Judas Unchained

“I think it’s a snob. I think it looks down on us as the lower-class neighbors bringing down the tone of the galaxy. It’s not actively belligerent, but like all snobs it has a fascination for what it’s not. Hence you, and others like you. It also has sentiment, which is why it helps us out on rare occasions. Yet it will always rationalize that as something else entirely: charity or consideration born of superiority. The trouble is, I don’t know if it would help us in the face of genocide. It probably doesn’t know either. I suspect it will play its waiting game until the end. And that’s going to be too late for us.”

“Is that why you decided to nova MorningLightMountain?”

“It’s among the reasons. Nobody else is going to help us out. Does it bother you, that decision?”

“I felt MorningLightMountain,” she said slowly. “I could hear its thoughts. My inserts were blocking its soldier motiles so I was physically safe, but I was still frightened. I don’t think we can share a universe with it. You know, it completely lacked emotion; I mean there was just no analogue in its mind to what we have. I was going to say that you can’t rationalize with it, but that’s the whole problem: it’s ultra-rational. There’s no way to connect. Even the SI couldn’t make it see logic and reason. It has to go, Nigel, that’s the only way we’ll be safe.”

“Turn over.”

She did as she was told. The heat had gone out of her now; remembering Randtown and the monstrous mentality of MorningLightMountain was a guaranteed passion killer. Then Nigel began working on her belly, and breasts, and thighs, and she forgot all that again amazingly quickly.

“So how did you know?” Mellanie asked.

“Huh?”

“About Cypress Island.”

“Ah.” Nigel rolled onto his belly to face her. “Michelangelo is my son, my fifteenth.”

“What? You’re kidding. He never told me.”

“It’s not something he’s proud of. Quite the opposite, actually. He stormed out when he was seventeen.”

“Wow. I bet that doesn’t happen often.”

“No,” he said dryly. “It was a classic teenage rebellion, he even said I’ll show you, when he left. Then he went and carved that career out for himself. I’m actually quite proud of him for that. Normally the black sheep come slinking back a century later with their tails between their legs, and get a nice safe middle management position in the Dynasty.”

“So he told you I was going to Illuminatus?”

“No. We didn’t understand what was going on, Mellanie. Which comes very hard for people like me and Nelson, especially at a time like this. I cut a deal with Michelangelo. He told me you were hunting the New York lawyers, so Nelson found them in the Saffron Clinic, and gave him the information. We wanted to know why they were important to you. After all, it had the appearance of just another Wall Street finance scam.”

“I’ll kill him.”

Nigel ran his hand through her wild hair. “I said you’d be cross.”

“With him! How can I trust him again after this?”

“You trusted a reporter?”

“Touché.”

“So I’m still favorite, am I?”

“You’re in my top hundred,” she replied airily.

“This is why I want you. You are so unlike any of the other girls I have.”

She traced his lips with her finger. “You need to get out more.”

“Say yes. Just try it for a couple of years. You can still have a career, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“It wouldn’t be my own career though would it, not really, not if I was your wife. I’d get all the openings and all the breaks, but not because of being me.”

“And the difference between that and having the SI as your agent is…?”

“Perhaps there is none,” she said quietly. “Perhaps I’m just tired of being a whore.”

“Nobody said you were a whore.”

“I said it.” Mellanie sighed, and crawled over the undulating mattress to reach her negligée. She grimaced at the snail-trail of oil she left behind on the fur.

“To reach here from where you were after Morton’s court case takes amazing determination,” he told her.

“I thought it was quite easy to get into your bed, actually.”

“I didn’t mean my bed, I meant here, this little cabal, or rebellion, whatever you want to call our motley crew. Don’t you see, what we’re going to decide in a few hours is going to determine the future of the human race. Not Doi. Not the navy. Not the Senate. Not the Dynasties. Us. You made it to the showdown. You’re going to be history, Mellanie; you’re going to be your generation’s Queen Elizabeth, or Marilyn Monroe, or Sue Baker. Don’t blink now.”

Mellanie looked down sheepishly at the negligée she was holding in her hands. She didn’t feel very historical. “I don’t know who any of them are.”

“Really? Oh. Well, the point is you went and earned yourself a place at the table. That’s why you’re so irresistible; you’re gorgeous and tough, every man’s fantasy. And mine in particular.”

“You’re very sweet.”

“Haven’t been called that in a long time.”

She yawned. “I’d better get back. I don’t want Morty to wake up without me.”

“All right,” Nigel said miserably. “Just remember, it’s an open offer.”