Galactic Adventures Collection

Chapter 7

Violent pounding roused Fred from sleep. “Company security! Open up!” More pounding.

Fred crawled from the condicoon and dragged himself toward the door, thumbing the sleep from his eyes.

Outside stood two uniformed secuguards, behind them a corpreaucrat, judging by the herringbone skirt and jacquard jacket.

“We"re here for the mutaclone you should have recycled yesterday,” said one uniform.

Fred looked over his shoulder toward her bunk.

They lunged, forcing their way inside and hurling him backward.

“What"d you do with her?!”

Her bunk was empty, the conditioning cocoon neatly tied in a bundle.

“What"s this about?” Greg said, just extracting himself from his condicoon.

“You know very well, Gee Ess Aitch Four Five Three Four,” the corpreaucrat said. “Harboring a recycle is punishable with termination.” She turned to Fred. “Where"s she at, Eff Four Are Bee Eight Cee Three?” She pronounced each syllable with exacting certainty.

Fred hadn"t heard anyone use his designation in a long time. He was livid she hadn"t used his name, the denigration on her part deliberate. “How should I know, Eff You Cee Kay In The a*s!?” A distant part of his mind marveled at the utility of a phrase at least three thousand years old. He wondered how he"d even known it.

Stars exploded in his left eye, the truncheon spinning his head around. Of its own free will, his left fist rabbit-punched the guard twice, his right foot found the other"s crotch, and his right hand grabbed the corpreaucrat by the throat.

The two guards writhed on the floor, and the corpreaucrat gurgled.

“Fred, no!” Greg said.

The muscles of his right arm bulging, Fred stared into the terrified eyes of the fem exec.

“She"s just a corpreaucrat.”

He let go, and she dropped to her knees, gasping for breath. Then, again without a thought, he cold-c****d both the guards and did the same for her, his motions fluid, certain, precise. All three went limp.

Fred stared at his hands, disbelieving.

Greg gaped at him, open-mouthed. “How"d you do that?”

Fred raised his gaze to his father, shaking his head, convinced he looked just as terrified as the corpreaucrat had.

“Not sure when they made that recycle rule,” Greg said. “Either way, you"re mulch if you don"t leave. Here.” He turned and loosened a panel beside the door with his filaments. Behind it was a handcomp. “Been saving this for a rainy day.”

Fred knew what he meant, but only had a vague idea what rain was. He took the handheld computer cube from Greg.

“Controls an emergency shuttle near the execusuites on the corp side of the asteroid. You"re on your own getting there, but try the servitubes.” The service tubes gave maintenance staff access to all areas of the asteroid factory. Servitubes went everywhere. “Hurry! Go! If I can find Kate, I"ll bring her.” Then Greg frowned. “One more thing before you go.”

“Yeah, Dad?”

“I love you, Son.”

Fred hugged him, blinking away his tears.

Greg pushed him away. “Now me.”

Fred swung before he thought about it, the punch calculated and launched before he had any inkling that he was assaulting his own father.

Greg crumpled, and Fred eased him to the floor.

He didn"t understand why the corridor was blurry, why the hatch to the servitudes wouldn"t come into focus. He opened it by feel and slipped inside, his body lithe and spry as though he"d been trained in stealth. He closed the hatch above him and wriggled his way into the servitube.

He palmed the handcomp, which came alight. A map appeared on his corn, the green lines servitubes, the blue ones corridors. Along the corridors moved red dots, purple dots, and yellow dots. The red dots were security, the purple dots were execs (all of them normavariants), and the yellow dots were mutaclones like himself. Chaos was erupting in the corridors. The large, yellow dot was him, Fred F4RB8C3.

Mutaclone abortivariant F4RB8C3 has now gone rogue, the corn alert would read, klaxons blaring, strobe lights flashing.

“Cloak,” he traked, and his large, yellow dot disappeared. How did I know I could cloak myself? Fred wondered if he could secuchannel Kate and find out where she was. But that could only work if she weren"t cloaked.

If the secuguards are coming to find her, he thought, then they can"t locate her signal either.

