe. “Well, that was a big enough secret?”

“Oh, sure.” Lefarge grinned like a wolf. “Out with it.” Another secret, went through him. And this one has to be a weapon. Something that can well and truly upset the balance.

“Nh-huh. You are going out there. With a promotion to lieutenant colonel. Security chief, overall command with War Emergency Regulation powers. The rank will go up as the project builds up.”

Lefarge whistled silently. War Emergency Regulation. Power of summary execution!

“You see, Fred, you’re perfect. Good technical background; good record with the OSS. Known to be space-trained. But not prominent enough to make the Security Directorate flag you, particularly. Not more than they watch fifty, a hundred thousand other officers.” There were twenty million in the Alliance military.

“Just the right type to be put in charge of a middling-important project. Like a fusion-power network for the asteroid belt; like an antimatter production facility. Like a fleet of antimatter-powered warships. Layers like an onion; by the time, which God forbid should ever happen, they come to the New America”—Lefarge nodded at the name—“you’ll be senior enough to oversee security work on that.”

“And?”

Stoddard leaned backward against the desk, cupped an elbow in a hand. “And that’s as much as anyone on Earth knows, except me, thee, and a few technical people. Damned few know that much. The technical people will be going out with you; they’ll brief you when you get there. All the Chairman and the President know is we’re doing something, and the appropriations are in the Black Fund.”

“Yeah. Everyone’s feeling rich these days.” Even with the military burden, taxes had been cut and cut again in recent years, as wealth flowed in from new industries and from space. Economists kept warning that the budget surplus would wreck the economy if prices went on falling the way they had. “They won’t miss it.”

“You’ll get everything you need. We’re encouraging development of the Belt, you may have noticed, and doing it hard. That’ll give more background to camouflage you, and more local resources to draw on in the later stages. This project is going to be a black hole, and you’re the guardian at the event horizon. Nobody comes back. Nobody and nothing. Except you, occasionally, and you report verbally to me or my successor. I don’t tell anyone anything. Not until it’s ready.”

For a moment, for the first time in a year, Lefarge felt pure happiness. Then he hesitated, reached into his uniform jacket for a cigarette. Have to give this up again, he thought. At least until whatever habitat we build gets big enough.

“Any news?” he asked softly. They both knew he could only mean his sister.

“Fred—” Stoddard returned to his chair, fiddled with the controls. “All we’ve been able to learn is that she’s alive, they haven’t penetrated her cover and she’s been bought up by a pilot officer who was there.” He leaned forward, sorrowful and inexorable. “No, Fred, no. We will not expend assets—people!—trying to pull her out. And we won’t try to trade for her, because we have to keep what bargaining power we have for situations where it’s really needed.”

There was more emotion in the old man’s voice than Lefarge had heard in many years. “Fred, I love you both as if you were my own, you know that. Marya’s tough and smart. It’s not inconceivable she could get out. Or die trying. Until then, the only help, the only protection she has is that cover story. You will not endanger it, understood?”

“Yes. Yes, sir.” Lefarge straightened, set his beret on his head. “I’m to report in a week? Well, if you’ll excuse me, sir, I intend to go take advantage of the time. First, by getting very drunk. Safely, alone.”

Stoddard sighed and dropped his face into his hands as the door closed. I cannot weep, he thought. For if I do, will never stop.

CLAESTUM PLANTATION

DISTRICT OF TUSCANY

PROVINCE OF ITALY

MAY 1976

“Yolande?”

She stopped, caught between impatience and sick relief at the excuse for delay. It was John, looking grimmer than she had seen him in a long time, since Mandy got back from the last operation, in fact. Galena was behind him, trying to make herself invisible. Yolande stopped, sighed, rubbed a hand over her forehead.

“Yes, John?”

He faced her, looked aside for a moment, then directly into her eyes.

“There’s somethin’ I’d like to discuss with you, sister,” he said. A nod in the direction of the plain door ahead; they were in a little-used section of the manor, only sketchily finished at all, suited for the use she had put it to. “That serf of yours, in particular.”

