Ione’s blouse came open easily under his impatient hands, and he pushed it off her shoulders. Her breasts were high and nicely rounded, with large areolae only a shade darker than her tan. He sucked on a nipple, fingers tracing the sleek muscle tone of her abdomen, eliciting indrawn hisses. Hands clutched and clawed at the back of his neck. He heard his name being called, the delight in her voice.
They fell onto the bed together, the jelly-substance under the sheet undulating wildly. The two of them rode the turbulent waves which their own threshing limbs whipped up.
Entering her was sheer perfection. She was delectably responsive, and strong, sinuous. He had to use his neural nanonics to restrain his body, making sure he remained in control. His secret glee. That way he could wait despite her furious pleading shouts. Wait as she strained and twisted sensually against him. Wait, and provoke, and prolong . . . Until the orgasm convulsed her, and a jubilant screech burst out of her mouth. Then he cancelled the artificial prohibitions, allowing his body to spend itself in frenzied bliss, gloating at her wide-eyed incredulity as his semen surged into her in a long exultant consummation.
They watched each other in silence as the bed slowly calmed. There was a moment’s silent contemplation, then they were both grinning lazily. “Was I as good as all the others, Joshua?”
He nodded fervently.
“Good enough to make you stay in Tranquillity, knowing I’m available whenever you want?”
“Er—” He rolled onto his side, disquieted by the gleam in her eye. “That’s unfair, and you know it.”
She giggled. “Yes.”
Looking at her, sprawled out on her back, with her arms flung above her head, perspiration slowly drying, he wondered why it should be that girls were always so much more alluring just after they’d had sex. So blatantly rampant, probably. “Are you going to ask me to stay, slap down an ultimatum? You or the Lady Mac ?”
“Not stay, no.” She rolled over onto her side. “But I have other demands.”
The second time, Ione insisted on straddling him. It was easier on his feet, and that way he was able to play with her breasts for the whole time she rode him to their twinned climax. For their third encounter, he arranged the cushions into a pile to support her as she went down on all fours, then mounted her from behind.
After the fifth time Joshua really didn’t care that he’d missed the party. Dominique would probably have found herself someone else for the night, too.
“When will you leave?” Ione asked.
“It’ll take a couple of months to make Lady Mac spaceworthy again, maybe three. I placed an order for the patterning nodes right after the auction. A lot depends on how long it takes to deliver them.”
“You know Sam Neeves and Octal Sipika haven’t returned yet?”
“I know,” he said grimly. He had told his story a dozen times a day since he docked, especially among the other scavengers and spaceport crews. The word was out now. He knew they would deny it, maybe even say he attacked them. And he had no proof, it was their word against his. But it was his version which had been told first, his version which was accepted, which carried all the weight. Ultimately, he had money on his side as well now. Tranquillity didn’t have a death penalty, but he had filed a charge of attempted murder with the personality as soon as he’d docked; they ought to get twenty years. The personality certainly hadn’t challenged his story, which gave his confidence a healthy boost.
“Well, make sure you don’t do anything stupid when they do turn up,” Ione said. “Leave it to the serjeants.”
Tranquillity’s serjeants were an addition to the usual habitat servitor genealogy, hulking exoskeleton-clad humanoids that served as a police force.
“Yes,” he groused. An unpleasant thought intruded. “You do believe it was them who attacked me, don’t you?”
Her cheeks dimpled as she smiled. “Oh, yes, we checked as best we could. There have been eight scavengers lost in the past five years. In six cases, Neeves and Sipika were out in the Ring at the same time, and in each instance they auctioned a larger than usual number of Laymil artefacts after they docked.”
Despite the warm weight of her pressing down on him, that eerie chill returned. It was the casual way she said it, the supreme confidence in her tone. “Who checked, Ione? Who’s we?”
She giggled again. “Oh, Joshua! Haven’t you worked it out yet? Perhaps I was wrong about you, although I admit you have been distracted with other matters since we arrived.”
“Worked what out?”
“Me. Who I am, of course.”
