Vacumn Flowers

The rude boys backed away, suspicious but obedient.

They disappeared.

For an instant Eucrasia’s technical skills came back to Rebel, and in a flash of insight she read the eyes, the facial muscles, that weird, smirking grin… This was not a human being. This was a mind that had been reshaped and restructured. The play of intelligence behind those dark eyes was too fast, too intuitive, too perceptive to be human.

Its mental life would be a perpetual avalanche of perception and deduction that would crush a normal human persona.

Rebel realized all this in an instant, and in that same instant saw that Wismon had been studying her. Slowly, solemnly, he winked one eye. To Wyeth, he said, “For you, mentor, I’ll gladly violate my own protocol. Go ahead, use the lock, I won’t even charge you for it. Just leave me the woman.”

Rebel stiffened.

“I doubt she’d be of any use to you,” Wyeth said. His eyes were flat and intent, a killer’s eyes—there was no impatience in them at all. “But even it she were, Deutsche Nakasone is after her. Do you really feel like going up against them? Eh?”

There was a dark explosion of hatred in those little eyes.

“Perhaps I do.” Wismon smiled gently.

“Now wait a minute, don’t I have any say—” Rebel and Wismon said in unison. Rebel stopped. She stared at Wismon in mingled outrage and amazement.

“Don’t interrupt, little sweets,” Wismon said in a kindly voice. “I can read you like a book.” He peered owlishly at Wyeth.

With a slight edge in his voice, Wyeth said, “Let’s put it this way. Do you feel like going up against me?”

A long silence. Then, “No, damn it.” One of Wismon’s little hands reached up to scratch convulsively at the side of his neck. It left red nail tracks. Then Wismon gri

They kicked out of the airlock arm in arm. Rebel touched helmets with Wyeth. “What was that all about?”

“An old friend.”

They drifted slowly toward the butt end of the Londongrad ca

“He was afraid of you.”

“Well… I did most of his reprogramming. When you put together a new mind, it’s kind of traditional for the programmer to put a Frankenstein kink in the program, just in case. Sort of a dead man’s switch. So that with a prearranged signal—a word, a gesture, almost anything—the programmer can destroy the personality.”

“I see.” It all had a familiar ring; this was something Eucrasia had understood well. “Was that what you did?”

“Of course not. That would be immoral.” They floated through unchanging vacuum for a time. Then Wyeth said,

“He’d only have found it and canceled it out, anyway. Thisway I can keep him guessing.”

Helmets touching, his face was intimately close. It filled her vision, craggy and enigmatic. Those green eyes of his sparkled. “How can you be sure he’d’ve found it?”

“Why not? He’s smarter than I am. And I found the kink you put in me.” He pulled his helmet away, and silence wrapped itself around her.

The ca

It was not an easy trip.

Not many hours later they were following a pierrot into one of Londongrad’s most exclusive business parks.

Under the canopy of druid trees, languid paths lit by wrought-iron lampposts meandered through dark fields and small stands of trees. Fireflies drifted hypnotically through the grass. A snowy owl swooped down on them, snapped out magnificent white wings at the last possible instant, banked, and was gone. “Wyeth,” Rebel asked,

“why did we spend all your money on these clothes? There were cloaks that looked just as good for nowhere near as much.”

“Yes, but they weren’t made of real Terran wool. When you go to the rich to ask for money, you must never let them suspect you actually need it.”

“Oh.”

“Now don’t talk. Remember you’re painted up as a recreational slave. So don’t smile, don’t talk, don’t show any initiative. Just tag along.”

Rebel moved her crossed wrists back and forth, settingthe leash co

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly thrilled about this part of the deal either.”

“It gives you an excuse for following me around. More importantly, it’ll confirm all of Gi

“No goddamn way!” she said, and Wyeth nodded quickly and glanced away. Rebel’s revulsion went right down to the bone, so complete she was certain it came from both of her personas. Well, that was one thing she had in common with Eucrasia.

The pierrot halted and, bowing, gestured to one side with a white-gloved hand. A brick walk led around a lilac bush to a simple office—a floating slab of polished wood for a desk, and two plain chairs—backed by a rock outcrop and sheltered by a Japanese maple. At their approach a small, quick woman rose. “Wyeth, dear! It’s been years since I’ve seen you.” Her skin was somewhere between amber and mahogany, her eyes midway between shrewd and cu

Her business paint brought up her cheekbones, played down her wide mouth. She gave Wyeth a swift hug and a peck on the cheek.

“Hallo, Gi

The executive studied him. “Same old Wyeth. Taciturn as ever.” Then she noticed Rebel. “Well!” Gi

Rebel stood by, as good as invisible, as the two exchanged pleasantries and moved on to business. Wyeth said, “I wondered if you were still providing professionalsfor the Outer System. Maybe the Jovian satellites?”

“You were hoping for something on Ganymede? Oh, Wyeth, I’m so sorry.” She placed a small hand on his forearm. “This comes at such a bad time in our orbit.

Please.” A schematic phased in over her desk, showing Eros Kluster leaving the i

“Well, perhaps I will.” Wyeth stood and retrieved his leash. “Been nice chatting you up, Gi

“Oh, don’t rush off! Stay and talk. You haven’t even asked what I’m working on. I’ve been transferred to the People’s Mars project. You must let me show you it.”

“Mars?” Wyeth frowned. “I’m not sure I’d be interested—”

“It’s a lovely package! Overview, please.” Holographic projections appeared behind her, like a line of windows winking open in the air. Spacejacks working on an enormous geodesic. A cluster of tank towns. Cold fusion reactors being towed slowly through the Kluster. An elaborate floating sheraton nearing completion. “The total cost is upwards of half a million man-years. It was wonderful how the whole thing just snowballed. It began with the orbital sheraton—the Stavka wanted to create a tourist industry. See the transformation storms, that sort of thing.” They swiveled to look at the holos. Wyeth took a chair.