Vestiges of Time (11 page)

gions of Cold, the Deliverance of Helios from the Lords of Death, the winter solstice.

It was also an opportunity to throw one hell of a party.

So on the evening of the day that would be called December 20 on some calendars, all work in the city of VarKhohs and in the underground chambers of the BrathelLanza came to a halt; shops and offices above, labs and training areas below were all closed, and the membership of the Brotherhood of Life congregated in the Underground’s largest room, that which contained the drill field, a great, brightly lighted cavern cut out of the living stone.

I won’t go into what was eaten and drunk that night, or what followed in the darkened corridors and shadowy rooms. I’ll only say that when the morning came there was many an aching head and many a guilty conscience.

To soothe those consciences, and in an effort to overcome those aching heads, most of those who were able to drag themselves out of bed went to a morning service that was a mixture of religious teachings, astrological mumbo-jumbo, ancestor worship and moral indoctrination.

. Although I was one of those able, if barely, to drag myself out of bed, wondering where EnDera had spent the night, for it certainly hadn’t been with me—those hours for me had gone by in the company of a dark young lady whom I later learned had not been bom from a mother’s womb but from an encanter flask, but she was warm flesh and blood for all that—I wasn’t one of those who went to the services.

Rather, after a breakfast of coffee, raw eggs in
milk
and a brace of pills I hoped would make me feel halfway human again, I cleaned myself up, dressed in the military-type garments I’d begun to wear and went for a walk through the subterranean chambers.

My wandering footsteps unconsciously but purpose

fully took me through the strangely quiet and empty tunnels and passageways to the laboratories and finally into the large chamber where the 340 surviving replications of myself were still sleeping peacefully, totally unaware of the frenzy and gluttony that had passed through the chambers the night before.

For a long while I stood there looking at them, the replicates, the clones, the miniatures of me.

About two weeks before they had been transferred from the first of the maturation encanters to the second, where they would remain until they reached a maturation level of twelve years, which was still some two and a half months away. Now they were at ML-7Y, looking for all the world Uke sleeping Uttle boys of seven years of age who would soon wake up and want to go outside and play ball or something.

And that mixture of awe and revulsion passed through me again, and once more I wondered about the wisdom—and the moraUty!—of this thing I’d gotten myself involved in.

So deep was I in these thoughts and feelings that I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me until they had nearly reached me. When I did hear them I turned.

“Good morning, General,” said OrDjina, the lovely mistress of the lord DessaTyso, with perhaps a slightly mocking tone in her voice as she spoke the last word, my title.

“Oh, good morning,” I replied, wondering what had brought her here. To view her own replicate? I wondered, but remembered that the more mature clone of the cells of this woman was in another chamber, having some weeks before been encantered in a cylinder large enough for the final stages of her growth to maturity. So ... ?

“You are not a religious man, I take it, General,” she said, again with a mocking sound to the final word.

I shook my head and I looked her up and down in a fashion that I was sure was obvious to her, though

she made no attempt to shrink from my gaze, to show a modesty I knew she didn’t possess. More an exhibitionist than a shrinking violet, she.

Her clothing this morning was a tan outfit consisting of a thin, loose-fitting blouse with lace sleeves that ended at her elbows, the neckline of which plunged almost to her waist and under which she wore nothing, her full breasts straining to escape the capturing fabric. She wore equally loose-fitting trousers, which were cut with checkerboard squares down the outsides of her hips and legs and through which her dark skin showed from thigh to ankle, warm skin, inviting skin. The color of the clothing was slightly lighter than that skin, a shade that looked well with it.

Her black hair, brushed and gleaming, sparkling with a cluster of jewels above each temple, swept loosely across her shoulders and down her back. In her eyes was a sparkle that might have been mischievous had she had a greater air of innocence about her. But then, like modesty, innocence was a quality Lady OrDjina lacked. And she did not seem to regret that lack.

