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Ravishing the Supervox
Book One
The Histories of the D.C.B.
By E.A. Gundlach
Copyright ©1999

RTS Volume 4

SEBASTIAN II: March 30th, 4097
    (This is soooo cool,) Cleo growled over my com.
    I laughed where we were buckled down in the aft cabin of the sublight we were flying to Syncom Station for Dallas.
    Watching me, Cleo commed, (This is like being telepathic.)
    (Call up your com functions and you can extend your range up to five hundred meters using the floating menu, but I don't recommend it unless it's an emergency. The more you jack up your transmitting frequency, the easier it is for another cyborg to scan you. I'll show you how to mask your frequency, modem visacoms, and crack security among other things. With that thing, Cleo, you can even manage a little remote sabotage.)
    Smiling, she unbuckled herself from her chair and pushed off, gliding to me. Cleo pulled herself down into my lap and commed as she kissed me. (Show me everything.)
    (Okey. But I have to access your system first.)
    (Please do.)
    (It'll feel strange.)
    Her eyes gleamed as she pulled back. (I'm counting on it.)
    I laughed. Cleo was 'getting off' on this. And I was afraid she would hate it.
    (Just relax. On your oc' display pick the 'systems function receiver'.)
    She giggled, (Be gentle with me.)
    I chuckled as her frequency shifted, then linked with her. My transmission pausing in her buffer a moment, I asked, (Okey?)
    (Fine. Go for it.)
    I shook my head as I proceeded. She winced bodily. Of course, it wasn't painful, just startling.     (Feels like there's something alive in my head.)
    (That's just a haptic response to my frequency. You won't even notice it after a while.)
    She uttered, "Feels so real."
    (It is as far as your synapses are concerned.) Hesitating again, I commed, (Okey?)
    (Yeah.)
    (Don't panic, I'm just going to transmit a portion of my virjournal. It's from the time I entered the Handrovox. I'll talk you through the procedure as it plays.)
    (What'll it look like?)
    (A tiny hologram playing against your eye lids. It's better than the tutorial in the com program. Ready?)
    She nodded, rather than responded on com and slipped an arm around my nape to pull herself down into my lap again. I wrapped an arm around her waist to hold her there.
    Opening the log date, I called up that loop and fed it through Cleo's new com. Closing my eyes to avoid the double visual feed, I suggested that she do the same. As the old journal entry played over our coms, I explained it all step by step, stopping the recording now and then for her questions.
    Cleo was a fast learner.
    After a while, we fell quiet. I gazed out over the Handrovox, feeling only the ghost of the weightlessness I experienced when I glided through V-space and craved voxness faintly. There is nothing else like donning an avatar and becoming something else for a while. The sense of escape is ultimate.
    Cleo bobbled gently in my lap as she studied inner space. This was the first time she had ever seen a real V-scape. I wondered what she thought of it. She seemed terribly quiet. I wished I had picked a more aesthetic one, but then, I suppose it didn't matter. Even with her haptics engaged, the most of my avatar that Cleo could feel in my virjournal recording was merely an echo of the true sensation. Beside, her implants weren't powerful enough to incorporate a full sensorial avatar. Maybe some day she would decide to finish the implant process and then, she would truly know voxness. I never met anyone who started using wetware, who didn't fall completely under its spell and want more.
After a moment, Cleo said, (I'm seeing this through your eyes, aren't I?) Her whisper rippled across the vox. (It's weird, but I can tell this is you.)
    The wonder in her whisper made my spine tingle. I looked into that expansive V-scape and felt embarrassed. Cleo was right. This was me. I never realized until the moment I let someone else see it just how private and precious the V-state was to me. I coveted the vox. It sheltered me from all the pain outside. It was the place where my deepest vulnerabilities no longer mattered. It was the place where, some times, I thought I sensed the Sacred Mother. There was where bliss dwelt. I felt exposed.
    Yet, Cleo smoothed away my silent humiliation with a sweet, awed whisper, "It's so incredible, Sebastian." Her linked consciousness merely fingered the ghost of the V-state, but she understood it. I heard the amazement in her voice. Sacre Mare, Cleo understood the vox. She murmured, "It's so ... so tender."
    Grateful, I kissed her brow, then laughed a little as she swayed in my arms, absorbing the crumbs of V-state bliss that lingered in my virjournal. "Don't take too much in the first time, Cleo."
    She moaned a little. (How do you resist it?)
    (Easy. I know it's always there. It's without beginning or end. It will never run out. We can have it any time.) Then to help her sober up, I told her, (I'll show you how to I got into the spaceport passenger logs next. Ready?)
    (I guess.) After a moment, her mouth fumbled against my cheek. I could tell she had made the mistake of opening her eyes. "That's weird."
    I chuckled at her. (Keep your eyes closed, Cleo.)
    She pulled back. (It was like the vox was super imposed on the cabin.)
    (It was. You confuse the heck out of your balance center when you do that. You don't have enough haptics programming, so your visual cortex will fight it out with your inner ear.) I called up the entry again. We watched as my avatar slithered down through the thornier layers of security.
    (Do those thorns in the Handrovox feel as sharp as they look?)
    I paused the virjournal entry. (Let's just say that you wouldn't want to snag your avatar on one.)
    (Why not?)
    (They create an frequency oscillation in the link to your internal components.)
    (Sounds dangerous.)
    (Can be fatal if the right feed back frequency hits you. This time we're clear though.) I started the entry again, fast forwarding to the place where I shelled out.(There's no way to get to the passenger lists from here, so ...) I started the entry again. We watched as I backed out to the spaceport V-space shell, opened my voxgrammer keys and transmitted ran my database to a match in the operating system of the spaceport computers.
    (Neat.) Cleo remarked.
    Soon enough, we matched, the system opened and I was able to call up the files. We dropped into that huge and endless wall of passenger rosters.
    (Now what?)
    (Access at will, Madame. Copy as much as you need to your wet drive. Scroll the roster and look for familiar names, just like you would do if you plugged your headset into a public visacom.)
    She was quiet for a moment.
    (Cleo?)
    (Okey. I give. Wetware is better than hardware.)
    (I wasn't trying to prove that it was, Cleo.) Although it is. By far.
    (Maybe not, but I needed convincing anyway. One thing though. What if my search subject uses an alias, Sebastian?)
    (Just run his known alias through your invivo database until it makes a match.)
    (Sebastian.)
    (Hm?)
    (I don't have any databases.)
    (Cleo, there's something I didn't tell you about the surgery.)
    (What's that?)
    (Well ... uh ... I had Raymond install my database on your wetdrive.) Her silence made me feel very, very guilty. (It's mostly security busting stuff, dossiers on ops from rival corporations and so on.)
    (Oh.)
    (Are you mad?)
    She paused so long I almost opened my eyes. At last, she said, (not really.)
    (I should've asked first, but it'll come in handy. I promise.)
    (Of course, it will.) She sounded aggravated.
    Still, the guilt lasted. I had no right to stick a bunch of files in her head like that, not without her consent. (I'm sorry, Cleo.) When I gave the disk to Raymond and asked him to install it, I thought of the information as a gift.
    (It's okey. I know you meant well. I would've wanted it anyway ... so, thanks. Let's get on with this.)
    Resisting the urge to apologize again, I turned our attention on the passenger rouster. (From here you can even back track a suspicious name to his or her credit account which will lead you through all the places he or she has been, what they've bought, rented, and who they've contacted. If you have time, you could conceivably track somebody across whole quadrants of space through connecting comnets. The possibilities are limitless.)
    (Phew!) Cleo said, (Sure cuts down on the leg work.)
    True.
    "Hmph," she said.
    (Getting dizzy?)
    (Yeah. A little.)
    (It's called haptic fatigue. After a few days, you'll adapt, but we better call it quits for today.) I backed out of her com, taking my entry segment with me and broke our link. As I opened my eyes.     Cleo was blinking and touching her temple. She swayed a little.
    "Okey?" I grasped her arm.
    "I think so." Cleo smiled a little, but her eyes were faintly glassy. I realized I had thrown a lot at her for a first com and reminded myself to slow down the pace next time.
Comming navigations, I found the sublight had come to a halt. We had reached the casgate and the ship was waiting for instructions whether to proceed or not. Stroking Cleo's back, I told her, "Go stretch out 'til your head stops spinning. We're ready to make the jump anyway."
    She swam away and pulled herself down into one of the bioforms. It extended a gentle pseudopod and pressed her into the its soft cushion. Unbuckling, I pushed myself up and glided up the access way to the cock pit.

HAIT HARBIN
Commander General of the Supervox Damgoundi; 5th Air Calvary and Cyborinfantry Division
Intersteldate: 04.01.97 - Supervox date: 03.16.34
Personal Log
    From the dune covered northern face of the Ibra Tsouqbs, the Nuni mountain range reclined across the edge of the Qadim Desert. It's snow scarred peaks rippled to the east. Without using my zoom function, near the base of the mountains, I made out the slender ribbon of white wall that girded the Supervox. Above it, nestled into the plateau of Ballout Summit, stood the old Qadim Kooch. Even at this distance, the few windows that remained unbroken, flashed a ghostly S.O.S. in the failing light of the sunset. It almost was as if the Kooch itself was signaling me, calling me to rescue the Qadim from oblivion.
    As fate would have it, I would be returning there. Soon. Agent Ts'lab ordered a survey of the receiver-transmitter tower on Ballout Summit. It had been the Supervox Complex's ear to Nanitech Center for the passed thirty-six years until the drones rebelled. No one has been able to get close enough to the old transmitter to make a survey since the initial drone strikes. From the desert, we made a visual conformation that the tower was still standing, but we had no idea whether the equipment in the control center might have been destroyed. That was what Ts'lab wanted to know. It provided me with an excellent opportunity to contact the Mwevi which I knew was within transmitting range at last. Regardless of my rank, I volunteered for the detail, and succeeded in securing it with the argument that I knew the terrain around the Kooch better than anyone Ts'lab could have picked, so I alone had the best chance of not only reaching the transmitter alive, but returning to make a report of its condition as well.
    I timed my flight north from the Ibra plateau to the base of the Nuni Mountains to avoid the drone patrols, then concealed the hover in one of the shallow ts'ouqbs there and hiked the rest to reach the abandoned Qadim Kooch on Ballout Summit. Although I could have easily flown up the mountainside and set down among the shags near the summit just a few hundred meters from the tower itself, the canopy would not have been enough to conceal the thermographic image of the hover from a drone if one made an unscheduled fly by. As for myself, regulation Damgoundi body armor maintains an ambient temperature gradient. I was invisible to drone thermoscans.

