Chapter Twenty-Six

He had forgotten why he was here. His skin was beginning to grow back.

He wondered where Mark had gone.

People came, and tormented a nameless thing without boundaries, and went away again. He met them variously. His emerging aspects became personas, and eventually, he named them, as well as he could identify them. There was Gorge, and Grunt, and Howl, and another, quiet one that lurked on the fringes, waiting.

He let Gorge go out to handle the force-feedings, because Gorge was the only one who actually enjoyed them. Gorge, after all, would never have been permitted to do all that Ryoval’s techs did. Grunt he sent forth when Ryoval came again with the hypospray of aphrodisiac. Grunt had also been responsible for the attack on Maree, the body-sculptured clone, he rather thought, though Grunt, when not all excited, was very shy and ashamed and didn’t talk much.

Howl handled the rest. He began to suspect Howl had been obscurely responsible for delivering them all to Ryoval in the first place. Finally, he’d come to a place where he could be punished enough. Never give aversion therapy to a masochist. The results are unpredictable. So Howl deserved what Howl got. The elusive fourth one just waited, and said that someday, they would all love him best.

They did not always stay within their lines. Howl had a tendency to eavesdrop on Gorge’s sessions, which came regularly while Howl’s did not; and more than once Gorge turned up riding along with Grunt on his adventures, which then became exceptionally peculiar. Nobody joined Howl by choice.

Having named them all, he finally found Mark by process of elimination. Gorge and Grunt and Howl and the Other had sent Lord Mark deep inside, to sleep through it all. Poor, fragile Lord Mark, barely twelve weeks old.

Ryoval could not even see Lord Mark down in there. Could not reach him. Could not touch him. Gorge and Grunt and Howl and the Other were all very careful not to wake the baby. Tender and protective, they defended him. They were equipped to. An ugly, grotty, hard-bitten bunch, these psychic mercenaries of his. Unlovely. But they got the job done.

He began to hum little marching tunes to them, from time to time.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Absence makes the heart grow fonder. And, Miles feared, the converse. Rowan had pulled her pillow over her head again. He continued to pace. And talk. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. In the time that had passed since his concealed memory cascade, he had evolved a multitude of plans for their escape, all with some fatal flaw. Unable to put any of them into effect, he had re-ordered and refined them out loud. Over and over. Rowan had stopped critiquing them … yesterday? In fact, she’d stopped talking to him at all. She’d given up trying to pet him and relax him, and instead tended to stay on the far side of the room, or hide for long periods in the bathroom. He couldn’t blame her. His returning nervous energy seemed to be building to something like a frenzy.

This forced confinement was stressing her affection for him to the limit. And, he had to admit, he had not been able to conceal his slight new hesitation toward her. A coolness in his touch, an increased resistance to her medical authority. He loved and admired her, no question, and would be delighted to have her in charge of any sickbay he owned. Under his command. But guilt and the sense of no privacy had combined to cripple his interest in intimacy. He had other passions at the moment. And they were consuming him.

Dinner was due soon. Assuming three meals per long Jacksonian day, they’d been here four days. The Baron had not spoken with them again. What schemes was Vasa Luigi evolving, out there? Had he been auctioned yet? What if the next person through the door was his buyer? What if nobody bid at all, what if they left him in here forever?

Meals were usually brought on a tray by a servant, under the watchful eye of a couple of stunner-armed guards. He’d tried everything he could think of short of breaking his cover to suborn them, in their brief snatches of conversation. They’d just smiled at him. He was dubious of his ability to outrun a stunner-beam, but at the next opportunity, he resolved to try. He hadn’t had a chance to try anything lever. He was ready to try something stupid. Surprise sometimes worked… .

The lock clicked. He spun, poised to dart forward. “Rowan, get up!” he hissed. “I’m going to try for it.”

“Oh, hell,” she moaned, emerging. Without faith, brow-beaten, she rose and trudged around the bed to stand by his side. “Stunning hurts, you know. And then you throw up. You’ll probably have convulsions.”

“Yes. I know.”

“But at least it’ll shut you up for a while,” she muttered under her breath.

He rose on the balls of his feet. Then sank back again as the servant entered. Oh, my. What’s this? There was suddenly a new player in he game, and his mind locked into over-drive. Rowan, watching him or his announced bolt, looked up too, and her eyes widened.

It was the clone-girl Lilly—Lilly Junior, he supposed he must think of her—in her brown-and-pink silk house-servant’s uniform, a long wrap skirt and spangled jacket. Straight-backed, she carried their meal tray, and set it down on the table across the room. Incomprehensibly, the guard nodded at her and withdrew, closing the door behind him.

She began to lay out their meal, servant-fashion; Rowan approached her, lips parted.

He saw a dozen possibilities, instantly; also that this chance might ever come again. There was no way, in his debilitated state, that he could overpower the girl himself. What about that sedative Rowan had threatened him with? Could Rowan get the drop on her? Rowan was not good at catching oblique hints, and terrible at following cryptic orders. She’d want explanations. She’d want to argue. He could only try.

“Goodness you two look alike,” he chirped brightly, glaring at Rowan. She gave him a look of exasperated bafflement, which she converted to a smile as the girl turned toward them. “How is it that we rate, uh, such a high-born servant, milady?”

Lilly’s smooth hand touched her chest. “I am not my lady,” she lid, in a tone that suggested he must be a complete fool. Not without reason. “But you …” She looked searchingly at Rowan. “I don’t understand you.”

“Did the Baronne send you?” Miles asked.

“No. But I told the guards your food was drugged, and the Baronne sent me to stay and watch you eat it,” she added, somewhat off-the-cuff.

“Is that, uh, true?” he asked.

“No.” She tossed her head, making her long hair swing, and dropped him from her attention to focus hungrily upon Rowan. “Who are you?”

“She is the Baronne’s sister,” he said instantly. “Daughter to your lady’s mother. Did you know you were named after your, uh, grandmother?”

“… Grandmother?”

“Tell her about the Durona Group, Rowan,” he said urgently.

“Give me a chance to speak, then, why don’t you,” Rowan said through her teeth, smiling.

“Does she know what she is? Ask her if she knows what she is,” he demanded, then stuffed his knuckle into his mouth and bit it. The girl hadn’t come for him. She’d come for Rowan. He had to let Rowan take this one.

“Well,” Rowan glanced at the closed door, and back to the girl, “The Duronas are a group of thirty-six cloned siblings. We live under the protection of House Fell. Our mother—the first Durona—is named Lilly, too. She was very sad when Lotus—the Baronne—left us. Lotus used to be my … older sister, you see. You must be my sister too, then. Has Lotus told you why she had you? Are you to be her daughter? Her heir?”

“I am to be united with my lady,” said the girl. There was a faint defiance in her tone, but her fascination with Rowan was obvious. “I wondered … if you were to take my place.” Jealousy? Madness.