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He peered out of the plaz port, looking to the left where she would have to appear if she really did run the perimeter.
What would a Legata be?
A voice on the sentry circuit startled him: “Someone’s out there, pretty far out.”
Another voice answered: “It’s a woman running the P. She just rounded Post Thirty-Eight.”
“Who is it?”
“Too far out to identify.”
Thomas found himself praying for her to make it as he listened to each succeeding post report the runner. But he knew there was not much chance. Since learning about The Game from Waela, he had looked into the statistics. Fifty-fifty in dayside, yes. But nightside, fewer than one in fifty made it.
The timer beside his head moved with an agonizing slowness: 2:48. It seemed to him that it took an hour shifting to 2:49. The sentries were silent now.
Why didn’t the sentries mark her passage?
As though to answer him, a voice on the circuit said: “She just rounded East Eighty-Nine!”
“Who the hell is that out there?”
“She’s still too far out to identify.”
Thomas drew his lasgun and put a hand on the hatchdog. The word was that the last minutes were the worst, Pandora’s demons ganging up on the runner. He peered out into the moon-shadows.
2:50.
He spun the hatchdog, opened it a crack. No movement. . . . Nothing. Not even a demon. He found that he was swearing under his breath, muttering: “Come on, Legata. Come on. You can do it. Don’t blow the fucking run at the end!”
Something flickered in the shadows off to his left. He swung the hatch wide.
There she was!
It was like a dance—leaping, dodging. Something large and black swerved behind her. Thomas took careful aim and burned another Dasher as she sped past him without breaking her stride. There was a musky odor of perspiration from her. He slammed the hatch and dogged it. Something crashed into the barrier as he sealed it.
Too late, you fucker!
He turned to see her slipping through the Lab One hatchway, her singlesuit in hand. She waved to him as the hatch hissed shut.
Legata, he thought. Then: Ten klicks in twenty-three minutes!
There was a babble of conversation on the sentry circuit.
“Anybody know who that was?”
“Negative. Where’d she go?”
“Somewhere over near Lab One dome.”
“Sheee-it! That must’ve been the fastest time ever.”
Thomas slapped the switch to shut them off, but not before a male voice said: “I’d sure like to have that little honey chasing . . .”
Thomas crossed over to the Lab One hatch, heaved on the dog. It refused to move, sealed.
All that just to put a hashmark above her eyebrow?
No . . . it had to be much more than the mark of success.
What were they doing down there in Lab One?
Again, he tried the hatchdog. It refused to budge. He shook his head and walked slowly back to the autosentry gate where he picked up a servo and rode it to his quarters. All the way down he kept wondering:
What the hell’s a Legata?
Chapter 34
The clone of a clone does not necessarily stay closer to the original than a clone of the older original. It depends on cellular interference and other elements which may be introduced. Passage of time always introduces other elements.
—Jesus Lewis, The New Cloning Manual
OAKES SNAPPED off the holo and swiveled his chair around to stare at the design on the wall of his groundside cubby.
He did not like this place. It was smaller than his quarters shipside. The air smelled strange. He did not like the casual way some of the Colonists treated him. He found himself constantly aware of Pandora’s surface . . . right out there.
Never mind that it was many layers of Colony construction beyond his quarters, it was right out there.
Despite the few familiar furnishings he had brought groundside, this place would never feel as comfortable as his old shipside cubby.
Except that the dangers of the ship—the dangers which only he knew—were more distant.
Oakes sighed.
It was late dayside and he still had many things to do, but what he had seen on the holo compelled his attention.
A most unsatisfactory performance.
He chewed at his lower lip. No . . . it was more than unsatisfactory. Disturbing.
Oakes leaned back and tried to relax. The holo of Legata’s visit to the Scream Room filled him with disquiet. He shook his head. In spite of the drug suppressing her cortical responses, she had resisted. Nothing in her Scream Room performance could be held against her . . . except . . . no. She had done nothing.
Nothing!
If he had not seen it for himself . . . Would she ask to see this holo? He thought not, but nothing was certain. None of the others had asked to see their holos, although everyone knew such a record was made.
Legata had not performed according to pattern. Things were done to her and she resisted other things. The holo gave him no absolutely secure hold on her.
If she sees that holo, she’ll know.
How could he keep the record of it from the best-known Search Technician?
Was it a mistake . . . sending her into the Scream Room!
But he thought he still knew her. Yes. She would not take action against him unless she were in great pain. And she might not ask for the holo. Might . . . not.
Not once in the Scream Room had Legata sought her own pleasure. She had acted only in reaction to the application of pain.
Pain that I commanded.
This made him uncomfortable.
It was necessary!
Given an adversary as potent as the ship, he had to take extreme measures. He had to explore the limits.
I’m justified.
Legata had not even required sedation after emerging from the Scream Room.
Where did she go, dashing off like that with only the minimal Celltape on her wounds?
She had returned naked, carrying her singlesuit.
Oakes had heard the rumors that someone had run the perimeter in that interval. Surely not Legata. A coincidence, no more. And the proof of it was that she wore no hashmark.
Damn fools! Running in the open at night like that!
He would have liked to prohibit The Game, but Lewis had warned him off this, and his own good sense had agreed. There was no way to prevent The Game without wasting too much manpower policing all the hatches. Besides, The Game vented certain impulses of violence.
Legata running the perimeter?
Certainly not!
Efficient damned woman! She was expected back at work by evening, the physical marks of her Scream Room experience almost gone. He looked at the notes beside his left hand. Unconsciously, he had addressed them to her.
“Check on possible relationship between waxing of Alki and growth of ’lectrokelp. Have Lab One begin two LH clones. Map new data on dissidents—special attention to those associated with Rachel Demarest.”
Would Legata even take his orders now?
The picture of Legata’s face from the holorecord kept slipping back into his mind.
She trusted me.
Had she really trusted him? Why else would she go back to Lab One when her misgivings about it were all that apparent? With anyone else, he would have laughed at such musings, but not with Legata. She was painfully different from the others and he had already taken her too far.
Entertainment time.
It had not been as entertaining as he had expected. He recalled the first potent look of betrayal in her eyes when the sonics hit her. The sonics had driven away the clones; they already had taken their entertainment. But even heavy pain had not moved Legata. Despite sedation, she could hear Murdoch’s commands. And the sedation had been designed to suppress her will . . . but she resisted. Murdoch’s commands told her what to d
o, the clone was prepared, the equipment set—but even then, she had to be totally awash with pain before inflicting anything like her own agony on the clone. Most of the time, her gaze had sought out the holo scanner. She had stared directly into the scanner, and the dimming of her eyes gave him no pleasure, no pleasure at all.
She won’t remember. They never do.
