"You can expect that," Gwen said sincerely. "You can relocate immediately?"
"As soon as I arrange certain matters with my family," he replied.
Gwen nodded. "There's a house ready and waiting," she said.
"I can hardly wait to begin work," Mueller said, looking down at the sheets of transparent plastic. "The possibilities!"
Gwen looked out over the world.
"Exactly."
***
Alice Wayne sat in the waiting room and tried not to shift nervously. After a moment she stood and looked at herself again in the mirror. Nice sensible business suit, blond hair caught back with a clasp. Very light makeup. Emphasize the fresh-faced look, which her Anglo-Irish genes did anyway; you had to play the hand you were dealt. She looked a little younger than twenty-five, which was unfortunate, but what could you do? It was the curse of a snub nose and freckles. Practice a level-eyed look, friendly but businesslike.
She looked around the room; expensive offices, in the best part of Nassau. Leather furniture, and a window overlooking Delancy Street; not quite the center of town, but close. A faint ozone tang of computers, although the only one in sight had been on the receptionist's desk. The waiting room had a long table and prints on the wall, a few discreet magazines in a hardwood rack.
Was it worth the bother of answering the ad? she thought. Then: I'm not going back to Sydney with my tail between my legs. Not yet.
"Miss Wayne?" the receptionist asked. She had a Latin American accent. Alice jumped slightly. "This way. They'll see you now."
Alice picked up her attache case and followed her into another room. This one had windows giving onto a balcony, and a working desk in one corner with terminal and all the trimmings. A woman and a man were waiting for her behind a table, with a seat for her on the other side.
The quasi-famous Gwendolyn Ingolfsson. She looked younger than Alice expected, no more than thirty, although she had the sort of sculpted face that is called ageless and does look much the same between the twenties and late middle age. Natural redhead, naturally slim, filthy rich, Alice thought. The sort you hope is a bitch so you won't feel guilty hating her. Something a little disturbing about the face, foxlike or catlike.
Gwen smiled slightly, an odd closed curve of the lips. Alice had the sudden feeling that the green eyes were looking right through her, and felt herself flush. Another drawback to having ancestors from a small foggy island where pink skins were an advantage.
Tom Cairstens. Lawyer, with California written all over him. Casual suit, outdoors tan, not quite as smooth-looking as you'd expect, an undertone of seriousness. Quite ducky, actually. Not bad at all.
"Thank you, Dolores. Would you like coffee or tea, Ms. Wayne?" the American asked.
"No thank you." Damn. She could tell when a man was impressed with her looks, and he wasn't. Pity if he's queer. Why were so many of the best-looking men gay?
"Well." He opened a folder; Alice recognized her resume, and swallowed dryly. "First—"
The inquisition was relentless. Cairstens did the talking; the owner of IngolfTech sat silent, sipping fruit juice through a straw. When the lawyer was finished, Alice could feel herself sweating. She looked up, startled to see how far the shadows had moved.
Cairstens looked at his employer. "Seems suitable," he said. "Of course, so do many of the others."
"I'll take it from here, Tom," she said softly. Her voice was a husky purr, not quite like anything Alice had heard before, accented in a way she couldn't place.
"Now, Ms. Wayne," she said, when the man had left. "Let me summarize. You've got a two-year course in business accounting and administration from a not-very-distinguished institution in Australia. Moderate competence with financial software. Undergraduate degree in life sciences. You moved to Houston, and met—became intimate with—one Carlos Menem. He ran a, shall we say, irregular but profitable air-freight business in which you acted as his assistant and accountant. He had a disagreement with some gentlemen from Cali, Colombia. They repossessed the assets after Mr. Menem's . . . departure. Your green card for the U.S. is no longer valid, your work permit for the Bahamas is running out, and you have no money. Am I correct? Please be frank."
Alice nodded, gripping the arms of her chair and struggling to keep the fear from her face. Is this it? No, the Cali boys weren't so indirect. If they wanted her dead, they'd have given her what Carlos got, three bullets in the back of the head. She'd found him slumped over his desk . . . .