The day was warm, but Yolande felt her skin roughen under her field jacket. “That’s . . . not somethin’ I care to discuss, brother,” she said carefully, eyes on his face. The dappled sun-shadow patterns from the tall window at her back fell across the hard tanned planes of it, bleak and angry.

“I care to discuss it,” he said. “Not just fo’ myself. Fo’ our parents, you sisters, for Mandy.”

She opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated. The look on his face was enough to bring her out of self-absorption, with a prickle of feeling that it took a moment for her to recognize. Danger. This was the wrong context, the wrong person; this was her brother, Johnnie . . . and a very dangerous man, an extremely angry one. A cold-water feeling, a draft of rationality through the hot, tight obsession these rooms had come to represent.

“All right,” she said, impatiently. “Say you say.”

“Not here. In there.”

Yolande blinked, conscious of her lips peeling back. Unconscious of her hand dropping to the butt of her sidearm, until she saw him copy her motion with flat wariness.

“If that’s the way you want to discuss it, ’Landa.”

“I—gods, Johnnie!” She shook her hand loose. “All right, then.” Her back went rigid at the thought of another seeing this with her. She pushed open the door.

The American serf had been sitting at a table, picking listlessly at the wood. She looked up at the sound of the door opening, and scuttled to the far corner of the room; her hands caught up the tablecloth in passing, held it tented out in front of her as she scrabbled to push herself back into the stone.

“Noo,” she said. They could see her mouth through the thin fabric, open in an O as round as her eyes. “Nooo. Ahhhhh. Nooo.” The serf’s face looked fallen in, as if something had been subtracted from it, and her arms were wasted.

Yolande swallowed and turned her back, it was different seeing it with John there. Suddenly she felt herself seized, the back of her neck taken in a grip as irresistible as a machine, turning her about.

“Look at that!” John said. “That is what I wanted to . . . This can’t go on, ’Landa, it cannot. I will not allow it. None of us will.”

The serf was making a thin whine, clutching the tablecloth to her with arms and legs, rocking. Yolande reached back, used a breakhold on the thumb to free herself, spun to face her brother, panting.

“You disputin’ my right to do as I will with my own?” she grated.

“Not on my land!” he roared, the sound shockingly loud. “Not in my family’s home!” John reached over and pulled her pistol free, grabbed her hand, pressed it into her palm.

“Kill her, if that’s what you want. Or get rid of her. Or if you want to keep actin’ like a hyena, get you gone.”

Yolande looked at the weapon, up at her brother, her eyes hunting for a chink in his rage. “Are—” She fumbled the weapon back into its holster. “Are you tellin’ me I’m not welcome in my family’s home?” she said, in a small high voice.

“My sister Yolande is always welcome here,” he said flatly. “My sister wouldn’t do that”—he jerked his head at the moaning serf—“to a mad dog. It’s your property . . . Don’t you understand, ’Landa, you doin’ this to youself. Every time you think of Myfwany, you takes it out on that poor bitch. Does that ease you pain? Does it? Is that”—he pointed again—“what you want your memories attached to? You’ve got to start livin’ again. Not just goin’ through the motions.”

Yolande turned, braced her hands against the wall. Something inside her seemed to crumble, and she felt an overwhelming panic. Gods, he’s right. I’m poisoning all I have left. That couldn’t be right. It’s her fault . . . or is it my fault?

“All right,” she said dully. “All right.” His hand touched her shoulder gently, and she turned into his embrace. “All right.” Her neck muscles were quivering-rigid, but her eyes stayed dry.

“You want me to handle gettin’ rid of her?” he asked.

She straightened, wiped her hands down her trouser legs, looked over at the serf. Appraisingly, this time. “No,” she said calmly. “You’re right. I won’t use the controller on her any more. I’ll try and have her patched up . . . but I’m not lettin’ her go. Lettin’ go isn’t my strong point, brother. But thank you. Thank you all.” A nervous gesture smoothed back her hair. “If’n she recovers, I’ll . . . Oh, I don’t know. Find somethin’ else fo’ her to do. That enough.”

