“Well,” Elliott said to Cassie, “in your case it’s worth it. After all, how many great dancers are there?”
I pulled Azuria gently to her feet.
“William,” I said, “I’m taking her home.” Away from this barbarous house and your weird way of thinking. “She’s still very fragile.” I’d completely forgotten about the Mona Lisa.
“I’ll take her,” Elliott said. “You go home with Helena.”
To The Director of Genetic Engineering:
Transcript of tape: Dr Azure Eastman to Michael 64, 10 June 2175, Veracite dosage 40 mgs, administered to the subject in coffee.
Dr Eastman speaking:
At first, I didn’t recognise the house, approaching it from the front as we did, but when we entered the library and I looked out through the large windows, I recognised the garden. Bathed in moonlight, the rose bushes stood as I remembered them. Elliott has the best rose garden in the five districts.
He brought me a glass of something yellow, punched himself a drink of a different colour, and we went out onto the terrace. He said he had something to tell me.
I leaned against a trellis covered in lavender flowers and was silent. Just to be in that garden was unnerving, and now there was the new development of the girl Cassie, something I hadn’t allowed for in my calculations.
“Do you remember what the department was like when you first arrived?” Elliott asked. “It was a madhouse. Every evening when I got home, I used to punch myself a drink and sit in the dark in my study and watch the winged beings; just watch them. You know how they like to fly in the evenings just on dusk?”
I nodded. The garden lay very still and quiet under the moon. The scent of roses was all around us.
Elliott continued. “There was one winged being who used to come every evening and steal my roses,” he laughed. “I used to watch for her. She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, so graceful ...”
I had begun to tremble uncontrollably. He didn’t notice.
“One evening,” Elliott went on, “it was windy, and she got her hair caught on one of the taller bushes. I raced out and cut her loose with a scissors.” He hit the top of the balcony with his fist. “I should’ve used the opportunity to meet her, to find out who she was! But she was panicking, getting ripped up by the thorns; I was afraid for her wings. So I cut her free, and the instant I did, like that”—he snapped his fingers—“she was gone.”
By now I could barely stand. Still, Elliott didn’t notice. He took me by the hand and led me back into the house saying, “I want to show you something. You’re the only person, apart from Cassie, who’s ever seen this. I showed it to her the night I broke off our engagement.”
Inside, he went to his desk, lifted a piece of fabric from a drawer and unwrapped it.
“Look,” he said. “I went out next morning and got it off the rose bush. You know I never saw her again.”
There, under the lamplight, nestled in black velvet, lay a long coil of my golden hair. I fell to my knees and began to sob. I couldn’t seem to get enough air.
Elliott knelt down beside me. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to upset you.” He was stroking my hair and he moved on to my shoulders. “Don’t cry ... don’t cry ...”
Of course we ended up in bed.
REPORT ENDS HERE. Michael 64
Elliott will never know how lucky he was that the government had outlawed Ethyl Alcohol. Sometimes, when they were together all night, I fantasised about getting hold of some on the black market and going round to his house and beating the bulk out of him. But Thurston would’ve pulled me off the case.
I’d already had one run-in with Thurston when I’d asked him for the hidden agenda on this case, and he’d refused me. I toyed with the idea of giving up the assignment—assuming Thurston would let me—but jobs with remuneration like that don’t come along very often, and I had some expensive habits. Besides, there was Azuria to consider. Who else was going to look after her interests?
Two more moons passed, then Thurston called me into his office again: Azuria wanted to see him urgently. Once more I watched her secretly on the monitor, once more she came to the point straightaway.
She wanted him to change her back to what she’d been when she first came to him.
Thurston shook his head. “I warned you at the start that was impossible.” Then he asked her what had happened to bring her to this point. She told him she was pregnant.
“And,” she added, with a playfulness that reminded me of her former self, “sir, I am not yet dead.”
