He saw his error even as she responded: “Ah, but we’re talking about lots and lots of gametes. Between them, a lab can quickly enough work out the complete original genome. Then it synthesizes one, and— You’re not trying to clone the human, you know, just some skin for a simple substrate. Not much of a trick. Slip your sample to a technie in your pay, who goes and does the job in any of a lot of genetech labs. I daresay this wasn’t the first occasion of that general sort for Lilisaire. When the thing was ready, he’d bring it to her under his shirt or whatever. We’d better not underestimate friend Venator, but in this particular business with her—“ Aleka laughed. “Poor, unsuspecting superman!”
Soon afterward, events exploded and Kenmuir forgot the pain.
Of course this station had biolock capability. That belonged with its inclusiveness. Not all sealed files were official. You might well want to enter highly personal information in the public database or a private one, for use in conjunction with other facts already there. The cybercosm would know, in the sense that it scanned everything, but it would not betray your confidence.
Aleka keyed in and presented her life glove. After a moment the screen displayed PROCEED TO FILE 737,
To avoid the appearance of being the same person who inquired before, she tapped out Give me full information on the giant ferrous asteroid in the Kuiper Belt.
PROSERPINA. THIS IS THE NAME BESTOWED BY THE LUNARIANS WHO DISCOVERED AND FIRST EXPLORED IT. SUCCESSORS OF THEIRS PARTLY DEVELOPED IT FOR SETTLEMENT. ITS MASS IS—
Kenmuir hunched forward, as if he could haul the words out of the terminal. His pulse racketed. Yes, yes, Edmond Beynac’s—
REMNANT OF A PROTOPLANET, PERTURBED INTO AN ECCENTRIC ORBIT WITH HIGH APHELION. BY COLLISIONS DURING GIGAYEARS IT HAS ACQUIRED SUBSTANTIAL DEPOSITS OF WATER ICE, ORGANICS, AND—
Generalities. When would the bloody program get down to the numbers?
POTENTIAL OF COLONIZATION BY LUNARIANS—
On Kenmuir’s right, a second screen flashed. Aleka leaned past him to read. The breath hissed between her jaws. She shook him out of raptness. “That’s it,” she said. “A speedster just took off from Chicago base. Hele aku.”
“A minute, a minute,” he gasped. “The orbital elements—”
“You want to mull them over in a nice quiet cell? Move, boy!” She was on her feet. She slapped his shoulder, hard.
He clambered erect and stumbled after her, out the door, across the quad, toward the communal garage.Sunlight dashed over him, overweeningly bright, but eastward above a roof he spied the wan Lunar crescent,
Do strifes ever end? he wondered in the turmoil. Was he waging a war that began in the days of Dagny Beynac? , T
The swimming pool filled most of its chamber. Mist lay ovet it like a blanket, white in the bleak light that shone from fluoropanels and reflected off tile, for the water was very cold. The vapors scarcely stirred, as still as the air rested. So had Jaime Wahl y Medina ordered this place be kept for him. It was his refreshment, his twice-daily renewal, exercise to rouse the blood and shorten the times he must spend in the damned centrifuge. God knew the governor general of Luna needed whatever gladness he could find. Peace and quiet, too. Nobody else came here; family and friends used the older, larger, warmer pool at the opposite end of the mansion.
He entered as he was wont, late in dawnwatch, kicked off his sandals, hung his robe from a hook, and slipped his goggles on. For some minutes he went through his warmup routine, a powerfully built man of middle height and mid-forties age, big nose and heavy chin underscored by the blackness of hair, brows, mustache, brown eyes crinkled at the corners by years of squinting into the winds and tropical brightnesses of Earth. Chill raised gooseflesh on shaggy arms and legs. Having finished, he climbed the ladder to the diving board at the deep end of the basin, bounced—less vigorously than he would have liked, lest his head strike the ceiling—and plunged.
He also fell more slowly than he would have preferred. But the water received him with a liquid crash that echoed from the walls. It surrounded him, embraced him, slid sensuously around every movement, and now gravity made no difference, he was free, more free than in space itself.