***

    Seven hours of climbing later, close to sun down, I reached the walled perimeter of the Kooch grounds. Another drone patrol passed over the top of Ballout Summit. I paused under the cover of the shags until the delta formation of chrome disks disappeared beyond the peaks to the east, then I slipped in through the broken west gate and sprinted the over grown lawns to the Gharb Hall entrance of the Kooch and slipped inside the broken doors.
    Of course, the glory days of the Qadim ancestral home were long past. These noble halls had been looted even before the Bin's funeral. Afterward, weather and neglect did the rest. The Kooch was just a ruin now. Broken windows in the main gallery had given birds access. They nested in the deep gold frames of the portraits of the twenty-seven dead Qadim Autocrats hung on the dark paneled walls. Years of nesting had left all the portraits stained with bird droppings. The stench in the Great Gallery was something like musty fish. On leave many years ago, I came to the Kooch, removed Malika Qadim's portrait and took it to the vaults in the basement of the estate. I found that several of the vault door locks still responded to my palm print, so I placed the Bin's portrait in one of those vaults. I hadn't thought why then, but I suppose that the act itself was a moment of defiance; a small symbol of hope for me and the Resistance. The Bin's portrait was the only Qadim likeness left unstained. It is locked away in the vault to this day, draped and waiting. When the Young Bin is resurrected, that portrait may be the only image of her mother left to her.
    From the gallery, I crossed through the servant's dining hall, passed the kitchen with its wall full of windows and the north wing corridor to the courtyard entrance.
    Out there, planted in the heart of the Bin's once priceless gardens stood the transmitter tower and dish erected by Nanitech Damgoundi. After my release from the Conditioning Center, overseeing the construction of the transmitter became my duty. It was the first in a series of tests of loyalty for me. Chanzir broadcast a speech to the entire quadrant from the Bin's garden with the new tower at his back, proclaiming the Supervox Complex to be his ultimate victory over the Qadim. He called it his trophy.
    Now, Chanzir's trophy has turned on him. I confess that no other thing has given me more satisfaction than that single irony. The wheels of change had begun to roll and soon they would crush Chanzir in their path.
    I stopped a moment to look around me. Without its chandeliers, its great bronze statues, paintings and tapestries the Kooch was naked. Yet, the ancestral home of the Qadim was not in so bad a shape that it could not be restored. After all, only forty years had passed. The structure was still solid. It simply needed restoration to return it to its original glory. Worse than the bare walls, was the silence that hung in the air around me. Wind keened against the windows to the gardens. At first, I sensed the emptiness of the Kooch. The glorious days of the Qadim played in these halls like old ghosts. I remembered them filled with bustling servants; their narrow, pale gowns rustling down the quiet corridors; the voices of statespeople in one of the ward rooms, engaged in a casual political debate with the Bin. I used to post Qadimgoundi Guard at the entrance to every hall. Myself, I circulated through the Kooch almost as perpetually as the servants, checking on the sentries, relieving them for dinner breaks. We rarely returned to the mess hall beside barracks across the compound. The Bin insisted on feeding us from the Kooch kitchen. This particular corridor is so close to it, that the aroma of state dinners always lingered strongest here. I used to relieve the sentries posted in the archway there first or else the savor of roasting gidye had a tendency to distract them from their duties.
    The Bin once told me, "Hait, I seal more deals at that damned dining table in one night than I could at a negotiating table in a year. Maybe I should fire my mediators and hire more chefs." It is remarkable how a woman of such elegant means should be so full of earthy insight.
    For an instant, just an instant, I detected a familiar scent in the cold spring air; warm and spicy, but with a faint hint of cooling camphor. It was the fragrance of the qatifa; the Bin's favorite flower. Yet, there were none blooming in the gardens. It was too early in the season for them. At that moment, I sensed a presence. Her presence. At first, I assured myself it was only the power of old memories; a mild hallucination brought on by decades of longing and loss. Yet, the feeling of presence remained. I sensed Her at my shoulder. I heard Her soft respirations; tidal and patient. The temptation to give in, to test my sanity and turn to see if She was really there lasted seconds. I almost convinced myself that I would see Her standing in the archway that I had just stepped through. I wouldn't, of course. It was simply impossible. I had seen the Bin's crushed and burned body only hours after Her hover exploded against the mountainside. Yet, the feeling of being watched remained. I shrugged off the urge to turn and look and headed for the transmitter. The Bin is dead. She will never pass this way again. And yet, I realized She would ... in a way. Part of Malika Qadim lived on in her daughter, the Young Bin. In Her, the Bin will live on. Her grace and wisdom will live on. Then, so be it. The Bin is dead. Long live the Bin.

***

    I crossed the overgrown path to the communications center; which was little more than a cinder block shed tucked between the legs of the transmitter tower, found the door unlocked and let myself inside. In the quiet, early spring winds howled softly across the corrugated steel. It was an odd refrain to the soft beeping and flickering lights and gages on the console. Everything seemed to be intact. The Supervox had not gone entirely deaf. Indeed, someone had linked with the dish. I sat down at the console and began to work the keypad, telling the computer to home on the incoming signal, then turned to the com monitor to wait for the visual to patch in. When the frequency ran to a match, I recognized the channel of the sender. It was the D.C.B. contact vessel; the Mwevi.
    A coffee skinned man with a silvery goatee, sparkling dark eyes and a portly complexion faded in on the screen. It had been a long time, but after a moment, I recognized the Bin's husband, a scientific genius and the only member of the Qadim family I had been able to rescue during Chanzir's coup. But. I doubted it was Doctor Asad. Something in his expression; the effeminate up turn in the corners of his mouth didn't quite fit. I squinted at the image, uncertain for a moment of what sort of game the D.C.B. were playing now. "Sumitra?"
    "Good Evening, General." The omnimorph said to me in it's characteristically bemused contralto. It was an ally to the D.C.B.; my contact and the coordinator for their end of the recovery mission.     "You're tardy."
    "Perhaps, but we're fortunate that I managed to reach the transmitter at all."
    "Perhaps."
    Glancing at my surroundings, I considered that fact that the omnimorph had anticipated my movements and signaled me here. As a matter of security, I never signaled the Mwevi from the same transmitter more than once. "How did you know I would come to the Kooch?"
    "Our surveillance satellite has been tracking your movements for several days, General."
    "Then you're in orbit here?"
    "No. But we are approaching."
    "How soon will the Mwevi make orbit fall?"
    The omnimorph giggled, "You sound anxious to proceed, General. Has there been trouble?'
    "If you have surveillance on the Supervox, Sumitra, you know there has."
    It's face began to melt, eddying into more slender, feminine contours. I spotted the likeness of the     Qadim Bin forming and ignored the omnimorph's near blasphemy out of necessity. It knew it could taunt me somewhat. The Resistance needed its aid. It suggested, "The drones?"
    "You know about them then." Now the Bin was looking at me with soulful brown eyes; the irises too large and melancholy to be real. It was an insult to my dead sovereign's courage. The omnimorph's subtle mockery caused me to clench my jaws as I asked it, "Is the D.C.B. controlling them now?"
    "Hmmm." It said, "We could be."
    "Can you keep them from attacking Qadim Loyalists. Sumitra?"
    "Unfortunately, General, you'll have to look out for members of the Resistance yourself. Now. Tell us what's happening there."
    "Nanitech Intelligence is well aware that your agent is on his way here. They have a visual I.D. and the Divisional Head of Intelligence for the Supervox, Ahmar Ts'lab believes he is responsible for the communications break between the Supervox and Nanitech Center. He also believes the D.C.B. is responsible for the drones attacking military and intelligence personal."
    "Have there been casualties?"
    "Yes. Thousands."
    "Were any of those civilians?"
    "No."
    "Were any Resistance members?"
    "Very few, compared to the numbers of Damgoundi and Intelligence personnel who were killed." I watched the Bin's likeness carefully, wondering if the omnimorph could be bluffing, if possibly this was not a D.C.B. program, if possibly it was the Supervox Complex itself. No one really knew what would happen when the Nexus Objective was executed all those years ago.
    "Hmmm." The Bin's eyes looked me over. "What else have you discovered?"
    "Ahmar Ts'lab is intent on capturing your agent."
    "What else?"
    "We received videologs from several attempts to capture your agent. He's working with a female associate. She was a Nanitech assassin."
    Sumitra raised a slender black brow. "Conditioned?"
    "Yes. Sebastian Le Blanc was her target."
    The omnimorph straightened in its seat, its interest suddenly acute and almost predatory. "When was the mission designed?"
    "Three years ago."
    "Then she has aborted her objective and defected." Sumitra twitched off a smile and leaned back in its chair.
    "It is a possibility. The agent you're sending to the Supervox, is it Le Blanc?"
    Sumitra didn't answer, but asked me, "Do you believe this Nanitech assassin is still a threat to our operative?"
    "I know what the Conditioning does to the human brain. Q'mar is bio-chemically addicted to killing. She can't defy that. Ts'lab says that Le Blanc is her target which means that she was synaptically tuned to hunt him three years ago. Whatever her conscious decision may have been, she has no choice. The kill program is subconsciously embedded. Sooner or later, she will execute her objective."
    "What is your recommendation?"
    "Terminate Q'mar. Immediately."
    "Hmmm. We'll take your recommendation under consideration." Sumitra folded its arms and cocked its head, telling me, "In the mean time, General, my sources have informed me that you may not have been entirely honest with me about certain aspects of this mission."
    "You know everything I know, Sumitra."
    "Then," the omnimorph chuckled, "perhaps you would care to expand on the Nexus Objective?"
    "That mission was carried out thirty-six years ago and, I assure you, without my authorization."
    "No doubt. After all, transferring a copy of the Young Bin's mnemic file to the cognitive core might have damaged the core. If that happened, her mnemes might never be retrievable."
    "Exactly. Fortunately, the voxgrammers who moved the copy failed. The mnemes remained dormant. Nothing happened. The Core of the Supervox continued to function normally."
    "We are not convinced that those mnemes remained dormant, General. According to my source, it is beginning to appear that they may have simply taken a great deal of time to become incorporated into the processing lattice of the cognitive core. Perhaps, they have affected the Supervox more profoundly that anyone could have imagined."
    "What are you suggesting, Sumitra?"
    The omnimorph smiled as it melted again. The Bin's face softened, gradually, almost imperceptibly loosing the longer angles of adulthood. Slowly, slowly, its complexion retreated into adolescence, than softer, softer still into childhood. The girl who looked at me was the doppleganger of the one who's body remained locked in nanistasis in the Qadim Mausoleum and who's mind, who's very soul lingered somewhere in the cognitive core of the Supervox. It was the young Bin Qadim; the child that I vowed to watch over. In a little girl's voice, She told me, "There may be another player in the game.     One that none of us anticipated or can hope to control now."
    "Who?" I demanded, scarcely believing, but suspecting just the same.
    The omnimorph giggled like a little girl.

