THEY FLEW to Damiel’s place in his skimmer, since Grychn’s had gone home on autopilot with the boys.
On the way, they took a detour to the spaceport at Nyssa, so Grychn could see Damiel’s twelve-meter yacht, the Kalispel Condor. She was a sleek-looking gravship with three p-grav pods placed on struts around a central spherical hull, itself twelve meters in diameter.
The cabins inside were luxurious, with paneling of real teak, gold fittings, silk upholstery, and wool carpeting. There were six staterooms, a galley, a lounge, a control room, and crew quarters. No one was aboard.
Grychn was suitably impressed. She had spent ten years living aboard gravships, when she and Detrs had been pirates, but their ships had been built for speed and firepower rather than comfort.
“This ship won the Ceres’ Cup?” she asked.
Damiel nodded.
“Aren’t the furnishings kind of opulent for a racer?”
Damiel shrugged. “The interior appointments don’t make any difference one way or another. The acceleration comes from your p-grav pods and cannot exceed one hundred G’s. Maneuverability is the key to winning races, and that’s all in your cybernetics. The Condor has quicker cybernetics than any other twelve-meter racer–that’s why she won the Ceres’ Cup.” He smiled.
“Why are you grinning?”
“I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Your mother designed the cybernetics.”
“I haven’t kept in touch with her either.”
“Sounds like you had a lovely childhood.”
Grychn shrugged. “I wasn’t allowed to choose my parents. So I don’t have to like them.” She thought of something. “Have you ever slept with my mother?”
“You’re not supposed to ask those kinds of questions.”
“Have you?” Grychn began to get excited at the thought.
“In a thousand years you can sleep with a lot of people.”
“Did you ever sleep with her?” Grychn let her gown slip off and fall to the floor. She stood naked in its crumpled folds. Her singing pearls became warm from the ultrasonics they emitted. Pheromone steamed from her breasts. A normal male could not have resisted. Damiel did not.
He pulled off his pants and tunic and embraced her. She lay on the deck with legs spread. He kneeled and entered her.
“Did you ever have my mother?” she asked.
“Certainly,” he answered.
“Am I better? “
“I’ll let you know.”
“One more question.”
“Go ahead.”
“Am I better than the Lord General?”
Damiel knew better than to answer that.
* * *
Later, Grychn was poking about the Condor’s bins and lockers. The ship was fully provisioned with enough supplies to last for months.
“Are you planning on leaving soon?” she asked. “You never know when you might have to make a quick getaway.”
She opened another drawer. “What’s this?” But she knew. She stared at the DPU and psihelmets and the vial of peptide. She could imagine the peptide burning in her brain. “Why do you have a dream-processor? I thought you had quit.”
Damiel closed the drawer. “For guests,” he said. “Sometimes my guests get bored on a long voyage.”
Grychn remembered making love within a dream-processor–the sex had been better than any real orgasms she had ever had. Much better. “I want to leave now,” she said.
“Right now?”
“Yes, right now.”
“Are you afraid of the dream-crystal? Are you tempted?”
“Yes. Let’s go. I don’t want to come back here.”
“OK.”
They left.
They took the skimmer to DamieI’s estate, a ten-minute flight south to where the Arkansas River emptied into the sea.
Grychn would not talk until they had landed. “Do you have a dream-crystal here?” she asked him then.
“No,” he answered, and they went into the house.
Neither one felt like making love again, so they just slept together in each other’s arms. It all seemed very tender.
* * *
When Grychn awoke, she was alone in bed. Food smells drifted in from the French doors across the bedroom. She got up and padded over. Damiel sat at a table outside on a patio.
He looked up. “Good morning,” he said. “Join me for some breakfast?”
Since he was still naked, Grychn did not bother dressing either. She sat across from Damiel, who poured her a cup of coffee. There were several varieties of fruit and cheeses, toast with honey and jams, and several kinds of pastries.
“If you would like something else, I’ll have the cook get started.”
“No need to bother. This is fine.” She picked up a piece of toast and took a bite. A drop of honey dripped on her breast. She reached for a napkin, but Damiel put his hand on hers. His eyes were looking at her breast.
“I’ll lick it off later,” he said.
“In that case ...”