Trust, he thought. If the emergency shuttle is the only way off this rock besides the regular supply vessels every two weeks, Fred thought, then that"s where she"ll go too.

All functioning mutaclones were being pulled from their condicoons, from their sector posts, and from the Wreck rooms to help with the search.

His body a machine, he took the service tubes as a worm might work its way through an underground burrow: hand, foot, exert, hand, foot, exert, hand, foot, exert. His eyes and senses tuned, coke and corn feeding him info, Fred was a burrowing machine. He was halfway across the asteroid when the first squad of mutaclones was sent into the servitubes.

Had they traced his route from his thermal signature? He felt his trunk and legs go cold, as if his metabolism were responding to his thoughts. His hands were hot and his face was aflame, trying to compensate. His core temperature began to rise.

On his corn, he located coolant and detoured into an air duct. His metabolism stabilizing, Fred waited a moment, sweat soaking his allsuit. He was cold in moments. His trail would be too. A heating duct would be equally baffling, he realized.

Moving again, his pace fast, Fred looked ahead on his corn.

Red dots were moving into the servitubes ahead, blocking access to the execusuites.

They knew what he was after. Had they caught Greg and forced the info from him? Fred didn"t think so, seeing Greg"s dot among his pursuers behind him.

I need a decoy or a diversion, Fred thought. The emergency shuttle was to the left of the execusuites, the main tarmac to the right. A storage yard full of cannibalized quadcarts sat to the far end of the tarmac, forlorn skeletons eviscerated for parts.

Even a rogue quadcart resurrecting itself might draw off a few secuguards, he thought.

The storage yard erupted, an extensible hurling quadcart parts left and right. The extensible ripped itself from its base and stomped toward the execusuites.

Did I do that? Fred wondered, darting forward as secuguards scrambled in response. Fred traked the shuttle to start its prelaunch sequence. The shuttle computer balked, asking for an access code. Cryptology awareness flooded through Fred"s mind, supplying him with the likely sequence. Where"d that come from? he wondered. He decoded the encryption in an instant.

Without time to question, he saw an opening where the secuguards had spread themselves thin. Fred slithered around a corner, did a reverse vault off a handrail, and brought his foot crashing into a secuguard"s jaw. The man went limp, and Fred dropped from the ceiling to the floor in front of the shuttle hatch.

As it slid aside, the shuttle warming up, Kate loped around the corner and dove at him, tackling him into the shuttle. “Launch, blast it!”

And Fred traked, “Launch!”

The hatch slid closed, and a red glow lit it from behind, the metal absorbing a laser blast. A rumble shook the shuttle, and it shot into space.

Dr. Sarina Karinova"s conversation with Tatiana Satsanova, the Premier"s daughter, had taken place three days ago.

Sarina had greeted the patient in the now-empty waiting room at her clinic, having dismissed her receptionist. “Pleased to meet you, Dr. Satsanova.”

Like her, Tatiana Satsanova was a medical doctor, but unlike her, the young woman had pursued gengineering as her specialty.

“Mutual, Dr. Karinova. By the way, call me Tatya.”

“Certainly, Tatya. Pleased. Sari for me.”

“You come highly recommended, Doctor. Feo speaks well of you. I might not be here without his gentle suasion.”

“If I may, I"d like to start with a physical examination. Come this way.” She led the younger woman into the exam room. “I"ve set out a fresh gown for you. I"ll wait outside while you change.”

Dr. Karinova stepped into the corridor and reviewed the file that Feodor Luzhkov had given her.

Tatiana stood five-eight and was generously endowed, possessing a figure that turned both men"s and women"s heads. She had wheat-blond hair cascading straight past her shoulders, sported a V-shaped face that took the breath away, had large, wide-set, intelligent eyes as blue as amethyst, and had a small smile that was warm and inviting.

