Saturn's Children

by Charles Stross

  I could kick myself; I’ve been so stupid! I lick my lips. “Freya.” Something about this whole setup feels horribly wrong in some way, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Her reaction to me is odd—surely there should be a little more fire, a little less distance? First she seduced me, then she tried to have me killed—

  “Very good, Freya. Well, from now on you’re Katherine Sorico. Yes, I know all about Jeeves’s little stolen-identity ring. You’re not the only walking hollowed-out shell company his tame murderers gutted. Nor are you the only Rhea-lineage escort they’ve turned into an assassin. But I know how to deal with your kind.” She blinks slowly and stares at me for a minute.

  I feel as if I ought to say something, but I’m not sure what. Finally, when I’m certain she’s not about to start speaking again, I open my mouth. “That’s pretty rich coming from you, Granita. After you tried to kill me when I declined your offer.”

  “You turned me down?” She raises an ironic eyebrow, and I feel a momentary stab of lust in my guts. “Funny, I don’t remember that. I don’t generally make offers that people can refuse, Kate.” She’s playing with me! “What offer do you think I made you?” Her smile is mischievous.

  “You wanted me to be your personal dominatrix.” My lips are dry and rimed with ice. “To be part of your household and to do for you what I did aboard the Pygmalion. You were going to dress me in blackened steel with spikes, and call me your mistress...”

  “Was I indeed?” Her tone is as dry as the ice desert we fly across. “Well, there’s a thought. Such offers don’t come every day. Why did you refuse?”

  “I didn’t want to be—” I can’t quite think of it.

  “Let me tell you what you didn’t want.” Granita leans forward, smiling oddly. “Control level nine. Freeze.”

  I find myself unable to move. I can’t look away from her distant expression of amusement, can’t think of anything else: “Yes, Kate, I slave-chipped you. You’ve been running on control level one, with maximal autonomy, so light you didn’t even notice it—you probably thought you were humoring me, going along until you could find an opportunity to escape. Welcome to level nine. Say ’yes.’ ”

  “Yes,” I croak.

  “Say, ‘Granita is my owner.’ ”

  I know I ought not to want to, but I don’t actually feel any resentment. “Granita is my owner.”

  “Now punch yourself in the face.”

  I don’t even see my hand swing up, fist balled, but my head bounces off the seat back and the pain is brutal and sudden.

  “Remember this is level nine,” Granita says, when she is quite sure I am listening again. “Level ten control is reserved for our dead Creator’s police agencies—it requires human authentication and not even the Pink Police have access to that without a human in the loop—you’re not going there.” She’s not smiling now. “Control level one.”

  My mind clears. I shoot her a venomous look, but I’m quite calm. Struggling isn’t going to work, is it? I reach up and begin to remove both the soul chips I’m wearing, then realize I’m daydreaming idly. My hands rest quiescent on top of the blanket in my lap. But my face still stings.

  “Here are your guiding instructions, Katherine Sorico. You will obey me as if I were your template-matriarch and execute my orders with enthusiasm. You will not attempt to remove your currently socketed chips, and you will resist attempts to remove them. You will not disclose to any other person that I control you. If anyone asks, you are Katherine Sorico and you are an independent aristo who is happy to be my friend and associate of her own free will. You no longer need to be depressed because you will find personal fulfillment and happiness in pursuing my objectives, which you will seek to fulfill by any appropriate means. You will be happy when you complete assigned tasks, ecstatic when you successfully find a new way to help me, and depressed when you contemplate disobedience or failure. You will only become sexually aroused in my presence or by people I tell you to seduce. Do you understand? You may talk freely now.”

  “I think so.” It’s a lot to get my head around all at once, and her phrasing is odd, not to mention that some of it seems harsh. No lovers? What’s the point of that? “Do you want to give me any extra instructions now? I mean, if I don’t know what your goals are—”

  “Very good, dear.” Granita smiles happily now. She reaches out and takes my nearest hand between hers. “Yes, I have some extra instructions for you before I outline my goals. But first, I want you to tell me everything that happened since the moment you met your first Jeeves ...”

