“I’m sorry,” he choked out as his body went suddenly tense, then limp. Teeth clenched and eyes glazed, he stared at some point far beyond her. She loosened the loop of hair from his neck. He floated stiff and still.
She wondered if she had actually killed him. Part of her strove to laugh and something deeper yearned to weep. She wanted to dance, she wanted to die. So she merely observed, silently.
Suddenly his eyes swiveled to gaze upon her. He looked mystified, then said, “Dee? Is that you? What happened to— No, wait—I can almost remember what I saw.”
“Jord?” The hank of hair drifted from her grasp.
“Dee—I need you to help me.” He grasped her shoulders and held her. “When I took you from Mercury I didn’t know whether you were alive or. I got you back and Kinney must’ve revived you. It’s—”
“I’m not Delia!”
“—as if the freezing rejuvenated you. I need your help, though. Now, while I’m in control.”
“Jord—I want to help you, but I’m”—she gagged and jerked her head back—“not Delia!”
“Dee, listen to me.” He shook her gently. “I’m here. I’m inside Kinney’s
body. I need your help to submerge his personality completely. I want to live and I don’t know how long this split can go on. He has the better chance of winning out and I need your help.” Don’t stare at me like that, Dee. Why such hate? I died to save you.
Her lips twisted like bending steel. “And when she’s done destroying Kinney, she’ll destroy me, too? Then the barbarians will steal the temples of the masters? I won’t permit it! I’ll kill her!”
Her eyes lost their wild glare for a moment and she said, “She means it, Jord. I can feel it. I don’t want to die now that you’re back!” Her jaws clenched shut, driving her teeth into her tongue. Red stained her mouth.
Baker eased his grip on her. “Dee—what’re you—what’s happened?”
“She’s the clone’s mind, Jord. She hates me the way Virgil must hate you.” The two selves fought for control in a battle that became physical, with knotting muscles, tensing flesh, and visible tugs back and forth.
“I’m going to kill her,” she said. “Kill Delia.”
She broke away from him and pushed off down the tunnel. He hesitated for an instant, then grabbed a handhold and followed her.
“Seal the hatches,” he shouted to a speaker grill in passing.
“Sealed but not locked,” the computer’s voice replied. “She has found weapons cache seven, one level below you.”
He bulleted down an access tube. The sharp sound of a laser hissing twice into flesh reached his ears. When he rounded the corner, he first saw her grimacing smile fade. Her pallor grew even whiter as blood pulsed from the blackened cavities on the insides of her thighs.
“Femoral arteries severed,” the computer noted emotionlessly. “Brain death in six minutes.”
Diving through the field of crimson spheres, Baker seized her, jammed his thumbs into the laserblasted arteries to stop the bleeding, and rushed her back to the medical bay. With a grunt, he threw her into the boxdoc and slammed down the lid. A pair of extensions reached toward the burn holes, pulled at the flaps of skin, then withdrew.
“Ordering arterioplasty and fluorhemotransfusion,” the computer noted. The waldos appeared again with sections of surgical silicone rubber.
“Did I make it in time?”
“Yes. Very low possibility of brain damage.”
Baker nodded and looked at his thumbs. Sticky redness covered them. He shuddered.
Has everybody got a death wish here? First Kinney, then me, then Delia, then this. this. “Clone, did you say?”
“Yes,” the computer answered. “It would not be a Circus without clones.” The unit emitted an unintelligible string of noise that sounded like a short circuit.
“Why clone her?” Baker demanded to know.
“The original Delia stabbed herself to death. Both Virgil and she possess an unhealthy obsession with death. Violent, messy death.”
“Who wouldn’t, after all we’ve been through? When will she be healed?”
“Anti-shock sequence is near completion. Accelerated recovery should take twelve hours for healing by second intention. The laser cut away a good deal of flesh—granular scar tissue has to fill the gap.”
Baker nodded. “When can I have her out and back to normal?”
“She will be functioning nominally tomorrow.”
“Good. I want to wash up and rest. Where can I sleep nearby?”
“The recovery room.”
Floating in the white padded room, Baker frowned at the accumulation of transfusion bags and cleaning articles. He shoved them into a cabinet and floated against the hatch, one arm through a cloth loop.
I don’t dare fall asleep. He might come back. I’m the weak one in that sense. But I’ve got the drive. Kinney’s just a crazy suicider.
So was I, though, yet he never died.
Neither did I. Except that my body’s been ground up and recycled. Hell with it. It’s done. I’m alive and I’ve got to stay that way. Kinney might get us both killed.
His eyes eased shut against his will.
The cockpit’s gone white and I’m surrounded by the soft glow of light from all around. The instruments guide me through but then they seize and I don’t know which way to turn because I’m not in control.
He fell asleep, and fell dreaming.
“Take her out of electrosleep.” The top of the boxdoc hinged open. Two rosy scars the diameter of a one auro coin marked her thighs. Her lips were a warm pink, though, and her eyes clear and focused when they opened. She grasped her head.
“Steady,” Baker said. “Just take it easy. Watch your wrists, now.” With one motion, he fastened a makeshift pair of manacles on her, locking them on just enough for her not to wriggle free.
“What’re these? You bastard!”
“You’re going to cure me. Suppress Kinney for good.”
“No!” She struggled violently, then suddenly began crying, “Jord, I can’t. Not just because she won’t let me.”
“Then why not?”
“Because—” she winced as though stricken. “Because I can’t choose between you. and Virgil.”
Baker stared at her for a moment, then swung his hand to slap her across the face. “You bitch! We were lovers—”
“I rebuilt him from a madman. I created the one chance we have at reaching the stars. I need him back. Mankind needs Virgil Gris—”
“You scheming—” he slapped her again, making darker the scarlet palm print on her face.
She smiled. “Do it again, you. She hates it.”
“You stay out of this!” He slapped her a third time. “You’re going to help me bury Kinney because I can make you die and rebuild you as many times as I want. You can kill yourself but I’ll grind you to a mush like they ground me and—and—and—” He howled and shook her by the shoulders, her black hair swirling about them. “Fix me, bitch, or you’ll die a thousand times!”
“And if I do? Then we’ll die anyway! Nobody can handle the Valliardi Transfer without going insane. Virgil’s our only hope to get back to Earth. We’re close enough to loop around the sun on engine—”
“We are orbiting Tau Ceti,” the computer said.
“Why aren’t you stopping him?” she screamed at the wall.
“You can always be cloned again—”
She screamed. Baker twisted her hair until her screams turned to plaintive sobs.
“Stop it! I’ll do it, just stop. Please. Just stop. Please. Then her voice hardened. “No. Keep it up. Kill her. Kill yourself. Blow the anti-matter pods and kill Tau Ceti. Kill everything!”
“Stop, you goddamned seesaw bitch! Dee”—he shook her again—“you’ve got to do it. For me. For us. I promise it’ll be straight. Everything, I promise.”