Twenty-eight year old female, no known medical conditions other than occasional calcium leeching, broken arm at age eight from a fall off a swing, menses onset at age twelve, sexually active at fifteen, now married three years, no children, two off-world tours on asteroid clone manufacturing facilities each for a year, returned to Tantalus after the second tour due to excessive bone loss, a syndrome that the conditioning cocoons hadn"t been able to compensate for, now head of prototype gengineering for Genie-All, responsible for designing and articulating mutaclone models to spec for production.

“Ready?” Sarina knocked on the door.

“Yes, Doctor.”

She stepped into the room and started through the basics. “Mr. Luzhkov referred you?”

“Well, not exactly,” Tatiana said. “My mother, God bless her, has been insisting for weeks that I be examined, and I"d have continued putting her off if Feo hadn"t encouraged me to see you. My mother, the Premier, rules all of Ukraine from the base of the Norman Arm to halfway out its middle, but she hasn"t been given the memo that that doesn"t include me.”

“Tell me about yourself,” Sarina said, continuing with the exam, interjecting with occasional prompts. She listened as the young woman described herself in a voice she noted as rather devoid of inflection, as though she described events in someone else"s life.

“And what of your future?” Sarina asked, concluding her physical exam. “Kids planned? Vacations? Ambitions?”

The younger woman closed her robe. “I suppose I"ll want children someday, but for now I"m content piecing mutaclones together for production and sale. Last year, Karl and I went to the galactic core for a little sightseeing, and it was spectacular. We"re going to the Baltics in Cassiopeia next year, but I"m not keen on travel, as you might imagine, since my recovery from the bone loss takes about as long afterwards.”

Again, delivered with that monotone of describing someone else"s life. “Your bone loss places you at risk of early-onset osteoporosis. It could be reduced somewhat with vigorous daily weight-bearing exercise. Most passenger vessels have such facilities aboard.”

“That"s what I"ve been told, but I can"t seem to find the motivation. I just want to relax when I"m on vacation. Silly, I know.”

“How is your motivation?”

“Fine. I do what needs to be done.”

“And your enjoyment of day-to-day activities?”

“Fine. I do what I do and then I get to the next task.”

“And how have you been sleeping?”

Tatya shrugged. “I sleep just fine. Karl swears I never sleep, especially recently, but he"s a man. He expects hand-and-foot service, even from me in this day and age when we"ve got a mutaclone practically in each room.”

“And how is your libido?”

“I keep Karl quite happy,” Tatya said.

“I"m not asking about his libido.”

“I have orgasms. Is that what you wanted to know?”

“Not quite. Libido certainly encompasses that, but I"m asking about your desire for s*x. If may seem a bit of a personal question, but I"m your doctor, and it"s important.”

“Yes, I desire s*x, perhaps not as often as he likes, but he"s a man, after all.” She didn"t giggle, her monotone speech and manner evincing little or no insight.

“And how about your energy level?”

“Adequate. Always going. That"s how I"ve been since I can remember. High maintenance, Feo calls me.”

“Mr. Luzhkov calls you that?”

“Like a father to me. Before he became Chief of Staff, he was Mother"s household supervisor, kept me from running around with a snotty nose.”

“And how about your anxiety?”

“I don"t have anxiety. Doesn"t occur to me to worry.”

“And your appetite?”

“I eat, I drink. Karl tells me I eat like a bird, always insisting I eat more. It"s not as though I starve myself or never go near a condicoon for weeks at a time. No, not at all, in fact, I"m rather punctilious about using the condicoon every night, which annoys Karl terribly, since he has to get it off to have s*x with me.”

“And what about the future?”

“Oh, I"ve got one, quite bright for that matter, or at least that"s what everyone tells me. But I don"t want to go into politics, which Mother has tamed quite to her liking. Everyone always asks me that, but why would I do that to myself, parade and pander shamelessly to donors? I might as well be an escoriant without the s*x. No, I"d rather not go into politics.”

“What about your dreams?”

“I never remember my dreams. Karl swears that"s odd, but I don"t think it is. He says I used to, but now I don"t have them. Is that the reason I don"t remember them, do you suppose? That I don"t have them? Is it abnormal not to have dreams?”

