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I wanted children, and Tarzan would look like he was half outworlder.
I didn't plan the power failure, Terry. Hell, it probably tipped you
off."
"Yeah, you moved like you could almost see in the dark. And wore dark glasses
in daylight. The
Tanith sun doesn't get that bright, love."
"Bright enough."
"Tanith must have been perfect for you. The sun never gets high. In
this gravity everybody's got muscles."
"True, but I didn't pick Tanith. Tanith was where the ships went. What else
did you notice?"
"Nothing you could have covered up. I talked marriage at you so you switched
to Lex. While you were carrying my child."
"But I can't get married. In winter the tan goes away. I have to use tanning
lotion and do everything by phone."
"What was it like for ... you? Before?"
Brenda sat up. "For Sauron women? All right. I'm second generation. Test tube
children, all of us.
Women are kept in ... it's like a laboratory and a harem both. The first
generation didn't work out. The women didn't like being brood mares, so to
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speak, and one day they killed half the doctors and ran loose."
"Good."
"There's nothing good about any of this. They were hunted down and shot, and I
got all of this by rumor. Maybe it's true and maybe it isn't."
"They made you a brood mare too, didn't they?"
"Oh, sure. The second generation Sauron women, we like having children. I
don't know if they fiddled with our genes or if they just kept the survivors
for, for breeding after the revolt. They gave us a TV wall and let us learn. I
think the first group was suffering from sensory deprivation. Most of the
children were bottled, but we tended them, and every so often they'd let us
carry a child to term, after they were sure it'd survive. I had two. One was
Miranda."
"Survive?" He was sitting up now too, with the remains of his Collins.
"Mating two Saurons is a bad idea. The doctor's don't give a shit about
side effects. Out of ten children you get a couple of Soldiers and an
officer and a couple of girls. They're the heterozygotes. The homozygotes die.
Paired genes for infrared eyes give blindness. Paired genes for fast blood
clotting gets you strokes and heart attacks in your teens. You get albinos.
You get freaks who die of shock just because the adrenal glands got too
big."
"Yuk."
"Can you see why I don't want to find the Saurons? But these are good genes -
" Her hands moved down her body, inviting him to witness: good genes, yes. "As
long as you don't backbreed. My children are an asset to the human race,
Terry."
"I - "
"Six of us escaped. We killed some doctors on the way. Once we reached the
barracks it was easy.
The XYYs will do anything for us. They smuggled us into four of the troop
ships. I don't know what happened to the others. I got aboard Deimos as a
Soldier. None of the officers ever saw me. We were part of the attack on
Tanith. When I saw we had a good burn-through in theDagonCityshield, the whole
plan just popped into my mind. I grabbed a Soldier and we took an escape pod
and ran it from there."
"You're incredible." He pulled back to look at her. Not quite a woman . . .
not quite his woman, ever.
"Terry, did you wonder if I might kill you?"
"Yeah. I thought you'd want to know where the Saurons went first."
"You bet your life on that?"
"I bet on you."
"Fool."
"I'm not dead yet," he pointed out.
"Bad bet, love. When I knew you knew, I assumed you'd made a record somewhere,
somehow, that would spill it all if you died. I couldn't find it in the city
records. But suppose I decided to wipe out everyone who might know? Everyone
you might have talked to. Charley, Sharon, Maria - "
Oh my God.
" - Lex, Bob because you might have talked to him, George Callahan in case
Sharon talked, maybe a random lawyer; do you think I can't trace your phone
calls? Okay, calm down now." Hands where his neck joined his shoulders,
fingers behind the shoulder blades, rubbing smooth and hard. The
effort distorted her voice. "We Saurons ... we have to decide . . . not to
kill. I've decided. But you've got a ...
real blind spot there, Terry. You put some people in danger."
"I guess I just don't think that way. I had to know whether you'd kill me,
before I told you anything useful. I had to know what you are."
"What am I?" she asked.
"I'm not dead. Nobody's dead since you reached the hospital."
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"Except Van."
"Yeah. Van.But if any of this got out, you'd be dead and Tarzan would be dead
and, hell, they'd probably kill every kid who ever lived with you, just in
case you trained them somehow. So." "So," she said. "Now what?"
2656 AD, April (Firebee clock time)
Firebee approached the Alderson Jump Point with a load of borloi and bantar
cloth.
Tanith's sun had turned small. Terry searched the sky near that hurtingly
bright point for some sign of
Tanith itself. But stars don't waver outside an atmosphere, and he couldn't
find the one point among many.
"We made some good memories there,"Sharonsaid. "Another two minutes . . .
Troops, are we really going to try to reachSparta?"
Charley called from aft. "Sparta's a long way away. See what they buy on Gaea
first."
Terry said, "I'm against it.Sparta's got six Alderson points. If they're not
at war they'll be the center of all local trade. This beloved wreck won't be
worth two kroner against that competition. We might have to join a guild too,
if they let us."
"Isn't there a chance the Emperor would buy the data we got from Morningstar?" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]