"When I can. I hope I don't fall asleep in the Caleban hothouse. I'd wake up done just about right for a cannibal dinner."
"Sometimes you humans express yourselves in a disgusting fashion," the Wreave said. "But you'd better remain alert for a while. McKie may require punctuality."
He was the kind of man who created his own death.
It was dark, but she needed no light for black thoughts. Damn Cheo for a sadistic fool! It had been a mistake to finance the surgery that had transformed the PanSpechi into an ego-frozen freak. Why couldn't he stay the way he'd been when they'd first met? So exotic . . . so . . . so . . . exciting.
He was still useful, though. And there was no doubt he'd been the first to see the magnificent possibilities in their discovery. That, at least, remained exciting.
She reclined on a softly furred chairdog, one of the rare feline adaptives that had been taught to lull their masters by purring. The soothing vibrations moved through her flesh as though seeking out irritations to subdue. So relaxing.
She sighed.
Her apartment occupied the top ring of the tower they had had built on this world, safe in the knowledge that their hiding place lay beyond the reach of any law or any communication except that granted through a single Caleban - who had but a short time to live.
But how had McKie come here? And what had McKie meant, that he'd had a call through a Taprisiot?
The chairdog, sensitive to her mood, stopped purring as Abnethe sat up. Had Fanny Mae lied? Did another Caleban remain who could find this place?
Granted that the Caleban's words were difficult to understand - granted this, yes, there was yet no mistaking the essentials. This world was a place whose key lay in only one mind, that of Madame Mliss Abnethe.
She sat straight on the chairdog.
And there would be death without suffering to make this place forever safe - a giant orgasm of death. Only one door, and death would close it. The survivors, all chosen by herself, would live on in happiness here beyond all . . . connectives . . .
Whatever those were.
She stood up, began pacing back and forth in the darkness. The rug, a creature adapted like the chairdog, squirmed its furry surface at the caress of her feet.
An amused smile came over her face.
Despite the complications and the strange timing it required, they'd have to increase the tempo of the floggings. Fanny Mae must be forced to discontinue as soon as possible. To kill without suffering among the victims, this was a prospect she found she could still contemplate.
But there was need for hurry.
Furuneo leaned, half dozing, against a wall within the Beachball. Sleepily he cursed the heat. His mindclock said there was slightly less than an hour remaining until the time for picking up McKie. Furuneo had tried to explain the time schedule to the Caleban, but she persisted in misunderstanding.
"Lengths extend and distend," she had said. "They warp and sift with vague movements between one and another. Thus time remains inconstant."
Inconstant?
The vortal tube of a S'eye jumpdoor snapped open just beyond the Caleban's giant spoon. The face and bare shoulders of Abnethe appeared in the opening.
Furuneo pushed himself away from the wall, shook his head to restore alertness. Damnation, it was hot in here!
"You are Alichino Furuneo," Abnethe said. "Do you know me?"
"I know you."
"I recognized you at once," she said. "I know most of your stupid Bureau's planetary agents by sight. I've found it profitable. "
"Are you here to flog this poor Caleban?" Furuneo asked. He felt for the holoscan in his pocket, moved into a position for a rush toward the jumpdoor as McKie had ordered.
"Don't make me close this door before we've had a little discussion," she said.
Furuneo hesitated. He was no Saboteur Extraordinary, but you didn't get to be a planetary agent without recognizing when to disobey a senior agent's orders.
"What's to discuss?" he asked.
"Your future," she said.
Furuneo stared up into her eyes. The emptiness of them appalled him. This woman was ridden by a compulsion.
"My future?" he asked.
"Whether you're to have any future," she said.
"Don't threaten me," he said.
"Cheo tells me," she said, "that you're a possibility for our project."
For no reason he could explain, Furuneo knew this to be a lie. Odd how she gave herself away. Her lips trembled when she said that name - Cheo.
"Who's Cheo?" he asked.
"That's unimportant at the moment."
"What's your project, then?"
"Survival."
"That's nice," he said. "What else is new?" He wondered what she would do if he brought out the holoscan and started recording.
"Did Fanny Mae send McKie hunting for me?" she asked.
That question was important to her, Furuneo saw. McKie must have stirred up merry hob.
"You've seen McKie?" he asked.
"I refuse to discuss McKie," she said.
It was an insane response, Furuneo thought. She'd been the one to bring McKie into the conversation.
Abnethe pursed her lips, studied him. "Are you married, Alichino Furuneo?" she asked.
He frowned. Her lips had trembled again. Surely she knew his marital status. If it was valuable for her to recognize him, it was thrice valuable to know his strengths and weaknesses. What was her game?