SEBASTIAN II: April 1st, 4097
    Just as Dallas promised, Fontane was waiting for us as we deplaned in one of the smaller docking bays in Syncom Station that belonged to him. Ordinarily, a customs officer should have been present, but Fontane habitually bribes officials. In a yellow silk sari and slippers, he swished toward us through the gray, girdered bay. Fontane never tries to be overtly effeminate, he just is. He gave Cleo and me brief cheek kisses, then stepped back, pale eyes browsing the chubby sublight behind us while he twined a finger in a curly, black side lock. "What's Dallas smuggling this time?"
    "A couple of hundred tons of desalination compound," Cleo told him.
    "Boring," Fontane sighed, casting the dark ringlet behind his shoulder in a limp fit of exasperation.     "Well, at least, there's a market for it." Fontane blinked lazily. "I take it you two aren't flying it all the way to the Supervox?"
    We shook our heads. I told him, "Our contract was to bring the sublight through the jump to Syncom Station."
    "Hmmm." Fontane frowned, eyes roving over the sublight. "Well, you'll have to give me a chance to talk you into taking it all the way, then. My usual pilot isn't available."
    "Why not?"
    "There's some trouble on the Supervox. He's taking advantage of the confusion to make a small fortune." Fontane turned away and started across the deck. "Have you had lunch?"
    "Not yet." We were still operating on Handron time, so we felt more like eating supper, but     Fontane piqued my curiosity so lunch would do. His habit for gossip could be useful.
As we fell into step to follow Fontane from the flight deck, Cleo asked for me, "What's your pilot doing?"
    "Nanitech is paying him to fly Damgoundi troops onto the Supervox." Fontane flashed us an emphatic blue eye over his shoulder. "Covertly. It's quite a lucrative venture."
    Cleo stopped in her tracks, "Covertly? Why?"
    Good question since the Supervox belongs to Nanitech. There should have been Nanitech Damgoundi all over it. Three years ago, there were thousands of military bases scattered around the planet. Qadim Base used to sit in the center of the old Supervox Comweb Complex; the location of the files Cleo and me had been sent to recover.
    "Apparently, they are planning to retake the Supervox Complex."
    Cleo looked at me. We both knew this was potentially serious trouble.
    "We weren't aware that it had been captured." I told him.
    "It hasn't been ... officially." Fontane stopped and raised a brow at me, "Don't tell me that you haven't heard."
    Cleo and I shrugged.
    "The drone militia went beserk and-"
    "The what?"
    "The drone militia on the Supervox." Fontane told me. "Nanitech's nanimorphic security force." He looked at both of us. "Well, I guess you two have been out of the quadrant for a while." He swatted the air and explained, "It all started when somebody sabotaged the Supervox Complex. It dropped its link with Nanitech Center Station suddenly two weeks ago. Within hours, the drones went berserk and attacked every Damgoundi base on the planet. They slaughtered most of the troops stationed there. Nanitech Center hasn't been able to regain control remotely. One recovery team has already failed, so they're shipping in Damgoundi troops to retake the facility."
    Cleo and I looked at each other. This operation just got a lot more complicated ... and dangerous.
    "Hurry along." Fontane urged, "I'll tell you all about it over lunch. I've got a wonderful new chef."

***

    We weaved through a claustrophobic's nightmare maze of hallways, moving deeper into the wheel station. Syncom is an old space station, barely large enough to be considered a wheel world. It had little in common with the spacious grace of Handron Wheel. There were no deftly designed bayous, or shallow skies girded with gossamer reflecting solar panels. The architects of this tin oasis had made no attempt to create a sense of natural space. There wasn't so much as a potted tree to brighten these dismal gray halls. Even the lighting was harsh, washing us in the deathly pall of fluorescent tubing. Having spent several days in the coffin like confines of our sublight, the narrow, labrynthine quality and the hard, rusty smell of recirculated air gave me a flicker of claustrophobia.
    Endless halls and several lift rides later, Fontane led us to the widish door of his apartment, pressed the thumb lock and buzzed us in.
    The sight of his living room was utter relief. Beneath vaulted ceilings were lush wall holograms of forests and gorge water falls. Huge, leafy potted trees gave the room a convincing forest canopy. The way his lighting was positioned, his living room lingered forever just passed noon. Golden light dappled the wall-to-wall lawn.
    "Nice," I said, my filters registering a healthy increase of fresh oxygen in the air content.
    "I had a designer come in. I took the hols myself last time I went on vacation."
    "They're lovely," Cleo said, stepping closer to the gorge. It roared softly. Obviously the volume was turned down.
    "Thank you, Cleo." Fontane turned toward the loft area, calling, "Two more for lunch, Gretta." Then he turned to us. "She's fabulous." He floated behind a long field stone bar all covered with living ivy and asked for our preferences, then poured and brought us our drinks.
    We took seats on his massive, horse shoe shaped bioform sofa as Fontane told us. "We can talk here. I have it swept daily."
    I nodded, having scanned the place when I walked in anyway. It was clean. Still, I wondered a little about his new chef. There was no telling where Nanitech would put their people. We were awful close to the Supervox. I commed Cleo. (Keep your eyes open.)
    She turned from the hol of the gorge and sauntered toward us. (The new chef?)
    (You got it.)
    She settled on the back of the sofa at my shoulder, probably keeping a view of the loft.
    "So," Fontane said, "if you two aren't taking the sublight onto the Supervox, what plans do you have?"
    "We have a some other business to finish up here."
    As he arched a clever brow, Fontane reminded me painfully of my brother Geof. They looked a bit a like. Black, curly hair, icy blue eyes and smoothly chiseled features. Somehow, I found Geof's affectation much more offensive. I pushed away old biases. "You started to tell us about the problems on the Supervox."
    Fontane chuckled. "Oh, it's absolute panic. The big rumor is that the trouble actually started at Nanitech Center Station. Somebody broke in the Center and stole a bunch of Intelligence Files.     Within hours of the break-in, the Supervox cut communications with Nanitech Center." He sipped his drink. "Everyone thinks that the ops who broke into the Center remote sabotaged the Supervox from there."
    Cleo glanced my way. (Sebastian, did you?)
    (Wasn't me.) But it did make me curious. I suppose it was possible, but I didn't have nearly enough time to affect such a long distance link while I was in Nanitech Center. There would have been satellite jumps and array switch overs. It would have taken a few hours ... at least. Cleo and me were inside no more than ten minutes.
    "Apparently," Fontane went on, "the thieves broke in, copied the Intelligence files right under security's nose. They almost got captured, but they had explosives. They left a lot of bodies behind." His eyes flashed at Cleo.
    I shrugged. "'Could have been any number of operatives we know."
    "I suppose." He said, then went on, "Even though the Supervox is out their control, Nanitech security is very tight. They have agents every where."
    "You've been contacted, of course."
    "Oh, of course, but I'm a whore, Sebastian. You know that. I'll give it up to who ever pays me the most."
    I smiled even though I knew Fontane meant every word he said. I could give him a lump sum today to keep his mouth shut and if Nanitech bid higher tomorrow, he would tell them everything I had told him which was why he was fishing for information. Fontane wasn't certain we had been the ones to attack the Center which meant Nanitech wasn't certain, so he was trying to find out by pretending to be a pal. His most recent loyalties grew clear to me. Still, Cleo and I were reasonably safe. Fontane was greedy and sneaky, but he was also a very cautious business man, He wouldn't play us out until he's sure he can either wrap us up and deliver us to Nanitech, or, wrap Nanitech up and deliver it to us. Either way, he'll wait until he's sure he can sell one or the other of us out without risking retaliation by the faction he finally ends up screwing. Fontane never leaves loose ends and he never has to look over his shoulder. That's why he's still alive and relatively wealthy.
    "I take it the Supervox is in total chaos now that it isn't accepting command codes from Nanitech Center and the drones are running amok?"
    "On the contrary. After the initial slaughter, everything just about returned to normal."
    "What about the drones?"
    "They've calmed down. Now that all the excitement has died down, news coming from the Supervox is that they haven't attacked any civilians, but they still occasionally torch any Nanitech intelligence or military types who happen to crawl out of hiding."
    "Ruthless. Who's controlling them?"
    "The cognitive core of the Supervox Complex has for two and a half years, but who knows who has control of them now considering the way they've been behaving lately."
    "Ever seen one?" Cleo asked.
    "A few times when I've made planet fall. They are everywhere. They're rather pretty ... graceful, very graceful but intimidating."
    "What do they look like?" I wanted some meaningful details.
    "Depends on what they're doing, Sebastian. If a drone is on the ground, it slithers around on magnetic fields like a giant silver snake - a rather phallic looking snake, if you ask me. In the air, it turns into a crescent to glide and sometimes becomes a disk so it can hover." He paused looking up at the canopy in his living room. "I've seen them drilling in the air over the Qadim Desert. In attack formation, they look like sleek, chrome arrowheads. Incredibly fast. Incredibly lethal." He blinked out of the memory. "When Chanzir and his cronies in Nanitech Center couldn't re-establish the link with the Supervox Complex, they sent a recovery team of programmers to the Supervox to reconfigure the system in the Complex itself."
    "When was that?"
    "A few days ago."
    "What happened?"
    "Drones swarmed in and shot down their hovers before they got within a kilometer of the Complex. When the recovery team walked in from their disabled hovers and tried to access the main gate to the Complex, the Supervox turned the laser cannons on its perimeter wall on them. Fried them on the spot. The pictures of the bodies are all over the news. Scads of Damgoundi and even intelligence personnel have gone into hiding."
    "So now Nanitech is planning a military action to retake the facility."
    Fontane laughed and nodded. "They're absolutely frothing about the team of V-grammers that got torched. Nanitech is already blaming the D.C.B. for the entire mess."
    "Nanitech always blames the D.C.B."
    "How true, Sebastian. How true." Fontane giggled at me. There was no doubt in my mind that he was convinced the sabotage had been a D.C.B. plan.
    "Nanitech have any description of the thief?"
    "Thieves," he corrected me, his pale blues flashing back and forth between Cleo and I. "They took out most of the three security squads that tried to capture them. No one got a good look, but they're sure there was at least one man and one woman. They say he was a genhancer, maybe a cyborg, too."
    "Doesn't narrow it down much, Fontane."
"Too true." He swilled his drink, making ice clink in the glass. Fontane smiled faintly, but behind those crafty blue eyes, I know he was peeved because he wasn't getting what he wanted from us. A new tactic warmed in his gaze. "Perhaps, you two would prefer to stay here, rather than in a hotel." He lifted the hand with the liquor glass and gestured at his potted birches with his index finger. "It's much more pleasant."
    He wanted an opportunity to watch us. He might even have been able to monitor com channels. I hadn't registered any such equipment, but Fontane's suggestion reeked of his intent to keep us under surveillance.
    "Thanks," my partner told him, "but we'll be more comfortable in a hotel."
    "That's ridiculous." He persisted. "I insist."
    "You may, but we'll still go to a hotel."
    Fontane's cheeks mottled faintly. "As you wish," he huffed petulantly and sipped his drink.
    (Sebastian....) Cleo's voice modulated caution between my ears.
    (What is it?)
    (His chef.)
    Hearing her rustle down the stairs, I looked over. Long legged, athletic yet delectably shapely with a face cleverly molded from some well combed Nordic gene pool, topped by a sassy bowl of blonde hair, she came toward us with a tray. She was the yang to Cleo's yin. She was another genhancer, and a cyborg with a considerable augment rating, although I detected no com frequency. I was sure she was masking one. She was augmented to the teeth. The wholesome design of those large, elliptical corn flower blue eyes radiated a deadly kind of confidence. She was a lot more than a good chef. That white angora body sock she wore didn't fool me in the least. She would have looked better in black. All black.
    She set the platter of hors d'oeuvre on the coffee table and announced with a rich, red, lustrous smile, "Your appetizer."
    Fontane took her hand. "Sebastian Le Blanc. Cleo Q'mar, this is my new chef, Gretta Hauff."
    That wasn't her name. As I looked into her eyes and she looked into mine, we both knew each other for what we were. Her file bobbed up onto my oc' display even as I reached out to shake her hand.
    (She's an operative from Gencorp, Sebastian,) Cleo warned me.
    Her name was Arrowsmith, not Hauff, Chelsea Arrowsmith and she had a resume in sabotage and subterfuge even I could admire. I had no idea what she was doing here, pretending to be Fontane's cook, but the possibilities made my hackles prickle.

