by Mind Guest
that the face you stared at wasn't your own and that it would take a
while to get used to your new image? My eyes found Bellna staring back
at me, her face even more beautiful than the photo had shown it to be,
her blue eyes sparkling with life and an impish delight, her bright red
hair falling in thick cascades around her face and shoulders. My face
and shoulders. I shook my head, trying to break away from the sense of unreality, finding myself even more confused when the image in the
mirror did the same.
Okay, let's bring this back down to earth, I told myself firmly,
straightening myself and the mirror image at the same time. That's what
you look like now, and you'd better get used to it. Have you ever seen
a complexion that flawless? Such perfectly arched eyebrows? Such real,
true beauty? You know you haven't, and now it's yours; how about
getting started on using it?
I let a smile come through and the mirror face glowed with warmth and
invitation, so softly sensual that the smile suddenly disappeared and
the wide blue eyes widened even farther. A smile on that face was a
devastating weapon, one I'd be smart to take it easy with. I didn't
want to spend my time on Tildor fighting off rape attempts, especially
since Bellna's face went so well with my body and hers. The girl and I
were almost equally well-endowed, the only major changes intended
having been to lighten my skin to a red-head's shade, and change all of
my bodily hair to match hers. Luckily, Bellna was a big girl, only
about two inches less than my own height, which meant it hadn't been
necessary to shorten me. The clinicians had discussed the point at some
length, and practical considerations had dictated their final decision.
My reflexes and sense of balance were adjusted to my body as it was;
shortening me would throw off that adjustment, possibly fatally if I
couldn't readjust before I had to defend myself from serious attack. It
would be a lot simpler putting me in flat-heeled boots rather than the
high-heeled ones Bellna wore, thereby adjusting the height difference
painlessly. I moved my body slowly in the mirror, glad it was more
recognizable than my face even if it was covered by that ridiculous
bodysuit. The pink of it went terribly with my hair, and I saw my new
face frown as the thought came that the thing was much too revealing
and immodest. Whoever had put me in it should have been whipped for the
insult, to do such a thing to someone such as I! How dare they treat me
so, as though I were a peasant girl or a slave! Who would dare!
"What's the matter, don't you like it?" a voice came suddenly from
behind me, and I whirled around while blinking back clouds of highly
incensed anger. Valdon stood just inside the door to the corridor,
still too close to let it slide closed again behind him. He'd come in
with no more announcement than I ever got, and I was getting tired of
the intrusion.
"Next time, you'd better figure out some way of letting me know you're
out there," I said, only somewhat distracted by the sweet, girlish
tones I'd produced that just had to be Bellna's voice. I value my
privacy, and have been known to go to some lengths to ensure it.
"You can worry about your privacy once this is all over," he countered,
taking a few steps forward and folding his arms across his chest. "In
case it hasn't come through to you yet, I'm part of this project too,
but in a position just a little higher than yours. Now, what were you
doing a minute ago?"
He stood there in front of the now closed door, that unwavering stare
coming straight at me, and I suddenly realized something else about
him. It wasn't only a hunter who looked out from his eyes, it was also
a man who was used to dominating everything and everyone around him. I
hadn't seen that look often before, but I was bright enough to
recognize it - and human enough to resent it. I didn't work for Valdon
no matter what opinions he had to the contrary, and it was time he knew
it.
"None of your damned business what I was doing a minute ago," I
answered, turning back to the mirror. "You managed to find your way in here, so now let's see if you can remember the way out. If I decide I
need you for something, I'll send someone to rattle your cage.
I shook my head to move the hair back from my face, seeing, in
reflection, the way Valdon's jaw tightened in anger, the look in his
dark eyes hardening even further. he unfolded his arms and straightened
to full height, then started coming toward me.
"Now, you listen to me, you little" he began, his right hand
outstretched to wrap around my arm again, yet that was far too much. No
one had the authority to touch my person, least of all boorish louts
such as he. I turned somewhat back to him, my right side toward his
reaching one, struck upward with my arm against his to raise it, then
kicked sideways into his ribs, twisting my hip into the kick. The churl
grunted aloud with pain as he bent forward, his arms wrapped about
himself, and then he leaned upon one knee, seeking with eyes closed to
recover what breath he might. I had swiftly taken myself back a pace or
two, well prepared to continue should he show signs of further
foolishness, but then came an interruption.
"Now what are you two doing?" Dameron demanded from the doorway,
frowning at Valdon and me. I shook my head hard as I relaxed from the
standard attack-defense position I'd taken, and Valdon raised himself
to his feet, though obviously still in pain. He took a deep breath,
wincing as he did so, then made for the door as Dameron moved to one
side.
