Allgood stifled a feeling of rage at the interruption. Didn't the fool know that the Optimen must always appear to lead the interview?
The words and images of your report have been seen, analyzed and put away,' Nourse rumbled. 'Now, it is the non-report that we wish.'
Non-report? Allgood asked himself. Does he think we've hidden something?
'Little Max,' Calapine said. 'Have you bowed to our necessity and questioned the computer nurse under narcosis?'
Here it comes, Allgood thought. He took a deep breath, said, 'She has been questioned, Calapine.'
Igan took his place beside Boumour, said. There's something I wish to say about that if I- '
'Hold your tongue, pharmacist,' Nourse said. 'We talk to Max.'
Igan bowed his head, thought, How dangerous this is! And all because of that fool nurse. She wasn't even one of us. No Cyborg-of-the-register knows her. A member of no cell or platoon. An accidental, a Sterne, and she puts us in this terrible peril!
Allgood saw that Igan's hands trembled, wondered, What's driving these surgeons? They can't be such fools.
'Was it not a deliberate thing that nurse did?' Calapine asked.
'Yes, Calapine,' Allgood said.
'Your agents did not see it, yet we knew it had to be,' Calapine said. She turned to scan the instruments of the control center, returned her attention to Allgood. 'Say now why this was.'
Allgood sighed. 'I have no excuses, Calapine. The men have been censured.'
'Say now why the nurse acted thus,' Calapine ordered.
Allgood wet his lips with his tongue, glanced at Boumour and Igan. They looked at the floor. He looked back to Calapine, at her face shimmering within the globe. 'We were unable to discover her motives, Calapine.'
'Unable?' Nourse demanded.
'She... ahh... ceased to exist during the interrogation, Nourse,' Allgood said. As the Tuyere stiffened, sitting bolt upright in their thrones, he added, 'A flaw in her genetic cutting, so the pharmacists tell me.'
'A profound pity,' Nourse said, settling back.
Igan looked up, blurted, 'It could've been a deliberate self-erasure, Nourse.'
That damn' fool! Allgood thought.
But Nourse stared now at Igan. 'You were present, Igan?'
'Boumour and I administered the narcotics,'
And she died, Igan thought. But we did not kill her. She died and we'll be blamed for it. Where could she have learned the trick of stopping her own heart? Only Cyborgs are supposed to know and teach it.
'Deliberate... self-erasure?' Nourse asked. Even when considered indirectly, the idea held terrifying implications.
'Max!' Calapine said. 'Say now if you used excessive... cruelty.' She leaned forward, wondering why she wanted him to admit barbarity.
'She suffered nothing, Calapine;' Allgood said. Calapine sat back disappointed. Could he be lying? She read her instruments: Calmness. He wasn't lying. 'Pharmacist,' Nourse said, 'explain your opinion.' 'We examined her carefully,' Igan said. 'It couldn't have been the narcotics. There's no way...' 'Some of us think it was a genetic flaw,' Boumour said. 'There's disagreement,' Igan said. He glanced at Allgood, feeling the man's disapproval. It had to be done, though. The Optimen must be made to know disquiet. When they could be tricked into acting emotionally, they made mistakes. The plan called for them to make mistakes now. They must be put off balance - subtly, delicately.
'Your opinion. Max?' Nourse asked. He watched carefully. They'd been getting poorer models lately, doppelganger degeneration.
'We've already taken cellular matter, Nourse,' Allgood said, 'and are growing a duplicate. If we get a true copy, well check the question of genetic flaw.' 'It is a pity the doppelganger won't have the original's memories,' Nourse said.
'Pity of pities,' Calapine said. She looked at Schruille. 'Is this not true, Schruille?'
Schruille looked up at her without answering. Did she think she could bait him the way she did the merest
This woman had a mate?' Nourse asked.
'Yes, Nourse,' Allgood said.
'Fertile union?'
'No, Nourse,' Allgood said. 'A Sterrie.'
'Compensate the mate,' Nourse said. 'Another woman, a bit of leisure. Let him think she was loyal to us.'
Allgood nodded, said, 'We are giving him a woman, Nourse, who will keep him under constant surveillance.'
A trill of laughter escaped Calapine. 'Why has no one mentioned this Potter, the genetic engineer?' she asked.
'I was coming to him, Calapine,' Allgood said. 'Has anyone examined the embryo?' Schruille asked, looking up suddenly.
'No, Schruille Allgood said.
'Why not?'
'If this is a concerted action to escape genetic controls, Schruille, we don't want members of the organization to know we suspect them. Not yet. First, we must learn all about these people - the Durants, their friends. Potter... everyone.'
'But the embryo's the key to the entire thing,' Schruille said. 'What was done to it? What is it?'
'It is bait, Schruille,' Allgood said.
'Bait?'
'Yes, Schruille, to catch whoever else may be involved.'
'But what was done to it?'
'How can that matter, Schruille, as long as we can... as long as we have complete control over it.'
The embryo is being guarded most adroitly, I hope,' Nourse said.
'Most adroitly, Nourse.'
'Send the pharmacist Svengaard to us,' Calapine ordered. 'Svengaard... Calapine?' Allgood asked. 'You need not know why,' she said. 'Merely send him.'
'Yes, Calapine.'
She stood up to signify the end of the interview. The acolytes turned around, still swinging their thuribles, prepared now to escort the meres from the hall. But Calapine was not finished. She stared at Allgood, said, 'Look at me. Max.'
He looked, recognizing that strange, studying set to her eyes.
