seen clones he’d been fascinated by the mirror images they presented. Did they think alike? Dream alike? If they were to paint or sculpt, would the work of one resemble that of the others the way their expressions echoed each other? After a while, he realized that the clone groups were always females. But he’d been on the verge of adulthood before he understood that in their existence was the denial of the need for his.
His memories flowed steadily in the idiosyncratic code he’d devised ahead of time, to be translated by a few trusted lieutenants. If he could have spent his life at the art school in Cuzco, where CenCom had sent him when he was twelve, he would have been content. His days would have been filled giving life to the visions that spun endlessly in his imagination. In the thin air of that high city, surrounded by ghosts of lost civilizations, he would have pursued his art and taught others in a quiet peace that might have lasted until he was old and white-haired like his teachers. Time had been his to play with, and it had been endless. But the coming of the clones disrupted his world. He’d left the mountains to find the answer to the question they posed: if there was no need for his existence, then what was its meaning?
He set the stylus down and gazed about him. Smooth, gently curving walls met his gaze, practical surfaces, functional hatches where he’d stowed the few possessions he’d had time to bring with him, sterile colors. Everything spoke of economy and efficiency; function led esthetics in starship design. His fingers itched to rearrange, repaint.
“Do you need something, Civilian Marit?”
“No.”
He could see how this constant concern for his welfare could soon become annoying. He didn’t want to know how they built biocomputers, but something suggested HANA’s brain was female.
He picked up the stylus and continued. The topic needed reinterpretation. And the group of young men in the cell he’d recruited would benefit from his insight.
“Civilian Marit,” HANA said severely, “you need a sleep period in order to function effectively.”
He paid no attention. Once he’d realized what was happening, he’d moved to oppose it. In Cuzco there’d been others who shared his beliefs, some male, some female, people who worried about the danger of a computer-planned humanity. A tall girl with long blond braids had recruited him, reaffirming in the high, sweet darkness under the spinning stars that nature had been right after all.
Her name was Kari, and he’d never see her again. At the thought, the old anger churned in him.
“Civilian Marit, I really must insist....”
He could, if he wanted to, use memory-stim to recapture the scene with Kari in full detail. He could attach the tiny electrode to his scalp, and HANA would do the rest. All the poignancy and pain would be his to taste again and again—
He didn’t want to.
Afterward, he’d begun to speak out. No one listened at first. Then as time went on the wrong ones listened. The first time he’d been the recipient of violence, he was convinced it was an accident. One of the advantages of belonging to a powerless minority was being indulged in outrageous behavior; men weren’t expected to make sense. But the next time, a young girl had thrown stones.
A knock sounded at his door, but he barely noticed. Scenes of the past engulfed him—there but not there, like a holographic tableau into which he’d blundered. His life had been in danger. And then, at the moment when he’d faced the most serious threat to his safety, at a rally in Nairobi that got out of hand, he’d been seized by CenCom’s security forces and whisked away into custody.
“Would you prefer me to open your door?” HANA asked.
“What?” he said. “Oh. No, I’ll....”
He was certain CenCom intended to jail him. Instead, it lectured him on the importance of the artifacts to be found on a strange planet in some backwater arm of the galaxy, and loaded him unceremoniously onto the freighter Ann Bonny just as she was about to lift off. Did it realize it had saved his life.
And if it did, why?
The knocking resumed, so insistent this time he couldn’t ignore it.
“Come in.”
The door slid open and he saw the pale complexion and almost colorless hair of Shelly Matiz in the opening. She glanced cautiously around first, as if searching for hidden occupants; her stocky figure was stiff and tense. The door closed behind her. He waited curiously for her to reveal what was so important she had to come in person.
“Marit.”
He acknowledged with a slight inclination of his head. Something about Shelly was familiar. He’d thought it as soon as he’d met her after boarding. But everyone except a small, necessary crew had gone into cold sleep and there hadn’t been time to pursue the thought any further.
“You going down again, when Madel gives the okay?”
“Yes, Yeo Matiz. That’s my plan.”
Her body betrayed her tension in a series of almost imperceptible jerkings and twitchings. They were all tense right now. Riding so close to that alien ruin was unsettling, and Shelly was no more immune than he to its psychic effect. Nevertheless, he watched her cautiously. Something about her face haunted him.
“Is there something you wanted to have me do for you?”
“Your kind can’t do anything for me, Stud!”
The reply was contemptuous, yet it wasn’t unusual and he’d heard worse in the past. A memory surfaced suddenly. He had indeed seen Shelly Matiz before he’d been sent to the Ann Bonny.
“Know who you are, Marit,” she said. “Know all about you and your activities. Don’t know how you managed to get CenCom to assign you to us. But I recognized you at once.”
She’d been a face in the crowd at that last rally. He’d noticed her because of the blue Commerce Fleet uniform, a rarity anywhere too far from Homeport where the ships landed. He waited, aware of the all-seeing and all-hearing presence of HANA, and suddenly glad for it.
“Came to warn you,” Shelly said. “You probably feel safe. But CenCom can’t protect you on that planet down there.”
“I have no wish to offend anyone, Yeo Matiz,” he said carefully. “If my actions so far—”
“Your actions are disgusting!” The bone-white features were crisscrossed with a thin, angry network of red.
“I don’t know what—”
“Don’t think I haven’t seen the way you talk to Dori. Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you lean toward her all the time. Think it’s all right out here to flaunt your body, don’t you, Stud?”
He watched her cautiously, saying nothing, aware that anything he said might upset her precarious control. When he was ready to fight, he’d pick a better time and place than this.
“Stay away from Dori, Stud. Or I’ll make you pay for it.”
Abruptly, she turned and strode out of the cabin, the door barely having time to open for her. He stared after her. He’d met Shelly’s type before, the extremists who would’ve been happy
