by Sharon Lee
And yet—he had done it! Taken the precious thing out of its case under the guard's very eyes, in a roomful of milling people, circumventing the central alarm—all, all, all himself.
Edreth glanced at the gun, raised his brows and repeated. "Well?"
"I've brought it, master," he said, fighting to keep his cracking voice even. "I took it as you said to, during peak hours, and left the central system intact."
"I see." Edreth deigned to take the thing then, and study it, and rub his hand along the worn satin wood. "Very well." He held the gun out, grip first.
"Now, put it back."
"Put it back!" He gasped, voice cracking twice.
Edreth raised his brows and Gem reluctantly took the beautiful old thing and slipped it out of sight.
"Yes, master," he said, and silently sighed.
Back at the museum, he twisted the knob in a door cracked and drizzling paint chips; pushed it open and stepped gingerly over the rotting threshold—to stop in mingled shock and terror as the young man struck the older and shouted, "Where is he?"
"I don't know," the old man said, and was shaken brutally by the one who held him, arms pinned behind, while the questioner merely shrugged and went to a shelf, extracted a book, displayed it and tossed it into the flames.
"No!" He leapt across the room, knife out, but Shilban was hanging limp and slack-faced and a thrust killed the questioner and a slash across the throat accounted for the other and—
"Shilban?" More a hiss than a word—the best that swollen tongue and cracked lips could do.
The dream receded, leaving him a reality shot with various aches, of which pounding head and ringing ears were the worst. Thirst was a misery that accelerated toward agony as he came more fully aware.
Where? he wondered.
He was lying on his stomach on a soft surface; and his mistreated ears could detect no sound, beyond the hum of the filtering system. He pried his eyes open; ran dry tongue over sticky lips and tasted salt.
Bare inches from his nose was a mug, painted with a design of white flowers on a field of blue—handmade, his automatic appraisal went, but not intrinsically valuable. He concentrated, moved an arm that was dead weight alone, without muscle or sensation; forced it to place its fingers around the mug and lift it.
Raised his head—and drank.
There was a bitter tang to the water, but he drained the mug and allowed his head to thump onto the mattress. Slack fingers still braceleting the cup, he closed his eyes and listened to the chime of his ears, and the beat of his heart.
* * *
"Wake up!"
The command was emphasized by a whack across his rump and Gem gasped, twisted, hand with cup rising for the throw—and froze, as the man with the bitter eyes leveled a gun at him.
"Try it," he said softly, finger taut on the trigger. "Just give me an excuse, okay?"
"No," Gem rasped. The man grunted, disappointment showing, and motioned with the gun.
"Up you go—nice and easy—hands where I can see them, okay?"
He slid to his feet, nice and easy, and stood with his hands at chest level, open and palm-out, facing his captor.
"Turn around," the man said; "out the door and left. Try to run and you're meat, got it? Just like Birl and Julen."
Wordlessly, with exquisite gentleness, Gem turned and walked toward the door, which opened at his approach, and turned left down the hallway. Behind him, the gunman's boots squeaked.
"Hold it!"
Gem obeyed, glancing quickly around. To the left a blank white wall. To the right, a door indistinguishable from the last six they had passed. The gunman stepped forward, weapon trained on the center of Gem's chest, and laid his hand against the plate.
The door slid aside and he gestured with the gun. "Inside."
Inside was real wooden flooring, and a handwoven rug in rusts and browns and cream centered before a teak-wood desk as large as a single-man spacecraft. The walls were white, here hanging an abstract painting, there a rope-braided tapestry. Bookshelves held pottery totems, bits of unfinished gem and carvings. Gem's hands itched, his thief's judgment estimating and evaluating.
"Here he is, Ms. Belaconto."
Estimation crashed to a halt. He turned gently toward the window and bowed.
"Lady."
"Gem ser Edreth." She strolled toward him across yet another handmade rug, aquamarine eyes wide in a face that betrayed somewhat of tension. "I hope your accommodations were not overly unpleasant."
