Shockball (26 page)

So he hadn’t found the access hatch. “We tiptoed.”

“You said you’d been in the mountains. The closest mountain range is over sixty kilometers from the estate.”

“No wonder my feet hurt.”

He held out a gloved hand. “Lascalpel.”

I didn’t want to give it back to him, so it hit his palm with a little extra, unnecessary force.

Joe ignored that and looked through the scope. “It appears you repaired the original trauma and restored systemic circulation. However, the cellular damage was too extensive for the organ to continue functioning. The other kidney is missing. Removed?”

“He doesn’t know. It could be a birth defect, or it was excised during infancy.” Though how that could have happened without leaving a scar, I had no idea.

“Interesting. The remaining kidney should be enlarged.” He carefully entered the organ with a scope probe and surveyed the interior. “You must have worked on him at some kind of medical facility. Which one?”

“Oh, I did that in the mountains, too. Amazing what you can accomplish with a sharp stick, a few vines, and some moss.”

He held out his hand again. “Hypercellular injector.”

I glanced at the tray. “The what?”

“The long instrument to the immediate left of the suture laser.”

I picked up what looked like a syrinpress that had been miniaturized, with a few dozen infusion ports added to the tip. “What’s it do?”

Dark blue eyes narrowed above the edge of his mask. “Do you want me to teach you this procedure, or perform it?”

“I want you to tell me how many patients survived it.”

“All of them.”

I slapped it in his hand. “Remember what I said.”

Whatever Joe was doing was fine, delicate work. He stayed in the organ and on the scope for the next two hours. Occasionally I had to apply suction and take care of a few bleeders, but otherwise I was made to feel about as useful as a structural post.

“There.” Finally Joe pushed the scope away and tossed the bloodied injector onto the discard tray. “I’ve repaired the vascular occlusions, and seeded the organ with hypercellular implants. The new cells will restructure the kidney, and replace the dysfunctional tissue.”

I wasn’t going to take his word for it. “I want to see what you did on the scope.”

He stepped aside. “As you wish.”

I upped the magnification and studied the work he’d done on Reever’s kidney. New, pink organ cells were already beginning to flush the gray surface of the organ. “It looks almost like cancer.”

“It operates with a similar replication and replacement process, at a far more rapid and efficient growth rate. Like carcinogenic cells, the organic hypercells will replace existing tissue and reinstate organ function without further treatment.”

“Will he need anti-rejection therapy?”

“No. The cells rebuild themselves by utilizing existing systemic material. His body will not attack it.”

“Congratulations, Doctor.” I pushed the scope aside and grabbed the lascalpel. “I’ll close, and monitor.”

“You may, until this evening. The drones will care for him while you will change for dinner, and our night together.”

Oh, yes. Our night together.

I spent the next six hours monitoring Reever, scanning the site and witnessing the gradual reformation of his kidney. The hypercells replicated and replaced the damaged tissue with astonishing speed. It was probably the most miraculous process I’d ever seen, outside of the development of a human fetus. Once again, Joseph had found a way to radically change Terran medicine for all time. He’d also saved Reever.

I had no problem dealing with that. Joseph owed me.

As Reever’s condition continued to improve, I turned my attention to what I had to do tonight. Pulling off the rest of my plan presented some problems. It was all going to be very tricky. I’d also have to leave Reever alone for several hours. A couple thousand variables were involved.

Anything might happen.

Reever stirred, then gradually came out of the anesthetic. He immediately tried to reach for me, so I took his hand. “Cherijo.”

“Hey, blue eyes.” I stroked the blond hair away from his brow. He was still pretty groggy. “How many wives do you see?”

“One.” His voice rasped on the word. “Joseph?”

“He’s up in the mansion. Don’t worry about him.”

He tried to lift his head from the berth, then grimaced and closed his eyes. “What happened?”

“I talked old Joe into helping us out. He’s invented a new way to handle organ damage. He injects replacement cells into the organ, and they replicate and rebuild it. You’ll have a brand-new kidney in a few hours.”

