“Then why don’t they talk about what happened to them. The old ones talk about nothing else.”
“Why didn’t you tell everybody what happened to you?”
She looked down at her plate. “Because I thought nobody’d believe me.”
“Judy, that’s only part of the truth. The other part is because you’re ashamed of what you did. Fall in love with a man you’d snatched from a colleague. Hate her for snatching him back. Then him for dumping you.”
“Damn you, Gavin—”
“That woman priest probably had an affair with a choir girl. So she feels guilty, though not about whatever they hung on her. My guess is that it’s much the same with most of the others. I know I’m ashamed of what I did. Although that isn’t why they canned me. They canned me to keep me quiet. Like they did you.”
Judith sat silent, considering my hypothesis while I finished my breakfast. I pushed away my plate and asked, “All set for tonight?”
“You still want to try?”
“I hate the prospect. But the choice is between taking an , outside chance and never getting outside.” I stood up. “Got your gear and rabbits?”
She nodded.
“Then I’ll fix the mikes and cameras. After supper we’ll go I and plead for permission to make love.”
“I’ve asked already. The Controller gave me a long talking-to. Warned me you were a bad bet. When I wept and I swore I loved you, she gave way.” A flush flooded Judith’s cheeks. “May the Light forgive me for lying in my teeth!”
“All in a good cause.” I bent and kissed her for the benefit of our watching colleagues and the ever-scanning cameras. “See you at supper!”
Once more we stood hand-in-hand facing the image of the Controller while she lectured me on my lax morals, and hoped that this time I would form a meaningful relationship I with a fine young woman. In return I repented of my licentious past and asked only that I be allowed to share with Judy our remaining years in the Pen.
That took the fire from the old girl; she must have known that within a few months Judith was scheduled to be wiped from my mind along with all my other memories. Her eyes glistened and she sent us off with her blessing to enjoy our night of love. “You laid it on pretty thick!” snapped my partner as we reached her cell.
“I was aiming to make her feel guilty so she’ll leave us together as long as she can tomorrow morning.” I slipped an opaque cover over the lens of the monitoring camera and masked the mike. Then I bent to fake the interlock on the cell door. “Now they’ll only see us as blurs and hear us as noise. We can move out when we’re ready.” I straightened and turned. Judith was still standing by her bed, as though starting to doubt the wisdom of what we were doing. “Come on, girl! This is no time to ruminate! We’re committed.”
That stung her into action. She pointed to a chair. “Take off your shirt and sit astride that. Hunch forward. Shift around so you can see your own back in the mirror.” She took a large rabbit from its cage and sat it on the table facing me. It looked me over, then continued eating lettuce. “Watch carefully. So you’ll know how to dig out my transponder.” Now that the moment of truth had come I had my own moment of doubt. “You’re sure—?”
“I’m sure of nothing except this is the only chance we’ve got.” She draped me with a sheet of transparent plastic, then flattened it out so it stuck evenly across my back. “Swing your shoulders forward. I have to go under the medial aspect of your right scapula. The edge of this bone here!” She began to probe my skin. “Make the first injection here.” She prodded a spot about three centimeters from my backbone and then took a syringe from a tray she hooked out from beneath the bed with her foot. I winced at the sight of the long needle. The rabbit on the table stopped chomping lettuce to watch.
“Just a prick!” I jerked. The rabbit blinked. “Now I’m infiltrating. Keep injecting as you push the needle in so that you anesthetize the tissue ahead. It shouldn’t hurt. Tell me if it does. You’ve got to go right into the body of the trapezius.” She sank the needle in up to its hilt, then drew it smoothly out. “Same thing here—and here—and here. Along the line I’ve marked.”
The rabbit lost interest and returned to chewing lettuce. I clenched my teeth, not from pain because after the first prick there hadn’t been any, but at the thought that I would soon have to do the same thing to her.
“Good! That’s fixed you. Now for George.” She left me with a numb strip to bend over the rabbit, turning back his fur to expose a shaven patch along his shoulder. She gave Mm the same series of injections she had given me. George didn’t even alter his chew rate.
“You’ll both be ready for surgery by the time I finish scrubbing. Five minute scrub by the clock in this antiseptic. Can’t use gloves as I have to grab those two transponder wires with bare skin as I lug them out.” She continued scrubbing. I sat worrying. George went on eating.
He stopped as her scalpel opened up a three-centimeter incision in his back. He resumed as she spread it open with a retractor and peered down the hole. “Well into muscle,” she remarked with satisfaction, and packed wet gauze into the gaping wound. “Now for you.”
“Can I have some lettuce to munch on?”
“Pay attention and don’t attempt humor!” She rinsed her hands, picked up a fresh scalpel, and poised it over my back.
The edge to her voice awakened the memory of my first weapons instructor. The tone used by all determined teachers to keep lighthearted trainees in line. The tone Judith must have used on brash medical students. I watched her in the mirror as she drew the blade along the line of puncture points left by the needle. A scarlet slash appeared as plastic and skin opened together.
“No need to hurry, but cut boldly. Don’t chop and scrape or you’ll leave a scar and the patient will curse you for life.” She made another smooth stroke and I recognized her skill. It is always a pleasure to watch an expert on the job, whether it’s a whore or a surgeon.
“Keep a bloodless field. When you cut a small artery put on a snap.” She reached into me with a pair of scissor-like forceps and snapped them onto something deep in the incision. Then she mopped up blood and said, “See it? That black thing down there?”
I saw it. The encapsulated body of the transponder, its two veralloy leads disappearing into a red mass which I presumed was my trapezius muscle. The thing telling the surveillance computer that I was alive and at present in Judith’s cell.
She was separating leads from muscle mass with a fine probe. “Don’t bother with this when you find mine. Just grab it, rip it out with one jerk, and hand it to me stat!” She reached into the incision with her fingers, gave a quick twist, and thrust the transponder at me. “Clamp onto those wires! Clamp hard!”
I clamped so hard the leads cut into my fingers. Unless the transponder continued to tell the computer that all was well with Gavin Knox the alarms would start ringing.
“Give!” Judith had to jerk the thing from me. She pushed it down into George, then carefully maneuvered the leads among the muscles. “You don’t have to worry about this part. I’ll be doing it.”
I sat and worried, conscious of the slit gaping in my back and the electromagnetic radiations I hoped were still going out from the transponder. George froze momentarily, then returned to his lettuce.
Judith spread a white compound along the margins of his incision, then held it closed. “Polyurethane surgical adhesive,” she explained, glancing at me while still clamping George. “Give it two minutes to set. And keep it off your fingers or you’ll have to cut them apart. There! That’s done it!” She left George and returned to me. “Very nice!” she congratulated herself, peering into the slit in my back. “No bleeders.” She removed the retractor, spread adhesive, and then held my incision closed as she had held George’s. Finally she stepped back and ripped off the plastic sheet.