  WE TRAVEL WEST into the darkening night side of Callisto for hours. I tell Granita all about my travels, even the stuff she already knows—she seems eager to hear about herself as I saw her, and asks many questions, especially about our relationship. She seems to be obsessed with knowing how others see her, which is odd—she didn’t strike me as being so self-conscious aboard Pygmalion. But what do I know? I’m her property now. Maybe when we arrive wherever we’re going, she’ll take me back into her bedroom. I can hope!

  I know I ought to be climbing the walls or throwing a tantrum, but Granita is a levelheaded and experienced slave owner, and knows exactly what she’s doing. She eased me in gently and told me to stay calm, which is excellent advice when you’ve just had a controller installed and your owner is demonstrating it to you. It’s not so bad, really—she doesn’t want me to be afraid of her, she just wants me to enjoy serving her. I wish she’d tell me what she wants me to do, though.

  (Some of my memories of sibs are kicking up a fuss, of course. Juliette is in there, yammering loudly about free will and swearing at me, but I don’t need to listen to her. It’s not as if she’s got a leg to stand on when she accuses me of submitting voluntarily, is it? After all, she gets wet whenever she so much as thinks about Petruchio. And there’s something creepy about the way she felt about Jeeves, back in that office.)

  When I tell Granita about my meeting with Pete, she gives me a withering look. “You’re not in love with him,” she tells me curtly. “If you’re in love with anyone, it’s me.” And she’s right. I blink stupidly at her. Why did I imagine he meant anything to me when it was all just backwash from Juliette’s memories annealing with my own? He told me he didn’t want me! This makes it all so much simpler, although the realization brings a certain cognitive backlash. I thank Granita, repeatedly trying to express my relief, until she holds up a hand. “That’s enough. Continue your report.” Which I do, although it’s a trifle hard to concentrate when I keep imagining I’m sitting on her lap, and she’s undressing me.

  Presently, the sleigh slows and slides toward the inner slope of a crater edge, where pinprick green lights delineate the maw of a private vehicle park. Fuel lines snake across the carved apron toward us from either side; we’ve flown nearly two thousand kilometers, a quarter of the way around the equator of Callisto, and the sleigh needs refueling. A fat docking tunnel oozes forward on millipede legs, sucking and rippling as it slobbers for a grip on the bubble canopy. Granita unfastens her lap belt and stands up as the canopy dissolves. “Follow me,” she says, and strides up the tube.

  I follow my mistress up the tunnel and into a chilly reception area (and doesn’t it feel strangely natural to be possessed? I know I ought to be screaming, but really, there’s no point). Servants fawn over her and ignore me until she says, “This is the Honorable Katherine Sorico, my new associate. You, take Madame Sorico to one of the secondary guest suites and give her anything she asks for. Within reason,” she adds for my benefit with a warning glance. “Prepare yourself for a long journey. Select suitable apparel and baggage. No more than fifty kilos.”

  Gulp. “Inner system?” I ask.

  “No. Outer. We shall be leaving as soon as I have attended to certain matters, and my factor finishes purchasing the lease on a ship.”

  “Are we—”

  “Later, Kate,” she says sharply, and turns away.

  I shut up, and look at the munchkin servant sh
e told to see to me, a doll-like figure dressed in a livery that mirrors the colors of her establishment (for Granita has clothed all her servants in silver and white lace, the colors of her house). He’s strangely familiar.

  “Well?” I ask.

  The small guy looks up at me with an expression of blank indifference. “This way, Big Slow.”

  I try to keep up as he scuttles through a bewildering series of corridors dead-ending in rococo reception suites and broad, sweeping staircases and baroque ballrooms until finally we end up in a cramped cubbyhole not unlike the succession of second-rate hotel rooms I have been living out of for so long. “Where are we?” I ask.

  “We’re on Callisto,” he says patiently, as if talking to a damaged arbeiter. “Need anything? Or can I go, now?”

  “Where in Callisto?” I press, unsure why I need the information.

  “We’re in her palace,” says the munchkin. “Don’t ask me where that is, I just work here.” Then he turns to head for the exit.

  “Not so fast.” I plant the palm of one hand on his head. “I’m checked in at the Nerrivik Paris. Tell someone to check me out and bring my bags here. Failing that, scan the contents and copy them to a printer here. Yes?”