"Yes," she said.
"Good. Now, IngolfTech has incorporated here in the Bahamas because the taxes are low and the government . . . not inquisitive about cash flows. You understand?"
"Perfectly, ma'am."
And they want someone who won't talk. It wasn't the sort of job qualification she'd dreamed about back when she was a student, but if it worked, she wouldn't object. Also someone without local family or ties. Bloody hell. She might never get an honest job again. On the other hand, honest jobs didn't pay very well.
"I need several executive assistants—not glorified secretaries, real assistants. The workload will be brutal and the holidays nonexistent."
Alice nodded, putting an eager smile on her face. That was about par for the course, in a startup firm. Laziness had never been one of her faults.
"We'll take care of the work permit and start you at fifty thousand a year, American—after taxes, deposited where you please. Plus a stock option that ought to be worth considerably more, in time. Full medical coverage, housing and car provided."
Alice choked and coughed to cover it. Fifty thousand! After taxes! Stock option!
"Who do I have to kill?" she blurted. Then, horrified: "I mean—" For that sort of money, I would kill somebody! I think.
For the first time, Gwen smiled. She rested her elbows on the table and her chin on linked fingers. "I like your attitude," she said cheerfully. "Now—"
***
Gwen raised the ankles higher, holding the legs slightly apart so they wouldn't be bruised in the struggle. The dark water frothed, clear enough to her but ink-black to a human beneath the moonless sky. Chest-deep in the sea there was no way for the one held this way to bend enough to get their mouth out of the water. The flailing weight rocked her a little, and she dug her toes into the coarse gritty sand; she was more than strong enough to hold, but she weighed less than two hundred pounds, only a little more than her victim. The struggles slowed, ceased. She held on for a minute longer to be sure, then let the legs fall. The body began to sink, lungs filled with water; she pushed it outward, with the ebbing tide, swimming powerfully. After ten minutes she released it, turned back and stroked easily for the shore.
Tom was waiting on the beach, holding out a towel. She took it and began to dry herself off, looking up at the lights of the house a few kilometers down the coast.
"I wish we didn't have to do that," he said somberly.
Gwen pulled on her tunic—it was a dress, actually, but much like the tunics that were day-wear back home. "I do too; Pat was useful. But she just couldn't take the truth; a mistake on my part."
And a good thing she'd had all outgoing traffic monitored. Three long-distance calls to newspapers; none of them past the hints and innuendo stage, thankfully. My employer is an alien monster from another dimension wasn't the sort of thing you could say directly to any paper anyone would listen to. They'd assume she was some sort of flake and forget the whole matter.
Tom nodded. "Oh, it was necessary; one life is nothing beside the cause . . . but . . ." He shrugged. "I still regret it."
They turned up the sand, above the line of tide-wrack, under the clacking fronds of the coconut palms. Gwen put her arm around the man's waist to guide him through the night. The heat of his body cast a ghost-pale shadow across the flat silvery reflection of the beach; she could see the warmth of lesser lives scuttling in the undergrowth, and hear the muted clicking of beach crabs. In the house, one of the guards worked the action of his weapon, a faint chick-ch
ock across the thousands of meters. The wind was from there; she could smell the individual scents of a dozen humans, the three Doberman guard dogs, wet cement from the construction, cooking, smoke, cooling metal in the vehicles.
She looked up at the multicolored tapestry of ten thousand stars. Thermals were clearer at night, the rising heat of the day fading up into the cool of the upper sky. Someday. That was another thing she missed: seeing the stars from beyond atmosphere.
"No sense in repining."
"And no problems from the police," he added. "Not when Captain Lowe's second cousin is in charge." After a moment: "Do you think Lowe will stay bought?"
"He'll have to. It works both ways: 'They're crooks, and here's the payoff they gave me, to prove it' isn't a very practical threat. And we have enough on him, now, to take him down three times over if he tried anything. Not that he will. The parable of the goose that laid the golden eggs is well within his capacities."
"Anyway, there won't be any marks on the body even if the sharks don't get it," Tom said. "We'll report her missing tomorrow."