“And what about yourself?” I asked. “You, don’t feel a need for the sacred services?”

She laughed, flashing bright teeth. “I rather doubt it would do me any good. I am far beyond that point. Like yourself.”

She turned to look into one of the glass cylinders that contained what appeared to be a naked seven- year-old boy. “You were a handsome child, General.” “I like to think so myself.”

“And one who showed great promise for the man he would become,” she said, and almost leered as she gestured toward the child’s genitals. “And I rather imagine you were a nasty little boy as well.”

“What do you mean by that?” I wasn’t offended by either comment, only curious about the second.

“All little boys are nasty, you know. Some are just a bit more wicked than others.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Of course.”

“Well, maybe I was. At least my parents seemed to think so. I got more spankings than any other boy I knew.”

She laughed. “You must have been a terror to the little girls when you grew a bit older.”

I shrugged again.

Then she asked, something flintlike coming to her dark eyes, “And who were those parents you just spoke of, General?”

I turned to look her fully in the face. “Why do you ask that?”

“Curiosity. I would like to know a number of things about you.”

“Such as?” What was she getting at?

“Oh, such as, where did you
really
grow up and what was your name then? Such as, what kind of a city or town did you live in and what was the language you spoke then?”

“You want to know a lot, don’t you. Why?” “Curiosity, as I told you.” There was a pause, and the wicked gleam in her eyes sparkled brightly. “Because, General HarkosNor, I don’t think there’s a single word of truth in all those things you told psychologist GrelLo.”

“Everything I told her was supposed to be kept confidential.”

“Oh, General, it is being kept confidential, I can assure you. I haven’t told a soul a thing I know about you—which, in truth, is absolutely nothing.”

“But GrelLo let you go through my tapes and notes, is that it?” I should have been angry, but at the moment I was only worried. What was it that OrDjina suspected about me? The truth? Hardly that, I thought. I hoped.

“Honestly, General, do you think GrelLo could have prevented me even if she’d wanted to and tried?

I am the lady of his lordship, you know, and with his permission I can do just about anything I want.”

“Just about?”

She sighed, placed a hand between her breasts, fingers touching the column of her neck. “I must admit that even his lordship finds it wise to defer to AkweNema at times. For now,” she added with an ominous weight.

“I see.”

“Are you certain even of that, General?”

“Right now I’m not certain of much of anything.”

“ ‘A wise man is one who admits his ignorance.’ That’s an old saying of my people. My people have a great number of old sayings.” She paused long enough to look me up and down as I had looked her up and down a short while before. Then she spoke again: “I have been around a bit, General. NakrehVatee is not my home, as I’m certain you’ve surmised. My experiences have been, shall we say, a bit more cosmopolitan than those of most of the others here. And I know that you are not what you claim to be. General, your accent isn’t even that of a SteeMehseeha, you know.”

She raised a hand toward my face to keep me from speaking until she had finished. “I’ve been looking into your computer identity records, General, and I must say they are excellent forgeries. It would take an expert to find fault with them. But they’re all lies, aren’t they?” “Does it make any diSerence what I say?”

“None whatsoever. Unless you wish'“to tell me the truth. But somehow I doubt that you’ll do that.” “You’re right there at least.”

“Then should I go to AkweNema and KaphNo and tell them what I know? Should I ask them to do a little checking about you, more than they’ve already done?” She laughed a strange, almost bitter laugh. “Oh, those poor fools! You could be a government agent for all they know, come to infiltrate the BrathelLanza and bring all the power of the state down to crush them.”

“I’m not that.”

“I know.”

“You’re certain?”

“I’m certain of several things that you aren’t, General. One of the things you aren’t is a government agent. Another is a barbarian mercenary come across the sea to sell your fighting skill to the highest bidder. What I don’t know is what you
are.”

“Then why don’t you do like you said, tell AkweNema and KaphNo and Lord DessaTyso what you know? Why didn’t you do that before you even spoke to me?”

