Saturn's Children (24 page)

Then I spend the rest of the journey trying not to imagine myself turning into a concupiscent bundle of servility. Poor Juliette. What must she be going through now?

HOURS PASS IN relative boredom. I alternate between a light romantic drama and checking for indications that I’m being followed. It’s fruitless, but practice makes perfect. Eventually I look up and see the platforms of Hellasport unwinding slowly beside me, outside the window.
At last.

I heave my nearly empty suitcase onto the platform and wave for a rickshaw driven by a four-armed green giant in a Kevlar harness. I don’t have long to wait. The suitcase waddles along behind us as we pedal down the main street outside, then turn through a couple of side streets and pull up beside a drab frontage that has seen better days.
Are all the hotels on Mars drab?
I wonder.
Is there some reason for it that I should know about?
I haggle briefly with my driver, hand over half a dozen centimes (daylight robbery!) and enter the air lock. “I have a room reservation for Baldwin,” I tell the front desk. “F. Baldwin.”

“Sure, yaaaawl havunice wun,” the desk drawls. I stare at it.
Is it broken?
I wonder. But eventually it spits out a key. “G’wanup.”

I back away dubiously—that’s a
really
weird accent—then head for the elevator. Which swallows me and carries me up six floors to a dingy, overpressurized tunnel rimmed with faded pink portals. I find the right door and touch the padded circle. It dilates, and I step inside, trying not to speculate about what was on the architect’s mind.

The room itself isn’t bad for a second-grade love shack. Everything is pink, plush, and cushioned, but there’s a window, a lovely round water bed (
water
! in a
bed
!), an en suite, and a minibar stuffed with an appetizing array of aromatic hydrocarbon drinks. It’s a little steamy, and they’ve turned the oxygen way down—evidently most guests get their juice by plugging in, rather than using their fuel cells—but I can cope with that.

I strip off and use the shower, scrub myself dry on a fluffy pink towel that blinks at me lazily and buzzes when I stroke it, and spend a luxurious hour sitting in front of an obligingly flexible bathroom mirror, tweaking my lips and eyelids and skin texture and teasing my hair into shape.

I’m back in the bedroom wearing my fanciest underwear and unpacking my number two (decorative) outfit when the door opens. It’s the kind of outfit one wears in the hope of meeting someone who’ll help you out of it (
Fat chance, ogre,
I can hear the munchkins sneering); my motive for dressing up at this point in time is not something that I am going to examine too deeply. Call it a morale issue.

I almost didn’t notice the door—the pesky thing is almost silent— but a faint change in air pressure gives it away. I spin around, muttering
Oh shit
under my breath as I try and grab for my pistol (which is in my purse, under my jacket on the chair), using reflexes keyed for mayhem.

“Excuse me, are you Fri—” He freezes, wide-eyed with recognition. But that’s okay, because I freeze, too, at exactly the same moment, almost going cross-eyed from the effort.

“Yes. Come in,” I manage, half-choking with embarrassment. I may be able to change color at will, but our Creators built in some reflexes that are hard to override, and I can tell that my earlobes are flushing coral pink right now. “Shut the door.” I’m neither naked nor fully clothed, but somewhere in between, and he is exactly as luscious as I remember from Juliette’s memory—more so, stripped of the comic-opera uniform. Judging by his expression, my nipples have drilled a hole through my slip and are opening a high-bandwidth communications channel straight into his hindbrain. “You are Petruchio. Right?”

“You’re. . . ” He licks his lips. (That’s another Creator reflex, along with the dilating pupils, darkening eyes.) “You’re not Kate, are you? You’re one of her sibs.” He takes a step forward. “What have you done with her?”

I’m unable to move or look away. He’s so intense! His hands are balled tightly, his nostrils flared, sniffing. He’s wrapped in a nondescript jumpsuit with an ID badge clipped to it, and he’s left a toolkit just inside the doorway, and my head’s spinning with the sight and sound of him because he’s
perfect
. For a single awful moment I’m livid with jealousy.
Of all the luck, for Juliette to get to him first ... !
Then I blink, and the momentary lapse in vision cuts through my turmoil like an ice-chilled knife.

