Five of them were released alive near the house to improve the grass, and the last became a party snack.
After two more weeks, Sava’s book was half completed, and the rest of it was completely outlined. After a last, rollicking party, the two old academics packed up Zoda’s computer, slung it over their shoulders, and, after many good-byes, went bouncing home.
Once they were gone, Bronki sat at the stool in front of her computer, working on her course outlines.
Kren came quietly into her study and thrust his spear into the flesh under her leg bones, just behind the knees. This cut most of the tendons to her lower legs, crippling her.
She screamed in pain, and fell to the floor.
“Why did you do this to me?” she yelled.
“To immobilize you, and thus make you easier to eat,” Kren said.
“Are you crazy? Why would you want to eat an old body like this one when there are plenty of tender young ones around?”
“Because I am not interested in eating your body. I am interested in eating your brain.”
“That, too, is madness! My brain is at least three times as big as yours is. If you ate it, you would not be providing yourself with my brain, you would be providing me with your body, which I could certainly use at this point! I think you’ve crippled me for life,” she said, angrily.
“That would happen only if I ate all of your brain, which I do not intend to do. I want your mathematical abilities, and your knowledge of the computer arts.”
“Your slow progress in math bothered you that much? I knew that I should have given you some tutoring! Anyway, do you know how to do that?”
“Certainly,” Kren said. “One of my earlier meals was a medic who was very knowledgeable in anatomy.”
“So you’ve done this before?”
“Five times. This really was the body of a mining slave, but what I didn’t tell you was that I was that slave.”
“That’s quite a bit of personal advancement! Would you like to tell me the whole story?” Bronki asked, still lying on the floor.
Kren did so, simply because he enjoyed talking to Bronki, and there was no rush. He told his life’s story completely and accurately, with none of the self-aggrandizement or face-saving lies that a human criminal would have used. Shame has no place in the Mitchegai character.
Hours later, when he had finished, Bronki said, “Okay, I suppose that if I had been in your position, I might well have done the same thing that you did, at each step of the way. Certainly, I can’t hate you for it, except that in one way it certainly galls me! Here I am, one of the most intelligent professors at the university, and now I find that I was stupid enough to invite a vampire into my own home! I hope that nobody ever finds out about this. I’d be a laughingstock!”
“A vampire?”
“Yes, of course, that’s what you are, you know. Did you think that you were the first person to come up with this method of self-improvement?”
“I didn’t know,” Kren said.
“There are so many things that you are ignorant of. You really must get a proper, university education, you know. I’ll do what I can to help you accomplish that.”
“I don’t see how. You won’t be alive.”
“Of course I will,” Bronki said. “There’s no need for me to die, and at this point, I need a new body in any event. I would have done it in a year or two, anyway, even if you hadn’t crippled this one. We’ll just agree on exactly what you’ll take for yourself, and feed the rest to a recently metamorphosed adult.”
“And you expect me to commit what must surely be a crime by civilian laws, and then leave you alive to testify against me in court?”
“Yes, I do. For one thing, I would be willing to sign a contract that I would never bring charges against you, and never testify against you in court. If I broke such a contract, I would be punished right along with you. For another, if it was learned that I had lost some of my intellectual abilities, it could very well cost me my job at the university. For a third, I would be willing to pay you very well to not kill me.”
“Pay me? How much?”
“How does twelve thousand Ke sound? It’s all that I have in my savings.” Bronki had a dozen times that much in the bank, and many times more in other investments besides, but she felt no need to be scrupulously honest.
“It does not sound bad, but I have often admired this retreat of yours. Would you throw it in as well, with all of its contents?”
“If I must, yes, although I am very attached to it. May I borrow it occasionally when you have no need of it?”
“If you will throw in your servant and her house, yes,” Kren said.
“Done. We have an agreement.” Bronki thought that if she still had the use of the house, and someone else had to pay the taxes and utilities, here and for her housekeeper, she had just made a profit. If her servant had to work a little harder, taking care of two masters now, well, so what?
“Okay. So what do we do now? Must I go out in search of a suitably mature juvenal, and then wait around until she is ready to metamorphose?”
“Of course not! There are dozens of companies that provide suitable, well-selected bodies, at competitive prices, with all of the proper shoulder brands that an academic requires. Help me back up to my stool, and I’ll E-mail the one that I used last time,” Bronki said.
“How can you afford to pay for her if you are giving me all of your money?”
“My money may be gone, but my credit is very good. I’ll charge it on my credit card.”
“And the rest of our bargain?” Kren asked.
“I’ll do the contract, the bank transfer, and the deed on the property next. Look, I’ll need your help getting installed in my new body, won’t I? I’m in no position to cheat you now.”
“But I’m in a position to cheat you.”
“True, but it would be stupid for you to do so. If you stay with our deal, you will come out quite well. Besides getting the knowledge that you want, you will have the money, a nice home, and a trained servant. If I’m dead, my money and property would end up in probate, and you’ll be years getting it, if ever.”
“Yes, I see. Well then, let’s get on with it,” Kren said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Something Wicked This Way Comes
New Kashubia, 2205 a.d.
There were six generals waiting in the meeting room, and each of us had five colonels and seven electronic people with us. We were all in class A uniforms, except for the professors, who wore their inevitable tweeds. Our insignia was traditional. Generals wore a star, colonels an eagle, majors an oak leaf, captains, two silver bars.
Being in Dream World, the room was exactly the size that it needed to be. Every one of us had the ability to stop the action and discuss matters privately with anyone we wanted to, for however long we wanted, without disturbing the others at the meeting.
In so many ways, Dream World was a very convenient way to do business.
I never used the stop action option, at first because I wanted Sobieski to get on with it, and then because everything he said scared the shit out of me!
General Sobieski stepped up to the podium.
“I want to cover some lesser matters first before we get on to the main subject of discussion,” he said.
Three hours of accounting procedures before he gets around to mentioning that we are at war! I thought to myself.
“There are some lessons to be learned from the last war,” Sobieski continued. “The biggest one is that it does you little good to have overwhelming firepower if you cannot get that firepower to the battlefield. In the War with Earth, we were able to overcome that difficulty with a stratagem developed by Colonel Quincy Tsenovi here.”
He stopped to give Quincy a round of applause from all present. Quincy smiled and nodded to their approval. Then Sobieski continued, “But doing that made it a hairy operation. It required absolutely precise timing by hundreds of thousands of units. Any one of a thousand things could have gone wrong, and lost us the war. We were lucky, even though many things did go wrong, costing us many good men and machines.
“But in the future, we will see to it that we have a sufficient number of Hassan-Smith transporters to get our army to wherever they are needed very quickly. This will take some years to accomplish, but it will be done. New production lines here in New Kashubia have already been designed and funded, and construction has already begun.