Emerald Eyes | Page 2

visual distortion that is unavoidable
when time is sped so drastically, men of their century would have
found the lack of focus upon the surface of a white shadow cloak a
striking thing.
Of course they 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