I didn’t want to believe that what she said was true, and I would not admit her conclusions no matter what. I had no desire for suicide, no need to purge myself. She had it only partly right, I realized, and I would not give her the satisfaction of admitting even that to her. I could not exist on Medusa; there was no place on it for one like me. I came either to destroy the system or die trying.
Or was I just kidding myself?
“What happens to me now?” I asked her.
“Well, first J think we should give you something of an education, I think, perhaps, we should first take you to your friends. It should be interesting to see your reactions to our rather unique art form.”
We stood on a walk overlooking a vast expanse of plant growth. In many ways it was reminiscent of a resort complex back in the civilized worlds, with white sandy beaches, small pools of clear water fed by artfully constructed artificial waterfalls, and a safe but beautiful flower-filled planned jungle.
“The First Minister’s personal pleasure garden,” Fallen told me. “A place to totally relax and get away from it all.”
I squinted and looked down. “There are people down there.”
She nodded. “The garden is staffed by several dozen Goodtime Girls,” she told me. “They are there to fulfill his every wish, indulge his every whim, as well as keep the place in perfect condition.”
“At least in the Confederacy we don’t turn people into robotized slaves,” I noted acidly. That was one clear difference.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Fallen admitted. “However, you killed four people in cold blood just to get this far, and who knows how many others over your career? The Confederacy takes the so-called criminals people like you catch and either totally wipes their minds and rebuilds childlike, menial personalities, or they totally remake your psyche into their own image if they can. In extremely violent cases, they simply kill the people. They send only the best to the Warden Diamond, but only because they have done something unusual or creative—or are highly connected politically, which is the most important factor in being sent here, since someday those determining the criminal’s fates may be caught doing something naughty and sent down themselves. The difference between the Council and the Congress and the so-called criminals like Talant Ypsir and Aeolia Matuze, two former government members, is only that Ypsir and Matuze made some enemies and so were prosecuted. They’re no different from any other Confederacy rulers. The personality goes with the job.”
“But—slaves out of some thirteen-year-old boy’s wet dreams?”
“They serve a purpose. All are criminals by our standards. Their guilt is not in doubt in the least. The strongest and cleverest we send to the moons of Momrath—our Warden Diamond, you might say. The rest, the ones who cannot be trusted to continue at all, we either kill or change. We change them. We make them useful. In many ways we’re more humane than the Confederacy. Come.”
We walked back into the main station complex and past a door that read psych section, authorized personnel only. I knew what the next stop was. My faithful armed guard, who had not so much uttered a word or changed her dour expression, followed.
“Originally the idea was just to change the mind-set into something useful,” Fallon continued, seemingly enjoying the grand tour she was giving me. “We have, after all, a lot more menial jobs than the civilized worlds. But we discovered that when we did a wipe on a Medusan, a funny thing happened. The body, whether male or female, reverted to a primal female form as welL” We stopped in front of a door, which opened for us. We entered an observation room for a psych machine. “Recognize the subject in the chair?” she asked me.
I looked hard. Connected as she was to all sorts of tubes, sensors, and the like, it was at first difficult to get a good look at the woman “on the couch,” as psychs liked to call it. Still, I recognized the general facial features and. form quite well. “Ching,” I sighed.
She nodded. “We’re almost to the state we call ‘at rest’ in our process here. You can see that the skin is abnormally soft and pliant, there is no hair or any blemish or unusual feature. The basic form is female but not unusually so.”
I nodded, feeling sick again. So this was what this business was all about. They were going to take great pleasure in making me watch, and I knew they could force me whether I wanted to or not.
“It’s actually rather unfortunate that all Medusans reach this base female pliancy. It would be useful to have some Goodtime Boys. But don’t think that all Goodtime Girls are mere sex objects. I’m afraid many of our top male administrators prefer to use them that way, as does the First Minister, but there can be a number of different types. My two, for example, are like very muscular young boys, very cute. Female, of course, but you’d hardly know.
“It’s the new art form I was talking about. The artists are our top psychs, who can actually feed information through the psych machines to the Wardens within a body, once all mental resistance is eliminated. Goodtime Girls to order, according to preference. All still smart, able to learn all sorts of things as instructed, and all totally and completely devoted to their owners.”
“Who is … she being made up for?” I asked, my previous meal turning sour in my stomach as I watched.
“Haval Kunser. He is my counterpart on the planet itself, you might say. He runs the administrative side of the government. Both of us are equals, just, below the First Minister, who sets the policies we carry out. Of course, Hav probably won’t keep her. He’ll give her to somebody as a reward or something. We even export a few to the other Diamond worlds. Ah! I see the psych is ready. Now watch.”
“I don’t want to see any more,” I snapped.
“What you want is of no concern,” she responded coolly. “I can freeze you in place and make you, so shut up. Whining doesn’t become a Confederacy assassin.”
And, of course, she was right. How different, really, was this from the young woman I’d killed on the train platform? The only real difference was that I hadn’t known that woman. Maybe Fallen was right, after a fashion, I told myself. The more I looked at myself coldly and dispassionately, the less I liked what I saw.
The process was fascinating to watch, in a macabre sort of way. The same fluidity I had used to become a bird and a bunch of people was now being used on Ching’s body, but not by her. She was effectively dead, I knew, although I couldn’t accept that fact emotionally yet. How many deaths had I caused in just this operation? Krega had said twenty or thirty minds were destroyed for nothing just getting one “take” in the Merton Process that had put a recording of my mind into Tarin Bul’s body.
Ching had always been short, slightly built, like many Medusan women, but now she was—well changing before my eyes. She did not grow in height but weight was redistributed to the hips and bust, and her whole body was becoming sleekly redesigned. The head was modified far less, although her slightly too large ears were trimmed back and her face was softened and slightly rounded at the mouth and chin. When they were done, I could still recognize Ching on the table, but probably nobody else could have.
Hair was added, but only on the head, and it grew with astonishing, almost comical speed—a light reddish brown in color, which surprised me. I had to admit I was fascinated even though revolted. “Hair color can be changed?”