The intimation of disaster rose through him like a tidal wave. “No,” he said hoarsely. “I don’t know.”
She smiled, and raised herself on her elbows, head held ten centimetres above his, taunting. “I’m the Lord of Ruin.”
He laughed, a sort of nervous choke which trailed off. “Jesus, you mean it.”
“Absolutely.” She rubbed her nose against his. “Look at my nose, Joshua.”
He did. It was a thin nose, with a down-turned end. The Saldana nose, that famous trademark which the Kulu royal family had kept through every genetic modification for the last ten generations. Some said the characteristic had deliberately been turned into a dominant gene by the geneticists.
What she said was true, he knew it was. Intuition yammered in his mind, as strong as the day he found the Laymil electronics. “Oh shit.”
She kissed him, and sat back, arms folded in her lap, looking smug.
“But why?” he asked.
“Why what?”
“Jesus!” His arms waved about in exasperated agitation. “Why not let people know you’re running things? Show them who you are. Why . . . why carry on with this charade of the research project? And your father’s dead; who’s been looking after you for the last eight years? And why me? What did you mean, being wrong about me?”
“Which order do you want them in? Actually, they’re all connected, but I’ll start at the beginning for you. I’m an eighteen-year-old girl, Joshua. I’m also a Saldana, or at least I have their genetic super-heritage, which means I’ll live for damn near two centuries, my IQ is way above normal, and I’ve got the same kind of internal strengthening you have, among other improvements. Oh, we’re a breed above, us Saldanas. Just right to rule you common mortals.”
“So why don’t you? Why spend your time skulking around parties picking up people like me to screw?”
“It’s an image thing which makes me a shrinking violet for the moment. Maybe you don’t realize just how much authority the habitat personality has in Tranquillity. It is omnipotent, Joshua, it runs the whole shebang, there is no need for a court, for civil servants, it enforces the constitution with perfect impartiality. It provides the most stable political environment in the Confederation outside Edenism and the Kulu Kingdom. That’s why it is such a successful haven; not just a tax haven either, but economically and financially. You’ll always be safe living in Tranquillity. You can’t corrupt it, you can’t bribe it, you can’t get it to change its laws even through logical argument. You can’t. I can. It takes orders from me, and only me, the Lord of Ruin. That’s the way grandfather Michael wanted it, one ruler, dedicated to one job: government. My father had a lot of children by quite a number of women, and they all had the affinity gene, but they all left to become Edenists. All but me, because I was gestated in a womb-analogue set-up similar to the voidhawks and their captains. We’re bonded, you see, little me and a sixty-five-kilometre-long coral-armoured beastie, mind-mated for life.”
“Then come forward publicly, let people know you exist. We’ve been living on rumours for eight years.”
“And that was the best thing for you. Like I said, I’m eighteen. Would you trust me to run a nation of three million people? To make alterations to the constitution, tinker with the investment laws, put up the price of the He3 the starships use, which Lady Macbeth uses? That’s what I can do, change anything I want. You see, unlike Kulu with its court polit
ics, and the Edenists with their communal consensus, I have no one to guide me, or more importantly, to restrain me. What I say goes, and anyone who argues is flung out of an airlock. That’s the law, my law.”
“Trust,” he said, realizing. “Nobody would trust you. Everything works smoothly because we thought the habitat personality was carrying on your father’s policies.”
“That’s right. No billionaire like Parris Vasilkovsky, who has spent seventy years building up his commercial empire, is going to deposit his entire fortune in a nation which has a dizzy teenage girl as absolute ruler. I mean, he’s only got to look at the way his daughter behaves, and she’s a lot older than I am.”
Joshua grinned. “Point taken.” He remembered the crack about watching; of course Ione would be able to receive Tranquillity’s sensory images through her affinity bond, she could watch anything and anybody she wanted. A slight flush warmed his face. “So that’s why you keep on wasting money on the Laymil research project, so people will think it’s business as usual. Not that I’m complaining. Jesus! That last bid right you’ve got, seven and a half million fuseodollars.” His smile faded at the expression of disapproval registering on her face.