“Complications?”

“All kinds of them.” I rolled my eyes. “None that will bother your kidney, I hope.”

He didn’t appreciate my joke. “What does he want?”

“Something he’s not going to get. No, don’t try to sit up. Look at me.” I checked his pupils. At this rate, he was going to be ambulatory in a few hours, so I removed the restraints. “You stay here and rest. I have to go and deal with him now.”

He didn’t like hearing that, either. “Stay with me.”

“I wish I could. Duncan, you know I have to put an end to this. Trust me, I won’t resort to violence.” Unless I had to. “I’m going to try to reason with him. If he doesn’t cooperate, I’ll drug him. Then we’re getting out of here and leaving Terra. Sound good to you?”

From his expression, I could tell he wanted to argue with me. “Be careful.”

“I will.” I kissed him. “Rest now.”

The lift was open and waiting for me. So was Joseph, just outside the door panel up in the house. He took my arm.

“I meant what I said,” I told him. Not yanking out of his grip took some effort. “I’ll cooperate.”

“Forgive me if I find your sudden acquiescence suspect.”

Normally Joe was completely oblivious to anything but his own schemes, but occasionally he anticipated me. Time to do my song and dance.

“Look at it this way. Even if I wanted to walk out of here, Reever is in no shape to be moved. I’m not going to trade his life for my freedom. Besides, is there any possible way for me to get out of this fortress now?”

“I did not think so, until you escaped the last time.”

“You taught me a lot of things, Joe. One of them was how to keep my word.” I didn’t mention the fine art of lying through my teeth I’d picked up since leaving Terra. “I want Reever alive, and out of here.”

“We shall see.”

He took me to my room, where one of the housekeeping drones stood waiting with more impractical garments.

“I haven’t had a decent shower in a few weeks,” I said, and pretended to scratch my scalp. “Mind if I clean up before the experiments begin again?”

He gave me a vaguely alarmed look. “Do a dermal parasitic scan before you cleanse. You have thirty minutes.”

I waited until he left, then tried to dismiss the housekeeping drone. It ignored me completely, which made it very easy to disable. A server of water dumped over it shorted the control panel long enough for me to yank the power core. “One down, two to go.”

I retrieved my treasure box, and as promised, Maggie’s cache of discs were hidden inside. I turned on the cleanser unit to full stream and let it cloud up the lavatory before going in there. I had to hide the discs on me, which took a silk scarf and some creative tucking and draping.

The dress Joe wanted me to wear was fully and conservatively cut, thank God, so the scarf didn’t look out of place. I unbraided my hair and let it get damp, then stepped out of the fog back into the bathroom.

A study of my reflection made me adjust a few folds. Whatever was on the discs, there was no way I was letting Joseph get his hands on them. “Okay. Best I can do.” I went to the console and did what I needed to do there. “Time to ruin Daddy’s entire night.”

Knowing my creator, he’d be waiting in the formal dining room for me, so that’s where I headed. I’d watched him input the access code to the lift, so I knew I could get back down into the facility. All I had to do was disable him long enough to get Reever on a gurney, up and out of the mansion, and into a glidecar.

Piece of cake.

Joseph had changed into his party tuxedo, a sober-looking affair that made him look like a penguin. I refrained from pointing that out as I took my place at the table. Might as well give him a few minutes to savor the triumph I was about to take away from him.

“You remembered how I like your hair,” he said, surprising me.

It was down so it hid the bulges in the scarf around my neck. “I’m glad you like it. What’s for dinner?”

“Summer quail with raisin-oyster stuffing.”

“Oh, boy.” I controlled a wince. “My favorite.”

The kitchen drone delivered our meal in short order, and I spent a few minutes pushing quail around my plate while Joe lectured me on his new transplantation techniques. If I closed my eyes, I could have gone back in time three years, and found myself doing the same thing, only pushing bits of lobster while he gave me a mini-seminar on bowel resections.

“Tell me something,” I said, interrupting his oration. “What would you do if you found out I’m sterile?”