He nodded. “Welcome back.”

She laughed, quietly bitter. “Not yet. Just startin’, maybe.” A glance at the sunlight. “I’ve got the afternoon, befo’ I have to take the car in.” She was on short-leave. “See you at dinner.”

I am Marya.

“Oh, y’poor hurt thing.”

Gentle hands were lifting her, holding a glass to her lips. She recognized the hands, the scent; they were surcease from pain. Black hands, sweet voice.

I am Marya Lefarge.

“C’mon, honey, we gets y’ to the doctor. Give y’ somethin’ to sleep. Mistis isn’t goin’ do that no mo’, she was just crazy, honest, no more.”

I am Captain Marya Lefarge.

She was walking into a place that smelled half medicinal, half of country air, warmth. Children were playing outside, she could hear them. She was lifted into a soft bed; a pill was between her lips. Drowsy.

“No more painmaker, no mo’.”

I am Captain Marya Lefarge, and nothing can hurt me. Because beside that there was no pain. She had felt the worst thing in the world, and she was still alive. Nothing can hurt me. I will remake myself. However long it takes, I will.

“Ah, Myfwany.” The turf had healed over the grave, on the hill across from the manor. It was lonely here, not many graves in the Ingolfssons’ burying ground yet . . . She looked up to the next space, that would be hers.

“I wanted to die, Myfwany, for . . . it seemed like a long time. Or to go away, go away from it all. And I had to . . . keep goin’, keep on doin’ things. The things we talked about, the Astronautical Academy, qualifyin’. So . . . dry, it was like I was dead, dead on my feet and rottin’, and nobody could notice. They say it heals . . . oh, do I want it to?”

Yolande hugged her knees to her and laid her head on them; one hand smoothed the short damp grass. Somewhere she could feel a pair of warm green eyes open, somewhere in the back of her mind.

“Yes, love, I know. I takes things too much to heart.” A rough laugh. “You wouldn’t have gone . . . hog-wild with that Yankee, the way I did. It should’ve been you that lived that night, love.”

The Draka rose, dusting off her trousers. “I promise it’ll do bettah now, Myfwany-sweet. Somehow I’ll find a true revenge fo’ you. And . . . ” Her eyes rested on the far hills. 1 think it would be better if I could weep, at least alone, she thought. “I’ll live, as you’d have said. Make the memories live, somehow.” Her eyes closed, and she felt scar tissue inside herself. Scars don’t bleed, but they don’t feel as well, either. “Good-bye fo’ now, my love. Till we meet again.”

EUGENICS BOARD NATALITY CLINIC

FLORENCE

DISTRICT OF TUSCANY

PROVINCE OF ITALY

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

SEPTEMBER 1, 1976

“Now, shall we proceed, Citizen?” the doctor asked politely. He had glanced at the medal ribbons as she came into the office, and Yolande suspected he would look up her record again as soon as she left. A tall thin wiry man with cropped graying dark hair and brown eyes, with a Ground Command thumb ring. Technical Section, she decided.

The office was a large room near the roofline of a converted Renaissance palazzo down near the Arno; the windows looked away from the river, out to the cathedral with its red-and-white candy-stripe Giotto bell tower and the green mountains beyond. It was cheerfully light, white-painted with a good tapestry on the inner wall, bright patterned tile floors, rugs, modern inlaid Draka-style furniture. There was a smell of river and clean warm air from outside, faint traffic noises, the fainter sound of a group of brooders counting cadence as they went through their exercises.

“The brooder I sent in is satisfactory?” she said.

The doctor kept his eyes steady on hers as she turned back from the window, but could not prevent an inward flinch. You saw suffering in his line of work, but not like that.

“A little underweight, but otherwise fine,” he replied, calling up the report. “The psych report indicates stabilized trauma, surprisin’ recovery. Hmm, prima gravida . . . good pelvic structure, but are you sure a licensed Clinic brooder wouldn’t do?” Yolande shook her head wordlessly.

