He spent the next quarter of an hour, a short respite promised by the computer, airing out the room. He sealed the soiled clothes and wipes in a plastic bag. Went out into the hallway and got a cup of coffee from the vending machine.
When he got back, Kim had already ripped one of the straps and was trying to reach the warm cloudy bath water with her lips.
“Silly thing,” said Alex, taking her out of the bath. “You’re a mess, aren’t you?” The girl said nothing. At this stage, she retained only basic animal instincts. But in his arms, she suddenly relaxed, let herself be lowered onto the mattress, greedily gulped down two glasses of mineral water, and then lay quiet.
Alex stood for a moment watching her, then shrugged his shoulders in dismay. Apparently, the initial transformation of the body was finished—her inner organs had undergone modification. But outwardly, Kim did not in any way resemble a regular fighter-spesh, with their thick grayish skin, wider-set eyes, sculpted musculature, and enlarged fingers.
The next stage of the metamorphosis should have been the stabilization of the body. But here, the girl surprised him.
Her transformation started all over again. A second wave of body modification was possible, but such genetic programming was rare—extremely rare.
This time Kim began crying out from the pain. Her cries were very weak—she was too exhausted to cry—but so piteous that if anyone had heard her, the police would surely have stormed the room five minutes later.
Alex gave her two injections of a narcotic painkiller. A quarter of an hour later, unable to stand it, he gave her a shot of cardio-stimulant and added another dose of the narcotic.
The Demon on his shoulder indignantly twirled a finger near its temple.
“I know, I know. If she dies, I’ll get blamed for it all,” Alex agreed.
When he attempted to listen to her heart again, all he heard was silence.
But the girl’s breathing was regular.
It took a couple of minutes, but finally it occurred to him to listen all over her rib cage.
Her heart had moved to the center of her chest.
“Holy shit, girl!” was all he could say, straightening his back. The girl, of course, could not have known in advance all that would happen to her. And she had not had the time to tell him all the details of her metamorphosis.
This could very well be a logical transformation for a fighter-spesh. It might save her life if someone shot straight at the heart.
Around four o’clock in the morning, Kim quieted down. Her breathing grew deeper, more even. Her heart, having settled in the middle of her chest, beat calmly and rhythmically. On the other hand, her cheeks looked hollow, and her ribs and pelvic bones stuck out as though she had been starved for a week. The pocket in her abdomen opened and the skin sucked in, crater-like, making apparent the muscle ring around the opening. This kind of thing in a fighter-spesh was not quite as useless as it was strange. It would be more likely to benefit a smuggler, but who would need a smuggler-spesh?
“Your parents sure had some funny ideas,” said Alex, and wiped the sweat off the girl’s face. It was hard to believe that only a few hours earlier, she had knocked out a huge guy with just three blows.
But the stabilization process was proceeding smoothly, as if it was taking place exactly as planned, in a hospital ward, and under the watchful eye of experienced doctors. Alex ran out of wipes, so he patted the girl with a wet towel and sat down at the window for a smoke. It looked as though she had managed the physiological transformation just fine. But a spesh was not just a collection of muscles, nerves, and inner organs. There was also the mind. And that was, after all, the most important thing.
Kim moaned.
Alex put out his cigarette, sat down beside her, took her hand. A friend of his, a navigator-spesh from the Third Freight-and-Passenger station, had been convinced that any spesh coming out of the chrysalis stage got a fixation on those who were around when it happened, undergoing a sort of imprinting. As an example, he had offered his own case. He later married the nurse who had taken care of him during the transformation. Alex did not contest the beauty of this theory, although he himself had never felt any special attraction to the doctors and nurses who had been with him during his metamorphosis. If any imprinting had left its mark on him, it must have been his liking for the strong sweet coffee he was given repeatedly during his pupation.
The girl started saying something. Clearly, but in a strange language. Not in Lingua, or English, or Chinese, or German, or Russian… Alex had almost decided to turn on the computer for a synchronous translation, but changed his mind. That would be like peeping through a keyhole.
“I don’t want this!” Kim said all of a sudden. Her voice had not changed much, and Alex was happy about that. Wouldn’t it be just dandy if she kept the same body but acquired a loud, commanding tone of voice!
“Like it or not—you’re in,” he said. “Hang in there.”
“Don’t… Please… don’t…” Kim begged piteously. Alex stroked her cheek. The girl’s mind was now lost in the realms of dream and fantasy. It was one thing to change the body. Another thing altogether to change the soul. This was the most delicate part of the metamorphosis. Now Kim was experiencing situations pre-programmed before she was born. She was adapting to them. Learning to love her future profession.
Alex remembered his own metamorphosis very clearly. The intoxicating feeling of flight. The depths of space. The scattered diamonds of stars. Piloting a craft through a stellar photosphere, through asteroid belts, through the violent atmospheres of giant planets, through space torn by attacking squadrons…
To be honest, he was not sure that he had even needed such a psychological crash course. He had always wanted to be a pilot anyway, since early childhood. And it was true happiness to know that your dream would inevitably come true.
But a fighter’s dreams had to be different.
And the weak barrier between fantasy and reality could be breached at any second. A fighter-spesh could kill with one blow.
Wouldn’t that be ironic—the girl would wake up in the morning to see the lifeless corpse of the guy who had struggled to pull her through all night long.
It occurred to Alex to tie her up. But that could only do harm. If her clouded mind took his actions for aggression, he would be done for.
“Hang in there, kid,” he said. “Just a little bit longer. The worst is already over.”
He was lying, but it was a necessary lie.
“You know…” Her voice was quiet, but… there was something about it. A kind of unimaginable, heartfelt honesty, a shy courage, frankness, gratitude.
“You know, when I first saw you, I realized, it was forever…”
Alex choked on his own breath. Kim’s eyes were still closed. She was lost in her own fantasy world.
Alex glanced at his Demon, as if for reassurance. The Demon’s jaw dropped.
“Yeah…” said Alex. “It would be nice to hear somebody say that to me. Kinda stupid of me, I know, but I’d like it.”
Kim was smiling, her eyes closed. He wiped the sweat off her face again. Thought a while, and then said to the Demon, “Then again, maybe not. After that kind of thing, it’s hard to be a jerk, but I’d have to, anyway.” The Demon nodded its approval.
“Balmont,” said the girl suddenly. Was quiet for a second. “Aivazovsky. Gauguin. Michelangelo.”
Alex shrugged. Went to the window, turned up its transparency level. A murky sunrise was already on its way, dimly seen through clouds and smog—the way it was supposed to be on Quicksilver Pit. Yesterday was over, gone, past.