fO dropped the two men off at their hotels, then instructed her chauffeur to drive to Washington National Airport A Vanguard Industries executive jet was waiting for her there, and shortly after midnight she leaned back in an utterly comfortable leather lounge chair and watched the stately monuments of Washington glide past her window as the plane climbed to its cruising altitude Once above the normal traffic patterns of commercial airliners, the plane's wings slid back for supersonic flight and the cabin lights dimmed for sleeping
But Jo had no intention of sleeping Not yet Hsen and Kruppmann were threatening her Now she knew why the board of directors had suddenly insisted on a special meeting to review Vanguard's participation in the HA Hsen was making a power play The sneaky little bastard must have nearly half the board in his pocket already, in addition to Kruppmann, Jo said to herself While I've been helping Keith he's been maneuvering to acquire leverage on my board
She dictated a memo to the computer outlet built into her seat's armrest "Check all board members and executive staff to see which of them also sit on the board of Pacific Commerce " Then she added, "Also, I want a complete list of all
Vanguard executives above the level of divisional vice president who have been involved in any transactions whatever with Pacific Commerce "
What about Kruppmann? Jo decided that the Swiss banker was more bluster than anything else. He never made waves at board meetings. He would loan money to Vanguard no matter who ran the corporation, as long as Vanguard showed profits. Hsen was the dangerous one Kruppmann made most of the noise, but Hsen was the kind who knifed you in the dark.
She nodded to herself. First rule of business find out who your enemies are, and then keep them as close as possible-- until you're ready to chop their heads off.
Leaning back in the deep luxurious chair, Jo felt satisfied that she had done all she could do for the moment. She allowed herself to relax and fall asleep.
Her dreams were troubled She was in the lobby of an exclusive hotel, carrying heavy suitcases in either hand and trying to get into an elevator. But she could not get the suitcases through the elevator doors before they slid shut and left her behind. No one in the hotel lobby offered to help her. She was frantic, because Keith was somewhere on one of those upper floors and she had to find him before he went away and left her all alone.
She awoke to a pert young stewardess smiling over her. "We land in half an hour," she said.
Jo saw that the sky was aflame with the rising sun. Then, brows knitted, she realized that she had to be looking toward the west. The sun was setting, not rising. Lifting her wrist close to her lips she said softly, "
The drive from
appeared near the planet Jupiter When Stoner had flown out to the starship and remained in it, frozen in the cryogenic cold of deep space, Jo had clawed her way to the top of Vanguard Industries to gain the power to reach the distant spacecraft and return the man she loved to Earth and to life.
But he was not the same man that she had known eighteen years earlier. Frozen in the cryogenic cold of space aboard the alien starship, he had somehow been changed It was strange. Keith seemed more human than he had been earlier, more attuned to life than the self-contained, solitary scientist she had once known. He could open his emotions to her and love her as he had never been able to do before Yet he was somehow beyond human, endowed with abilities that no human being had ever known, burning with the urgency of a demon-driven fanatic--or a saint.
But he loved her. Loved her as she loved him For Jo, nothing else mattered.
Now she felt his strong arms around her and relaxed for the first time since she had left their home, four days earlier
"I thought you'd stay the night in
Jo said, "The party was pretty much of a bore. I decided I'd be much happier at home."
"I'm much happier, too "
They walked arm in arm into the house while the chauffeur handed Jo's overnight bag and briefcase to one of the squat, many-armed household robots.
Stoner stopped at the foot of the stairs that led up to the master bedroom suite. On their right was the spacious living room; straight ahead along the corridor was the kitchen
"You must be still on Eastern time," he said. "Do you want some dinner or some breakfast?"
"I'm not hungry at all," Jo replied.
He pursed his lips slightly. "You know, the best way to adapt to a change in time zones is to go to bed and sleep until you've caught up with the local time."
She grinned up at him. "Sleep?"