Sarina hesitated, finding Tatya"s manner difficult to penetrate. She sounds so diffident about everything. “I"d have to refer you to a psychologist for that, as I"m no expert on such subjects. The question I was asking was somewhat different from the one you answered. What I meant was, "What"s the one thing deep inside that you really, really want from life?" ”

Tatya smiled. “To do what I"m doing, I suppose. That must sound a little fatuous, but I"ve no illusions about who I am. I like where I"m at and what I"m doing, and there isn"t really much I want to change in the galaxy. It is as it should be.”

“So, Tatya, your mother encouraged you to see a doctor, and Feodor was concerned enough to find me and to encourage you to see me. Why do you suppose they were concerned?”

“Professional busybodies, both of them. Feo at least is sweet about it. Gentle man, don"t you think?”

Sarina nodded. “You mentioned your husband"s opinions a few times. Doesn"t it seem he might also be concerned? Anyone at work mention similar concerns?”

Tatya shrugged. “They"re colleagues. They look at me odd, sometimes, but I don"t place any particular importance on it. I"ve gotten strange, desirous glances from people all my life, as though I might somehow have absorbed some of the authority that Mother"s wielded these last twenty years. But it"s opened doors that might otherwise have been closed to me, so I suppose there"s a benefit.”

Sarina nodded, realizing the young woman had avoided the question about her husband. A primary care physician, Dr. Karinova knew she didn"t have the expertise to penetrate the thick shell that encased the younger woman. “I"ll need to get a tissue sample and a blood sample. Oh, and your history mentioned a broken wrist at age eight. I"d like to order some imaging, just to make sure everything"s all right. Since you"ve had issues in the past with bone loss, I"d like to get a full geno neuro chemo, ferret out any sequela from the bone loss, if there is any. And finally, I"d like to recommend that you see a psychiatrist.”

“See a psychiatrist? That"s a laugh.” Tatya didn"t laugh. In fact, her tone hadn"t changed.

Sarina had expected some defensiveness, but Tatiana evinced none whatsoever in her manner. Token resistance in her words, but that was the extent. As though the suggestion had struck the impenetrable armor and had bounced harmlessly off. “Given your initial reluctance to see me, I sensed you"d probably decline the suggestion, but it"s clear based on the interview that I need to make the referral, if only out of due diligence.”

“Why, what"s wrong?”

And Tatya"s asking the question as if the last half-hour hadn"t transpired was itself clear evidence that further psychiatric work up was merited. If she weren"t so monotone! Sarina thought. “Here"s the psychiatrist I"d recommend, a superlative clinician with the bedside manner—” She changed her mind in midsentence— “somewhat like Feo. Doctor Floyd Benjamin.” What she had wanted to say was that the psychiatrist was a lot like the Premier herself, Tatya"s mother. “I"d like to get a release and include his results, if indeed you consent to seeing him. Is there anyone you"d like to have access to your medical information? Your mother, Feodor, your husband?”

“Just Feo, please.” Then she hesitated. “But just that I came to the appointment.”

“Appointment verification only.”

“Is that it?” Tatya asked. “I thought for certain you"d put me in a condicoon and run the full geno neuro chemo yourself.”

“I"m a general practitioner, not a specialist. Yes, that"s it. I"ll be in my office next door when you"re finished dressing.”

Stepping from the exam room, Sarina queued up the forms on her corn and trake-mailed them to Tatya for signature. After the signed releases came back over her neuralink, she put in orders for the labs, the imaging, and the geno neuro chemo.

Tatiana emerged from the exam room, looking slightly disheveled.

“Thank you, Tatya, it was a pleasure. The one thing Feo forgot to mention was how delightful you are.”

“Thank you. You"re very kind, Sari. Here"s my comcard in case you"re in need of a mutaclone. I can get you a discount.”

“Nice of you to offer, Tatya. This way, please. I"ll show you out.”

Sarina had returned to her desk, wondering what had just walked out of her office. No evidence of pathology, but enough in the way of anomalies that she"d found the interview disturbing.

