Solo let out a very ragged breath and his hand shook as he drained the last of the wine in his glass. The technicalities were as far beyond him as they were beyond the Thrush quartet, but the facts were undeniable. And the potentials immense. A robot. An android robot. The perfect slave.
"I cannot contradict, Baroness." Klasser was having trouble with his voice. "I must believe that you have achieved this. But I have one question. You say you grow these perfect ones, in your tanks, and that itself is hard to believe. But—I accept it. Still, do you expect us to wait for what?—twenty-five years?—for these creatures to be grown?"
"You are a man of science, Herr Doktor. It is a pleasure to know that your mind is working. But wrongly, in this case. With my techniques for artificial nurture, you see, it is possible to accelerate the process. I could grow you a servant, a slave, to your own order—within six weeks! But I can do better, much better. You have not heard the half, yet. I said that Adam was my first. I have others. Regard now!"
She moved away to another wall, touched a switch that set a concealed light glowing, and Solo leaned forward, struggling at his bonds, as he saw what was on display. In a long niche in the wall stood a row of statues, very like those he had seen in the entrance-hall, but immediately different in that they were flesh-colored. They looked real, like people sleeping. Ten of them, all female, all breathtakingly perfect, superbly beautiful, they stood—then he looked again and saw that they leaned back slightly, all of them, against black velvet supports.
"Female!" Morales said, deep in his throat, swinging his gaze to the Countess. "Why? Why not male, like that one?"
"If you insist, senor, I can grow you a man, certainly. But think. Think how precious a perfect slave will be. Completely trustworthy, reliable, utterly obedient—and so decorative! Someone to wait in patience on your every whim, to look after you. And think, also, that a woman can go where a man cannot, and is unlikely to be suspect. And you may train her just as you wish her to be. Think. In a moment you shall make your choice. If you do not wish one of these, who are guaranteed against defect, then we can come to some other arrangement perhaps. But now I wish to tell you of the most important thing of all. Come and be seated again, and listen."
When she had them seated once more she said: "You saw the unit that I plant in the brain. It matches one other, here. These units are provided for me by the United States Military scientists, although unwillingly. Perfectly matched pairs, powered by body heat, but one is stronger than the other, is in fact master. I have the masters here, in each case." She shook her bangle. "Now, you can control and order your slave by training her to respond to your voice, your words. This works, but it is clumsy. Think, if you—" and she pointed her finger at Klasser, "—for example, had a master unit in your head, contacting the pineal, you would be in full control of your slave at all times, by thought. You could see through her eyes, hear through her ears, speak through her voice, command her mind, at all times."
Klasser stiffened, squirmed back in his chair. "You shall not drill a hole in my head! It is out of the question!"
"I expected you to be concerned, Herr Doktor. But, as you shall see, it is a simple and painless operation, taking no more than twenty minutes or so. I will do it now, for you to see, on M. Solo!"
He had seen this coming. He strained helplessly at his bonds as she moved round the table to come near him. From somewhere she had taken up a slim case, from which the now took a hypodermic, which she held expertly.
"You shall see. I will insert one unit into M. Solo's brain. From that moment he will appear to be normal, but will be my slave. It is my regret, of necessity, that I cannot perform this operation on myself, but I will be able to control him quite well. And use him. I have done it before. And then, gentlemen, you will be convinced!"
CHAPTER SIX
THE taxi fled down the Rue Hebert as if trying to qualify for the Monte Carlo rally. In the back, Illya Nikovetch Kuryakin ignored the speed. He had ridden in Paris taxi cabs before. He had done many odd, uncomfortable and dangerous things before, but never had he felt about them as he did about this one. For some inexplicable reason a sense of doom had perched on his shoulder all through the operation, ever since he had parted from Napoleon Solo.
Not that he'd had much time for brooding. One week had been spent in saturating himself in technical information, then the next two weeks had kept him inside the Soviet Union. There he had been passing himself off as Maurice Krasnin, a French-born Slav, a biomedical technician with one foot almost outside the law. Three days in Moscow had been enough to create the necessary background, the rest of the time he had spent in Tashkent, as the undercover center of the Soviet shadow world of plastic surgery and crooked science. His life had been a fiction, but he had to smile, thinly, now as he realized how easily it could have been true. There was a vast untapped potential in his mother country for men who could mould and manipulate the external appearances, legally and otherwise. His pretended purpose had been to forge a link between centers in Tashkent and the notorious possibilities inherent in the Paris center of St. Denis. It would have been terribly easy to really do just that.
So on the surface the project had been easy, but there were undercurrents that he had not cared for, signs that meant, to his eye, a breaking down of the values that had kept the Soviet Union going along a hard path. The subtle demoralization of affluence was having its effect here just as it was everywhere else. While he no longer had any loyalties to the Soviet, he did have boyhood memories and a degree of fellow feeling for the Russians, and the prospect had chilled him.
Adding to his gloom was the need to create an appearance. By habit he could be comfortable with a degree of untidiness, but that was not enough. People had certain fixed mental images about Russians, and he had to do his best to live up to them. Furthermore, this was no case for any painted-on disguise. A man who intends to move among highly skilled cosmetic surgeons needs more than greasepaint and facial putty to create an impression. For three weeks he had not shaved, and was now sporting a yellow wisp of beard disreputable enough to satisfy the wildest imagination. In the same period he had washed his hair regularly with a hard soap, deliberately neglecting to rinse it properly. As a consequence his hair was straw-yellow, dull and spiky. He wore a dark chunky sweater, a coarse-weave jacket with a touch of fur at the lapel, hairy pants and high boots. The overall effect was convincing, but highly uncomfortable to one of his temperament. He preferred to be inconspicuous.
The taxi slowed, halted, and he scrambled out, dismissing his inner preoccupations and tensing himself to match wits with the people in charge, here at St. Denis Surgery-Cosmetique. From the outside, no one would have taken the dingy old building for a medical house of any kind, but once inside the funereal doors and into the lobby all was hygienic chrome and glass, plus efficiency. A lady receptionist advanced to take his card. She managed, without effort, to make her plain black dress look chic, as only a Parisienne can. After a glance she nodded, moved away, gesturing him to follow.