“You’re not.” He cut up his quail the same way he operated on Reever—with precise, absolute accuracy. As he sampled the meat, I finally recognized the gruesome side to our profession. “You were ovulating the day I brought you here.”

Ovulating, yes. Able to reproduce, no. Why had he missed that? “What about my immune system?”

“I’ve taken that into consideration. After my personal insemination, specific genetic adjustments, and a regime of immuno-suppressants should protect the fetus for the duration of your pregnancy.”

“Really.” I gave up the pretense of eating and drank some of the red wine he’d poured for me. A California merlot, one of his favorites. It resembled congealed blood in color, and old sterilizer solution in taste. “Far as I know, my immune system will render anything inert and useless. You’d better go with the in vitro method.”

He actually reached out and put his hand on mine. “I do not plan to use artificial insemination.”

I dragged my hand away. “I doubt you could implant a gestating zygote…” I stopped, and reconsidered his statement. “When you said personally impregnate me, you mean
personally
! As in having intercourse?”

“Yes.”

I dropped my fork. I tried to say something. Nothing came out. I took a deep drink of the lousy merlot.

“I didn’t create you simply to be the perfect physician and human.” He placed his utensils down and flattened his hands against the table. Like he was bracing himself.

I needed some bracing, too, and quickly downed the rest of the merlot. “You—”

“I created you to be my wife.”

PART THREE
Consanguinity

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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Not To Be Trusted

E
verything I had never understood about my creator for the last twenty-nine years abruptly snapped into stunning, nauseating clarity. I must have sat there in silence for a full five minutes as I saw my entire existence turn upside down.

He’d made me to be his
wife
.

I’d misjudged the motives behind everything he’d done. He’d programmed me genetically. He’d taught me to obey him. He’d isolated me from other men. He’d convinced me to take up his profession. He’d instilled in me some, if not all, of the values he held sacred.

Not because he’d wanted to be a good
father
.

When I’d left him, he let me go only so far. He had allowed me my alien experience on K-2, to test my immune system and to instill in me the hatred of non-humans he had. Only it had gone all wrong. I’d become fascinated with aliens. I’d even fallen in love with one. I’d refused to come back to him.

Of course he’d come after me with a vengeance. Not because he was being a good father, or he considered me a lab rat.

He’d made himself a
mate
, and he wanted her back.

Panic set in. I shoved my chair back away from the table and got up. “You’re sick.”

He came after me. Slowly, with great poise and dignity.

“I have been training you to take your place at my side since you were born. You are an accomplished surgeon who can understand and share in my work. You have been brought up to appreciate the finer aspects of Terran existence, unsullied by alien cultural pollutants. You were physically engineered to be an attractive female and a highly responsive partner.”

He’d tinkered with
that
? “Stop. Stay away from me.”

He did stop. “I designed you to be the perfect woman for me. This is your destiny, Cherijo.”

“You made me so you could mate with yourself,” I said, and saw him extend a hand. “Don’t touch me. Unless you want to pull back a bloody stump.”

“Think of what we will do together.” He smiled a little as he watched my face. “As husband and wife, we will produce the children who will chart the genetic future of the human race. We will continue my research and resolve the threat to our way of life. It will be an incredible journey for both of us.”

He was completely insane. “Incest is still against the law.”

“You’re not my daughter, or my sister. Only a sentient being qualifies as such, under Terran law.”

“So you made sure I wouldn’t meet the specifications.”

“Naturally, there will be no officially recognized union between us. I have no need for the bonds of marriage. You are my property.”

“Your own little brood mare.”

“You cannot become pregnant with an alien’s child. Only a Terran can breed with you. That is why the World Government consented to my proposal thirty years ago. You and I will have children who cannot be corrupted by alien DNA. Their children, like you, will be unable to crossbreed, thus preserving our heritage forever.”

I’d always known my creator was brilliant, and narcissistic, but this went way beyond the worst megalomania. Somehow, he’d convinced himself that he was God, and it was time to rewrite Genesis.