The table’s Al was built into a hood that spanned the ceiling, along with various lights and instruments, so that the Al looked like some menacing giant spider in its vast neural webbing, squatting over them all.
Lord Felph waited beside the vivification table, along with all his children, and Orick and Tallea. Gallen felt surprised, having believed that donating a sample of his genome would be a private act.
But he recognized immediately a level of tension in the room that was almost electric. Perhaps it came from the strained expression of Lord Felph, who wore a shabby brown robe and stood gazing at Zeus, his eyes flickering with anger. Perhaps it came from his children, who stared resolutely at the floor.
“Well then, there you are, finally,” Felph said to Gallen and Maggie, hardly turning away from Zeus. “Here is the DNA sampler. Just set your hand here.”
Felph pointed to a white pad near the table, and Gallen set his palm on the spot. A small device came up under his hand, whirred momentarily as it peeled away a tiny scrap of skin, then retracted, taking it into storage.
The central gem in Gallen’s mantle glowed as the artificial intelligence overhead recorded his memories.
Felph turned, addressed his children. “I requested your presence because this is a big day. A very big day. It is the first day of freedom for my children.” He clipped his words off, biting them back. “Already this day, some of you have used your freedom badly. I found Zeus running around naked on the roof, and he threw one of my droids from the citadel, after recording a little message for me.”
Felph sighed, and he spoke in a tone of grief. “So, I must consider, ‘What shall I do? What shall I do?’
“Herm, what shall I do? How can I hope for a civil response to a civil request from you children?” Felph gazed up into Herm’s green eyes, stepped close, and breathed into his face. “What would you do?”
“Punish us, I guess,” Herm said, hardly mumbling as he gazed at the floor.
Gallen nearly laughed. Felph’s “children,” though adults in form, were acting like five-year-olds. Felph took the role of aggrieved parent.
“Punish you. Hmmm … a good idea! A fine idea,” Felph agreed. “And tell me, Arachne. You’re the smart one here. How would you go about that? Shall I have you stand in corners? Should I take away privileges?”
Arachne did not move. Instead, she kept her face down and pretended not to hear. She shook slightly.
“Hera, then? How would you punish them?”
“I would do what you plan to do now,” Hera answered with a smirk. Her blues eyes flashed beneath her auburn hair. She stood up straight, squared her shoulders.
“Which is?”
“You’ll kill our clones and erase our memory crystals.”
Felph folded his hands in front of his belly, tried to hold back his surprise at her answer. “You would do that, really?”
“Of course,” Hera said. “You have no choice in the matter. You can’t continue to spoil us.”
At that moment, her words seemed to galvanize Felph into motion. Gallen sensed that what had, until a moment before, been only a threat, now became the chosen course of action. “Of course, of course. You’re so right, my precious.”
He turned back to the others. “Do you understand why I must do this? Why you’ve forced me to do this? You wanted freedom—all very well and good. I’ve given it to you. But from whom little is required, little is expected. In the past I’ve allowed you to make mistakes without facing their consequences. I’ve coddled you.”
Felph stood for a second, eyes flashing, then rushed to Zeus’s side and screamed. “And this is how you repay me, you insolent shit! This is how! I gave you life!” Zeus raised his hands, as if to block a blow if Felph tried to strike. “I give you food on the table and clothes on your back! I … I—Damn you! Damn you all!” Felph turned and rushed to a gray tube, pulled the handle, and slid the tube out from the wall, opening it as if it were a giant drawer. Zeus’s clone lay naked on a white bed. It looked as if it were sleeping, eyes closed sweetly. Its hair was long, and unlike Zeus, who was clean-shaven, the clone had a wispy beard that needed trimming. Otherwise, the clone looked perfect, without blemish.
Lord Felph reached into a pocket of his drab robe, fumbled, and pulled out a gun. He put it to the clone’s ear and pulled the trigger. A loud pop sounded. Blood spattered the room. The clone’s head wobbled, then Felph pushed, rolled it over so it fell from its bed to the floor. The clone lay bleeding from a horrible wound that split its skull.