"I had very little opportunity to study them," he said as she stopped before him.
"Then all's well." She glanced beyond his shoulder. "You may go, Carmen."
"Ms. Belaconto—"
"I said that you may go, Carmen," Steel glinted in the perfect voice before she smiled and inclined her head. "Thank you."
"Yes, Ms. Belaconto." A whisper of sound, which may have been his bow, and a bit of boot-squeak before the door whispered open—snicked shut.
"Well." She smiled, slightly and unconvincingly, and gestured toward the chairs set near the window. "I beg you, sir, seat yourself and be comfortable."
He cleared his throat softly. "Lady, I ask why you have brought me here."
"Why, to continue our conversation," she said; "but there is no reason for us to be uncomfortable while we speak. Please, sir—sit down."
There was command in that and his body almost betrayed him by obeying. He shook his head sharply. "The conversation we parted on was finished; though I might ask you how it happens that your gun-sworn were harrying a grandfather in OldTown?"
There was a slight pause before she turned and walked a few paces away from him, toward the rug and facing chairs. "They were there at my order," she said flatly; "to discover what had become of Gem ser Edreth." Another pause, which he did nothing to fill; then, softly, baiting him:
"You do not ask what became of the old man."
He bowed. "I had hoped that the hospitality you had shown me you had also extended to him."
"Then you're a fool," she snapped, eyes glittering; "he's dead."
Grief, sudden and crushing—and as quickly, outrage, that she should order it; that she should gloat of it and use it like a knife, to cut and weaken him.
She smiled. "You will do as I say, Gem ser Edreth, and you will do it with courtesy and care."
"Because you murder my friend and savage my house?" He snapped forward two paces; saw her hand slip into her pocket and stopped, grinning. "A gun, lady? Shoot me and all's for nothing—as it is now! Shall I obey a madwoman, who kills for no cause? You destroy before you threaten; and—"
"Your cousin."
He froze, staring; saw the outline of hand in pocket tense, as if she gripped the gun in earnest.
"Your cousin," she repeated. "Corbinye Faztherot."
He took a deep breath. "She is not in this."
She smiled, and gently shook her head. "Your cousin is in the Blue House."
Fury jerked him forward; the gun in her hand stopped him, and his thoughts were for Corbinye, who was strong and full of life and in it because she had threatened a madwoman's minions. Corbinye, with her own mad obsession, and her youth and her off-handed courage.
The Blue House—ship and stars! What a fine price Corbinye's body would bring!
"There is nothing left for you to destroy, then, Saxony Belaconto," he heard himself say from worlds away, "saving only myself."
"The bitch is alive!" she snapped, finger tight on the trigger of her gun. "She should be dead—I lost two top fighters to her and—a captain. All beyond recall! But your cousin we brought to the Blue House, though she was two breaths away from her death. We paid the price—and she lives."
He stood utterly still, looking at her and thinking how many tricks were yet possible; and how unlikely it was that Corbinye's new body in any way approached the perfection of her original.
"Because we have shown this mercy—gone to this expense—for your cousin," Saxony Belaconto was saying,
very softly, "you will do precisely as you are told. Fail in any way and she gains yet a third body—as old and decrepit and ugly and painful as can be acquired." She lowered the gun, slowly, but did not yet slip it away. "Do you understand me, Gem ser Edreth?"
"I will see her."
She laughed, sweet and horrifying as a girl. "But, of course! Take the evening—assure yourself that the Vornet is generous, even to its enemies. And return to me at Second Noon tomorrow, so that I may give you the details of your task." She waved a hand. "You may go."
He did so, omitting the bow.
Chapter Fifteen
The walls were covered with red-and-gold flowers, printed on a reflective foil background. There were tubs of flowers flanking the receptionist, flooding the waiting room with their odor, and an empty bud vase on his desk. He nodded as he scanned the patient list and looked up at Gem with a smile.
