Chabrier shook off the urge to snarl, 'mine, mine,' chuckling at himself. He laid the Ember into the bezel of the device in his other hand. Then he smiled at the irony. For the Ember of Venus was only facade for something of far greater value, a device more significant than any jeweclass="underline" a tiny version of the Chinese synthesizer.
"Come, we shall imprison your Ember," he said, and she came out of the couch as if scalded by it.
Together, for Eve would not let the jewel out of her sight, they moved to his littered desk. He cemented the Ember in place, then arranged the tiny padded metal fingers to clasp its edge while she looked on.
Wordlessly he lifted the chain, spread it with both hands, smiled into the eyes of Eve as he hung it around her neck.
"Let me imprison your ember," she drawled. She was smiling, breathing deeply; and without taking her gaze from his she began to open the beige coverall.
Presently, after she had consumed his first orgasm, she lifted the amulet and licked that, too, as if by wetting it she could bring out still more lustre. Murmuring: "Now that you've taken advantage of me, you dirty old monkey, tell me how this fucking thing works!"
Rubber-legged, Chabrier walked with her to the chaise and began to instruct her. Set into small bezels in an oval pattern around the Ember were fifteen opaque black diamonds, cabochon cut, surely the zenith of understatement since they functioned as studs for the tiny integral computer terminal.
At the top and bottom of the bezel were globes of brushed stainless, the size of a child's marble. A grid in the upper globe was the air intake; the synthesizer did not create mass, but converted it — in this case, from nitrogen. The lower globe was the yield chamber, and a hidden detent allowed it to split apart.
Isotope powered, the minuscule device had a yield measured in grams per hour.
Eve's amulet could not synthesize living tissue, of course, nor materials requiring great heat and pressure, e.g., diamonds. But using her access code to CenCom, Eve could request the chemical composition of many substances; punch the memory stud to place CenCom's response in the memory circuits; and then request a sample of that substance in the yield chamber. Chabrier had arbitrarily placed a one-gram maximum on a given yield as a safety precaution.
The readout display was hidden; Chabrier had put it inside the false back of the amulet, fearing that an overt display might reveal too much to any admirer of the Ember.
"So I memorize the functions of the diamond studs," she repeated, "and use the first thirteen for alphanumerics with the 'change function' stud." She saw his nod, then made a pouty-mouth: "But it won't make a kittycat?"
He laughed outright. "Mais non, it can only give you inanimate joys." He saw her puzzlement. "Gold dust, tetrahydrocannabinol…"
She turned it over, weighed it in her hand. Very quietly: "I don't think I'll use it for anything more than a toy."
"I should be very dismayed if you did. I hope you will not be tempted by the urge to create — substances that could endanger you." His expression was serious, the long lashes low on his cheeks. Her wilfullness was a calculated risk which he must take, for if she died he would have no confederates.
"You're sweet, Marengo," she said. "What say we create a gram of harmless THC."
"Please do — and always flush the yield chamber carefully," he warned. "You must not ask for poisonous or radioactive items. That would not be wise."
"I'll be wise," she promised. If she had a motto, it was 'promise them anything…'
CHAPTER 19
Seth Howell stalked back and forth on the podium, cracking his big knuckles as he surveyed the rover gathering. "You get the best food, the best training, the best pay you could ask for," he growled. "And I don't have to tell you that if those carrots don't work, Salter could always use the stick." Howell tapped himself behind the ear; let his hard glance ricochet among ‘the impassive rovers. Howell, of course, had no mastoid critic; for him, the finger-tap gesture came easily. "So let's understand each other: there will be no, repeat no, refusal of missions for any reason whatever. Some of you have been walking too near that line."
Dawna Clinton, easily the tallest of the half-dozen female rovers and the only black in the cadre, uncoiled from her seat. Watching her stance,
Quantrill thought the woman must sleep at attention. "With respect, Mr. Howell, I'd like to hear you comment on some ques — observations," she amended quickly. Nearby, little Max Pelletier shifted uneasily and looked away as if to find further distance from her. Pelletier and Clinton were an unlikely pair, but deadly little Max was one rover who tended to choose a buddy. At the moment, Quantrill realized, he must be wishing it wasn't Dawna Clinton.
"This isn't a press interview, Clinton, but go ahead," Howell snapped.
Voice clear, almost strident with stress: "Since this is a general ass-chew, I gather the rumors are true."
She watched something flicker across Howell's face; continued: "Some rover has been turned, and the Indys are going to run an expose on us. Unless we disappear a few folks as a warning."
"Two out of three ain't bad," Howell cracked. No one smiled. "No comment on the ‘turned rover'
hypothesis; did you expect one? I'll say this much: we know two leak sources, and we're letting them run loose for now." Howell noted the looks among the rovers, most of them some nonverbal variant of, 'could it be you?' "Sit down, Clinton. By now you've all received your mission files. Some of you will have a pair. No doubt some of you, in spite of orders, have been comparing notes and put two and two together.
"And got five. It isn't the Indy party we have to stop. It's the rebels who have infiltrated some religious sects, lodge organizations, and yes, some radicals among the Indys. The Independent party itself must always be viewed as the loyal opposition, a necessary part of a two-party system in Streamlined America." Howell's husky tenor had become almost singsong, repeating the public dicta of Blanton Young.
Kent Ethridge's voice was weary, but cutting: "I learned more poly sci from you, Howell, than from every prof in Iowa State. Are you telling us now, in spite of what you used to teach in T Section, that a gaggle of hits against a loose confederation of rebels is going to stop the expose? Not escalate the trouble?"
"I know you have your orders." Something in the set of the heavy shoulders spelled embarrassment to Quantrill, who could not recall ever seeing the big man register that particular emotion before. But Howell had his orders, too…
"And if it escalates," Ethridge went on, voice as dead, as inexorable, as the collapse of an ancient mausoleum, "won't a rover be a millstone around the government's neck? And what, I wonder, happens to us in that case?"
Hissing it: "You have your fuckin orders." Howell passed a hand over the top of his head, took a breath, tried another tack. "The rebs are no longer a loose confederation, Ethridge. They've bypassed the pure guerrilla stage and are organized well enough for us to pinpoint some nerve centers. That's as well-kept a secret as any you'll hear. You sure won't hear it on the media," he snorted.
"Except the outlaw media." Quantrill spoke against his own better judgment. It had occurred to him that Eve Simpson might be a rebel in IEE clothing.
"We know who they are, too," said Howell. "We can jam some transmissions, and the rest is chiefly around the borders where it doesn't upset people in the heartlands where the strength of Streamlined America lies." He caught himself, aware that he was parroting obvious propaganda. "But whatever happens, don't worry that you'd be thrown away. I've seen contingency plans and, believe me, you'd be needed. Believe me," he said again, as though repetition generated its own truth.