Felph reached up to the next shelf, pulled it open, drew out a second clone: another copy of Zeus.
Felph stuck the gun in its mouth, pulled the trigger three times, then dragged the ruined thing to the floor so it landed atop the first. Gallen stood, stunned. As a Lord Protector, he wondered if he should save the clones, but his mantle told him the clones were mere flesh. They had no memories, no experience or personality. Indeed, they’d been grown in flesh vats and moved directly into cold storage. Electrodes kept their muscles toned. They were no more conscious than growths of skin or fingernails. They were Felph’s property.
That is what his mantle told him, but Gallen knew better. The clones that Felph murdered might not have consciousness, but if Felph were to wake them, to simply feed and care for them, they would become normal people.
They were babies, fresh from the womb. Sleeping, merely sleeping.
Gallen didn’t know how to handle this. He could stop Felph, but his conscience whispered no: it is better this way. Felph was right. No one should have the right to immortality. Life should not be squandered or abused.
Lord Felph pulled open a third drawer, another copy of Zeus, but younger Zeus as he might look at twelve, instead of twenty-five. A boy with gorgeous dark eyes, the first growths of hair darkening his chest.
Gallen became aware of Maggie clutching his shoulder with both hands. Her teeth chattered, and she had such a look of horror in her face, Gallen could hardly bear it.
“Stop him, Gallen! Stop this!” Maggie pleaded.
Too late. At that moment, Felph shoved his gun into the clone’s chest and pulled the trigger five times, snapping off shots so fast it was remarkable.
Unlike the others, this clone reacted to the attack. It raised its hands into the air, and it gasped, its muscles convulsing—by reflex rather than design. It coughed blood, and Felph stopped, looked at the thing in horror. Then shoved the gun back into his pocket and grabbed an arm, pulling the clone to the floor, so three bodies lay naked, one atop the other.
Two of the clones twitched and jerked. Felph, his face and trim white beard now spattered with droplets of blood, stood panting over his kills. His face had drained white, as if in shock at what he’d done.
“Enough!” Gallen said. “You don’t have to do it like that.”
Felph’s eyes blazed with anger at Gallen’s command, but he said, “Of course, you’re right.”
He turned to Zeus. “One life, that’s all you have left. With freedom comes responsibility. I give you one life, and if you do not spend it wisely, the loss will be yours more than it is mine.”
Felph looked up to the great roof above him, at the Al with its neural webbing. Silver-blue conducting cords twisted among the brownish masses of neurons, and the great central processor of the Al crouched in the middle. “Mem, erase all data on Zeus—all his memories, all his aspirations. Then lock all such data out of your system in the future. I want his memories gone.”
The Al’s soft voice whispered through the room, neither male nor female. “Done.”
Zeus frowned up at the dome above him.
Felph continued, “Now wipe the memories for the rest of my children, and terminate their clones.”
“Done,” the voice came again, and it seemed to reverberate through Gallen’s mind, the voice of doom.
Now Lord Felph frowned at Zeus. “You want to stay here and play instead of escorting us to the tangle? Fine. Gallen was to have been your instructo
r. You stay here, and ponder your future. If you ever want to be reborn, you will earn that privilege. We’re going to our ship.” With that, Lord Felph stalked off, his brown robes billowing out behind him.
Young Athena looked up nervously to the Al, then scurried behind Felph, heading for the ship.
Gallen took one last look at the white corpses twitching on the floor, pools of dark blood spreading beneath them. Then he and Maggie followed Felph, along with Orick and Tallea, while the rest of Felph’s children—Zeus, Hera, Arachne, and Herm—all stood motionless, apparently too frightened to move.
Once Lord Felph left the room, Zeus went to the revivification table at the room’s center, leaned his palms against it, and stood for a moment, legs shaking so badly he could hardly stand. He exhaled a ragged breath, then glanced back at the others.
None of them took it so hard, mortality. Perhaps it was bred into him, but Zeus craved more. When he could stop trembling enough to stand under his own power, he ambled to his clones, piled in a bloody heap.