SEBASTIAN II: April 2nd, 4097
    So close to the Supervox with Nanitech Damgoundi and Gencorp Intelligence swarming all around us, I had decided not to use any of the neutral bank accounts I had posted in this solar system. They would only leave a credit trail for others to follow. The fee Dallas paid Cleo and me for bringing his shipment through the jump was plenty to carry us through the mission. Since he had paid us with a flight bag full of hundred nouqoud bills, the universal currency in the Nanitech Quadrant, we were better off spending his meticulously laundered cash then relying on our credit account. Keeping our somewhat limited funds in mind, we picked a humble motel room located in the noisy belly of the Syncom Mall.
    While the dubious sounds of the mall night life echoed passed our door down the long gullet of the station, Cleo and me laid between starchy sheets, ignoring the clattering fan in the air duct over the bed, while we worked on dozing off. Boxed up in our tiny, bland, filth tinged coffin of a room, I breathed the rusty, nearly rarified air dribbling from the air duct and regretted not taking Fontane up on his offer to stay in his apartment. Reflecting on his potted trees, supple bioform furniture and grass carpets left me with a lingering envy. Thankfully, my partner distracted me.
    Pressing her smooth slenderness against my side, Cleo cuddled into my shoulder. In the dark, she whispered, "What do you think Arrowsmith is up to?"
    I stared at the ceiling of our room, listening to my prox detector ping through radial sweeps and shrugged in answer. Pulling Cleo closer, I admitted, "Certainly doesn't strike me as a coincidence that she's here."
    "Do you think Gencorp could have done the damage to the Supervox?"
    "It's possible." Although I couldn't figure why Gencorp would bother. They were devoted to researching and developing bioscience products. Nanitech's focus has always been on robotics, artificial intelligence and so on. The two quadcorps have never been in direct competition with each other. Maybe Gencorp had plans to change that. After all, the D.C.B. had certainly profited by diversification. Our own corporate power stemmed from a hardy hybrid of technologies. Having done a fair amount of business with us, maybe Gencorp had opted to follow our lead. "It's also possible that when Gencorp heard about the trouble with the Supervox, they sent Arrowsmith here to see how vulnerable Nanitech is."
    "I'd say it's pretty damned vulnerable, Sebastian. The Supervox is Nanitech's primary communication link to the rest of the quadrant. Mahlma. It's the communications web for the quadrant."
    "True." I couldn't help admiring whoever cooked up the idea of taking over the Supervox Complex. The tactic was both insidious and ingenious. I wished I had thought of it.
    "So the buzzards have started to gather."
    "Looks like," I sighed.
    "'Think Gencorp's lining up for a take over?" Cleo suggested.
    "Maybe." After all, if things were as bad as Fontane said, the Supervox was ripe for capture by a hostile faction. Chairman Chanzir must have been about ready of shit in his pants. If the Empiri decides at some point in the mission that I should attempt to secure the Supervox, then I will. In the mean time, I was only concerned with accomplishing my original objective. Let Nanitech ops and Gencorp ops, or any one else who shows up, go picnicking on each other. It might be just the distraction Cleo and me need to get this thing done.
    Cleo blew air through her lips. "For all we know, Fontane is working for Nanitech."
    I considered Arrowsmith's presence."Or Gencorp."
    "Or both." Cleo muttered against my chest, "That two faced fag."
    I chuckled, considering the probability. "Fontane's playing both sides as usual."
    "Think we can use him anyway?"
    "Only to misdirect Nanitech ... and maybe Gencorp long enough to get us into the Supervox. He's no good for information. He's told us all he's going to tell us."
    "True." She sighed softly, shifting closer, jiggling our mattress. After a moment, Cleo said, "'Think we should contact Arrowsmith and feel her out?"
    "I don't want to waste the time. We'll be in and out of the Supervox before she or anyone else can figure out what we're up to."
    Cleo chuckled. "True."
    We grew quiet for a while. Behind closed eyes, I surveyed my perimeter. The only thing registering on my sweeps was the rustling of a good sized rat building her nest in the wall behind our head board. Outside, glass shattered. The sound of running footsteps echoed softly up the mall. Two people were laughing at they fled. It sounded like kids.
    "This has to be one of the more seedy places we've stayed in." Cleo remarked.
    I chuckled, opening my eyes. Her dark gaze roamed over our tiny room until she found me watching her. A fresh kind of seediness glimmered in her eyes. Cleo can find something erotic in almost any situation. "It's so dirty." She grinned. "It's so nasty," and bit my left nipple too hard.
    "Ouch!" I brushed her off. "Better not bite anything else that hard tonight."
    Cleo just giggled and spread her fingers over my bitten part and rubbed it. "Sorry." She nestled her head against my chest, her cool ear pressed to my heart. Even though my nipple was still throbbing,     Cleo's spiky black head full charmed the stuffing out of me. I began to stroke back those soft, short black thorns. After a moment, Cleo said, "Hey."
    "Hm?" Patting her soothed us both.
    "Tell me about your family."
    "My family?"
    "If we're going to Nosterre after this, I figure I should know a little about them. Brief me."
    "There's plenty of time for that."
    "Sebastian."
    I had intended to ease Cleo into the truth on the flight to Nosterre, after the mission was completed. Laying there so comfortable and cozy, the timing didn't feel quite right, but I suppose I could, at least, start warming her up. Considering she was once a Nanitech operative, there was no telling how much she actually knew about the Imperial Family. I'm sure they briefed their ops with dossiers at minimum. Maybe, the more we talked about my family, the better. Cleo might figure it all out on her own. Maybe I wouldn't have to tell her at all. "What do you want to know?"
    "How many brothers and sisters do you have?"
    "Four brothers. Five sisters."
    "Big family. Must have been rough on your mother."
    "Not at all. In fact, M'ma and P'pa were away on business for most of our gestations."
    "You're kidding? How?"
    "We use gestanks, Cleo."
    She snorted, settling her head to my heart again. "Sounds expensive."
    "Is. But my family can afford it."
    "Oh, yeah, I forgot I was talking to a guy with a house by the sea and a house in the mountains."
    They were estates, but I didn't see the point in correcting her. It was obvious the size of my family's wealth was going to elude Cleo until she saw the palace. Maybe it would elude her even then.
    "What's it like?"
    "What's what like?"
    "Having all those brothers and sisters?"
    I felt a guilty twinge. Although, my own childhood seemed to have been a oily mix of imperial privilege and vicious ridicule, at least I had those memories. Cleo had nothing. Nanitech had torn her childhood out of her long term memory. They cored her psyche then filled her up with their propaganda and hate. How she ever overcame it, I'll never know. Looking in her eyes sometimes, I can see through to the long black space inside her. Whether she realized it or not, the loss of all that personal history crippled her emotionally; made her dangerously empty. Cleo is capable of terrible things. We've been together for three years and I'm still not sure how developed her conscience is. She kills too easily. I think she likes it.
    "Sebastian?"
    Yet, those brown eyes were so warm, so teeming and vivacious that I just had to kiss her. After I told her, "I don't know what to tell you. They're just my siblings. I've been away from home a long time. We're not close. To be honest, we never were."
    "Hmm," she said, "Sometimes when I think about it, I feel like I can almost remember. I can remember being close to somebody."
    "Yeah?" I encouraged her, even though I had my doubts that Cleo could summon up her lost past. The kind of memory control Nanitech practiced wasn't an ordinary synaptic blocking technique. They didn't create an amnesiac wall, they erased the very chemical signatures of those memories. The memories were gone, not hidden. There was nothing for Cleo to remember. She was just grasping at the shadows in her imagination, succumbing to wishful thinking. Yet, I couldn't tell her that. Something in me obliged me to encourage her fantasy, to make her happy. "What else do you remember?"
"I think ... I think I might have had a sister." Her dark eyes drifted in thought. The emptiness in there whirled and roiled trying to create a past for her. "I think I was the youngest." Cleo squinted, then admitted her doubts, "Maybe." She shifted her gaze toward me "Are you the oldest? The youngest?"
    "Youngest," I admitted.
    Cleo grinned and kissed me. As she pulled back, she smiled sweetly, "So you're a rich boy with tons of brothers and sisters. I want to know about all about them."
    Watching the vicarious twinkle rise in her eyes, I realized that for once, all the crap I went through as a kid at the hands of my brothers and sisters could do someone some good. I could fill Cleo up with stories about the family. She was eager to hear. This made her happy. Maybe it would begin to heal her, too. I hoped so. It struck me as right that the memories that had left me nothing but lingering shame should bring Cleo joy. Even better, I didn't have to tell her a thing about me. She wanted to know about them. It made all those miserable years on Nosterre count for something. If it made Cleo smile, if it filled her emptiness, so be it. I told her, "My parents' names are William and Isadora. The oldest is Isadora the Younger, she's next to inherit ..." the throne, "... the family business, then there's my brother William the Younger - he's in the security field." That's relatively accurate. He commands the Nosterran Armed Forces. "There's Alden. He's a cyberneticist." Actually, he does less research and more administrating these days. In spite of being humorless, his genius does prompt breakthroughs in cynanoborg engineering almost as a matter of routine. "Next are the twins, Suki and Sasha. They're historians ..." for the family varchives, "then comes Neville - the family P.R. man. Everybody likes Neville." Which was true. "Then Geoffrey who's a lawyer ..." for the family corporation. He's more on the administration end of things these days, too. "Then my sister Artimus who's in the education field..." as Nosterre's Minister of Education that is, "and Esmirelle who's a geneticist." She's got a staff big enough to fill a small city. They spend all their working hours calibrating the vats and finding ways to refine the D.C.B. DNA pool even more for the next generation. "Then there's me."
    Cleo made a fat smile. "What do they look like, Sebastian?"
    I chuckled. "I've got pictures on my wet disk. Want to see?"
    She nodded, eyes sparkling. I drew Cleo into my arms, her sweet-slender body squirming happily within my embrace as we linked coms. Bodies and coms cuddling, we gazed at the family album I kept in my head.