He sighed. "Who'll replace Pat?"
"Alice Wayne, I think."
She could sense his frown. He didn't like the Australian much.
"She's unprincipled."
"True, but she's also very greedy. And tough, although not too tough to intimidate. It's a useful mixture; we have to work with what's available. I've had her under observation for nearly a year now, after all."
Another sigh. "True, as you put it."
Gwen tightened her grip. "I'll tell her while you're away in California," she said. "By the time you're back, I'll be able to judge how well she's adjusting." She smiled in the darkness. "Come on up to my suite, and we'll say goodbye properly."
The smile grew broader as she heard his heart leap.
***
"Fascinating," Mueller said, staring at the screen.
It was showing output from the scanning/tunneling electron microscope.
"Fascinating how selective the replacement is. As if the carrier knew which section of the DNA strand to travel to."
"Well, it's more a matter of mechanical fit," Gwen said. "Lucky we had the basic transposer model in my bloodstream; that cut five or six years off the development schedule. I wasn't sure they were still active."
Mueller looked up at her, raising his brows.
"From my last retrofit," she said. "Those can take a decade or more; thank the gods I've only had to go through it three times. You have no idea how uncomfortable a whole-organism makeover can be. The algae should be ready, then?"
"It should be," Mueller said cautiously. "I'd like to run a series of tests to make doubly sure. I realize this isn't really experimental, of course."
"It is when done on this equipment," she said. "By all means, with failsafes and controls. Keep me posted."
***
"It'll cost at least twelve million," Alice said.
Gwen walked past her and stepped out to the veranda. The room was large and pale-colored, full of shadow and light through the tall shuttered french doors, spilling across tile and blond wood and the rattan furniture. Through one that was half-open she could see the terrace and part of the pool, and the slope of lawn down to the palm-fringed beach. The twin-engine seaplane bobbed at the dock there, near the boat; beyond a curve of sail showed against the clear green waters off Andros Island. The staff were still unloading the baggage compartment of the floatplane.
Alice glanced quickly down again, fighting to control her breathing. You're not in any danger, she told herself. Pat had been stupid, like Carlos—and both of them had gotten the same reward for it. Nobody could kill you deader than dead—a superhuman time-traveler or the boys from Cali, it was all the same.
Once you knew, it explained a lot of things about Gwen. I'm surprised how fast it went down, she thought. Evidently her gut had believed before her head was informed. It was only a week, and she could sleep without pills again.
"Property in that part of Manhattan's still extremely expensive, ma'am," she went on. "Despite the crash."
"We need that warehouse," Gwen said. "Send the retainer." Without turning, she went on: "What's bothering you, Alice?"
One of the house staff wheeled in a covered lunch tray and then set it out: conch soup and grilled marlin steak and salads. Gwen thanked her in fluent Haitian Creole patois; all the house domestics were from Haiti. The maid smiled whitely and bobbed her head before taking the trolley out.
The staff were all devoted to Gwendolyn, Alice knew. Why not? She got them work permits here in the Bahamas, which was like a ticket to heaven compared to their impoverished, violence-plagued homeland; she helped with their families, paid top wages and was unfailingly polite, in a rather distant, lordly way.
They don't know what she is. God, she scares me.
"That's a logical response," Gwen said calmly, "I'm a predator, after all, and you're the species I was designed to hunt."
Alice started violently and felt real fear clutch at her stomach. Can she—
"No." Gwen smiled, turning from the window. "I can't read your mind. But I can hear anything you subvocalize, and I can smell your emotions, and I can read your body language like a book. Do come have some of this, it's very good. Anyway, there's no need to be too frightened. You're mine, now, so I'm obliged to protect you."
Alice sat down across the table. Gwen went on: "Just remember that you're transparent as glass. You can't deceive me any more than you could outwrestle me. Try to lie and you'll make me angry, and believe me, you don't want that."
I wish she hadn't told me.
"It was you or Sally or Edgar, and I do need an executive assistant who knows. Sally's not flexible enough, and Edgar doesn't smell quite right."
