He slapped me on the back.
"Vraiment. Precisely," he said. "Here we are playing word games and we could call the creature 'Fido' for all it matters. The name won't change its nature . . . which, of course, will be Adlerian. May I see what we've got now?"
"I don't know whether Adam would like you looking over his workshop when he's not there," I said. "I think it would be better if you came back in a few days and let him show you the collection himself. I know you'd get better explanations from him, too."
He put an arm around my shoulders and turned me toward the Hellhole. "All," he said, "it's not as if I'm some customer in off the street. We're partners."
"True. Still. . ."
"I just want a quick look, one moment."
"All right. Come on."
I took him into the Hellhole and led him toward the work area Adam had set up for this project. Within it, in stasis, hung all of the qualities so far assembled, neatly aligned. The ones that did not lend themselves to visual representation had labeled icons hovering amid their sparkling spaces. To touch any one of them was momentarily to experience it.
"Merveilleux!" Cagliostro said. "He's certainly been busy."
"Indeed."
"I wonder whether we might have a little more light? Un peu? It's awfully dark in here."
"Adam has found this part of the spectrum and this intensity to be best for him when working with stuff of the mind. But to oblige a partner—" I reached up and unzipped space, drew forth a trouble light, and touched it to life. "What did you want to see?"
"That icon over there. Ah. 'Scrying by aggression.'"
"A recent acquisition of mine," I said.
"I thought you worked for a magazine americaine."
"I do. But I decided to cover this properly. I really had to learn the business from the ground up."
"Commendable. Tres ban! Where are the controls?" He pointed at the space into which I was stuffing the light. "In one of those pockets?"
A cascade of bleeding wounds flashed upon the wall to my right.
"I don't know what you mean," I said, sealing it off.
"The master controls for the whole business," he said. "This place is a ship, oui? I mean the controls by which M'sieur Maitre brought it here."
"Oh," I said, recalling Glory's recounting that it had once been some sort of vessel they'd ridden in from the future. "I don't know. It's not relevant for my story."
"They must be around here somewhere, if the singularity's off that way—"
"I wouldn't know," I said. "Why is it important?"
"Oh, it isn't really. De rien. I was just curious what they'd look like for something so grand and powerful."
His eyes kept searching and I began to feel uncomfortable. Drifting amputations and strings of organs passed between us, along with a horde of aggressions. "I'm afraid I can't help you. You're going to have to ask Adam about that one, too, when he gets back."
He shrugged. "Pas important," he said. "The body will be placed in stasis here, at the end of the storage field, while we install its attributes, yes?"
"Not really," I told him. "There's a different field for doing such work." I gestured. "It's farther to the rear. We'll set him up there and transport this stuff back."
"Then why is it all up here?"
"Adam is a perfectionist. He set up this special area, away from other business, for purposes of reviewing each quality. He'll move it all back when the time comes."
"Admirable. May I see that other area?"
A love-hate scherzo played suddenly through my breast and a collection of welts on every color skin imaginable flowed underfoot.
I felt myself possessed by a determination that Cagliostro not see the clones. So, "Sorry," I told him. "That's off-limits just now. There's another project underway at the moment back there."
"Certainement, I wouldn't disturb it."
"I didn't think you would. By the way, what sort of body is to host this milieu? I think Adam said something about a fancy android from your period?"
"Ah! Oui, a top-of-the-line twenty-fifth-century android body known as an adaptoid. It's used for work on other planets and in deep space. It has enormous capacity to change itself: It reads the environment, writes its own specs, and effectuates them."
"I can see why you'd want to remove the Frankenstein factor then," I said. "It sounds as if it could be a tough sparring partner."
"True," he said, "but careful design conquers all."
"Despite Adler?"
He chuckled. "Everybody plays Adler's games. It doesn't make everybody dangerous."
"And if aggressive capacity comes with the turf? If it's hardwired into humans and will accompany any human trait we instill, like a part of the hologram of the rest?"
"My, we are pessimistic," he said, as flames leaped behind him. "Where'd you reach to find that one?"
"Got it from Bertrand Russell."
"Bah! It goes against all his thinking."
"He wasn't proposing it as a thesis. He was examining it as a speculation and offering it as a caution."
"Bertrand Russell! Mon Dieu! Who'd have thought he'd get involved in my petit project? Still, even if he is correct it does not follow that aggressive behavior will manifest just because the capacity is present. Do you go around striking people you dislike? Of course not. Or not usually. Non, there's a difference between the capacity for aggression and the tendency to turn on one's creator."
"—Or father-figure," I suggested. "Terribly Freudian, I admit. Is that why you don't like the idea?"
A mushroom-shaped cloud bloomed on the wall behind him. "That has nothing to do with it!" he cried. "The Dominoid requires a capacity for aggression! We need only prevent its developing undesirable complexes! Such as the Oedipus! We need only keep control of that primal drive! We know how! Enough said." Then he caught himself. "Pardon, I didn't mean the aggression. I meant the power drive," he said.
"Sure," I told him. "But one thing more. Off the subject."
"Oui?"
"What's it for? You must have some use in mind for the thing."
He looked away. The cloud at his back collapsed and blew on, to be succeeded by the image of fish nibbling at a floating corpse.
"Mainly research," he said, "into synthetic life. If it meets all our expectations, however, there are some small cosmological observations I'd like to use it for. I'm sure they've occurred to Adam, also, and I don't see how we can be in disagreement—though we must discuss it soon. Thank you for the reminder."
"What sort of observations?"
He glanced back along the tunnel.
"Like the work back there," he said. "Off-limits. After all, you are a writer working on a story, not a true employee. Your tenure here is limited. Let us leave it at that."
I nodded, as the fish swarmed and the corpse vanished. I turned toward the doorway. "Let's head back out then," I said.
"It's amazing, the art displays in this room," he told me.
"A function of the place," I said.
"Have they appeared around me, too?" he asked suddenly.
"You bet. All bunny rabbits and butterflies."
"Oh. I take it they're not really indicative of anything but the general."
"Wouldn't know," I said. "I don't really work here."
After I'd conducted him to the parlor, where he gave Glory, who was there, book in hand, a courtly bow, he squeezed my shoulder and hand again and was gone.
"What was he doing in the Hellhole?" she asked me.
"He wanted to see how far along his project is."