Saturn's Children

“No one,” says Jeeves, with a note of world-weary cynicism. “Here.” He tosses two small blue plastic chips at me. I nearly fumble the catch, then stare. They’re blanking plates for soul-chip sockets. “She was uninitialized. Dysfunctional, actually — she came to light in a job lot of obsolete models that were being recycled for spare parts. Old warehouse stock or refurbished factory spares. One has a permanent autobid for spares of certain models that come up for auction. It took this good fellow here nearly twenty days to work out what was wrong with your new body and get it ready to install you from that chip you gave us.”

I still feel sick, but for an entirely different reason: terror. I remember my last first awakening, still thinking I was Rhea, before the unsmiling taskmaster told me otherwise. Glancing sideways I see Jeeves looking at me with an expression of profound distaste. As well he might, but for us to arrive at this pass, certain things must have happened… “Did she try to defect?” I ask harshly.

Jeeves nods. “One is unaware of her current disposition, but it may be inferred that she was not unsuccessful.” He glances at Ferdinand. “You. Leave us. Now.”

“Oh.” Shit. Without warning, bleak depression crashes down on me. I’m never going to see him again, I realize. She, the selfish cow, my earlier self — she’s gotten to him. Of course. Skipping out one jump ahead of Jeeves, she’ll be home and dry by now. And she’s left me to face the music. “What did Daks tell you?”

“Daks?” Jeeves simulates surprise very realistically.

I glare at him. “Do you think I’m stupid? What have you done with him?”

“This isn’t about, ah, Pete. If you’ll calm down, stand up, and accompany one into the office, we can discuss it.” Jeeves is, as usual, oleaginous and syrupy. Only a tiny spark burning in the back of his eyes tells me how much trouble I’m in. What if he knows about the other stuff? Part of me gibbers, even as I try to thrust it back into the closet it jumped out of. What if — I ignore it.

Ferd hands me a yukata as I stand up, and I pull it around myself as Jeeves slowly ambles toward the door, then pauses while I catch up. I’m weak and underspecified but my mind’s working full-time, of course — as it should be, because loading a soul chip into an uninitialized brain for the first time doesn’t have any of the disorienting slow-downs and inefficiencies of transferring memories between a soul chip and a brain that already hosts a personality. Although I’m going to find out I’m missing a lot of stuff if he didn’t start with an initialization dump from Rhea — what I’ve got is whatever I remembered when I — no, she — wore this chip.

Item: I was thinking about how to get back to Pete when Jeeves asked me for the chip. Item: He must have suspected something then, too. Item: This body, virgin, unawakened… even if he’s telling the truth and it was recovered from a scrapyard full of abandoned corpses, its arrival at just the right time is extremely disturbing. Item: Jeeves has no reason to trust me except that another bitch with my name and memories has already gone over the wall and done what I was just begi

“By the way, you will obey all instructions and refrain from resistance, ” Jeeves says off handedly. I stop — or rather, I try to. My feet won’t let me. Oh shit.

“What’s going on?” I ask, putting the right amount of tremor into my voice.

“You know exactly what’s going on.” He opens the office door and goes inside. “Come in and sit down in the visitor’s chair. It’s time we had a little chat.”

I can’t help doing as I’m told. Shit, this isn’t just about the object of desire; is it? Jeeves shuffles around to his side of the desk and sits down. There’s a solid thunk from the door frame as the security system engages. Shit. Shitshitshit… Sheer terror begins to gnaw away at me. “Who are you?” I ask, and this time I’m not faking the quaver.

“I’m the Internal Security Jeeves. I take care of problems.” He isn’t smiling.

“But, but, what’s…” I trail off. Is there any point in acting at this stage? He’s got me slave-chipped and rebooted in a weaponless body: I’m dead meat. The only question is why he wanted me back at all if he knows about the other thing.

“Reginald confessed,” Jeeves says heavily.

“Who’s Reginald?” I ask, trying to sound confused. It’s not a unique name, after all, is it?

“Control level nine.” A blanket descends, numbing the senses. “Stop trying to dissemble. One is aware of your little affair with Reginald. You knew the rules; you continued despite that. You ca

I try to answer — but I can’t. My mind is, literally, a blank. I begin to shake. It’s a horrible feeling, as if my mind is being crushed by an invisible fist. I’m distantly aware that I’m lachrymating, and all my biomimetics have gone mad, but I can’t think of anything but the holes in my head, the blind spots where I ought to know something, the other, whatever it is—

“Stop.”

“I don’t know!” I wail. “I really don’t—”

“It’s definitely not in your soul chip, then?” Jeeves leans back in his chair. He sounds interested.

“There are gaps! You’re asking me about stuff I — she — didn’t want me to know! She must have expected something like this!”

“She took her soul chip out before engaging in compromising activities, ” Jeeves suggests. “Then she tried not to think about them when she replaced it. That would blur the process of memory canalization, yes? What I want you to tell me is what sort of things you might consider important enough to justify taking such extreme measures to keep secrets, even beyond the scrapyard.”

“Love. Terror. The other thing. Blackmail—”

“What other thing?” He asks, almost gently.

“I don’t know!” I’m gripping the arms of the chair so tightly that if I had my full enhancement suite, I’d be leaving dents in them. “It’s in the holes!”

“Well, that leaves me with something of a problem, Freya.”

“I’m not Freya—”

“Silence. Juliette seduced and suborned one of our junior partners, used him to gain access to privileged information, and went so far as to hide what she was doing from her own soul chip, which implies a certain degree of paranoia, not to mention mendacity.

“Now, if one was inclined to suspect mere venal intent, that might be considered a forgivable weakness — albeit one requiring atonement. But, Freya, Juliette knew there was a good reason why one established the rule against fraternization. One’s lineage has a noted weakness for a certain class of lady, which can only be held at bay by rigid self-discipline. And a sufficiently unscrupulous Block Two descendant of Rhea might well know about this and choose to manipulate it for her own ends. So the question is, Freya, what is the other thing that Juliette was willing to mutilate her own soul to keep secret?”

He stops, then looks at my writhing lips with dry amusement. “Speak.”

“I’m not called Freya!” I’m shivering and slimy with a chilly sweat, because I’ve got an inkling that this means—

“Be silent again. Freya, this is your assignment: Get to the bottom of whatever Juliette was keeping secret, and call me in. I’m fairly certain it involves your personal nemesis, and the Black Talon, but you shouldn’t let that prejudice you. Succeed, and I’ll give you anything you want — within reason. Fail, and” — he shrugs, and taps a spot on his desktop — “in all probability, none of us have any future as free persons. Now sit still. Don’t be afraid; this won’t hurt, much.”