“The technicians report she’s . . . hm, seems to have been under very severe stress. Good recovery, as I said, no biological agent; still, I’d swear she’s been sufferin’ from somethin’.”

“She has,” Yolande said, with a flat smile.

“What?”

“Me.”

The doctor opened his mouth, shut it again with a shrug. It was the owner’s business, after all. “Well,” he said after another consultation with the screen. “We adjusted her hormone level, so she’s ready fo’ seeding anytime. Now, as to the clone.” He paused delicately.

Yolande lit a cigarette, disregarding his frown. The new gene-engineered varieties of tobacco had virtually no carcinogens or lung contaminants, and the soothing was worth the slight risk.

“I’d think it was simple enough,” she said. The glassy feeling was back, a detachment deeper than any she had ever achieved in meditation. “My lover was killed in India. I want a clone-child, with this wench as brooder.”

“Tetrarch Ingolfsson . . . you do understand, a clone is not a reproduction? All the same genes, yes, but—”

“Personality is an interaction of genetics an’ environment, yes, I am familiar with the facts, Doctor.” She sank into a chair. It was odd, how the same physical sensation could carry such different meanings. The smooth competence of her own body: a year ago, it had been a delight. Now . . . just machinery, that you would be annoyed with if it did not function according to spec. “I realize that I’m not getting Myfwany back.” Something surged beneath the glass, something huge and dark that would shatter her if she let it. Breathe. Breathe. Calm.

The medico steepled his fingers. “Then there’s the matter of the Eugenics Code.”

She stubbed out the cigarette and lit another. “I’m askin’ fo’ a clone, Doctor. Not a superbeing.”

“Yes, yes . . . are you aware of the advances we’ve made in biocontrol in the last decade?”

Yolande shrugged. “I’ve seen ghouloons,” she said. “Bought a modified cat awhiles ago.”

He smiled with professional warmth. “If you’ll examine that-there screen by you chair, Citizen.” It lit. “Now, we’ve had the whole human genome fo’ some time now, identified the keyin’ and activation sequences.” His face lit with a more genuine warmth, the passion of a man in love with his work. “Naturally, we’re bein’ cautious. The mistakes they made with that ghouloon project, befo’ they got it right! We’re certainly not talkin’ about introducing transgenetic material or even many modified genes. Or makin’ a standard product.”

Double-helix figures came to three-dimensional life on the screen. “You see, that’s chimp DNA on the left, human on the right. Ninety-eight percent identical, or better! So a few changes can do a great deal, a great deal indeed.” Seriously: “And those changes are bein’ . . . strongly encouraged. Not least, think of how handicapped a child without them would be!”

“Tell me,” Yolande said, leaning forward, feeling a stirring of unwilling interest beneath the irritation.

“Well. What we do is run analysis against the suggested norm, an’ modify the original as needed. Saves the genetic diversity, hey? With you friend—”

His hands moved on the keyboard, and Myfwany’s form appeared on the screen; it split, and gene-coding columns ran down beside it. Yolande’s hands clenched on the arms of the chair, unnoticed despite the force that pressed the fingernails white.

“See, on personality, we’re still not sure about much of the finer tuning. We can set the gross limits—aggressive versus passive, fo’ example, or the general level of libido. Beyond that, the interactions with the environment are too complex. With you friend, most of the parameters are well within the guidelines anyway. So the heritable elements of character will be identical to an unmodified clone.

“Next, we eliminate a number of faults. Fo’ example”—he paused to reference the computer—“you friend had allergies. We get rid of that. Likewise, potential back trouble . . . would’ve been farsighted in old age . . . menstrual cramps . . . any problems?”

“No.” Even with feedback and meditation, those times had been terrible for Myfwany; Yolande had only been able to suffer in sympathy. The child—Gwen, she reminded herself—Gwen would never know that useless pain.