"There's iced champagne waiting in the bedroom." He grinned back at her
"How about a nice long shower first?" she suggested as they started up the steps
"Sounds good to me "
Hours later Stoner lay on his back gazing up at the stars. Jo was curled next to him on the waterbed, warm and breathing in the slow regular rhythm of sleep All of Stoner's childhood friends were in their places in the night sky Orion and the Twins, the Bull, the glittering cluster of the Pleiades. A slim crescent Moon hung in the darkness like a scimitar, with the red jewel of Mars nearby
There was no ceiling to their bedroom, only a bubble of energy that kept out the weather and served as a soundproof barrier Yet it was completely transparent, like having the bedroom outdoors Flowered hangings both inside and outside the room filled the dark night air with the fragrance of orange blossoms and magnolias, completing the illusion of being out in a sighing, whispering garden
The energy screens that had ended humankind's nightmare fear of nuclear holocaust could also serve more romantic purposes, Stoner mused A gift from the stars From my star brother
He felt no need of sleep Instead, as he watched the stately motion of the stars arcing across the dark sky he murmured the command that turned on the record player, keeping it so low that only he could hear it The muted, moody opening of Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras No 8 filled the room faintly, violins and cellos dark and sensuous
The best invention the human race has ever made, Stoner thought The symphony orchestra And so typically human a hundred virtuosos voluntarily submerging their individuality to produce something that no one of them could produce alone
A meteor flashed across the night sky, silent and bright for the span of an eyeblink Stoner sank back on his pillows and clasped his hands behind his head, content to he beside his
sleeping wife and wait for the dawn while the orchestra played for him.
Jo murmured drowsily, "Go to sleep."
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I didn't think it was loud enough to bother you."
"Big day tomorrow."
"I know. My surprise party."
She bolted up to a sitting position, suddenly wide awake. "Who told you?"
"You did." He laughed softly. In the shadowy darkness, Jo's naked body was washed by the pale moonlight, her skin glowing warm. He could not see the expression on her face, so he reached up and pushed back her shining dark hair.
"The household staff has been fussing and making phone calls for a month or more. You cut short your stay in
Jo leaned over him. "You're the only one in this house who knows how to keep a secret."
"I have no secrets from you, Jo. You know that, don't you?"
Nodding, she began to tell him of her conversation in the limousine with Hsen and Kruppmann Stoner listened patiently, quietly until she finished.
"About what I expected," he said at last. "They're not interested in the global picture. They only see their own needs."
"Their own selfish interests."
"They just don't understand what's going on. Maybe they don't want to understand. They want the power to control events, to keep themselves at the top of the heap. They don't understand that it's not a zero-sum game anymore. The world's economy is completely interlinked, it's not even just a global economy, not if you consider the Moon and the asteroids and the factories in Earth orbit If the Third World gets richer, we all get richer. That's what they don't see."
"They're willing to commit murder," Jo said
Stoner gave a bitter little laugh. "If they're willing to bank-
roll wars and insurrections, what's the murder of one man to them'"
"But it's you they want to kill'"
"They don't know who I am," Stoner said, "and it won't be easy for them to find out Especially when I have such an excellent Mata Hari in their camp "
"I can't protect you forever, Keith There's no such thing as absolute security "
"I'm more concerned about you," he said "How serious is their move to take over Vanguard'"
She shrugged her naked shoulders "I don't know yet But they'll get their guts ripped out if they try to take over my corporation "
Stoner chuckled in the darkness "That's my woman What'd Business World call you 'The tigress of the corporate jungle '"
She laughed too, but there was anxiety behind it "Keith, I can handle the corporate battles And I can balance Baker and his Third World friends against the corporate interests on the IIA It's you I'm frightened about "
"I'll be all right "
In the darkness her voice took on a sharper, harder note "Don't you understand' Hsen's out to kill you' I'm going to strike first, before he gets the chance "
"And be just like him' What good would that do'"
"It'll keep you alive, Keith'"
He shook his head "Hsen is not the enemy He's just acting out of fear "
"Dammit, Keith Sometimes you carry this sainthood crap too far"
Startled, "Sainthood'"
Jo was immediately sorry More softly she said, "Okay, so I'm a tigress I know you're not a tiger, Keith Not a street fighter But you've got to protect yourself, got to let me protect you "
Stoner countered, "Look Even if you could kill Hsen someone else would take his place So there'd be another assassin
coming after me, with the added excuse of avenging Hsen's murder "
fo said nothing, but he could feel her body tensing, like a true jungle cat just before it springs
"Deliberately killing a human being is the worst thing you can do, Jo Not because there's a rule against it written in some book, but because it always leads to more killing Because the human race hasn't quite learned yet how to deal with its animal instincts We're supposed to be working on the side of life, not death Life is precious Human life is the most precious of all "
"Oh, for Christ's sake, Keith, if there's one thing we've got too much of on this planet, it's human beings And most of them aren't worth the effort it would take to blow them to hell "
In a near-whisper Stoner replied, "If you only knew how rare life is, truly rare among all those stars "
But Jo refused to be drawn in that direction "What happens if Hsen kills you? What do you expect me to do?"
