“I ate shit once,” Gregorian said.
Korda was scribbling on his desk. He grunted.
There was a third presence in the room, a permanent surrogate in Denebian wraparound and white ceramic mask. His name was Vasli, and he was present in the capacity of financial adviser. Gregorian disliked the creature because his aura was blank; he left no emotional footprint on the air. Whenever he looked away, Vasli tended to fade into the furniture.
“Another time I ate a raw skragg. That’s a rodent, about two hands long and hairless. It’s almost as ugly as it is mean. Its teeth are barbed, and after you kill it, you have to break the jaw to get it off your—”
“I presume you had a good reason for doing such a thing?” Korda said in a tone of profound indifference.
“I was afraid of the brutes.”
“So you killed one and ate it to rid yourself of the fear. I see. Well, there are no skraggs here.” Korda glanced up. “Oh, do sit down. Vasli, see to this young man.”
Without moving, the construct dispatched slim metal devices that Gregorian had thought mere decorative accents to assemble a chair beneath him. They gently pushed his knees forward and eased his shoulders back, shifting his center of balance, so that he was forced to sit. The chair was low-slung and made of granite. He knew he wouldn’t be able to rise from it gracefully. “It wasn’t quite that simple. I fasted for two days, offered blood to the Goddess, then dosed myself with feverdancers and—”
“We have day clinics that do the same thing back home,” Vasli observed. “The technology is banned here, of course.”
“It was none of your foul science. I am an occultist.”
“A distinction in terminology only. Our means may differ, but we employ identical techniques. First, render the brain open to suggestion. We use magnetic resonance, while you employ drugs, ritual, sex, terror, or some combination thereof. Then, when the brain is susceptible, imprint it with new behavior patterns. We use holotherapeutic viruses as the message carriers; you eat a rat. Finally, reinforce the new pattern in your daily life. Our methods are probably identical there. The skill is extremely old; people were being reprogrammed long before machines.
“Skill!” Korda said scornfully. “I once had a paralyzing fear of drowning. So I went to Cordelia and had myself dropped off two miles out into the Kristalsee at night. It’s salty enough that you can’t sink, and there are no large surface predators. If you don’t panic, you’re fine. I suffered the agonies of Hell that night. But when I reached shore, I knew I would never fear drowning again. And I did it without the aid of drugs.” He smiled ironically at Gregorian. “You’re pale.”
A voice from another world murmured, Is that what you re doing? Am I to die to help put an end to your fear of drowning? How trivial. Gregorian ignored it. “Don’t imagine you can condescend to me, old man! I’ve had experiences you’ve never dreamed of!”
“Don’t bluster. There’s no need to be afraid of me.”
“I fear you? You know nothing.”
“I know all there is to know about you. You think a few accidental differences in upbringing and experience can make any serious difference in personality? It is not so. I am your alpha and omega, young man, and you are no more than myself writ pretty.” Korda spread his arms. “Do these old jowls and age spots disgust you? I am only what you yourself will in time become.”
“Never!”
“It is inevitable.” Korda glanced down at the desk. “I have arranged a line of credit that will allow you to access the Extension. You will study bioscience control, that ought to be useful — it will teach you the folly of thinking you can go against your genetic inheritance, for one thing. Vasli will disburse funds to cover your living expenses, with a little more for sweetening. There’s no reason we should see a great deal of each other in the next few years.”
“And in return you expect — what?”
“When you have the proper background, we will ask you to do a little field research,” Vasli said. “Nothing strenuous. We are interested in determining the possible survival of Mirandan indigenes. I don’t doubt you will find the work rewarding.”
They knew he wouldn’t turn down the education, the money, the connections Korda was offering him. The alternative was to sink back down into Midworlds obscurity, to being nothing but an unknown pharmaceur in a land no civilized person ever gave a second thought. “What’s to make me do your bidding after I’ve taken my degree?”
“Oh, I think that when the time comes, you’ll be cooperative enough. We’re giving you the chance to accomplish something. How often do you think such opportunities come along?” Then, before he could respond, Korda said, “Enough. Vasli, you can handle any details.”
The life went out of him.
Gregorian struggled up out of the chair. He touched Korda’s cheek. It was cool, inert. The man he had been speaking with had been nothing more than a mannequin, a surrogate shaped in Korda’s form so that only he could employ it. The device was built into the desk. It didn’t even have any legs.
“He had a meeting,” Vasli explained.
“An agent!” The insult made Gregorian’s voice sharp. “He wasn’t even here in person. He sent an agent!”
“What did you expect? He didn’t shake hands — what else could he have been?”
Gregorian looked at him.
Silently Vasli extended his hand. With only a tremble of hesitation, Gregorian took it. The signet ring his clone-father had sent him along with the new offworld clothing whispered permanent agent unique in his otic nerve. “This is your first time offplanet, I take it.”
Withdrawing his hand, Gregorian said, “Deneb. Your people are building a shell about Deneb, aren’t they?”
“A toroidal shell, yes. Not a full sphere but a slice from a sphere; it varies only a degree or two from the ecliptic.” As Vasli spoke, the macroartifact materialized in the air between them. For a second he thought Vasli was employing a pocket projector, and then he realized it was an effect of the runaway visualization caused by the feverdancers. “To warm the outer planets. We do not have your natural resources, you see, no sungrazers, no Midworlds. With the one exception, our planets are naturally inhospitable. So we have taken apart an ice world to create a reflective belt.”
The image swelled, so that he saw the flattened spindle forms of the individual worldlets, saw their interwoven orbits laid out and diagrammed, and the network of traffic-control stations running through its infrastructure. “Surely that’s not enough to make the outer planets habitable.”
“No, it’s only part of the engine. We’re also rekindling their cores, and imploding a moon here and there to create gateways into our sun’s chromosphere.” Small orbital suns burst into existence about the outer worlds. The ice belt redoubled in brightness where the planets passed near.
The sight dazzled and enraged Gregorian. He shivered with emotion. “That’s what we should be doing! We have the knowledge, we have the power — all we lack is the will to seize control, to make ourselves as powerful as gods!”
“My people are not exactly gods,” the artificial man said dryly. “A project this large kicks up wars in its wake. Millions have died. A far greater number have been displaced, relocated, forced out of lives they were happy in. While I myself feel it is justified, honesty compels me to admit that most of your own people would not agree. We have given up much that your culture yet retains.”
“Everyone dies — the rearrangement of when is a matter of only statistical interest.” In his mind he saw all the Prosperan system, and it seemed a paltry thing, a nugget, an ungerminated seed. “Had I the power, I’d begin demolishing worlds today. I’d take Miranda apart with my bare hands.” He felt the blood rushing through his veins, plumping his cock, the ecstatic rush of possibility through his brain. “I’d tear the stars themselves apart, and in their place build something worth seeing.”