Orbis was about to ask one, but Phrygia Todd was ahead of him. "Why am I going to be the pilot? What happened to the guy that blew up the moon?"
Wan's face contorted in the direction of a frown. Orbis could see Todd's body involuntarily tensing up, ready for what might be coming. But Wan relaxed and gave them another of those overripe smiles. "That was Will Barendt," he said. "Too bad. His heart wasn't in it, you know, so I told him after he did this one job for me I'd release him from his contract." He shrugged modestly. "People say I'm too soft, but that's the way I saw it. So he put this torpedo on course and took off in the other one with one of the gadgets. Probably he's on his way to the saloons on Peggys Planet by now." Wan looked around to see if anyone was going to challenge what he said.
"He did the same thing with Ferdie Grossmutter after they blew up that Fomalhaut star," Roz Borraly put in loyally.
He scowled again. Then, "Anyway," he added, "what you want to remember, Orbis, is we really probably aren't going to need to detonate it, on account of once they see what happened to that moon nobody's going to take the chance of interfering. Got it? Everybody know their part?"
Orbis raised his hand. "I don't. How do I blow this star up?"
Wan gave him a leer. "Oh, Roz'll show you that. Probably she'll show you a few other things, too. I guess we're through here, so you can all go do what, you know, you now have the privilege to do. So long." And when he clapped his hand the shapes of Orbis's surroundings melted and flowed, the harsh white light softened, the table and chairs shrank into themselves and disappeared.
Orbis was in the garden again. He was standing before a table loaded with food and drink, and by his side was a wide, soft couch on which a woman sat. It was the same woman as always, Roz Borraly, but now differently dressed. She wore a nearly transparent gown. Her hair was down, and she was quite beautiful. "There you are, Orbis," she said. "I'm what you might call your pay in advance. What would you like to do with me?"
Inviting she was, but what she offered was not what interested Orbis McClune. "What about this bomb?" he demanded.
She gave him a winsome smile. "See," she said, "I'll show you all that, all right. But wouldn't you like to have some fun first?"
Artificial intelligences do not require food, drink, rest or sleep, and they certainly don't have to have sex. This is not to say, however, that they aren't capable of enjoying any of them when offered.
It wasn't the sex that appealed to Orbis, it was the food. He could not remember when he had last eaten—or simulated eating, to be more accurate, but either way it was something he missed and it hadn't happened for quite a while. He wasted no time before ravaging the loaded table, while the woman poured beverages for him. He waved the wine away but eagerly accepted the fruit juices, the cold, sweet milk, then the steaming coffee. They were delicious. It was by any measure the best experience he had had since the confounded statue had fallen on his head, but there was one troubling aspect to it, and that was the woman herself.
She hadn't contented herself with pouring his drinks and heaping his plate with goodies. She seemed always to be very close to him, always touching him—and not just with her hands, either; as she leaned over him her firm, perfectly shaped breast stroked his shoulder; her long hair caressed his face, and he was nearly sure she was breathing into his ear. "Please don't do that, Ms. Borraly," he said, moving half a meter away. "You're a very pretty girl, but—"
Orbis was not without residual courtesy, and he didn't know what to say after the "but" that wouldn't call her a whore. But she made that moot very quickly. "Thank you for saying that," she said in his ear. In fact she wasn't just breathing into his ear, he was now quite sure that she was nibbling at it with her soft, full lips. "I'm glad you think I'm pretty, but that's not all I am. I'm your little present from Wan. For the next 200 milliseconds you can do anything to me you like, for as long as you like." And while she was talking—whispering, really—she was changing position so that at the end they were face to face, lips to lips, and he broke away just as he felt the first warm, wet thrust of her tongue.
"Stop it!" he said sharply. "I am not a fornicator!"
She pulled her head a few centimeters away, regarding him. Her breath was warm and sweet on his face and her eyes puzzled. "Not ever?" she asked. "I mean, nobody's watching us, as far as I know."
"My God is watching us!" he said, voice as stern as the look on his face.
She leaned back, studying him. She sighed. "It's just too damn bad that the interesting ones are all gay," she said.
"I am not—" he began, but then stopped himself. Her opinion meant nothing to him, and there was no point in denying what he knew to be untrue. "Let's just get on with it," he said. "Tell me about the bomb."
She sighed, then waved a hand. The flower garden disappeared, and they were in what, Orbis realized, had to be the control room of a spaceship.
"All right," the woman said, sounding resigned. "You see that kind of gearshift thing there? Push it to one side, your torpedo turns that way. Push it the other and—right, you've got it. Now, you see that button by the screen?" Orbis did, all right; it was the size of his fist, red and labeled "button." "It isn't a real button. The toggle wasn't real either, because if they were how could you touch it? It's all what they call a servomodule, but if you press the button it'll work like it was real, all right. It'll blow up that star. Only—now pay attention to this part—don't press it unless Wan personally gives you the order, all right? You understand that?"
It didn't seem to be a rhetorical question, so Orbis said, "I do."
"Well, you damn better. Okay. So long...."
And that was all she said. Her voice was getting tinny, and her body swelled and bloated, while the laden table rose and swirled around him; and then he was in the pilot chamber of a different spacecraft, and the only person with him was the blonde-braids woman, Phrygia Todd. She sat uncomfortably on one of those Heechee perches, and she didn't speak.
Orbis made the effort. Holding out a hand to be shaken, he said, "Hi. I'm the Reverend Orbis McClune."
She looked up, ignoring the hand. "I know what your damn name is. Listen. Did you understand what will happen if you push that button?"
He frowned at her. "I just said I did. It'll destroy that star. Is that what you mean?"
"Yeah. That's what I mean. It will neutralize its gravity, which means—can you guess?"
"Make it explode?" he hazarded.
"Damn straight it will explode," she told him contemptuously. "Like the kind of explosion that will make everybody anywhere near it dead. Like it did Will Barendt when he blew up that moon—you didn't believe Wan was going to let him go free, did you? Like the two of us."
He was puzzled. "But we're dead already, really."
"Idiot. That's just our bodies. Remember, our works are going to be with us, and if this ship gets destroyed, as it will, what do you suppose is going to happen to them?" She nodded somberly. "So then we'll be really, really dead. Mr. Reverend McClune. So no mater what he says, unless you want to be permanently dead, don't push that button!"
He blinked at her. "You mean dead dead?"
"That's exactly what I mean. Totally dead. No more alive in any form dead. Meet your Maker dead. Past this mortal coil dead."