Thurston gestured with a fragile, blue-veined hand, as if to wave away this facetiousness. “You must have a termination right away.”
Az shook her head, and that desperately dark hair fell onto her forehead like a curse.
“My dear,” Thurston said carefully; he was into the nicotine, which seemed to help him focus. “It isn’t conceiving that’ll kill you. Obviously. It’s the process.” He was picking his words the way someone might select pebbles on a beach.
“Have you heard of Doyle’s Failsafe, or The Thirty Year Fear?” He took the pipe from his mouth. “I was exiled during The Fear. I was in favour of giving flyers reproductive systems and letting evolution take its course. That, in a nutshell, was The Fear. By the time I returned, Doyle’s Failsafe was in place. No one but I could abide the idea that humans were merely a link in the evolutionary chain towards cyborgs. Now, if someone were to modify a flyer so that she could conceive, the foetus would be sterile. More: the development of the foetus would cause the flyer’s death.”
Az thought for a while. “Would I live long enough to produce the child—would it live?”
“I might achieve that much; but no more. I can’t break through what Doyle’s done. He was a brilliant man. Totally dedicated to human supremacy.”
“Is he still alive?” she asked too quickly.
Thurston shook his head. “He was some years older than I.” He reached for the VF. “I’ll order a laboratory with top security and perform the termination myself tomorrow.”
Az jumped to her feet. “At least give me time to consider!”
“Sit down, Azuria,” Thurston said. “I shan’t coerce you.”
May I remind you, sir, that under Federation law the penalty for aiding and abetting the destruction of a flyer is death.
Thurston inclined his head. “A timely reminder. The fact of the matter is: we are all outside the law.”
We returned to our work in the Western District. I was a lot rougher on Az than Thurston had been, threatening to expose both her and him to the Federation. But, of course, I couldn’t. Thurston had made sure I was just as involved as he.
Days dragged by. The only good thing about them was that Elliott was absent; though it galled me to see Az hanging on his return.
When Thurston had heard nothing from her within four days, he came online looking stern and worried.
She hung her head and simply said, “I cannot.”
Thurston sighed. He took me in, hovering unhappily in the background.
“Very well, Azuria,” he said. “I”ll send you my paper.”
“You have written a new paper?” She was pleased for him.
Thurston shook his head wearily. He seemed tired a great deal these days.
“It’s not a new paper, it’s a very old one. It was suppressed. Read it and then ring me back.” He studied her face intently, then he seemed to decide something. “Ring me soon, Azuria.”
The screen went blank.
Elliott returned that evening. I had taken the opportunity provided by his absence to plant a number of highly advanced surveillance devices around his house. They were everywhere except the bedroom; I couldn’t have borne that.
Az and Elliott made small talk through the meal. She’d evidently decided to hit him with the news after they’d eaten. Elliott appeared preoccupied, and I sensed danger. At length, he pushed his plate away unfinished.
As the droi
d moved in to remove it he said, “I have a great apology to make to you, Azuria.”
I had his dining room on one monitor and a video of Azuria 27 dancing in the Great Hall at the height of her fame on the other.
I waited.
Az didn’t speak. She was wearing a black velvet dress with narrow shoulder straps that set off her shoulders and the fine shape of her head.
“I thought you might’ve heard by now.” Elliott spoke from the bar as he dispensed the drinks. “It’s all over the Central District.”
Azuria’s face assumed a mask of calmness.
“Cassie and I are engaged again,” Elliott said in a rush. “We’re going to be married. This time it’s going to happen.”
The dark haired Azuria in the black velvet dress looked very small on one monitor. On the other, Azuria 27 leapt across the stage in a swirl of light and silk and colour.
Elliott came back to the table with the drinks. “Don’t go to pieces on me now, Azuria; you were always so much stronger than me. And wiser. I want you to understand: Cassie”s different. She’s not the being in the garden—and I told her that, of course—but she’s the closest thing I’ll ever get to it.”