“I’ve done nothing to her,” I snap. He stops before he reaches me. He’s clearly upset and tense. I shudder with my own emotional conflict. I actually feel
guilty
for cutting him off—a man I’ve never met who’s clearly upset—
She’s really got under my skin, hasn’t she?
“Yes, she’s my sib. Her name isn’t Kate, Kate is a cover identity. Her real name is Juliette, and I don’t know where she is.”

“But you—”

“Our employer sent me.” I’m breathing deeply. “Juliette is missing, and whenever I ask why they give me a runaround.”
Half-true,
she whispers in the back of my head. “I know about you and her, and I think it might be connected—”

“If
She’s
found her—” His alarm is obvious.

“I’m pretty sure She hasn’t.” His stricken expression begins to fade. “Juliette is plenty tough, believe me, but she may be in trouble.”

“Dash it, what kind of trouble do you expect?”

He really
is
an innocent; I could kiss him. (Bad
idea, Freya.
) “Hold on.” I turn my back for a moment and retrieve the memory chip from the intimate hiding place Dr. Murgatroyd built into me—it’s not big—and hold it out. “I was sent to deliver this to you. Does it mean anything?”

“Oh dear me, yes. I didn’t realize
you
were the courier. This may make things difficult.” He raises it to his perfect lips and swallows. “Hum, ah. That tastes jolly funny. I’ll deliver it to my mistress once I get home.”
My mistress?
All of a sudden I’m wondering just who is working for—or against—who, here. “What kind of trouble are you afraid of?”

“I’m sorry, but I’ve got to ask this. Were you planning on, on leaving Her?” I straighten my hose, then turn back to unfolding my glad rags. I can feel his eyes on me. I’ve got no problem with that (they’re very decorative eyes), but it’s distracting. “Or is this about something else?”

“I don’t think I can talk about it,” he says reluctantly. He seems to be a bit flustered, but getting anything useful out of him is going to be harder than I expected. Where there’s a will there’s a way, I suppose, but I suspect Pete is nothing like as dumb as my secondhand memories of him imply. And he’s keeping tight control over his autonomic response to me.
That’s okay, if that’s the way you want to play it ...

I slowly extend my heels, bend forward to pick up my garments, and jack my hearing up to max.
Yup, circulatory pumps speeding up.
I shake my ass at him. “Help me into this?” I ask, offering him my boned minidress.

“If you want,” he says, taking it. His pulse
is
increasing. Some males like the unwrapping more than the contents, and some are happy to help wrap you up, too—one destined to serve would have to be of the latter type, I figure.
Just let me get close to you. One way or another.
I turn my back and lift my arms, and he steps close enough that I can feel his breath hot on the back of my neck. “Who
are
you, Fri—”

“Freya,” I correct him, slightly stung. “I’m Juliette’s youngest sister. She’s in trouble, Pete—Petruchio.” I pause to straighten my dress. “I think my employer sent me here looking like her, like this, as bait.” I’m suddenly aware that he’s standing right behind me
very
close, breathing fast. “Are you alright?” I ask.
Please say no ...

“Sorry. Can’t think straight with—you around.”
Brilliant.
“You’re very like her, you know.” He’s so totally imprinted on Juliette that my presence—I’m her sib after all; we’re products of the same assembly line—has tripped his breakers. His general intelligence has just crashed to something between a dishwasher and a microwave oven. That’s
got
to hurt. I dig my fully extended heels into the floor and breathe in.

Okay, time for some full-body contact.
“Lace me up?” I ask. I hear him ventilating, fast and shallow, and a moment later I feel his arms close around me from behind.
Got you!
I think triumphantly, leaning into his embrace.

And then I sneeze convulsively.

I can’t help myself. I’ve gotten so used to ignoring the congested feeling in my gas-exchange turbinates that it comes as a total surprise when the autonomic self-cleaning reflex kicks in. And I sneeze
again
, then breathe in relief—

Oh Juliette, my sister. Is
this
it?

It’s so dizzying, the scent of him, of my, no
her
, master, that I go weak at the knees and slump backward. I can feel him pressing against the whole length of me as I take rapid breaths, trying to suck it all in—

“Oh, Pete.”

“You’re not Juliette.”

“I could be.” His hands are in my armpits, taking my weight. I’m grinning like an idiot as he lowers me to the bed . . . but then he takes a step backward. Frustration drags an involuntary noise from my mouth.