He squatted and held the chin of the young man he’d once been.
Vengeance for you, Zeus spoke without words. I shall have vengeance. He bent, kissed the clone’s lips, tasted its foul breath.
“Well, what a misfortune,” Herm said to Zeus. “Now it looks as if you will have to try to win all three points with Maggie, take her voluntarily. I can’t imagine you raping her now.”
The Great and Dreadful Game. Zeus hadn’t thought of the repercussions the death of his clones would have on the Game.
As Zeus’s eyes grew wide, Hera began laughing, a high sweet sound, full of joy. Zeus turned and gazed up at his wife, astonished by that tone.
“Five points I’ve won in the Great and Dreadful Game today,” she said, “for killing Zeus’s clones.”
Zeus gasped, looked up at Hera in astonishment. She’d seldom been a player of the Game. And of course, Zeus hadn’t been warned of her plan to get his clones murdered. That was part of the game: only the bettors and the scorekeeper were ever notified of the bets in place. It kept life interesting, wondering what those around you might be scheming.
“Points won,” Arachne said. Arachne was the official scorekeeper. She never played herself, but it amused her to know the ins and outs of everyone else’s schemes.
“You arranged for the murder of my clones?” Zeus shouted at his wife. “You! Hera? How did you do it?”
“I didn’t do anything. You did. I knew you wouldn’t want to go on the expedition, so you would have to do something to annoy Father. I just made certain I happened to be near him when you did, then I suggested that he needed to find a way to rein you in.”
He did not ask Hera why she’d killed his clones. He suspected he knew. Maggie. Perhaps she had heard about his bet concerning Maggie. Hera knew she could stop Zeus from raping Maggie, at least, by providing such a horrendous penalty that he wouldn’t dare take Maggie quickly.
But then another thought occurred to Zeus. Hera could not have known about his bet with Herm unless Herm had told her. Yet Herm had not left Zeus’s sight all morning.
So it may have been that Hera had asked Herm to tempt Zeus into this bet.
Zeus had thought it exceedingly generous of Herm to offer so many points for a simple seduction. Now he saw why. Hera had bet against him. She would interfere.
Hera smiled, a mischievous grin. “Three points if you bed Maggie,” she said. “Three for me if you don’t. That was my bet with Herm.”
This astonished Zeus—the depth of his wife’s jealousy, the scope of her cunning. She could make a formidable opponent in the Great and Dreadful Game. Surely Zeus would have been more circumspect in betting this morning if he’d suspected how jealous Hera was.
She’d taken him off his guard last night with her talk of truces and feigned interest in Gallen.
It annoyed Zeus to be so easily handled; and it humbled him. He went to his dear wife, found himself aroused. He kissed her full lips, pressed himself against her. “You haven’t stopped me,” he teased. “I will have my pleasure with Maggie, though she could never give me as much pleasure as do you.”
“Three points if you get her.” Hera laughed sweetly; she sauntered from the room.
The ruthless woman, Zeus considered. How could Hera so casually have maneuvered Felph into killing their clones? She’d lost as much as he in this debacle. Now all Felph’s children lay under the threat of extinction. It only showed Zeus how serious an opponent Hera would be in the Game. Still, he admired her.
Arachne was watching them both with an uncustomary frown. Zeus wondered what she knew that he didn’t. “Why the furrowed brow, dear sister?”
The witch seldom gave him a straight answer; he expected none now. Still he could hope. She had, after all, been created to be his counselor. For heaven’s sake, he needed the counsel now.
“I think,” Arachne said, “that your game goes too far. We would all be better off, if no one played such games anymore.”
“Goes too far? In what way?”
Arachne’s dark eyes flashed. “You hurt others merely to gain status, without concern for those who’ve done us only good.”
“So you would have me walk away from this?” Zeus asked. “Simply lose three points?”
“If you were half as noble as you were crafty, you would run from this game,” Arachne said.
“Hah! Hera told you to say this, didn’t she?”