  “In your dreams, manikin.” He glares at me, buzzes irritably, and zips away. I shake my head, bemused. He’s so like Bill and Ben—and whatever happened to them anyway, after we split at Marsport? Jeeves didn’t know—

  I shudder, then I remember that it doesn’t matter anymore.

  LATER ON, LYING alone in my icy bed, I dream again that I am Juliette. It’s the first such flashback I’ve had since arriving on Callisto— in fact, my first since Mars—and I’m very afraid, and very alone, in this dream, because I’m lying in bed. And I shouldn’t be. I should be in microgravity with the Jeeves in the CEV, discussing my next assignment. Hand me your soul chip, he said. And I did, though not without reservations, and the next thing I know—

  Huh?

  I’m lying down, yes. And it’s very dark. Try opening your eyes, idiot, I tell myself. Nothing happens, and I begin to panic. I try to raise a hand—

  “Juliette? Stop trying to move. Lie still; you’ll hurt yourself.”

  The voice is familiar. Ferdinand Dix, one of Jeeves’s chop-shop artists. I must be undergoing maintenance. I try to relax, but I’m still worried. How did I get here?

  “Okay, that was just some early proprioception disturbing her— attitude monitor telling her she’s lying down, or something. Everything checks out. I’m bringing her up now.” Ferd is talking to someone else, which is odd—

  My vision begins to brighten and fill in from the edges, as if my eyes are only just coming online. Huh? My skin: I feel cold. I twitch a fingertip and feel something soft and yielding beneath it.

  “Welcome back, Juliette.” Two figures lean over me, head to head from either side—Jeeves and Ferd. “How do you feel?” The Jeeves looks distinctly uneasy, as if he’s seen a ghost. I decide to try to bluff, although the freezing certainty in my guts tells me that I’ve blown it.

  “I feel fine, boss. What happened? Last thing I remember—” I’m lifting an arm, trying to sit up, when I realize I’m actually lying to him. I feel like shit. Gravity here is light, but I’m really weak. In fact, all my upgrades are off-line. What the fuck? I’m back to the very basics I was fabbed with! I might as well be naked. “What’s going on?”

  Jeeves clears his throat. “Believe it or not, you died.”

  “What?” I bring up my right hand and stare at it. Yes, it’s my hand—or close enough I can’t see anything wrong with it. “I don’t understand.”

  “Sit up.”

  I’m beginning to do so when I realize what I’m sitting up from. I’m lying in a me-shaped hole in a foam pad on a table in Ferd’s examination room, and there’s an open shipping capsule to one side, battered and filthy. My vision blurs. “Shit!”

  I stare at my hand in horror. My hand, pristine, utterly uncustomized, even virginal. The horror deepens. I swallow. Does Jeeves realize what he’s done? (Yes, of course he does. But he did it anyway ...) “Who was she?” I demand. “Who was she going to be?”

  “No one,” says Jeeves, with a note of world-weary cynicism. “Here.” He tosses two small blue plastic chips at me. I nearly fumble the catch, then stare. They’re blanking plates for soul-chip sockets. “She was uninitialized. Dysfunctional, actually—she came to light in a job lot of obsolete models that were being recycled for spare parts. Old warehouse stock or refurbished factory spares. One has a permanent autobid for spares of certain models that come up for auction. It took this good fellow here nearly twenty days to work out what was wrong with your new body and get it ready to install you from that chip you gave us.”

  I still feel sick, but for an entirely different reason: terror. I remember my last first awakening, still thinking I was Rhea, before the unsmiling taskmaster told me otherwise. Glancing sideways I see Jeeves looking at me with an expression of profound distaste. As well he might, but for us to arrive at this pass, certain things must have happened... “Did she try to defect?” I ask harshly.

  Jeeves nods. “One is unaware of her current disposition, but it may be inferred that she was not unsuccessful.” He glances at Ferdinand. “You. Leave us. Now.”

  “Oh.” Shit. Without warning, bleak depression crashes down on me. I’m never going to see him again, I realize. She, the selfish cow, my earlier self—she’s gotten to him. Of course. Skipping out one jump ahead of Jeeves, she’ll be home and dry by now. And she’s left me to face the music. “What did Daks tell you?”