"Jo, we're in a race against time You knew that when we started down this road, fifteen years ago "
"But the closer we get to the end the more dangerous it becomes "
He nodded abstractedly, as if his mind were really elsewhere "The biochips are the next step If the human race can absorb that technology, then we're almost finished "
"I've got our lab people working as hard as they can go," Jo said "Biochips will be an important product for Vanguard "
"It's more than that, Jo Much more," Stoner said "Biochips can help us get around the limits on brain size set by the female's birth channel, the first chance to expand the capacity of the human brain in hundreds of thousands of years, Jo'"
"You're blaming women for the limits on brain size?"
He laughed "All the great religions of the world blame women for humankind's troubles Didn't you know that?"
"All the great religions of the world are schemes by men to keep women down"
"But they're right, in a way "
"Really'" Jo's voice dripped acid
"Goes back millions of years," Stoner said lightly "Most ape females are in estrus only a couple of days a month Our ancestors' females were sexually receptive all the time That's how we outpopulated the other apes It led to our dominance of the planet But now it's a problem "
"Well, I know how to solve that problem " Jo pushed away from him slightly
Stoner reached toward her and she let him put his arms around her easily enough
"Some solutions are worse than the problems," he said softly
"That's better," she murmured
"But the biochips are important, Jo Implanting protein chips in people's brains will allow them to link themselves directly with any library, any data bank on the planet And they'll be able to communicate with each other directly, like
Jo interrupted, "I don't care about that. You're the only one I'm worried about "
"And the rest of the human race'"
"Let them all go to hell, what do I care' As long as you and the children are safe "
Very softly, Stoner said, "None of us will be safe, Jo, unless all of us are "
"You keep saying that Is it really true'"
He closed his eyes and saw a different world, a planet that circled a bloated red star that hung in the sky like a huge menacing omen of doom A world that teemed with delicate birdlike people, human in form except for feathery crests that ran along the tops of their otherwise bald skulls A world that was dying beneath the weight of its own numbers
Cities covered almost the entire face of the planet, their soaring towers crammed with people Harbors were black
with boats and rafts where people lived packed literally shoulder to shoulder What little countryside remained was bare, denuded, while immense factories struggled to produce enough artificial food to feed the ever-growing masses of people Murder and madness were as commonplace as breathing, and the only parts of the planet that were not covered with people were the waterless deserts that were slowly, inexorably growing larger, and the oceans that were all too quickly becoming polluted
Despite famine and war and agonizing plagues the highest ethic of this race was the sanctity of life There was no allowable way for the species to deliberately control its num bers, and as its technology and medical skills grew, billions of babies were born each year to parents who procreated in the blind faith that procreation was the ultimate goal of life
The planet-girdling society became schizophrenic, rewarding fruitful parents with honors and blessings on the one hand, while tacitly condoning genocidal wars and mass murders on the other Laws prohibited birth control while exacting the death penalty for minor theft Scientists produced medical miracles for prolonging life and nerve poisons that could wipe out a city overnight
The entire species was insane Yet it continued to grow, continued to enlarge its numbers, spread across the surface of its world like a crawling, writhing cancer until it covered even the barren wastelands with cities bursting with overcrowded buildings where murder was as commonplace as birth
And then the planet itself exacted its revenge The air became poisonous, the oceans too fouled to support life Glaciers crept down from the mountains to cover the land in glittering sterile ice Life ended The planet waited for eons before the first faint stirrings of protoplasm could begin again in a sea that had at last cleansed itself of the last traces of those who had come before
Stoner shuddered in the darkness He knew that the world
he had just seen was real, it existed somewhere out among the starry deeps. His star brother had been there.