She let some more drip on her.
Damiel was true to his word. He did lick her clean.
* * *
Later that morning, they again sat at the table outdoors. Now they were showered and dressed. Grychn sipped a glass of wine.
“I talked to Edbryn this morning,” Damiel said. “He’s interested. He can see you this afternoon, if that’s convenient.”
“That would be fine,” Grychn answered. “Will you come with us?”
“Of course.”
She kissed him. She knew it was too late to turn back now.
* * *
They hopped over the mountains to Telluride and picked up the boys. Grychn and the twins followed Damiel in Grychn’s skimmer. Edbryn’s laboratory was located in Nyssa, another short hop back over the mountains.
At one o’clock they were sitting in his office.
Lord Surgeon Edbryn did not look particularly distinguished or impressive. He was of average height and slight of build. His eyes were an ordinary blue, his teeth standard white. His one distinguishing feature was his hair, which he wore shoulder length, pulled into a tail by a jeweled band. His voice was surprisingly deep and melodious. As he spoke, Grychn began to feel confidence in him. She believed he would tell her the truth.
After a few minutes of pleasantries, a medroid came in to draw blood and take tissue specimens from the boys.
“Why don’t you two boys come with me to another office,” Edbryn said. “I’ve got a few hologames you can play.”
“Are you going to talk about grown-up things?” Craig asked.
“That’s right.”
“We probably already know about it,” Chris added.
“Then it would bore you to stay. Come with me.” Edbryn led them out of the office and returned in a few minutes.
“How long will it take to do the tests?” Grychn asked.
“Not long. The actual DNA analysis is automated. Extracting it from the patient’s cells is the hardest part. Damiel tells me you want to know if your boys will suffer progeria, and if so, if anything can be done to prevent it.”
“That’s right.”
“How much do you know about genetic physiology?”
“Not much. I don’t have a technical background.”
“Then let me give you a little background. Hybridization techniques were first perfected fifteen hundred years ago. Using them, bioengineers could modify living tissues extensively, an example of which is sitting beside you.” He looked at Damiel. “Next came techniques to hybridize gametes, so true-breeding hybrids could be created. The possible variations of human hybrids is almost unlimited, but less than twenty have seen widescale production: the nine hybrid extra-terrestrial races, the various military models, certain entertainment types.
“Without hybridization, colonization of the Solar System would not have been possible. But the early genosurgeons recognized the danger to the human morphology–hybrid forms might predominate and true humans become extinct. So they created us, the Terran aristocracy. Ironically, our creation used the same techniques as hybridization, but without using any xeno-DNA. We were to be a shining example of eugenics, and we are. Our bodies are perfect, our features pleasing, our minds are sharp and sometimes brilliant. We do not suffer from disease. And we were given antiagathic genes, so we do not age. But we are not immortal–death has only been delayed. Deterioration begins sometime after a thousand years. But that is another story.
“Genosurgeons have not had good luck making synthetic DNA. Single genes are not too difficult, but we have trouble creating an entire genome from scratch, especially one that will grow into a higher form. Plants and frogs and rodents can be synthesized, but synmen do not develop cognitive abilities, they have the intelligence of a rat. They can be trained to do simple tasks and by implanting psi wave transceivers they can be remotely controlled by cybermind, but they can never become functional human beings.
“Likewise, cloning techniques have not worked out. Differentiation permanently modifies DNA, and it cannot be brought back to an undifferentiated state.
“So to make human beings, we genosurgeons must modify gametes harvested from living humans. The first generation of the aristocracy was produced from one lot of gametes. The second generation, your generation, was produced from another. By then we had depleted our stock of gametes, which had been obtained from commoners. Unfortunately, we had also depleted our stock of commoners. They had all either emigrated or had been drafted and turned into combat hybrids. The only gene pool still untainted by hybrid DNA was the aristocracy. We harvested some gametes from ourselves and gestated some perfectly delightful little progeny. Unfortunately, they aged rapidly and died as they entered puberty. We thought it might be a problem with in vitro gestation, so we tried in vivo fertilization and gestation–making babies the old-fashioned, natural way–but the same fate happened to those children.”
“Why does it, happen? Why do they age so rapidly and die?”
