As he"d feared, he was greeted by swarms of people to whom everything new was an adventure. He was pinched and poked and petted and prodded by men and women who insisted most vigorously that Ama.s.sa must allow them to duple this fine primitive specimen. Ama.s.sa, knowing full well that she possessed an original in a world of copies, remained noncommittal.
After two hours of encounters, s.e.xual and otherwise, with a strange a.s.sortment of beings, Hawker finally found Symington and managed to pry him away from his own circle of admirers. The two men found a quiet corner to talk in, and related to one another their experiences over the past few days.
"It"s scary being a slave," Symington admitted, "but I have to hand it to them; they"ve been able to do things I wouldn"t even have dreamed of.
Tesaak- she"s the woman who has me most of the time-she can think of some of the kinkiest things to do. She can duple up a copy of herself before she lost her virginity and watch while I deflower her-and then she joins in, and we both make love to her younger self. Then she duples a second copy of me, and we-"
"A second copy?" Hawker tensed suddenly. "How do I know I"m talking to the real you, then?"
"What difference does it make?" Symington smiled. "I haven"t been the real me for centuries."
Hawker relaxed again. "You"re right. This whole thing is so crazy, I keep forgetting." He paused. "Do you know anything of what"s happened to Belilo?"
*Symington paused, a cloud pa.s.sing across his face. "No, I, uh, haven"t heard anything since Nya took her off."
"s.h.i.t." Hawker had been hoping to rescue her, too; her help would certainly be useful in the attack on Resurrection Central. But if they couldn"t locate her quickly and easily, they would just have to abandon her and let her fend for herself. The longer they delayed, the more chance there was of the army"s dupling Green again, and then all their efforts would have been lost."Listen, let"s speak in English for a while," Hawker continued, shunting over to his native language- a language they"d hardly spoken in hundreds of years.
"Huh? Why?"
"Because these people have all sorts of monitors, and we can never be sure they aren"t watching us or listening in. We can be pretty sure that n.o.body from this time speaks English, though, so even if they are eavesdropping they won"t know what we"re saying."
"You"ve got a plan, then?"
Briefly, Hawker told Symington what he"d learned about Resurrection Central, and about his discussions with Green. When he described their tentative plans, Symington"s face grew contemplative.
"Those are pretty wild a.s.sumptions you"re using," he said.
"What have we got to lose?"
Symington smiled. "You"re right. Absolutely nothing."
The two men waited for some hectic action to occupy the attention of the crowd elsewhere, and both slipped away back to Ama.s.sa"s bubble.
Green was still in one of his comas, so there was nothing to do but quietly await Ama.s.sa"s return.
Ama.s.sa finally did come back. She looked at both of them and shook her head. "So here you are. It was most unsocial of you to leave together without telling anyone."
"We wanted to see you here alone," Hawker said. "We thought you might like the idea of having two primitives all to yourself at once."
Ama.s.sa smiled, and Hawker could see that his a.s.sessment of her had been correct-the concept did appeal to her. She spread her wings wide in a gesture he"d learned was one of s.e.xual preparedness, and stepped forward toward them, arms outstretched.
Hawker moved toward her to take her arms with his. His touch was soft and gentle at first-but then, without warning, Symington dove at herlegs, tackling the woman knee-high, and Hawker tightened his own grip as Ama.s.sa began falling over. Ama.s.sa gasped in amazement at the attack, and started reaching downward to her waist-but Hawker"s strong grasp held her firmly.
"Her controls are all in her belt," he told Symington. "Get that off her and she"s less dangerous."
The bigger man moved to comply, holding onto her viciously kicking legs with one arm while trying to unfasten her narrow belt with his free hand.
Ama.s.sa was still far from helpless. Her enormous muscular wings beat furiously against the bodies of both men, battering them with not inconsequential strength. She twisted and writhed in their grip, turning her head to bite Hawker"s ear, nearly ripping it in the process. Hawker, though, was a veteran of countless more fights than she was, and held firm to his purpose.
At last Symington succeeded in unfastening the belt-and with its removal, the fight seemed to go out of the captive angel. Ama.s.sa let out a deep breath and sagged in Hawker"s arms. Hawker held on tightly anyway, suspecting a trick, but this was no ruse; Ama.s.sa realized that, without her belt controls, she was at the mercy of the two soldiers.
When she regained her breath, she said, "Very well, you"ve got my belt.