CLEO Q'MAR: April 3rd, 4097
    My time chip just clicked to zero one-thirty. Sebastian is dead the world next to me. I can't sleep a wink.
    Before he went to sleep, we modemed com to com. Sebastian downloaded a bunch of pictures of his family to my wet disk. The bios were sketchy enough that I could tell Sebastian had generalized the outlines and deleted some key information, like how high up the social ladder his family actually was. I had no images of his parents or any bios on them. It irked me a little that he wouldn't trust me with the information, but I understood. It's the business we're in. It makes all of us super paranoid. Self preservation is a reflex. There is nothing too sacred to betray out here in space. Among the most used tools, love probably rates even higher than sex or money.
    So I settled for what Sebastian was willing to give me. For the moment, I was pretty satisfied. The images were astonishingly clear in my mind's eye. They seem so much more intimate than ordinary holographs. These were literally snapshots from Sebastian's memory; digitized moments from his visual cortex. He has a lot of brothers and sisters. Nine in all. I fanned their pictures across the back drop of my eye lids.
    There's no doubt that his family has big money. The picture of sister Isadora, and brothers William and Alden shows them all wearing expensive sport clothes; tweed, silk lined blazers, perfectly tailored trousers and leather chukkas. They were holding rifles. Isadora and Alden were looking on while William was aiming at something in the sky. His sister's bright auburn hair was perfectly plaited back. I could imagine her sitting before her vanity mirror that morning while her personal hair dresser did all the combing and braiding. In the sunlight, her eyes were so bright a green, they seemed to glow. As for Alden, his features struck me as both austere and compelling. Any woman would relish loosening that gleaming blue-black mane from its tight, tight pony tail. His brown-intelligent eyes penetrated no matter where they focused. As for William. Though he's blonde and stockier than Sebastian, there's something familiar in his features; something that almost reminds me of Sebastian. Even sighting on what he was about to shoot, his attention all on firing his rifle, there was an innate kindness in the frame of his handsome face.
    Sebastian told me that they were shooting skeet that day. Skeet. Definitely a rich boy's sport. All the others are just as money dripping obnoxious, although I know Sebastian hadn't picked them for that reason. These were the kinds of things he had grown up doing.
    In another hol, his blonde haired, blue eyed twin sisters Suki and Sasha were standing in sleek champagne silk colored evening gowns, looking graceful as Marduk gazelles among the other guests; all in tuxedos and gowns in a massive garden with huge fountains, and perfect hedges and beds and beds of bright blue, white and red flowers.
    In another, his brother Neville was standing in a scull with a river at his back, his shoulder length cropped honey-blonde mane whipped in the wind, while he held a massive trophy in both hands over his head and showed off his fantastically appealing grin. Sebastian said that was the second year in a row Neville's team won their division of the Collegiate Invitational World Cup Regatta.
Then, there was Geoffrey in his glowing white snow-skin that was so shamelessly form fitting I could make out his most intimate contours. Actually, he's built a lot like Sebastian, except he has shoulder length curly black hair. That might have given him a boyish appeal if his eyes weren't such a pale, pale blue like the color of thick ice. Those sultry-cold eyes glowed like blue coals; the epitome of arrogance. In the picture he was walking toward a huge stone mansion in the Tigre Blanc Mountains with his skies and poles on his shoulder. It was a private lodge Geoffrey had built for the ski season Sebastian told me.
    I had noticed that all his brothers had long hair. Sebastian told that was just how Nosterran men wore their hair. Long, lustrous and beautiful. It kind of made me wish Sebastian would grow his, but out here in space where gravity conditions change radically from environment to environment long hair is a bother.
    Finally, came Sisters' Artemis and Esmirelle on horseback. They're both long limbed and dark haired. Artimus had blue eyes. She reminded me of Geoffrey a bit. And Esmirelle had green ones. Like Isadora, and the twins, they were two sultry, curvaceous genhancer women who were drop dead beautiful, super intelligence and super athletic. They were damned near invincible, like goddesses, and knew it. There were hounds milling around the legs their graceful horses and more riders behind them. All the men looked on adoringly. For that matter, so did the women. "The Sam Hain Hunt," Sebastian had told me.
    Considering all the pictures Sebastian gave me, there's almost nothing in his siblings' features that suggests they're related except that they are all genhances and fiercely beautiful. There's nothing distinctively ethnic about them as a group. They all have different features, different skin tones, different textures and colors of hair, and different eye colors. Yet, they all have an almost seductive quality. It's that eagle like look in their eyes; that commanding gaze. The only word I can come up with is 'majesty'. They are majestic people. They exude power.
    If they were typical Nosterran aristocrats, what was the Imperial Family like? There are a lot of stories about D.C.B. ruthlessness and cunning. They've been around so long, a lot of people think they're just a myth; part of the D.C.B. corporate identity like its logo. But, they are real. Nanitech wouldn't consider them or their interstellar corporation such a threat, if they weren't.
There was no one like that on the Supervox. At least, not any more. There are stories about the old Qadim Regime, too. They were essentially royalty once because they held most of Nanitech stock until a few decades ago. I thought they died out and their holdings reverted to the Board of Directors, but Sebastian suggested that it was more like a coup. He says the last Qadim was assassinated. I had heard the rumor before. It is probably closer to the truth of what happened.
    Yet, even the legendary Qadim can't compete with these Nosterran genhancers. For that matter, I've never met anyone like these people anywhere in civilized space. I suppose Sebastian counts, but he doesn't really. For all his charisma and his absorbing good looks, he's different from the people in the pictures. They seem cold, as if their genetic conditioning gave them a right to be aloof and arrogant a long time ago. There isn't an arrogant bone in Sebastian's entire body.
    Considering the huge archive of images of his family that he keeps in his head, I'm surprised that he hasn't said a word about them before now. Most people have a few stories about their brothers and sisters. Until tonight, Sebastian has never said a word about them. As willing as he is to tell me about them now, I don't think he likes talking about them. I sensed the distance between him and them in his voice. He admitted that they weren't close, but it's more than that. Just the angles of the pictures tells me a lot. Sebastian always seems to be standing apart from his brothers and sisters, like he's watching them have fun, but he's not part of it. Picture after picture is like that. It gives me the uncomfortable feeling that he was an outsider at all those skeet shoots, garden parties, regattas and hunts. Those pictures tell a big story. His family must have titles and lands. They're aristocrats. They have bucks, big bucks. Sebastian doesn't have to work at all, let alone risk his neck mission after mission for the glory of the D.C.B. logo. He could be home playing 'rich boy'. So why was he out here, spilling blood and risking his life for the almighty D.C.B? I could ask him, but I wouldn't get a straight answer. Maybe I don't really need one. I get the feeling that something happened between him and his family. They hurt him somehow. Maybe, they pushed him out.
    Closing the pictures, I opened my eyes and eased up on an elbow to look at him while he slept. Considering that gorgeous genhancer physique, I can't believe that any one could get under Sebastian's skin. Physically, he's so perfect, it's hard to imagine that his life might not be.
Best not to dwell on that kind of stuff. I would find out just how bad things were between him and his family when we reached Nosterre. I slipped to Sebastian's side and let it all go on a long, deep sigh. Listening to his heart beat resonate through my jaw, I thought about the pictures he showed me, his wealth, his handsome brothers and sisters, and -
    Kill him!
    Not again.
    Kill him now!
    I sat up in bed to hug my knees and willed the hate back where she belonged. Nanitech did this. Nanitech did this. I squeezed my eyes shut. You bastards! You took my past and stuck this rabid bitch inside my head. I had no idea it would be like this. You lied to me.
    Kill. Him. Now.
    Rage jittered through my skull. The Conditioning was trying to fuse with me, make herself one with me, become me. I kept her out. She was a cold, monstrous blood lust. My heart started to pound. She insisted. She reminded me of the rush after the kill. Blood equals beauty. Murder equals orgasm. I felt it rising, like sex, like the urge. The red beauty spilled across my mind, making me shudder, feeling just a flake of the power, of the ecstasy of the kill. Yeah. It would be good. It would like having sex with him. It would be so sweet and pure, because it would be the last time. I could feel all of it, the power, the horror, the joy, the intense white, soaring climax.
    I shook myself. Suddenly scared. Terrified. She got a toehold this time. I couldn't shake Her. She had a piece of me already. It would be so easy to give into her just to feel... the red beauty ... the white ecstasy of the kill. I felt myself slipping, dwindling, disappearing ... Noooo!
I had to plead with her, Not now. Not here. I told the Conditioning. He's stronger. I need a weapon.
    He's asleep! Cut his throat!
    The red .... I shook my head. No. He's nanimetic, his CERMs will save him. The mission will fail.
    You must kill him!
    I will, I lied to the Conditioning. I will. She backed off. She left me alone. I licked fresh sweat from my lips and resisted the urge to look at Sebastian. She might pop out again. I might surrender. He doesn't know how close he came this time. He doesn't know how close he's come a lot of times. A dying surge of rage made me shiver, then the Conditioning plunged into my subconscious. Relieved and trembling, I sighed and listened to my pulse slow in my ears. A crazy, little giggle slipped out of me before I could clap my hands over my mouth. She really scared the shit out of me this time, but I was glad. If I was scared, then I was still in control. I was safe, I hadn't turned into her. She hadn't taken over. I'm the one who knows fear. All she knows is her blood lust. I pulled off the T shirt I had worn to bed and mopped off my wet face and wet hair, then pitched it on the floor and closed my eyes, indulging in another long, shivering sigh, enjoying the euphoric calm after the storm. The Conditioning is one scary bitch, but I know how to handle her. Then I laughed. I felt okey.
    I felt perfectly sane.
    Either it's getting easier to fight her off, or I'm getting used to fighting her.