“Next, we come to a number of physical improvements. Mostly by selectin’ within the normal range of variation. Fo’ example, we know the gene groups involved with general intelligence . . . Genius is mo’ elusive, but we can raise the testable IQ to an average of 143 with the methods available. Fo’ your clone, that would mean about fifteen percent up; also, we’ve been able to map fo’ complete memory control, autistic idiot savant mathematical concentration, and so forth. On the athletic side, we build up the heart-lung system, tweak the hemoglobin ratios, alter some of the muscle groups and their attachments, thicken an’ strengthen the bones, eliminate the weaknesses of ligaments—no mo’ knee injuries—and so fo’th.”

“The result?” Yolande said.

“Well, you know, a chimp is smaller than a man . . . and many times stronger. After the ‘tweaking,’ the average strength will increase by a factor of four, endurance by three, reflexes by two, twenty-five-percent increase in sensory effectiveness. Greater resistance to disease, almost total, faster healin’, no heart attacks . . . slightly lower body-fat ratio . . . perfect pitch, photographic memory, things like that.”

“So,” Yolande’s chin sank on her chest. She had wanted . . . He’s right. Gwen has to have the best. As I’d have wanted for Myfwany. “And?”

“Well, this is the most advanced part. We’ve been able to transfer a number of the autonomic functions to conscious control . . . Not all at once! Imagine a baby bein’ able to control its heartbeat! No, we’re keyin’ them to the hormonal changes accompanyin’ puberty, fo’ the most part. Like any Citizen child learns, with meditation an’ feedback, only it’ll be easy fo’ them, natural, able to go much further.

Control of the reproductive cycle. Heartbeat, skin tension, circulation, pupil dilation, pain . . . ”

He looked at the screen. “You friend was in fine condition, but she had to fight fo’ it, a lot of the time, didn’t she? Your . . . Gwen, she’ll be able to set her metabolic rate at will. Eat anythin’, and it’ll be easy to stay in prime shape.”

Yolande remembered Myfwany sighing and turning the dessert menu facedown. A wave that was dark and bitter surged up, closing her throat. This is absurd, she thought, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment before nodding to the man to continue.

“A lot of human communication’s by pheromones: sex, dominance, anger, fear. We increase the conscious awareness of ’em, an’ make the subjects able to deliberately govern their own output.” He grinned. “Ought to make social life real interestin’. That’s about it, ’cept fo’ one thing.” A weighty pause, Yolande endured it.

“We’ve been lookin’ into agin’, of course. No magic cures, I’m afraid. The whole system isn’t designed to last. Normal unimproved variety, you and me, Tetrarch; we wear out at a hundred an’ twenty absolute maximum. Modern medicine can keep us goin’ longer, maybe right out to the limit by the time you’re my age, but that’s it. Then”—he shrugged—“you know that Yankee story, about the steamcar made so well everythin’ wore out at once?”

Yolande felt herself snarl at the name of the enemy, hid it with a cough, nodded.

“Best we can do is stretch it. To about two hundred fifty years fo’ the next generation.”

Her eyes opened wide; that was something worth boasting about. “Show me,” she said.

The column of data beside the figure of Myfwany disappeared; a baby’s form replaced it. The infant grew, aged; limbs lengthening, face firming. Yolande stared, caught her breath as it paused at fourteen, eighteen, twenty. Oh, my darlin’! something wailed within her.

No. Not quite the same; the computer could not show the marks experience laid on a human’s face. A few other minor changes, fewer freckles, slightly lighter hair. If you looked very closely, something different about the joints, in the way the muscles grouped beneath the skin.

“Gwen,” she whispered to herself. For a moment the responsibility daunted her; this was a twenty-year duty she was undertaking, not a whim. A person, a Draka, someone she would have to play parent to as long as they lived. Give love, teach honor. Then: “Yes. I understand, Doctor; that’s entirely satisfactory.” She paused. “Just out of curiosity, what’s planned fo’ the serfs along these lines?”

He relaxed. “Oh, much less. That was debated at the highest levels of authority, an’ they decided to do very little beyond selectin’ within the normal human range. Same sort of cleanup on things like hereditary diseases. Average the height about 50 millimeters lower than ours. No IQs below 90, which’ll bring the average up to 110. No improvements or increase in lifespan, beyond that, so they’ll be closer to the original norm than the Race. Some selection within the personality spectrum; toward gentle, emotional, nonaggressive types. About what you’d expect.” He laughed. “An’ a chromosome change, so that they’re not interfertile with us any mo’; the boys can run rampant among the wenches as always without messin’ up our plans.”