"Corbinye Faztherot. Yes, sir. Room 14-86. Our Ms. Jancy will escort you. Just a moment while I let her know you're here." He touched a key on his console. Gem wandered across the room, wincing away from the gaudy wallpaper and the sharp-edged light, and stared out the window.
The Blue House was on a mezzanine level—MidTown, according to the local government—equally handy to Up and DownTown; within sight of the Port. Gem stared at the familiar constellation of DownTown. No reason, now, to bide away from his house—mere instinct had sent him to an UpTown hotel to shower and change into clothes more expected of a family affluent enough to pay the body-fee.
"Master ser Edreth?" The woman who asked it was petite and sprightly and smiling. He bowed and lightly brushed her outstretched hand with the tips of his fingers.
"I'm Coral Jancy," she said, smile never dimming. "You're here to see your cousin, I'm told. Right this way."
He followed her past the receptionist and the tubs of flowers; through a door and into a blessedly dim hallway.
"Have you been here before?" his guide asked him, smiling up into his face. "Visited a friend, perhaps, or another member of your family who had undergone translation?"
He shook his head. "No."
"Well, then," she said cheerily, "don't be disappointed if your cousin seems a little disoriented, or takes a little while to recognize you. It's perfectly natural. The procedure is perfectly safe, but it is radical and there is a progression of natural and necessary adjustments that the patient must go through on her way to complete synergy."
"Yes," said Gem, trying to breathe evenly, though the smell of flowers was overpowering.
"Now, in your cousin's case," Ms. Jancy continued, "we were quite, quite fortunate. Of course, we always try to match body-type as closely as possible in emergency cases, to minimize any further shock to the patient, you know."
"Of course," Gem echoed, as they turned into a wider hallway and paused before a bank of lifts.
Ms. Jancy pressed a button; stepped into the lift, Gem at her heels. "Fourteen," she said into the speaker, and the doors slid shut.
"I'm sure you know that young bodies in good health are difficult to come by," she said, smiling back at Gem, "but in this case, it happens that we had just finished preparing a host—a female quite near your cousin's age, I'd say; approximately the same height and coloring. Facial features—well, that's a little harder for me to say, considering the shape she was in—but your cousin was a handsome girl, I'd imagine."
She paused, apparently awaiting some response. Gem cleared his throat. "Quite handsome, yes."
Ms. Jancy nodded happily. "I'm sure she'll be quite pleased with the new host. A suicide, of course." She touched his sleeve soothingly. "Nothing violent! And no residual drugs—the procedure mandates a complete flush of the host body before translation."
The lift door opened then, and he followed her out into a cheery yellow hall. The reek of flowers nearly choked him.
"Here we are!" Ms. Jancy laid her hand on a door bearing the legend "86" and it slid open. "There's a small antechamber, and refreshments in the refrigerator. Beyond is your cousin's bedroom." Again, she touched his sleeve. "Remember, she's newly translated, and might be a bit disoriented yet; give her time to recall you. If she falls asleep, please don't wake her. Sleep is very important at this stage of the process. All right?"
"All right," said Gem numbly and her smile became even brighter.
"Have a nice visit, now. Call the desk when you're ready to go—there's a phone in the anteroom." She touched his sleeve once more and went lightly down the hall.
Gem stepped into Suite 86, his stomach full of stone, and the door slid shut behind him, closing away the stink of flowers.
* * *
The walls were pale blue; the thick carpet sapphire. There was a recliner, a refrigerator/bar combo, a walldesk and chair. The walldesk held a computer screen and a voice-phone.
There was a velvet curtain across the door into the next room. Gem lifted it aside with icy fingers and stepped into sapphire dimness.
The body shrouded by the silky blue blanket was long, though not as long as it might have been, nor nearly so angular. The hair was a torrent of deep yellow, swirling over a shoal of jewel-colored pillows.
The face—the face was a delight of smooth honey skin molding high, sweet cheekbones and rounded chin. A face to haunt dreams, to break hearts, to inspire poetry.
But never, never, never her own.