LEONARD ASAD: April 3rd, 4097
    I am virjournaling this in the most opulent settings that I have seen since the Palace on Nosterre. Of course, my staff and I are no longer aboard the Corbeau. That, a military vessel, was clearly designed to provide only the most basic comfort and efficiency, but this....
    This is the Mwevi. I was briefed by Lieutenant Chevalley-Rousse that it is what's known as an Estate Ship. One of my staff said that it was more like a space palace. I am inclined to agree. My rooms alone are astonishing in their detail. There's even a small arboretum off the kitchenette. In there, I could swear I was outside. There were real birds in the tops of the maple trees and real turf beneath my feet. It was an astonishing bit of landscaping. I felt as if I was in a pleasantly shady yard on Nosterre. As for my quarters proper, I treaded on cool, intricately interlaid rectangular marble tiles of deep green and crisp black, not a scratch or nick marred the floor anywhere, though there was ample furniture; all classical Nosterran pieces... including an exquisitely matched set of Empress Esmirelle reading divans in the well stocked library. The study desk there may have been an old, old, old Emperor Geoffrey piece, but I'm not sure. It was in pristine condition, complete with what looked like the original silk paisley blotter. It seemed the place should have velvet ropes strung around so that I didn't spoil such dainty furniture by sitting on it. And yet, the expense of things here bore the same feel of invitation and welcome that I felt at the Palace on Nosterre. I relished the familiarity, especially out here in space, especially so close to Nanitech. The dressings of my adopted home helped insulate me from the grave things that were going on out there in the dark.
    I tried out one of the Empress Esmirelle divans. It was terribly comfortable. Looking around me, I detected the rich scents of oiled wood and books, I knew that I would spend a good deal of time in this room, correcting my notes and preparing for my daughter's return.
    Someone rang my bell.
    Almost too comfortable, I raised myself with a grunt, went out to the main living room and answered the door. "Yes. Enter."
    It was a butler in white gloves and black tails. "Doctor Asad, your attendance is requested at high tea in the green games room. Will you be attending?"
    "Of course, but I'm not familiar..."
    "I shall be happy to return for you at the appropriate time, Suh."
    "Yes. Thank you. That would be fine."
    He nodded and went away.
    I found a clock, another delightful Nosterran antique, of course. It had just struck two-thirty.     Judging by the brightly light hallways and the butler's remark about high tea, my staff and I must have come aboard the Mwevi in the afternoon. Fortunately, that gave me a few hours to nap. The Corbeau had deposited us on board at three in the morning their time. Feeling a bit under slept, I headed back to that lovely divan.

***

    The butler returned for me close to four p.m., Mwevi time. I had awakened earlier, freshened up in my elegant lavatory and treated myself to a modest glass of sherry from the nicely stocked bar in the entertainment suite off the bedroom.
    He led me off through roaming halls with vaulted ceilings, walls lined with all manner of paintings, in terribly elaborate golden frames. I kept making note each at turn we made by the paintings I saw there, but lost my way regardless. At last, we came to a place where the hall emptied into a modest room with walnut wainscotting and sea green marble on the walls. There was a single billiard table in the room, a small bar, an intimate cluster of chairs and service table off to the left. The sound of a soft piano came from some where, apparently a recording. I turned to thank the butler, but he had gone already, soundlessly striding up the long hall from where we just came.
    Alone, I thought, I stepped toward the billiard table. The balls were racked, two cues rested on the thick hunter green felt. I never learned to play, but the Imperials liked the game well enough. Fancying, I picked up a cue. I wasn't even sure how to hold the thing. Prince Neville showed me once, but it was years ago, at a state party in the Palace. The music caught my attention once more.     Now further inside the room, I detected its direction and turned toward it.
    There was a small alcove half hidden by a hedge of tropical plants of some height and wealth of glossy, green fronds. I stepped that way, curious. I believe the piece was one by a composer named Chopan, ancient but delightfully melodic. I wouldn't have recognized it at all, except that it reminded me of the youngest prince because he played piano and was fond of -
    I froze by the potted palms.
    He was sitting right there, lithely hunched at the keyboard of a gleaming black baby grand. The sight of Sebastian le Deuxieme was profound to me, like arriving in the jungle to a glimpse of a rare and fantastic bird and fearing to breathe and frighten it off. Those fingers that had been locked into rigid little claws when he woke from his coma at age six, now drifted over the keys like snowflakes at age thirty-five. His motor skills were utterly silken. There were no signs at all of the brain infection that nearly killed him. It was a miracle. My miracle. In a queer moment of conceit, I realized that I had created that masterpiece. I took the bloated, hemorrhage battered brain that had been in his skull and voxgrammed a tiny multitude of nanites to disassemble it molecule by molecule, and then, instructed them to translate the matter type. Considering the ease with which the infection ravaged his organic brain, flesh was too vulnerable. I instructed the nanites to copy the boy's mnemes; his memories, his moods, his urges, whims, fears; the very architecture of his soul and integrate them into a sparkling, impervious neural net. And they did it. And he lived. He thrives.
    Look at him. He thrives.
    This is one of the few times that I have been able to revel. While the success of my experiment has long since been recorded, all the details will never be known. The Empiri made that a condition. They feared the reaction of the public. Even the young Prince himself does not know the extent of his augmentation. The core of his very consciousness resides in a prosthesis.
    Prince Sebastian sensed me at last and looked up. He stopped playing, those perfect-graceful hands falling to his lap. G'yidma! How he looks like his father! "Ah, Doctor Asad." His voice shifted, rising suddenly to a feminine contralto, "We are pleased."
    In the midst of my flush of horror, he rose from the piano bench. His features sifted and melted. He lost height as if he was being poured into a smaller frame, his clothing darkened and turned to a simple set of dark, silk like pajamas. The creature that stood before me was an androgenous being of barely a meter and a half tall. It's eyes had turned deeply orange with elliptical pupils. It's hair turned auburn, straightening and lengthening to fall over its now waif like shoulders. It's skin achieved a faint pearlescent that was engrossing to study. Its figure and features were elfin. In spite of my initial shock, I was absolutely intrigued by the speed of the transition. Lieutenant Chevalley-Rousse had briefed me on the owner and captain of the Mwevi. It was an alien of unknown origin, an omnimorph with unquestioned allegiance to the Empiri. I stepped toward it, "You must be Sumitra Nedla."
    "We must be," it cooed, smiling and joking. Its grip was feather like. "Most call us, Sumi, Doctor Asad." I had the sense that the effects of gravity barely restrained it as if it would, at any moment, float up off the floor. "How do you find your accommodations?"
    "Quite comfortable. Thank you. The arboretum is most remarkable."
    It laughed softly. "Thank you. We have designed many on the Mwevi. You may enjoy a tour of the others."
    "I would like that."
    A steward came into the room then and stationed himself behind the bar beyond the sitting furniture. After my initial glance, I looked at him again. He resembled the butler who led me here. "Is that -"
    "Wilkens. Yes, it is. All our servants are Wilkens."
    The steward nodded and smiled to me. I did the same to him. I suppose cloning the same man-servant over and over reduced a certain confusion about names. Certainly on a vessel the size of the Mwevi, Sumitra must have had a small army of butlers.
    Sumitra gave a nod to the piano, "We hope that we didn't startle you."
    "No. Not terribly. Actually, I found the transformation quite impressive."
    Sumitra chuckled delicately and took my elbow in its hand, apparently opting for a more feminine behavior. Appropriately, it gained some height and feminine attributes as it led me toward the bar at the end of the room. It drifted away from me then. "I am the mission coordinator."
    "Of course," I nodded, "My assistant gave me a thorough briefing."
    "Excellent. Tomorrow, perhaps, you'd like to see your surgical facilities."
    "Please."
    Sumitra stepped toward the bar, now a buxom, lofty auburn haired woman, resembling Empress     Isadora except that the omnimorph sported one blue eye and one green eye. "Would you like something to drink, Doctor Asad?" It used Isadora's voice.
    "Perhaps just tonic water and a peel of lime." As the initial surprise of its unmasking wore off, I began to wonder a little about its choices in forms. There seemed to be a kind of intent in the ones it picked. My impression that there was a kind of mischief, or cunning as if it meant to manipulate my emotional state through the faces it presented. I made the conscious effort to maintain my objectivity.
    The steward mixed two drinks. Sumitra's was something pink and fizzing. The omnimorph brought me my tonic and lime. "To success." We touched glasses and sipped. "We feel that we should make you aware that we are in Nanitech quadrant now and are on a heading that will carry us into Supervox Space."
    I swallowed hard.
    "Never fear, Doctor, you're quite safe. Nanitech is unaware of our loyalties. And besides, Chairman Chanzir seems to have developed other more pressing troubles rather recently that are keeping his administration quite ... occupied."
    "Ones induced by the D.C.B. operative?" I experienced a moment of sinister hope.
    "Possibly." Sumitra said, then looked off, eyes turning violet. "These troubles began with his departure from Nanitech Center Station. We shall have to ask him."
    "He's here?"
    "No. Not presently."
    "I see. I was never told. Who is executing the recovery mission?"
    "Our top operative."
    "I'd like to meet him and thank him some day. What's his name?"
    Sumitra's eyes narrowed. "You were not told deliberately, Doctor."
    "My apologies." I have a tendency to be overly curious. No doubt there are sound security reasons for my ignorance.
    "No apologies are necessary."
    Yet, my curiosity lingered. "Can you tell me what's happened at Nanitech Center."
    "It's not Nanitech Center, Doctor. It's the Supervox. It seems to be ignoring instructions from Nanitech Center."
    When I lived on the Supervox, Malika had proposed plans to the Nanitech Board of Directors to make the comweb complex a fully self maintained facility; from the drone janitors that would swab the hallways and offices to an ambitious project to create a nanidrone military force to police the entire, sandy planet and its human population. Working from my wife's specifications, I had began to make design specifications on the nanidrone project before the coup. I wondered what might have gone wrong. "Are the people there in danger?"
    "Reports indicate that the Supervox Complex is operating normally, monitoring and transferring communications throughout the Nanitech quadrant. It's civil functions on the planet also seem to be unimpaired. None of its cities have reported difficulties. It simply is not recognizing command code signals from Nanitech Center any more."
    "Remarkable."
    "Yes. It may be depending upon the circumstances."

