Far less fettered were art galleries, which contained some of the finest human art and sculpture anywhere—no surprise, because most of them had been stolen from the best” museums of the Confederacy and were here more or less on protective loan. A substantial native art group was allowed to do just about anything without State interference as long as the themes weren’t political, at least, not political in a way that contradicted the official line. There was music, too, even an entire Medusan symphony orchestra—one of many, I was assured—that fascinated me by performing great compositions from man’s far past that I had never heard or heard of, as well as newer and more experimental stuff. I had to admit that, somehow, living people creating music was somehow better, more alive and pleasing, than the expert and flawless computer musicons I had grown used to in the Confederacy. The musicians had their own guild, headed by a woman who, it was said, had come to Medusa voluntarily. An expert musicologist and musician herself, she was an anachronism back in the Confederacy, but she had known Talant Ypsir and had joined him in exile when he offered the carrot of a real, primitive, wide-open musical program that would be planetwide.
As for our own dorm, it had its own basic activities, and we had use of Guild common facilities like gyms and playing fields. A number of sports teams were organized around both intra-guild and inter-guild rivalries, and they certainly were a help both in meeting other people regardless of grade and for keeping in shape. In fact, the only Guild that didn’t seem to have teams or outside activities was TMS. I was told that they had tried it, once, in a campaign to give them a friendlier, more human face, but it had been a disastrous failure. You just can’t relax and have fun with a group whose members could do nasty things to you if you so much as protested a call.
Besides, even TMS didn’t find it much of a challenge to win every game they played, no matter how lousy they’d played. So, they kept to themselves, being their normal prying, lousy selves, and everyone tried to ignore them as much as possible.
In truth, working and playing with Ching, I almost did feel fourteen years old once again, and I really enjoyed it—but not to the point of not concentrating on my main task, which was to put together a plan that would eventually dispose of Talant Ypsir. I pretty much gave up my ideas of doing anything beyond that—although that was surely enough!—because of the restrictive nature of the society. They could be entertaining aliens and churning out humanoid superrobots in every third office building in Gray Basin, and I would neither know it or have any real way of finding out.
Still, any move against the government of Medusa would have to be based upon what was, as of now, only a theoretical possibility. The society was locked in too tight, and was too well run, to do any real damage unless the monitor system could be negated. To do that, I would somehow have to learn if this malleability principle was really possible, and, if so, how to take advantage of it myself.
Just how closely we were monitored was brought home at our every-other-week private sessions with a liaison between the Guild and TMS. We were generally asked to explain this or that action or comment we had made, often out in the open. I quickly understood that this was not really an inquiskion, nor were we accused of sedition or any sort of wrongdoing—it was merely a reminder that we were always observed, and, as such, better just start totally accepting Hie system and thinking and acting right at all times.
Close to the end of my third month on Medusa I had become increasingly aware of changes in both Ching and myself—physiological changes that were hard to ignore. When I’d first met her, she’d been thin and spindly and, while cute, not really what you’d call well endowed. She was filling out now, and it didn’t take long to realize that this was no late pubescent growth but a direct Warden action in reaction to my stimulus. She was fast becoming an extremely sexy woman with all the right equipment. Clearly the hormonal triggers the Wardens employed to bring about the physical changes were also having the expected psychological effects.
As for me, I was undergoing the same sort of transformation. I was filling out, becoming hard, lean, and muscular, sprouting body hair, and experiencing substantial sexual sensations. This helped my overall plan in the sense that I was beginning to look less like a fourteen-year-old kid. It also helped in that playing the role of the sexually repressed kid was driving me nuts anyway. Still, I was kind of nervous. It was within my acting abilities to simulate almost anything, but the role of a fourteen-year-old inexperienced virgin might well be beyond me. Fortunately, it was Ching who finally brought up the subject, and also allayed my real fears on that score.
“Tarin?”
“Uh huh?”
“Do you feel—anything—when you look at me?”
I thought a moment. “You’re a pretty girl and a good friend.”
“No, I mean—well, beyond that. I do when I look at you most times. Real funny feelings, if you know what I mean.”
“Maybe,” I answered cautiously.
“Uh… Tarin? Have you ever… made love to a girl before?”
I acted startled at the question. “I was twelve when they arrested me. When did I ever have a chance?” I hesitated a moment. “Have you?”
She looked suitably shocked. “Oh, no! What do you think I am? A Goodtime Girl?”
I laughed, walked over to her, and patted her soothingly. “Take it easy. So we’re both new at it.” Or very good liars, I thought. Still, she sounded sincere, which made the job much simpler. In a society where sex is generally available to all, one of the more boring things is watching two people make it through some kind of closed-circuit hookup. Even if TMS got their jollies that way, we’d be such a small and uninteresting lot considering the whole population it would hardly be worth noticing. But if she were experienced, she could tell.
And so, finally, tentatively, we made love, and that was a real mental release for me. As for Ching, she was in fact awkward and inexperienced and the whole thing was new to her, but she wound up with a happy and radiant high the likes of which I’d never seen before. In the days that followed the psychological changes in her were incredible. She was happier, far more self-confident, and given to spontaneous and automatic displays of affection, even on the job. This was a bit embarrassing at times; I wasn’t used to such displays, let’s face it, nor to any kind of attachment. I’d always been a loner and proud of it—you had to be in my kind of business.
But we had sex a lot, which only reinforced everything.
On a different note, I found an electronics hobby club sponsored by the Guild, and actively joined it. It occurred to me that this was the best way I had to see the engineering philosophy behind Medusa’s society, and it would give me access to the tools to counter that technological threat when the time finally came.
That time was bothering me, though. Here it was three months along and I was really not ready to begin. I was still outside the establishment, still denied the tools and positions I needed, and even more cemented into the fairly pleasant daily regimen of low-grade Guild work. I had as much information and as much access to tools and technology as I needed to perform my duties, and I would get no more without some really dramatic or radical changes, changes I simply could not initiate.