“Four hundred—you?” Svengaard asked.
“I agree it’s nothing compared to their many thousands,” Igan said. “But almost anyone could have these years, except they don’t permit it.”
“Why?” Svengaard asked.
“This way they can offer the bonus years to the selected few,” Igan said, “a reward for service. Without this rule they have no coin to buy us. You knew this! You’ve been trying to sell yourself to them for this coin all your life.”
Svengaard looked down at his bound hands. Is that my life? he wondered. Fettered hands? Who will buy my fettered hands?
“And you should hear Nourse chuckle at my pitiful four hundred years,” Igan said.
“Nourse?”
“Yes! Nourse of the Tuyere, Nourse the Cynic, Nourse of the more than forty thousand years! Why do you think Nourse is a Cynic?” Igan demanded. “There’re older Optimen, much older. Most of those aren’t Cynics.”
“I don’t understand,” Svengaard said. He stared at Igan, feeling weak, battered, unable to counter the force of these words and arguments.
“I forget you’re not of Central,” Igan said. “They classify themselves by the tiny bit of emotion they’re permitted. They’re Actionists, Emotionals, Cynics, Hedonists and Effetes. They pass through cynicism on their way to hedonism. The Tuyere already’s well occupied in pursuit of personal pleasure. There’s a pattern here, too, and none of it’s good.”
Igan studied Svengaard, weighing the effect of his words. Here was a creature barely above the Folk. He was medieval man. To him, Central and the Optimen were the “primum mobile” in control of all celestial systems. Beyond Central lay only the empyrean home of the Creator… and for the Svengaards of the world there was little distinction between Optiman and Creator. Both were higher than the moon and totally without fault.
“Where can we run?” Svengaard asked. “There’s no place to hide. They control the enzymic prescriptions. The minute one of us walks into a pharmacy for renewal, that’s the end.”
“We have our sources,” Igan said.
“But why would you want me?” Svengaard asked. He kept his eyes on his bindings.
“Because you’re a unique individual,” Igan said. “Because Potter wants you. Because you know of the Durant embryo.”
The Durant embryo, Svengaard thought. What’s the significance of the Durant embryo? It all comes back to that embryo.
He looked up, met Igan’s eyes.
“You find it difficult to see the Optimen in my description of them,” Igan said.
“Yes.”
“They’re a plague on the face of the earth,” Igan said. “They’re the earth’s disease!”
Svengaard recoiled from the bitterness of Igan’s voice.
“Saul has erased his thousands and David his ten thousands,” Igan said. “But the Optimen erase the future.”
A blocky hulk of a man squeezed past the narrow space beside the table, planted himself with his back to Svengaard.
“Well?” he asked. The voice carried a disturbing tone of urgency, just in that one word. Svengaard tried to see the face, but couldn’t move far enough to the side. There was just that wide belted back in a gray jacket.
“I don’t know,” Igan said.
“We can spare no more time,” the newcomer said. “Potter has completed his work.”
“The result?” Igan asked.
“He says successful. He used enzymic injection for quick recovery. The mother will be ready to move soon.” A thick hand moved over the shoulder to point a thumb at Svengaard. “What do we do with him?”
“Bring him,” Igan said. “What’s Central doing?”
“Ordered arrest and confinement of every surgeon.”
“So soon? Did they get Dr. Hand?”
“Yes, but he took the black door.”
“Stopped his heart,” Igan said. “The only thing. We can’t let them question one of us. How many does that leave us?”
“Seven.”
“Including Svengaard?”
“Eight then.”
“We’ll keep Svengaard restrained for the time being,” Igan said.
“They’re beginning to pull their special people out of Seatac,” the big man said.
Svengaard could see only half of Igan’s face past the newcomer, but that half showed a deep frown of concentration. The one visible eye looked at Svengaard, disregarded him.
“It’s obvious,” Igan said.
“Yes—they’re going to destroy the megalopolis.”
“Not destroy, sterilize.”
“You’ve heard Allgood speak of the Folk?”
“Many times. Vermin in their warrens. He’ll step on the entire region without a qualm. Is everything ready to move?”
“Ready enough.”
“The driver?”
“Programed for the desired response.”
“Give Svengaard a shot to keep him quiet, then. We won’t have time for him once we’re on the road.”
Svengaard stiffened.
The bulky back turned. Svengaard looked up into a pair of glistening eyes, gray, measuring, devoid of emotion. One of the thick hands lifted, carrying a springshot ampule. The hand touched his neck and there was a jolt.
Svengaard stared up at that faceless face while the fuzzy clouds closed around his mind. His throat felt thick, tongue useless. He willed himself to protest, but no sound came. Awareness became a tightening globe centered on a tiny patch of ceiling with slotted openings. The scene condensed, smaller and smaller—a frantic circle like an eye with slotted pupils.
He sank into a cushioned well of darkness.
13.
Lizbeth lay on a bench with Harvey seated beside her, steadying her. There were five people here in a cubed space no bigger than a large packing box. The box had been fitted into the center of a normal load on an overland transporter van. A single glowtube in the corner above her head illuminated the interior with a sickly yellow light. She could see Doctors Igan and Boumour on a rough bench opposite her, their feet stretched across the bound, gagged and unconscious figure of Svengaard on the floor.
It was already night outside, Harvey had said. That must mean they’d come a goodly distance, she thought. She felt vaguely nauseated and her abdomen ached around the stitches. The thought of carrying her son within her carried a strange reassurance. There was a sense of fulfillment in it. Potter had said she could likely do without her regular enzymes while she carried the embryo. He’d obviously been thinking the embryo would be removed into a vat when they reached a safe place. But she knew she’d resist that. She wanted to carry her son full term. No woman had done that for thousands of years, but she wanted it.
“We’re picking up speed,” Igan said. “We must be out of the tubes onto the skyway.”
“Will there be checkpoints?” Boumour asked.
“Bound to be.”
Harvey sensed the accuracy of Igan’s assessment. Speed? Yes—their bodies were compensating for heavier pressure on the turns. Air was coming in a bit faster through the scoop ventilator under Lizbeth’s bench. There was a new hardness to the ground-effect suspension, less bounce. The turbines echoed loudly in the narrow box and he could smell unburned hydrocarbons.
Checkpoints? Security would use every means to see that no one escaped Seatac. He wondered then what was about to happen to the megalopolis. The surgeons had spoken of poison gas in the ventilators, sonics. Central had many weapons, they said. Harvey put out an arm to hold Lizbeth as they rounded a sharp corner.
He didn’t know how he felt about Lizbeth carrying their son within her. It was odd. Not obscene or disgusting… just odd. An instinctive response had come to focus within him and he looked around for dangers from which he could protect her. But there was only this box filled with the smell of stale sweat and oil.