Emerald Eyes | Page 2

were not in fast time, nor could be.
I began trudging through the air, toward my destination. The corridor was nearly dark; flashes of ultraviolet light marked the passage of X-rays, each flash illuminating the corridor like a small lightning. The normal visible spectrum was shifted too deeply into the radio to be of use to me.
I was in a hurry, pushing through the resisting atmosphere, and I unaccustomed to hurrying; but I was being closely followed by an enemy who had promised to cut my heart out and eat it--and I believed Camber Tremodian would do it, given the chance.
I did not intend to give him the chance. At the fast end of time I hurried through the slow air.
Wednesday, December 12, 2029; the United Nations Advanced Biotechnology Research Laboratories, in New Jersey.
He arrived from Capital City just before eight o'clock; security let Darryl Amnier into Suzanne Montignet's office more than two hours early. They were uneasy, doing it.
But they did it nonetheless.
He sat behind her desk, in her chair, with the lights dimmed. A small man, with paper-white hair and wrinkles around his eyes and mouth that made him look far older than he was, he found Montignet's chair slightly too high for his taste. He did not readjust it. Her office had no window, which pleased him to the degree that he ever allowed himself to be pleased. A crank with a rifle was that much less likely to bring three quarters of a million Credit Units' worth of research grinding to a halt with a single shot.
The decor was standardized, little different from what Amnier had seen in over twenty other research installations in the last four months. Amnier was not certain whether that surprised him. From a woman of such exceptional skills, one might reasonably have expected anything--
The same might be said of Malko Kalharri, the lab's director of security.
An Information Network terminal, left turned on and connected to the Mead Data Central medical database, sat at attention immediately next to her desk. Amnier made a note to find out what sort of bill they were running up on information retrieval. An ornamental bookshelf against one wall held reference works in too excellent condition. There were no holographs, not even of Colonel Kalharri, who was reputed to be her lover. Nor were there paintings. The desk was locked. Amnier considered picking it, and decided not to. There was unlikely to be anything inside that he would either understand or find incriminating, and whether he opened it or not, Montignet was certain to suspect he had--which was the whole point.
The empty corridor in which I appeared connected the sterile genegineers' labs with the showers that led to the un-sterilized outer world, on the first floor of the New Jersey laboratories of the United Nations Bureau of Biotechnology Research. The entrance to the genegineers' labs was through a small room with sealed doorways at both ends. They were not airlocks, though the technology of the day was sufficient to allow the use of airlocks; indeed, at the interface between the showers and the rest of the installation airlocks were in use. But it was cheaper to keep the laboratories under a slight over-pressure; when the door opened, the wind, and contaminants, blew outward.
The door swung wide, and a pair of laboratory technicians in white gowns and gloves strode through. The resemblance between their garb and mine brought the ghost of a smile to my lips.
As they left, I, the god Named Storyteller, entered.
Suzanne Montignet stopped by Malko Kalharri's office on the way to her own. The lights in his office had not yet been turned on. Entering the room from the brightly lit hallway, Suzanne found it difficult to see Kalharri at first. "Malko?"
"Yes?" The office lacked a desk; the man who was sprawled loosely on the couch, one oversized hand wrapped loosely around a steaming coffee cup, continued to watch the holotank in the corner of his office. Kalharri did not resemble his name, which he had received by way of his grandfather; he was a big blond man with a tan. The channel light glowed at 335; S-STR, the political news station.
"What's happening?"
Malko Kalharri had been a soldier for too many years; he did not move quickly when the situation did not warrant it. After a moment he said, "The Unification Council is 'discussing'--well, this is the word they have used all morning for the screaming and threats--the feasibility of adding an amendment to their damned Statement of Principles, to allow the Secretary General to hold office for more than three four-year terms. Sarah Almundsen must be turning over in her grave; the first amendment ever proposed to that brilliant piece of writing being a tool to keep one of her more foolish successors in office