“Dash it, what’s wrong?” he asks, looking stricken.

I
want
him. There’s a dull emptiness gnawing at my structural core. I force myself to smooth my skirt over my knees. “I—I’m wearing her soul,” I admit.

“Is she”—he looks terrified—“dead?”

“No, she’s, um, missing.” I’m furious at my accidental honesty.
Did I really admit that, earlier?
I ask myself, disbelieving.

“You’re not
her
,” he repeats. His nostrils flare. “I think you’d better explain.”

“Boss sent”—it’s impossible to think with him so close—“says if I find her to tell her”—I take another deep breath, trying to calm myself, but it’s not working. “Open the fucking window!” I moan.

“Window.” He grunts, then turns with whiplike speed and grabs the chair and slams its legs against the window. It’s tough, but it’s not meant to take much of that treatment. The plug of aerogel pops out, and we both nearly follow it. The room mists up suddenly, and the explosive gasp it rips from me hurts almost as much as being blown off the bed. I shake my head, trying to clear the cobwebs as a new, icy clarity settles in. Sitting up, I see a pair of legs sticking over the edge of the window casement. After a moment, they twitch a little. I get as far as grabbing his ankles before he straightens up, and slides back inside. Astonishingly, he’s still holding the back of the chair. He lowers it to the floor delicately, then bends and offers me a hand.

“Thanks—” I electrospeak; the pressure is down to Mars-ambient. “I think.”

“We’ve got about thirty seconds.” He pauses. “You complained of a hissing sound, I came to check it out, the window blew. Agreed? The front desk isn’t smart, and this place was built for privacy.”

I blink at him, clearing the birefringent rainbows that surround his face—an artifact of the moisture on my eyeballs freezing—and nod. “Thank you.” I touch his arm, but he pulls away sharply.

“Don’t thank me, thank your sister.” He gives me a very old-fashioned look. “It’s damnably rude to manipulate people like that.”

“I’m not trying to be manipulative!” I’m startled by my own vehemence. Now that I’m not breathing in that mesmerizing scent, I can think again. The downside is, so can he.
Change the subject.
“Boss sent her. Then sent me, when she went missing. That’s your other message. We don’t know where she is.”

“Huh. Well, that’s your problem. But in any case, we won’t be meeting again. My owner departs for Saturn next month, en route to the auction. She’s taking me along, and I don’t get any say in it.”

“Your
owner
?” I blink stupidly. “I thought you were self-owned—”

I stop abruptly. I’d do anything to take the words back; I can see their effect on him. But it’s too late. “I
was
. Until a couple of hours after we—got into trouble.” His tone is remote. “
She
sued for breach of contract, won, and took out a controlling interest in my personhood. I’m no slave—but parts of me won’t work without her permission.”

“I’m so sorry—”

“You can stop right there,” he says. Then he pauses, and hunches his shoulders, turning his face away from me. “I think ... yes. She hasn’t told me any of her plans, so I can
speculate aloud
. Nobody here. Heh. The courier gave me the message and I left. I wasn’t to know that five minutes later a pair of her tame butchers would be along to make sure there are no loose ends, was I?”

“Tame butchers?”

He starts, then turns back to make eye contact. “I didn’t say anything, ” he says, looking startled. “You
do
know that she wants you hunted down, don’t you? It was stupid of Jeeves to send you, unless—”

Right.
I tense myself for what’s coming next. “Is there anything you want me to pass on to Juliette if I see her?” I ask.

He looks puzzled. “Yes. Tell her . . . tell her about my new arrangement. And give her my love, and my apologies.” He twitches. “It won’t be forever.” He stoops to pick up his toolbox. “And as for you.” He straightens up, but pauses in front of the door (which has puffed up and extruded a domed emergency air-lock sack in front of the bathroom) . “Try to understand, I love her.
You
are
not
her. I’m very sorry you’re suffering from this, uh, delusion”—he places a hand on the air lock—“but I don’t want you.”

Then he steps out of my life, leaving me alone in the room with a broken window and a broken heart, to await the arrival of the Domina’s executioners.

part two

OUTWARD BOUND

On the Run

WELCOME TO MARS (again).