«I’ll try....»
Cleet turned away, appeared to fix his attention on the badlands outside. «Continue.»
Berner cleared his throat. «I was a miner on Silverdollar....» Again Cleet interrupted. «Silverdollar. Isn’t that a cold world? Ice and snow? What beasts live on Silverdollar?»
Berner remembered the ice fields, the drifting smokes, the distant white sun. «Many animals live on the ice,» he said.
«Roverees, sealynx, white snowlions... I killed one of those, my last winter on Silverdollar. It broke through the baffle over my vertical shaft and came down, looking for food and warmth.
Found me asleep in bed...»
Cleet chuckled, shot him a swift sideways glance. «With a friend? Oho. Thus we have the reason for your religious impulse? How banal, how predictable, how like a bad sensiedrama. She failed to survive, no doubt, and this tragedy impelled you into the skinny arms of the Stringent Mystery. No?»
«That’s the gist of it.» Memory played on: the sound of the animal’s breathing, the corrupt stench of its breath, the wrenching of its teeth in his flesh. A shudder twitched through him.
«Well, spare me the details. Your lover died from bad locks, not bad sex; can’t you see this?» Cleet spoke peevishly, returning his gaze to the badlands. «Tell me of the snowlions. What are they like?»
Berner shut off his memories. «They’re not much like lions, really; they’re long and thin and very quick. They weigh up to a thousand kilos, and older males stand two meters or more at the shoulder. They have certain otterlike characteristics, if you can imagine an otter that hunts small whales. Well, not really whales, but that’s their niche....»
«Never mind the whales. How do the snowlions breed?» «They spawn in geyser sloughs, birth free-swimming larva, so I understand.» As he spoke Berner glanced toward the nearest storage slot. He was astonished to see the grip of Cleet’s nerveburn protruding from the slot, within easy reach. He looked at Cleet, who seemed oblivious. No, he thought. It’s a trap, it’s too easy. Would Cleet be so careless? No. The nerveburn was surely discharged, or otherwise disabled.
«Continue,» Cleet snapped.
«I’m sorry. I’m no biologist.» He forced himself not to look at the nerveburn.
Cleet hissed, a sound of exasperation. «You’re as dull as I feared.» He moved with blurring speed, scooped the nerveburn from the slot. «It took you five minutes to notice it, and then you were terrified. Did you suspect a trap? Did you? So what? It was a chance, your only chance, and you did nothing. What sort of jellyfish are you?»
Berner hung his head. Cleet was right, he should have tried. Cleet’s voice became softer, more introspective. «Surely you’ve understood that you’re not likely to survive my service. Isn’t my nature clear to you? So why not take the chance? Why not? Any other animal would have taken the chance.»
Cleet opened the butt of the nerveburn, slipped out the power cell. Its charge indicator glowed a bright poisonous green. Cleet slid it back in, snapped it shut.
Berner stared at the nerveburn longingly.
«Well, you were right,» Cleet said. «It was a trap; I wondered if you’d really learned your place. You could never have beaten me to the nerveburn. I’m much too fast for you. I own the best body mods money can buy.»
Cleet pointed the nerveburn; his finger trembled on the firing stud. «I could punish you for your cowardice,» he said. His mask flowed into repose, cool and distant. Berner half-turned, raised his hands in useless defense. Cleet flicked his hand and the nerveburn disappeared. «But I won’t; I’d never get the smell out of here. Besides, now that we know what a coward you are, we’ll all be able to relax, won’t we?»
The breath sighed from Berner.
«You’re a weak animal, hermit, but we’re all animals, no more and sometimes less.» Cleet looked again at the badlands. «Often less. Animals live, mate, die, with no thought for the time to come or the time past. They bum brighter than most sapient creatures. You wonder at my certainty? Then I’ll show you what I mean. Go fetch Candypop; hers is the pink door on the cargo deck.»
«Where should I bring her?» asked Berner, feeling completely defeated.
«To the bed, of course.»
Berner tapped at the heavy alloy door, but his knuckles made almost no sound. Still, the door opened very quickly, and Candypop stepped out, still naked.
«Yes,» she said, in a resonant contralto. He saw that her eyes were a clear deep amber and that she was a great deal more beautiful than he had realized. Vitality glowed from her – an astonishing thing, under the circumstances.
«Cleet sent me to fetch you,» he mumbled.
«All right,» she said. When he didn’t immediately move, she took his arm in a firm grip and turned him toward the stairfield. «Let’s not keep him waiting,» she said. «That would be stupid.»
She walked toward the field with long graceful strides. Berner hurried to keep up.
«I’m sorry,» he said, as they stepped into the field and floated up.
«For what?» She seemed genuinely curious.
«For running his errands... whatever they are.» Berner was trying to bank the fire of his anger, to preserve it against a time when he could fan it into a blaze.
«Don’t be silly,» she said, just before they reached the top of the field. «Who could resist such a great monster?»
She walked in and seated herself on the plastic bed, as if she had done so a thousand times before. Berner admired her bravery; he wished he could feel as unafraid as she seemed to be.
«Now,» said Cleet to Berner. «Let me show you my library.» He went to the locked door, pressed his palm to the lockplate. The door hissed, moved aside.
Berner followed Cleet into the small room. Cleet turned, waved his hand in a gesture that took in the entire room. Banks of small stasis chambers made up three of the room’s walls; there were thousands of the little glass-fronted boxes.
«My collection,» Cleet said, mask shimmering with delight. «Here,» he said, touching a chamber faceplate. It lit, displaying green characters in the angular Dilvermoon script: SUCCISA PRATENSIS, Male and Female.
«You don’t understand?»
«No, Citizen Cleet,» Berner answered.
Cleet touched another faceplate, which displayed: TURSIOPS TRUNCATUS, Male and Female. «Personaskeins, hermit! An inheritance from my grandsire, who was also unusual in his tastes.» Cleet thrust his face close to Berner’s, and Berner smelled perfumed decay, as though Cleet were rotting away behind the beautiful mask. «The blood runs thicker in me than it did in my ancestors. In here I keep the souls of ten thousand creatures. Mostly terrestrial lifeforms, though I own many alien ones too.» Cleet laughed and pushed at the faceplate, which folded in. Cleet snatched out the two personaskeins that lay in the chamber, two scarab-shaped oblongs of metal and red plastic.
Cleet went to the door. «I won’t lock the door. But if you interrupt me, you may expect pain. You may watch, if you wish to understand.» An undecipherable expression slid over the golden mask. He went out, closing the door behind him.
Berner at first resisted the urge to look through the armorglass port. He stood before the inner wall and touched faceplates. He discovered that a second touch would display a labeled image of the creatures whose psyches were bound in the personaskeins within. Here were tigers, there crocodiles, over there fanged alien predators with six long legs and gorgeous feathers.
A third touch displayed a scrolling description of the alien predator’s mating behavior. Berner watched for only a moment, before shuddering and turning away. He hoped Cleet would not use that particular set of personaskeins; the woman would not survive the experience.
A lovely blue luminance drew him toward the port. He went, though he felt a premonitory disgust with Cleet–and with himself for not resisting so ugly a curiosity.