Horror buckled his knees and he knelt, staring at her, fingers twisting in the blue blanket as he breathed her name.
"Corbinye?"
Slim brows contracted over velvet-lashed eyes. "Who is that?" Soft, resonant, flexible—a singer's voice.
He cleared his throat. "Gem."
"Anjemalti!" Exultation and terror in that expressive voice. The thick lashes flickered, snapped open to reveal black eyes, overlarge, by Grounder standards, moist and half-crazed. She struggled, got a hand free of the blanket and groped toward him. "Anjemalti."
Almost, he failed of raising his hand to take hers; was astonished at the warmth and softness of her flesh. "Gently," he said, remembering the cautions he had been given. "Gently, Corbinye. Do not tire yourself."
She did not seem to hear him; her fingers dug into his hand; her eyes wide and unfocused. "Anjemalti, where am I? What has happened? They come—they say things—they drug me to sleep—I cannot walk; I can barely raise a hand! And my eyes—my eyes . . ."
Madness, of the kind that came when one knew oneself to be desperately ill. So had Edreth been, in the last few days. Gem squeezed the warm hand in his and made to lie it back upon the coverlet.
"Be easy, Corbinye; all—"
"Do not tell me that all is well!" she cried, fingers tightening. "Tell me what has happened!"
He hesitated, and suddenly her fingers went slack; the lashes drooped over her eyes. "Anjemalti—" and even her voice had lost its vigor—"By any god you own to—I beg you to tell me the truth."
He felt the shape of the hand he held; looked at the lovely, alien face and cleared his throat.
"You were in a fight," he began and felt her shudder.
"I recall it."
"Yes." He touched tongue to dry lips. "You were badly hurt, Corbinye, and your eyes—you were given new eyes."
They opened, staring toward his voice in what must seem to her to be utter darkness.
"New eyes," she repeated, dread softening toward understanding. "A transplant?"
"New eyes," Gem repeated and found the courage to raise his other hand and touch her honey cheek. "And also an entirely new body."
She neither cried out, nor recoiled, nor even wept, but was merely silent for a time, staring hard into her darkness.
"Anjemalti," she said finally; "one does not go drunk to comfort kin."
"No," he agreed.
She drew a deep breath. "A new body?"
"You were dying," he told her, struggling to keep his voice free of horror. "You had been so badly beaten there was no chance of healing your hurts." He hesitated, but she made no sound. "There is technol
ogy—they transferred you—your personality, your memories, your self—into a healthy, whole body. . .." He stumbled to a halt and knelt there staring at her until she sighed and asked, with a sort of strained calm:
"Can you see me?"
"Yes," he said, biting off the "of course."
"And I cannot see you," she mused. "You tell me you see this new body."
"Yes," he said again and felt her fingers tighten on his.
"Anjemalti, turn on the light."
"Corbinye—" his voice choked out and he felt himself trembling, knowing what she would demand next; knowing what he would demand, in her place.
"They cannot hide me from myself forever!" she cried, half coming up off the pillows. She fell back as if her strength failed then and her hand went limp in his. "Anjemalti—"
"Yes." He laid her hand down and lurched to his feet, found the switch and brought the lights up until he saw the distended pupils begin to shrink and, unasked, went over to the dresser.
She was staring at her own hand when he came back to kneel at the bedside and terror was beginning to show in her face.
"Corbinye?"
She looked at him; lifted her hand with grinding effort and lightly touched his cheek, as he had just touched hers.
"Hold the mirror for me, cousin."
Wordless, he brought it up; watched her trace the winging brows, touch the rounded chin and stare into her own eyes. The tears, when they came, came silently, sliding unabated beneath her lashes, when at last she closed her eyes.
Gem set the glass aside, took her hand between both of his and tried to rub warmth into fingers gone damp and chill.
"Corbinye—"
"Do not call me that!" She turned her face away, breast heaving.
"It is your name!" he snapped, holding to her hand in new terror, lest she deny the body she found herself in and will her death upon her.