Vacumn Flowers

“Is it?” The jitney glided toward the hotel’s docking ring.

The winds had almost died now, save for those generated by the spi

“See those weapons they’re holding?” Wyeth asked. “Air rifles. I had them machined in the tanks; the things are illegal in the Kluster. But I needed them. The geodesic’s too thin for lased weapons, and blades just aren’t fast enough.”

“You killed that man!” Constance cried.

“We’re not playing games here.” The corpse was being towed away. “I assure you, my reasons were good.”

“That’s what Heisen would have said,” Rebel muttered.

Wyeth looked up sharply, and then the elevator doors opened and the first cluster of twenty Comprise were ushered in. Their skins were dyed to match their orange suits; it would be hard to lose one in a crowd. But what struck Rebel was not their garish color or the single long braid that all—men and women—wore, but the fact that each face was different. She hadn’t expected that. For all that they thought, lived, and moved alike and were all part of a larger mind, each had the face of an individual human being.

Somehow that made the horror of it all that much more.

The group passed through single-file, some with eyes closed, others peering about with interest. Theirradiocommunication implants were invisible, placed deep within their bodies for safety. The leader broke rank and strode toward Wyeth. Two samurai fell into step to either side of her.

Wyeth looked up, waited. “We will need exercise areas, to keep these bodies in shape,” the woman said. “Also, the metal in this structure acts as a weak Faraday cage. We require that triaxial cable with local recte

“So?”

“Earth assumes that the charge for consumables will be reduced by an appropriate fraction of a percent,” she said,

“since it will not be able to consume them.”

“I'll see to it.”

The woman joined the rear of her line. As the first group disappeared, the elevator doors opened and the next twenty were ushered through. Wyeth smiled sourly.

“Wonderful stuff, eh? The Kluster is so hot to be rid of this crew that they stuff ’em right within striking distance of twenty-some tank towns. Let fifty of these characters into the tanks, and an army couldn’t dig them out. Within a month they’d have everyone in the tanks subsumed into their group mind.”

“That is sheer prejudice,” Constance said. “Earth is just another form that human intelligence can take. You’re acting as if it were an enemy.”

“It is an enemy, Ms. Moorfields. It’s the worst enemy the human race has, with the possible exception of the kind of stupidity that lets us think we can deal with Earth without getting burned. And the only thing we’ve got going for us here is me. I’ll see them all dead and in Hell before I let a single one loose.”

Outraged, Constance spun about and left. Wyeth put his hands on the edge of his desk and, stiff-armed, leanedforward. He stared at the Comprise filing by, his eyes two hot coals.

Rebel shivered.

For a long hour the Comprise passed through the lobby under deferential guard. Technically they were guests, since they were paying for transit to Mars orbit. So for all their blades, pikes, and singlesticks, the samurai guided their five hundred charges with smiles and bows. The Comprise, of course, displayed neither approval nor displeasure.

More ru

Rebel asked.

Wyeth shrugged. “I know diddly-squat about physics to begin with. And of course no one understands Earth’s brand of physics; they’re centuries ahead of us. You could program me up to be another Miiko Ben-Yusuf, and I couldn’t explain how that thing works.” Then his face warped into a mischievous smile as his aspect changed. “I can give you the lecture for idiots, though. The way it was told to me, what the ring does is to take the space lying within it and accelerate that space. It actually moves space through space, and those things lying within that space remain embedded in that space and go along for the ride.

So we’re here, and here we stay; only ‘here’ moves. The effect is instant speed. Velocity without acceleration. So you don’t have all the problems of inertia. Get it?”

“Uh… no, not actually.”

“Well, neither do I.” He laughed, and then the ring’s ru

Involuntarily, Rebel gripped the edge of the desk.

Onscreen, the transit ring, along with Londongrad, New High Kamden, the asteroid, and all other artifacts of the Kluster… vanished. It was as if they had been wiped fromthe wall, leaving behind only the unchanging stars. “Was that it?” Rebel asked.

“Not much to look at, eh?”

“What happens to the transit ring now? Does the Kluster get to keep it?”

“They wish! No, what happens now is that it’ll dismantle itself. Then Kluster security will analyze the pieces and try to figure out how they all fit together, and of course they’ll fail. The Comprise is very good at cybersystems.” He glanced down at the inputs, and his expression changed.

“Look. I’ve got a lot of work to do right now. Why don’t you check out your room, get some food, maybe catch a little sleep. Tomorrow morning, we can plan strategy, okay?”

“Okay.” She started toward the elevator, then paused.

“Wyeth? Were you worried when you saw Heisen trying to kill me?”

“Not really. I had samurai in the area. Why?”

“Oh, nothing.”

The upper ring, where Rebel’s room was, was filled with off-program samurai, pierrots and pierrettes, and other service types. They were in a holiday mood, plucking fruit from the ornamental trees, laughing and splashing in the fountains. Paint was begi

Somebody had broken open a crate of paper birds, and the air was filled with white flapping devices, flying in slow circles as their elastic bands unwound. Rebel strode through the revelers, full of melancholy energy, and this time she didn’t object when Maxwell slipped an arm around her waist and matched strides with her. “I hear they’re forming up an orgy in the water lily pond,” he said.

“What do you say?”

“Too many people for me. I’m going to my room.” Then, knowing already that it was a bad idea, but ru

The room was a standard luxury oval, with an off-center bed and programmable walls and ceiling. They stripped and tumbled onto the orange-and-red bear paw quilt, throwing their cloaks over the room monitor. Then, while Rebel instructed the walls to display a realtime exterior starscape, Maxwell wound all the birds tight and released them one by one.

The quilted bed floated among the stars, paper birds whirring quietly overhead, as they made love. At first Rebel sat atop Maxwell and did all the work, slapping his hands away whenever he reached for her. Then, when he was good and hot, she lowered herself onto him, and he seized her roughly and rolled over on top of her. He thrust away like some kind of machine, an untiring organic sex robot. She turned her head to the side, staring off into the infinity of tiny colored stars that was the Milky Way.