It won"t do you any good-you don"t know how to use it, and it wouldn"t work for you even if you did. Are you trying to frighten me? That won"t work with me any more" than it did with Consakannis. I"m not afraid of death-and if you kill me, this sphere will just collapse like his did, leaving you powerless once more. My friends and I at least kept you safe from the army-I thought that was what you wanted."
"What we wanted was only coincidental to your plans," Hawker said, still holding her arms tightly. "The only person you really care about is yourself. And I know it"s futile to kill you-but there are better ways of getting what we want."
"What do you mean?"
"Do you enjoy pain?" Symington asked. "I know some of your kinky friends do, but I don"t think that"s your particular fetish." The look on herface confirmed his suspicion. "Good. I think we understand each other, little lady. I know it will be possible later for you to duple yourself starting from before all of this happened, so you can effectively remove all memory of what we do to you-but that"s in the future, and I swear to you, Ama.s.sa, it"s not going to be any fun in the meantime. Hawk and me, we"ve lived through hundreds of wars, we"ve been captured and tortured by the best in the business, we learned a lot of useful tricks. Why don"t you give her a little demonstration, Hawk?"
Hawker took the woman"s right arm and twisted it up suddenly behind her wing until the wrist was almost even with her neck. Ama.s.sa screamed, and Hawker heard a satisfying snap at the shoulder.
"Oh, that"s such a simple one," Symington said with mock disappointment. "Why not start plucking her wing feathers one by one?
What will she think of your expertise?"
"Why give her the whole show at once?" Hawker replied.
Ama.s.sa was sobbing with pain now, and her voice was barely coherent.
"What do you want of me?"
Hawker considered asking for her help in getting Belilo away from Nya, but discarded the idea as impractical. Much as he wanted to help his friend, it was too risky a business dealing with these strange people. He had one of them at a disadvantage, but he couldn"t handle any more-and he had to seize the initiative while he still had it, or he"d never save Green.
He nodded toward the viewscreen wall. "Can you show me a picture of Resurrection Central on there?"
"Not... not without the belt," Ama.s.sa gasped.
This was a crucial point, and Hawker knew it. They"d never get anywhere unless they could control this bubble, which meant they"d have to let Ama.s.sa use her belt. But if she had too much control, she"d destroy them. He would have to maintain a delicate balance.
"All right," he told her. "You can move one finger at a time, push one control at a time, nice and slow. If anything happens that I don"t like, your arm comes the rest of the way out of its socket." He moved around behind her and slid one arm around her waist, holding her tightly before him."And if anything bad happens, it"s just as likely to happen to you as to me."
Symington brought the belt within reach, prepared to yank it away again the instant Ama.s.sa got out of line. The woman extended one long finger and pressed a series of jewels around the belt"s circ.u.mference, slowly and cautiously like a child playing a toy piano. When she"d finished, the view on the screen was of a mountain that looked very much as she"d described it to Hawker before.
Hawker and Symington asked her for other scenes, studying the mountain from all possible angles, close up and far away. They were even able to get images of the entranceway and the admittance hall. They viewed each scene critically, with a professional eye for troublesome details.
"What do you think?" Hawker finally asked in English.
"I don"t see anything dangerous there," Symington admitted. "It looks like a piece of cake-but I"ve been wrong before."
"We"ve got to risk it."
"Yeah, I know."
He changed back to contemporary language. "All right, Ama.s.sa, you"ve been a good girl so far. We"ve got a few more things we have to do. Can this home-sphere be flown to that mountain?"
"Of course."
"How long will it take us to get there, at top speed?"
Ama.s.sa considered. "About three, maybe four hours."
"Good. Then start us on the way. Set the bubble to fly the most direct route, avoiding any possible army traps in the meantime."
Ama.s.sa pressed a few more controls. "There."
Hawker blinked. "It doesn"t feel like we"re moving."
"Well, we are. What"s it supposed to feel like?""Never mind." Hawker realized that these people, with their control over gravity, might easily have control over the simple forces of inertia as well. Moving at a speed of hundreds of kilometers an hour would feel no different from standing still. Such things were taken so much for granted here that Ama.s.sa probably couldn"t explain it even if she wanted to.
Instead, he changed the subject. "What"s their filing system there? How could we find the file being recorded off one particular b.u.t.ton transmitter?"
"Everything"s listed numerically. Each transmitter has its own number.
The first thing anybody learns is his own number."
"But if you die, you can"t tell them what your number is," Symington said.
"When you die, your transmitter automatically stops broadcasting, which is a signal to resurrect that pattern number."
"What if someone wasn"t told his number?" Hawker asked. "Like our friend David, for instance."