She hadn't felt hungry, but the smell of the food made her pick up the fork. As she leaned forward to spear a chunk of the marlin, she smelled something else. Gwen was as fastidious as a cat about cleanliness, but close to there was something different about the faint smell of her sweat, something you only noticed because of the contrast to what you expected. A very slight muskiness. It was oddly soothing, and she felt her heartbeat slow.
The marlin was delicious. If you were a member of the Household you lived like royalty, nothing but the best.
God. And the money's so good. Double pay with her promotion to the inner circle.
Tom Cairstens came in, grinning. He tossed a folder down beside the plates on the table. Gwen laid aside her fork and picked it up, giving it her quick three-second-per-page scan.
"Home is the hunter, home from the hills," the lawyer said. "Hills of Hollywood, at least. That's their offer, basically—but I think they'll go to twenty million and fifteen percent, net, if we wait a little or drop a hint about MGA. Their people have finished examining the holographic projector and they're drooling. It's our biggest deal so far."
"Excellent, Tom," Gwen said. "Remember, though, this is our first non-industrial product, our first direct-to-consumer. We don't want too much publicity, and it's worth money to avoid it; IngolfTech isn't going to be the subject of articles in Fortune if I can help it. Also, don't pressure them to front-end it. The cash is a bagatelle; the real money from this will be in the licensing, and we're not in a hurry."
He nodded and inclined his head slightly to Alice.
"Yes, she's been briefed. No problems."
"Welcome to the Household," he said to her. "Marvelous, isn't it?"
Alice made herself smile back. Oh, God. "I'm . . . still taking it in, sir."
"Tom."
"Tom. It's, ah, it's a wonderful opportunity, Tom."
The lawyer walked over to Gwen's workstation and stared at the image on the screen. Or half-stared, at least. The other half of his attention was on Gwen. Alice shuddered slightly; she didn't know why, but when Gwendolyn Ingolfsson was in the room it was impossible not to focus on her, even if you didn't know the truth. Thomas Cairstens was normally a worldly man, used to moving in the monied
glamour of the West Coast elite, not easily impressed. The look of sandbagged awe on his face made Alice shiver again.
"What is that?" he asked, pointing at the screen.
"A fusion reactor," Gwen replied. "Early model. I'm working on adapting it, but it's slow going. This"—she pointed her fork at the workstation; it was linked to the new massively-parallel mainframe—"is about as much use as an abacus. Construction? It's going to be like trying to build a megawatt laser in a blacksmith's forge."
"Everything here must seem very backward," he said humbly.
Gwen shrugged. "The electronics are surprisingly capable, for 1997. Very different, though. We used more analog technology, and we never had all this open architecture—Security would have had kittens at the thought. It was all ROM, read-only memory, for the compinsets, the programs. Still is, come to that."
"Will we need it?" he asked, nodding to the reactor design.
"Oh, certainly. The power requirements can't be met from any sort of capacitor, and those would be too conspicuous in New York anyway."
"A private power station won't?"
"It's not very large—about the size of a two-story house, according to my best estimate. I'll discuss the Paramount proposals with you further at dinner."
He nodded; that was dismissal. Then he turned back for a moment: "Ma'am . . . what's Los Angeles like in your world?"
"Los Angeles?" she said. "There's no city there. Mostly prairie with live oaks, along the coast. Some desert inland, mountain forests, chaparral. Good grizzly country. The settlements are small, some orchards and fields in the more favored spots. I've got a property there, near La Jolla. Wonderful spot for swimming and sailing, and I raise horses."
He shook his head in wonder. "I can't wait until we get the Project rolling. We've dreamed of utopia all these years, and we're finally going to get it. Paradise . . ."
Alice moistened her mouth, watching him leave. "He's crazy, isn't he?" she said.
Gwen shook her head. "Just very focused. It's true we'll clean this planet up; we don't shit in our bedrooms, and we put the industry out in space where it belongs. Tom loves redwoods and whales and snail darters . . . Hence, paradise."
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