SEBASTIAN II: April 3rd, 4097
    Cleo and I spent all of yesterday on the Syncomvox, scouring Fontane's visacom logs for any dispatches or transmissions he might have made to Nanitech Center as well as any Arrowsmith might have made to Gencorp. We found nothing. By evening, we dropped our link with the 'vox. Both of us suffering V-lag and feeling edgy about the way things were developing on the station, we decided that the best option was to leave Syncom Station as quietly and as quickly as possible. Fontane had told us as much as he was likely to, and the presence of a Gencorp top op like Chelsea Arrowsmith was unsettling. So we rose early, made reservations under fresh aliases on the next resort wheel bound for the Supervox and shuffled out the appropriate passports.
    Showered and dressed, we signed out at the front desk of our motel, then stepped out into Syncom's people packed mall and headed for the space port. In a little wheel station like this, commerce ran according to the space port shipping schedule which tended to be perpetual. The din of foot traffic, voices and the ever present mall musak melded into the uniform, tinny roar characteristic of these little wheel stations.
    Cleo picked up my hand as we walked. (How's your perimeter look?)
    (Busy.) The entire scanning area of my prox detector was littered with dozens of cyborg frequencies and E.M. coronas. Every augmented skull within a radius of hundred meters blipped across the sweeps inside my head. Extending my perimeter, I took in as much of the mall around us as I could. As we walked, I leaned and pecked Cleo on the cheek. "How about we put off breakfast until we're aboard the resort wheel?"
    She shrugged, "Food will be better. I can wait."
    Ordinarily, we would have grabbed a bite in a port diner, but a certain security conscious urgency to get off Syncom Station had begun to nag me.
    My partner squeezed my hand. (Something wrong?)
    ('Just got a bad feeling.) The port was only a quarter of a kilo down the mall, but I had a hunch we wouldn't make it that far. In fact, I knew we wouldn't.
    Cleo let go of my hand and slipped both her hands inside the deep pockets of her jump jacket. As usual, they were full of freshly cubed out weapons. She sensed trouble, too. We both knew that if     Fontane or Arrowsmith were going to try something, now would be the time.
We were exactly fifty meters from the entrance to the spaceport, close enough to read the departure time of our resort wheel on the boards over the giant archway, when two of the hundreds of blips on my flank began to follow us. "Merde."
    (What is it?)
    (We have company. Behind.)
    Extending my receiver range, I found their frequencies. I was surprised by the band range. (We've got two androids on our tail.) That wasn't consistent with Nanitech's last couple of attempts, but then again we had managed to overwhelm anything human they had sent at us so far.
    (Anthropomorphs?)
    (Probably. Can't tell at this range.) I glanced behind me, knowing I wouldn't see anything but a sea of heads. Those droids were probably disguised as human beings anyway. I looked ahead of us, knowing that the only way Nanitech could have known we were here was if someone tipped them off. The only people who knew were Fontane and Arrowsmith. One or possibly both of them had contracts with Nanitech.
    One thing was for certain, Cleo and I weren't safe even in these crowds. People tend to not get involved. Worse, they were reducing our mobility, impeding our escape, and I preferred no bystanders got hurt if it was at all possible.
    Cleo nodded toward the entrance to the port. (Think we can make it?)
    I was about to answer when two more droid blips bobbed up on my sweeps. They were coming from the access corridor to the departure gates. The way they were B-lining through the other blips was tell tale. (Nope. There's two more closing from the port.)
    Cleo snickered, her hands moving inside her jacket. She stared the entrance to the port, hers eyes shining with sinister intent. (Guess they don't want us to make our flight.)
    (Guess not.) I glanced around for a way out of this before Cleo started blowing away droids and generally shooting the place up. On my flank sweeps, the pair of droids behind us kept closing steadily, apparently unaware that I had scanned them. (I say we try to lose 'em.)
    (I can take them, Sebastian.) She was watching the port entrance like a brown eyed wolf.
    (There are people here, Cleo.) Meaning somebody might be hit by a stray pulse.
    She made a face, but the killer gleam in her eyes dimmed somewhat.
    Keeping one eye on Cleo and one eye on the blips gravitating toward us, I called up the mall directory for Syncom Station. I had copied it while I was on-line yesterday slipping about the station net, stealing a pair of reservations on the next tourist flight into the Supervox. Cleo had told me about some archeological ruins on the Qadim Desert that were within binocular range of the Supervox Complex. Playing tourist seemed as good a cover as any if it placed us within a discreet distance of the complex. In the meantime, we needed to make our flight.
    On my directory, I noticed access ways for the maintenance levels. Marking our location, I found one nearby. I glanced around for it and saw a door painted that universal, grating shade of safety orange along the left hand wall among the girdered, concave facades of station merchants. I checked it against the plans lit up in my head. It led to the maintenance corridors. (Go through that door.)
    We slipped through and found ourselves on a concrete landing, with a spiraling ramped stair well paved with double yellow magnetic strips.
    Cleo pulled a pulse rifle from inside her jacket and screwed on the barrel. (Up or down, Sebastian?)
    (Down. We'll try the maintenance levels. They're more defensible.) We trotted down the curving ramp, jumped a janitor as it rolled blindly by along the strip, all its maintenance arms drawn up against its casing. Stopping a floor below our exit from the mall, I checked my perimeter again. All four droid blips converged on the spot where we had been standing in the mall, then veered from the general clutter on my prox detector and made for the same exit we had used. They stepped up their pace. I told Cleo, (They are definitely after us.)
    Pulling a thirty round evulser clip from another deep pocket, Cleo snapped it into the rifle, then flipped off the safety as she asked. (Stay on the strip?)
    (Stay on the strip,) I agreed.
    If nothing else the increase in the EM band disturbance should disrupt their scanning frequencies.   We just had to get enough distance between us and them.
    We started running along the wide yellow strip. On the very edge of my disintegrating sweep, I noticed the 'droids pick up the pace, too.
    We swung around another landing, feet nimbly clinging to the edges of the strip and charged down another section of curving, banking ramp.
    (They still after us?)
    (Not for long if their scanning field is disintegrating the way mine is.) The unfortunate draw back of an evasion tactic like this is that it works both ways.
    Spiraling, spiraling ... we ran down three more levels. Cleo shoved a few doors open along the way. The doors would hold her infrared hand print a while and hopefully fool the 'droids into running off down another level. In the meantime, I watched my sweeps. There was nothing but the EM tattered edge of my perimeter flank.
    We pulled up at the bottom of the helix, by the last door. We had reached the Compaction and Recycling level. Although there wasn't any sign, the stench was clue enough. We had descended into Syncom Station's garbage filled bowels. The mix of detergent and rotting trash was choking. No wonder nothing but janitors functioned down here.
    (Well?) Cleo panted, holding her rifle cocked up.
    The reading on my invivoscope was disintegrating and my receivers were crackling from the EM interference. I had no idea. I couldn't read anything on my sweeps much beyond Cleo and she was standing half a meter away from me. I had completely lost contact with the 'droids. They must have lost contact with us. For that matter, the magnetism of the strip should have been wreaking havoc with their system functions by now. I looked up the long helix of the maintenance well. There was no movement at all up there. I looked at Cleo.
    The barrel of her pulser cocked up, she gave her head a shake, (Still got a bad feeling.)
    So did I. I scanned again. I was sure we had lost them. They had probably run out onto the first floor they found after they lost our trace. They had to be three or four levels above us. Even with my auditory function phased up, nothing was moving above us. Checking my plans of the station again, I found that we could make the port from here. I looked up and listened again. It was quiet. We had to be in the clear. (Let's try to make that flight.)
    We pushed through the doors to the corridor.
    Chelsea Arrowsmith was standing there, wearing a sleek black bullet proof, looking like a tall, blonde voluptuous insect. She smiled and pointed the long conductive barrel of a taser at us.
    Cleo swung her pulse rifle down. "You bi-"
    "Non!" I slapped it up. We had the advantage. She was alone and I wanted some answers.
    "Well," Arrowsmith chuckled, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Sebastian Du Coeur-Blanc."
    Cleo startled a look at me.
    For the moment, I had to ignore it. "What do you want, Arrowsmith?"
    "To do some business. The same as you, D.C.B." She cocked her head. "You won't make it out of here on that tourist ship. Those puppets chasing you? They belong to Fontane. He's got more at the space port waiting for you. Nanitech gave him a contract to collect you." Arrowsmith looked Cleo over, arrogant blues appraising her from head to toe as she told me. "I have another way out of Syncom Station. You better take it. Fontane has a big mouth and he used it. If he doesn't get you, somebody from Nanitech will."
    "We've got no reason to trust somebody from Gencorp," I told her.
    "Sure you do," Arrowsmith said. "A friend of your's sent me."
    "Who?"
    "The shape shifter. Sumitra Nedla."
    "Sumi sent you?" I didn't believe that for a second. And yet, the shape shifter had popped up other places, completely unexpected and always in the nick of time. I tried filtering the air for Arrowsmith's pheromones and lies. She revealed nothing.
    More frequencies crackled into my receivers. "Merde!" They spilled into my last sweep, charging into my perimeter.
    An instant later, the doors behind us burst open.
    "Down!" Arrowsmith yelled, but Cleo and me were already diving clear.
    As the two droids froze in the threshold, Arrowsmith swung her taser, the glossy black segments of her bulletproof flashing in the light, and started firing, strafing them with electrostatically charged rounds. The droids went down, bodies quivering and jerking in blue-white nets of static charge.     "Come on!" She took off.
    Cleo and me looked at each other. We really didn't have much choice. We chased Arrowsmith down the hall as more blips crowded the flank of my perimeter.