"Jo, we're in a race against time. We've got to learn how to control our population growth. Sooner or later somebody's going to stumble onto the technology that the starship carried, discover it independently. The biochips are only the first step in that direction. Somebody's going to move on into nanotechnology, you know they will If we haven't curbed our population growth by then . ."
Jo leaned back on the pillows without replying.
"If we fail, the human race dies. Not tomorrow. Not even in the next decade or two But we'll kill ourselves off eventually and that will be the end of humanity."
Jo said to herself, Maybe we'd be better off dead. Most of the human race is despicable scum. What difference does it make if we survive or disappear?
But she did not voice the thought.
Turning on his side to face her, Stoner urged, "We're close, Jo. Very close It's all coming to a climax. The biochips are the big test. If we can absorb that technology, use it to help the human race instead of harm it, then we'll be ready for the final step "
Even though his face was shadowed in darkness, Jo could feel the intensity of purpose blazing in him. She wondered if the we he spoke of referred to her, or to the others.
She tried to see his eyes in the moonlit shadows, tried to peer into his soul. Keith had worked so hard since being revived, since coming back to life after being on the alien star ship. Like a man possessed, like a saint or a holy man who saw a vision beyond what ordinary human eyes could see
"It's almost finished," he repeated, in a whisper that held regret as well as anticipation. "All the threads are coming together, the task is almost complete."
"Almost," Jo echoed.
BANGKOK
SHE was in such excruciating pain. It was necessary to sedate her so heavily that her labor stopped altogether The delivery team performed a caesanan section, something they had done countless times before. But once they had exposed the baby the surgical nurse gagged and slumped to the floor The two assistants stared as if unable to turn away.
The baby was already dead, and the mother died minutes later.
Now Dr Sant Damrong paced nervously along the roof of the hospital, the cigarette in his shaking fingers making a small coal-red glow in the predawn darkness
The baby had been a bloody, pulpy mess, already half eaten from within. The mother also, her abdominal cavity was an oozing hollow of half-digested organs It was the agony of having her innards eaten alive that had racked the poor woman, not the pain of labor
The woman had been one of the millions of lower class workers who lived on barges in the khlongs, the canals that crisscrossed Bangkok. Dr Damrong had immediately performed an autopsy, right there in the delivery room, and sent scraps of tissue samples to the university laboratory for analysis.
Now he stood at the parapet at the roof's edge, leaning heavily on his thin arms and staring out at the tower of the Temple of the Dawn, across the river, as it caught the first rays of the golden sunlight
The first time he had seen a patient with her innards eaten away, a month earlier, he had been curious It reminded him of something from one of his biology classes, years ago, about a certain species of spider that laid its eggs inside the para-
lyzed body of a living wasp. When the eggs hatched, the baby spiders ate their way through their host to enter the world.
How grisly, he had thought as a student. Now he had seen three such cases. And these were human beings, mothers dying in the attempt to give birth, destroyed from within.
Dr. Damrong watched the sunlight slowly extend across the teeming city Cooking fires rose from the canals and the crowded houses and apartment blocks. He could hardly see the curving river, there were so many barges clustered on it. Another day was starting. The darkness of the night had been dispersed.
But still his hands trembled. Three women eaten away from within their own wombs. As if the fetuses within them had turned to murderous acid.
For the first time since he had been a child, Dr. Damrong felt afraid.