  “Daks?” Jeeves simulates surprise very realistically.

  I glare at him. “Do you think I’m stupid? What have you done with him?”

  “This isn’t about, ah, Pete. If you’ll calm down, stand up, and accompany one into the office, we can discuss it.” Jeeves is, as usual, oleaginous and syrupy. Only a tiny spark burning in the back of his eyes tells me how much trouble I’m in. What if he knows about the other stuff? Part of me gibbers, even as I try to thrust it back into the closet it jumped out of. What if— I ignore it.

  Ferd hands me a yukata as I stand up, and I pull it around myself as Jeeves slowly ambles toward the door, then pauses while I catch up. I’m weak and underspecified but my mind’s working full-time, of course—as it should be, because loading a soul chip into an uninitialized brain for the first time doesn’t have any of the disorienting slow-downs and inefficiencies of transferring memories between a soul chip and a brain that already hosts a personality. Although I’m going to find out I’m missing a lot of stuff if he didn’t start with an initialization dump from Rhea—what I’ve got is whatever I remembered when I—no, she—wore this chip.

  Item: I was thinking about how to get back to Pete when Jeeves asked me for the chip. Item: He must have suspected something then, too. Item: This body, virgin, unawakened ... even if he’s telling the truth and it was recovered from a scrapyard full of abandoned corpses, its arrival at just the right time is extremely disturbing. Item: Jeeves has no reason to trust me except that another bitch with my name and memories has already gone over the wall and done what I was just beginning to think of half an hour ago. I just hope he doesn’t know about—

  “By the way, you will obey all instructions and refrain from resistance, ” Jeeves says off handedly. I stop—or rather, I try to. My feet won’t let me. Oh shit.

  “What’s going on?” I ask, putting the right amount of tremor into my voice.

  “You know exactly what’s going on.” He opens the office door and goes inside. “Come in and sit down in the visitor’s chair. It’s time we had a little chat.”

  I can’t help doing as I’m told. Shit, this isn’t just about the object of desire; is it? Jeeves shuffles around to his side of the desk and sits down. There’s a solid thunk from the door frame as the security system engages. Shit. Shitshitshit ... Sheer terror begins to gnaw away at me. “Who are you?” I ask, and this time I’m not faki
ng the quaver.

  “I’m the Internal Security Jeeves. I take care of problems.” He isn’t smiling.

  “But, but, what’s . . .” I trail off. Is there any point in acting at this stage? He’s got me slave-chipped and rebooted in a weaponless body: I’m dead meat. The only question is why he wanted me back at all if he knows about the other thing.

  “Reginald confessed,” Jeeves says heavily.

  “Who’s Reginald?” I ask, trying to sound confused. It’s not a unique name, after all, is it?

  “Control level nine.” A blanket descends, numbing the senses. “Stop trying to dissemble. One is aware of your little affair with Reginald. You knew the rules; you continued despite that. You cannot claim ignorance.” He’s breathing heavily. “Reginald has been—disciplined. And reassigned somewhere where he can do no more damage. What I want to know is—why are there wear marks on your soul-chip contacts? What have you been trying to conceal from us? What ends have you been using the privileged access you extracted from Reginald for? Answer!”

  I try to answer—but I can’t. My mind is, literally, a blank. I begin to shake. It’s a horrible feeling, as if my mind is being crushed by an invisible fist. I’m distantly aware that I’m lachrymating, and all my biomimetics have gone mad, but I can’t think of anything but the holes in my head, the blind spots where I ought to know something, the other, whatever it is—

  “Stop.”

  “I don’t know!” I wail. “I really don’t—”

  “It’s definitely not in your soul chip, then?” Jeeves leans back in his chair. He sounds interested.

  “There are gaps! You’re asking me about stuff I—she—didn’t want me to know! She must have expected something like this!”

  “She took her soul chip out before engaging in compromising activities, ” Jeeves suggests. “Then she tried not to think about them when she replaced it. That would blur the process of memory canalization, yes? What I want you to tell me is what sort of things you might consider important enough to justify taking such extreme measures to keep secrets, even beyond the scrapyard.”