“You couldn’t be further from the truth, Joshua. I consider research into the Laymil to be the single most important issue in my life.”
“Oh, come on! I’ve spent years grubbing round in the Ruin Ring. Sure, it’s a mystery. Why did they do it? But don’t you see, it doesn’t matter. Not to the degree which the research team pursue it. The Laymil are xenocs, for Christ’s sake, who cares how weird their psychology was, or that they found some fruitcake death-cult religion.”
Ione exhaled, shaking her head in consternation. “Some people refuse to see the problem, I accept that, but I never thought you’d be one of them.”
“Refuse to see what problem?”
“It’s like that sometimes, something so big, so frightening, staring you right in the face, and you just block it out. Planet dwellers live in earthquake zones and on the side of volcanoes, yet they can’t see anything crazy about it, how stupid they’re being. The reason is all important, Joshua, vitally important. Why do you think my grandfather did what he did?”
“I haven’t got a clue. I thought that was supposed to be the universe’s second greatest mystery.”
“No, Joshua, no mystery. Michael Saldana established the Laymil research project because he thought it was his duty, not just to the kingdom but to all humanity. He could see just how long a project it would be. That’s why he alienated his family and endured the wrath of the Christian Church to grow Tranquillity. So that there would always be someone who shared the need, and had the resources to continue the research. He could have ordered Kulu’s xenoc-research institutions to perform the investigation. But how long would that have lasted? His reign, certainly. Maurice’s reign, too. Possibly even for that of Maurice’s eldest son. But he was worried sick that wouldn’t be long enough. It’s such a colossal task; you know that more than most. Even the Kings of Kulu couldn’t keep a project like this going on a priority budget for more than two or three centuries. He had to be free of his heritage and obligations in order to ensure the most important undertaking in human history wasn’t allowed to waste away and die.”
Joshua gazed at her levelly, remembering the didactic course he had taken on affinity and Edenist culture. “You talk to him, don’t you? Your grandfather. He transferred his memories into the habitat personality, and they leaked into you when you were in the womb-analogue. That’s why you spout all this crap. He’s contaminated you, Ione.”
For a moment Ione looked hurt, then she summoned up a rueful smile. “Wrong again, Joshua. Neither Michael nor Maurice transferred their memories during death. The Saldanas are pretty devout Christians; my Kulu cousins are supposed to rule by divine right, remember?”
“Michael Saldana was excommunicated.”
“By the Bishop of Nova Kong, never by the Pope in Rome. It was politics, that’s all. His punishment, dished out by the Kulu court. He shocked the family to its odiously complacent core by growing Tranquillity. The whole basis of their sovereignty is that they simply cannot be bribed or corrupted, their wealth and privileges make it totally impossible. They are the ultimate straight arrows, dedicated to service, because they have every physical and material whim catered for. There isn’t anything else for them to do but rule. And I have to admit they make quite a good job of it; Kulu is wealthy, strong, independent, with the highest socioeconomic index outside Edenism. The Saldanas and their century-long development projects did that for the Kingdom, a leadership which genuinely considers that its nation’s interests are paramount. That’s remarkable, bordering on unique. And they are revered for it, there are gods who receive less adulation than the Saldanas. Yet Michael considered an intellectual problem sufficient grounds to lay all that aside. Small wonder the family were terrified, not to mention furious with him. He showed it was possible to suborn a mighty Saldana, to turn their attention from parochial matters. That’s why the bishop did what he was ordered to do. But my grandfather remained a Christian until the day he died. And I am too.”
“Sorry.” Joshua leant over and rummaged round in his pile of clothes until he found the small pear-shaped bottle of Norfolk Tears. He took a swig. “You take some getting used to, Ione.”
“I know. Now imagine your reaction magnified three million times. There’d be riots.”
Joshua passed her the bottle. It was tipped up daintily, a few drops of the precious imported liquor sliding down past her lips. He admired the way the skin pulled taut over her abdomen as her head went back, the breasts pushed forward. He let a hand slide up the side of her ribs, questing innocently. The initial shock of her identity was fading like a stolen daydream, he wanted the reassurance she was still the same rutty teenager who had turned him on so badly back at the party.
