“That the truth?”

“It is, it is. For God’s sake, don’t hurt me. It’s the truth.”

Brachis nodded. “I believe you. Sorry, Bozzie. That was the wrong answer. It means you don’t have any more information for me.”

He shifted his grip, moved his hands to lock his own arms, and twisted. Bozzie’s neck cracked sharply. The great hulk jerked, shivered, and lay silent.

Luther Brachis did not give the body a second look. He went to each of the other four in turn, breaking necks cleanly and effortlessly.

He straightened up. The whole episode had not lasted more than two minutes. He thought of rolling the bodies down into an irrigation ditch, and decided against it. Scavvie fights on the surface must be common enough, and this would look like just another one — a bit more notable than usual, perhaps, because the Duke of Bosny was one of the victims.

Brachis brushed mud off his uniform and hurried on towards the tunnel entrance. Already he had begun the process of self-discipline needed to put the incident into the back of his mind. He was determined not to let it ruin the rest of the evening, even though he told himself, with a mocking self-awareness, that he was behaving totally illogically. He should be worrying about the possibility that he had somehow left clues to his identity on one of the bodies.

But all that seemed unimportant. What was important was the need to get to a certain apartment on the fifty-fifth level.

Was he crazy? He must be. Here he was, after only two meetings, rushing to a tryst with Godiva Lomberd as though she were an innocent virgin and this was his first romance. And it was not as though she would not wait if he were late. There was no questionable outcome for this rendezvous, no uncertainty, no doubt about what they were going to do, no danger of rejection. It was a wholly commercial transaction, arranged by money and controlled by lust, the sordid temporary purchase of a woman’s body.

Luther Brachis could tell himself all that. It made no difference. He was going to meet Godiva Lomberd again. And for the moment nothing else mattered.

Chapter 11

The rings were all of different sizes and colors; the cylinder tapered from a blunt point at the top down to a thick base. The rings would all fit onto it only if they were placed there in the correct sequence, largest to smallest.

Chan Dalton was sitting on the floor, hunched over the toy. His forehead, normally unlined, was wrinkled with effort. He was picking up the rings one after another, studying each, and after a few seconds putting it down between his splayed legs. The chamber he was sitting in was cheerfully decorated in pinks and blues, with paintings and drawings around the wall and a thick soft carpet on the floor.

Chan had positioned himself in the exact center of the room. Now after long deliberation he picked up the red ring and placed it on the cylinder. A few moments later he did the same thing with the orange one. Then the yellow.

“He’s getting them right!” Tatty was whispering, although there was no chance that Chan could hear her. She and Leah Rainbow were watching him through a one-way glass set into the nursery wall. “Could he ever have done that when he was with you?”

Leah shook her head. “Never — he wouldn’t have had the slightest idea.” Her voice echoed Tatty’s excitement. When she had first returned to Horus, she and Tatty had not found it easy to talk. Finally and simultaneously, they had realized why. They were like mothers to Chan — and both the old and the new mother were jealous. Tatty had resented it when Chan ran to hug Leah as soon as he saw her, with a great yell of pleasure and excitement; Leah hated the way that Tatty organized Chan’s day, telling him what to do next, where his clothes must go, and what he had to eat. Leah still saw that as her prerogative.

The daily session with the Tolkov Stimulator had been another cause of tension between them. Leah mistook for heartlessness Tatty’s insistence that Chan could not miss a treatment, whether there was a visitor or not. She would not help Tatty to catch him, or to strap him in. And the presence of both her own and Esro Mondrian’s picture, where Chan could see them when he was in the Stimulator, perplexed her. What did Tatty think she was doing?

But when the treatment began and Chan writhed in the padded seat, Leah could not ignore Tatty’s own anguish and misery. Tatty was suffering. And when Leah saw the bedroom and nursery that Tatty had made for Chan, she was finally won over. They were so thoughtfully done, and they showed so much evidence of love and caring.

Leah remembered Horus very well from her brief stay before she went off to begin her training. It had been horrible: gloomy, dirty and depressing, more like a detention barracks than any place to bring a child (and Chan was a child, in spite of his physical age and adult appearance).

Now Horus, or at least this part of it, was transformed.

“How did you possibly manage all this?” Leah had followed Tatty through room after room, elegantly decorated and furnished and designed to take advantage of the natural and manmade features of the interior of Horus.

Tatty laughed. She hadn’t done any of this to show off to other people, but it was wonderful to have someone else appreciate her efforts. Chan was indifferent, and Kubo Flammarion seemed more at home with the old dirt and mess.

“I got tired of living in a pit. Nobody could tell me how long I might be here, and all the old excavation and service robots were around because nobody thought it was worthwhile to haul them away. I taught myself how to re-program them.”

“But it must have taken ages.”

“It took time, but I had plenty of that. Then I set them to work, first to clear out the trash and then to make this place livable. I hooked one of them in with a synthesizer, and it produced pretty good carpets and wall hangings. Once I started, I guess I got a bit compulsive. Poor old Kubo.” Tatty smiled, at one of her rare pleasant memories of Horus. “He came out here a couple of weeks ago, and I wouldn’t even let him into Chan’s quarters until he’d taken a bath and had his uniform cleaned. He did it, but he didn’t like it. And Chan made it worse. ‘Kubo change,’ he said. ‘Not stink now — except hat.’ Then he stole it.”

“That same old hat — covered in grease and dandruff?”

“That’s the one. Kubo hadn’t bothered to clean that when he cleaned his uniform. I suppose he thought we’d never notice. But Chan noticed, and he threw it into the garbage disposal. Kubo was devastated. He said, ‘Princess, that hat has been with me all over the solar system. It’s like a part of me.’ But I said to him, ‘Not any more, Captain Flammarion. When even Chan objects to it, it’s time for a new one’ — and Chan did object. He is improving, isn’t he?” Tatty looked to Leah for encouragement. “I always wonder if I’m imagining a change, because I’ve been wishing for it so hard. But you can see it, too, can’t you? Isn’t he a bit smarter?”

“He certainly is. Look at him.”

Chan had carefully and slowly assembled the complete stack of rings. Now he was just as painstakingly taking them off again. The women watched until he had finished, then applauded. Next Chan picked up a set of red Elastic blocks. They were of complex individual shapes, but they could fit together to make a perfect cube. He fiddled with them for a while, then hurled them in frustration across the room.

“That’s still too hard for him,” said Leah.

“No need to apologize for him to me.”

“I wasn’t. I was just thinking, he is progressing but it’s terribly slow. At this rate it will take years.”

“That’s what scared me,” said Tatty. “But Kubo Flammarion says it’s not at all linear. If it really works you expect to see very little progress at first. Then everything comes in one big rush, maybe in a single session on the Stimulator.”