***

    Even as we stood in the docking sleeve, waiting for the airlock to pressurize, I wasn't sure I believed Arrowsmith, but Cleo and I certainly couldn't have stayed behind. I suppose she gave me reason enough to trust her. She let Cleo take her taser to cover the vestibule entrance. I watched Arrowsmith, feeling every glance Cleo gave me. I had lied to her. I was sorry, but a few years ago keeping my identity a secret was perfectly understandable. Why I kept it up, I'm not sure. It had seemed necessary for a variety of reasons along the way. I intended to tell her ... eventually.
Arrowsmith noticed me staring, so I said, "why would Sumi contact you?
    "We both have an interest in Nanitech." She gave a nod. "Apparently, it does, too."
    "Who are you working for then? Sumi or Gencorp?"
    "Obviously, Gencorp."
    I lifted a brow, surprised that Arrowsmith would actually tell me.
    She quirked a smile, "doesn't hurt my position a bit to tell you that much, D.C.B." She huffed, "Or, should I call you, Lord Sebastian."
    I felt Cleo's look again. "No need for formalities here. Sebastian is fine." I nodded to my partner.     "This is Cleo Q'mar."
    "'Cleo'," she said from her post at the docking bay entrance.
    Arrowsmith flicked her blues at Cleo. "'Chelsea'." She looked me over again. "We've got a lot to talk about."
    Cleo must have been thinking the same thing.
    The airlock light turned green as the door released and the 'lock inhaled. We all stepped through.
    There was no one to meet us as we boarded the ship. Judging by the elegance of the vestibule - the walls were richly pebbled and upholstered in a quilted chocolate colored leather- it could have been Sumi's estate ship, the Mwevi. The shape shifter was a shade ostentatious.
    Eventually, we were greeted by one of Sumi's butlers in a black waist coat and white gloves. Wilkins took Chelsea's taser and Cleo's pulser as if he was taking her coat and informed us, "You are to be received in the green games room. Please follow me." He turned away and led us up the softly lit hall.
    Like every other time I have come aboard, we were led through an incomprehensible labyrinth of lavishly decorated tall, resonating halls with marble busts, bronze statues and paintings. I've been a guest here dozens of times and I still need one of Sumi's butlers occasionally to lead me around. There is a directory of the ship, but I have gotten lost before trying to follow it. Fortunately, Sumi's army of Wilkins seem to circulate perpetually through the hall ways and they always know exactly where everything is. How they do that is a complete mystery to me. Sumi must constantly redesign the deck structures. There are always a few sections of the ship that are off limits, possibly due to construction although I've never seen any signs of work men, tools or materials.
    We were announced as we entered the green games room which is one of the few I have visited before.
    Sumi paused beside the billiard table costumed in red dread locks that hung down to its androgynous waist and yellow owl's eyes. It wore a simple set of black silk pajama like garments. The same type I had seen it in time and time again. After a moment that yellow stare blinked precisely, "Ah. We are pleased." On bare feet, it glided across the carpets toward Cleo and I. It kissed my cheek, and asked me in its silken contralto, "Sebastian, how are you?"
    "Alive and well thanks to you."
    "Hmmm." It said, coppery lashes drooping as it noticed Cleo.
    I introduced her, "This is my associate, Cleo Q'mar."
    "Lovely," it said, took her hand and kissed it.
    Cleo eyed our host. (Sebastian?)
    (It's harmless, Cleo.)
    It smiled at her, showing pointed teeth, then regarded me again as its irises bled over into burnt orange. "We can guess why you're here, Sebastian."
    "My question is why are you here, Sumi?"
    Its chuckle was tenor. "Hmmm." It turned away and glided toward the billiard table where it nodded to another Wilkins who patiently attended it. He began to rack the balls. "We were passing through. When we heard you had been visiting Syncom Station, well ...." the shape shifter sighed, "we haven't seen you in so long, Sebastian. We've missed you. We just had to offer our hospitality. Welcome aboard."
    (What's this 'we' stuff?) Cleo looked my way.
    I ignored her and told Sumi, "I appreciate the thought, but the truth is, we're on something of a schedule and were planning to head for the Supervox next. I'd like to stay, but ...."
    "Then you may. The Mwevi is setting course for the Supervox at this very moment."
    I had to concede, "In that case, we accept your invitation." There was no safer place to hitch a ride to the Supervox than the Mwevi and it would be just as pleasant as tripping through the Supervox solar system on a resort wheel. "Thank you."
    Sumi smiled faintly as it leaned into its cue stick. "We also thought you might be interested in Chelsea Arrowsmith's plans." It made a shot, breaking the balls. They rolled in all directions across the felt. Two solids pocketed.
    I knew there was another reason for the Mwevi picking us up. Out of respect for Sumi, I was obliged to consider a Gencorp proposition. I noticed Arrowsmith chalking her cue. "Can't hurt to listen."
    "I know you've come to infiltrate the Supervox, Sebastian," she said, watching the shape shifter make its next shot. "So have I."
    "Go on."
    "We might work in concert."
    "What for? Cleo and me can do what we came to do without your help."
    "You think so?" She arched a perfect brow.
    I had seen Arrowsmith's resume. She was a very clever manipulator. Whether she really had some thing to offer or was simply bluffing Cleo and me to gain our cooperation remained to be seen. It wasn't improbable that she had been given a second party contract and was working for Nanitech, temporarily. While I've always had the utmost respect for Sumi's intuition about people, even it can be fooled. This was a remote possibility, but one that could put my mission at risk. I told her,     "Arrowsmith, if you've got the cards, lay them out on the table. I don't fall for bluffs."
    "Call me 'Chelsea'." She smiled faintly as her clear, pale eyes drifted over me. My filters caught the faintest traces of her arousal. I had expected something more sophisticated from some one with her genetic stature and augment rating. If she meant to prick Cleo's jealousy and start a rift between us, she had completely misread our relationship. Cleo does not get jealous. I tisked. "Just tell us what you've got, Arrowsmith."
    "You tell me what you've got, Sebastian."
    "Sacre' mere," I huffed, "you're just tap dancing."
    "We'll see," Chelsea said. She bent and made her shot, sinking three balls.
    "Well, we shan't get anywhere if we start bickering now." Sumi said. "And there isn't much time.     The Mwevi will make orbit fall in four days. We suggest you all meditate on mutual gains. In the mean time...." It nodded to Cleo, "Madame Q'mar, Wilkins will be happy to show you to your suite."
    "I'll be staying with Sebastian."
    Sumi lifted a brow and looked at me. "Sebastian?"
    I nodded.
    "As you wish. Wilkens, show Madam Q'mar to Sebastian's rooms."
    Wilkins stepped toward her. "Madame, after you."
    Cleo looked from Sumi to me, resisting etiquette. (Should I?)
    (It's okey. I think Sumi just wants to talk to me alone.)
    She started out with the butler.
    Sumi called after her, "Dinner is at seven in the Rain Forest Arboretum. Dress casual, Madame Q'mar."
    I watched Cleo go, thinking of all the explaining I had to do later. Feeling a stare, I looked toward the billiard table. Both Sumi and Arrowsmith eyed me. Sumi sent Arrowsmith packing next. "If you'll excuse us, Chelsea."
    "Yes. Of course." She laid down her cue stick and walked out.
    Sumi lingered at the billiard table, its head cocked slightly, probably listening to be sure     Arrowsmith was out of earshot before it continued its conversation with me.
    In the quiet, I was reminded of the aura of wisdom that surrounded Sumi. It was hundreds and hundreds of years old, and like most near immortals had been mysteriously mellowed by its own longevity. The shape shifter was one of the first contacts I made when I finished training and left my home solar system to take on the bigger, nastier business rivals of my family. I spent several years ducking on and off the Mwevi. My parents used the estate ship as an informal, covert intelligence office where I could pick up assignments as well as take long range com briefings and debriefings with them while I learned to tread the darker regions of civilized space. The Mwevi became a sort of home away from home. Between missions, I continued to develop various occupational skills here, primarily continuing to refine the capabilities of my wetware for remote infiltrations, sabotage and so on. There were also advanced courses in hand to hand combat, designed specifically for genhanced and augmented combatants, courses on psychology, weaponry, survival skills, again with the enhanced and augmented operative in mind. Even with all that training, the dark seas of corporate espionage grew a bit too rough from time to time. I took my share of battering, but I always managed to find the Mwevi and haul out there. It was a safe place to nurse the occasional wounds of inexperience.
    As Sumi chalked its cue, eyes drifting over the arrangement of the balls on the felt, its features shifted proportions. Its cheek bones lifted under its eyes, while its nose turned up, flaring delicately at the nostrils, its lips thickened sensuously and took on an inviting red luster. It gained height and quickly enough filled out that black pajama top. It's nipples pointed in the straining fabric. It's hair peppered over to auburn and took on shine and wave that instantly lengthened and fell about its newly womanly shoulders. At last it raised green eyes to me; the color of Spring; of primeval woods; Sacre Verte; Nosterran Green. The Grand Empress's green. In my grandmere's form, Sumi smiled generously, "How long has it been, Sebastian, since the last time you visited?"
    I had to think. It was before I met Cleo. Four years. No. Five. No. More. I blinked surprised, "Seven years."
    Sumi giggled, showing me Grandmere Artemis's dazzling grin. "You seem so shocked." She set the cue stick down on the felt and came around the billiard table to take my hand. "Come visit with us a while."
    I had a hunch I knew where this 'visit' was going, but I gave Sumi the benefit of the doubt and followed her toward a display of huge, potted tropical plants. She looked over her shoulder, green eyes glinting. "We have a piano back here."
    Why not just offer me some candy? You see, I had left Nosterre fairly young and raw. Sumi helped me finish growing up on the Mwevi. Of all the ways it polished my edges, my sexual buffing remains the most memorable. It gave me an oddly stale nostalgia for the shy, but horny school boy I had been. To be honest, in the shape shifter's presence, that kid still lingered and leered. I chuckled,     "Sumi, your motives are transparent."
    "Are they?" She pouted magnificently as we came around the corner. "Well, to you they are." Sure enough, there was a piano in the alcove. Sumi eased onto the bench and patted the pebbled leather cushion there, luring me. "Come play for us, Sebastian."
    I suppose I should have clarified my situation with Cleo then and there, but I was still clinging to the possibility that all Sumi wanted was to hear some music. I sat down, and played a few notes to test the tune of the piano. Of course, the pitch was perfect. Pleased, I begged a request. Sumi asked for a Chopan Nocturne as she shifted closer on the bench. I started to play the Opus 9 in B flat, sensing her watch me. Her eyes seemed to grow fingers. They touched me everywhere.
    "You've grown up, Sebastian." She chuckled softly. "You look so much like William le Vingt-troisieme now. You've inherited his majesty. That imperial something." The cushion wheezed as she leaned close, then I felt her lips purse against my jaw. Magic memories of discovery tumbled through my mind. They had the usual effect on my anatomy. I leaned out of the kiss as I played and looked over. Sumi was nude, curvaceous and beautiful, but devotion levered my self control. I looked Sumi in the eyes.
    "Hmmm," she mused, easing back. "You have some feelings for Madame Q'mar."
    "You could say that."
    "Sebastian, are you aware that she was a Nanitech operative."
    "Yes. She turned a couple of years ago."
    "Are you sure?"
    "Yes." I insisted, and kept playing, although I sensed Sumi's doubt lingering. I know Cleo. She is as turned as an operative can get. After a moment, the shape shifter's feminine index finger traced the outline of my ear, tickling a little.
    Teased and aggravated, I growled, "Sumi."
    She giggled lecherously as she leaned close again and whispered in my ear, "Sumi's darling little boy." She tried to put her arms around me and kiss me again, but I ducked out the embrace and off the bench. "I'm sorry, Sumi, but I can't."
    "Hmmm." Sumi shifted back on the bench, looking at me. After a moment, she said, "Your feelings for Madame Q'mar are rather complicated." Her dark pajamas bloomed out of her flesh and covered her. "Do you love her deeply?"
    "Yes."
    The shape shifter looked into me with that particularly penetrating gaze that seems to undo all my darkest secrets. "Yes," it said softly. "You do. You truly do." Her gaze drifted toward the piano. She touched a key, making a note lift softly. "You have grown up, Sebastian le Deuxieme." Then sh