At her desk, she reviewed sections of the vid, just to insure it"d recorded successfully. Generally, she didn"t get a full video and audio of her examinations, but given the circumstances—she didn"t often examine a Premier"s daughter—Sarina had thought it prudent to record the examination.

She"d even recorded the young woman disrobing, Sarina realized. That segment began playing, and she didn"t know why she let it run.

Tatya"s body was as perfectly proportioned as her face.

Her heart hammering in her ears, her face flushed with heat, and her loins soaked in high arousal, Sarina shut off the vid, surprised at herself. During the exam, she"d imposed her usual clinical detachment. Seeing the vid afterward had caught her with her guard down. I"m a happily married woman! she told herself. I"ll have to erase that segment later, she thought, the images unnecessary for her examination.

Dr. Karinova tagged the file as confidential and secured it with two forms of encryption. Even the receptionist wouldn"t be able to access the vid.

Securing the premises, she traked her wife to let her know she was on her way home.

And when Sarina arrived, she escorted her wife to the bedroom for a rousing episode of marital relations.

Doing her best to put from her mind the disturbing examination she"d just conducted.

Four and a half years after that first episode on the beaches of Marseilles, when Admiral Zenaida Andropova had hauled her son by the ear from the arms of the wealthy scion to his first class at the Post Graduate Naval School, Fadeyka Andropovich was released from Brygidki into her custody, the conditions of his parole requiring him to live at home and remain free and clear of illegal activity for the next five years. Even a simple infraction such as a hover ticket would land him back at Brygidki for the remainder of his parole.

Having Fadeyka home was such a relief for Zenaida that when he enrolled in college, she was overjoyed. His two years in solitary seemed to have finally inculcated in him the knowledge that he was required to abide by the law.

Brilliant by any standard, Fadeyka delved into Cryptology the way he had when he was younger. Interstellar diplomacy was longer of interest, his multiple convictions closing nearly all the doors in that arena.

About three months into his first semester, he began staying out all night. “There"s nothing illegal about that, Mother!” he complained when she told him to stop.

that“If it continues, you can live elsewhere.”

When the behavior was recounted to his parole officer, Fadeyka was reminded in no uncertain terms that he was required to live with his mother, the Admiral, or go back to prison.

“Twenty-two hundred, or live someplace else,” she demanded.

To her surprise, he complied.

Finally, she thought, some cooperation!

She did notice an increase in the number of “friends” who were dropping by, but none of them appeared after twenty-two hundred and none of them stayed later than that.

Then the school chancellor called, just after the semester was over. “Forgive me, Admiral, but it appears your son decrypted the security protocols on our grading database, and he"s been changing grades for money.”

Now, Fadeyka Andropovich sat in her living room, his head hanging, Zenaida having delivered what she hoped was her final tirade, ready to make sure the doorknob hit him squarely in his misbehaving behind as she kicked that same behind out the door to the curb, knowing she was condemning him to the remainder of his parole in solitary at Brygidki.

“What in God"s name is it going to take?!” she repeated, convinced there was nothing more she could do for him.

“You"re right, Mother. I"m beyond redemption.” Fadeyka shook his head, his gaze on the floor. “I guess I"ve got some genetic predisposition to criminal behavior.”

Zenaida caught herself before she blurted the first thing that came to mind.

“So, it"s my entire fault, eh?” she"d been tempted to say. As much futility as she"d encountered with him, he might have even deserved the rebuke.

But what if there"s merit to what he"s saying? she asked herself. I was swept rather easily off my feet by Dr. Innokenti Pablov. Perhaps there is some genetic vulnerability to licentious behavior. One that he"s inherited. “I want you to submit to a genalysis.”

wasisHis head spun toward her so fast she was afraid he"d hurt his neck. “I"m not a very good candidate for reparative theragenesis. Twenty-seven is far too late for that kind of intervention.”

“At least do the genalysis, Fedey. What can it hurt?”

He sighed and re-hung his head. “If you really think it"ll help, Mother.”

“I do. At least we"ll know, Son.”

“I suppose.”

“And I think I know a doctor, too.” The clinic in Kiev that"d been bombed, Zenaida was thinking, the doctor now in protective custody. “Let"s see if she"s available to examine you.”