Az spoke carefully. “Did you ever search ... for the flyer in the garden?”
“She died,” Elliott said simply. “I saw the records. It’s unusual for a flyer to die so young, but it sometimes happens—some flaw in the DNA processing. I went to Professor Thurston myself. I saw the records.”
Az drove back to the cottage and crawled into bed with Thurston’s paper, which had arrived by special courier that evening. I’d already read the work, which was entitled: Foetal Cannibalism: a hypothetical study of Projected Terminal Changes in a Gestating Being of Manufactured Origin.
The type was old with time, and sometimes faded. But the message was clear.
I was on Thurston’s doorstep at dawn next morning. He opened the door wearing a dressing gown and strange footwear.
“When did Elliott come to see you about Azuria 27?” I demanded.
“Calm yourself, Michael.” Thurston walked ahead of me into the kitchen. “Perhaps she’ll change her mind about the termination.”
I had the feeling I was being toyed with, as small animals called cats had once toyed with smaller ones called mice, before they killed them. “And if she doesn’t change her mind?”
Thurston had started grinding coffee beans in one of his old electrical machines. He didn’t answer.
I picked up a bean and studied it. Coffee beans were grown off-world. They were almost as expensive as Blue Monday.
“Why don’t you find a surrogate mother?” I said. “It’s Elliott’s child; give it to Cassie. She needn’t know, we could drug her.”
“All those years of research you did for your Ph. D. on the criminal mind seem to have rubbed off on you, Michael. There’s just one problem: what if the foetus is winged?”
“When did Elliott come to see you about Azuria 27?” I asked again. “He says you showed him the records of her death.”
Thurston steered me to the front door. “It’s not relevant, Michael,” he said gently. “Keep the bean.”
The door closed on me.
When Az woke up that same morning, I was ready for her. I handed her a cup of coffee and began.
“I know you lied to Thurston in that first interview. This is what you were planning all along. Just tell me why.”
Az shook her head in a beaten fashion. “I didn’t know I couldn’t get pregnant. The professor never told me until afterwards.”
“But he told you after. I was there.”
“I didn’t believe him. Couldn’t.”
“What do you mean couldn’t? And whatever gave you this wild idea in the first place? And now you know it’ll kill you, why won’t you give it up—you won’t, will you?”
Az dissolved into tears. “I can’t give it up. It’s like an obsession, like something hardwired into me!”
“Look,” I said to her. I was now prepared to do whatever was necessary to save her life and keep her with me. “There’s a way.”
She lifted her face to me with more curiosity than hope.
“Change your face and hair back to Azuria 27’s. And let Cassie be the surrogate mother. The baby will live and you”ll get Elliott. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it? You made The Change for Elliott, didn’t you?”
“The professor said it isn’t possible. He said such a thing can’t be done.”
“He’s lying. I know people who can do it.”
“Cassie would never agree.”
“We drug her.”
Azuria was horrified. “WE DO WHAT!?”
“Face facts, Azuria, it’s your only chance. You’re going to die if you don’t do something soon. Think about it.”
There was a drug which, administered in the right amount, would produce unconsciousness within fifteen minutes. Too much would kill, but the dosages by weight were well documented in the literature. If Az were to ask Cassie to lunch, dose one of Cassie’s drinks at the end of the meal, then drive her back to the cottage, I could be waiting with a few of my friends from the old days—I knew a fine in vitro gynaecologist and a top plastic surgeon, both of whom could be bought and/or persuaded.
I chose the restaurant with great care. It was set in the 1950s, situated on the top floor of the highest building in the Central District. It was the only restaurant in the five districts that had a special permit from the government to serve Ethyl Alcohol. For the ambience. If Az misjudged the timing of the drug, if Cassie stumbled on the way out ... well, patrons often did, being unaccustomed to alcohol. And the the waiters were human; they could be bribed. If anything went wrong, Azuria was never there.