"Nothing but a small difference of opinion," he muttered as he passed
Dameron. "I'll see you later."
Dameron leaned out to watch Valdon disappear up the corridor, then came
back in to turn his sudden confusion toward me.
"I don't understand any of this," he protested, a plaintive note in his
tone. "What happened between you two this time, and where is he going?
There's a briefing scheduled for you in a little while, and I wanted
him there."
I moved my hand over the panel, closing up the mirror again, then gave
my attention to finding the closet that had been used the last time.
When I did find it and found that it had been used again; I pulled out
the jumpsuit that had been neatly hung back in place. As I began
getting into the suit, I shrugged in answer to Dameron's question.
"I don't know where he's going," I said over my shoulder, predictably
adding to Dameron's confusion. "And it's just the way he said. A small
difference of opinion."
Dameron shook his head without comment, not terribly satisfied with my
answer, but I wasn't very happy with it myself. I was trying to Tigure
out what had made me act the way I had, but the crystal-clear reasons
of a few minutes earlier had somehow clouded to total irrelevance. No
matter how annoyed I got, I wasn't in the habit of assaulting people
who weren't bent on offering me harm. Getting physical rarely does more
than cause hard feel
ings or create awkward, unexplainable bodies. I'd
struck out at Valdon without warning or excuse, and the action bothered
me more than any possible consequences. It wasn't like me to do
something like that, and I'd have to be careful to watch myself closely
in the future. I closed the jumpsuit with a stroke of my hand, then
went with Dameron to his briefing.
The scoutship settled to the ground in the deep black of the woods,
making no more sound than a leaf settling the same way. The night sky
was dark with racing clouds, and we nestled in the darkness, showing no
lights of our own. The hull of the small scout ship was clear all about
the pilot and me, but nothing could be seen through it from the outside. The pilot's instrument board glowed a steady, unexcited blue,
and he and I sat in silence, waiting for the agent who was supposed to
rendezvous with us.
The past few base days had been dull tripled and squared, filled with
nothing but briefing sessions. Right from the very first, the impressed
memories I'd been given had made the briefings a bore, going over and
over again points I already knew. I kept getting the urge to explode
and walk out, but I overrode that feeling. I've been invited to many
briefing sessions, but I've never purposely missed one and I never
will. When your life can depend on some insignificant little point some
bore grinds out, you learn to listen with full attention. I was told
about the political and geographical twistings and forkings, given a
list of friend and foe, filled in on plans, hopes and wishful thinking.
I was a fairly good improviser and hadn't been caught off-balance too
many times, so I wasn't worrying about the operation, but that didn't
mean I had no worries.
I'd been silently examining my inner self, and what I'd noticed about
my attitudes and reactions had not only not gone away, it had begun to
spread, coloring my thinking when I wasn't consciously willing it not
to. When someone warned me to watch out for this or that possibility, I
experienced a very strong desire to laugh at him and tell him just how
good I was. That part of it scared me more than the presence of a knife
at my throat would have; thinking you're the best and smartest around
is the first step toward a messy ending. Over and over I caught myself
mentally strutting around, discounting advice even before I'd heard it,
minimizing the plottings of opponents. I kept telling myself that it
was only a slight aberration, a weird reaction from having been alone
so long, thinking myself finished, and then suddenly finding myself
saved. Relief can do strange things to people, and as soon as the shock
or whatever it was passed, I'd be my old, practical self again. I told
that to myself often, and hoped that I wasn't conning myself.