Zenaida was relieved when Fadeyka didn"t object.

The thin, almost boyish mine supervisor whipped her arm at a rock face. “Yuri, that one, but reinforce the ceiling first.” Olena Doroshenko was fetching. Thin as a rail and nearly absent a single female curve, but pretty. The breather hid most of her features.

And she ran the most efficient mining crew on Zasyadko, pulling five tons of ore daily with just three mutaminers.

Yuri stood seven feet tall, and his biceps at their slimmest easily exceeded Olena"s thickest point in circumference. He was a mass of raw sinew and brute force muscle. Around his neck was a remocollar, which monitored his movements; although bred for docility, hypogonadism spiked into their genomes, these beasts occasionally turned on their masters. A remote in Olena"s hand would disable all three mutaminers in an instant.

But Olena never had to worry about that.

They worshipped her.

Reared personally by her, fed only by her, cared for and coddled and spoiled by her, these mutaminers jumped to do her bidding and never once questioned what she asked.

Her jealous colleagues, unable to match her output, spread nasty rumors that she slept with them too, but their hormonal profiles lacked the slight amount of gonadotropin and oxytocin needed for an erection, their p*****s practically vestigial.

Yuri stomped to the wall she"d indicated, lifted an I-beam to the ceiling, and held it there while his crèche-brother Yufi sank a post at one end and his crèche-sister Yuli sank a post at the other end. Then Yuri lifted a pick-axe whose blade was as long as Olena was tall.

The point sank halfway in on the first swing, and it took both Yuri and Yufi to dislodge it. The rock face crumbled under the assault, all three mutaminers loading shovelfuls of rock ten times Olena"s weight.

They"d exceeded their quota of ore before lunch, and now as day drew nigh, Olena saw they"d double it. She smiled, pleased with their work. She decided they could knock off ten minutes early, thinking to get them showered and back to their dorm before the crush of mutaminers coming off shift turned the locker room into a seething pit of sweaty, wet mutaminer flesh.

Yuli being a female wasn"t a hindrance. She showered and slept and worked beside her crèche-brothers in blissful sibling harmony, their physiques so bulging with muscle that Olena doubted they could have s*x even if they had the gonadotropins needed for arousal.

She herded them through the locker room, their bodies so transmogrified beyond anything resembling humanity that their nudity was nothing more than acres of bare skin. The s****l dimorphism between the crèche siblings was so slight that Olena sometimes got them confused from a distance. From the back she couldn"t tell them apart.

“All done? To the mess hall,” Olena ordered. “Awesome work today, people. Extra rations all around.”

Yuli, Yuri, and Yufi grunted gutturally, grinning like ghouls, their stump-like legs barely keeping pace with Olena as she led them toward the cafeteria, the short, thick stumps spliced into their genomes, better for the huge weights they bore, helping to reduce their mobility in the event of a rampage.

Olena had never had a mutaminer go rogue on her.

She herded them to a table in the corner and went to fetch a feed bin. It weighed more than she did, the antigravs helping her wheel it over to them.

Yuri reached into the bin.

She rapped his knuckles. “Oh, no, you don"t!” She always insisted on feeding them the first bite of every meal. “For that, you"re last. You know better, Yuri. That"s not like you.” She scooped a handful of lukewarm mush and fed it to Yuli, who took her whole hand into her toothless maw. Her lips and tongue tickled Olena"s hand like prehensile phalanges as they sucked every bit of mush off her fingers. She then fed Yufi a handful, Yuri whining plaintively, drool dripping down to his massive chest in buckets.

A large glop of saliva dropped onto the remocollar"s control nodule. Olena thought nothing of it, the remocollars impervious to just about anything. Yuri stared longingly at the mush as she fed Yuli another handful.

The control nodule fizzled. Yuri screeched, pawed at his neck, and ripped it away. A thin trail of smoke traced its arc across the room. Then he lunged toward the feedbin, pinning Olena. His massive upper body flopped onto the table, Olena under him, his weight popping her skull like an egg.