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survive, though she had never overcome her aversion to mayhem. Someone
else was going to have to handle that rough stuff; she'd known that
even before she'd reached the gazebo.
Now she let confusion and misgiving show on her face.
"But you wouldn't hurt Honey, would you?" She leaned toward Sinnergy
slightly, squinting at the styrette. "I don't even see a dose in that
hypo."
"You nearsighted old cow!" Sinnergy, brandishing the injector, startled the
baby into crying louder. "You need an ophthalmic tuck "
It was Sinnergy's turn to be startled. A golden right hand had reached over
her shoulder to snatch the styrette away. The left slipped around her
throat, forearm locking in a choke hold that rifted her off her feet and made
her loosen her grip on the infant.
Dextra rushed in to grab Honeysuckle; Sinnergy didn't resist,
understanding what might happen to her neck.
Tonii, Dextra's all-around troubleshooter, chicken-winged and immobilized
Sinnergy. The hands holding her were sinewy but had a longish grace.
Tonii was wearing archery whites, as if fresh from some rec time on the
villa's range. Power swelled the V of the torso, but there was also a flare to
the hips. Fibrous muscle mass showed a graceful suppleness. The breasts that
mounded against the archery shirt were small but nicely curved. Tonii's face
could have been an exotic woman's or that of an imperfectly beautiful man,
and the cropped tow hair had been combed into a unisex gutterglam cut.
The style was fitting only for an engeneered gynander, a
hermaphrodite with two functioning sets of genitalia and mixed secondary
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sexual characteristics. Optimization had endowed the gynanders with
reflexes, physical strength, and coordination in the lead corner of
the human performance envelope. Like the
Manipulants, they were living artifacts of Byron Sarz's early LAW
biogenetic research.
Tonii looked to Dextra for instructions just as Ben came on-line to
say that the Preservationist guests were getting impatient.
"You broke the rules," Dextra told Sinnergy while she patted
Honeysuckle's back. "The adjudicator's order gave you visiting rights
under my supervision. My attorneys will be petitioning the
court within minutes to sever all contact between you and Hon.
Counterfile if you wish, but surveillance cams have recorded this whole
scuffle." She paused to press the child to her chest. "In the meantime, if you
try another stunt like this, Tonii'll book you on a one-way flight in an
ambulance."
Sinnergy could barely grunt, let alone answer. Dextra departed, looking
to deliver the baby into MaripoFs care, while
Tonii half carried, half pain-marched Sinnergy off in the opposite direction.
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
* * * *
The gynander took Sinnergy down past the motor stables and opened the
personnel hatch of the villa's trade entrance. Sinnergy understood that the
most faithful vassal in Dextra's little fiefdom was not susceptible to bribes
or seduction, even though she had bedded Tonii once and troised with
Dextra and the gynander several times.
Opening the hatch let in a rush of noise and aromas from the nacre,
trillion-faceted city just outside. On Dextra's idyllic hilltop, with
its high walls and sound cancellation system, this might have been a
quiet rural afternoon, but Abraxas the unsleeping capital of Periapt and
LAW was going full-bore.
Tonii took her through the surveillance and security vestibule and out to the
springy green energy-return sidewalk nap beyond, where 'e released her. "Put
Honey out of your mind and find your bearings, Sinn. Stay away from
HauteFlash and from everyone who resides here. Don't make me hurt you."
Rubbing her arm where bruises would appear, Sinnergy giggled eerily,
then spit at Tonii's face. Tonii dodged the spittle by tilting 'ers head aside
just enough. Something that was part grin, part storm warning moue crooked
'ers full lips.
"
Keep
Hon, that little misconception!" Sinnergy rasped. "I
didn't want a baby, I wanted
Dex
, you dumb-ass she-male synthia!"
Tonii studied her stonily. "Many people want Dextra Haven one way or
another. That's precisely why her defenses are so good."
Sinnergy sniffed and wiped her mouth like a neurodyne addict in need of a
wheeze. "Take me back inside, Tonii. I won't make trouble."
"Trouble's all you can be for Dextra, Sinn." Something viri-descent
came into the gynander's expression. "And please keep in mind that I'm
one of her principal defenses."
Tonii went back through the vestibule and the personnel hatch. The
heavy valve closed, leaving Sinnergy dazed and bereft on the Abraxas pedway.
Chapter
Chapter
Chapter
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Chapter
Eleven
Eleven
Eleven
Eleven
Dextra had chosen the solarium to engage the Preservationists because
of its atmosphere of openness and light. They wielded tremendous influence
and prerogative, like Dextra herself, which was why it had seemed a good idea
to pry them away from the
Lyceum. There was a kind of natural law that made Hierarchs more
reasonable as their distance from the Lyceum's pomp and grandeur increased.
Today that effect was not helping as much as she had hoped it would.
Returning from the confrontation with her ex, she was received with
chilly stares and frozen smiles. Nevertheless, she gave them back warm for
cold while rearranging her peplos and letting her varimorph executive chair
recontour itself to suit her thin frame. The conference table was there
simply to provide everyone with psychological space. Twirling
auto-servers circled, offering tea cakes, sushi, cold beer, and more, but
nobody was indulging.
The data mosaics were continuing to flash the
Scepter survey team's findings regarding the planet Aquamarine.
Opti-cals of sundry Aquamarine throwback cultures ran on-screen with
analysts' comments on the nature of the inscrutable Oceanic and cost
projections for mounting a second LAW mission to the
Eyewash star system.
Most LAW bureaucrats felt otherwise, but Dextra had a growing
certainty that Aquamarine could play a role in resolving the Roke conflict.
Somewhere on or in that water balloon of a world was the key to accord
or even victory. But Lyceum approval of an AlphaLAW mission to Aquamarine
was going to require a host of Preservationist votes, and Dextra meant to have
them.
"I apologize for the delay," she began. "But since we've covered just
about all points of disagreement, I think we can start cutting a deal here
that'll make everybody happy."
She showed confidence and charisma by political second nature, but
she had a feeling she'd lost any chance of swaying them in the short
time it had taken to rescue Honeysuckle.
How now, foul
Tao? she asked herself.
Old Albert P'ing, noble-looking and innovative as a treadmill, thumped the
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