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Although Risa has turned away, she finds her gaze drawn back to it, compelled to look on it, terrified of the prospect that it might look back.
“Won’t you play it?” he asks her. “I can’t do it justice, and I understand you’re quite the accomplished pianist.”
“I’d cut off my hands before I touch that thing again. Get me away from it.”
“Of course,” says Divan, ever obliging, but noticeably disappointed. He directs her to a stairwell across the room. “The tour continues this way.”
Risa can’t get away from the Orgão Orgânico fast enough. Yet as Divan said, the image lingers, along with a strange compelling sensation, like standing on a high ledge and leaning over, tempting gravity to steal one’s balance. As horrified as she is by the eighty-eight-faced monstrosity, she’s more horrified by the thought that she might actually want to play it.
They leave the comfort of his flying chalet, moving to the nether regions of the behemoth aircraft, into corridors and gangways without polished wood or leather, only utilitarian aluminum and steel.
“The harvest camp takes up the front two-thirds of the Lady Lucrezia. You’ll be impressed by the economy of space.”
“Why?” she asks. “Why are you showing me all of this? What possible purpose could it serve?”
Divan pauses before a large door. “It is my belief that the sooner you get beyond your initial shock, the sooner you will reach a place of comfort.”
“I’ll never be comfortable with any of this.”
He nods, perhaps accepting her statement, but not its validity. “If there’s one thing I understand well, it is human nature,” he says. “We are the pinnacle species, are we not? This is because we have a remarkable ability to adapt, not just physically, but emotionally. Psychologically.” He reaches for the door handle. “You are a consummate survivor, Risa. I have every faith that you will adapt in glorious ways.” Then he swings the door open.
• • •
Risa was, as part of her state home enrichment program, once taken to a factory that manufactured bowling balls, mainly because it was the only factory convenient enough to take state home kids. What impressed Risa most was the complete lack of human involvement. Machines did everything from extruding the rubber core, to polishing the outer layer, to drilling holes to computer-precise specifications.
The moment Risa crosses the threshold, she realizes that Divan does not run a harvest camp at all. He runs a factory.
There are no cheery dormitories, no high-energy counselors. Instead, there’s a huge drum, at least twenty feet in diameter, lining the shell of the airp
lane, inset with more than a hundred niches. In those niches lie Unwinds, like bodies in a catacomb.
“Do not be deceived by appearances,” Divan tells her. “They rest on beds of the highest-quality silk, and the machine tends to their every needs. They are kept well nourished and spotlessly clean.”
“But they’re unconscious.”
“Semiconscious. They are administered a mild sedative that keeps them in a twilight state, perpetually at the moment between dreams and waking. It’s very pleasant.”
At the far end of the cylindrical space is a huge black box about the size of an old-world iron lung. Risa shuts her thought processes down before she can imagine its purpose.
“Where’s Connor?”
“He’s here,” Divan tells her, gesturing vaguely to the chamber of Unwinds around them.
“I want to see him.”
“Unwise. Another time, perhaps.”
“You mean after he’s been unwound.”
“For your information, he will not be unwound for several days at least. Auctioning off the parts of the Akron AWOL is a major affair—it takes time to get all my ducks in a row.”
She looks at the semiconscious Unwinds all around her and finds herself feeling weak at the knees again, as she did when she still had tranqs in her system. Meanwhile, Divan strolls through the space with carefree confidence.
“The Burmese Dah Zey represents the darkest end of what you call the black market. Slow unwinding without anesthesia, and in unsanitary conditions. Deplorable! I, on the other hand, strive for something better. I give these Unwinds a quality of treatment finer than any officially sanctioned harvest camp. Comfortable repose, electrical stimulation that painlessly tones their muscles, and a continual sense of euphoria as they await their unwinding. Many world leaders have purchased parts from me, although they would never admit it. Including several from your country, I might add.”
The drum suddenly comes to life, and begins to rotate around them, repositioning the Unwinds. A mechanical arm reaches over to check on one of them with the gentle care of a mother’s touch.
“Is the tour over? If it’s not, I don’t care. I’ve seen enough.”