“I mean it, “ Arachne said. “You’re a fool. Gallen O’Day is a dangerous man. You know almost nothing about him. He will protect what is his!”
“Indeed!” Zeus laughed. “I shall have my points whether you or Hera like it or not.” He gave a hearty roar for no reason he could understand. It was a laugh of pain, as much as of pleasure.
Chapter 13
When Orick reached the Nightswift in its docking bay, Felph had dozens of droids ready with clothing, weapons, temporary shelters. Gallen and Felph stood considering which items to take on the expedition, which to leave. As the men spoke, Tallea went to Maggie, licked her hand.
“Are you certain you’ll be all right, here?” Tallea asked. “I’m worried.”
Maggie knelt, hugged Tallea. “I’ll be fine. The droids will be here to care for me, new people to meet.”
“I wish I could take care of you,” Tallea said. “But I keep finding I’m not of much use without hands and thumbs.”
“I’ll feel better if you keep Gallen and Orick safe,” Maggie answered. She was being generous of course. Tallea had been a fine swordswoman in her time, but as a bear she was clumsy and small. In a fight, Orick would have to care for her. Orick suspected Tallea knew that, and it rankled her.
Orick knew how miserable Tallea was. He felt guilty. She loved him, had given up everything to be at his side, and he’d decided to give his life into the service of God.
After his dream last night, he felt more decided than ever. Orick had always believed that he would be the monastic sort, living in some forest hideaway, devoting his life to study and good works.
But now he knew he couldn’t spend his days cloistered in a monastery leading an easy life of study. Last night he’d had a vision, a wondrous vision, in which God had called him to service. Missionary to the Cosmos.
Orick felt afire with the urge to go out and convert. He remembered the prophecies of John the Revelator, who saw all manner of beasts worshipping and crying praises to God.
I am among those in John’s vision, Orick realized. Who better than me, a Iowly bear, to carry God’s message to the rest of his creatures?
I can’t give myself to Tallea. Orick thought, but I can give her the gospel. She was in my dream last night, too. God has commanded me to speak to her. Yet how can I talk to her?
Tallea knew that Orick prayed. She’d joined him on a few occasions. Her attitude toward Christianity was respectful, though she seemed to think it quaint.
Where do I begin? Orick considered. How do I convince Tallea? Without realizing it. h
e’d decided to preach to her first—his closest friend. Yet the thought frightened him. He feared that Tallea would reject him.
Orick considered the words of the prophet Nephi from the Tome: “I will go and do what the Lord has commanded, for I know that he giveth no commandment unto the children of men, save he shall first prepare a way for them to do that which he has commanded.” The verse filled him with resolve.
Well then, Orick decided. That’s it then. I saw everyone in my vision last night, so I’ll convert them all—Tallea, these folks on Ruin, even the dronon.
But at the thought of the dronon, even Orick’s stout heart faltered. Right now, Tallea seemed daunting enough.
Orick and Tallea watched as Gallen had the droids pack supplies. Felph’s young daughter, Athena, watched Gallen, quietly offering suggestions now and then. “Use the bigger, more powerful glow globes,” she said.
Felph challenged, “But won’t they draw predators?”
“Down as far in the tangle as we’ll be, most predators hunt by smell; anything that can see our light would sniff out our trail anyway. But the brighter lights might blind them.”
Felph grunted his assent, and they took the larger globes. Athena seemed to understand the dangers of the tangle better than any other.
Orick followed Tallea into the Nightswift.
Tallea watched Maggie through a shaded window. As a Caldurian, Tallea had spent a lifetime protecting the helpless. That is what drew her to Maggie now.
Orick said, “I know you want to stay with Maggie, I’m glad you chose to come with me.”
“Why?” Tallea asked, her voice hopeful. She turned her full attention to him, eyes sparkling.
Now it was Orick’s turn to pace. The big black bear hung his head, half closed his eyes. “I wanted to speak to you about something.”
He let the silence drag out, and Tallea seemed to take it for a bad sign. She sighed, shook her shaggy head. “Please, Orick, you don’t need to say it.”
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