“So if it’s not prenatal ideological indoctrination, what convinces you that the research project is worthwhile?” he asked.
Ione lowered the bottle, marshalling her thoughts. Joshua, among his many other faults, could be depressingly cynical. “Proximity. Like I said, Tranquillity and I are bonded. I see what it sees. And the Ruin Ring is always there, just below us. Seventy thousand habitats, not so different from Tranquillity, pulverized into gravel. And it was suicide, Joshua. The research team believes that the living cells in the Laymil habitats underwent some kind of spasm, cracking the outer silicon shell. They would have to be ordered to do it, compelled, probably. I doubt I could get Tranquillity to do it just by asking nicely.”
I might,tranquillity said silently in her mind. But you would have to give me a very good reason.
To save me from a fate worse than death?
That would do it.
Name one.
That is something only you can decide.
She grinned and had another nip from the bottle. It was an amazing drink. She could feel its warmth seeping through her. And Joshua’s lower torso was cradled between her thighs. The insidious combination was becoming highly arousing.
He was giving her a curious look.
“Tranquillity says it’s not very likely,” she told him.
“Oh.” He took the bottle back. “But this constant awareness of the Ruin Ring is still a kind of unnatural motivation. Tranquillity worries about it, so you do.”
“It’s more of a gentle reminder, like a crucifix reminds us of what Christ suffered, and why. It means I don’t suffer a lack of faith in the work the research team does. I know we have to find the reason.”
“Why, though? Why do you and your father, and your grandfather, all consider it so important?”
“Because the Laymil were ordinary.” That got through to him, she saw. A frown crinkled his brow below the sticky strands of tawny hair. “Oh, they have a substantially different body chemistry, and three sexes, and monster bodies, but their minds worked along reasonably similar lines to ours. That makes them understandable. It a
lso makes us dangerously similar. And because they were at least equal to us, if not more advanced, technologically. Whatever it was they came up against is something that one day we are also going to encounter. If we know what it is, we can prepare ourselves, maybe even defend ourselves. Provided we have some warning. That’s what Michael realized, his revelation. So you see, he never really did abandon his duty and commitment to Kulu. It’s just that this was the only possible way he could hope to safeguard the Kingdom in the ultra-long-term. However unconventional, it had to be done.”
“And is it being done? Is your precious team any closer to finding out what happened?”
“Not really. Sometimes I get afraid that we are too late, that too much has been lost. We know so much about the Laymil physically, but so little about their culture. That’s why we nabbed your electronics. That much stored data might be the breakthrough we need. We wouldn’t need much, just a pointer. There’s only two real options.”
“Which are?”
“They discovered something that made them do it. Their scientists uncovered some fundamental physical truth or law; or a priest group stumbled across an unbearable theological revelation, that death cult you mentioned. The second option is even worse: that something discovered them, something so fearsome that they felt racial death was a preferable alternative to submission. If it was the second, then that menace is still out there, and it’s only a matter of time until we encounter it.”
“Which do you think it was?”
She squeezed her legs just that fraction tighter against him, welcoming the comfort his physical presence bestowed. As always when she thought about it, the brooding seemed to sap a portion of her will. Racial pride aside, the Laymil were very advanced, and strong . . . “I tend to think it was the second, an external threat. Mainly because of the question over the Laymil’s origin. They didn’t evolve on any planet in this star system. Nor did they come from any local star. And from the spacecraft fragments we’ve found we’re pretty sure they didn’t have our ZTT technology, which leaves a multi-generation interstellar ark as the most likely option. But that’s the kind of ship you only use to colonize nearby stars, within fifteen or twenty light-years. And in any case, why travel across interstellar space just to build habitats to live in? There’s no need to leave your original star system if that’s all you’re going to do. No, I think they came a very long way through ordinary space, for a very real reason. They were fleeing. Like the Tyrathca abandoned their homeworld when its star blew up into a red supergiant.”
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