The woods around us were thick and old, the black shadow leaves swaying
in a rhythm that had been known forever. I couldn't feel what was
moving them, but I could see its passage, and I recalled what the woods
were like during the daylight hours, when I had ridden them with my
escort. My escort had been large, of course, as befitted a princess,
and they had been ever alert to keep harm from me. My ladies had
disliked riding the woods as often as I did, finding the experience
uncomfortable in the extreme, therefore did I ever insist upon their
accompanying me. It was necessary to teach them that my needs and
desires were all-important, theirs nothing but ignorable whim. Once, to
punish them for daring to beg to be excused, I picnicked for a very
long time with the captain of my guard, allowing all of my escort the
time to carry my three ladies off into the woods. I knew they and the
others of my ladies had been taken into the woods before by certain
members of my escort, yet never had all of them taken only three. I
felt the punishment would do well for them, and when they were later
returned to me, tears staining their cheeks, I considered the matter
properly seen to. Thereafter they recalled that I was a princess and
they were not. It was a - I broke off the thought fast and shook my
head, forcing the rambling back from wherever it had come. Bellna's own
neighborhood seemed to have triggered her memories, and it wasn't
taking me long to discover that I didn't like her very much. I moved
around in my seat, ignoring the questioning look I was getting from the
pilot, and that reminded me of the other questioning looks I'd been
getting lately - or maybe "questionable" would be a better word. Not
long after the briefings had started, Valdon had shown up and put himself in a quiet corner, listening but not contributing. No one had
questioned his presence so I couldn't very well object, but he'd spent
most of his time staring at me with no expression on his face. Normal
staring doesn't bother me a bit, but there was something about his
stare that rubbed me the wrong way, something behind it that primed me
like a high explosive. I gritted my teeth and stuck it out during the
briefings, but made sure to be nowhere near him afterward. The new,
touchy part of me felt satisfaction' over what I had done to him and
was more than willing to have me do it again, but there was no sense in
adding complications. Dameron was trying to minimize possible trouble
spots in the operation, and I had decided to try doing the same.
Although nothing but a sprinkling of stars relieved the darkness
outside, the planetary time wasn't all that tata153?? late. Just then
I was waiting to be collected by one of the resident agents of Tudor,
who would escort me - or, rather, the Princess Belln - to a hunting
lodge not far from Havro's keep. The lodge was sometimes used by
certain of Havro's guests, but just then it would be empty. The agent
and I would spend the night, and in the morning my secret mercenary
escort would pick me up. No one knew about this secret leave-taking but
Prince Clero and his cronies, who had been told soon enough to target
their plans against my traveling group, but not soon enough to send
riders against the lodge. I'd be able to get one night's uninterrupted
sleep before the fun began, and after that it would be catch as catch
can.
I sighed as I thought about the plans that had been made for after the
attack. They all hinged on whether or not I was still breathing, of
course, but assuming I was, I was to dump my escort and then head
south. Once I had put a lot of emptiness between me and other people a
scout ship would pick me up, guided in by the beacon that had been
implanted somewhere in my body. Just where that beacon was I had no
idea; there wasn't a mark or scar on me. As a matter of fact, one or
two scars that I'd had for a while had also disappeared without a
trace, all of it due to the process known as Healing. I wanted to spend
a lot of time thinking about that, but in the middle of Dameron's
precious project I couldn't spare the attention. Once it was over,
though.
The pilot next to me had been helping me watch the darkness, but he'd
been using his instruments instead of his eyesig
ht. He stiffened
suddenly just before I caught a hint of movement about twenty-five feet
from where we sat, but the stiffness left him almost immediately and
his hand relaxed away from his sidearm. His panel light glowed a cool
blue, telling us my date had arrived.
Four dark, cloaked figures came up to the scouter, one slightly ahead
of the other three, all of them waiting for the pilot to activate the
access release. When the panel next to my right arm slid aside I
gathered my cape together, then climbed out into the night. The figure
closest to the scouter took my arm to help me down, then all five of us
moved back about ten feet from the scouter and watched it rise
soundlessly into the air, gliding higher and higher, becoming harder
and harder to see. In no more than seconds it had blended with the dark
gray clouds sliding through the skies, totally gone from mere mortal
senses. I took a deep breath to drown the sudden, childish feeling of
abandonment I was abruptly filled with, and only then discovered that
the hand that had taken my arm hadn't let go again. I tugged slightly
to show that I was ready to be turned loose, but the hand on my arm
only tightened.
"Have no fear, you will not be harmed," a gruff, impatient voice came from the shadow figure beside me, speaking the Tilddrani language.
"These-ah-guardsmen - and I will escort you to your destination,
Princess. During this short journey, we require no converse from you."
It wasn't hard to tell that I'd just been ordered to keep quiet, or
that the other three men were Absari agents posing as Tildorani. The
Bellna memories I'd been given identified the voice as belonging to
Grigon, Prince Havro's chief adviser, but the tone and sense of command
weren't part of those memories. Grigon usually used smoothly
professional calm on Bellna, and I couldn't see any reason to change
that.
"Converse is unnecessary when issuing commands, Grigon," I told him
coldly, resisting the pull that was trying to take me deeper into the
surrounding trees. "You and these others may indeed escort me, yet only
in the manner befitting my station. Release my arm, and begin such
actions at once."
"Your station during the longer journey before you remains as yet
undetermined," the Grigon-shadow growled, obviously displeased with my