'Am I not beautiful?' she asked.
Allgood stared at her, the slender figure with its outlines softened by the robe and curtains of power within the globe. She was beautiful as were many Optimen females. But the beauty repelled him with its threatening perfection. She would live indefinitely, already had lived forty or fifty thousand years. But one day his lesser flesh would reject the medical replacements and the enzyme prescriptions. He would die while she went on and on and on.
His lesser flesh rejected her.
'You are beautiful, Calapine,' he said. 'Your eyes never admit it,' she said.
'What do you want, Cal?' Nourse asked. 'Do you want this... do you want Max?'
'I want his eyes,' she said. 'Just his eyes.'
Nourse looked at Allgood, said, 'Women.' His voice held a note of false camaraderie.
Allgood stood astonished. He had never heard that tone from an Optiman before.
'I make a point,' Calapine said. 'Don't interrupt my words with male jokes. In your heart of hearts. Max, how do you feel about me?'
'Ahhhh,' Nourse said. He nodded.
'I shall say it for you,' she said as Allgood remained mute. 'You worship me. Never forget that. Max. You worship me.' She looked at Boumour and Igan, dismissed them with a wave of her hand.
Allgood lowered his eyes, feeling the truth in her words. He turned, and with the acolytes flanking them, led Igan and Boumour out of the hall.
As they emerged onto the steps, the acolytes held back and the barrier dropped. Igan and Boumour turned left, noting a new building at the end of the long esplanade which fronted Administration. They saw its machicolated walls, the openings fitted with colored filters which sent bursts of red, blue and green light upon the surrounding air, and they recognized that it blocked the way they had intended to take out of Central. A building suddenly erected, another Optiman toy. They saw it and planned their steps accordingly with the automatic acceptance that marked them as regulars in the Optiman demesne. The meres and inhabitants of Central seemed to know their way through the arabesques of its roads and streets by an instinct. The place defied cartographers because the Optimen were too subject to change and whim.
'Igan!'
It was Allgood calling from behind them.
They turned, waited for him to catch up.
Allgood planted himself in front of them, hands on hips, said, 'Do you worship her, too?'
'Don't speak foolishness,' Boumour said.
'No,' Allgood said. His eyes appeared to be sunk in pockets above the high cheekbones. 'I belong to no Folk cult, no breeder congregation. How can I worship her?' 'But you do,' Igan said.
'Yes!'
'They are the real religion of our world,' Igan said. 'You do not have to belong to a cult or carry a talisman to know this. Calapine merely told you that, if there is a conspiracy, those belonging to it are heretics.'
'Is that what she meant?'
'Of course.'
'And she must know what is done to heretics,' Allgood said.
'Without a doubt', Boumour said. Six
SVENGAARD had seen this building in the tri-casts and entertainment vids. He'd heard descriptions of the Hall of Counsel -but actually to be standing here at the quarantine wall with the copper sheen of sunset over the hills across from it... he'd never dreamed this could occur.
Elevator caps stood out like plasmeld warts on the hillock in front of him. There were other low hills beyond with piled buildings on them that could've been mistaken for rock out- croppings.
A lone woman passed him on the esplanade pulling a ground-effect cart filled with oddly shaped bundles. Svengaard found himself worried about what the bundles might contain, but he knew he dared not ask or show undue curiosity.
The red triangle of a pharmacy outlet glowed on a pillar beside him. He passed it, glanced back at his escort.
He had come half way across the continent in the tube with an entire car to himself except for the escort, an agent from T-Security. Deep into Central they'd come, the gray- suited T-Security agent always beside him.
Svengaard began climbing the steps.
Already, Central was beginning to weigh on him. There was a sense of something disastrous about the place. Even though he suspected the source of the feeling, he couldn't shake it off. It was all the Folk nonsense you could never quite evade, he'd decided. The Folk were a people for the most part without legends or ancient myths except where such matters touched the Optimen. In the Folk memories. Central and the Optimen were fixed with sinister omens compounded of awesome fear and adulation.
Why did they summon me? Svengaard asked himself. The escort refused to say.
They were stopped by the wall and waited now, silent, nervous.
Even the agent was nervous, Svengaard saw.
Why did they summon me?
The agent cleared his throat, said, 'You have all the protocol straight?'
'I think so,' Svengaard said.
'Once you get into the hall, keep pace with the acolytes who'll escort you from there. You'll be interviewed by the Tuyere -Nourse, Schruille and Calapine. Remember to use their names when you address them individually. Use no such words as death or kill or die. Avoid the very concepts if you can. Let them lead the interview. Best not to volunteer anything.'
Svengaard took a trembling breath.
Have they brought me here to advance me? he wondered. That must be it. I've served my apprenticeship under such men as Potter and Igan. I'm being promoted to Central.
'And don't say 'doctor',' the escort said. 'Doctors are pharmacists or genetic engineers in here.'
'I understand.' Svengaard said.
'Allgood wants a complete report on the interview afterward,' the agent said.
'Yes, of course,' Svengaard said.
The quarantine barrier lifted.
'In you go,' the agent said.
'You're not coming with me?' Svengaard asked. 'Not invited,' the agent said. He turned, went down the steps.
Svengaard swallowed, entered the silver gloom of the portico, stepped through to find himself in the long hall with an escort of six acolytes, three to a side, swinging thuribles from which pink smoke wafted. He smelled the antiseptics in the smoke.
The big red globe at the end of the hall dominated the place. Its open segment showing flashing and winking lights; the moving shapes inside fascinated Svengaard.