“Honestly, General, I have no desire to do that. I suspect certain things about you, things that I’m not even sure I can put into words. But I also suspect that you find it to your advantage to do exactly what the BrathelLanza expects of you. Whatever else you are, I don’t think that you’re about to betray them.”

“You’re right in that too.”

“So I will not tell them.”

“I’m still not certain I understand why.”

“Your understanding is not necessary, General, only your knowledge that it is so.”

“Okay. I guess.”

She smiled that wicked smile again. “Just continue to do as they wish you to do, General. You and I are on the same side, you know, and it is to the advantage of us both to see that the BrathelLanza is successful. Isn’t it?”

With that she turned, gazed briefly once more into the cylinder, at the naked little boy inside, then turned back to me again, a frank look coming to her eyes. “Wicked little boys can be a lot of fun.”

Did I comprehend her meaning? I wasn’t certain until her hands went to the clasps of her thin blouse, released them, and her breasts broke free of the fabric. “We are quite alone,” she said as she shrugged out of

the blouse. “I took the precaution of locking the doors when I entered.”

“But
...”
I began to say, then thought better of it.

“You are interested? You would like to make love with me?” she asked as the blouse fluttered to the floor and her hands went to the belt of her trousers.

“I would be a liar if I said no.”

“Then do not lie to me about that, General.” She released the belt and then the clasps that held the trousers at her waist and allowed them to drop to the floor.

“Am I not as beautiful as you imagined?” she asked, smiling wickedly.

“More so,” I said, feeling the stiffening within my own trousers, forgetting any fears I might have had of being discovered by the henchmen of the lord DessaTyso. To hell with him.

“And let us see if you have fulfilled the promise the boys within the encanters show,” she said, stepping toward me, reaching to loosen the clothing I wore.

“Oh, yes, General, you have fulfilled that promise,” she said, flowing into my arms, her breasts crushing against my chest, her hands going to the throbbing point of passion I presented her.

“The floor here is not soft,” she whispered as she went to her knees before me, “but it will do when the time comes for that. But
first.
.

Later, when she was gone and I was alone in the encanter chamber, silent except for the soft sounds of the machinery that supported the lives of the 340 replicates of myself, I wondered just what was the meaning of all the words she had spoken to me before the passionate, almost savage bout of sexual delight had begun.

My speculations could be endless and would probably be equally fruitless. How could I begin to understand a woman like her?

I shrugged and dressed and started back toward my suite, thinking that now my stomach might be able to take some solid food. With the lady OrDjina I had worked up quite an appetite, another appetite having been quite thoroughly satisfied.

Of OrDjina

In early January, as I logged the days in a private journal, OrDjina’s replicate, finally given the name QueZina, was decanted and gradually brought to consciousness, as had the replicate of AkweNema’s daughter before her. QueZina, looking like an unusually beautiful eighteen-year-old, was not to be given extracts of her senior’s memory, but was to be allowed to develop her own personality through educational experiences not greatly unlike those of a normal human child, though starting from a psychological maturity much greater than that of a newborn and proceeding at a much more rapid pace. It was more on the order of an experiment than anything else, and one to which OrDjina and the lord DessaTyso had given their blessing.

I saw little of AkweNema’s “daughter,” who had been named Akweletana. AkweNema spent more of his time on the surface than he did in the Underground, while the replicated girl remained below, usually in his suite, with nurses and teachers when she wasn’t being given mnemonic instruction by GrelLo’s people. The few times I did see her, during rare visits to AkweNema’s suite, left me with the impression of a very shy little girl inhabiting a big girl’s body and totally uncertain of what to do with it. And each time I saw her, or OrDjina’s replicate, QueZina, or one of the other half dozen or so adult replicates that lived in the BrathelLanza’s Underground, I again felt those perplexing mixtures of feeling I had experienced before and that grew stronger with the passage of time. My attitudes toward replicates, even my own, never really did become clear to me.