"The number would be recorded somewhere- probably on his army medical file."
"That doesn"t help us much," Symington said.
Ama.s.sa paused to think. "The number is also inscribed on the transmitter b.u.t.ton itself-I think. At least, that"s what they tell me; I"ve never really looked. I know my number."
"I"ve got your number too," Hawker said. He looked over at Green"s unconscious body. "Is that b.u.t.ton attached to any nerves or anything?"
"No, it"s just a pa.s.sive scanning system. It"s normally buried just below the skin surface of the neck."
Hawker looked to Symington. "Feel like doing some surgery?"
"If I have to. I"ll need a knife, though." He looked down at his naked body, and then at Hawker"s. "Come to think of it, we"ll need our uniforms back, too. I don"t cherish the thought of running naked through thatmountain."
At the soldiers" insistence, Ama.s.sa created duples of their old uniforms, and of the weapons they"d brought aboard with them. Each of the men now had the knives in their belts, plus a beampistol, a rifle and a half a dozen grenades. Thus armed, they felt much better.
While Ama.s.sa and Hawker looked on, Symington dug carefully at the skin around Green"s transmitter b.u.t.ton, prying the small mechanical device out with the point of his knife. It was a tiny flat disc, barely larger than the battery for an electric watch in Hawker"s day. It was mindboggling to think that so tiny an instrument could continuously record and transmit the molecular pattern of an entire person-but this was an incredible age.
As Ama.s.sa had said, there was a sequence of letters and numbers etched into the bottom of the metal disc. Hawker had to squint to make out the writing, but it was readable. When he reached Resurrection Central, he would know which file was Green"s.
He turned his attention back to Ama.s.sa. "How will we know when this sphere reaches the mountain?"
"I"ve set it so a bell will ring."
"Good. You"re learning." And to Symington, in English, he said, "I don"t think we need her any more. It"s too much trouble looking after her all the time."
"What do you suggest?"
"You might try knocking her out. A good blow to the head with your rifle b.u.t.t might do it."
"Okay."
"Be careful not to kill her, though. We need this bubble to take us to the mountain."
Symington walked casually up to the unsuspecting Ama.s.sa and suddenly lifted his rifle, bringing its b.u.t.t down hard against the side of her head. The woman went limp and slumped forward in Hawker"s grasp.Hawker let her fall to the floor, where she lay in an untidy heap.
"Now all we have to do," Hawker said, "is wait."
They settled down in Ama.s.sa"s comfortable furniture to do just that.
Both men were quiet, contemplating the task still ahead of them. Neither had any expectations of living beyond this attack, but if they could at least help their friend they knew they would consider the effort worthwhile.
After half an hour of silence, Symington spoke up. "Hawk?"
"Yeah?"
"I lied to you back there."
"About what?"
"About Belilo. Tesaak did show me on the telescreen what was happening to her."
Hawker did not say anything. He could tell from Symington"s manner that the other man was having trouble making this confession; let him make it at his own pace.
"Nya and about a dozen of her friends were using her as some sort of cult sacrifice. They tied her up and gang-banged her all day, tortured her all night, and then killed her in the morning. Then they"d duple her and start the whole thing over again." His breathing was coming in short, quick pants. "I... I didn"t want to think about it."
"That"s all right," Hawker said quietly. "We all knew the risks we were taking when we started out on this job. Besides, there wasn"t anything either of us could have done to help her."
They lapsed into awkward silence again. The thought of Belilo being endlessly reincarnated to a life of torture and degradation was a disquieting one. The woman had been a good companion, and she certainly deserved a better fate-but as he"d said, there was little he could have done to help her without jeopardizing everything she and the men had fought for this far.
Another half hour pa.s.sed before Hawker spoke again. "Lucky?""Yeah?"
"What pushed you into all this?"
"What do you mean?"
"Dave had a theory that something pushed all of us into this crazy situation, that some force in our backgrounds made us sign up for the original Project Banknote. We both knew about our own insecurities, but what about you? What pushed you into this mess?"
Symington was quiet for several minutes, and Hawker began to think his friend had decided to ignore the question. Then the other man spoke-so quietly that Hawker had to strain to hear him.
"Cowardice, I guess."
"Huh? You? You"ve got every medal ever made, and a few I think they invented just for you."
"Yeah. Funny how these things go, ain"t it?" He shifted his weight in the chair, and then reshifted, trying to find what was obviously an impossible position of comfort. "But there"s all sorts of cowards, and the best ones never let you know it.