on Cyteen…”
“I had a mother, a father. I lived on Cyteen with my aunt. Her name was—”
“Out of the labs, Josh. They trained you on all levels. Gave you false tapes, a
fiction, a fake… something to lie on the surface, lies you could tell and
convince them if you had to. And it’s surfaced, hasn’t it? It’s covered
everything.”
“I had a family. I loved them—”
“You’re my partner, Josh. We came out of the same program. We were built for the
same job. You’re my backup. We’ve worked together, station after station, recon
and operations.”
He tore free of Gabriel’s grip, blinked, blinded by a wash of tears. It began to
shred, irretrievable, the farm, the sunny landscape, childhood—
“We’re lab-born,” Gabriel continued. “Both of us. Anything else… any other
memory… they put it into us on tape and they can put something else in the next
time. Cyteen was real; I’m real… until they change the tapes. Until I become
something else. They’ve messed with your mind. Josh. They’ve buried the only
thing that’s real. You gave them the lie and it washed right into your memory.
But the truth’s there. You know comp. You’ve survived here. And you know this
station.”
He sat still, his lips pressed against the back of his hand, tears rolling down
his face, but he was not crying. He was numb, and the tears kept coming. “What
do you want me to do?”
“What can you do? Who are your contacts? It’s not among the Mazianni, is it?”
“No.”
“Who?”
He sat unmoving for a moment. The tears stopped, the well of them dried up
somewhere inside. All his memory seemed white, station detention and some far
distant place confounded in his memory, white cells, and uniformed attendants,
and he knew finally that he had been happy enough in detention because it was
home, the universal institution, alike on either side of the lines of politics
and war. Home. “Suppose I work it my way,” he said. “Suppose I talk to my
contact, all right? I might be able to get some help. It’ll cost you.”
“How, cost?”
He leaned back in the chair, nodded toward the outside of the booth, where
Coledy and Kressich waited. “You have pull of your own, don’t you? Suppose I
contribute my share. What have you got? Suppose I could get you most anything on
this station… and I don’t have the muscle to handle it.”
“I’ve got that,” Gabriel said.
“I’ve got the other. Only there’s one thing I want that I can’t carry off
without force. A shuttle. A run to Downbelow when it comes off.”
Gabriel sat silent a moment. “You’ve got that kind of access?”
“I told you I had a friend. And I want off.”
“You and I might take that option.”
“And this friend of mine.”
“The one you’re working the market with?”
“Speculate what you want. I get you whatever accesses you need. You make plans
to get us a way off this station.”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
“I’ve got to get back,” Josh said. “Start it moving. There’s not much time.”
“Shuttles dock in red sector now.”
“I can get you there. I can get you anywhere you want. What we need is force
enough to take it when we do get there.”
“While the Mazianni are busy?”
“While they’re busy. There are ways.” He stared a moment at Gabriel. “You’re
going to blow this place. When?”
Gabriel seemed to weigh answering at all. “I’m not suicide-prone. I want a way
off as badly as anyone here, and there’s not a chance that Hammer can get to us
this time. A shuttle, a capsule, anything that stands a chance of staying in
orbit long enough…”
“All right,” Josh said. “You know where to find me.”
“Is there a shuttle docked there now?”
“I’ll check into it,” he said, and rose, felt his way past the shadowy arch and
out into the noise of the outside, where Coledy and his man and Kressich rose
from a nearby table in some apprehension; but Gabriel had come out behind him.
They let him pass. He wove his way among the tables, past heads which stayed