The Ascension Factor

I expected them to get on the air right away with Crista Galli, he thought. What does that tell us?

That they hadn't got her to their broadcasting equipment yet. He smiled in anticipation.

They'd better hurry, he laughed at the thought, they won't want to broadcast what they get once the drugs take over.

Captain Brood's plan would clean out Holovision and soften up Beatriz Tatoosh. Flattery always liked a plan that worked on more than one level. Brood would be the bad guy, and at just the right moment Flattery would whisk her out of Brood's clutches. Then she would join him gladly in the command cabin of the Voidship. He pla

Our children will populate the stars, he mused.

He drank to the future, and to the careful execution of plans.

She shows no sign of any of the Pandoran mutations, he thought. He'd made sure that she'd had no surgical corrections to mask any of the Pandoran defects. We could start quite a world, the two of us. In his wine-tinted reverie Flattery saw the two of them naked in a great garden, heady with the scent of orchids and ripe fruit.

The ready light winked on over the hatchway to the Greens, indicating a foil approaching the docking well. Only Flattery and Spider Nevi knew the coded sequence for docking inside the Greens. He glanced at his timepiece, then grunted his surprise and opened the hatch.

Nevi's a quick one, he thought. Too quick. Others, like Brood, guess at what pleases me. Nevi figures out my thoughts, my moves even before I do. That will have to be dealt with.

He stood and adjusted his black dasherskin suit. When he wore this suit in the Greens, his pets were much more affectionate, more attentive to his needs. He tried his look of disdain on the mirror. It still worked. The suit was a nice touch.

His console reported on the docking foil and identified two occupants.

That fool! he thought. Bringing Zentz into the Green... a waste. Too late to worry now.

When the time came for Zentz to be silenced he would remind himself to have Nevi attend to it personally.

The Greens was the Director's preserve below the Preserve. Plasteel welders and laser ca

The Greens itself was a lush underground park maintained by an old Islander biologist. At times Flattery called it "the Ark." No one who had worked inside the Greens had lived to leave the compound. Spider Nevi came and went as he chose, and exterminated those who could not. They were easily replaced, and just as easily forgotten.

The hatchway from the Director's quarters in his bunker opened to the edge of a deep salt-water pool, circular, about fifty meters in diameter. A blue glow rimmed the lower portion, light diffusing in from the lamps installed around the lip outside. This had been the rootway gnawed by the kelp, the last vestige of a great Oracle.

A gentle grassy slope led down to the pool, as well as three small streams that issued from the rock bulkheads. Animals did not do as well in the artificial light as Flattery would have liked, but his flowers, trees and grasses thrived. From where he stood inside the hatchway, Flattery admired the thickest concentration of terrestrial foliage in the world.

He maintained no human security inside the Greens itself but his secret did not want for protection. As the bubbling hiss of the ascending foil seethed the waters of the pool, the Director's trained dasher, Goethe, lay in wait. He knew that the other three remained hidden, stumpy tails twitching, somewhere within a quick bound. Nevi's personal signal toned three times, then repeated itself. Flattery dogged the hatch behind him.

The foil that rose from the pool was one of several that Flattery had designed for his own needs. These were the last foils manufactured by Merman Mercantile before the great quake had destroyed their manufacturing complex two years ago. These were capable of flight but with a limited range and payload. They cruised faster submerged than any other models. A glance into the cabin and Flattery put on the proper mask of disapproval for Nevi, frowning and shaking his head.

Well, Mr. Zentz first.

Nevi secured the foil beside one of its twins and waited on deck for Flattery to give the dashers their "all clear" signal. Zentz stood in obvious awe at the hatchway to the cabin, the snags of teeth in his lower jaw glistening saliva.

At the Director's hand signal Goethe slunk back into the foliage. The one he called "Archangel" crouched between himself and Nevi. Archangel, unlike Goethe, was an extraordinary hybrid of a successful gene-swap between the cats in hyb and the hooded dashers of Pandora. They were faithful and wished to please their master - two traits that Flattery admired in anyone, so long as he was the master.

Archangel's eyes watched Nevi's every move and he bristled when Zentz, too, approached the Director. There was another backup "at ease" signal for Archangel, but Flattery didn't give it.

Zentz is cornered, he thought, and cornered animals commit the unexpected.

Since Zentz would be killed soon, Flattery spoke freely in front of him.

"Mr. Director," Nevi said, inclining his head slightly.

"Mr. Nevi."

This was their ritual greeting. Flattery had never known Nevi to shake a hand. To Flattery's knowledge, Nevi only touched the people he killed. He did not know Nevi's record with women and did not intend to ask.

Flattery smiled and indicated the Greens to Zentz with a generous sweep of his hand.

"Welcome to our little secret," he said, and strolled briskly from the docking pool toward a section of fruiting trees.

"Pity there isn't time for a tour. Near-tropical heat, but you don't know much about the tropics, eh? Bore deep enough into rock and you get heat. Fewer than one hundred people have seen this garden."

And fewer than five survive.

Zentz swallowed audibly. "I - I've never seen anything like this."

Flattery did not doubt him.

"One day all of Pandora will look like this."

Zentz brightened so much that Flattery forgave himself the lie.

He turned to Nevi. "You saw the trap sprung topside?"

Nevi nodded. "Looks like we burned about three hundred. Crews are out chasing down the wounded. So far, nobody big. As we suspected, their eagerness outstripped their readiness."

"We ca

A pair of white butterflies tumbled the air between them and Zentz backed away.

Flattery smiled. "They aren't dangerous," he said. "Beautiful, don't you think? We've released these topside. They drink the wihi nectar. They have already multiplied the wihi threefold in and around the Preserve. You know its value for defens...atural booby trap. A problem, at times, with the livestock. The larvae of these beautiful creature... well, another time. I have two specific demands of your mission."

Flattery strolled to a plot of young trees, carefully planted in rows, in various stages of bloom and fruit production. Nearby, several hives of bees kept audibly busy. Nevi did not care for the bees, this Flattery well knew. He enjoyed Nevi's mastery of the neutral expression. He picked each man a fruit.

"Golden Transparent," he said. "A very hardy apple Earth-side. Since I am developing a Garden of Eden of sorts I thought them most appropriate."