“Yes,” she said again, interest drifting elsewhere. “When can we do it?”

“Tomorrow would be fine, Tetrarch. The process of modifyin’ the ova is mostly automatic. Viral an’ enzymic, actually . . . Tomorrow at 1000 hours?”

Yolande looked up as the serf walked into the room. Marya was dressed in a disposable paper shirt; the medical technician pulled it off and pushed her toward the couch. It was at the center of the room, surrounded like a dentist’s chair with incomprehensible machinery, near a curved console with multiple display screens. The room was deep within the Clinic, far from the morning sun; the American captive’s eyes blinked at the harsh overhead lights, reflected from gleaming white tile and synthetic. Her eyes darted from the doctor, busy at the console, to the other serf meditech in white who waited by the table.

She started uncontrollably as she saw Yolande rise from the corner.

“Nhhh!” she gasped, then clenched her teeth, staring at the palm-sized controller clipped to the Draka’s belt. Her left hand hugged the left wrist to her stomach, as if she could bury the controller cuff on it into her flesh, away from the radio commands.

Yolande forced herself to watch the flinch, the eyes gone wide and white around the iris. I should be enjoying this, she thought, hating her weakness, remembering the American’s stubbornness. Instead it made her faintly nauseated, like a wounded dog. The faint medicinal-ozone smell of the Clinic was a sourness at the back of her mouth.

“Marya!” she said sharply. “You won’t be punished, as long as you obey. Do as these people tell you.”

“M-mistis,” the serf stammered. Docile but quivering-tense, she waited while the other technician laid a paper sheet on the table, then climbed onto it and lay back.

“Feet in the stirrups,” the serf technician said. “That’s aright, little momma, this no hurt ata-all.” She buckled the restraints at neck, arms, waist, knees, and thighs. “Now, we get a you ready for the visitor.” She began to rig a visual barrier below the serf’s neck.

“No,” Yolande said, walking closer. The serf looked up with a respectful dip of the head. “No, I want her to see it all.”

The meditech looked toward the doctor, mimicked his slight shrug. “Si, Mistis.” She touched controls instead, and the equipment moved. The couch bent into a shallow curve, raising Marya’s shoulders and buttocks. The stirrups moved apart and back with a slight hydraulic whine, presenting the serf’s genitals.

“Thisa no hurt,” the meditech repeated. She pulled down a dangling line, attached it to Marya’s throat.

The doctor looked up from his screens. “She’s hyperventilatin’ and on the edge of adrenaline blackout,” he said dryly, giving Yolande a resentful look. “One cc dociline.” She could read his thought: Damned amateurs messing up a medical procedure.

Fuck you, she thought back.

Marya’s straining relaxed a fraction, and sanity returned to her eyes. Good, Yolande thought. It would be terrible if she went mad.

“W-what—?” the serf shook her head angrily, as if trying to fling the stammer out of her mouth. “What are you doing to me?”

Yolande rested a hand on her stomach. “Seeding you womb,” she said quietly, looking into the other’s eyes. “Myfwany left me her ova. They don’t have the egg-mergin’ technique mastered yet, or I’d do that. So we’re clonin’ her; you’re to bear the egg.”

The serf froze for a moment, then began to throw herself against the restraints, hard enough to make them rattle; it took Yolande a moment to place the sound she was making. A growl. The two meditechs frowned without looking up from their instruments, and the doctor swore aloud.

“Frey’s prick, Tetrarch!” His hand touched the controls. “Two cc dociline, an’ if you don’t stop interferin’, I won’t be responsible fo’ the procedure!”

Yolande nodded, but spoke once more to the serf. “Marya.” She raised the controller box; the anger drained out of the serf and she whimpered. “If the pregnancy an’ nursin’ go well, I won’t use this on you again. If they don’t, I’ll lock it on until you die! Understand me, wench?”