“The Hayflick Phenomenon.”
“What is that?”
“An observation made a long time ago that cells can divide only a finite number of times and their DNA replicate itself a limited number of times. DNA self-replication is such a complex event that there is a certain chance for errors to occur in the code. Small errors will not be noticed, but as more and more small errors occur, their individual effects become multiplied until faulty DNA is produced.”
“That’s what’s happening to our children?”
“That’s what’s happening. Our gametes have exceeded the Hayflick limit, even those of the second generation.”
“Why can’t you repair their DNA?”
“There are too many errors to repair them all.”
“Then what can be done?”
“Hybridization before they reach puberty. The insertion of xeno-DNA into their cells will correct the metabolic defects produced by errors in their native DNA. Hybrid vigor, if you will.”
“Hybrid vigor. But then they will no longer be human.”
“Yes, that’s right. But they will live.”
“Is that what happens when Lady Blue takes the children away?”
“Of course. Cybermind is practical, if nothing else.”
“What kind of creatures do they become?”
“We are experiencing an acute shortage in the Foreign Legions right now.”
“Cybermind turns our babies into soldiers?”
“I’m afraid so.”
The medroid returned to the office with a printout it handed to Edbryn. He glanced at it quickly and then looked up at Grychn.
“What does it say?” she asked softly.
“There’s no doubt they both will suffer the progeria. The error ratio is unacceptably high in their DNA.”
Grychn felt stunned, although she had suspected as much. But somehow, not knowing for sure was better. Then at least there was a faint hope. “So my babies will have to be hybridized.”
“That or die.”
“But why into soldiers?”
“That is the current need.”
“There are no exceptions?”
“No. Cybermind has become quite autocratic, I’m afraid.”
“Is there any way to have the hybridization performed privately?” Damiel asked. “There must be a small, independent lab around.”
Edbryn shook his head sadly. “Not on Earth. Cybermind has become quite pervasive also. There’s no way it can be done on Earth.”
“Then off-world?” Grychn asked, clutching at a dim hope.
“Maybe. Rumor has it there is a lab on Ceres that could do the work. It’s part of some monastery run by a religious crackpot. But I’ve heard they have topnotch genosurgeons.”
“The Entropic Monastery?” Grychn asked. So she would see Detrs again.
“Yes, that’s the one. But there is another problem. The children won’t be allowed to leave Earth. You’re not the first mother who didn’t want her children to go into government service. Any child eight years or older is restricted from foreign travel. They won’t be allowed past customs.”
Now Grychn felt totally defeated. She slumped in her chair.
“Maybe they won’t have to go through customs,” Damiel said, smiling. “The Kalispel Condor could sneak through.”
Grychn brightened. “You mean you would take us to Ceres?”
“Why not? It’s a quick trip in the Condor. She’s loaded and ready to go.”
“When can we leave?”
“How about tomorrow night? I’ve got a couple of loose ends that need to be taken care of before I can leave.”
“The sooner the better.”
Grychn and Damiel shook hands with Edbryn, collected the boys, and left.
On the way out, Grychn leaned over and whispered to Damiel, “Will I see you tonight?”
He whispered back, “No. I’ve got to run a couple of errands.”
The twins giggled.
Damiel spoke in a normal voice. “Bring the boys and what luggage you need and meet me at the Condor’s berth at 2100 tomorrow night. Would you two boys like to go on a little trip into space?”
“You bet!” they said in unison. “Where are we going?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” Grychn said, more sternly than she felt, because actually she felt elated. “Now say goodbye to Damiel.”
They climbed into separate skimmers and streaked off in different directions.
* * *
A hundred G’s of acceleration pushed against Damiel, oppressive even though he was immersed in shock gel. Earth dwindled in the rear monitors as the Kalispel Condor flashed away. Her departure was not noticed by the Home Guard; camoskin and stealth fields made her invisible to all but the most sophisticated sensors.
Damiel’s errands would take him to Ceres. It would be a long time before he would return to Earth.
He felt bad about deceiving Grychn; her devotion to her sons was touching in a pathetic way–he understood her psychopathology. Still it was hardly sport to fool a cripple.
Sometimes Entropy was a cruel mistress.