I had told Az to wait until the third, and last, course. With this course was always served a very strong, ruby-red wine. This wine would be a perfect cover for the drug, of which only four millilitres were necessary.
“Look!” Cassie exclaimed. “The birds have arrived!”
Birds were a special feature of this restaurant, another part of its 1950s ambience. Each day at a certain time, they paraded along the specially constructed parapet outside the glass walls. I had counted on them to provide a diversion.
Az told me later how she dropped the four mls into Cassie’s goblet before she, too, turned to look. It was said the early genetic engineers had modelled the wings of flyers on the design of birds’ wings. Now birds were almost extinct.
Cassie seemed very excited. “See those birds there? They’re called doves. Wait until they fly!” She leaned across the table and fixed Az with her clear grey eyes.
“Do you believe in souls?” she asked suddenly. “You know: the old religion that says that when you die there’s something inside you, something imperishable that lives on. Do you believe in that? I do.”
“I don’t know,” Az said. The idea disturbed her. “Do flyers have souls?”
“No, no, silly. They’re manufactured.”
The doves took off as Cassie finished speaking. It was a clear and cloudless day. The two birds hung white against the deep blue of the sky. Az felt something wrench in her heart.
“Look!” Cassie cried in a kind of ecstasy. As she turned away from the table for a better view of the two white birds, Az reached out and exchanged Cassie’s glass for her own.
“To us!” Cassie exclaimed, turning back to Azuria and picking up the wine glass.
“To us!” Az picked up the goblet containing the drug intended for Cassie, and drained it.
Within fifteen minutes she had driven back to the cottage, where I was waiting in turmoil with everything, and everyone, ready.
She managed to land the aero, though she hit the antique chimney. We dragged her out of the wreckage, and when I saw she was unhurt I sent the surgical teams away.
Summer ended. Autumn came quickly. Elliott left with Cassie to take up an associate professorship at the Central University. He never knew about Az’s pregnancy.
&nbs
p; When Azuria couldn’t go to work anymore, I quit work, too, and got in a medical android. In the warmest part of the day, it would help her outside. She’d lie an all-weather sofa and watch the leaves turning from green to gold on the trees in the backyard, while I sat inside with the Monday and watched her.
On dark moonless nights, when she felt up to it, I took her flying with me. Safe in my arms, wrapped in a thermal cloak. Together we’d soar about the heavens. One night her lightband came adrift. People below must have thought they saw a falling star.
Sometimes I’d ask myself why I hadn’t intervened. I’d had everything I needed that day to have her terminated and to give her back a major part of her original persona. But as Thurston said to me once when I was shooting that vein, what might she have done afterwards? She was obsessed with having the child.
Thurston came every evening. He was failing fast. You could almost see him hanging on. Thurston would outlive her, I knew, and it seemed that was sufficient for his purpose. He had plans, and more support than anyone might have imagined; but I didn’t ask questions.
In the evenings he liked to walk in the garden. At first I used to accompany him. Later, I preferred to remain indoors with Az. Together we’d sit and watch the old guy walking, stooped, among the roses, his droid hovering nearby.
One night the air was especially chilly and he came in early, carrying a single red rose, late for the season.
“And so, Azuria,” he said, placing the rose in water in a small brass vase on her bedside table. “What do you make of it all, this being human?”
He seemed so jaunty that I said, “The results of the tests have come through?”
Thurston nodded. “Do you know, my dear,” he said to Az, “your child isn’t sterile? That’s why I’m happy tonight.” He went over to his battered briefcase and produced a strange, long-necked bottle made of brown glass. “Here, have a glass of stout with me. It’ll do you good—the iron, you know.”
I glanced a question at him.
“I got it on the black market,” the old rogue said. “After all, this is a special occasion. I used to love the stuff, you know; never saw any harm in it myself.” He levered open the strange bottle’s top with a metal object he took from his pocket, and poured three glasses of the brown potion.