A frantic nod. Then Marya’s eyes darted down as the meditech touched her.

“Dona you worry, little momma,” the meditech was saying from between the serf’s legs. “This just take a momento.” She had an aerosol can in her hand; with careful, swift movements she applied a thick pink foam to the genital area and lower stomach. “Now just wait a minute.”

“N-no!” Marya bit at the corner of her lip. Yolande looked up; the other meditech had rolled her sleeves back to the elbow and thrust both hands into a claver. There was a flash and hum, and when the technician withdrew them they were covered in a thin film that glistened like solidified water where the highlights caught it.

“All right, Antonia,” she said.

“Hnnn!” from the serf on the table. Yolande followed her eyes; the meditech was wiping off the foam with cloths that had a sharp medicinal smell, moving down from belly to anus; the hair came with it. The Draka could see the muscles of Marya’s belly and thighs jerk as the tech followed with a clear sharp-smelling spray. The pinkly naked flesh gleamed.

The serf with the molecular-film gloves replaced her coworker. “Whata you think we win the bridge tournament?” she said casually, spreading the subject’s vulva with her left hand. With her right she ran an experimental finger into Marya’s vagina. “If that crazy Giuseppe no—Jesus-Mary-Joseph, she tight like stone!”

Yolande pushed down with the flat of her hand. “Marya, relax,” she said in a clean clipped tone. After a long moment she felt the serf loosen into obedience.

“Thank you, Mistis, thata better,” the meditech said. Her companion handed her an instrument like a speculum, giving it a quick spray of lubricating oil from another aerosol.

“Agg. Nhhhhnng.” Marya’s voice, as the meditech inserted it with a series of deft, steady pushes. She gave the threaded dilator at the base two turns and hooked fold-out supports over Marya’s thighs to hold it in place.

“Please! God, please!”

The doctor whistled through his teeth. “Catheter now, Angelica,” he said.

“Giuseppe, he crazy like fox,” the other tech said, unreeling the end of a spool of what looked like black thread from a machine on casters. It rolled near. “Here. He say you play too cautious, you lose alla time.”

The gloved meditech threaded the tip of the catheter through the instrument and into Marya. “Master Doctore?”

“Good, anothah ten millimeters. Careful now. Very slowly.” Yolande stroked Marya’s stomach and watched the wild, set eyes that stared down between her legs. “Good, that’s it. Hmmm. Acidity balance good, uterine wall looks good . . . getting a reading . . . let’s boost . . . All right, here we go.”

Yolande looked down at the shuddering body on the couch, imagining a tiny form with red birth fuzz lying in her arms; she smiled, and for a moment the weight of hatred lifted.

“Blastocyst’s in the uterus. That’s the egg in the womb to you lay people,” the doctor chuckled. “All right, Tetrarch, one seeded brooder. Virtually certain to take, anyway. Leave her here until tomorrow; she ought to be immobile. Intend to bring her back fo’ the bearin’?”

“No,” Yolande said, with a slight smile. “We’ve got a perfectly good midwife on our plantation. Look at me, Marya.” The serf looked up, licked her lips. Wisps of hair were plastered to her brow, and Yolande pushed them back with one finger, and touched her navel with the other hand. “You’re going to bear Gwen fo’ me, Marya, an’ suckle her. That’s how you serves me and the Race, now. Understand?”

The serf jerked slightly. The meditech had withdrawn the speculum and catheter; the two technicians laid a cloth over Marya’s crotch and adjusted the stirrups so that her legs were together with knees up. One waited patiently with a blanket, while the other stripped the thin film gloves from her hands. The doctor rose.

“You can pick her up tomorrow. Unless you’d care to sit with her.”

“No,” Yolande said. The meditechs draped the blanket over the serf, tucking it around her neatly and freeing one hand next to a plastic cup of water. “No, I’ve got a date.” This was better than inflicting pain, but she did not want to stay and watch. “And Marya here needs to be alone with her thoughts, hey?”