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Just as a technician learns to use his tools, you can be taught to use other people to create whatever you desire This becomes more potent when you can create the special person for your special purpose
- Morgan Oakes, The Diaries
LEGATA HAMILL knew groundside was to be their permanent home eventually, but she did not like these courier jobs on which Oakes sent her There was a sense of power in the look at her by a guard) adan Oakes She knehat they sahen they looked at her: a sure almost lush in its femininity They saoman The Boss wanted and who, because of that, was powerful and dangerous
Every inspection trip she took for Oakes created tension
This time she was to inspect Lab One at Colony And all of it would be on holo to make a full record for Oakes to review
"Penetrate it," Oakes had said
The way he said "penetrate" had distinctly sexual overtones
She had never been into the Lab One depths before and that alone piqued her curiosity Lewis had a trusted minion here, Sy Murdoch She was to meet Murdoch Usually, Leas to be found in the shiny plasteel environs of the lab which was entered via a triple-lock syste tunnel Not today Leas out of co it; and there was no doubt that Oakes was disturbed by this development
"Find out where the hell he is, what he’s doing!"
Both suns had been in the sky when the shuttle brought her down Maximum flare security had been in force She had been hustled out of the landing complex and into a servo which deposited her at the tunnel The Colony personnel were quick and harried today - rumors of perimeter difficulties with Pandora’s ht of the predatory creatures which roamed the landscape beyond Colony’s barriers filled her with apprehension
Murdoch hi area where the last lock sealed off the entrance within the lab He was a blocky ht coers were short and stubby, the nails well trimmed He always appeared recently scrubbed
"What is it this tiy focus in his question It said: We’re busy here What does Oakes want now?
Very well, she could lanced around to see whono workers nearby, he said: "Redoubt"
"Why doesn’t he answer our calls?"
"Don’t know"
"What was his last ency code Hold all transports No craft pernal"
Legata absorbed this E across the waters at the Redoubt?
"Why wasn’t Doctor Oakes infornal called for complete security"
She understood this No trans that restriction But that o full Pandoran diurns ago She sensed another restriction in the last e from the Redoubt, a private Lewis restriction to his own minions It would be pointless to explore such a conjecture, but she felt its presence
"Have you sent an overflight?"
"No"
So that was restricted, too Ba very bad Well, then, she had to get on to the rest of her assignment
"I’m here to inspect the lab"
"I know"
Murdoch had been studying this woman while they talked The orders trans except the Scream Room That would come later for he as it ca: a pocket Venus with a doll face and green eyes She had a good brain, too, by all accounts
"If you know, let’s get going," she said
"This way"
He led her down a passage between banked vats of pri section
At first, Legata’s interest was intellectual - she knew this and it co her past rows of special-application clonewombs He was so intent in his rhapsody on equipment and techniques that she did not mind his touch It was, after all, clinical Or unintentional Whichever, Murdoch’s touch was not born out of affection; this she knew
But he knew Lab One as few others could, even perhaps as well as Lewis, and she had never been told to go deep into it before
"but I’ve accepted that as true," Murdoch was saying, and she hadbehind a screen of transparent plaz
She looked at Murdoch "Accepted what? I’m sorry, I wa I mean, there’s so much to see"
"Plasteel by the kilometer, tanks and fluids, pseudo-bodies, pseudo-mind" He waved his hand in frustration
She realized that Murdoch was in a particularly manic mood and this bothered her She felt the need to suppress unspoken questions about that odd fetus floating behind the screen of plaslass
"So you’ve accepted all this," she said "So what?"
"We birth here We conceive people here, nurture them fetally, extract them, send some shipside for trainin Doesn’t it strike you as odd that we can’t bring natural births groundside, too?"
"What Ship decides is for good reason, for the good o"
"of Shipmen everywhere I know I’ve heard it as often as you have But Ship did not decide Nowhere in the records can anyone - even you, the best Search Technician we have, so I’m told - find where Ship has demanded that all births take place shipside Nowhere"
Without knowing how she knew it, Legata realized he was repeating Lewis’ words verbati Why was she supposed to hear this? Was it part of Oakes’ scheme to do aith the shipside obstetrics force, the Natali?
"But we are required to WorShip," she said "And what greater WorShip can we have than to entrust Ship with our children? It ic," he agreed "But it is not a direct coood deal of our work here in Lab One unnecessarily lian says you can do it anyway"
There, let hian, not The Boss, not Doctor Oakes
Murdoch dropped her hand and the flush of elation washed out of his cheeks
He knoe’re on holo, she thought, and I’ve ruined his act